Advancing Democracy Through Terrorism

The Australian's editor, Chris Mitchell, has a peculiar take on the terrorist attack that targeted and killed military leaders in Iran over the weekend :

"....no matter how destabilising, the suicide bombing may do little to advance democracy in Iran."

Have suicide bombings advanced democracy in other countries of the Middle East?


.

I Can't Remember Saying That I Don't Recall That I Said I Forgot I Can't Recall All I Have Strategically Forgotten

By Darryl Mason

The Sydney Morning Herald claims Bill Clinton was The Master Of The "I Don't Recall" Defence.

I disagree.

He might not be as famous as the ex-president, but Howard government foreign minister minister Alexander Downer was the fucking Yoda of 'total unrecall'. As he fastidiously proved during the hearings into how the Australian Wheat Board ended up bribing the Saddam Hussein regime with hundreds of millions of dollars, and continued to bribe the regime even while Australian soldiers and special forces were fighting in Iraq.

Here's just a sample of Alexander Downer responses, in 2006, to questions about how he didn't notice all those truckloads of AWB cash reaching Saddam Hussein, given all the memos and warnings that streamed across Alexander Downer's desk, for years :

“I don't recall.”

“I don’t recall.”

“I don’t recall.”

“I just don’t recall.”

“No, not that I can recall at all.”

“I can't recall my state of mind when I read the document...”

“I don't recall being given that information.”

“Well, I simply do not recall.”

"I would have thought I'd have remembered it, but I don't recall.”

“No, I don’t recall that.”

“I don't recall them saying that.”

“I don't recall them saying that to me.”

“I could have done, but I don't recall it.”

“I am only in a position to tell you what I recall of the conversation, which is very sketchy....”

“I don't recall it being brought to my attention, but it is possible it could have been.”

“Yes, I don't recall that being discussed, but I simply do not recall it is all I can say.”

“I don't remember precisely...”

“My recollection is of a much more general nature.”

“I have no recollection of it.”

“I just can't recall it at all.”

And the classic :

“I can't, of course, recall.”

I imagine Alexander Downer will give very similar responses when he has to face questioning during the Inquiry Into The Reasons For The Iraq War (or whatever it will be called), which should hopefully get started in early 2011.

.

This Is Local News The Way The World Wants To Read It

Yes, we all know that the Northern Territory News is the best newspaper in Australia, and it's not just because they focus on the stories that really matter :



It's the best newspaper because the Northern Territory has the most interesting and entertaining locals. And journalists who know Local News Gold when they hear it.

The NTN struck Local News Gold twice in recent weeks, with the tale of the $5 Blow Job That Was Most Definitely Not Given and The Cat That Calls Its Owner "Fuck Prick"

Both stories were picked up by aggregators like Reddit and Twitter, and read and enjoyed across the world.

But the NTN has to take a bold stand and stop **** all the swear words in their stories. They're censoring the true character of the Northern Territorians they're quoting in the tales.

For stylistic purposes, The Orstrahyun has uncensored them.

No $5 Blow Job Given :

Allyson White said the standout burn mark left by her seatbelt across her chest was proof the claims of "amorous activities" with the driver were not true.

"I was not sucking his dick - and it's pretty obvious that wasn't the case ... you only have to look at the mark on my chest," she said.

"Clearly I had my seatbelt on, so it's impossible that I'd be leaning over sucking his dick unless he is hung like a donkey or I've got a fucking rubber neck.

"If it was true I'd just cop it sweet and think 'how embarrassing, I got caught sucking someone's dick' - but it is not true and that's what is pissing me off.

"It may have looked bad when police first arrived as my girls were hanging out all over the place. I also had a $5 note wedged between my boobs so they probably just assumed I was a sex worker or something and he'd already paid me.

"But $5 is a bit cheap for a head job."

'Hey Fuck Prick, My Bowl Is Empty' :

A Territory man claims his pet cat can speak English, with a vocabulary of seven different words so far.

"He can say seven words all up: mum, no, now, what, fuck, prick and why.

"In the evening time, if you don't drop whatever you're doing and pay attention to him, he calls you 'fuck prick'. If he really cracks the shits, he'll piss in his drinking water just to let you know he's really shitty."

The foul-mouthed feline doesn't take non-attention kindly. During the Duncans' wedding it swore at guests.

Mr Duncan said the guests were pre-warned, so "they pretty much ignored him".

It's been a long time since I've been to a wedding where we were pre-warned to ignore a swearing cat.

Both stories must be read in full.

I was wrong. I will pay to read online news, but only if it comes from the NTN.

.

Murdoch Media : How To Spot A Global Warming 'Conspiracy Theorist'


image sourced from here

From news.com.au :

Global Warming conspiracy theory

This theory claims the science behind current environmental changes - as popularised by Al Gore in the film An Inconvenient Truth - was created for financial gain.

Some believe that governments are using the global warming "myth" to raise taxes and restrict competitive US businesses in Europe - or that it is a United Nations ploy to create a one-world government.

Now you know.

,

We Only Do Business With Freedom-Hating Communists To Make Them More Free, Or Something

By Darryl Mason

It's taken a while but finally, he's done it. The Professional Idiot is now using Fox News' Glenn Beck as a source of wisdom, and revelation :



Glenn Beck is, of course, the American version of Andrew Bolt, but with more tears, and only slightly more whining.

Bolt's boss, Rupert Murdoch, has bent over backwards (perhaps even frontwards) in recent years trying to do business with the Communists spawned by Mao.

Only a few days ago, Murdoch was literally begging the Communists to save his media empire by allowing him to expand into China. The last time he tried to do that, he lost a few billion.

Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch didn't have the time to denounce the philosophy of Mao - as The Idiot and Glenn Beck think everyone should do - to his Chinese hosts while he was in Beijing.

Maybe next time.

92% Of Australians Don't Enjoy The Trailor Park Boys And Bacon Dipped In Chocolate

The Daily Telegraph :



"Demon weed"?

This sort of thing was done so much better in the 1940s :

Won't You Be My Friend?

The NSW Liberals have launched a campaign where you can 'join' the party, by paying $15. The first benefit is you don't have to actually attend any meetings. That news alone has NSW Liberal Party supporters (or photo models) leaping for joy :



Look how happy this guy is :



The Liberals have once again found a red-headed woman named Pauline to advocate their policies, but this time she seems far less...intense :



If only Malcolm Turnbull could whip up that level of enthusiasm for the Liberals, federally.

Fade Out



Alleged West Australian blogger 'JF Beck' finds something better to do, and, as is becoming all but standard practice now, closes down comments at his old blog :


Why?

Barring last minute technical hitches, from Monday I'll be blogging from Asian Correspondent. Beck is moving into the mainstream...

The best of luck to JF Beck for his future at Asian Correspondent, regardless of who is funding it.

Correction : the photo above confirms JF Beck is male. Post corrected accordingly.

UPDATE : JF Beck's first post on Asian Correspondent, where he has apparently gone "mainstream", seeks to confuse readers, at best, about who any of these people are. Will anybody care?

Considering that Pure Poison, Ziegler's blog, exists as a lame Lefty response to Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, Australia's gun bloggers, his comment is hilarious (not to mention exceedingly inane).

The Lefty whine-fest that is Pure Poison is never going to be as successful as Blair and Bolt.

"Gun bloggers"?

Like I said, the best of luck.

Kevin Rudd's promise to provide access to a laptop for all primary school students in Australia would have made Australia the first country in the world to do so.

But Uruguay got there first, and went one better :

Uruguay has become the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school.

President Tabaré Vázquez presented the final XO model laptops to pupils at a school in Montevideo on 13 October.

Over the last two years 362,000 pupils and 18,000 teachers have been involved in the scheme.

The "Plan Ceibal" (Education Connect) project has allowed many families access to the world of computers and the internet for the first time.

Now that's an education revolution. And no Windows for these laptops. Free and easy Linux instead.

Rupert Murdoch Is The King Of Climate Change Fearmongery

By Darryl Mason

An excerpt from a Murdoch media corporate video explaining how global warming awareness, 'climate panic' and carbon neutrality, was seeded into some of the most popular, most world-widely watched shows on TV :



The next time you hear someone ranting about kids and youth having been 'brainwashed' by climate change activists, remind them that Rupert Murdoch news media, movies and TV shows have been responsible for most of the Climate Panic overload. And they did it all, because that's what the boss wanted.

Murdoch employs so-called 'Global Warming Deniers' to write Australian newspaper blogs and front (only some) Fox News shows because he knows it is profitable to sometimes play both sides of a majorly controversial debate, and if he doesn't feed that minority of 'deniers', they will go elsewhere to get the news they're looking for.

Rupert Murdoch Wants Earth Hour To Become Earth Month - Tim Blair & Andrew Bolt Pretend Not To Notice

Murdoch Spreads More Eco-Alarmism - 90% Of World's Population Gone Within 100 Years If Global Warming Isn't Stopped

Catherine Deveny at the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas :

"We're in the grip of an epidemic of comfort as the enemy of Art. Painters are jumping out work hoping to become the next Ken Donne. Writers aren't crafting books but churning out self congratulatory blogs which are nothing more than a shrine to their raging narcissism."

More videos from the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas here.

Australian journos, writers and bloggers dive into a Friday afternoon Twitter thread on Medieval Bumper Stickers. Some highlights :

rod_benson : That's not a scythe. THIS is a scythe.

Colvinius : King Harold decides who will come to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

wolfcat: Want to live to 30? Ask me how

Colvinius : I subscribe to the Albigensian Heresy and I vote.

clubwah : A dog is for dinner, not just for Christmas

Colvinius : Save carbon emissions - don't burn heretics, drown them

CristenTilley : Not happy, Joan

Colvinius : My dad went to sack Jerusalem and all I got was this lousy bottle of holy water

rod_benson : No king will live in poverty by 1066.

clubwah : Jesus loves you. But if you love him expect to be burned at the stake

rod3000 : I Support Our Veterans of The Crusades

rod_benson : I crusade and I vote.

zombiemao : Kevin 1507

clubwah : I hunt and I'd vote if it weren't for the feudal system

rod3000 : Hot Oil Disarmament Now!

clubwah : Swords don't kill people, people do

rod3000 : I (heart) Magna Carta

Well, I thought they were pretty funny.

Have a great weekend.

Self-Interest, Reputation, More Important Than Free Speech

Oh, diddums!

Andrew Bolt has another whine about some of the hate-filled violence-threatening homophobic racist arseholes that are drawn to his blog like flies to shit :

Should I really be censoring such opinions? Should it really be an indictment of me that I don’t? Won’t it be said that the more I censor comments, the clearer it is that those I let through are the ones I endorse?

So as you can see, against my duty, as I perhaps arrogantly perceive it, to allow as free a discussion as possible, there is my ego and my self-interest in protecting my reputation. I should also admit that taking off the comments function should free up more than 10 hours of every choked week. What’s more, reading and checking those comments that I can get to can eat at my optimisim as well as my time.

You should see the stuff we must delete - or, rather, you shouldn’t.

Much there in the way of threats of violence against those you target that you thought you should pass onto any of our intelligence agencies? Or the police?

This is what I’ve been wrestling with in this wretched week.

Of course, it's all about The Idiot. Not about the people, the scientists, activists, journalists, community workers, he continually holds up for vicious ridicule and slandering by the worst of his droogies.

Get over yourself, mate. Your reputation will never leave you.

The internet does not forget.

If they introduced something like this into MasterChef, I'd start tuning in :



Japanese TV, where producers are never told, "No, this time you've gone too far."

Miranda Devine Backs Illegal Immigrants....Well, Christian Ones

Pro-lyncher Miranda Devine points out that Australia is quickly running out of beds for asylum seekers, fleeing war and rape and persecution in Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, but asks how about it? for a couple of thousand more :

If Rudd really wanted to show compassion he would back the audacious plan of the Christian Democrat Fred Nile and go into the people smuggling business.

Hosting a meeting yesterday at NSW Parliament House for Christians from Egypt, Iran and Iraq, the upper house MP said he was worried about the plight of Christians in the Middle East, who were desperate to come here and make good migrants. In Iraq, says the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, there are only 400,000 Christians left, down from 1.4 million in 1987.

Devine doesn't point out, of course, that the vast majority of the one million Christian who've fled Iraq in the past two decades did so after the start of the War On Iraq, a war Devine so miserably backed, and promoted.

Australia has a special responsibility for the Iraqi people, and from a self-interested viewpoint, Christians are likely to settle more easily into a Christian country than Muslims.

Yes, it's true, young Muslims, particularly the males, hate all the things that many Australians love, like rugby league and fast food and loud cars.

And Devine is right, Australia must be a Christian nation. After all, we're currently fighting in two wars.

"It's a desperate situation," said Nile. "They're being told 'convert or die'."

They are in Iraq, in particular, thanks to the War. Devine :

Seeing how free and easy the Government has become with boat people, Nile has hatched a plan to bring a boat of 2000 Christian asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia. He wants donations and he dares the Government to stop him.

So basically, war-shattered Christians? Come on in. War-shattered Muslims? Eh.

The Walkley Awards announces the finalists for Artwork & Cartoons. They'll have a hard time going past this magnificent work by John Tiedemann from The Week.



In News Photography, Alex Coppel of the Sunday Herald Sun has scored a nomination for this apocalyptic image from the Black Saturday bushfires :



A gallery of the News Photography nominations can be viewed here.

The rest of the Walkley Awards nominations are here.

Murdoch Vs ABC : Empire Falls

ABC boss Mark Scott is expected to return fire on the so-called "mounting criticism" (by Rupert Murdoch, primarily) of free state news media in a speech tonight :

"In newspapers, the Murdoch media empire has responded to the crisis of advertising by proposing to transform the online world in the same way that cable transformed television - by making consumers pay."

But what happens to quality journalism when its reach and audience are limited in this way; and what will Australians expect of the public broadcaster in the next decade?

Dave Gaukroger at Pure Poison :

This speech will be closely scrutinised by the ABC’s commercial rivals who are developing plans to place sections of their content behind paywalls in the hope of replacing revenue lost due to decreasing advertising rates and diminishing circulation. Both James and Rupert Murdoch have singled out public broadcasters as an impediment to their plans, not surprisingly it’s going to be hard for them to charge for content that organisations like the ABC and BBC are giving away for free.

On Twitter, Scott offers this short intro to his speech :

@abcmarkscott - Looking forward to the AN Smith tonight at Melbourne Uni. Here is where we start: http://bit.ly/2m86Ic

The link takes you to the poem, Fall Of Rome, by WH Auden :

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Hey! Not all bloggers live in caves. Some do, yes, but by choice.

At New Matilda, Jason Wilson takes a look at :

Murdoch's Chorus Of Complaint



.

Rudd Vs The Australian....Kind Of

It all seems a bit....staged. It's good for Rudd, and it's good for The Australian :

Kevin Rudd last night attacked The Australian as "right-wing" and less than objective, particularly on the issue of climate change.

"If you cite your source as The Australian newspaper, I simply say this: (It is a) free country; every paper can express their point of view -- the editor of The Australian has said that he edits a right-wing newspaper -- and so he does," Mr Rudd said.

"Let us not pretend that it (The Australian) would seek to present itself as an objective source of information. It opposes the government's actions on climate change, and has done so consistently.

"That's their democratic right; we have a free press. And so they should; that's a matter for them."

The editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, responded last night: "The actual quote referred to The Australian as a centre-right paper but the PM is loose with his verballing these days."

Tepid.

More than anything else, it shows just how unimportant KevinRuddPM and his advisors think The Australian is as a part of the national debate, or as an influential force on the Australian public, at large.

Kevin Rudd reaches more people, directly, on Twitter, than he does when he gets written up in The Australian. Rudd's 'circulation' on Twitter, is many hundreds of thousands higher than the current newsagent, and free-in-the-foyer-many-city-offices, circulation of The Australian.

He doesn't need The Australian to be on his side.

A disregard for 'The Heart Of The Nation' that would been almost incomprehensible a few years ago.

It's Not Comedy If Nobody's Offended

On Twitter, ABC boss Mark Scott points out this piece published at the National Times on how TV comedy is being killed by committees and the easily offended. Excerpts :

....the BBC has decreed that its comedies are not to be ''unduly intimidatory, humiliating, intrusive, aggressive or derogatory''. John Howard Davies, who used to run BBC comedy, pointed out that this is the sort of absurdity that happens when a committee decides guidelines. An individual exercising editorial judgment is far preferable, especially if that individual has been chosen because of his or her connection with the real world, and what makes people laugh in it.

I have occasionally thought that I used to find programs put out by the BBC funny because I was so much younger when I saw them. However, watching re-runs of old comedy programs, I realise I was wrong: they were, plainly and simply, very funny. The famous Fawlty Towers episode in which Basil insults the Germans fails every one of the new guidelines. It is racist, intimidating, humiliating, mocks Spaniards, Germans, and the mentally ill, and commits other offences too numerous to mention. It is also dementedly funny, even after repeated viewings over 30 years.

After 70 or so years of influencing and shaping the definition of the national sense of humour, the BBC now seems to have forfeited its ability to do that.

I don't know what, indeed, there will be left for us to chortle at.

It makes me realise that my wife is right when she says that once you get past the age of 40, there isn't really anything on the BBC for you. Except Gardeners' World, of course: and we should make the most of that until someone realises how much it discriminates against those who don't have gardens, and who might feel humiliated by the lack of one.

The push for more censorship of Australian comedy and satire does not appear to be coming from the public, but from groups concerned with garnering publicity and profile and tabloid media looking for easy, cheap content to fulfill it's weekly clickbait 'Moral Panic! quota.

Why ABC Boss Mark Scott Should Tell The Daily Telegraph To Get Fucked

The Australian Tries To Stir Up Support For Murdoch's War On Free, State News Media

By Darryl Mason

From The Australian :



Criticism from who exactly?

Let's go to the story and take a look :

ABC managing director Mark Scott will this week attempt to hit back at mounting criticism...

note : "mounting criticism"

....of the public broadcaster's role in the internet space which commercial media companies say is threatening their business models.

So, the mounting criticism is coming from "commercial media companies."

Now there's a surprise.

The debate is heating up...

The debate is heating up in the pages of The Australian, who are now trying to convince an overwhelmingly skeptical public that they should pay to read Murdoch media news stories online.

The debate is heating up after Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation (owner of The Australian), again urged media companies to adopt online payment platforms for news at the World Media Summit in Beijing.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to creating a new model is taxpayer-funded content appearing free on websites such as those of the ABC and BBC.

Taxpayers getting their news for free from news sites that their taxes pay for? Fucking outrageous!

Rupert Murdoch is just plain terrified.

"We find ourselves in the midst of an information revolution that is both exciting and unsettling," Mr Murdoch said.

Anyone else feeling unsettled by this information revolution, by the greatest free exchange of information, art and knowledge in the history of mankind?

No?

Said Rupert Murdoch, who's now losing billions :

"The presses are now silent at some of the world's most famous newspapers -- they were supposed to report on their societies, but somehow failed to notice that those societies were changing fundamentally."

So this Great Media Visionary is telling us that newspapers are going out of business because they failed to notice the dramatic changes erupting across the societies they are reporting on?

What's the problem here? As Rupert Murdoch said back in 1989 :

"If someone goes bust, too bad."

Back to Digital Rupert 2.0 :

"The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over."

Really? You think so?

"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content," he said.

But will the Murdoch media pay for all for the content they "plagiarise" from other news media they do not own, along with the reams of content they find for free at Facebook and Twitter, and lift without credit from Digg, Reddit, TMZ and dozens of other independent blogs, aggregators and alternative news sites?

Fuck No.

Mr Murdoch said if media companies "do not take advantage of the current movement towards paid-for content, it will be the content creators....who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph".

I've written ("created") more than 2 million words of free-to-read blog content in the past four years (not including the content I've kleptomaniacised) and the only price I've paid is spending many hours doing something I love, making a whole lot of new friends and developing deep interests in subjects I probably would have never cared much about at all if I hadn't felt the drive to write about them here, and at Your New Reality.

Anyway, enough of Digital Rupert's hilariously 20th century opinions.

Let's get back to evidence of the "mounting criticism" as claimed by The Australian :

Chris Wharton, the chief executive of West Australian Newspapers, which is also examining online charging for its news, said the ABC was "the elephant in the room in this debate".

So, we've got Rupert Murdoch and Chris Wharton. And that's it.

The Murdoch media reports on "mounting criticism" coming mostly from Rupert Murdoch. The criticism is "mounting" because The Australian keeps reporting on Murdoch's criticism of free news media.

That's not a news story. It's corporate media PRganda.

Anyway, the ABC isn't the only Australian news media giant that intends to keep allowing readers and viewers to access its news content for free.

Mumbrella reveals that NineMSN has vowed to keep its news content free, as its hundreds of thousands of daily readers have come to expect.

NineMSN CEO Joe Pollard (excerpts from her blog statement) :

The debate over charging for online news content intensified again last week after a number of independent research studies showed this to be an immensely unfavorable strategy amongst those surveyed.

As Australia’s largest online publisher, ninemsn is frequently asked about our own business strategy when it comes to revenue generating streams for our news product. For the record, we do not intend to charge for our online news content.

As premium, innovative and differentiated as our news product is however, introducing a charge for our audience to consume it is just not part of ninemsn’s game plan…but nor is this really what the “paying for online news content” argument should be about anyway.

At ninemsn, we firmly believe an advertiser-funded model is what Australian audiences expect and accept when it comes to the consumption of online news....it’s a model that’s proven and tested…and if it continues to be available as professionally produced, freely and easily as it is now, audiences will continue to vote with their “feet”.

Charging audiences for online news content they can currently access for free is like putting a toll booth in the ocean…and it’s a big ocean.

And unfortunately for Rupert Murdoch, he's no longer the biggest fish. He's more like a lumbering whale being vigorously pursued by a million little fish, constantly nipping away, slowing him down, diluting his influence, subjugating his once formidable power and control.

Now that's a free media in action right there.

And something to be celebrated.

July 2, 2009 : John Hartigan's Idiotic Claim "Bloggers Don't Go To Jail" Becomes International News

August 2, 2009 : The Orstrahyun Hails Murdoch's 'Death To Free Information'
Movement

August 10, 2009 : Who Just Lost Another Few Billion Trying To Convince You That Celebrities Are Important And That People Who Don't Look Like You Can't Be Trusted?

Murdoch Media Asks : Michael Jackson, Not Dead?

September 17, 2009 : Rupert Murdoch Celebrates Death Of Newspapers : "It's Going To Be Great!"