The Great Bolt Scam

[angra]

Matthew - interesting you should mention Jesse Owens. He was actually NOT snubbed by Hitler. The German policy was at first that Hitler should only congratulate German winners. They then realised this was a bit partisan, so the policy became that H. shouldn't congratulate any winners.

He did actually nod and whisper congrats when Owens passed by the stand.

In fact Owens was snubbed by FDR when he returned to the US, and got no official acknowledgement of his amazing achievements and was never invited to meet the President. That was back in the days when no black person could use the front entrance, and had to use separate toilets. That's why there are so many loos in the Pentagon.

Source - Owens own memoirs and QI.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

How interesting. This morning I posted a comment here about the BBC's More Or Less programme looking at factors influencing olympic medal tallies, and what should I find on bolty's blog this afternoon? Why - a link to a BBC article summarising the very same programme.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18976333

Hi Andrew! :-)

And yes, you're right. China has sunk a pile of resources into winning medals - partly on the back of the last games. They have more people to choose from, far more for those people to gain (on average) by taking up "favored" sports and a heck of a lot of money to throw at nationalist PR.

And you know what? I don't care. I didn't care when our approach was winning, and I don't care when other people cotton on to it and do the same. It's not what makes the world go around - at least not for me. I don't personally win or lose on the basis of how a bunch of athletes whom I've never met do at the olympics. I wish them luck though.

Us = 22 million or so.

China = 1.34 billion.

A mere 61 times our population.

[jack]

A week ago Andy was declaiming that the GillardGillardGillard must do something about those reports of failed Sri Lankan asylum seekers being returned to face torture and other abuses by the SR government. (Recall his preference seemed to be for the GGG to "expose these claims as false".)

By Saturday he's forgotten all about those claims and parrots the authoritarian SR government's telling Australia to send them back as fast as we can.

The only consistency is that it's all just grist for the mill.

[angra]

Carp, Innuendo and Smear (the original title for the Hawkwind song), is running rampant at the Dutch Cap's blog today.

He's again digging up stuff about Gillard's involvement with Wilson. He rehashes an Australian article which appears to be all fluff and nonsense, and his only brilliant and original addition is "add this: was Gillard asked to leave Slater & Gordon, and, if so, why? " And of course, 'their' ABC doesn't mention the Oz article at all. Clear evidence of bias - (or maybe just intelligent journalism?)

Then we have more boats!boat!boats!, Unfair Work Australia, and Wayne Swan's choice of music.

Us oldies who might remember vinyl records will be familiar with the irritating phenomenon of the needle getting stuck.

[jack]

"He's again digging up stuff about Gillard's involvement with Wilson..."

Or rather, he's raking over stuff that an actual journalist has been digging up.

The suppposed bombshell from The Australian is that a former AWU cohort of Wilson's wants to come clean about those events of nearly 20 years ago.

It all seems to be most damning about Wilson's activities, on which his now apparently remorsefull offsider is offering to spill the beans in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Of course, Gillard's opponents are wont to keep raking it over to assert her guilt by association. Definitely, watch for more at Question Time when Parliament resumes soon.

My question is... What is all this "public interesty" stuff doing behind a paywall while the likes of Andy, as both a Liberal Party and News £td stooge operative, is free to selectively publish the juiciest extracts?

[angra]

Mr B. indulges in a a little self-analysis.

"No moderators today. I will read as many of your comments and corrections as I can, but I cannot put them up for legal reasons. "

Then he has an extensive post about Asperger syndrome; "Characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests."

Never a truer word spoken in jest.

[tssk]

Can't wait to see how his writing will be when Tones gets in. I reckon that allowing Bolt et al complete freedom of speech with no legal comeback will be near top of the list when Tones is PM.

[angra]

Mr B. manages to link "free speech" with racism. In a post getting stuck into Michael Danby with a few cherry picked quotes about the rich and powerful buying media influence from their mates, he manages this beauty...

"But how much worse for a Jew to do what Michael has done…"

He really does have no ability whatever to look in the mirror, or even to stick to one main point without dragging in all his favourite bêtes noire.

I'm not quite sure how to make sense of his argument, except that he seems a bit pissed that Danby mentioned him by name. How dare Danby say such things, him being a Jew, because " I’ve felt it so important as a non-Jew to stand and be counted on Israel."

[Matthew Of Canberra]

And STILL all these defenders of free speech manage to avoid mentioning the only two people who've ever actually experienced australian criminal sanctions for acts pertaining to racist speech. Not an apology, not a promise not to do it again - actual jail time. They're simply not on the radar.

I don't think they're really all that interested in discussing the question seriously. Just the bits that affect powerful newspaper columnists.

[angra]

But Mr B. is still able to imply that Gillard is murdering pensioners.

"Gillard’s plan: cut power prices by frying pensioners... Julia Gillard’s plan to cut power prices is to have more blackouts of the kind that kill pensioners."

Free speech!

Yeah right.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Angra, that is one very bizarre article

One of bolta's barnacle - the "The Dean" would surely describe that whole article as a unicorn.

I don't doubt that abbott's only real interest in making that argument is placating his supporters in the media (without whom he would not have got this far in the polls). Nobody was particularly concerned about these sorts of laws until bolta got pinged. There wasn't any mainstream outcry for toben or o'connell. There was some stiff debate about the "catch the fire" business (and nobody covered themselves in glory there), but it didn't appear to interest the liberal party leadership. Since bolt vs eatock, it's been discussion #1 on the right. It is ALL about the bolt case, and only now is tony abbott making set-piece speeches about subject. So I don't think anyone really believes that it's about The Principle. Let's just stop pretending.

But what the HELL does that have to do with the arab-israeli conflict?

As for:

One of the things that makes me despair about the rise of a “polite” new anti-Semitism, lightly disguised as “anti-Zionism”, is how powerless Jews such as Michael seem to be in defending it publicly in the Fairfax media and on the ABC.

What they run into is that any argument on the use of terror by Israel’s enemies, Israel’s rule of law, the lack of freedom among its neighbors, the tangled nature of Palestinian identity, the power of the anti-Semitic lobby in the UN and other issues of principle is dismissed with: “He would say that, being a Jew.”

Well, no. Not really. No interviewer or journalist would dare make a claim like that. They'd be pounced on and flayed by the mainstream. The problems with those counter-arguments are that (a) they're often just not relevant to the subject at hand, and (b) they're used so often that they don't cut much ice any more.

Nobody doubts that israel's enemies don't play by the rules. We know israel is a democracy, and nobody doubts that israel is a far better place to live than most of its enemies are. Nothing the UN says about Israel ultimately matters outside small groups of advocates who're busily keeping tally of who's loyal to whom. None of that is much of an argument in favor of the use of cluster bombs and white phosphorous in urban areas.

When an interviewer asks a representative of israel about (say) civilian death tolls, and he/she shoots back some challenge about (say) why israel is being held to a higher standard than (insert favorite historical comparison here), most independent thinkers see that as just evasive sophistry. A way to flat-out ignore the question, and to challenge the motives for asking the question at all. That really shits people. It says that israel doesn't have to explain itself, that it's above other countries because it's special.

And just to show that no, I'm not picking on israel in isolation, I note that one of its neighbors used to be just as good at doing this. As a listener to the BBC world service news for many years, I've been astonished by how polished and devious syria's public relations has been. They REALLY knew how to just deny reality, and how to do it with a nice british accent.

[angra]

He's also up to the old trick of accusing anyone who dares to criticise Israel as being anti-Semitic. Of course he should be free to criticise Aborigines or Muslims, but that's never 'racism', and in his twisted logic anyone of accuses him of such is a racist themselves.

He also seems confused about Jewish identity. Is it a race, a religion, or a nation state? He jumps effortlessly from one to the other as it suits his biases.

Worthy of Steve Hooker.

(I also note that News has just reported a fourth-q. loss of $1.55 billion - a big chunk of that coming from writing down the value of its Australian newspapers.)

[angra]

Mr Wonderful is accusing Gillard of killing pensioners again today.

"Gillard’s power problem: what’s a pensioner’s life worth? HOW many dead pensioners does Julia Gillard need to save her useless carbon tax?"

Now if anyone accused him of inciting the murder of Muslims, they'd be in serious shit. But his God-given "freedohm!" allows him to say such things.

Anyone fancy a Press Council complaint about this disgrace?

[jack]

By now the Press Council surely has him pegged as a "controversial humour" site.

[Sammy Jankis]

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.