Before children stared at TVs, they stared at radios, in almost the exact same utterly transfixed way :



More Excellent Images From ABC's News Photo Archive On FlickR


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"I Don't Care"

Documentary maker Errol Morris (The Fog Of War) calls this "the best commercial ever made". It's definitely the best no-budget commerical ever made.



The challenge has been laid down. Australian zero-budget local commerical makers, beat that.

Extras : How the commercial was made -Two Guys, One Camera

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It's Not Movie Piracy When Hollywood Does It

So if you've got a couple of minutes, watch these two movie trailers and spot the similarities. It's not too hard. First, an Australian movie called Freedom Deep :



And next, one of Warner Bros. mega-budget box office monoliths (or so they hoped), The Book Of Eli :



Yeah. Amazing, isn't it?

So how does an Australian movie get away with blatantly ripping off a big budget American flick?

Well they don't. Because they didn't.

Freedom Deep was made in 1995. The Book Of Eli was made in 2009-2010.

Think about that the next time you hear Warner Bros. executives whinning about movie piracy and how it's "destroying the movie business".

More from Encore Magazine :

(Australian writer/director Aaron) Stevenson claims The Book of Eli is “virtually identical” to his film Freedom Deep.

“It’s not just the premise of the prophet getting the book back to the remnants of civilisation; that plot point is the same, but there are lots of visual references as well,” said Stevenson. “The last 10 minutes make it a little different, but up to that point, it’s pretty much the same.”

“We’re independent and we don’t have the money to go to the US and start a legal case. It’s a David and Goliath story and we need the publicity first. We’re looking at the possibility at the moment,” said Stevenson.

It will be a long and ugly and expensive fight, unfortunately. Hollywood studios don't give in easily to such lawsuits, even when it's obvious blatant plagiarism has occurred.

The Full Story Is Here

One of the latest contributions to the There's NothingLikeAustralia.net tourism website :




More Here

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Nick Barker, from back in 1994 :



Nick Barker, in 2010 :



I should mention that Nick Barker is rumoured to be reforming his awesome rock band from the late 1980s/early 1990s - Nick Barker & The Reptiles. I'll write some more about them when I confirm the rumour as true.


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Political Career Tweets Itself To Death

By Darryl Mason

The future of the Young Liberal National Party doesn't look so bright when they've got vile racists like Nick Sowden representing them.

Some of Sowden's recent contributions to Twitter, after watching the Kerry O'Brien interview with US President Barack Obama on the 7.30 Report :

@nicksowden I'm not sure why they paid Kerry to fly to the US, if they wanted an interview with a monkey surely a Ferry to Taronga would have sufficed.

But one revolting outburst wasn't enough. He had to post another :

@nicksowden If i wanted to see a monkey on TV id watch Wildlife Rescue.

He then revelled in the outraged comments reacting to his racism :

"nothing like a little bit of hating to make you feel that little bit better!"

Then Nick Sowden deleted his Twitter account.

He's obviously a deep thinker :

When I equated (Tony) Abbott's comments to a general feeling of the community I meant to show that if Abbott's comments were homophobic, then Australia is also a homophobic country. This is about as true as saying that Australia is a racist country. Whilst those on the left will push this portrayal of Australian society, the rest of us know differently.

Oh yeah, we know.

Sowden's friend @PeterBlackQUT, an academic, claims he only did it "to shock and offend" :

as i know @nicksowden i know he was joking and i'm not going to condemn him for it

More Sowden presumed attempts at "joking" :

(On NSW premier Kristina Keneally) "stupid bitch, youre not in the kitchen anymore!"

(On shadow minister for education, Christopher Pyne) " it's hard to describe Pyne without sounding misogynistic and homophobic. Fuck it, he's such a camp whiny bitch."

"Fuck you UN - i'll give you 'overt racism' you retards. #leftyfucktards"

"its not the obama administration, its the obama disaster and it is an affront to freedom and the history of the WHITE house."

"We need to see another film with a minority in it. there has to be a film with a gay darky in it"

"technically (refugees from the Middle East) aren't people, is there something from the UN on animal rights?"

A political career ends before it begins.

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Sydney from the International Space Station.


(click to enlarge)

Photo by Astro_Soichi

Why Are Australian Soldiers Training To Sniper Fleeing Unarmed 'People'?

In a fake West Australian town, robots riding Segways are being used as targets for 'urban warfare' live fire sniper training :



For now, the Segway riding robots are not shooting back. Or planting IEDs. Or running at sniper positions wearing bomb vests.

They're just playing the role of civilians, rolling around their town, getting picked off at a safe distance with high-powered sniper rifles.

I wonder if they've tried this out with the automated sniper/sentry bots already in use in Iraq and Afghanistan? A bit of robot killing robot action?

And those who think today's youth are the cause of all crime and misery and street violence will be pleased to note that some of the robots are wearing hoodies!


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The Greens Are Now Bigger Than The Nationals, Even In The Bush

It won't be the Labor Party or the Liberal Party who see startling swings towards them at Federal Election 2010. It will be The Greens, as Lenore Taylor explains in National Times :

In 2010 the Greens want to be seen as a mainstream party, not a protest movement in political disguise. They base the claim on their polling and on how they have used the power they have already got.

In the latest quarterly breakdown of Newspoll the Greens are polling 11 per cent, 3 percentage points ahead of their 2007 vote. Even taking into account the tendency for opinion polls to slightly overestimate the Greens' vote, it's a strong position. The Greens now outpoll the National Party in both the cities and in the bush.

And ever since 2007, when they found themselves the largest party on the Senate crossbenches with five senators, after the demise of the Democrats, they deliberately set about proving they could be "responsible" holders of the balance of power.

They negotiated the passage of many critical bills including the government's second stimulus package, which Malcolm Turnbull's Coalition opposed. The Greens also negotiated through bills like the youth allowance and the Medicare levy surcharge. The claim to be mainstream could have a significant impact on this year's poll.

In the Senate the Greens will be pitching to the centre - with a message that a vote for them is a vote for stability because they can negotiate a way through legislative deadlocks.

"We're the ones that made the stimulus package better and then voted it through. Without us there wouldn't have been a stimulus package and we are not going to let that be forgotten," (said leader Bob Brown)

The Greens vote in the recent Tasmanian elections was a whopping 21%. Their best result yet. And this makes the gatekeepers of the traditional Two Party State System very, very nervous indeed.

It's going to be a strange election. You'll see Labor hammering The Greens wherever they can, while the Liberals will stay quietish. An unofficial Greens-Liberals coalition may become reality sooner than most political pundits think.

The Full Story Is Here

Pity The Wife

I don't want to have to keep pointing this out to international readers of The Orstrahyun, but we are not weird and scary people.....mostly :



(Via @prawn_gravies)

"Print Is Dead"

Rupert Murdoch should have listened to Egon, who made this prediction about the future of printed works back in 1984 :

Immeasurable Hurt DeHurted

According to Daily Telegraph associate editor, Tim Blair, the "Graceless & Weird" defamation suit he lodged against Crikey publisher Eric Beecher is now "Case Closed."

Here's the April 2, 2009, apology on the Pure Poison blog at Crikey that was deemed not satisfactory enough :

In a post last night titled “Sockpuppet Worn” it was suggested that enthusiastic Pure Poison critic “WB"....had been making comments from Tim Blair’s private IP adress. The post, now removed from the Crikey site, included speculation on the identity of WB, concluding that it was Blair. Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP. Commenters to the original deleted post had also made that point. We don’t know any more than that WB comments from the same private IP. Our criticisms are reserved for whoever “WB” turns out to be. We unreservedly withdraw any allegation that Tim has been using the “WB” identity, that he had personally used this identity to artificially boost his “hits”, and apologise for any offence caused by the above.

That apology, for an incorrect story that was online for all of a couple of hours, did not soothe the immeasurable hurt caused, apparently, so twelve months later Crikey publishes another apology, this time written (or at least guided) by Blair's lawyers.

The April 12, 2010, apology on the Pure Poison blog at Crikey :

On 1 March 2009, an article entitled “Sockpuppet Worn” was published on this blog about Mr Tim Blair that was incorrect. The article wrongly suggested that Mr Blair publishes comments under a pseudonym on his blog and various other blogs to make them appear as if they were independent reader comments.

It also falsely suggested that Mr Blair is dishonest in that, by publishing comments under a pseudonym on his own blog, he artificially boosts his blog readership and visit numbers, and that Mr Blair is unprofessional in his conduct as a journalist.

Crikey and the authors of this blog acknowledge that each of these suggestions are false and that there is no basis for any of them. We withdraw them unreservedly and acknowledge that Mr Blair has acted properly at all times. We apologise to Mr Blair for the hurt and distress caused.

The assumption is that a cash settlement was part of the ap0logy. But it's hard to know for sure, because tabloid journalists, despite often writing articles that blow up to headlines the most insignificant details of peoples' private lives, don't like to talk or give quotes when they become part of a story. They don't even want others to comment or discuss such stories :



Blair's lawyer friend WB - Wogblogger - cracks the champagne :



(click to enlarge)

And gloats about the settlement on any number of blogs :

....he’s sued a superrich publisher. Epic fail on the hypocrisy argument and no points for trying.

And the ‘glass jaw’ argument......is just historical revisionism at its finest. Blair has taken more abuse than most over the years. I think you’ll find Tim Blair’s reputation is as the guy who cracked Crikey’s deep pockets (that’s Private Media = worth >$6m), which in journalistic circles makes him some sort of a God.

Some sort of a God....

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"Cool And Weird At The Same Time"

They have their own personal dressmaker. Of course they do. You can't just get duck clothing of this quality off the rack.



Even the dog looks a little humiliated on their behalf.

Video Is Here (if the ahove Sky News clip doesn't play for you)


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The Australian newspaper has an anti-ABC agenda? You must be some kind of crazed, paranoid Leftist. Obviously, this is the most important lead national news of the day :

If he wasn't religious before, he probably will be now :

A freak wave saved a man's life after he plunged off The Gap at Watsons Bay (Sydney) last night.

The 45-year-old man who fell 200m was washed back on to dry land unharmed shortly after 9pm.

He was found by emergency rescue crews with only minor injuries and suffering from chest pains.

Stories I've Been Reading :

Forget The Bullshit From Murdoch Gatekeepers, US Soldiers Detail How Rules Of Engagement In Iraq Included Purposeful Shooting, Killing, Of Civilians

This Isn't The First Time US Military Has Killed Journalists In Iraq - In 2003, A US Tank Opened Fire On A Baghdad Hotel Filled With Journos

Nigeria, China & India Are Supposed To Havens For Movie Piracy, So Why Are Their Movie Industries More Successful, More Profitable Than Hollywood?

The Incredible, Life-Saving Legacy Of Henrietta Lacks

Matt Taibbi : "Most Of The Work In This World Completely Sucks Balls And The Only Reward Most People Get For Their Work Is Barely Enough Money To Survive"

Carl Sagan On How Cannabis Taught Him How To Appreciate, Enjoy Fine Art, Music, Food & Sex

South East Asia Drought : "We Will Have A War, A Water War. When They Need
Water To Drink They Will Fight For Everything"

Have You Ever Heard A Carrot Scream? The Feelings, Rights And Dignity Of Plants

Apes Have Theory Of Mind, Just Like Humans

The Iraq & Afghanistan Civilian Slaughter Cover-Ups That Exploded In The Petagon's Face

"How Do You Trust An Ally That Steals British And Australian Citizens' Identities For An Assassination?"

Fall Of Newspapers : Ad Revenues Decline 43% In 3 Years For American Print Media

Peter Hartcher On How President Obama Used Reasonableness To Expose Republican Opponents As Extremists

American Conservative Media Seem Very Nervous About Using The Words "Christian Terrorists"

86 Out Of 88 Cities In China's Drought Zone Running Short Of Drinking Water, Affecting At Least 17 Million People

How To Repossess The Executive Jets Of Drug Dealers & Dictators Without Getting Your Head Blown Off

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Sydney's Daily Telegraph runs a story about a bar of soap allegedly made from the fat of Holocaust victims :

Historians have dismissed reports that the Nazis mass-produced soap from the remains of Holocaust victims during World War II....

True enough. But WTF is going on with the DT's 'related coverage'?



It'll get worse, the more the Murdoch media outsource their newsrooms.

"It's Terribly Flabbergasting"

Smiley

Andrew Bolt, a regular guest of ABC's Insiders :

Islam, after all, is a faith that preaches rejection and subjugation of non-believers...

...doesn't sound like he's been to a mosque recently.

....and is thus likely, at least in theory, to inhibit assimilation and a sense of communal responsibility towards other Australians.

You get the feeling sometimes he's incredibly disappointed Muslim youth haven't tried to suicide bomb our trains or buses. If they had, just once, he wouldn't have to spend so much time clinging desperately to so many self-constructed straw men.

Powderfinger, before all the fucking ballads :






Awesome. Haven't seen this before :




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