Cry Me A Glacier

An impressive photo below, published here. One of the many photos, and you've probably snapped some yourself, that seem to capture the apparent features of the human face in a tree trunk, in the markings on a vegetable, in the patterns of butterfly wings. We see what want to see, recognise what is familiar. Which is why this photograph by Michael Nolan is so jolting :



Here's what environmental lecturer Michael Nolan sees in his photo :

"This is how one would imagine mother nature would express her sentiments about our inability to reduce global warming. It seemed an obvious place for her to appear, on the front of a retreating ice shelf, crying,"

Oh, for the love of dropkicked koalas, get a grip man. You've been out on the ice too long.

The American ABC News website filed this photo, and Nolan's embarrassing ravings, under 'Religious Sightings', next to a pic of the legendary 'Jesus In A Grilled Cheese Sandwich' coincidence. I mean, miracle.

They Can Work Triple Shifts, Just Don't Let Them In Neurosurgery

Gary Kemble continues posting fantastic photos and videos from last weekend's Brisbane ZombieWalk over at The Pool.

Here's zombie nurses discussing the state of our hospitals :

"We Need More Brainnnnnssss"

Incredible. Gary Kemble reports the Brisbane ZombieWalk drew more than 5000 people, unofficially breaking the world record for the biggest gathering of zombies.


.

First Dog On The Moon, over at Crikey, has made some truly gruesome Halloween masks.

Here's the femoral-gnashing Julia Bishop and Christopher 'Poodle' Pyne :



The horrorrrrr.

I triple dare Julia Gillard to slip on the Demon Poodle mask during QT.

If only....

More at Crikey

It Must Be True What They're Saying About World Government, I Read It In The Australian

By Darryl Mason

Janet Albretchsen ramps up the booga-booga, and supplies a list of talking points and questions for the Opposition to bombard the Rudd government with in Question Time, which they will surely do, as soon as today :



According to this ABC board member, the Copenhagaen Climate Change Treaty is a secret World Government plot.

How long I've waited for the day that Parliament House erupts with questions and yelling about "World Government!" Nexus Magazine circa-1987 was right, after all. At least on Planet Janet.

Hopefully, Tony Abbott will be allowed to ask KevinRuddPM when Australians will be implanted with New World Order/World Government! RFID chips (secreted inside mandatory depopulating swine flu vaccinations of course), to keep them under control as the wealth of the few is handed over to placate the poverty of the many.

Then again, Janet and her fellow pro-war nutters in the Murdoch media also believed that bombing the absolute fuck out of Iraq and Afghanistan would bring peace to the Middle East.

Janet Albretchsen's source for her UN/NWO/World Government! claims come through Lord Christopher Monckton, Third Viscount of Benchley, who likes to refer to climate scientists as "bedwetters" and the American president as "Osamabamarama".

.

There's No Right

There's No Wrong

There's Only Popular Opinion

- Jeffrey Goines

So Far They Haven't Worked Out How To Jump Over The Nets

The shark in the movie Jaws was about 8 metres long.

The shark believed to have taken a bite out of this shark off the Queensland coast....



....has been estimated to be at least at least 5 metres long.

A detail of those massive bite wounds :



Staircases are more of a threat to the average Australian's mortality than sharks.

Even fucking huge ones.

I Read Twitter, So You Don't Have To

Paul McCartney joins Twitter, and is immediately beset by questions. Some very funny, very entertaining questions. Highlights from the #AskPaul thread, before it got nasty :

Does marijuana grow in Scotland, or is there not enough light?

Are you really the Walrus or was John full of shit?

Do you know any cheats for The Beatles Rock Band?

If you put a chameleon in a house of mirrors, what colour would it turn?

Do you still keep in touch with Mark Chapman?

At your age, do you still do it in the road?

If Stephen Hawkings and the Mona Lisa were in a burning caravan which would you save?

Do you ever listen to "Pipes Of Peace" while pushing a red-hot tuning fork up your arse? I know I do.

You think you're better than me, don't you?

Have you ever killed a drifter with your bare hands just to see him die?

Which record am I supposed to play backwards for the Satanic messages?

Ebony or Ivory?

Who exactly were the band on the run from?

Why did you give up music after the Beatles split?

Who did you like better, The Beatles or The Stones?

When brushing your teeth in the mirror, do you ever shake your hair excitedly and squeal "Ooooooo!"?

If all The Beatles were alive today, which one do you think would die first?

Do you ever get sick of people saying "I told you so" re Heather Mills?

If we all lived in yellow submarine, who would be the unlucky one cleaning the communal toilet?

Can I do a poo at your house?

Is it fair to say you were the Billy Corgan of Wings?

Which do you think is better, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" or that one you did?

How much did you pay Axl Rose to let you cover Live And Let Die?

Not sure I want to buy a ticket for your gig. Can you come round my house and give me a preview?

Such treatment of the man who wrote Helter Skelter (and Frog Chorus) is the Twitter punishment for opening an account for no reason other than to flog your concerts and Europe Travel/Gig packages.

You can #AskPaul McCartney a question yourself here.

To kill a few minutes out of the two year wait before Mad Max : Fury Road hits cinemas, and gaming platforms, here's an excellent short on the preparation and execution of some spectacular stuntwork from Max Mad 2 :



UPDATE : And here's director George Miller from a few days ago, at the media launch for the start of pre-production of Fury Road :



Other names not considered for the fourth film in the franchise :

Mad Max : Rage Street

Mad Max : Anger Drive

Mad Max : Ferocity Lane.

Mad Max : Vehemently Perturbed & Disgruntled Alley

Lusting For Brains, For Charity

This is exactly the sort of headline I've been waiting for years to see on ABC News. My motorcycle covered with 30 spinning, slashing machetes is ready to go to work :





But, dammit, when you actually read through Gary Kemble's story, you discover it's the Fourth Annual Zombie Walk, where thousands dressed up as the undead, and doused themselves in fake blood and chocolate sauce, as a charity drive for the Brain Foundation.

The Brisbane ZombieWalk organisers should get a prize for coming up with a very popular zombie-related event that actually raises money for brain disease research. Bravo.

And this image by Guilio Saggin, from ABC News, must be a contender for a 2009 News Photo Of The Year :




Gary Kemble has a whole load more photos and videos here, including zombie dogs and arm munching.


@cosmicjester also covered the Brisbane ZombieWalk :



More ZombieWalk photos from CosmicJester here

Previously On The Orstrahyun : Interview With A Zombie

Tsunami Alert Girl Saved Dozens In Samoa

10 year old New Zealand girl Abby Wutzler was holidaying in Samoa with her family when the tsunami smashed into the island. She is believed to have saved dozens of lives because she noticed the sea being suddenly sucked out and then ran along the beach shouting, "The water is going out. Tsunami!"

Abby had learned about the behaviour of tsunamis in school.

Her story, in a report by Kerrie Ritchie, recently featured on Radio National.

STUDENT: Was anybody in the water?

ABBY WUTZLER: Yes, heaps of people, not everyone in the water made it. I think my dad said we heard on the beach there were about 15 bodies washed up.

Her mother, Vicky Wutzler, believes her daughter saved her life :

"(Her warning) most definitely saved a lot of lives in the process, mine included because I would never have got out."

Abby clearly remembers what she saw that terrible day :

"You look from one side and you saw this wasteland of stuff and you look at the other side and it's lovely and green and things but hmm, then you pretty much wish you were a bird to fly away."

The Full Radio National Report Is Here

Finding An International Audience Via Denial

In Britain, The "Not The Nazis" Party Call For White Riots Against "Ethnic Classes"

By Darryl Mason

A recent piece from the Herald Sun's resident conspiracy theorist, Andrew Bolt, gets picked up by Alex Jones' Prison Planet website, which often details for its massive readership a perceived American reality where President Obama is destroying the American Republic for the New World Order, where swine flu vaccinations are part of a depopulation program and where 9/11 Truth is gospel :



Andrew Bolt :

Robert Manne, a Jewish academic, wants to use the Holocaust dead to smear sceptics who dare see evidence that man may not be heating the world disastrously

Some of the comments feserted up by Bolt's story on Jewish academic Robert Manne :

"A ‘carbon tax’ is just a transfer of wealth from white people to non-white."

"Look up the word “holocaust” in a good pre-1970 dictionary – It means; “a burnt offering wholly burnt by fire”. Think about that!! A burn offering to whom? Hitler? God? Rothschild’s NWO? I deny man made global warming and “burnt offerings” to the NWO."

"Any intelligent person who has studied Global Warming and the Holocaust knows they are BOTH BULLSHIT. Both are JEWISH PROPAGANDA used to set the stage for the NWO and Global Marxism. Holocaust is 100% COMMUNIST/MARXIST JEW BULLSHIT. 9/11 is ZIONIST/MARXIST JEW BULLSHIT

Global Warming is MARXIST JEW BULLSHIT

NWO = Jew Communism/Marxism + Jew Central Banking + Jew Mass Media

Murder has no Statute of Limitations. DEATH TO THEM AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES."

"Holocaust is just another Jew invented CONSPIRACY THEORY to blame innocent Germans, just like 9/11 is a CONSPIRACY THEORY to blame innocent Arabs. BOTH violate basic science."

"Another Jewish “Laureate” running off with the mouth reinforcing the myth of the Holocaust or, as we call it, The “Hoaxacaust”. The lies have become so intertwined with bullshit that the truth is long gone. We can only know one thing about these enemies of mankind. “How can you tell when an Zionist is lying? His lips are moving.”

"....after Jewbags unleashed their own treachery, I don’t even feel bad for holocaust victims. Hitler was right. Imagine no Israel…. Beautiful world."

Andrew Bolt has developed an interest in British National Party leader, Nick Griffin :

"...the BNP politicians, although unpleasant, are not the Nazis"

Nick Griffin of the "Not The Nazis" Party :

“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.”

A Bolt reader, at the Herald Sun, inspired by the 'Keep Britain White' mantras of Nick Griffin, unfurls a Griffin-minded conspiracy theory transplanted to Australia :

Australia will go the same way (as England) unless we elect some leaders now who are willing to make some decisions unpopular with the left and the politically correct.

Unless we make what for some are tough decisions now - ending Muslim immigration for one - we’ll end up having to make much more difficult choices later.

In 10-20 years we’ll be in the same awful situation the British find themselves now, more and more intimidated by a huge, angry, threatening minority of Muslims who demand and receive more special concessions every year. Unless we act now to stop it.

If we don’t then we’ll eventually have our own version of the BNP in power and probably some kind of civil war.

Of course it’s almost impossible to imagine the Rudds, Turnbulls, the Hockeys and the Swans of our political class being prepared to do something even a bit controversial now to save possible bloodshed or Islamification of Australia later.

They would laugh airily and tell us not to be so alarmist, while continuing to bring in a growing stream of Muslim immigrants who see Australia as a new land to add to the Dar al Islam.

The politicians will continue to indignantly demmand that we stop asking them to discriminate right up to the day the islamofascists saw off their heads.

Muslims make up less than 2% of the Australian population.


UPDATE : The BNP's legal officer Lee Barnes thinks Nick Griffin is far too moderate, and mainstream, and announces violence is essential in their quest for more intolerance :

Barnes complained on his personal website that Griffin "should have stood up to these whining, middle-class hypocrites that use the race card for self-enrichment – and thrown the truth right back into their fat, sanctimonious, hypocritical, self-serving faces".

"...perhaps there needs to be a few 'white riots' around the country a la the Brixton riots of the 1980s before the idiot white liberal middle class and their ethnic middle-class fellow travellers wake up".

More calls for low-level civil war.

Which is, of course, exactly the kind of activity the upper class elites that nationalists used to fight against want the working classes and middle glasses to all get caught up in.

The ultra-wealthy, that is those with the most to lose, have always preferred the rest to squabble and fight amongst themselves. Over scraps.

The Lee Barnes and Andrew Bolts of politics and the mainstream media fan the embers of discontent into fireballs.

UPDATE : On October 27, Andrew Bolt appears to have a felt pressing need to make this statement on this blog :

Those who are enemies of Jews today are also the foes of Western civilisation.

Maybe he's just softening his readers up for a War On Iran.

The Real Reason Why Rudd Went Begging To The Indonesians

He had no choice.

If you piss off the Indonesians, the cartoonists at the Jakarta Post will go hard and shred you mercilessly, even if you are the prime minister of Australia.

As John Howard and Alexander Downer discovered, in April 2006 :



You probably didn't need to see that again. No doubt, it's already burned into your mind, forever.

UPDATE : I spoke to soon. The Indonesian president is reportedly heading to Australia next month for "crisis talks" with Kevin Rudd. Jakarta Post cartoonists sit ready and waiting....

.

Mad Max 4 : Fury Road - Still A 3D Anime Video Game Crossover?

By Darryl Mason

Seven years after an aborted attempt to film the long overdue sequel, Mad Max 4 : Fury Road, is finally going into production, and will start shooting next year in New South Wales.

The Daily Telegraph reports that work on the film will start immediately, injecting tens of millions of dollars into the economy and creating more than 500 jobs.

Miller's company Kennedy Miller Mitchell will start pre-production immediately.

American actress Charlize Theron has reportedly signed on to co-star, with Sam Worthington expected to take over the role of 'Max' from Mel Gibson.

Today's mainstream media stories fail to mention that director George Miller has already said the new movie will be animated (in Japanese anime style), and will be released in 3D, in 2011 :

“The anime is an opportunity for me to shift a little bit about what anime is doing because anime is ripe for an adjustment or sea change,” he explained. “It’s coming in games and I believe it’s the same in anime."

Has Miller now dumped plans for a 3D animated Fury Road? It seems unlikely, as he's already spent close to three years developing a video game to accompany and expand the scope and history of the new Mad Max tale.

Worthington, or whoever takes on the lead male role, will not be playing Max Rockatansky. If director George Miller sticks to the Fury Road script that is being used to develop the video game, the new 'Max' will be a modified clone of the original Max, with most of the action set way into the future.

Here's a summary of the Fury Road script as it read back in the early 2000s :

The new film is set two centuries on from where we last left Max, wandering the wastelands at the end of third instalment, Beyond Thunderdome.

While the first two films saw women and gasoline as being the most precious resources left to be plundered by biker road armies, and water became a plot catalyst in Beyond Thunderdome, this time around the unpolluted DNA of human 'pure breeds' will be the treasure all seek to possess.

Gibson's Max is expected to show up in the new film in flashbacks, to reveal what happened to him in the last years of his life, before the new Max, a 'son' derived from his DNA, takes over the story.

The new Max's mission will be to act as a 'protector' and escort a group of non-mutants across the wastelands with their precious stock of unpolluted DNA. This pure DNA stock is desired by the mutant hordes, as it can be used to clean up their genes, and make them resistant to the radioactivity that still infects the land.

If you don't think a 3D CGI-anime Mad Max movie can work, wait until you see what James Cameron has achieved with Avatar, due for release in December.

George Miller will not be able to resist the temptation to try and make his movie even more spectacular, more mind-blowing, than Cameron's.

More Here

Getting Nostalgic For A Post-Apcalyptic Aftermath


.

Keeping Communities Safer By Making Pies Cooler

Auckland policeman, and sage philosopher, Guy Baldwin asks a late night poignant question :

"It's three o' clock in the morning, you're buying a pie from the BP service station...what must you always do?"

Not surprisingly, this clip is going viral, fast. T-shirts first, then the refit Hitler Downfall clip.

From ABC News :

The line "always blow on the pie" is now printed on t-shirts which are for sale around Auckland.

Sergeant Baldwin says he was not being serious.

"As a policeman if we can make people laugh then great because in reality what we do isn't funny," he said.

BP service stations in New Zealand must be stoked. The smart ones will quickly put up ;-) signs to cash in.

Though they'll have to be careful in the wording.

Telling customers "We've Already Blown On These Pies" won't help sales.

(via garykemble)

Come On In, Stay The Hell Out

Is Kevin Rudd's flippy stance on asylum seekers a future-focused strategy to make him more popular? Or less?

Kevin Rudd, October 2006 :

"Another great challenge of our age is asylum seekers. The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst.

"We should never forget that the reason we have a UN convention on the protection of refugees is in large part because of the horror of the Holocaust, when the West (including Australia) turned its back on the Jewish people of Germany and the other occupied countries of Europe who sought asylum during the '30s."

Kevin Rudd, October 2009 :

"I make absolutely no apology whatsoever for taking a hard-line on illegal immigration to Australia".

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"...this Government makes no apology whatsoever for the fact that we have a tough line on asylum seekers"

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"(The Liberal Party) is a party without one skerrick of moral compass when it comes to people smuggling", he said.

As Chris Ulhmann, on ABC OffAir, makes clear, in a crystal clear deconstruction of Rudd's religious politicism :

The Opposition's compass at least has the virtue of pointing, roughly, in one direction.

The Government has softened Australia's stance towards asylum seekers and it is determined to maintain strong border protection. These are not mutually exclusive propositions and there are defensible, reasons for doing both.

But confronted with a rising tide of boat people it panicked because it was scared its policy changes would be blamed for the influx and the electorate would punish it.

Rudd's moral compass on asylum seekers now appears to be spinning crazily, searching for the strongest attraction.

But when RuddGov's poll numbers fall five or six points in the next few weeks, and the TurnOpp stages its biggest poll boost this year, will Kevin Rudd be upset?

Or happy?

I'm going with happy.

Rudd doesn't want to go into the 2010 federal elections with 70% of Australians favouring him as prime minister. Where's the challenge in that?

He'll be even happier when the heated protests by die-hard RuddLabor voters, appalled at his fliporama on asylum seekers, begin.

If they begin....

The Late Show On Violence :

Storm In A Palestinian Sperm Bank Sample Cup

By Darryl Mason

Probably the funniest thing about the debut of John Safran's new series Race Relations was the tailored warning to sensitive viewers from the ABC's Director of Television, Kim Dalton, "urging conservative viewers not to watch the program" :

"If you think you are going to be offended or outraged (or want to be offended or outraged) then don’t tune in," Kim Dalton says.

More bias from the ABC.

Why should conservatives get tailor-made viewer warnings from ABC directors that a show might contain 'liberal' content that may cause them offence? Where are the viewer warnings for Lefties when Piers Akerman makes an appearance on Insiders?

In the end, Safran's Race Relations proved to be wholly uncontroversial, and far milder than most were led to believe by tabloid media hype and a concerted effort to whip up more Chaseresque MoralOutrage! hysteria before the first episode even aired.

According to this story, only five complaints were received by the ABC over Race Relations, even though an audience of more than 700,000 tuned in, mostly people under the age of 30.

It's not that there wasn't challenging content in the show, it's that the public seems well bored by the kind of confected controversy that click-bait hungry online media try to whip up on a nearly daily basis now.

The ruse didn't work this time, Australians refused to play along, and in the end Race Relations debuted with barely a whimper of MoralOutrage!

It will be worth watching to see how the rest of Race Relations unfolds, but it feels like they're giving far too much away in the promos. Burning away at our interest, our curiosity about what Safran is going to get up to next. The constant promos are like spoiler material, killing the surprises to come. Oh look, Safran blacks up next week, and when is the episode on when he goes on dates as a chick, or as the Elephant Man?

Hearing for weeks that John Safran masturbates over a photo of Barack Obama was a lot funnier than actually seeing it done.

It's not enough to simply make us cringe. That's far too easy. Safran's big missions is to challenge our minds, our prejudices and our beliefs with his look at inter-racial love and relationships in a world where the White Man-Dominated 20th Century is already fading fast in the rear-view mirror of history.


The Full First Episode Of Race Relations Is Here

He Loved Your Faces

One of the last clips of the now dead Don Lane, before dementia demolished his mind. What a stunning moment of Australian live TV this Grant Page car hit was :



I still have video-vivid memories of Don Lane trying to interview a thrillingly manic Robin Williams; Evil Kneivel boasting about his abandoned plans to sleep with Elizabeth Taylor and dive out of a airplane without a parachute; Hunter S. Thompson, his coat draped over his shoulder, announcing something like "What The Fuck Am I Doing With This On My Fucking Shoulder" (stunningly, the swear word went to air, excitement!) and Doris Stokes, playing her Other Side medium illusions for all they were worth, but also helping audience members to grieve for those they'd lost, some crying about a dead parent, or child, for the first time.

Fantastic viewing, whether you were 8 or 78.

Does anybody else remember Don Lane calling phone boxes in New York or London and telling the person who answered they were now talking live on Australian TV? Brilliant. How innovative such a simple international phone call seemed back then. And how full of eight- year-old outrage and scorn we were at school the next day when someone who answered in the US had asked "Ahhstroolarn? Where's that?" How could they not know?

Thank you, Mr Lane. You did a great show.

Here's a tribute, of sorts, to Don Lane by Paul Hogan, from the mid-1980s :




.

I Spy An Eye On Mars

By Darryl Mason

In three decades of aerial and ground exploration of the surface of Mars, millions of photographs have been generated and released, with the human mind finding some very familiar things in all those often strange surface details of our closest planetary neighbour.

So far, we've had 'The Young Face' On Mars :



The Not So 'Red Planet' Anymore Mars :



The 'Woman' On Mars :



The 'Human Skull' On Mars :



The 'Doorway' On Mars :



The 'Pyramids' Of Mars :



The 'Lake & Shrubs' On Mars :



And now we have The Eye Of Mars :



More On The Eye On Mars Here

You see what you want to see.


.

'Gullzilla' Invades Melbourne

Fantastic :



I guess this proves the backgrounds on Channel Nine's 6pm News, at least, are live.

Rudd Government Pre-Announces End Of Australia's Involvement In The War On Afghanistan

The short version is this : we are fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, everybody knows it, particularly the Taliban, and US President Obama is unlikely to deploy the tens of thousands of additional soldiers the Pentagon is now demanding.

Unofficially, negotiations with the Taliban have already begun, with a gestating NATO plan to pay its fighters, and warlord aligned allies, not to blow up or shoot foreign troops, as the French had been doing secretly for years. Paying the enemy not to try and kill you is a strategy that proved successful with the Sunni-dominated insurgency in Iraq.

Defence Minister John Faulkner appears to have already gotten the word that Australia's role in the Afghanistan war is set to wind down, fast, and before leaving for a NATO meeting on the war, Faulkner pre-announced the news to the media, and the public, in preparation for the official announcements that will soon follow :

....Faulkner says he is exploring options to get Australian troops out of Afghanistan earlier than expected.

Australia has around 1,500 troops in Afghanistan, where they are mainly focused on training a fourth brigade of the Afghan National Army. No specific date has been set for their return.

More Here

Australia's pre-announce makes international headlines, with the announcement from Faulkner set to feed into heated debate in the US and the UK about their reluctance to commit more troops.

Raw Story :

Barnaby Joyce : "If I'm Not Barnaby Joyce, Then Who Am I?"

The ABC's Virginia Trioli on Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce :



Barnaby Joyce :

"Maybe I am crazy. Maybe this isn't parliament but an asylum. And if I'm not Barnaby, who am I? And then, who is Barnaby? If I am crazy, it would explain a lot about this place."

I'd like to hear more from the Existential Barnaby Joyce.

Virginia Trioli and Barnaby Joyce on Insiders in 2005 :

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Barnaby....Kim Beazley, the Opposition Leader, mentioned to me on Friday that he thinks you're a spent political force, that you've been bought off left, right and centre.... How do you respond?

SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE: I respect that he would have a very good position to make a judgment like that.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You're learning, mate, you're learning!

They've been sparring, happily, for years.

Barnaby Joyce uses the controversy kicked off by Trioli's unprofessionalism to good effect in this piece published at The Punch :

If You Think I'm Crazy, Take A Look At The ETS

Virginia Trioli apologised to Joyce yesterday (or begged for his forgiveness), and apologised on ABC 2 this morning.

@craigreucassel, on Twitter :

"(I admire) the way Virginia Trioli helps the hearing impaired understand a Barnaby Joyce interview."

.

Advancing Democracy Through Terrorism

The Australian's editor, Chris Mitchell, has a peculiar take on the terrorist attack that targeted and killed military leaders in Iran over the weekend :

"....no matter how destabilising, the suicide bombing may do little to advance democracy in Iran."

Have suicide bombings advanced democracy in other countries of the Middle East?


.

I Can't Remember Saying That I Don't Recall That I Said I Forgot I Can't Recall All I Have Strategically Forgotten

By Darryl Mason

The Sydney Morning Herald claims Bill Clinton was The Master Of The "I Don't Recall" Defence.

I disagree.

He might not be as famous as the ex-president, but Howard government foreign minister minister Alexander Downer was the fucking Yoda of 'total unrecall'. As he fastidiously proved during the hearings into how the Australian Wheat Board ended up bribing the Saddam Hussein regime with hundreds of millions of dollars, and continued to bribe the regime even while Australian soldiers and special forces were fighting in Iraq.

Here's just a sample of Alexander Downer responses, in 2006, to questions about how he didn't notice all those truckloads of AWB cash reaching Saddam Hussein, given all the memos and warnings that streamed across Alexander Downer's desk, for years :

“I don't recall.”

“I don’t recall.”

“I don’t recall.”

“I just don’t recall.”

“No, not that I can recall at all.”

“I can't recall my state of mind when I read the document...”

“I don't recall being given that information.”

“Well, I simply do not recall.”

"I would have thought I'd have remembered it, but I don't recall.”

“No, I don’t recall that.”

“I don't recall them saying that.”

“I don't recall them saying that to me.”

“I could have done, but I don't recall it.”

“I am only in a position to tell you what I recall of the conversation, which is very sketchy....”

“I don't recall it being brought to my attention, but it is possible it could have been.”

“Yes, I don't recall that being discussed, but I simply do not recall it is all I can say.”

“I don't remember precisely...”

“My recollection is of a much more general nature.”

“I have no recollection of it.”

“I just can't recall it at all.”

And the classic :

“I can't, of course, recall.”

I imagine Alexander Downer will give very similar responses when he has to face questioning during the Inquiry Into The Reasons For The Iraq War (or whatever it will be called), which should hopefully get started in early 2011.

.

This Is Local News The Way The World Wants To Read It

Yes, we all know that the Northern Territory News is the best newspaper in Australia, and it's not just because they focus on the stories that really matter :



It's the best newspaper because the Northern Territory has the most interesting and entertaining locals. And journalists who know Local News Gold when they hear it.

The NTN struck Local News Gold twice in recent weeks, with the tale of the $5 Blow Job That Was Most Definitely Not Given and The Cat That Calls Its Owner "Fuck Prick"

Both stories were picked up by aggregators like Reddit and Twitter, and read and enjoyed across the world.

But the NTN has to take a bold stand and stop **** all the swear words in their stories. They're censoring the true character of the Northern Territorians they're quoting in the tales.

For stylistic purposes, The Orstrahyun has uncensored them.

No $5 Blow Job Given :

Allyson White said the standout burn mark left by her seatbelt across her chest was proof the claims of "amorous activities" with the driver were not true.

"I was not sucking his dick - and it's pretty obvious that wasn't the case ... you only have to look at the mark on my chest," she said.

"Clearly I had my seatbelt on, so it's impossible that I'd be leaning over sucking his dick unless he is hung like a donkey or I've got a fucking rubber neck.

"If it was true I'd just cop it sweet and think 'how embarrassing, I got caught sucking someone's dick' - but it is not true and that's what is pissing me off.

"It may have looked bad when police first arrived as my girls were hanging out all over the place. I also had a $5 note wedged between my boobs so they probably just assumed I was a sex worker or something and he'd already paid me.

"But $5 is a bit cheap for a head job."

'Hey Fuck Prick, My Bowl Is Empty' :

A Territory man claims his pet cat can speak English, with a vocabulary of seven different words so far.

"He can say seven words all up: mum, no, now, what, fuck, prick and why.

"In the evening time, if you don't drop whatever you're doing and pay attention to him, he calls you 'fuck prick'. If he really cracks the shits, he'll piss in his drinking water just to let you know he's really shitty."

The foul-mouthed feline doesn't take non-attention kindly. During the Duncans' wedding it swore at guests.

Mr Duncan said the guests were pre-warned, so "they pretty much ignored him".

It's been a long time since I've been to a wedding where we were pre-warned to ignore a swearing cat.

Both stories must be read in full.

I was wrong. I will pay to read online news, but only if it comes from the NTN.

.

Murdoch Media : How To Spot A Global Warming 'Conspiracy Theorist'


image sourced from here

From news.com.au :

Global Warming conspiracy theory

This theory claims the science behind current environmental changes - as popularised by Al Gore in the film An Inconvenient Truth - was created for financial gain.

Some believe that governments are using the global warming "myth" to raise taxes and restrict competitive US businesses in Europe - or that it is a United Nations ploy to create a one-world government.

Now you know.

,

We Only Do Business With Freedom-Hating Communists To Make Them More Free, Or Something

By Darryl Mason

It's taken a while but finally, he's done it. The Professional Idiot is now using Fox News' Glenn Beck as a source of wisdom, and revelation :



Glenn Beck is, of course, the American version of Andrew Bolt, but with more tears, and only slightly more whining.

Bolt's boss, Rupert Murdoch, has bent over backwards (perhaps even frontwards) in recent years trying to do business with the Communists spawned by Mao.

Only a few days ago, Murdoch was literally begging the Communists to save his media empire by allowing him to expand into China. The last time he tried to do that, he lost a few billion.

Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch didn't have the time to denounce the philosophy of Mao - as The Idiot and Glenn Beck think everyone should do - to his Chinese hosts while he was in Beijing.

Maybe next time.

92% Of Australians Don't Enjoy The Trailor Park Boys And Bacon Dipped In Chocolate

The Daily Telegraph :



"Demon weed"?

This sort of thing was done so much better in the 1940s :

Won't You Be My Friend?

The NSW Liberals have launched a campaign where you can 'join' the party, by paying $15. The first benefit is you don't have to actually attend any meetings. That news alone has NSW Liberal Party supporters (or photo models) leaping for joy :



Look how happy this guy is :



The Liberals have once again found a red-headed woman named Pauline to advocate their policies, but this time she seems far less...intense :



If only Malcolm Turnbull could whip up that level of enthusiasm for the Liberals, federally.

Fade Out



Alleged West Australian blogger 'JF Beck' finds something better to do, and, as is becoming all but standard practice now, closes down comments at his old blog :


Why?

Barring last minute technical hitches, from Monday I'll be blogging from Asian Correspondent. Beck is moving into the mainstream...

The best of luck to JF Beck for his future at Asian Correspondent, regardless of who is funding it.

Correction : the photo above confirms JF Beck is male. Post corrected accordingly.

UPDATE : JF Beck's first post on Asian Correspondent, where he has apparently gone "mainstream", seeks to confuse readers, at best, about who any of these people are. Will anybody care?

Considering that Pure Poison, Ziegler's blog, exists as a lame Lefty response to Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, Australia's gun bloggers, his comment is hilarious (not to mention exceedingly inane).

The Lefty whine-fest that is Pure Poison is never going to be as successful as Blair and Bolt.

"Gun bloggers"?

Like I said, the best of luck.

Kevin Rudd's promise to provide access to a laptop for all primary school students in Australia would have made Australia the first country in the world to do so.

But Uruguay got there first, and went one better :

Uruguay has become the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school.

President Tabaré Vázquez presented the final XO model laptops to pupils at a school in Montevideo on 13 October.

Over the last two years 362,000 pupils and 18,000 teachers have been involved in the scheme.

The "Plan Ceibal" (Education Connect) project has allowed many families access to the world of computers and the internet for the first time.

Now that's an education revolution. And no Windows for these laptops. Free and easy Linux instead.

Rupert Murdoch Is The King Of Climate Change Fearmongery

By Darryl Mason

An excerpt from a Murdoch media corporate video explaining how global warming awareness, 'climate panic' and carbon neutrality, was seeded into some of the most popular, most world-widely watched shows on TV :



The next time you hear someone ranting about kids and youth having been 'brainwashed' by climate change activists, remind them that Rupert Murdoch news media, movies and TV shows have been responsible for most of the Climate Panic overload. And they did it all, because that's what the boss wanted.

Murdoch employs so-called 'Global Warming Deniers' to write Australian newspaper blogs and front (only some) Fox News shows because he knows it is profitable to sometimes play both sides of a majorly controversial debate, and if he doesn't feed that minority of 'deniers', they will go elsewhere to get the news they're looking for.

Rupert Murdoch Wants Earth Hour To Become Earth Month - Tim Blair & Andrew Bolt Pretend Not To Notice

Murdoch Spreads More Eco-Alarmism - 90% Of World's Population Gone Within 100 Years If Global Warming Isn't Stopped

Catherine Deveny at the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas :

"We're in the grip of an epidemic of comfort as the enemy of Art. Painters are jumping out work hoping to become the next Ken Donne. Writers aren't crafting books but churning out self congratulatory blogs which are nothing more than a shrine to their raging narcissism."

More videos from the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas here.

Australian journos, writers and bloggers dive into a Friday afternoon Twitter thread on Medieval Bumper Stickers. Some highlights :

rod_benson : That's not a scythe. THIS is a scythe.

Colvinius : King Harold decides who will come to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

wolfcat: Want to live to 30? Ask me how

Colvinius : I subscribe to the Albigensian Heresy and I vote.

clubwah : A dog is for dinner, not just for Christmas

Colvinius : Save carbon emissions - don't burn heretics, drown them

CristenTilley : Not happy, Joan

Colvinius : My dad went to sack Jerusalem and all I got was this lousy bottle of holy water

rod_benson : No king will live in poverty by 1066.

clubwah : Jesus loves you. But if you love him expect to be burned at the stake

rod3000 : I Support Our Veterans of The Crusades

rod_benson : I crusade and I vote.

zombiemao : Kevin 1507

clubwah : I hunt and I'd vote if it weren't for the feudal system

rod3000 : Hot Oil Disarmament Now!

clubwah : Swords don't kill people, people do

rod3000 : I (heart) Magna Carta

Well, I thought they were pretty funny.

Have a great weekend.

Self-Interest, Reputation, More Important Than Free Speech

Oh, diddums!

Andrew Bolt has another whine about some of the hate-filled violence-threatening homophobic racist arseholes that are drawn to his blog like flies to shit :

Should I really be censoring such opinions? Should it really be an indictment of me that I don’t? Won’t it be said that the more I censor comments, the clearer it is that those I let through are the ones I endorse?

So as you can see, against my duty, as I perhaps arrogantly perceive it, to allow as free a discussion as possible, there is my ego and my self-interest in protecting my reputation. I should also admit that taking off the comments function should free up more than 10 hours of every choked week. What’s more, reading and checking those comments that I can get to can eat at my optimisim as well as my time.

You should see the stuff we must delete - or, rather, you shouldn’t.

Much there in the way of threats of violence against those you target that you thought you should pass onto any of our intelligence agencies? Or the police?

This is what I’ve been wrestling with in this wretched week.

Of course, it's all about The Idiot. Not about the people, the scientists, activists, journalists, community workers, he continually holds up for vicious ridicule and slandering by the worst of his droogies.

Get over yourself, mate. Your reputation will never leave you.

The internet does not forget.

If they introduced something like this into MasterChef, I'd start tuning in :



Japanese TV, where producers are never told, "No, this time you've gone too far."

Miranda Devine Backs Illegal Immigrants....Well, Christian Ones

Pro-lyncher Miranda Devine points out that Australia is quickly running out of beds for asylum seekers, fleeing war and rape and persecution in Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, but asks how about it? for a couple of thousand more :

If Rudd really wanted to show compassion he would back the audacious plan of the Christian Democrat Fred Nile and go into the people smuggling business.

Hosting a meeting yesterday at NSW Parliament House for Christians from Egypt, Iran and Iraq, the upper house MP said he was worried about the plight of Christians in the Middle East, who were desperate to come here and make good migrants. In Iraq, says the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, there are only 400,000 Christians left, down from 1.4 million in 1987.

Devine doesn't point out, of course, that the vast majority of the one million Christian who've fled Iraq in the past two decades did so after the start of the War On Iraq, a war Devine so miserably backed, and promoted.

Australia has a special responsibility for the Iraqi people, and from a self-interested viewpoint, Christians are likely to settle more easily into a Christian country than Muslims.

Yes, it's true, young Muslims, particularly the males, hate all the things that many Australians love, like rugby league and fast food and loud cars.

And Devine is right, Australia must be a Christian nation. After all, we're currently fighting in two wars.

"It's a desperate situation," said Nile. "They're being told 'convert or die'."

They are in Iraq, in particular, thanks to the War. Devine :

Seeing how free and easy the Government has become with boat people, Nile has hatched a plan to bring a boat of 2000 Christian asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia. He wants donations and he dares the Government to stop him.

So basically, war-shattered Christians? Come on in. War-shattered Muslims? Eh.

The Walkley Awards announces the finalists for Artwork & Cartoons. They'll have a hard time going past this magnificent work by John Tiedemann from The Week.



In News Photography, Alex Coppel of the Sunday Herald Sun has scored a nomination for this apocalyptic image from the Black Saturday bushfires :



A gallery of the News Photography nominations can be viewed here.

The rest of the Walkley Awards nominations are here.

Murdoch Vs ABC : Empire Falls

ABC boss Mark Scott is expected to return fire on the so-called "mounting criticism" (by Rupert Murdoch, primarily) of free state news media in a speech tonight :

"In newspapers, the Murdoch media empire has responded to the crisis of advertising by proposing to transform the online world in the same way that cable transformed television - by making consumers pay."

But what happens to quality journalism when its reach and audience are limited in this way; and what will Australians expect of the public broadcaster in the next decade?

Dave Gaukroger at Pure Poison :

This speech will be closely scrutinised by the ABC’s commercial rivals who are developing plans to place sections of their content behind paywalls in the hope of replacing revenue lost due to decreasing advertising rates and diminishing circulation. Both James and Rupert Murdoch have singled out public broadcasters as an impediment to their plans, not surprisingly it’s going to be hard for them to charge for content that organisations like the ABC and BBC are giving away for free.

On Twitter, Scott offers this short intro to his speech :

@abcmarkscott - Looking forward to the AN Smith tonight at Melbourne Uni. Here is where we start: http://bit.ly/2m86Ic

The link takes you to the poem, Fall Of Rome, by WH Auden :

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Hey! Not all bloggers live in caves. Some do, yes, but by choice.

At New Matilda, Jason Wilson takes a look at :

Murdoch's Chorus Of Complaint



.

Rudd Vs The Australian....Kind Of

It all seems a bit....staged. It's good for Rudd, and it's good for The Australian :

Kevin Rudd last night attacked The Australian as "right-wing" and less than objective, particularly on the issue of climate change.

"If you cite your source as The Australian newspaper, I simply say this: (It is a) free country; every paper can express their point of view -- the editor of The Australian has said that he edits a right-wing newspaper -- and so he does," Mr Rudd said.

"Let us not pretend that it (The Australian) would seek to present itself as an objective source of information. It opposes the government's actions on climate change, and has done so consistently.

"That's their democratic right; we have a free press. And so they should; that's a matter for them."

The editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, responded last night: "The actual quote referred to The Australian as a centre-right paper but the PM is loose with his verballing these days."

Tepid.

More than anything else, it shows just how unimportant KevinRuddPM and his advisors think The Australian is as a part of the national debate, or as an influential force on the Australian public, at large.

Kevin Rudd reaches more people, directly, on Twitter, than he does when he gets written up in The Australian. Rudd's 'circulation' on Twitter, is many hundreds of thousands higher than the current newsagent, and free-in-the-foyer-many-city-offices, circulation of The Australian.

He doesn't need The Australian to be on his side.

A disregard for 'The Heart Of The Nation' that would been almost incomprehensible a few years ago.