In the headline to a story about NSW premier Keneally's free flight upgrades, the International Business Times gives the premier the biggest upgrade of all :



(via @BabyExPat)

Not A Public Holiday, Yet

Under the watchful eye of the ABC interpretive dance bandicoot, rehearsals are underway for tomorrow's NABIADD :



What Is NABIADD?

UPDATE : More dancing, and this demand to choose a side, or at least a chanty dance style, on the murder of unarmed civilians in international waters :

This in many ways is a battle between civilisation and barbarism, and we are all called upon to choose on which side of the line to stand.

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David Marr sums up just about everything you need to know about the supershouty fiasco of yesterday's, and most of the rest of this week's, Question Time :

One bunch of hypocrites who spent millions on government advertising in the Howard years is brawling with another bunch of hypocrites spending millions on government advertising after denouncing the practice all through the Howard years.

A good average to stage what Marr calls "The Show Nobody's Come To See" is about a couple of million dollars a day.


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Hey Boltadamus! Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!

By Darryl Mason

Murdoch tabloid journalist, and Liberal Party Yoda, Andrew Bolt, likes to praise himself when his predictions about Australian politics come true.

He would appear to have a pretty good track record, but it's an illusion.

Bolt makes dozen of predictions a month, so obviously there's a good chance that one or two of them might come true, months or years later.

Here's Andrew Bolt's latest prediction :

My tip is that Rudd is now finished and will be replaced. I’m guessing this could even occur within four weeks

I will bet Andrew Bolt $1000, to the charity of his choice, that prime minister Kevin Rudd will neither quit nor be overthrown by colleagues by June 28.

Will Andrew Bolt take the bet?

Will he announce on his radio show and in his blog that he is so confident in his prediction of Rudd's imminent political demise that he is willing to wager $1000 that Rudd will be gone inside four weeks from today?

No, he won't.

But I wait to be pleasantly surprised.

My own ability to Nostradamus Australian political tremors and earthquakes is, however, disturbingly accurate (kind of) or simply downright obvious (more likely). Here's a bunch of predictions I made before the 2007 Federal Election :

Labor Wins By Five Seats

Howard Loses Bennelong

Liberals Retain Wentworth

Greens Nail 14% Of National Vote

John Howard Brutalised In Media By Liberal Party Colleagues For Losing Election

Peter Costello Announces Retirement

Tony Abbott Announces Retirement

Malcolm Turnbull Fights For Liberal Leadership Against Demented Far Right

John Howard Embarks On $100,000 Per Speech Tour Of American NeoCon Think Tanks

Liberal Party Fractures, Descends Into Savage Infighting

Shelf Full Of New Books Reveal Dark Secrets Behind John Howard's Years As Prime Minister

John Howard To Score Knighthood From Queen

The Shape Of Rudd's 'New Labor Conservatism' Comes Into Focus - Lefties Grow More Nervous By The Day About Future

Peter Garrett Quits Politics, Rejoins Midnight Oil To Fight Rudd's Pro-Logging, Pro-Nuclear New Labor

Philip Ruddock Quits Politics To Take On Role As Mr Burns In Non-Animated Simpsons Movie

Obviously a couple of those were jokes, but I'm totally disappointed Fox never went ahead with the live action movie of The Simpsons. Ruddock would have been absolutely brilliant as Mr Burns.

You can e-mail Andrew Bolt here - bolta@heraldsun.com.au - and challenge him to accept my wager.


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A Dreamtime story :

Still one of the most powerful public health ads ever aired in Australia. It's jarring to see this ad again, 23 years after its was first aired on Australian TV :

How the fashion industry proves that Free Can Equal Profits & Success ;



Fascinating. And inspiring.

(via @MoreOj)

Praying To The Digital Gods

By @DarrylMason

The Australian takes its column inches hogging obsession with the iPad to hilarious extremes:



How obsessed with the iPad is The Australian?

Utterly.

It's almost as if the newspaper's entire existence hangs on trying to convince 50,000 or more Australians to buy, and keep buying, its $4.99 per month (for now) iPad application. Which, of course, it does. Particularly considering owner Rupert Murdoch is planning to phase out the print edition within the next two or three years and shut down the printing presses forever, a Death To Newspapers move Murdoch described in September 2009 as "great" :

“I do certainly see the day when more people will be buying their newspapers on portable reading panels than on crushed trees.

“Then we’re going to have no paper, no printing plants, no unions. It’s going to be great.”

Mumbrella noticed how obsessed The Australian has been with the iPad, and did some Googling. Since the start of February 2010, The Australian has run more than three dozen stories about the iPad, how absolutely brill it is, why it will save newspapers and how and why you should buy The Australian iPad app.

In just two days (April 12-13) The Australian ran at least six stories on the subject, most shamelessly hawking the digital tablet to readers in pure advertorial speak. On May 24, The Australian broke its own record by running four stories on the iPad.

Good luck to them. If their launch product is anything to go by - thin on content, visually bland - they're going to need it.

More From Mumbrella Here

Stories I've Been Reading :

"The 'Body-Swapping' Effect Was So Convincing That The Men's Sense Of Self Was Transferred Into The Virtual Woman

Man Infects Himself With Computer Virus To Show Vulnerability Of ID Chips & Implants : "If Someone Can Get Online Access To Your Implant, It Could Be Serious"

New British Government Promise To Wind Back DNA Storage, Control CCTV, Cancel Mandatory ID Cards As Budgets Fail Police State Implementation

Why All Politicians Should Have A Twitter Account, And Why They Should Use It

Australian Politician Confirms Australian Intelligence Agencies Use Fake Passports In Interview, Then Retracts Her Claims

9/11 Rescue Workers Were Valuable Political Props For Republicans, But Now Republicans Don't Want To Pay Health Care Costs Of 70,000 Sick & Dying Victims

Australian Prime Minister Unleashes His Infamous Temper On Murdoch Editors & Journos During A Dinner, No Murdoch Newspaper Reports The Incident, 'War On Rudd' Soon Begins At Murdoch Newspapers

Obama Wanted America To "Step Past The Cultural Chasm Of An Earlier Era", But Americans Still Obsessed With Debates On Issues Dating Back To The 1960s

Massive Increase In Number Of Miscarriages In US In The Weeks After 9/11, "Communal Bereavement" Blamed"

Taliban In Kabul Kill NATO Military Elite In Attack, Two Colonels & Two Lieutenant Colonels

Some Secrets Of Pentagon's New Shuttle Mission Exposed By Amateur Sky Watchers - Vehicle Can Launch And Catch Satellites, Stay Aloft For Nine Months

In 1992, Thais Fought Together For Democracy, Now They Fight Each Other

Pakistan : "When Water Stops Running From The Taps, People Blame America"

London Museum Changes Name Of New Permanent Exhibit From 'Climate Change Gallery' To 'Climate Science Gallery' As Skepticism Over AGW Rises

Most Web Users Have No Idea Extent Of Routine Monitoring Of Their Online Behaviour, Scanning E-Mails For Key Words, Crawling Computer's Memory, Remembering Where They've Been, Who They Communicate With The Most

Rush Limbaugh, Self-Styled Hero Of Working Class America, Drinks $4000 Bottles Of Wine, Sleeps In Exact Replica Of Presidential Suite From Paris' Hotel George V

For Hollywood's 10,000 Working Movie Producers, The Glory Days Are Just About Over As Major And Small Studios Slash Production

Cross-Posted From Your New Reality

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RoboPessimism : First Use Of The Word Robot Involved Robots Wiping Out Humanity

A simple but visually compelling, fact-rich example of a modern graphic educational tool. You are more likely to remember distinct facts from this, than from wadding through a 1200 word text book entry.

From OnlineSchools via @rod3000.


Via: Online Schools

Let the historians of the future take note, former police commissioner Mick Keelty tried to warn us of the coming robotic criminal underground when we still had time to do something about it. Did we listen? No, we did not :

Technology such as cloned part-robot humans used by organised crime gangs pose the greatest future challenge to police....

Mr Keelty said the police force would have to use experts from the private sector to fight tech-savvy organised criminals, because it lacked the necessary skills.

...he identified the use of robotics and cloning as future challenges.

"Our environmental scanning tells us that even with some of the cloning of human beings - not necessarily in Australia but in those countries that are going to allow it - you could have potentially a cloned part-person, part-robot," he said.

"You could (also) have technology acting at the direction of a human being, but the human being being distanced considerably from the actual crime scene."

It's only a matter of time before a bank robber gets shot and bleeds blood and battery acid.

Fortunately, Australians are already being trained in how to deal with hordes of RoboBarbarians On Segways :

And the Baby Boomers thought they were the rock n roll generation. Check out some of their mums and dads going off to the Bay City Rollers (with Ann-Margaret) in the mid-1970s.

BAY CITY ROLLERS & ANN MARGERET SATURDAY NIGHT @ Yahoo! Video

Just because she was knitting, doesn't mean she wasn't rocking out.

(via Dangerous Minds and @chaslicc)

"Yeah, I Was Trapped In The Beaconsfield Mine For A Few Weeks"

Brant Webb is running for the seat of Bass in Northern Tasmania and is making his own ads :



Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott can learn plenty from Webb's ad. If you don't see ads during the Federal Election 2010 campaign where Rudd and/or Abbott are bashing in sign posts, you know they don't really want it enough.

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Majority 33% Of People Prefer To Read Awesomely Distorted Polls

Bad news for the Gillard Gushers. A new Daily Telegraph polls reveals only 1/3 of Australians favour Julia Gillard as prime minister, while 2/3 prefer Kevin Rudd.

Whoops, how did I get that so wrong? What I meant to say was :


The Daily Telegraph

An infamous Rupert Murdoch memo must have hit the vacuum tubes a few weeks ago : Get Rudd The Fuck Out Of There, or words forming a similar directive.

It seems like only yesterday the young journos of News Limited's head office were laughing it up over games of pool with Kev's Krazee Krew at a Surry Hills pub, having dealt with Howard through a very effective campaign of near daily photos of him looking all old and bent over and alone. Finished.

You'll know it's really on when the photos begin appearing of Kevin Rudd furtively licking his lips, a habit, a temptation, he is unable to resist even when he knows he's being interviewed on TV and his head will appear two metres high in pubs and bars, while jocular drinkers shout "Fuck me, we've got a lizard running the country!" to much laughter.

Bad enough to see on TV, devastating to have staring up at you from the pages of a newspaper.


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The Chaser on Kevin Rudd, three years ago :



Maybe Kevin needs a theme song? It worked for Gough Whitlam (he was a pre-internet, pre-colour TV Australian prime minister who, by the rapturous, near religious-like, frenzy of dancing, chanting and clapping on display below was seen to be God-like by some of his followers) :



Baby Boomers were so much funnier when they were young.


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The Drum reader Koesonya explains how to be The Opposition :

- Australia didn't sink in the GFC : Thanks to the Howard years.
- Govt carbon trading suggestion : Great Big New Tax
- Govt pointing out that it used to be Oppn policy : that was different!
- Govt being repeatedly defeated in the senate on above : Turncoats, gutless liars
- Oppn suggesting an extra tax on *non polluters* instead of emission trading:
economically sensible solution
- Govt introducing maternity leave : Mickey Mouse solution
- Oppn suggesting a new tax for the same : sensible option
- Govt not taking over hospitals : breaking promises
- Govt taking over hospitals : power grab
- Govt claiming GST for above : money grab
- Govt taxing cigarettes : Great Big ... ummm ... silence
- Govt taxing extraordinary mining profits : Great Big New Tax!
- Govt decreasing corporate tax : ... silence
- Govt presenting the budget: Won't work! Liars! Great Big New Tax! Debt crisis! Armageddon!

That about covers it.

Murdoch's Pot Of News Gold

By Darryl Mason

Front page from the only newspaper in Australia I would pay to read online, The Northern Territory News :



Yesterday's front page was even better :



The story :

Territory victims in large-scale accidents or catastrophes will soon be barcoded at the scene before being sent to hospital.

Experts say it is only a matter of months before Territory emergency services adapt the revolutionary barcode card technology

Card?

The technology is designed for major catastrophes which involve more than 10 victims.

Royal Darwin Hospital director of disaster preparedness Dr Ian Norton said it would put the Territory at the forefront of major emergency responses in Australia.

"It's the holy grail of disaster management," he said.

Disaster or large scale accident victims will be given cards, with barcodes on them.

But I read the whole story. So it worked. The few moments of 'Wait, nobody's going to be forced to get barcodes tattooed on their arms and/or foreheads?' disappointment faded because it turned out to be an interesting story anyway.

Pretty soon the Northern Territory News is going to find a way to combine two of their most popular front page subjects - UFOs and crocodiles. At least I hope they do. I know they can.

UFO and crocodile (sighting, attack, wrestling, death roll, walking upright) stories bring the NTN the kind of international traffic that makes jaws drop across the rest of the 'serious' News Limited newspapers, like The Australian and the Daily Telegraph. Why the rest of Murdoch papers don't raid the NTN mercilessly for stories and headlines is a mystery. Why Fox News, for example, doesn't have a chunk of a show devoted to rounding up a week's worth of NTN's WTF? news and outback wisdom and madness is just bad business.

Anyway, soon the Northern Territory News will run a front page claiming that crocodiles are being abducted by UFOs, or better yet, that crocodiles leaped up and grabbed a low-flying UFO and caused it to crash, and I'll be ordering a copy of that front page, laminated.

No, framed.

To add to the collection :






Crocodiles + Bikini Girl :



I love that a g-string eating dog takes news priority over some guy getting smashed in the head with a television set. As it should :




Still one of my favourite news stories of 2009 :



That's how you sell newspapers.

And by the way, that cat can talk, and if yours doesn't, well, that's probably because you don't love it enough.


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The Late Show, in the early 90s, saw the future :



The state of Australian wogomedy, 2010, international distribution and a chunky location budget



It will be one of the highest grossing Australian movies of the year. Sweeet mate.

(via @ClubWah)

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The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was longer and wider than a football field. It sits at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, after explosions shattered the platform and killed 11 people on April 20.

Then the oil and natural gas began to flow. BP doesn't know how to stop this :

,,,,one intense kick of natural gas caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to be shut down because of the fear of an explosion just weeks before a similar release succeeded in destroying and sinking the platform and sent millions of gallons of oil on a collision course with Louisiana and the rest of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The hole from which tens of thousands of barrels of oil now geysers reaches 30,000 feet down into the Earth's crust. They can only make educated guesses about what's down there, or what's coming up the pipe.



From NOLA :

Shortly before the accident, engineers argued about whether to remove heavy drilling mud that acted as a last defense against such catastrophic kicks, and the decision to replace the mud with much lighter seawater won out.

...(frozen natural gas) slush forced its way to the rig, shot 240 feet in the air and heated into a gas that quickly ignited into fireballs....Among those tossed asunder by the explosions were BP officials who were on the rig to celebrate a seven-year spotless safety record.

This Is A Must Read

Stephen Colbert : "No One Knows What The Fuck They're Doing"

Federal Election 2010 : Free Buckets Of Fear & Paranoia For All

The Liberal Party may have John Singleton about to start churning out 'Tony Abbott : The Real Choice' ads, but Family First has got Groupthink :



UPDATE : I was shocked to learn the above is not a real ad for Family First's election campaign. They should purchase it immediately.

Unfortunately, that fake ad is exactly of the style and theme that we are going to be inundated with all the way up to the election.

It will be a repulsive campaign of negativity and fear.

And millions of Australians will fall for it, willingly, because they love to think they've got something other people want, and will do anything to get.


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A very, very effective first Federal Election 2010 campaign ad from opposition leader Tony Abbott :



But there's something about one part of that ad that reminds me of something else....