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LANE OFFLINE
Oddly, Terry Lane’s Sunday Age column—usually a reliable source of unreliable material—isn’t online this week, although Lane’s wisdom is apparently present in the print edition. Perhaps his editors are protecting him. I wonder what he might have written?
UPDATE. Lane’s column is now online, some 24 hours after it appeared in print:
Here’s an amusing example of the divide between good and bad America. A recent press release from the organisation Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility draws attention to the fact that rangers in the Grand Canyon National Park are forbidden to answer visitors’ questions about the age of the canyon because the truth will upset Bush’s fundamentalist supporters. However, Bush’s National Parks Service refuses to withdraw from sale in the park bookshop a book that explains how the canyon was formed by Noah’s flood.
Hmm.
Among Lane’s lunatic rubbish are the words:
“Liberation goes like this. You see a country under occupation or ruled by a tyrant; you send in the army to drive the occupiers out or to depose the tyrant; then you bow to the natives’ grateful applause and go home. Simple.
It worked in Norway, Denmark ...”
When was that, I wonder? Like, when was an Army sent in to Liberate Norway and Denmark? I don’t recall it EVER happening.
“What if Iraq’s Main Export was Broccoli?”
the quote is taken from a fact sheet written in 1999 [ie pre-invasion] by Inter-Church Action [Canada],‘this fact sheet offers background to the churches’ perspective on sanctions that were put in place to isolate Saddam Hussein’s regime following the 1991 Gulf War.’
That research took all of 5 secs googling- Terry Lane really is a dick
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 14 at 10:30 AM • permalinkNot true. I have heard park rangers at the Grand Canyon do the whole speech on how the canyon was formed, timelines included, Noah’s Flood excluded. I have also heard park rangers in Yellowstone explain how the whole caldera that makes up most of Yellowstone has been erupting for the last 200 million+ years. All of this since Bush was selected, not elected. In fact, the very first sentence on the official National Park website for the Grand Canyon states: “The Grand Canyon is more than a great chasm carved over millennia through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau.”
The official Grand Canyon website refers to geological formations that “date back 1,800 million years.” Doesn’t sound like young-earth creationism to me.
http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/naturalfeaturesandecosystems.htm
The site also says the oldest human artifacts found in the canyon are approximately 12,000 years old - twice as old as what “Bush’s fundamentalist supporters” believe to be the age of the earth.
BTW, I know many fundamentalist Christians and not a one would be upset to hear a Park Ranger talk about the Grand Canyon being carved over millenia.
I also know a few Lefties who would be really upset and ready to sue should any Park Ranger question the normal globalwarmongering “science” that has become the dogma of the Left.I feel so sorry for Age readers. I’m sure most of you know this has been thoroughly debunked. As an example see:
http://parkrangerx.blogspot.com/2007/01/dont-believe-everything-you-read.html#10 wenwen, shhh, before you make it sound like Lane should have done research. Thank you for the link though, it was certainly interesting reading.
I couldn’t picture a Park Ranger refusing to answer a question because of religious ideals, unless it had something to do with that “peaceful” religion.
What utter BS. As someone who spent the past 20 years in Arizona, and as someone who has been to both the north and south rims and to the bottom of the canyon several times, I can assure all Australians (and anyone else for that matter) that park rangers are not ordered to give the Biblical version of the canyon’s formation. As Diggs said above, when they give their talks to the tourists they speak in terms of millions of years. Noah and the flood never enters into it. I realize that this clown is an opinion columnist but does that free him from all responsibility to print the truth?
This is what I found at the website for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility that Lane cites:
As a service organization assisting federal & state public employees, PEER allows public servants to work as “anonymous activists” so that agencies must confront the message, rather than the messenger
This was from a post in their “activist blog”:Now a days, under the kakistocracy of the Bush administration, protests by environmental agency employees, evidence of natural disasters and even decades of worldwide agreement can’t seem to convince King George that climate change is a force to be reckoned.
Not exactly an objective source, eh, Terry? BTW, how’s Jesse MacBeth doing these days?Free thinkers unencumbered by Lane’s predjudices and inability to use search engines might even go right to the National Park Service’s Grand Canyon website and see for themselves what the age of the canyon is. How did this get past those fundamentalist censors?
http://www.nps.gov/grca/faqs.htmMr Rudd might care to explain how it is in our national interest to have an alliance with a government that is a self-evident force for stupidity as well as cruelty.
Age editors might care to explain how it is in Autralians’ newspaper-over-breakfast interests to have space for a columnist who is a self-evident force for stupidity as well as Google-avoiding sloth.
It worked in Norway, Denmark ...”
When was that, I wonder? Like, when was an Army sent in to Liberate Norway and Denmark? I don’t recall it EVER happening.
I think that it’s supposed to be a WW2 reference, McAnzac. You know, one that ignores the Allied and Soviet occupation of the divided Germany and American troops still being in Germany to this day 60+ years later. (Not to mention NATO [and the UN?] still being in the Balkans a decade after that “liberation”.) Not too swift on analogy either, is Mr. Lane, is he?
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 14 at 11:52 AM • permalinkGeez, what a load of crap! Lane is truly a dick. I didn’t even have to google anything to know he’s wrong. The National Park Service has multiple flaws (I’ve dealt with them on several occasions), but they are certainly not insane, as this claim is.
wenwen, thank you for those excellent links!
For those who live overseas and may not understand the American park system, it’s quite simple. The parks, major sites, and supporting infrastructure are maintained by the National Park Service. Virtually all of the concessions and services are operated and maintained by vendors who have some sort of a contract with the NPS. (Not unlike the services Haliburton and other contractos provide in Iraq, come to think of it). The NPS provides most of the facilities through contracts, and the vendors operate them.
And it has been that way for a long time.
PEER used to be a relatively decent organization…..looking at their website, it appears that they have been overtaken by the howlin’ moonbats with terminal cases of BDS.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 14 at 12:44 PM • permalinkAmazing. I was going to write the National Park Service and ask then about Lane’s piece, and folks here, notably wenwen, already researched this issue and posted links that seem to put the lie to the environmental group’s claims. One wonders why Terry MacBeth Lane couldn’t have done this. The answer, of course, is that he could have, but he appears to be congenitally disposed toward accepting, without question, the assertions of people whose worldview he shares. Lane is rapidly acquiring a reputation for almost Lowenstein-like inaccuracy, and since he refuses to learn from his spectacular goofs, I think his employer should insist that he find another line of work.
Mike—it’s a fraud. I’m digging up links.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 14 at 01:23 PM • permalinkThis is the kind of thing that provides endless amusement to me when I travel abroad. I mean the kind of nonsense about the US that Europeans and their worshipers around the globe believe.
I met a couple of clients from the UK in Dallas a couple years ago. One of them was concerned about being shot driving from the airport.
We ate in a steakhouse called “Trail Dust” where they show westerns on tv screens around the restaurant. There was an old west shootout playing on one. I told him it was the security camera from the parking lot.
#21 & 22 And of course the sequel, “Nostrils of Satan II: Boogers from HELL”
Someone needs to go into Mr Lane’s cubicle, gently remove the piles of popsicle sticks, crayons, paper machè puppet head plans, pizza boxes, balsawood, chenille pipecleaners, glitter, puff paint pens and construction paper from on top of the computer, turn it on, and show him how to use it.
It’s called the internet. Al Gore took the initiative in creating it. Hail (sleet & snow) St Gore! Check facts! See porn! You’ll like it, Terry.Moptop, you’re evil but in the same way that I’d salute you whether you were my boss or my superior. The Trail Dust Security Camera, I love that.
Kiwinews, they tried that, but he started to shoot people with the stapler from the office of the guy next to him. Nice try though. Is there a ‘Lefty’ porn site? Does anyone here know?
Jumping back from the leftie-porn for a moment, I wanted to mention that I had seen this covered somewhere pretty thoroughly. Now that I remember where, I wanted to let you know that it was at Tom Maguire’s Just One Minute. However, he posted it on the evening of New Year’s Eve and most people were probably too hungover to remember it the next day. Sadly, the 237 comments the post generated devolved into a long discussion on the merits of scientific dating methods and were an indication of a sad and lonely New Year’s Eve. One hopes that Tom went out for the evening and never got around to pulling that thread back on track. (I kid because I love, and that’s where I heard about it.)
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2006/12/what_is_eating_.html#commentsMaybe this was Lane’s reputable source.
Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2007 01 14 at 03:02 PM • permalink#3 Actually, an army was sent into Norway to liberate it and it was driven out by the Germans.
Still, Lane has stuffed it again.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 14 at 03:04 PM • permalinkThe real sadness with all this is that Lane is just repeating superstition, lies, falsehoods and hogwash to justify his, and his readers, blind prejudice. Worse, these spread throughout the population when repeated by such “authorities” as the Age.
I have had secular atheist conservative types complain that Bush is the real danger, as opposed to the islamo-fsascists, because he is a religious fundamentalist. This is straight out of the left-wing goebbels book.
Go figure.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 14 at 03:10 PM • permalink#28 Given the lefto-femnoid hatred of the woman’s body, I would assume they would get aroused by this swimsuit photo.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 14 at 03:21 PM • permalinkRe #32, so, Trudeau is hot on this, eh? No wonder Lane accepted the story as Truth: Doonesbury sez so!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 14 at 03:22 PM • permalinkAsh, if I remember correctly the “If the chief export of Iraq had been broccoli rather than oil, the US would never have invaded.” quote was originally by the Daily Mail’s foreign correspondent Ann Leslie. Except she was making the point that Iraq was only a potential threat because it had oil to fund Saddam’s ambitions not that the USA wanted to control Iraq’s oil. I might be mistaken though because it isn’t like Terry Lane to mangle a quote.
My missus and I, both Aussies, drove an old van about 12,000 miles right around the US last year, visiting 36 states and about 20 national parks including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Niagara, Utah. We also visited many state parks (camping facilities were fantastic, thanks).
We camped in National Parks wherever possible spending heaps of time enjoying the spectacular scenery.
There was plenty of info in visitor stations, park shops and direct from rangers regarding the natural environment, park history, geology, etc., but I never saw any of the crap that Lane mentions and I am an avid reader. His statement is total bullshit.
Wonderful country, sensational parks and great hospitality. Thanks Seppos.Just one last link to demonstrate the abject lameness of Lane. A Daily Kos diarist published a debunking of this story 10 days ago and it was really hard for him to have to defend the Bush administration from an obvious slander. If you hit the Kos link- be sure to read the blog he links to back up his claim- intresting discussion on this topic at National Parks Traveller. Lane and those who edit and publish him are seriously unprofessional.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/201023/6051This was been thoroughly debunked by James Taranto in OpinionJournal last week. Lane ought to get out more.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 01 14 at 05:23 PM • permalinkIf Iraq had broccoli George H W Bush would have nuked them because quite famously he detested the vegetable.
And quite doth Bush 41 detest broccoli. The only nuking that plant deserves requires plutonium, not a microwave.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 14 at 05:28 PM • permalinkCome to think of it, Lane’s level of mentation does resemble a broccoli. So this isn’t off thread after all!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 14 at 05:30 PM • permalinkLane’s spray is about the most virulent anti-American diatribe I can recall for Ages (pardon the pun).
The man neatly ignores Ameria’s virtues or good works, preferring to dissemble half truths, dowright concoctions (lies) and reiteration of his long-held beliefs and dogmas.
I could get all feral about Lane (like many of my colleagues here), but it serves nothing. The man is a hollow shell of hatred and bile and toxic thoughts. The man is beyond worthwhile redemption and will go to his grave with this giant stew foaming about in his brain - repeat dogma: America is evil. Saddam was good. Saddam was murdered by Bush. Castro is good and has done nothing but good for his people. And so on and on, and on and on…now repeat…
The Lane mantra is so predictable and so repetetitive that you would wonder why even
PravdaThe Age would bother publishing his stuff.walterplinge—thank you; that was the link I was looking for.
On Ace of Spades, which explains my limited success…*g*
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 14 at 07:05 PM • permalinkIs there anything, anydamnthing at all, that the lefties won’t lie about?
Seriously, I really want to know.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 14 at 07:06 PM • permalinkThe Age and SMH have an amazing propensity for publishing total untruths as facts. The rabid writings of their columnists have turned them into broadsheet versions of the National Enquirer - minus the humour. What next from Lane. George W Bush was grown in a test tube from genetic material from Heinrich Himmler? Mild-mannered Bob Brown is actually Superman? Australia was once occupied by a race of super-intelligent giant environmentalists who were wiped out by Robert Menzies in 1954? John Howard’s brain was removed by the CIA and Richard Nixon’s brain put in its place? Lane could cite Futurama as a source for the latter.
What we need is some sort of weekly programme, which brings to book such egregious nonsense. Better make it publicly funded with a national reach to avoid any accusations of bias. A forum for media analysis and comment. Conflicts of interest, deceit, misrepresentation, manipulation, plagiarism, abuse of power, technical lies and straight out fraud could be targetted. Give it a pithy one word title, somebody else can figure that out, I’m into ideas, not promos and marketing. Get me the head of factual programming at the ABC! I think I know how to fill that soft spot in their Monday night line-up…
The rabid writings of their columnists have turned them into broadsheet versions of the National Enquirer - minus the humour.
More like the Weekly World News—again without the humor. And also without Bat Boy.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 14 at 08:24 PM • permalinkPoor, Terry. He’s been printed out of context again.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 14 at 09:03 PM • permalinkLane clearly suffers from the newly diagnosed disease LIDS.
Lane Is Deranged Syndrome.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 01 14 at 09:14 PM • permalinkHmmmm.
Well that was a surprise. Lane writing something completely full of shit.
I’m shocked, shocked, that bullshit is being written there.
Okay. You got me. I’m not really shocked.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 01 14 at 09:26 PM • permalinkAnyone who thinks that federal employees of any sort can be dictated to by any organization other than their federal employees union have their head so far up their tail pipe that they’ve vapor locked.
The federal employee union(s) don’t answer to anyone other than their career bureaucrats.
It’s no wonder folk like the moron quoted above gravitate toward despotic concepts of governance. They can’t fathom any sort of life where “the boss” does not micro manage every aspect of life.
Australia was once occupied by a race of super-intelligent giant environmentalists who were wiped out by Robert Menzies in 1954?
Contrail—oooh, so close. “Australia was once occupied by a race of super-intelligent giant MUSLIM environmentalists who were wiped out by Robert Menzies in 1954…”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 14 at 09:47 PM • permalinkNext week he’ll do Dilbert…
Doubtful, because, unlike Doonesbury, Dilbert has something of a basis in reality. Nor does Dilbert pretend to Speak Truth To Power™. Trudeau is a pompous prick masking as a cartoonist, while Adams draws cartoons about dealing with pompous pricks.
As a result, Lane is naturally attracted to Trudeau, and naturally repelled by Adams.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 14 at 10:55 PM • permalink#57
Lane is the former presenter of ABC Radio National’s National Interest.Appears the ABC’s chief biggots are Luddites, FatFill inclusive.
Can’t wait for Media Watch to come back on.
I’m sure they’ll be all over this, just like they were on the Jessie McBeth gaffe!
Posted by eagle bomber on 2007 01 15 at 02:24 AM • permalinkSome amusing snippets from wikipedia about Terry Lane
After studying for the ministry at the Churches of Christ College of the Bible in Melbourne, Lane was a minister for six years
He began a radio talk-back program for the ABC in Melbourne in 1977, which management discontinued after 11 months on account of Lane’s radicalism.
He also is the winner of the Wilkie Medal, awarded by the Anti-Football League for doing the least for football.
Since 2003 Lane has reviewed digital photography hardware and software. His reviews are published online at dpexpert.com.au
dpexpertPosted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 15 at 03:30 AM • permalinkGood news - Lane has decided to own up to his mistake.
Lane says:
I have many regrets. I regret my gullibility. I regret my unprofessionalism. I regret the embarrassment I have caused this newspaper.
Or, actually, maybe that was last time.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 15 at 05:31 AM • permalinkI have done a detailed post on the whole thing. I really think Lane needs to know how to do a Google search before he puts stuff in his articles. But, to be fair, Lane was certainly not the only one misled: so were Time Magazine, Digg, the History News Network and some site called US Gov Info (can’t be very accurate info, can it?).
Just proves the danger of taking these things at face value when you want to believe it’s true.
Posted by Legal Eagle on 2007 01 15 at 08:56 AM • permalink# 77- wouldn’t be the first time wiki’s wrong then (or me either :))-
i can’t imagine a time when the abc fired a leftard for being too radical, so maybe they’re wrong about that too.
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 15 at 09:03 AM • permalinkThe current edition of New Scientistreports the same story on page 5. Unlike Lane, it makes no mention of George Bush or of any gag on park rangers. The complaint was about the park’s bookshop stocking, among its scientific publications, a pamphlet written by creationists.
Posted by Angela Bell on 2007 01 15 at 09:23 AM • permalinkWonderful country, sensational parks and great hospitality. Thanks Seppos.
Posted by hazza
You’re welcome, in all senses of the word. I hope I can someday do the same thing on your continent. Without resorting to a Flintstones pedal-camper.
I still glance at Doonesbury, but don’t read it when Trudeau tries to present truthiness.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2007 01 15 at 09:47 AM • permalinkThis is what happens when idiots argue with idiots—real or imagined.
Only a fool believes the Bible to be a precise chronology. And only a fool believes Christians are expected to think that way.
The Bible is intended to be a book of truths, not a history or science text. God would not, on the one hand, tell us the Earth is only 5,000 years old, and then reveal otherwise through carbon dating, radiation half-lifes, etc.
Whether Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the Garden of Eden actually existed in time and space is irrelevant. But if you don’t understand and apply the book of Genesis in your everyday life, you will probably need a therapist to help you cope with man’s fallen nature—yours and others’.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 01 15 at 11:00 AM • permalink#79
Peter Mares ... is currently presenter of ABC Radio National’s weekly discussion program The National Interest following the retirement of long-time host Terry Lane.Forced retirement?
You guys are being unfair. No doubt he would like to have spent 3 minutes taking a look at the Grand Canyon National Park website for fact-checking purposes, but then his IP Address would have been exposed to the Bushitler secret police!
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2007 01 15 at 03:37 PM • permalink
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It seems to be there now Tim.