Thursday, November 03, 2005
LYING THEN, OR LYING NOW?
Scott Ritter is speaking in Sydney on November 28. When he starts in on the government’s “lies” leading to war, attendees might choose to remind Ritter of his 1998 Senate testimony.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
WELL, IT’S A THEORY
Q. Why are Islamic youths burning French cars?
A. To punish them for dancing!
MAPES: “I WAS AN IDIOT”
Ex-CBS producer Mary Mapes, fired after her Rathergate role was exposed, complains in a book extract published by Vanity Fair:
“If I was an idiot, it was for believing in a free press that is able to do its job without fear or favor.”
She was an idiot for believing she could do her job without facts.
”I didn’t know that the attack on our story was going to be as effective as a brilliantly run national political campaign, because that is what it was: a political campaign.”
And her ill-researched attack on Bush was ... what, exactly? Mapes’ soon-to-be-published book, by the way, is entitled Truth and Duty. Which leaves the field so wide-open for jokes that at the moment I can’t think of any.
At one point, for example, she asserts that CBS News chief Andrew Heyward said that if the bloggers could come up with “lousy analysts” to attack the authenticity of the memos CBS could find its own “lousy analysts.”
At last—the mystery of “document expert” Bill Glennon is explained!
NYT TRIES TO RIDE IT OUT
Michelle Malkin has lots more on the New York Times’ misrepresentation of Cpl. Jeffrey Starr. Also from Michelle: behold, the faces of peace!
HAMISH MALCOLM
England-raised Australia-based blogger Hamish Malcolm is dead at just 25 following a heart attack; he is remembered beautifully by his Australia-based New York-raised girlfriend Ali, also a blogger, who writes with sweet eloquence despite her shock.
(Via Anonymous Lefty)
ART HELPFULLY EXPLAINED
Which are closest to the actual captions supplied by ABC arts writer Emma Rogers to the images below? Test your captioning skillz:
a) Peter Adams eases out from underneath A Star Bangled Spanner after installing it on a cliff near Bondi Beach. Adams says his artwork represents the United States’ meddling in world affairs, causing unrest to continue, like a ‘spanner in the works’. Do Americans use that expression?
b) Phillip Adams is jammed beneath A Spannered Bangle Star after mistaking the artwork for a cake. Adams says the artwork clearly resembles a large, particularly delicious cake, such as he has delivered to his house whenever ‘I want cake’. Do Americans use that expression?
c) Grizzly Adams is trapped by a wheel-changing tool after attempting to replace a flat tyre on his enormous SUV. Soon bear cubs will eat him. Karma, imperialist bear-molesting dude! Do Americans use that expression?
a) A jogger does push ups on a rock in front of Refuge, by New Zealand-born Denise Hume, which, the photo notes tell me, is a response to the refugee situation in Australia.
b) A logger does push ups on a rock in front of an old-growth forest he’s just harvested, which, the photo notes tell me, is an arrogant denial of the greenhouse crisis in Australia.
c) A virgin attempts to prove he is sexually experienced lest primitive Sydney villagers burn him in a wicker man, under construction in the background.
a) Swiss-born artist Verena Truninger finalises her work, Messengers, which conveys her reverence to the mystery of spirit and nature.
b) Swiss-born artist Trerena Vuringer finalises her work, Couriers, which conveys her mystery at the reverence of spirit and nature.
c) Sydney-born artist Torana Verandah finalises her work, Staffers, which conveys her mysterious reverence of the ABC.
SHADOW CAST
And the winner for the most ambivalent headline in 2005 goes to ... The Age, for this blame-blurring masterpiece:
Muslim Attack Casts Shadow Over Dutch
Brilliantly non-confrontational; in fact, one might even be led by this headline to imagine the Dutch were ashamed of some attack they’d perpetrated on Muslims. Prince Charles would be proud.
SO CRAZY THAT IT MUST BE FAKE
This is a joke, right? Or a beat-up? Or some kind of Snopesian internet myth?
UPDATE. Beck in comments: “Funny, when I think ‘European’ a lower-case ‘c’ word always springs to mind.”
PARIS, CITY OF LIGHT
Well, city of lighting things on fire, anyway:
[French Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy says that violence in French suburbs is a daily fact of life.
Since the start of the year, 9,000 police cars have been stoned and, each night, 20 to 40 cars are torched, Sarkozy said in an interview last week with the newspaper Le Monde.
Riots have now been underway for four days, and “French youths” seem disinclined to stop:
Dalil Boubakeur, head of the Paris mosque and of the ineffective joke known as the French Council of the Muslim Faith, was pelted with rocks by French youth in Seine Saint Dénis where he called for an end to Paris’ suburban riots.
Paris isn’t the only place being Eurotrashed. Meanwhile, in a fifth night of Parisian rioting ...
* Two classrooms were set ablaze;
* 19 people were detained and 13 arrested;
* 21 cars were incinerated;
* Three police were injured;
* And Sarkozy’s descriptions of the perps as “scum” and “riffraff” were denounced by Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag, who said that re-establishing order requires “fighting the discrimination that victimizes youths”.
UPDATE. We’re into night six. Scorecard:
* 20 police face off with 40 riffraff in Aulnay-sous-Bois;
* Carpet store set afire;
* And about 100 fires burning in numerous suburbs.
GROUNDHOG AGE
Lead opinion piece in The Age, September 5:
The Australian Government claims to be the guardian of family values, to believe in a “fair go” and to champion flexibility in the workplace. Unfortunately, this edifice of feel-good assertions is a house of cards. Dig a little, and the foundations look decidedly shaky.
Lead opinion piece in The Age, yesterday:
The Australian Government claims to be the guardian of family values, to believe in a “fair go”, and to champion flexibility in the workplace. Unfortunately, this edifice of feel-good assertions is a house of cards. Dig a little, and the foundations look decidedly shaky.
The Age claims to be a great newspaper with a creative and innovative editor. Unfortunately, this edifice of feel-good assertions ...
(Via Andrew Bolt, who has a happy piece today on the meaning of the Melbourne Cup.)
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
CAGE MATCH
Janet Albrechtsen on proposed anti-terror laws:
The greater the number of progressive pen pals spilling their outrage on the Fairfax letters pages, the more likely it is that the target of their anguish is good public policy.
And Time’s Steve Waterson:
The country’s leaders need to reconsider these ill-conceived, hastily drawn laws. Whatever they think they are protecting, it is not the Australian way of life.
Good public policy or a menace to our way of life? Read both pieces and applaud/expose their qualities/flaws in comments.
HAPPY DAYS
This week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin mentions Chris Amon, Sir Monocle Top Hat, Sir Monocle’s idle playboy son Faberge, Gough Whitlam, Tirath Khemlani, and Fleetwood Mac. It’s part of The Bulletin’s 1975 anniversary celebrations. Here’s Laurie Oakes:
I was snatching a quick lunch at Canberra’s Lobby Restaurant when the phone call came. “The GG’s sacked Gough.” That was all, but it was plenty. Without paying the bill, I dashed out and ran the couple of hundred metres to old Parliament House. Even 30 years ago, the sight of Oakes at full gallop was spectacular enough to alert other journalists to the fact that something was up.
More about that momentous day:
On November 11, 1975, one of Australia’s great statesmen – a colossus who defined the idealism of his era, and whose words are quoted to this day – stood before a roaring crowd outside Parliament House and spoke with characteristic power and grace.
That man, of course, was Norman Gunston.
Click around for other wide-lapel items, including the 1975 quiz.
WEST AT WORK
Sydney Morning Herald blogger Andrew West defends himself against reader accusations of laziness:
IRVING: Wow ... you’ve really put in a big effort today Andrew. Do you actually get paid for this?
WEST: Yes, I get paid, and on average I post 500 words a day, five days a week. Since the blog began at around 6pm on Friday, September 30, I have posted around 10,000 words.
Don’t weeks have more than five days? (By comparison, since September 30 this site has posted around 30,000 words. I blame John Howard’s cruel industrial laws.)
COULDN’T TAKE THE PRESSURE
Goodbye, Mr. Crab.
(Via Ace of Spades)
UPDATE. In other marine horror news:
Greenpeace is to be fined after its flagship Rainbow Warrior II damaged a coral reef during a climate change awareness campaign.
Via the NeoZionoid, who notes the following child abuse item:
During the raids, troops also found a Palestinian woman hiding a hand grenade under her baby, an IDF officer said.
Anticipate an international outcry.
UPDATE. Yet more aquatic terror:
A seal bit off a South African woman’s nose after she tried to help it back into the sea, an official said Monday.
UPDATE II. The seacreature-violence theme spreads to Byron Bay:
Fishing and football identity Rex Hunt has been assaulted in an apparent gang attack on the streets of one of Australia’s most famous tourist towns.
HAPPY GREAT SATAN DAY
Lack of recent postings due to nationwide celebrations for Makybe Diva the Wonder Horse. Meanwhile, in other celebration news:
Iran’s Ministry of Education announced on Sunday that 20 million students in primary and secondary schools across the country will chant “Death to America” on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.
Local radio presenters are happy to join in:
SBS radio presenters have been encouraged to refer to US President George W. Bush as “the world’s foremost terrorist” and an “evil mastermind” by the office of a senior manager.
(Via Harry Callahan and Tom Pechinski)