Don’t expect a Walkley for this scoop

Like all the journos he is travelling with, the News Corp’s Gerard McManus and his editor has to justify the expenses of travelling with Prime Minister Rudd by supplying us with stories in the newspaper and web site.

With the Opposition’s claim that Rudd has all but destroyed Australia’s relations with Japan in tatters, a successful announcement of the hybrid Camry production, McManus had to file something today, so he could sit at the bar of the Tokyo Hyatt tonight satisfied that he has done his job for today.

So what story did McManus file to enlighten us about Mr Rudd’s trip to one of our most important trading partners?

Therese Rein loses mobile cool at Japan’s Imperial Palace

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd and his wife Therese Rein met the Japanese Emperor today, amid a flustered moment of mobile phone etiquette.

Moments before meeting Emperor Akihito, Mrs Rein was forced to hand over her mobile in front of the grand main entrance of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
Presumably concerned that an unexpected call might interrupt the solemn meeting, she hurriedly pulled the mobile from her bag and handed it to Australia’s ambassador to Japan, Murray Mclean.
The royal visit is Mr Rudd’s first official engagement in Tokyo, after two days in Hiroshima, Kyoto and Nagoya.
So far, Mr Rudd has not been asked about Australia’s hardline stance on Japanese whaling and his visit has attracted minimal local media attention.
That could change when Mr Rudd fronts Japan’s National Press Club in the late afternoon.

What the fuck man? So Therese realises she better not have her mobile phone on her in case it goes off in the royal palace, hands it to the Australian ambassador and the Herald Sun all but describe it as a gaffe. Give us a real story or come home Gerard.

I don’t always agree with the comments to Herald Sunstories, but Jane McMahon of Werribee was spot on by saying: “PM’s Wife Hands Over Mobile. Oh yeah, that’s a great story. What a waste of bandwidth.”

And this comment by Andrew of Melbourne; “Once I totally forgot to turn my mobile off during a movie. I realised my hilarious gaffe about 20 minutes in and turned it off. It had not yet rung. I submitted this awesome story to at least 12 newsagencies, none of whom ran with the story. I ask you: WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.”

Herald Sun’s nasty Eurovision spoiler (safe to view)

What were the online editors at Heraldsun.com.au thinking by splashing a headline declaring the winner of the Eurovision song contest, hours before it was to be shown on Australian television?

Pic censored by Club Wah

The Age online showed it can be reported in a way that doesn’t spoil the result for the few who take it seriously and the many who have a lot of fun with it and boo at the ridiculous voting system. The beauty of online journalism is you can hide things behind a hyperlink.

For the Herald Sun website to reveal the result in a way where you could not avoid it shows either sheer stupidity, ignorance or simple mean spiritness.

If you want to know who won, click here.

 

 

Where’s the fear and loathing about this gang?

Police believe a gang is responsible for several vicious assaults and robberies in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The latest victim was an Indian student, who was bashed unconscious by a group of up to four men.

Interestingly The Age describes the alleged gang as “Caucasian and aged in their late teens or early 20s”.

Meanwhile the Herald Sun describes the gang as “believed to be in their late teens”. Do you think the Herald Sun would have omitted the physical description if they were Asian, Middle Eastern or African?

Of course the lack of any ethnic angle to this story, apart from the poor victim, also means the nut jobs who, I’m sure would have been quick to fill the comments section with calls for deportations, are noticeably absent, almost two hours after the story went online at 12.50pm.

In fact at 2.35pm there were just two comments including one along the lines of this post, and another highlighting problems in Noble Park.

Go figure.

UPDATE: Comments have started rolling in (it’s 3.30pm), mostly by people calling on Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon to be sacked, or having a dig at the Victorian Government’s obsession with speed cameras - are they saying the civilians who man speed cameras could be out there catching muggers?

UPDATE 2 The Herald Sun newspaper has run the story this morning on page 17 with a picture of the poor, brutally injured victim. I may be stretching my cynicism here but they describe the offenders as “olive skinned, caucasian and in their late teens”. There are no editorials or comment pieces about this story, as there no doubt would be - and has been - if suggested this was an “ethnic gang”. 

That’s nice dear

From the choices below, fill the in blank from the first par of this story from the Herald Sun.

Melbourne model Kelly Landry has beaten a strong field of starlets to win the prize role of …………

A) Australia’s Ambassador to the United Nations

B) UNICEF Ambassador

C) Face of Tourism Australia

D) Apprentice of the Year

E) Letter spinner on Wheel of Fortune

If you guessed E you were correct. Women have really come a long way and so has the Herald Sun in its never-ending quest for a decent local angle.

 

Time to out some racist fucktards

I remember once throwing my absolute guts out after a night on the beers, Southern Comfort and 13 shots of Tequila with dangerous amounts of Tabasco sauce to the point that I could have sworn that I was blowing chunks through my tear ducts. As I lay in a laneway in the wee hours, attracting dew, I heard a group of people coming and begged them to kick the shit out of me to end the pain. They kindly took me back to my friends and as I wiped the bile off my face to look as presentable as I could I vowed then and fucking there to never, ever drink again.

The next day I drank half a slab watching the Grand Prix.

It’s like this with the Herald Sun web site comments section - which is binge drinking from a cask of Fruity Lexia for the mind and sees you mentally spewing out bile in return, which is the mind’s way of rejecting this shit without doing permanent damage - with the added bonus of feeling pretty good once you’ve let it all out. And while you vow never to read them again, you do.

So here I am now cracking open some Herald Sun comment and skulling it down on an empty stomach ready to see what comes up. WARNING LANGUAGE MAY OFFEND

The topic? The taxi driver protest in Melbourne. To be fair, a lot of people were sympathetic to the driver’s concerns and worried about their safety and the racial abuse they cop every night. Sadly not everyone shared this opinion.

 Its bad enough I lost my job to an overseas worker willing to work for under $10 an hour (true story) But get real what do these cab drivers want a police escort to ride gunshot with them Its not the fault of the police as to what happened ,no amount of policing could have stopped this random attack. Driving a taxi is your choice if you believe its too dangerous dont do it.
Posted by: Scarletinfidel of Melbourne 10:27am today

No, they don’t want a police escort you fucking “theytukarjarbs”dip shit. What they do want is police to respond when they feel threatened and to treat anyone who fucks of without paying a fare as a thief. This random attack you speak of has a young man in a coma and is one of 400 violent attacks in a year, including one which left another young student dead. You say to them not to do it if they think it’s dangerous as though they enjoy driving around at 4am being abused by drunken shitheads and wondering which one of these cunts will be the one that pulls the knife. What other job would tolerate such violence?

I hate you. If you have a dog I hate it. I’m glad you lost your job. I hope you also lost your happiness and your soul you stupid cunt.

Please don¿t forget the men and women of our police, fire, ambulance and defense forces that are putting their lives at risk every day they go to work¿ you don¿t see them protesting.
Posted by: Anthony of Nunawading 10:27am today
Comment 29 of 241

Actually you do see emergency workers protesting and unlike the poor cabbies they get almost full public support when they do it - unlike cabbies these people are usually worried about pay and conditions. Yes their job is dangerous but everything is done to ensure their safety and they are paid very well, especially if they work the sort of hours taxi drivers work. You’re wrong Anthony. Fuck off.

95% of you taxi drivers are HOPELESS. You don’t know where you are going, you CANT DRIVE, you CANT SPEAK ENGLISH and a lot of you try and rip people off. You listen to your foreign music and talk on your mobile in a different language. You try and rip off the wrong type of person (someone who wont accept it) you can expect to get stabbed. The only taxi drivers that are good at their job are the ones that live here, and have for their whole life. They know how Australians act, they know how to speak to us and they know what language to speak in. They know we just want to get where we need to go and they don’t piss fart around with it. They also know LANDMARKS & POPULAR PLACES.
Posted by: James of Melbourne 11:08am today
Comment 57 of 241

You’re absolutely right James. Fuck I don’t know why more of these foreigners aren’t bashed and stabbed. I had an Indian taxi driver the other day who spoke little English and the first thing that went though my mind as how much I wanted to beat him senseless into a coma and run away with his piss poor takings. 

You’re a vile, racist uncaring cunt who makes me ashamed to think I share the same drinking water as you. Get fucked. I hope next time you need a cab at night they all drive by you and then you get several layers of shit kicked out of by white kids wearing hoods who say all the right Aussie things to you as your body shuts down and you take your last putrid breath. I bet your mum hates you.

I will sentence the person who stabbed the cabbie to 2 days community work..
Posted by: Australian Judge of Australia 11:18am today
Comment 65 of 241

Fuck I hope this is a sarcastic remark about our justice system and not some kind of sick show of gratitude for the sick bastard who attempted to murder a foreign student. The part of me that sees good in people reckons that’s where you’re coming from, but your name “Australian judge of Australia” is a literary version of wearing an Aussie flag like a cape and abusing women in hijabs. I can’t believe the moderator allowed this comment.

Please go home! Make the government charter them a plane back to India and they can chant and run around with their tops off all day long BUT while their in our town they play by our rules. Cops, it’s time to get these clowns off the street, they’ve caused enough trouble for one day!!
Posted by: Rick Tyson of Reservoir 1:15pm today

You are a despicable piece of fetid, bleeding, TB-ridden shit! I hope you put your full name thinking it wouldn’t be published and that people who know you read it now know you for the narrow-minded fucktard that you really are. OUR rules are really working on OUR streets, aren’t they fuck wit?

OKAY, QUICK ,all the Australian Cabbies, get out there and earn a buck. Does the picture remind you of any other country. I don’t seem to be able to see many WHITE faces or chests there. Well the government let them in, I suppose now we have to put up with their fundamental views as well. If it were up to me, I would send them all home now and clear up the CBD. Why do we put up with the non english speaking, smelly taxi drivers, there must be hundreds of people out there who could and would drive cabs if the jobs were available.
Posted by: PAULINE of null 1:25pm today
Comment 96 of 241

What a charming fucking slut you are! God forbid anyone not of your skin should complain about their own lives being regularly threatened - and what fundamentalist views? I love how racists like you can’t even get the target of your shitful uneducated views right, you fucked up, stinking fascist bitch.

In Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, about the Spanish Civil War, there’s an account by a woman from the Communist Republican side about how they dealt with fascists in their town, which included making them walk along a path lined with communists who beat the shit out of them to plunge to their deaths from a cliff at the end of the path. As more and more fascists were killed the crowd grew more blood thirsty to the point that most of the dead didn’t even reach the cliff. One thing that occurred before the killings was that they agreed no women or children would be killed - I’d make an exception for you, you fucking sick bitch.

How the fuck is this sort of comment allowed on the web site of a national newspaper. What a fucking disgrace Herald Sun!

I’ve had enough. I’ve wiped the bile away from my mouth, shaken the chunks off my shoes and now I’m off to get a kebab. I’m never reading the Herald Sun web site comments again.

This why politicians should appoint an Australian president

For some reason it has been decided that the new Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne should be a high-profile person who does not necessarily have to live or own a business in the city.

The Herald Sun as an online poll asking readers to choose an appropriate new Lord Mayor from the likes of Eddie McGuire, James Hird, Rachael Griffiths, Geoffrey Rush, Jeff Kennett, ACCC chief Graham Samuel, Daniel Grollo and Peter fuckin’ Costello.

 

Why? Melbourne needs a Lord Mayor who is switched on to the city’s needs, can forge good relations with the state government and has vision? Jeff Kennett, Daniel Grollo and Graham Samuel probably fit the bill , but why do we need any sort of election to be a popularity contest.

This is why Phil Cleary and his Republic-hijacking cohorts and their want for a “people’s president” can go and take a flying fuck!

I am a republican and campaigned for the ARM model (similar to appointing the Governor General) amongst Aussie expats in London in 1998. But give me the Queen any time than any of these people on a ballot for Australian President.