|
2013
Nov 27, 2013 20:50:23 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 27, 2013 20:50:23 GMT 10
I wouldn't be at all surprised. East Timor accuses Australia of spying for commercial gain during Timor sea negotiationsThose with long memories will recall that the guv announced renewed talks and indicated that there would be a favourable deal for east timor in the runup to that year's election. Then they backflipped afterwards. It was so darn obvious at the time that's what they'd do. East Timor got screwed, I'm not at all surprised they were angry.
|
|
|
2013
Nov 27, 2013 22:59:48 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 27, 2013 22:59:48 GMT 10
I don't watch a lot of TV, as I've mentioned before. I'm just (finally) watching the QandA episode which matched Richard Dawkins against Cardinal Pell.
Oh my.
I'm half way through, and it's embarrassing for the catholic church. Pell is utter rubbish at debating, and he has no arguments which can't be smashed with straight-forward logic. He's mostly relying on word games, and Dawkins his making him look a fool while barely raising a sweat. Wow. I'm genuinely disappointed - the pro-church crowd usually has much better bullshit that this. Dawkins is being restrained, too - the usual "pit-bull" response doesn't seem to apply
No wonder Bolt had to bitch and complain for the rest of the week. I think he's become a sort of barometer - you can tell how badly his side of any argument does on a TV debate by the amount of effort he wastes trying to spin it in the days following. The more shit, the more spin.
I recall that bolt did try an "aHA" when dawkins point out that whatever branch of our ancestors that Pell mentioned were our cousins not our ancestors. At the time there had been recent claims to the effect that Dawkins was wrong. Turns out that he wasn't. I'm sure Bolt just forgot to correct that claim.
|
|
|
2013
Nov 29, 2013 7:21:04 GMT 10
Post by angra on Nov 29, 2013 7:21:04 GMT 10
A taste of the Daily Mail. Tony Blair was having an affair with Wendi Deng! Well no he wasn't, but yes he might have been. They stayed overnight together several times! Rupert will never talk to Blair again, ever! Of course we are not suggesting there was any impropriety. The relationship was purely platonic. But Rupert divorced her after he found out!!! And Blair said "we are not having an affair" and we all know how elastic Blair is with the truth (nudge nudge wink wink, say no more). www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512987/Tony-Blairs-friendship-Rupert-Murdochs-ex-wife-Wendi-Deng-triggers-terminal-rift.htmlMaybe Blair really did find WMD - a Willie for Ms Deng.
|
|
|
2013
Nov 30, 2013 14:00:04 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 30, 2013 14:00:04 GMT 10
|
|
|
2013
Dec 1, 2013 16:15:39 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2013 16:15:39 GMT 10
Interesting discussion: www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/compulsory-testing-for-senior-drivers-under-scrutiny/5117828Yep, age-based testing is discriminatory. So, I have a proposal - test everyone, properly, every time they renew their license. A full written and practical test. I'd also separate elevated/heavy vehicles from other cars and make people who drive anything with X ground-clearance and Y kilograms actually get tested in a similar car. I want those things out of the hands of the incompetent. And I've banged on before about an enforced 2 second rule, keep-left at 80km/hr, daylight driving lights and slow vehicles having to make way periodically. I think those four small things would save lives, and definitely reduce accidents on country roads. I'd also be checking cars every every 5 years as well. At least we know they'll get their brakes and lights and and tyres checked THAT often. I'd probably have to change my car if we did that, because there are a few little things that aren't of any practical concern but which would cost a prohibitive amount to fix (bulbs and a switch in hard-to-reach places, the odo's a bit dodgy and the rear demister's not worth the time of day). I have no intention of ever selling it - it's going to the crusher when it goes, but darn it's useful (and fun to drive) in the meantime. I would be personally quite happy with all of that. Just goes to show what a totalitarian I am.
|
|
|
2013
Dec 1, 2013 22:36:09 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2013 22:36:09 GMT 10
Wow. If anyone needed to be more concerned about how close NEWS is to the government, read on ... Yesterday, the Aus published this quite remarkable finessing of the attack on the ABC: www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/spy-story-shows-abc-at-its-left-wing-worst/story-e6frg76f-1226771740588#The problem is not that the ABC published stories which contained confidential national security information. Every decent media organisation does that from time to time.
The problem is actually the reverse. The ABC did not behave as a credible media organisation. Credible media organisations do not act as the handmaidens of competitor news organisations to amplify and dramatise their competitors' scoops. They may well report on those scoops, but the ABC did something altogether different. Er ... what? When did THAT happen? We just sat through a week when everyone was putting the boot into the ABC for reporting something that we pretty much know would have been reported just the same if it had dropped into the lap of the Oz. So what the change of tactic now? And why was it dropped into the Oz just in time for the PM to adopt the same tactical switch and run with it on Bolt's Bizarre on Sunday? And now that the soundbite has been made official, who reports it? Why yes: www.theaustralian.com.au/media/abc-advertised-guardians-spy-story-tony-abbott/story-e6frg996-1226772306626“I think it's fair enough for people to question the judgment of the ABC, not in failing to cover the story as it were, because plainly it was a story, but in choosing to act as if you like an advertising amplifier for The Guardian,” Mr Abbott said. Wow. A little media square-dance, with the Oz calling the steps. Very impressive. But why? Is there some revelation that's about to be made about something that the Australian has published, or wants to publish? Is something being lined up to be dropped back onto the pages of the australian to embarrass somebody that needs to have its hairs pre-split? I guess we'll find out in the next day or so.
|
|
|
2013
Dec 2, 2013 4:30:44 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 2, 2013 4:30:44 GMT 10
Spot on MOC! Today we have in The Australian -
"New Leaks to Test Abbott in Asia.
NEW revelations from the stockpile of documents stolen by US security contractor Edward Snowden are expected to include evidence of Australian espionage against China and other Asian neighbours and expose the scale of surveillance by Australian agencies against their own citizens."
Except, there is no substance in the story, just an assertion that bad things are about to be revealed, and it's all the fault of the Guardin and the ABC, and the Oz is pissed off that it didn't get the scoop. Talk about a non-story, merely designed to ramp up the anti-ABC shrieking.
"...it is believed that Snowden has even more material stored in "the cloud" and accessible by a complicated series of passwords. It is not clear whether the Chinese and the Russians have access to that too.
It has been revealed that South Korea and Singapore are also alleged to be involved in US intelligence activities directed at Indonesia.
Western officials are bracing for a sustained campaign of leaks designed to cause maximum harm to their interests."
Just Google it and you can get behind the paywall. Is Murdoch so stupid?
|
|
|
2013
Dec 2, 2013 9:55:25 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 2, 2013 9:55:25 GMT 10
Could this be it:
"... and expose the scale of surveillance by Australian agencies against their own citizens."
If the story becomes more significant to Australians personally, then the ABC reporting it becomes a heck of a lot harder to go after. So they're switching to getting them on an imagined technicality - claiming that participating with the guardian in vetting and reporting news is claimed to be "advertising" and therefore against the ABC's conventions.
Maybe.
If true, then that suggests that the little do se do on the weekend is less about protecting the government, than the government adopting a line that suits NEWS' interests in attacking the ABC.
|
|
|
2013
Dec 3, 2013 2:13:42 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 3, 2013 2:13:42 GMT 10
The Australian really is a sleaze bucket in the worst Murdoch tradition.
Today they ramp up their attack on the ABC by making snide suggestions about the relationship between Scott and Rusbridger.
"SOME have gone so far as to describe the connection between ABC managing director Mark Scott and The Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger as a bromance."
The whole story is that they know each other. Nothing more. So we are supposed to read some sort of conspiracy into that.
What a load of shit.
Has Bolt suddenly been made editor?
|
|
|
2013
Dec 3, 2013 7:25:58 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 3, 2013 7:25:58 GMT 10
It's fascinating that that attack on the ABC has almost completely shifted from "how dare they report things" to "how dare they support a commercial organisation like that?" Which is a pretty creative response, but lets critics claim they're just worried about an objective reading of the charter.
It happened over a weekend, starting with an editorial in the Australian, followed up with a (no doubt hard-hitting) interview with the PM on Big Red on Sunday, and everyone is using the same angle as of Monday morning.
I'd love to know how much of my tax money is being used to run government policy out of the offices of NEWS.
I suspect that the ABC is in a spot of bother in the coming few years. Not just because it's been aggressive in being critical of conservative politics (although its coverage of other issues is what gets up conservatives' noses more, I suspect), but because it's standing between a bunch of our conservative newspapers and profitability - which also means the long-term employment of a lot of out favorite commentators, hence, I suspect, the particular personal verve shown in pursuing the ABC.
|
|
|
2013
Dec 6, 2013 18:51:40 GMT 10
Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 6, 2013 18:51:40 GMT 10
Well yes, obviously. Missing Senate votes: Mick Keelty says lax WA standards to blame for lost ballotsNo kidding. If standards were up to scratch, then it wouldn't have been possible for somebody to walk off with a packet of votes. That's just the "something went wrong" answer. Was that really the best anyone could do? Now, somebody do what any berk couldn't do in an afternoon and find out WHERE THEY WENT. At least the following's a hat-tip in the obvious direction: "He also recommends CCTV and alarms at the warehouses where ballot papers are stored" My thinking exactly. That's not improving standards - that's protecting against theft, and by now I doubt if many people think that wasn't the cause.
|
|
jreidy
Junior Member
Posts: 60
|
Post by jreidy on Dec 7, 2013 18:00:53 GMT 10
Re News Ltd, they topped it off with their editorial on (I think) Wednesday this week, I mistakenly posted it in the Fairfax thread. What would happen if (purely hypothetically), Abbott doesn't give News Ltd, everything they want, could they turn feral? Sadly, I don't think that will be the case...
Also, re the Blair/Deng story, George Monbiot summed it up in a tweet
GeorgeMonbiot (@georgemonbiot) tweeted at 9:12pm - 24 Nov 13:
I don't believe Tony Blair had an affair with Wendi Deng, as some now imply. That he had an affair with Rupert Murdoch is beyond doubt. ()
|
|
|
2013
Dec 9, 2013 15:20:05 GMT 10
Post by jack on Dec 9, 2013 15:20:05 GMT 10
|
|
|
2013
Dec 18, 2013 5:39:40 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 18, 2013 5:39:40 GMT 10
|
|
|
2013
Dec 18, 2013 14:52:59 GMT 10
Post by angra on Dec 18, 2013 14:52:59 GMT 10
Things that piss you off.
Pronunciation.
Its ARCTIC not Artic, dicks.
And its NUCLEAR not Nulclear (or whatever abomination George Bush prefers!)
God I'm getting old.
|
|