Stories I've Been Reading Instead Of Writing Blog Posts Here :

In Australia, You're More Likely To Be Beaten By Drunks Or Sexually Assaulted In A Place Of Worship Than In Strip Clubs Or Brothels

Ratings Agencies Conspired With The Worst Of Wall Street To Defraud Investors

Pat Tillman : How Journalists Betrayed Americans By Publishing War Industry Propaganda

British Right Wing Media Has A Nervous Breakdown Over Nick Clegg

The Future Of Online Business Development - The Lean Start-Up

"Elephants Have Been Losing The Battle For Survival For The Last 50,000 Years - Since Humans Started Leaving Africa"

The Buck Stops With News Limited In The Melbourne Storm Scandal

For The First Time In A Decade, Rupert Murdoch Is About To Be Locked Out Of British Politics

European Royalty, Alive And Living Well In New York City

US Troops, Defeated By Taliban, Retreat From Remote Afghanistan Outpost

No Explanation, Yet, For How Potentially Fatal Fungus Found In Australian Eucalyptus Trees Reached North America

Democrats & Republicans Agree That War-Born Militant Populist Movements Must Be Smashed

James Cameron On Avatar 2 : "Not Only Is It Good Business, It's Good For The Environment"

The British Ministry Of Defence Have Been Ordered By A Court To Pay Iran More Than $700 Million For Decades Old Dodgy Arms Deal

Why Old Media And Social Media Don't Get Along

"Its a primitive game sometimes"







Via Reddit

New lanes under construction at Sydney's Iron Cove Bridge :

ANZAC Day in a Sydney nursing home :

The Australian Piles On The Lawyers To Hide Its Secrets

Amazing :

...the federal government anti-corruption agency, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity....cut a deal with The Australian in which ACLEI agreed not to publish any of the information obtained about the newspaper during the investigation. ACLEI has also agreed to allow The Australian to review any future report it writes that refers to the paper or its employees.

A federal government anti-corruption agency has to allow a newspaper to review reports which discuss, or refer, to possible corruption at that newspaper. All of this results from a story The Australian ran on its front page about a anti-terrorism squad raid, a story they ran before the raid actually took place.

Your Right To Know?

Not in this case.

No wonder News Limited despises Crikey so much, they're just about the only news media company in Australia willing to report on how News Limited fights so hard to keep its secrets. And successfully so.

Actor Simon Pegg sums up the mocking outrage today in Britain towards ex-Australian Rupert Murdoch, as the owner of 40% of Britain's newspapers is repeatedly exposed for desperately trying to control, yet again, who will be elected prime minister :




An ad from the UK Independent, getting widespread exposure through non-Murdoch media, blogs and Twitter :



Murdoch's The Sun Accused Of Hiding Poll Results That Show Third Party Candidate Nick Clegg Could Become Prime Minister

James Murdoch Storms Into Office Of Rival Newspaper Editor Shouting, "You're A Fucking Fuckwit!"

Desperate Days As Murdoch's Anti-Democratic Behaviour Lights Up Internet

SpinMasters On Murdoch's Sky News "Like Watching The Live Abortion Of Democracy"

This beautiful image of Tasmania's Franklin River, by Peter Dumbrovskis, has been chosen as one of the best nature photographs ever taken :



A couple of Australian images made the list.

Slaughterhouse photo by Tommaso Ausili

More Winners Of The Sony World Photography Awards 2010

Reader Steve S. came across this piece of oh so honest news categorisation by Google this morning :


(click to enlarge)

"Good Headline, Boss!"

News Limited boss John Hartigan on what is being termed The Biggest Fraud In Australia's Professional Sporting History, involving the Melbourne Storm, the rugby league team News Limited owns :

"This club has had a couple of rats in its ranks...."

It was a line Hartigan ran out for an interviews on A Current Affair, ABC News and every other encounter he had with news media yesterday.

News Limited's The Herald Sun complies on its online front page :





John Hartigan must be feeling particularly rattled by this scandal, not only for the millions News Limited will lose now its team is facing a massive plunge in merch revenue and sponsorship dollars for the rest of the season, but also because News Limited's "exclusive" coverage of all things Melbourne Storm was said to be one of the key selling points of the 'premium' paywall packages the corporation is now putting together for a launch only a few weeks away.

News Limited no longer has the Melbourne Storm as a viable attraction to entice rugby league junkies to pay to read The Herald Sun or The Daily Telegraph online.

That's gonna hurt.

The First Rule Of Elderly Ex-Prime Minister Fight Club Is....

This video story from Lateline explains what's going on behind this excellent photo from an AAP photographer, which appears to show former Australian prime ministers Bob Hawke and John Howard on the verge of exchanging blows....or Hawke beating Howard in a particularly aggressive game of Rock, Paper, Scissors :

This isn't going to help the Rudd government unload its massive stockpile of quickly expiring influenza vaccinations into the arms of Australians :

....45 children have been taken to hospital suffering high temperatures and febrile convulsions after receiving the vaccination.

That's 45 children under the age of five, in West Australia alone.

The flu vaccination program in WA has been suspended.

More images from Australia's media history in this ABC News photo archive :

Fielding : 1 In 2 Australians Afraid To Go Out At Night, Terrified Of Drunk Women Vomiting On Themselves

I had no idea the Blink Drinking culture in Australia was so completely out of hand. Senator Steve Fielding brings us up to date :

Australia has become a nation held to ransom by binge drinking with one in two Australians too frightened to go out on the streets at night.

Haven’t we all had enough of drunken yobbos taunting people walking by, of young women lying sprawled on the street with vomit down their party dresses and groups of grog-fuelled men wandering our streets looking for a fight? many Australians enjoy a drink responsibly for too many having a drink means getting blink drunk.

Our drinking to get drunk culture is destorying this country."

The destoryuction must be stopped.

(via @ScottBridges)

Sky News accuses ABC News of corporate espionage :

In a statement to The Australian, Sky News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos labelled the actions of the ABC both "unethical" and "unprofessional".

"The Sky News content used by the ABC was not intended by either Sky or the Prime Minister to be broadcast," Mr Frangopoulos said. "It indicates that the ABC has tapped into the Sky News bureau feed and has used the footage without our permission.

The fallout should be interesting.

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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