SMH incompetence

[angra]

Fairfax isn't doing itself any favours by featuring on it's front page (web site) National News Video, with a completely unrelated story in the blurb immediately under this. Right now the News Video being showed is the snow report, the blurb accompanying this says

"LIVE: Sydney's transport fix

NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell, the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, and the Roads Minister, Duncan Gay, discuss the draft transport master plan."

So presumably let's all ski to work in Sydney.

Can't they even get their web site in order? let alone giving oxygen to the likes of Henderson and his blatant far-right obsessions.

[twobob]

I get to listen to Michelle Grattan's take on most things on Monday mornings and it's so sad. She never fails to put positive governmental happenings in a bad light or fails to repeat negative aspects and she attacks the greens mercilessly. Its really only an echo of murdochs morons and it's no wonder that the company is going bad. I mean how many people want to spend money on an echo, if they like that sort of slanted reporting they may as well just subscribe to one of murdochs offerings and be done with it.

[angra]

This is a bit nit-picky I know, but the SMH has a piece on the The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra's performance of Monterverdi's L'Orfeo. SMH claims it's the world's oldest opera.

Not so, SMH - you could at least have bothered to look up Wikipedia. L'Orfeo dates from 1607. Dafne by Jacopo Peri dates from 1597, and Peri's Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day.

However, the performance promises to be pretty amazing.

media.smh.com.au/entertainment/stage/worlds-oldest-opera-lives-on-3623783.html

[angra]

Today's story "Retirees rort the pension" is the biggest load of tosh I've seen on the front page of the SMH for some time. Their 'evidence' is that there are lots of $100 dollar notes in circulation, and according to the ramblings of an ex-RBA official, this must be due to oldies hoarding their savings as cash so they can still claim pensioners entitlements.

Yes - that's it! The sum total of their evidence.

"His best guess is the average pensioner couple could hold up to $50,000 in undeclared $50 and $100 notes to get access to the pension." And in 1996 he remembers seeing lots of old people queueing up for the new $100 bills.

So now the SMH prints a lead story based on some old blokes 'best guess' and not a shred of real evidence to back it up. Telemandering at its worst.

I seem to remember that I went to the bank last week to withdraw some cash, and got given a couple of $100 bills. So it couldn't actually be due to banks handing them out to customers, could it?

No wonder Fairfax is going down the tubes. Plus Henderson's regularly efforts to out-Ackerman Piers.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

I notice that there's not a lot in that article from the RBA itself. I'm not so much worried about "bias", as the possibility that they were worried that if they did contact the RBA they'd have to ditch the story entirely and find something else to fill the space.

"Yesterday the Herald revealed there are now 10 $100 notes in circulation for each Australian, far more than the more commonly seen $20 notes"

That is interesting. Not sure exactly what it means, although it does suggest that some people are keeping a few stashed somewhere.

But why are these people are automatically retirees rather than, say, money-launderers or drug dealers, or anyone else who has a desire to hoard large quantities of off-the-books currency?

Another thing that worries me is that miscreants might see this and decide to burglar more retirees (just as long as they're not burglaring me...)

Interesting aside: The EU used to have a 1000-euro note. The US (until the 40's or so) had a 1000$ dollar bill (so that stan wridgeway could slip one to an old coot). Both of those were retired, because they were basically only being used by money launderers and drug dealers :-)

I wish our currency was flavored the way it looks. The 100$ note is the one I'd most like to try - I'm guessing pistacchio bubble-gum.

[angra]

MoC - the Bank of England still issues a Giant (worth £1,000,000) and a Titan bank notes. A Titan is worth a £100,000,000 (one hundred million pounds) of which there are only 40 in existence.

www.moneytoolkit.com/2011/05/giants-and-titans/

[angra]

The SMH home page strikes again!

Under the nice pic of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch runs the headline "Gillard: Demonic Hell Beasts?"

[angra]

Magic Water Sheehan is running the pro-Wilders line "a Dutch political leader who is a supporter of democracy, freedom of religion, feminism and gay rights" who has also called for banning the Koran, Mosques and the immigration of Muslims and seeks amending the Dutch constitution by a clause stating the cultural dominance of the Christian, Jewish and humanist traditions, plus a permanent ban on preaching in any language other than Dutch.

He's being discriminated against because they can't find a venue in Sydney willing to host him.

Have another swig of magic water Paul.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

That's a nice summary there, angra.

I'm not quite so convinced that geert wilders is all about freedom and tolerance either.

I see that wilders found venues. He's speaking in sydney on the 22nd of feb. Good luck to him.

Bolta reckons "the truth is that Western freedoms are safer with Wilders than with the Gillard Government". Go take a look at the website for the group that is sponsoring wilders' tour, and see what we think about their commitment to free speech or religion:

www.qsociety.org.au/qpositions.html

The ones about interest-free banking and halal food are particularly spine-tingling. Angra, you're more than welcome to substitute any words you like in the one about "Stealth or Civilisational Jihad".

Those are astonishing reading. That's a nice crowd that geert's hanging out with. It'd be a really awesome australia if they got to run things.

And bolta's linking to them. I feel a compare and contrast moment coming on.

[angra]

The Q society - one truly scary bunch of wackos.

And just look who their sponsor is - Robert Spencer.

Here's a summary of some his more bizarre rantings, courtesy of that useful antidote to Q fever, Loon Watch (so named I believe in response to Spencer and Geller's hate site Jihad watch). Amongst other things his site advocates is the nuclear annihilation of Mecca.

www.loonwatch.com/2010/11/robert-spencer-of-jihadwatch-becomes-desperate-against-loonwatch/

[angra]

"Magic water" Sheehan makes fun of Nova Peris' surname in today's SMH. First it was Kneebone, the it was Batman.

What a dork.

Does he remember the whitey who first settled Melbourne?

For 600,000 acres of Melbourne, including most of the land now within the suburban area, John Batman paid 40 pairs of blankets, 42 tomahawks, 130 knives, 62 pairs scissors, 40 looking glasses, 250 handkerchiefs, 18 shirts, 4 flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes and 150 lb. of flour.

To make it worse, his so-called treaty was declared void on 26 August 1835 by the Governor of New South Wales, Richard Bourke on the basis that the Wurundjeri people did not have a right to deal with the land, which it was claimed belonged to the Crown (under Terra Nullius).

[angra]

Gerard Henderson is living up to his role as PR spokesman for the Israeli embassy.

There's nothing wrong with dual-nationality, and if it's Israel you're talking about, any suggestions otherwise are 'anti-semitism.' And to criticise the Israeli state over the Zygeir affair is a monstrous slur on a great people doing what they must to preserve their democracy from the surrounding Islamic hordes. And the story is all an anti Jewish beat-up by the ABC and lefty academics anyway.

Unfortunately the recent death of a young Palestinian in Israeli custody whose body showed clear signs of torture gives the lie to Henderson's 'Israel can do no wrong' bluster.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/24/violence-west-bank-custody-death

[Matthew Of Canberra]

"Gerard Henderson is living up to his role as PR spokesman for the Israeli embassy"

For the most part I agree with him. I think singling out israelis for suspicion is un-called-for. Except ... I didn't realise that the "divided loyalties" question had actually gained all that much traction in the first place. Most of the outrage that I've seen has been over the secrecy and alleged dubiousness of the charges. When the man's double-nationality has been raised, it's never (that I've seen) pointed out that he was "part" israeli - the outrage has been that he was part australian, and therefore "one of ours".

Here's a simple test for hendo to try - take everything that's been written about the zygier case and replace "israel" with "canada".

Now ... do we REALLY think there'd be no scandal about that?

[angra]

Fairfax does it again. They may regret sacking their subbies or relying too much on spellcheckers.

Verbatim quote reported from a radio interview -

"''Almost without exception you'll find these [Labor MPs] are men and women who are born and bread in western Sydney,'' he said. ''We're people that know our area very well.''

[tssk]

Fairfax could apologise for the mispelling. Or they could turn it into a story. "ALP fails spelling bred in quote. Abbott says literacy to improve under a Coalition government."