I had heard of a tour offered by Bigfoot Hostel, which Darryn Webb, a tour guide from Australia, founded in 2005, when he was developing the sport on Cerro Negro.
He’d grown up sandboarding in Queensland, and once he visited the volcano (in Nicaragua) he realized its boarding potential. Here was a dunelike slope, only bigger and blacker, and with the added thrill of a potential eruption.
After a lot of trial and error with sledding vessels — he tried boogie boards, mattresses and even a minibar fridge — he settled on plywood reinforced with metal and augmented with Formica under the seat.
The Professional Idiot has a bit of a whiny squirt here about bookshop owners, who clearly think he's an arsehole, refusing to stock a copy of his 2006 book that his publishers apparently refuse to reprint. A reader writes to tell him of his long, arduous search for The Professional Idiot's collection of old columns, through second hand book shops in Melbourne, Cooper Pedy, Adelaide, Brisbane, coming face to face with shockingly sarcastic second hand bookshop owners (are there any other kind?) who think The Professional Idiot is. quote, "a rabid right wing demon!!". Yeah, that sounds realistic. It was only when this reader returned home to France that it occurred to him to try and buy The Professional Idiot's old book online.
The Professional Idiot doesn't appear to know that if his book publisher refuses to print more copies, he can, himself, order a reprint of his old book, say a thousand copies, for only a chunk of what it would cost to take a family holiday in Italy, and he can sell his own book through his "one million hits a month" blog direct to his brethren, without having to worry about rotten old sarcastic second hand bookshop owners supplying "ideological" instant book reviews, through guffaws of laughter, to the occasional customer interested enough to ask for a copy.
Or, seeing how the book is a collection of old columns from the Herald Sun anyway, The Professional Idiot could simply just republish the intro and contents of his book on his blog, on a separate dedicated page, for free, for all readers, so they don't have to face the crushing horror of sarcastic second hand bookshop owners anymore.
The Professional Idiot takes a moment to lay out the foundation stones for a possible Anti-Conservative Big Lefty BookShop Conspiracy blog post franchise :
I’ve published this not to fluff my own feathers, but to further illustrate the stultifying group-think of the “intelligentsia”, and the institutional hurdles facing anyone who might challenge its favored myths and prejudices. Smug complacency rules too often, I’m afraid.
People running second-hand bookshops are part of the "intelligentsia"? Really?
I helped run a second-hand bookshop once, so maybe I should start claiming that "I have now retired from the intelligentsia".
And I want that t-shirt : Smug Complacency Rules.
It sure does.
In the below video, The Professional Idiot would, by his reckoning, be represented by the mud farmers, while the Institutional Group Think Anti-Conservative Second Hand BookShop Intelligentsia is King Arthur. Help, Help, I'm Being Repressed! :
Definitely one of the funniest scenes in an Australian movie, just about ever. David Wenham in Gettin' Square :
Irish comedian and surly bookshop owner, Dylan Moran, on Australia and tall poppy syndrome :
"This...is a real thing isn't it, still? That's a really big part of the culture, that if anybody seems to be getting above themselves, you cut them down to size really quick. It's very similar in Ireland. The old saying there was that it was the only place in the world where somebody would spend 20 minutes crossing a crowded room to come over and tell you you were a cunt."
"Our people called in a reptile expert and there was a suggestion that some of the baby pythons had eaten the other pythons because apparently it is not uncommon for baby pythons to eat each other," he said.
That goes right up there with the story an NT local told me about how crocodiles in the East Alligator River will lay extra eggs when food supplies are low, so they have fresh crocodile to eat later.
Comment Mining, Another Rich Seam Found
The Professional Idiot readies his brethren to fight back against the coming Evil Pagan Green Nazi Lefty Commo Chairman RuddObama Socialist censorship regime. Or something :
Yes. You may get banned or censored for trying to point out some ugly truths about what he is attempting, but mostly failing, to do to Australian society.
UPDATE : The Professional Idiot wants his readers to believe that lefty politically correct censorship will censor him, or them. But here's someone who has actually been effectively censored and told by a court that the notion of freedom of speech does not cover his beliefs, as bizarre and repulsive as they may be to most, and he now faces jail for refusing to be silenced :
"The courts have held, but his conduct shows he does not accept that the freedom of speech citizens of this country enjoy does not include the freedom to publish material calculated to offend, insult or humiliate or intimidate people because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin. It is conduct that amounts to criminal contempt."
The Australian newspaper announces that boss Rupert Murdoch is preparing to cull hundreds of journalists across his media empire.
Well, they didn't announce that, but they did announce this, which is pretty much the same thing :
News Corporation has created a new unit to share content and resources across the vast media empire.
"Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise," Murdoch said.
"The creation of a new unit designed to share valuable news content and harness the power of News Corporation's vast editorial resources is vital to our success as a global media entity."
This is not a news story. This is a Murdoch mission control press release. Less journalists will be generating more content which will be shared more widely across Murdoch media entities worldwide. More Australian Murdoch journalists will be marched away from their desks by security guards in the next few months. But you probably won't read about that in The Australian.
Now He's Made It
Academy Awards? Pfft. AFI Awards? Yawn.
All actors know they've never really made it, never really cracked the mass consciousness, until they've been turned into a toy. Not a boy toy, a real toy, something that kids can get their hands on, throw around and recreate scenes from the toy-worthy movie they temporarily worship, until they get bored and burn it to a molten pool on the back path with half a can of petrol.
Sam Worthington has now joined that rarest club of Australian actors.
In Terminator Salvation, Worthington plays a robot who doesn't know he's a robot until he looks down and sees his own metal guts hanging out. That kind of news would make no-one happy, least of all an emotional robot who was convinced he was human. He joins the anti-robot resistance. He fights giant robot arms.
And not just a toy, Worthington has also been dealt the very American honour of becoming a Halloween mask.
It's a massive year for Worthington, he's also got James Cameron's Avatar coming up in December. Worthington in 3-D, with Sigourney Weaver.
If you haven't already seen them, Worthington starred in two pretty damned good Australian crime movies, back in 2002 and 2003 - Getting Square and Dirty Deeds. Both are well worth checking out.
The absolutely joyful story of Australia's Castaway Dog is going international, with write-ups in media across the US, China, England, everywhere.
The Daily Mail in the UK gives Sophie's survivor story a big run and the readers are ecstatic. Over and over again the commenters say "What a happy story!" "What a wonderful story!" "A story with a happy ending for a change."
When Jan Griffith's beloved dog, Sophie Tucker fell overboard from her family's yacht she feared her pet had drowned.
But Sophie Tucker, a grey and black cattle dog, wasn't going to give up that easily.
The determined pet swam six miles through ferocious shark-infested seas to an island, where she survived for more than four months by hunting wild goats for food.
'I thought I'd never see her again, but she's proved to be a dog who can really look after herself,' said Miss Griffith.
A handful of people living on the island reported seeing a dog running around, but assumed it was a feral animal.
When the bodies of several young goats were found, locals contacted wildlife rangers and word of a dog on the island reached the ears of Miss Griffith and her family.
'We wondered whether it could be Sophie Tucker but thought 'No way'.
'They waited at the marina as the rangers' boat came in - and there in the cage was a grey and black dog.
'We called her name and she went crazy - whimpering and banging on the cage, so they let her out and she ran over to us and almost knocked us over with excitement,' Miss Griffiths said.
'She's settled in well back at home now. I think she's appreciating the air conditioning.'
Island locals are amazed that Sophie managed to survive the big swim through waters infested with sharks. Here's something I didn't know :
'The smell of a wet dog is irresistible to a shark,' said a fisherman.
Sophie's story has the making of a great Australian children's movie. Let's hope someone here moves quick to get this fantastic tale onto cinema screens before an executive at Disney changes the dog's name to Ralphie and shifts the action to an Hawaiian island.
Blatant Anti-Tinkerism St Alban's, in the McDonald Valley, was still a two to three day, spine-jarring, bone-rattling Cobb & Co coach journey from Sydney when the Settlers Arms Inn, near the banks of the McDonald River, was heaving with travelers in the mid-1800s. But not just anybody could stay at such prestigious digs, as this reproduction of an original sign in the bar from that era makes clear :
Four pence a night for Bed Six pence with Supper No more than five to sleep in one bed No Boots to be worn in bed Organ Grinders to sleep in the Wash house No dogs allowed upstairs No Beer allowed in the Kitchen No Razor Grinders or Tinkers taken in
Only five to a bed?
Outside of a local's explanation, "Tinkers would steal anything not bolted down," I don't have any valuable information to hand as to why Organ Grinders were thought only slightly more worthy of the most basic of accommodations than Tinkers or Razor Grinders, who were utterly banished.
The dark, atmospheric Settlers Arms today :
The sandstone blocks used to build the inn were hacked out, and usually transported, by convict slave labour. Breaking tools in the shaping of the sandstone could bring savage floggings, or death. Horses were more valuable than men, Aborigines were less valued than dogs. The McDonald Valley is one of the most beautiful and untouristed areas of New South Wales, with an extraordinary history soaked in extreme violence, incredible pioneering spirit, hardship, emancipation and back breaking work.
The St Alban's graveyard, like the inn, is small, but rich with history. The graves of the original white settlers dating back to the 1820s still stand, others older and forgotten decay into the ever creeping foliage.
Some local history, from the late 1700s into the early 1800s :
During this time the relations between the indigenous aboriginal population in the area was reasonably harmonious, the area being populated by the Dharug and Barkinung people who called the river Deerubbin.
The natives treated the newcomers as welcome guests, teaching bush skills and assisting in the planting of crops, they did not realize that the whites intended to stay and claim ownership of the land. Property ownership was completely alien to the Aboriginal; one cared for the land, but did not own it any more than one could own the sky overhead or the air one breathed.
The convicts and their keepers were the dregs of English society and were a hard and ruthless bunch and unfortunately conflicts soon developed as the Aborigines were denied access to many of their traditional areas, with Yam beds destroyed as wheat and corn were planted on the river flats and the banks denied to them for fishing, their traditional foods.
There are recorded cases of Aborigines providing labor on farms in exchange for a share of the crop and then massacred rather than given their share. They, in turn retaliated by setting fire to the crops just as harvesting was due. Regulations were introduced prohibiting Aborigines entry to established farm areas again denying them their food supply.
One of the most hotly awaited Hollywood films of this year is State of Play, a political thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren. It is an adapation of the widely acclaimed BBC television series, a complex tale of a journalist investigating the murder of an MP's researcher...
(Director Kevin) Macdonald explains why he wanted to turn this BBC mini-series into a far more compact, and less, complex, movie :
"I thought the crisis in newspapers was something to be explored; I love All the President's Men and, in fact, all films about journalism. I thought we could make the last film about newspapers before they die."
Russell Crowe stepped into the lead role with one week's notice, after Brad Pitt ditched the film, and quickly discovered that not all journalists are intrusive hacks who want to harass his wife and children.
"...we argued a lot about journalism. Russell thinks that almost all journalists act out of self-interest and that most journalism is deliberately misleading and inaccurate. That newspapers and journalists act from their own agenda. Which obviously partly comes from his experience of journalism and having his life reflected in newspapers."
In Macdonald's State of Play, Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is part of a dying breed: the heroic, old-school journalist who relies heavily on sources and leads and takes time to find the real story. His method is challenged by Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a bright young blogger who wants to post the Stephen Collins story online as it's still developing.
There are a number of other movies, mostly thrillers, coming out of the UK and Hollywood in the next two years that feature bloggers as 'agents of change' or key protaganists. Perhaps there will be a movie soon that follows what happens when an independent blogger has to face off against a massive media corporation who wants to get rid of some eyeball competition.
Here's the trailer for State Of Play. It looks like a reasonably intelligent thriller aimed at adults. Hopefully....
State Of Play gets an Australian release in late May.
Rupert Murdoch Wants Earth Hour To Become Earth Month
By Darryl Mason
The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair and the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt have had much fun in the past two years mocking any and all who voluntarily participated in Earth Hour.
Supporters of Earth Hour like to talk about the important symbolism of the event in terms of climate change and suchlike. The deeper symbolism is of a rejection of progress - of the centuries of research and innovation that culminates in us being able to bring light by flicking a few grams of plastic.
....Earth Hour proves that what threatens us is not so much global warming, but lousy journalism.
Asking us to turn off lights between 8pm and 9pm is a crusade by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
....as always a danger when newspapers take up campaigns. Suddenly they get tempted to report only stuff that pushes their agenda, and to ignore facts that don't...
Somehow, bizarrely, yet again, Bolt and Blair managed to completely forget to tell their readers that their own boss is the biggest backer of Earth Hour and Green Corporatism in the world today.
Rupert Murdoch doesn't think Earth Hour is long enough. News Corporation wants it become Earth Month, at the least, and in March News Corp joined forces with the pro-human depopulation (according to Andrew Bolt) World Wildlife Fund to make it a reality.
FOX/News Corp. is supporting the 2009 Earth Hour - a global initiative in which millions of people around the world will cast a vote in favor of action on climate change by turning off their lights for one hour on March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm local time. By voting with their light switches, Earth Hour participants will send a powerful, visual message to their leaders demanding immediate action on climate change.
All of News Corp.'s screens in in Times Square will go out for the occasion. And in a video to be shown at the Earth Hour opening ceremony in LA, several shows will be shown going 'lights out' - including American Idol, Bones, SPEED TV, Family Guy, and the sets of Good Day LA, FOX 11 News, and FOX Sports West.
And lots of other News Corp. businesses have pledged to participate, including News International (News of the World plans a 2-page feature), FOXTEL ("Let Your Actions Do the Talking" campaign), and STAR in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Join in and vote for action on climate change with your light switch.
News Corp, outside of its full-bore greenwashing, appears to understand that the purpose of Earth Hour is to encourage people to learn to conserve power and get back into the habit of switching off unused lights, just as our parents and grandparents did.
But Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair continue to dodge the crushing reality that their own boss, through his control and very real influence over his global media empire, did more to promote Earth Hour around the world in 2009 than any Evil Pagan Socialist Lefty did, or the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age, whose ability to influence anyone extends little beyond their home states, and ends in Australia.
So how do Blair and Bolt keep missing all these great Green Alarmism stories to mock and attack? Earth Hour to become Earth Month? Seriously, how did that doozy escape their Google News Alerts?
Or could it be they both are only interested in the Greenism stories and global Earth Hour initiatives that don't come from the Corporate Green media giant they work for?
The Daily Telegraph's associate editor Tim Blair explains why spectacular greed escalated the global financial crisis :
...Rudd’s characterisation of the global financial collapse as being driven by “unfettered free markets” is false itself. Where, for a start, did these unregulated, free-for-all, no oversight financial structures ever operate? Wall St?
Give me a break. The mortgage broking scams that were at the core of last year’s US market collapse evolved from a regulatory realm that effectively insulated them (for a time) from free-market forces.
Remember, the whole sub-prime mortgage debacle began with housing loans to people who weren’t well equipped to pay them off. The free market sees credit risks and mostly turns away; these clearly weren’t free-market decisions.
Investors sought involvement with the largest US mortgage brokers not because they were regulation-free but because they were government sponsored and therefore seen as less risky. It was a little like betting on a fixed (or even “fettered") race.
Admittedly, that’s when crazy fire-eyed capitalists cashed in. But, in such circumstances, who wouldn’t have? We’re talking about free money here.
Who wouldn't have cashed in and helped destroy the home values, savings and pension schemes of hundreds of millions of people around the world? Who wouldn't have cashed in and helped unleashed a firestorm of financial destruction that has deleted around $20,000 from the superannuation of millions of Australian families, and will force hundreds of thousands into unemployment?
Who wouldn't have "cashed in"?
People with morals? People who aren't crazed with raw greed perhaps? People who think there are more important things than money and turning a fast, unearned profit off the misery of those who never understood they were part of an enormous con job?
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Comments will be moderated here for the time being, as it appears there are some with an insidious intent trying to get defamatory comments onto older stories, perhaps hoping I won't notice. I noticed. Moderation will, hopefully, not last too long, as freely posting your thoughts and opinions should remain an essential part of digital free speech in this country and I've always trusted that most of my readers will be responsible in what they have to say.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Wait, You Mean I Just Ate Everything In The Ashtray For Nothing?
South Australian police have been pulling over motorists just to tell them they are doing a good job, Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis revealed today.
Speaking on radio, Mr Koutsantonis said: "Sometimes they (police) pull people over and tell them they've been doing a good job driving."
The legend, the enigma, Michael Peterson in full, beautiful wave-carving action :
