Pandemic Flu : 'The Biological Tsunami'

The Howard government spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing for a deadly influenza pandemic through late 2005 and 2006. Anti-viral stockpiling was ramped up, large-scale rehearsals for government and emergency departments responses to a pandemic outbreak were held, millions of dollars were given to privately owned vaccine manufacturers to increase their ability to pump out alleged flu vaccines in the millions of doses for the (then) coming day when mass vaccination programs would be unveiled...

Compared to current health minister, Nicola Roxon, then health minister Tony Abbott was Mr Doom, and pandemic flu Fearmonger In Chief. He also happened to be mostly right.

From Lateline, September 13, 2005 (excerpts) :

TONY JONES: In a little publicised speech at an infectious diseases conference several months ago, the Health Minister Tony Abbott spelled out the worst-case scenario for a global avian flu pandemic. As you'll hear, contingency planning is well advanced in this country, though many thousands of deaths are still anticipated, along with the potential for social and economic chaos in a health crisis that could last six months or more....

TONY JONES : Now, would you agree that preparing this country for a possible avian flu pandemic could well be the most important job you ever do as a politician?

TONY ABBOTT: ....We don't know if a pandemic will happen, we don't know when one might happen, but if one does happen it will be a public health disaster, the magnitude of which this country has not seen at least since 1919 when we had the last flu pandemic.

....back in 1919, Australia had a Spanish flu pandemic outbreak and that killed some 13,000 Australians, in a then population of about 4 million and at different times in the first half of 1919, schools were closed, churches were closed, places of public gathering were off limits. Normal life had pretty much ceased in large parts of Australia. We have little folk memory of this thoug...

TONY JONES: You've actually said and referred to it in this way - that what a new pandemic might be like would be a sort of biological tsunami?

TONY ABBOTT: That's correct, because if we have a pandemic of the severity of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1819, many, many tens of millions of people could die in the absence of effective prophylaxis and treatment and while we are reasonably confident that antivirals can be effective in preventing people from getting the disease, there's nothing like the kind of antiviral stockpile anywhere in the world that will fully protect people....

TONY JONES: ....Hugh White has told us that the threat of a flu pandemic to Australia makes the threat of terrorism really pale into insignificance. Do you agree with him?

TONY ABBOTT: I don't think that the threat of terrorism is something that we should take lightly and there is an element of horror in man killing his fellow man, which is absent from things which are truly acts of God. But still, there is no doubt about it. A pandemic if it hits Australia and it is of the severity of the 1918 outbreak, will potentially kill many thousands of people and it's hard to imagine any terrorist attack - short of a nuclear bomb in a major city - that would have a comparable impact.

TONY JONES: I understand the quarantine arrangements that you have are quite extensive, six times 500-bed facilities, is that the case? Where would they be and how quickly could they be put in place?

TONY ABBOTT: Basically we are prepositioning the equipment necessary to stock these quarantine centres and the quarantine centres will be close by international airports.

TONY JONES: Do you think we've got our priorities right here? We have spent hundred and hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps nearly $1 billion on border security relating to terrorism. Have we spent anywhere near that much as what you admit theoretically would be a far worse outcome if a pandemic occurred?

TONY ABBOTT: We have spent everything that we can usefully spend so far, Tony. We've got on a per capita basis just about the world's largest stockpile of antivirals. We are working very hard and as quickly as we can on a candidate pandemic vaccine. We're prepositioning these quarantine centres. We've got our national pandemic plan in place in consultation with the states and territories. We are close to achieving our stockpile of masks and syringes. So all the money that we need to spend on preparedness that we can usefully currently spend we have spent.

TONY JONES: How detailed, though, is the emergency plan? Do you have plans to evacuate cities? Do you have plans as happened back in the turn of the century, or during the First World War outbreak? Do you have plans to close down public facilities, theatres, even possibly public transport?

TONY ABBOTT: Again Tony, that would depend upon the particular virulence of the outbreak. Certainly we have plans for an escalating health response, including mobile teams, home quarantine, home treatment, so that only the very serious cases have to go to public hospitals.

The Rudd government response appears, for now, to be following the pandemic response plans drawn up in 2005 and 2006.

But will the Rudd government give vaccine makers the same immunity from prosecution for deaths, side effects and illnesses (that may result from its pandemic flu vaccine), that the Howard government was willing to grant back CSL in 2006?



.

I'm Offended, And So Is My Dog

The video :



The Offended :

Guide Dogs Queensland chief executive Chris Laine said her organisation had received a number of complaints from offended clients and had passed them on to ABC management and The Chaser team.

Ms Laine said of particular concern was the episode's title and the "incorrect and debasing suggestion that guide dogs can be used to accommodate irresponsible and drunken behaviour".

"In doing this skit, the Chasers have not only offended and degraded the work and dedication of guide dog schools around the world, but also the courage and commitment shown everyday by the many clients who use a guide dog."

I think the many blind people who have to tolerate fuckwits coming up to them pissed out of their minds shouting, "Hey, I'm so ratshit I need a guide dog, too! Hah hah ha!" would have understood what The Chaser were aiming for.

But this reaction, like that surrounding The Chaser's spluttering outrage-inciting skit about dying children asking for wishes beyond a charity's budget, helps to explain why Australian TV comedy is generally quite boring. It's been tamed. Whipped into submission.

I'm not quite sure what satire is supposed to be if it doesn't sometimes cause offence and disgust along with the laughs. Or because of the laughs. Do you really want to see satirical television that only allows you to laugh at that which you already think is funny?

Anyway, you'd think if anyone was going to be offended, it would be footpath-weaving drunks : "You shittiizh, I dun need no freakuning Dog! to get me..........Home! fukuuuzall. I cun walk it....bastards....watch me! lookit I'm walkun straighhht...ow, stupid pole."

The Chaser's War On Everything has one episode left to go.

Bob Brown On Claims Jimi Hendrix Was Murdered

A new book claims Jimi Hendrix was force-fed pills and red wine by his manager, or someone hired by his manager, and then asphyxiated by choking on his own vomit. In September, 1970, Greens leader Bob Brown was working as an intern in a London hospital when the already dead body of Hendrix arrived in casualty. Bob Brown did not pronounce Hendrix dead, but he did break the news to the media waiting outside.

From an interview on Radio 2GB :

Bob Brown "Hendrix was brought into St Marys hospital in South Kensington....I'd just graduated from Sydney University as a young doctor, I went to London....I was doing locum, and I happened to be in the casuality at St Mary's Abbott when Jimi Hendrix was brought in. The man had been dead some time. The supposition is that he had died from an overdose, early in the morning, and this was quite a few hours later, so there was no revival possible.

"It's a long bow to draw (that Hendrix was murdered). Of course the circumstantial evidence has long been gone, I have absolutely no opinion or information that would help one way or the other. It was an enormous tragedy at the time.

"It wasn't as if there was something to be done about (Hendrix's death). There simply wasn't...any medical remedy. And as to what police investigations took place at the time, I've got no knowledge of that."

You can hear the Bob Brown 2GB interview here.

Tumbleweed Reform



Well I think it's an important headline. Don't know anything about it yet, but the original Tumbleweed lineup is on the list of bands for Homeback 2009.

I'm gueesing there will be other club shows. There'd better be.

Note - I changed the photo. Apparently I was using a pic showing the fourth line-up of the band, not the original line-up.

Does Joe Hockey Mean Wilson Tuckey Is About To Drop His Pants And Start Singing Cold Chisel Songs?

By Darryl Mason

The Liberal Party was already in meltdown mode. I don't know what this mess is called, but it's thumping nastily with the kind of radioactive fallout that will require much contamination-style heavy scrubbing and hosing down before it's safe to go near again. It's also funnier than John Howard tripping up stairs :

Joe Hockey likened Wilson Tuckey to the crazy uncle at a family wedding yesterday as the Coalition started to tear itself apart over how to deal with Labor's proposed emissions trading scheme.

Backbenchers traded insults, the Nationals split from the Liberal leadership, and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, declared his opponents a divided rabble as they sparred over when and if it should negotiate with Labor over the legislation.

Kevin Rudd doesn't even have to try anymore. He can just sit back at 2am and watch repeats of Lateline frame by frame to catch the flickers of utter devastation that briefly crease the faces of all Liberals who now front up for TV interviews.

The renegade backbencher, Mr Tuckey, stirred trouble on Tuesday when he emailed every colleague attacking the embattled leader, Malcolm Turnbull, as arrogant and inexperienced.

The NSW frontbencher Bob Baldwin fired back at Mr Tuckey with an email also sent to all colleagues. He called Mr Tuckey's behaviour "absolutely disgraceful and unforgivable, particularly from someone who boasts so much experience … Perhaps he should consider packing his bags".

Emails. Again. Imagine the carnage if they started cutting loose on Twitter?

And so on to Joe Hockey's already infamous quote about Tuckey :

"Every family has an uncle who goes a little wild at the family wedding."

The Liberal Party is like a family wedding?

Hockey's out of his mi...wait a sec.

Mostly empty dance floor? Check.

Long winded-speeches by too many people who have had too much to drink or not enough? Check.

Lack of younger people with something interesting to say? Check.

Crazy uncle(s) going wild? Check.

People pasing each other in hallways muttering "fuck you" under their breath? Check.

Shit. Joe Hockey is right!

I think Peter Garrett sang a song once about this taking this kind of stand :

One anti-Turnbull backbencher said the Coalition was "going to get done like a dinner" regardless of when the election was held. "We might as well get done like a dinner with our principles intact."

That's it. It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

Mr Rudd said trying to negotiate with the Coalition in its current state was inconceivable. It should concentrate on fighting climate change, not each other, he said.

Mr Rudd then excused himself, because he could no longer contain his laughter one second more. Unconfirmed reports indicate the prime minister then continued to laugh so hard, so helplessly, for the next six hours he was unable to give a planned dinner speech, he had to be carried into the house and could not eat or drink or dress himself for bed.

Government insiders tell me that treasurer Wayne Swann has been repeatedly streaking past Malcolm Turnbull's home shouting, "Hey Malcy? What about those inflation figures? Huh? Huh? Bite me!"

Meanwhile, on Sydney's leafy North Shore, John Howard, geed up from the first episode of the SBS documentary about his years in power, and not at all bothered by those many scenes of his early days when he looked dorkier than the entire cast of Revenge Of The Nerds, ponders asking Peter Costello to be a mate and "wait until I have another go".

There must have been so many Liberals watching the first episode of that SBS doco, Liberal Rule, who found themselves bubbling with tears, their chests wracked by sobs, as they contemplated a Groundhog Day of interminable horror : another decade + plus in opposition, all years as grim and long and soul-devouring as the last time, which (before John Howard proved that if you hang around anywhere long enough you will eventually be put in charge) culminated in a desperation so wretched these words were spoken in all seriousness, "Yes, Alexander Downer would make a good leader of the Liberal Party."

Do you get the feeling there is a Night Of The Long Knives coming soon for some of the creaking older members of the Coalition? A number major financial backers of the Liberal Party demanded the house be fumigated of anything that smelled even remotely of Rodent, months ago. The pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to ditch the driftwood must be intense.

I'll repeat my wacky prediction of earlier this year : the Coalition opposition that comes out of the next federal election will likely be a coalition of Turnbull Liberals and The Greens.

Stop laughing.

It's the only dream Malcolm Turnbull's got left.

Stupid Hippies Attacked By Apes

I must have seen this vid a few dozen times in the past couple of years, but it never fails to make me weep with laughter.

I'm pissing myself just typing this because even though it's always funny to see a human get his arse kicked by an ape, in this particular video the arse-kicked human never stops trying to make friends with the ape who is trying to tell him that he was having a fine old time just hanging with his ladies, on his island, until his territory was violated :

Sir Joseph Banks: Yes, I Can Score You Some Excellent Hash by Darryl Mason

Sir Joseph Banks : Yes, I Can Score You Some Excellent Hash

By Darryl Mason

Sir Joseph Banks, the father of colonial Australia, explorer, botanist, naturalist, grower of "luxuriant" cannabis plants in theNSW settlement of the early 1800s and drug dealer to English poets of the Romantic era.




Today, Sir Joseph Banks would be labelled a drug dealer.

In England, in 1803, Thomas Wedgwood was growing ever more curious about this drug called Hashish. He simply had to try some for himself. This was the era of English Romantics, and getting completely mangulated on new drugs in the name of Art, inspiration or revelation, was not so frowned upon. Clubs were formed at the height of English (and Australian) society for exactly these kind of experiments in appreciating how other, more ancient, cultures got high.

Thomas Wedgwood was sure his friend the Romanticist poet Samuel Coleridge would know where to get on. And Coleridge, lover of all reality-redefiners, did know where to get Hashish. He turned to his friend Joseph Banks.

Banks, being a botanist, and a friend to the Royal Family, located some quality bhang and forwarded it to Wedgwood and Coleridge with a note saying the cannabis resin-rich substance was popular across the East, particularly with "Criminals condemned to suffer amputation", and that the effects of Hashish included "almost frantic exhilaration."

Presumably that was an observation based on personal experience.

Interestingly, Joseph Banks was a firm believer that Hashish was, or was a constituent of, Nepenthe, the fabled drug of Homeric legend, "the one that chases away sorrow".

The above was drawn from Marcus Boon's book, The Road To Excess, and the Collected Letters of Samuel Coleridge (pub. 1956, Oxford University Press)
Sir Joseph Banks is now, not surprisingly, very popular with Australian Cannabis historians and hemp activists :

1788: Sir Joseph Banks, the man who sent hemp seeds on the First Fleet and recommended the scheme for a convict and hemp colony, must be claimed as hemp's historical Australian Godfather. He frequently supplied seed to prospective growers to encourage production in British colonies, such was the need of the times with hemp a vital military resource for seafaring nations like Britain.

1802 : NSW's governor wrote Banks that he had sown 10 acres of "Indian hemp seeds" that grew "with utmost luxuriance, generally from six to ten feet in height." The governor and Banks did not seem to know that CannabisIndica was any different from European hemp.

1808 - 1814: Shortage of hemp in Britain due to Napoleon's blockade. Colonies encouraged to produce hemp.

And here :

Even before Australia was claimed by England, British farmers grew hemp. Around the same time that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were growing hemp in the American colonies, Sir Joseph Banks made himself "the father of Australia" by being the first British official to suggest that convicts be sent to settle Australia.

Father Joseph was also a hempster. He and other British leaders said cannabis was the most important seed to be carried on seafaring exploration-conquest journeys, because hemp was essential to the survival of the British navy. They speculated that Australia would be an ideal "hemp colony."

Officials in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) grew thousands of acres of hemp during the 1800's.

And here you can read a remarkable take on our history which basically claims Australia was founded all but solely to grow hemp when American hemp farmers, including Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, revolted against England's rule of the American colonies and cut off England's hemp supplies :

The production of hemp (cannabis Sativa) was one of the prime motivators for the Anglo - European colonisation of the continent that became known as Australia.

Britain's economy and security was almost entirely dependent on the traditional hemp plant, Cannabis sativa. At the end of the middle ages, improved ship design and sail configurations required stronger sails. Hemp was the strongest natural fibre known to man. By using Cannabis, the strongest sails could be made for longer voyages.

Cannabis was as important to the economy of the Age of Exploration as fossil fuel oil is to the economy of the military industrial complex of the western world today. Furthermore, Cannabis retained its importance as a strategic raw material for over 400 years, until the development of steam shipping in the mid to late nineteenth century.

All of the European powers with settlements in the New World (American colonies) were particularly interested in growing hemp and laws were made stipulating that the recipients of land grants in the new colonies must devote a portion of their land and labour to growing hemp. All trade depended on it and all naval military strategy was equally reliant on a steady and secure supply of hemp.

The British colonies in the Americas lived up to their promise in securing Britain a supply of strategic raw materials and a wealth of trade and commerce. By the late 1700s a major ship-of-the-line in the British navy required 80 tons of Hemp in sail and rope, this equated with 350 acres of hemp production. The sails and rigging had to be completely replaced every 3-4 years. Hemp production was labour intensive and a source of cheap labour proved valuable to secure a constant supply. In the southern colonies of north America, African slaves were used to produce tobacco and cotton. In the northern colonies of New England, convict labour from Britain was employed. There were no penitentiaries until the 1800s. Convicted felons were bonded as servants until they had 'paid their debt to society' through labour. By 1770 (the year Captain Cook claimed Australia for the British Empire), over a thousand convicts a year were being transported mostly to plantations in Virginia and Maryland in North America.

When the thirteen colonies in North America declared their independence from Britain in 1776, Britain was dealt a serious blow. The British lost the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the Baltic supplies of cannabis, tar and timber were seriously diminished by the League of Armed Neutrality (an alliance of Holland and other northern European powers). With the Baltic sea route blocked and the north American Colonies lost Britain was isolated from her sources of strategic raw materials. No Cannabis: No Canvas. No Canvas: No trade.

Britain desperately fought to regain control of the American colonies but to no avail. 1783 saw their final defeat and the British Navy and nation was in a desperate situation when proposals to found a colony in the distant land of 'New South Wales' began to appear at the Home Office.

The decision to found a colony in Australia was not an easy one. Australia was in an almost unknown part of the planet on the other side of the earth. Sailing time was about 6 months and it was considered by most people to be to far away to be a useful or reliable supply route for such important strategic materials.

Two of the major lobbyists for the founding of a colony in New South Wales were Sir Joseph Banks and James Matra (aka Magra). Both Banks and Matra had travelled on the Endeavour with Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook.

James Matra was an American loyalist. His family had lost their land and wealth in the War of Independence and formed part of a group in London who had lost everything by their loyalty to the British Crown. They lobbied to be compensated, if not by money then by being allocated land in other British colonies. JamesMatra's first proposals were to found a colony in New South Wales to be farmed under a plantation system by American loyalists and their bonded convict servants. Of course the colony would produce strategic raw materials for the British nation...producing hemp.

Sir Joseph Banks was a major influence in the direction and design of British policy. His fame, reputation, friendship with King George and Presidency of the Royal Society gave him profound influence. One of his main interests was the promotion of growing hemp as a strategic raw material for the British Navy within the British colonies.Sir Joseph gave a bag of hemp seeds as a gift to the First Fleet in 1788. A letter received by Joseph Banks from the East India Company in 1801 shows that he was still handing out bags of hemp seeds in the Australian colonies 13 years later.

If only they'd taught us that history of colonial Australian when we were in high school, we would have paid more attention.

Joseph Banks would certainly seem a fine and upstanding icon for Australia's growing anti-cannabis prohibition and pro-hemp movement.

Howard-Hating Lefties Foil Howard Glorifiers, Again!

By Darryl Mason

Gerard Henderson, Australia's most boring columnist, and former John Howard government staffer, hates a new doco on the Howard era so much he makes me want to watch it. I mean if it shits Gerard Henderson this much, it must be good :

If you want to work out who won what was billed as "the culture wars" during the time of the Howard government, tune into SBS One at 8.30 pm tonight. This is the first episode of the three-part series titled Liberal Rule: The Politics that Changed Australia, which is produced by Nick Torrens Film Productions and written by Nick Torrens and Garry Sturgess.

Liberal Rule is a shocker and a disgrace.

There would have been no problem if Torrens and Sturgess had sought to present a balanced picture of the Howard government by seeking a diversity of opinions....

Sounds like they didn't bother to interview Henderson. That's a cardinal sin for producers of documentaries about John Howard.

Over the three episodes, the left has free kick after free kick with the support of the documentary's narrator, who added what Torrens described as "the necessary layers of subtext". In fact, the "balanced picture" of the Howard government was provided by...Howard-haters...

Only people who like John Howard should be interviewed for documentaries about John Howard, apparently.

Unlike the Labor Party, the Liberals do not take their history seriously.

C'mon, Hendo, it's hard for anyone, even some Liberals, to look back at the last five or six years of Liberal Party history and not splutter with laughter.

The Opposition frontbencher George Brandis is one of the brightest Liberals. Writing in The Spectator, he complained that that Liberals are not celebrating the 100th anniversary of the formation of the inaugural Liberal Party. But Brandis could have arranged such a celebration himself.

It was a party even Brandis knew few would bother to attend, even if the booze was free and Peter Costello was booked to do Peter Garrett impersonations. Probably why Henderson didn't organise such an anniversary celebration at his Sydney Institute.

Henderson castigates those he brands Howard-Hating Lefties for spending thousands of hours researching, filming and editing a three hour documentary, for not a whole lot of money, but who else is bothering to make documentaries, even for YouTube, about the Howard years?

What exactly is stopping all these people who truly believe the John Howard years were the golden days of 21st century Australia from going and making their own documentaries?

Absolutely nothing.

With digital video technology, searchable document and record databases, cheap or free sound editing software, and presumably easy access to all the Liberal Party talking heads they could want (and don't forget Gerard Henderson), conservative Howard Hugging documentary makers can go to town spending a couple of years crafting their own version of the Diamond Days Of John Howard without spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

They could probably raise a reasonable production budget at a couple of fund-raising dinners.

But they won't do that, of course.

Pulling together a three hour documentary, featuring dozens of interviews, on a low budget, is fucking hard work.

Watching the same interviews dozens of times until they haunt your sleep, doing transcripts, searching endlessly for that one bit of essential footage or audio clip you were sure you had but now can't find, and when you do finally find it it turns out to be useless, all of this leaches away at your life and spirit. It's not a nine to five job, it becomes an obsession to get the thing right, to make it flow, to make the story move forward, always.

Anyone can do all this now for a small to reasonable budget and make 1, 2, 3 or 12 hour documentaries about that tell the story of the Howard Years that Goddamn Lefties Don't Want Australiia To Know About.

Gerard Henderson could have made a John Howard : He Made This Country What It Is Today You Ungrateful Bastards documentary himself, for very little money, screened it at his Sydney Institute, whined until the ABC paid him for the rights to screen it, complained about them not promoting it enough, or giving him an interview on the 7.30 Report, turned a reasonable profit, and then Gerard could have spent months bitching bitterly about its reviews.

But he didn't do that, did he?

No. He didn't.

Too much like hard work?

Tobias Ziegler at Pure Poison has more.

And Peter Brent has more here

The Professional Idiot On Iraq : We Won, We're Winning, We've Almost Won



By Darryl Mason

When you're a Murdoch media pro-war gatekeeper, you're not paid to be right, or even mildly accurate, you're there to maintain the illusion that war can achieve more than it costs, in treasure and life and dignity.

The Professional Idiot's very professional propaganda :

November 2, 2007 : "The Iraq War Has Been Won"

January 29, 2008 : "...the news about Iraq gets better..."

June 11, 2008 : "Challenges remain....the cost has been high..."

July 19, 2009 : "...Iraq is essentially won..."

From "We Won!" in November 2007, to 'We've Almost Won!' in July 2009.

Spin spin spin spin.

Whenever I see talk of "We're Winning This War!" or "We're Close To Victory!" I think about a hand-written sign I saw at a school students' anti-war rally in 2004. It read :

'War Is So 2oth Century.'

Australian Freemasons Accused Of "Practising Sorcery" In Fiji


An antique Masonic robe recently for sale on eBay

Eight Australian freemasons, and a New Zealander, spent a night in a Fijian jail after locals became concerned about just what they were getting up to in one of their secret cermonies. The locals are claiming the freemasons are involved in witchcraft and sorcery :

The New Zealand man told reporters he had spent a "wretched" time in jail, and blamed the mix-up on the actions of "dopey village people".

Police also seized wands, compasses and a skull from the freemasons' lodge.

"Dopey village people"? They got busted with wands and a fucking skull. Most people anywhere in the world would assume that something very strange was going on in that meeting.

Police director of operations Waisea Tabakau told Legend FM News in Fiji that the group was being investigated for "allegedly practising sorcery", the Fiji Village website reported.

The New Zealand man said that when they were freed the following morning, they were told their release was on the orders of the prime minister's office.

Freemasons, always got friends in high places.

Did police have to give the skull back?

Some Radio Birdman to get your Monday morning off to the right start :

Exposed : Just Another Murdoch Media Conspiracy

The Daily Telegraph And MasterChef Conspire To Fake A TV Show 'Reality' And Sell A Lot Of Cookbooks

By Darryl Mason

Okay, it's not a world-shattering conspiracy, but it's a real one, involving one of Australia's highest selling newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, and Masterchef, the highest rating show on TV.

Here are two headlines on the 'winner' of Channel Ten's MasterChef competitive cooking show published online at the Daily Telegraph site last night, less than an hour apart :





In the reality of a few million Australiian TV viewers last night, Julie Goodwin did 'win' MasterChef, if you happen to give a shit.

But the Daily Telegraph first published, and then quickly deleted, a story filling out a reality where the other finalist, Poh Ling Yeow, won the show, and $100,000 cash, and an inevitable best-seller cookbook deal.

Bizzarely enough, it wasn't just a headline, or an intro, that said Ling Yeow was declared the 'winner'. The now deleted Daily Telegraph story actually contained quotes from Julie Goodwin congratulating Ling 'Poh' Yeow for 'winning' Australia's highest-rating 'reality' TV competition :

Disappointed but humble, (Julie) Goodwin praised her feisty opponent for her success.

"Poh's a very deserving winner," she said. "I'm proud of her, she's a good friend and I wish her every success in the world."

And here's Ling 'Poh' Yeow celebrating her 'victory' :

Ling Yeow was stunned with the verdict but happy to embrace it.

"This is really a surreal feeling," the 35-year-old, who hails from Norwood in South Australia told The Daily Telegraph.

Yeah, it must be extremely surreal to have to tell a Daily Telegraph journalist that, not having actually 'won'.

The now deleted Daily Telegraph story was obviously prepared before the 'winner' was announced at the end of MasterChef last night, but unless the quotes from Goodwin and Yeow are also fake, then the contestants willingly joined the producers and the Daily Telegraph in this monumental Fakerama.

Here's the start of the Daily Telegraph's second pre-prepared 'news story' on the Julie Goodwin 'victory' :

A majority of Australia's culinary experts didn't back her, but MasterChef Australia contestant Julie Goodwin went from underdog to winner last night.

In a shock victory...

Well, not so shocking to some of the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph and the producers of Masterchef, who conspired beforehand to fake at least two realities :

(Julie Goodwin was) stunned with the verdict after battling through three challenges during the 90-minute finale of the reality program.

But how stunned was Julie Goodwin really? Perhaps very stunned, considering she gave quotes to the Daily Telegraph pretending, or believing, she had actually lost.

Now here she is now playing the role of the 'winner' :

"I am the most blessed person in the world," said Goodwin...

Goodwin said she was embracing the victory with both hands especially after sacrificing her most important role as mother and wife to participate in the competition.

A competition that turns out to be a whole load of Fake Fake Fake Fake. As fake as the Daily Telegraph news story announcing 'Poh Wins MasterChef' they tried to disappear from the internet.

Now, in the alternative reality of that deleted Daily Telegraph story, Ling Yeow is celebrating her 'victory' today and making new plans for her new life as Australia's first MasterChef, with a promising TV career and best-selling cookbook author to look foward to. And all that money :

After pocking the $100,000 cash prize and a cookbook deal Ling Yeow says she's excited about launching her book Food From Mars.

With a heavy Asian influence, the MasterChef winner believes Australians have been waiting for a cookbook which explores her roots.

Oh well, at least she can save, print and frame the following screengrab from Club Wah :

"But Poh, you didn't win MasterChef."

"Yes, I did. The Daily Telegraph said so!"


There will be a whole load of heavy comment censorship across Murdoch media sites today, as they try to stifle discussion on just how fake some of their 'news stories' actually are, and attempt to dampen public criticism of the obviously devious, fraudulent relationship between the producers of high-rating TV shows and the Murdoch tabloid media that both ceaselessly promotes them, and profitably feeds off them.

I should note this story broke on Twitter, and Australian bloggers were all over it, very, very
quickly.

No wonder Murdoch's Australian CEO, John Hartigan, hates bloggers so much.

Bloggers keep exposing Murdoch media fakery and conspiracy.

It's Just A Plane In The Sky, It's Not A 9/11 Foreshadowing

I had no idea a novel I exhaled in less than a week back in 1996 was now worth so much on Amazon :


I've only been thinking about the novel recently because a friend pointed out something interesting about the cover I haven't thought about in many years.



Yes, that is a bongman smoking himself, but there's the view out the window :



The cover artwork was done by a brilliant Sydney designer named Jeremy. I can't say I ever liked the image of an airliner about to crash into two towers, but I think Jeremy was trying to foreshadow the disaster that befalls the characters in the book, which involves the unexplained collapse of a building.

But I was so blown away by what Jeremy created for the cover I couldn't ask him to change it.

Wake Up Sheeple!

Trevor the sheep knows what's really going on :



From Fatpita.net (via Reddit.com)

It's, mostly, still good advice today, even if it comes from the pages of the London Times, in October, 1918, as the Spanish Flu pandemic unfolded across the world :




200,000 Brits were killed by H1N1 influenza in the nine months after that editorial was published.

The Chaser On Location

Circular Quay, July 16











(click any of the above for a larger image)

Photos By Darryl Mason

Some Smirking Nine Year Old : "Your Paper Plane Looks Shitty"

By Darryl Mason

The Defence Force, now recruiting in Martin Place, with mega-chunky sound system pumping The Angels and Chisel and promising video games, or 'defence simulations', after "a short chat".



A 30-something businessman (not in this photo) strode up to one of the soldiers and said something like, "I just lost my fucking job. How soon can I go to a warzone?" The soldier said, "I don't think that's the right question to start with, sir."



There were paper plane competitions for the kids, with prizes, to test their basic engineering skills.



The distance achieved by my somewhat radical paper unmanned Predator design was beaten by a smug little three year old with an extremely basic Concord-like configuration. Well, anybody can make those. I thought we were supposed to be pushing our limits. That kid probably had help, too.

When Australia Sold Datura Cigars Were Sold As A Remedy For Bronchitis, Hay Fever and Asthma

 

  The Ipswitch Journal, May 8, 1886 :

One of these cigarettes gives immediate relief in the worst attack of Asthma, Cough, Bronchitis, Hay Fever and Shortness of Breath. Persons who suffer at night with coughing, phlegm and short breath, find them invaluable as they instantly check the spasms, promote sleep and allow the patient to pass a good night. Are perfectly harmless, and may be smoked by ladies, children, and most delicate patients. In Boxes of 35.

That's quite a sales pitch. They were popular, for those who could afford them.

So what was the active ingredient? While 'Joy' cigars and cigarettes often contained cannabis, the prime ingredient for those advertised here was Datura stramonium and its accomplice, Datura tatula.

Datura can be a powerful hallucinogenic, but fatal in overdose, which is why you don't hear much about it these days. The stories, probably myths, of 1980s parties where the drug was cooked up and everybody in the room overdosed, became baked into Australian drug culture. "Don't touch that shit!" was a common refrain when the drug was mentioned. 

But after looking at those claims of what could be 'cured' with datura, I wonder if these Cigarese De Joy, which were legally available for sale in Australia during the 1880s and 1890s, would help us cope with modern day influenza or COVID19 infections? 

The cigars may not have lived up to all their claims, and could've been dangerous, but they obviously worked to some degree, being in production for more than 20 years and popular. There was something in there that gave some kind of relief to those who read the claims and then used the product. 

Blog Breaks News Through Conspiratorial Speculation

Outside of repeated warnings about the monkey revolt where all the monkey and apes and baboons escape from all the zoos and join up with dissident military robots and then all the monkeys and apes and robots start a war against humanity (the earliest stages of this war, where monkey meets robot, have already begun), it's not often I get the actual headline news right a few weeks ahead of the rest of the media. But It seemed pretty obvious from the day after Michael Jackson's instantly suspicious death that a homicide investigation would eventually begin :

Did Michael Jackson Put Up A Fight When It Came Time For Him To Take His Drugs?

"Anyone Here From Wagga Wagga?"

In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the Jerry Seinfeld ad for Newcastle's Greater Building Society :



How did a small financial institution in Newie manage to get Jerry Seinfeld to star in their ad?

They simply called and asked his manager and Seinfeld liked the concept. The reaction in some of the international media to Seinfeld doing this ad, which obviously didn't earn him a pile of money, is mostly one of 'downright mystified', which is probably exactly why Seinfeld did the ad in the first place.

Sometimes you just have to ask and the seemingly impossible can come true.

I really like that they got Seinfeld to set up his own gear, before the street performance. It must have reminded him of his early days in stand-up comedy, another reason why he probably decided to do it.

Mumbrella has a great slab of other very creative, downright clever, recent Australian ads for bursts of 60 second enjoyment.

UPDATE : Jerry Seinfeld explains to the Newcastle Herald why he did the ad :

...the star whose agent reputedly knocks back 50 commercial overtures a week, hinted it was more about "feel" than fiscal reward.

"We don't think about money too much these days," he said. "I like to do things because they feel right."

Yesterday, he suggested Australia's affection for the show might have predisposed him to the cheeky approach from a financial institution he never knew existed.

"I was down there in '98 right after the show went off the air and the response from the people I met on the street, in the restaurants, everywhere was so special I felt kinda close to them."

The ad wasn't filmed in Newcastle. It was shot in Cedarhurst, New York. Had me fooled.

I wonder how many people in Newcastle didn't notice it wasn't local?

Father Bob's response, on Twitter, to this story.



No problem, Father Bob.

Old Media Already Suing Bloggers For Linking

By Darryl Mason

If a Daily Telegraph blogger allowed the following violence soaked comment to remain on his personal blog site for a couple of years, all of it posted under your name, even when that blogger knows you didn't write it, and even when asked nicely that blogger refuses to remove it or post an apology, what would you do?

Would you try to take legal action to get compensation for any "immeasurable hurt" that might be caused by this filth remaining online under your name?

Killing Howard is laudable. Killing his cabinet got to be OK too. Killing members of the Liberal party - that has to be a plus, surely. And what about the Nationals? We’ll kill them too. They helped keep Howard in power. And Family First, slit their throats. And what about other Christians, they are conservative and probably voted Liberal. Best kill all them along with small businessmen. There is a real hotbed of Liberal sentiment among these fascist businessmen. Don’t forget the Jews, the money grubbing bastards. They have to be next. Then there are those class traitors, the workers who voted Liberal. Kill them all. Purge the public service of suspected Liberal sympathisers too. That teacher over there. He’s wearing a tie so he must be a conservative. String him up. Hey, that guy’s got an American accent. Slaughter him and his baby too. It’s in their genes, you know. It’s a lot of people to be massacred but it will reduce greehouse gases in the long run.
Darryl Mason

The rest of the story explaining the headline, and the necessary sockpuppetry-related context, is here :

A Long Overdue Update To An Earlier Post About Online Fakery And Cats That Can Type (And Sushi Chefs That Don't Exist)


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"No Worries, Mr Chairman"

A Celebrity Spying Scandal The Australian Murdoch Media Is Pretending Simply Does Not Exist


Cartoon by Steve Bell

By Darryl Mason

Rupert Murdoch interrupts one of his own journalists, seconds into an interview, because the journalist dared to ask "The Chairman" a question with actual substance, unlike the rest of the pap that fills the other four or more minutes of Here's What Our Boss Thinks About Obama & Stuff. You only need to watch the first 45 seconds :

Fox Hack : The story that's really buzzing all around the country and certainly here in New York, is that the News of the World, a News Corporation newspaper in Britain used --

Rupert Murdoch : I'm not talking about that issue at all today. I'm sorry.

Fox Hack : No worries, Mr. Chairman. That's fine with me.

Rupert Murdoch: I'm sorry.

Fox Hack : OK. That's all right, sir.

Didn't the Fox Business journo get the 'To All Editors' memo warning this subject is off limits? That's right, Rupert doesn't have to send memos, because most Murdoch journalists already know which stories and questions will upset the boss.

If you're a Murdoch journo, the Murdoch Spying Scandal does not exist.

The Murdoch Spying Scandal, where it is alleged that Murdoch tabloid hacks were involved in the spying on of hundreds of people, and paying millions to victims who found out and said 'Fuck You!' and sued, is simply not up for discussion in Murdoch newspapers, the world over, including Australia.

The one exception to the 'This Story Doesn't Exist' rule for Murdoch journalists is to run brief stories that allow Murdoch or a News Int. rep to deny everything, while ignoring the larger story of how corrupt this style has become and its implications for the future of tabloid journalism.

Despite the expected, and wafer-thin, denials from Murdoch executives, the UK Guardian stands by its original story that Murdoch journalists were involved in dodgy intelligence gathering operations, which included surveillance, the hacking of private phone messages and allegedly buying stolen private financial documents of the celebrities Murdoch tabloids were/are obsessed with, and paying off those who found out what Murdoch journalists were doing to them and sued.

What have we heard about all this from the corporate media entity that controls more than 70% of Australia's newspapers? Fuck all.

And even though the bad behaviour of journalists, corporate media skullduggery and all things Guardian newspaper, are content staples of Australian Murdoch bloggers, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, both have found nothing to say at all about it.

They don't need to get a memo, they know they shouldn't write anything that might upset the boss, particularly now he's planning staff cuts across his media empire of at least 30%.

A former Murdoch editor called the Murdoch Spying Scandal "one of the most significant media stories of our time."

Not if you work for Murdoch, it ain't.

As it is when it comes to finally acknowledging that Rupert Murdoch is a committed backer of a global carbon tax, a true believer disciple of Al Gore and a chief propagandist of what they call "global warming hysteria", Blair and Bolt are silent.

What does it cost Rupert Murdoch to buy such comprehensive silence from two of Australia's most well-read bloggers?

Whatever Murdoch's paying these gatekeepers, it's clearly worth it.


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A Natural Master Of Radio And Comic Timing Shows An Amateur How It's Done


Father Bob : If you only see one Catholic Church service in your lifetime, see Father Bob's

The Professional Idiot holds court on John Safran & Father Bob's JJJ show, while Safran and Father Bob struggle to keep it entertaining, or even just a little bit fun.

The Professional Idiot first tries to steer the conversation away from who paid for his recent trip to Israel, where he declared his mate Peter Costello "The Messiah", The Idiot then waffles non-critically about Israel and then expresses surprise that the Palestinian politicians he met were well educated, one was even a pediatrician. Imagine that.

Then this :

The Idiot : "I’ve always tended to be on the side of people who are democratic, who respect, to as much as is consistent with their safety, human rights, and freedom of speech. And by that measure there’s only one party that would make me feel comfortable..…"

Father Bob times his moment of interjection perfectly.

Father Bob : "The Palestinians."

Silence for a few seconds, radio dead air, then you can actually hear The Idiot's jaw clench hard.

The Idiot : "..............you seriously think that or are you just being a fool?"

Father Bob : "No, I’m having a go back."

The Idiot is overwhelmed by such petulance and the standard whining and hilariously prissy outrage kicks in :

The Idiot : "Well, if you say something like that, there’s obviously no room for us to engage because what you’ve said is clearly nonsense....It’s clearly nonsense! Because it is nonsense! So what’s the point in arguing?"

Father Bob : "A conversation? No, this is not the time or the place..."

So much for The Professional Idiot's alleged love of a rousing debate.

You can hear it here. Jump to 41mins 30secs.

If this isn't a piece of surreal, Gary Larson inspired outdoor installation art, it damn well should be. Spotted at the University of Sydney by Kate LeMay :


Photo by Kate LeMay

It Really Does Get In

By Darryl Mason

As I've said here before, the Rudd government has to be very careful when it comes to censoring what Australians can read, see and buy online. No Australian election has yet seen Internet Censorship become a Major Election Issue, and if Rudd & Friends keep pushing this Censor The Net stupidity, they are going to find most Australians online are against them. And when it comes to a federal election, that could be extremely bad news.

GetUp! is planning to run the below ad as part of its fight against online censorship.



The message is clear enough, but a parody ad won't really hit home about what Online Censorship really means, and how a constantly expanding blacklist open to undue influence and corporate vendettas will change our online lives. Yes, many "hate sites" will make the list, but soon enough torrent and peer-to-peer file sharing sites will also get blocked. Well, the blacklist will attempt to block such sites, but there are many ways around even mandatory web filters, which you'll learn a bit more about here when the time is right. Obviously, you can already such info online.

The GetUp! anti-censorship ad is a good start, and the line about Iran and Online Censorship should be the ignition point for whatever ad they make next.

Stephen Conroy's Net Filter Will Block Access To eBay And Amazon

Kevin Rudd Reaches For SuperDag Status

From Twitter :


I do like that he took the nickname used by his critics (KRudd- krudd - crud) and now signs that as his name.

"Mr Jagger, I've Been A Great Fan Of Yours Ever Since You Were With The Beatles"

Three decades before Borat and Bruno, we had Norman Gunston :



And even better. Norman Gunston interviews KISS at an hilarious press conference.

Paul Stanley : "That would work wonderfully, we could bounce laser beams off your head."

Eric Carr : "Have you ever considered a career as a satellite?"

Norman Gunston : "Come on, guys, these people here respect me. Don't make fun of me in front of them."

Brilliant.

One more Norman. How cute. TV channels used to promote the fact they were in colour. Imagine trying to have to convince people to switch to colour TV? I remember some old locals when I was a kid in the mid-1970s saying they preferred black and white and colour TV was a fad, so they would not be "making the switch."



How catchy is that jingle? I don't think I've seen this ad since 1976, but immediately I knew all the words. How deeply those ads you see repeatedly as a kid embed themselves in your memory.

I'm Only Swearing At You Because My Dealer Went On Holiday

By Darryl Mason

Here's a surprise for just about nobody, swearing can make you feel better, particularly if you're in pain :

Swearing can lessen the feeling of physical pain, scientists have discovered.

Volunteers withstood pain for longer when they swore than when they used anodyne words, in a study at Keele University in the English Midlands.

Richard Stephens, who led the study, believes it may explain why most languages contain swear words.

He said: "The volunteers who swore had an elevated heart rate, so it could be increasing their aggression levels.

"Increased aggression has been shown to reduce sensitivity to pain, so it could be that swearing helps this process."

The idea that we developed swear words, hundreds or thousands of generations ago, to cope with the effects of pain is fascinating. Perhaps our very first words spluttered from our lips because hooting and roaring and grunting simply did not encapsulate our true feelings about how it felt to be kicked square in the cags by a mammoth. Then again, perhaps those very first swear words came from women during childbirth, a far more common occurence of extreme pain than getting stomped by hairy tusked elephants.

This commenter at RWDB Beck uses the above story to finally crack open the explanation for why Evil Pagan Lefties are, apparently, so full of bitter, swears-laden vitriol and abuse for the delicate pro-war, pro-occupation nice polite people that used to control Australia back in the days when newsreaders could say "John Howard" and "visionary" in the same sentence, without laughing :

An answer to why we see the abuse we conservatives get from lefties.

It would seem that they are using us to get a narcotic effect from their own bodies.

That's right. Lefties let fly against conservatives only because it gets them high.

Hey, it's cheaper than scoring on the streets. And it's legal.

For now.

Games Within Games

A commenter on this ABC News story about PM Rudd's presumed inaction when it comes to pressuring China to handover Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, who they accuse of espionage, spying, takes a plausible theory on what might have happened out for a run :

It's an interesting game that people are playing

Hu buys a state secret from someone - the secret? that's easy: the Chinese position on where commodity prices are going (ie Up)

Hu passes that secret information to his RIO bosses and consequently RIO does not need to negotiate on lower prices

Then China anounces prices for the next year hooray.

But because of Hu's actions China has been damaged financially.

But consider that there are games within games. Maybe Hu was allowed to buy the state secrets from someone allowed to sell them (either overtly or covertly).

Now we have China sitting in a pretty position - it has secured a hedge against dropping prices. With no financial outlay for doing so.

If prices drop then RIO (who acted on insider information by not acting in the absence of that info) could be sued by the Chinese and Australia would have to step in and back RIO. And of course if anyone ends up out of pocket it will be the Australian tax payer.

It's a brilliant game.

While Stern Hu may be, and hopefully is, innocent, and will be allowed to return to Australia, corporate and industrial spying and espionage runs rampant across the global business world.

Of course it does.

If Rio Tinto has never knowingly engaged in such activities, however many levels removed from the executives so plausible deniability can be maintained, they've been putting themselves at a distinct corporate disadvantage, because most, if not all, of their minor and major international competitors engage in such activitites, to some extent, as simply a way of doing business. An acceptable, if not expected, way of doing business.

One 'Janet' Unit Of Time Measurement = About Four Years

By Darryl Mason

Time moves at a curiously different speed on Planet Janet :

Almost the moment David Hicks was being measured up for his orange Gitmo jump suit, Get Up was up and running a very vocal campaign, castigating the evil Yanks for incarcerating one of our own and demanding that his rights be protected.

Almost the moment....Right.

David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan and sold to the US military and transported to Guantanamo Bay in December, 2001.

GetUp! was founded in August, 2005.

Janet Albrechtsen isn't even trying anymore.

How much does News Limited CEO John Hartigan expect us to pay read her trundling Talking Points For Desperate Howard-Era Liberals online next year?

Janet's so desperate for anything of substance she even resorts to quoting The Greens' Bob Brown, however reluctantly, with approval. W0w.

Tony Abbott is seriously being discussed as the next leader of the Liberal Party and Janet Albrechtsen thinks Bob Brown is right. These are politically hallucinogenic days.

The short version of this week's transmission from Planet Janet is that Evil Pagan Lefties should be out protesting against the Chinese regime, like they do a lot already about Tibet and human rights, but they should have shut the fuck up when it came to the Bush regime, and though she usually thinks protests are useless at effective change they should now all shout "You Bastards!" at the Chinese regime and protest and write letters, because....and this may shock you....the Chinese Communist regime plucks people, including foreign nationals, off the streets and detains them and interrogates them and doesn't give them access to lawyers and fucks around with the detainee's home government diplomats when they try to get access to the prisoners.

By imprisoning Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu for a week, so far, without charge, the Chinese communist regime is acting like, I don't know....a bunch of bloody communists or something.

Or like Americans.

Obviously, we all expect better behaviour from communist regimes. Regardless of how much coal they buy from us.

I'm not quite sure Janet Albrechtsen is aware that she has successfully compared the violation of the human rights of Stern Hu by the Chinese Communist Regime to the violation of the human rights of David Hicks by the United States under the Bush Warparty Regime. But good on her for finally recognising the truth. All these years later.

Just don't expect to see Janet Albrechtsen at the barricades outside the Chinese embassy.

As she so often told us during the Bush War For (Our) God Years, as so many opinionists and editors of the Murdoch Old Media railed so effervescently back then, protests don't work. Protests are pointless, usually misguided, often offensive and utterly meaningless.

Unless the protests are against the actions of a communist regime who doesn't recognise the democratic right to protest, of course, then they can really make a difference.

Something like that.

You try and make sense of it.

Planet Janet Classic : Obama Wins Presidency, This Confirms America Is "A Racist Nation"

Planet Janet Classic : Rudd Wins Election, "Conservatism Has Triumphed!"

Planet Janet Classic : Before She Wrote Her 'Howard Must Go' 2007 Column, She Rang Howard's Office To Tip Him Off

What If You Decide It Tastes Like Shit Halfway Through?

A fantastic series of photos here, of a black-headed python consuming a big fat goanna, near the Cloudbreak mine in the Pilbara.

Can python do it?



Yes python can.



It took five hours for the python to finish its lunch.

The whole series of photos is here.