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Any chance the ABC can get rid of Fran Kelly too? What a pity a once interesting breakfast show on Radio National has been reduced to pro Liberal crap!
It’s Christopher Pyne who’s gay, certainly sounds cheerful enough, what-oh! And as for Dolly, well he’s more the sullen type!
And why does Howard’s daughter look like Pru Goward ? What’s going on there!
From Crikey
Christian Kerr writes:
I’ve been inspired by the Liberal ads telling us that interest rates are always up above 10 per cent under Labor governments. Here are a few other historical economic figures that may be of interest:
When Gough Whitlam and Frank Crean were running the show…
* Australia ran a current account surplus. Today the deficit is six per cent of GDP.
* Net foreign debt was under one per cent of GDP. Today it is 53 per cent of GDP.
* The unemployment rate was under two per cent. Now it is 4.3 per cent.
* Real wages grew by 10 per cent. You’re now lucky to get two per cent per annum.
* The Australian dollar was at $US1.4875. It’s now around $US0.92.
If you can make the Whitlam government look like good economic managers, you can prove anything with statistics.
Michael: mentioned by someone on the oz politics board!
Tricky maths from Howard, he’s a clever politician alright.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics/index.php/theaustralian/comments/tax_cuts_hikes_small_change
#93 Found Crabbe and Maiden articles through Crikey re non apology.
Michael @ 97: Fran Kelly is talking through her clacker. I spoke to a Liberal Party staffer mate yesterday who said that yes, they had thought out a line to deal with the rates rise, and they were ready for it, but then Grumpy Old Johnny f*cked up big time with his sorry-not sorry routine. (See idiot box thread for details)
The average odds for Labor across the agencies are about 1.36, very little movement over the last few days. Stories about a wave of money for the Coalition are obviously a load of bull. The seat-level betting has edged a bit in Labor’s favour in the last week, mainly in Qld. Herbert has switched to Labor as favourite-they have a strong candidate, a local businessman called George Colbran, running there. Seats like Leichardt and Longman have also seen Labor firm, although the Libs are still favoured. Betting market reaction to the next round of polls will be extremely interesting.
Speaking of trainer wheel subbies: the ABC subbie who turned Howard’s “Sorry your dog got run over” into “Prime Minister apologizes” is most likely heading for Oodnagallarbie right now to take up the position of stringer, 2nd class, for the Country Hour.
I worked it out on the “apology” thing (sorry for the slow-thinking).
1. Howard floats the word “sorry”, knows from experience the media will present it as “Howard says sorry”… an ambiguous apology?
2. ABC ramps “sorry” to full-blown “apology” status. Howard makes no comment.
3. Next morning Daily Telegraph publishes an opinion poll saying the public doesn’t blame Howard for the interest rate rise. So there was no need to “apologize” after all.
4. Howard “clarifies” his position on “apology”, i.e. “It wasn’t one.”
5. Sh*t hits fan. Howard puzzled as to why everyone’s laughing at him.
* * * * *
Nicotine Chronicles
I am truly amazed and humbled at the support fellow ‘Bludgers have given me in my attempt (so far successful) to give up the ciggies, and indeed all forms of nicotine. Don’t want to go too far off topic or make too big a thing of it here, but I love youse all.
Anyone else thinking of coming over to the side of light read these quantifiable stats from just 4 days off the fags:
* Heart rate has dropped from 94 to 67 bpm.
* Blood pressure from a respectable 126/84 to a phenomenal 115/74
* Ankles no longer swell at 5pm (this was from Day #1… an instant result).
* Ran.. repeat… RAN with the dogs yesterday, 2 km. Never done this in my life before. In fact the dogs looked more worried than I was… “Has pop gone mad?”
That’s right: It’s not all psychological. These are real, measurable results. Nicotine addicts are in it for the instant gratification. Well those physical changes in my health after only 4 days are about as instant a gratification as anyone would want.
Note: According to the book, “Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking, “evangelism is part of the treatment.
I wish to pass the motion that as the GG has become the abbreviation for that newspaper, that we rename the ABC the APC (Australian puppetry commission) I am apalled at their biased reporting!
All in favour say I
Um… Aye?
Sham -I – Am bleating on about whatever it is he bleats about. Think he is convinced that he can influence the turning around of the Titanic.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/dennisshanahan/index.php/theaustralian/comments/ir_policy_one_debate_labor_cant_avoid
Newspapers often can’t print things for fear of libel suits or there may be a suppression order in place. They will often try to subliminally get the story out using juxtaposition. No-one, except diehards like us notice it and it makes them feel better that they sort of ran with the story. Or it may just be a coincidence.
*Radio [Liberal-]National [Coalition]*
Fran Kelly continues to display what can only be described as a cheer-leader approach to commentating on the election.
In today’s Friday Election panel we had:
*Michael Kroger, offering some of the most one-eyed and deranged pro-Government “analysis” yet (see earlier thread re “Postcard from La La Land”);
*Glen Milne, who was firmly pro-Government as always, but with a few backhanders, obviously motivated by his position as Chairman of Club Smirk;
*Grattan, offering generally balanced but paint-strippingly safe assessments of all events during the week; and
*Fran herself, who has, for reasons known only to herself, adopted the practice of talking up ANYTHING AT ALL as “momentum” for the Government and intones almost daily of a “come back” and “need for Labor to get the momentum” – THEY’RE AHEAD IN THE POLLS! As pointed out by Mumble, what, exactly, is “momentum” and why does the poll leader need it?!?!
So we were treated to a fantastically “balanced” panel of 3 pro-Government semi-spruikers and what amounted to an automated read-through of Grattan’s written copy. Fantastic!
Is where my 2c a day are going?!
Last edited by BV (Today 08:21:00)
Voterboy I posted at 4.36 because as always I remembered that the garbage goes out on a Friday. And those hard working Higginites do my run at 5.55. I am forever missing it and have to take the sulo bins (an australian invention) across the road down the street.
Ave it 07 – I get it now. You’re a sub at the Tele!
Vote Coalition for smooth relaxing government.
Removes the need to rely on nicotine
It is officially confirmed… Ave it 07 is Tabitha using a sock-puppet! (refer to Ai07 #98 and the poor poetry)
Please bar one of the identities, William.
Regarding the story, didn’t Crikey promise a juicy story on Friday (that is, today)? Well , this is it – the “Rudd scandal” which will place the last nail in the LNP coffin. They’ll lose this election, then when their dirty tricks are exposed by the new Government, they’ll be consigned to a long decade in purgatory.
118:
Liberal = freedom of speech
Labor = people trying to get posters banned
No offence intended, but people reading conspiracy theories into the DT headline is one of the reasons we get referred to as the “looney left”.
If anything, that headline with the accompanying picture is actually implying Peter Costello is gay. But when I read the article, I realise of course that it is another case of a sub-editor playing games with the headline in order to get people to read the article. (BTW, I suspect the ‘gay’ bit of the article was moved to a separate article after the headline was written).
Happens all the time. Get over it. No one reading it is going to give a sh*t.
This is what you call a slow news day. Let’s move on, shall we?
MORGAN IS UP EARLY:
Labor Extends Lead In Wake Of Interest Rate Rise
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4197/
Centaur: I always deposit my garbage with News Limited sub-editors. They’re happy for anything to chew on and are grateful for its nutritious goodness.
And now I feel a Tabitha coming on
Liberal for double entendres and sly innuendo
Labor for Tintin, the gender bendo
I know, utter crap, but it’s 10.30pm here and I’ve been monitoring your wretched newspapers all day
Very funny BV back to the future I preesume.
[MORGAN IS UP EARLY:
Labor Extends Lead In Wake Of Interest Rate Rise
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4197/
Sorry, scrap that, my browser cache f#cked up.
BV this is August!
Well spotted BV!
You know what this means… next week Morgan will have “Coalition surges back!”.
Ha, it is August. BV, what you smokin?
Bill – walk before you run. Apart from anything else, you need to get your muscles used to a load. You should warm up and stretch too, to avoid injuring yourself, which would be a setback. The other bit you can work out for yourself – stressed cardio-vascular system may not respond well to sudden and unaccustomed loads.
Howard is so out of touch it isn’t funny (well, it is actually. Bloody hilarious). The non-core apology is a terrific own goal, and it goives us the perfect minituarised version of Howard’s entire corpus – which amounts to: tell them what they want to hear using carefully chosen words which you can then later deny. This is pettifogging lawyerism at its worst, and unfortunately folk have succumbed for some time. Alas, for SS Rattus Desperatus, folk have finally seen through it.
Yeah, sorry all, over-saved an old link in my bookmarks for what will presumably be today’s new address!
Ave it 07 #119,
Quite frankly, I consider you to be a deceitful, disgusting little person. If you are going to spend your time making puerile poetry for the glorification of one side or the other, at least have the courage to sign your name to it. Since you lack even that smidgeon of courage, you’re not worth my time.
Also, FYI, I am NOT a member of the ALP. Although I am considering giving them my vote this election.
Ashley @ 120. Tell me then – based on your reading of the two accompanying stories, how does the headline work? What is it referring to? Who is the “election rival” in that sentence? Who is the “election rival” in that sentence the rival of? And in what sense is the “election rival” ‘gay’?
Regarding Soft Voters, I think I am one. I’d say Australia is heading in the right direction alright – it’s taken eleven years but we are finally heading in the right direction, Gough be praised.
Talk about jumping at shadows, some obscure headline in the Tele and a ditsy ABC presenter and everyone is frothing at the mouth. As for the ever flaccid Shamahan ’s drivel, he’s just p***ing in the wind, it’s more amusing than anything. Relax, people will make up their own minds, we aren’t some exotic enlightened species with the scales lifted from our eyes, we just participate in a media forum with a differing bias.
Our daily papers Voterboy. Come on read the daily mail or the mirror or the sun (still got boobs?) Apart from the metro there are few papers worth reading, oh the European.
Hey after living there for 4 years recentlly and loving curry houses, I have to say that the best I had (must have tried 30) was Angel Curry at the bottom of Chapel market in Angel Islington. You won’t be dissapointed. The best chiicken tika masala, sagh gosth and lamb pasanda I have ever had!!
On the media, I am going to officially call Rudd a political genius. Think about his relaxing of FOI laws. All the dirt the Rodent has been hiding for 11 years will come out (the laws are retrospective). There will be enough material for the media to report for three years, until the next election. New revelations about Haneef, AWB, Tampa, Hicks, SIEV, WMD… the list goes on. And it helps get Ruperts endorsement. Glen and all you other sad rodent followers, its going to be a LONG LONG DARK WINTER.
131 – I’m not really worried if you are a member of the ALP or not.
Mathew Cole getting a bit excited
When really he’s a bit of a #
This is one of the reasons I hate Howard so much.
He f#*ks up, and then blames someone else for it. Such a bare-faced liar, that even to this day he amazes me with his temerity. He’s the one who’s been making stupid differentiations between ’sorry’ and ‘apology’ and yet he has the gall to try and pretend it’s Labor who’s playing word-games:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=305478
This guy is a world-class loser.
15 days to go!!!!!!!!!!!
Diogenes says “move out of the way Howard you’ve been blocking the sun.”
Speaking of more ABC anti Labor bias: their radio commentators with the Rudd Campaign make their reports as negative as possible, we hear a lot from people who are either Liberals or have some derogatory remark to make about Kevin.
Eg. Today’s report on AM about Rudd’s visit to a shopping centre in Boothby – lots of mentions of hecklers, some old bloke who hates Labor & Nicole Cornes etc. Switch over to News Radio and their hack of a political commentator has a gushing interview with the Rodent.
We saw that Wentworth story on the 7.30 Report last night. Two things jumped out – Turnbull’s pathological desire to be “an ordinary Australia” (his “tough student unit” is identical to the cool art deco unit I live in now, which I would not describe as “hard”), and the strange omission by the 7.30 Report of the Democrats candidate Pierce Field. I have noticed that the 7.30 Report does that sort of thing a lot – eg uses Democrats press releases as questions to the majors but refusing to mention the Democrats. It’s tres weird.
Must…stop…feeding…trolls…..
From 62 Bushfire Bill: Poor Virginia, her radio epitaph will be, “She only wanted to be connected, and at least she wasn’t as bad as Sally Loane.”
Brilliant epitaph, Bushfire Bloke. Smarmy Sally was obsessed with that fact that mothers and children (like hers, of course) were not sufficiently worshiped in Australia. One of Sally’s feature articles in the SMH was to vent her rage that when she took her pre-schoolers to the barber and her 2-year old threw a hissy fit on the floor, all the adults in the barber shop just pretended to ignore it. Sally thought this epitomises the evil forces of Child-ignoring and Mother-hating rampantly destroying Australian society!
As for Virginia, she’s obviously trawling to be the next Pru Goward, hoping to be handed a lucrative, cushy job as the Triumphant Team Howard’s special roving ambassador, adviser and PR flogger for (fill in whatever’s Virginia’s cause du jour). However, she’s got some fierce competition out in media land such as Fran “Yes, you’re 100% spot on about that, Piers!” Kelly or perhaps Melissa “Give me my tax cuts!” Doyle who hosts 7’s Morning Show with Koch.
84
Derek Corbett Says:
November 9th, 2007 at 8:54 am
“….. Journos don’t write headlines, as a rule. Most can barely spell, anyway.”
Verry,verry trew. But most bloggers here would blusch az thay red it!
Centaur – I don’t think they publish the European any more. I recently had to buy the Daily Mail for three weeks because it contained DVDs of a TV series on the First World War, which my daughter in doing for her GCSEs here. It was the most shameful experience of my life. I’ve had less stressful times buying porn as a teenager.
The best curry house in my view was the South India Curry House in Darlinghurst – just near all those fabulous gay bars, if there are any Daily Telegraph subs reading this. But I shall follow your kind instructions and let you know before polling day what I made of it.
Matthew Cole (131) have a look at the sentiment expressed by Henry in Post 86.
VoterBoy
The HARD-COPY version of the story DOES NOT carry that headline. The hard-copy version plays it straight, so to speak. Read earlier posts. (Hell, I seem to be sticking up for the tele, must be feverish).
# 122 BV Says: November 9th, 2007 at 9:29 am
That’s August 17. Still a few hours.
I prefer Latham to Rudd.
His article also makes a number of good points.
Latham was a true alternative to Howard, whereas Rudd has followed too many of Howard’s stances (i.e. Haneef) for my liking.
Nevertheless, Rudd has proven more then competent so far and I hope Howard goes down in a flaming wreck.
I didn’t actually bother to read the ‘gay’ story. I clicked on it, saw that it wasn’t interesting and went back to the main article.
IMHO, that’s what most people are going to do. I seriously don’t believe that anyone is going to come away from that article thinking that Rudd might be gay. Like I said, the picture kind of implies that it is Costello who is gay — which is equally ridiculous.
I agree it’s a silly headline, inappropriate and misleading. But it’s just some sub-editor who thinks he’s being clever. No one is actually going to be fooled into thinking Rudd or Costello is gay. If the DT really wanted to smear Rudd, there are *far* better ways they could go about it in quite legitimate ways… like the Australian does, for example!
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