A remarkable photo by Tim Silverwood of the rotting corpse of a juvenile sperm whale on a Newcastle beach, from ABC News' Reader Submitted Photo Collection :



There's plenty more excellent reader photos here.

I hope the trickle of entertaining #FedElect2010 political ads, by professionals & amateurs (or professionals imitating amateurs), turns into a steady stream. Key word - entertaining :



Via VexNews

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Free Gay Heroin For All

John Birmingham poses a What If? on The Greens, who now command a chunky 16% of the national vote, according to recent polls (excerpts) :

What if Bob Brown's lentil eating slouch bikers and militant anti-military-stuff movement actually got a couple, just a couple, of seats up in the lower house, and forming a government after the next election actually required the eventual victor, be it Abbott or Gillard, to cut a deal with Brown?

What would that government actually do? And more importantly what could it not do, in terms of passing laws and spending money?

They might well be able to leverage their support into seemingly minor but actually significant policies such as, say, a moratorium on the release of genetically-modified organisms into the environment. Or a ban on old growth logging.

They'd almost certainly put a bullet into any xenophobic nonsense about demonizing asylum seekers as mad bombers and child killers waiting to jump our queues and blow up our shopping malls because they hate our precious, precious freedom so much they're willing to spend years in a detention centre just to have a crack at us.

...in actual security policy, even motherhood statements like the party's central principle that "no nuclear armed or powered forces should be deployed within Australia's maritime boundaries" would mean a radical transformation of decades of settled, bipartisan policy, abrogating as it would the entire alliance with US.

A great read.

Read The Full Story Here

Tony Martin on turning 41 :

Most people my age have kids to make them feel old, but my wife and I are part of that somehow suspect group of people standing over at the side, looking at their shoes, whenever some politician starts tossing around the word ‘family’; selfish couples who don’t want children. Other forty-one-year-olds have the blooming sophistication of their own offspring to point out how they’ve become daggy and unfashionable. We have to rely on far subtler signposts.

Until about two years ago, I would read both the local street press publications from cover to cover, down to every last Fred Negro curlicue. Then I started to notice how, when I got to the dance music section in the middle, I’d slide my hand through to the back page and flip the entire silvery supplement over, and make for the live reviews at the back, in the hope that someone I recognised, like You Am I, had done a gig that week.

Read The Rest Here

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Adriana Xenides died today, aged 54 :



Dan Ilic pays an appropriate tribute :



UPDATE : The Daily Telegraph sticks in the knife, one last time :



What the fuck do Holly and Annette think she should have been wearing to the newsagency? A fucking ballgown?

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"We Will Decide Which Cetaceans Enter This Country, And The Manner In Which They Come!"

By Darryl Mason

Peter Garrett strikes out on his own as federal Labor descends into a shambles, offering blue whales free air mattresses if they find their way onto land and don't wish to return to the sea :



Opposition leader Tony Abbott, reveling in his best poll numbers yet against prime minister Kevin Rudd, is expected to mount a furious campaign against what he has already described as the Rudd government's "failed policies to keep whales where they belong, in the sea."

"Peter Garrett wants whales to think that once he's saved them, they should feel free to come on up and make themselves at home. Well, sorry, but that's not an Australia I want to live in. Enough is enough, we need to turn those whales back."

Controversial Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey revealed a surprising knowledge of the breeding habits of marine life when he railed against Peter Garrett during a Canberra doorstop :

"It's time to turn back all Cetaceans who try to enter this country illegally. They're queue jumpers. It's bad enough so many water mammals want to flop up our beaches, but after them comes all the egg layers. Have you seen how many eggs those big turtles can lay? They'd fill a town in a few months!"

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said it boiled down to one question,, that most of the "politically correct media" are too afraid to ask :

"Do you want to live next door to a family of whales? All that whistling and chirping all night long? They've got songs that take 20 to 30 minutes to sing. Do you want to want to live next door to that?"

@RacistWallaby certainly doesn't :

"Why is it that every convenience store is run by a family of sperm whales?"

If Garrett gets nothing else out of this term of federal Labor, he clearly intends to be remembered for at least saving some whales from Japanese harpoons.

He must be relieved the incredibly sick jokes about his insulation program and him being responsible for houses catching fire have gone quiet at last. Jokes spread by so many politicians and journalists who know that Peter Garrett's mother died in a house fire, when he was in his early 20s, and that he burned himself trying to save her.

If I had to put up with that kind of demented shit from people passing themselves off as adults, I'd want to be be out watching the fucking whales, too.


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Nothing's As Precious As A Hole In The Ground

How many other lies, or 'exaggerations', have flowed from the mega-funded corporate and political opposition to the new mining tax, led by the federal Liberals and the richest of Australia's miners?

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has retreated from his earlier claim that he had scrapped mining projects because of the Federal Government's proposed resource super profits tax.

Mr Palmer owns one of the largest deposits of iron ore in the world, carved out in five separate projects.

The investment for the first development was secured before the super profits tax was announced

Mr Palmer, a Liberal National Party donor, told Lateline last month he had canned two projects in Western Australia's Pilbara region because of the tax.

He said one of those projects would employ about 3,000 people and generate about $2 billion a year in exports.

This 'exaggeration' - the new mining tax will result in the loss of thousands of jobs - became the Big Fear headline and commentary rallying point, promoted by a media drooling over more than $100 million in unexpected mining industry advertising, with another $38 million or so from the federal government for their ad blitz.

Clive Palmer has now told Four Corners, in a report on the new mining industry tax :

"Probably, it should have been, '[I am] slowing them down, waiting to see what happens'," he said.

The Four Corners report and transcript is here

Some recent classic Clive Palmer channeling Fox News' Glenn Beck at his most idiotic, from his National Press Club debate with the AWU's Paul Howes :

"Do you really believe in the late 1800s Paddy Hannan would have walked 600 miles in the hot sun from Perth to Kalgoorlie to discover gold if he had to pay the Wayne Swan resource super tax?"

"I've talked to banks in Hong Kong and New York recently....They think that the tax is an outrageous proposition to nationalise our industries."

"...people like me don't want to pay the workers any more unless we have to. We're the baddies of the debate."

"Okay. We need to return to parliamentary democracy. This tax will rob our children of their future. Thank you."

"Federal Government is destroying state rights, destroying jobs, attacking the constitution."

"Perceptions wise, this means 70% (tax)"

"Resources do not belong to the Australian people."

They clearly belong to Palmer, who only has three corporate jets.

And Clive Palmer, again, declaring the new mining tax will result in the cancellation of Christmas :

"Mums and dads all over Australia will become unemployed," he said. "They won't have the money to buy their Christmas presents for their kids. They will be out on the street."

Having publicly blown the Santa Claus fantasy for all children, it appears most of the rest of Australia's mining industry elite are not too happy about Clive and his flappy mouth. According to this story :

At high-level talks in recent weeks, the biggest names in Australian mining - Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Xstrata - belatedly realised that Palmer's eccentric public utterances were harming the cause.

Special agent Barnaby Joyce was sent in to try and quiet Palmer :

Joyce is said to have reported back: "I can't stop him - he's his own man."

Yesterday, Joyce would not be drawn on "private conversations", but did admit that some may see Palmer as "distracting from key messages".

Something Barnaby happens to know quite a lot about.


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It doesn't matter what you think, or what some damned blogger, or one of 900 commenters to a news story, or ten million Twitterers think, or some stunningly biased columnist thinks, or what Kevin Rudd thinks, or Obama, or Putin, or anybody else, what matters most is what the leader of Turkey thinks :

We know, war as well as peace has its laws. In war you do not attack children, in war you do not attack women, old people, in war you do not attack civilians or religious functionaries, in war you do not attack those who are hoisting the white flag, health and rescue personnel; not in wartime, but in peace time, those who do these things not only violate the law, at the same time they trample humanity under their feet, they abandon humanity.

Despots, gangsters even pirates have specific sensitiveness, follow some specific morals. Those who do not follow any morality or ethics, those who do not act with any sensitivity, to call them such names would even be a compliment to them. Israel has, by attacking a ship with volunteers from 32 countries, in fact defied the world. World peace has been deeply wounded. This brazen, irresponsible, reckless government that recognises no law and tramples on any kind of humanitarian virtue, this attack of the Israeli government by all means – but by all means, must be punished.

A government, having made lying its state policy and does not blush on account of the crime it commits, instead of expecting them to open an investigation, the international community must investigate this incident in all its dimensions and must give the legal response.

The State of Turkey won’t be satisfied only by watching this. Turkey is not an adolescent, rootless state. It is in no way a tribal State! No one should attempt to play around with this nation, to test the patience of Turkey. As precious as Turkey’s partnership is, so harsh will be her hostility.

Losing Turkey’s friendship and partnership is a price itself to pay. We have always been in a historical friendship and collaboration with the Israeli and Jewish people. I do so believe, those Israeli people who watched this bloody attack in tears, who strongly criticise it, do understand very well that this incident does not befit human dignity....

The speech is powerful, poignant, aggressive, history-changing, which begs the question why you probably haven't heard about it, or seen extensive quotes from it in the mainstream media.

The old cliche was never more true : This Changes Everything.

It is also one of the few speeches I've ever read where a leader responded to brutal attacks on its unarmed civilians by talking about love.

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Satire always works better at getting the message across than doomery :

Compare. Two tourism ads using scenery, song and smiling, happy people.

The new Australian tourism ad :



The Iceland tourism ad :

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

There's an energy to the Iceland ad that is sorely lacking in the Australian one.


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Hush Little Kevvy, Don't Say A Word....

Annabel Crabb wonders, both seriously and satirically, whether prime minister Kevin Rudd is suffering through advanced insomnia and the effects of intense sleep deprivation :

Mr Rudd's own spouse has confirmed that the PM can get by on just three hours' sleep a night.

This revelation raises some compelling side issues - like: How do you stay married to someone who only sleeps for three hours a night? When do you go through their stuff?

But it also explains some of what we are seeing; the panicky decision-making, the forced bonhomie of yesterday's Canberra press conference (what exactly is a "rolled gold bucket of fear based on myth"? It sounds like a Kings Cross cocktail, the sort of thing that might have got Ricky Ponting into trouble, in loucher days), and the inability to communicate some basic points.

The breaking of the campaign promise on political advertising is one thing.

The more worrying element of the Prime Minister's reversal is that he actually needs to pay someone else $38 million to explain a policy decision because he is having difficulty explaining it himself.

Sleep deprivation can be deadly serious (says me at 2:12am). It not only fucks your head, and clouds your judgment, depriving yourself of sleep bitchslaps your immune system, destroys your libido, causes aural and visual hallucinations and induces intense paranoia.

The Sleep Doctor is in. Here's what you need to do, Kevin.

Take a sick day, check into a hotel, punch a few breakfast billies (Swannie hangs out in the rock scene, he'll be able to fix you up), eat a pizza while getting stuck into the bourbon, run a warm bath, put some mid-1980s Clannad on the stereo (not too loud), sink into the warm water for a solid half hour while thinking only of fluffy sleepy kittens lazily pawing at the air, flop out of the bath, wrap yourself in a warm towel, stagger into the bedroom, drawer the curtains, climb into bed, pull the blankets right up over your head to induce the feeling of being somewhere womb-like and imagine you're in a lift, going down - the top floor is bright light, and each floor you descend when the doors open is a deeper, darker shade of blue. The bottom floor is wonderful, peaceful darkness.

Sleep for ten hours.

Repeat.

Thank me later.

Any Porn To Declare?

Australian Customs officials are now scoring free porn from the hard drives of Australians returning from overseas holidays. Some of the titles from a recently confiscated hard drive :

Adult Pretty Woman, Real Female Orgasm, Asian Babe Moans, My Friend's Hot Mum and Sexy Blond.

The owner of the hard drive said his "rights have been violated" and his life "ruined". He said he will sue Customs if they delete the porn movies, all of which he claims are over-18 and legal in Australia.

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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