Murdoch Media Busted Stealing Blog Content

By Darryl Mason

You may recall Rupert Murdoch, and his minions, recent spectacular fury at "plagiarist" bloggers, search engines and aggregators "stealing" Murdoch news empire's content and then republishing it on their own websites without Murdoch's permission, and without payment.

Here's a reminder of Murdoch's words :

"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. ...it will be the content creators who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph..."

And here's an excerpt from one of the dozens of recent 'Rupert Says You Will Pay' stories printed in The London Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch :

Rupert Murdoch opened a new front in his battle to obtain “fair compensation” for content produced by his media companies...

The move follows Mr Murdoch’s repeated calls over the past few months for content providers to charge online distributors and his insistence that media companies cannot continue to produce quality content for free. He has accused Google and other search engines of being “content kleptomaniacs” for taking other people’s content....

Imagine cutting and pasting someone else's work into your own blog or news site, passing it off as your own property, failing to acknowledge where the content was sourced from, and not paying the original author or creator for its use?

What sort of low-life content kleptomaniac wannabe-journalist cuntbags would do such a thing?

Well, the London Times would, and just did.

Movie director Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, HotFuzz, the brilliant TV series Spaced) wrote a beautiful, thoughtful ode to actor Edward Woodward on his blog earlier this week, and then today discovered his Woodward piece had been brutally re-edited and then published on the London Times website, and also in the print edition. Without his permission. Without linking to his blog. Without payment.

Edgar Wright on Twitter :

Is it appropriate for a national newspaper to reprint my personal tribute to Edward Woodward as if it were an article written for them?

They just lifted it from my blog without asking. And cut off the entire end section about my last meeting with him.

That is the part that bothers me the most. That they edited out the last time I saw him. My last remembrance of him.

They did not credit the source, link back to the original content or edit it down well. Their version makes me look unfeeling

I took great care in writing my tribute. I didn't ask some writer with a deadline to copy it and gut it of all feeling.

Perhaps they would like to send the fee they would pay the commissioned writer of such an article to Edward's memorial

Let's hope so.

Edgar Wright (Uncut) On Edward Woodward


UPDATE : So what did The Times do once Edgar Wright contacted them and asked what the hell they thought they were doing?

They published a reluctant, vague clarification, which doesn't say anything about the fact The Times stole content off Edgar Wright's blog and reproduced it at their website, and in print, without Wright's permission and without payment :

We have been asked to make clear that Edgar Wright's appreciation of Edward Woodward, which appeared in the paper on Tuesday, November 17, was abridged and the full version can be read here or at www.edgarwrighthere.com/2009/11/edward-woodward-1930-2009/

For the moment, the link back to Edgar Wright's blog leads to a fail page.

Incredible.

UPDATE : The final word on this fiasco from Edgar Wright :

At my request, The Times are making a donation to a charity of Edward Woodward's family's choosing. So that's something.

No apology, though. Or acknowledgement of the theft.


Murdoch Attacks Bloggers Again, As His Empire Falls

The Orstrahyun Hails Murdoch's 'Death To Free Information' Movement

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How The Angels Helped Create Grunge

By Darryl Mason

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, in an interview with Kathy McCabe, praises The Angels :

I grew up on (The Angels albums) No Exit and Night Attack...That is the Australian music that meant so much to me, maybe because me and my friends were the only ones who knew them."

Here's the (now pretty hilarious) album cover, and name change, the American label EPIC came up with for the US release of Night Attack in 1982.

When I was interviewing about a dozen young American and UK bands a month for the music press in the early 90s, I had a standard question which went like this :

"Did you hear much Australian rock when you were growing up? Are there Australian bands you count as an influence or inspiration?"

Obviously, AC/DC was an obvious, often answer to that question, and bands like The Scientists, The Birthday Party, The Go-Betweens, The Saints and Radio Birdman were also occasionally cited, but I was always surprised at how many bands listed The Angels for both influence and inspiration. And not just flat-out hard rock bands like Guns N' Roses and Motley Crue.

I'd have to dig through a bunch of boxes to find the article, but I'm pretty sure it was a member of The Melvins who told me that The Angels' 1983 schizophrenic, heavily jammed Watch The Red album and No Exit were something like foundation stones of American grunge. That might sound a little mind-blowing, but you only have to listen to the first albums of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Green River to hear the obvious influence The Angels had on these bands, and the grunge sound in general, which, listening back now, really does basically sound like loud cranking 1970s Australian pub rock.

Classic Angels :

Digital Rupert Predicts Death Of All Newspapers

Ex-Australian alleged newspaper industry visionary Rupert Murdoch now believes that only a
Kindle-like digital reader can save the newspaper business :

“If it doesn’t, newspapers will go out of business. All newspapers. There’s just not enough advertising to go around.”

All newspapers, Rupert? Or just most of yours?

The day that Australians are expected to start paying to gain access to Digital Rupert News Media seems to keep slipping deeper and deeper into 2010.

Meanwhile, NineMSN, Yahoo7, the ABC and SBS will not be charging readers to access their online news, and now Fairfax has announced it will Wait N See how disastrous the paywalls turn out to be for Digital Rupert before they make a decision.

The other huge problem that Digital Rupert doesn't mention, at least in the US, is that even while established newspapers are still online for free, eyeballs are already going elsewhere online. America's most famous newspapers, including Murdoch's New York Post, are hemorrhaging readers.

More than two out of three among the top 30 newspaper Web sites reported year-over-year declines in unique users in October according to new data from Nielsen Online.

It's not just a case of, as Murdoch claims, "there's not enough advertising to go around." There's also not enough readers, for the massive abundance of digital news, to go around. There's simply too much else to do online, or on an iPhone, than to read through the same headlines you've already seen on half a dozen other news sites, or on Twitter.

Physical newspapers are no longer essential for most people in their day to day lives. And online newspapers are becoming, likewise, less than essential for those who can access a world of free information and news already.

These are revolutionary, and revelatory, times for the established corporate news media that can now no longer control, or even majorly influence, the flow of news and information. At least, not like they could and did, only a few short years ago.

Tim Burrows (Mumbrella) : Murdoch Not Bluffing On Threat To Block Google

Melbourne. Winter 1990 :

"This is for filthy, scumbag, degenerate, thieving, throwing up smackies everywhere. Rot in peace."


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"Catastrophic" Fire Conditions Expected In South Australia Today

The still-fresh horror of February's Victorian bushfire holocaust puts an extremely grim perspective on all such warnings now from the Bureau Of Meteorology :

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 is forecast to be very hot and dry for most of South Australia. Fresh northwesterly winds over the pastorals and parts of the northern agricultural districts will shift fresh southwesterly during the day.

Catastrophic Fire Danger [100+] is forecast for the Northwest Pastoral and Flinders

Extreme Fire Danger [75-99] is forecast for the Northeast Pastoral, Eastern Eyre Peninsula and Mid North

Severe Fire Danger [50-74] is forecast for the Riverland Total Fire Ban district.

The Country Fire Service advises that fires burning under these conditions are likely to be fast moving, unpredictable and uncontrollable

The BoM alert was issued at 4.25pm Tuesday afternoon.

ABC News reported last night that residents in Catastrophic Fire Danger regions of South Australia had only until this morning to get out :

CFS strategic services manager Mick Ayre says residents of the North West Pastoral and Flinders districts must decide whether they will stay or go as soon as possible.

"The best advice we can give you is to think very carefully about whether you can withstand or fight a fire on a day of catastrophic fire ratings," he said.

Mr Ayre says if people decide to leave, they must be gone by early tomorrow morning at the latest.

"In a catastrophic fire danger situation, no houses are definitely guaranteed to survive," he said.

"If you decide to stay you could die in the attempt to save your property... "

A volunteer fire fighter told the ABC two-thirds of the people who lived in areas under 'Catastrophic Fire Danger" were still not aware, by yesterday evening, that they might have to make a potentially live saving decision by this morning.



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"Imprisonment, Coerced Abortions, Embezzlement, Physical Violence, Blackmail"

Australian Senator Rips Into Church Of Scientology

Xenophon Vs Xenu

By Darryl Mason

The story breaks on Twitter, via journalist Latika Bourke :

(Senator Nick) Xenophon says claims of covered up murders, blackmail, torture, imprisonment and forced abortions within Church of Scientology.

Senator Nick Xenophon today, under parliamentary privilege :

Scientology is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs.

What you believe does not mean you are not accountable for how you behave.

The letters received by me which were written by former followers in Australia contains extensive allegations of crimes and abuses that are truly shocking. Crimes against them and crimes they say they were coerced into committing.

There are allegations of false imprisonment, coerced abortions and embezzlement of church funds; of physical violence and intimidation, blackmail and the widespread and deliberate abuse of information obtained by the organisation.

What we are seeing is a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality. On the body of evidence, this is not happening by accident, it is happening by design.

These victims of Scientology claim it is an abusive, manipulative, violent and criminal organisation, and that criminality is condoned at the highest levels.

Senator Xenophon said he received eight letters from former members of the Church of Scientology after he first raised questions about the legitimacy of the church's tax exempt status. He has passed the letters alleging criminal activity onto the police and has called for more former members to come forward if they were witness to criminality inside the organisation.

Xenophon wants both police and parliamentary investigations into the Church of Scientology and a full review of its tax exempt status.

The Church Of Scientology quickly released a two page statement accusing Nick Xenophon of "Xenophobia".

Note the precise use of emotional trigger words throughout the statement :

"Senator Xenophon is obviously being pressured by former members who use hate speech..."

"Senator Xenophon's attempts to marginalise Scientologists....is fascistic and violates freedom of speech..."

"former members are notoriously unreliable as witnesses"

"this is a propaganda campaign that would suit a totalitarian regime, not Australia"

In a further attempt to cast immediate suspicion on the claims made by the whistleblowers and Senator Xenophon, the statement from the Church of Scientology also includes this lengthy quote from a British sociologist :

"The disaffected and the apostate are in particular informants whose evidence has to be used with circumspection. The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates. Not uncommonly the apostate learns to rehearse an ‘atrocity story’ to explain how, by manipulation, trickery, coercion, or deceit, he was induced to join or to remain within an organization that he now forswears and condemns. Apostates, sensationalized by the press, have sometimes sought to make a profit from accounts of their experiences in stories sold to newspapers..."

Presumably, Senator Xenophon is aware how far the Church of Scientology has gone in the past to foul the names of its critics, and those who accuse it of criminality, and illegitimacy.

The Church of Scientology should have taken up the suggestion of The Chaser's @DomKnight that Senator Xenophon is guilty of blatant Xenuphobia.

But the Church of Scientology don't like to talk about Xenu, in public :

(Xenu was) the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology dogma holds that the essences of these many people remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm

This is John Travolta as Xenu :



The Xenophon Review into the tax exempt status of the Church of Scientology should, of course, be extended to review the tax exempt status of all Australian churches and religious organisations.

UPDATE : Comments from Prime Minister Rudd :

"Many people in Australia have real concerns about Scientology."

"I share some of those concerns. Let us proceed carefully and look carefully at the material he has provided before we make a decision on further parliamentary action."

Nick Xenophon's Full Speech

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Certified Punk Boffin

Dr Karl catches some awesome, with help from Frenzal Rhomb's Jason Whalley :



A brilliant example of how to get your message out, in song, without being a boring, evangelising trout.

About 30 seconds into the video, the words "believing silly things" appear over a copy of The Bible. And yet, Dr Karl recorded the vocals for this song wearing a Jesus t-shirt :



I suppose that's kind of punk....

More Immeasurable Hurt?

The Professional Idiot has admitted he obsessively reads Crikey articles, editorials and comments in a quest to note down every nasty or rude thing someone writes about his delicate self. He has a reputation to protect, apparently.

A letter from Andrew Bolt to Crikey publisher Eric Beecher :

Last week I drew your attention to comments and blog postings you had published over the space of just a few days calling me a “proven liar”, “nutty”, “unhinged”, “underhand”, “loopy”, “paranoid”, a “hypocrite”, a “racist”, “dishonest”, “hysterical”, “petty”, “evasive”, “deluded”, “irrational”, lacking in morality, someone guilty of “deliberately misrepresenting” people, “full of poisonous shit”, and a “notorious liar” who practices “lies, misrepresentations, and deceit”, “lies, distortions and smears”, “fakery” and “cowardice and dishonesty”, while giving “tacit approval” to “extremist sickos” and “playing the paranoid schizo’’, resembling in my person an “asylum for the criminally insane”. You conceded that these comments included a number of statements that were “untrue and unnecessarily personal in tone”.

Diddums.

Bolt was also very upset by this piece from Crikey's Pollytics back in April :

The Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt actually thinks Crikey contributors want to anally violate him with calculating devices. No, he really, really does :

I’m still considering how to respond to Crikey’s “quality journalism”, especially after this latest foul claim, and any lawyer should consider themselves free to advise.

Or does he mean "advise for free"?

Any Murdoch journalist considering taking legal against bloggers for allegedly causing hurt of the immeasurable kind should keep in mind Blair's Law :

As a blog war intensifies, the probability of lawyers being called in to protect the glass jaw of the more cowardly party approaches 1.

– Inspired by the precedent set by the aborted 2009 defamation case of (Australian journalist/blogger) Tim Blair vs Teh Left.

Someone in comments at Bolt's is suggesting they start a legal defence fund for their conspiracy-addled Guru Of Truthernessnessness.

Piffling pseudo-threats of legal action against Crikey by journalists and lawyers in the Murdoch empire make more sense when you remember that not only is Crikey a powerful and influential critic of the Murdoch media, but they are also online Australian news media competition in a crowded market.


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Clive James is massacred in a brutal book review in the Daily Mail. Highlights :

He tells us he is a frequent guest at Sandringham and that the Prince of Wales has dined at his house...we recall that what James remains best known for is showing us clips on television of Japanese game shows....James's fiction - Brilliant Creatures, The Remake, The Silver Castle - is total tosh...he seems to be making a desperate attempt to be associated, to be connected....Happy with the fact he has an 'ungovernable ego', James ought to be flung into the recycling bin with his drivel...at some curious, crass level the clumsy swagger humanises him - as if he's unaware of how awful he is...The reader cringes on James's behalf, wishing he wasn't such a prize prat....Television brought James the riches and fame he craved. But as far as his ambitions to have been an artist of merit are concerned, he squandered his talent, which is tragic. Then again, to witness how fatuous and conceited he has become is pure comedy

Jealous.

More Here

This Is Your Brain On Meep



A high school principal in Boston is attempting to ban students from saying, or yelling, or even wearing, the word 'Meep'.

He robocalled parents and threatened expulsion from school and possible police action for all students who refused to stop saying "Meep".

When a New York lawyer contacted the school with a simple message, 'Meep', the assistant principal told him his e-mail had been forwarded to police.

Meep


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November 2000 : Saddam Hussein announces Iraqi oil will be priced in euros, not US dollars.

March 2003 :




Mid-2003 : Iraq's oil goes back to being priced in US dollars, not euros.

November 2009 :

“The idea that an oil company was participating in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution leaves me speechless”

100,000 to 1 million : Number of Iraqis estimated to have been violently killed during the War On Iraq.

5 million : Number of Iraqi children left orphaned by the War On Iraq.

6000 : Approximate number of coalition government and American private corporation soldiers and agents killed during the War On Iraq.

1 in 4 American soldiers returning from Iraq require ongoing medical and mental health care.

70% of Iraqi children are believed to be suffering trauma-related symptoms as a result of the War On Iraq.

(source)

115 billion barrels : Iraq's estimated oil wealth

340,000 barrels : Estimate of oil consumed by the Pentagon per day.

Possessing the world's largest fleet of modern aircraft, helicopters, ships, tanks, armored vehicles, and support systems - virtually all powered by oil - the Department of Defense (DoD) is the world's leading consumer of petroleum.

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Chuck Norris pontificating on how The Elites Are Faking Global Warming To Create A One World Government is the very definition of 'conspiracy porn' :



Good times.

Fox News is now The Alex Jones Show, but with a bigger budget and flashier graphics.

Cinema used to be such stupid fun.

Smokey October sunsets over Sydney

















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It's Still Shit, But We Like It Now

In April, 2009, Chris Mitchell, the editor of The Australian, compared 140 character messages on Twitter to acclaimed BBC TV dramas and Oscar winning movies and found that Twitter messages are lacking, in depth and detail and profoundosity.

Mitchell predicted the fast demise of the global message distributor, under the headline Time Is Up For Twitter.

Like swine influenza, technologies such as Twitter race around the world before spluttering out.

...the story it tells about the latest online fad is always the same. Like diseases that must mutate to infect ever more hosts, transitory technologies have an enormous impact until people build up resistance...

Twitter's 140-character message format is a content-killer, leaving most tweets with the compelling content of those "I'm on the bus" mobile phone conversations impossible to avoid on public transport.

Stupid, useless Twitter.

But wait!

Octoher, 2009 : More than 50 million people visit Twitter each month. One if five internet users are doing something Twitter-related on a regular basis.

And so, today :



Just in case..

Alf's 94 year old hand





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Why Are Murdoch Journalists Who Claim "Global Warming Is A Lefty Scam" So Afraid To Confront Or Challenge The 'Climate Change Propaganda' Of Their Own Boss?

By Darryl Mason

A collection of quotes from Rupert Murdoch on Climate Change and Corporate Green brainwashing via his massive world media empire :

"Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can't afford the risk of inaction.

"We're starting with our own carbon footprint. Not nothing. But much of what we're doing is already, or soon will be, little more than the standard way of doing business. We can do something that's unique, different from just any other company. We can set an example, and we can reach our audiences. Our audience's carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours. That's the carbon footprint we want to conquer."

"Becoming carbon neutral is only the beginning. The climate problem will not be solved by one company reducing its emissions to zero, and it won't be solved by one government acting alone. The climate problem will not be solved without mass participation by the general public in countries around the globe."

"Imagine if we succeed in inspiring our audiences to reduce their own impacts on climate change by just one percent. That would be like turning the State of California off for almost two months."

"News Corporation, today, reaches people at home and at work... when they're thinking... when they're laughing... and when they are making choices that have enormous impact. The unique potential.. and duty.. of a media company are to help its audiences connect to the issues that define our time."

"We need to push ourselves to make as many reductions as possible in our own energy use first.. and that takes time. But we must do this quickly.. the climate will not wait for us."

"While we reduce our own carbon footprint we will encourage the companies who truck our DVDs and newspapers, sell us paper, and provide an enormous range of products and services.. to all contribute."

"Some of our businesses use more energy than others, but our strategy everywhere is the same.. first, reduce our use of energy as much as possible. Then, switch to renewable sources of power where it makes economic sense. And, over time, as a last resort, offset the emissions we can't avoid."

"We could make a difference just by holding our emissions steady as our businesses continue to grow. But that doesn't seem to be enough: we want to go all the way to zero. Today, I am announcing our intention to be carbon neutral, across all our businesses, by 2010."

"We're not a manufacturer, or an airline, but we do use energy. Printing and publishing newspapers, producing films, broadcasting television signals, operating 24-hour newsrooms. It all adds carbon to the atmosphere."

"Climate change and energy use are global problems. News Corp is a global company. Our operations affect the environment all over the world."

"I have to admit that, until recently, I was somewhat wary of the (global) warming debate. I believe it is now our responsibility to take the lead on this issue."

Murdoch journalists like Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman, all well know that their own boss is the world's most influential distributor of what they call "global warming fearmongery", but they'd prefer their readers to get all shouty and hepped up about Tim Flannery and Al Gore and the ABC instead.

Why? Because they know if they did go after Rupert Murdoch's "climate change catastrophe" fearmongery, with the same venom and repetition that they go after scientists and academics and celebrity activists, they'd get fired.

Their silence, and credibility, has been brought. Willingly. Without a fight.

If Blair, Bolt and Akerman truly believe that climate change and carbon neutrality is now being used to introduce 'World Government' then why are they still taking money from Rupert Murdoch?


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With This Ring, I Thee Dead

Author Tara Moss, as the zombie bride, is ready for Halloween :



I had to extract some of my brain matter with a skewer in payment for that photo. I may be fuzzy for a few weeks.

In other Halloween related news, American Christian extremist Pat Robertson's website is warning Americans not to celebrate/have fun on Halloween. Why? Demon candy :

"Most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches. I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

Stupid demons.

"Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon."

Fantastic!

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Powderfinger's new album, Golden Rule, is out November 13. Hope they give it a rest on all the ballads this time out. The 'return to hard rock' album is now a few albums overdue.

First single, All Of The Dreamers :





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Blair's Law RIP : 2002-2009

In 2002, pro-Bush, and enthusiastic pro-Bush Wars, blogger Tim Blair founded the term 'Blair's Law'. It caused brief excitement in the American pro-Bush blogstream, and was defined in the Urban Dictionary as :

"...the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."

But in June 2009, the Urban Dictionary listed a new definition, and notes, for Blair's Law :

From The Urban Dictionary :

Blair's Law : As a blog war intensifies, the probability of lawyers being called in to protect the glass jaw of the more cowardly party approaches 1.

– Inspired by the precedent set by the aborted 2009 defamation case of (Australian journalist/blogger) Tim Blair vs Teh Left.

TB: “My girlfriend’s been fighting all my battles for me under a pseudonym, but we got caught out and now my tough-guy reputation is in tatters. How am I going to weasel my way out of this one?”

JB: “Only Blair's law can save you now, my chinless friend.”

However, if you Google 'Blair's Law' and click the Urban Dictionary link, you will find all definitions and even the listing itself has been deleted.

Disappeared.

Instead, you are taken to the Urban Dictionary listing for former British prime minister, Tony Blair.

Online fame can be so fleeting.

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ABC Gets More Complaints About The Chaser Than Its Alleged Bias

The Chaser's @chaslicc (Chas Licciardello) notes that The Chaser's final series of The War On Everything garnered the most complaints from viewers of any show aired on the ABC in 2009, so far.

As a testament to the extraordinary power of The Chaser to generate MoralOutrage! controversy, according to the below story from The Age, the show also pulled the most complaints in 2008, even though The War On Everything was taking a year off.



Ari Sharp, The Age :

The guerilla comedy program attracted a total of 4995 complaints....4286 of which were in relation to the Make a Realistic Wish Foundation sketch that featured children with terminal illnesses.

That featured actors portraying children with terminal illnesses.

ABC copped 32.130 complaints in the year, but only around 10 per cent of those complaints were for "bias." There are no breakdowns to reveal how many of those "bias" complaints came from Gerard Henderson, or readers of Andrew "World Government!" Bolt. You'd assume many.

And Ari Sharp reminds readers of a crucial fact to keep in mind the next time you hear endless bitching about "that's my bloody 10 cents a day they're spending so John Safran can snog a hot Swede!"

Newspoll found that 89 per cent of people value the broadcaster and its services to the community, up 1 percentage point, while those who believe quality programming offered by ABC television was steady at 82 per cent...

Remind commenters at certain other blogs of those stats the next time you see them whining about how the ABC "doesn't give Australians what they want!" or some other fringe minority grievance.


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Doogle

Google Australia is running a competition for school children to doodle up their logo. The national winner gets their artwork displayed on the Google homepage for 24 hours (it will be seen by millions) and wins $10,000 of tech gear for their school.

Here's an early entry, from Madeline Hunter, age 7 :


Madeline writes of her excellent doogle :

"I hope Australia will be sunny all the time and everyone will be happy."

More Doodle Google Entries Here

Therese Rein Challenges Corporate Australia To Sponsor Disabled Athletes

By Darryl Mason

Therese Rein, through her employment agency, helped thousands of disabled and work-injured Australians find jobs and build careers. Her new challenge :




I hope it works. My eldest sister has long dreamed of attending the Special Olympics one day, and she and her friends might get there, if the corporate sponsorship of disabled athletes picks up. It costs a lot of money to attend, because carers, travel and special equipment have to be paid for, mostly out of the pockets of parents or friends.

Therese Rein :

What Paralympians do is they don't focus on what doesn't work, they focus on making what does work, work to the max. And that's what my dad did. And I think I've learnt a little bit about how to do that from him.

An interview of Therese Rein by The 7.30 Report's Kerry O'Brien can be read, or viewed, here.

UPDATE : Here's the interview :



A reaction to Therese Rein's campaign for corporate sponsorship of disabled athletes from the Herald Sun's associate editor, Andrew Bolt (a regular guest of ABCs Insiders, Channel Nine's The Today Show and Channel Ten's The 7PM Project) :



Oh, how droll.

This is all this repulsive creature has got left now - encouraging his readers to go the wife of the prime minister because she devoted a substantial part of her life to helping disabled people, in honour of her paraplegic father, and wants to continue doing this important work.

You can contact the 7PM Report here

And Channel Nine's Today Show here

And ABC's Insiders' here

Feel free to let them know what you think of their decisions to include Andrew Bolt as a regular guest on their programs.

Or you can visit his blog, look at the advertisers and contact them, and suggest they sponsor disabled athletes instead of the empathy challenged, like him.

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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.


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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".

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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


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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)