Everybody's Trying to Cash In On Global Warming, Even My Boss

By Darryl Mason

Under the headline, No Backers For Rudd's Reckless Plan, The Professional Idiot promotes the claim that climate change minister, Penny Wong, has no backing at all for the emissions trading system :

Here’s the real growing consensus among the public - that global warming theory is wildly exaggerated.

The Professional Idiot has somehow managed to forget that there is one very obvious backer of the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme, and its inevitable bigger family of global taxes, and credits, based on carbon usage, and that would be his own Earth Hour loving boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert "Climage Change Poses Clear, Catastrophic Threats" Murdoch has put almost his entire worldwide news empire (including The Professional Idiot's Herald Sun) on a hardcore carbon diet, in the hope that when the carbon trading becomes reality, he'll be able to cash in. Just like the Rothchilds.

Hilariously, that big banner ad promoting the fact that News Limited, and the Herald Sun, are true believers in global warming, and reducing carbon emissions, appears yet again across the top of The Professional Idiot's story about how the Rudd government has little support for its emmissions trading plan.



(click to enlarge)

And in a bizarre admission for a journalist, hitting his sixth decade, The Professional Idiot reveals he has never seen the movie Network, hands down one of the most important films on the business of journalism ever made.

Quoting this fantastic speech by playwright Paddy Chayefsky, from a climactic scene in Network, was very popular with allegedly crazed, president hating, America despising Lefties during the Bush II regime. Now, of course, the "I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore!" mantra is rapidly being adopted by conservatives for the Age of Obama, only eleven weeks into the new presidency. Same words, same message, same reality, different presidents :

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad. You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair also suddenly notices something that has been going on in the United States for years, that he somehow managed to not notice at all during his beloved Bush II
reign :

"The police state continues to grow..."

The big banner Corporate Green ads from the boss, proclaiming that global warming is so real News Limited is frantically trying to reduce its carbon emissions, keeps showing up on Blair's blog, too, mostly when he's running stories proclaiming that global warming is a farce, a con, a delusion, bogus and that carbon trading will spell doom for all.

And still nothing from Blair on how disgusted he is that global warming propaganda is being jammed into News Corporation TV shows aimed at children.

When Tim Flannery and Bob Brown scare children with global warming hysteria, it's something evil, but when Tim Blair's boss does it, hey, it's just business.

"Who's The President Of Austria Again?"

Now this, this is a snub. In South Park, John Howard is still prime minister of Australia :



What a waste. South Park could have so much fun with Kevin Rudd :

"John Howard and Vladimir Putin are depicted as still being the leaders of Australia and Russia, respectively, although Howard was defeated in his re-election bid and Putin stepped down as president of Russia, becoming prime minister, before the episode aired," the entry says.

The episode has not yet been broadcast in Australia.

It doesn't matter whether the episode has been 'broadcast' in Australia or not, tens of thousands of Australians have already downloaded the torrent of this episode from The Pirate Bay or other file sharing sites. If SBS isn't prepared to air these new episodes on the same day as American viewers get them, they've only got themselves to blame for decreased ratings.

The Promotion Only Dead Tree Edition

This is one of the best, recent, examples of the changing times, and fates, of newspapers in Australia. A newspaper is being printed solely to act as promotion for an online news site :

In a move which the company is describing as a “one-off promotion”, it will distribute a free 24-page tabloid under the brisbanetimes.com.au and WAtoday.com.au mastheads. Each have 15,000 print runs and are being distributed at key points in Brisbane and Perth.

His First Word Was "Change"

With the introduction of MP3 Players For Pregnant Women, an important question needs to be asked :

When is it too soon to start in pumping Obama speeches, around the clock, through those belly-attached speakers?

And what happens if the mother prefers the music of Slayer and Napalm Death to Brahms and Beethoven?

More Here

Dozens Of Police Harass Old Hippies, Young Stoners For Minimal Result

By Darryl Mason

At least 25 police and four sniffer dogs were used to seize "a small amount" of cannabis from punters hanging around the Enmore Theatre for a Sydney gig last week by Cheech & Chong.

That's more than $70,000 of police resources to seize what was probably less than a half ounce of cannabis, by searching some 50 people and delaying the start of the show :

A New South Wales Police spokeswoman confirmed the drug operation was conducted in an area that included a nearby railway station and licensed premises near the theatre.

...six people were caught in possession of small amounts of cannabis.

The six were issued with caution notices. They were not fined nor charged.

Police like searching stoners. They rarely put up a fight, the intense paranoidia in those they pat down is good for giggles with other cops later, and stoners all but never pull knives or guns or start screaming and spitting in their faces.

Two dozen cops, four drug dogs? Thank Christ, crime has dropped in Sydney to the point where police have nothing better to do than to go searching for small amounts of cannabis amongst Cheech & Chong fans in Newtown and Enmore bars. The most surprising result would be if they found nothing at all.

Anyway, what Cheech & Chong fan would go out in public carrying large amounts of cannabis, or any other drug for that matter? If they learned anything from C & C albums and movies, it's do your drugs before you go out.

A grumbly, but also excellent, four word review of the Cheech & Chong show from The Australian :

Their material is appalling....

That's why the audience made so much noise, and laughed so loud. Cheech & Chong should add that line on their tour poster.

More from The Australian :

Sure, I remember when a poster of a larger-than-life spliff was revolutionary and fun. But now a new young audience hoots and sings along, and takes pictures of each other in front of the tour logo, and queues at the end to buy the merchandise. What is going on here?

They think Cheech & Chong are funny? They understand it's a joke? They know the difference between bitterly dreamed-out, rapidly aging ex-hippie boomers and two very successful stoners who sold millions of albums and crafted some of the most successful comedy movies in history?

Should these young Cheech & Chong fans be out binge-drinking instead of sitting in a theatre watching two brilliant satirists?

The people issued with caution notices for carrying small amounts of cannabis should keep them as mementos. They might be worth something one day, on eBay at least, when cannabis prohibitions joins all the rest of the stupid, wasteful, tragic and ultimately rejected ideas of the 20th century.

Oh Really, You Think You've Tried Everything?

It makes me damn proud to know that Australians are out there in the world coming up with such incredibly wild shit like this :

I had heard of a tour offered by Bigfoot Hostel, which Darryn Webb, a tour guide from Australia, founded in 2005, when he was developing the sport on Cerro Negro.

He’d grown up sandboarding in Queensland, and once he visited the volcano (in Nicaragua) he realized its boarding potential. Here was a dunelike slope, only bigger and blacker, and with the added thrill of a potential eruption.

After a lot of trial and error with sledding vessels — he tried boogie boards, mattresses and even a minibar fridge — he settled on plywood reinforced with metal and augmented with Formica under the seat.

He rode a mini-bar fridge down the side of a live volcano and then came up with a successful tourism business.

Now that's Orstrahyun.

Still Not Available

By Darryl Mason

The Professional Idiot has a bit of a whiny squirt here about bookshop owners, who clearly think he's an arsehole, refusing to stock a copy of his 2006 book that his publishers apparently refuse to reprint. A reader writes to tell him of his long, arduous search for The Professional Idiot's collection of old columns, through second hand book shops in Melbourne, Cooper Pedy, Adelaide, Brisbane, coming face to face with shockingly sarcastic second hand bookshop owners (are there any other kind?) who think The Professional Idiot is. quote, "a rabid right wing demon!!". Yeah, that sounds realistic. It was only when this reader returned home to France that it occurred to him to try and buy The Professional Idiot's old book online.

The Professional Idiot doesn't appear to know that if his book publisher refuses to print more copies, he can, himself, order a reprint of his old book, say a thousand copies, for only a chunk of what it would cost to take a family holiday in Italy, and he can sell his own book through his "one million hits a month" blog direct to his brethren, without having to worry about rotten old sarcastic second hand bookshop owners supplying "ideological" instant book reviews, through guffaws of laughter, to the occasional customer interested enough to ask for a copy.

Or, seeing how the book is a collection of old columns from the Herald Sun anyway, The Professional Idiot could simply just republish the intro and contents of his book on his blog, on a separate dedicated page, for free, for all readers, so they don't have to face the crushing horror of sarcastic second hand bookshop owners anymore.

The Professional Idiot takes a moment to lay out the foundation stones for a possible Anti-Conservative Big Lefty BookShop Conspiracy blog post franchise :

I’ve published this not to fluff my own feathers, but to further illustrate the stultifying group-think of the “intelligentsia”, and the institutional hurdles facing anyone who might challenge its favored myths and prejudices. Smug complacency rules too often, I’m afraid.

People running second-hand bookshops are part of the "intelligentsia"? Really?

I helped run a second-hand bookshop once, so maybe I should start claiming that "I have now retired from the intelligentsia".

And I want that t-shirt : Smug Complacency Rules.

It sure does.

In the below video, The Professional Idiot would, by his reckoning, be represented by the mud farmers, while the Institutional Group Think Anti-Conservative Second Hand BookShop Intelligentsia is King Arthur. Help, Help, I'm Being Repressed! :



UPDATE : A respected polling analyst has had enough of The Professional Idiot's mutilating of statistical data and announces that The Professional Idiot should be sodomised with a calculator.

"Yeah, You Should Try Nationalising Some Oil Companies, It's Fun"

Of course you know all about the Terrorist Fist Jab.

But did you notice the Socialist Thumb Squeeze between Obama and Hugo Chavez?

Definitely one of the funniest scenes in an Australian movie, just about ever. David Wenham in Gettin' Square :

Irish comedian and surly bookshop owner, Dylan Moran, on Australia and tall poppy syndrome :

"This...is a real thing isn't it, still? That's a really big part of the culture, that if anybody seems to be getting above themselves, you cut them down to size really quick. It's very similar in Ireland. The old saying there was that it was the only place in the world where somebody would spend 20 minutes crossing a crowded room to come over and tell you you were a cunt."

Art by Ron Cobb.

Stories You Might Have Missed

Some recent stories of mine from Your New Reality, for those who don't go reading over there :

No More Paul Hogans Or Kevin "Bloody" Wilsons? Australian Judge Rules Against The Freedom To Insult And Offend

Infant-Led Overthrow Of United States Looms : Obama Bows To Saudi Royalty.....And Children!

The Last Time 3D Cinema Can Save The Movie Industry

Obama Promises Prosperity By Smashing The Insane Greed Of The 20th Century's Financial Elite

SNAKE!

Even the most absurd, but curiously entertaining, of movie plots have a weird tendency to eventually come true :

Qantas had to take a plane out of service when baby snakes went missing from a package being carried in the cargo hold earlier this week.

Twelve baby pythons were in the cargo of a flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne on Tuesday, but on arrival only eight were left.

Fun python fact :

"Our people called in a reptile expert and there was a suggestion that some of the baby pythons had eaten the other pythons because apparently it is not uncommon for baby pythons to eat each other," he said.

That goes right up there with the story an NT local told me about how crocodiles in the East Alligator River will lay extra eggs when food supplies are low, so they have fresh crocodile to eat later.

Comment Mining, Another Rich Seam Found

The Professional Idiot readies his brethren to fight back against the coming Evil Pagan Green Nazi Lefty Commo Chairman RuddObama Socialist censorship regime. Or something :



Yes. You may get banned or censored for trying to point out some ugly truths about what he is attempting, but mostly failing, to do to Australian society.

UPDATE : The Professional Idiot wants his readers to believe that lefty politically correct censorship will censor him, or them. But here's someone who has actually been effectively censored and told by a court that the notion of freedom of speech does not cover his beliefs, as bizarre and repulsive as they may be to most, and he now faces jail for refusing to be silenced :

"The courts have held, but his conduct shows he does not accept that the freedom of speech citizens of this country enjoy does not include the freedom to publish material calculated to offend, insult or humiliate or intimidate people because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin. It is conduct that amounts to criminal contempt."

Federal Judge Rules Against The Freedom To Insult And Offend

More Syndication, Less Investigation

The Australian newspaper announces that boss Rupert Murdoch is preparing to cull hundreds of journalists across his media empire.

Well, they didn't announce that, but they did announce this, which is pretty much the same thing :

News Corporation has created a new unit to share content and resources across the vast media empire.

"Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise," Murdoch said.

"The creation of a new unit designed to share valuable news content and harness the power of News Corporation's vast editorial resources is vital to our success as a global media entity."

This is not a news story. This is a Murdoch mission control press release. Less journalists will be generating more content which will be shared more widely across Murdoch media entities worldwide. More Australian Murdoch journalists will be marched away from their desks by security guards in the next few months. But you probably won't read about that in The Australian.

Now He's Made It



Academy Awards? Pfft. AFI Awards? Yawn.

All actors know they've never really made it, never really cracked the mass consciousness, until they've been turned into a toy. Not a boy toy, a real toy, something that kids can get their hands on, throw around and recreate scenes from the toy-worthy movie they temporarily worship, until they get bored and burn it to a molten pool on the back path with half a can of petrol.

Sam Worthington has now joined that rarest club of Australian actors.



In Terminator Salvation, Worthington plays a robot who doesn't know he's a robot until he looks down and sees his own metal guts hanging out. That kind of news would make no-one happy, least of all an emotional robot who was convinced he was human. He joins the anti-robot resistance. He fights giant robot arms.



And not just a toy, Worthington has also been dealt the very American honour of becoming a Halloween mask.


It's a massive year for Worthington, he's also got James Cameron's Avatar coming up in December. Worthington in 3-D, with Sigourney Weaver.

If you haven't already seen them, Worthington starred in two pretty damned good Australian crime movies, back in 2002 and 2003 - Getting Square and Dirty Deeds. Both are well worth checking out.

(Source for the images here)

Sophie The Wonder Dog Goes International



The absolutely joyful story of Australia's Castaway Dog is going international, with write-ups in media across the US, China, England, everywhere.

The Daily Mail in the UK gives Sophie's survivor story a big run and the readers are ecstatic. Over and over again the commenters say "What a happy story!" "What a wonderful story!" "A story with a happy ending for a change."

It Sure Is :

When Jan Griffith's beloved dog, Sophie Tucker fell overboard from her family's yacht she feared her pet had drowned.

But Sophie Tucker, a grey and black cattle dog, wasn't going to give up that easily.

The determined pet swam six miles through ferocious shark-infested seas to an island, where she survived for more than four months by hunting wild goats for food.

'I thought I'd never see her again, but she's proved to be a dog who can really look after herself,' said Miss Griffith.

A handful of people living on the island reported seeing a dog running around, but assumed it was a feral animal.

When the bodies of several young goats were found, locals contacted wildlife rangers and word of a dog on the island reached the ears of Miss Griffith and her family.

'We wondered whether it could be Sophie Tucker but thought 'No way'.

'They waited at the marina as the rangers' boat came in - and there in the cage was a grey and black dog.

'We called her name and she went crazy - whimpering and banging on the cage, so they let her out and she ran over to us and almost knocked us over with excitement,' Miss Griffiths said.

'She's settled in well back at home now. I think she's appreciating the air conditioning.'

Island locals are amazed that Sophie managed to survive the big swim through waters infested with sharks. Here's something I didn't know :

'The smell of a wet dog is irresistible to a shark,' said a fisherman.

Sophie's story has the making of a great Australian children's movie. Let's hope someone here moves quick to get this fantastic tale onto cinema screens before an executive at Disney changes the dog's name to Ralphie and shifts the action to an Hawaiian island.

Blatant Anti-Tinkerism

St Alban's, in the McDonald Valley, was still a two to three day, spine-jarring, bone-rattling Cobb & Co coach journey from Sydney when the Settlers Arms Inn, near the banks of the McDonald River, was heaving with travelers in the mid-1800s. But not just anybody could stay at such prestigious digs, as this reproduction of an original sign in the bar from that era makes clear :



Four pence a night for Bed
Six pence with Supper
No more than five to sleep in one bed
No Boots to be worn in bed
Organ Grinders to sleep in the Wash house
No dogs allowed upstairs
No Beer allowed in the Kitchen
No Razor Grinders or Tinkers taken in

Only five to a bed?

Outside of a local's explanation, "Tinkers would steal anything not bolted down," I don't have any valuable information to hand as to why Organ Grinders were thought only slightly more worthy of the most basic of accommodations than Tinkers or Razor Grinders, who were utterly banished.

The dark, atmospheric Settlers Arms today :



The sandstone blocks used to build the inn were hacked out, and usually transported, by convict slave labour. Breaking tools in the shaping of the sandstone could bring savage floggings, or death. Horses were more valuable than men, Aborigines were less valued than dogs. The McDonald Valley is one of the most beautiful and untouristed areas of New South Wales, with an extraordinary history soaked in extreme violence, incredible pioneering spirit, hardship, emancipation and back breaking work.

The St Alban's graveyard, like the inn, is small, but rich with history. The graves of the original white settlers dating back to the 1820s still stand, others older and forgotten decay into the ever creeping foliage.





Some local history, from the late 1700s into the early 1800s :

During this time the relations between the indigenous aboriginal population in the area was reasonably harmonious, the area being populated by the Dharug and Barkinung people who called the river Deerubbin.

The natives treated the newcomers as welcome guests, teaching bush skills and assisting in the planting of crops, they did not realize that the whites intended to stay and claim ownership of the land. Property ownership was completely alien to the Aboriginal; one cared for the land, but did not own it any more than one could own the sky overhead or the air one breathed.

The convicts and their keepers were the dregs of English society and were a hard and ruthless bunch and unfortunately conflicts soon developed as the Aborigines were denied access to many of their traditional areas, with Yam beds destroyed as wheat and corn were planted on the river flats and the banks denied to them for fishing, their traditional foods.

There are recorded cases of Aborigines providing labor on farms in exchange for a share of the crop and then massacred rather than given their share. They, in turn retaliated by setting fire to the crops just as harvesting was due. Regulations were introduced prohibiting Aborigines entry to established farm areas again denying them their food supply.

More Here

Photos by Darryl Mason

The following post, from last month, will not be taken down or deleted from The Orstrahyun :


I Am Not A SockPuppet And Neither Is My Cat


I will not be so easily intimidated, or silenced.

Hope everyone enjoys their Easter break.

Journo Vs Blogger Vs Bad Guys

The new Russell Crowe movie sounds very interesting indeed :

One of the most hotly awaited Hollywood films of this year is State of Play, a political thriller starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren. It is an adapation of the widely acclaimed BBC television series, a complex tale of a journalist investigating the murder of an MP's researcher...

(Director Kevin) Macdonald explains why he wanted to turn this BBC mini-series into a far more compact, and less, complex, movie :

"I thought the crisis in newspapers was something to be explored; I love All the President's Men and, in fact, all films about journalism. I thought we could make the last film about newspapers before they die."

Russell Crowe stepped into the lead role with one week's notice, after Brad Pitt ditched the film, and quickly discovered that not all journalists are intrusive hacks who want to harass his wife and children.

Director Kevin McDonald on Russell Crowe :

"...we argued a lot about journalism. Russell thinks that almost all journalists act out of self-interest and that most journalism is deliberately misleading and inaccurate. That newspapers and journalists act from their own agenda. Which obviously partly comes from his experience of journalism and having his life reflected in newspapers."

In Macdonald's State of Play, Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is part of a dying breed: the heroic, old-school journalist who relies heavily on sources and leads and takes time to find the real story. His method is challenged by Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a bright young blogger who wants to post the Stephen Collins story online as it's still developing.

There are a number of other movies, mostly thrillers, coming out of the UK and Hollywood in the next two years that feature bloggers as 'agents of change' or key protaganists. Perhaps there will be a movie soon that follows what happens when an independent blogger has to face off against a massive media corporation who wants to get rid of some eyeball competition.

Here's the trailer for State Of Play. It looks like a reasonably intelligent thriller aimed at adults. Hopefully....



State Of Play gets an Australian release in late May.

Rupert Murdoch Wants Earth Hour To Become Earth Month

By Darryl Mason

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair and the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt have had much fun in the past two years mocking any and all who voluntarily participated in Earth Hour.

Tim Blair :

Supporters of Earth Hour like to talk about the important symbolism of the event in terms of climate change and suchlike. The deeper symbolism is of a rejection of progress - of the centuries of research and innovation that culminates in us being able to bring light by flicking a few grams of plastic.

Andrew Bolt :

....Earth Hour proves that what threatens us is not so much global warming, but lousy journalism.

Asking us to turn off lights between 8pm and 9pm is a crusade by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

....as always a danger when newspapers take up campaigns. Suddenly they get tempted to report only stuff that pushes their agenda, and to ignore facts that don't...

Somehow, bizarrely, yet again, Bolt and Blair managed to completely forget to tell their readers that their own boss is the biggest backer of Earth Hour and Green Corporatism in the world today.

Rupert Murdoch doesn't think Earth Hour is long enough. News Corporation wants it become Earth Month, at the least, and in March News Corp joined forces with the pro-human depopulation (according to Andrew Bolt) World Wildlife Fund to make it a reality.

FOX/News Corp. is supporting the 2009 Earth Hour - a global initiative in which millions of people around the world will cast a vote in favor of action on climate change by turning off their lights for one hour on March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm local time. By voting with their light switches, Earth Hour participants will send a powerful, visual message to their leaders demanding immediate action on climate change.

All of News Corp.'s screens in in Times Square will go out for the occasion. And in a video to be shown at the Earth Hour opening ceremony in LA, several shows will be shown going 'lights out' - including American Idol, Bones, SPEED TV, Family Guy, and the sets of Good Day LA, FOX 11 News, and FOX Sports West.

And lots of other News Corp. businesses have pledged to participate, including News International (News of the World plans a 2-page feature), FOXTEL ("Let Your Actions Do the Talking" campaign), and STAR in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Join in and vote for action on climate change with your light switch.

News Corp, outside of its full-bore greenwashing, appears to understand that the purpose of Earth Hour is to encourage people to learn to conserve power and get back into the habit of switching off unused lights, just as our parents and grandparents did.

But Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair continue to dodge the crushing reality that their own boss, through his control and very real influence over his global media empire, did more to promote Earth Hour around the world in 2009 than any Evil Pagan Socialist Lefty did, or the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age, whose ability to influence anyone extends little beyond their home states, and ends in Australia.

So how do Blair and Bolt keep missing all these great Green Alarmism stories to mock and attack? Earth Hour to become Earth Month? Seriously, how did that doozy escape their Google News Alerts?

Or could it be they both are only interested in the Greenism stories and global Earth Hour initiatives that don't come from the Corporate Green media giant they work for?

Green Jihad indeed.

Fuck The People, It's Time To Cash In

The Daily Telegraph's associate editor Tim Blair explains why spectacular greed escalated the global financial crisis :

...Rudd’s characterisation of the global financial collapse as being driven by “unfettered free markets” is false itself. Where, for a start, did these unregulated, free-for-all, no oversight financial structures ever operate? Wall St?

Give me a break. The mortgage broking scams that were at the core of last year’s US market collapse evolved from a regulatory realm that effectively insulated them (for a time) from free-market forces.

Remember, the whole sub-prime mortgage debacle began with housing loans to people who weren’t well equipped to pay them off. The free market sees credit risks and mostly turns away; these clearly weren’t free-market decisions.

Investors sought involvement with the largest US mortgage brokers not because they were regulation-free but because they were government sponsored and therefore seen as less risky. It was a little like betting on a fixed (or even “fettered") race.

Admittedly, that’s when crazy fire-eyed capitalists cashed in. But, in such circumstances, who wouldn’t have? We’re talking about free money here.

Who wouldn't have cashed in and helped destroy the home values, savings and pension schemes of hundreds of millions of people around the world? Who wouldn't have cashed in and helped unleashed a firestorm of financial destruction that has deleted around $20,000 from the superannuation of millions of Australian families, and will force hundreds of thousands into unemployment?

Who wouldn't have "cashed in"?

People with morals? People who aren't crazed with raw greed perhaps? People who think there are more important things than money and turning a fast, unearned profit off the misery of those who never understood they were part of an enormous con job?

Comments will be moderated here for the time being, as it appears there are some with an insidious intent trying to get defamatory comments onto older stories, perhaps hoping I won't notice. I noticed. Moderation will, hopefully, not last too long, as freely posting your thoughts and opinions should remain an essential part of digital free speech in this country and I've always trusted that most of my readers will be responsible in what they have to say.

Wait, You Mean I Just Ate Everything In The Ashtray For Nothing?

There is police harassment, and then there's police "we're-just-fucking-with-you" :

South Australian police have been pulling over motorists just to tell them they are doing a good job, Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis revealed today.

Speaking on radio, Mr Koutsantonis said: "Sometimes they (police) pull people over and tell them they've been doing a good job driving."

The legend, the enigma, Michael Peterson in full, beautiful wave-carving action :

It's Like Christians Against Christ Or Something

By Darryl Mason

The Professional Idiot's endless search for Shock Enemy Of The Day edges ever closer to inevitable depths of mind-fucked absurdity :

Urban Seed is a Christian activist group - one that confirms just how much Christian “progressives’’ have in fact regressed into pagan earth-worshippers.

Here are some excerpts from the thoughtful, prescient opinion piece, from Simon Moyle of Urban Seed, that caused The Professional Idiot's bitter little mind to melt down just that little bit more :

This week a lump-sum payment will drop into many of our bank accounts like manna from Kevin. No doubt many of us will seize on it with glee, seeing it as an opportunity to buy that latest piece of technological wizardry, or pay off that relentless credit card bill.

...these payments are a worrying indication of the increasing alignment between the concepts of "citizen" and "consumer". The good, responsible citizen is the one who participates most fully in the consumer economy. Those who don't, or can't, are somehow less important, because they are not contributing. It seems that whatever disaster befalls us, a terrorist attack or a financial meltdown, we are told our patriotic duty is to shop.

This week we have the opportunity t0 ask ourselves what kind of people we want to be.

With crises come opportunities. Instead of using these payments to further the fragmentation and greed of our society, we can put them towards selfless acts of generosity to those less fortunate, thereby building bonds between people that go far beyond financial ties.

Friends of mine have come up with a number of creative, selfless ways to use this money. One person I know is going to change some of it into $5 notes so when she visits the city with her young son he can give it to buskers and beggars. Another friend is using it to throw a "stimulus party" for his street to help develop a sense of cohesion among his neighbours. Others will pool their funds to employ someone who has lost their job to spearhead a project for their community.

If we intentionally include the soil, water, plants, and native animals in our sense of community, it might also help us consider using the money in ways that are affirming of the earth and our place in it. Putting the money towards solar panels or rainwater tanks, or building a vegetable garden in your yard would be a responsible contribution to the wider economy. After all, every liquid asset we have ultimately comes from the earth; it seems appropriate to return the favour.

No matter how you spend your stimulus payment, may it foster a cohesive, responsible society with a focus on those who usually miss out. That way, even if the stimulus package is unsuccessful in stimulating the economy, it will have stimulated growth in our generosity and national character.

Give money away to less fortunate people? Secure your own electricity supply? Plant a vegetable garden? Foster a sense of community?

No wonder Moyle's words caused The Professional Idiot to vomit such venom about "pagan earth worshippers".

This columnist for the Herald Sun is so fucked up he actually believes, and often tells his readers, that 'Greenism' will lead to "baby culls", human sacrifice and cannibalism. In Australia.

Likewise, The Professional Idiot thinks that people who believe global warming is a reality are deluded believers in the "most superstitious pagan faith of all."

And, as always, his bosses place this nice big fat ad banner right across the top of his blog, just about every day now, reminding The Professional Idiot and all his readers that, at least for the time being, his massive salary is paid by "superstitious" true believers in this "pagan faith" :

That the Professional Idiot continues his hysterical, dangerous campaign against people who think it might be a good idea to reduce their power use and treat their surroundings, and the larger world, with a bit of respect, while continuing to work for the most powerful, influential promoter of "The Green Faith" in the world today, Rupert "Climate Change Poses Clear, Catastrophic Threats" Murdoch, is as shallow and as stunningly hypocritical as a vegan working at a slaughterhouse, or a pro-lifer answering phones in an abortion clinic.

But then, mind-boggling hypocrisy is the name of The Professional Idiot's game. How else can someone rail against "the violence" of our society, while vehemently backing wars that have killed, displaced and brutalised tens of millions of people?

Sandstone at Bundeena Bay, New South Wales















Photos By Darryl Mason

Murdoch : Fuck Google, Fuck Yahoo

By Darryl Mason

Rupert Murdoch has decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy :

"People are used to reading everything on the net for free, and that's going to have to change."

The ignorant old bastard really has no idea what's going on. At all.

Murdoch's on the verge of losing at least a hundred million or two on MySpace, after already kissing goodbye to a very personal couple of billion in the last year while revenue from the Wall Street Journal begins a downward spiral, and he thinks (or is praying) he can make people pay money to read online totally fabricated stories about Pauline Hanson's tits?

That's his Plan?

Ts is why he is now pissing his Depends in fear :

As online ad revenue growth stumbles and in some cases falls, publishers are being forced to rethink whether charging for access is possible, or whether readers would simply stop going to their websites.

....as they cut costs, publishers are looking for ways to get more people to read -- and pay for -- journalism.

Time is running out.

And it's particularly interesting that Rupert Murdoch sees news aggregators as "stealing" his "copyright" because they link to his media's stories and videos.

Let's see what else this alleged visionary, who happily gave up his Australian citizenship to brainwash Americans into supporting wars that would ultimately end up utterly devastating their communities, has to say about the Future Of Online Media :

Mr Murdoch also questioned whether the newspaper industry should continue to allow online news aggregators such as Google to aggregate newspaper content without being compensated for it.

"Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights? If you have a brand like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, you don't have to," said Mr Murdoch. "You can say, thanks but no thanks."

There's a visionary plan to ratchet up the faith of stockholders. Tell Google and Yahoo to cough up some cream or go fuck themselves.

It's particularly fascinating to see that Rupert Murdoch thinks Google is "stealing" his "copyright" because they are linking to his media's stories and videos, most of which are based around things that happened to other people, people who mostly don't want to be in the news to begin with. Rupert Murdoch actually believes he really does own The News, that is The News that happens in the private lives of private people.

Stealing copyrights?

More and more of his own media's millions of worldwide newspaper column inches and thousands of hours of TV 'news' is filling up with stories and photos his journalists are "stealing" from bloggers or social networking sites and user-created aggegator sites like Digg, usually without any credit whatsoever, let alone payment. The same goes for the constant begging and badgering from his Australian online newspapers for readers to "send us your stories" and "send us your photos" on the condition that the Murdoch newspaper keeps the copyright of anything reader-submitted and can sell them into syndication with no compensation at all to the reader who submitted. In journalism, begging readers for stories is the stuff of early, humiliating defeat. We can't afford to send out so many reporters anymore, so why don't you send us stories we can run for free instead? Have you spied your neighbour fucking a goat dressed in a tutu in his backyard? Take a photo and send us a story....

When this is all over, and when the current generation growing up online hits adulthood, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and Fox News and almost all the other icons of modern media will be seen as so very, very 20th century, and all but worthless as mega-brands. They will be worth much, much less than what they're worth even today. The future is not massive domination of news markets by one or two mega-corporations, thank fuck, but locally based, inexpensively run, news websites and community newspapers. As it should be, as it already is across Asia.

You'd expect an allegedly visionary media mogul to know that.

Or maybe he's still betting on China letting him turn the misfortunes and humiliations of its people into another few billion for the pile.

It's not the kind of bet I'd be taking with other peoples' money.

(Source)

Murdoch's Lite Porn Meat Market

Murdoch Proudly Admits Using His Worldwide Media Empire To Shape Opinion On The Iraq War

Murdoch Execs Proudly Admit They Info-Dosed The Simpsons With Climate Change Fear Mongery

How Murdoch Influences Politicians : Do What I Tell You, Or My Newspapers Will Bury You

Murdoch Explains How He Tells His Newspapers What To Print And The Politicians They Should Get Behind

.

Stickers spotted on the back of a huge, rumbling old ute in Clarence Street, Sydney :

Boy + Ute = Man

I Snatch Kisses & Vica-Versa

My Sexual Preference Is Often

Outback = Outlaw

Bundy Made Me Do It

Vote Shooters Party

(thanks Kerry)

Photos by Darryl Mason

Wolverine : When Piracy Is The Best Publicity

The same media company that is supposedly shocked by the "illegal leaking" of its new Hugh Jackman movie Wolverine is also the same media that is going all out to publicise the fact that movie has been leaked, and that the FBI are allegedly investigating the leak, while also telling readers where to go to get their own "illegal" copy of the movie nearly a month before its cinematic release.



Coincidence?

You Sick Bastards, Stop Being Fascinated By The Stuff We Fill Our Newspapers With

By Darryl Mason

The Daily Telegraph is into its third day of mad rantings about the "sick" people who gather at scenes of car accidents, emergencies and other assorted human tragedies. As people do, as they have always done.

Some recent headlines :

Sick Sydney Thrilled By Violent Crash Deaths

Sick Sydney Gore Porn

Inhale the stench of hypocrisy :

The tragic late-night deaths of a young mother and a truck driver in Sydney had one thing in common - both victims spent their final moments as macabre suburban entertainment.

And yet The Daily Telegraph publishes photographs of the crash scene, ensuring the horror moves from "suburban entertainment" into mainstream entertainment.

They died as mothers in pyjamas and dressing gowns watched on with dozy toddlers.

They jostled to find a clearer view. They laughed, maybe at a private joke, and took photographs.

The bodies were still in view. Gore porn.

And here's a photograph of one of the crash scenes discussed, run in the Daily Telegraph, on the same story where it berates its readers for taking photographs at car accident scenes :



The stunning moralising continues :

Crash victims too often die, not only in excruciating pain but as a public spectacle.

The final screams of a dying man, the last breath of a dying woman, in front of a thrilled audience murmuring at the horror of it all, yet sipping from a mug of hot coffee as they move closer to the action.

Most of the rubberneckers who stopped to see the carnage just watch.

...one could give the crash victims the dignity of dying without spectators, their children in tow, treating crime scenes as movie theatres with snacks and drinks.

And the first thing the family of fatal crash victim usually sees is journalists showing up on their doorstep asking for photographs of the deceased, and interviews with the family members.

So where did all these people get the idea it was acceptable to take photographs at the scenes of car accidents?

Maybe they've just seen the media in action, close up, or perhaps they read The Daily Telegraph which actively encourages the "gawking public" to take photos of news events and send them in for publication :



However, they won't pay you for your photos, and they may not even give you a credit for your free news gathering :

1. You acknowledge that News may use all intellectual property rights in your content throughout the world, in perpetuity, without restriction and without making payment to you, including publication of that material in hard copy publications or in electronic media, using your content in advertising and promotional material for News and permitting others to do any of these, including when News and others receive payment for this.
   
2. You waive all moral rights in your content and consent to anything which News (or any person permitted to do so by News) may do in relation to your content which would otherwise be in breach of your moral rights. This includes that News may use your content without attributing you as the source of your content.

If you don't want people to take photos of crash scenes, don't ask them to take photos of local news events and send them into your newspaper.

As for the behaviour of locals at a car crash scene, anyone who has been unfortunate enough to live near an accident blackout knows that car accidents have always drawn people from their homes, even late at night. It's usually that startling sound of screaming tyres and the horrific crunch of metal that does it. Neighbours gather, those who can help usually will, and some kids act like idiots, but it's insane to berate the public for being morbidly fascinated by car accidents when you're a newspaper that regularly fills its pages with exactly this kind of news fodder. And photographs.

In the days before Photoshop, April Fool's Day pranksters had to go to great trouble to nab a spectacular image like this, back in 1998 :



The explanation :

The photographer admitted that the image was actually created using a plywood model built by aeronautical engineering students.

Breaking News : Clone Tries To Kill Creator

"It Wasn't Attempted Murder, It Was Attempted Suicide"

By Darryl Mason

Only hours after The Orstrahyun broke the story of how the infamous Dr Philip Stanton cloned himself, then changed the sex of the clone and married her comes the dramatic news that the clone, Jessica Stanton, has been arrested for allegedly attempting to kill the controversy plagued doctor.

Jessica Stanton has now been charged by police with attempted murder.

"We're still trying to establish her identity," said a police spokesperson. "The only identification she has is in the name of Dr Stanton. Officially, she doesn't exist."

Dr Stanton has requested the charges be dropped and has employed a top QC to see Jessica released on bail, into his care, in the meantime. He has refused to reveal details of the alleged attack, and police won't comment further until a press conference scheduled for Friday morning.

In a short statement issued to The Orstrahyun, Dr Philip Stanton said :

"Her motivation for attacking me? I think it was a purposeful exercise by a very bright young woman who now demands to be legally recognised as a person. If police are serious about pursuing the charges against Jessica, for whatever reasons they have to so frivously waste public resources in this way, then they will have to establish an identity for her. They may find this more difficult than they can currently imagine."

In a further e-mail exchange, Dr Stanton refuted allegations that he conspired with Jessica in staging the attacks and arrest to garner publicity for his forthcoming book on his cloning experiment, and his love affair with his clone. The book is currently listed for advance sale on Amazon under the title :

Cloning To Your Way To A Better, Younger, More Beautiful You

The Man Who Cloned And Married Himself

By Darryl Mason

The Orstrahyun can reveal today that Dr Philip Stanton (who rose to fame at 19 for inventing an artificial womb) is the first human to successfuly clone himself, change the sex of the clone, then have a sexual relationship with 'herself'.

Dr Stanton was an acclaimed biological theorist by sixteen, and was set to revolutionise the way children spent the first six to nine months after creation through the use of his "better than human" artificial womb. But the controversial experiments, conducted on an isolated property outside Adelaide, in 1995, failed horrifically, with the death of at least eight foetuses.

At least, that was what we were led to believe happened back then. It now is certain that Dr Stanton used the artificial womb to grow the clone of himself that he named Jessica Stanton.

Investigations reveal that Dr Stanton 'birthed' his clone at his remote property and then fled Australia for twelve years exile in Thailand, where he grew his clone, after changing the sex, into the tall, healthy woman who is now experiencing government bureaucracy for the first time as she battles for that most basic piece of identification : a birth certificate.

Dr Stanton and Jessica want a birth certificate so they can get married. Legally.

The Australian Bureau of Births, Deaths and Marriages claim they cannot issue Jessica a birth certificate, because she was not born "in the legal sense of the word."

An employee commented that they have no criteria in place to assess Jessica's claim for a birth certificate.

"This is all new to us. Nobody ever thought this kind of thing would come true, so no preparations have been made. I don't know what happens if multiple clones each want their own birth certificate. We'll have to think about re-doing the forms if this is going to become a regular thing."

Jessica does not have a mother. Dr Stanton had no need for a woman to conceive or give birth to his child. She was created and born in Dr Stanton's home laboratory. In exile, in Thailand, Dr Stanton used human growth hormones and the LifeLonger health and fitness regime to speed up Jessica's physical growth. Although only twelve years have passed since Jessica's 'birth', she looks like a healthy, mature 19 year old woman.

The news of Jessica Stanton's existence is set to challenge not only the limits of the legal system, but the very concept of what it means to be an individual human.

Jessica Stanton shares the same blood type, the same DNA, the same fingerprints, as Dr Philip Stanton. The only difference, Jessica said, is that when she was created, Dr Stanton modified the DNA so she wouldn't develop his mild arthritis or have to endure his lifelong eczema.

As normal a young woman Jessica seems to be in person, she does not actually exist. She has no birth certificate, no passport, no insurance of any kind, no social security number. She holds no identification outside credits cards issued in Philip Stanton's name. Likewise her apartment and car are leased in her 'father's' name.

She said she does not consider Philip Stanton her father, and says she does not understand why so many people are upset that they have a sexual relationship.

"He made me, he is more than just a part of me," Jessica explained to The Orstrahyun. "He is me, as I am also he. We have no secrets. We know everything about each other. How could we not? We're the same person.

"Philip was always surprised when I could remember events from his own childhood that he had forgotten about. Some people I talk to refuse to believe that he could have passed his own memories onto me through his DNA, but it's true. When he can't remember something that happened 30 years ago, he asks me if I've got that memory. I usually do, some are more detailed than others. The memories of events that he said traumatised him, or shocked him, seem to be the most vivid.

"He said he always had a bad memory, but mine is very good. I think he fixed that during the tinkering stages of my pre-birth development."

Jessica went on to explain more about her childhood, and education :

"You have to understand that Philip kept me in a sterile intellectual environment. He screened every film I watched, every book I read, and chose the newspaper stories and TV news reports he thought I should read. He taught me how the media works, and how all supposed truths should and must be questioned. When he thought I was old enough, he told me the truth of how he created me, and how special I am. He also told me that the media would treat me like a freak, or some monster. I'm expecting the worst, but I won't care.

"Once I was old enough to walk, we were always traveling together. If we'd meet somebody and they'd ask if I was his daughter, he would say, 'legally yes'. It was a strange enough answer to stop them asking more questions, and I heard it so often, I learned that while the rest of the world saw me as his daughter, he saw me as a part of himself, separate but yet a different version of himself at the same time. I don't have a problem with any of this, and I'm trying to understand why my existence upsets so many people.

"It's hard to explain how he kept me in the dark about who I was for so long, and how he made our existence seem so ordinary and normal. All I know is that it was normal, I never knew any other way to live, and I refuse to let anybody tell me it was anything else but normal."

Jessica refuses to accept or acknowledge that abuse of some kind has taken place. She claims the sexual relationship between herself and Dr Stanton only began in the past 18 months, and that she initiated it. She pointedly refuses to be classed as a victim, in any circumstance.

"Philip has given me a thorough education. He taught me about art while we walked through the greatest galleries in the world. I've lived in jungles and deserts, dived on the world's most beautiful reefs and watched sunrises on some of this planet's tallest mountains. He taught me to do everything for myself. I am more capable and self-reliant than most women my age, and unlike most people I have no doubts about my identity, who I am, or where I came from."

While Jessica knows who Baudelaire and Renoir are, she has never heard of television shows like 'CSI' or the music of Kings Of Leon. She knows how to calculate velocity, but she didn't know what a woman's menstruation cycle was until I explained it to her. She claims to have never had a period, but said she intended to "look it all up."

Dr Stanton refused to be interviewed for this story, but he finally issued a short statement to The Orstrahyun after repeated inquires :

"If it is the media's intent to persecute me, then show me one single law that I have broken. Jessica is not recognised by society in any legal sense and therefore does not exist. She is a physical extension of myself, but existing in a separate body. Jessica is free to live her own life, I want her to discover the world for a while on her own. I will protect her if she needs protecting, and I will help her if she asks for help. Jessica does, however, remain my responsibility and my property."

Jessica said she is still adjusting to life away from Dr Stanton, who she says insisted "I get my own place".

She is, however, immensely proud to be one of the first in a new generation of human beings.

"Cloning isn't going to go away," Jessica said. "It is now a part of life, and will eventually mean a kind of immortality. Would I clone myself? I don't know. I haven't thought about it."

For now Jessica is happy to finish decorating her new apartment and is looking for a job.

"Unfortunately, being born a clone doesn't mean you get any super powers," Jessica laughed. "I'm just as boring as the next person, probably more so because there are so many things, like television advertisements, that I've never seen before.

"I find the most mundane things fascinating because so much of what everyone else thinks of as everyday, are new experiences for me."

UPDATE - Breaking News : Clone Charged With Attempted Murder Of Creator

The Bloody Camels Will Be Asking For A Glass And Ice Cubes Next

We've had plenty of shark attacks, and crocodile attacks, and we've even had wallaby and kangaroo attacks, but now the camels are invading our towns. They're coming for the water and they know how to get it :

Camels are coming into communities in central Australia and turning on the taps, the Macdonnell Shire Council says.

The shire has applied to the Federal Government for a $4.5 million slice of infrastructure funding to build camel-proof boundaries around 14 communities.

Wayne Wright from the shire says thirsty camels are causing significant damage.

"In a number of our communities it's quite common for camels to enter the community and if there are any taps adjacent to houses they're quite capable of either turning the taps on or knocking the taps off so they get water."

The intention is to put cattle grids at the entrances to the communities and place fencing around them.

Weird. The camels can work out how to turn on, or at the very least break open, taps to get water, but they still can't master the art of negotiating a cattle grid?