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LAMB CONSPIRACY COVERED

Well-deserved congratulations for our pals at Media Watch:

There were two important media issues that I felt sure you would focus on this week. One was Dr Tiger and the roast lamb conspiracy. I was pleased to see you picked up on this and your report was spot on. The Illawarra Mercury really does have a lot to answer for yet again.

The other issue was something about some journalist who through idleness and a long held bias wrote a column on the Middle East using as evidence a testimony that everyone else in the world knew to be a lie. But maybe he didn’t belong to such an important media organisation as the Illawarra Mercury. Probably the Tennant Creek Tribune and more likely it was about goat agistment rather than Middle East events. I therefore fully understand your decision not to comment on it.

Keep up the good work!

Posted by Tim B. on 08/08/2006 at 02:37 AM
  1. Everyone loves it until they are on it, Terry Lane still loves Media watch.

    Posted by Howzat on 2006 08 08 at 02:47 AM • permalink

  2. Just in case you wanted to catch up with the latest news of world importance from the ABC as of Tuesday at 4pm [8 am in Europe], here are the online headlines:

    ABC Top Stories

    100 Australians still trapped in Lebanon
    Playground poison identified as Ratsak
    Pilot in coma after plane hits house
    Labor steps up offshore processing opposition
    Pathologist details Patton’s injuries
    RBA ‘overly optimistic’ on growth
    Surgeons work to separate conjoined twins
    Doohan fined over strip club assault.

    Thank God we have the ABC to give us the BIG Stories, wars and all that.

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 08 08 at 02:54 AM • permalink

  3. Read the transcript of last night’s Media Watch.  Besides ignoring Terry Lane, they defend BTN’s Lebanon war reporting on the “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” basis.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2006 08 08 at 03:06 AM • permalink

  4. They will not go after Lane.  Same approach as when they wouldn’t touch Alan Ramsey for essentially the same crime against journalism last year.

    Media Witch is one of the most biased segments of the ABC and acts as the resident bully that sticks it to any conservative journalist they can, often on spurious grounds, while giving a free pass to their lefty mates, no matter how badly they screw up.

    Posted by SB on 2006 08 08 at 03:33 AM • permalink

  5. I for one was heartened to see that MW made a careful investigation of potential bias, why if Keysar is agin it it can’t be biased.

    Posted by pedro on 2006 08 08 at 03:33 AM • permalink

  6. SBS was running images of an oil-spill in Lebanon, ostensibly as a result of Israeli bombing.

    Lots of footage of oil covered frogs…

    No footage of dead Israelis though.

    Nor reporting that Hezbollah has been desperately trying to hit the Haifa oil-refinery.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 08 08 at 03:34 AM • permalink

  7. I am actually glad they decided to overlook the Terry Lane storey. I mean how can anyone now view them as being credible? Whenever they are spouting on about bias I will just think back to this and laugh.

    Posted by Mattofact on 2006 08 08 at 03:44 AM • permalink

  8. Great job! Sounds like a letter from Henry Root to Mrs Thatcher! Probably too subtle for the birdbrains at the ABC, which is why it hasn’t been taken down yet.

    Posted by Big Arnie on 2006 08 08 at 03:45 AM • permalink

  9. media watch even has a prize for the journo who gets duped the worst by the internet

    jim ball prize

    it would be a shame if Lane wasn’t eligible for this prize because media watch had too much on its plate

    Posted by drscroogemcduck on 2006 08 08 at 03:56 AM • permalink

  10. Tremendous comment Whale Spinor!

    Posted by murph on 2006 08 08 at 04:30 AM • permalink

  11. Maybe they’ll be on Media Watch Watch.

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 08 08 at 05:03 AM • permalink

  12. While bashing the ABC, may as well mention Mark Colvin’s interview with Israeli Opposition leader Netanyahu was fascinating for the superficiality of Colvin’s questions. He was sliced and diced with little effort by the younger brother of the late Yoni Netanyahu (Hero of Entebbe).

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 08 08 at 05:04 AM • permalink

  13. Somebody should drop a note to the ABC and suggest some investigative reporting of suspicious goings on re organ transplants. Contact Dustin Aschers at (phone number of crematorium).

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 08 08 at 05:08 AM • permalink

  14. Hey gang. Don’t get mad. GET EVEN.

    Email Media Watch and inform them of their, er, ever so tiny oversight this week. Like how a gun media watchdog like them could perhaps, maybe, er, have missed the TERRY LANE story. Just let ‘em know…here you go
    mediawatch@your.abc.net.au

    Posted by Bonmot on 2006 08 08 at 05:13 AM • permalink

  15. I have wondered what it was like living in East Germany (or the German Democratic Republic) in the 80’s when television from the west was freely available.
    How did the ordinary viewer feel when confronted by the the lies and evasions of the DDR-FS?
    Now I know.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2006 08 08 at 05:28 AM • permalink

  16. ``Keep up the good work’’ is not enough.  Always ask for an autograph.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 08 08 at 05:42 AM • permalink

  17. At last an unbiased piece of journalism. This appeared in the London Daily Mail a few days ago and was reprinted in Saturday’s Australian.

    Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2006 08 08 at 05:47 AM • permalink

  18. Bonmot@ #14:

    and everyone else….by all means e-mail Media Watch with criticism & complaints, but be aware they are most likely to take such as a badge of honour, rather than be chastened by it.

    Address your comments to David Salter, Executive Producer of Media Watch.  He’s been in that position for a number of years now.  He’s one of the most unapologetic, old fashioned lefties the ABC has ever employed (and THAT’s saying something!).

    He sees himself and his Media Watch as a necessary counter-weight to the evils of 10+ years of Howard-ism.  He is PROUD when people point out that Media Watch is taking a line against right wing commentators such as Andrew Bolt.  That’s what he’s aiming to do!

    So fire away, but be aware that you are feeding the ego of Salter, not diminishing it.

    Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 08 08 at 05:56 AM • permalink

  19. ...and as one of the submitters in the Media Watch bitch page noted…. Lion-el Tiger promoting lamb??

    Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 08 08 at 05:59 AM • permalink

  20. re 17

    That piece by Melanie Phillips is in stark contrast to a 15 minute profile on John Howard run on the BBC over the weekend. 

    The BBC’s effort was typical lefty bilge.  While making some half-hearted attempts at balance, they chose to illustrate the piece with at least four mocking “satires” or observations by Mike Carleton.  Pathetic.  Had Howard been a left of centre politician I am sure that they wouldn’t have made any use of the jaundiced views of this moonbat.  I do not recall any of the BBC’s previous profiles using such unfunny and bilious inserts.

    Posted by procrustes on 2006 08 08 at 06:26 AM • permalink

  21. #19 errr, SCD, perhaps you could do what Terry Macbeth Lane should have done.  Remember, Google is your friend.

    Posted by entropy on 2006 08 08 at 06:46 AM • permalink

  22. Lionel Tiger is a distinguished anthropologist, who, unlike the great majority of his colleagues, takes the idea of human nature seriously and writes for conservative journals. Although it sounds like even more of a hoax, in the 1960s he and fellow anthropologist Robin Fox wrote a famous article called ‘The Zoological Perspective in Social Science’.

    Posted by gregbein on 2006 08 08 at 07:05 AM • permalink

  23. I am glad the lambs have not been silenced

    Ta boom tish!

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 08 at 07:07 AM • permalink

  24. I am at a bit of a loss why anyone would worry about what the BBC thinks about Australia or our politicians.

    A decades long history of smarmy “colonial/convict” comments and looking down the nose at everything Australian, good and bad, has given me an immunity to whatever those tossers think of me or my countrymen.

    Media Watch with Granny Gratton was starting to redeem itself somewhat after the last couple of years of blatant bias and RWDB bashing, but overlooking the media cockup of the year has consigned the MW credibility to the rubbish bin.

    Farewell, MW.

    Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 08 08 at 07:12 AM • permalink

  25. 24 - if you had to pay for the BBC via the licence fee you would be concerned about how they contnually pander to a soft-left world-view.  In any case, it was an Australian (ahem) journalist doing the profile.

    Posted by procrustes on 2006 08 08 at 07:21 AM • permalink

  26. Lionel’s brother, Tony, when asked about the matter, responded, “It’s GRRRREAT!”

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 08 08 at 07:29 AM • permalink

  27. They’ve relented and put up the transcript on the Lateline website- try and keep a straight face, if at all possible. The funniest thing that’s been on the ABC since the last re-run of Labor In Power.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 08 08 at 07:42 AM • permalink

  28. I know it’s wicked to mock the afflicted, but tee hee-

    TONY JONES: Can I stick to some of the facts that are being put out Glendenning.

    SENATOR AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, some of the allegations I think is what you should say.

    TONY JONES: Well, there are facts contained within the allegations, whether they’re true, I don’t know.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 08 08 at 07:47 AM • permalink

  29. #26
    You don’t hear so much these days about the ancestor Ponce de Leon.
    Hmmm. Name like “ponce”, desperate to look young?
    But, as fate would have it, he died in Havana. It gets you in the end - or in Fidel’s case somewhere upstream of the rear end.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 08 08 at 07:50 AM • permalink

  30. the bit I love, Habib, is the closer:

    SENATOR AMANDA VANSTONE: It’s always a pleasure to come on the ABC and face unsourced, anonymous allegations about the Government.

    TONY JONES: Thank you very much.

    Posted by procrustes on 2006 08 08 at 07:52 AM • permalink

  31. #27 A very good read indeed. Thanks for the link. I loved the conclusion:

    TONY JONES: I’m sure there will. Amanda Vanstone we thank you very much for coming in to talk to us tonight.

    SENATOR AMANDA VANSTONE: It’s always a pleasure to come on the ABC and face unsourced, anonymous allegations about the Government.

    Pure gold.

    Posted by lingus4 on 2006 08 08 at 08:06 AM • permalink

  32. Stephen, I include the alleged journalists from Australia in my disdain for BBC commentary about anything, but in particular Australia and it’s denizens.

    They can get stuffed. Take the BBC money and sneer convincingly about their country, pander to the unreformed Imperialists, bingo, instant international audience.

    Ra ra ra old boy.

    Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 08 08 at 08:11 AM • permalink

  33. General genuflecting and tugging of forelock towards entropy and gregbein.

    My only excuse that it was a dig at the ABC, which is usually not wasted.

    Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 08 08 at 08:24 AM • permalink

  34. #14 -  my two cents’ worth to MW:

    Media watch needs to do a story on itself.  On how it managed to miss the elephant in its living room named Terry Lane.  Has to be the low point in journalism in the past year and it somehow managed to escape your notice?

    Posted by Ubique on 2006 08 08 at 08:30 AM • permalink

  35. It is beyond my comprehension why MW would not have commented on the Terry Macbeth Lane fiasco. So I penned my comment to the ABC message board at about midnight. Reading it now it could have been a lot better - I blame anger, a bottle of Taylor’s cholesterol inhibiting Cabernet, George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard, not necessarily in that order.

    MW deserves to be taken to task. However, Four Corners’ report last night on the disgusting clerical animal who personally strangled (not hung) the 16 year old Iranian rape victim together with tonight’s Cutting Edge on SBS about anti-Semitism restores some faith in our media. How many Islamic countries will air either of these programs?

    Answers on a postcard please. Allowed values 0 to 20.

    Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 08 08 at 09:16 AM • permalink

  36. OT but something for readers in Canberra:

    AJPP UPDATE

    Please support the following actions against the unspeakable Israeli
    aggression in Lebanon and continuing attacks in Gaza:

    1.Protest March and vigil in front of the Israeli Embassy
    Friday 11 August, 2pm
    Start from the Mosque (130 Empire Circuit, Yarralumla)
    and walk to the Israel Embassy (6 Turrana St, Yarralumla)
    Vigil in front of the Israeli Embassy from 9am to 6pm all weekend
    An all day vigil is being organised in front of the Israeli Embassy
    starting from 2pm on Friday 11 August and will continue all weekend from
    9am to 6pm.  People are asked to assemble at the Canberra Mosque at 2pm
    on Friday 11 August followed by a walk to the Israeli embassy. 
    Speakers will include Bishop Pat Power, Catholic Bishop for Canberra and
    Queanbeyan and Jamal Haragli an Australian-Lebanese with family in South
    Lebanon.
    Volunteer supporters of Lebanon and Palestine are requested to attend
    the vigil during the weekend.  Simply turn up with your friends and
    family between 9am and 6pm in front of the Israeli embassy where a table
    will be set up with banners and flags.  Your support will keep reminding
    the Israelis that world opinion has turned against them and that they
    can no longer blatantly kill and destroy the lives of innocent people
    with impunity. 
    Organised by the Coalition for Peace in the Middle East phone 0410 644
    595

    2.PROTEST
    Saturday 12 August at 1pm
    Israeli Embassy (6 Turrana St, Yarralumla)
    A major protest is being held in front of the Israeli embassy at 1pm on
    Saturday 12 August.  People are asked to assemble in front of the
    Israeli Embassy at 1pm.  A march will proceed to the US embassy to protest
    against the US policy of complicity.  The march will then walk to the
    Prime Minister’s Lodge to voice our rejection of Australia’s silence on
    the massacres being perpetrated in Lebanon and Palestine by Israel
    showing a blatant bias policy on Middle East issues. 

    Speakers will include Diana Abdul-Rahman an Australian-Lebanese, Bishop
    Pat Power, Peter Davidson, Industrial Officer, NTEU, Kathryn Kelly and
    Michael Shaik, AJPP and other speakers currently being formalised.
     
    In an interview in the Australian Jewish news on 27 July, Foreign
    Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer is quoted as saying “We have probably
    been more supportive of the Israelis than 99 per cent of the world,”.  He
    further says “I don’t mind being called pro-Israeli”.  On the issue of
    the bombing and destruction of Lebanon the article goes on to say
    “Downer lambasted UN official Jan Egeland, who said that Israel was
    violating “humanitarian law” in its bombardment of south Beirut, saying: “For
    me, that just undermines the credibility of the United Nations. “It
    looks to me like nothing more than a knee-jerk political reaction.
    Self-defence is not a breach of international humanitarian law.”
    This is a shameful indictment of the thinking and attitude of the
    Australian government.  Alexander Downer and John Howard are not fair
    brokers and show their total failure for a balanced approach to Middle East
    foreign policy.  Their blind support for Israel exposes their
    disgraceful contempt for innocent Arab lives.  Their true colours are now on
    display.
    Organised by the Campaign Against Israeli Aggression phone 0403 943 529
    / 0417 269 984

    3.BOYCOTT ISRAELI GOODS

    A company selling hand and body care products called “Seacrets” from
    the Dead Sea has stalls in the Canberra Centre, near Bunda St and in
    Woden Plaza.  They have young Israelis selling the products.  If approached
    by the salespersons, tell them that you don’t buy Israeli products
    because of their attacks on Lebanon and the occupation of the Palestinian
    Territories.

    We need to build the campaign to boycott Israeli goods and to support
    international sanctions on Israel as occurred in the campaign against
    South African apartheid.  The US and the UK were probably the last
    countries to hold out against those sanctions, but in the end they isolated
    South Africa so much that it changed the political climate.  We must do
    the same for Israel.

    I’m in Melbournistan, so can’t attend or go buy Israeli products, but thought a few of the Canberrans might want to.

    Andrea, if I must be spanked for this, I’d like you to call in a bloke between 30 and 45, pref over 5’10 and in reasonable shape to do the honours. A sixpack would also be nice, even if it’s in an esky.

    /back to your regular programming.
    This is quicker than linkwhoring.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 08 08 at 09:49 AM • permalink

  37. Oops. PIMF. I didn’t realise it would be so long.

    /start grovelling now.

    Many, many, many apologies.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 08 08 at 09:56 AM • permalink

  38. #14/18 - done, but i preferred to address my complaint to “dear (and i mean expensive) wasters of my 10 cents a day”

    #36 there are many fine establishments in balaclava & glenhuntly that will happily sell us israeli products - perhaps we could buy some & donate them to islamic charities

    also ot, but on a similar tack, save the children has advertised in the uk spectator seeking donations to help littlies in lebanon & gaza but not israel - perhaps we should email them asking why

    Posted by KK on 2006 08 08 at 10:46 AM • permalink

  39. Tony Jones describes National Indigenous Times editor Chris Graham,as “someone who apparently works out of a basement in Canberra”.
    The Slug is a mite put out by suggestions he is involved in a conspiracy.

    Posted by crash on 2006 08 08 at 10:50 AM • permalink

  40. Of course, they moderate their comments—couldn’t have freedom of speech on Media Watch—so I’m sure this won’t appear:

    “After listening to that whingeing Tim Blair go on and on about Terry Lane I thought there was no way you’d be able to skip talking about him—the way the wingnuts went on about him you’d think it was the biggest media story of the year, how could Media Watch not cover it in detail.

    “So imagine my delight that you hung tough and didn’t even mention it.  It was like it never happened!  (Now that I think of it, so was Lane’s resignation.)  So Lane took the word of some poser wearing an army uniform from a secondhand store that Yank soldiers were worse than Nazis.  We jolly well know they are, don’t we?  I mean, they work for Bush and they eat plastic turkey, it only makes sense.  I knew a bird whose brother knew this fellow who had been a Navy Special Air Ranger in Okinaba, and he showed him a whole box of human ears which he’d cut off children.  And he was a four-star general! 

    “Anyway, I just want to say, jolly good work.  We know who the enemy of mankind is, bloody Bush, and there’s no good standing for old school ideas of fairness when there’s a war against his kind of fascism to win.  Terry Lane knows there’s a deeper truth than so-called Western truth and I’m glad to know that Media Watch knows its responsibility is to protect its friends as much as attack its enemies.  Good on ya!”

    Posted by Mike G on 2006 08 08 at 11:30 AM • permalink

  41. Hey, Media watch has silently forgiven Terry Macbeth Lane. Shouldn’t we have the decency to do so too?  [/s]

    Posted by stats on 2006 08 08 at 11:52 AM • permalink

  42. Nilk: ooer! A bunch of hippies won’t buy the only Israeli products they can find - some cottage industry moisturisers from one market stall - Israel’s balance of trade is no doubt going deep south due to defiance on such a scale.

    Posted by James Waterton on 2006 08 08 at 11:58 AM • permalink

  43. #42 Nilk: ooer! A bunch of hippies won’t buy the only Israeli products they can find - some cottage industry moisturisers from one market stall - Israel’s balance of trade is no doubt going deep south due to defiance on such a scale.

    Israel has one of the most socialist ecomomies on the planet.  If not for American Jews and the US government it would have failed a long time ago, as any socialist economy deserves to do.

    Posted by lmassie on 2006 08 08 at 12:07 PM • permalink

  44. but in the end they isolated
    South Africa so much that it changed the political climate

    And what a f*cking success the RSA is!

    Joke doing the rounds in RSA right now:

    What’s the difference between Robert Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki?

    20 years

    Posted by murph on 2006 08 08 at 12:30 PM • permalink

  45. #11

    Maybe they’ll be on Media Watch Watch.

    Some of the time they’ll be staring straight back at the camera.

    My God, wronwright, that’s it! That could focus enough anti-war anti-force energy, just for a fleeting moment, to pierce a window through deep layers of the sound-grab time-space image-shift continuum of mainstream media.

    Time travel!

    Ah… impossible. Sumerian mead anybody?

    Posted by splice on 2006 08 08 at 12:52 PM • permalink

  46. SCD @ #18,
    If Salter is proud that Media Watch is biased… then doesn’t that negate the whole point of Media Watch?
    You can’t monitor for bias if you’re biased. That would be like appointing Hezbollah as a UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 08 at 01:11 PM • permalink

  47. #46: appointing Hezbollah as a UN peacekeeping force That’s the small adjustment to the UN “cease fire” resolution that France and the Arabs are now proposing.

    Posted by stats on 2006 08 08 at 01:21 PM • permalink

  48. TONY JONES: Well, there are facts contained within the allegations, whether they’re true, I don’t know.

    No. He didn’t really say that, did he? On the other hand, perhaps we owe him a debt of gratitude for (inadvertantly) illustrating the problem with MSM so succinctly. As we’ve long understood, in the media lexicon, a fact doesn’t have to be true to be a “fact”. “Truth” shouldn’t have to rely on facts, only “facts”.

    I have a mental picture of Jones—handsome, vapid face capable of expressing the full range of (calculated) emotion while silmultaneously vacant of any suggestion of an intellect. Am I at all close?

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 08 08 at 01:47 PM • permalink

  49. I have a mental picture of Jones—handsome, vapid face capable of expressing the full range of (calculated) emotion while silmultaneously vacant of any suggestion of an intellect. Am I at all close?

    Is there anything else in MSM?

    Posted by lmassie on 2006 08 08 at 02:35 PM • permalink

  50. #36 Andrea, if I must be spanked for this, I’d like you to call in a bloke between 30 and 45, pref over 5’10 and in reasonable shape to do the honours. A sixpack would also be nice, even if it’s in an esky.

    So that’s what the line forming outside nilknarf’s office is about.  Well it’s too bad for the blockes that I have already filched Andrea’s paddle.  It he small one she put down while choking a troll last week, not Big Bertha unfortunately.  But it’s still big enough to do the job me thinks.

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 08 08 at 03:09 PM • permalink

  51. Nah not quite Kyda, you forgot smug and self satisfied.

    Posted by Srekwah on 2006 08 08 at 03:20 PM • permalink

  52. #43 lmassie, despite your trenchant remarks, your ignorance is showing.

    Have a read of this and this and then —especially if you are an Australian “quarryman to the world”—get back to me.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 03:55 PM • permalink

  53. 37 Nilknarf Arbed

    I didn’t realise it would be so long

    Yeah, yeah…That’s what they all say…lol.

    In other news…

    Our nut bags have theorized that THIS photo, is fake.

    Snippets….

    Val McClatchey snapped the single picture with her new digital camera. The wife and mother had been sitting on the edge of her sofa, clutching her second cup of coffee and watching the smoking towers of the World Trade Center on TV, when she heard the sudden surge of a plane engine, followed by a violent, house-shaking boom. Mrs. McClatchey grabbed the camera and ran onto the front porch of her house along Indian Lake.

    But Mrs. McClatchey’s fame has recently taken a sour turn. The real estate agent has recently become a target of bloggers calling themselves “9-11 researchers,” who are seeking to prove that the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks that brought down the Twin Towers, pierced the Pentagon and crashed United Airlines Flight 93. “The End of Serenity” has turned out to be their smoking gun.

    On a simple Google search, Mrs. McClatchey’s name now pops up in the same sentence as “total fraud.”

    “Val McClatchey has made it unmistakably clear to us that she intends to milk her 9-11 claim to fame for all it’s worth, truth be damned,” writes Lisa Guliani, of WingTV (World Independent News Group), who traveled to Stoystown to interview Mrs. McClatchey.

    See, told ya OZ, WE have waaaayyyyyy more ass hats then you do.

    Pittsburgh Post Gazette

    via

    LGF

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 04:09 PM • permalink

  54. My compadre MentalFloss,

    How you are?

    Would you hazard a guess as to where in Persia this man would have his forces, were he in charge, today?

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 04:28 PM • permalink

  55. Mentalfloss-
    Sorry - no time today, but googled “socialist economy israel” and among the 3.6 million hits found this:

    http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j042902.html

    You could add in your Israeli achievements piece that Isreal leads the world in desert agriculture. Most of the food produced in Baja, Mexico comes from Israeli irrigation.  I find that a much more compelling arguement than pride in a mighty airforce supplied by American aid.

    Posted by lmassie on 2006 08 08 at 05:13 PM • permalink

  56. El Campeador, I good are, gracias.

    Hmmm….after 4 weeks? Not yet in Persia. At this stage of the war, I would humbly submit that he would have a significant ground force running south-south east, starting east of the Jebal Maza salient in the north and As Suwayda’ in the south.

    After first destroying all Syrian SAM installations and reducing Marj Ruhhayil, Mezze, Deir Zor and other military airfields to rubble, crippling Damascus International Airport, Latakia and Nejrab—The IAF might save the Kameshli airbase near the Turkish/Iraqi Border as a staging point (if required) for bombing raids over Ahwaz, Esfahan and Teheran.

    The Beqa’a would already have been subdued as well as all territory south of the Litani. Tyre would be occupied and S. Beirut flattened. The Lebanese Government would already have sued for peace.

    In Persia, ethnic Kurds from Chwar Chira (the city square where the Kurdish leader, Qazi Mohammad, declared independence for Kurdistan in 1946 from Iran) to Sanadaj would be armed from Iraqi Kurdistan and advancing on Tabriz, supported by Pershmerga strategists and special forces.

    Tactical strike on all nuclear facilities —as well as any known missle launch sites—would already have taken place in Persia, but serious war would start in week 5.

    After 4 weeks, this is where I think Dayan might be. But then, what do I know?

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 05:23 PM • permalink

  57. #55 You clearly didn’t read all the items reflecting a vibrant, venture capital driven economy.

    You might also consider the levels of migration intake of largely unskilled Sephardim requiring training and—I am not afraid to say it—social welfare to get a leg up.

    You can google “socialist economy israel” all you like. I am particularly non-plussed by the link you provided.

    Are you aware this individual whose site you posted also maintains this position?

    As a commentator, you are seriously diminished in my eyes.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 05:35 PM • permalink

  58. But then, what do I know?

    Yeah, yeah…and if you told me, you’d have to kill me…:).

    Anyone seen this gem as snapped by AP?

    Well take a good look at the same picture, up close

    The Pics’ appear at…OpinionJournal/WSJ, under the heading of Jihadis Playing Possum.

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 05:35 PM • permalink

  59. El Cid—that is one hell of a case of rigor mortis! Where’s CSI-Lebanon when you need them?

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 05:43 PM • permalink

  60. #48 KS

    I have a mental picture of Jones—handsome, vapid face capable of expressing the full range of (calculated) emotion while silmultaneously vacant of any suggestion of an intellect. Am I at all close?

    You can watch the interview and decide for yourself - actually Jones was just dead pan at this point which is usual for him.  In fact I don’t remember any time that he has been any different.

    Here are links to the Real Video and Windows Media transcripts. 

    All quite amusing!

    Posted by Wand on 2006 08 08 at 05:51 PM • permalink

  61. Are you aware this individual whose site you posted also maintains this position?

    As a commentator, you are seriously diminished in my eyes.

    Mentalfloss,
    I sometimes use this time wasting blog between appointments.  It has no other value to me.  When it gets as boring as it is today, I’ll throw out something to jazz it up.  I don’t have any serious interest in the Israeli economy or, as long as they continue to kick Arab butt, Israel.  The fact that you present yourself as superjew matters little to me either, although I do enjoy your comments.

    Posted by lmassie on 2006 08 08 at 05:52 PM • permalink

  62. #57: More, if you can stomach it, on Justin Raimondo.

    Posted by paco on 2006 08 08 at 05:54 PM • permalink

  63. More Tony Jones for Kyda.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 08 08 at 05:55 PM • permalink

  64. MentalFloss

    rigor mortis, Yeah I like it, too.

    OH, I thought you said rigatoni.

    Yeah looks like the poor chap, was caught takin’ a shit, huh?...LOL.

    Kinda looks ‘they’ got caught again.

    Friggin lyin’ death cultists. Beside the fact that they emit CO-2 into perfectly good air, which pisses algore off. Total fuck ups, they are…useless.

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 05:56 PM • permalink

  65. I sometimes use this time wasting blog between appointments. It has no other value to me.

    Well stop ‘wasting time’, and make more appointments, in that way, there is NO “between”. Thereby bringing you, “value”.

    Jesus, good help nowadays, huh?

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 06:07 PM • permalink

  66. #61 So the bored Imassie stuffed with ennui with nothing to do between “appointments” (with what, haidresser, manicurist, sex toy?), notices that the subject of this post is the coverup of Terry Macbeth Lane’s vicious slander of US Troops by Media Watch, a topic of no interest to him, so he “spices” it up with a mindless, vacant, inaccurate comment (#43) on the Israeli economy, of which he/she admits she/he has no interest, and, as is clear from the both its bored and ignorant comment, no knowledge. How does Imassie differ from the Lefites that troll here? Their MO is to try to change the subject of post that does not please them. At least they have some interest in what they’re are doing, even if they are nuts.

    Posted by stats on 2006 08 08 at 06:12 PM • permalink

  67. Since lmassie has decided that this blog is only “time-wasting” and “has no other value” to him, I have decided to help him in the time-management arena by banning him. After all, life is too short to waste time, right?

    For those who think I am being a little harsh on a commenter who has been here for a while,  I’ve actually been wondering about lmassie ever since in an earlier thread he compared a photo of a rather studly Israeli guy in sunglasses to a Nazi propaganda poster. (I should have bookmarked the thread, if someone else remembered which one it is feel free to link it.) Now that he linked to the creepy Justin Raimondo’s site, I have ceased to wonder.

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 08 08 at 06:16 PM • permalink

  68. The ABC’s Hardaker loomed large on AM this morning. Intent on slamming Israel and the IDF, he regurgitated unmoderated comments about Qana (persisted with the worst interpretation of that incident), and then tried to belittle or at least to discomfort the Air Force Colonel with a stupid question about the Colonel’s emotional state.
    You don’t need MacBeth, or Hamlet, to point out that there is something rotten in the state of our National Shitcaster’s entrenched groupthink.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 08 08 at 06:33 PM • permalink

  69. Superjew? Me? I make no such claim nor presentation.

    I am the offspring of an Austrian Jewish Mother and an Irish American Father. An accident of birth.

    The fact that I have a detailed family tree whose last traceable scion lived over 900 years ago, have two Nobel Prize winners (Physics) and one Fermi Prize winner (same) in that family tree, as well any number of prominent Rabbis and Talmudic scholars means nothing.

    Still, I have this to say about that:

    “Up! Up! and Oy Vey!”

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 06:34 PM • permalink

  70. To, ahem, get back on topic, what a real commentary on media watching should be:
    http://tinyurl.com/oz9jn
    (h/t to Newsbeat 1)

    Posted by andycanuck on 2006 08 08 at 06:34 PM • permalink

  71. I, too, am guilty of thread hijack—but plead entrapment. I will seek to moderate such behaviour in future.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 06:38 PM • permalink

  72. Andrea, you also threatened to ban lmassie in may.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 08 at 06:40 PM • permalink

  73. “Up! Up! and Oy Vey!”

    Ummmm Clark, your cape is showing below your suit jacket and fer cryin’ out loud, ditch the horn rim glasses, huh?....LOL.

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 06:42 PM • permalink

  74. #69 And here’s a book for you, MentalFloss:
    http://tinyurl.com/mv5s7

    Posted by andycanuck on 2006 08 08 at 06:43 PM • permalink

  75. Daddy Dave—oh yeah. I forgot about that one. He also misspelled “schmuck.” I should have known then…

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 08 08 at 06:52 PM • permalink

  76. #74 - Damn, and here I thought myself quite the wit for that one.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 06:58 PM • permalink

  77. #68 Yeah, The ABC’s Hardaker asked if the IAF pilot was ‘near to crying’.  When he said “No, why do you say that?”, Hardaker said “Well, you look like it”. 
    What an exchange!!
    Imagine if the Israeli, the son of a Holocaust survivor no less, had appeared joyful and eager as he described having to target a rocket launcher located between two residential buildings, with all the risk that involved…
    Only a very shameless ABC would want to include that clip in its report. It did.

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 08 08 at 07:13 PM • permalink

  78. Death to thread hi-jackers!

    BTW Who else in oz left messages in the census? I left a message for my great grandchildren in one of the address fields as I understand the information becomes public in 99 years:

    peopledoing familyhistories st
    shouldgetalife
    NSW 2233

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 08 at 07:16 PM • permalink

  79. daddy dave @ 46:

    SCD @ #18,
    If Salter is proud that Media Watch is biased… then doesn’t that negate the whole point of Media Watch?

    Why, yes.  But that doesn’t stop them broadcasting it.  Its the ABC you see… taxpayer funded & all that.  And I don’t think Salter actually comes out & says he’s proud of the program’s bias - but I look at his long track history and even some lesser veiled comments of his on the program’s feedback forum. (Last year in particular - the site ‘Moderator’ would take critics of the show to task, sometimes quite stridently.  Half way through the year the ‘Moderator’ was outed as Salter himself!! Oops.)

    You can’t monitor for bias if you’re biased. That would be like appointing Hezbollah as a UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

    Again, I can but agree.  But Media Watch doesn’t monitor for bias per se.  It monitors for right wing broadcasting and when it has to, the more egregious errors on their own network.

    When they find the former they denounce it in the most acidic and sarcastic way.  When the latter occurs, the first instinct is to ignore it but when exposure is unavoidable, they do what they did last Monday.  That is, bring in the red herring of asking people on both side of the argument to comment.  When both sides find fault, they say “See?  No bias”.

    Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 08 08 at 07:19 PM • permalink

  80. .... that said, this year’s Media Watch started out quite promising - notably less righ-bashing than before and a few ABC error pick-ups.

    But the pressure is obviously starting to tell and Salter is reverting to type.

    Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 08 08 at 07:21 PM • permalink

  81. Nicely done, Whale!  Keep up the good work!

    BUAWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 08 08 at 07:53 PM • permalink

  82. #76 Didn’t mean to imply any Jayson Blairism, MentalFloss, and anyway I think Thomas Jefferson first said it.
    8^)

    Posted by andycanuck on 2006 08 08 at 07:56 PM • permalink

  83. Andrew Bolt has laid the boot into Media Watch:

    Your ABC of Bias.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 08 08 at 08:06 PM • permalink

  84. Scoff all you like about Antony’s Silencing-Gate, but there is absolutely nothing in today’s Australian about how he is feeling. That paper needs to lift their game.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 08 at 08:12 PM • permalink

  85. Terry Macbeth Lane has company in the USA in the shape of Thomas E. Ricks, Pulitzer Prize Juornalism Winner no less, who retails unsourced ‘authorities’ saying Israel deliberately leaves ‘rocket pockets’ to fire on its civilians
    He’s written a negative new book on Iraq. Should anyone read it now?
    Here’s one blogger reply.  Put it into the context of the IAF pilot feeling sad about colateral civilian damage [above]:

    “In excoriating Israel and making these outrageous charges, he is attempting to define a kind of moral equality between Israel and Hizbollah- a moral equality nowhere in existence except in the mind of Mr Ricks.
    The Israelis have traded hundreds of prisoners for the remains of a few of their own. They are not people for whom allowing ‘the killing of a few civilians’ is an option.
    The Israelis do not need to sacrifice any of their own to retain the moral high ground. As long as ITBACH AL YAHUD!- SLAUGHTER THE JEW! is an acceptable form of political or religious ideology, taught from birth, the Israelis have no need to explain themselves to anyone.

    Clearly, it is the likes of Mr Ricks that have the explaining to do.
    Only a very sick mind could come up with that to gain media attention.

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 08 08 at 08:22 PM • permalink

  86. #83 I did have high hopes for MW at the start of the year. Attard’s credibility now ranks with that of David Marr and Liz Jackson.

    Posted by lingus4 on 2006 08 08 at 08:30 PM • permalink

  87. #18 I don’t know anybody who works on Media Watch but I do know plenty of ABC staff.  Based on those I do know I think you are probably correct in thinking that stirring up RWDBs will make MW staff happy.  The way to have an impact on these people is to make points regarding their professional abilities such as “are you not able to read the Age?” or “did you fail to spot this issue?”. 

    Errors in their profession (not errors of bias) find their way into their annual appraisals which since most of them are not salaried (most of them are contractors used to backfill for the permanent staff currently enjoying one of the multitudinous forms of “leave” available to those who don’t need to make a profit)can lead to termination.  This terrifies them as they are generally unemployable in the free world. 

    It’s the “nuclear option” for government staffers everywhere.  Hope you have fun using it.

    Posted by allan on 2006 08 08 at 08:41 PM • permalink

  88. #78 Actually, I’ve got a life—because of the actions of the same man who researched my family history: my Grandfather.

    After Anschluss, he walked with his wife and two daughters from Vienna, across Germany to Holland and eventually gaot a boat to England in 1939.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 08:43 PM • permalink

  89. #48- sorry to dissapoint, but I’m think he’s more along the lines of vapid, ferret-faced, insipid, prematurely grey twat- note he’s pictured with another Australian journalsit whose integrity and fearless promlugation of facts Tones aspires to.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 08 08 at 08:55 PM • permalink

  90. Update on my # 58 post

    UPDATE: James Taranto emails that he appears to have been wrong about that picture.

    InstaPundit

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 08 08 at 09:01 PM • permalink

  91. #88 MF Since I assume you are controlling the media, any chance of getting Benny Hill back on free to air?

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 08 at 09:16 PM • permalink

  92. Bah! Atroposified!

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 08 at 09:22 PM • permalink

  93. Worth a look - crikey is running an article about Ant Loewies’ best seller…

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 08 at 09:34 PM • permalink

  94. In case anyone was actually concerned about the veracity of the comment “Israel has one of the most socialist ecomomies on the planet”—

    The logical place to check is the
    Index of Economic Freedom.  Israel is ranked 36th out of 157 rated countries (in the top quarter of economic freedom), with a freer economy than Taiwan, Italy, France, South Korea, Greece, and every Arab state save Bahrain.

    Iran, on the other hand, is ranked 156th out of the same 157.

    Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2006 08 08 at 09:41 PM • permalink

  95. Back on/T (but great comments MF), my message to Media Watch was:

    Can Media Watch give me one plausible reason for NOT covering the Terry Lane story?
    Remember, not all your viewers are intellectually challenged.
    .

    I will let y’all know if a plausible response comes back but but you might like to “waste your time between appointments” looking at a more recent thread.

    Posted by Skeeter on 2006 08 08 at 09:51 PM • permalink

  96. #91 And, Lo! There came a day, long heralded, when the very air was no longer the free domain of signals broad and narrow, of frequencies high—both very and ultra—and those dispossed of this breath of life did beat their breast, gnash their teeth and curse the very word “digital”. [excerpt from the Revealed Wisdom of the Scroll of Australian Communications and Media Authority]

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 08 at 10:16 PM • permalink

  97. srekwah

    some interesting scary pictures appear when you search google for tony jones’ image…

    Posted by kae on 2006 08 08 at 11:14 PM • permalink

  98. OT I know, but.
    Deano’s Shame?
    Get real. Islam is not a race, so how is calling a Muslim a terrorist, racist?
    99.9% of terrorist attacks globally are committed by Muslims (especially ‘devout’ ones), so if anything, Deano is guilty of being cliche.
    The world has gone mad when Hizbollox ‘protesters’ can call for the destruction of Israel/Jews and not get any
    comments from the media, and someone cracks a piss-weak joke and suddenly the loaded words racism, shame, bigot etc are bandied about.
    Any ‘religion’ that says it should dominate all others deserves all the ridicule we can give.
    Plus Mark Steyn on Lateline last night was fabuloso!
    Skid Marx

    Posted by Skid Marx on 2006 08 09 at 02:24 AM • permalink

  99. But when are they going to investigate the brutal suppression of Flavius Antonius’ book?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 08 09 at 09:07 AM • permalink

  100. So, something like two days later, they have not added a single comment to their site.  Love that real-time Internet action… snooze…

    Posted by Mike G on 2006 08 09 at 07:00 PM • permalink

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