Sunday, September 15, 2013

Maybe they were thinking of Jellystone Park

WE all love going on holidays to interesting places, and the best holidays are those for which someone else pays. Ah, happy memories! Jaunts to investigate, according to the fashion of the moment, The sodomitic imperative in Etruscan furniture design, Toga hemming in a time of climate change, 309-237BCE and the Professor's greatest contribution to the sum of human knowledge, Breaking the stretched pig-gut ceiling: the suppression of feminist ambition in the pre-glass era.  Alas, now that the Australian Research Council is about to have its pockets picked, and just as the urgency to find new funding models is paramount, a solution:
The No McDonald's in the Dandenong Ranges group used crowdfunding site Indiegogo to raise $36,000 to send a delegation to McDonald's Chicago headquarters. The money also funded an advertisement in the Chicago Tribune - an open letter to McDonald's chief executive Don Thompson signed by ''the community of Tecoma''.
That's the shot! And, better yet, the academic tradition of ignoring inconvenient facts -- not to mention making stuff up -- continues apace:
Mr Muratore told the Tribune plans for a restaurant near the ''pristine forest'' of the Dandenong Ranges was ''a little bit like putting a McDonald's right near Mount Rushmore''.
The Dandenongs are "pristine"! Who knew that Puffing Billy and those TV towers are natural wonders, or that feral pussycats and foxes are actually native species? The Tecoma  junketeers do need to appreciate one important point, however: when spinning a line, make sure assertions cannot be easily checked.

A Macca's near Mount Rushmore? That's right, there isn't one -- not yet, anyway. But there is a Dairy Queen, a Subway, a full platter of pizza joints and numerous other fast-food outlets, starting at a distance of no more than 1.8 miles from the monument (which should be boycotted until Ronald Reagan's face is added).

In between room-service breakfasts and tasty crowd-funded dinners after donation-supported trips to see the White Sox and Sears Tower, the Tecoma crusaders will need to revise their  publicity material.

They had just better not cite Yosemite orYellowstone national parks

 






23 comments:

  1. Is a MacDonalds picinic basket available in Jellystone National park?

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  2. Only to those who are, -- hey, Boo Boo -- smarter than the average bare-arsed Tecoma protester

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    1. So that would limit their availability to about 99% of the population

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  3. Good on the Tecoma protesters! Anyone who is against the obesity, litter and other issues associated with junk food deserves a holiday.
    I note that this is the third time that this controversy has been brought up in Bunyipitude.

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    1. Obesity is a matter of personal choice. Litter can be regulated by-law and fine and those "other issues" amount to personal prejudice against what other people put in their mouths.

      Go root your pushbike, David, you big began sook.

      Delete
  4. Benefactors, and client-patron relationships - that's the way to go now, Prof.

    It seems that no project is so foolish that there is nowhere to be found a collection of fools ready to be very easily parted from their monies.

    I just love double negatives, Prof. Aren't they fun?

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  5. Your don't understand Professor. National Parks in Australia are not for the little people, nor for that matter, are any areas unilaterally designated NIMBY zones.
    Large areas of Kosciusko NP are closed off to anyone who can't show a hairy leg, work up a sweaty crotch and hump the latest fashion in walking poles and backpacks. A fiefdom of the bureaucrats.
    From my own experience, all are welcomed into U.S. NP's and encouraged to stay. All facilities provided. Even African game reserves,with their heightened danger, embrace the visitor and massage one's hard currency, from backpacker to potentate.
    (McDonald's in Tecoma should toss in the towel and hand the site over for the erection of a mosque. That should calm the natives.)


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  6. Are they staying in $500 a night suites while on the road?

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  7. The Old and Unimproved DaveSeptember 15, 2013 at 1:49 PM

    A hitch in the Army would teach those Australian Research Council intellectuals some things they'd find useful in these straitened times of funding.

    Things like, how to survive under bleak conditions without support; how to improvise tools and apparatus; the dictum that if you follow the rules, nothing very bad will happen to you...

    Oh, and most important of all now that Tony Abbott is the PM ... don't do anything to make the sergeant notice you.

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    Replies
    1. TOUD,

      How right you are! And futhermore the Golden Bum Cheeks is pro-military.

      eg "After dedicating themselves to a career in the U.S. Armed Forces, these men and women were able to translate their military skills and experiences to some satisfying and fulfilling careers at McDonald’s. Now, they encourage their fellow veterans to join them."

      Delete
  8. Maybe they would have more success lobbying the Chinese. They shut down the Starbucks in the Forbidden City.
    Ostensibly for cultural reasons. However they never really explained how it came to be there in the first place.
    Anyway remaining true to culture they have probably found that there is a definite need for such services and that a family member of one of the senior apparatchik can fulfill the demand.

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  9. And why are the protesters described as "bare-arsed?"

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    Replies
    1. Because one should always show one's best side.

      Cheers

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    2. The Old and Unimproved DaveSeptember 18, 2013 at 5:31 AM

      Some sort of Constitutional right presumably.

      The right to bear arms, the right to bare arse...

      Delete
  10. One of the most imaginative uses of kickstarter yet. Chicago is a city well worth visiting. Incidentally, I will be visiting the UK and Spain next month. For a reasonable fee, I will act as a one-man delegation prepared to protest anything from the Ashes to the Inquisition.

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  11. I think it should be boycotted until Ronald MacDonald's face is added.

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  12. There's a electrified suburban railway going through, and stopping at, Tecoma. Should make an easy escape for Bear Grylls if he ever decides to drop in for a wilderness adventure.

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    1. " In 2009 it was the fourth least used metropolitan railway station in Melbourne, …"
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecoma_railway_station

      Cheers

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    2. Well yeah, notice how trains are at their most packed during peak hours i.e. to and from work.

      Delete
  13. David, as the self-appointed blog Nazi, why don't you take up with the working people of Tecoma their lack of moral superiority in creating demand for the convenience of takeaway food? Or is this just a racist anti-American thing that applies only to one brand that leftist hive insects with small brains love to demonise? Would a Chinese takeaway responding to the same demand confront the same opposition? Are you also a member of the Greens and/or GetUp, who are using their tactics to shut down commerce in the Dandenongs? One thing is for certain: you don't represent the ordinary people of Tecoma. You despise them.

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  14. "Anyone who is against the obesity, litter and other issues associated with junk food"
    I walk past McDonalds daily and I'm not fat.

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  15. Seriously, how can you knock a town that doesn't want a McDonalds? What's the world coming to?

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  16. "Seriously, how can you knock a town that doesn't want a McDonalds? What's the world coming to?"
    How can you allow a town to be hijacked by activists who demand that consumers be denied the choice of which small businesses they patronise? The Tecoma campaign is being run by smug, elitist, racist, anti-American totalitarians.

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