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Showing posts from September, 2010

Some twittering jokes.

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The Irish Times  reports that a 41-year-man who drove a concrete truck into the gates of Leinster House, Dublin, overnight has quickly gained plenty of supporters. The truck, which displayed slogans on its side saying “Toxic Bank Anglo”, “€1,000,000 on golf balls” and “€500K for golf” and with the vehicle registration number changed to “bankrupt” caused little actual damage but the driver was taken to Pearse Street Garda station under section 4 of the  Criminal Justice Act 1984  where a garda spokesman said the station had received numerous calls from members of the public with the vast majority offering congratulations and support for the man. Twitterers were also quickly active. The  Irish Times   provided these examples of what it called the Best of ‘Cementgate’ from Twitter: johnfoley: “In what’s seen as concrete move the construction industry cements their relationship with government” colmtobin “Finally, the government have some concrete plans. ConorWilson: “Good to see constr

An example of the Murdoch style.

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Five potential Republican presidential candidates are employed by Fox News as contributors or hosts and have made at least 269 appearances on the cable channel — compared to a total of six appearances on all other major news channels combined. The  Media Matters for America  website records that Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas and 2008 GOP presidential candidate who hosts his own Fox News show, appeared on Fox News 96 times through September 18. Fox News contributor Rick Santorum, a one-time Republican Senator from Pennsylvania appeared 52 times, and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich has appeared 48 times on Fox News so far this year. Sarah Palin, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, appeared 37 times, while Bush’s U.N. ambassador John Bolton appeared 36 times.

Obama on Murdoch and Fox.

A quote for the day from  an interview  with President Barack Obama to be published in the October 15 edition of  Rolling Stone : The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition — it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It’s a point of view that I disagree with. It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it’s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful.

Where the jobs are - not for miners but pen pushers

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Read the economists writing in the financial press and you might think that it is the booming mining industry that is going to end Australia's unemployment problems. Figures out from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning show that just isn't so. The big growth in job vacancies over the last year has been in what the statistician classifies as  This job vacancies data is similar to the story told by the latest ABS data on employment in Australia by industry.

Sir Humphrey on electoral reform

A version of that classic political sitcom Yes, Minister is about to open on London's West End stage and to mark the occasion Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn have prepared for the London Daily Telegraph  what they think Sir Humphrey Appleby would make of Whitehall today. This excerpt is from a minute from Sir Humphrey to Bernard Wooley on the subject of electoral reforms: Our objective is full Proportional Representation, when electors simply vote for a party, and the parties then appoint their placemen in proportion to the votes they receive. This would cut the last link between the MP and voter, eliminating the risk of voters electing one of those maverick independent-minded members who cause us so much trouble. All MPs will have their jobs by virtue of party patronage alone and therefore their docility will be guaranteed. Furthermore, it will greatly increase the likelihood of a coalition, as no single party will be able to introduce those sweeping reforms which overturn those trie

With global warming perhaps we need constant repetition

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When the media keep pretending day after day that something is news by giving constant updates it is bound to eventually get into the public's mind that the information is important. If it was not so why would they keep telling us about it? Thus the vague view that most people have that the level of the stock exchange index today compared with yesterday or last week or last year or 10 years ago actually matters. Ditto for the foreign exchange rate or the official interest rate. Newspapers, radio and television keep giving daily reports on them all. Therefore, QED, we should be pleased or worried about them. Complete nonsense really. The figures reported so breathlessly on the hour every hour every day indicate nothing of value to ordinary people. The main reason they began being reported was to fill in the media's insatiable desire for regular content. Only with the dull thud of repetition have they become factors in the political process where a rising value of the Australi

Upset Labor but not the journalists.

No doubt it fitted in with the policy of vigorous opposition espoused by Opposition leader Tony Abbott, but refusing to grant Simon Crean a pair so he could address the National Press Club today was not such a good idea. Making life difficult for Labor is one thing but upsetting the masters of the parliamentary press gallery was quite something else. It did not take long after regional affairs minister Crean told the NPC he would have to cancel his well-advertised appearance for the tough guys of the Liberal Party to change their mind.

Going in a different direction.

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In the United States and the United Kingdom this week advisers to central banks have been talking about the need for further economic stimulus. Meanwhile, at home the talk is all about the Reserve Bank stepping in to curb growth. The  Crikey  Interest Rate Indicator, for example, gives a 69% probability to official interest rates being lifted by 0.25 percentage points when it meets on October 5. D

Dictatorship? We don’t give a toss, actually.

The foreign minister might regularly go tut-tut about Commodore Frank Bainimarama and his illegal hold on power in Fiji but ordinary Australians apparently don’t care too much. Figures out from the Australian Bureau of Statistics t his morning  show that Australian visits to Fiji have grown by an average of 10.3% a year from 1999-2000 to 2009-2010. That’s only just behind the 13.5% growth rate of tourism to China and 11.3% to Thailand.

Sculpting a pylon

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American architects Choi+Shine won an award from the Boston Society of Architects for this  different approach  to electricity transmission towers that they designed for Iceland’s power authority. The firm describes its design as transforming mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape by making only small alterations to existing pylon design.

The workers are revolting

Austerity measures are all very well and good for the financiers of the world but they are not much fun for those thrown out of work because of them. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the tough measures being imposed in Europe as governments struggle to rein in budget deficits blown out as part of the global financial crisis is just how subservient the workers have been as their jobs disappear. But now, it seems, the revolt is beginning. The BBC reports this morning that thousands of people from across the EU are expected to march in Brussels to protest against sweeping austerity measures by many national governments. The European Trade Union Confederation says its protest could be one of the biggest in Belgium’s capital for years. According to the BBC, the union says EU workers could become the biggest victims of a financial crisis set off by bankers and traders. A general strike against cuts is expected in Spain and protests are also due to be held in other EU states. In Greece

A real clown for a parliament

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A Brazilian clown known as Tiririca — which means “Grumpy” in colloquial Portuguese — is favoured to win a seat in the Brazilian Parliament in this Sunday’s elections. Tiririca, whose real name is Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, is predicted by the pollsters to gain a million votes after campaigning on slogans including “It can’t get any worse” and “What does a federal deputy do? Truly, I don’t know. But vote for me and I will find out for you.” Appearances by the clown on  You Tube  have been the advertising successes of the Brazilian election campaign. The only impediment to victory appears to be a constitutional requirement that deputies be able to read and write with a judge in Sao Paulo  demanding  he demonstrate that he meets the literacy requirement for elected office after newspapers reported that, like one-in-10 Brazilians, he is illiterate.

Uncertainty about economy returns to Ireland after very short reprieve

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For a few days after the Irish Government  saw a €1.5 billion bond issue snapped up last week there was a brief moment of optimism that the worst might be over for a country hard hit by the fallout from the global economic crisis. The much higher interest rate that investors were demanding from Ireland compared with major European nations eased a little bit. Alas, it has proved to be a false dawn. The yield on 10 year Irish bonds has kicked up again as doubts quickly returned about the cost to the Government budget of bailing out Irish banks. The final cost of saving the largest of those banks is expected to be revealed later this week.

Best tabloid headlines: HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR

As part of its 35th anniversary edition New York Magazine  has published a list of best tabloid headlines with that famous New York Post Headless Body effort naturally making the list. I know it doesn't qualify as it appeared in Dublin rather than New York but I still have  Woman in sumo wrestler suit assaulted her ex-girlfriend in gay pub after she waved at man dressed as a Snickers bar  as my all time favourite.

A petty nonsense by the Opposition

Sensible civilities are going by the board as the Coalition parties abandon the traditional common-sense civilities of the House of Representatives. Confirmation of the obstructionist approach that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has ordered was confirmed today when Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean had to abandon a planned National Press Club speech. The Opposition refused to grant Mr Crean a pair - a member agreeing not to vote so the majority was not affected during his absence - for the couple of hours he would be away from Parliament House. It deemed the speech did not meet its new grounds for granting pairs of being in the national interest. How petty. UPDATE Lunacy has now been corrected. Perhaps someone in the Liberal Party has realised that upsetting the Government is one thing but annoying Canberra journalists is quite another thing. The Crean pair has now been approved.

Intensifying adjectives with obscenities - a study

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From xkcd.com - one of my favourite websites - a little language study. And for anyone having what might be called "a terrible-ex" problem I can recommend xkcd's BAD EX

A quote for the day about the obsession with paedophilia

Dominic Lawson writing in The Independent  - Society is Really to Blame - that a  form of displacement activity is occurring, designed to avoid facing up to the real cause of so much abuse of children, which is the breakdown of family life. ... last year the Labour government drew up proposals to make punishable by imprisonment the possession of indecent images of imaginary children – in other words, not real children, but drawings or computer-simulated images. Obviously, in the case of images of real children being abused there is a sense in which the distributor is involved in the commissioning of acts of terrible cruelty. Yet this legislation set out by Labour's last Justice Minister, Angela Eagle, was nothing less than a proposal to make disgusting thoughts illegal; so terrified are all politicians of appearing to condone paedophilia that not a single MP dared speak out against Ms Eagle's plan to make the possession of indecent sketches of imaginary children punishable by

And on that subject of s-x offender registries and such-like

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  A view  from that favourite cartoonists on the subject.

Inflation, fellation, who gives a ...

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To the advice don't speak with your mouth full we can add another rule for politicians: don't speak too quickly. Former French Justice Minister Rachida Dati When you are in too much of a hurry to get the words out, things can go wrong as the former French Justice Minister Rachida Dati found to the amusement of many watchers of political television interviews this week. While mouthing off at a rapid rate about the perils of rising prices she substituted "fellation" for "inflation" which my handy little Google translator treats as follows: London's Daily Telegraph reminds us that Ms Date was dropped from the French government last year "after her penchant for designer dresses and appearing on the covers of celebrity magqzines prompted criticism that a senior minister should not engage in such frivolity." She is now a member of the European Parliament and gained her latest 20 seconds of fame while launching an attack on foreign investment funds

Recession over but economy heading down again

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Forget about inflation. Start worrying again about recession. The Chicago Fed didn't exactly put it like that in commenting on its latest National Activity Index but the message was there clear enough. In official Federal Reserve language: Led by declines in production - and employment - related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index decreased to –0.53 in August from –0.11 in July. None of the four broad categories of indicators that make up the index made a positive contribution in August.  The index’s three-month moving average, CFNAI-MA3, declined to –0.42 in August from –0.27 in July. August’s CFNAI-MA3 suggests that growth in national economic activity was below its historical trend. With regard to inflation, the amount of economic slack reflected in the CFNAI-MA3 suggests subdued inflationary pressure from economic activity over the coming year. The Chicago Fed rather prizes its ability to pick the start and end of US recessions using its National Activity Inde

Distorting Westminster

This morning it was the turn of the Liberal Member for Fadden Stewart Robert to display his ignorance for the benefit at the Canberra ritual of the doors. With the subject of the day for the gaggle of journalists being the election tomorrow of a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Stewart, a comparative parliamentary newcomer just about to start his second term, pronounced that “the Westminster system requires the government to provide a Speaker”. Which is simply nonsense because the House of Commons, sitting in the Palace of Westminster, requires no such thing. Now it is true that only once in the 20th century was someone elected Speaker for the first time not a member of the governing party but subsequent elections saw those once chosen re-elected until they retired irrespective of which party had become the government. And then there was the exception of 1992 when Labour’s Betty Boothroyd became the first female Speaker of the House of Commons when the Gov

Gunning for Oakeshott

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott is really getting the tabloid beat-up treatment from the News Limited empire. This morning’s attack, which made page one in some states and was featured prominently in them all, resurrected an 11-year-old finding by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption that there was no merit to a complaint against him as if it was some kind of new shock-horror revelation. Then for good measure it was suggested that making representations to the Defence Department on behalf of someone Oakeshott knew without disclosing that the person was a friend of his was in some way improper. Complete nonsense but, I fear, a sign of what is going to make this Parliament a very ugly one.

A truth for today - The power of conventional wisdom

From the blog of Paul Krugman -  The Power of Conventional Wisdom - NYTimes.com : "When everyone – tout le monde, as Tom Wolfe used to put it, meaning a relative handful of people, but everyone who supposedly matters – is saying something, it takes a real effort to step outside and say, wait a minute, how do we know that? It’s especially hard if you spend most of your time hanging out with other Very Serious People; I know that I myself have a hard time saying that people I know personally are talking nonsense, even when they are. The VSP effect is one reason smart bloggers, both on economics and on politics, have generally been a better guide to what’s really happening in America than famous reporters: their distance, their lack of up close and personal insights, is actually an advantage."

The musical taste of a dictator in waiting

London's Sunday Telegraph  reports that the favourite song of King Jong-un, the 27 year old son of North Korea's Kim Jong-il, when he was at school in Switzerland was a German remake of an original Hot Chocolate hit.

Shocked at Midsommer Murders

Who said Midsommer Murders was bland? Dialogue from last night's episode: Jess, what's the best thing about necrophilia? You never have to say you're sorry.

What Republicans mean by being American

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The Daily Kos  website produced an ingenious illustration of who the modern US Republican Party sees itself as appealing to - a collage from all the photos used in the Party's just released pledge to America . There are plenty of white faces - can you spot a black one? - and bald heads.

Banana republic - here comes the US of A

Read this column and be scared. Very scared. Downhill with the G.O.P. Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman forecasts a frightening future as Republicans get closer to taking a grip on the government of the United States.  ... the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic. And this party has a better than even chance of retaking at least one house of Congress this November. Banana republic, here we come. On Thursday, House Republicans released their “Pledge to America,” supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, “Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.” The document repeatedly condemns federal debt — 16 times, by my count. But the main substantive policy proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which independent estimates say would add about $3.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade — about $700 billion more than the Obama administration’s tax proposals. The big fear, argues Krugman, is that the Republic

Not Muslim but cactus

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Given what the lunatic fringe has been saying about Barack Obama of late perhaps this is not a spoof story at all.

Laughter the best policy

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Swiss Finance Minister Hans Rudolf discussing  a parliamentary bill about meat imports:

Justice for a Justice Minister

 The King of Swaziland  has fired  his Justice Minister after he was allegedly caught having an affair with one of the king’s 14 wives. Just thought you ought to know that adultery has a price.

Today’s quote goes literary.

“ There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life:  The Lord of the Rings  and  Atlas Shrugged . One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” —  Kung Fu Monkey’s blog .

Gay adoption ban unconstitutional.

Those  Crikey  readers interested in the debate caused by Guy Rundle and his  peculiar views  on same-s-x adoption might find that this week’s  decision  by a three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal in West Miami-Dade, Florida adds a different dimension. In deciding that the state’s ban on gay adoptions was unconstitutional, the judges said there is no “rational basis” for excluding gay men and lesbians from the pool of potential adoptive parents.

A risky and short sighted Opposition policy

In the peculiar way of such things, the decision by the Coalition to renege on its deal with the rural independents to provide the greatest possible stability to a federal government will rebound to its disadvantage. The decision to  willfully break a written promise will simply strengthen the resolve of the independents not to vote in a way that forces Labor from office. The Liberal and National Parties must now hope for a Labor party desertion or a by-election caused by a death or two to take over government or force a new general election. The odds are very much against either eventuality and a Parliament going its full term would now be the favoured outcome in my betting book.

What happened to the Susans?

A correspondent has drawn my attention to the absence of women in our list of  Crikey  election competition prize winners and asks what proportion of the entries actually came from each s-x. A quick count this morning told me that 19% of entries had what I took to be female first names with another 3% in that category of not being able to tell with male names making up the other 78%. As to why there were no female winners on our list of 20 I can offer no clue but I can tell you that Susan/Sue/Suzanne is the most common name of  Crikey ’s female entrants.

The myth of not having an opinion

Part of the business for ordinary journalists at our ABC and, for that matter, many other parts of the media as well, is not to directly give their own opinion. In a pretense of impartiality the technique is to ring some academic or other who you know will say what you want said. It’s “almost a process of laundering my own views” is how I saw one journalist  describe it  recently and there was a wonderful example of it this morning on the  AM  program  when University of NSW constitutional law expert George “rent-a-quote” Williams was turned to to give this momentous opinion about the speakership of the House of Representatives: “ Look ultimately there’s not going to be a legal answer to this it will come down to negotiations and a political settlement and it may be only resolved on the floor of the Parliament and they may only occur when the Labor Party may be forced to provide a speaker because in the absence of the speaker Parliament simply can’t operate.”

Far too serious

After an evening of serious wine tasting I find myself in agreement with the reader who sent me this suggested Quote for the Day: “ I think I have an allergic reaction to leather. I find that every time I wake in the morning with my shoes on I have a headache.” - Scottish folk singer and satirist Hamish Imlach

A navel gazing quote of the day

Former BBC correspondent and editor Mark Brayne on how  the desire to be seen to be fair  now means, after a period between Al Gore’s  Inconvenient Truth  and the disaster of Copenhagen when global warming was everywhere in the output, that public broadcasters have been bending over backwards to reflect the opposite, sceptical view. The determination to be “fair” to all sides on all stories can at times go to such absurd lengths that Allan Little, one of our best reporters with hard experience of covering Sarajevo in the mid-90s and much more, speaks of the analogy of two men at a bar, one saying that two plus two equals four, and the other that two plus two equals six. The BBC solution to this disagreement? Put them both on the Today Programme, and the answer clearly lies somewhere in the middle.

A nice test for a new boy

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When federal government financing of sport was taken away from the health department  by Julia Gillard and added to Prime Minister and Cabinet it was no doubt considered within the Labor Party to be a fitting perk with which to reward Mark Arbib for services rendered in the overthrow of Kevin Rudd. With the Commonwealth Games in Delhi now on the brink of being one of sport’s all time great stuff ups, being Sports Minister takes on quite a different complexion. Minister Arbib now finds himself in the difficult position of saying enough about the dangers of Australians going to the Games to avoid the Australian Government being blamed for not giving people warnings not to go if something does go wrong and the desire not to annoy the government of a potentially great trading partner by saying too much. It is no easy task and while the new boy has so far handled it well the final political outcome for him is in the hands of Indian construction companies, Delhi’s mosquitoes and Muslim terr

A quiet Prime Minister

It has been a relatively quiet Prime Minister since the swearing in of the new Labor ministry and a good thing too. After an election campaign that lasted nigh on eight months and then another month of haggling over who actually won, the public is surely in a mood to concentrate on football grand finals rather than politics. And as Julia Gillard thinks about her approach to what will be the very testing time of being a minority leader I hope that when she does find it necessary to break her silence that she abandons the courtyard scramble approach of her immediate predecessors and actually holds a formal press conference.