Some day soon, all protests will be conducted only by people dressed as Na'vi, wearing V (Guy Fawkes) masks.

The Joe Hockey Experience

Isn't Question Time humiliating enough? No.



ABC's Lateline, February 11, 2010. Let's go straight to the highlights :

TONY JONES: ....if the next election is largely about economic management, and most likely it will be, we can pretty much script the Labor Party's election ads right now. Tony Abbott says he's not interested in economics. Barnaby Joyce can't tell his millions from his billions, and says the country's pretty much bankrupt and wouldn't be able to repay its national debt, and then up flashes a picture of the Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey wearing a tutu, a tiara and carrying a golden wand. I mean ...

JOE HOCKEY: Well they've obviously shown you the ad.

TONY JONES: I have seen it.

JOE HOCKEY: (Laughs). You have seen it already!

TONY JONES: I've seen the pictures.

JOE HOCKEY: As long as you weren't a part of the production of the ad, Tony.

TONY JONES: I've seen the pictures and imagining what the ad would be.

JOE HOCKEY: Well, you know what: Australians can see through that, and they will see through that, because Australians ...

TONY JONES: See through your tutu.

JOE HOCKEY: No, no, look, can I tell you - gosh. I mean, if you're a real person and you do real things and you engage in, you know, the activities that Australians do ...

TONY JONES: Cross-dressing!

JOE HOCKEY: Oh, well maybe you do, Tony. I mean, you don't know what happens at the ABC, do you, really?

JOE HOCKEY: If you want a real person...I care about real people, I live with real people, I engage with real people.

In this Lateline interview, and many others, Joe Hockey seems obsessed with the idea that there are both real and fake people, in politics and walking around in everday life.

I hope Joe Hockey pursues this idea further. Here's Philip K Dick on the subject :

Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans.

Okay, maybe that's a bit too far.

JOE HOCKEY: ...I really want real people to be in politics. I want real people with real words engaging in real activity. Barnaby Joyce is real. Lindsay Tanner, Peter Garrett - these people aren't real. Kevin Rudd's not real.

TONY JONES: You cut them and they bleed, they are real.

JOE HOCKEY: Well, no.

Perhaps Hockey could push for mandatory Voight-Kammpf testing of all politicians running for election this year.



The imitation people must be weeded out, even those with pre-programmed four year life spans.

And to finish, back in the 'real' world :

JOE HOCKEY: ....Australia was very lucky to have China with massive stimulus and fantastic terms of trade and demand for our resources.

TONY JONES: Oh, so - sorry, can I just interrupt you there? Stimulus works in China, but not in Australia?

JOE HOCKEY: Well, their demand for our iron ore and various other resources had a huge impact.

TONY JONES: But their stimulus worked to drive their economy, but not ours?

JOE HOCKEY: Oh, well, yeah, well.

The video of the full interview is here. It's mostly Gold.



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Ray Of Lite

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott, on Twitter :

That 24/7 news recruitment must be underway. Just saw Ray Martin in the Ultimo foyer. I'm always last to know.

Ray Martin is at the ABC to discuss doing a show for the ABC's 24 hour news channel?

That can mean only one thing. The long awaited full hour version of this pilot :



Laugh if you like, but you know full well if you were sitting in front of the TV at 11pm on a Friday night, nine beers down, brain-drained and body slabbed after a hectic week of work, you'd watch at least 20 minutes of Small Talk before you changed the channel.

Me too.



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They Should Be Scared, If Our Serial Killers Don't Get Them, Our Psychotically Violent Fauna Will



They just make this shit up, so everyone has a definable and thereby treatable phobia :

Novahollandiaphobia - Fear of Australia, Australians, Australian culture etc.

There's a lot to choose from in that list, of course there is, but I think this is my favourite surreal phobia :

Chronophobia - Fear of time

Actually, it's probably a toss up between that, and this :

Levophobia - Fear of things to the left side of the body.

And I have to cram this one in, because hearing or seeing the name of the phobia should trigger incidents of the phobia in 'sufferers' :

Macroxenoglossophobia - Fear of long, strange words.

Sorry if you've just crumbled in a shattered heap.

Come Visit Beautiful Australia.....And Die


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It's A Wonderland Land, It's A HoneyLand

If Australia ever needs a Village People-esque 12 inch disco remix national anthem, here it is.

@cosmicjester via @justinnorrie finds some YouTube Gold :



The song, Good News Australia, charted somewhat in 1979-1980, according to here.

You can download the MP3 here

Kevin Rudd Admits It : The Great Global Warming Conspiracy Is A Commo Plot!

You didn't believe it when Andrew Bolt told you. You didn't believe it when puzzle maker Christopher Monckton told you. So will you finally believe it when prime minister Kevin Rudd tells you?

"Let me tell you, (global warming) is all one global communist conspiracy. So watch out, and lock up your friends. It's going to come and get you in the middle of the night."

An interesting strategy. That line got Rudd one of his biggest, and most genuine, laughs of the night from the Q & A audience of students, and successfully deflated some of the tension of the room.


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Murdoch Defamation Payout Spigot Piers Akerman Faked Famous 'We Must Announce Disasters' Quote That Fueled The AGW Skeptic Movement

The Daily Telegraph's Piers Akerman, November 5, 2006 :

This alarmist approach reeked of stupidity, snake oil, and misguided gospel preaching but was in line with a formula adopted by the first chairman of the IPCC, Sir John Houghton, who produced the IPCC's first three reports in 1990, 1995 and 2001 and wrote in his book Global Warming, The Complete Briefing, in 1994: "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.''

That bolded quote cited by Akerman did not appear in Sir John Houghton's book. Today's UK Independent quotes Houghton :

"It's not the sort of thing I would ever say. It's quite the opposite of what I think and it pains me to see this quote being used repeatedly in this way. I would never say we should hype up the risk of climate disasters in order to get noticed."

Even though the quotation appears on about 1.77 million web links, no one seems to know where it originated.

Akerman's November 5, 2006 article is cited by the UK Independent as "the earliest record" of the fake quote appearing online. How proud he must be.

Sir John, who was the former head of the Met Office but is now living in semi-active retirement in Wales, said he is considering taking legal action because he feels that the continued recycling of the misquotation is doing him and his science a huge disfavour.

"It doesn't do me any good because it suggests to everyone that I have hyped things up. I've been growing aware of it now for some time. The trouble is, if I just deny it then it cuts no ice with the people who want to believe it. I have to consider legal action," Sir John said.

If Houghton does take legal action, it will be the latest in a long line of defamation suits against Akerman, who must have cost Rupert Murdoch at least $2 million in payouts, payoffs and legal fees in the past few years alone.

How did Akerman respond to questions from the UK Independent about his fabrication of this famous quote? Well, how do you reckon, once he knew he'd been busted? Again?

Mr Akerman did not respond to enquiries by The Independent.

Daily Telegraph lawyers probably have a rapid response unit solely devoted to Akerman by now.

More soon....


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A Panel Of One

From Q & A :

Here are the questions our panel faced this week.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was the sole guest.

He near effortlessly swivelled through his iBrain MP3 carousel to come up with tranquiliser-strength answers to most of the questions posed by an audience of 200 GenYers, already numbed into mild shock by the loss of their phones, they were sometimes seen furtively grasping their own fingers to stop them unconsciously air-texting.

Some of the occasional non-soft questions lobbed at the prime minister :

MATTHEW LAING asked: Prime Minster. Last week a series of newspapers ran stories noting the long list promises made at the last election by the ALP that remain unfulfilled after more than two years. Is it any wonder then why idealistic youth become cynical adults when it comes to politics?

LINNA WEI asked: The Australian Medical Association in Queensland has said that 100 lives a year could be saved if the legal drinking age was lifted to 21, the same as it is in the US. Teenagers start driving when they are 18; coincidentally this is also the legal drinking age in Australia. Mr Rudd, have you thought about lifting the minimum legal drinking age in Australia?

GEORGIA LOURADIS asked: The French government is currently moving to ban the wearing of the Burqa in public locations. Do you think it should be a core part of Western and Australian values: that woman should show their faces in public just like men?

PERKASH BATRA asked: Australian Universities are encouraging International Students TO STUDY in Australia, whereas Racism is increasing day by day, creating a big problem for International students. I have been victim myself. What are government plans to overcome this issue?

MOSES KENHOK GOI ADUOT asked: Why is Australia more than happy to receive president Barack Obama (a black man) when they are ashamed of their own black citizens, whether Aboriginals or African Australians?

BLAISE JOSEPH asked: Given the Climategate e-mails scandal. Given that the IPCC claims on Himalayan glaciers melting and Amazon rainforests disappearing were both fabricated. Given that the Dutch government is now reviewing all IPCC claims. Given all this: do you still have full confidence in the claims of the IPCC, and is it still necessary to rush ahead with your ETS?

One of Kevin Rudd's finest moments from the often snippy series of mini-lectures he responded with to many of the questions posed :

"...the question asked by this person over here was on the basis that they were not. I just wanted to be clear about the basis upon which that question was asked...."

Strong Coffee Required : The Q & A Transcript Is Here

Interestingly, when you scan through the questions, Rudd got asked a number of harder questions than usually posed to him by the news media.

Why did this Q & A need to be moderated by Tony Jones, or anyone, anyway? The youth would have sorted the prime minister out if he waffled for too long.

And what's so bad about hearing the prime minister shouted out and corrected and occasionally heckled by a roomful of kids?

That's the kind of PM Vs The Kids debate action we want to see.

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Now Much Easier To Ignore

The Daily Telegraph moves with the social networking times and replaces this blog click-thru box on its digital front page...



With this :



The TB Appreciation Society on Facebook has 21 members.



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Stories I'm Reading Instead Of Writing Blog Posts Here :

Tony Abbott Admits Howard Government Spent $1 Billion On Flu Pandemic "Precautions"

20 Million Americans Have Already Lost Their Homes, Another 18 Million Will Soon Lose Theirs

New York Times Tells Americans If They Owe More Than Their Home Is Worth, Just Walk Away

Seven Insane Ways That Music Affects The Human Body

AnimalLit - Biographies Of Quirky, Adventurous Pets - Push MiseryLit Off Bookstore Shelves

Since 2001, the US Dollar Has Lost Nearly 25% Of Its Value

Fox News Suddenly Realises Sarah PalmPrompter Palin Is Mocking The President During War-Time (Remember How Much They Used To Hate That?)

Russian President Signs New Military Doctrine For Preventative Nuclear Strikes Against Potential Aggressors

NATO "Surprised" That Russia Names Alliance As "Main Threat"

Online Obscurity, Why It's Better Than Digital Fame

A Philip K Dick Reality : The $7000 Multiple Personality SexBot

Stunning : Americans Spend More On Bank Overdraft Fees Than They Do On Fresh Vegetables

The Desperation Of NeoCons : Pathetic, Miserable WarPig Daniel Pipes Tells Obama He Can "Save His Presidency" By Bombing Iran, Now! Now! Now!

At Least 100 American SAS Have Been "Training" (Fighting) In Pakistan Since 2007

21st Century Operation MockingBird? - Why The CIA Should Outsource To Downsized Journalists

You Are A Virus....Well, At Least 50% Of You

Internet Uprising Overturns Online Censorship In Australia

On The Eve Of The Global Financial Crisis Part II, Australia's Political Elite Gather In Sydney With World's Central Bankers


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"Sorry Puppy, We're Putting You Down For Gaia"

By Darryl Mason

Opposition leader Tony "Treeple Skills" Abbott is continuing to push his eco-credentials in the confident hope that if he's interviewed in front of enough wilderness money shots, dappled in the sunlight breaking through canopies of palm fronds, then those who think The Greens are simply too gay to earn a real Christian's environmental vote will go for him.

And they probably will.

But how Green will Tony Abbott turn? Will he come up with that will out-eco even The Greens?

Some inspiration may be found in a report examining revolutionary society-transforming ways to allegedly halt rapid climate change :

Its State of the World 2010 report published this week outlines a blueprint for changing our entire way of life. "Preventing the collapse of human civilisation requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant cultural patterns. This transformation would reject consumerism... and establish in its place a new cultural framework centred on sustainability."

Surely a report like this would include a long list of things we should no longer do, or products and lifestyles we should no longer embrace? Oh, it surely does :

Get rid of the dog.

No bottled water.

No takeaway menus.

No fun cars.

Don't buy books or toys, borrow them from libraries.

Grow your own (food) in community gardens.

All products should be designed to last a lifetime.

Public transport only.

No plane-related holidays, or air-based trips at all.

Probably not much in there for Tony Abbott. Though it would be good to see him come out for community gardens and more public book & toy libaries. And the idea of any politician trying to rally local industry to go back to creating quality products that last (most of) a lifetime would be exciting indeed.

But Abbott won't go GreenXtreme, no matter how many new votes there might be in it.

He will stay the coure of the lo-fi greener, all the "What's Good For The Environment Is Good For Australia" pap, and leave alone any moves towards killing off the airline, publishing, pet, fast food and disposable product industries with a radical Fight Club-style anti-consumerist platform.

In Abbott's favour, when it comes to greening up, is the fact that he doesn't seem out of place tromping through a forest, where Kevin Rudd looks about as comfortable and competent amongst the trees as John Howard did on a cricket pitch.

"Oh Sanjay! You Make Me Melt Like A Himalayan Glacier!"

Of course he made some mistakes, he was distracted reliving the sexual adventures of his distant youth :

The UN's top climate official, who is at the heart of a controversy over incorrect global warming data, has written a racy novel which dishes up sex, reincarnation and a real-life Hollywood actress.

The book also weaves in lectures on the environment and the fate of Himalayan glaciers - the issue which has triggered calls for Pachauri's resignation.

This story doesn't make clear whether the lead character Sanjay actually lectures on glaciers and the environment while "overcome by a lust that he had never known before."

Is this the beginning of a new genre of enviro-erotic novels?

The Ecomance?

It's Got Nipples, Run It!

This is all you need to do in a Ukranian protest to make the pages of an allegedly esteemed Australian newspaper :

"Enough raping our democracy!'' shouted the protesters, who held signs with slogans such as "Help! Rape!'' and wore nothing except for jeans and strips of green electrical tape over their nipples.

Then again, if four male protestors walked into Joe Hockey's electorate office tomorrow and rested their scrotums on his desk, that'd probably make the papers in Eastern Europe, unless they ran away very fast.

(via @zombiemao)

Vote Liberal, Labor Or Greens, It Doesn't Matter, Australia Will Still Get A Carbon Tax

By Darryl Mason

Chris Ulhmann writes on ABC's The Drum that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott knows he has only one shot at becoming prime minister, so this is it, he's going in hard...or so it would
appear :

The Coalition is not going to win a war for the votes of climate change purists or the devotees of detail. What it wants is to set up a position that it can defend while it seeks to win a war of attrition against the Government's emissions trading scheme.

It is reminiscent of what has happened to United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given its domination of the sky, no conventional army can stop an America invasion. But as Machiavelli knew, taking a country and holding it are two very different things. The way to beat America is to get its soldiers out of their planes and tanks and into a prolonged street-by-street battle.

The Coalition doesn't want to engage in lofty debates that it knows almost no one understands. It wants hand-to-hand combat on the cost of living increases that come with putting a price on carbon.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong was almost, almost, worn down by Tony Jones on Lateline last night, when he refused to stop asking her how much pricing carbon will eventually cost the average family. She avoided answering at least twelve questions on the subject. It was gruesome, like watching John Howard in late 2002 trying to deny we were about to go to War On Iraq, when Australian soldiers had already been deployed, knowing they were going there to fight.

The Rudd government for now has not much to counter the opposition's claims that the GBNT (Great Big New Tax) will cost everybody. It will.

But Abbott already appears suspicious is his mind-numbing repetitive use of "Great Big New Tax" by not calling the GBNT what it really is, will eventually become, was always going to be. A Carbon Tax.

Abbott is reluctant to call it a carbon tax because he knows that if he becomes prime minister, it will be all but impossible for Australia to function in the New Global Economy without one.

Labor and The Greens want a carbon tax, the Liberals will accept one, and Barnaby Joyce will be told to hold back from shouting about '"Carbon Tax!!" in public, too often. Entertaining his own dreams of one day becoming prime minister himself, Joyce will also, reluctantly, play along.

The Carbon Tax was always going to be the end result of either the introduction of an ETS, or the abandonment of an ETS. It doesn't matter which reality unfolds between now and election day. The introduction of a carbon tax was the mission from at least 2006 onwards for Labor, the Liberals and The Greens, irrespective of how oppposed they appeared to be of each other's plans.

To really whip up the growing tide of climate change skeptics in Australia, to get on side a new Liberal conservative base, Abbott needs to go to the election pledging 'No Carbon Tax!' if he really wants to win.

But he won't do it.

No matter how much he wants to win.

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Bizarre "Circular Discs" On BoM Radar Unexplained For Now

The Bureau of Meteorology notes on its National Loop site that there have been some extremely weird things appearing on BoM radar imagery of late :

Please note we are experiencing technical issues with the radar images resulting in circular disks appearing unexpectedly at times. We will endeavour to look at this problem as quickly as possible.

The BoM means these :









No-one from the BoM appears to have offered any explanation other than "technical difficulties."

But some who monitor or regularly check in on BoM radar, and have seen these "circular discs" are convinced the images are evidence of weather modification tests, or something much worse.

They certainly make for more entertaining explanations than boring old "technical difficulties."

From the Sydney Morning Herald, February 3.



They should have capitalised YOUR.

(thanks KCB)

It's Better For You If You Eat It



Here's a bit of Australian history you don't hear mentioned much :

''In the early 1800s, Australia was twice saved from famine by eating virtually nothing but hemp seed for protein and hemp leaves for roughage."

You can buy hemp seeds to feed your budgie in Australia, and to mix in with your dog's food, you can even buy them to use as fish bait, but, stunningly, they're still not legally available for human consumption.

That should change soon, once immature tabloid hysteria over all things hemp/cannabis finally fades away, and Australian politicians who know and have used the plant for any number of positive purposes can finally legislate calmly, and sanely.

Northern Australia has ideal conditions for massive hemp farms, as illegal cannabis growers already well know, that could and should be harvested for their miraculous food source, if for nothing else.

Hemp seed is a food source known to humans for tens of thousands of years, and yet somehow forgotten almost completely in the last eight decades.

"Hemp seeds are a real superfood.....23 per cent protein, and has more Omega 3 and Omega 6 than virtually any other source, including fish."

Australia could literally feed the world with one of the most concentrated sources of protein available, with the crops soaking up plenty of carbon at the same time, leaving behind plant waste that can be ploughed back in the earth, to renew the soil. Just for starters...

More Details On Australia's Burgeoning Hemp Industry

"I Know You're Really Not A Bad Dog.......AAAUUUUGGH!!!"

The intention was good, if misguided. However this still sounds like a Darwin Award nominee :

A doctor who won a four-year legal battle to save his three dogs from being put down for attacking humans has been mauled to death by the animals.

It could be worse. That Macqaurie banker could have been into German or Japanese niche porn.

That Commenter Is A Fake....But His Work Really Helps With The Comment Count

Paul Colgan reveals The Punch has readers who post dozens of comments under as many as 21 fake names. Colgan acknowledges one faker was allowed to keep posting comments at The Punch for at least two days after his japery was uncovered.

He thinks he knows who's responsible :

He’s bald, wears socks with sandals and lives with his mum. He surfs the internet from his bedroom, where on the wall is a pennant hung on an angle commemorating North Melbourne’s 1975 Grand Final win. He eats tinned asparagus and has a haphazard collection of Star Wars action figures in which the prize item is a Millennium Falcon but its radar dish broke off years ago.

The comment faker is, more likely, working out of a Melbourne PR office.

The Punch is certainly not the first News Limited blog to be infected by fake commenters pumping anti-green propaganda, or pro-war talking points.

At least one News Limited blog has even been known to publish comments by the girlfriend of the blogger, writing under an assumed identity, defending his opinions.

Another News Limited blog has knowingly allowed federal politicians to attack their enemies under fake names, and that blog has a particular blind spot for the fake comment work of staffers and advisors of Liberal and National Party politicians, particularly when they're in agreement with the blogger.

So far, no typing cats have yet claimed responsibility for recent comment faking at The Punch.


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