Let’s kick the weekend off a little early with a fresh open thread to discuss the weekend’s news and activities. Remember that the links to the current open threads are always available in the sidebar to the right of the page – except when the site breaks and the sidebar disappears.
We’ll update with details about TV programming for political tragics as they come to hand.
UPDATE: Leigh Sales says:
Don’t even THINK about going out tonight and missing Lateline. Friday night fight club with Tony Burke & Scott Morrison. ABC1, 1045pm.
And from Your Sunday Morning TV:
At 8 am, Meet the Press has Fran Kelly and Paul Maley inerviewing Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Fielding.
After 8:30 am on Today on Sunday, Laurie Oakes interviews Stephen Smith.
At 9 am, Insiders interview guest to be confirmed; the panel is Annabel Crabb, Dennis Atkins and Andrew Bolt; Fiona Katauskas is in Mike Bowers’ place on Inside Pictures and talks to Paul Zanetti.
UPDATE #2: Barrie Cassidy will interview Sarah Hanson-Young on Insiders.
50 Comments
Ok
Here he goes again, Andrew is re pedalling the story about Catherine Deveny having a mental illness
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dont_exploit_deveny/
Now you can imagine the comments this will get and I have one question, would he dare post something like this about David Marr? As has been observed after all that hand ringing a few weeks ago it’s game on at News.
For Gavin,
This may interest you:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8328282.stm,url>
Resistance hero ‘told to leave’
I see Bolt is working up some confected outrage about the science grants, fully 10 % – 10 PER CENT! – of which are going to proposals which mention climate change. Conveniently ignoring that 90% are going to proposals which, do not, mention climate change. Even then though he manages to trip himself up what with all the rope lying around. He feigns amazement that some scientists are getting a grant to study oil exploration but then says they get:
“$450,000 in their kick, for promising to help predict the global warming that their technology can only make worse.”
But, but, I thought AGW was all a crock Andy? Just natural? So how can it be made worse?
According to the Age (online):
2010 AFL fixture.
Collingwood the big winners in AFL’s 2010 fixture
There’s a surprise!
AGFL may be the most successful code but it isn’t an equitable code, ie it just isn’t a fair competition, sort of defeats the purpose of having a league in the first place. Oh, who am I trying to kid, the purpose of the AFL first and foremost is to maximise revenue, football comes second.
I watched Deveney wave her hands in front of Abbot’s face when he was speaking on Q&A last night, seriously, for all the good points she made she detracted from herself with her puerile behaviour.
surlysimon: So, Andrew Bolt has concerns for Catherine and thinks she shouldn’t be exploited. He then writes a post about her on his blog so his commenters can start things out by calling her “juvenile”, “nut case”, “embarrassing … nuttiness”, etc. (those are just the first three comments on his post).
I’m left wondering: (i) was he serious in his concern and just too ignorant or silly to see that his post would have the opposite effect to what he would like, or (ii) was Andrew Bolt being a concern troll? Neither option comes out looking good for Andrew.
NB: I didn’t watch Q&A but from the Twitter discussion about it I know he’s not Robinson Crusoe in thinking she put in a poor performance. But none of the other critics I saw were also professing to have concerns for her welfare like Andrew does.
surlysimon – well you were right, I was wrong, the glad-wrap wasn’t part of that sculpture. For which I am greatly relieved. I also apologise to the sculptor if they happened to read what I said.
I was so angry at Andrew’s post that below is the email I sent to Beyond Blue
Hello
In the online issue of todays Herald Sun is a post by Andrew Bolt in which he recycles alegations that AGE columnist Catherine Deveny is suffering from a mental illness and there for should not be allowed to write for the AGE or apear on the ABC
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dont_exploit_deveny/
theis post links back to the original
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/help_her_dont_exploit_her/
which contains a link to the source of this, a now deleted blog page.
I am not concerned as to wether or not Andrew’s story is correct or not, to suggest that someone should be deprived of their employment because of a mental illness is offensive and I would have thought if carried out illegal.
I know you have guidlines as to the reporting on mental illness and I wondered how this fits in to those guidelines. This isn’t just about one columnist bashing another because it involves calling for someone having their right to an opinion removed because they may have a mental illness.
Tobias
Regardless of Catherine’s performance, the implication that she should be kept away from the media because she is suffering an alledged mental illness is the central point here. I don’t care who the target is it is the notion contained that is offensive, Would you post such a thing?
Hi Rob,
Thank you for that, unfortuneately your link doesn’t work for me so I went googling
Very interesting, and it doesn’t surprise me too much — from all accounts I’ve heard about De Gaulle from people who met him, he was a pretty arrogant bloke.
I saw Deveny on Q&A last night too — she didn’t strike me as being mentally ill, just obnoxious and childish….
“he was a pretty arrogant bloke.”
Yeah, pity Mr Day of the Jackal missed
…. Only joking though De Gaulle was a renowned Anglophobe.
GavinM
That’s the point, she can be as obnoxious as she likes, it is however not on to suggest she should not be on TV because of an alledged Mental Illness, and for me this isn’t about a particular person it’s the principal (sorry I still have some).
surlysimon – no, I wouldn’t – we covered the earlier stuff on this site and I agree with your position. My point was that even if you accept that – despite being wrong on both the principle and the facts – Andrew Bolt had sincerely good intentions toward Deveny’s well-being, it’s still ridiculous that he would write such a post when anyone could anticipate the direction the comments would go in.
(a) Deveny’s performance was nothing short of embarrassing.
BUT
(b) Bolt is concern-trolling.
What is it with Melbourne opinion columnists and being irritating?
Tobias
“Andrew Bolt had sincerely good intentions toward Deveny’s well-being” you think?
No.
So yes we do agree
“it is however not on to suggest she should not be on TV because of an alledged Mental Illness,”
Agreed.
UPDATE: Leigh Sales says:
And from Your Sunday Morning TV:
At 8 am, Meet the Press has Fran Kelly and Paul Maley inerviewing Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Fielding.
After 8:30 am on Today on Sunday, Laurie Oakes interviews Stephen Smith.
At 9 am, Insiders interview guest to be confirmed; the panel is Annabel Crabb, Dennis Atkins and Andrew Bolt; Fiona Katauskas is in Mike Bowers’ place on Inside Pictures and talks to Paul Zanetti.
This comment made me shit my pants:
And there are no homosexuals in Iran.
Bolt’s on Insiders, eh.
Oh dear. I sense another “How to complain to the ABC” campaign about to assault us.
RobJ – seen the teams Collingwood are playing in those last seven games at the MCG? St Kilda, Richmond, Carlton, Geelong, Essendon, Adelaide, Hawthorn. Not exactly what I’d call a dream run….
Anyway, if playing a lot of games at the ‘G is supposed to be a blessing, how come Melbourne and Richmond aren’t winning everything in sight?
Hmm?
Where on earth did that comment come from John?
I dunno Bertus, sounds like a lot of high revenue games for the Magpies at the pointy end of the season.
Well yeah they are Dave – hi btw – but there are a couple of other things going on.
Firstly – Collingwood agreed to play more games at the MCG to compensate the ‘G for not demanding that a finals game be played at the ‘G in each week of the finals – which is in the contract the ‘G signed (whether it should be in the contract is another matter). This is to prevent another situation like the one that occurred in 2004, when both Pt Adel and Bris Lions should have played their Preliminary Finals at home, but because of the ‘G contract, BL had to come to Melbourne to play their Prelim at the ‘G. BL are still fuming about this, because they claim it might well have cost them the Flag. Same thing happened in ‘06, after the Collingwood agreement, but then both West Coast and Syddy could play their Prelims at home. Much good it did Syddy….
The other thing is that clubs are allowed to make scheduling requests prior to the start of each season and at the top of each club’s request is -”can we please play Collingwood twice, both times at the MCG please?” because every club knows they’ll make a motza, wherever they and the Maggies are on the table.
So. It’s not just Collingwood. Dave, if the comp is set up to favour Collingwood how come they’ve won one flag in the last 50 years?
if the comp is set up to favour Collingwood how come they’ve won one flag in the last 50 years?
Because they’re talentless under-achievers who believe their own press?
Any schedule that has carlton playing less than 50% of games at the MCG is rigged.
In my opinion.
“It’s not just Collingwood. Dave, if the comp is set up to favour Collingwood how come they’ve won one flag in the last 50 years?”
I take it you’re a Collingwood supporter Bertus
. They haven’t won because other teams have been better.
Anyway, the so-called competition does not treat all teams fairly, it’s broken. I’m not criticising Collingwood, I’m criticising the AFL.
“can we please play Collingwood twice, both times at the MCG please?””
Should play everybody twice. Or once…. They only play 22 games per year, I know it’s a tough game but so is Rugby Union, a top Rugby team would play heaps more fixtures than an AFL team.
George Megologenis has another good column today. He’s one of the best columnists at the Oz – hope he doesn’t disappear behind the paywall!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26283230-7583,00.html
Given his track record disseminating misinformation about DDT, I’m awaiting Andrew Bolt’s interest in the ongoing horror perpetrated by Union Carbide in Bhopal.
John Howard was just interviewed on the radio, let me summarise for you?
“n n n n No no no no no”
And that’s before the interviewer had even finished asking the question….
“‘G is supposed to be a blessing, how come Melbourne and Richmond aren’t winning everything in sight? ”
Because they’re crap, especially Richmond…
He was on the BBC’s Hardtalk the other day – copped an absolute hiding. That’s the kind of fact-finding interviewing the ABC should be doing, not bowing to ridiculous demands for
balanceequal wingnut time.RobJ – actually I’m a Swans supporter; one of my brothers and his kids are Collingwood though. Completely agree about the draw-and-a-half, it’s boolsheet. I think Demetriou is on the right track (for once) with the idea for a 20-team comp; then they could just make it every team plays each other team once. Another idea that keeps floating around and won’t go away is to have two “conferences” as in gridiron, with 8, 9 or 10 teams in each “conference” – and a Superbowl at the end! How original!. Hope that one goes away soon.
UPDATE #2: Barrie Cassidy will interview Sarah Hanson-Young on Insiders.
Dave
John @21’s quote is from Catherine Deveny, quoted on one of Andrew’s post and meant to highlight that shows like McLeod’s Daughters don’t represent this countries diversity, I think he is getting a bit confused about the point of the quote or he is agreeing and suggesting the McLeod’s Daughters is like Iran?
Tobby, surely you mean Sarah Hanson-Yum!
Cheers
InsidersOnesiders is a complete waste of time these days. Viewers just get the Murdoch papers view of the world – most of it agenda-driven – or it serves as a gossip fest for columnists like piers to come up with the most ridiculous nonsense. What insider insight do people like bolt, piers, timmy, stutchbury, and milne have? Now that the Liberals aren’t in power, pretty much zilch. They used to have Laura Tingle who was excellent and Lenore Taylor (also good), but they don’t seem to appear as much anymore.For Fox sake!
Another Jon Stewart classic.
Did anyone see that The Hun got Best newspaper in the News Ltd awards? You couldn’t write this stuff
“US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken a new and surprising tack by abandoning America’s demands for Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”
There’s a surprise. Israel can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants with the blessing of the US. I can’t see any prospect for peace, ever! Stopping illegal settlements is absolutley fundamental for peace.
“In May, Ms Clinton said “with respect to settlements, [President Obama] was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here – he wants to see a stop to settlements, not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions and we intend to press that point.”"
So in May Clinton was just kidding?
Hi Rob,
A couple of questions for you —
Given that I have often seen you posting that you would like to see a return to the pre-1967 borders in the Middle East, if this was to occur legally Gaza would return to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.
Do you think the Palestinians as they are known today, would continue to agitate for a separate Palestine and would they have a legitimate claim to do so given that historically there has never been a nation called Palestine ?
Genuine questions here, I’m interested to get your take on them
“Do you think the Palestinians as they are known today, would continue to agitate for a separate Palestine ”
Don’t know, what I do know and I’ve stated many times if Israel returned to the ‘67 borders (they’re moving in the opposite direction) and any shitbags stirring up trouble on the Palestinian side would find themselves lacking any sympathy from overseas, maybe neo-Nazi’s would support them but hey, neo Nazi’s would also likely slaughter them.
“and would they have a legitimate claim to do so given that historically there has never been a nation called Palestine ?”
That’s utterly irrelevant if you believe in the right of self-determination (which I do) Was there a nation called Israel before the UN created Israel?
Anyway, the point of my post is that the Israeli govt isn’t interested in peace, unless of course it means they make no concessions and are permitted to continue to flout international law (with Clinton’s voiciferous support.)
“That’s utterly irrelevant if you believe in the right of self-determination (which I do) ”
How is it irrelevant, they would be living in territory legally owned by Egypt and Jordan, therefore what right would they have to self determination ?
“Was there a nation called Israel before the UN created Israel?”
Yes there was.
“How is it irrelevant, they would be living in territory legally owned by Egypt and Jordan, therefore what right would they have to self determination ?”
Like I say I believe in the right of self determination, don’t you. We could take the Falklnad Islands as an example, geographically one would say that Argentina has every right to take it and call it the Malvinas, thing is the people in Falkland Is consider themselves British, their right of self determination was upheld.
“Yes there was.”
OK:
“Over the past three thousand years, the name “Israel” has meant in common and religious usage both the Land of Israel and the entire Jewish nation.[24] According to the Bible, Jacob is renamed Israel after successfully wrestling with an angel of God”
Then here is ancient Palestine too:
“As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to ‘ancient Palestine,’ an area that includes contemporary Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as part of Jordan, and some of both Lebanon and Syria.[1] In classical or contemporary terms, it can refer to the area within the boundaries of what was once British Mandate Palestine (1920–1948), an area which included Transjordan.[2] The term Land of Israel is used to refer to the same geographic region, both narrowly or broadly defined, by Israelis, Jews, and Christian Zionists, among others. Other terms for the same area include Canaan, and the Holy Land.”
Another good example of the right of self determination would be East Timor, I take it you don’t support the creation of East Timor?
I do believe in the right to self-determination, just not sure about the right to arbitrarily take tracts of land from one country to create another one where none previously existed.
Palestine, unlike Israel has never existed as a recognised nation, the territory that makes up Israel today was recognised as an independent nation in Roman times, however Palestine never has been — it was the generic name for the region.
I tend to think if (and I know its a huge “if”), the Israelis ever did agree to a reset back to the pre-1967 boundaries, the Egyptians and Jordanians would probably grant the current areas to the Palestinians, but it would be an interesting — and messy — situation if they didn’t.
“Another good example of the right of self determination would be East Timor, I take it you don’t support the creation of East Timor?”
Not a good example really, East Timor was a separate nation before it was invaded and taken over by the Indonesians in 1975 when the Portuguese withdrew, so there was no “creation” of an East Timor, it already existed and the people of East and West Timor are of different ethnic groups.
Not sure about the Falklands, did they ever belong to Argentina ? What is the majority of the population’s ancestry ?
“was recognised as an independent nation in Roman times, ”
Big deal, if you’re going to talk like that we should bring back Persia… What Rome recognised as a state had no bearing whatsoever in 1948.
“What is the majority of the population’s ancestry ?”
It’s all about self determination, where as a world we’re so inconsistent, OK for Israel, OK for East Timor, OK for the Falkland Islands though Palestine and Gibraltar can go and fuck themselves…
“It’s all about self determination, where as a world we’re so inconsistent, OK for Israel, OK for East Timor, OK for the Falkland Islands though Palestine and Gibraltar can go and fuck themselves…”
Not what I’m saying Rob…
East Timor was a separate state who’s people are of a distinct and separate ethnicity to West Timor before being taken over by the Indonesians — so there was no need to take land off someone else to create a nation.
Israel’s claim extends back to Roman times, the modern Israeli state began to emerge in the 1880’s and the League of Nations voted to establish it in the traditional area in 1922, so it has a little more history than what began in 1948.
As I said, I’m not sure about the Falklands, the people living there voted to maintain the status quo so I guess thats good enough for me.
Palestine — I have no problem with an independent Palestine, my questions revolve more about the hypotheticals — if Israel withdraws to pre-1967 borders, if Egypt and Jordan then decide to keep the areas that belonged to them, what becomes of the idea of an independent Palestine, will the Palestinians accept that they would then be Egyptians or Jordanians, would they resort to violent measures against those governments to acquire an independent state, would the UN try to force Egypt and Jordan to relinquish those areas to form an independent Palestine…Thats just a few of the questions around forming a Palestinian state.
Gibraltar — haven’t heard of issues there, is there a move for independence ?