Two year old Cohen Stone, from Perth, has achieved international fame the easy way, by crawling inside a lolly machine.
His mother took the photo. She claimed he was upset. Note the little thief is so upset he's trying to pacify himself with lollies. The family walked away with an apology and a $50 voucher. Read more »
Heart Full Of Hate
Miranda Devine, yesterday :
"....the internet has made it possible for people to express that hate before their better instincts kick in, before the instant rush of blood to the head dissipates and is forgotten. Their primal viciousness is captured and congealed in digital form."
It sure is. Miranda Devine, February 12, 2009 :
If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.
Miranda Devine, December 2006 : Read more »
This radio ad from the UK takes Australia's old "Alert, But Not Alarmed" campaign into disturbing new realms of suburban paranoia and neighbour loathing :
Presumably it will be only a matter of time before we get identical ads here.
Probably closer to the election....
The Daily Telegraph :
Are there really "respected Australian psychics"?
And if so, why doesn't the Daily Telegraph get rid of their journos and employ psychics instead?
Tomorrow's News Today, literally.
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She Finds Your Lack Of Faith In Her Faith Disturbing :
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She Finds Your Lack Of Faith In Faith Disturbing :
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Apparently, deputy prime minister Julia Gillard excites the same sort of weird fantasies amongst middle-aged conservative men as Margaret "You Naughty Boy!" Thatcher once did:
"Has she bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?"
I predicted it would be a month or more before Australia's conservative media elite began claiming that Julia Gillard is planning to, or is "set to challenge", prime minister Kevin Rudd for the leadership of the Liberal Party. I was wrong.
Andrew Bolt, the soon-to-be easy listening morning radio host, thinks this is representative of the "predatory gay" :
Even though they're also wearing speedos in a non-beach setting, this is not gay or even remotely homosexual, nor predatory. At all :
Opposition leader Tony Abbott on prime minister Kevin Rudd, Lateline :
"It is pretty clear he is a guy who is all announcement and no follow through. He is, t coin a phrase, 'All Hat And No Cowboy'."
Abbott didn't coin the phrase. It's been in use in Texas for decades :
"It is not a compliment in West Texas to be referred to as 'All hat and no cowboy'. It is a term of derision used to indicate the person has little real character beneath the very thin veneer of appearance."
It's a good line, but it doesn't sound very Australian.
There is argument that the correct West Texas historical phrase is actually "All Hat, No Cattle", which certainly sounds more local.
Or perhaps Abbott knows this phrase, too, and decided not to use it to attack Rudd, because it was popularly attached to George W. Bush from the late 1990s. Read more »
You may feel sorry for the journalists, but the Fall Of Newspapers is set to claim many victims, least of all obsessive-compulsive newspaper stackerers :
Juli-aaaaaahhhhh
By Darryl Mason
Liberal Party activists Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt get started on their campaign to sew division in the federal Labor Party vote, by pushing deputy prime minister Julia Gillard as the person who should leading Labor into the next election.
After all, Kevin Rudd is a one term prime minister, or so goes the new chant, even though polls show nothing like the anger and outrage against Rudd that professional Liberal Party activist-columnists, including Miranda Devine, claim is running wild across the land.
You know what's coming next, don't you? A full-blown campaign from the Friends Of The Liberal Party in the opinion pages of, mostly, the Murdoch media claiming that Gillard "has almost got the numbers" and "is set to challenge for the leadership of the Labor Party." Read more »
Weaponised Fruit
As you may have already heard, British prime minister Gordon Brown has a temper of Ruddian proportions. But new reports keep hitting the British media about just how fiery and abusive Brown's temper can be. Even innocent fruit does not escape the Brown wraith.
An excerpt from an article in The Sun :
A factory worker claims that during an official visit to his plant the PM hurled a tangerine into a laminating machine after flying into a rage while on a phone call. He said: "The fruit got stuck in the machine and clogged it.
"It was very embarrassing, we had to stop the tour and he got even more angry. He called the person that gave him the tangerine an idiot."
Fox News = Quality Geography
THR notices Fox News is still struggling with its geographic disability :
It's not the first time Fox News has made such a mistake. Read more »
Give Generously To PeteAid
This says more about the shitty, petty state of Australian politics and some ranks of the political media than it does about Peter Garrett :
Mr Garrett has always struggled with the impossible task of melding mainstream political reality with the strong conservation and human rights views he espoused as lead singer of the Oils.
Glenn Milne is now doing fashion reviews : Read more »
Pacific Tsunami Hitting New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Guinea, Australia
By Darryl Mason
UPDATES OF TSUNAMI REACHING ACROSS ENTIRE PACIFIC BASIN BELOW
(10pm) A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake has struck off the coast of Central Chile. It's the 7th highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded. A tsunami alert has been issued for Queensland by the Bureau of Meteorology. Read more »
Tsunami Heading For New Zealand, Fiji, New Guinea, Australia
UPDATES OF TSUNAMI REACHING ACROSS ENTIRE PACIFIC BASIN BELOW
(10pm) A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake has struck off the coast of Central Chile. It's the 7th highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded. A tsunami alert has been issued for Queensland by the Bureau of Meteorology. Read more »
So That's What You Sound Like
So this is an interview I did with Carol Duncan of ABC Radio Newcastle a couple of Wednesdays ago, about blogging and writing. The interview runs about 20 minutes.
You can listen to it here.
Now you know what my voice sounds like, I suppose I should dive in and record some yelly rants and obnoxiously in-your-face videos.
More later.
The Sounds Of Early Morning Barnaby
Barnaby Joyce conducts a radio interview on the phone while also, fluuuuusssssh, on the toilet. And why not?
Or does he?
Crikey investigates and Barnaby's people reveal it wasn't a toilet flushing, it was instead an early morning garbage truck.
I sense a Walkley is already being engraved.
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Censorship By Matt Drudge
It's hard to believe that Matt Drudge was once regarded as some sort of take-no-prisoners mainstream media troublemaker.
An example follows of Matt Drudge's reaction, and censorship, when confronted with one of the most explosive media scandal stories in years.
A headline on both the Drudge Report website, and the @Drudge_Report Twitter feed :
Presenting Friendly NewKev : The 2010 Edition
Australian panel TV shows where comedians allegedly show their razor sharp wit are notoriously scripted and rehearsed.
So how many times did prime minister Kevin Rudd run through the questions he was thrown on Good News Week last night, with his staff? I'd say, at least ten times. Probably a few times with his image handlers as well, just to get the nuances of Friendly NewKev just about right :
Has a laugh track been added to enhance the crowd reaction? Read more »
A Drive Isn't Funny, With An Empty Tummy
"the cows and the sheep and the birds and the horses were mooing and baah-ing and whistling and neighing....."
It took only someone asking if I remembered the words to an old Kenfucky Tried Chook (that's what we used to it) animated ad, featuring two kids pushing maximum density, for the jingle to shove aside whatever else I was thinking about and begin playing.
Disturbingly, I remembered the words, more than 30 years later, with at least 85% accuracy. No wonder the history lessons of the kings and queens of England didn't find a permanent home in my memory, it was already stuffed full of ad jingles. Read more »
Piers Akerman Claims The Intellectually Disabled Are "Incapable Of Understanding Plain English"
Daily Telegraph columnist, and ABC Insiders panelist, Piers Akerman plays the 'You're A Retard' card in reply to commenters who keep pointing out what an enormous liar he is :
Piers Akerman's words :
Read more »
"...you really should read an article before commenting on it. Unless you have an intellectual disability, and are incapable of understanding plain English."
Peter Garrett Quits Politics, Rejoins Midnight Oil
Come back here in February 2011 and tell me I'm wrong.
At every gig, for years to come, there'll be at least one person in the audience shout-singing, "How can we sleep while our batts are burning!"
Miranda Devine will do it, at least once. With Tim Blair on her shoulders.
The Chaser said farewell to Peter Garrett's political career in 2008 Read more »
The Greens : Vote For Us Or....We'll Politely Ask You Again To Vote For Us
Below is the absolute opposite of your bog standard political attack ads. And it cuts through. The message is clear, there's a vision for the future, and The Greens are not trying to scare you into voting for them. That in itself is refreshing.
The 'Epic Beard Man' Top Ten
If you haven't seen this yet, be warned, there is sickening tension, violence, racism all round and plenty of swears. The list will follow :
The Epic Beard Man Top Ten
* The Epic Beard Man, clearly upset, tried to end the confrontation by walking away.* The man who threw the first punch, threw only one punch. Read more »
AC/DC : The Product
SmartCompany.com argues famous brands can learn a lot from the decades of $50 million per year plus success enjoyed by Australia's geatest hard rock band. The cut-thru message is: don't fuck with the brand that people already love :
Read more »
Quality Death Exploiting Journalism
Glenn Milne, The Australian :
....more Australians have died as a result of the Rudd government's home insulation program, "administered" by Environment Minister Peter Garrett, than lost their lives in the Iraq war.
This is what years of alcohol abuse does to your brain, kids. So go easy.
Nothing from Milne, of course, about the dozens of young Australians who served in the Iraq War, witnessed the gruesome brutal reality of an illegal invasion that Milne fully backed and came home and killed themselves.
That Milne can even dare to mention Jake Kovco's name as he attempts to blame Peter Garrett for the deaths of four insulation installers shows just what a foul and odious Liberal Party hack he really is. Read more »
It's A Wonderland Land, It's A HoneyLand
If Australia ever needs a Village People-esque 12 inch disco remix national anthem, here it is.
@cosmicjester via @justinnorrie finds some YouTube Gold :
The song, Good News Australia, charted somewhat in 1979-1980, according to here. Read more »
Lit My Knnow If I Mussed Any Tyypos
Tim Blair, an editor for the Daily Telegraph, spots a typo (!) in The Age, while once again missing typo incidents in his own newspaper's online front page.
In the big box lead story no less :
It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened. Read more »
The Joe Hockey Experience
Isn't Question Time humiliating enough? No.
ABC's Lateline, February 11, 2010. Let's go straight to the highlights : Read more »
They Should Be Scared, If Our Serial Killers Don't Get Them, Our Psychotically Violent Fauna Will
They just make this shit up, so everyone has a definable and thereby treatable phobia :
Novahollandiaphobia - Fear of Australia, Australians, Australian culture etc.
There's a lot to choose from in that list, of course there is, but I think this is my favourite surreal phobia : Read more »
Murdoch Defamation Payout Spigot Piers Akerman Faked Famous 'We Must Announce Disasters' Quote That Fueled The AGW Skeptic Movement
The Daily Telegraph's Piers Akerman, November 5, 2006 :
This alarmist approach reeked of stupidity, snake oil, and misguided gospel preaching but was in line with a formula adopted by the first chairman of the IPCC, Sir John Houghton, who produced the IPCC's first three reports in 1990, 1995 and 2001 and wrote in his book Global Warming, The Complete Briefing, in 1994: "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.''
That bolded quote cited by Akerman did not appear in Sir John Houghton's book. Today's UK Independent quotes Houghton : Read more »
In the comments of this collection of Library Porn, someone complains that the State Library of Victoria was not included. Good call. It's a beautiful building.
The Shakespeare window from the stained glass collection :
A controversy has erupted in New Zealand over the publication of photos showing a Victoria Cross awarded SAS corporal walking from a building in Kabul, shortly after a gun battle that killed three insurgents and wounded 70 others.
The horror those eyes have seen. Read more »
Cue Murdoch Media Outrage
Oracle Tim Blair on ABC director Mark Scott's plans for a 24 hour TV news channel :
ABC News launches 24 hour TV news channel :
“No media organisation in the country is better equipped to deliver this channel than the national broadcaster,” said ABC Managing Director Mark Scott.
“We can draw on the investment already made in the ABC, through its major newsrooms in every state and territory, 12 international bureaux and 60 regional newsrooms, to deliver to Australians a top-quality 24-hour news service that is comprehensive, independent and up to the minute.” Read more »
New Zealand : It's There For The Taking
We cannot wait for New Zealand to become a threat to Australia's national security. They vigorously deny pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but information leaked to The Orstrahyun, by various defence industry lobbyists who are worried that a winding down of the War On Terror will result in a reduction in profitable war industry contracts, say that while New Zealand currently does not have nuclear weapons and is not actively trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program, the intent to do so at some future point in time is a possibility, and the dream of New Zealand becoming a dominant nuclear power in the Pacific is more than likely being discussed, if not in an official capacity, then at least between a few people at a pub on a Friday night.
Enough is enough. Read more »
There's not a lot of tourist attractions around Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia.
But there is a decorated termite mound :
This radio ad from the UK takes Australia's "Alert, But Not Alarmed" campaign into disturbing new realms of suburban paranoia and neighbour loathing :
Presumably it will be only a matter of time before we get identical ads here. Probably closer to the election.
Shot At Overnight Fame Flames Out
Contrary to popular belief, publicist Max Markson cannot sell any old shit to Today Tonight for a suitcase full of cash :
ABC Blinded By "GroupThink" Claims Chairman
ABC chairman Maurice Newman on why he believes the Australia media in general, and to a less defined degree ABC news and current affairs, has been intolerant of climate change doubters. Newman blamed "GroupThink".
Excerpts from an interview on ABC's PM :
"The media hasn't been good at picking these things up and it's really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical."And I brought in as well in that vain what's been going on in climate change where there's been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead. Read more »
But What Kind Of Truth Is It?
I'll be talking on ABC radio at 1.30pm (Sydney time) about popularity of 9/11 conspiracies and the American 9/11 Truther movement, which the American mainstream media is currently pumping as a potentially violent extremist group. Read more »
The Daily Telegraph online, still classy :
Or to put it another way :
4 Out of 5 Modern Women Mostly Trust Their Men With Shared Finances
So how did the Daily Telegraph get that headline and story out the results of a poll that asked :
Do you or do you not "totally trust partner with shared finances"?
Well, you have to consider that the story was written by Joe Hildebrand. Read more »
This brilliant tilt-shift vid by ZebraFive was "constructed from over 9000 stills shot on location around Sydney using a Canon EOS 5D MKII."
Deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop - Respect Her Religious Beliefs Or She Will Eat Your Soul
(via @Norbs)
Welcome To Melbourne
Photo from The Voxel Agents
A roundup of the freak Melbourne storm, from ABC News Melbourne HQ, with the great shot of a journalist reporting on the storms, holding an umbrella, inside a building, due to the amount of water pouring in through the roof.
Holy Fuck! Read more »
Brilliant digital artist Monomauve has 'detooned' Mr Monty Burns.
The Full Ex-ell-ent Image Is Here
Of course Australians have known for years what Mr Burns would look like, detooned :
The Sydney Morning Herald headline promises to reveal "The Dark Side" of a missing Australian nuclear scientist.
So what have they got?
His personal website reveals a man with bower-bird interests. These ranged from an obsession with suicide rates in the United States, Japan, Britain and Australia, the writings of Japanese Kamikaze pilots, Quebec's suicide ''hot spot'', ''suicide clubs'', The Complete Manual on Suicide to holocaust scenarios of nuclear attack, chemical poisoning, terrorist attacks and extensive works on the morality of war.
@Tara_Moss asks is this the 'Headline Typo Of The Year?' It may be Typo Of The Decade :
However, the story is good news. The Royal Institute For Deaf and Blind Children celebrated its 150th anniversary today. Author Tara Moss joined Therese Rein at the celebrations, which included the unveiling of a video conferencing room at the new library. Video conferencing that will eventually allow hearing impaired kids to talk to the world, and hear all those voices talking back.
Sometimes I want to give the miracle of digital technology a big hug. Read more »
Poodle-Kitty spotted in Erskineville :
Northern Territory : Fish Fall From The Sky Twice in 2 Days
Local : "Thank God It Didn't Rain Crocodiles!"
grab from photo by Christine Balmer.
Last Thursday and Friday afternoon, residents of a Northern Territory town saw hundreds of fish fall from the sky. Locals claim the fish were still alive when they hit the ground.
On both days, the rain of fish began around 6pm. Read more »
Tsunami Heading For New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Guinea, Australia
UPDATES OF TSUNAMI REACHING ACROSS ENTIRE PACIFIC BASIN BELOW
(10pm) A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake has struck off the coast of Central Chile. It's the 7th highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded. A tsunami alert has been issued for Queensland by the Bureau of Meteorology. Read more »
Stay Away
A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake has struck off the coast of Central Chile. It's the 7th highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded. A tsunami alert has been issued for Queensland by the Bureau of Meteorology.
Threatened areas extend from Point Danger to Double Island Point :
Possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding
The Tinfoil Is Causing The Microphone To Feedback
Over the past few weeks, Andrew Bolt on Twitter has been undergoing what can only be described as a rapid descent into utter paranoia. Signs of trouble began a month ago, and have culminated in the past few days with an obsessive focus on the allegedly Pagan Lefty-Infiltrated national broadcaster he is forced to pay for :
"I am weeping tears of patriotism.""Racism only exists towards oppressed white men like me."
"The ABC took my chair. What next? Are they going to take my pants?"
"There's a black van over the road from my house. The ABC are spying on me! This tinfoil headgear will protect my thoughts." Read more »
How And When Did Mossad Assassins Get Australian Passports?
By Darryl Mason
From smh.com.au :
Police have 15 more suspects in the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, including three who were allegedly travelling on Australian passports, CNN reported last night.
The network reported police as saying that among the new suspects are six more people who are accused of using British passports in the commission of the crime, four others using Irish passports, two other French passport holders and three people, including a woman, travelling on Australian passports.
The Department of Foreign Affairs was unavailable for comment last night.
"Mum? When I Grow Up I Want To Pole-Dance For Australia!"
By Darryl Mason
ABC 3, "the free-to-air channel for kids", had an....interesting story on possible future Olympic events during its February 23 afternoon bulletin.
Watch the news bulletin from 4.16.
Transcript excerpts :
"To sport, and there are some pretty weird events in the Olympics. Look at curling in Vancouver right now, a sport you actually play with a broom."But what about pole-dancing?" Read more »
Conroy Weeps With Laughter
Anti-digital censorship activist thingy Anonymous announced a protest against Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's plans to filter internet content, and claimed :
We Are Legion
A Roman Legion :
The Sydney Morning Herald belatedly realises that John Pilger is one of Australia's most incisive writers and brilliant orators, and publishes excerpts from his recent speech to students at Sydney Boys High School :
...Australia has changed its Anglo-Irish characteristics for a nation drawn from all corners of the earth, this amazing diversity is celebrated (at this school)....In congratulating all school leavers, I urge you to remember success in life does not necessarily come from prizes. What is important is the person you are, the kindness you express, the compassion you feel and the courage you show. Go into the world and relinquish the safety of silence and make trouble - remembering that the most important trouble is calling to account those who assume power over our lives.
Big Kevin, Is He Watching Your Children?
By Darryl Mason
So this is why prime minister Kevin Rudd wanted to get a laptop in front of every school student in Australia :
....the laptops issued to high-school students....have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families.
Don't panic. Yet. This story is about an extremely creepy laptops-for-students program in Philadelphia.
But do the the tens of thousands of laptops being distributed to Australian schools have webcams as standard? And can they be remotely activated?
Students probably already know the lenses can be blinded temporarily, without damage, by taping a small piece of paper over that digital eye.
Just in case.
Midnight Oil To Reunite For PeteAid
Four people had to die so the Sydney Morning Herald's Miranda Devine could deliver this joke :
Genius stuff.
Truck Almost Ends Tony Abbott's Rise To Prime Minister
Maybe he really does have God on his side, after all :
God has now marked down Tony Abbott's name down in his 'You Owe Me One, Big Style' ledger.
(Via ABC Video)
Many will recommend this movie to Tony Abbott, starting now, but @idlaviv wonders if Abbott's driver has already seen it : Read more »
Stories I've Been Reading Instead Of Posting Blogs Here :
American Soldiers In Iraq Listen To Slayer's 'Angel Of Death' To "Become A Monster" and Get Their Heads Into A "Predator Mindset"
Five Centuries Of New Media Technology Scares - From The Printing Press To Facebook
UK Police Surveillance Drone Grounded....For Being Illegal
Claims CIA Had Weaponised LSD By 1951, Sprayed It Over A French Village Causing An Outbreak Of Mass Hysteria That Killed Five Read more »
Real world protests for virtual world freedoms :
(click to enlarge)
JG Ballard, 'What I Believe' :
I believe in the gentleness of the surgeon’s knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.
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Some day soon, all protests will be conducted only by people dressed as Na'vi, wearing V (Guy Fawkes) masks.
Ray Of Lite
ABC Managing Director Mark Scott, on Twitter :
That 24/7 news recruitment must be underway. Just saw Ray Martin in the Ultimo foyer. I'm always last to know.
Ray Martin is at the ABC to discuss doing a show for the ABC's 24 hour news channel?
That can mean only one thing. The long awaited full hour version of this pilot :
Kevin Rudd Admits It : The Great Global Warming Conspiracy Is A Commo Plot!
You didn't believe it when Andrew Bolt told you. You didn't believe it when puzzle maker Christopher Monckton told you. So will you finally believe it when prime minister Kevin Rudd tells you?
Read more »
"Let me tell you, (global warming) is all one global communist conspiracy. So watch out, and lock up your friends. It's going to come and get you in the middle of the night."
A Panel Of One
From Q & A :
Here are the questions our panel faced this week.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was the sole guest.
He near effortlessly swivelled through his iBrain MP3 carousel to come up with tranquiliser-strength answers to most of the questions posed by an audience of 200 GenYers, already numbed into mild shock by the loss of their phones, they were sometimes seen furtively grasping their own fingers to stop them unconsciously air-texting.
Some of the occasional non-soft questions lobbed at the prime minister : Read more »
"We Asked Ourselves For A Comment But We Refused"
From Twitter :
The ABC contacted the ABC for a comment, but the ABC refused to play ball! True story. Read more »
Do Our Drug Only
So that's why they have so many drug dogs and cops and security guards frisking people upon entry to the Big Day Out, to make sure you only consume the sponsored drug of choice :
Health experts have called for the Big Day Out music festival to drop its sponsorship deals with major alcohol companies or lift the admission age from 15 to 18.
You gotta hook 'em when they're young.
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