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Post by angra on Feb 8, 2013 11:13:23 GMT 10
Compare and contrast Boltas' selective sense of justice.
"Not guilty, but down $215,000. “Justice”?" on Mary Jo. Tears and woe.
"Craig Thomson allegedly hired even more prostitutes than long thought, using union members’ money...The action, if he’s found guilty, could bankrupt him" on Craig. Dance on his grave.
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Post by jack on Feb 8, 2013 12:06:47 GMT 10
" Radio National was yesterday peddling the old scare about global warming killing crops," says Andy. His source is a typical Cut'n'Paste pastiche in The Oz, which quotes about 20 seconds from Fran Kelly's interview of a Dr Mark Rosegrant (Director of the Environment & Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute)... FRAN KELLY: Dramatic falls in staple crop production, and a jump in malnutrition are predicted across the Asia Pacific in coming decades due to climate change. . . (Dr Mark Rosegrant) . . . according to your research which crops would be most affected?
ROSEGRANT: We're finding that the key staples of rice, wheat and maize are going to have very large declines through most of Asia -- anywhere from 15 to 25 per cent compared to a no-climate-change scenario.
www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cut-paste/how-green-is-their-abc-so-green-youll-almost-never-hear-any-other-point-of-view/story-fn72xczz-1226572998598?sv=57b737c93826c7bed5b6824b0e669441 (Note: That's actually a stitch up of two different bits from the program; but never mind, we'll move on.) As if somehow to 'debunk' the ABC, the Oz juxtaposes that with a quote from Bjorn Lomborg's column in their paper a couple of days prior... Yields of all leading crops have been rising dramatically in recent decades, owing to higher-yielding crop varieties and farmers' greater use of fertiliser, pesticides and irrigation. Moreover, CO2 acts as a fertiliser and its increase has probably raised global yields more than 3 per cent in the past 30 years.
www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/pasta-no-more-likely-to-disappear-than-polar-bears/story-e6frgd0x-1226571125388 However, anyone who'd actually listened to the program would know that Kelly and Rosegrant were discussing a given broad scenario out to 2050, rather than trends based on "the past 30 years". And that Rosegrant's take-out message was that a doom-and-gloom scenario isn't inevitable providing that adequate planning and research are brought to bear upon the potential problems. (Audio here www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/food-security-asia-pacific-malnutrition-spike-predicted/4505610) Which, as it happens, pretty much coincides with Lomborg's position espoused in the above column, where he calls for " greater investment in crop research to produce more robust and higher-yielding varieties, as well as making more irrigation, pesticides, and fertiliser available." See, Lomborg does actually believe there are potential problems arising from global warming. It's just that he has a pronounced polyanna-like optimism that makes him a hit in certain circles, where perhaps someone like Rosegrant wouldn't be. Thus, rather than informing their readers and contributing to enlightened dialogue, both Andy and his lazily chosen source, The Oz, opted to advance a blinkered, partisan, and commercially self-serving view that isn't sustained in reality. So what else is new?
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Post by angra on Feb 8, 2013 13:29:38 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Feb 8, 2013 14:00:52 GMT 10
I don't see any News bloggists coming out to condemn the racist abuse endured by Jeremy Fernandez and his daughter on a bus in Sydney (apart from Lucy Kippist on The Punch) - although the News rags did pick up the AAP story and run it.
Double standards?
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Post by angra on Feb 8, 2013 16:24:24 GMT 10
"The haughty silence of the enemies of free speech"
So if you don't agree with Blot's eccentric far-right views, you are an "enemy of free speech".
He quotes approvingly from an article by by Michael Sexton in the Oz (with 2 links to the same article which seems to be a reprint of one he wrote in July last year), and John Roskam of the IPA (the IPA's Executive Director, worked on the Liberal Party's 2001 election campaign. He has also run for Liberal Party preselection.)
'Nuff said.
"The problem with claiming someone is innocent until proven guilty is that the statement isn’t accurate. It all depends. There are dozens of Commonwealth and state laws declaring people guilty first which then require them to establish their innocence… "
Well name just 10!
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Feb 8, 2013 18:06:47 GMT 10
This is remarkable. Not guilty, but down $215,000. “Justice”?Hang on ... I could be wrong, but I actually don't believe that the senator WAS found "not guilty". Somebody do correct me (and various australian newspapers) if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that she was found guilty of the assault charge, but no conviction was recorded. That wouldn't be the same as "not guilty", andrew. "SA Senator Mary Jo Fisher guilty of assault but cleared of shop-lifting" Unless I'm very much mistaken, bolta's headline there is just plain wrong - and on TWO counts, because in september last year she was awarded just shy of $80k in costs, plus GST, for the "failed" shoplifting charge. Unless I'm mistaken, that's two fundamental errors in 6 words. Not bad. But just to be clear - I'm from the bleeding-heart left of the political spectrum and I actually don't like to see people strung up for minor offenses. I have an acquaintance (suitably vague) who was involved in something unfortunate involving goods of a slightly higher order of magnitude some years ago. He was found guilty of (I believe) theft (no assaults were involved), and (also) no conviction was recorded, but he had to do many hours of community service as a result. He sure as heck didn't have 200 large to blow on lawyers. More on this in the morning. I'd like to think about what to write, since we've seen examples of late of australia's conservatives' true commitment to free debate and the flow of ideas. But I think I'll have some things to post about how the Liberal Party is (totally) the party of personal responsibility. I don't take umbrage at bolta's ... inconsistency ... over the thompson affair. My astonishment is about his flexible standards regarding a certain young chap who broke a window last year, paid for it, was still found guilty and was (as a result of NEWS' opinion that the punishment of 12 months' suspended sentence was inconceivably lax) the target of a campaign of personal harassment and vilification by the gutter press - one which bolta seems to have approved of, judging by his posts.
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Post by jack on Feb 8, 2013 19:15:21 GMT 10
" Michael Sexton SC says both the enemies of free speech and the 'human rights' brigade are suspiciously silent," says Andy. Actually, Sexton makes no reference to "enemies" (that's in the column's heading, which likely was the bright idea of a sub-editor) nor "human rights brigade". Of course, this is just the kind of topic that's going to elicit overblown language, including using adjectives such as "haughty" and "suspicious" to describe the problematic concept of "silence". At any rate I'm unconvinced Mr Sexton is any kind of reliable guide on the topic. For example, how about this... The American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes said the "best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market". The [Finkelstein] report quoted this statement but only to reject it. Rather than rejecting it, the Fink actually went into detailed discussion of the limitations of Holmes' arguably overrated aphorism. And rightly so. For example, a 'marketplace of ideas' is unlikely to contain all relevant ideas. Sexton continues... This was because, according to the report, most members of the community do not have "the capacity to engage in debate, in the form of the relevant critical reasoning and speaking skills". This wildly elitist view that media content has to be regulated because most people are incapable of sifting or evaluating newspaper articles or radio and television broadcasts naturally provoked some hoots of derision. But what the Fink actually said was... 2.24 Dr Sorial observed that, in order for Mill’s conception of freedom of expression to operate, two central components are required:
Citizens must have the capacity to engage in debate, in the form of the relevant critical reasoning and speaking skills. They must also have equal opportunity to participate, in the form of access to public forums where they can articulate their views and debate with one another. 2.25 There is real doubt as to whether these capacities are present for all, or even most, citizens. And, even if they are, both speakers and audiences are often motivated by interests or concerns other than a desire for truth including, of course, the desire to make money, and personal, political and religious motivations that may render truth of less importance. People are often ‘persuaded to believe what is already dominant or what fits their irrational needs’. So, Sexton is quoting very selectively from a section of the Fink that's discussing the theoretical and practical underpinnings of freedom of expression in general, and press freedom in particular. And when you think about it, anyone who has pursued defamation action in the courts would likely have very little faith in the critical capacities of the general public in the absence of such legal remedies.
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Post by angra on Feb 8, 2013 19:51:55 GMT 10
God it just gets worse every day. Tonight we have...
"Shut up, Evans tells the MPs he abandons to their fate
Just before abandoning the Labor ship, bound the rocks, Chris Evans tells the galley slaves to keep rowing and stop moaning."
For heavens sake, the bloke is legitimately retiring after 20 years in politics. "Abandoning the galley slaves?" And who has been doing the moaning about Labor?
There is no way Bolt can be called a journalist by any stretch of the imagination.
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Post by jack on Feb 9, 2013 0:20:56 GMT 10
America’s ABC doesn’t mention Dorner’s heroes either. Must be a CONSPIRACY !!1!!!!Or... gee, perhaps it's merely that Dorner's alleged targets did not in any way have any particular political significance. As in, like, half the next generation of the friggin country's political class. Someone needs to have a bex and a lie down.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Feb 9, 2013 7:42:16 GMT 10
The overt support for hillary and obama is a remarkable thing to be reading in somebody's online manifesto, but .... yeah, whatever.
He also thinks quite highly of bush #41. The guys' clearly opinionated, and odds are he supports SOMEBODY.
That's entertaining (although not the most entertaining stuff by far), but not all that significant when set alongside his rather detailed critique of alleged cronyism and abuse within the LAPD. If, when this is all over, nobody thinks to run a quiet little off-the-books inquiry about what actually happened, then nobody's got a clue.
No, I'm not condoning what the guy has (probably) done and what he's threatening to do. And I hope that this business is brought to an end as quickly as possible without any further violence to anybody (and I hope that somebody has the good sense not to put this guy in LAPD custody)
But it's rare in a (potential) mass-murder scenario to have such a lucid and detailed answer to the immediate question: "Why'd he do it?" Something seriously pissed this guy off ... is all I'm saying.
The libertarian cop-haters on PJM must be struggling with this one.
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Post by angra on Feb 9, 2013 13:31:24 GMT 10
The human centipede strikes again.
First Bolt merely copies reams of Shanahan and his only original comment is to say of Wayne Swan "The bungling is one thing. The lying and deceit is another"
Then he gets stuck into Farrelly on Assange in the SMH and her readers and cuts 'n pastes from Henderson. Bolts contribution? "I cannot believe SMH readers are so childish, so indifferent to allegations of rape, so prone to hero worship and so disdainful of evidence and nuance that they deserve what Farrelly offers."
Free speech indeed.
So gormless untalented egomanics who merely quote verbatim from like minded 'journalists', then add a sentence or two of abuse and ridicule is 'journalism' and such brilliant musings must be protected at all costs?
What a wanker.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Feb 9, 2013 18:57:43 GMT 10
As much as a I think hendo's a bit of a depressing bozo, I do actually agree with the following words (I make no undertakings about anything else he's written in that ... whatever it is) What a load of tosh. Assange jumped bail and walked into the embassy of Ecuador in London. No one has imprisoned him – except himself. MWD’s sympathies lie with the members of the metropolitan police who have to watch over this bail-jumper in both cold and heat. I had time for assange's tactics right up to the point where britain decided to extradite him. At that point, he more or less had to face the music, IMHO. I don't know if sweden intends to do anything untoward. I also don't understand why they couldn't have arranged to question him in the UK, but that's all done now. Britain - the country he is in, and a country that doesn't strike me as all that eager to bow (judicially) to international demands - has asked him to leave. That's it. I think, however, he might have made a strategic slip. If he'd gone along with the inquiry at the outset, sweden slipping some rohypnol in his tea and handing him over to the CIA would have caused a sh1t storm. Anonymous would have had a nutty. It would have been A Big Deal. Now ... I doubt if it would be front-page news for more than a day. His strength was the reputation of wikileaks (for good or bad), and wikileaks ... well, it hasn't been so much in the news lately. He's also burned a lot of friendships and other assorted relationships. Whatever bolta might think (and I don't presume to imagine what bolta ACTUALLY thinks), those on "the left" actually do mostly seem to think that assange has lost the plot. I think that once the extradition order came down, he should have taken whatever f4ckloads of money he could arrange and headed for the baltic under his own steam. He's going to lose, and the way he's going he's going to be all alone when it happens. Eventually, ecuador is going to push him out the front door ... or something similar.
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Post by angra on Feb 9, 2013 19:26:50 GMT 10
I hold no brief for Assange, and think he has acted as a bit of a fuckwit. But the US is obviously out to get him - just look at the published quotes. And there's a secret Grand Jury convened already. Sweden is complicit (see the actions of the Swedish prosecutor) and the charges of 'rape' are about as convincing as my dog licking your dog's bum. Why couldn't they just have gone to England and interviewed him? And the Poms are just doing the cousins bidding as usual.
We need Wallander on this one.
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Post by jack on Feb 9, 2013 19:48:51 GMT 10
I think Assange is genuinely scared. And it's not too difficult to see why.
The conduct of the investigation by the Swedes has been somewhat irregular.
The fact that financial institutions have declined to process payments to wikileaks, presumably at the behest of the US and allies, hints at some kind of opaque intrigue.
As angra notes, there's that Grand Jury -- within coo-ee of Langley, Virginia, no less.
So much latitude there for 'conspiracy' theories. Given Assange's predilection for those, it's perhaps difficult to see him acting in any other way.
But perhaps you're right, he should have copped it sweet and taken his chances in the full media glare.
Should make a ripping yarn for a movie one day, but you wouldn't believe a bit of it.
Oh, Andy's view on the topic is determined by the degree of Teh Evil Left's support for Assange and has no merit whatever.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Feb 10, 2013 9:09:40 GMT 10
Oh, Andy's view on the topic is determined by the degree of Teh Evil Left's support for Assange and has no merit whatever.
Agreed.
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