David Letterman Blackmail & Confession – full clip

This video keeps disappearing from YouTube, but given its inevitable place in popular culture, modern history, media studies, the news cycle, and the fact that it was first broadcast free-to-air and that no money is being made by reposting it here, its hosting is justified, imho. Sorry for the fact that it’s not smooth playing, I think it’s about 1FPS. It’s a shame to not see his full facial expressions, but it’s worthwhile for the audio and to know what was actually said, rather than just what was reported, again, imho.

Go to the video page from here.

F$%&!!!!!

Have been trying to upload actual video but WordPress wants paid upgrade before allowing any video to be part of the 3GB upload limit. Oh well. That sucks.

You’ll just have to check out the hyperlink before it gets taken down there as well.

Happy creepy viewing.

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Germaine Greer gets it wrong on deadly Aussie bushfires

Got to admit that I quite enjoyed Germaine Greer’s overtly pragmatic epitaph for Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. As a virulent pissing contest engulfed Australian and global semi-celebria, with each successive politician and MTV host proclaiming greater and greater love and admiration for a bloke that many thought of as a bit of a dickhead, albeit a freshly dead one, Greer was the sole voice stating the obvious, namely

What Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space. The one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss. There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. There was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress.

Which is why it is baffling that she should now display a brilliant lack of intelligence, proclaiming that the highly fatal and destructive bushfires still tormenting Victoria were caused by authorities failing to burn off and a lack of bush clearing.

The simple fact is that the Victorian authority supposedly responsible for forest management, the ironically named Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), are all about support for unsustainable forest practices. They more or less prostitute their taxpayer-funded services to the woodchip industry, which does nothing but clear bush – old bush, new bush, sick bush, healthy bush.

The DSE are in fact such vigorous fans of the hazard reduction techniques known as back-burning that it is barely eight years since ‘controlled burns’ they were overseeing (supposedly) did what fires do in the face of 30-knot winds, destroying roughly a million hectares of native forest. As a result, logging lobbyists secured a commitment from the Victorian government, enabling them to access massive stands of ancient forest, to make up for the volume of wood no longer able to be cut down for the simple reason that it had been turned to charcoal.

Far from adding what is usually a dissenting and radical voice to this particular discussion, Greer is simply, and ignorantly, piping the same shrill chorus soon to be sung by all the usual idiot lobbyists like Barry Chipman and anybody from Timber Communities Australia, the Institute of Public Affairs, the Liberal and National Parties, etc. Namely – that this tragedy wouldn’t have happened if conservationists hadn’t interfered with sound forest management practices.

Obviously, bushfires wouldn’t happen if humans could fight back by cutting down every bloody tree and killing every bloody native animal – a far cry from Greer’s anti-Irwin argument. Bloody human-hating Greenies f%&$ed us all again, they proclaim.

But the simple fact is that nature and forests can quite perfectly manage themselves, if just left alone long enough to functionally exist. The remaining areas of Victoria’s old growth forest – concentrated in and arounf the Otways and East Gippsland – still retain enough moisture to function not only as massive biodiversity store-houses, but as difficult-to-ignite fire buffers. Less human intervention, through irresponsible land clearing and corporate logging, is the answer, not the problem.

Greer would do better to understand this before firing one off on such a mishandled issue. She has done herself, myriad species, and all natural environments, not to mention the dead and damaged, a massive disservice with this fresh strand of vomit.

Better she had shut her mouth rather than emit it.

Arundhati Roy defines Mumbai

This is copied from The Guardian, Roy’s piece is entitled Mumbai was not our 9/11. It’s 5000 words of essential reading, so grab coffee/yerba/chai and strap in. All that follows is a powerful op ed from one of the world’s most valuable living writers.

Mumbai was not our 9/11

by Arundhati Roy

We’ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching “India’s 9/11”. Like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we’re expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it’s all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn’t act fast to arrest the “Bad Guys” he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India’s 9/11.

But November isn’t September, 2008 isn’t 2001, Pakistan isn’t Afghanistan and India isn’t America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It’s odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India’s richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara – one of Kashmir’s most ravaged districts.

The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously indicates that something’s going very badly wrong in this country.

Australian media link Obama to Crack

The Sydney Morning Herald has reached a desperate new low today, and it is anybody’s guess why. This paper is on one hand trying to promote itself as cool and edgy, with colourful stroboscopic TV ads soundtracked by a theme plagiaristically close to Rage Against the Machine’s ‘I won’t do whatcha tell me!’ On the other hand, it also frequently runs conservative snootiness masquerading as irony and continues to question and even deny the very actual reality of devastating climate change.

So when they try to associate Barack Obama with crack cocaine is it because they think destructive drug references are edgy and cool (which they aren’t), or because their increasingly conservative editorial agenda finds something satisfying in making a racist slur against the new US President-elect?

What? Crack cocaine use is much more common amongst lower income brackets in America. Blacks in America are still more likely than white Americans to be economically disadvantaged. And American courts treat crack much more harshly than cocaine, which is generally used by people with a much higher disposable income.

Odds are that if you’re in America and your problem is crack, you’re black, and you’re going to get a harsher sentence than Wall Street when he gets caught with uncut Peruvian coming back from his Obama inauguration party. Statistically speaking.

The New York Times has been running this story for the past couple of days: Lose the Blackberry? Yes he can, maybe. It’s a very interesting article about how the US President is, in a way, locked in the watchtower. When Obama takes office on Jan. 20, he may well be denied his mobile phone and even email access because of laws relating to communications from the President of the United States.

Today (timely, as always) the Sydney Morning Herald is running exactly the same story, and the are attributing it to The New York Times. Except that they have changed the title to

Obama might have to kick his CrackBerry habit

and inexplicably altered the line

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry.

to instead read

For years, like legions of other on-the-move professionals, Mr Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry – or CrackBerrys as they are sometimes called for exactly that reason..

As you can see, the sloppy Herald insert is evident by the appearance of two fullstops.

Now – and I’m just guessing here – writers in New York have seen a lot of the social problems and devastation of crack addiction across poorer areas of their city. They have seen that many black communities have been deeply affected by it in an almost cancerous manner. And they have seen a number of other American media outlets repeatedly tie black skin to crack addiction and drug abuse generally in a pervasive and decidedly racebaiting manner. So it would never even occur to them to use the term “Crackberry” in writing about anybody, let alone their President-elect.

The Sydney Morning Herald, on the other hand – just what the f#$% are they trying to say?

Aussie Captions Needed: Malcolm Turnbull…

.......................... ?

no prizes, plenty of reasons, pretty self-explanatory, and……GO!

one bloody good example from Glass Wall Observer that hassurprisingly little to do with penises:

Turnbull displays both his level of concern for “working families” and the extent to which his own living standards will be affected by any economic downturn.

Lovin’ it.

More!!

Now!!!!         8 )

PATRIOT Act Repealed!! Iraq withdrawal commences.

A very special edition of the New York Times was freely distributed to 1.2 million Americans as they raced to or from work today, in commemoration of an end to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Web traffic for the special edition has been so high that a number of pages have been forced offline, but the special issue is certainly worth visiting, for the stirring cover art alone.

Iraq War ends! Cars run on gasoline recalled.

Awesome!! This bulletin just in from New York Times:

Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out
that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had
come to an end.

If, that is, they happened to read a “special edition” of today’s New
York Times.

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million
papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged
pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass
them out on the street.

Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives including the
establishment of national health care, the abolition of corporate
lobbying, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s, and, of course, the end of the
war.

The paper, an exact replica of The New York Times, includes
International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as
editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a
recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline. There is also a
timeline describing the gains brought about by eight months of
progressive support and pressure, culminating in President Obama’s “Yes
we REALLY can” speech. (The paper is post-dated July 4, 2009.)

“It’s all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever,”
said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper’s writers. “We’ve got to make
sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do.
After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start
imagining heaven.”

Not all readers reacted favorably. “The thing I disagree with is how
they did it,” said Stuart Carlyle, who received a paper in Grand
Central Station while commuting to his Wall Street brokerage. “I’m all
for freedom of speech, but they should have started their own paper.”

Some people just don’t get it….

updated reports here

Malcolm Turnbull’s ego shames Australia on the B.B.C.

Malcolm Turnbull tells.... um... does this even need a caption?

Malcolm Turnbull, leader of Australia’s well-deserving federal opposition has been banging on and on for nearly 2 weeks now about a joke about George Bush.

Firstly, Turnbull has taken on the role of playing wounded, feigning shock that anybody could consider the least competent American President in history an idiot. It’s a strange position for an allegedly intelligent man to take, especially given that his unending melodrama of the last fortnight would have made better sense coming from a 7-year old boy with wet underpants.

Secondly, Turnbull has been flouncing on for so long about how some joke about George Bush, allegedly made by Kevin Rudd, will so hurt our international standing, and so harm Australia’s international security clearance, and so upset the rest of the world, that now the media of the world have walked into the story thinking it’s actually a story and thereby treating it as such. So after two weeks of hard and useless work, Turnbull may well have achieved that of which he has endlessly accused Rudd.

Thanks to Lord Snot’s ceaseless self-serving dummy-spit, the BBC world service is now carrying this ill-informed article freshly posted by Reuters.

“[It was] an account so self-serving that it presented him as a diplomatic encyclopaedia, a font of all knowledge, and the president of the United States, the chief executive of our greatest ally, as a fool,” Mr Turnbull was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Aren’t parliamentary privilege and political power wonderful? You can be the gutless leading puppet of a rejected gaggle of climate change denying visionless racists focussed only on finding fault in everything that everybody who is actually doing anything puts forward, intent only on one day adding “Prime Minister of Australia” to your resume because it’s the one thing you haven’t been able to buy – yet – but if you spin the same irrelevant line long enough, the world will listen to your vacuous side of the story for, ooh, maybe fifteen minutes?

But that’s opposition isn’t it – so little to do, so much time.

Juicy behind the scenes rumours from US election

Sorry for the sleazy title, but if you’ve got such a problem with it, how did you end up here?

Turns out that Newsweak (NOT a typo) has been running a little project via its journalists, gathering anything not-fit-for-print or off-the-record pre-election to release post-election.

Genii.

Although it’s quite hilarious to read that Sarah Palin couldn’t grasp that Africa is a “continent” rather than a “country”, the eye-catching bit of awesomeness is a comment from Obama, in which he (rightly) derides the debate stage show.

When he was preparing for the Democratic primary debates, Obama was recorded saying, “I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.“

Apart from it being reassuring to know that Obama uses the F word, how on-the-money is that assessment of feelgood new age greenness. Lovin’ it. Gobama!

Yay World, Racism’s Finished Now!

What an amazing year for black people: Kevin Rudd apologized to the Aboriginal Stolen Generations, Lewis Hamilton won the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and now this – Barack Obama, first African-American President. Yay, racism’s all gone now.

Of course it isn’t. And it’s freaky that media – credible, generally reliable media – are so gaga over the African-American component of Barack Obama that his victory is now being painted as the realization of Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream.

This is not to take away from what Obama’s victory is. It is profound, and by virtue of the fact that America must now change direction on so many globally impactive issues, it is world-changing. It is a relief, it is a chance for the world to take a long-awaited breath. It is generational and cultural change. It is the elevation of vision triumphing over the politics of fear.

But just like Rudd’s apology, although it is a starkly powerful symbol – and therefore open to all manner of broadly varying characterization from any and all with a response to such a symbol – it is not an end in itself. It is, if anything, a beginning.

The most pragmatic assessment (pre-election) of what an Obama victory might mean for shifting racial tensions in America was that people still beholden to racial discrimination, whether consciously or reflexively practised, might see their distrustful tendencies diminish over time. If they experience a long term engagement with or relationship of sorts to a black man as President, and come to judge him on his words and actions, rather than their kneejerk attitude to his skin, then their embedded prejudices might register as irrelevant and unsustainable. And, like most useless things, be let go.

That’s more realistic. Then again, this is perhaps more caustic than it is pragmatic (still thoroughly timely reading):

Jesse Jackson will be appointed lead editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal. and Al Sharpton will assume duties at The National Review.  Rush Limbaugh will inaugurate a series called “Great African American Inventors.” Spike Lee will be invited to run Columbia Pictures  and Amy Goodman will take over at NBC. The Newspaper Society of America will apologize for the lynchings and civil disturbances caused by an inflammatory media over the last one hundred or so years. A choked up Rupert Murdoch will read the statement on behalf of his colleagues.

In an emotional press conference, John McWhorter, Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele will admit that  they have been tools of the Eugenics movement and donate all of the millions they have received from far right organizations to scholarships for black and Hispanic students. Blacks will have as much access to a good education as those members of Al-Qaeda and Saddam’ s government who studied in  the United States. This will end the policy of you educate them, we fight them.

Gertrude Himmlefarb and Lynne Cheney will insist that the works by Hispanic, black and Native Americans be added to the cannon.  Cornel West will co host  a show with Dr.  Phil. The New York Review of Books will end its white only policy and begin to resemble America. Phillip Roth will admit that all of his novels are autobiographical. Several prominent abstract expressionists will confess that they can’t draw.

All of the blacks and Hispanics who have been driven out of New York, Oakland, and San Francisco, as a result of the policies of ethnic cleansing, advocated by Jerry Brown, Giuliani and Newsom, will be invited to return. The banks that aimed toxic mortgage loans to blacks and Hispanics, who would have qualified for conventional loans had they been white, will halt the foreclosure process and renegotiate these loans. CEOs on Wall Street will forego bonuses and golden parachutes. Sales conferences will be held at Day’s Inn. For rent signs will go up on K street. The American Enterprise will close its doors.

taken from Morning in Obamerica, by Ishmael Reed

President Barack Obama: It’s a lock!!!

Given that the West coast of America is rife with filthy communist Hollywood types, the final handful of seats needed by Barack Obama is assured. It’s over. He wins. BIG!!!. It’s unlikely that even Republic*nts are stupid enough to take any part of these incoming election results to the Supreme Court for a bit of stacked judiciary revision.

UPDATE: OBAMA hits 273 seats with 138 still to count. Massive Win!!!!!!! Looking set to take Indiana and Virginia in massive redrawing of electoral map.

2 big outcomes: Americans made the right choice (finally), and NO MORE US ELECTION COVERAGE!!!!! Woo Hoo!

In the meantime, however, results are still coming in and analysts are trying to simultaneously milk and nail down the moment.

Bloomberg: Obama on Verge of Presidency

Peter Hartcher, in Sydney Morning Herald: US Voters reject Bush nightmare

The Fireside Post: Finally! An intellectual Moral President.

Al Jazeera: Ha Ha, American Infidel Scum!

UK Guardian: Breaking US Election coverage.

eating Defeat Nachos

Obama by 123 seats! Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and The Senate..

Game On!!! It looks as though the Republican election-stealing machine has stayed mothballed so far. Perhaps because robbing this election would be too obvious. Pennsylvania confirmed as first big swing state prize, with Ohio and Florida looking set to follow.

Latest locked in numbers from New York Times have Obama on 192 seats and McCain on 69. Meaning: McCain is getting smashed, the Republic*nts are getting smashed, and Obama is only 78 seats from victory. If current trends continue, the Democrats also look set to take a clear majority in the all important Senate race, meaning no more excuses for their role in approving further failed policy positions.

Up to date election result map here, and recommended result surfing here.

Also, check out Tom Edsall’s Guide for Watching Election Results, which makes it all more bearable.

Ben Smith of Politico is also logging mini-updates of useful breaking news here, with the latest – and welcome – byte being that Obama may be considering Democrat powerbroker and brains trust Rahm Emanuel for appointment as his Chief of Staff.

Incoming state reports and news bytes here from bloggers for the Washington Post.

Quick n Easy Access to US Election Day Coverage

Here it is – Election Day, and if American foreign policy arrogance is anything to go by, today’s winner gets to be the new Ruler of the World. This is of course one more reason why everybody on the planet should get to vote for the US Presidency, which would be one solid reason why the result would not be in doubt. However, Americans and American Elections being what they are, today may yet be a very very long day.

In vague order of immediacy, here are the most useful pages for you to visit today, depending on your information processing needs.

For your immediate updates and easiest insight, go to the the New York Times front page. Clear mapping in red and blue as tallies come in, with percentages and additional headlines if you want to keep reading. Good news just in – Florida (North America’s wang) is swinging clearly toward Obama. With 10% of the vote counted there, he’s up 55% to 45%. North Carolina has also gone to Obama heavily in early voting, with South Carolina swinging from blue to red and backagain.

Can’t handle uncertainty, head to the New York Times President Map. This map shows the way that states are leaning as counts come in but, unlike CNN, MSNBC, FAUX, etc. only reports electoral seats gained once they are confirmed. It details the direct race between Obama and McCain. So far, Obama has only New Hampshire, while McCain has pulled ahead in states where you might expect to find bourbon served with breakfast.

If you have more time to spare and would like to choose between objects of hope and despair for yourself, Huffington Post has a full page worth of Election Day maps and widgets from different news and online sources, such as Google, CBS, and CNN.

Of course, if you’re wanting more depth to your coverage, just go straight to the Huffington Post front page where updates and new commentary are being posted almost half-hourly throughout the day – complete with stories of voting irregularities, legal challenges to ballots, and latest exit polls. It’s a good day to check out HuffPo if you’re new to the site.

For greater depth and breadth, Real Clear Politics is one of the most widely referred to early posters of political number crunching – and with good reason. Their information layout could be less painful, but if you have time to delve in search of salve for your political angst, RCP is the site for you.

And presented in a more NewsWeek type format, Politico also offers broad up to date coverage, but in a less constipated format, that makes quick check-ins and check-outs easier and more worthwhile.

Naom Klein’s new Bailout piece for Rolling Stone

Naomi Klein – intellectanarcho-justice consiglieri extraordinaire and author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine – has just had a mini-opus on the $700B bailout published here in Rolling Stone. It’s suitably entitled The New Trough and like all of Klein’s writing is well worth a look for anybody thinking that the most loudly repeated story isn’t necessarily the real story.

On October 13th, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced the team of “seasoned financial veterans” that will be handling the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, one name jumped out: Reuben Jeffery III, who was initially tapped to serve as chief investment officer for the massive new program.

On the surface, Jeffery looks like a classic Bush appointment. Like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, he’s an alum of Goldman Sachs, having worked on Wall Street for 18 years. And as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated “flexibility” in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.

Bankers watching bankers, regulators who don’t believe in regulating — that’s all standard fare for the Bush crew. What’s most striking about Jeffery’s résumé, however, is an item omitted when his new job was announced: He served as executive director of Paul Bremer’s infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns. Qualifications weren’t a big issue back then, because the staff’s main function was to hand over stacks of taxpayer money to private contractors, who were the ones actually running the occupation. It was this nonstop cash conveyor belt that earned the Green Zone a reputation, in the words of one CPA official, as “a free-fraud zone.” During Senate hearings last year, when Jeffery was asked what he had learned from his experience at the CPA, he said he thought that contracts should be handed out with more “speed and flexibility” — the same philosophy he cited back when he was in charge of regulating Wall Street traders…. [continue reading]

Congo continues to be the 21st Century’s Secret Holocaust.

The continuing bloodlust in the Congo is the worst ongoing Holocaust on Earth and actually looks set, in simple numerical terms, to soon surpass the number of Jewish dead in Hitler’s WWII genocide. Already there are 5.4 million dead. This article about human tragedy and corporate sponsorship of rape by Johann Hari gives a very necessary glimpse into the worst secret slaughter in modern history.

The battalions of child soldiers — drugged, dazed thirteen year olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn’t try to escape and go home. But oddly, as I watch the war starting again on CNN, I find myself thinking about a woman I met who had, by Congolese standards, not suffered in extremis.

I was driving back to Goma from a diamond mine one day when my car got a puncture. As I waited for it to be fixed, I stood by the roadside and watched the great trails of women who stagger along every road in Eastern Congo, carrying all their belongings on their backs in mighty crippling heaps. I stopped a 27 year-old woman called Marie-Jean Bisimwa who had four little children toddling along beside her. She told me she was lucky. Yes, her village had been burned out. Yes, she had lost her husband somewhere in the chaos. Yes, her sister had been raped and gone insane. But she and her kids were alive.

I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean’s children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn’t look around, or speak, or smile. “I haven’t ever been able to feed them,” she said. “Because of the war.” Their brains hadn’t developed; they never would now. “Will they get better?” she asked. I left her in a village on the outskirts of Goma, and her kids stumbled after her, expressionless.

Relax! US Economy is perfectly sound!

… unfortunately the sound is

which really Adam Sandler howling “the price is wrong, bitch!” over the top of it. And somebody has gone and written an article at Bloomberg.com entitled, Bush says “U.S. using wide range of tools”

Isn’t that the problem? Biggest bunch of tools ever.

And speaking of douche nozzles, Mayor Bloomberg himself, mega-squillionaire mayor of New York City has been complicit in an 11th hour act of utter scumbaggery. Amidst all the noise of the $700B bailout with its associated $150B in pork products, lawmakers quietly buried legislation that would have guaranteed $5B in ongoing health costs for rescue workers made ill from time spent working at New York’s Ground Zero. Bloomberg supported the backdown, unwilling to cover 10% of the bill.

Makes it clear who the real sick f#$ks are.

Australian Federal Police raid journalist.

The Howard era is meant to be over in Australia, but either the Federal Police didn’t get that memo, or Kevin Rudd never bothered to send it.

The Canberra Times reports that Canberra press gallery journo Philip Dorling had his home and car searched this morning by AFP accompanied by computer experts. The trigger for their search was this story written by Dorling in June and containing supposedly confidential briefing materials regarding Australian deployment of spies in ally and trade partner nations.

From the Times article:

They seized a laptop, a computer hard drive, a mobile phone, documents and a copy of The Canberra Times from June 14, which were all taken back to AFP National Headquarters in Civic for examination.

The AFP raided Dorling’s home once before searching for the source of a leak in September 2000, when the journalist was working as a staffer for the then Labor foreign affairs spokesman, Laurie Brereton.

The editor of The Canberra Times, Peter Fray, said, “Phil Dorling was doing his job – the job of every journalist, and that is to reveal the truth”.

And Fairfax Media’s Corporate Affairs boss Bruce Wolpe said the company was “gravely concerned”.

“Fairfax Media is gravely concerned by this legal assault on one of our journalists for doing his job.

“A Federal police raid on the home of a journalist cuts to the heart of the operation of a free press, and is unacceptable.

“We have long advocated the need for shield legislation to protect the public’s right to know and today’s disturbing events show once again that enactment of a Federal shield law is imperative.”

The last time that police powers were used to seriously intimidate journalists in this way was in November 2004, when a request from John Howard’s office resulted in a raid on the home of Chris Graham, editor of the National Indigenous Times.

Obviously, Dorling has been doing his job. Obviously, the sort of abuses of power which Labor occasionally objected to in Opposition may now seem agreeable to them. Obviously, Wolpe raises a significant concern which may get further oxygen in the coming weeks – as one of the only developed countries without a Bill of Rights, the Australian government must legislatively move now – in a transparent manner – to ensure a free press. Although, obviously, they would much prefer a well-behaved press.

NSW Greens storm council elections

>> jewel <<

From the ground up, a massive swing seems to have altered the face of local politics across New South Wales. NSW Greens pre-election had 58 councillors on 31 councils across New South Wales. With a lot of number crunching still to do and per centages to jiggle, it looks as though the Greens have picked up an extra 30 seats.

According to this article by Lisa Carty and Heath Gilmore, the most dramatic swings – up to 15% – to the Greens have occurred in the seats of Marrickville, Leichhardt, and Gosford. In an article looking more closely at the Sydney results, Carty and Gilmore speak with unsuccessful ALP mayoral candidate Meredith Burgmann.

Burgmann displays the same pigheaded inability to sread results that characterizes most doomed politicians, and their parties.

“As we expected, the turmoil in the Labor Party over the past 10 days has badly affected our result,” she said.

She also blamed Clover Moore’s war chest, but felt reassured from doorknocking.

“we got lots of evidence that the voters could distinguish between our team and the State Government.”

Here’s the answer that Meredith Burgmann SHOULD have given:

We have been the State Government for more than a decade. We have showed some real promise and helped to get the nation’s first carbon trading frameworks in place, and we can throw bloody big parties, even though since 2001 that has meant locking down the city, citizens, and sending stormtroopers through public parks. But we have really pissed away the last 4 years. Seriously, what have we done? No vision, no leadership.

This potentially awesome city, and we’ve turned it into an Americanized corporate ghetto, surrounded by horrifically expensive tunnels that nobody wants to use and that don’t actually do anything particularly useful. Oh yeah, and a big chunk of cash on desalination that’ll guarantee expensive and wasted water and electricity for generations to come.

Nobody trusts the State Labor Party in New South Wales. I mean, they want to – because the alternative is a government run by completely out-of-touch bank operators, lawyers, failed doctors and God lobbyists. But we haven’t delivered one decent long term project to the state since…. Anyway, the last 10 days has been nothing. If anything, Labor has a chance to win the state election in 2011 now that Iemma and Costa have been axed and Reba Meagher – that self-involved cow – has gone. But if we don’t get our shit together, pay attention to people in the real world – rather than in focus groups – and get rid of the stench of corporate whoredom, wasted taxes, and elitist greed… well, we might just end up being the reason why Kevin Rudd has to campaign for reelection in 2010 when he would probably rather get on with improving the country.

I mean, we’re fucking idiots really.

Oh, and of course, Liberal hogwart Barry O’Farrell got some comment in the media about the ALP being crap. Unfortunately, O’Farrell’s NSW Liberals have done the same thing as the Tasmanian Liberals. Namely, they make sure that they are consistently even more worthless than the sods in power, ensuring that there are never any improvements on what few ideas and proposals come out of state parliament, and also ensuring that the donkeys in power are never under significant to do any better.

But this started on a positive note, and that would be a good place to end – onya Greens!! Hopefully your ascendancy will continue to and through which ever state elections come next, then the federal, then NSW state. Oh my Buddha – federal senate elections in 2010. Please get rid of Steven Fielding and get hold of a clean balance of power.

>> tool <<

Steven Fielding is such a complete and utter knob. He is no more right wing than most Liberals but somehow he is far more annoying and a much bigger tool. I guess the fact that he only picked up about 2500 votes of his own in 2004 and yet he gets to hold all of Australia to ransom probably doesn’t help. And his head. His head really doesn’t help either.

Anyway – go Greens. Let’s get German. But without the Germans.

New McCain-Palin Republicans for Jesus poster. AWESOME!!

it’s so awesome, i want one!

New McCain-Palin badges. AWESOME!!!

McCain launches chemical attack

Sarah Palin says “BREED, muthaf$%#kaz!”

What’s better than right wing Christian nut jobs in the White House? Maybe fake pregnancies….

George W & McBrain’s actual running mate

John McCain is dangerously mental – it’s simple. Obama can’t deliver all that he promises and some of the promises on which he can deliver (like more support for Israel and nuclear power) are scary but now the whole billion dollar race for the White House has taken on a David Lynch twist.

This article in the Daily Kos and its sequel right here make the claim that Sarah Palin, McCain’s purely strategic nominee for the vice presidency (maverickly chosen ultra-conservative female fundie Xtian) has faked the birth of her most tactically wonderful Downs Syndrome un-aborted 5-month old baby.

one of these people is 7 months pregnant…..

According to the story & photos, she showed no signs of pregnancy, even at what was supposedly 7 months, and spent more than 8 hours on a plane after her water had broken. And nobody noticed her going into anything resembling labour.

And in the follow up story, it is reported that around what should have been the 7 month mark (for Sarah)

her 16-year old daughter was involved in a car collision, driving a vehicle leaving a family medical centre according to the police report.

Of course, that could be a coincidence. She may have just dropped off her mum. During her break from school.

When she took off some time for an infection.

That lasted 5 months.

What’s that Scully?

Holy crap! Just in, this piece from New York Times – the 16-year-old anti-abortion puppet doesn’t seem to have learned a thing. She’s pregnant again! Seems the Palins aren’t going to wait for the Pretzeldency, and are trying to breed their way to global domination instead.

Naaaasty.

Scab Labor? How low will Morris Iemma go?

Let’s face it – the Australian Labor Party can do a lot better than it is doing. There is neither need nor reason for anybody to feel sentimental about committee-intensive hierarchies where Marxist farts call each other comrade as though doing so doesn’t paint “delete me” clearly on their forehead.

But, at the very least, Labor should show some concern for the minimal levels of wellbeing generally supported by worker solidarity. So what the hell does Morris Iemma stand for?

Obviously less than slightly left talkback DJ Mike Carlton. Carlton refused to submit his weekly column to Fairfax for their weekend edition of the Simply Moaning Herald because of strike action by journalists opposed to mass sackings. So he has been (at least for now) sacked.

What does Morris do? As strikebreaking scab labour, he exploits Fairfax’s need for wordage with yet another worthless diatribe about the wonderful benefits of delivering publicly built and owned utilities into private hands.

Because he runs what should be one of the most manageable states in Australia, but can’t think of any other way to screw more money out of the inhabitants.

Because he is a dick.

The kind of dick that has made an unelectable State Liberal Party look like the best thing that could now happen to New South Wales at the next election. And everybody seems to know this except for the New South Wales Labor Government.

Who didn’t even think to charge Parker Brothers $15 billion for the right to stick Sydney on a Global Monopoly board. Even though Morris was so proud. Of his Monopoly.

“Nowhere to be found”? Indeed.

How crap is Fairfax? How crap is Miriam Steffens?

The correct answers are “more than ever” and “completely”. “totally” and “who?” are also acceptable.

The main Fairfax broadsheets are Melbourne’s Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. One of the supposed strengths of Fairfax is a pluralistic approach, namely that know-nothing scene queens like Miranda Devine and Liberal Party lobbyists like Gerard Henderson appear alongside worthwhile writers and analysts like Michelle Grattan, Ross Gittins, and Peter Hartcher.

Anybody who has been paying attention would have noticed that the Herald has increasingly hybridised itself over the last 12-18 months, becoming – at least in part – some sort of pillar for right wing hacks and Pauline Hanson supporters to lean upon in times of need of propaganda or self-approval.

Add in to the mix elements of Ralph crossed with Who Weekly and New Idea, and you have some kind of race to the bottom marked by pictures of boobs and no need for reading or analysis above a fifth grade level. The only reason that the papers are worth reading is for ridicule and the fact that they are 60% not this (or 40% in the case of the Herald – whose editor scrapped and investigative journalist’s final piece after five years in and around Palestine because he didn’t want to offend the Israel lobby. What a dick!).

The Fairfax Brains Trust’s self-perception is perhaps best evidenced in their latest tv ads – cool and striking photos from around the world flash in sync with rocking guitar, and then there’s some lame tagline about being cool and cutting edge. The fact that the paper is neither is underscored by the fact that the music is a blatant plagiarism of that ancient anthem “Fuck You I won’t Do What Ya Tell Me” by Rage Against the Machine parading as futuristic freshness.

Either Fairfax doesn’t realize that it actually is the Machine, or its directors do realize this but figure the rest of us are so stupid that rainbow-bright advertising featuring photos taken for international non-Fairfax publications will stop us working this out for ourselves.

So now Fairfax’s directors have taken the bold decision to reward shareholders and themselves by sacking 550 employees, including a large number of journalists. Amusingly, even with their massive resources, Fairfax have been slow to adapt to the age of new media. They are only doing something now – the wrong thing – because their profits have shrunk. Rather than an innervation of their online presence (with wacky upgrades like “hyperlinking”), it is likely that we will see more tacky crappy “Sam” type blogs and uncredited reposting of even more articles from the New York Times, and of course even more crap press releases parading as articles.

Like this one by some p.r. mole called Miriam Steffens. Amazingly, the Fairfax staff seem incredibly upbeat about their own rapidly vanishing prospects. Steffens even managed to frame the quote from the journalists’ own union in such a way that it almost sounds non-combative:

“It’s a gut reaction that reducing costs is going to be the salvation of media groups who are struggling in these difficult times. One would have thought that the way to attract readers is to produce the best quality journalism we can.”

The Australian presents an entirely different and far more insightful viewpoint. The articles make for a good exercise in contextualisation and comparison – structures, highlights, flow, tone, viewpoint; even in comparing the comments by reps from the same union, The Australian takes a mighty dump on Steffens brown-nosing head:

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance Victorian sectretary Louise Connor said The Age journalists were angry and shell-shocked and had condemned Mr Kirk for making the announcement before talking to staff.

Which also goes to show that direct quotes can hide the truth more effectively than paraphrasing when they are pruned with intent. Although absent from Fairfax’s own article on the subject, The Australian – which properly discloses all of its potential conflicts of interest in quoting from sources such as the Daily Telegraph’s editorial staff – gives voice to Gerard Noonan of Fairfax.

After a meeting at Fairfax’s headquarters in Sydney’s Pyrmont, senior Herald journalist Gerard Noonan branded management “gutless” and said they were using “the worst of the Work Choices legislation” to make deep cuts to journalism.

“This is a panicked response,” he said. “Management is clearly struggling to deal with how to handle the complex demands of high-end, quality journalism.”

Miriam works in the same building as Gerard, but completely misses the existence of this anger, doesn’t feel it worth mentioning that the Stock Exchange was informed of this decision before the people to be fired, and indeed thinks that the key point of note in the entire piece of scumbaggery is that:

(Fairfax Executive) Mr (David) Kirk said the targeted $50 million in annualised cost savings would “hold us in good stead for years to come”.

Fairfax, you’re in something, but it’s not “stead” and if employees like “Miriam” are anything to go by, it’s not good.