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.

...and the coppers get it very wrong

'Poof' goes that warm and fuzzy feeling from my last post:

Quigley attacks WA police commisioner  By Josh Jerga, AAP, February 17, 2011 - 3:49PM

Western Australia's shadow attorney-general John Quigley has launched a blistering attack on the state's police commissioner for distributing what he calls "a litany of lies".

In state parliament, Mr Quigley criticised the role of Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan in "vilifying" an Aboriginal man who was tasered up to 41 times in a week by police and corrective services officers.

The behaviour of officers in arresting Kevin Spratt and his treatment at Perth lock-up was the subject of a Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) inquiry in December.

Mr Spratt's treatment came to light when a video was released last year of police tasering him 14 times while in custody at Perth Watchhouse on August 31, 2008.

Following the release of initial video, which pixellated Mr Spratt's face, WA police issued a flow chart to media outlining the events leading up his tasering and involvement with police, including charges previously brought against him.

Mr Quigley told parliament that when examined against police documents and evidence before the CCC, the flow chart was a "litany of lies".

He called on the government to get to the bottom of the creation of the document, which he said was compiled by the WA police internal affairs unit.

"What discussion (did they have) with Commissioner O'Callaghan and Deputy Commissioner (Chris) Dawson before they so willingly went out into a press conference selling these lies to the public of WA to vilify Kevin Spratt?" Mr Quigley told parliament.

"It is beyond imagination as to why they did it ... but it's got to mark them down as the worst commissioner and deputy commissioner in Australia by their conduct."

Mr Quigley told parliament Mr Spratt had complained to Mr O'Callaghan about his alleged vilification, but was told via a letter in October that police did not identify him.

He said that following the press conference in which Mr O'Callaghan released the flow chart, a Seven Network TV news crew went to the home of Mr Spratt's parents, who told them he was at work.

"The commissioner of police would want us to believe this eye-wash, that there was no communication with Channel Seven of the address or person ... that's just a lie," he said.

Mr Quigley said the flow chart stated Mr Spratt had acted violently and obstructed police at Perth lock-up before being tasered, and as a result had been charged over that behaviour.

However the CCC hearing in December was told Mr Spratt had not been violent and had been convicted on the basis of a misleading statement of facts.

"There's a day of reckoning coming," Mr Quigley said. ...read on

Now, that's much more familiar behaviour from the coppers

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

Will the Vatican's Bad Boy Strategy work?

You have probably heard that the Vatican is in the throws of beatifying the last CEO of the multinational conglomerate, Pope John Paul #2.  It seems to me that, like the rest of entertainment industry, the Catholic Church needs to continually create new celebrities in order to reinforce the faithful and maintain and hopefully grow it's market share.  John Paul #2 was a consummate celebrity maker, beautifying some 1,340 celebs in his time - more than the sum of all of his predecessors since Pope Sixtus V#5.

And like any other celebrity industry (movies, music, sport, politics etc), they like to keep their celebrity-making pretty much in-house and under their control - which is presumably why they don't let outsiders verify John Paul #2's supposed miracle.

Of course, you don't really want too much scrutiny when, under the ex-CEO's watch, his Manager for Ireland at the Vatican wrote to Ireland's Catholic bishops urging them not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police and, it seems twice intervened and stopped attempts made by Irish bishops to defrock pedophile priests.

Like the sporting industry is learning - you need to be very careful about who you make a celebrity (think Favola, Henjak, Carey etc).  Or perhaps the Vatican have deliberately embarked on a Bad boys and the cult of celebrity strategy?

Of Poverty and the Northern Territory Intervention

I was taken by Don Arthur's post in Club Troppo yesterday. Do poor people cause poverty? in which he reviews an essay in the Boston Review by Stephen Steinberg in which he challenges the idea that poor Americans are trapped in a cycle of disadvantage that only they can end.

Needless-to-say, this 1970 quote from Lee Rainwater immediately made me think of the NT Intervention:

"The special ways of adapting by the poor suggest only that effective poverty strategies have to change their income situation before requiring changes in their behavior and attitudes. The major reason for the failure of most anti-poverty programs so far is that they require the poor the change their behavior before they have gained the resources that would change their situation (quoted in The Social Inclusion Agenda)."

And then today I see this nasty little piece from Gary Johns who the Oz are touting as a Former Keating Minister (well a Junior Minister, and one not exactly loved by his former colleagues) and a Professor at the Australian Catholic University (ACU doesn't rate in either of the ARWU or QS Topuniversities rankings of the top 500 or so of the world's universities.)

Clearly the ACU are quite happy to have their Brand associated with little gems like this:

"People now being recruited to university as indigenous are frankly embarrassing," he writes. "Many of these students would not have suffered any prejudice whatsoever and are generations apart from traditional society. "They are heralded as part of the success of a 'program' purely to keep up the numbers. The harm this sort of activity does is to undermine the work of those who actually have to change people's behaviour, not simply recruit those who would have made it regardless. The net impact of such programs is near zero."

Perhaps Johns and the Australian Catholic University could explain themselves to former NSW Indigenous Student of the Year, Dasha Newington and the hundreds like her:

Men and Religion



Ever wondered why all of the traditional religions and most of the new ones too (maybe with the exception of the Quakers) were invented by and are controlled by men?  Power, dominance and wealth with as little work as possible is a boy thing in all species it seems!

Cartoon via Values Australia

Could Wikileaks take us here? (or are we already there)

Found this good post by  Johan Lagerkvist at onlineopinion.com.au* discussing the implications of how the powerful might responds to Wikileaks, including this quote

It can be foreshadowed that governments will craft laws that target citizen-journalist activities. Citizens’ unauthorised storing of leaked material could be made illegal. Another potential outcome could be state eavesdropping, monitoring and storing information on a broader spectrum of the citizenry than hitherto possible.

Chilling - especially when you've just read this story from Stephen Martin at The Mirror:

Boy of 12 hauled out of class by police over David Cameron Facebook protest

Scary!  Maybe the proponents of the Julian Assange Statue on Magnetic Island will need to re-think their personal security!

* Originally posted on YaleGlobal Online. Copyright © 2010, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Yale University

Is Mark Arbib just the tip of an iceburg?

I got a good chuckle out of this mornings news of the outing of Mark Arbib as a US sycophant - it could well be the end of his political career which probably wouldn't be a bad thing for either the country or the ALP.

However, there is a sub-plot in this story which needs a bit more exposure and that is about the role of the Australian-American Dialogue organisation in the Abib Affair and more broadly in Australian Politics over recent decades.

I first became aware of the Australian-American Dialogue during the Hawke years when a Cabinet insider explained their pervasive reach thought the labor party and union movement, the conservative parties and big business.  Their modus operandi was explained as targeting political up-and-comers early in their career, offering free junkets to the States and other general ego stroking in order to build their loyalty to the alliance (read, the US) and to build relationships which are able to be called on over the careers that follow.

Hopefully the Arbib-saga will shine a bit of light on this extremely well funded lobby group.  I'd suggest as a starting point, a bit of a trawl through the MP register of pecuniary interests.

In case you haven't seen it

Doing the rounds in the blogosphere and no doubt soon to be seen in the email in-tray (The TSA is the US Transportation Security Administration - think full body searches at US airports)

Which reminds me - anyone want to take a bet on who the rich and powerful capture first - Osama Bin Laden (apparent cause of at least two wars) or Julian Assange (very apparent cause of much nakedness amongst the ruling class)?  Funny that - not!

The most wanted man in the world

Come on in. Take a seat at the Cabinet table. Let’s talk water.

Regular contributor Dee writes:

Just before the QR Float takes over the media completely.

Patrick Lion caught my imagination today.

I guess it won't be too long before there are many vacant seats at the ALP Cabinet table, however, I'd put a small wager there is now, and will be in the future, standing room only with the many advisers providing high quality advice by way of large numbers of options.

They have wound up the mis-allocation of taxpayer's funds to new levels.

Patrick Lion's Courier Mail post is well worth a read: Come on in. Take a seat at the Cabinet table. Let’s talk water.

The invisible man-of-steel

I just love the reports that man-of-steel John Howard (never to be confused with the pig-of-steel - a true Oz icon) gets mentioned just three times in Bush's 500-page attempt at writing his own history.

PS: It would almost be worth going to the Townsville re-re-re-launch of the old fella's soon to be remaindered book just to count how many mentions he makes of his old friend George - I guarantee it's a lot, lot more than three!
Via Your Democracy

Crime and perspective in Townsville

Maybe today's headline news in The Bulletin may finally give the city's 'opinion makers' a real perspective on crime and law and order in Townsville.

Contrary to the wedge first inserted by Mooney all those years ago and repeated ad nauseam ever since by the likes of Cr Dale Last and of course The Townsville Bulletin, the real crime/law-and-order issue in this city (as in any other) is not a few homeless people looking untidy and (perhaps) drinking in full view of the general public (and the 'opinion makers' in particular) or a few teenagers in the western suburbs meeting in public spaces at night or having the occasional brawl or leaving the occasional graffiti tag.

As is very clear from today's story, the locus for crime in this city (as in most) is the night club district where the purveyors of and profiteers from legal drugs provide the venues, culture and environment for the illegal drug traffickers.  As has been the case since the days of Al Capone, they're also great places to lander money.

Arguably these dealers - the legal and the illegal - are some of the city's greatest social menaces.  The police understand this, that is why they devoted so many resources to this last operation (on top of what they have to normally devote to Flinders Street night-in and night-out).

Perhaps now Cr Last and The Bully will finally get it too?

PS: Having again broken a lifetime habit and read today's editorial in The Bully, maybe it will be a while before they get it.  Reading that 'opinion-making' piece you'll see that the problem is young people (2 out of 11 identified in the article were below 20 years), that responsibility rests with parents (tell that to the aging parents of the over-40s who were arrested) and that the public policy response should be an education campaign!  Doh!

Sex shame or just plain pedophilia?

I find the headline highlighted below fascinating. 

Pedophile becomes sex shame teacher when it happens in a private school (or is that, a private school formally attended by many of Courier Mail's elite?)

My welcome to Townsville: Shame Anna, shame

Each day as the trial of 20 year-old Tegan Leach has got closer I've become more and more angry that, in this day and age in Australia, a young woman is facing judgement because she chose to have an abortion.

I was toying with what to post but then along came this from No Right Turn in NZ.  The heading in particular says it all for me really:
Like I said, Shame Anna, shame

Barbaric
Something barbaric is happening in Queensland: they're trying a woman for having an abortion:
Abortion is legal in Queensland only by a judge's ruling - and that ruling applies only to women who have gone begging to a doctor and effectively declared themselves insane. It does not cover modern pharmaceutical abortions, and it certainly doesn't let women control their own bodies. The upshot: two young people are now facing serious jail time because Queensland's abortion law has failed to keep pace with the times.

It is alleged that Tegan Leach, 20, and her partner, Sergie Brennan, 22, imported the abortion drug misoprostol from the Ukraine and used it to terminate Leach's eight-week pregnancy. They face jail terms of seven and three years respectively.

Meanwhile Queensland's "pro-choice" Premier Anna Bligh refuses to act, and says that any reform has to come via a member's bill. But she blocked such a bill just two years ago. Like most politicians, she doesn't want to take a position if she can avoid it. The consequences of her cowardice will be seen in the Cairns District Court this week.

Anon and proud if it: Part 2

There were some great comments on my last post about The Bully bullying bloggers, including a fantastic offering from NormanK called We're the Voice which I've now given pride of place in the blog sidebar.

In case you didn't see it, Inside Business (I wonder how many at the Bully watch it?) on the ABC this morning had a great piece on the media's absolute fear of transparent (read,  real) circulation figures and the lengths they have gone to (and still do) to bodgy the data in order to continue hoodwinking their real customers - the advertisers.  Read the transcript or view the vision here

Anon and proud of it: The Townsville Bulletin celebrates our first birthday

Well, well, well! Haven’t we bloggers really got up the nose of The Bully? :-)

As a rule, I don’t read editorials – mainly because I know that the only people who do are journos and politicians (editorial cartoons however are a very different matter).

So when reader M pointed me to today's Bulletin editorial, I just had to go out and pay good money for a hard copy !! And what a doozey it is – it’s not available online, but click on the graphic to read it full-size!

The story about the outing of Grog’s Gamut is now getting pretty old given that it happened over 10 days ago (I posted here on 28 Sept.)

For a fantastic summary of the action and reaction got to Craig Thomler's eGov AU blog here. 

Now I might be getting up myself a bit here, but I can’t help but think that rather than finding a bit of passion in a 10-day old story, the Bully are lashing out at this post from yesterday morning where I pointed out data from the Australian Newspaper History Group showing that the Bulletin’s average daily readership (or sales - it is unclear) is just 26,395 and had declined by almost 10% over the first half of the year!!!

Touchy aren’t they?   Not information they would be keen to have out there perhaps? 

Touchy as the the Oz was at the critiques of their work by Grog's Gamut?  I've asked the question before here, but, given that I seem to have drawn their fire publicly, I wonder if they are so touchy they will out me next? - after all, I know they've worked out who I am! 

Of course I could use their own language back at them and say they are the cowards if they don't - knowing the increased readership I'd get and backlash they'd get!!  But I won't.

For the record, my reasons for Island View’s anonymity are simple – I’m a small businessman trying to make a living and pay the rent in a small regional city and, believe me, publically calling the most powerful and most connected media outlet in the town to account wouldn’t be real good for business!

I may well be a coward but I’m certainly not stupid!

PS: today is more-or-less the first anniversary of Blogging Townsville and The Bully's Editorial has been the absolutely best anniversary gift!!  It's given me food for another post which will now float in the blogosphere forever with a Townsville Bulletin tag and showing them for what they really are.

UPDATE:  In the comments below, both Bill and Craig Thomler @ eGov AU point out that Townsville Bulletin Editor, Peter Gleeson, chooses for his Editorials to be published anonymously - just like this blog and yes, just like Grog's Gamut.  See more in Craig's post here on the propensity for the mainstream media to publish material by the widely read (and often either very wise or very funny), Anon.

Craig also managed to find the Bully's editorial online here

Finally, I note that in the hardcopy Saturday Bully this morning, there were no letters and no published txt messages about yesterday's Editorial.  As of this morning, there are no comments on their on-line opinion page.  Doesn't sound much to me like their editorial was representing the "voice of the people" - more like the voice of someone in power who's not used to being challenged, let alone questioned or held to account.

Not a good news day for the Coppers

The furture of the Australian health system?

One American's $76,000 bill for an emergency appendectomy.  From the market controlled health system that Tony Abbott use as the model for Australia

What goes around, comes around

Further to this quick post yesterday - it seems that only the Anglo countries voted for Howard and every non-Anglo nation voted against him.  Now, I wonder why that may be?

If you spend your whole political life playing the race card, what do you expect the the peasants to do when they finally get some power?