Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Fight them, without becoming them!

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Whimsical Open Thread: Australians All Let Us Rejoice

Whimsical Open Thread: Australians All Let Us Rejoice

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But seriously: I’d much rather sing this than ‘our’ misbegotten Star Spangled Banner!

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    Pete Downunder

    The Australian National Anthem is the only use known of the word “girt”.
    “Our land is girt by sea”
    Also as with the US anthem no one here really knows the lyrics.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    Eh. I’ll keep my thoughts on that ad to myself.

    Moving my comment from downstairs up here because I can’t stop laughing at how weird and fake these fuckfaces are: What the fuck is wrong with the DeSantises???

    In a campaign full of strained social interactions and clumsy pantomimes of warmth, Ron DeSantis’s encounter with his wife at the presidential primary debate in Des Moines on Wednesday night was one of the more curious.

    During the second commercial break, Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, strode to the edge of the stage and reached down to shake hands with Gov. Kim Reynolds, Republican of Iowa, and her husband. Then, with a businesslike rigor, he grasped the outstretched palm of Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady.

    Did he just shake his wife’s hand? Onlookers in the room were bewildered.

    Interactions with spouses on the campaign trail can be fraught, even for the most adept politicians and for the warmest of marriages. To be fair, Mr. DeSantis was standing on an elevated stage, on a tight timetable, making an embrace impractical. Too much affection runs its own political risks.

    Okay, but there are other options than “embrace” or “shake hands like you’re meeting your kid’s teacher”. In the photo, it looks like it would have been easy for him to reach down and lay a hand on her shoulder or upper arm or something. Also, this from the NYT writer is ridic:

    And who knows? Maybe The Handshake was some sort of inside joke, or an effort to create a signature routine, like Barack and Michelle Obama’s coy fist bump (which was weaponized by Mr. Obama’s political foes as a “terrorist fist jab”).

    To have an “inside joke”, they would each need to have a sense of humor. They do not. And if this really was them trying to have a “bit” like the Obamas fist-bumping, then I think I might die from cringe. But I highly doubt that and the writer should go sit in the corner for even positing it in jest.

    I don’t know anything about their kids, but my suspicion is they were not conceived the old-fashioned way, because that would require Ron and Casey to have had sex, and I refuse to believe that is a thing that has occurred.

  3. 3.

    Pete Downunder

    We have our national holiday coming up on 26 January – Australia Day. This commemorates the arrival of the first fleet of convicts in Botany Bay in 1788. It has become controversial in recent years as the aboriginal people call it, quite accurately, Invasion Day and have been pressing to change the date. We can’t use the date Australia became a country (from a collection of colonies) because 1 January (1901) is already a holiday and Aussies will never give up a holiday. No one, so far, has come up with a suitable substitute so the controversy rages on.   Speaking of holidays, we celebrate the Queen’s (now King’s) Birthday, however never on the date of any actual King or Queen’s birthday nor do the different states agree on the date.

  5. 5.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pete Downunder: Also as with the US anthem no one here really knows the lyrics.

    Almost all Americans, even the really drunk ones, can bellow out the first & last lines:  “Oh say can you see… mumble mumble… HOME OF THE BRAVE!”

    What more do you need at sporting events and political rallies, really?

    And, unless ‘Advance Australia Fair’ is set to the tune of an anachronistic drinking song, you’ve got that advantage over us.

  6. 6.

    Pete Downunder

    @Alison Rose: We have our own weird politicians (or pollies as we call them). One of our former Prime Ministers, the very right wing Tony Abbot, was on the campaign trail and chomped into an onion like it was an apple, and, after the election despite Australia having given up on knighthoods long since decided to knight Prince Phillip (the Queen’s husband, who was still alive at the time). He was, and is, a very strange and dangerous person.

  7. 7.

    Pete Downunder

    @Anne Laurie: The tune for Advance Australia Fair is reasonably singable (if that’s a word), but the lyrics are not inspiring. Many people here think that Peter Allen’s song, I Still Call Australia Home would be far better; much like folks think that America The Beautiful would be a better US anthem.

  8. 8.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pete Downunder: It has become controversial in recent years as the aboriginal people call it, quite accurately, Invasion Day and have been pressing to change the date.

    Over (up?) here, we’ve kept the  same date, but people are gradually shifting the name of our mid-October ‘discovery’ (invasion) holiday from ‘Columbus Day’ to ‘Indigenous Peoples Day’.

    As long as they get the holiday, the vast bulk of the (voting) population doesn’t care (notice)… and since the change is being done city by city by state, those who *do* get riled up direct their ire at local officials, mostly.

  9. 9.

    dm

    I remember back in the day when the Australian computer folk were campaigning for the country domain name of “Oz” to reflect the local pronunciation of the first syllable of “Australia”. This would permit, say, the University of New South Wales to be unsw.edu.oz.

    Humorless ICANN (or its predecessor) wouldn’t do it.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    FYI. Hertz reverts.

    Hertz went from scaling back its electric vehicle ambitions to selling off its actual EVs in the span of three months. The rental car agency said in a regulatory filing today that it will sell 20,000 vehicles, or roughly one-third of its global EV fleet, and use that money to buy gas guzzlers.
    [snip]
    It’s quite the turnaround considering where things were just a few months ago. Hertz envisioned itself as the ultimate EV broker, doling out battery-powered vehicles to business travelers, ridehail drivers, and tech newbies in an ambitious plan to prime the pump for the EV revolution.… Source

  13. 13.

    frosty

    @Anne Laurie: In Baltimore we know the last line:

    O say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave …

    Started with the Orioles at Memorial Stadium and now I’ve heard it at Ravens games too. Occasionally from fans at an away game.

    ETA I never figured out why they don’t finish it up in Atlanta with ” … the home of the BRAVES!!!”

    ETA2 Rats, my O won’t turn orange!

  14. 14.

    wjca

    @Anne Laurie: HOME OF THE BRAVE!

    Always puts me in mind of a line (from some cartoon, most likely) from my childhood:

    “…the land of the free, the home of the Braves.  The Dodgers.  The Yankees.  The circus!”

  17. 17.

    Jackie

    @Pete Downunder:

    America The Beautiful would be a better US anthem.

    My dad always pitched a fit calling the USA “America.” That, as far as I can recall was his biggest pet peeve – among many. “There’s North America, Central America, South America.” “The United States of America is only a small part of the Americas.” To his dying day this was The Pet Peeve. He always thought us calling ourselves Americans was arrogant and belittled “other Americans.”

  22. 22.

    wjca

    @Debbie(Aussie): That would be great typing oz not au

    So get the rule changed.  Anybody (that is, any individual, regardless of country, employer, etc.) can join the IETF.  And anybody there can draft a new proposed RFC.  Then all you gotta do is convince others, in whatever Working Group is looking at it (i.e. not the whole organization), to agree.  My suggestion would be to create a procedure for establishing a non-ISO alternate/replacement country code; too hard to come up with a global replacement.

    FYI, the way IETF decides things is humming.  Seriously.  Everybody in the room hums, for or against, and thus a “rough concensus” is found.  Hey, it seems to work for them.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Trivia of the day: Amerigo’s beautiful cousin, Simonetta Vespucci, was the model for the Botticelli painting “Venus on the Half-Shell” “The Birth of Venus.”

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Near forgotten verse of an old standard.
    Michael, Michael, here is your answer true
    I’m not crazy all for the love of you
    There won’t be any marriage
    If you can’t afford a carriage
    ‘Cause I’ll be switched if I get hitched
    On a bicycle built for two
    .

    Modernized (sometimes) as

    Then I’ll be damned if I’ll be crammed
    On a bicycle built for two
    ;

  27. 27.

    Lapassionara

    @Jackie: I agree with your dad, although I don’t pitch a fit. When people ask me where I’m from, I say the U.S. if they ask me if I’m an American, I’ll say “yes,” as I don’t know how to say “I’m a Usian.”

  28. 28.

    Wapiti

    @Jackie: I agree that America is a somewhat offensive name, considering our neighbors.

    I think we should rename the country as Usa, pronounced Oosah.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @Wapiti

    To compound the matter, the country directly abutting our southern border’s official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos (the United Mexican States).

  33. 33.

    CAinCA

    @NotMax: That’s funny, I learned the verse as:

    Michael, Michael, here is your answer true,
    You’re half crazy if you think that will do,
    If you can’t afford a carriage,
    There won’t be any marriage,
    For I’ll be switched, if I’ll be hitched
    On a bicycle built for two.

    At least, that’s how I learned it in choir class.

  34. 34.

    West of the Rockies

    @SpaceUnit:

    I was born in ’62, so I am technically a Boomer.  But people born in ’46 still watched mostly black and white films, listened to swing, had no TV yet, no space program (though within five years, so much would change)… by the time I was speaking, almost everyone had TV, the musical landscape had changed immensely, and social change was everywhere.

    Trying to monolithically put people into generational pigeonholes seems silly.  We’re a mix of all the decades we live in.

  37. 37.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: nononono, generations are real.  I was born in Jan 1965 (so just missed the Baby Boom): I am completely different from Boomers born in (checks notes) Dec 1964.  Please subscribe to my newsletter.

  41. 41.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Pete Downunder: Inaptly, Australia Day celebrates the proclamation of sovereignty over the eastern two thirds of the continent, then known as New South Wales, by the British Crown.

    Problem 1: There was no such thing as Australia. The word did not exist at the time.

    Problem 2: It didn’t even cover New Holland. What is now the state of Western Australia.

    Problem 3: It established the colony of New South Wales. Which of course is now a state.

    So January 26th (Invasion Day) more properly should be a local state holiday for NSW. January 1st, 1901 is the date of the Federation of the separate colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia.

    The obvious answer is to change the New Years holiday to New Years Eve and have New Years Day be on the Australia Day holiday. Thereby creating (more often than not) one of the great ambitions of Australian life, a four day long weekend.

  43. 43.

    SpaceUnit

    Technically I’m a late boomer too, but I’ve never felt the slightest affiliation with that culture.  Yeah, boomers were a thing.  The concept was entirely overblown though into the idea that there was some epistemic value in dividing everyone into brackets based on birth years, and then imagining one could identify differences in values and sensibilities based on a given generation’s collective coming-of-age experiences.

    It’s a whole lot of bullshit and just another way of turning folks against one another.

  44. 44.

    Jackie

    @Madeleine: I did too, to a lesser degree, but I 100% understood his argument. It makes us sound arrogant calling ourselves “Americans.” Like no one else in the American hemispheres aren’t Americans.

  45. 45.

    terben

    @Pete Downunder: Many people outside NSW refer to the 26th January as NSW Day. Other States have their own foundation dates and celebrate/mourn appropriately. Even Federation day is tainted by the fact that South Australia chose to disenfranchise its indigenous people in order to be permitted to join the new nation. Perhaps it’s not a real Constitution unless the racism is codified.

  48. 48.

    Kelly

    @Jackie: It wasn’t a pet peeve but in about the 4th grade I spent a long time deeply puzzled that I was American but the people rest of the Americas weren’t.

  49. 49.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    one of the great ambitions of Australian life, a four day long weekend

    Is Easter a 4-day weekend in Australia? That was one of my favorite things when I lived in England.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yutsano:

    Had not realised (well, in all honesty, why should I?) that you were in hospital. You have my bestest wishes for a wildly successful surgery and an exuberantly full and speedy recovery! Let us hear from you the minute the meds start wearing off.

    HUGS 💕😘❤️🥰

  52. 52.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I identify with the generation that few people pay attention to, Generation Jones.

    ETA: Best wishes and good luck with the surgery, Yutsano!

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jackie:

    During the time I worked for the Canadian Consulate General, people would frequently ask “So, are you American or Canadian?,” to which my invariable response was “I’m a U.S. citizen.” It’s honest, and it avoids all the ambiguity.

  55. 55.

    wjca

    @Jackie: He always thought us calling ourselves Americans was arrogant and belittled “other Americans.”

    There’s the option of saying “I’m a Yankee.”

    Not an option the Lost Cause nuts would embrace.  But then, they probably couldn’t grasp why “American” might be problematic either.

  56. 56.

    Pete Downunder

    @SiubhanDuinne: Here in Oz Australians hearing my accent (I’m from NYC originally) ask if I’m Canadian. Not because it’s likely, but because Americans take no offense at being mistaken for Canadians but the reverse isn’t true, so the polite question on hearing a North American accent is “are you Canadian?”

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    For those (like me) who don’t see, if at all, any but truncated and often indecipherable tweets, here’s the lamb ad on YouTube.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    While sitting here listening to the rain with the space heater switched on for the first time in 11 months, engrossed in a Finnish neo-noir cutting edge medical (stretching its tendrils into SF territory) drama series, Replacements on MHz Choice. Slow=burning to unfold its secrets.

  62. 62.

    Salty Sam .

    @Pete Downunder: Here in Oz Australians hearing my accent (I’m from NYC originally) ask if I’m Canadian. Not because it’s likely, but because Americans take no offense at being mistaken for Canadians but the reverse isn’t true, so the polite question on hearing a North American accent is “are you Canadian?”

    Heh-  I lived and worked in the Mid-East (Bahrain) in the mid 70’s.  A fair share of Brits working there along with us Yanks at the time.  One day I shared an elevator with a pretty little blond girl about six or seven years old.  I asked her if she was British or American?

    ”Neither!” she replied, giving me a dirty look. “I’m ’Strylian!”

  65. 65.

    Origuy

    Do any languages have a word for citizens of the USA that isn’t a form of “American”, except for Spanish or Portuguese? You can say “estadounidense” in Spanish, or “estadunidense” in Portuguese, but maybe that’s because the majority of westernhemispherians who aren’t in the USA speak Spanish or Portuguese. Mexicans also say “norteamericano”, but I don’t know how widespread that is in the rest of Latin America. I couldn’t find anything similar in my Italian dictionary.

  67. 67.

    lowtechcyclist

    @West of the Rockies: ​
     

    I was born in ’62, so I am technically a Boomer. But people born in ’46 still watched mostly black and white films, listened to swing, had no TV yet, no space program (though within five years, so much would change)… by the time I was speaking, almost everyone had TV, the musical landscape had changed immensely, and social change was everywhere.

    Trying to monolithically put people into generational pigeonholes seems silly. We’re a mix of all the decades we live in.

    The Baby Boom was a genuine demographic event, and it lasted from 1946 all the way to 1964 before tailing off pretty quickly after that.

    The problem came when people tried to turn a demographic phenomenon into a cultural one, and that just doesn’t work well, especially when you’re talking about a span of 19 freakin’ years. Of course we didn’t all experience the same things culturally.

    Hell, I’m a 1954 kid married to a 1964 girl, and she grew up on disco, which my cohort regarded with horror.

  75. 75.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Pete Downunder: Also as with the US anthem no one here really knows the lyrics.

    Speak for yourself, ya mug. Having grown up and spent nearly all my life within a short drive of Fort McHenry[1], I not only really really know the lyrics[2], but –

    Back in the 80s, during a break at a reliability conference in Philthy, our contingent was chatting with a couple of Bundeswehr officers, who remarked offhandedly that they didn’t understand our National Anthem. I was happy to explain the circumstances that led to Francis Scott Key’s drafting of the poem, as well as the meaning of the lyrics.

    They seemed especially impressed when I pointed out that “The Star-Spangled Banner” celebrates not a victory but resistance, endurance, and perseverance in the face of overwhelming enemy force.[3]

    One significant feature (or lack thereof) that the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner”[4] shares with the Constitution of the United States: It makes no mention of a purported Supreme Being by any name. AFAICT every song that’s been proposed to replace it as the National Anthem slips “God” into the lyrics. < /rant >

    [1] And even closer to North Point, where the ragtag Maryland militia met the British troops who’d come ashore to take Baltimore, killed their commander and drove them back to their boats. Without the Battle of North Point the town would have been burned just like Washington.

    [2] And can sing it without difficulty – including the shouted O! near the end, a hallowed tradition at Baltimore sporting events for half a century.

    [3] The poem’s fourth and final verse begins, “O thus be it ever, when freemen should stand/ Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!”

    [4] I.e., the one verse sung at sporting events etc. In fact “God” appears once, in the fourth and final verse.

  77. 77.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Pete Downunder: I wonder why don’t yinz celebrate ANZAC Day (25 April, for the benefit of non-Antipodeans) as your Fourth of July. By most accounts I’ve read, the Gallipoli campaign is when Oz truly came into its own as a nation.

    (Could it be you don’t care to share it with the Kiwis? ;^p)

  79. 79.

    Paul in KY

    Dude I used to ref track with was a bigtime track official (reffed at Olympic level). Said he was at 2000 Olympics (Sydney) watching the swimming competition. Frenzied competition between USA & Australia. At some point the whole crowd (95% Aussie) sang an acappella ‘We Come From A Land Down Under’. He said it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  81. 81.

    dnfree

    @Chetan Murthy: I am one of the earliest baby boomers, born in spring 1946 (conceived before my father got back on his Navy ship heading toward the planned invasion of Japan).  As you can imagine, there is a huge difference in outlook between me and my husband born in 1944.

  83. 83.

    ljdramone

    @Uncle Cosmo: Baltimorons represent!When my wife and I went to Nova Scotia for our honeymoon, we visited the antique graveyard/park in Halifax and were pleasantly surprised to find the grave of General Robert Ross.  Apparently the British took his body back to their naval base there after he was fatally shot at North Point.His grave is an above-ground crypt, and the inscription reads:”HEREOn the 29th of September 1814was committed to the EarthTHE BODYofMAJOR GENERAL ROBERT ROSSWHOAfter having distinguished himself in all ranks as an OfficerINEGYPT, ITALY, PORTUGAL, FRANCE, & AMERICAWAS KILLEDAt the commencement of an ActionWhich terminated in the defeat and RoutOFTHE TROOPS OF THE UNITED STATESNEAR BALTIMOREOn the 12th of September 1814″​

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