Weekend Talk Thread
Budget week comes to a close, so let’s jump into a weekend talk thread.
On the tele this Sunday at 8:35am we have Laurie Oakes interviewing Tony Abbott. Barrie Cassidy will interview Wayne Swan on Insiders, with Laura Tingle, Lenore Taylor and Michael Stutchbury on the panel.
In case you haven’t heard it yet, here’s Tony Abbott telling 3AW’s Niel Mitchell that he’s going to be a wimp rather than answer a question.
My burning question this weekend; can we get to Monday without another Fairfax journo misbehaving on twitter?
Have at it.
UPDATE: Mike Bowers informs us that Stutchbury is out, to be replaced by Andrew Bolt.
I wonder why none of the mainstream media are taking the long handle to Abbott’s promise to ditch the broadband rollout. Surely it must be apparent to them that this would consign Australia to the broadband wilderness; yet there seems to be little comment on it as yet.
Yes, everyone’s been circulating that 3AW interview – I’ve had it emailed to me twice today already. Leigh Sales announced via twitter that in “Lateline land” Mark Arbib and Julie Bishop are on tonight. Defininately worth missing: annoying git vs ice princess. Ugh!
“Say what you like about John Howard and Peter Costello but they didn’t shirk the hard reform and they didn’t need to hit miners with extra tax to generate a surplus. Their surpluses were the result of tough decisions, not new taxes.”
The above being part of the Tony Abbott budget reply speech.
What about the Goods and Services Tax, Tones, and a “new” one at that? Did any press guru pick him up for the most blatant of lies?
mw
coz their advertising $$$ go out the window. The distinct lack of enthusiasm for the NBN (which is an absolute no-brainer…especially at the revised costs) is because there isn’t anything IN IT for them…
News Limited has been ordered to pay $580,000 [plus damages] to the sacked editor-in-chief of Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper, Bruce Guthrie.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/14/2899549.htm
This is nice:
“Supreme Court Judge John Kaye also found News Limited Chief, John Hartigan, was not a credible witness.”
See, for most people that would sting. I wonder.
monkeywrench @1
Maybe they just don’t see anything in it for them?
Belinda Neal will not be upstaged by Fairfax journos.
UPDATE: Mike Bowers informs us that Stutchbury is out, to be replaced by Andrew Bolt.
Thanks for *another* reason to rather do the washing on Sunday morning, TheirABC.
Bolt on Insiders. Nice “balance” there, ABC. And love the News Ltd infiltration of the “public” media.
Back to this thing:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_when_even_the_swiss_seem_scary_were_in_strife/
Generally speaking, I agree that there’s occasionally some silly hype. But a lot of what he’s talking about there is completely generic – it appears on the travel advice for EVERY country, not just “abba’s sweden”. It’s not country-specific, which he doesn’t exactly make clear in his article. And he’s hanging the following on DFAT?
Hasn’t he seen this?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/13/2899017.htm
or this?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/14/2900004.htm
Ok, that second story came a bit late, but interviews with people in the capital make it pretty clear that anyone with a grain of sense is being very careful about where they go and in what circumstances. If I were heading to bangkok with my family right now, and had the option of easily putting it off, I think I’d put it off. That’s hardly unreasonable advice now that bullets have started flying. What morally serious journalist could conclude otherwise?
The theme of the thread is what bruce schneier calls “CYA” security – i.e. Cover Your …. Bruce covers this problem a great deal, and in an much more credible way than that article. The general problem is that nobody wants to be the guy whose name is alongside the decision to ignore a risk, however small, regardless of the inconvenience or cost to others, however large. That personal risk is enormous because of the way certain parties measure risk after-the-fact, often for political reasons. Now … who does that sound like?
I personally think it’s opportunistic commentators like AB who DRIVE that sort of decision making. Cast our collective mind back to the victorian bushfires and his selective, outraged coverage. Personally I think that proves my case, but I don’t think I’ll find it hard to find scores of articles about asylum seekers, crime and certain community groups which bash that CYA button as hard as anyone can.
Call it what you like, but if his commenters didn’t gag on the irony then they’ve been lobotomised.
HERE’s a good article about security thinking.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/worst-case_thin.html
That’s common sense, not rabble-rousing driven by a need for “page impressions”
Matthew of Canberra@11,12
Bolt’s blog isn’t geared to a careful, prolonged consideration of the facts. It’s porn for the congenitally enraged: a quick splash of inflammation, and then on to the next subject to make Mr. or Mrs. Greyhead go bananas. So it’s unlikely that any of his regular luvvies might pause to question whether there is any difference in what the Australian DFAT advises vs. the same departments of other nations. Faux outrage for a faux commentator.
Andy’s really proud that Tony is spouting a fatuous line he and one of his readers think they came up with:
“Rudd raises the tax on cigarettes and claims that it will give people more incentive to quit. Yet somehow raising tax on mining profits wont have the same effect on the mining industry.”
Because one’s a tax on expenditure and one’s a tax on revenue? Because it’s just one more reason for smokers to quit, whereas the resources tax still leaves mining companies with 60% of the above-ordinary profits?
Only in Bolt-land would the above seem like a killer point.
Just watching the budget reply now (sorry – have to earn a living). Oh wow. Big Tone’s talking about paid parental leave. Sheeze that must be hurting.
It’s not often I’ll be linking to the OO, but this one’s too good not to share.
“Abbott’s Battlers”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gallery-e6frg6zx-1111119669474?page=2
I just watched Julie Bishop introduce Abbott before todays speech, and it nearly cost me my dinner.
Surly,
Did she turn the tables on him and introduce him as “a loyal boy”?
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/6536726/julie-bishop-the-loyal-girl/
Bolt’s blog [is] porn for the congenitally enraged: a quick splash of inflammation, and then on to the next subject to make Mr. or Mrs. Greyhead go bananas.
That made me choke on my cheap wine. Noice.
Exactly. But you know as well as I do that logic and facts are foreign entities in tabloid land. John Quiggin’s take on the tax for another economist’s perspective.
Wow. Andrew CAN do comedy.
“The retreat from reason”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_retreat_from_reason/
There are two things noteworthy here – one is that he’s rehashing an old story, which has been well and truly put in its place before, on his own blog, by people of reason – specifically me.
The (IMHO) hillarious thing is that he’s quoting as PROOF of this retreat from reason … melanie phillips. Any other commentator would be referring to phillips AS the retreat from reason, but not Andrew. He thinks she’s the good oil. He doesn’t seem to realize (or perhaps care) just how much rubbish she says and writes. It was actually a post of mine, pointing out the childishness of melanie phillips’ tripe about richard dawkins’ “pope nazi” comment that started the whole process that led to me “leaving” the AB blog. You can find that (and his response) here:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/03/15/open-thread-march-15-19/comment-page-2/#comment-23936
I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7721580/Britains-first-female-Muslim-Cabinet-minister-Baroness-Warsi-brightens-up-Downing-Street.html
I reckon her eyes must be sticking out on little stalks right now, peering around for any outrage she can use to pin the decline of britain on baroness warsi.
What next – quoting the ayatollahs on a thread about the decline of religion?
For those who haven’t seen it, I found this very entertaining. I’ve watched it several times, and it’s still funny.
Lewis Black (“Back In Black”) on The Daily Show, getting stuck in to glenn beck’s obsession with calling people nazis.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black—glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s
Noel Pearson has an excellent article in the OZ today about the need for economic reform for indigenous Australian communities and how important this is to preserve cultural and linguistic heritage.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/challenges-of-the-first-world/story-e6frg6zo-1225866999570
He draws important distinction between the lifestyle, economies and cultural life of indigenous Australian’s compared to PNG people. He makes the telling point that across the world cultural and linguistic diversity is being maintained (in places like PNG) because the lifestyles around which these cultures exist continue and traditional economic life continues. It continues not just by these people’s choice but of necessity. The economic livelihood of these societies is intimately connected with their lifestyle and traditional cultural forms.
Having lived in both PNG and NT communities I think Mr Pearson makes some very valid points.
Was it just me that noticed Abbott’s gripe in his budget reply that he will not go ahead,if elected,with the government’s super clinics because they are unfair competition to private clinics?If this is so will he also close public hospitals because of their unfair competition with private hospitals?
Hey, wow, check this – BIG NEWS!
“HALF a million drivers will be hit by a new $540 million excise on LPG that was hidden in the fine print of the budget”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dont_mention_the_tax/
And when did we learn of this new tax? Maybe back in 2006?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/buyers-rush-to-lpg/2006/08/09/1154802962908.html
Nope. I think we actually heard about it back in 2003:
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2003-04/04rn44.htm
Agreed, there’s been no big hullabaloo. But nobody who installed an LPG conversion can seriously claim they didn’t know this was coming. Everyone knew it was coming – and it’s arriving right on schedule.
Here’s how hard it was to find out about the LPG excise. Go to the budget home page (yes, it’s online) and search for “LPG”. Man, that’s devious. Here it is:
http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/search.asp?searchString=LPG&Submit=Submit&Submit=Search
Here’s what it says:
I don’t think they were all that devious about hiding it from people interested in an LPG excise that was scheduled years ago to arrive in 2011. It’s been online since the 11th. It was reported on the 13th. I’m surprised that it took them so long to type “LPG” into the search field. It’s hardly “buried” when you’ve got a search engine.
Matthew @ 25: Yet another instance of Bolt manipulating his readers by not disclosing the full facts behind the issue. While he continues to get away with it, no doubt he will continue doing so.
And in case I haven’t said so in the past, I really appreciate your comments here.
Aww confessions. Thanks, man. I love you guys
This is just bizarre:
“How she spoke today was the greatest part of her voyage”
Does this guy have any imagination AT ALL? 210 days at sea, alone in a small boat. That, for me, is utterly terrifying – probably because I’d have no idea what I’m doing, but not andrew, he’s magellan reincarnate. Running the boat and effecting repairs unaided? Nope – andrew also happens to be macgyver. Fixing her own freakin’ motor with a retrofitted water pump to push fuel – that REALLY wowed me. I’m a fan now, but not andrew. That’s a yawn for him, the renowned seafaring diesel mechanic that he is. I was also pretty darn impressed when she shrugged of the bagging of her record attempt with a hearty “nyeah”. But that’s nothing for andrew – we’re all well-acquainted with his stoic, philosophical acceptance of criticism or let-downs.
What really gets andrew’s tear-ducts quivering? You’ll never guess – but it’s our heroine talking down a compliment from kevin rudd:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_she_spoke_today_was_the_greatest_part_of_her_voyage/
If only she’d known. She could have just done a spot on the opera house steps, slagged the PM and gone back on with her life. No need to get all cold and wet at all.
Note: I can’t REALLY claim that andrew wasn’t impressed by her overall feat. What gets me rolling my eyes is that the whole sailing thing was, to him, LESS impressive (that’s what he wrote) than giving a good interview (and dissing the PM). That’s breathtaking.
The moment I saw that…it was an immediate and obvious free kick (hopefully not intended) to looniest of the right.
Other than that…nice girl and all…good job, but the media frenzy is absolutely loathsome and like most of these ‘events’ ultimately whatever positive ‘message’ might be gained from it starts to turn into something completely different.
The fact that bolt was in so quick is only a mark of his sheer revolting political blindness.
Yeah, andrew was right. DFAT’s travel warning about thailand was just ridiculous
I mean, who could have seen THIS coming?
“A group of Australians is trapped in an area of central Bangkok that is now locked down by fighting between protesters and government forces.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/15/2900399.htm
DFAT should really apologise for making a mistake like that. It’s what AB would do.
Miranda Devine has another foul column today where a “contraceptive culture” is blamed for a decline in fertility rates in developed and many developing countries.
She obviously forgets (or perhaps doesn’t know) that the decline in fertility rate, particularly in the developing countries she cites is more likely due to decreasing poverty, and an increase in the education and labour force participation of women.
She also makes the spurious declaration that children are regarded as a nuisance and a burden in Australia. This is news to me, my family, and all of my friends who have happily reproduced. She also cites someone who claims there are 43 billion abortions worldwide every year. Is it just me, or does this figure seem excessive?
Confessions, she seems to have done a Barnaby – a quick search suggests that most estimates place the number of abortions worldwide at 42-46 million per year (e.g., Wikipedia cites a study estimating the 1995 incidence at 46 million).
Also of interest – the “Us conservative writer” whose speech she was citing is Don Feder, who founded the group Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation and has written charming statements like this:
And the speech she cited was delivered at Warrane College, a males-only residence of UNSW under the pastoral care of Opus Dei.
In short, as much as Miranda might try to couch her concerns about the declining birth rate in public policy terms, there’s an undertone of fear about the decline of Christian values and the fact that other groups are “outbreeding” good Australian Christian folks. Seems to be a common theme among the conservative columnists these days.
Bolt has jumped the shark”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_tribe_of_the_age_has_spoken/
How dare these people not respond how I want them to? The must be a tribe.
Bolt April 1st.” Climate change happening before your eyes!
Six weeks later… yes, Andrew, right before our eyes. I put this point to his blog yeaterday, half way down the page but it seems that no-one has a reply to offer, even one of the usual stupid kind. (“Well it’s summer and ice melts in summer, duh.”)
quantize @28
You’ll like this, then
“Please God – keep her safe from the predators of the left.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_she_spoke_today_was_the_greatest_part_of_her_voyage/P20/#3344381
TZ: thanks. I thought the 43b was a bit much – 6b people in the world, with roughly half women, and not all of childbearing age – I wonder if alarm bells went off for her when she was typing it?
As to the Opus Dei connections and the extremist views of the man she quotes, there was a faint Us vs Them odour about her article. Clearly, disclosing the full details would make it that bit more obvious that she’s just pushing a social agenda after all. How surprisement that she chose not to disclose this to her readers.
I’m pondering a neologism. I’m calling it “The Bolt Window”. It’s the period of time in which a keen rabble-rouser can take advantage of early, slanted reports of an incident in order to whip up outrage and, well, click some page impressions. The period ends when there’s enough information available to the casual googler to recognize the story as a load of rubbish.
That story about DFAT’s travel warnings had a bolt window of about 10 minutes. His string of “exposes” about the IPCC weren’t much longer. I recall some stories which had a bolt window of about a week (although I’d have to do some searching to find them). I tend to assume that somebody’s counting on the AGW Bolt Window to be approaching a figure we can call “retirement”
This story has a difficult Bolt Window to calculate:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/a_sandwich_short/
It’s actually the story that got me thinking about this. On May 3, every single news source, barring one, were parroting the same story. One local paper bothered to speak to the childcare center, and whoa – we get a slightly different story:
http://www.wigantoday.net/news/nursery_in_sandwich_health_row_1_757984
So it was arguably debunkable straight away. But only if you believe the one newspaper that, you know, bothered to investigate. Since then, no other news source seems to have taken a critical line – they’re STILL parroting the bulltish version of the story. That’s a pity, because it was my Bolt Window test case and the media failed me totally.
Here’s why the Bolt Window is significant: Because stories only stay on the front page for a short period, and getting a comment on any other stories is quite hard – and somewhat pointless. So the bolt window needs to be longer than the time it takes for a story to scroll off the front page, to minimize the chances of looking like, well, not a journalist. If it’s longer than the attention span of the readers (less than a week, I’d say), then it’s a winner.
Confessions, I think she must have been to the same accounting school barnyard went to where ‘billions’ and ‘millions’ can be interchanged without harming their arguments. It is all crap anyway!
Of all the media organisations bar Crikey, only Fairfax is willing to put Captain Underpants under scrutiny.
Concerned bloggers could help by distributing these links onto other blogs, including at News Ltd and their ABC. Since we know News Ltd and their ABC are loath to question Abbott’s fitness for office.
Sydney Morning Herald, 15 May 2010:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/visiting-hours-are-over-kev-time-to-get-back-on-the-job-20100514-v4co.html
___
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/abbotts-cynical-war-against-his-past/1830926.aspx
What do we make of this ….
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/if_only_the_protests_against_these_protests_were_bigger/
Check out that first picture – andrew’s taken it from the daily telegraph. The image-matching search engine “tinyeye” finds 31 instances of that image on teh webz. Where it originally came from is hard (without some more work) to know. But it appears to be at least 3.5 years old, and therefore predates any protest that occurred in 2007:
http://drzz.over-blog.org/article-4120199.html
(can any francophiles check the text of that? Babel’s not working today, but it’s obviously talking about denmark, not sweden – therefore, not lars vilks)
It’s basically a stock “crazy muslims” picture these days. That’s fine and all, but including it in the way that they have, the tele has turned one protest into two protests – and gives the impression that the photo is something that it isn’t. It appears to me to be a protest about the jyllands-posten cartoons, which happened over a year before lars drew his cartoons, and were essentially unrelated. Which means that the tele’s caption on that photo is a bit …. interesting:
“Protesters call for heads of European cartoonists, including Lars Lars Vilks, whose depictions of Mohammed inflamed Muslims ”
Righto. So how many times can we use photos of one protest to describe another? Wasn’t there some sort of big fuss about people substituting photos in a place called lebanon?
Now, I could be wrong. I haven’t followed this business closely. But it does seem to me that somebody’s taken a completely unrelated (but VERY sexy) photo and rebirthed it by adding a bit of extra (and incorrect) text to the caption to make it seem connected to the story at hand. I’m going to be searching more of these pictures. I have a feeling that this might not be an isolated instance.
If asylum seekers were Boers coming over from South Africa on rickety boats would Andrew Bolt be shouting “Let them in! Let them in!”?
Andrew Bolt on ‘Insiders’ this morning seems to have accidentally outed himself, Tony Abbott & the climate change sceptics/deniers as “bullies” when referring to Rudd’s fired up response to Kerry O’Brien’s grilling over the ETS delay/backdown.
Bolt: “The passion was an attempt to overcome the fact that there was no substance…I agree…I don’t think it was a meltdown…but I do think it was a sign that the attack is getting to him…and it’s like any playground confrontation, when someone starts crying the bully knows that he’s got him and will go in even harder…and that’s what’s gonna happen.”
Hmmm…
N’
I’m also beginning to wonder if the Liberal’s grand paid parental scheme will ever see the light of day if abbott wins government, going by Andrew Bolt’s comments on ‘Insiders’ this morning:
Bolt: “That’s exactly the point, that’s the one issue is really now hurting him (Abbott) in terms of economic credibility, is that…is that parental leave scheme…ya know, if only the Shadow Cabinet had been able to put a kibosh on that before (unintelligible)…they’re not going to make that mistake twice are they?”
Makes ya wonder…if this is how the influential Lib supporters feel about it…
Seems to me the Libs are full of crap.
N’
nasking @43
I have no inside knowledge, but I would be astonished if TA went ahead with that. I was surprised to see him even mention it in his budget reply. Maybe the minor parties can negotiate a settlement – parents can get paid to stay home, but if it’s a woman she has to remain barefoot and stay in the kitchen.
For the record, I’m inclined to think Rudd’s “meltdown” was just as likely to have been staged. Yes, I am that cynical.
confessions @30
I just read your post. I nearly snorted coke through my nose[1]. Yes, 43 billion abortions is a WEE bit on the high side. That’s 7 abortions each, per year, for every man, woman and child. Even 43 million is (IMHO) an EXTREMELY high estimate. I once extrapolated from the south australian stats (the only oz stats available at the time – that might have changed) and came up with a credible figure of about 75,000 p.a. in australia (a couple of years old now). That’s become my “sanity check figure” since. Assuming the whole world is as bad as adelaide (where the churches are all nightclubs now, abortions aren’t hard to come by, and the culture is reasonably accepting of both facts) then that would mean about 22 million p.a globally. The “accepted” figure of 43 million is double that. That’s a bit odd.
Australia’s actually no slouch when it comes to abortions – I believe we’re (pro rata) well ahead of the US. We’re hardly abortion “prudes”. So if the world abortion rate really is twice that of (poor little old) adelaide, then the world has a SERIOUS problem with managing its contraception and family planning. That’s a lot of desperation in them there figures. I can’t be bothered looking, but I’m betting miranda didn’t take home that message.
I’m all for getting abortion rates down. The Forces Of Good can do anything they like and it’s fine by me – provided it’s not by browbeating women or making it harder to get abortions. Nobody is “pro” abortion. No non-psychopath wants to see more fetuses killed. It’s just that some of us have done the math and worked out that there’s a massive downside to taking the prohibition route. We’ve been there, and we know what happens.
[1] That’s the coka-cola kind coke, with the registered name ….
nasking@42
Bolt has already published a blog today asking his suckholers if he’s “too nice on Insiders” and should go the biff a bit more. I reckon he should , and I reckon Lenore Taylor might relish the chance to put the silly little boy in his place.
Matthew: yes, as Toby says, a Barnaby moment from Devine!
monkeywrench @46
Yeah, I saw that. Playground stuff. He can do as much biff as he wants – he’ll just end up looking like a goose. This is just a way of telling his fans how much tougher he COULD be … if he really wanted to, you know. Some of AB’s opponents’ most lasting material has been the result of andrew going the biff. Lets have more of it, I say. Keep telling people he “studies” AGW and sooner or later somebody’s going to asking him what the average atmospheric pressure is at sea level, or what element makes up most of our atmosphere, or anything like that and we’ll all fall off our couches laughing at the bluster.
I followed the twitter coverage of Insiders today rather than watch it live. I hate it when Andy gets on there and talks over people as he so often does, and therefore do not endorse a ‘go harder’ approach from him.
I still haven’t forgotten his bellicose behaviour towards pregnant women in Crabb and Schubert. As a woman it is very off-putting to see a man verballing another woman. Thankfully Crabb can give it back, but it still isn’t a good look for a show that wants to be serious competition to the other Sunday morning political shows to be utilising the ‘services’ of someone who is so prone to ego-driven boorishness towards his fellow journalistic colleagues. Sensible Bolt is far preferable to Hysterical Bolt.
Matthew of Canberra @ 47
I couldn’t agree more. Bolt playin’ tough fella in the playground on ‘Insiders’ is hilarious to watch. He just ends up lookin’ like the bully he seems to have outed himself as (see comment 41), talkin’ over others, mockin’ & getting snarky.
monkeywrench @ 45
I don’t think Laura Tingle would cop his “biff” tactics. She seemed pretty confident & no-nonsense today. I was impressed by her “balanced” approach. Bolt seemed dehydrated & shaken in some way. Ill perhaps. Or nervy? I imagine the news of Lib Peter Dutton’s BHP purchases after the announcement by Labor of the Resource Tax didn’t go down well.
BTW, Abbott looked like he’d been struck by a mallet on the head when queried by Laurie Oakes on ‘Sunday’ about the issue.
Matthew@47…totally agree, he’s cultivated this persona of “Mr. Downright”, banging his fist on the table and telling everyone how things are, to the point where I think the likes of Cassidy are a bit afraid of him. It would be wondrously pleasant to see Lenore and Annabel Crabb taking his little Dutch pants down and whacking his arse.