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Selectively raging about greed

Hoarding for the apocalypse

I’m not going to join in the chorus of contempt for those hoarding for the COVID-19 apocalypse. While it certainly causes problems and doesn’t show a lot of rationality, should we really hate people for their stupidity?

Yes, Australians are easily scared and when they are scared they can act stupidly. That was demonstrated very clearly at the last federal election so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I don’t know what else to tell you. It makes me angry too, but I have to remember no one sets out to be deliberately selfish or stupid. Moreover, in our embrace of neoliberalism and trickledown economics, this country often lionises greed. It seems odd for a PM who uses ‘socialism’ as a derogatory term to suddenly ask people to show a socialist attitude towards their groceries.

So before we rant and publicly shame these people for their ‘unAustralian behaviour,’ and lack of empathy for others, perhaps we owe them some empathy ourselves. I’m sure most people know what fear and stress feel like to some degree, but not everyone experiences these emotions in the same way. Consider someone easily anxious, further spooked by alarmist news reporting (which I would argue actually contributes to the problem) and inaccurate word of mouth. Consider their quite justifiable lack of faith in a government that has failed repeatedly – most recently during the bushfire disasters to act effectively or speak truthfully in the face of disaster.

Now consider their reaction when they are repeatedly shamed and turned into memes on social media. As social distancing is encouraged, a lot of us will probably spend more time online, but people who feel personally attacked every time they log on may not feel they have that luxury and end up feeling truly isolated.

I don’t see how that is a good outcome.

Can we also accept that aside from this point, it is also ridiculous that we are suddenly speaking about food hoarding like it is the worst form of greed we see in Australia?

If I had opened this article by stating that, “Many Australians can’t feed their families or put a roof over their heads because a greedy minority is hoarding more wealth than they could ever need,” a lot of people would call me something along the lines of a bleeding heart, lefty SJW or suggest I move to communist China. Most of the rest would shrug indifferently and say something about rich people creating jobs. Yet switch just a few words and make a similar point about people having more toilet paper than they need and a lot of people lose their sh*t (see what I did there?).

If people temporarily not being able to get necessities like toilet paper makes you more angry than people living in permanent poverty, you might like to reflect about why.

The importance of staying calm in a crisis doesn’t just relate to avoiding panic. It also relates to our ability to think rationally about our response, control our frustration and remember our compassion for others. A good friend of mine commented that for most of us, the major impact of COVID-19 will be felt for a few years at most, but the impact of our behaviour at this time could last a lot longer.

 

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38 comments

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  1. Karis

    Indeed. Many people live in mansions while others sleep on the streets. Communism did at least house people cheaply, though locked up dissidents. As capitalism progressively extinguishes liberal democracy I fear we are in a new age of totalitarian capitalism. One example is Bernard Colliery and witness K, another is Assange but there many others.

  2. Yes Minister

    In my opinion, hoarding of food and consumables is a reflection of the utter contempt Australians have for the political system. Quite frankly, we have no confidence whatever in what the government is telling us. The PM and cabinet ministers have proven they are absolutely clueless and inveterate liars who will say or do anything to prop up their own positions and their grubby cohorts. Who in their right mind would take SCUMMO’s or potatohead’s rants seriously, indeed I venture to say that anyone who believes a single word uttered by those psychopathic scum really does need a reality check.

  3. David Evans

    I personally have absolutely no empathy for seemingly well organized mini bus loads of out of town “shoppers/ hoarders” carrying out their “raids” on rural supermarkets and general stores, emptying shelves….An easy way to prevent this would have been to enact an identity/ location id. check, whereby stores could ask for, and possibly retain a copy of drivers licence, concession card, whatever, to ensure that “locals” have adequate supplies.available to them, by serving LOCAL AREA shoppers only. The staggered opening hours is not working, elderly, disabled etc etc are turning up to shops, some driving for an hour so from their farms etc. only to find empty shelves…. You need to show Id. at pubs, clubs, pokies etc etc, extend that requirement to those stores willing to enforce the i.d. checks. They have no issue with loyalty cards, credit cards etc, and the few I have spoken to would welcome id/ locality rule, they are tired of being abused about item limits and having no stock of everyday items.

  4. Sean Crawley

    “Many Australians can’t feed their families or put a roof over their heads because a greedy minority is hoarding more wealth than they could ever need,” well put Dave Chadwick.

    Less than one year ago, Scotty from marketing spruiks: “A fair go for those who have a go.”

    Is it any wonder that people are getting up at the crack of dawn to HAVE A GO down at the local supermarket?

    And now he wants us QUIET ASPIRATIONALISTS to STOP??

    Who are the real hoarders?

  5. Peter F

    We live 30km from the nearest town. As is usual for people who live out of town we by stores for more than 24 hours. We also have a ‘restock point’ where we start making shopping lists for our next trip to the supermarket.

    Even though we are aware that there has been panic buying, we were / are taken aback by the bare nature of the shelves in the local supermarkets.This in spite of the fact that the supermarkets are telling us that their problem is their needing time to restore the shelves.

    We need leadership, which makes me accept that things will not improve soon.

  6. Phil Pryor

    This government has been a leader in hoarding, stocking up on huge reserves of ignorance, superstition, fantasy, lies, dogma, propaganda, ego fixated foolishness, utter stupidity and all the poses of the narcissistic nutcases they are. Hoarding?? They are expert at it and hate rivalry. Supporters, donors, patrons, godfathers, fellow greedy anuses, all are keen to get to get back to normal control, pillaging, hoarding offshore, hoarding against taxation, stockpiling, egoswelling uncivilised actions and arguments and absurdities.

  7. Pingback: Selectively raging about greed #newsoz.org #auspol – News Oz

  8. whatever

    6 months more of this absurd emergency, thats what Scotty and his crew are reckoning – going by the highest estimate of the duration of previous SARS – type pandemics.

    Have you had Bulk-Billing medical centres close down in your area? Recent Medicare changes have abolished subsidies for regional doctors, so many have just closed their practice. The people who hate Medicare the most are in charge of a public medical emergency.

    Flu of any given kind causes an average of 3500 deaths and 18000 hospitalizations per year in Australia.

    http://www.isg.org.au/index.php/clinical-information/influenza-fast-facts-/

  9. Michael Taylor

    Last night I tweeted something similar to this:

    “Because we have the room to store stuff, if we can afford to we will bulk buy anything we need that is on special. It saves us money in the long run. We’ve been doing it for years.

    Would Scott Morrison or Peter Dutton call us unAustralian or hoarders for doing this?”

    Well holy crap, did I get a serving. Because of me, the supermarket shelves are empty. I should be sharing my hoard with homeless people. And on they went. And on. And on. I eventually removed the tweet.

    Instead of saying we “bulk buy” I should have said “buy extra”, which would have been a lot closer to the truth.

    While 95% of respondents say they do the same as us when shopping, the other 5% went absolutely feral. Dickheads, one and all.

  10. Kronomex

    The only real winners out of this current situation are going to be the rich, the obscenely rich and big business. Everyone else is just the flotsam and jetsam left in their wake.

  11. nonsibicunctis

    ‘Hate’ is never a positive phenomenon. The actions it promotes, incites or maintains are never appropriate, productive or conscionable. However, although anger may be a consequence or symptom of hate, they are not one and the same and it is a mistake to use them interchangeably.

    ‘Un-Australian’ is a nonsensical term. It is used by those who hold perverted nationalistic notions of a narrowly and specifically defined ‘Australian’ that is as fictitious as that of the ‘swaggy’ or the bronzed surfer. Leaving aside technical qualification such as citizenship, the nature, characteristics and values that define what it is to act ‘Australian’ are probably harder to define than for any other nation in our world. In fact, Australia must have one of the most, if not the most, diverse populations in the World and one that has a vast number of differing views and values.

    Greed is not excusable, whether it be that of the wealthy, that of those in ‘average’ financial circumstances or that of those in financial hardship. I concur that in all probability few, if any, will set out to be deliberately stupid. I don’t accept that few will deliberately set out to be selfish. At the same time, I accept that, often, they act selfishly because, as you imply, they have been socialised to do so and our social ethos is one that often applauds or even idolises and certainly inspires greed and selfishness under the guise of ‘aspiration’.

    So, no, I agree that we shouldn’t hate those who choose to hoard. I’d also agree that public humiliation and media pillorying of them is probably not beneficial and may even encourage such activity. However, such behaviour does need to be called out & prevented. It should neither be countenaced nor excused; if not for its immorality, certainly because those who will be most affected by such irrational and selfish hoarding will be those who are already most disadvantaged.

    Yes, I can agree that fear may cause some people to act irrationally. I also accept that ignorance can and does, do so. However, fear, although with no doubt a motivator of the actions of some hoarders, is in my view not the motivator of most. The motivator of most is selfishness, which is also the predominant ailment within our society today.

    Your analgoy between the wealthy ‘hoarding’ money and the frightened hoarding toilet paper is not a valid one. Indeed, it contradicts your own argument, that the toilet paper hoarders do so out of fear, for the wealthy don’t ‘hoard’ money for that reason. In fact, I doubt that the wealthy ‘hoard’ money at all, except perhaps in a few cases associated with blackbirds pecking off noses. The wealthy, on the contrary, seek to amass money/wealth so that they can control people and things.

    Our nation supposedly has a well educated population and whilst I agree with you that the actions at the last election suggest that an enormous number of us are not particularly well-informed, able to tell truth from lies, resistant to misinformation, or able to resist the temptation of benefits to ourselves – even at the expense of others – I don’t agree that most hoarders are not aware of their selfishness and simply acting instinctively in response to fear.

    I don’t mean to be rude but, in my view, there is as little justification for apologists for hoarders as there is for apologists for the perfidy of the Morrison and previous LNP Coalition governments.

    In the face of this crisis, what the nation needs is not a mythical ethos of ‘mate-ship’ or what consittutes the nature of ‘Australianism’ but rather a truly collaborative effort of mutual caring, assistance and selflessness.

  12. Phil Pryor

    Nothing is more UN Australian than this inflated penislike erection of a superstitious idiot living in a fantasy world that never existed, creating rules and attitudes to suit his playschool persona, the P M, a Pathetic Moron. If he is a leader, then carbuncles are kissable.

  13. Florence

    IMHO we have many angry people in the community who have no idea what has an been going on for near on a decade. They are angry but do not know where to aim the anger. Result is they are acting in a irrational manner. Lined up yesterday in aline of a couple of hundred to enter Woolworth with shelves half empty. Near no meat, over priced vegetables, nothing frozen. No toilet rolls. Crowd very well behaved. Very disgusted. No over full trolleys. I noticed plenty rubbish like chocolates, Easter eggs. This was a free standing store in small village, not far from warehouse. Explanation needed of why they can’t restock.

  14. Kerri

    Morrison’s declaration that it is “un-Australian to hoard is yet another tool to divide us and pit us against each other.
    He leans at the Lectern with his other hand in his pants pockets and yells “stop hoarding” like we should do as he says and not do as he does and bugger off on a secret holiday.
    Comedian Em Rusciano made the following observation People will look back on this time and say
    yes it was a terrible time very trying for all of us. But at least throughout the entire crisis I had a beautiful clean butthole!
    #David Evans
    Major supermarkets have suspended home delivery when this is precisely the time we need it. To keep the sick away from crowds. To keep the vulnerable away from crowds. To enforce purchase limits and to provide work as delivery “jockeys” for those displaced by the closure of other industries.

  15. Keith

    Many people do not know whether they will have a job in a week’s time, fortnight’s time or over a longer period. If people have money then it is sensible to invest in food for the future. Though, clearly not everybody is in the same situation in relation to anxiety for their jobs. People running small businesses are very vulnerable currently, even larger businesses providing non-essential items are likely to feel the pinch. Qantas is about to savagely reduce it’s workforce.

    Another factor is distrust of the government, I believe.

  16. Kathryn

    Clearly, history has shown that – ever since 2013 and the advent of the worst government in living memory – the national IQ of Australia has dropped about 50 points! Under prevous Labor governments, Australia used to be widely respected; we USED to be the Smart Country. Sadly, ever since the crawling moron, Phony Abbott, swaggered across the electoral line, we have been internationally shamed, condemned and ridiculed as a haven for xenophobic, onion-eating morons, a nation full of screaming, shrieking BOGANS tearing each other apart for a few rolls of toilet paper, an insular backwater cheering on a fascist regime that locks up innocent, vulnerable asylum seekers – even their little children – INDEFINITELY and without consequence! One of the first thing the cretinous grub, Abbott, did was to DEFUND the scientific and medical research area of our world-leading CSIRO into OBLIVION! So afraid of progress, knowledge, science and education are the LNP, they continue to DEFUND our children’s education, TAFE and Universities into obsolescence! They are a political party chock full of morons, cheered on by morons who believe the LNP speak on their behalf – the LNP don’t and never have because these conniving fools are also born elitists who will provide benefit to the Top 1% ONLY and to their billionaire corporate donors!

    Seriously, ask yourselves this: “What type of country do I want my children/grandchildren growing up in?” – I hardly recognise this country anymore! Under the unspeakably malevolent and undemocratic fascist jackboot of the worst pack of inept, totally corrupt, self-serving political parasites this country has ever seen, there is a small majority of Australians who have become more selfish, more callously inhumane and more xenophobic than at any other time in our history! This is WHY these sociopathic morons in our midst have voted for the LNP THREE TIMES despite the LNP’s APPALLING level of blatant corruption, relentless lies, non-stop broken promises and fraudulent misappropriation of taxpayer funds!

    The ONLY THINGS to have TRICKLED DOWN from the savage, barbaric gangsters in the LNP are hatred, division, xenophobic racism, brutal levels of misogyny, self-serving corruption, an obsession with the LNP’s ME-ME-ME ideology, Morrison’s cruel, heartless condescending contempt for pensioners, the poor, the sick and for anyone who is in any way vulnerable!

    So ashamed of Australia right now!

  17. Geoff Andrews

    I was fascinated to hear that England is also going through the great toilet role panic. It’s a real head-scratcher.
    I haven’t hoarded but I’ll be really pissed off if I’m forced to self-quarantine with insufficient supplies then be criticized for not “taking reasonable precautions” or “planning for the future”, Maybe the “hoarders” are motivated for the same reason. The majority of us live close to shops so we shop on a daily “as needs” basis, which is easily accommodated by the shops. Suddenly we all decide that we need 14 times what we would normally buy just to last a fortnight or even longer (now THERE’S the rub!)

  18. nonsibicunctis

    Kathryn, I empathise with your anger.

    Please don’t blow a valve.

    People such as yourself are who we need if we are to have any chance of rebuilding our society into one that values rationality, equality, evidence-based action, non-discrimination, our First Peoples, difference as opportunity, not deficit, justice, equity and respect from the international community.

    I, too, am ashamed of the current Australian ethos and of its government and so many politicians, whether in government or not. I am a born pessimist so perhaps that is not surprising but I sincerely will that, before I turn back to dust, this nation will reform and realise its potential for caring, sharing,collaborating, not scaring, and leading the World in a positive direction.

  19. Jack sprat

    The term unaustralian is copying the ultra patriotic yanks who use the term unamerican frequently .
    Never heard other countries following the trend you don’t hear the terms unenglish ,ungerman
    Unfrench or unitalian being used .
    Is it a result of our cultural cringe or a colonial mentality either way it’s a sign of American cultural imperialism increasing in this country.
    Also the phrase “to wrap yourself in the flag ” originally a American expression to deride its ultranationalists but here in Australia it’s been adopted and taken literally by our ultranationlists
    Who durring any public ceremony actually drape themselves in the Aussie flag .Strange days indeed .

  20. Phil

    I have enough food for six months, water, fuel, booze and dunny paper. I’m one of those unpatriotic fwits that was hoarding long before the Corona virus showed up. I from information that was and is freely available, was sure a depression was coming. Not here yet,but not long away

  21. Kathryn

    nonsibicunctis, thank you for your comments. The sad thing is that, normally, I am a half-glass-full type of optimist but knowing that we have to wait until 2022 for the next federal election, fills me with an almost Apocalyptic foreboding! The indescribable level of environmental vandalism, economic ineptitude, staggering waste and relentless corruption exhibited by this non-achieving pack of ultra-conservative, bible-thumping hypocrites and miscreants, over the last seven years has changed the face of Australia in a way that is beyond depressing!

    Another 2-1/2 years of these depraved Grim Reapers is likely to spell THE END to everything Australians once loved and cherished about this (once) egalitarian country. The Lying Nasty Parasites have just about SOLD OFF and PRIVATISED everything taxpayers once owned – handing over our utilities, land, water and manufacturing/production industries to the Chinese and other foreign predators who will seek to predate and ransack our environment, EXPORT all profits whilst IMPORTING casual labour (from third world countries like India and the Philippines) and provide and sell second-rate, diminished (even dangerously sub-standard) quality of goods to what we once saw when we proudly bought so much that was “Made in Australia”.

    I remember previous governments (especially Labor) promoting Australian-made manufacturing! It is a fact that AUSTRALIAN MADE production and manufacturing KEEPS AUSTRALIANS IN JOBS. This stupid, myopic, dumb-as-dog-shit government are totally incapable of comprehending that when you encourage, foster and maintain AUSTRALIAN-MADE production and manufacturing, you not only keep Australians in jobs, you maintain a high standard of product that one rarely sees coming out of the “Factory to the Western World”, China! Sadly, ordinary Chinese workers are NOT the ones benefiting from this massive influx of Chinese manufacturing – these workers are slaving away for a subsistence PITTANCE which only helps greedy millionaire manufacturers in China become multi-billionaires. Like Australia, the UK and the USA – profit, wealth and benefits NEVER TRICKLE DOWN – history has shown (over and over again) that the profitable benefits from the blood, sweat, tears and hard labour of ordinary people only TRICKLE UP !!! Tragically – and ironically – China has turned into the CAPITALISTIC NEOLIBERAL HELL HOLE that rapacious and predatory employers in western nations like the USA, Australia and the UK dream of becoming – where multi-millionaires become obscenely rich at the expense of enslaved workers who are employed (many on a casual basis) without rights, without due compensation, without leave and, more importantly, without UNIONS to protect them! This is the shared dream of the neoliberal Abbott and Morrison; the dream they share with their millionaire donors in the predatory Top 1% and one that appeals to their collective sense of superiority and entitlement and unending search for obscene wealth and power at the expense of others!

    When one looks back to that horrendous day in 2013 when the swaggering Onion-eater (Phony Grabbit) rose to the surface like faeces in a polluted pond; when one makes an effort to research the growing Dead Sea Scroll List of the damage done by the LNP since 2013; when one reflects on the catastrophic defundment of our children’s State education, TAFE and universities, the unending environmental vandalism and brutal inhumanity undertaken in only seven years, one can only wonder if it could EVER get WORSE – believe me, it can and will! If there was EVER a government so thoroughly deserving of being DISMISSED, the MorriScum Sinking Ship of Fools is it!

  22. Neil

    It seems many Australians, present company definitely excluded, cannot face reality. They would but the rope from Scomo, the hangman

  23. crypt0

    Kathryn, I can only agree 100%.

  24. Michael Taylor

    Every day, since the panic-buying started, our local Woolies is turning over what they would normally turn over in 7 weeks.

    This is ridiculous.

  25. Jon Chesterson

    WHO MAKES YOU WANT TO VOMIT MOST?

    This is a great article to reflect on, as it calls out the fake social empathy and hypocrisy of Morrison and his fellow Liberals’ politics and greed. While Morrison and his band shame people for panic buying in troubled times and denying others; do we stop to think how the wealthy few, high status LNP politicians, our leaders, Morrison, banks, mining magnates and corporations rip the shared wealth of our productivity from underneath our feet, our society resulting in the poverty and hardship that is all around us, been with us for years and increasing. This economic divide is of Morrison’s making and successive Liberal governments – Now all of a sudden he grows angel’s wings claiming the high moral and social ground.

    Why now does Morrison claim a social conscience when he has never had one before, content to vilify the poor, unemployed, homeless, pensioners and those who rely on Centrelink, retirees, aboriginals, refugees, low income families, the casual workforce, part time workers, under-employed? Isn’t this just more of the same greed and blame from our Prime Minister as he has always shown, just a fresh new pair of clothes and people to blame, another little temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his own way?

    So who makes you want to vomit most, they who panic in a crisis and forget about others (disappointing perhaps and sadly easy to blame) or those who permanently deny others their rights and choices in life, use and abuse government power to push their antisocial agenda under the banner of the economy for the few, not the health of our nation, for all?

  26. nonsibicunctis

    Hi Michael,

    I’ve been trying to make a comment on this topic but when I try to post I get taken to a page telling me that this page, i.e the one I’m typing on, can’t be found.

    ??? Is it only I that has all these problems? Is the site or perhaps the gods trying to tell me to go away? (Yes, I know that I’m paranoid but when it keeps happening to one …)

  27. Michael Taylor

    nonsibicunctis, are you accessing the site from a shortcut?

  28. Michael Taylor

    Try clearing your cache or your cookies. That should fix it.

  29. king1394

    It also could be noted that with regard to toilet paper, it is almost impossible not to buy in bulk. Several times there have been a few pallets of toilet paper arrive at my local supermarket, with packs of 20 or 36 rolls. The supermarket retailer is not allowed to resell these as single rolls

  30. nonsibicunctis

    No, Michael, it didn’t. I am accessing the site usually by response to a notification of a new post and sometimes by going direct to the site using a bookmark.

    I’m not sure to what your are referring by the word “short-cut”. Is a bookmark a “short-cut” or do you mean something else?

    It interests me that my comment advising of this issue which I made here, to the article: “Selectively raging about greed” was accepted yet the response to Kathryn’s last comment here, in the same place, results in a page telling me

    The AIM Network Page not found

    “It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for.
    Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help. ”

    url: https://theaimn.com/wp-comments-post.php

    Strange, huh? Accepts one comment but not another. I might add that I have tried this out at different times and on different days, as well as trying only one comment at a particular time, i.e. not one immediately adjacent to the other.

    Please don’t take this as criticism or complaint. I am simply reporting and don’t know of a way to do so other than by commenting as there is nowhere on the screen that I see, which provides an option to contact you or an administrative person directly. That is, I feel, a failing of those who have designed and manage the site for you. The confusing option to register that doesn’t actually allow one to register is also a deficiency in the implementation of the site. I’m not sure what it costs for the site upkeep but, unless it is free or very minimal, this standard of design and management is, in my view, far less than should be expected.

    Again, I express my view as an observation, not a complaint, for I very much value that the site exists and readily acknowledge your initiative, motivation and effort in creating it and the posts of those who contribute to it.

    Sometimes I may choose my words poorly but I can assure you that I mean no disrespect and nor do I aim to create any conflict. What I attempt to do is simply to say what I feel without malice or abuse. If I get it wrong and my words appear that way, I apologise and assure you that such is not my intent.

  31. The AIM Network

    nonsibicunctis, going by the messages your’e receiving it’s possible that your bookmark may have been first set up before we changed servers. Remove that bookmark and set up a new one AFTER clicking on the link below:

    https://theaimn.com/

    Let us know if that fixes it.

  32. nonsibicunctis

    No, my bookmark was current. However I trashed it and made a new one anyway. Still no change.

    That doesn’t surprise me for, if the problem were my bookmark then one would expect that none of my attempts to post a comment would succeed.

    In fact, as I reported and as you would recognise from having read the comment about my problem, exactly the same page and comment area has accepted my comment reporting the inconsistency but rejected the comment that I was trying to make in response to Katryn’s last comment on this topic.

    Given that, I have to stand by my assumption that the issue is with the site design, implementation or platform As I have built many WordPress sites myself I know it to be a sound platform. For that reason, I am left with the conclusion that it is either a design or implementation flaw, hence my previous comment regarding whether or not you are getting value for money.

    Again, if my remarks come across badly, I apologise. I am just telling it as I see it. I am a Yorkshireman and in Yorkshire we call a spade, a spade and a shovel, a shovel and we know the difference.

    Take care. I still have ‘faith’ in this site, regardless of my problems. I am also prepared to eat humble pie if my assumptions or conclusions prove to be wrong – though you would have to send it for I’ve not been able to find any in local bakeries. Indeed, just lately I’ve not been able to find much of anything in any of the local food shops… It seems that there is some form of panic going on or that obesity has finally become fashionable and large numbers of people have suddenly decided to eat 4 or 5 times the excessive quantities which they were already consuming. A result of that is that they are so full of excrement that their defecation rate has increased exponentially and so they have had to purchase toilet paper by the cartful.

    As this is happening with the ‘everyday’ man and woman ‘in the street’, my mind is seriously disturbed at the thought of what the situation much be in Canberra. Given the extraordinarily high levels of excrement that, in ordinary times, are expelled by the political class there, particularly those on the right wing of the political spectrum, I hate to think what the smell will be like if they, too, adopt this new fashion for obesity.

    I suppose, perhaps, that the one saving grace is that they must have have millions of reams of paper on which useless, malevolent or discriminatory laws are drafted, Bills submitted, and final versions of laws recorded. Then, of course, there are the largely boring Hansards which decorously record the inanity, puerility, and obfuscation of question time and parliamentary debate. All this pointless result of forest degradation and destruction, together with the volumes of documentation that is hidden from the public on the grounds of government opacity, sorry – I meant national security – and at least they will have plenty of toilet paper. One simply has to hope that the sewerages system is good because that excrement soiled paper won’t break down. However, that probably isn’t an issue as the Capital must be used to dealing with the massive amount of excrement that the parliament produces.

  33. Michael Taylor

    A few other people were having this problem after we changed servers last year. Our web developer was of the view that they were randomly being directed to the old site. Their advice was to have the commenter clean out their cookies and their cache.

    That seemed to fix the problem.

  34. roger

    Ok, Michael, thank you. What can I say? It has certainly not fixed the problem for me, on either of the two machines I used daily.

    As I also pointed out but obviously not clearly enough, it makes no sense that the fault is at my end, given that I can post a comment outlining my problems and have it accepted without an issue, yet when I post a comment about another post, the system tells me that the page on which I’m commenting doesn’t exist or that it can’t find it.

    How could that have anythng to do with my cookies or cache? I that was the issue then I wouldn’t be able to achieve any comment actually getting through and appearing on the site.

    That is one of the reasons that I suggest you are not getting the level of expertise of service that you should. If the ‘experts’ cannot see the contradiction in what they suggest, then it says little for their intellectual acumen.

    However, I feel that my issues have become tiresome for you, although you are too polite to say so. So, reluctantly and with some regret, I will accept that either the (non-existent) gods or (non-existent) fate or (less than helpful) experts have decided that, as have many others in my past, my comments, views, or whatever are a waste of space.

    As I’ve said previously, I’m an idiot.

    Forgive me.

    I won’t bother you about this again. I know that I’m a waste of space and worth nothing. I’ve known it for a long time. I apologise for intruding into a forum of worthwhile people. I ought to know better.

  35. Michael Taylor

    I’m stuffed if I know, Roger. I have to admit I don’t know what is causing it.

    If my web developer is open tomorrow I’ll see whether someone there can come up with an answer.

  36. nonsibicunctis

    Michael, please don’t add to your workload. I can live with it. It is insignificant in the scheme of things. Please don’t waste your time on my account.

    I value what you’ve done and the site you created and the contributions of those who participate here. I do not wish to lay blame or create problems.

    Regardless of my having done all that you suggested and the contradiction that’s involved with my commenting and what appears and what doesn’t, I’m sure that it will all turn out to by my own doing.

    On more reflection, this afternoon, I think it may be a word limit issue – though what happens is a strange way to deal with that, so I may be very wrong. I thought of testing different lengths of posts to check out the idea but I don’t want to be a nuisance.

    So, please have a good night. Think no more of it. I won’t mention it again.

    ciao

    roger

  37. Michael Taylor

    We AIM to please, Roger. If we can help in any way, we will.

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