Murdoch Media Promotes Protests, Boycotts, Civil Disobedience

China's human rights record, for Tibetans, and millions more of its own people, is appalling, and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Australian coal sales is not reason enough to blind eye how China deals with pro-democracy advocates and dissenters. China's repressive regime and enthusiasm for human executions should have ruled it out of even being considered as a host city for the Olympic Games.

The Greens, more than any other political party in Australia, have been telling us this for years.

All pressure on China to shape up is positive, but it's still extremely strange to see anti-China boycotts, protests, civil disobedience and placard-waving-at-the-torch-relay being so heavily promoted by Rupert Murdoch's two biggest selling Australian newspapers.

From the Daily Telegraph today :



From Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun today :



Andrew Bolt is still to acknowledge that much of the philosophy he now eagerly espouses on China's human rights trampling has been a policy staple of The Greens, through leader Bob Brown.



As Anonymous Lefty points out, Murdoch newspapers also recently championed another policy staple of The Greens.


Here's how the Howard government dealt with China on human rights :

....June 28th, 2005...the Federal Government has come under fire for failing to question Chinese officials about claims that Chinese agents have persecuted political dissidents in Australia.

According to the report, at an annual and closed "human rights dialogue" on Monday, Australian officials did not raise allegations that the Chinese Government had persecuted

...the Foreign Affairs Department official who led the talks, said it was "not the forum" for tackling the allegations.

The report stated that the failure to raise the claims have fuelled accusations that Australia is taking a "softly softly" approach on human rights to keep good relations with China.

....yesterday reports emerged that Australia had refused to join "secret" US-led talks to discuss China's expanding role in the world, for fear of offending China.

Bob Brown from the Greens party accused the Australian Government of being cowardly.

Despite claims by Boltoids and desperate Liberals that Kevin Rudd would cower before China, he appears to be willing to tell China their human rights record is bogus, that Australia won't be bullied, and that our resources are not completely for sale :

Kevin Rudd has warned the Chinese Government he will "defend the Australian national interest" amid speculation that China is planning a stockmarket raid on resources giant BHP Billiton.

As Australian mining industry doyen Hugh Morgan warned China's move on BHP would "misfire" if the strategy was designed to secure assets for the resource-hungry nation, the Prime Minister made it clear in Beijing he would ensure all investments and takeovers of consequence in Australia would be examined.

Mr Rudd pointed to China's tough restrictions on foreign investment, and offered no sign of changes to Australia's foreign investment rules, which have prevented Chinese expansion into Australian interests.

....Mr Rudd said his job "as Prime Minister is to defend the Australian national interest and the Australian national economic interest, and I make no apologies for that while I'm here or elsewhere in the world".

"Australia is an open market when it comes to foreign investment and we have a history of depending on foreign investment," he said, adding: "We have always had the proper regulations to examine and advise on projects of consequence."

Rudd is going to lose a big chunk of his overwhelming support from the Australian public if he even appears to be backing down in his dealings with China in the weeks and months ahead.

Such pressure on China, particularly if the leaders of Australia, France and the US boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, will be vital in letting them know they can't be a part of the larger democratic world when they block proper elections and brutalise their own people and think they should not have to answer for it.

Rupert Murdoch lost about a billion dollars and a decade trying to sew up China's vast TV audience, and failed to nail it, and the Chinese government is making life difficult again by refusing to let Murdoch's MySpace snare a large, independent and more profitable share of China's social networking market.

Murdoch's newspapers are going to hammer China all the way to the Olympics.

Hemp Nation



When Captain Cook first explored the south coast of Australia, more than 230 years ago, he envisioned the rolling meadows north of Newcastle covered with hemp plantations.

More than 60 years after large scale hemp plantations were abandoned at the end of World War 2, hemp is set to return to New South Wales farms on an industrial scale. And there's billions to be made, and new manufacturing industries to be spawned.

Better late than never :

The NSW Government has turned over a new leaf after decades of opposing commercial cannabis, revealing plans for a new scheme to grow the plant on an industrial scale.

It will introduce legislation in weeks to allow farms to grow hemp, the fibres and oil of which can be used in food and clothes, biofuels and skin-care products.

The state's first legal hemp crop has been approved by police and will contain only tiny amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound that some people smoke for recreation. It will be planted later this year, with farmers no longer needing their licences to be approved by the NSW Health Department.

"Industrial hemp fibre produced here in NSW could pave the way for the establishment of a new viable industry that creates and sells textiles, cloth and building products made from locally grown industrial hemp," said the Primary Industries Minister, Ian Macdonald, who will oversee the licences for the new crop.

"There is growing support from the agricultural sector for the development of such a new industry. This is a direct result of the environmentally friendly nature of industrial hemp and a perceived interest for hemp products in the market."

Trials in the state's west had yielded 10 to 12 tonnes of dry stem per hectare, which was similar to yields reported from crops in other states and in Europe, Mr Macdonald said.

Some farming groups cautiously welcomed the move, although the National Farmers Federation said it was not aware of large numbers of farmers clamouring to grow hemp.

"If it meets all the safety and health requirements, then farmers should have the option of growing whatever crops that best fits their business," Ben Fargher, the federation's chief executive officer, said. "There are farmers who look for innovative specialist crops, and this may fit that category."

Only a tiny slice of what hemp can be used for :

• As a cloth, hemp is softer, warmer, and more water resistant than cotton, and commands much higher prices. The original Levi Jeans were made from hemp.
  
• The majority of the world's books were printed on hemp paper until the 20th Century. Banknotes are still printed on hemp paper.
• Hemp can produce from two to four times as much fibre per hectare as woodchipping.
• A hemp paper industry is labour intensive rather than being capital intensive like woodchip. This means more jobs. Woodchips sell for $60/ton. Hemp pulp sells for $400 per ton for low grade pulp, and up to $1500 for organosolv, the highest grade.
• 200,000 hectares of hemp could replace Australia's woodchip exports industry - (the woodchip industry) is subsidised by the taxpayers to the rate of $300 million.
• Cannabis hemp makes the strongest particle board with far greater durability than any woodchip source.

Hemp seed is also one of the most nutritious food sources in the world. Hemp seed is stuffed full of Omega-3 and protein. Absurdly, you can legally buy hemp seed to feed to your pets in New South Wales, but it's illegal to buy it for your own consumption.

Hemp oil also makes for one hell of a biofuel, without causing corn and sugar shortages, and hemp can also be used to brew up some damn fine beer.

South Australia, Queensland and Victoria are also expected to follow New South Wales' lead and unveil their plans for their own new hemp industries in the coming months.

Hempallujah!

Rough Estimate

It's refreshing to see that police try to play down the number of protesters, even when it's the police doing the protesting :

It's common for police estimates of demonstration numbers to vary widely from the figures put out by the organisers. But in Victoria today, it was police versus police when it came to estimating the numbers at a march on Parliament.

Renegade union chief Paul Mullett led the rally. He believes there were about 3,000 there. The Police Command puts the number at closer to 1,500.

Although 1500 to 3000 police protested peacefully for better pay and work conditions, there was no water cannon deployed, their protest signs were not busted up and nobody was hit by pepper spray. Which seems odd.

Trendy New Psychosis Alert : Doctors Brace For Wave Of "Climate Change Mental Illness"

Troubled by the Uncle Dave and his pit bull abuse you suffered in your childhood? Haunted by your grandfather's suicide at his 50th wedding anniversary while you were raising a toast? Crippled by your love-hate relationship with Jesus and memories of the Catholic priests who 'baptised' you? Still struggling with revelations that your father was a hermaphrodite 1970s porn movie queen? Stressed into locking yourself away forever by your inexplicable fear of being eaten by paving stones and attacked by bus shelters?

Pffft. You're all a bunch of whiny wussbags. And so far behind the times. There's a new anxiety in town, major celebrities already have it and if you're not already telling friends you are "stressed beyond belief about the climate change" you will soon sound like an imitator, instead of an innovator.

From the Herald Sun :

Climate change is not only bad news for the environment, it also threatens our mental health, a doctor warns.

Grant Blashki, from the University of Melbourne, warned that global warming was making many people anxious.

"People with depression and anxiety have a low threshold to taking on the negative information about climate change . . . which feeds into a hopelessness about the future."

Dr Blashki will call for healthcare professionals to brace for a wave of climate change mental illness in a speech to mark today's World Health Day.

What a shock. Mind tinkerers have found a fresh branch of depression to exploit, a low grade anxiety to market and pontificate upon. And it's trendy and socially responsible. Gold!

Are you suffering from Warm Gore Psychosis (WGP)?

Are you troubled by suddenly summery days and your neighbours' inability to turn off all their lights before they go to bed?

Do you find yourself sheeting sweat in the veggie shop while repeatedly asking the confused owner how many 'Carbon Kilometres' the pear you're clutching in your damp fist has racked up?

Are you reconsidering starting a family because you've already calculated how much carbon your planned for two children will produce in their lifetimes and you can't sleep, so riddled by pre-emptive carbon-guilt?

Help. We need help. Perhaps in the shape of a pill.

Won't some pharmaceutical company please come up with a new anti-anxiety medication designed to specifically target the areas in the brain responsible for this apparently eagerly anticipated "wave of climate change mental illness"?

Yes. Of course they will.

But this, it's all the wrong attitude.

If you instead look forward to climate change induced chaos and destruction instead, and do it without feeling any guilt or empathy, then you only face some disappoint if The Warmolypse doesn't live up to its mega-disaster-movie-level potential.

There's plenty of carbon-guilt, climate change anxiety and Warm Gore Psychosis to be seen nearly everyday in newspapers' letter sections and on most online comment boards attached to dooming reports on how Mother Nature is preparing to clean our clocks.

One of the worst recent examples of Warm Gore Psychosis I've seen is this travel story about 'going green' in the Blue Mountains. The writer spends almost one third of her large New York Times large story fretting about the carbon footprint of her flight from the US to Australia :

Of course, one could make the argument that the moment I chose Australia (a blow-your-carbon-footprint-off-the-map sort of destination), I committed my first serious environmental crime of the trip.

According to one carbon calculator, my round-trip journey between London and Sydney alone (about 21,000 miles) would produce an outlandish 5.6 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of leaving all the lights on in my home all day and night for two years and six months.

With such an earth-shattering (literally) equation staring back at me, it was hard not to think twice before flying.

Awesome. a New York Times travel writer is so crippled by her footprint-of-destruction carbon guilt that she considers not traveling at all. But wait, carbon offsetting saves the day :

(Justin Francis of Responsible Travel) went on to assuage my guilt by telling me that one in 12 jobs in the world is in tourism, and if everyone decided not to travel, the result would be a global recession that would undoubtedly hit the developing countries hardest, and not just their economies. (In October 2007, the United Nations World Tourism Organization estimated that 46 of the 49 poorest countries in the world rely on international tourism as their primary source of foreign exchange earnings.)

“Tourism also keeps many cultures from going extinct,” he said. “Often rituals and traditions are passed down between generations primarily because tourists come to see them.”

I vowed to learn something about the Aborigines if I went to Australia.

So what did this New York Times travel writer learn about Australian Aborigines? Just one thing :

Aborigines lived in these caves as recently as 100 years ago, isolated from the European settlers who were colonizing the rest of New South Wales.

She learned lots about how Qantas found a new way to charge $25-$30 more in Gore taxes, supposedly offsetting the traveller's and their own carbon output, but not much about the Aborigines.

Obviously learning how the NYTimes travel writer found a way to "assuage my guilt"
over actually traveling as part of her travel writing job was far more important than learning that within a short distance from her Blackheath eco-lodge can be found numerous examples of ancient Aboriginal art and culture.

I have to agree with The Editor of GrodsCorp that this concrete monstrosity must rank as the most craptacular of all the Big Aussie Icons. And the competition is fierce :




Actually, it begins to look kind of sinister if you stare at it too long.

The Big Koala is for sale. Behind the mysterious roller door is a souvenir booth.

UPDATE : My mistake. The 14 metre tall Giant Koala isn't made from concrete, it's composed of cold cast bronze and fibreglass. You can buy it for only $220,000. It would look magnificent in any backyard, looming menacingly over the neighbourhood.

Sir Les Patterson On Kevin "The Dentist" Rudd



I'll come back and do some more on the theme of 'The Death Of The Aussie Bloke' that is explored in this story from an elitist limey rag, but for now the opinions of Sir Les Patterson on the state of the Australian male as represented by PM Kevin Rudd must be heard :

‘There are far too many mealy-mouthed poofters in high places in Australia now. It’s a bit of a poof-ocracy these days."

Barry Humphries channels Sir Les :

Humphries, who was invited to a Downing Street function during Rudd’s visit (to London), added that Sir Les regarded Rudd as “a clean-cut sort of fellow. Les calls him ‘the Dentist’. He looks just like a dentist, peering critically into the mouth of the nation, saying, ‘Who did this work?’

Warm Beers

What I expect to be the second to last chapter of the free online novel ED Day : Dead Sydney is now up. Here's a chunk of it :

Johnny didn’t pace, he just stood there, in that doorway, filling it up, talking in a calm voice, as though he was set for whatever fate was about to dish up to him.

“There’s beers,” he said. “But they’re a bit warm.”

“I think I like my beer warm, now,” I said, and it was true.

Johnny grabbed a couple of bottles of VB from a half-empty case on the floor. He tossed me one.

"Cheers to you," I said. "Yeah, good luck on your journey, brother."

“Good luck with…what you have to do.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes and drank our warm beers. The sun was returning, a huge heat lamp slowly being turned up. The blast of sun on my skin made me want to go back to sleep.

"Why do you think we made it?" Johnny asked me. "Why us? Millions probably died here. Why did we get to live?'

It's the question all survivors ask themselves, but once they cut God out of the answer nobody could ever come up with a good reason.

You can read ED Day from Chapter One here.

Liberals Pray To The Tubes Of The Internets For Salvation

Mind-boggling. The senior ranks of the Liberal Party know less about the internets and the series of tubes that carry it around the world than they knew about the detail of their own WorkChoices policies.

In fact, most of the Liberal Party's old timers don't even know what those boxes with TVs on their secretaries' desks are all about :

Christopher Pyne, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey were the only senior former Howard government ministers who could use a computer, a Liberal party source said.

The Libs have apparently woken up to the fact that their online election campaign was beyond woeful and they are not digitally connecting with younger conservatives. Better late than
never :

The Liberal Party is preparing a major internet blitz to reinvigorate itself amid plunging membership and an ageing support base.

Senior party sources said the Coalition "failed abysmally" to fully recognise the importance of the internet during the 2007 federal election campaign, and that John Howard's stilted YouTube appearances did more harm than good.

"There was a complete cultural misunderstanding of the internet at headquarters," a senior insider said. "In lots of respects, Howard's YouTube appearances underlined the problem. They are supposed to be spontaneous chats - not sitting in a stuffy study giving a prepared speech."

The Liberal Party (those who know how to work a computer anyway) are apparently hoping to do some digital trumping on PM Rudd's 2020 summit.

In what could be the Liberal Party's answer to the Federal Government's 2020 summit, The Sun Herald has learnt that a new Liberal interactive online forum will be unveiled at the Victorian State Council meeting later this month.

The forum would allow members to have a "continuing online conversation" with party elders and to engage younger conservatives.

Members will be able to access chat rooms to discuss policy papers and key issues such as housing affordability, the environment, national security and tax.

Liberal federal president Alan Stockdale said a similar idea was being explored at the national level.

Christopher Pyne, one of the few senior Liberals who know how to use a computer, says his party must work some magic over the internet if they want to become 'a modern political party.'

Mandatory computer and internet training for the offline Liberals will become a priority.

"The difference is between grudgingly accepting the internet and embracing it as a real campaign tool; I'm confident the party is now moving to embrace it," he said.

Grudgingly accepting the internet? Millions of young and old Australians now spend more time online at home than they do watching TV or listening to the radio and they're in the process of "grudgingly" accepting it?

Expect a spam mail in your inbox soon inviting you to watch Brendan Nelson working on his motorbike and practising his guitar playing live on webcam.

Fingerprint ID Scans Forced On School Children

Parents Called "Idiots" For Refusing Biometric Data Collection Of Their Children

Why not just take DNA swabs of the students instead? Then the schools can have their students biometrically profiled to find out what their potential future levels of aggression, illness and classroom misbehaviour may be. Pre-emptive expulsions!

From news.com.au :

A Sydney high school has been accused of intimidating students into having their fingerprints scanned for a new attendance monitoring system, and branding parents who object as "idiots".

Parents of students at Ku-ring-gai High School in Sydney's north say their children have been bullied into taking part in a trial of the scheme introduced this week.

According to a principal's note sent home with students last Friday, parents were permitted to opt out by sending an "exemption" letter to the school.

Parents told The Australian yesterday their children were told their fingers would be scanned anyway, and data later deleted, only if there were still objections.

Alison Page said her daughter in Year 10 and other students who carried exemption letters were told "their parents were idiots for not agreeing". She said they were asked again if they would have the scans. "They were told to go home and tell their parents they were worrying about nothing," she added.

Ms Page said her other daughter in Year 12 was among students required to provide finger scans without notice after an English exam on Tuesday. Her daughter had an exemption letter but had not been allowed to take it into the room.

"They were not allowed to leave the room until it was done," she said. "They were told it could be deleted later if they didn't want it done."

Parent Chris Gurman said his daughter Alex was also told she could not leave the exam room until her fingerprint was taken.

"My daughter was the only one who refused," Mr Gurman said. "She's read 1984. When she refused to co-operate, a teacher let her out of the room."

Alex Gurman, 17, said they were told: "'If any of your stupid parents have any worries about this we will talk about it later.' I felt like crying, I felt like I was being forced to do something I didn't want to do, it was very confronting."

NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca said a small number of schools had introduced fingerprint scanning with the support of parents, adding it was not a government nor department initiative.

So who's paying for the fingerprint scanners? The schools? Did the schools hold fund-raising chocolate drives? Or were the scanners 'donated'?

It starts with fingerprint scanners. Once every school has brought a few scanners they will be found to be inneffective. Or not effective enough at collecting biometric data. DNA collection and state/national biometric databases of school students will then be introduced.

Neither the NSW Labor Government, or its education department, has made any formal announcement about the rolling out of biometric data collection programs for school children.

Presumably they were waiting to see how loud or outraged the reaction from parents would be when they found out it was already going on.

So far, the reaction has been fairly subdued.

The school children may as well get used to it. Within a decade, having your implanted ID chip, or biometric data, scanned every time you enter a school, train station, shopping mall or night club will be standard, every day stuff.

Unless you refuse ID chips and allowing your biometric data to be collected and datamined, of course. Then you will become a non-person and be refused access to just about everywhere.

Incredibly sad and beautiful paintings by prisoners on the walls of cells and exercise yards at Western Australia's infamous, and haunting, Fremantle Goal.

Gangland Serial Killer Likens Himself To Soldier In A War

Carl Williams killed a lot of people, and he's proud of what he did.

The Melbourne gangland war of the late 1990s and early 2000s was a real war, Williams insists in two extraordinary letters to his mother, written from the prison where he is now serving 35 years. He says he was fighting to protect the lives of his family, and himself.

Some excerpts :

"Yes I did what I did. I am guilty of defending my loved ones from being killed..."

"I killed or played a role in killing people who were planning to kill me and for that I have lost my freedom for the best part of my life. Everyday soldiers have to kill the enemy, otherwise the enemy will kill them."

"Just for a moment please try putting yourself in my shoes. It was my 29th birthday. As far as I was concerned I didn't have a worry in the world. That is until I went and met someone whom I thought was a friend of mine [Mark Moran] only to end up getting shot by him and his brother … because they were money hungry, greedy control freaks who I wouldn't bow down too [sic]."

"From the day I was shot my life changed forever and in the end those two are dead and the price I have to pay for standing up for myself is the loss of my freedom from the young age of 33 years old until the ripe old age of 71."

"I am the first to admit that I wish that I could turn back time and what happened never did … although I must confess I am certainly not ashamed of the lengths I was forced to take to protect myself and my loved ones.

"I am no saint … but the people I killed were far worse people than I will ever be … I never killed or harmed any innocent people."

"I was in a kill or be killed situation … I will always be able to see and talk to my loved ones … and that is alot [sic] better than the scumbags who shot me can do.

"I will always be able to look in the mirror and be very proud of the person I see."

Police believe Williams was connected to the deaths of up to 12 men...

Williams is none too happy about the way he is portrayed in the Underbelly TV series :

"I don't mind them telling the truth about me, but telling lies and painting me out like some kind of dickhead who is brain dead - well that's just bullshit."

Yes, bullshit indeed. Imagine portraying a speed-dealing multiple murderer as a brain dead dickhead?

You can read the Carl Williams letters in full here and here.

Stone 'Enge

By December 21, Australia will have its own full-scale replica of Stonehenge, amongst the wineries of Margaret River, WA.

December 21 is the completion day chosen by former brewer Ross Smith because it marks the next summer solstice. Bloody pagans.

Smith is promising a 101 stone replica of the legendary 'Enge, which will be built from 2500 tonnes of Esperance granite, with stones standing eight metres high. It will cost Smith about $1.5 million to build on his Margaret River property.

It would replicate how the British structure stood about 5000 years ago.

Mr Smith said no one had ever tried to replicate Stonehenge in granite and the project’s location had been changed because of the high cost of a bitumen road and due to neighbours’ objections.

“It’s a standing circle of stones 33m across and I had to laugh when some people said in their opposition to it on the other property, ‘What does Stonehenge have to do with Margaret River?’,” he said. “Well, I can say, 25 years ago what did grapevines have to do with Margaret River?”

Zing!

Smith has cracked onto a very good idea. Remarkably, there doesn't exist a full-sized replica of Stonehenge anywhere in the world, despite it being one of the most famous of all the ancient monuments, according to Smith.

"I'm doing it because I can," said Mr Smith...

...The Henge, will include 101 granite stones arranged in an inner and outer circle and a central altar.

Unlike the original Stonehenge, guests will be encouraged to play around the new monument, which will also have an interpretive centre and a children's playground.

Mr Smith said The Henge would be a business venture, to be hired out for weddings and other events.

If the popularity of WA's Wave Rock is anything to go by (hours of driving to see a rock that looks like a wave. Sort of), the 'Enge will be a massive 'it with tourists.

Smith should be seriously looking into booking Spinal Tap for the opening of The Henge. They'll supply the midgets.

UPDATE : Ross Smith is wrong, there are other full-sized replicas of Stonehenge, including Maryhill Henge in Washington, built in the early 1900s as a memorial to the dead of World War I.

Earth Hour Daily

I wasn't exactly paying attention to news stories on Earth Hour on Saturday and Sunday, preferring to watch ants dismantle a cockroach in a dark corner of the kitchen, but did I really hear a news reader say that the original idea was to get 'Earth Hour' to become a daily event, and that was still on the cards?

An hour each day when all the lights at home, or in the office, are switched off. Perhaps compulsory? A fine arriving in the mail because the monitoring of your electricity usage shows no drop during the daily scheduled 'Earth Hour', meaning you have broken international carbon control laws?

I must be getting old, but having the lights off at home when there wasn't blinding sunlight, or when it wasn't the middle of the night, wasn't called Earth Hour when I was a kid. It was called "a blackout."

Of course, governments having a free hand to introduce compulsory 'Earth Hour' blackouts will be a great way for unprepared electricity suppliers and the responsible government departments to gloss over their failure to deliver 24 hours a day energy to the home at a reasonable price.

When power shortages start hitting the grid in a very noticeable way, they can make 'Earth Hour' a mandatory daily event.

"Blackout? Whaddayamean 'blackout'? This isn't a blackout. It's Earth Hour."

By then it will probably be called something else, like 'The No Power Hour.'

UPDATE : Apparently, the participation in Earth Hour across Australia was equivalent to the shutting down of two major power stations. Temporarily.

The Carrington Hotel, Katoomba.

March 22, 2008












Photos by Darryl Mason

It Sure Beats TV

Are you one of the majority of Australians who now spend more time online than flopped in front of the TV?

According to this story, in 2005 Australians spent an average of 8.9 hours online each week. In 2006, the time online was 12.5 hours. In 2007, Australians had ramped up their online activities to almost 14 hours a week.

We supposedly watched an average of 13.3 hours a week watching TV.

The decrease in TV watching time was a possible early warning sign Australia was approaching the feared "media saturation point'', said Tony Marlow, Nielen Online's Asia-Pacific associate research director.

"At saturation, it becomes difficult for consumers to take on any extra media activity without sacrificing something else - posing new challenges for marketing professionals," he said.

Do you live in fear of reaching a "media saturation point"? No, that would be the advertisers.

Apparently Australians devote almost 85 hours a week in total to leisure and soaking up media, up by some 13 hours since 2006.

...the increasing amount of time spent online was not at the expense of other media usage.

People were simply consuming more than one medium at a time, the research showed, with 58 per cent of Internet users saying they had watched TV while online and 48 per cent saying they had listened to the radio.

And that probably explains how most Australians use the internet at home in the evenings. The TV is on, but is no longer the sole focus of attention for most of the evening. Laptops are humming away in our living rooms, snatching our attention away from six minute blocks of blaring ads and TV shows that can no longer dominate our interest now so many of us have this remarkable access to a world of information and media on the coffee table in front of us. Between our brains and whatever is on the TV screen.

As with the music and film industries, the TV industry has also been stupidly slow to work out that the internet would kick its flabby, 20th century butt.

Until it becomes part and parcel of our internet habit, TV as we know it now will continue to lose its already dwindling audience.

We've simply got more interesting ways to spend our time in the evenings and on weekends now. Having to watch a TV show at a set time with 30 percent of that time soaked up by ads, seems almost prehistoric, and pathetic.

We are no longer a captive audience.

Help, My Brain Just Melted



Andrew "The Iraq Was Is Won" Bolt splutters with helpless fury at Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson's new mantra on climate change :

For heaven’s sake. Brendan Nelson gives a speech to define the Liberals’ identity, and winds up channelling Al Gore instead:

Dr Nelson said the challenge of climate change and the need for a genuine global solution was the “most important economic, political and moral challenge to face our generation”.

Moral challenge? A scientific, technological and economic challenge, maybe, but moral?

With that one stupid word, Nelson damns the better-qualified sceptics in his party (and those silent ones in Kevin Rudd’s ministry) as not just wrong, but immoral.

One of the reasons, one of the many but certainly a key reason, why John Howard lost the election was he didn't keep up with the changing national belief and debate on climate change. One of the main reasons Howard did that is because he believed Andrew Bolt was right, and that Australians would always see global warming as a Green Conspiracy to take away their big screen TVs and make them live by firefly illumination.

When Howard was still claiming the debate was not yet over, and all the facts weren't in, the consensus amongst voters had already settled that climate change was real enough for them to believe that it threatened the livelihoods of their children and grandchildren and, therefore, was not an issue to be ignored. Or denied. Or mocked.

Some Howard advisors, like a good number of his personal staff, found refuge in 2006 and 2007 with Andrew Bolt And The BoltOns, where they mingled online with a small slice of the minority of Australians who sincerely believed that Al Gore was almost Hitler-evil, and that climate change really was a Green Conspiracy that would have us all living in bark shacks without electricity and flush toilets and sustaining on mung beans and tofu within five years.

But the real kick in the guts for Howard, and for Bolt, came when Bolt's boss Rupert Murdoch (who Howard once referred to as "God") announced in mid-2007 that he believed climate change was real, that it posed "dire consequences" and that most of the Murdoch media around the world would begin full-blown promotion of climate change as a reality that cannot be ignored.

Howard didn't see that coming, and obviously wasn't told in advance what Murdoch was going to announce, and so he was caught out with no time to prepare, or to soften up his Liberals for a superbackflip and spectacular "Me Too!" on dealing with climate change. That came only weeks out from the November election.

The Liberals know all too well now what happens when they take Andrew Bolt-approved conspiracy theories to the Australian people. They lose government. Which is why Brendan Nelson doesn't parrot Andrew And TheBoltOns the way Howard, Alexander Downer and Tony Abbott used to. They learned their lesson.

Bolt's fury is not so much directed at Nelson as it is towards himself for being left so far behind on the climate change issue, for being so out of tune with the majority of Australians, for having so much less impact and influence on the Australian mind than Al Gore, or Tim Flannery, and for helping to destroy the Liberal Party.

Andrew Bolt knows this, all of this, of course, but is not yet man enough to admit his vital role in the downfall of John Howard and the immolation of the Australian conservative movement.

Libs Cry Poverty Over $150,000 Pay

Even though they are earning more than triple the average Australian wage, and have more perks and privileges than a flake-cocaine dealer in the film industry, the Coalition in opposition now bleats that they aren't earning enough. And they want more. Of course they do.

Interesting they never rallied to fight for better pay for opposition MPs when they were in government.

Annnabel Crabbe :

Coalition frontbenchers, still stinging from the financial blow of slipping from government into opposition, have launched a quiet campaign for a pay rise.

It is understood senior shadow ministers have sounded out the Government on the possibility of a significant pay boost for Opposition frontbenchers, who are paid a standard backbench salary despite their increased workload.

Former ministers have taken huge pay cuts since their election defeat in November. The former health minister Tony Abbott, for example, went from earning a total package of $250,000 to just under $150,000.

Mark Vaile, the former deputy prime minister, lost half of his total package of about $300,000.

Only $150,000 a year?

If Labor really wanted to decimate the ranks of the Liberal Party in opposition, all they'd have to do is lower the pay of these poverty-riddled conservatives. Give them, say, the same amount that the average nurse or policeman or firefighter earns in a year and watch them bail in panicked droves on their service to the nation.

Shit pay is, of course, why so few 'Liberal' conservatives dedicate their lives to teaching in schools, which is also why they also piss on and on about how many Evil Lefties there are in front of the whiteboards. They don't actually want to live within sight of the poverty line to educate children, but they sure do love putting the boot into those that do.

The standard argument from conservatives in particular is that our politicians are sacrificing massive seven figures salaries they could easily earn in the private sector to serve the Australian public.

Really?

Well, sacrifice no more. Don't let your utterly selfless service to the nation hold you back from that $3 million a year gig with the Macquarie Bank. They must be ringing you every week, begging you to come on board. Right Peter Costello?

Bail on us and ditch that pitiful six figure salary. The millions of families almost getting by on $40,000 a year will understand.

I'm sure we'll survive without you.

Somehow.

Libs Now Taking Question Time 'Requests'

The Liberal Party is the party of ideas, or so they like to claim. That doesn't mean they've got a lot of ideas, but they like ideas in general. Now they want your ideas. But they just don't want your ideas, they want you to write questions for them to read out during Question Time in Parliament House.

Submit your QT questions here and you too could enjoy the vicarious thrill of having Tony Abbott read your submission in the nation's Parliament.

All for open and digital democracy here, but maybe the Libs should be reading out the really good public-submitted questions with a "Sarah from Quakers Hill would like me to ask the prime minister about..." intro. Credit where it's due, particularly when the public deliver questions that launch a negative-Rudd issue into the headlines for the Liberals.

Of course if you're a real bastard, you can submit the kinds of questions to the Liberal Party that will get them all very excited and send them dashing about digging through records and files for a few days, only to discover they've been sent on a pointless treasure-free hunt.

But I'm sure Labor has more than enough extra staff right now to fuck around the Liberals like that.

Now Labor digital operatives don't have to bother posting false leads to Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman blogs to get the Libs to blow dozens of hours searching for facts inside mostly fictitious accusations and briefly promising Rudd scandals.

Hell, if they're really clever about it, some Labor staffer might even be able to use the Liberal Party's 'Submit Your QT Question' page to get Brendan Nelson himself all damply furious enough about a billboard-bright potential Labor controversy to recite a fake question during Question Time.

The challenge is on.

Murdoch's Lite Porn Meat Market

A reader forwards the below screen capture from a news.com.au story page earlier today. 'Gussal' went to look at this readers comments page about why PM Rudd must show backbone on dealing with China, after they slaughtered more than 80 Tibetan protesters. Here's the big ad box that accompanied this serious news :




Gussal : "Are the 'Monster Peenus' and 'I'm Dirty Wendy' spam e-mails following me online now? Why am I being targeted by porn ads? What the fuck is this about?"

Tits N' News. It's the Rupert Murdoch way.

Christ Compels Government To Fund Exorcisms For Young Women

You're Not Mentally Ill, You Are Possessed By Demons

I wonder what the non-Evangelical population of Australia (that would be almost all Australians) think about their taxes being used to fund exorcisms and anti-demon counseling programs?

A secretive ministry with direct links to Gloria Jean's Coffees and the Hillsong Church has been deceiving troubled young women into signing over months of their lives to a program that offers scant medical or psychiatric care, instead using Bible studies and exorcisms to treat mental illness.

Government agencies such as Centrelink have also been drawn into the controversy, as residents are required to transfer their benefits to Mercy Ministries. There are also allegations that the group receives a carers payment to look after the young women.

Naomi Johnson, Rhiannon Canham-Wright and Megan Smith (Megan asked to use an assumed name) went into Mercy Ministries independent young women, and came out broken and suicidal, believing, as Mercy staff had told them repeatedly, that they were possessed by demons and that Satan controlled them.

Hello Mercy Ministries, welcome to the 21st century.

...the program is focused on prayer, Christian counselling and expelling demons from in and around the young women, who say they begged Mercy Ministries to let them get medical help for the conditions they were suffering, which included bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and anorexia.

Mercy Ministries are proud to admit they practice exorcisms, anti-demon counseling and Bible studies to help young women cope with mental disorders.

Not only does Mercy Ministries appear unconcerned by the allegations, it is mounting an aggressive expansion campaign. Peter Irvine, its former managing director, now director of corporate sponsorship, confirmed it was opening houses in Adelaide, Perth, Townsville, Newcastle, Melbourne and another Sydney house, in the southern suburbs.

Allan Fels, dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said if Mercy Ministries had made false claims about its services it would be in breach of the law and could face injunctions, damages and fines.

"Both the federal Trade Practices Act and the relevant state fair trading acts would seem to apply to the situation since income is being received by Mercy Ministries. Both laws prohibit misleading and deceptive conduct."

Right. Now that's a court case I'd like to see : Mercy Ministries having to prove in court that demonic possession leads to anorexia and the use of exorcisms is an effective method of curing bipolar disorder.

"I call to the witness stand...Satan!"

Supreme Court Cites Climate Change As Reason To Ban Houses By The Beach

This story's a few days old now, but it didn't get much attention from the mainstream media. Strange, considering it sets a precedent for less homes being built near Australian beaches and along our coastlines :

In a portent of how climate change could transform town planning along the nation's coastlines, the South Australian Supreme Court has ruled that predicted sea level rises are a valid reason to reject beachfront housing developments.

The rejection of a subdivision on Yorke Peninsula, west of Adelaide, is likely to be repeated across the country as councils progressively write climate change provisions into their planning regulations.

The South Australian Supreme Court cited local sea level rises of 30cm over the next 50 years in ruling yesterday against Northcape Properties' plans for 80 holiday homes at Marion Bay, 150km west of Adelaide.

Judge Bruce Debelle endorsed earlier decisions by the state's Environment Court and Yorke Peninsula Council, which is one of the first coastal districts to incorporate stringent climate change clauses into its planning rules.

In ruling against Northcape's appeal, Justice Debelle confirmed the Environment Court's conclusion that the Marion Bay waterline would "recede inland by 35-40m" in the next 100 years.

Council chief executive Ricki Bruhn was delighted the court had vindicated his council's decision to add climate change clauses to its development plan in 2004.

"We're aware of rising sea levels and erosion in that area now," he said. "And being surrounded by water on three sides, we bear the brunt of any storm surges."

It's not just the courts (one court so far) that use climate change projections in deciding such matters. Whether you believe climate change will adversely impact Australia or not, most insurance companies now figure in the presumed effects of climate change in devising home insurance policies for the next decade or two.

That is, we will soon see a day when insurance companies will refuse to insure homes on beachfronts, or close to our coastlines, and make it harder to insure homes against what will be battled in courts as something like "climate change-related damage."

In a few years, if you own a home along a stretch of coastline predicted as likely to be hit by tidal surges, you will likely pay heavily in insurance premiums. If you can actually get insurance, that is.

The great Australian dream of owning a home by the beach is already almost out of reach for most Australians, with beach and coastal property prices on the east and west coasts mostly staying strong.

If Australian courts are now more likely to rule out beachfront and coastal developments because of climate change, a beach house for most Australians in the future will go from a perhaps reachable dream into the realm of pure fantasy.

Norway's black metal legends Immortal, Sydney's Metro Theatre, March 15, 2008













Firebreathing


















All photos by Darryl Mason

Report : 300,000 Families Will Face Losing Their Homes This Year

What sort of breakdown of society, and community, results from such hardship inflicted on so very, very many Australian families?

An alarming 300,000 households will be under severe mortgage stress by mid-2008 and at risk of losing their homes as interest rates and living costs rise, a new report shows.

The new report, based on the results of telephone interviews with 26,000 Australian households, estimates more than 700,000 households will be experiencing some form of mortgage stress by June this year, a four-fold increase on last year.

It said mild stress was epitomised by households which prioritised or cut spending to pay their mortgages.

About 300,000 households will be experiencing severe stress, meaning they will have missed repayments, be in the process of refinancing or have received a foreclosure notice.

The report also pointed to a rise in "affluent stress" of high net worth borrowers suffering from rising rates, school fees and share margin calls.

We don't even yet know the full scope of how the US subprime mortgage obliteration will impact on Australian banks and investment funds. There's a lot of worthless debt out there no-one wants to claim ownership of, because sticking your hand up for those mortgages may hammer your stock price.

If you don't have a mortgage, if you don't have credit card debt, if you don't owe thousands of dollars to anyone or any institution, you can soon call yourself wealthy, at least compared to the million or more families now stuck with rising mortgages for homes that are losing value.

Howard Speaks...More Guff And Twaddle

'Conservative' Losers Claim Victory, For Losing

By Darryl Mason

John Howard has given his first interview since his humiliating election annihilation in November last year. Don't get too excited there, Howard's interview is about as dry and lifeless as a warm glass of salt and sand. But then, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

More interesting than most of what Howard has to say, is who he decided to say it to. That would be Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian newspaper.

You remember Janet, surely? She was the one who told Howard a few months out from the 2007 election that he had to quit, for the good of the Liberal Party, and for the ultimate benefit of Australian conservatism.

Here's a little flashback from Janet :

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound...

But now he must go. The Howard factor is there. Where once it meant success, now it presages defeat.

Of course, that column from Janet, back in September, 2007, didn't come as a complete shock to Howard. How could it? Janet rang Howard's office to let him know what she was publishing, before she even wrote it :

She's not an independent columnist, with scant regard for the impact of her opinion, as a truly fearless and uncompromising columnist must be. She is a propaganda outlet for John Howard, and has been a key player in the current game of "Howard Must Quit"/"Howard Must Stay" that has dominated political media coverage for the past eight days. The Game that is meant to show just how tough and resilient Howard can be, and how ready he is for the Big Fight in the coming election. And it all took place just when Howard needed it the most, when he is absolutely tanking in the polls....

In trying to fill in the gaps around the dull Howard quotes in her story - it being painfully obvious that he has little of anything fresh or interesting to say - Janet sprays a fresh coat of much-needed varnish on her Monty Python-absurdity level theory that Howard's hammering in the election, and the evisceration of the Liberal Party in general, actually means that conservatism is victorious in Australia :

Howard’s critics still don’t get it. In the sweep of history, conservatism has triumphed.

Since the election of the Rudd Government, the familiar refrain is that conservatism is beat. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that the right-left labels no longer apply. Yet, Rudd eagerly embraced much of the conservative agenda.

Yes, she's right. Rudd did embrace "much of the conservative agenda". That would be the "conservative agenda" of saying 'Sorry' to Aborigines, ratifying Kyoto, culling politicians' perks, pulling combat troops out of Iraq, nixing nuclear power, ramping up renewable energy programs, rewiring the Australian economy to deal with climate change, embracing carbon trading, obliterating WorkChoices and on and on.

You know, the 'New Conservatism'. It's not much like the old Howard conservatism, but it's far more popular and reflective of the Australia that most Australians want to live in.

Janet actually sums up the John Howard of 2008 perfectly in the story's intro :

For Howard, it is history that counts. And he is confident that history is on his side.

As long as people like Janet are writing the history, that is.

Some more desperate myth-making from Janet :

To be sure, Howard bears much of the blame for the final stain that tarnishes his record. After all, a leader is inevitably defined by their last act in office. Howard’s failure to heed the advice of his senior Liberal colleagues to hand over the leadership to Peter Costello last September will always be remembered as a final act of hubris. Deciding to stay on, preferring to be remembered by history as a fighter, not a quitter, knowing that electoral defeat was ahead, his leadership record would be indelibly marked down.

Keep spinning the myth, Janet, that if Costello became leader in September, election victory would have been in the bag. Dozens of polls in Janet's own newspaper reported all through 2007 that while Howard remained largely popular with voters, the Liberal Party, as in the primary political entity of Australian conservatism, was dying a long overdue death.

If the following quote from John Howard is anything to go by, he might want to check with medical professionals to see that at least a few of his neural pathways are still lighting up before he opens his mouth :

“The most constant comment made in the lead-up to the last election is that Rudd was trying to be a younger version of me. And there is some truth to that ... He did not win because he was different. He won because he was like me.”

Actually the most "constant comment" in the lead-up to the last election was that Howard was a tired old man, fresh out of ideas.

Poor John. He really did believe all that crap about Rudd being "a younger version of Howard" spouted by the likes of Janet, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and most of the op-ed writers of The Australian.

For those who were recently claiming that John Howard will never become like former prime ministers Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, popping up in the media waffling embarrassing piffle, it's too late. Howard's clearly ready now to take his place in the all-singing, all-dancing cast of Nutty Old PMs Who Can't Stop Talking Absolute Bollocks.

It's hard to decide what is more pathetic, and sad. The delusional propaganda from media-stacking conservatives like Janet Albrechtsen that they really won the election by losing the election, or the fact that Howard now clearly believes the line that Rudd is "a younger, better looking Howard" and that's the only reason why Labor was victorious.

Doesn't John Howard know that irony-rich line was dreamed up and distributed, via phone calls and boozy lunches to Howard Huggers, like Janet, by his own media strategists?

They say you shouldn't believe your own press. But in Howard's case, he shouldn't believe turd-polishing propaganda that originated from his own office and PR people, no matter how attractive and ego-inflating it may be.

Expect John Howard to be writing a weekly column for The Australian by June. He should feel right at home.

"We're Not Dead Yet"

Panicky kids. A retired couple can't even go away for a weekend without the cops being called and a police media conference being held at the couples' "abandoned" house. Good thing the "missing", presumed murdered, old couple turned up when they did.

Just as the "we think they're dead" media conference was about to start.

A fantastic good news story, with some of the best quotes of the week :

The signs weren't good. The couple had been missing since Thursday, their house was unlocked, their pet dog abandoned, and their home in disarray. But with the Homicide Squad about to make a media appeal for information, in drove the couple in their orange Kombi van, blissfully unaware of the fuss they'd caused.

The disappearance was out of character, so police rallied the media at the couple's house, and were just about to begin their public appeal, when who should appear. As the faithful orange Kombi chugged into the driveway, Mrs Ostell was just as shocked as the strangers on her lawn.

HEATHER OSTELL: Oh look, my heart just went down to my feet. I just couldn't imagine what had happened.

First Mrs Ostell had to weather a chiding from her daughter, who sprinted through the media pack to meet them.

HEATHER OSTELL: She screamed at me (laughs). She just screamed at me, "where have you been?" And she's very upset naturally and shaking, and so I'm going to have to make my peace with her in a moment.

The daughter asked the question usually reserved for parental inquisitions, why didn't they call?

HEATHER OSTELL: Would you believe we forgot the charger? (laughs)

The Homicide Squad's Charlie Bezzina was relieved at an outcome he rarely gets to enjoy.

CHARLIE BEZZINA: These are the good news stories we like, and it's just a breakdown in communications....I'd rather be inconvenienced nine times out of 10, rather than get bad news.

Mrs Ostell says she did feel odd hearing police were looking for her body, but she was proud of their work.

HEATHER OSTELL: Yes, but at least they'd picked out a nice photograph. I thought, "Well if I was dead, I'm glad they picked out a nice picture".

Do you have a nice picture of yourself ready and waiting for the police to hand to the media if you're ever abducted, murdered in a forest or disappear forever into a chink of the space-time continuium? Your relatives can't be trusted not to pick that photo of you blind-drunk and passed out on the lounge from Christmas Day, 1992. How else do you think some of those horrendous photos of missing people get into the newspapers and on the evening news?

An MP3 of the story can be snatched here

Double-Bolted

Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt panicked after The Orstrahyun picked up on his libel here and wrenched his weekend blog post about prime minister Kevin Rudd's visit to Papua New Guinea, where Bolt accused Rudd of "overlooking" alleged pedophilia and corruption in PNG because the locals clapped loudly when he visited an isolated highlands community.

This is Bolt before The Orstrahyun story :

...you’d think that strained relationship was all due to Howard being mean, instead of PNG being notoriously corrupt and also hiding an (sic) pedophile now facing trial in Australia...

This is Bolt after The Orstrahyun story :

....you’d think that strained relationship was all due to Howard being mean, instead of PNG being notoriously corrupt and also hiding a man now facing trial on charges of child sex abuse in Australia.

Hilariously, after tagging an unconvicted man as "an pedophile", and changing the line without making it clear he had done so, Bolt then berates his readers for daring to do what he had done, only a few hours earlier :

I should also stress that Mr Moti is charged with sex offences, but says he is not guilty and nothing yet has been proven against him. He must therefore be presumed to be innocent.

Likewise, any claims that the PNG Prime Minister is corrupt have not been proven anywhere to my knowledge and he, too, must be presumed to be innocent. Therefore any readers who make such allegations in comments below will be and have been snipped.

What Bolt actually meant was that anybody who tried to point out on his blog that he libeled Julian Moti, and caused injury to the likelihood of a fair trial in Australia for alleged underage sex crimes, would not make it onto his comment boards. Bolt must be "snipping" more comments than he publishes these days.

More incredibly sloppy journalism, libel, back-tracking and personal white-washing from Bolt, as he becomes more shrill, sneaky and hysterical by the day.

It's almost entertaining.

Ned Kelly's Remains Found In Prison Mass Grave


The Ned Kelly death mask, freshly cast off the corpse

The remains of Ned Kelly, one of the most legendary men, and most famous criminal, of Australia's short history, were dumped into a mass grave outside the prison where he was executed in 1880. His bones have recently been uncovered, though the skull is still missing. Wonder which family has been quietly passing that unique piece of Australiana from generation to generation?

The grave site of Australia's most notorious bushranger was discovered after historians and archeologists unearthed an old Department of Justice document yielding a vital clue.

Bone hunters during the week finally found an unknown mass grave where the remains of Kelly and other executed prisoners - removed from the Old Melbourne Gaol when it closed in 1929 - were interred at Pentridge.

"We have still some testing to do, but it's pretty clear we have found them," Heritage Victoria Senior Archeologist Jeremy Smith said yesterday.

Plans for the remains have not been finalised, but a publicly accessible cemetery and rose garden will be created at Pentridge.

Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on November 11, 1880, for crimes including murder.

Must be time to attempt to clone Ned Kelly by now. When the clones grow up, they can go on tour through our shopping centres and malls, perhaps a musical. Or just focus on TV. Ned Kelly Idol? Dancing With The Neds?

Australians loved, and still love, their bushrangers, even the cop killers.

Here's a clip of Heath Ledger in the sadly under-rated Ned Kelly movie, by Gregor Jordan. This is the last minutes of the movie :



A more traditional image of Kelly.