Thursday 6 October 2005

Steyn on the money

As Simon Pound once said here, "by jillikers, Mark Steyn can sometimes be on the money." Or something like that. You don't read him for a few weeks, and then you find the bastard has been cranking out columns of brilliance that you've been missing out on.

Here's a summary of some recent feats of insight:
  • 'Media deserve blame for New Orleans debacle': The media were stangers to the truth in the week of Katrina, says Steyn. "Hurricane week was in large part a week of drivel, mostly the bizarre fantasies of New Orleans' incompetent police chief but amplified hugely by a gullible media."
  • 'Sayonara Kyoto': Blair concedes Kyoto is a crock; Steyn crows. "Here's what I wrote about Kyoto at the time of the Bush Administration's rejection of it. It's not a complicated issue. The only wonder is that it took Tony Blair four years to concede publicly the conclusion I make in my final paragraph."
  • 'Right-Wing Europe': Steyn says if Europe is 'centre-right,' then he's a Dutchman. "That’s right: The EU – you know, the EUnuchs, the Euro-weenies, the proverbial cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, etc – are four-fifths 'centre-right.' Half a decade ago, they were all centre-left Third Wayers. But having put its left foot in, Europe pulled its left foot out, stuck its right foot in and shook it all about..."
  • 'Islam or Boom': Terrorists return to Bali. Bali, the west , and 27 familes are poorer for it. "...despite Clive Williams's game attempt to connect the two on this page yesterday, nobody seriously thinks what happened in Bali has anything to do with Iraq. There are, in the end, no root causes, or anyway not ones that can be negotiated by troop withdrawals or a Palestinian state. There is only a metastasising cancer that preys on whatever local conditions are to hand."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

He's right about the media and Katrina. Just as The San Francisco Chronicle's Oct 89 screamer 'HUNDREDS DEAD IN HUGE QUAKE' the day after, was actually 69 all up. Bad enough, certainly - and tragic for 69 families - but more the equivalent of a bad bus smash you'd have to say.

Our own nitwits are no better. Today's radio news reports that the Asian Bird Flu (which, incidentally, has killed about as many as your average 2-car pileup) is now linked to the Spanish Flu in 1918 that finished off the poor sods who somehow survived The Somme!

Msge to PM: for God's sake string a govt together today. Give all the bloody Greens a cabinet spot if you have to. Give the Maories the fucking beach and every toheroa on it! Anything to give the media a real story instead of this Bird Flu beat-up!

I await my Health Dept-issued face mask and accompanied 'safety tips' *leaflet in the mail ...

*in Maori, Cook Islands Maori, Tongan, Samoan, Niuean, Indonesian, Mandarin & Somali.

Oh yes - and English.

Peter Cresswell said...

Oddly enough, Sus, I was talking the other night with colleagues about making money from hysteria by investing in the shares of an Australian company that makes all the sanitary equipment for dealing with Bird Flu such as face masks and all the rest.

We decided we'd keep a watch on it. :-)

Anonymous said...

You capitalist, you.

Thought about joining the Libz? :)

Anonymous said...

My favourite Steyn comment in Right-Wing Europe was:
"You know those showers where the merest nudge of the dial turns the water from freezing to scalding? Mainstream European politics is the opposite of that. You can turn the dial all the way from “left” to “right” and it makes no difference."

Chuckled all the way to footy about that.