Congratulations Australia!
A Labor victory means that John Howard is finally out.
BRISBANE (Reuters) – Australia’s Labor leader Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin speaking former diplomat, swept into power at national elections on Saturday on a wave of support for generational change, ending 11 years of conservative rule.
“Today Australia has looked to the future,” Rudd, flanked by his wife Therese and family, told jubilant supporters. “I will be a prime minister for all Australians.”
The surge to Labor left conservative Prime Minister John Howard struggling to win even his own parliamentary seat, which he has held since 1974, putting him in danger of becoming the first prime minister since 1929 to lose his constituency.
Rudd, 50, presented himself as a new generation leader by promising to pull Australian combat troops out of Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, further isolating Washington on both issues.
Just out of curiosity, has supporting George W. Bush done much to help the political career of any non-American politician?
Wait… I forgot Poland!
The fact is, Australians will regret this fit of peak. They will be hit hard by terrorists, who are rejoicing at their weakness and signal of surrender.
The patented George W. Bush Kiss of Death™ strikes again!
George, I think you need to help the Mittster and 9udy lliani campaigns – they need your “special” touch.
And that’s ‘pique’, fake Gary.
Yes, Gary, because no terrorist attack has affected the Australian people under Howard’s tenure.
woooh! woooooooooooh! wooooooooooooh!
thank you thank you
Tusk pledged to pursue a liberal economic agenda and laid out plans for more capitalism.
Kurwa mac.
Eh, Mencken, the current Polish government unfortunately justifies a number of off-color Polish jokes – there’s no denying that.
BUT they are planning on pulling troops out of Iraq, which makes them, on balance, equally capitalistic, slightly more homophobic, and slightly less homicidal than our government.
It’s a toss-up, really.
I just love how even any pretense of “The Coalition of the Willing” has vanished at this point. Bush has lost every single ally he had, and the schadenfreude does me good.
Countdown to John Howard receiving the Medal of Freedom. . .
Now if Canada and France could quit their embarrassing rightward shifts, we’ll be great.
BUT they are planning on pulling troops out of Iraq, which makes them, on balance, equally capitalistic, slightly more homophobic, and slightly less homicidal than our government.
It’s a toss-up, really.
Nah, the pull-out of Iraq more than makes up for any other shortcoming, just as it would here. I was just showing off my knowledge of Polish curses.
Spierdalaj!
Well, the news isn’t that great. But on a personal level, it’s good to see Bush’s petit ami out on his ass.
Trolling for schadenfreude at Freak Repugnant, I pulled this from the depths: “Expect a big loud cheer from the head-chopper crowd. That’s the end of Australia.”
Are we the “head-chopper crowd”? It’s so hard to keep up.
This is good, too:“So much for thinking Australia was a good country with sound principles. People cowered to the liberal and now the world will pay the price. You are correct, this is WWII all over again.”
Ah, that Freeper sense of history.
Hey Mencken, here’s one of my all-time favorites: Mam cie w dupie, stary trupie. What it lacks in righteous anger, it more than makes up for in rhyme and meter.
The preternaturally grumpy frog is finally HISTORY. How did he keep winning anyway? EVERYONE HATES HIM AND ALWAYS HAS.
“People cowered to the liberal and now the world will pay the price.”
The Liberal? Is that like The Negro or The Jew?
“That’s the end of Australia.”
Uhh, sure. Y’know, no matter how bad things might get for me, at least I’ll always be able to point and laugh at Freepers. Or maybe it’s The Freeper.
How did he keep winning anyway? EVERYONE HATES HIM AND ALWAYS HAS.
Politics is funny that way.
Off with their heads!
Now Gundamhead, actually, I’m The Liberal.
No, actually, I’m more like The Cynic. Nevermind.
Well, the news isn’t that great. But on a personal level, it’s good to see Bush’s petit ami out on his ass.
Djur – that’s exactly how I expect to feel if Hillary wins, really. Slightly-less-fascist government and a bloody nose to the triumphalist Republicans would be a good day, not a great one.
I think I’ve already said this, but if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, I have every intention of taking a hip flask in the voting booth with me. I’ll need a bit of Dutch courage before I can pull the lever for her.
Besides, I’ll be able to salve my conscience afterwards by saying that I can’t really be held accountable for things I did while drinking.
God, I hate her.
Just out of curiosity, has supporting George W. Bush done much to help the political career of any non-American politician?
Tony Saca in El Salvador, but I think ARENA is the exception that proves the rule.
HTML Mencken: good knowledge, Polish curses are sooo poetical…. I have to say that even if I still consider Czech language as the greatest, we seriously lack more imagination and rhyme in cursing.
Anyway, a tad more capitalism in Central Europe would be definitely good thing. Nowadays we are knee-deep in socialistic shit. And teh funny thing is that it appears the same as your shit – nepotism, corruption, waste of money and screwing everything in sight. We just lack the knack on invading and schooling others. Our way is live it through crouched and than engage in “I told you so” and “If I could only”.
I like to get my news from 365gay.com, the homo news wire. It keeps me marching in lockstep with the agenda. Today is pretty typical:
HOMOPHOBIC GOV’T DEFEATED IN AUSRALIA!!!
(Also supported Iraq war, opposed Kyoto treaty)
Bush has lost every single ally he had, and the schadenfreude does me good.
I empathize with you, Jillian, but allow me to point out that it is in fact we who have lost every single ally we had.
Congratulations! We’ll be sending our own national disgrace to play with him at the Retirement Home for Neo-Con Loons in less than a year.
Now a question: Has anyone ever seen John Howard and Larry Craig in the same room?
What’s the name of that rabid right-wing conserative site again?
Bed Wetter Republic?
Someone should go over there with a poll and see how many of them are praying that Australia gets hit with a major terrorist attack like the one Bill O’Reilly wished on San Francisco.
(Eagerly awaiting childish troll sophistry. Kevin? Saul? TDE? Gary (real or fake)?)
Has anyone ever seen John Howard and Larry Craig in the same room?
I caught them making out in a port-o-potty once. I was on acid tho.
The fact it, homosexuality always invites terror attacks, they don’t like gays, you know.
What about the gay terrorists, you know the gay activist groups that the federal law enforcement groups keep an eye on instead of tracking people like Tim McVeigh? Aren’t they terrorists who like gays?
Or perhaps you were talking about terrorists groups like Fred Phelps and the nice people at the Westboro Baptist Church?
Pique production in Australia is definitely heading downhill from now on.
They have reached peak pique.
Good thing too. The acid probably provided a nice protective cushion for your brain and kept you from clawing your eyes out.
Yeah, the transition to neoliberal economic policies has been so good to the Russian people, I can’t imagine why the rest of Europe wouldn’t want to emulate it.
I just love how even any pretense of “The Coalition of the Willing” has vanished at this point.
Oh, it’s still alive and well at Blogs for Great Success!, which always seems to be way behind the wingnut curve on stuff like this. But yeah, whenever somebody brings up how much Bush has ruined relationships with existing allies and possible future allies, they start snorting, “Oh yeah? What about all these pro-Bush prime ministers getting elected? Huh, moonbat?”
I’ll assume they haven’t gotten talking points yet on how to deal with that, and that when they do get the talking points, they’ll match up with the Freepers’ “Well, everybody in Australia will be decapitated by the end of the year” stuff.
The fact is, Australians will regret this fit of peak. They will be hit hard by terrorists, who are rejoicing at their weakness and signal of surrender.
Go plant some beets, Dwight.
Doesn’t Bush still have the steadfast support of mighty Micronesia?
I hope this works in Canada cuz we have a doozey in power right now.
Also…America, please take Iggy back. (He’s just as bad, if not worse, and he’s on the Liberal team.)
Djur said,
November 24, 2007 at 21:16
Yeah, the transition to neoliberal economic policies has been so good to the Russian people, I can’t imagine why the rest of Europe wouldn’t want to emulate it.
Man, I’m living in it, so please do not try to school me. There are more possibilities than only “central directed economics” and “free for all”.
There are more possibilities than only “central directed economics” and “free for all”.
And Central Europe right now is somewhere in the middle, which is a good thing. Hell, here in Slovakia we even have flat tax and a reformed social security system. So I have no idea what the fuck it is you’re talking about, Melkel.
There is considerably less Stalin in this thread than I was led to believe. Still, I’m so proud of all you Aussies that it’s free gummers for all next time I’m down under.
Shalom gentlemen.
The Australian people much like the Spanish are a bunch of ungrateful cowards for caving in to the islamo-fascists. Bin Laden said “jump”. Australia responded “how high”!
Oh no. I suspect the rest of this thread will be a veritable feast of willful ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, childish sophistry, logical fallacies and conservative delusions.
Just a feeling. Can’t quite put my finger on it. A vague sense that the dynamic is about to change.
Fixed your typo.
George W. Bush and the Republican leadership have ever since 9/11 been very aggresive in attacking al-queda. The islamo-fascists have been routed and the Taliban regime that harbored them has been destroyed.
The Australians apparently are not made of as tough of stuff as the Americans in the Heartland.
Hello, anybody home?
The al-queda terrorAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!>•-,,—-,,—-
George W. Bush has done exactly what bin Laden wanted. When Bush “won” in 2004, bin Laden rose from his sick bed and did cartwheels. Then he called the White House – reversing the charges – and told Bush and Cheney what to do over the next four years. Bin Laden loves Republicans.
And Republicans love terrorism because they love turning America into a nation of bed wetters.
Please, Republicans. Stop being the party of bed wetters. And stop doing the work of Satan.
bulbul: here in Czech Republic, we do not have flat tax yet (2008 will do) and social security and retirement fund reform is far far away. That’s the little bit of capitalism I’m talking about. Any further explanation needed? I agree that in the middle is good place to be, but we are not there yet.
“I will be a prime minister for all Australians.”
Well, except for the gay ones. (Baby steps, though, baby steps.)
So everyone fearing that Australia’s surrender to homosexual socialist Islamofascism is now imminent, remember, Prime Minister-elect Rudd believes marriage is “between one man and one woman,” and is actually not particularly friendly to organized labor (How’s that for irony? Oh, wait, Blair and Brown have already made this observation obsolete). The West’s collapse into equal rights for all its citizens and restored worker protection, followed by Muslim fundamentalism, is not yet inevitable.
The islamo-fascists have been routed and the Taliban regime that harbored them has been destroyed.
Okay, since it’s been out for a while now that the Taliban are resurgent, probably even to the point of control of a majority of Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda has freedom of movement within an ever-more-unstable Pakistan, I’m forced to conclude that Saul is just messing with us. No one could be that pig-ignorant and still operate a computer, right?
Is this a trick question?
I tell my mom what I want to say and she types it for me1!
No one could be that pig-ignorant and still operate a computer, right?
Sadly, no. The proof is in many posts right here on this thread.
This is the biggest downside to the user-interface advances of the last 25 years or so.
You’re right about that, Sam, but not about Saul. It’s just an an attention troll (annieangel style).
Thou eatest of giant hairy dicks, and thou hast swallowed the seed of thy fellow man. Repent!
Before thee accept the seed of thy sweaty, ripped brethren (or so I’m told, based on reliable sources) into thy buttocks, shalt thou tap thy feet three times (no more, no less — THREE shalt be the number of thy tapping) onto the floor of the loo. Filthy, filthy.
Evil. Sinful. Seed, so much seed. You could put out a forest fire with all that seed. Stop it already. And again with the dicks. Giant and hairy.
Thou givest me a headache.
And lo, there was a great excitement in the land, as fake Saul gotteth into his new role. Inhabitith it him. “This is awesome”, sayeth him, and he did spill his seed upon the ground, and wanketh copiously.
[…] knowledge, had a boyfriend. ** Were you aware that the Bush-following Australian PM, John Howard, suffered a defeat by the Labor Party’s Kevin […]
Jillian – thanks !!!
Saul – fuck you !!!
annieangel likes pie.
Just thought I’d point out to you Americans that when we Australians went to the polls, we weren’t really thinking very much about Iraq. Mostly about the evil that our neo-con lackey was doing at home. Given we only have about 500 troops there, and have yet to suffer a single combat death, it isn’t a particularly pressing issue to the majority of Australians, even though 80% of us support a withdrawal.
The Freepers might want to consider that next time they talk about how we were responding to Islamic Fundamentalism. We were actually much more worried about being forced to live under an American-style Industrial Relations system…
As a life long Labor voter and vehement anti-Conservative, i am as happy as a pig in shit. Australia now has a Labor federal government, and every state and territory is Labor as well. This is a victory for the true believers. The little runt is gone! I’ve had a great week end, i can tell you. Plus, i won $100 off my very conservative dad.
Yippee!
Like flashheart says, it was in large part about about the industrial relations system (called, in a rare moment of conservative humour, WorkChoices). Also, 11 years of bare-faced lying about pretty much everything didn’t help. Though it must be said that Howard came to regret inviting Bush to APEC – he guessed it might be a plus, but was a big, big boner: Australians do want their independent foreign policy back. It’s also worth noting that an attempted scare campaign about unions failed to make any difference. Now Labor controls pretty well every government in the country, except for a few local councils.