Bush to meet Rudd - Page 3 - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

Tethys · #31 (**permalink**) 09-08-2007

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Originally Posted by moon

Haw haw haw

Isn't it telling, that whilst the people engage in humour, the 'authorities' strive to induce fear.

Meanwhile...from the Sydney Morning Herald

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But most Sydneysiders appear to have taken the Chaser stunt in good humour.

Almost 90 per cent of the 28,451 people who voted on an smh.com.au poll said they found it funny.

www.smh.com.au - Chaser juggernaut breaches global awareness

90%! heh heh! I'm so proud! My city of Sydney!

Tethys (Your USPOL reporter locked down in Sydney)

Tethys · #32 (**permalink**) 09-08-2007

Does this one need a comment? Nah, I don’t think so...

Quote:

Some verbal gymnastics, and Bush is in Austria

Date: September 8 2007

Annabel Crabb

AND on the Friday there came a great confusion on the conference, and they spake in tongues.Thank God for the arrival of Vladimir Putin.

APEC was in dire need of a language as yet unmastered by the rampaging Kevin Rudd.

It was almost a relief to haul out the clunky headphones and embark upon the agonising choreography of simultaneous translation at the Putin/Howard news conference; the missed cues, the bungled allusions and the long stretches of everyone looking vaguely stupid while Viktor the blank-faced interpreter delivered a guttural account of what the Russian President had just said.

Howard never looks entirely graceful at these events. We cannot blame him for that - they are impossible - but this one brought a special clanger, when he enthusiastically endorsed the idea of a 2012 APEC in "convivial" St Petersburg, only to be reminded with Slavic chill by Putin that Russia favours Vladivostok.

If only APEC organisers had thought to chopper in some interpreters from Texas. The US President, for whom the English language is not a tool so much as a room full of baited mousetraps, started the day in great form at the Opera House, where he told business delegates that he thought John Howard was a terrific host "of the OPEC summit".

"I mean APEC summit", he corrected himself grinningly. "I've been invited to the OPEC summit next year."

(Not true, in case the oil producers among you were wondering.)

The President plunged on, traps snapping to the left and right of him. He voiced his abhorrence of terrorist groups operating in the Asia-Pacific region, including the evil "Jenna Islaaanah Nia", who does indeed sound like quite an alarming young lady.

He congratulated Howard on his visit to Iraq last year, which had given hope and succour to "the Austrian troops there".

One could almost sense the craning CIA sharpshooters wearily exchanging their live rounds for tranquilliser darts.

"Time to get the big guy out of there, Hank?"

"Roger that, Chuck."

Meanwhile, Rudd and China's President, Hu Jintao, nattered away animatedly in Mandarin, despite the general feeling of all that they should perhaps just get a room.

The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, grumped on ABC radio that it was no big deal to speak Chinese; he spoke French, actually, but he did not go on about it.

Hu should be careful.

No sooner had his farewell endearments dispersed to the winds yesterday morning than Rudd was already two-timing him with a handsome Russian. The Labor leader popped up at Putin's official lunch and delivered an erudite speech sprinkled with humour and literary references to The Brothers Karamazov.

(So like Rudd to ignore the more obvious Dostoevsky text, Crime And Punishment, in favour of a lesser-known work, in a cosy hint that he has read further into the oeuvre than was mandated by the English curriculum at Nambour High.) Who can stop this man? In any language?

http://ww.smh.com.au - Some verbal g... is in Austria

Tetys (Your USPOL reporter locked down at the OPEC summit in Austria).

MattLarson · #33 (**permalink**) 09-08-2007

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Originally Posted by Tethys

Tetys (Your USPOL reporter locked down at the OPEC summit in Austria).

Matt

Tethys · #34 (**permalink**) 09-08-2007

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Originally Posted by MattLarson

Matt

Thanks

Okay, Matt, maybe you are the only one reading this thread.

No worries…here’s a few letter’s from this weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald to amuse you and anyone else checking in…the letters comment on the stunt pulled by the Chasers comedy team, which delighted me and 90% of my fellow Sydneysiders.

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Lighten up, wallopers, these guys counter terrorism with humour

Large chunks of humanity lived under nasty, despotic leaders, both in the past and sadly even today. Imagine how short the regimes of the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others would have been if the people had been able to have a good chuckle at how ridiculous they really were.

The larrikin disrespect of authority is an Australian "value" that goes back to the First Fleet.

While we can laugh and thumb our noses at government we will always be free. Don't put the Chaser lads in jail. They deserve to have their ugly mugs on our money ("APEC's surprise guest - Mr bin Laden of Canada", September 7).

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Rock beats scissors and paper covers rock. Satire and wit beat pomposity and paranoia. Congratulations to the Chaser team. Their little stunt pricked the APEC bubble more effectively than an army of protesters. Encouragingly, they weren't shot doing it. (Does this mean we are still a democracy?)

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With one courageous and hilarious stunt, the Chaser team has given back some measure of dignity to the people of Sydney, who have been treated like terrorists and criminals in their own city.

Chas, you are a hero to us all.

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The charging of the Chaser 11 clearly shows that dissent will not be tolerated in the People's Republic of NSW.

It's time for the taxpayers to tell these self-important pollies and authoritarian cops that enough is enough: you've gone over the top and are such a mob of thin-skins that you want to throw in prison those that poke fun at your excesses.

Is this really the sort of country that we want?

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Ten years of brutal cost-cutting and they can still outfox him. Don't you just love it!

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It is hard to decide which was funnier: the Chaser's magnificent stunt, or all those po-faced wallopers saying it was serious.

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Did the Chaser team write the script for the NSW Police Minister? Brilliant.

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At last! After 57 years Sydney has matched the Sydney University students' 1956 stunt of delivering the Olympic torch to Sydney's lord mayor on the steps of the Sydney Town Hall.

It was a treacle tin on a chair leg fuelled by kero-soaked army underpants.

Well done, Chaser team.

But so that the po-faced wallopers don’t say I suppressed their views:

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Comedy and having fun is one thing. Outright idiocy is another. The Chaser people have done their dash and good riddance to such ridiculous so-called humour.

www.smh.com.au - Children growing up without a childhood

Tethys (Your USPOL reporter locked down in Silly Sydney)

Anselme · #35 (**permalink**) 09-09-2007

Me too, I found the fake Ben Laden very funny, and thanks to him, the local police know how to make their security system better! he should be rewarded! or engage in the police!

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