Coming soon to SBS, quality new Australian drama :



UPDATE : Unbelievable. Channel 9's A Current Affair ran ads claiming the above clip was from "a reality show" and "a waste of taxpayers money." Dumber than a bag of hammers. It also shows what A Current Affairs producers think about Westies, doesn't it?

Housos is a comedy from Paul Fenech, the creator of Pizza.

C.R.A.P

Senior Liberal Threatens "Bloodbath" If Joe Hockey Isn't Axed For Being Too Nice

How ugly and bizarre has conservative politics become in Australia when you can be lambasted and told to fuck off for being too popular and emphatic?

A senior Liberal Party staffer, who acts as an advisor to a minister of the Liberal Shadow Ministry (let's take a wild guess here....a member of Scott Morrison's staff?) posted this at the Menzies House website. It was quickly deleted, but not quickly enough (excerpts) :

The most interesting development in the Liberal Party of the last fortnight has not been the “silent pause gaffe” by Tony Abbott when confronted by journalist Mark Riley. It is, in fact, Joe Hockey’s decision to undermine his Liberal colleague Scott Morrison, and contradict official party policy on the issue of taxpayer funds being used to ferry asylum seekers across the country.

This is a day of remembrance of a tragedy, and we all feel great sympathy for those affected by the recent horrific events. Yet Hockey attempted to manipulate this and grandstand for his own personal advantage. And that is unacceptable. To take advantage of an event such as this to advance your own personal agenda is simply beyond the pale.

This is the demonstrated proof that Joe Hockey is completely ill-equipped to ever be a member of the leadership team of the Liberal Party. In fact, it is the last straw, after a string of gaffes and failures, and our parliamentary team is furious.

Joe Hockey has a teddy bear-like appearance and demeanour. He appealed to many viewers when he appeared on the Sunrise programme with Kevin Rudd. He no doubt enjoys a strong relationship with many journalists. To the average person in the street, Joe Hockey probably comes across as a likeable fellow.

It’s now well past the point of being an amusing joke. We are the Party that gave Australia Peter Costello as our Treasurer. We pride outselves on our economic managment. To say to voters that we propose Joe Hockey be the next Liberal Treasurer is an incomprehensible fall from grace - and a stain on our reputation that will not easily be fixed.

It is no secret that many Liberal MP's desire a new Shadow Treasurer who does not activly attack the Party line; Someone who does not seek personal attention at every waking turn; Someone who can stay true to Liberal values of small government when formulating policy.

We are beyond the point of backbencher despair - we are at the point of open revolt. While Shadow Cabinet can continue to put on a brave face, there can be no denying the panic that is spreading through the ranks as members view the destruction Hockey is causing. There can be no doubt that there needs to be a mechanism found quickly within the party to replace Hockey as Shadow Treasurer without resulting in a wider bloodbath...

After all, we have a far safer pair of hands ready in Andrew Robb - an MP with a proven track record of competence, combined with a consistent history of supporting Liberal Party values and fighting for smaller government.

The replacement might be messy, but the public have come to expect something a lot better from the Liberal Party in such a vital area.

Enough is enough. The Joe Hockey circus must come to an end. The Australian people deserve more. The Liberal Party deserves more. Hockey must go - and soon.

Here's what Joe Hockey said that has so infuriated so many of his Liberal Party colleagues :

"I would never seek to deny a parent or a child from saying goodbye to their relative.

"No matter what the colour of your skin, no matter what the nature of your faith, if your child has died or a father has died, you want to be there for the ceremony to say goodbye.

"I totally understand the importance of this to those families.

"I think we, as a compassionate nation, have an obligation to ensure that we retain our humanity during what is a very difficult policy debate."

That's it.

Wow. It's like the Liberals are trying to rebrand themselves as the Complete Fucking Arseholes Party. But why?

Did it even occur to this moron that one of the main reasons why the Coalition is (briefly) leading the Labor Party in (some) polls is because people are hearing a diversity of views & opinions coming from the conservative ranks, instead of the lock-step brain freeze infecting Labor?

UPDATE : A suggestion on a more practical rebranding for the Liberals : Complete Raving Arseholes Party (CRAP).

Great story :



Unfortunately, it's not true.

Tragically, young Rueben's mother was killed by a car and he was left with serious head wounds, but the Herald Sun thinks it's appropriate to report this tragic news with a punny headline :



Boom tish.

On Twitter, RacistWallaby vents his outrage and disgust :

Mother Nature's War On Humans continues. Two cyclones now look to be threatening the Northern Territory. No emergency warnings issued for Darwin as of 1opm tonight, but schools and many businesses will be closed tomorrow, just in case.



Latest warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology can be found here.

The Northern Territory News. How could a newspaper that breaks such news be losing readers? Complete mystery :



Look, I know you want to know the rest of this story, but once you read it you can't erase the details from your memory. Think carefully if you really want to know how this sex toy was launched across a room before you click this link.

Global Warming Is The New Hitler, according to a letter in the Northern Rivers Echo :

The climate change debate is over! No more silly scepticism, half truths and quoting of supposedly impeachable sources, like some raving Lord lunatic, can ignore the facts as they continue to be represented by scientists of all disciplines and driven home by extreme weather conditions. The extinctions of species, caused by global warming, predicted by scientists, have already begun to be observed. Glaciers are melting exponentially, forests are dying. Recently the Amazon rainforest experienced the worst drought in recorded history killing millions of trees and threatening to alter the forests ability to scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere. In fact scientists are afraid that it will become a reverse situation where dying and decaying trees will actually increase CO714987860 in the atmosphere. Like a smoker, the Amazon, one of the Earth’s lungs, may suffocate from too much toxic gas.

Yet the she’ll be right mentality of the dozy Australian governments and its sceptical numbnuts continues to dominate the inaction we see on just about every front when the world is confronted by a glaringly implacable problem. When the Jews faced annihilation under the Nazis the world dilly dallied and six million were exterminated in the gas ovens. As we dilly dally on the action needed to act on climate change caused by global warming the entire human species and sundry animal stands to reap the same fate. This time the oven will be the planet we live on. We are the 21st century Jews. Our enemies are apathy and vested interests who refuse to change their ways.

It sounds like Mother Nature may be the real enemy here, unless this letter is utterly insane.

Mike Carlton points out that despite there now being 13 times as many vehicles on NSW roads as 1945, the number of people dying each year is almost the same as it was 65 years ago. Hysteria about road safety, Carlton claims, is generated by "the road safety industry" :

"(this industry) makes work for itself with conferences, seminars and workshops, learned papers, academic theories and blizzards of statistics, constantly devising new ways to coerce and punish the rest of us poor mugs behind the wheel.

"No politician ever dares pull the industry into line because road safety has become a sacred cow and transport ministers like to be seen worshipping it. In fact, our road tolls are lower than ever."

Full Story Is Here

State election ads are usually worse than national election ads, so when even a mildly entertaining one comes along it should be enjoyed for the rare treat that it is :

The Only Shit In This Storm Is Channel 7 News

By Darryl Mason

This was going to be the lead news story on most Australian TV channels last night, an emotional tribute from Prime Minister Julia Gillard to the victims of the Queensland floods and victims of a nation-rocking run of natural disasters in the past few months, a tribute many Queenslanders, and victims of floods & fires in other Australian states, needed to see, a kind of catharsis, some kind of emotional release :



The stories Prime Minister Gillard recalled from the Queensland floods are pure tragedy, stunning, jolting tales of incomprehensible loss and sacrifice that still haven't completely settled into the Australian psyche yet.

Maybe you don't like it, maybe you don't believe her, maybe you think, like a cartoonist at The Australian, that it's all part of the New Julia Show :



But whatever it was,, it was necessary, and it should have been The News tonight & today. Opposition leader Tony Abbott seem quite prepared to step back from bitter fighting over the flood levy, if only for a day or two, to let Australians see their prime minister acknowledge their pain, their shock, their feelings of distress and loss.

To say, it's okay, it's time to cry about what happened, get it out and then get on with it.

A bizarre and revolting theme had developed that PM Gillard was somehow less than human because she didn't break down in front of flood victims, which is easy to imagine would have been far more upsetting to flood victims than the way she did deal with them. Who wants the leader of their country weeping in their arms after their state had just been smashed by both floods and a massive cyclone and tens of thousands have been left homeless?

She's wooden, she's unreal, some, many, in the old and new media have hissed for months, she doesn't show enough emotion. But how much emotion does PM Gillard have to show?

Here she is at the funeral of an Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan :



Isn't that enough stress and emotion in one face? Doesn't she look shattered by a death in a war she has supported in opposition and in government for almost a decade?

PM Gillard's speech and opposition leader Tony Abbott's measured reply was a moment of reflection at the start of a new year in Australian Parliament, a chance to acknowledge that the last couple of months have been emotionally draining, for all Australians.

That was the news Australians needed, deserved to see last night.

But by a few minutes after 6pm, news priorities across all channels had changed. And instead, we got this :




Mark Riley pretending he thought Tony Abbott was talking about Australian soldiers instead of himself was just plain pathetic, and an impossible to ignore alarm bell that this 'story' was more about Mark Riley's lust for attention and desire to be a press gallery journalist who could claim a political scalp than it was about Tony Abbott saying something "innappropriate" :

Abbott : "A soldier has died, and you shouldn't be trying to turn this into a subsequent media circus."

Riley: "The soldier's shouldn't? I shouldn't?"

Abbott : "Yes."

The first time seeing Abbott's 24 seconds of constant nodding, death staring and utter silence was cringe-inducing TV. The second time I saw it, I began to want to see Tony Abbott nut Mark Riley for being a total fuckhead. The third time, and the next time, and the next time, all the way through to Lateline, it was clear Tony Abbott's reaction to this offensive piece of We Make The News journalism was the right one.

The key question changed quickly from, 'Why didn't Tony Abbott say anything?' to 'In what dimension of irresponsible journalism is this even a fucking news story at all?' And 'Did Mark Riley even stop for a moment to think how the dead soldier's family and friends will feel seeing this blasted across the evening and tomorrow's news?'

From a statement released by Jared MacKinney's wife, Beckie, the day before her husband's funeral in September last year :

I would also like to express our appreciation to the media for the very sensitive manner in which they have covered the tragic events of the past few weeks, and also their ongoing respect for our privacy.

We have reached the deepest depths of despair since we were told of Jared’s death, but we have also been helped and comforted by the support and extraordinary generosity of spirit of old friends, new friends, and strangers who cared.

Beckie MacKinney, and other family members, were contacted by various journalists and news media last night, seeking comment & reaction, on both Tony Abbott's "sometimes shit happens" remark and Mark Riley's story.

Beckie MacKinney released a statement late last night saying the matter rests, that she believed Tony Abbott's comments were taken out of context by journalist Mark Riley and she would not be commenting further.

Jared MacKinney's dad, Ian, had this to say, according to the Sydney Morning Herald :

...the Opposition Leader's comments were ''out of line'' and made him ''feel sick''.

''My attitude would be to ignore it, to give it the least amount of credence,'' he said.

He described Mr Abbott as thoughtless, ignorant and uncaring. ''It just shows how good he is, or isn't. I'm not going to let it bother me, but it just shows he's not very thoughtful. He doesn't care too much.''

Mark Riley's Wikipedia entry was updated last night :



The update, probably removed by now :

"He dishonours the memories of fallen soldiers and causes distress to their widows by trying to make cheap political mileage out of innocent comments by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott."

Hard to argue with that.

Mark Riley bet that Tony Abbott's comment and long silence (and Channel 7 news reporter boasted on Twitter that Abbott's silence actually lasted almost a minute and a half) would be The Story. And it was. For an hour or two.

Riley must have gone to bed last night absolutely stunned at how quickly his 'story' veered from 'Tony Abbott : Still A Heartless Bastard?' to 'Why Does Mark Riley Still Have A Job?'

But, you know, like Tony Abbott says :




.

Canberra Pride

Hungry Beast returns for a third series this year. This moment of Gold from S2 :

Into The Heat

By Darryl Mason

Sydney melts under steaming skies
heat so intense
you sweat to breathe outside
the temperature climbs rapidly from daybreak
peaking at alarming digits
35, 38, 40, 42
spiking across the gasping edge
of the Sydney metropolitan basin
It's been like this for six days now,
the dawn sun doesn’t say “Good Morning” anymore
It says “Here, Fuck You.”

so hot you feel drunk
and if you down a few beers
you feel ready to crash
at two in the arvo
maybe the dogs that crawl under the house
into the shade
maybe they got the right idea
they know where it’s the coolest
but we can’t get under our homes
anymore

my grandfather could only take the heat
for so long
then he went under the house as well
resting in the cool shade
his dogs by his side
all of them panting
than fading into that half sleep
where the sting of raw blazing summer
just can’t reach you anymore

just how fucking hot can it get anyway?
you wonder this
as you feel an ice-cold beer in your hand
warming as you wind your way back
from the bar
hitting room temperature as you take
that first sip
knowing it’s a race now
to get the drink down
before the heat fucks it

A kid down the road
stumbling
stoned on the heat
decides to try the old test
to see if its hot enough
to fry an egg on the bonnet
of his dad’s fully worked old Valiant
crack, and even from here
I can hear the sizzle
then the kid’s triumphant cry
then his father coming out
then his father crying out
“What the fuck are you doing?”
but the kid is gone
up the street
into the heat

I suppose I could just get an air conditioner

You were right to be suspicious, the link has now been made abundantly clear :

The Night Of The SuperStorm

By Darryl Mason

(scroll down for latest posts, all posts in Sydney time)

This isn't meant to be a comprehensive round-up of all things Cyclone Yasi, just notes from the news as it breaks, quotes from QLD call-in radio coverage and info chunks from Twitter, throughout this long & tragic night.

Wednesday

10pm : The latest Bureau of Meteorology progress projection for Cyclone Yasi :



11.45pm : Cyclone Yasi is still a Category 5 storm and its full force is about to slam into Innisfail, the Queensland coastal town of 10,000 utterly devastated by Cyclone Larry five years ago.

11:47pm : Sounds like the 300kmh eye of Yasi is not going to hit Cairns. Lucky Cairns.

Thursday

12:12am : More than 100,000 homes in the path of Yasi have lost power. Power has been cut to the biggest evacuation centre in Cairns.

12:16am : People trapped in their homes as Yasi hits Townsville are calling police for help, but rescues are now impossible. Huge storm surges hitting coastal homes at Townsville.

12:20am : Latest Bureau of Meteorology update. 290kmh winds reported between Cairns and Ingham. "Very destructive winds" expected to last until 4am.

12:27am : The latest BoM satellite image as Yasi reaches land :



12:33am : North Queenslanders plan to ride out mega-cyclone drinking at their local pub. "She'll be right."

12:41am : Cairns locals kept their sense of humour.

12:42am : Caller to ABC Local Radio QLD asked "How's it going there?" Answer : "Yeah, great! Bit windy but."

12:50am : 7 metre storm surge expected to swamp some 10,000 homes in Townsville by dawn. "A tsunami combined with a storm," as ABC's Mark Colvin suggested. Townsville has lost power, winds of about 12okmh sweeping through the town.

12:54am : On Twitter, Queenslanders dealing with 120-150kmh reporting windows, doors bulging & bending, brick buildings shuddering, roofs lifting. Trying to imagine winds rising to almost 300kmh is filling them with terror. Twitter stream is #TCYasi.

1:27am : Caller Debbie from Townsville on ABCRadio QLD describes sitting in dark, listening to radio, crocheting by candlelight. "It's like living back in 1920!"

1:30am : Twitterers in Townsville describing "upside down rain", rain looks like it is falling up, not down.

1:32am : Surreal moment on Channel 7 news live coverage. Reporter Matt White in Cairns begs people not to go outside. He was standing outside as he made this plea.

1:33am : Caller to ABCRadio QLD describes eye of Yasi passing over Mission Beach, total calm, sky so clear he could see the stars.

2:01am : Full fury of Yasi now hitting Innisfail, reports of damage to homes, businesses, local infrastructure. Police receiving more calls from people begging for help, police unable to do anything but talk them through it. Four hours of storm fury still to come.

2:40am : Cairns central business district still has power, traffic lights and street lights still on.

3:02am : Apparently the storm surge near Townsville arrived earlier than expected and didn't combine with the morning tide, instead they acted against each other. This means the expected storm surge damage to homes along the beaches will not be as bad as predicted. Great news.

3:07am : In Sydney at least, channels 10, 9 and 7 have decided infommercials are more important than live coverage of one of the biggest cyclones in Australia's recorded history.

3:25am : Sounds like Cairns has escaped the worst of Cyclone Yasi's winds & storm surge. More great news.

3:26am : Satellite images apparently showing collapse of cyclone's eye, still a dangerous cyclone, but soon to be downgraded. Something miraculous appears to be happening.

3:33am : A roundup on online & print newspaper front pages from last night and this morning.

Brisbane Times :



Courier Mail :



Adelaide Advertiser :



Herald Sun :




Northern Territory News :

Cyclone Yasi : "It Is Too Late To Evacuate"



Cyclone Yasi is a Category 5 storm now hitting hundreds of kilometres of Northern Queensland coastline. The world famous resort of Cairns is expected to suffer incredible damage tonight by winds reaching 300kmh and a storm surge higher than 4 metres.

Dozens more coastal towns will be swamped by wave surges not seen in generations. The full extent of the damage to tens of thousands of homes and businesses along hundreds of kilometres of Queensland coast is impossible to estimate, but 4000 pre-deployed Australian soldiers in Townsville (also expected to be hit by Cyclone Yasi) have been told to expect the worst.

Many of the evacuation centres now filled with thousands of peoples are not rated for a Category 5 cyclone.

The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, and the prime minister, Julia Gillard, have both announced it is too late for people to get out. They are being told to stay in their homes, to shelter in bathrooms or basements, failing that, to take shelter anywhere, and too prepare for days without power and water.

Satellite images from yesterday of Cylone Yasi's arrival :





QLD premier Anna Bligh, 4:12pm :

"No-one should be leaving home now, that time has passed. You should be sheltering wherever you are."

2000 people are now taking shelter in a shopping mall in Cairns central business district, in the path of the cyclone. Evacuees are telling ABCNews24 the shopping centre is "full".

This is going to be apocalyptic.

ABC News Online is running near constant updates & important information here.

The State Emergency Service number is : 132 500

You can follow Queensland police services on Twitter : @QPSMedia

Or follow the Twitter hashtag : #TCYasi.

More to come...

Nobody's Buying The Smears

Julian Assange :

"How do you best attack an organisation?...you attack its leadership… with the dozens of wildly fabricated things said about me in the press."

Rupert Murdoch's news.com.au helps out with the attacks :



None of the Wikileaks-related books being released this week directly calls Assange a "smelly freak". The Murdoch media made up that term, and it's going global.

Commenters at news.com.au, like commenters on similar stories focusing on Assange's appearance and personality, and not the truths revealed by CableGate or other Wikileaks releases, don't buy into this smear campaign :

Can't get the guy by legal means, lets's destroy his character....

Blatant smear campaign cooked up by newscorp, America's government owned media source. Let's focus on the leaks, that's what's important here. Stop trying to spin and discredit this guy with your bogus stories. The people can see right through this charade.

this is nothing more than a grubby personal attack.

This smear is getting more and more ridiculous.

Character assassination by the media on behalf of the banks and politicians. How juvenille!

This guy starts exposing the truth and the vultures start circling. Go Wikileaks.

Come on, let's get real. The man has done something really important and this is the best they can come up with?

What's next? They're going to start calling him a stinky poopy head?

And my favourite :

so he smells like almost every other computer geek on the planet??? How is this news???

Exactly.

WA band Gyroscope's Baby, I'm Gettin' Better only reached Number 40 on the Triple JJJ Hottest 100, but for me it's the Australian pop song of 2010, short and sweet, an infectious chorus, great lyrics, the whole thing absolutely crackling with energy.

I've run this before, but every year when the talk returns to 'What Does It Mean To Be An Australian?' I usually think of this piece first, still relevant, still powerful, almost 100 years after it was written by C.E.W Bean on the eve of World War I :

In 1914, Australians were only 126 years from their first settlement in this continent...we were only 101 years from the first crossing of the Blue Mountains, only 63 (years) from the first gold rush, 58 (years) from the first establishment here of democratic self-government. Some Australian who went to the war had ancestors still alive who could remember some of the first generation of countrymen; many had grandparents or great grandparents who could tell them of the gold rush, the bushrangers, the later explorers and the imported convicts.

Yet, though many of the older men and women had actually lived in them, the colonial days were, by 1914, almost as extinct of those of William the Conqueror.

The people of the six colonies, which had federated only fourteen years before, regarded themselves as being in the forefront of human progress, and indeed, in some not unimportant respects they had reason to do so.

When emigrating from Britain most of their ancestors had half-consciously tried to cast off what they vaguely felt to be elements of inequality and injustice in the inherited social systems of Europe.

They were disrespectful of old methods, eager to try out new ones. They had of late deliberately changed the whole basis of their wage system, in an effort to adjust it to the public conscience in place of the uncontrolled results of supply and demand.

They had made many mistakes, due to vague thinking and inadequate study, but they had achieved something.

They had established at least one very great and successful industry - that of wool production - and had managed to so spread its profits that real wages were then possibly higher in Australia than anywhere else in the world; at all events the life of the ordinary man, woman and child contain probably more healthy recreation than anywhere else.

Public education then compared favourably with that of any people except perhaps those of Scandinavia; in the enjoyment of such modern material benefits as telephones and electric light Australians were ahead of the British though behind the Americans.

Probably nowhere were the less wealthy folk more truly free, or on such terms of genuine social equality with the rich, in dress, habits and intercourse....

It is true that in one respect living conditions in Australia - as in most newly-settled lands, even the United States - differed widely from those in older countries; a vast gap existed between the conditions in country and city. In the cities life was not markedly different from that of any great European or American town; but country life was in many parts still set in almost pioneering environment.

Yet the outback homesteads often contain surprising evidence of culture. It was much more than a superficial sign that the women who drove in to meet the mail train at a distant siding often dressed in the fashion of Paris, London, or New York.

And if in the bars and hostels even of the big cities at racetimes and on holidays there was sometimes evidence of the Wild West, there was little inferiority complex about the people of this particularly free country.

Its universities were in many ways progressive; its governments were launching into social experiments. Its business and political leaders thoroughly believed in its future and, with only 4 1/2 million white people (and perhaps 100,000 Australian blacks) in the continent, they borrowed freely from overseas to launch into industrial and social enterprises.

Many young Australians tended to condemn the English immigrant for his comparative slowness and lack of confidence in dealing with the unknown men and conditions, and were irritated by his certitude as to the superiority of the methods of the "old country".

The Australian ballad writers, Gordon, Lawson, Paterson, Ogilivie and others, were constantly read and quoted. The people were not formally religious, but there was a marked comradeliness in their outlook, and no degree of economic pressure could induce them to abandon it.

The people, newly federated, were at this stage very consciously intent upon building themselves into a great nation.

Without giving the matter much thought, most Australians assumed that the development of their country would be similar to that of the United States.

...with easy optimism, Australian anticipated that within a century or so her 5 million people would be increased to 60 if not 100 million.

The historian, who tries to to discover what motive most powerfully moved the Australian people at that interesting stage, will probably come to the conclusion that tradition - such as is consciously or unconsciously handed down in almost every word or action by parents and teachers to children, by priests and pastors, professional trades and business men to their successors, by witters to readers, even by older children to younger - was immensely strong and enduring.

The tradition was largely British...But with the British standards were mingled those of the pioneers - the backwoodsmen, and the men of the great ruins and the mining fields.

It was to these last that Australians owed their resourcefulness and readiness to grapple with their objectives even against authority, and also their basic creed, in industry as in war, that a man must at all costs stand by his mate.

...they clung to the principle of standing by the weaker brother.

Toowoomba Police released this jarring image from the day a churning, metres high, river of floodwaters slashed through the centre of their city. They wanted to find out if anyone knew who the person caught up in the floods was, and if they survived.



A few hours later it was revealed the girl survived, pulled from the water by rescuers "a fair way down" from where she was photographed fighting for her life in a shocking reality undreamed of, unplanned for, only minutes earlier in the middle of a summer's day in an Australian city.