Best Blog Posts 2007

By skepticlawyer

The first of the selected posts (two a day will be published each weekday through January) is up over at Online Opinion. James Farrell gives a useful backgrounder to this year’s selection process over at Club Troppo.

UPDATE: All the BBP2007 are tagged as ‘features’ over at OLO, in case people were wondering which ones they were.

UPDATE II: Troppo is still borked, not sure for how much longer. They’ve been having a few ‘technical issues’ of late; with any sort of luck Jacques will get them sorted in due course.

UPDATE III: Troppo now appears to be back on deck, although power outages in WA mean that it may still disappear from time to time.

39 Comments

  1. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 3, 2008 at 8:14 am | Permalink

    A good first choice, I think. I particularly enjoyed reading the comments. This one jumped out at me

    Yet another academic bleating about the alleged Howard economic success story.

    I don’t think that author has been accused of being a Howard apologist before. :)

  2. Posted January 3, 2008 at 9:51 am | Permalink

    Interesting what happens outside the confines of Ozblogistan :)

  3. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 7:38 am | Permalink

    Its hard to open CT, often the site is down

  4. Posted January 4, 2008 at 7:47 am | Permalink

    It’s on the blink again, rog - they’ve had serious technical problems of late. James’ article is up over at Online Opinion - you can read it there.

  5. GMB
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 7:53 am | Permalink

    This might be the thread to congratulate Skeptic since the great news is that the new defense minister will be reviewing the Super-Hornet purchase and her SURE-TO-BE PRIZE-WINNING POSTS on this site with regards to the Raptor…. and especially the quality guests she lined up…. was part of the overall campaign to give this matter a second look.

    I might not make any sense today as I’ll be celebrating.

    Hopefully the judges will vote these posts the best of 2007 because of the possibility they could have influenced matters.

  6. Jason Soon
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 9:15 am | Permalink

    >I might not make any sense today as I’ll be celebrating

    So you celebrate everyday of your life? what are the causes?

  7. GMB
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 9:46 am | Permalink

    Ho ho.

    You know what Keynes said about every economic idea your average bloke has its just some defunct notion from some long dead economist.

    Well most chattering class ideas used to start off as communist party directives such dupes most people are.

    They being the most cohesive group of sheeple appear to be able to control most of the flock.

  8. Posted January 4, 2008 at 9:53 am | Permalink

    Did Marx hate fractional reserve?

  9. John Greenfield
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 9:54 am | Permalink

    SL/Jason/Anybody

    I am probably having a very blonde day, but I cannot find these best blogs.

  10. GMB
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 10:05 am | Permalink

    Neither Marx nor Keynes realised that it was fractional reserve that they were fucking whining about.

    Keynes put it down to “animal spirits”.

    Got nothing to do with “animal spirits”… the problem was only with fractional reserve.

  11. Posted January 4, 2008 at 10:16 am | Permalink

    There are two posts a day up on OLO, John - unfortunately they’re not tagged as being ‘best blog posts 2007′ (as they were last year). I’ll ask Graham to flag them for people.

  12. John Greenfield
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 10:19 am | Permalink

    Thanks doll. How’s Oxford? I hope you are knocking them dead! :)

  13. Posted January 4, 2008 at 10:41 am | Permalink

    There’s one by Adrien up today, one of our most popular commenters :)
    I’m in Edinburgh just now John - back to Oxford on Sunday for 0th week. I’d been planning to put my (rather good, even if I say so myself) Hogmanay pics up, but accidentally abandoned my camera cable in Oxford.

  14. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 1:25 pm | Permalink

    Do we know this person?

    Adrien Swords (a pen name) is a copywriter and occasional journalist in his 30s. He lives in Melbourne. He was born in London and grew up in various parts of Asia and Africa: most especially Cairo and Tarbella (a small village in Pakistan’s North-West Province) but he also spent a lot of time in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok etc. He graduated from Griffith University some hazy time in the last decade of the 20th century. Apparently he studied the media, history and literature. Adrien blogs at Adrienswords.

  15. Posted January 4, 2008 at 1:36 pm | Permalink

    I have feeling young Adrien may be a chap well known around these parts, yairs…

  16. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 1:52 pm | Permalink

    Our Adrien has such an interesting life story? Mind you, why would a fine Scot be born in London? Tsk, tsk.

  17. Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:12 pm | Permalink

    I dunno Sinclair. Ask my parents. I was whisked away to Glasgow pretty smartly thereafter. Toughen’ me up. Pakistan’s just too cushy doncha know? :)

  18. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:16 pm | Permalink

    Damn right. Do they paint themselves blue and run naked into battle?

    Mind you, that mightn’t have been paint - just the weather.

  19. Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:40 pm | Permalink

    Apparently it’s a bit of a myth about the blue paint which was assumed to be woad. But woad doesn’t serve well as a body paint. It’s thought that the ancient Celts wore tattoos and this is where Caeser’s references to the Brit’s marked bodies and the name for the Pict tribes come from.

    But naked yes. Some kind of nature-worshipping thing. Bloodshed was sacred. Batshit bunch aren’t we?

    There’s this fantastic ad for beer from New Zealand. It features two groups of men one Maori, the other Scots. It’s either a prequel to battle or a rugby match. The Maori are all huge guys (funny that) and they’re doing a particularly fierce Haka. The Scots - kilted, bare-chested with designer long hair - are standing impassive.

    The Haka rises to high intensity (if you ever seen one up close they are scary). The Scots don’t move. The Haka finishes and the Scots slowly reach down and lift up the hem of their kilts high.

    The look on the face of the Maori chief is priceless. :)

  20. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:46 pm | Permalink

    LOL. Fantastic. Do you know the beer - to hunt down the YouTube.

  21. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:49 pm | Permalink

    Adrien must be a campbell, hence the secrecy

  22. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:49 pm | Permalink

    Here is one, but not the one.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUgpfWntZm8

  23. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:53 pm | Permalink

    Obama beats Hillary in Iowa

  24. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 2:55 pm | Permalink

    here it is

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRy4DAR0AEI

    scotch not beer.

  25. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:00 pm | Permalink

    But wait, there’s more :)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bdnsAosfVA&NR=1

  26. Jacques Chester
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:08 pm | Permalink

    They’ve been having a few ‘technical issues’ of late; with any sort of luck Jacques will get them sorted in due course.

    No, just variations on a single technical issue.

  27. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:34 pm | Permalink

    The clan tartan was a recent invention, previously they all wore plaid which was brown and more of a cloak/blanket than a skirt

  28. Bring Back CL's Blog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:39 pm | Permalink

    I thought scots were all work and no plaid

  29. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:40 pm | Permalink

    Thats the usual caber

  30. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:42 pm | Permalink

    Nothing worse than go to bed with a tartan waking up with a haggis

  31. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:45 pm | Permalink

    A highland fling could end up with a bag o pipes

  32. Bring Back CL's Blog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 3:57 pm | Permalink

    stop it you are kilting me

  33. Posted January 4, 2008 at 4:34 pm | Permalink

    Actually Rog I am a Campbell. It’s my middle name (my father’s too). I’m also a McDonald (on my mother’s side). :)
    As I understand it there were various plaids/tartatns that were indicative of your village or home district and also by defualt your clan. The number of colours also indicated your status. But as you say this is all relatively recent and as the Celts spent more time throwing rocks at each other’s heads and didn’t write things down we don’t really know.

    Thanks for that Sinclair. Dunno why I thought it was beer. the Scotch probably sux but I’d buy it just ’cause the ad was so good.

    I was asking myself: is that Sharon Stone until…

    Nuff said.

  34. rog
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 5:24 pm | Permalink

    Och nae, best not to mention Glencoe laddie…

  35. Sinclair Davidson
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 5:25 pm | Permalink

    The distinctive clan tartans were adopted in the 19 century (maybe 18th, I’m working from memory), before that everyone wore any colour they liked. Arthur Herman sets this out in his excellent book “How the scots invented the modern world“. If I ever see that scotch I might buy it - the ads are very good. There are many others on YouTube - all very funny.

  36. Jacques Chester
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 6:57 pm | Permalink

    When I was at St Andrew’s College at Sydney they had a clanbook with all the tartans in it — ran to hundreds of pages as I recall.

  37. Posted January 5, 2008 at 12:24 am | Permalink

    Scotland - settled by Celts who thought Ireland wasn’t either cold or wet enough for the likes of them.

  38. Boris
    Posted January 5, 2008 at 12:37 am | Permalink

    The word ’scot’ in Russian means cattle.

  39. Posted January 7, 2008 at 2:01 pm | Permalink

    Sinclair,
    The wearing of anything associated with the rebellion (if you accept the English word for it) of 1745 was banned once it was put down. Once the ban was lifted and Scottish “traditional” dress became trendy under Victoria there was a lot of “reconstruction” (read faking) of old tradition. The same happened with Morris dancing and other stuff from the ancient past of the UK. Much of it was Victorian invention, based, sometimes, on fact.

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