Haunting :

The Orstrahyun, always first with the Big News. From September, 2007 :


Gillard To Challenge Rudd For Leadership Of Labor Party




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How The Media Welcomed Julia Gillard, Prime Minister

A round-up of graphics from local and international online news sites announcing the results of the Australian Coup.

ABC News Online :



7News online :



CNN :



Daily Telegraph :



News.com.au :



Herald Sun :


News.com.au :

New York Times :




Sydney Morning Herald online :



And two particular favourites to close. The Illawara Mercury :



And Al Jazeera :



The Murdoch media decides it's okay, now the coup is over, to call it a coup :




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Peter Hartcher :

Kevin Rudd’s polling numbers were no worse than John Howard’s had been at the same point in the electoral cycle on several occasions before he went on to win.

Howard managed to rally his party, campaign and win. Rudd has not been given the same opportunity.

Rudd’s poll support fell brutally in April and May, but had stabilised. Two polls this week, a Newspoll and an Essential Media survey, put Labor ahead by 52 per cent to 48 on the election-deciding two-party share of the vote.

As the former national secretary of the Labor Party, Bob McMullan, told a caucus meeting on Tuesday, no government sitting on these polls numbers this close to an election had lost.

And no opposition leader as unpopular as Tony Abbott at this point in the cycle had gone on to win.

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Call It What It Is, A Coup

By Darryl Mason

Did it really only take the mere rumour that prime minister Kevin Rudd was considering a super-profits tax, like he was planning for Australia's richest miners, to be imposed on all of Australia's most profitable corporations, for the coup to commence?

It began, as most major news stories do these days, with a Twitter update. ABC News on Twitter announced before the 7pm news that prime minister Kevin Rudd was fighting a coup :


This news was retweeted (republished) minutes later by ABC managing director Mark Scott to around 30,000 followers, including every journalist, business leader, investor, news junkie in Australia who realises Twitter is where news breaks first now :


ABC political reporter Chris Uhlmann pumped the news out to thousands more on Twitter :


It was no longer conservative media and Liberal Party-allied media fantasy. Their dream of a Julia Gillard prime ministership had come true, many months early, and the Rudd government was tearing itself apart.

Minutes later, ABC News Online published this story :



The original brief ABC News Online story, posted shortly after 7pm Wednesday (now swallowed up and changed through updates) :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership is under siege tonight from some of the Labor Party's most influential factional warlords.

The ABC has learned that powerful party figures have been secretly canvassing numbers for a move to dump the Prime Minister and replace him with his deputy, Julia Gillard.

It appears she has rebuffed the advances, but it is a measure of the disquiet which has been building in the party since Mr Rudd's approval ratings began their precipitous slide in April.

Ministers and party members have been lining up all week to voice their support for Mr Rudd but behind the scenes, party leaders have been contemplating a leadership change.

Although Mr Rudd looks likely to survive the challenge, news of the attempted coup will undoubtedly weaken him.

It is understood that the only thing holding the Prime Minister up is that his deputy refuses to join in a bid to bring him down.

The essential word "coup" appears to be missing from later stories, all other news sites and nearly all late night TV and radio reports.

A few hours after ABC News Online broke the story, prime minister Kevin Rudd faced a press conference to announce a leadership vote Thursday morning at 9am. He seemed mildly stunned, but firm, and railed against the right factions of the Australian Labor Party, all but shouting that he wouldn't let the Labor right wing take over the government; the same right factions who had almost effortlessly plunged the Australian government into utter chaos, with days of stock market uncertainty to follow.

Frontbenchers of the Rudd government were seen sitting in their Parliament House offices, watching news of the coup unfolding around them on the TV, mouthing words that simplify out as "What The Fuck?"

By 11pm, Julia Gillard was a bigger discussion subject on Twitter than even the World Cup, which is fucking remarkable :



Kevin Rudd's name briefly climbed into the Twitter Trending Topics list, but not for long.

Newspaper front pages aren't online yet, to round up for this, however bizarre, truly historic event in Australian politics and Australian democracy. But the pre-midnight graphics of Australian online news sites clearly spelled out the (perhaps only brief) federal government disaster unfolding. None with more fever than the Murdoch media, who have been all but hysterically demanding Julia Gillard replace Kevin Rudd as prime minister for months.

Adelaide Now :



News.com. au :



The Australian Financial Review :



ABC News :


The Australian :



In fact The Australian was so excited they invented a new word to mark this historic occasion :



The Sydney Morning Herald :



NineMSN :



The Age :



The Herald Sun :



The Daily Telegraph :



How dare Kevin Rudd be "defiant"? Who does he think he is? The democratically elected prime minister of Australia?

The face of our new prime minister, Julia Gillard, as she exited Parliament House last night, after what some media reported as a solid two hours of yelling and raging "discussion" in the prime minister's office :


(screengrab from graphic on The Australian)

If Julia Gillard wins the Labor Party vote to replace Kevin Rudd, she has to call an election. Immediately. As all new leaders of any state or federal government should and must, but rarely, do when they rise to peak power through internal wranglings and not by the vote of the public.

Democracy demands it.

Remember?

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The Australian, quality lead editorial journalism, June 23 (excerpts) :

Kevin Rudd looks safe as leader, but at what price?

Judging by his performance in question time yesterday, the Prime Minister thinks he can win the next election. So, it seems, does the caucus, including the person who has the most to gain by Kevin Rudd's exit from the top job. Julia Gillard is astute, capable and popular - and she is sticking by her boss.

The alternative scenario advanced by many of Ms Gillard's supporters sees her replacing Mr Rudd a few months after a narrow Labor victory. She would indeed make a good prime minister. But like Peter Costello before her, the deputy might find that when it comes to power, timing is everything.

The Rest Is Here

Fair Shake Of The Coup Bottle

One of the final messages from @KevinRuddPM on Twitter :



It should have read : This is still a democracy.

In Australia, coups don't require military assistance. So far.


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Coup D'eRudd

Australia Vs Serbia. Gillard Vs Rudd.

Both events will make great television tonight.


(ABC News graphic)

ABC News :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership is under siege tonight from some of the Labor Party's most influential factional warlords.

It must be true. ABC managing director Mark Scott said so on Twitter :



UPDATE : ABC News online is now covered in decorations :



Kerry O'Brien closed the 7.30 Report by describing the Rudd leadership challenge as :

"...a fluid situation."

With or without a serious challenge tonight, there will be all sorts of bodily fluids being spilled.


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Downer On Rudd : Studious, Bright, Passionate, Qualities Shine Through

Former Howard government foreign minister and failed Liberal Party leader Alexander Downer sings the praises of prime minister Kevin Rudd :

There is a parliamentary consensus that Kevin Rudd is bright. No one could reasonably doubt his addiction to hard work, his studious attention to detail and his passion to acquire knowledge. His success at university and in his early years as a junior diplomat attests to that.

As prime minister, those qualities have shone through. Kevin Rudd, PM, knows stuff, speaks a foreign language — and a hard one at that — and works day and night with barely a break to sleep.

Downer also has some criticisms. Rudd swears and wants to be on TV a lot, he's conceited and vain, and he works public servants too hard. And that's about it.

Compared to Downer, who ignored numerous memos and intelligence reports telling him there were no WMDs in Iraq, even before the war began, and that an Australian company was bribing Saddam Hussein with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, Rudd's failings and mistakes seem minor, and trivial, despite his profligacy.

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What works for Portugal would also work for Australia. Unless we want to continue making criminals rich, and usually law-abiding citizens into criminals :

Now this? This is Rock. Jason O'Keefe from Airbourne :

Whatever Iran & China Can Do, We Can Do Better

Oh, look. Time Magazine has a big story on Australia!

Ahhh, shit....

The concept of government-backed web censorship is usually associated with nations where human rights and freedom of speech are routinely curtailed. But if Canberra's plans for a mandatory Internet filter go ahead, Australia may soon become the first Western democracy to join the ranks of Iran, China and a handful of other nations where access to the Internet is restricted by the state.

Why not just call it the 'Jesus Filter'?

....only a cluster of Christian groups and child safety advocates have come out as supporting the filter. In a June 5 poll conducted on the web site of the Sydney Morning Herald, 99% of the 88,645 people who responded to the survey said they were against the Internet filter. Nevertheless, (Stephen) Conroy told the Sun-Herald in May that the policy "will be going ahead.'' He also accused groups like GetUp! of deliberately misleading the public. 'We are still consulting on the final details of the scheme. But this policy has been approved by 85% of Australian internet service providers, who have said they would welcome the filter, including Telstra, Optus, iPrimus and iinet.'' Iinet have since denied that it ever approved the scheme.

Many say the biggest problem with the plan is that it simply won't work. "I don¹t see the point of blocking a site that no one would have come across, and making the criminals aware of the fact they are being watched. I am much more interested in seeing the Australian Federal Police work with international law enforcement agencies in tracking the site," Ludham of the Greens Party says.

The Full Story Is Here

The Liberals are making a bit of noise about the Jesus Filter, but they're not going to oppose it,, they just want to 'tweak it' a bit.

Please welcome to the bullfighting ring, Christian Hernandez, the world's smartest bullfighter :



Despite what you may read or hear, Hernandez was not arrested for "cowardice", he was arrested for breaking his contract, and paid a small fine before being released. He then announced his retirement.

Hernandez had previously been gored through the leg, but like all bullfighters, he has no doubt watched the following video and puked in fear and horror :



Sorry if you were eating breakfast.

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Peanut Butter Stings Less Than Vegemite


Helen Coonan : "I have two beautiful Golden Retrievers...."

UPDATE : Video is at the bottom of this post.

Definitely one of the most downright bizarre, and hilarious, panel debates ever seen on Australian TV. The subject? Consensual Sex With Your Pets.

From Monday night's Q &A on your ABC (transcript slightly edited, corrected) :

HOST TONY JONES : We have a web question from Deirdre Baker in NSW. QUOTES: "Peter Singer, in your 2001 article 'Heavy Petting' you state that mutually satisfying sexual activity between humans and animals can develop. Please explain."

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: It is a fact that there is sexual contact between some humans and animals. I was raising the question why we have such a taboo on this. Sometimes it involves cruelty and the infliction of power and dominance on an animal, and clearly I oppose that. There can be occasions, I don't know how much vivid description you want.

TONY JONES: Go ahead.

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: I'm clearly not on American television tonight, because no American host would have said that. An example is a woman has oral sex performed by her dog.

PROFESSOR JAYATHRI KULKARNI: Brings new meaning to doggy style!

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: Women have said this is something that pleases them, the dog is free to do it or walk away, there's no dominance over the dog, that seems harmless.

SENATOR HELEN COONAN: This is a trained dog, obviously?

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: It's her dog who enjoys doing it and the dog gives pleasure to the companion. I don't see why we have a taboo.

PROFESSOR JAYATHRI KULKARNI: Sorry, Peter, this is just weird. It's just weird!

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: It's not common, but is it wrong, is the question?

JOURNALIST DAVID MARR: Jay, this is your territory.

(LAUGHTER)

TONY JONES: Let's get a psychiatrist's perspective on this?

PROFESSOR JAYATHRI KULKARNI: I'm thinking, Freud did say that human beings are polymorphously perverse, which is another way of saying that there are lots of different views. Sometimes you have to draw the line and go, "That's weird."

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER: Since I wrote this piece, I've had people, sex therapists come to me, and say they have had patients who were tortured with guilt because they got some sexual satisfaction from contact with their animals, and their lives were miserable. And they gave them the article because it helped them to see other people were doing the same thing, and here was somebody who was saying, "This is not a sign of terrible moral evil."

TONY JONES: Helen Coonan, parliamentary sitting week up coming up, would you like to get on the record on this?

SENATOR HELEN COONAN: Thankfully, I don't answer questions, I ask them. I won't be asking this one, Tony. I agree, that's seriously off. I can't imagine... I have two beautiful golden retrievers, and... (LAUGHTER)

PROFESSOR PETER SINGER : I thought your party stood for individual freedom.

SENATOR HELEN COONAN: I think it's off the wall. Put it this way, I'll continue to find the nice patch under my doggy's ear that he likes, that's all I'll do.

TONY JONES: I'm sorry to say, we have run out of time.

DAVID MARR: I'm not sorry.

The video is here. It's definitely worth whipping through to about the 50 minute mark. Helen Coonan's line about her Golden Retrievers sent the audience, and host Tony Jones, into hysterical laughter, with a fair scattering in the crowd of absolutely shocked, disgusted and "oh, I'm about to wet my pants!' expressions.

I bet they won't be using any of that discussion in the promos for next week's show.

UPDATE : Okay, we have the video here now :




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Beer Not Bought

Why would anyone think the Murdoch media are actively, hysterically campaigning against prime minister Kevin Rudd?

From the front page of today's Daily Telegraph online :



Bombshell.

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Australia played a small role, as the landing zone, in one of the most remarkable episodes of space exploration - the capturing of small pieces of a comet by a Japanese space probe, now successfully returned to Earth for study.



More On Hayabusa Here

In more local Space-related news, Australian astronomer Anthony Wesley snapped this incredible shot of an unidentified impact on the surface of Jupiter :

On June 3rd, 2010, something hit Jupiter. A comet or asteroid descended from the black of space, struck the planet's cloudtops, and disintegrated, producing a flash of light so bright it was visible in backyard telescopes on Earth. Soon, observers around the world were training their optics on the impact site, waiting to monitor the cindery cloud of debris which always seems to accompany a strike of this kind.

"It's as if Jupiter just swallowed the thing whole," says Anthony Wesley of Australia, one of two amateur astronomers who recorded the initial flash.

More Here


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Veteran journalist Andrew Dodd on the shaping of 'quality journalism' at Rupert Murdoch's national newspaper :

I know the culture at The Australian. I worked there for five years. Occasionally, as a reporter you get leant-on to chase things. You can be pushed into prodding a certain side in a certain way in line with the paper's campaign of the day. I know how uncomfortable this is, particularly when the paper is not a disinterested player.

The Australian, owned by a non-Australian, who voluntarily gave up his citizenship to make more money. You can't more un-Australian than that.

The Australian government's latest attempt to scare away asylum seekers.



How effective will it be?

It depends on whether the dangers you're trying to escape are more or less scary than being lost in a stormy ocean,, doesn't it?

Plague Of Locusts? Blame Rudd

It may seem completely irrational to blame what is expected to be the worst locust plague in decades on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, but I've been reading plenty of Australian tabloid newspaper columnists recently and I've learned utterly irrational blame-gaming matters not a hoot.

It's Kevin Rudd's fault.

From Bloomberg :

The worst locust plague in more than two decades is threatening to strike Australia, the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter, after rainfall boosted egg-laying by the insects in major crop growing regions.

“There are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops and pastures that are potentially at risk,” Chris Adriaansen, director at the Canberra-based Australian Plague Locust Commission said in an interview by phone.

The forecast plague could cost Victoria’s agriculture sector A$2 billion ($1.7 billion) if left untreated, the state government said today.

“The advice of leading scientists indicates the scale of the coming spring’s outbreak could be as bad as we experienced in 1973 and 1974 when locusts swarmed through much of Victoria,” state premier John Brumby said today in a statement. “Prior to that, the last outbreak of this scale was in 1934, so we could be facing a once-in-a-lifetime locust plague with locusts swarming right across the state.”

Australian farmers have mostly completed planting of winter crops including wheat and canola, with final output depending on favorable weather through the remainder of the year. Aerial pesticide spraying and ground-level controls by agencies and growers is planned to curb the spread of the locusts and reduce damage to crops and pastures, according to the commission

A swarm may contain millions of locusts covering several square kilometers and overnight migrations of as much as several 100 kilometers are not uncommon, it said.

High density swarms, with more than 50 insects in a square meter, can eat 20 metric tons of vegetation a day, according to a South Australian primary industries website.

The Full Story Is Here

Enough Is Enough

Even Murdoch columnist Andrew Bolt, who gets free trips to Israel and then 'forgets' to mention so in a Daily Telegraph column where he recited IDF propaganda about the Gaza Flotilla slaughter without question, apparently has had enough of Israel's cruel, internationally condemned trade blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians :




Michael Rivero, who often links 2 or 3 times a week to Andrew Bolt articles on his popular website What Really Happened (contributing greatly to Bolt's claimed "2 Million Hits A Month!"), appears to agree with Bolt in this letter to the New York Times (excerpts) :

While I share the world’s revulsion at Israel’s attack on an unarmed aid flotilla in international waters I take strong exception to the comment made by the authors of this piece in the third paragraph. HAMAS did not stage a coup d’état against the Palestinian authority. HAMAS won the elections, and it was FATAH that tried to forcibly remove HAMAS, but failed.

An official Israel government documented reported by McClatchy news only yesterday confirms that the purpose of the blockade is not Israel’s defense, but to force the Gazans to surrender their elected government and accept Israeli rule via their proxy Fatah. That the list of items banned by Israel in Gaza included potato chips, shaving cream, candy and cookies demonstrates that defense is not the issue here. Israel’s attempt to coerce acceptance of alternate government in Gaza is a mirror of the attempt by the USSR in 1948 and 1949 to blockade West Berlin in order to starve that city into accepting Soviet rule via their proxy East Germany.

The world reacted quite differently back then, mounting the Berlin airlift, flying 13,000 tons of food and necessities into West Berlin daily on the principle that no government has a right to starve another people into changing their political system.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is often accused of being utterly boring and morosely humourless, at least as far as his public persona goes. He's trying to change that perception on Twitter :





Er, yeah. Okay.

Apparently there's some soccer games about to start in South Africa, and an Australian soccer team will be playing, too. Though you'd hardly know it from watching the TV, or reading newspapers. They've barely mentioned it all.

(Yeah, I know, that was even less funny than Kevin Rudd's Friday afternoon attempt at humour).

Crikey's First Dog On The Moon has worried about a lot of things this week. Here's two :



Plenty More At First Dog's 'Highly Strung Week In Review'

Yunupingu Set To Crack The US

Some excellent news for Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu :

Indigenous singer-songwriter Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has scored a US release for his platinum-selling debut album.

The self-titled record by the blind singer from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory picked up a string of awards following its release in 2008, including an ARIA for best independent album.

It will be released in the US on the Dramatico label in June.

Yunupingu will also go on a promotional concert tour taking in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Toronto, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

As part of the promo for the album's release, the song below, Wivathul, will be played in thousands of stores of a major American coffee chain across the United States.

Now, getting your song played in a coffee shop may not sound like a big deal, but literally millions of Americans will hear that song as they line up for their coffees and hang out.

A similar promotion a few years back successfully introduced Bob Dylan to a new generation of fans and helped sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a rare Dylan album.

If a reporter can say it on ABC News, why can't Kerry O'Brien drop it on the 7.30 Report? "For fuck's sake, Kevin Rudd, just answer the question!"





Mumbrella picks up even more accidental profanity on Sky News :



It's not the most inappropriate word to use when discussing the behaviour of Australia's richest mining bosses.

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Attached to this story about Nimbin, by Mandy Sayer in The Australian, is this block of ads :



Who knew you could advertise better ways to grow an illegal crop in such a bastion of conservatism?

Blaze on, Boomers, blaze on.

In case this isn't enough, I've posted a bunch of new stories at :

Your New Reality

And there's a shitload of new story links and random, vacuous, inappropriate and occasionally insightful comments over at Twitter :

Darryl Mason On Twitter

Enjoy.

A remarkable photo by Tim Silverwood of the rotting corpse of a juvenile sperm whale on a Newcastle beach, from ABC News' Reader Submitted Photo Collection :



There's plenty more excellent reader photos here.

I hope the trickle of entertaining #FedElect2010 political ads, by professionals & amateurs (or professionals imitating amateurs), turns into a steady stream. Key word - entertaining :



Via VexNews

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Free Gay Heroin For All

John Birmingham poses a What If? on The Greens, who now command a chunky 16% of the national vote, according to recent polls (excerpts) :

What if Bob Brown's lentil eating slouch bikers and militant anti-military-stuff movement actually got a couple, just a couple, of seats up in the lower house, and forming a government after the next election actually required the eventual victor, be it Abbott or Gillard, to cut a deal with Brown?

What would that government actually do? And more importantly what could it not do, in terms of passing laws and spending money?

They might well be able to leverage their support into seemingly minor but actually significant policies such as, say, a moratorium on the release of genetically-modified organisms into the environment. Or a ban on old growth logging.

They'd almost certainly put a bullet into any xenophobic nonsense about demonizing asylum seekers as mad bombers and child killers waiting to jump our queues and blow up our shopping malls because they hate our precious, precious freedom so much they're willing to spend years in a detention centre just to have a crack at us.

...in actual security policy, even motherhood statements like the party's central principle that "no nuclear armed or powered forces should be deployed within Australia's maritime boundaries" would mean a radical transformation of decades of settled, bipartisan policy, abrogating as it would the entire alliance with US.

A great read.

Read The Full Story Here

Tony Martin on turning 41 :

Most people my age have kids to make them feel old, but my wife and I are part of that somehow suspect group of people standing over at the side, looking at their shoes, whenever some politician starts tossing around the word ‘family’; selfish couples who don’t want children. Other forty-one-year-olds have the blooming sophistication of their own offspring to point out how they’ve become daggy and unfashionable. We have to rely on far subtler signposts.

Until about two years ago, I would read both the local street press publications from cover to cover, down to every last Fred Negro curlicue. Then I started to notice how, when I got to the dance music section in the middle, I’d slide my hand through to the back page and flip the entire silvery supplement over, and make for the live reviews at the back, in the hope that someone I recognised, like You Am I, had done a gig that week.

Read The Rest Here

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Adriana Xenides died today, aged 54 :



Dan Ilic pays an appropriate tribute :



UPDATE : The Daily Telegraph sticks in the knife, one last time :



What the fuck do Holly and Annette think she should have been wearing to the newsagency? A fucking ballgown?

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"We Will Decide Which Cetaceans Enter This Country, And The Manner In Which They Come!"

By Darryl Mason

Peter Garrett strikes out on his own as federal Labor descends into a shambles, offering blue whales free air mattresses if they find their way onto land and don't wish to return to the sea :



Opposition leader Tony Abbott, reveling in his best poll numbers yet against prime minister Kevin Rudd, is expected to mount a furious campaign against what he has already described as the Rudd government's "failed policies to keep whales where they belong, in the sea."

"Peter Garrett wants whales to think that once he's saved them, they should feel free to come on up and make themselves at home. Well, sorry, but that's not an Australia I want to live in. Enough is enough, we need to turn those whales back."

Controversial Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey revealed a surprising knowledge of the breeding habits of marine life when he railed against Peter Garrett during a Canberra doorstop :

"It's time to turn back all Cetaceans who try to enter this country illegally. They're queue jumpers. It's bad enough so many water mammals want to flop up our beaches, but after them comes all the egg layers. Have you seen how many eggs those big turtles can lay? They'd fill a town in a few months!"

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said it boiled down to one question,, that most of the "politically correct media" are too afraid to ask :

"Do you want to live next door to a family of whales? All that whistling and chirping all night long? They've got songs that take 20 to 30 minutes to sing. Do you want to want to live next door to that?"

@RacistWallaby certainly doesn't :

"Why is it that every convenience store is run by a family of sperm whales?"

If Garrett gets nothing else out of this term of federal Labor, he clearly intends to be remembered for at least saving some whales from Japanese harpoons.

He must be relieved the incredibly sick jokes about his insulation program and him being responsible for houses catching fire have gone quiet at last. Jokes spread by so many politicians and journalists who know that Peter Garrett's mother died in a house fire, when he was in his early 20s, and that he burned himself trying to save her.

If I had to put up with that kind of demented shit from people passing themselves off as adults, I'd want to be be out watching the fucking whales, too.


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Nothing's As Precious As A Hole In The Ground

How many other lies, or 'exaggerations', have flowed from the mega-funded corporate and political opposition to the new mining tax, led by the federal Liberals and the richest of Australia's miners?

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has retreated from his earlier claim that he had scrapped mining projects because of the Federal Government's proposed resource super profits tax.

Mr Palmer owns one of the largest deposits of iron ore in the world, carved out in five separate projects.

The investment for the first development was secured before the super profits tax was announced

Mr Palmer, a Liberal National Party donor, told Lateline last month he had canned two projects in Western Australia's Pilbara region because of the tax.

He said one of those projects would employ about 3,000 people and generate about $2 billion a year in exports.

This 'exaggeration' - the new mining tax will result in the loss of thousands of jobs - became the Big Fear headline and commentary rallying point, promoted by a media drooling over more than $100 million in unexpected mining industry advertising, with another $38 million or so from the federal government for their ad blitz.

Clive Palmer has now told Four Corners, in a report on the new mining industry tax :

"Probably, it should have been, '[I am] slowing them down, waiting to see what happens'," he said.

The Four Corners report and transcript is here

Some recent classic Clive Palmer channeling Fox News' Glenn Beck at his most idiotic, from his National Press Club debate with the AWU's Paul Howes :

"Do you really believe in the late 1800s Paddy Hannan would have walked 600 miles in the hot sun from Perth to Kalgoorlie to discover gold if he had to pay the Wayne Swan resource super tax?"

"I've talked to banks in Hong Kong and New York recently....They think that the tax is an outrageous proposition to nationalise our industries."

"...people like me don't want to pay the workers any more unless we have to. We're the baddies of the debate."

"Okay. We need to return to parliamentary democracy. This tax will rob our children of their future. Thank you."

"Federal Government is destroying state rights, destroying jobs, attacking the constitution."

"Perceptions wise, this means 70% (tax)"

"Resources do not belong to the Australian people."

They clearly belong to Palmer, who only has three corporate jets.

And Clive Palmer, again, declaring the new mining tax will result in the cancellation of Christmas :

"Mums and dads all over Australia will become unemployed," he said. "They won't have the money to buy their Christmas presents for their kids. They will be out on the street."

Having publicly blown the Santa Claus fantasy for all children, it appears most of the rest of Australia's mining industry elite are not too happy about Clive and his flappy mouth. According to this story :

At high-level talks in recent weeks, the biggest names in Australian mining - Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Xstrata - belatedly realised that Palmer's eccentric public utterances were harming the cause.

Special agent Barnaby Joyce was sent in to try and quiet Palmer :

Joyce is said to have reported back: "I can't stop him - he's his own man."

Yesterday, Joyce would not be drawn on "private conversations", but did admit that some may see Palmer as "distracting from key messages".

Something Barnaby happens to know quite a lot about.


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It doesn't matter what you think, or what some damned blogger, or one of 900 commenters to a news story, or ten million Twitterers think, or some stunningly biased columnist thinks, or what Kevin Rudd thinks, or Obama, or Putin, or anybody else, what matters most is what the leader of Turkey thinks :

We know, war as well as peace has its laws. In war you do not attack children, in war you do not attack women, old people, in war you do not attack civilians or religious functionaries, in war you do not attack those who are hoisting the white flag, health and rescue personnel; not in wartime, but in peace time, those who do these things not only violate the law, at the same time they trample humanity under their feet, they abandon humanity.

Despots, gangsters even pirates have specific sensitiveness, follow some specific morals. Those who do not follow any morality or ethics, those who do not act with any sensitivity, to call them such names would even be a compliment to them. Israel has, by attacking a ship with volunteers from 32 countries, in fact defied the world. World peace has been deeply wounded. This brazen, irresponsible, reckless government that recognises no law and tramples on any kind of humanitarian virtue, this attack of the Israeli government by all means – but by all means, must be punished.

A government, having made lying its state policy and does not blush on account of the crime it commits, instead of expecting them to open an investigation, the international community must investigate this incident in all its dimensions and must give the legal response.

The State of Turkey won’t be satisfied only by watching this. Turkey is not an adolescent, rootless state. It is in no way a tribal State! No one should attempt to play around with this nation, to test the patience of Turkey. As precious as Turkey’s partnership is, so harsh will be her hostility.

Losing Turkey’s friendship and partnership is a price itself to pay. We have always been in a historical friendship and collaboration with the Israeli and Jewish people. I do so believe, those Israeli people who watched this bloody attack in tears, who strongly criticise it, do understand very well that this incident does not befit human dignity....

The speech is powerful, poignant, aggressive, history-changing, which begs the question why you probably haven't heard about it, or seen extensive quotes from it in the mainstream media.

The old cliche was never more true : This Changes Everything.

It is also one of the few speeches I've ever read where a leader responded to brutal attacks on its unarmed civilians by talking about love.

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Satire always works better at getting the message across than doomery :

Compare. Two tourism ads using scenery, song and smiling, happy people.

The new Australian tourism ad :



The Iceland tourism ad :

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

There's an energy to the Iceland ad that is sorely lacking in the Australian one.


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Hush Little Kevvy, Don't Say A Word....

Annabel Crabb wonders, both seriously and satirically, whether prime minister Kevin Rudd is suffering through advanced insomnia and the effects of intense sleep deprivation :

Mr Rudd's own spouse has confirmed that the PM can get by on just three hours' sleep a night.

This revelation raises some compelling side issues - like: How do you stay married to someone who only sleeps for three hours a night? When do you go through their stuff?

But it also explains some of what we are seeing; the panicky decision-making, the forced bonhomie of yesterday's Canberra press conference (what exactly is a "rolled gold bucket of fear based on myth"? It sounds like a Kings Cross cocktail, the sort of thing that might have got Ricky Ponting into trouble, in loucher days), and the inability to communicate some basic points.

The breaking of the campaign promise on political advertising is one thing.

The more worrying element of the Prime Minister's reversal is that he actually needs to pay someone else $38 million to explain a policy decision because he is having difficulty explaining it himself.

Sleep deprivation can be deadly serious (says me at 2:12am). It not only fucks your head, and clouds your judgment, depriving yourself of sleep bitchslaps your immune system, destroys your libido, causes aural and visual hallucinations and induces intense paranoia.

The Sleep Doctor is in. Here's what you need to do, Kevin.

Take a sick day, check into a hotel, punch a few breakfast billies (Swannie hangs out in the rock scene, he'll be able to fix you up), eat a pizza while getting stuck into the bourbon, run a warm bath, put some mid-1980s Clannad on the stereo (not too loud), sink into the warm water for a solid half hour while thinking only of fluffy sleepy kittens lazily pawing at the air, flop out of the bath, wrap yourself in a warm towel, stagger into the bedroom, drawer the curtains, climb into bed, pull the blankets right up over your head to induce the feeling of being somewhere womb-like and imagine you're in a lift, going down - the top floor is bright light, and each floor you descend when the doors open is a deeper, darker shade of blue. The bottom floor is wonderful, peaceful darkness.

Sleep for ten hours.

Repeat.

Thank me later.

Any Porn To Declare?

Australian Customs officials are now scoring free porn from the hard drives of Australians returning from overseas holidays. Some of the titles from a recently confiscated hard drive :

Adult Pretty Woman, Real Female Orgasm, Asian Babe Moans, My Friend's Hot Mum and Sexy Blond.

The owner of the hard drive said his "rights have been violated" and his life "ruined". He said he will sue Customs if they delete the porn movies, all of which he claims are over-18 and legal in Australia.

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In the headline to a story about NSW premier Keneally's free flight upgrades, the International Business Times gives the premier the biggest upgrade of all :



(via @BabyExPat)

Not A Public Holiday, Yet

Under the watchful eye of the ABC interpretive dance bandicoot, rehearsals are underway for tomorrow's NABIADD :



What Is NABIADD?

UPDATE : More dancing, and this demand to choose a side, or at least a chanty dance style, on the murder of unarmed civilians in international waters :

This in many ways is a battle between civilisation and barbarism, and we are all called upon to choose on which side of the line to stand.

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David Marr sums up just about everything you need to know about the supershouty fiasco of yesterday's, and most of the rest of this week's, Question Time :

One bunch of hypocrites who spent millions on government advertising in the Howard years is brawling with another bunch of hypocrites spending millions on government advertising after denouncing the practice all through the Howard years.

A good average to stage what Marr calls "The Show Nobody's Come To See" is about a couple of million dollars a day.


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Hey Boltadamus! Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!

By Darryl Mason

Murdoch tabloid journalist, and Liberal Party Yoda, Andrew Bolt, likes to praise himself when his predictions about Australian politics come true.

He would appear to have a pretty good track record, but it's an illusion.

Bolt makes dozen of predictions a month, so obviously there's a good chance that one or two of them might come true, months or years later.

Here's Andrew Bolt's latest prediction :

My tip is that Rudd is now finished and will be replaced. I’m guessing this could even occur within four weeks

I will bet Andrew Bolt $1000, to the charity of his choice, that prime minister Kevin Rudd will neither quit nor be overthrown by colleagues by June 28.

Will Andrew Bolt take the bet?

Will he announce on his radio show and in his blog that he is so confident in his prediction of Rudd's imminent political demise that he is willing to wager $1000 that Rudd will be gone inside four weeks from today?

No, he won't.

But I wait to be pleasantly surprised.

My own ability to Nostradamus Australian political tremors and earthquakes is, however, disturbingly accurate (kind of) or simply downright obvious (more likely). Here's a bunch of predictions I made before the 2007 Federal Election :

Labor Wins By Five Seats

Howard Loses Bennelong

Liberals Retain Wentworth

Greens Nail 14% Of National Vote

John Howard Brutalised In Media By Liberal Party Colleagues For Losing Election

Peter Costello Announces Retirement

Tony Abbott Announces Retirement

Malcolm Turnbull Fights For Liberal Leadership Against Demented Far Right

John Howard Embarks On $100,000 Per Speech Tour Of American NeoCon Think Tanks

Liberal Party Fractures, Descends Into Savage Infighting

Shelf Full Of New Books Reveal Dark Secrets Behind John Howard's Years As Prime Minister

John Howard To Score Knighthood From Queen

The Shape Of Rudd's 'New Labor Conservatism' Comes Into Focus - Lefties Grow More Nervous By The Day About Future

Peter Garrett Quits Politics, Rejoins Midnight Oil To Fight Rudd's Pro-Logging, Pro-Nuclear New Labor

Philip Ruddock Quits Politics To Take On Role As Mr Burns In Non-Animated Simpsons Movie

Obviously a couple of those were jokes, but I'm totally disappointed Fox never went ahead with the live action movie of The Simpsons. Ruddock would have been absolutely brilliant as Mr Burns.

You can e-mail Andrew Bolt here - bolta@heraldsun.com.au - and challenge him to accept my wager.


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A Dreamtime story :

Still one of the most powerful public health ads ever aired in Australia. It's jarring to see this ad again, 23 years after its was first aired on Australian TV :

How the fashion industry proves that Free Can Equal Profits & Success ;



Fascinating. And inspiring.

(via @MoreOj)