Some Radio Birdman to get your Monday morning off to the right start :

Exposed : Just Another Murdoch Media Conspiracy

The Daily Telegraph And MasterChef Conspire To Fake A TV Show 'Reality' And Sell A Lot Of Cookbooks

By Darryl Mason

Okay, it's not a world-shattering conspiracy, but it's a real one, involving one of Australia's highest selling newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, and Masterchef, the highest rating show on TV.

Here are two headlines on the 'winner' of Channel Ten's MasterChef competitive cooking show published online at the Daily Telegraph site last night, less than an hour apart :





In the reality of a few million Australiian TV viewers last night, Julie Goodwin did 'win' MasterChef, if you happen to give a shit.

But the Daily Telegraph first published, and then quickly deleted, a story filling out a reality where the other finalist, Poh Ling Yeow, won the show, and $100,000 cash, and an inevitable best-seller cookbook deal.

Bizzarely enough, it wasn't just a headline, or an intro, that said Ling Yeow was declared the 'winner'. The now deleted Daily Telegraph story actually contained quotes from Julie Goodwin congratulating Ling 'Poh' Yeow for 'winning' Australia's highest-rating 'reality' TV competition :

Disappointed but humble, (Julie) Goodwin praised her feisty opponent for her success.

"Poh's a very deserving winner," she said. "I'm proud of her, she's a good friend and I wish her every success in the world."

And here's Ling 'Poh' Yeow celebrating her 'victory' :

Ling Yeow was stunned with the verdict but happy to embrace it.

"This is really a surreal feeling," the 35-year-old, who hails from Norwood in South Australia told The Daily Telegraph.

Yeah, it must be extremely surreal to have to tell a Daily Telegraph journalist that, not having actually 'won'.

The now deleted Daily Telegraph story was obviously prepared before the 'winner' was announced at the end of MasterChef last night, but unless the quotes from Goodwin and Yeow are also fake, then the contestants willingly joined the producers and the Daily Telegraph in this monumental Fakerama.

Here's the start of the Daily Telegraph's second pre-prepared 'news story' on the Julie Goodwin 'victory' :

A majority of Australia's culinary experts didn't back her, but MasterChef Australia contestant Julie Goodwin went from underdog to winner last night.

In a shock victory...

Well, not so shocking to some of the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph and the producers of Masterchef, who conspired beforehand to fake at least two realities :

(Julie Goodwin was) stunned with the verdict after battling through three challenges during the 90-minute finale of the reality program.

But how stunned was Julie Goodwin really? Perhaps very stunned, considering she gave quotes to the Daily Telegraph pretending, or believing, she had actually lost.

Now here she is now playing the role of the 'winner' :

"I am the most blessed person in the world," said Goodwin...

Goodwin said she was embracing the victory with both hands especially after sacrificing her most important role as mother and wife to participate in the competition.

A competition that turns out to be a whole load of Fake Fake Fake Fake. As fake as the Daily Telegraph news story announcing 'Poh Wins MasterChef' they tried to disappear from the internet.

Now, in the alternative reality of that deleted Daily Telegraph story, Ling Yeow is celebrating her 'victory' today and making new plans for her new life as Australia's first MasterChef, with a promising TV career and best-selling cookbook author to look foward to. And all that money :

After pocking the $100,000 cash prize and a cookbook deal Ling Yeow says she's excited about launching her book Food From Mars.

With a heavy Asian influence, the MasterChef winner believes Australians have been waiting for a cookbook which explores her roots.

Oh well, at least she can save, print and frame the following screengrab from Club Wah :

"But Poh, you didn't win MasterChef."

"Yes, I did. The Daily Telegraph said so!"


There will be a whole load of heavy comment censorship across Murdoch media sites today, as they try to stifle discussion on just how fake some of their 'news stories' actually are, and attempt to dampen public criticism of the obviously devious, fraudulent relationship between the producers of high-rating TV shows and the Murdoch tabloid media that both ceaselessly promotes them, and profitably feeds off them.

I should note this story broke on Twitter, and Australian bloggers were all over it, very, very
quickly.

No wonder Murdoch's Australian CEO, John Hartigan, hates bloggers so much.

Bloggers keep exposing Murdoch media fakery and conspiracy.

It's Just A Plane In The Sky, It's Not A 9/11 Foreshadowing

I had no idea a novel I exhaled in less than a week back in 1996 was now worth so much on Amazon :


I've only been thinking about the novel recently because a friend pointed out something interesting about the cover I haven't thought about in many years.



Yes, that is a bongman smoking himself, but there's the view out the window :



The cover artwork was done by a brilliant Sydney designer named Jeremy. I can't say I ever liked the image of an airliner about to crash into two towers, but I think Jeremy was trying to foreshadow the disaster that befalls the characters in the book, which involves the unexplained collapse of a building.

But I was so blown away by what Jeremy created for the cover I couldn't ask him to change it.

Wake Up Sheeple!

Trevor the sheep knows what's really going on :



From Fatpita.net (via Reddit.com)

It's, mostly, still good advice today, even if it comes from the pages of the London Times, in October, 1918, as the Spanish Flu pandemic unfolded across the world :




200,000 Brits were killed by H1N1 influenza in the nine months after that editorial was published.

The Chaser On Location

Circular Quay, July 16











(click any of the above for a larger image)

Photos By Darryl Mason

Some Smirking Nine Year Old : "Your Paper Plane Looks Shitty"

By Darryl Mason

The Defence Force, now recruiting in Martin Place, with mega-chunky sound system pumping The Angels and Chisel and promising video games, or 'defence simulations', after "a short chat".



A 30-something businessman (not in this photo) strode up to one of the soldiers and said something like, "I just lost my fucking job. How soon can I go to a warzone?" The soldier said, "I don't think that's the right question to start with, sir."



There were paper plane competitions for the kids, with prizes, to test their basic engineering skills.



The distance achieved by my somewhat radical paper unmanned Predator design was beaten by a smug little three year old with an extremely basic Concord-like configuration. Well, anybody can make those. I thought we were supposed to be pushing our limits. That kid probably had help, too.

When Australia Sold Datura Cigars Were Sold As A Remedy For Bronchitis, Hay Fever and Asthma

 

  The Ipswitch Journal, May 8, 1886 :

One of these cigarettes gives immediate relief in the worst attack of Asthma, Cough, Bronchitis, Hay Fever and Shortness of Breath. Persons who suffer at night with coughing, phlegm and short breath, find them invaluable as they instantly check the spasms, promote sleep and allow the patient to pass a good night. Are perfectly harmless, and may be smoked by ladies, children, and most delicate patients. In Boxes of 35.

That's quite a sales pitch. They were popular, for those who could afford them.

So what was the active ingredient? While 'Joy' cigars and cigarettes often contained cannabis, the prime ingredient for those advertised here was Datura stramonium and its accomplice, Datura tatula.

Datura can be a powerful hallucinogenic, but fatal in overdose, which is why you don't hear much about it these days. The stories, probably myths, of 1980s parties where the drug was cooked up and everybody in the room overdosed, became baked into Australian drug culture. "Don't touch that shit!" was a common refrain when the drug was mentioned. 

But after looking at those claims of what could be 'cured' with datura, I wonder if these Cigarese De Joy, which were legally available for sale in Australia during the 1880s and 1890s, would help us cope with modern day influenza or COVID19 infections? 

The cigars may not have lived up to all their claims, and could've been dangerous, but they obviously worked to some degree, being in production for more than 20 years and popular. There was something in there that gave some kind of relief to those who read the claims and then used the product. 

Blog Breaks News Through Conspiratorial Speculation

Outside of repeated warnings about the monkey revolt where all the monkey and apes and baboons escape from all the zoos and join up with dissident military robots and then all the monkeys and apes and robots start a war against humanity (the earliest stages of this war, where monkey meets robot, have already begun), it's not often I get the actual headline news right a few weeks ahead of the rest of the media. But It seemed pretty obvious from the day after Michael Jackson's instantly suspicious death that a homicide investigation would eventually begin :

Did Michael Jackson Put Up A Fight When It Came Time For Him To Take His Drugs?

"Anyone Here From Wagga Wagga?"

In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the Jerry Seinfeld ad for Newcastle's Greater Building Society :



How did a small financial institution in Newie manage to get Jerry Seinfeld to star in their ad?

They simply called and asked his manager and Seinfeld liked the concept. The reaction in some of the international media to Seinfeld doing this ad, which obviously didn't earn him a pile of money, is mostly one of 'downright mystified', which is probably exactly why Seinfeld did the ad in the first place.

Sometimes you just have to ask and the seemingly impossible can come true.

I really like that they got Seinfeld to set up his own gear, before the street performance. It must have reminded him of his early days in stand-up comedy, another reason why he probably decided to do it.

Mumbrella has a great slab of other very creative, downright clever, recent Australian ads for bursts of 60 second enjoyment.

UPDATE : Jerry Seinfeld explains to the Newcastle Herald why he did the ad :

...the star whose agent reputedly knocks back 50 commercial overtures a week, hinted it was more about "feel" than fiscal reward.

"We don't think about money too much these days," he said. "I like to do things because they feel right."

Yesterday, he suggested Australia's affection for the show might have predisposed him to the cheeky approach from a financial institution he never knew existed.

"I was down there in '98 right after the show went off the air and the response from the people I met on the street, in the restaurants, everywhere was so special I felt kinda close to them."

The ad wasn't filmed in Newcastle. It was shot in Cedarhurst, New York. Had me fooled.

I wonder how many people in Newcastle didn't notice it wasn't local?

Father Bob's response, on Twitter, to this story.



No problem, Father Bob.

Old Media Already Suing Bloggers For Linking

By Darryl Mason

If a Daily Telegraph blogger allowed the following violence soaked comment to remain on his personal blog site for a couple of years, all of it posted under your name, even when that blogger knows you didn't write it, and even when asked nicely that blogger refuses to remove it or post an apology, what would you do?

Would you try to take legal action to get compensation for any "immeasurable hurt" that might be caused by this filth remaining online under your name?

Killing Howard is laudable. Killing his cabinet got to be OK too. Killing members of the Liberal party - that has to be a plus, surely. And what about the Nationals? We’ll kill them too. They helped keep Howard in power. And Family First, slit their throats. And what about other Christians, they are conservative and probably voted Liberal. Best kill all them along with small businessmen. There is a real hotbed of Liberal sentiment among these fascist businessmen. Don’t forget the Jews, the money grubbing bastards. They have to be next. Then there are those class traitors, the workers who voted Liberal. Kill them all. Purge the public service of suspected Liberal sympathisers too. That teacher over there. He’s wearing a tie so he must be a conservative. String him up. Hey, that guy’s got an American accent. Slaughter him and his baby too. It’s in their genes, you know. It’s a lot of people to be massacred but it will reduce greehouse gases in the long run.
Darryl Mason

The rest of the story explaining the headline, and the necessary sockpuppetry-related context, is here :

A Long Overdue Update To An Earlier Post About Online Fakery And Cats That Can Type (And Sushi Chefs That Don't Exist)


.

"No Worries, Mr Chairman"

A Celebrity Spying Scandal The Australian Murdoch Media Is Pretending Simply Does Not Exist


Cartoon by Steve Bell

By Darryl Mason

Rupert Murdoch interrupts one of his own journalists, seconds into an interview, because the journalist dared to ask "The Chairman" a question with actual substance, unlike the rest of the pap that fills the other four or more minutes of Here's What Our Boss Thinks About Obama & Stuff. You only need to watch the first 45 seconds :

Fox Hack : The story that's really buzzing all around the country and certainly here in New York, is that the News of the World, a News Corporation newspaper in Britain used --

Rupert Murdoch : I'm not talking about that issue at all today. I'm sorry.

Fox Hack : No worries, Mr. Chairman. That's fine with me.

Rupert Murdoch: I'm sorry.

Fox Hack : OK. That's all right, sir.

Didn't the Fox Business journo get the 'To All Editors' memo warning this subject is off limits? That's right, Rupert doesn't have to send memos, because most Murdoch journalists already know which stories and questions will upset the boss.

If you're a Murdoch journo, the Murdoch Spying Scandal does not exist.

The Murdoch Spying Scandal, where it is alleged that Murdoch tabloid hacks were involved in the spying on of hundreds of people, and paying millions to victims who found out and said 'Fuck You!' and sued, is simply not up for discussion in Murdoch newspapers, the world over, including Australia.

The one exception to the 'This Story Doesn't Exist' rule for Murdoch journalists is to run brief stories that allow Murdoch or a News Int. rep to deny everything, while ignoring the larger story of how corrupt this style has become and its implications for the future of tabloid journalism.

Despite the expected, and wafer-thin, denials from Murdoch executives, the UK Guardian stands by its original story that Murdoch journalists were involved in dodgy intelligence gathering operations, which included surveillance, the hacking of private phone messages and allegedly buying stolen private financial documents of the celebrities Murdoch tabloids were/are obsessed with, and paying off those who found out what Murdoch journalists were doing to them and sued.

What have we heard about all this from the corporate media entity that controls more than 70% of Australia's newspapers? Fuck all.

And even though the bad behaviour of journalists, corporate media skullduggery and all things Guardian newspaper, are content staples of Australian Murdoch bloggers, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, both have found nothing to say at all about it.

They don't need to get a memo, they know they shouldn't write anything that might upset the boss, particularly now he's planning staff cuts across his media empire of at least 30%.

A former Murdoch editor called the Murdoch Spying Scandal "one of the most significant media stories of our time."

Not if you work for Murdoch, it ain't.

As it is when it comes to finally acknowledging that Rupert Murdoch is a committed backer of a global carbon tax, a true believer disciple of Al Gore and a chief propagandist of what they call "global warming hysteria", Blair and Bolt are silent.

What does it cost Rupert Murdoch to buy such comprehensive silence from two of Australia's most well-read bloggers?

Whatever Murdoch's paying these gatekeepers, it's clearly worth it.


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A Natural Master Of Radio And Comic Timing Shows An Amateur How It's Done


Father Bob : If you only see one Catholic Church service in your lifetime, see Father Bob's

The Professional Idiot holds court on John Safran & Father Bob's JJJ show, while Safran and Father Bob struggle to keep it entertaining, or even just a little bit fun.

The Professional Idiot first tries to steer the conversation away from who paid for his recent trip to Israel, where he declared his mate Peter Costello "The Messiah", The Idiot then waffles non-critically about Israel and then expresses surprise that the Palestinian politicians he met were well educated, one was even a pediatrician. Imagine that.

Then this :

The Idiot : "I’ve always tended to be on the side of people who are democratic, who respect, to as much as is consistent with their safety, human rights, and freedom of speech. And by that measure there’s only one party that would make me feel comfortable..…"

Father Bob times his moment of interjection perfectly.

Father Bob : "The Palestinians."

Silence for a few seconds, radio dead air, then you can actually hear The Idiot's jaw clench hard.

The Idiot : "..............you seriously think that or are you just being a fool?"

Father Bob : "No, I’m having a go back."

The Idiot is overwhelmed by such petulance and the standard whining and hilariously prissy outrage kicks in :

The Idiot : "Well, if you say something like that, there’s obviously no room for us to engage because what you’ve said is clearly nonsense....It’s clearly nonsense! Because it is nonsense! So what’s the point in arguing?"

Father Bob : "A conversation? No, this is not the time or the place..."

So much for The Professional Idiot's alleged love of a rousing debate.

You can hear it here. Jump to 41mins 30secs.

If this isn't a piece of surreal, Gary Larson inspired outdoor installation art, it damn well should be. Spotted at the University of Sydney by Kate LeMay :


Photo by Kate LeMay

It Really Does Get In

By Darryl Mason

As I've said here before, the Rudd government has to be very careful when it comes to censoring what Australians can read, see and buy online. No Australian election has yet seen Internet Censorship become a Major Election Issue, and if Rudd & Friends keep pushing this Censor The Net stupidity, they are going to find most Australians online are against them. And when it comes to a federal election, that could be extremely bad news.

GetUp! is planning to run the below ad as part of its fight against online censorship.



The message is clear enough, but a parody ad won't really hit home about what Online Censorship really means, and how a constantly expanding blacklist open to undue influence and corporate vendettas will change our online lives. Yes, many "hate sites" will make the list, but soon enough torrent and peer-to-peer file sharing sites will also get blocked. Well, the blacklist will attempt to block such sites, but there are many ways around even mandatory web filters, which you'll learn a bit more about here when the time is right. Obviously, you can already such info online.

The GetUp! anti-censorship ad is a good start, and the line about Iran and Online Censorship should be the ignition point for whatever ad they make next.

Stephen Conroy's Net Filter Will Block Access To eBay And Amazon

Kevin Rudd Reaches For SuperDag Status

From Twitter :


I do like that he took the nickname used by his critics (KRudd- krudd - crud) and now signs that as his name.

"Mr Jagger, I've Been A Great Fan Of Yours Ever Since You Were With The Beatles"

Three decades before Borat and Bruno, we had Norman Gunston :



And even better. Norman Gunston interviews KISS at an hilarious press conference.

Paul Stanley : "That would work wonderfully, we could bounce laser beams off your head."

Eric Carr : "Have you ever considered a career as a satellite?"

Norman Gunston : "Come on, guys, these people here respect me. Don't make fun of me in front of them."

Brilliant.

One more Norman. How cute. TV channels used to promote the fact they were in colour. Imagine trying to have to convince people to switch to colour TV? I remember some old locals when I was a kid in the mid-1970s saying they preferred black and white and colour TV was a fad, so they would not be "making the switch."



How catchy is that jingle? I don't think I've seen this ad since 1976, but immediately I knew all the words. How deeply those ads you see repeatedly as a kid embed themselves in your memory.

I'm Only Swearing At You Because My Dealer Went On Holiday

By Darryl Mason

Here's a surprise for just about nobody, swearing can make you feel better, particularly if you're in pain :

Swearing can lessen the feeling of physical pain, scientists have discovered.

Volunteers withstood pain for longer when they swore than when they used anodyne words, in a study at Keele University in the English Midlands.

Richard Stephens, who led the study, believes it may explain why most languages contain swear words.

He said: "The volunteers who swore had an elevated heart rate, so it could be increasing their aggression levels.

"Increased aggression has been shown to reduce sensitivity to pain, so it could be that swearing helps this process."

The idea that we developed swear words, hundreds or thousands of generations ago, to cope with the effects of pain is fascinating. Perhaps our very first words spluttered from our lips because hooting and roaring and grunting simply did not encapsulate our true feelings about how it felt to be kicked square in the cags by a mammoth. Then again, perhaps those very first swear words came from women during childbirth, a far more common occurence of extreme pain than getting stomped by hairy tusked elephants.

This commenter at RWDB Beck uses the above story to finally crack open the explanation for why Evil Pagan Lefties are, apparently, so full of bitter, swears-laden vitriol and abuse for the delicate pro-war, pro-occupation nice polite people that used to control Australia back in the days when newsreaders could say "John Howard" and "visionary" in the same sentence, without laughing :

An answer to why we see the abuse we conservatives get from lefties.

It would seem that they are using us to get a narcotic effect from their own bodies.

That's right. Lefties let fly against conservatives only because it gets them high.

Hey, it's cheaper than scoring on the streets. And it's legal.

For now.