How not to have a party

Another teenager has brought down the wrath of a virally spread party invitation on her long-suffering parents' house.

On the Facebook invitation, the girl said she didn't have enough time to invite everyone. ... She also said that the event was going to be an "open house" party as long as it didn't "get out of hand". She told Fairfax that she did this because only two people showed up to the last party she held.

Got that? She 'didn't have enough time' to invite everyone, and hadn't figured out even after her previous experience that perhaps people might rock up if you gave them some slight indication that you cared whether they did or not. Like, being organised enough to invite them individually and personally.

Perhaps even -- I know this is a radical idea -- in writing of some kind.

Possibly even in joined-up writing. Of the kind you do with a pen. A pen is a ... Oh, never mind.

Also, you kids get off my lawn.

Asylum seekers: it's not rocket surgery

Founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Kon Karapanagiotidis, blogging at the Wheeler Centre (where you can read the whole thing), makes a statement that could not be clearer, simpler or more true:

In the past, I have naively thought the facts would bring an end to the fearmongering – by explaining to people that we receive just a few thousand asylum seekers each year, and that they pose no threat to our way of life or sustainability. I want to explain that 99.99% of people who entered Australia last year did so by plane; that Australia takes just 0.03% of the world’s refugees and displaced people; and that there are 76 countries that take more refugees than we do, based on wealth.

These days, I talk about a much simpler truth: the moral responsibilities that come with living in a free and democratic country, and what it means to be an Australian. This means we have a moral duty to act and show compassion to vulnerable, innocent people who are fleeing for their lives.

Being Australian should count for something greater than pandering to baseless fears.

Thank God someone's finally said it, and a man to boot

Take it away, Jonathan Green at The Drum:

Every 48 hours or so Kevin pops up to be dignified yet deeply pathetic. The Prime Minister is continually tackled, in almost every media appearance in recent days. Radio station 4BC this morning asks if she "feels guilty". A demur variant on "blood on your hands" I guess, the Hawke/Carleton confrontation that followed the shafting of Bill Hayden, a routine political machination.

Guilt, or blood on your hands... is there something of a semantic gender divide in the two concepts? Did people ask Kevin Rudd if he felt guilty for rolling Kim Beazley? Did the press pack hound Tony Abbott for some display of remorse after his rout of Turnbull? Did Turnbull have to offer hugs to Brendan Nelson?

Is it because we assume that being, you know, a woman, Gillard has not only a greater capacity for empathy but some sort of obligation to express it? Just wondering.

Somebody give that man a Balfours Frog Cake.

(Not too sure about the cost of pearl necklaces, though. I wouldn't have thought ... Oh, never mind.)

Even now, just occasionally, I hear my mother's voice

"If you write a thousand words today, you'll feel a thousand words less desperate and put-upon tomorrow."

'AMA v nurses' says crikey.com.au

Well, there's a no-brainer.

Carn the nurses.