Former Labor leader Mark Latham on PMLive, Sky News :

"...the things you had to do to go through the motions of the standard political contest....I hate the idea of war. I'm not a fan of the military, and many of the people in it.

"...I had to crap on a bit (praising the troops), get that over. Everyone does it. But if you came out and said 'I don't really think much of the troops', you'd end up with no seats and no votes. So that's the nature of politics.

"Those things don't rest easy with me now. I mean, you've got to be comfortable with yourself, first and foremost.

"...it is very hard for politicians in the environment where....you've got to toe the party line, you got to toe a lot of national emotional line, and if you don't necessarily agree with that, then go get another job, and that's what I did."

Mark Latham writing in the Australian Financial Review, August 20, 2009 (not online) : Read more »

Price Of Bread To Rise By Two Carbons

Two of the most recent attack ads of the Federal Election 2010 :

Meh. Try Harder.

The Liberal Party decide to go The Big Fear on the carbon tax : Read more »

Coming to DVD & download late October :

Five Stars

Crossing a review-style format with doco-reality TV is the best comedy idea to hit Australian TV screens since Alan Jones decided to squawk for five minutes just before 8am on the Today Show (sadly that piece of daily Gold is no longer). The smartly dressed Myles Barlow is the man responsible for the hilarious, disturbing, challenging, WTF? show Review, returning for its second series on ABC2 tonight at 9.30pm.

So what's under review for Review 2?

"I review Addiction, Fear, Starting a Cult, Being a B-Grade Celebrity, Buck’s Parties, Happiness, Justice, Racism, and Killing Kyle Sandilands, to name just a few."

Sadly, Kyle Sandilands was not willing to add total authenticity to that review.

The trailer : Read more »

It's funny, because it's true :

Effective political advertising :

The front page of The Australian online gets downright cognitively dissonant one day into Federal Election 2010 :

"Labor has started the campaign well ahead of the Coalition..."

"Voter support for Labor has slipped since the election was called...."

The Australian should considering changing it's advertising mantra from 'Think. Again.' to 'Wait. What?'

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Four of the top six most popular news stories of the week on the ABC News website are psychic octopus-related :

So much for ABC News readers being obsessed with politics.

The Australian, July 14 :

Americans who are attending the annual conference (with Kevin Rudd) are curious.

They wonder how it happened that an Australian leader who appeared so popular and so comfortable on the world stage only 12 months ago could be tossed out so quickly -- even before he had faced an election.

Read more »

Kudos Kodos

I keep hearing coup prime minister Julia Gillard using variants of this phrase :

"We must move/go forwards, not backwards."

Such a familiar phrase. Someone else had used it, many years ago, in a gripping campaign speech, powerfully podium pitching their political wares. Read more »

Some Saturday tunes.

Amazing. Redgum's John Schumann performing Cold Chisel's Khe Sahn :

Not the lyric change from "teenage Chinese princess" to "jaded Chinese princess."

Redgum are best known for the spine-chilling ode to youth lost in the Vietnam War, 'I Was Only 19' : Read more »

Pretty cutting amateur satire :

I've never linked to, or really watched, those Hitler Downfall parody vids. But this one about Kevin Rudd is very well done, covers the history, and was done extremely fast, online within a day of the Australian Coup.

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While Murdoch bloggers like Piers Akerman & Andrew Bolt whine about not getting credit for having predicted the downfall of prime minister Kevin Rudd earlier this year, with Bolt now actually demanding other journos apologise to him (yes, he really is that much of a monster cockhead), viewers of the satirical Double Take knew a coup by Julia Gillard was a goer from as far back as September of 2009. Key lines are at 1.45 :

Read more »

"Gotta get the numbers to replace him. It won't be that hard, half the Caucus wants to mace him."

Police violence against Sydney anti-war protesters 2004 - 2007 :

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Trouble Brewing :

The circumstances of Rudd’s removal are a graphic exposure of the thoroughly worm-eaten character of both the Labor Party and the entire system of so-called parliamentary democracy in Australia. The Labor Party long ago ceased to be a mass political party in any meaningful sense of the word, but the depth and breadth of the gulf between it and the lives and concerns of the mass of ordinary people have never been so clearly demonstrated.

The leadership challenge was not decided by a move from the caucus but by a tiny handful of unknown factional bosses and union bureaucrats responding directly to the demands of powerful corporate and financial elites for a revamping of the government.

Not only did backbench MPs have no idea of the events on Wednesday evening, Cabinet members were in the dark as well. As one minister told the ABC: “I am sitting in my office watching all this unfold on TV. I have no part in this and no idea what’s going on. This is madness.” Read more »

The Orstrahyun, always first with the Big News. From September, 2007 :

Gillard To Challenge Rudd For Leadership Of Labor Party

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Peter Hartcher :

Kevin Rudd’s polling numbers were no worse than John Howard’s had been at the same point in the electoral cycle on several occasions before he went on to win.

Howard managed to rally his party, campaign and win. Rudd has not been given the same opportunity.

Rudd’s poll support fell brutally in April and May, but had stabilised. Two polls this week, a Newspoll and an Essential Media survey, put Labor ahead by 52 per cent to 48 on the election-deciding two-party share of the vote. Read more »

Did it really only take the mere rumour that prime minister Kevin Rudd was considering a super-profits tax, like he was planning for Australia's richest miners, to be imposed on all of Australia's most profitable corporations, for the coup to commence?

It began, as most major news stories do these days, with a Twitter update. ABC News on Twitter announced before the 7pm news that prime minister Kevin Rudd was fighting a coup :

This news was retweeted (republished) minutes later by ABC managing director Mark Scott to around 30,000 followers, including every journalist, business leader, investor, news junkie in Australia who realises Twitter is where news breaks first now : Read more »

The Australian, quality lead editorial journalism, June 23 (excerpts) :

Kevin Rudd looks safe as leader, but at what price?

Judging by his performance in question time yesterday, the Prime Minister thinks he can win the next election. So, it seems, does the caucus, including the person who has the most to gain by Kevin Rudd's exit from the top job. Julia Gillard is astute, capable and popular - and she is sticking by her boss.

The alternative scenario advanced by many of Ms Gillard's supporters sees her replacing Mr Rudd a few months after a narrow Labor victory. She would indeed make a good prime minister. But like Peter Costello before her, the deputy might find that when it comes to power, timing is everything.

Read more »

Coup D'eRudd

Australia Vs Serbia. Gillard Vs Rudd.

Both events will make great television tonight.

(ABC News graphic)

ABC News :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership is under siege tonight from some of the Labor Party's most influential factional warlords.

It must be true. ABC managing director Mark Scott said so on Twitter : Read more »

What works for Portugal would also work for Australia. Unless we want to continue making criminals rich, and usually law-abiding citizens into criminals :

Whatever Iran & China Can Do, We Can Do Better

Oh, look. Time Magazine has a big story on Australia!

Ahhh, shit....

The concept of government-backed web censorship is usually associated with nations where human rights and freedom of speech are routinely curtailed. But if Canberra's plans for a mandatory Internet filter go ahead, Australia may soon become the first Western democracy to join the ranks of Iran, China and a handful of other nations where access to the Internet is restricted by the state.

Read more »

Peanut Butter Stings Less Than Vegemite

Helen Coonan : "I have two beautiful Golden Retrievers...."

Definitely one of the most downright bizarre, and hilarious, panel debates ever seen on Australian TV. The subject? Consensual Sex With Your Pets.

From Monday night's Q &A on your ABC (transcript slightly edited, corrected) : Read more »

Australia played a small role, as the landing zone, in one of the most remarkable episodes of space exploration - the capturing of small pieces of a comet by a Japanese space probe, now successfully returned to Earth for study.

More On Hayabusa Here

In more local Space-related news, Australian astronomer Anthony Wesley snapped this incredible shot of an unidentified impact on the surface of Jupiter : Read more »

The Australian government's latest attempt to scare away asylum seekers.

How effective will it be?

It depends on whether the dangers you're trying to escape are more or less scary than being lost in a stormy ocean,, doesn't it?

Plague Of Locusts? Blame Rudd

It may seem completely irrational to blame what is expected to be the worst locust plague in decades on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, but I've been reading plenty of Australian tabloid newspaper columnists recently and I've learned utterly irrational thought matters not a hoot.

It's Kevin Rudd's fault.

From Bloomberg :

The worst locust plague in more than two decades is threatening to strike Australia, the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter, after rainfall boosted egg-laying by the insects in major crop growing regions. Read more »

Even Murdoch columnist Andrew Bolt, who gets free trips to Israel and then 'forgets' to mention so in a Daily Telegraph column where he recited IDF propaganda about the Gaza Flotilla slaughter without question, apparently has had enough of the cruel, internationally condemned trade blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians :

Crikey's First Dog On The Moon has worried about a lot of things this week. Here's two :

Plenty More At First Dog's 'Highly Strung Week In Review'

If a reporter can say it on ABC News, why can't Kerry O'Brien drop it on the 7.30 Report? "For fuck's sake, Kevin Rudd, just answer the question!"

In case this isn't enough, I've posted a bunch of new stories at :

Your New Reality

And there's a shitload of new story links and random, vacuous, inappropriate and occasionally insightful comments over at Twitter :

Darryl Mason On Twitter

Enjoy.

I hope the trickle of entertaining #FedElect2010 political ads, by professionals & amateurs (or professionals imitating amateurs), turns into a steady stream. Key word - entertaining :

Via VexNews

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John Birmingham poses a What If? on The Greens, who now command a chunky 16% of the national vote, according to recent polls (excerpts) :

What if Bob Brown's lentil eating slouch bikers and militant anti-military-stuff movement actually got a couple, just a couple, of seats up in the lower house, and forming a government after the next election actually required the eventual victor, be it Abbott or Gillard, to cut a deal with Brown?

What would that government actually do? And more importantly what could it not do, in terms of passing laws and spending money?

They might well be able to leverage their support into seemingly minor but actually significant policies such as, say, a moratorium on the release of genetically-modified organisms into the environment. Or a ban on old growth logging. Read more »

Adriana Xenides died today, aged 54 :

Dan Ilic pays an appropriate tribute : Read more »

It doesn't matter what you think, or what some damned blogger, or one of 900 commenters to a news story, or ten million Twitterers think, or some stunningly biased columnist thinks, or what Kevin Rudd thinks, or Obama, or Putin, or anybody else, what matters most is what the leader of Turkey thinks :

We know, war as well as peace has its laws. In war you do not attack children, in war you do not attack women, old people, in war you do not attack civilians or religious functionaries, in war you do not attack those who are hoisting the white flag, health and rescue personnel; not in wartime, but in peace time, those who do these things not only violate the law, at the same time they trample humanity under their feet, they abandon humanity. Read more »