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: Sunday free-to-air line-ups courtesy of Your Sunday Morning TV – follow the link for Sky and more FTA schedules:
- At 8 am, Meet the Press has Eleanor Hall and Glenn Milne interviewing Peter Garrett and the Sri Lankan High Commissioner, Senaka Walgampaya.
- After 8:30 am, Today on Sunday has Laurie Oakes interviewing TBA.
- At 9 am, Insiders has Barrie interviewing Wayne Swan, the panel is Karen Middleton, David Marr and Piers Akerman, and Inside Pictures has Fiona Katauskas talking to Jack the Insider.
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There goes the neighbourhood… Arctic sea ice extent now as bad as it’s ever been for this time of year. But of course, Andrew Bolt would have you believe that the sea ice is back to normal. Man’s a journalist. What else can one say? ( Sorry Tobias, is calling someone a journalist too insulting? Delete that foul assertion if you like.)
John Pilger at his best:
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/no-shipload-of-whites-fleeing-disaster-would-be-treated-like-this-20091105-i067.html
Shame Rudd and the ALP, shame.
Hi Dotty Daphon, confessions linked that article for me in the Open thread November 2-5, probably better off in here. i will reiterate what i wrote in the other thread, John Pilger calls it how he sees it and speaks for me.. So many other journos just swallow the govt’s line and lies!
I <3 Pilger.
To contrast Pilger’s unabashed humanity, Bolt can’t even wait for the bodies to go cold before whipping out the dog whistle.
Is there no low this man does not aspire to?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think we’ve lost the asylum seeker debate.
The drowning of the 12 refugees this week has handed the xenophobic Right the perfect cover, and they will forevermore clothe their racism in a false concern for refugee welfare. There is simply no way to argue against that and worse still – there is a core of logic to their position (even if we all strongly suspect that they really object to our refugee policy for different reasons).
Unfortunately the reality is that we’re an island nation surrounded by dangerous oceans. How can we justify border protection policies that encourage people to risk their lives to get here?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/not_just_a_lone_gunman/#commentsmore
Andrew’s post is just the news but the comments are very educational, a window into the mind of his commentors. I am so glad he has tightened his comment policy, didn’t he?
What mondo rock said. And i also have to admit i was wrong about public sentiment: i thought it had shifted to a more humane thinking, but evidently that’s not the case.
This is a link I would post over at Andrew’s blog but he wouldn’t publish it so I will put it here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/06/nidal-malik-hasan-fort-hood-shooting
Scroll down and see how many other shootings there have been, most involving soldiers without Islamic sounding names.
I notice the link to Bolt’s post about the US shootings is “…/not_just_a_lone_gunman/…”, but the title is “US Base Attacked”. Does anyone know if this has been changed?
And yes, nice dog whistle:
yes, what mondo rock says.
Bolta’s dog whistling is getting to an all-time high:
America’s ABC takes forever to even mention the “M” word that the shooter himself seems to have offered as his motive. That’s not reporting, but withholding.
Also on that link, Tim Blair notes a refusal by our own ABC’s Lisa Millar to mention the most relevant fact about the gunman, too. This is treating people as to stupid or dangerous to trust with the facts. It is NOT reporting.
Bolt declares:
“Pilger is contemptible ”
Hmm, If I were Pilger I’d be happy to be slagged off by Bolt who in my opinion is a contemptible person who is fond of whipping up a frenzy amongst his idiot bigot fans. Contemptible!
Yes, Andrew, they omitted to tell us he was a MUSLIM. They also forgot to say he was balding, that both his and his father’s penises were uncircumcised, and where he obtained his qualification to practise as a psychiatrist. These are all FACTS, and those bastards withheld them from us. Of course his religion is relevant to any explanation of why he shot all those people! After all, they teach them to do that, don’t they? It is an ethical reporter’s DUTY to inform us about such things, like Andrew does. How would we understand the world without him?
I can’t access the comments on Bolt’s thread about the Fort Hood shooting. His whole blog seems to have had a bit of a spazzo attack. Anybody else getting this?
Yeah, just had a look now, working fine from here bertus..
Does Andrew mention that the Gunman in Fort Hoodwas born in Virginia? Maybe it’s revenge for the “Great Missundestanding”?
And it might interest Andrew and Tim that the Idependent, and the Gaurdian have not mention wether Major Hasan is a muslim or not.
Not even the Telegraph or the Times mention Major Hasan being a muslim, so where is this coming from?
Ref Pilger:
”It’s important for us all to remember here in Australia that Afghanistan has been a training ground for terrorists worldwide, a training ground also for terrorists in South-East Asia”……”There is no truth in this statement.”
Absolute effing horseshit. I have good mates who fought for and captured Al Queda bases and found some of the most well constructed and advanced training facilities they had ever seen outside of western countries, including training material, urban combat ranges, forged passports, safehouse information, weapons, ammo etc etc. I have seen their personal photos and videos – there is no mistake in what they found. Pilger is talking from his backside here. If he is willing to make statements like this which are outright lies, he deserves to be mocked.
Sometimes I wonder if Bolt’s readers ever question the stupidity of some of the things he dangles in front of them.
Take his latest AGW froth: regarding sea-level rises on the East Coast of Australia.
Tucked away in his link to The Australian news story is a concise refutation of the shock-horror purpose of the piece from the Awfulstralian: sea-level rises are only 1.9mm per year in NSW. Five paragraphs from the end they finally tell us via a real expert on sea-levels, Prof, John Church, that barometric pressure and continental rise have not been taken into account in the figures, and that he believes sea-level rises in Australia are in line with IPCC models.
None of Bolt’s readership have bothered to query whether this detracts from Bolt’s sneering polemic. I have, ( relatively politely) and it remains to be seen if I get my post printed……
Further to my previous post, dontcha just love the easy familiarity Bolt has with populist phraseology ” Who ya gonna trust: the warmist’s models or your lying eyes?” Gee, Andrew, you’re really down with the homeys, bro.
On the subject of lying eyes, I would like to see someone able to visually pick an average sea-level rise of 6mm ( or even more) at any stage of the tide in a choppy harbour on the East Coast. Pathetic stuff.
LOL. That reminds me of that sea level graph he used to use to tell people ocean levels weren’t rising. Until it became patently ridiculous to try and claim so: the trend line was roughly at a 45 degree angle, but obviously Bolt was hoping his readers lying eyes would tell them that had nothing to do with an increase in sea levels. He doesn’t use that graph anymore i’ve noticed.
Well, he published it, but I breathlessly await a prolonged line of invective in the replies. In particular, I am hoping one of the winged monkeys falls for my use of the fallling Arctic sea-ice graph in a post about rising sea-levels. Of course, the two aren’t related; I simply wanted to highlight Bolt’s cherry-picking again.
I am going to have to admit now that the Gunman in Fort Hood is a Muslim (not that that makes a blind bit of difference) and of course Andrew is crowing and wondering why no one else jumped in so quickly. It is possible other news organisations wanted confirmation before using a mans name to classify him and may have been waiting for the facts.
In todays offerings we have Andrew claiming this as Rudd’s rant
“The do-nothing climate change sceptics are still alive and well in the coalition,” Mr Rudd said….
“The argument that we must not act until others do is an argument that has been used by political cowards since time immemorial both of the left and the right. They are reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence.
“You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science.”
Pretty mild I would have thought, or is anything andrew disagrees with a “rant”?
Andy’s donned his Persecuted Man hat again.
Always with the OTT hysteria. Some days his blog is comedy central.
UPDATE: Sunday free-to-air line-ups courtesy of Your Sunday Morning TV – follow the link for Sky and more FTA schedules:
Marr vs Akerbilk might be amusing on Insiders. I’ll earmark that one. Be nice also to hear what Jack the Insider sounds like….
A few weeks ago I went to Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo. I posted a lot of pics to Twitter during the day (using my phone’s camera) and have just uploaded a few of the better pics from my proper camera. You can check them out here.
For someone who has described the Prime Minister as Insane
“This man’s insane. But on he goes, making a fool of himself:” to not understanding that when he says “Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew, Janet – stop gambling with our future.” he is in fact referring to Andrew Robb the Liberal shadow Climate change cynic, sorry minister.
Is Andrew Bolt really saying the PM has singled him out? And for him to rail “And Rudd claims that I, the father of three, am so vicious that I would rather spite him than save my children:” is pure hypocrisy, this is just what he says about anyone on the other side of this questions. I don’t have children but can still care about the future and wish to leave the world slightly better than I found it.
As for the bit at the end about the iceberg, YES Andrew the reason Icebergs are showing up in places they never used to is because the sea is warming and the currents changing with that warming. Surely he has a graph of icebergs?????
What about a graph of the number of times
A separate thought, in the garden of Eden (according to the Bible) everyone was Vegetarian, god didn’t let man eat meat till Noah had survived the flood.
So when someone poo-poos the idea that to save the planet we might consider giving up meat you can ask them why they don’t want to live in the garden of Eden?
#25
It’s long past time for Bolt to be held to account for his stance on AGW. Bolt hides behind the tag of “sceptic” because he believes that gives him the right to just be critical and heckle the science from the sides. But Bolt does much more than that – he outright dismisses AGW as an issue needing mitigation. For Bolt, the science is settled.
And don’t believe for a second that Bolt isn’t trying (albeit in the absence of any scientific expertise or accountability) to put forward theory of his own. Bolt’s theory, whether stated or not is that: If there is waming, it won’t adversely effect the planet and it will not continue. This is built around a very unscientific and naive approach that one can just dismiss a scientific model if it doesn’t perfectly agree with one’s perception of how the model effects other parameters.
Bolt needs to be confronted in an open forum where he can be subjected to questioning from a scientific panel. He has put himself forward as an expert and as an advocate (for example witness his arrgoant and contemptuous dismissal of Annabel Crabb on TV) and now he needs to be held to account.
The question is: How? Bolt refuses to answer any questions put to him on his blog. I have been doing so for 2 years now and, ironically given his claims that the pro-AGW side refuses to debate, he will not answer. He leaves it to his commenters to write rubbish as a response – a lot of it falsehoods that are unchallenged and uncorrected.
I’d suggest that someone like Barry Brooks should challenge him to a debate and let Australia see just how much Bolt really does understand about climate science. How about it Barry?
Insiders has Piers back on. OMG. Didn’t they have to scrub the website the last time they had him on so they didn’t get sued for defamation?
It will be very interesting to see how he behaves this time.
The problem is that trying to counter the one-liner talking points of denialists with actual scientific information isn’t suited to the format of a debate – as some have discovered when they debate Plimer. The best thing for experts to do is to ignore the ignorant bleatings of the unqualified hacks and instead work with government to try and get policy change. Once the CPRS is passed it won’t matter what bolt and fellow denialists have to say about climate change. He doesn’t get any traction on the stolen generations stuff since Rudd gave the apology: climate change will be the same in my opinion.
Totally agree which is why I won’t be watching. Until the show can find 3 pannelists each week who are non-partisan and contribute sensible, genuine insider stuff instead of recycling each others columns from the week past, or gossip mongering, it can’t possibly be a serious political affairs show.
Surly – Yes the Fort Hood gunman was a Muslim. Timothy McVeigh WASN’T a Muslim, as the Rodriguez shooter today wasn’t. I don’t think you should back down. The fact that this man was a Muslim proves absolutely nothing – YET. It may in the future, but right now – no. The dogwhistling on this from Bolt and Blair has been an absolute disgrace; and the response from their lunatic boosters even more so.
MonkeyWrench – yep, somebody fell for it. In passing, if that Isobar was ever a meteorologist then I’m the Crown Prince of Prussia in exile. Somebody really should call the little chaps in the white coats to catch that fellow.
surlysimon@30: “So when someone poo-poos the idea that to save the planet we might consider giving up meat you can ask them why they don’t want to live in the garden of Eden?”
My answer, obviously, is: Because I wouldn’t get to eat meat.
” Insiders has Piers back on. OMG.
Totally agree which is why I won’t be watching. ”
I’m with you, what are the ABC thinking? Ah well, beautiful morning, think I’ll go for a ride, maybe I should thank the ABC for motivating me to get of my arse and have some fun!
Just what is Swan looking at and Rudd laughing about?
http://images.nationaltimes.com.au/2009/11/07/843255/ind_ruddlaugh1-300×200.jpg
The wingnuts strike again, this time in relation to the US health care affordability bill:
These amendments all get argued under the guise of ‘pro-life’. I’m sorry, but you can’t call yourself a pro-life advocate if you push for legislative provisions that mean a risk to actual human life.
RobJ @36
Good move as Piers was at his odious worse. “The point is”, “the point is”, “the point is”, “the point is”…
Yet in every single case the point wasn’t.
And what is it with the morning news/entertainment shows all quoting the Newspoll as being definitive quoting it’s reported 7% drop as “The POLLS”. It was one poll at odds with other polls taken at the same time and another taken a few days after, it wasn’t THE POLLS. I have absolutely no doubt by the time the election comes around the numbers will be a lot closer between the government and opposition as this government’s and Rudd’s unprecedented run is unrealistic and unsustainable, but why do the so called credible news agencies report one rogue poll as the decline whilst ignoring all other polls? Do they think misreporting will somehow lessen Rudd’s popularity?
They really do treat Australian people as mugs don’t they, and wonder why they are in decline and why the opposition is on the nose, when it is they who are the mugs and the Australian people are smarter than they give them credit for.
From the BoltHades Forum today (page two):
1735099 replied to Shelley
Sun 08 Nov 09 (07:01am)
You can only get out there and say whatever you like, as it should be, if you agree with our PM(or are our PM). Any doubt at all and our PM will be screeching at you in a public speech, ridiculing you for being sceptical, and branding you a denier.
Substitute “Bolt” for “our PM” and it applies here.
So much for free speech
PeterTB replied to Shelley
Sun 08 Nov 09 (08:15am)
I didn’t notice you had been banned from here Numbers. In fact AB seems to let you indilge in plenty of your flights of fancy.
ANDREW REPLIES: From today, though, I’ll probably snip most of his contributions. They are increasinging irrational, abusive and mindlessly oppositional. They drag down the tone of the blog, and I and the moderators are tired of having to carefully read each of his comments to distinguish the foul from the barely permissable. Easier to ban completely and do what he’s accused of us for so long anyway.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ohh Lord. NOW I’ve heard it all.
I didn’t think that blog could sink any lower into the ooze, but it’s managed just that over the last two days.
And the creature rabbits on about irrational and oppositional and imagines that his creation HAS any tone in the first place.
bertus @ 40: interesting given on page 1 there’s this comment:
Yes I do. Comments that denigrate the majority of moderate, law-abidiing muslims by the actions of a few: acceptable. Comments that challenge Bolt’s interpretation of issues: not acceptable.
piers’ obsession with david marr’s sexuality (piers comment of “well i am not as acquainted with the inhabitants of bumcreek”, or something along those lines) shows his absolute close mindedness and backwardness. david is not continously bringing up that piers is overweight if not obese, and also has a face somewhat like a monkeys’s ass, because these are not important issues.
piers should not be allowed back on the abc.
Confessions: “Until the show can find 3 pannelists each week who are non-partisan and contribute sensible, genuine insider stuff instead of recycling each others columns from the week past, or gossip mongering, it can’t possibly be a serious political affairs show.”
Hahahhahahahaaaaa. You really mean, until the show dumps all conservative panellists…. it can’t possibly be a serious political affairs show.
By the way, how goes that letter-writing campaign of yours demanding the removal of Bolt, Blair, Ackerman from the ABC?? Just askin…
Further to my post @ #20….
A bolt commentator pays us a compliment.”
Scroll down about one third of the way to my post, and read the replies.
…”Pity that egregious caitiff Ziegler doesn’t extend the same moderation courtesy to his own little patch of webshite.”
It hardly surprises that such moderation courtesy wouldn’t extend to the likes of Jay Santos. His abusive invective can seemingly only be tolerated in the foetid environment of the Bolt blog. Interesting to note, though, that he must sit in a sweat of feverish rage whenever he notices a name from his list of Pure Poison contributors. It must be a bit like World of Warcraft for the poor creature. He needs to get out in the fresh air more often.
Piers Ackermonkey: “I don’t believe in the UN.” Beautiful.
Turnbull media aide resigns over Hitler Youtube video:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/turnbull-adviser-quits-over-hitler-video-20091107-i2vw.html
Any wagers on this being commented on by AkerBlairBolt?
From the article bertus links to:
Coverage of this should make an interesting contrast to what has been written about the turnover in the PM’s (and Governor-General’s) staff.
I’m tipping *crickets chirping*.
I do love this however on the federal loan to Hardie industries:
Of course Bolt wouldn’t dare suggest it was wrong to ensure the victims compensation fund had sufficient funding to cover claims, but his hysterical obsession with demonising Rudd means he simply must find a way to attack him for it.
Confessions – the James Hardie post was simply…..well, words fail me. The attacks really are becoming more and more unhinged; and not only just from Bolt. Todays Aker thread contained some extraordinary things. As I’ve said before, I really can’t believe I share this great country with some of these loons.
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