The funniest story on earth (as reported in the Townsville Bulletin)

Yes, I'm still here!  My apologies to any regular visitors for the 'little' hiatus in my posts - put it down to a combination of work and other things going on in my life and arriving at a point of total despair at the state of the mainstream media in Australia and locally.

So what would break me out of all of that and and lead me back to the blog?  Why, the funniest story for decades of course, the one which brings an instant smile to my face with every new day's revelations - the crashing and burning of brand Murdoch (and potentially his empire)!

While there are plenty of others writing about what has to be the best and biggest spectator sport on earth at present, I'm currently particularly enjoying watching the developing blood-lust in (all but Murdoch) media's reportage of the action - it's sort of like watching Frankenstein's monster feeding on the corpse of the dead Doctor.

And of course then there's the Murdoch press reportage of the biggest media story for decades.  And what better example is there of the Empire's commitment to truth and balance that our very own Townsville Bulletin?

Their coverage of the crisis engulfing their Empire over the last few days?

• Wednesday 13/07 - nothing
• Thursday 14/07 - a 7x6.5 cm piece on page 19 or 0.10% of the 40 page edition
• Friday15/07 - a 7x6.5 cm piece on page 38 or 0.08% of the 52 page edition

And of course these little snippets are not available online and were hidden away in the "World Snapshot" section of the Bully - not so much because no one will notice it there but rather because when they do The Empire's local minions want the reader to be left with the impression that "the troubles" are restricted to quaint old England.

Surely there's nothing more pathetic than watching this blimp on the periphery of The Empire desperately protecting it's little patch while Rome burns.  And burns and burns and burns.

Recognition where it's due

A great article by Evan Morgan in today's Bulletin about local legend Brian Doolan - it affords him the position and space that he deserves and most importantly, it affords him the respect as an artist that he seems to have no trouble attracting in southern Europe but that has been a long time coming at home.

Source:  The Townsville Bulletin

Billy says it all really:

"The pride that came out of me when the respect was shown from halfway across the world ... I haven't experienced a lot of it here in Australia and to get it over there was amazing.

That my friends is one hell of an indictment of Townsville!!

And what a man - his plan to change a few Palm Island kids lives and world view by taking then with him on his next trip to Italy is fantastic and, I reckon, right on the money - I dearly hope it can be made to happen.

All-in-all, a much better effort than The Bulletin's last attempt to write about the man!  Worth a read.

The Bully is late again!

After yesterday's post in response to The Townsville Bulletin's story about Base Backpackers trashing Maggie Island, I discovered that the story was in fact first brought to light by The Magnetic Times the day before.
Editing Note:  This piece originally claimed that The Bulletin plagiarised the Magnetic Times article,but following a call from Honest George at The 'Times and the readers comments below, I accept that both articles were written from the same release.  My apologies to the Bully on that score - I got it wrong.  But it cant be all mea culpa - The Times did break the story late after all!

The Townsville Bulletin - Murdoch's very own digital kamikaze?

(Too) Much has been written about the likely success of Murdoch's plans to turn his newspapers into online earners and I have to admit that for some time I've been meaning to add to that debate with some pithy localised comment like "the Townsville Bulletin can't even get people to buy it's hard copy edition - why would they buy its crap in digitalised form?"

But today comes the clincher.  The New York Times has announced its digital pricing strategy and it's gonna cost you just $15.05 (AUD) a month to read one of the most prestigious rags in the world over your breakfast. 

But, if you're still hungry for real news after reading the product of over 600 journalists and some of the best commentators in the world, you can also purchase a digital copy of our very own Townsville Bulletin for a measly $30 a month!!

Either the Bully's local management is just plain commercially stupid (we have written about that quite a bit - 97 times in fact - as of course does former 'insider' The Magpie) or Murdoch is setting them up to see just how quickly a paper can die in the digital age.

My guess is that it's the former.

Postscript: Should the Bully wake up and drop their digital prices anytime in the next year or so, I of course will take full credit :-)

Is this worthy of the Front Page? Actually, is this a story at all?

So let me get this right...

A punter calls the Townsville Bulletin to complain that her daughter is going to get kicked out of school because she wears a few studs to hide scaring on her ear.

Realising there's no chance of a classifieds sale here, the switch puts her through journalist Alexix Gillham who immediately spots a bit of a human interest story.

Being the true Murdoch professional that she is, Gillham checks the story out.  She discovers that:

1. The kid isn't getting kicked out of school
2. The school has a long established uniform policy which includes rules about jewelry
3. That policy is based on sound health and safety logic.  That's, HEALTH and SAFETY
4. The Parent and the kid both signed their acceptance of the policy on enrolment

Seeing the conflict (and even the human interest) draining from the story, Gillam goes back to the Mum in an attempt to bring the dying story back to life:  ..."teachers at the school had far more piercings than her daughter"  - avoiding the fact that everywhere in life there are (necessarily) different rules and different HEALTH and SAFETY concerns for kids and adults.

As for the pun headline, "Lobal warfare" - it's as p*ssweak as the story itself

For the record:  My daughter attends Pimlico.  We both think it's a great school.  She'd love to wear more jewlry too but, hey, we both signed the policy.

It's all about what's not said

Did you happen to see the piece on Palm Island artist Billy Doolan on the 7:30 report?  If not, it is well worth a look and Billy is certainly deserving of the national attention and recognition given the quality of his work and growing international reputation . (Transcript and video here).

Watching it reminded me of an unfinished post which I'd started in response to a Townsville Bulletin article on Billy back on 17 Feb. While that article also gave Billy local attention and recognition, at the time it annoyed me that the Bully tagged Billy as a "Townsville Artist" where of course he is a Palm Island man and that the article was run well back into the paper and not (for example) headlined in the weekly Arts Section. 

There was also something very familiar about the paper's pic of Billy which I couldn't put my finger on - until I found this piece by Chris Johnson in The Age.  As soon as I read there that Billy had been a resident of Happy Valley (for non-locals, Townsville's equivalent to a "fringe camp" or "town camp") the penny dropped.

I had met Billy at Happy Valley a number of years ago.  I now clearly remembered him as a strong and proud man, a leader - far from the image of Happy Valley itinerants and drunks that The Bulletin (among many others) are so fond of betraying.

And of course, while effectively regurgitating The Age article published 47 days beforehand, the Bully managed to exclude (airbrush) any reference to Billy's association with the Valley.  After all, we wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea about that mob would we?

Their attempt to appropriate Billy as a "Townsville Artist" (that is, one of our own) became all the more annoying when I read that Billy has been living in Melbourne for half of each of the last eight years (he's clearly a smart businessman too).

Oh - and I also discovered that Billy is in fact a "major Queensland artist" - certainly worthy of more than a throw-away piece in the local rag of the town that likes to claim him as their own.

While not really surprised by The Bully's approach, I have been particularly annoyed by what appears to me to be the complete ignoring of Billy Doolan and his international standing by the arts establishment in this town - and believe me there is one.  Search the Bulletin's site for "chamber music" and you'll get 67 results.  Search Billy's name and you get just one.

Say no more

The Townsville Bulletin and Magnetic Island. Again!

I hate to harp on about this, but this morning's Townville Bulletin has done it again. 

Their 32-page "Wrath of a monster" pictorial supplement (not available online) includes some 118 great pics and not a single one of them relate to Magnetic Island!!.

If you are interested in the Island (or not) DON'T visit The Bully's online galleries as it only encourages them - rather, check out these great island pics in The Magnetic Times or even those in my earlier Yasi posts here and here

What is it with The Townsville Bulletin and Magnetic Island?

The Bully (like much of Townsville) has a funny relationship with Magnetic Island, just 3km off the coast and closer to the CBD than most suburbs in the town. 

Their coverage of Cyclone Yasi's impact on the Island since their first edition on Friday has been woeful and amazingly, they haven't even bothered to send a photographer over to capture the impact on the region's major tourism asset.  Then of course, the probably haven't sent one over for the last 6 months either.

But they are determined to make good - in their own inimitable style of course.  They've put Mary Vernon's phone pics up in a gallery (including one of her street number for some reason?) and Maggie actually made front page today!  And a humdinger it is too!  "They've all gone batty" is the witty little editor's effort to headline a story about a guy drinking at the Picnic Bay pub who got bitten by a fruit bat - no doubt because he tried to handle it or was so p*ssed that he fell or walked into it.

Don't bother following the link to read the story as it only encourages them, but to summarise, the innuendo is that Islanders are about to get raped and pillaged by marauding bats whose roosts and food trees have been destroyed or stripped.

Of course, I suspect that the real reason they ran the story (other than a rabid bat scare always sells up here for some reason) was that they finally had a professional Maggie pic (slightly p*ssed man with bandage against a lovely blue backgound) without having to send the photographer to the Island.

As I will expand on in a separate post at some stage, in a natural disaster the print media are a waste of space (as is social media pretty much). 

It's just that, with the exception of their first post cyclone edition which consisted almost entirely of pictures, The Bully is a waste of space most of the other time as well.

The Townsville Bulletin delivers again for the Mad Katter

Another scorching little piece in today's Bully by Nathan Paull announcing/marketing the Mad Katter's search for a publishing agent.  You see, it seems that the Mad Katter has been writing a book.

This completely un-newsworthy effort gets a full half page in the new-look, all-colour-advertising Bully.

Why is it that this mob seem to run every press release The Mad Katter makes?  Why do they continue to give air to Katter's magnificently crafted image as "man of the people" and "David against Goliath"?

I wish they (along with the voters of Kennedy) would instead ask what it is that Katter has actually delivered in all his years of making a good living playing the role of the independent maverick MP (and writing books while relaxing in a business class seat)?

As I noted some time ago - having (gutlessly) dealt himself out of the game in September last, the guy is as irrelevant today in federal politics as he always has been.

Mind you, the Bully loves a bit of colour!

A grubby little newspaper

Well, I see that the departing Townsville Bulletin Editor is ensuring that the Bully's priorities are in tune with those of the Murdoch empire - lots of show and no substance.

On the day he launches his new look 'coulorful' broadsheet (way too colourful and cluttered for my liking) he also chose to run this little number accusing the Qld Government of hording donations made at the time of Cyclone Larry.  The piece is, of course, a lazy rewriting of this nasty little effort published yesterday by their sister rag, The Courier Mail. 

They of course failed to report Premier Bligh's response (published yesterday in Fairfax's SMH):

"There are some remaining interest funds and, as a report made public in August last year outlined, any remaining funds would be reallocated to future disaster appeals and that's what's going to happen," Ms Bligh said.

Maybe Nathan Paull and the others at the Bully have to wait for a hardcopy of the Courier Mail to get their news, because they certainly didn't publish any of Bligh's or Mackenroth's response available in today's Mail:

PREMIER Anna Bligh has rejected as "absolutely untrue" the claim Cyclone Larry victims had been denied funds donated to the 2006 disaster's appeal.

"Every single dollar that was donated to the Cyclone Larry appeal has gone to a victim of Cyclone Larry," she said.

Ms Bligh said remaining money was accrued interest which could not legally be transferred until all outstanding claims had been settled.

"There is one outstanding claim that is subject of a dispute between the owner and the builder," she said.

Ms Bligh said she was very distressed that claims over the Cyclone Larry appeal, in which $700,000 remained to be spent, could deter people from donating for flood victims.

Former treasurer Terry Mackenroth, who headed the cyclone reconstruction committee, yesterday pointed to his committee's 2007 report to Parliament which said any leftover funds would go towards future disasters.

"I can guarantee every cent that was donated has been spent," he said.

Mr Mackenroth said every claim that had been issued from Innisfail had been dealt with and laws had been followed.

"The appeal raised $21.8 million and every one of those donations was allocated and spent," he said. "We were never sitting on the money."

Mr Mackenroth also said criticism of means testing for current payouts from the Premier's Relief Fund for flood victims was ignoring federal law.

"The Tax Act actually requires that all the funds be means tested," he said.

"The funds that are given as emergency payments aren't means tested but after that, if it goes into an appeal fund and people want to get a tax deduction it has to be means tested.

"In Cyclone Larry we made that a very generous means test but there was a requirement it be done."

They would have heard the same thing if they watched ABC 24 or Sky News yesterday.

Rubbish journalism

"But it can't transfer until all legal claims against it are finalised, and that is yet to happen."

Worth a read

A couple of good links found today:

• Good on him:   School chaplains facing High Court fight.  A guy from Toowoomba has launched High Court challenge because he opposes the Commonwealth funding of chaplains in state schools.  But check out the story's student flood victims angle - I wonder how many school Chaplin's are qualified trauma counsellors?

• 22 Minutes at Helidon on Monday, January 10: Amazing pictures at the Courier mail showing how fast the floodwater's rose at Helidon here

• And finally, Murdoch link to hacking fallout deepens - just because I love stories that shine a light on Murdoch's ongoing abuse of power and because you won't see it reported in The Bulletin

Bullsh*t survey proves bullsh*t surveys are bullsh*t

So far, at least of my predictions about what you would read in The Bulletin over the holiday period seem to have come true.  By my count, numbers 1, 3, 7 and 12 have been ticked off already with No 9 getting fulfilled today with the headline Victims pay for crime:  Townsville region courts are sentencing criminals too leniently, a survey says.

Of course the data that this and the earlier ones base their conclusions on are totally meaningless - they only tells us about the views of that proportion of the population who read the Bulletin and could be bothered to then fill out and send off a survey form.  To conclude or propose that people who read the Bulletin are like everyone else is a nonsense.

True to form though, the Bully report this bullsh*t as fact and on that basis spin a story about the need to get tougher on sentencing - including by interviewing the authoritative voice of the Townsville Residents Against Crime group (see: 0.01% of Townsville citizens can't be wrong).

The whole thing is nonsense (but dangerously so) and no more honest or valid that this press release accompanying the release of Blogging Townsville's own online poll:

POLL SHOCK:  Murdoch's Townsville Bulletin doomed

An international survey released today reveals fatal reader anger about Rupert Murdoch's most peripheral outpost.

The Murdoch empire was rocked today with the release of a world wide Internet survey of attitudes towards the Townsville Bulletin

Globally, over 70% of respondents described The Bulletin as a shocker or as embarrassing.  A further 11.5% of respondents had never even heard of The Bulletin.

It is thought that the five respondents who indicated that they viewed the paper as Rupert's pride were the only staff remaining at the Bulletin and were sucking up as hard as they could.

The two votes describing the Bulletin as 'cerebral' are being investigated as it appears that they were sent from the same computer in the Townsville Bulletin Editor's office

Note to The Bulletin:
Next time try Googling "perceptions of crime" - No. 2 on the 269,000 long list is this little number, for example:  (Mis)perceptions of crime in Australia - Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice, Brent Davis and Kym Dossetor, Australian Institute of Criminology, July 2010.   To save you time, you can even download the paper here (pdf 1.29 MB)

PS:
Any ideas for a new poll topic??????

The Magpie's Nest is full of it (again)

It's amazing how quickly you can achieve something when yow what you're doing. It seems that it only took 14 deposits in The Magpie's Nest for Townsville's very own Magpie to get far enough up The Bulletin's nose to draw a reaction where it took me a year and a couple of hundred posts to draw a reaction!

While he's been dumping the dirt on the Bully's editor-in-command since his first droppings in the blogiverse, he seems to have generated a real fightback at Fortress Murdoch down in Ogden St. with last week's post revealing that Pete 'Typo' Gleeson is being transferred out by the Murdoch machine to spread his management magic in some other minor outpost of the empire. The post is recommended reading for those who'd like to know more about editor-in-command Gleeson's style.

I know that the language breaks the blog
etiquette rules but I just couldn't resist.
Source: Unknown and hopefully not litigious

Clearly demonstrating the old adage that "the truth hurts", The 'Pie reports in this week's post that the commander-in-edit editor-in-command responded to the Old Bird's outing of him with a bit of good-old, true-to-form smear.

While the Old Bird's post sets the record straight, for me it confirms a suspicion I've long held - that there really is a fortress mentality within Ogden St. and the Murdoch empire more generally (witness, for example, their reaction to the rise of the bloggers). It seems to me that this is symptomatic of a dominion under threat and in decline. And typical of all empires in decline, HQ invariably promotes to commander-in-edit editor-in-command those with the greatest ability to create a fortress mindset amongst the foot soldiers/workers.

Of course, eventually even the foot soldiers see the inevitable and start to turn on the crumbling empire!! Hopefully, The Magpie started the tide in this small outpost.

The Big Leak on Maggie or The Big Rip-off by the Townsville Bulletin?

I see that The Bully has this morning finally reported about the buzz on Maggie Island about building some sort of statue in tribute to the Island's one-time son, Julian Assange.

We reported on it here at length yesterday and earlier (about 10 days ago) here.  And we of course took our lead from Magnetic Times who first raised the idea in this story on 11 December and a week later developed it further in this story (including with the cartoon by George shown at right).

But true to style, in finally running the story, the Bully fails to give any recognition or reference to Magnetic Times (reflecting the old mainstream media paradigm of 'every other media outlet is a competitor and therefore shouldn't be given an inch').  In fact, when you read  the Bully's piece, you could swear that their hard-working journo, Anon, wrote it based on their own detailed investigative journalism.

Rather, The Bully ignores the originators of the idea (and the story) and instead focuses on "local island character" Crusty Heron.  Of course, in any small community such as the Island, "local character" is a euphemism for "local nut-job". 

Don't get me wrong, Crusty is a nice guy, good to wave at from the other side of the road and does quite a reasonable wedding (although I brought one from him and it didn't work).  It's just that you want to avoid getting into a conversation with him at all costs.  If you're wondering why, just have a read of his diatribes in the comments to these Magnetic Times articles here and here! 

But hey, he's a talking head who always answers his phone - making the 'investigation' by The Bully's increasingly familiar Anon all that much easier and providing the perfect out from giving due credit to The Magnetic Times.

Finally I really wonder whether the photo-shopped graphic with the Bully's story was really done by Crusty as implied in the article or was it actually mashed-up by Anon him/herself?  You certainly won't find it on Crusty's website, facebook page or from any google search I could think of!

PS: - Magnetic Times got eight weblinks out of this story and The Bully only one - a good score I reckon and one that won't help The Bully's google rankings one bit!

Of Malls and Convention Centres

I finally had a wander down the 'finished' section of the Townsville Mall (or Flinders Street as it will soon be instantly recognised as around the globe).

Seeing no one is game to publicly bucket Council's latest little adventure in urban design (remember Flinders St East), let me be the first:

• It's gonna be a bloody wet place to go shopping in the wet season
• It's gonna be a bloody hot place to eat your lunch when it's not raining

On the plus side, some of Townsville's ugliest buildings are now fully exposed for the world's architecture tourists (and American boat people) to truly 'enjoy'.

More to the point, it seems that Council and the developer class about town have worked out that the renovation ain't going to work, ain't gonna make the Mall one bit more competitive as a shopping destination and ain't gonna be the $57 million incentive to potential investors in Lancini's Flinders Plaza development that it was designed to provide.

The building 'campaign' for Townsville's much mooted Convention Centre to be located within the CBD (read Lancini's Flinders Plaza ghetto)  is a great study in how these guys play the game (with the help of The Bulletin of course):

• You simply start by someone with profile raising the suggestion - as CBD Taskforce chairman Craig Stack no doubt did in a call to Tony Raggatt who pushes the idea into play.  The same day the Bully's anonymous Editor does a support piece in his editorial - not too strident, gently, gently, place it second.
• The next day you run a page-3 story (complete with front page header) in which, according to Raggatt, "the idea has been supported by Townsville Mayor Les Tyrell and CBD Taskforce chairman Craig Stack" (the previous day he had reported Stack and Tyrell as saying that the idea should be considered). 
• While we're about it, let's introduce Lancini into play - carefully though, you wouldn't like to look too eager at the prospect of a $140 million key-stone tenant to kick your stalled development along.
• And let's add a bit a bit of weight to the proposition by quoting an economist - and none other than local developer Carey Ramm
• And for good measure, why not give Raggatt a 'Business Desk' opinion piece on the same day when he can invoke the ghosts of his father to argue that Lancini should have the subsidy Convention Centre.

In one sense, of course, they are all right - the only thing that will make the Mall work is more people!  However, no one is going to open a shop in the Mall on the promise of maybe lots of people attending a 2 or 3- day conference once a month for maybe nine months of the year.

And of course adding a few carparks (even at the expense of the hundreds that come to the precinct every day by bus - how dumb is that) is not going to make the CBD any more attractive or convenient or, therefore, competitive against Stocklands, The Willows etc

I'm afraid that population density in the CBD (both residential and office) is the only thing that will save The Mall and Council had their chance when they considered a proposal for the development of an Arts Centre (that could have also accommodated conventions) and office/residential complex on what is currently the carpark between Council and the Law Courts.  Instead, they chose to use the available funds to build the tack-on to the Civic Theatre which (coincidentally, of course) gave Les and the big boys a perfectly oriented balcony from which they can gaze down on Pitt Straight during the annual Ried "Park" dinosaur race.  Perhaps Raggatt should chase down that story.

A convention centre to save Flinders Street is a dumb idea - just like putting a road down the middle will prove to be.  But now that they've started the play, I'm afraid that we're all gonna have to watch it unfold over the quite holiday period when no-one is paying any attention to politics. After all, it might just lead to an extra $140 million subsidy support to the failed Flinders Plaza ghetto -on top of what is fairly obviously the failed $57 million subsidy Mall 'upgrade'.

Oh, did I remember to mention that Lancini is a gold advertiser with the Bully and probably the occasional supplier of free drinks to Tony Raggatt?

The Bulletin does good

Credit where credit is due!

I thought the headline on the Bully's story this morning about the horrific and wretched deaths on the cliffs of Christmas Island yesterday was both sensitive and respectful. 

Full recognition that these were/are people seeking freedom and security and none of the "illegal immigrants" "people smugglers" or "queue-jumpers" we normally hear so much of from the MSM.  It also happens to be a beautiful construction. 

Well done to the sub-editor who wrote it.

PS: Compare the Bully's effort with this little trash piece from (surprise, surprise) Dennis Shanahan in (surprise, surprise) The Oz:   NO politicians wanted to be seen to be taking political advantage from the tragic sinking of the people-smuggling vessel.

I can see the smoke from The Bully already

I reckon I can see the smoke coming from Bully Headquaters as they read the latest post over at The Maggie's Nest.  You see, the old Maggie has published the latest circulation catastorpie at the Bully under editor Gleeson's watch - a 4.2% fall in the last quaterly audit - on top of the previous 10% fall I posted about here.

I wonder whether, as a result, the old 'pie will get an editorial dressing down similar to the one I recieved?  Or perhaps 'Typo' Gleeson* will be too busy looking over his sholder for Murdoch's crack accountants death squad.

* The term "Typo" Gleeson is completely the invention of The Magpie and less demafitory than anything I could think of.  It is used with permission (I hope)

The Townsville Bulletin's lead articles for January 2011 will be....

Did you see the Bulletin's "tell the editor" readers survey in last Saturday's Bulletin or here online?  We've seen this ploy from the Bully around this time every year for a while now - run a survey and then use the data collected to con advertisers about local consumer sentiment and to generate an endless stream of "Townsville residents think ..." and "Townsville residents outraged at ..." articles during the silly season when the Bully would rather have staff on leave.

 

In January you should expect articles on:

1. How everyone loves the "new look Townsville Bulletin"
2. An announcement on a change from Saturday to Friday for the publication of the Bully's Property Section
3. How times are tough and people are cutting back on discretionary spending
4. Voters demand the return of Council Divisions
5. (more) Anger at Council over water rates / "sack the lot of them readers say"
6. A report card (with ratings) on all the local pollies 
7. CBD Upgrade has little impact on shoppers intentions / Shoppers prefer Myers at Stocklands over a road through the Mall
8. Something about a shortage of GPs (interestingly, there are very few questions about the Townsville Hospital)
9. Public live in fear of rampant hooliganism, hooning, cabbie bashing, rude drivers and bad neighbours
10. Everybody loves sport and The Fury must be saved
11. Most Townsvillians don't visit Maggie Island
12. The Government isn't doing enough about homelessness and Townsville demands a mandatory detoxification program be introduced although  no one seems to know whether it should be for Flinders Street nightclubbers or parkies

And, believe it or not, you should also expect those old chestnuts:

• Voters demand a separate NQ state, and
• Maggie Is to become a tourism mecca if the bridge is built

Finally, I have no idea what sort of story they will beat-up out of responses to the question "Should council or business owners be responsible for the upkeep of heritage listed buildings?" but I'm sure a few developers around town (perhaps with interests in the Mall/Drive-through) will have written the article for have them.

 

Of course, all of this dribble that we will read over the holidays will all be meaningless, just as the survey is meaningless.  It will reflect the views of those people who buy the Bulletin or visit their website and choose to fill in a survey - nothing more and certainly NOT IN ANYWAY any kind of representative sampling of the local population (or even of the Bulletin's readership for that matter, advertisers take note).

I wonder what would happen if .....

I wonder if I announced here that I was going to bid for the townsville.com.au domain name before the auction closes at 4:pm today, whether the Townsville Bulletin will put in a pre emptive bid in an effort to stop me???

Ewen Jones - Big dick or class clown?

Rather than a serial pest (and here), could it be that The Big Ewe is nothing more than a naughty private school boy who is no good at the "my dick is bigger than yours" game (The Mad Monk's forte) so seeks attention and approval by being the class clown?

"Mr Jones said he had now won the trifecta he was the first of the 2010 MP intake to be mentioned, to be warned, and to be ejected" Martin Rasini

And just like all class clowns, he seems to be proud of his achievements!! 

The Bulletin seems equally impressed by The Ewe - giving him a whole page today  to sell his wares and try and convince us that his achievements have been meaningfull!!!  I can't find The Ewe's piece on-line - perhaps that is the sort of content that Murdoch's Bulletin will make us pay-to-view or perhaps Rupe just claims the $5,000 value of the free PR as a tax deduction)

For the sake of balance:  The Big Ewe has made 13 'contributions' to debates in parliament since elected two months ago - at just over $14k per month in salary and allowances (ie not including staff, offices, car, etc, etc), that's about $2,160 per utterance!

I wish I could get those sort of rates!

PS: All I ever got as class clown was bashed up