I must admit, Harold Hulk and George Bush were two of my favourite prime presidents of Australia as well.



This harmless vid sparked a gusher of gruesome elitist snobbery :

"What a devastating indictment of our education system and culture of proud know-nothingness"

"Beats me why these neanderthal boofheads are 'heroes' and 'role models'...they’re brainless, mysogynistic idiots who chase a ball around a field."

"they really are only required to be able to grunt and tie their shoelaces."

"Yet Australia still has compulsory voting?"

"I want a refund of my education tax money."

"I haven’t seen a better argument for ending compulsory voting."

"how moronic do you have to be NOT to know only five prime ministers?"

"Footy players, AFL or League are by definition thick as two short planks. The come from the working class"

"Why would you expect them to know names of prime ministers when they probably need to take off their shoes to count the twenty?"

"This is the best reason I have seen to restrict voting to those who can pass a general knowledge and intellingence test."

"Compulsory voting stinks. What a marvellous way to bugger up democracy."

"This is utterly shameful."

Some footballers don't know much about Australian political history so they should have to sit a test before being allowed to vote?

It's probably for the best those haters of Australian culture and democracy have somewhere to go to unburden themselves of at least a small portion of their spite and bitterness.

Labor, state and federal, are extremely worried about The Greens, and their ever-growing popularity. The anti-Greens campaigning by Labor, in the lead up to the federal election, has begun.

Federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner kicks the campaigning into gear :

The Greens are not some benign group loosely allied with Labor. They're not a middle-ground party. They're not idealistic activists changing the world. They're just another political party, no less cynical or manipulative than the others. They feed off Labor's need to make compromises to marry progressive reform with majority government. Their energies are directed to attacking Labor, not the conservatives.

It might seem like a good idea to support those who yell the loudest, but it's unlikely to produce good outcomes. Labor is the only worthwhile option for achieving progressive change through parliamentary politics. It might be a bit piecemeal and gradual, but it beats the hell out of doing nothing.

While he doesn't say it directly, Tanner is pushing a mantra that declares if you vote for The Greens, then you are also voting for the Liberal Party, whether you intended to or not. It sounds surreal, but it's a line Labor will continue to push, perhaps hoping that opposition leader Tony Abbott will come to The Greens defence, which would allow Labor to brand them as radicals, extremists, or worse.

It won't happen anytime soon, but Labor clearly understands that if a new generation of Liberals find much common ground with The Greens, that is a mid-decade Liberals-Greens coalition, Labor will be in big trouble.

Incredible :

Donald Ritchie, who has lived opposite The Gap for nearly 50 years, has shown what can be done when you have the chance to intervene. He and his wife have talked many back from the brink, with a few kind words and the offer of a cup of tea. Honoured with an Order of Australia, Ritchie has talked more than 160 people out of taking their lives.

Malcolm Turnbull on The Gap, where some 50 people every year jump to their deaths.

Suicide remains the leading cause of death for Australians under the age of 44. More than 65,000 Australians try to take their own lives every year, more than 1880 succeed.


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Photos By Darryl Mason

The Northern Territory News always delivers :

Aliens could be the latest to weigh in on the nuclear waste storage debate after UFOs were spotted near the proposed Territory facility.

How can you not read the story after that intro?

In the NTN, even storms have a local crime-related angle :




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"We Know What You Are Against, Now Tell Us What You Are For"




It's hard to see this as some kind of prelude to war. Gone is the talk of 'Axis Of Evil' and the 'War On Terror'. Obama could not sound anymore reasonable, which no doubt infuriates his most fevered critics, who aren't used to, and do not like, reason after eight years of BushCo.

NeoCons and anti-Muslim warmongers can shriek all they like about 'worldwide threat' posed by Iran getting nuclear energy, demanding the UN "do its job!" (despite usually claiming the UN is utterly useless), but Russian and China will not back tighter sanctions, they've moved on, nor will they allow the US, or Israel, to attack one of their biggest trading partners.

It's not going to happen.

And President Obama knows this.

He Really Liked Peter Costello

The glory days of the influential, hard drinking, extremely well paid political journalist are over.



Glenn Milne is one of the last to fall :

The automated email response from News Limited gallery hack Glenn Milne delivered the news: “Please be advised that as of the 13/03/2010 I no longer work for News Limited Sunday Papers, I still work for The Australian.” Milne is directing correspondents to a Gmail account, presumably because his role at News is now as Australian column contributor only.

Interesting. So Glenn Milne gets sacked from the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Herald Sun for being a very expensive and all but useless inventor of quotes from anonymous 'senior Labor officials', but will still be writing columns for The Australian? Presumably the rate of publication of his columns in The Australian will fall off as he eased out of the way in time for serious election coverage.

Unless he writes them for free, of course.

VexNews :

Warned late last year after being summoned to a gathering of the Sunday newspapers’ editors that he had to pick up his game, the axe finally fell this week.

Milne is believed to have been on a package well in excess of $250,000, a number considerably in excess of most of his bosses. They compared their own productivity to his poor performance as a Gallery lounge lizard and found him wanting.

Frequent complaints about Milne included his lack of current political connections, his failure to generate exclusive stories of the kind he frequently promised and his tendency to share with editors “his stories” that were not much more than prevailing gossip around the water-cooler in the Gallery.

Exhibits from Glenn Milne's Hall Of 'Journalistic' Shame & Hilarity. 1) :

....more Australians have died as a result of the Rudd government's home insulation program, "administered" by Environment Minister Peter Garrett, than lost their lives in the Iraq war.

2) Glenn Milne announces Tony Abbott's friends should tell him to quit politics and go home to his wife :

...watching Abbott's disintegration you have to ask whether the strength of those convictions was ever viable in an environment where the electorate increasingly likes its politics "lite" in all respects, including when it comes to values.

In some senses, Abbott is simply too honest and too raw for modern politics...

3) My favourite :

Peter Costello will take over a decimated Coalition unopposed as Opposition Leader, knowing he would have been able to mount a stronger fight against Kevin Rudd and Labor.

There is unlikely to be any credible challenge to Mr Costello when he formally stands as leader at the first Liberal Party caucus meeting.

Previous contenders - Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull - have all faded under the weight of their own mistakes.

Glenn Milne used to get paid $250,000 a year to come up with stuff like that?

Just another example of the amazing excesses of 20th century corporate journalism. How could such a business model do anything but fail as the decades long decline of newspapers ran headlong into endless free comment and content from the internet?


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Democracy Hater

By Darryl Mason

How much does Rupert Murdoch's most prominent Australian opinionist, Andrew Bolt, hate democracy? So much it makes him seethe at the free election choices about to be made by Tasmanians.



He's trying to claim, yet again, as always, that people who exercise their democratic rights in a way that displeases him are mentally ill.

If you don't like the free and fair democratic vote we have in Australia, Mr Bolt, why don't you go live in North Korea?

Love it or leave it, democracy hater. Love it or leave it.


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One of the first movies to be filmed in Australia is believed to have been made as a "Fuck You!" to the early international movie-making competition.

....it was seen as too risque for Australian audiences although it proved popular in European cinemas.

It was produced in 1896 by French filmmaker Marius Sestier, who was dispatched to Australia by a French film company in a bid to introduce cinema to the colony.

The newly-restored film contains the 19th century equivalent of a well-known gesture of contempt, as the rollerskater lifts up his coat to show the camera the imprint of a white palm on his posterior.

The Video Is Here

@TwitterHype

Politicians are calling Federal Election 2010 'The Twitter Election', apparently :

Federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming told a parliamentary seminar discussing the "Twitter election" that politicians could use the social networking site Facebook as a powerful tool to phish phone numbers.

Yes, a federal member of parliament does appear to be lavishing praise on a form of digital identity fraud, at least according to this headline :



From the Courier Mail :

"There is extraordinary capacity there to create non-political pages and harvest and phish huge numbers of not only emails but mobile phone numbers," he said.

"And once you have a mobile phone number . . . they don't have to follow me, I phish them and can sort of harvest huge numbers of mobile phone numbers and then I just drop them onto a single piece of software and I can SMS hundreds if not thousands of people directly when I choose."

Yeah, that'd work great. If people didn't furiously mind getting spam messages from politicians on their phones and want to punch the sender in the face, or the nuts.

What's the thinking here?

And if it really is going to be 'The Twitter Election', what should we make of the massive gulf in Twitter followers when it comes to the main event?






There's no denying the incredible power of a politician being able to reach thousands, or tens of thousands of voters through Twitter updates, free of media filtering or re-interpretation.

So far on Twitter, Rudd (and/or his team) is making Abbott look like an amateur.

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From imagery by NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, twin tropical cyclones over the South Pacific on March 15:


(click to enlarge)

More On The Cyclones From Earth Observatory

The twin cyclones hit the Solomon Islands and Fiji hard. Cyclone Tomas has been hammering Fiji for four days. Dozens of homes were damaged in the Solomon Islands. The death toll is rising in Fiji.

UPDATE : Tourist resorts off the Queensland coast are now being evacuated.



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Two Believers In Old Superstitions Battle For Leadership Of Australia

What in all fuck?

Kevin Rudd has taken on his arch-rival Tony Abbott on a heavenly question - whose saintly namesake is the best?

At a dinner in Brisbane to mark St Patrick's Day, attended by both leaders, the Prime Minister jokingly contrasted his namesake - St Kevin of Glendalough - with Italy's St Anthony.

Mr Abbott (said) "...the PM is trying to be more Queensland and more catholic then he really is."

Sticking to the Irish-Catholic theme, Mr Abbott joked that Archbishop John Bathersby said that Mary Mackillop's second miracle was to bring him as leader of the opposition.

Can you both step into the 21st century, please?

The Full Story Is Here

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Baby Monkeys Wonder Why They're No Longer The Cutest

If Mr Shuffles dies suddenly, or even worse, gets sick and dies slowly, there will be uncontrolled weeping in the streets of Sydney. And probably a state funeral.

In this downright adorable vid, the elephant calf's mother moves into action, it seems, only when she realises he can't get out on his own, and the elephant on the far right is concerned enough to at least drop his pole, for a while anyway :



Yeah, dunno if a baby elephant taking its first dip qualifies as a "close call". Have they never seen an elephant swim?



Inevitably, Mr Shuffles has a Twitter account. When he's not trying to escape, he is busy lobbying to stop a competition being held by Taronga Zoo and the Daily Telegraph to change his name.

Whatever his new name turns out to be, it won't be as memorable as Mr Shuffles.

Tony Abbott is continuing to use the term "All hat and no cowboy" to describe prime minister Kevin Rudd. So I'll repeat what I wrote here on March 8 :

Last night, Abbott also attempted to unleash on prime minister Kevin Rudd.

"It is pretty clear he is a guy who is all announcement and no follow through. He is, to coin a phrase, 'All Hat And No Cowboy'."

Abbott didn't coin the phrase. It's been in common usage in Texas for decades :

"It is not a compliment in West Texas to be referred to as 'All hat and no cowboy'. It is a term of derision used to indicate the person has little real character beneath the very thin veneer of appearance."

It's a good line, but it doesn't sound very Australian.

There is argument that the correct West Texas historical phrase is actually "All Hat, No Cattle", which certainly sounds more local.

Or perhaps Abbott knows this phrase, too, and decided not to use it to attack Rudd, because it has been popularly attached to George W. Bush since the late 1990s.

Abbott will stick to "all hat and no cowboy". He won't allow himself to be seen comparing Rudd to Bush. Ever.

John Howard, his unofficial adviser, wouldn't let him.

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"They Think I'm A Fucking Dickhead! I'm Fucking Not!"

The return of the angry, angry, angry Australian. Warning, this audio clip contains Level 5 Rage & Swears :



He sounds like some supremely unhinged relative of Kenny.

(via @Benjamint)
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Two year old Cohen Stone, from Perth, has achieved international fame the easy way, by crawling inside a lolly machine and getting stuck.



His mother took the photo. She claimed he was upset. Note the little thief is so upset he's trying to pacify himself with lollies. The family walked away with an apology and a $50 voucher.


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New Zealand : It's There For The Taking

We cannot wait for New Zealand to become a threat to Australia's national security. They vigorously deny pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but information leaked to The Orstrahyun, by various defence industry lobbyists who are worried that a winding down of the War On Terror will result in a reduction in profitable war industry contracts, say that while New Zealand currently does not have nuclear weapons and is not actively trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program, the intent to do so at some future point in time is a possibility, and the dream of New Zealand becoming a dominant nuclear power in the Pacific is more than likely being discussed, if not in an official capacity, then at least between a few people at a pub on a Friday night.

Enough is enough.



UPDATE : Reader Damien points out that, while New Zealand appears vulnerable to invasion, the presence of Corporal Willie Apiata hasn't been taken into consideration :


Photo by Philip Poupin

Invasion cancelled.

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Heart Full Of Hate

Miranda Devine, yesterday :

"....the internet has made it possible for people to express that hate before their better instincts kick in, before the instant rush of blood to the head dissipates and is forgotten. Their primal viciousness is captured and congealed in digital form."

It sure is. Miranda Devine, February 12, 2009 :

If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.

Miranda Devine, December 2006 :

When commentators describe the deteriorating situation in Iraq as "satisfying" because it gives them an opportunity to score a point against rivals who supported the 2003 invasion, they reveal an addiction to Schadenfreude so profound it has alienated them from moral reality.

When challenged, Devine could not produce one example of any commentator, in Australia or elsewhere, stating they found car bombings in Iraq "satisfying".

And here's Miranda Devine, on the victims of Cyclone Larry, which included mothers who waited in long queues for two or three days in the rain, to get food and clothing for their
infants :

"....as much as we will miss their avocados and bananas on our supermarket shelves, we can live without their whingeing."

Primal viciousness, indeed.

There's not a lot of tourist attractions around Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia.

But there is a decorated termite mound :


Photo by Eliot Garvin

This radio ad from the UK takes Australia's old "Alert, But Not Alarmed" campaign into disturbing new realms of suburban paranoia and neighbour loathing :



Presumably it will be only a matter of time before we get identical ads here.

Probably closer to the election....

The Daily Telegraph :



Are there really "respected Australian psychics"?

And if so, why doesn't the Daily Telegraph get rid of their journos and employ psychics instead?

Tomorrow's News Today, literally.


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Shot At Overnight Fame Flames Out

Contrary to popular belief, publicist Max Markson cannot sell any old shit to Today Tonight for a suitcase full of cash :





I will keep trying. But I can't say I'm not disappointed.


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ABC Blinded By "GroupThink" Claims Chairman

ABC chairman Maurice Newman on why he believes the Australia media in general, and to a less defined degree ABC news and current affairs, has been intolerant of climate change doubters. Newman blamed "GroupThink".

Excerpts from an interview on ABC's PM :

"The media hasn't been good at picking these things up and it's really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical.

"And I brought in as well in that vain what's been going on in climate change where there's been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead.

"I think the ABC has probably been more balanced than most in the mainstream media. I think that we've listened to the words of sceptics as well as those who are scientists in the field.

"But climate change is at the moment an emotional issue but it really is the fundamental issue about the need to bring voices that have authority and are relevant to the particular issue to the attention of our audiences so that they themselves can make decisions. So that we are seen to trust and respect them sufficiently that they can make up their own minds about the various points of view that are being expressed through the medium of the ABC.

"....I still have an open mind on climate change, I have an open mind on a whole range of issues because I think that to have a closed mind leaves you in a position where if you take a strong stance you are likely to be wrong-footed.

"I think that what seems fairly clear to me is that the climate science is still being developed. There are a lot question marks about some of the fundamental data which has been used to build models that requires caution."

The Full Interview Is Here

Crikey publisher Eric Beecher :

With just one speech, the ABC’s chairman has returned the national broadcaster to the days of having a politically interventionist board running a culture wars agenda — and he has done it by trashing the editorial independence of some of this country’s finest journalists.

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She Finds Your Lack Of Faith In Her Faith Disturbing :





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But What Kind Of Truth Is It?

I'll be talking on ABC radio at 1.30pm (Sydney time) about popularity of 9/11 conspiracies and the American 9/11 Truther movement, which the American mainstream media is currently pumping as a potentially violent extremist group.

This sudden fresh interest by the US media in the 9/11 Truther movement, claimed by the Washington Post in a lead editorial to be "lunatic", follows the branding of the Pentagon shooter as a "Truther", and the announcement by Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth, in press conferences around the world, that they had now gathered the signatures of more than 1000 architects, scientists, engineers, pilots, firefighters for a push for a criminal investigation into the 9/11 attacks, and their aftermath.

This short piece in the Washington Times, the only mainstream American media to mention the February 19 press conferences, lays out their key questions and claims.

A common theme raised in online discussions about this apparently more serious group of 9/11 Truthers is : The Bush administration lied about Iraq being responsible for the 9/11 attacks, they lied about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, they lied about torture, so why should the Bush administration official version of the 9/11 attacks not be at least questioned, if not re-investigated?

You can listen in at ABC Online Radio here.

UPDATE : For those who were listening to ABC Newcastle a few minutes ago, here's the links to the key sources I referenced and discussed during the interview :

Washington Post Labels Japanese Politician Part Of "Lunatic Fringe" For Questioning Bush Administration Official Story Of 9/11

The Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth

Washington Times Says 9/11 Truth Push For Criminal Investigation Has "Political Implications" For Congress

American Current Affairs Show Disappointed Not To Find Ranting Violent Wackos At 9/11 Truthers Convention

Apparently, deputy prime minister Julia Gillard excites the same sort of weird fantasies amongst middle-aged conservative men as Margaret "You Naughty Boy!" Thatcher once did:

"Has she bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?"

I predicted it would be a month or more before Australia's conservative media elite began claiming that Julia Gillard is planning to, or is "set to challenge", prime minister Kevin Rudd for the leadership of the Liberal Party. I was wrong.

It's Already Begun

The Daily Telegraph online, still classy :



Or to put it another way :

4 Out of 5 Modern Women Mostly Trust Their Men With Shared Finances

So how did the Daily Telegraph get that headline and story out the results of a poll that asked :

Do you or do you not "totally trust partner with shared finances"?

Well, you have to consider that the story was written by Joe Hildebrand.

And that the poll cited comes from Westpac's 'Women's Unit' (a PR unit) and the story concludes with the suggestion that partners having separate accounts for business and home finances will lead to less fighting over money issues.

More accounts mean more bank fees, which, coincidentally, now account for the vast majority of Australia's major banks' profits.

Andrew Bolt, the soon-to-be easy listening morning radio host, thinks this is representative of the "predatory gay" :



Even though they're also wearing speedos in a non-beach setting, this is not gay or even remotely homosexual, nor predatory. At all.



The "predatory gays" at least bothered to put on some footwear.

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This brilliant tilt-shift vid by ZebraFive was "constructed from over 9000 stills shot on location around Sydney using a Canon EOS 5D MKII."

Tony Abbott : It's Time For Big Business To Share The Wealth Around

By Darryl Mason

Tony Abbott on paid maternity leave, July 2002 :

"I'm dead against paid maternity leave as a compulsory thing. I think that making businesses pay what seems to them two wages to get one worker are, almost nothing could be more calculated to make businesses feel that the odds are stacked against them."

Tony Abbott, last night on Lateline, stacks the odds :

"If we are gonna have a comprehensive paid parental leave scheme any time soon, the fairest way to do it is for it to be a cost on business, and the fairest way to make it a cost on business is to ask larger businesses, the businesses that have the greatest capacity to pay, the businesses that have suffered least through the global financial crisis, they're the people who can best bear it."

Tony Abbott wants big business to share the wealth around, in particular to single-income families?

Who does he think he is? Obama?

"(Compulsory paid maternity leave) is pro-family, it's pro-child, it's pro-mother, and in the end, it's gonna produce a much stronger economy, because if we look after mothers in the workforce, we'll have more kids, and there is no greater contribution to the future economic strength of Australia than the kids we have now."

Well, kids, and coal.

Tony Abbott wasn't too keen to be reminded of the statements he made back in 2002 by Lateline host Leigh Sales :

TONY ABBOTT: ....I'm fully aware of that quote, Leigh. I have changed my mind.

LEIGH SALES: I'm sure you are. Our viewers ...

TONY ABBOTT: And isn't it a good thing to change your mind as your understanding grows?

LEIGH SALES: That is quite a change of heart.

TONY ABBOTT: Yeah, no, look, I accept that.

LEIGH SALES: So what's brought it about?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, what's brought it about is deeper understanding of the practical difficulties of women who are trying to juggle families and careers. We should not ...

LEIGH SALES: And how have you come to that deeper understanding?

TONY ABBOTT: By, I suppose, being more conscious of the burdens that friends and family members are carrying and of thinking more deeply about the sorts of choices that I would like to be available for my own daughters.

He wants big business to pick up the tab for his daughters' maternity leave.

So what's good for Abbott's children is good for Australia. I wonder if he had elderly relatives who smoked cannabis to relieve arthritis pain and reduce inflammation he would suddenly be backing medicinal marijuana?

Last night, Abbott also attempted to unleash on prime minister Kevin Rudd :

"It is pretty clear he is a guy who is all announcement and no follow through. He is, t coin a phrase, 'All Hat And No Cowboy'."

Abbott didn't coin the phrase. It's been in common usage in Texas for decades :

"It is not a compliment in West Texas to be referred to as 'All hat and no cowboy'. It is a term of derision used to indicate the person has little real character beneath the very thin veneer of appearance."

It's a good line, but it doesn't sound very Australian.

There is argument that the correct West Texas historical phrase is actually "All Hat, No Cattle", which certainly sounds more local.

Or perhaps Abbott knows this phrase, too, and decided not to use it to attack Rudd, because it has been popularly attached to George W. Bush since the late 1990s.


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You may feel sorry for the journalists, but the Fall Of Newspapers is set to claim many victims, least of all obsessive-compulsive newspaper stackerers :

Welcome To Melbourne


Photo from The Voxel Agents

A roundup of the freak Melbourne storm, from ABC News Melbourne HQ, with the great shot of a journalist reporting on the storms, holding an umbrella, inside a building, due to the amount of water pouring in through the roof.

Holy Fuck!



Chinaapek details on the above incredible vid of flash flooding in Melbourne earlier today :

I was there having coffee, the sky turned grey within seconds. Withinsecond, hail storm. Within 3 minutes, the street has gone chaos. It was a wave pool and flying branches and bins.

Melbourne's Flinders Street, a few minutes after storm clouds appeared :



Ballistic Freak Hail Storm Slams Melbourne

Now this is 3D :

The storm become curiouser and curiouser for Clemence Harvey, of South Yarra, who was watching the new Alice in Wonderland film with her 13-year-old in a packed theatre at the Jam Factory when water started pouring in front of the screen.

"Water started pouring through the ceiling and a torrent of water was pouring right in front of the screen, then they put a very large bucket down."

And it isn't over yet.

Seriously, how much testing do the weather machines need? They work, okay?

Now they're just showing off.


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Brilliant digital artist Monomauve has 'detooned' Mr Monty Burns.



The Full Ex-ell-ent Image Is Here

Of course Australians have known for years what Mr Burns would look like, detooned :





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Juli-aaaaaahhhhh

By Darryl Mason

Liberal Party activists Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt get started on their campaign to seed division in the federal Labor Party vote, by pushing deputy prime minister Julia Gillard as the person who should leading Labor into the next election.

After all, Kevin Rudd is a one term prime minister, or so goes the new chant, even though polls show nothing like the anger and outrage against Rudd that professional Liberal Party activist-columnists, including Miranda Devine, claim is running wild across the land.

You know what's coming next, don't you? A full-blown campaign from the Friends Of The Liberal Party in the opinion pages of, mostly, the Murdoch media claiming that Gillard "has almost got the numbers" and "is set to challenge for the leadership of the Labor Party."

It's early March now, the election is likely to arrive before late November, so they'll need at least four months to really get those Gillard Vs Rudd rumours flaming up, after they light the first fires of course.

So expect rumours along the lines of "Senior Labor Party officials believe Rudd is dooming the government to one term" and "Gillard knows she can win where Rudd cannot" to start flooding the gruesomely predictable opinion pages of the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian in a month or so. Paul Sheehan from the Sydney Morning Herald can be relied on to join in the chanting, too.

Murdoch-funded Liberal Party activists like Andrew Bolt want to get started now, he's champing at the bit, but he knows it's still a bit too soon.

First, Glenn Milne has to fill a Sunday Telegraph page with "leaks" from "senior government figures", and then it's on.

Not the federal Labor government leadership challenge, just the column filler that will breed more columns and heated talkback debate. Anything, anything, to avoid devoting all but the most hostile attention to The Greens, who are shaping up to gain control of the Senate.

The 20th century newspapers have to at least try and give the impression that they can still influence the outcome of elections, even if they no longer really believe it themselves.

And it surely must be only a matter of weeks now before some Liberal Party politician embarrasses himself by claiming Kevin Rudd is an "Epic Fail."

Or maybe they're saving that for some of their 'hip' new campaign ads?

March 10 update : And so it begins, earlier than I predicted :

"Jones and I aren't alone among conservatives for falling for a politician whose choice of books now suggests she's readying to take over from the increasingly friendless Kevin Rudd."

"Watch your back Kevin."

"So while we love challenger Gillard now...."

She's already challenging Kevin Rudd for leadership of the Labor Party? Scoop!

And this note of warning :

"I fear this love for La Gillard may well end in tears, like Act 5 of Romeo and Juliet itself."

Julia Gillard will appear one day to be dead, and Australian conservative journalists will commit suicide and then Gillard will wake up from her sleep to find them all dead and then kill herself out of intolerable grief and loss?

And, man, and I thought I had some weird fantasies :

Has (Julia Gillard) bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?

Weirdo.

The Sydney Morning Herald headline promises to reveal "The Dark Side" of a missing Australian nuclear scientist.

So what have they got?

His personal website reveals a man with bower-bird interests. These ranged from an obsession with suicide rates in the United States, Japan, Britain and Australia, the writings of Japanese Kamikaze pilots, Quebec's suicide ''hot spot'', ''suicide clubs'', The Complete Manual on Suicide to holocaust scenarios of nuclear attack, chemical poisoning, terrorist attacks and extensive works on the morality of war.

That's a bit thin to label someone having a Dark Side, isn't it? Bit weird, perhaps, but what if most of it is related to his research?

The story of the missing nuclear scientist is strange indeed.

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Weaponised Fruit

As you may have already heard, British prime minister Gordon Brown has a temper of Ruddian proportions. But new reports keep hitting the British media about just how fiery and abusive Brown's temper can be. Even innocent fruit does not escape the Brown wraith.

An excerpt from an article in The Sun :

A factory worker claims that during an official visit to his plant the PM hurled a tangerine into a laminating machine after flying into a rage while on a phone call. He said: "The fruit got stuck in the machine and clogged it.

"It was very embarrassing, we had to stop the tour and he got even more angry. He called the person that gave him the tangerine an idiot."

Actually, Gordon Brown called him a "citric idiot."

You think The Sun just makes up stories like this?

No. A real newspaper with real journalists sources and fact-checks claims that the prime minister is a fruit thrower.

And the tale of the furiously hurled tangerine came from a clearly reputable source :



The UK Telegraph also reported this 'incident' as fact....



....and the tangerine tale even became part of a Hong Kong news agency's animated round-up of Brown abuse atrocities :

Robert Popper is responsible for 'TangerineGate'


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@Tara_Moss asks is this the 'Headline Typo Of The Year?' It may be Typo Of The Decade :



However, the story is good news. The Royal Institute For Deaf and Blind Children celebrated its 150th anniversary today. Author Tara Moss joined Therese Rein at the celebrations, which included the unveiling of a video conferencing room at the new library. Video conferencing that will eventually allow hearing impaired kids to talk to the world, and hear all those voices talking back.

Sometimes I want to give the miracle of digital technology a big hug.

The Institute's website is here, where you can also donate.



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Fox News = Quality Geography

THR notices Fox News is still struggling with its geographic disability :



It's not the first time Fox News has made such a mistake.

(Via @sreejd and @chaslicc)

Poodle-Kitty spotted in Erskineville :

Northern Territory : Fish Fall From The Sky Twice in 2 Days

Local : "Thank God It Didn't Rain Crocodiles!"


grab from photo by Christine Balmer.

Last Thursday and Friday afternoon, residents of a Northern Territory town saw hundreds of fish fall from the sky. Locals claim the fish were still alive when they hit the ground.

On both days, the rain of fish began around 6pm.

'Newsbreaker' Christine Balmer told the Northern Territory News :

"Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere.

"I haven't lost my marbles. Thank god it didn't rain crocodiles."

I would go see that movie. As long as the rain of crocodiles fell over a city.

Lajamanu is the town where the fish fell from the sky. It sits on the edge of a desert, hundreds of kilometres from lakes, or the coast.

Even more bizarrely, rains of fish fell on Lajamanu in 2004, and in 1974.

A weather forecaster told The Northern Territory News that a tornado could have been responsible, but there were none in the area on the days the rain of fish occurred.

Go Here For More

This story is now being picked up by the Drudge Report, Reddit, Digg, thousands of bloggers and the news wires. The Northern Territory News has found its clickbait tale of the year.

And it's a good, more accurate choice by the NTN to use the term 'Newsbreaker' for what other media call a 'Citizen Journalist'.

In other Northern Territory News news, a monkey disguised as a normal everyday cat is running across roads. Points for the headline, though : 'Chimp My Ride.'

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Give Generously To PeteAid

This says more about the shitty, petty state of Australian politics and some ranks of the political media than it does about Peter Garrett :

Mr Garrett has always struggled with the impossible task of melding mainstream political reality with the strong conservation and human rights views he espoused as lead singer of the Oils.

Glenn Milne is now doing fashion reviews :

A barefoot and dejected Peter Garrett yesterday insisted he would stay on in politics, despite being demoted for his role in the $2.5 billion home insulation fiasco.

The Environment Protection Minister was photographed outside his Randwick home in Sydney, looking miserable and dressed down in tracksuit pants and a grey T-shirt.

Unlike Mr Milne, who presumably, Frank Drebin-like, changes into a more comfortable business suit on a Saturday morning before taking the dog outside to drop a load.

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Pacific Tsunami Hitting New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Guinea, Australia




By Darryl Mason

UPDATES OF TSUNAMI REACHING ACROSS ENTIRE PACIFIC BASIN BELOW

(10pm) A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake has struck off the coast of Central Chile. It's the 7th highest magnitude earthquake ever recorded. A tsunami alert has been issued for Queensland by the Bureau of Meteorology.

Threatened areas extend from Point Danger to Double Island Point :

Possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding
for several hours from 08:15 am [EST] Sunday.

Sea level observations HAVE confirmed a tsunami has been generated.

Tsunami waves are more powerful than the same size beach waves, with the first
wave not always the largest. First tsunami effects are expected as follows:

Coolangatta after 08:15 am [EST] Sunday
Maroochydore after 09:00 am [EST] Sunday
Brisbane after 09:15 am [EST] Sunday
And the most important piece of advice : 
And probably the most important piece of advice : 
Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami. Check that your
neighbours have received this advice.

History's largest recorded earthquake, magnitude 9.5, struck Chile in 1960. More than 6000 people died.

The death toll, so far, from today's earthquake off Chile is below 100. That toll is expected to climb, significantly.

UPDATE : Photos, phone videos, news links, eyewitness accounts of the Chile earthquake, and a fast rising panic about the Pacific tsunami are pouring onto Twitter at the rate of a few thousand a minute (at 10.40pm, Sydney time).

Click #Chile and Tsunami to see the Twitter news streams.

The Pacific Tsunami is expected to hit the coasts of the North and South New Zealand islands in about six hours.

UPDATE : Tsunami alerts are scrolling on some Australian TV channels, some appearing during an airing of The Day After Tomorrow, which must be jarring to those who aren't already aware of what's happening.

Tsunami alerts issued for Japan, Alaska, Russia, the east coast of the United States, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, New Guinea....

(10.40) I'll drop the 'update' thing and just keep posting the bits and pieces of news rolling in :

* The entire Pacific Ocean base is now under a tsunami alert.

* The highest tsunami wave (at sea) recorded so far (10:52pm) is 2.2 metres. They tend to get bigger when they reach shallower waters, and coastlines. The waves are expected to roll in for a few hours, but time between each wave can vary from 5 minutes to 60 minutes.

* New Zealand tsunami warnings are dramatic :

"SEA LEVEL READINGS CONFIRM THAT A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED WHICH COULD CAUSE WIDESPREAD DAMAGE. AUTHORITIES SHOULD TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THIS THREAT."

* (11.04pm Syd) Evacuations under way on Easter Island, tsunami to hit within an hour.

* Tsunami alerts issued for dozens of countries, even Russia and Antarctica.

(11.20pm Syd) How To Know When The Tsunami Threat Has Passed :

WHEN NO MAJOR WAVES ARE OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS AFTER THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT OCCURRED FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS THEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE THREAT IS PASSED. DANGER TO BOATS AND COASTAL STRUCTURES CAN CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS DUE TO RAPID CURRENTS. AS LOCAL CONDITIONS CAN CAUSE A WIDE VARIATION IN TSUNAMI WAVE ACTION THE ALL CLEAR DETERMINATION MUST BE MADE BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.

* (11.46pm) CNN reports the Chile earthquake was the biggest to strike anywhere in the world in 100 years. The 8.8 magnitude earthquake has been claimed to have been 1000 times bigger than the quake that struck Haiti.

* (11.50pm) A marine tsunami alert has been issued for New South Wales. :

Threatened areas extend from Broken Bay to Point Danger.

Possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding
for several hours from 08:45 am [EDT] Sunday.

Further south from about 8am Sunday for coastal areas from Broken Bay to Gabo
Island, there are likely to be unusual currents and tides during Sunday.

At this stage, those areas, including the coast and bays around Sydney Harbour,
are not considered to be under threat of significant tsunami effects.

* (12.08am) Reuters reports tsunami sirens will be sounded in Hawaii near dawn, "all shores at risk no matter which direction they face." Five metre waves are expected to hit.

* (12.23am) The tsunami wave heading for the east coast of Australia is estimated to be travelling at 800kmh.

* 21 aftershocks have struck Chile, most above magnitude 5, at least seven above magnitude 6.

* Tsunami waves due to hit New Zealand in a few hours are expected to below 1 metre high. Some reports claim evacuations have already begun, others say the perceived threat has been downgraded.

The emergency announcement for the Pacific Tsunami from New Zealand Civil Defence :

1. Stay off beaches

2. Stay out of the water (sea, rivers and estuaries, including boating activities)

3. Do not go sightseeing

4. Share this information with family, neighbours and friends

5. Listen to the radio and/or TV for updates

6. Follow instructions of your local Civil Defence authorities.

* (12.44am) If you're an Australian with relatives in Chile, you can get updates from the Department of Foreign Affairs on hotline : 1800 002 214

* (12.50) CNN via Twitter reports locals claim a 40 metre high (131 foot) wave hit San Fernandez island a few minutes ago. Surely they mean a 4 metre wave?

* (1am) The Pacific Tsunami has begun striking island coastlines near Easter Island. San Fernandez island smashed by huge waves, death toll climbing. Island's capital San Juan Bautista, reports local radio, half destroyed. Partial evacuations now underway on Easter Island.

* (1.10am) Who will the first religious idiot to blame Sydney's Mardi Gras for Australian tsunami damage later today? Hopefully, no-one.

* (1.15am) News from San Fernandez slow to get out. Report that first waves hitting Easter Island are less than a metre high. Some Pacific Tsunami warnings are being downgraded.

* MSNBC airing Chile earthquake twitter reports from an American Idol contestant.

* (1.30am) CNN now running interview with American Idol contestant, Eliot Yamin, showing twoots he wrote during the Chile earthquake. He gives decent eyewitness account of being tossed around his office and then "running for my life" when the massive quake struck.

CNN journalists are now leaving Haiti earthquake destruction to report from Chile earthquake destruction.

* The Pacific Rim Of Fire has been been humming with earthquakes over magnitude 4.5 through the past week (click image to enlarge) :



* (1.30am) California issues alerts, warns coastal cities to prepare for tsunami waves.

* (1.46am) The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre repeating "marine" tsunami expected for New South Wales and Queensland starting at 8am. No major coastal town or city damage expected.

* (2am) A mass nude photo shoot planned for a beach near Weillington this morning has been cancelled due to tsunami alerts. Let's hope that's the worst thing that happens to New Zealand in the next few hours.

* (2.24am) First Pacific Tsunami wave to hit Hawaii in about 45 minutes. Hotels in Maui are being advised to move all guests above the fourth floor. The latest warnings say waves are expected "to wrap around the islands", and the height of tsunamis waves "cannot be predicted."
Honolulu County is issuing urgent warnings for residents to evacuate as roads are about to be closed. Waves as high as four metres are now expected.

* (2.29am) Tsunami alerts issued in Fiji and Tonga warn of incoming waves at least two to three metres high. Police in Samoa have reportedly issued a nationwide evacuation. Terrible.

* (2.33am) Only a few years ago, most tsunamis struck with little or no warning. Tsunami warning centres and monitoring across the Pacific means this time at least many have warnings of what is heading their way, at the speed of a jet. It is likely thousands, if not more, have been saved from the Pacific Tsunami by this warning system. It's been a remarkable and unnerving experience to follow the path of the Pacific Tsunami through Twitter updates and links, Tsunami warning centre alerts and Google Maps these past five hours.

Accurate to almost the minute advance warnings of tsunami wave heights and arrivals were issued 1 - 16 hours before waves hit many Pacific islands, though most in the tsunami's path would have already been in bed when the reports and warnings were issued.

And the earthquakes and aftershocks continue, as the Rim Of Fire grinds, crashes and explodes.


TBC

So That's What You Sound Like

So this is an interview I did with Carol Duncan of ABC Radio Newcastle a couple of Wednesdays ago, about blogging and writing. The interview runs about 20 minutes.

You can listen to it here.

Now you know what my voice sounds like, I suppose I should dive in and record some yelly rants and obnoxiously in-your-face videos.

More later.

The Tinfoil Is Causing The Microphone To Feedback

Over the past few weeks, Andrew Bolt on Twitter has been undergoing what can only be described as a rapid descent into utter paranoia. Signs of trouble began a month ago, and have culminated in the past few days with an obsessive focus on the allegedly Pagan Lefty-Infiltrated national broadcaster he is forced to pay for :

"I am weeping tears of patriotism."

"Racism only exists towards oppressed white men like me."

"The ABC took my chair. What next? Are they going to take my pants?"

"There's a black van over the road from my house. The ABC are spying on me! This tinfoil headgear will protect my thoughts."

"Bet you don't know what I'm thinking now, Tony Jones. Kerry O'Brien, go and invade someone else's mind."

"Pulled down office blinds so ABC helicopters can't spy. Turned off lights. Kerry O'Brien has X-ray vision...."

"Protection from thought control is doubled if I wrap my body in tinfoil..."

I tried to explain to him the claims that tinfoil can protect against remote mind surveillance are actually part of the mind control conspiracy, and that tin foil instead helps to focus and increase the power of mind-invading psychotronic weapons.

But he didn't listen.

So naturally, seeing as he's now clad from head to toe in tinfoil, totally beset by conspiracies about Pagan Lefty Warminista Globalist World Government and ranting paranoidly about the ABC, Andrew Bolt On Twitter wins himself an invitation to speak at the Young Liberal Nationals of Queensland convention.




Invitation Accepted


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