BREAKING NEWS: NewsCorp Reveals NewsCorp "Least Biased"

It's a special kind of humiliation for the remaining decent journalists at Rupert Murdoch's crumbling Australian newspaper empire that they even have to think about 'crafting' stories like this, let alone having to run them all over their media (image via TomWConnell) :

  

Hilarious. The desperate attempts at credibility-salvaging and face-saving going on at NewsCorp Australia is getting ridiculous, and quite sad.

Curiously, even NewsCorp readers don't think the ABC coverage of Federal Election 2013 is particularly "Leftist." But their columnists and editors keep pumping that line about ABC being over-run by leftist hordes and its news reporting being riddled with bias against conservatives.

Not even Murdoch tabloid readers believe it.


Here's a small sample of recent tabloid front pages from Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp - "Australia's Least Biased Publisher."

Now IKEA Weighs In On Federal Election, The Man On The Box

You have to pay this, very well done. A John Howard potrait features on the wall of the Abbutt, and on the wall of the Ruddik is a framed Kevin07 t-shirt.

via @Clementine_Ford

Newspoll Reveals Rudd Led Spectacular Comeback In Just Six Days, Murdoch Media Doesn't Notice

Newspoll, you're so damn finicky.

So according to Newspoll, in just six days prime minister Kevin Rudd has gone from being at "record lows" to Labor support being at its "highest level" since the election campaign began.
 
But nobody at The Australian seemed to notice The Rudd Surge, least of all Newspoll wrangler Dennis Shanahan.

Unlike just six days ago, when Rudd was at "record lows" :

Mr Rudd today shrugged off the devastating Newspoll and said he had been written off many times before during his political career.

“I'm a fighter and there are many things worth fighting for in this election campaign,” he told the Seven Network.

I actually admire Shanahan's work explaining to us how the Murdoch co-owned Newspoll is actually nearly always telling us Labor is doomed. Doomed!

Anyone willing to write thousands of words a week on that fucking berzerk poll, year after year after year, deserves some respect. Probably.

Shanahan on Newspoll is like some bizarre public experiment by Rupert Murdoch, for the confusement and amusement of the masses. Well, of course, there's not so many masses at The Australian anymore, but that's another story. For later.

One you won''t read much about in The Australian.

Like The KRudd Comeback story that was right there, if only they'd wanted to find it..

Maybe next week.

Rap News Delivers Julian Assange As John Farnham

 If the Australian election had not been strange and surreal enough for you yet, Senate contender Julian Assange has handed himself over to Rap News, instead of Sweden. Yeah, that''s Assange in a mullet, in frnt of 0s and 1s, miming his Assange4Senate cheat sheet to John Farnham's You're The Voice. He could have gone for a whole bunch of John Farnham songs. Help! for starters.

The whole video is worth a view or two, but the bit where Julian Assange does his John Farnham thing starts at 6:50.



For comparison, below is the original John Farnham video (from 0:28). Fun Farnham Fact: John Farnham released an astouinding dozen 'video albums' in the 1980s.




Of course you can go too far. Did anyone really need to see Assange 'Aussie Up'? No doubt this will be the image from the video used to mock him most. But you get the feeling Assange knows that. And he doesn't care.

Neither do Rap News.




More soon....

Rupert Murdoch's Australian Media Hits Peak Hitler

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd spoke to students at a college in Sydney. The walls of the room featured posters of Hitler, Mussolini, Einsenhower and Rommel, appropriate to the historical studies of world history underway at the time.

This Andrew Meares photo as shown on the Sydney Morning Herald election blog shows the classroom with various posters of world leaders, dictators, military chiefs : 



For most of the Australian media, Kevin Rudd being seen near such posters caused little fuss.

But it gave Hitler-obsessives Col Allan and Rupert Murdoch the chance to live out their dream.

After warming up by dressing Kevin Rudd in a Nazi uniform only four days into the federal election campaign, the Australian Murdoch media now had the chance to go Full Hitler on Kevin Rudd.

They hit Peak Full Hitler sometime around 11pm last night.

This is the story appearing all over Rupert Murdoch's Australian online media and rapidly crumbling newspaper empire today:





The Herald Sun liked the 'story' so much,  they ran it 3 TIMES on their online front page.

 That's Hitler Rudd 3 times, in case you didn't get the message:



 
There is some truth in the headline, with a more appropriate photo of someone Kevin Rudd has actually met in person, not just stood near a poster of.

While Kevin Rudd was getting the HitlerHitlerHitler treatment from the Daily Telegraph, here's the key photo they used today for opposition leader Tony "Action Man" Abbott. I shit you not:

Fairfax political reporter Jonathan Swan on the Daily Telegrah:

THEY DIDN'T EVEN SAY THANK YOU

MURDOCH MEDIA PHOTOSHOPS PRIME MINISTER KEVIN RUDD INTO NAZI UNIFORM 

No Nazi Photoshopping By News Corp Required

Murdoch's photoshoppers had the afternoon off, as prime minister Kevin Rudd visited a history class: 





















From a photo by Andrew Meares. You can follow Andrew Meares election campaign photography here.

Abbott Spending Like An Intoxicated Member Of Water-Based Armed Forces Circa 1960s - Federal Election 2013

Oppositiong leader Tony Abbott seemed to forget that the Australian Navy are not his personal political plaything for the media:

Earlier, top Navy brass stepped in to stop Mr Abbott grilling officers about how they felt patrolling for asylum seeker boats.

Mr Abbott toured Australia's busiest Naval port he asked several personnel for detail about Operation Resolute.

"Do you get out on those boats often," he asked four Navy personnel at an outdoor staff canteen.

"So you guys were doing people smuggling patrols?," he asked.

"What was it like to apprehend these vessels."

After a pause they offered stilted answers including "it's tiring", "a challenge".

"It's busy," said another.

While another said it was "Tiring work too, frustrating."

At this point Lieutenant Commander Michael Doncaster stepped in and asked for the questions to stop.

"Sir I'd prefer we don't talk on that line and move on," he said.

The Australian Navy previously had to tell Abbott to stop using the phrase "spending like drunken sailors."

Senior Navy officers have implored Mr Abbott to tone it down because it doesn't fit with the image they are trying to portray of the modern-day Navy professional as a sensitive, well-behaved individual.

"We are not like that any more,'' a Navy source said.

"It is not an image that is reflective of the current force or ideals.''

Tony Abbott splashes the cash:

• $67 million to deploy Australian Federal Police officers to Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia to assist with joint people smuggling operations;
• $20 million to "enlist Indonesian villages to support people smuggling disruption including a capped boat buy back scheme";
• regional transit zones to help move asylum seekers to offshore processing centres without needing to go first to Christmas Island or the Australian mainland;
• $27 million for increased aerial surveillance and $71 million to Indonesia to boost their search and rescue resources;
• supplement the border protection fleet with commercially leased vessels; and
• expand the capacity of processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru by 2000.

The massive $30 billion Liberal Party sinkhole continues to grow: 

There is a gap of almost $30 billion between the size of the tax cuts and new spending the Coalition has promised and the savings it has unveiled so far, leading economist Saul Eslake estimates.

In a 34-page review for clients of how a Coalition government might change economic management, Mr Eslake, chief Australian economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, also highlights the potential for "significant and ongoing tensions" in an Abbott government between its "genuine economic liberals", such as shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, and those who are "more sceptical about markets . . . including in many cases Tony Abbott as prime minister".

end

Daily Telegraph Couldn't Fit Any More Rudd Attack Stories On Front Page

A new record for Rupert Murdoch's Daly Telegraph in its fair and balanced coverage of the 2013 Federal Election.

Four anti-Rudd stories in prime top-of-the-page position on the DT front page online.

The strategy is a simple one. Say almost nothing about opposition leader Tony Abbott, just hammer prime minister Kevin Rudd day after day, with everything and anything, regardless of the facts.

It is true, according to some but not all polls, that Kevin Rudd's popularity is falling in Western Sydney, not quite as fast as the Daily Telgraph''s circulation, but getting there.
 

More to come...

Andrew Bolt - I Don't Know How Twitter Works, But Its Freedom Scares Me

 Oh yes, you do.

(quick backgrounder : Andrew Bolt is Australia's most heavily promoted Rupert Mudoch columnist. While never having used Twitter, it was decided that the #AskBolt Twitter hashtag should be used to stir up and "take on the Twitterati", and almost every Murdoch media held Twitter account began pumping out his challenge to Twitter users worldwide. In short, Bolt picked a fight with Twitter, and then hijacked the Usain Bolt #AskBolt hashtag in order to do so).

He can deny it all he wants. But The Bolt Report is an Andrew Bolt Twitter account. And it's official.

It's all a bit sad to see a once innovative political blogger so utterly lost amongst the trees when it comes to Twitter.

Boo Twitter, even though it's where a good slab of his daily blog traffic comes from these days, thanks to regular spammy-link tweeting by numerous NewsCorp automated Twitter accounts. He even has the 'Tweet Me' button on every blog post, along wth the official account for his TV show. He doesn't seem to know about that, either.

#AskBolt was an idiotic idea to begin with, promoting someone who doesn't use Twitter on Twitter, with 'Come And Get Me!' tweets like "Bolt Takes On The Twitterati!"

#AskBolt was a Fukushima-scale social media disaster.

There's no way around it. Even people who had previously used the #AskBolt hashtag to say hello to the incredible sprinter Usain Bolt joined in when they discovered some idiot from Australia  had hijacked their hero's hashtag.

#AskBolt made Andrew Bolt a Twitter pinnata. People who had never even heard of this goose from down under were weeping with laughter at the constant stream of 98% inane, and more the point, non-abusive, tweets that swept #AskBolt into the Top Trending Topics in a host of countries around the world.

Nobody on Twitter had seen anything like it.

For the love of FailWhale, you don't hijack established hashtags. Particularly when you don't use Twitter in the first place.

Mindblowing. What the hell were they thinking?

But Andrew Bolt knows what's going on.

It was all a big Australian Labor Conspiracy.

Really. Hard Leftists, you see, control the Twitternets.

Bolt also seems completely unaware that the Daily Telegraph tried to promote #AskBolt on Facebook as well. Hundreds of people mocked him in commemts and shares. Whether the Daily Telegraph Facebook moderator was laughing too hard to delete any, or whether nobody actually moderates the page, who knows? But the ridicule came thick and fast there, too.

Andrew Bolt doesn't use Facebook either.

 


Hard Leftists control Facebook, too, presumably.

Here he is having a spit after discovering just how much of a social media disaster, and wider public spectacle, #AskBot was becoming.



This is how he reported on himself in the Herald Sun:



Just fantastic the way the link for tweeting Andrew Bolt's column onto Twitter lines up perfectly with this:

"I took a dip in Twitter this week, and understand even better how Labor got flushed away in a sewer of hate.

"How could Labor - and many journalists - disastrously mistake Twitter for the real world?"

The real world, you see, isn't millions of people in more than 100 hundred countries around the world communicating freely and sharing information, ideas and quality knowledge, without paywalls.

The Raal World, apparently, is Andrew Bolt's BlogWorld, where you have to register to "join in the debate" and where he bans commenters who hit to close the bone.

"(#AskBolt) electrified the Twittersphere. For hours the topic trended as Leftists, many anonymous, competed to ask me - the Great Satan of Conservatism - the worst, silliest or most abusive questions on the #askbolt hashtag.

"Fairfax newspapers thought this was sensational news."

It wasn't sensational, but it was idiotic enough a move to warrant media attention.

After all, Andrew Bolt is constantly demanding the rest of the media and the general Australian public pay attention to him, and exercise their right to free speech.

Clearly Bolt now has his limits, on both

"Gosh, hold the presses. No, wait, they're slowing already at Fairfax and no wonder, if recycling playground taunts by anonymous tweeters now passes for news reporting."

Miaow. Poor Andrew. He doesn't even know Murdoch's newspaper operation has lost more recently than Fairfax.

"In fact, to be attacked on Twitter is no news to a conservative.

"Twitter skews hard to the Left..."

 Twitter refused to take him seriously. 

"Twitter also seems to bring out the worst in users."

 Twitter isn't a bubble.

"Maybe it's the relative youth of tweeters, and the anonymity of many. Maybe it's because hate tends to sell best in the look-at-me Twittersphere."

He has his own TV show. About His Opinions.

"Or maybe it's because Twitter appeals to the impulsive sensation junkies eager to instantly broadcast their most idle thought..."

This a person who has often published more than a dozen blog posts in a single day.

Now onto the Great Australian Labor Twitter Conspiracy.

"But here's the bizarre thing: this is the audience Labor thought could save it.

"This is the crowd Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tried to impress by tweeting a picture of his shaving cut to his 1.4 million followers, thus confusing the magpie attention of tweeters with respect from very real and unimpressed voters.

"But Julia Gillard as prime minister had an even more fatal attraction to Twitter.

"Her infamous misogyny speech last year - falsely branding Abbott a woman-hater - was rightly seen at first by most commentators as a hate-filled rant that would appal many Australians."

What was Bolt saying before about people ranting like arseholes?

"But Gillard's communications director, John McTernan, eventually convinced press gallery journalists it was a success because it had gone viral on social media, including Twitter."

Gillard's speech was viewed by millions across the planet, within days. A political speech. Viewed by millions. That wasn't JFK, Obama or MLK.

That's pretty fucking viral. 

"And so Gillard, convinced by tweets and blog posts, doubled down on her politics of division, pitting women against men, workers against bosses."

Oh Twitter, is there nothing you can't do?

"Stirring hatred may indeed light up the Twittersphere but it makes the world outside your window feel sick."

Eh?

"But it's no surprise if Twitter's culture has spilled out of the internet sewers and now floods media offices.

"No surprise, when Channel 10's Paul Bongiorno retweets Mike Carlton who retweets Rudd's daughter, Jessica, who retweets Channel 10's Charlie Pickering who retweets blogger Mia Freedman who retweets the ABC's Leigh Sales who retweets her boss, Mark Scott, who retweets his presenter, Jonathan Green, who retweets John McTernan who retweets the ABC's Mark Colvin who retweets Marieke Hardy who retweets Mike Carlton who . . .

"And on it flows, a steady stream of hate, flushing the feckless with it. Labor, too."

Andrew Bolt doesn't mention, of course, the numerous automated Twitter accounts operated by NewsCorp retweeting his every blog post intro, around the clock.

You see, mere mortal journalists have to tweet links to their own stories themselves, and try and get people to read their work. Pumping their stories on social media is expected of almost every working journalist today.

But not the Mighty Bolt.

He wouldn't lower himself to using Twitter.

He has others to do it for him.

One of the last of Murdoch's protected species.

 
And just because it's funny, here's Bolt flipping out at others doing what he does almost daily, taking someone's gaffe or misspeak and using it over and over and over again.



He's just so precious.

ENCORE: Andrew Bolt didn't always think Twitter was a sewer. When Rupert Murdoch dived into Twitter, Bolt called it the "coolest new medium."

Murdoch Media Reach Grim, New Low - Federal Election 2013 - Day FFS

By Darryl Mason

Sometimes it's best to learn the context of a photo, before you try and use it for political point-scoring.

Tim Wilson promotes himself as "one of Australia's most challenging opinion makers drawing on strong philosophical principles."

He's also a dickhead.

As Therese Rein politely points out, they were at the War Memorial, listeing to the names of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan being read out when the photo was taken.

Incredibly, incomprehensibly, Rupert Murdoch's Courier Mail uses the same photo to attack prime minister Kevin Rudd, without explaining where and when the photo was taken.

There is the cliff, and then there is the abyss.

(images via Twitter)

Here's a comment on the Courier Mail's own website tipping them off to the extremely inappropriate use of this photo, at 12.30am today. It took the Courier Mail 11 hours to change the photo on the story, so it was there all the way through the online Courier Mail's peak viewing time of 6am to 11am.

 And here's the original photo, before the Courier Mail cropped it, purposely cropped it to mask the true context of the photo. Fuck knows why Australian newspapers are dying.

 Appalling.

It has been pointed out, correctly, that the above photo is not the exact same photo cropped by the Courier Mail for its dirty little trick, it was the next photo in the sequence. Tim Wilson has apologised. The Courier Mail changed the photo, 11 hours later, floated the usual nothing explanation.

UPDATE: Here's today front page of the Courier Mail. PM Kevin Rudd is, of coruse, leading opposition leader Tony Abbott in Queensland:

Kevin Rudd won the Twitter poll thing hosted by the Courier Mail, by some seven points over Abbott.

UPDATE: Rupert Murdoch's Courier Mail has now pleaded guilty to publishing the photos and names of children involved in a high-profile custody dispute.

The Courier-Mail has pleaded guilty to breaching the Family Law Act during its coverage of an international custody battle over four Italian sisters last year.

The Australian Federal Police launched an investigation into the Queensland newspaper after it last year published the names and photographs of the sisters at the centre of the dispute.

Photos of the girls were published on the front page of the The Courier-Mail on May 15 and 16 last year, prompting a complaint from the Chief Justice of the Family Court.

The guilty plea came despite previous indications the paper would defend the charges.

They published the photos of the children on the front page, and were bombarded with complaints, and helpful requests, that they shouldn't do that again.

But they did do it again.

What a pack of shitbergs


LATEST: MURDCH MEDIA HITS PEAK HITLER

THE AUSTRALIAN'S OBSESSION WITH TWITTER GETS DOWNRIGHT STUPID

 DON'T ENCOURAGE THE DAILY SHOW!

THE UNIQUE 'REALITY' OF MURDOCH'S NEWSPOLL

AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER IN PUNK ROCK VIDEO - RUDD OUTSWEARS NWA

QUALITY JOURNALISM FLASHBACK - MURDOCH MEDIA LABELS JAPAN TSUNAMI 'NATURE'S TERROR ATTACK'

Australian Prime Minister In Punk Rock Video - Federal Election 2013 - Day Rock Out

The Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, Opposition leader Tony Abbott, a whole host of other politicians, along with the most familiar news heads on TV all appear in the video, singing along to a new Australian punk rock song. Check it out:



So how did Super Best Friends pull off such a roll-call of cameos? One member of the band is an ABC cameraman, and simply asked them to do it, as he made his way around the corridors of Parliament House.

This isn't PM Rudd's first venture into the musical arts.

Below, he shows NWA how to rock the swears:




Filth.

The Unique 'Reality' Of Newspoll - Australian Federal Election - Day 18

The Australian gets the headline it wanted.

 
Is Newspoll now conducting its survey within the offices of The Australian?

There is Margin of Error, there is poll disparity, and then there is the unique reality of Newspoll. The Ghost Who Votes with the latest numbers:

 

Extraordinary image of a 17 metre long humpback, with unborn calf, washed up off a Western Australia beach. Photo submitted to ABCNews by Ken Read: 

Malcolm Turnbull Denies Inhaling - Rudd Fails Sniff Test - Federal Election 2013 - Day 13

Macolm Turnbull campaigns in Sydney (source) :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd meets a local in the Territory (source) : 

 More on Kevin Rudd's visit to the Territory from The NT News.

Mark Latham: That's Not Being A Sexist Pig, This Is Being A Sexist Pig - Federal Election 2013

Former Labor Party leader Mark Latham can't help but get involved in Tony Abbott's 'Sexy Time' controversy:

"It showed very bad judgement and it shows (Tony Abbott) has low standards.

"I had a good look at Fiona Scott on page eight ... and she doesn't have sex appeal at all.

"She's not that good of a sort."

"She's a rather plain ordinary-looking woman and Abbott has exaggerated massively to try and win her vote among the blokes ... "

"Tony had the beer goggles on and in politics they say it's showbiz for ugly people and I don't think she'll (Fiona) be out of place."

This is appalling.

Abbott Denies Saying Gay Marriage "Fashion Of The Moment" After Saying Gay Marriage "Fashion Of The Moment" - Federal Election 2013 - Day 11

Opposition leader Tony Abbott in conversation with John Laws on Sydney radio, discussing the rising popularity of same sex marriage as an election-turning political issue : 

"My idea is to build on the strength of our society and I support, by and large, evolutionary change," he said.

"I'm not someone who wants to see radical change based on the fashion of the moment."

Later...

"There were many a few years ago who kept telling us a republic is inevitable," he said.

"If this country lasts for a thousand years quite possibly at some point we might be a republic but I don't think a republic is inevitable any time soon and similarly I don't see same sex marriage as inevitable."

 Yes, a Republic is exactly like two consenting adults in love being denied the right to have their relationship and commitment legally recognised.

UPDATE: Boxing gloves signed by Tony Abbott up for auction at Liberals fund-rasing do in Tamworth. Image via @LisaHerbert

Liberals 'Sexy Time' Billboard Fake - Don't Encourage The Daily Show - Federal Election Day 11

Sign of the times I suppose that this fake Liberals Sexy Time billboard pic has gained 'I Like It! Great idea!' status on social media. Thinking themselves clever japesters, some are insisting this billboard is going up in Western Sydney today. It is not :

Look, after the gaffetacular showing so far in this election, The Daily Show, and willingly gullible interational media, are likely to believe anything they see coming out of Australia. We don't need to give any foreigner an excuse to run Benny Hill theme music during their coverage of our election.

Don't encourage them. 

UPDATE: A Fairfax journalist working as a campaign volunteer for Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne has been caught inteferring with Labor Party posters:

Mr Pyne says she was actually helping out and is proud of her.

"I am absolutely confident that no wrongdoing has occurred and I understand that she will be entirely cleared," he said.

"She was fixing them for the Labor Party because they'd been so poorly put up."

 So the same day we hear the Liberals and Labor are going to preference the hell out of each other to save their Two Party System, we hear that Liberal volunteers are making sure Labor election poters are positioned correctly on walls around Adelaide.

Don't be too obvious about it.

Daily Telegraph "Staff Writers" Demand Destruction Of Greens - Federal Election Day 11

UPDATE: Print edition of Daily Telegraph says editor Chris Mitchell wrote today's anti-Greens rant. But the online story says it's by "staff writers". So which is it?

After months of telling us Labor lack credibility, that key frontbenchers are complete jokes, American-owned Daily Telegraph now says we must takem seriously, but only when they're bagging out the Greens.

Is Daily Telegraph editor Paul Whittaker too busy these days to go the Greens himself? Is he outsourcing his hatred to "staff writers?"

The whole editorial is a complete giveaway.

 Vote Labor, get Liberals. Vote Liberals, get Labor. Whatevs. Whoever you vote for doesn't appear to really matter to Daly Telegraph "staff writers" as long as the Two Party System is maintained, and third party and independent candidates are marginalised, smeared, destroyed.

The Coalition and the Labor Party share similar aims for Australia. Both of our major parties know that economic growth is the key to our nation's ongoing prosperity and security. Where they differ is in how economic growth should be accomplished and in the ability to achieve this goal.

Yet the goal itself remains a bipartisan vision. Both parties believe in jobs, investment and financial aspiration.

The Greens, however, are another story. Their vision for Australia is more aligned with former communist bloc nations than anything with which mainstream Australia is familiar. The Greens are, to put it simply, a party of far-left clowns.

But don't just take our word for it. Listen to senior Labor identities....

Now that opposition leader Tony Abbott has put Australia first by putting the Greens last in Coalition preferences, Labor is invited to do the same.

The Greens represent a view that is hostile to the nation's interests and to both major parties. A bipartisan solution is needed to fix a bipartisan problem.

 The Greens aren't so hostile to the 21st century or the environment, but hey, money is money money money money.

So Vote Kony Rubbott, the foreign-owned Daily Telegraph demands it.

The Australian's Obsession With Twitter Gets Plain Stupid - Federal Election 2013 Day 11

Twitter, or even tweets, are not mentioned in this story, anywhere. The Australian's War On Twitter is an embarrasing, hysterical spectacle.
 

The Australian couldn't look any more desperate in its daily attempts to convince older readers Twitter has nothing to offer them. Lest they cancel their subscription to the Australian and go read most of the facts and figures the Autralian hordes behind paywalls on Twitter, for free.

The Australian's earlier attacks on Twitter as being an unreliable medium for distribution of information would be a bit more convincing if The Australian didn't have dozens of Twitter accounts spam-tweeting links to its paywalled content.

Tony Abbott's Sexy Time - Federal Election Day 10

The whole world is watching our federal election. News editors across the globe are following Australian journos and new sites on Twitter, and running with whatever goose like behaviour our candidates can come up with. So far, the Liberals are ahead. And Labor appeared to unveil a new strategy tonight, when opposition leader Tony Abbott or one of his candidates makes a meal of it, they keep quiet, don't get involved, and don't feed the machine with snarky quotes.

Let's see how long they can hold out without fresh carping.

"Young, fiesty...sex appeal," Tony Abbott's reasons for voters to consider the new candidate for the NSW seat of Lindsay:




Apparenlty, Sky News didn't think much of that from Tony Abbott:

Yet more fuel for The Daily Show's solid roundup of the Liberal Party Gaffe-olanche so far.



The Daily Show will be continuing their coverage, all the way through to Kevin Rudd being elected prime minister on September 7.

UPDATE: Tony Abbott is merely a Luke to John Howard the Yoda:

Mural Wars Begin - Federal Election 2013

One of the first murals targetting politicans in the Federal Election 2013 appears in Newtown, NSW.  Expect many more. Image via @Flashback

The century old figs of Alexandria Park gave up a few branches today, in the massive wind storm

Top Tip: Don't sit on a park bench in wind trying to read a book, hoping the wind will go away soon. I think I already knew that.

Spam Tweets Target Labor, Greens - Federal Election 2013 - Day 9

By Darryl Mason

Who's responsible for the below Twitter spam attacks on Labor and The Greens? Almost impossible to find out. Do they impact? Do they change peoples' minds on how they're going to vote? Highly doubtful, but there they are.

The only way anyone is going to come across spam tweets from accounts with no followers is in Twitter search, it's pissing into the void, basically.

Tony Abbott's Smelly Wisdom - Federal Election 2013 - Day 9

For someone who once vowed that he would do anything to become prime minister, 'except take it up the arse', a very interesting gaffe from opposition leader Tony Abbott.



If you talk long enough, you're going to get things messed up, eventually.

But you have to wonder sometimes if politicians ever gaffe on purpose, knowing it will dominate news coverage, be a hit on YouTube and probably not do all that much harm at all, except for making you look more human.

UPDATE: Has Tony Abbott been watching a few Dirty Harry movies recently? Easy for this kind of thing to bleed over, right Harry Callahan? See 2:30:



UPDATE: Or maybe Tony Abbott's been watching Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket? See 0:36:



More soon

What Goes On At Pine Gap? One Extraordinary Theory

The American military controlled base at Pine Gap is about to leap back into the news, as Autralia's role in helping co-ordinate drone attacks that have killed more than 3500 people in Pakistan comes under legal scrutiny.

Not surprisingly, there's very little public information about Pine Gap, or what goes on there. This gap in factual knowledge has led to some extraordinary, bizarre theories. Here's one of the wildest, from the late 1970s.

The Wrong Kind Of Master Debate - Federal Election 2013

By Darryl Mason

Prime minister Kevin Rudd faced off against Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in the first debate of the Federal Election 2013 campaign.

Australia could barely disguise a stifled yawn.


Very little fresh policy detail, outside of PM Rudd's promise to deliver legislation to recognise marriage equality legislation into Parliament within 100 days of being re-elected, and 'the worm' scrolling across the bottom of the screen either said Rudd Is Shit, if you were watching Channel 7, or Rudd Rocks if you were watching Channel 9. The polarisation between audiences for two TV commercial channels seettmed absurd.

Channel 7's online debate vote gave Abbott an extraordinary 18 point win.

But hold on, Channel 9 debate voters gave Rudd an 18 point win.

Ugh.

How boring was the debate? The only glint of Story! resulted from Rudd checking his notes, in apparent violation of debate rules, though the moderator failed to pull him up on this. Incredibly, Rudd Reads From Notes During Debate is now an international headline.

Here's the most important thing. Word clouds, lovely words clouds via Ben Harris-Roxas. Red is Abbott, Blue is Rudd.

THE FIRST DEBATE - FULL TRANSCRIPT

AUSTRALIA'S TWITTER RESPONSE IN DETAIL

DEBATE OPENING STATEMENTS