Journo Vs Blogger Vs Bad Guys

The new Russell Crowe movie sounds very interesting indeed :

One of the most hotly awaited Hollywood films of this year is State of Play, a political thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren. It is an adapation of the widely acclaimed BBC television series, a complex tale of a journalist investigating the murder of an MP's researcher...

(Director Kevin) Macdonald explains why he wanted to turn this BBC mini-series into a far more compact, and less, complex, movie :

"I thought the crisis in newspapers was something to be explored; I love All the President's Men and, in fact, all films about journalism. I thought we could make the last film about newspapers before they die."

Russell Crowe stepped into the lead role with one week's notice, after Brad Pitt ditched the film, and quickly discovered that not all journalists are intrusive hacks who want to harass his wife and children.

Director Kevin McDonald on Russell Crowe :

"...we argued a lot about journalism. Russell thinks that almost all journalists act out of self-interest and that most journalism is deliberately misleading and inaccurate. That newspapers and journalists act from their own agenda. Which obviously partly comes from his experience of journalism and having his life reflected in newspapers."

In Macdonald's State of Play, Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is part of a dying breed: the heroic, old-school journalist who relies heavily on sources and leads and takes time to find the real story. His method is challenged by Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a bright young blogger who wants to post the Stephen Collins story online as it's still developing.

There are a number of other movies, mostly thrillers, coming out of the UK and Hollywood in the next two years that feature bloggers as 'agents of change' or key protaganists. Perhaps there will be a movie soon that follows what happens when an independent blogger has to face off against a massive media corporation who wants to get rid of some eyeball competition.

Here's the trailer for State Of Play. It looks like a reasonably intelligent thriller aimed at adults. Hopefully....



State Of Play gets an Australian release in late May.

Explosives found in a parked, unregistered car in Melbourne during police stop. Possible terrorist leaving a car bomb in a city street? No, he was white, and not a Muslim. Therefore, not a suspected terrorist. But talk about being fully busted. This is what the police claim they found in this guy's car :

an extendable baton, a can of pepper spray, eight mobile phones, a large amount of amphetamines, nunchuckas, an unregistered handgun...

Plus the explosives. And more explosives were found when they searched the suspect's home.


Russell Crowe likes to try to boost his rugby league's team morale with lots of positive talk, declarations of love and hugs. Some of the players are less than impressed, calling his morale building methodology "bullshit". Clearly men hugging other men is far too wussy for these guys. They're rugby league players. Macho guys. Who get paid to grab other men, climb all over them, insert their fingers up each other's bums to try and make them drop the ball and grope each other's genitalia. But hugging? God no!

Annabel Crabb, the rising star of Australian political journalism. Sharp, funny and dead on. Here she imagines Christmas-based policy option discussions about whether the Rudd child should, or should not, be gifted a bicycle. Brilliant.



John Howard used a fear campaign based around interest rates to win the 2004 election. In person he famously promised to keep interest rates low. In advertisements, he said he planned to keep interest rates at record lows.

Now interest rates are about to go up again, for the fourth time since the last election, putting extreme financial pressure on millions of already hard-hit Australian families, Howard says his government is not responsible for interest rates. Well, not when they go up. Make up your mind, mate. Voters already think you're sneaky, now they're going to think you've completely lost your mind.


Jack Marx writes the usually entertaining, and sometimes damned extraordinary, Daily Truth blog. Now he's been forced to actually post daily, instead of two or three times a week, he makes our blog roll. Jack's blog is well worth checking out. Daily.


You need to find ten minutes, right now, not later, and go here and read the full story that goes with this downright Australian urban legend :

...mad scientist "Monkey Jones", obsessed with finding the secret of eternal youth, had spent the wild years between the wars transplanting monkey testicles into the scrotums of aging male human beings, thus transforming the isolated Lake Macquarie hamlet of Dora Creek, nearby the doctor's clinic, into a kind of sexual Shan-gri-la, where old men at the end of their days matched sexual vigour with fresh young women. The honeymoon ended, says the legend, when the doctor died, the experiments ceased and everything - to the relief of the township's elderly women - returned to normal.

Now go here and read the Jack Marx story on the truth behind the urban legend. In many ways, the true story is even better than the legend. Guaranteed, this is the greatest, most eye-opening, jaw-dropping story you will read anywhere this week. Now go for it.


Would it surprise you to learn that a pedophile who carried around a kitten to draw in children also kept a locked dungeon in his backyard? Probably not. Chilling, nonetheless. Apparently, it's not illegal to build and keep your own backyard dungeon in Australia. It's only illegal when you keep people inside it, against their will.


'Downwards adjustment' : That's the terminology used by the National Gallery of Victoria to describe what has happened to the value of a Van Gogh painting they've proudly displayed for decades...now they've found out that it isn't a Van Gogh painting. It was probably painted by someone apprenticed to the Dutch master, says the NGV, or Van Gogh contemporary. Not a chance in hell, says the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. The NGV will still display the painting because, they claim, "it isn't a forgery" and it is still "interesting".

Yes, particularly interesting to the those hundreds of Van Gogh addicts and completists who've traveled from all over the world to Victoria, through the decades, to gape in awe at this remarkable Van Gogh, that isn't actually a Van Gogh.


John Howard has ruled out the judicial inquiry now being called for by Opposition leader Kevin Rudd into what the hell happened went down between the Australian government, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian mainstream media over the smearing and fearing of Dr Mohamed Haneef. Why no inquiry? Because, Mr Howard said, the...oh crap. Read it for yourself. It's too late in the night to try and make sense of Howard's bizarre logic train.


Phillip Adams finally comes clean. He's slept with the prime minister's wife. Twice.


We're still betting that one of the coming federal election slogans from the Howard government will be a variation on "Better To Be Safe Than Sorry." It's so adaptable. They can use it for terrorism, to argue why straggling voters should not switch over to Kevin Rudd, for keeping Australian combat troops in Iraq and for trusting the Howard government to keep interest rates at record lows, well kind of low, sort of...if you're rich.


The Howard Huggers in the Australia media continue to dump their idol as reality dawns like a bucket of ice water in the face. Andrew Bolt is all but begging the prime minister to leave now, so as to allow the government the slimmest of chances of winning the election. In fact, a recent column demanded "Howard Must Quit".

Fellow News Limited Howard-hugger, Tim Blair, is already anticipating Kevin Rudd's first 100 days as prime minister.


Australia's Hillsong church has got itself a very powerful and captivating whistle blower. A former lifetime member of the fundamentalist, extremely wealthy church has written a book which is bound to be a bestseller. In it, we learn that Hillsong is about money, getting money from its true believers, getting more true believers into its churches to get more money out of them, all of whom are expected to hand over 10% of their wages. In 2004-2005, the church made $50 million and paid no taxes.

Hillsong has been very successful in accumulating wealth. The church recently purchased a piece of luxurious Sydney property worth $28 million. Clearly, they must have skipped the part of the Bible where Jesus talked about how it was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it was for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Get rid of all your possessions, Jesus said, and give them to the poor.

Hey, what the hell did Jesus know? That was 2000 years ago.

Freak Death Of Steve Irwin Caught On Video

Russell Crowe On Irwin : "The Ultimate Wildlife Warrior"

By Darryl Mason

Steve Irwin boasted in 2003 that television cameras follow him around and capture almost every second of each day in his life.

It is then, not surprising, that Irwin's sudden death has been caught on any number of cameras, and not just those that were vidding him for a new TV series on Australia's deadliest creatures (the irony would have made him laugh long and loud, no doubt).

A camera crew caught the moment when a 2.5 metre long stingray pierced his heart, but tourists on a reef cruise nearby also captured the frantic attempts to revive this legendary Australian on the deck of a boat.

Right now, Queensland police are reviewing the video of the moment the stingray pumped venom straight into his heart, bringing on cardiac arrest.

It will only be a matter of time before the videos of tourists pop up online.

For a man who lived his life so publicly, should the moment of his death be private, or shared with those who wish to view it, regardless of how traumatic the footage of a dying man may be?

From news.com :

"The footage shows him swimming in the water, the ray stopped and turned and that was it," said boatowner Peter West, who viewed the footage afterwards.

"There was no blood in the water, it was not that obvious ... something happened with this animal that made it rear and he was at the wrong position at the wrong time and if it hit him anywhere else we would not be talking about a fatality."

Stingrays the size of the one that killed Irwin have a spike on the end of their tale, described as being "like a dagger", 20cm long. It seems likely now that Irwin may have died almost instantly.

Spear fisherman and fellow film-maker Ben Cropp has a few more details on what happened :

"He was up in the shallow water, probably 1.5m to 2m deep, following a bull ray which was about a metre across the body - probably weighing about 100kg, and it had quite a large spine. The cameraman was filming in the water."

Mr Cropp said the stingray was spooked and went into defensive mood.

"It probably felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead, and it felt there was danger and it baulked.

"It stopped and went into a defensive mode and swung its tail with the spike.

"Steve unfortunately was in a bad position and copped it.

"I have had that happen to me, and I can visualise it - when a ray goes into defensive, you get out of the way.

"Steve was so close he could not get away, so if you can imagine it - being right beside the ray and it swinging its spine upwards from underneath Steve - and it hit him..."

Millions of Americans, like Australians, like people across the planet, have gone into a state of shock over the sudden death of Irwin.

Irwin once explained to US TV host Jay Leno how he goes about determining whether a crocodile is male or female :

"I put my finger in here and if it smiles, it's a girl," Irwin said. "If it bites me, it's a boy."

Interesting bit of info on just how valuable an entertainment icon Irwin was viewed as in the US

He was being wooed by cashed up Las Vegas casinos willing to pay a reported $US50 million to perform nightly, long-term shows.

Hard to imagine such a lover of the outdoors and animals in their natural state would have ever commited to a Las Vegas strip show, that would have kept in the desert city for months on end.

The RSPCA said Irwin was like "a modern day Noah" due to his devotion to conservation causes and efforts to save endangered Australian fauna :

"His loss will be felt by animal lovers not just in Australia but all over the world," said RSPCA Queensland chief executive Mark Townend.

RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty, who first worked with Irwin when the Crocodile Hunter was just 15, said Irwin's contribution to society would only truly be recognised in the years ahead.

"He put his money where his mouth was," Mr Beatty said.

"Other people talked about it, Steve did it.

"His television series inspired millions of people all over the world to not only appreciate and understand wildlife, but to become active in the conservation movement.

"Whether he was speaking to global leaders or ordinary Australians, Steve Irwin told it like it was.

"His death truly is a tragedy.

"Wildlife has lost its most vocal champion," Mr Beatty said.

Australian actor Russell Crowe says goodbye to his mate :

He was the Australian we all aspire to be. He held an absolute belief that caring for the richness of our country, meaning specifically the riches of our fauna, was the highest priority we should have. And, over time, we might just see how right he was.

He was and remains, the ultimate wildlife warrior. He touched my heart. I believed in him. I'll miss him. I loved him and I will be there for his family.

His manager and close friend, John Stainton, says goodbye :

"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet. He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!'"

Internet forums across the world are steadily filling with millions of tributes, goodbyes and words of praise for Irwin and his work. It's truly remarkable. It's easily the most volumuous outpouring of public grief and affection since the death of Princess Diana.

The news.com forum in Australia has logged more than 3000 comments in less than eight hours since the news of his death hit the headlines. The CrocodileHunter.com homepage has been down for hours due to the millions of people trying to reach the site to say their goodbyes.

Hopefully Irwin's most important message to all of us will never be forgotten.

Treat the Earth with respect and love and conserve it for future generations.

After all, it's the only one we've got.