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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
Tony M. emails:
I was listening to ABC Radio National this morning in the car, and a guest on their Life Matters program was one Gabrielle McIntosh, Principal of the Blacktown Youth College, an ‘alternative’ school in Sydney’s west. She was responding to a claim by some Seppo academic that girls had become too violent in recent years. Ms McIntosh’s view was they have not become violent enough.
I don’t want to go into all the ins and outs of her POV, but it’s worth a listen. I think you will be horrified and highly amused. She went so far as to suggest that girls needed to become far more violent in order to get attention and resources.
Aside from anything, her strident, hectoring approach reminded me so much of Mrs Broslovsky from South Park that before long I was humming, ‘Kyle’s Mom Is A Big Fat Bitch.’
And from Tony L., also tuned to Radio National:
Listen to Stephen Crittenden’s interview this morning with Robert Kennedy on “vote rigging in the last US election”. Only the ABC and Crittenden would interview a Kennedy on vote rigging – a Kennedy complaining of vote rigging is a bit like Mark Latham complaining about personal abuse.
The interview has a number of quotable quotes, such as Kennedy saying that “exit polls are an exact science within a margin of error” (a rather large margin) and Crittenden signing off with: “Puts the project of bringing democracy to Iraq in a different light”.
UPDATE. Stephen Dawson sends a note to RN:
In the segment of Breakfast between 8:00am and 8:30am on Tuesday 6 June 2006, the presenter, Stephen Crittenden, during an interview said that President George W Bush ‘lied’ with regard to his State of the Union claim regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium.
This is false, and I am surprised that Mr Crittenden should be so ready to state a false allegation as fact on ABC Radio National.
The complete Dawson corrective is in comments.
- Paul Wright (#1, I too heard that line and nearly ran off the road! I kept thinking ‘He sounds pissed!’, but then I thought; a Kennedy – Never!Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2006 06 08 at 07:31 AM • permalink
- Note to the ABC from Stephen Dawson:
In the segment of Breakfast between 8:00am and 8:30am on Tuesday 6 June 2006, the presenter, Stephen Crittenden, during an interview said that President George W Bush ‘lied’ with regard to his State of the Union claim regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium.
This is false, and I am surprised that Mr Crittenden should be so ready to state a false allegation as fact on ABC Radio National. The President had said: ‘The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”.
In mid-2003, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had visited Niger at the behest of the CIA to investigate this claim, published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he said that he had found nothing in it. That is the source of the claim that President Bush lied. Unfortunately for Ambassador Wilson, his claims have been several times proven to be quite wrong.
It is clear that President Bush based his statement on the October 2002 (US) National Intelligence report which stated:
“Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake … A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001 Niger planned to send several tons of ‘pure uranium’ (probably yellowcake) to Iraq … We do not know the status of this arrangement.”
This report was issued after Ambassador Wilson’s visit to Niger, so it was the most current information available to the President.
Since the information was said by the President to have come from the British Government, I should note that the Butler enquiry, set up by the UK government, concluded that the information about attempts by the Iraqi government to obtain uranium was ‘well-founded’. The US Senate Intelligence Committee also found that this information was reliable (and, along the way, criticised Ambassador Wilson for publicly misrepresenting the information
drawn from his Niger visit, pointing out that what the Ambassador had actually reported to the CIA was that Iraqi officials had indeed visited the nation with a view to obtaining a certain commodity. While the commodity in question was not specified, given the limited nature of exports from Niger—goats and yellowcake primarily—it was felt that uranium would have been the most likely goal).I wonder if you would be so kind as to pass on to Mr Crittenden this information so that he desists from making unfounded claims that President Bush ‘lied’. It casts the ABC in a rather poor light when its presenters make statements which are obviously wrong to even the moderately well-informed, and contributes to the impression among some that the ABC has an anti-Bush bias.
- #2: They’re getting better at it.
A Kennedy was caught driving drunk last month, and no-one drowned.
Ubung macht dem Meister, as the Germans say.
-Big Al
Posted by TheRealBigAl on 2006 06 08 at 08:22 AM • permalink
- I suspect any retraction would come before sunrise or when your footy’s on. Carna Steve!Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 06 08 at 08:50 AM • permalink
- Regarding Tony M, my introduction to Sydney before sleeping off jetlag was hearing a hard schoolgirl walking across the Central Station telling her classmate, “if she f—s with me she’s f—-n’ dead.” A gentle old man was in front of me, and I couldn’t resist: “Gives you hope, doesn’t it?’Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 06 08 at 08:56 AM • permalink
- “exit polls are an exact science within a margin of error”
I realize that statistics are even less understood by most people than “regular” mathematics, but that’s so stupid a statement it beggars belief.
Worse than that, I bet the majority of loony lefties will actually believe it to be true.
(a rather large margin)
More specifically, a margin of error that covers every possible vote share between 0 and 100% for each candidate, as only then would an exit poll be “exact” in the sense that its margin of error is guaranteed to include the true results. In other words, the only thing that an “exact” exit poll presumably could confirm is which candidates were on the ballot.
- Ms McIntosh obviously hasn’t met many Aussie girls.Posted by Daniel San on 2006 06 08 at 09:19 AM • permalink
- And of course none of them even remotely understand that the ‘margin of error’ doesn’t include many other types of error that affect the accuracy of surveys.Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 06 08 at 10:28 AM • permalink
- Come on, Tim, the Iraqis were in Niger for the goats. (Like all sex trade tourists to Niger.)Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 08 at 10:38 AM • permalink
- Well the girls at one local school did her proud- she would be beaming and optimistic if she had heard that one girl broke another’s jaw while all the boys stood around cheering..
Radio nats this morning..
At least 15 mins (that I heard) on David Hicks from Crits and a foaming at the mouth lawyer.David was his prodigal son,innocent,victim of a conspiracy.
“Hicks is WINNING slowly against George W Bush.”
Crit “ARE YOU ALLEGING that his medical records may have been handed over from Australia?”
“well his medical records from Guantanamo were..”
Crit voice rising hysterically “DO YOU THINK that Australia has the FULL details of what happened to David?”
“Well the love parts were censored out of his letters from his family”.
“Psychological torture is FAR harder than physical and leaves greater damage..”
Trembling Crit “any evidence he was treated worse than Nazi War Criminals at Nuremberg?”
“no -David Hicks was used as a laboratory rat because HIS COUNTRY ABANDONED HIM…”
Interviewee -Prof Clifford McCay,Dept History,Wisconsin.
Next -the head of WWF turned down a role in the Feds’ Nuclear enqiry..terms too narrow.
ACT not defyin feds on same sex marriages by cutting back registration time to a week (from a month).
Crits’ interview with Kennedy jnr about his article in ROLLING STONE magazine…
Quavery peevished voice meanders on about HUGE CONSPIRACY both elections,a right wing fundamentalist judge,WHY has the media not done more with this “huge” story,the media is no longer required to serve the public interest,Keith ? from MSNBC only anchor to cover-right wing bloggers talking of tinfoil hats-Media only interested in Brad and Angelina and rape cases.Exit polls OHIO amazingly wrong.
Yesterday Crit was haranguing Michelle Gratin over nukes being less popular than gay marriage..
“that’s drawing rather a long bow” she said.
“well I’ve GOT a very long bow” he said.
Media “Report” this morning -the Chaser slagging commercial current affairs shows (ACA polls are full of shit) and leftie blogger and the Onion.
- Crittenden interviewed Robert Kennedy Jr. for no less than 20 minutes [I timed it], way past the usual in prime time, and about a very old story hardly anyone in the US is taking seriously.
Crittenden doesn’t even try to hide his left prejudices – a trainee Phillip Adams clone with an ABC licence to bias..Having failed to give a *single* challenging question to RFKJr, he concluded with his own editorial: “It puts the USA taking democracy to Iraq in a different light.”
Shameless use of our money. Close the ABC if they can’t stop this.
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My personal favourite was Kennedy’s assertion that US expats would vote against Bush because they’re exposed to foreign media, which would of course give them “truth”. Also that the military votes Democrat.