iPhone = Australian media pwned

Cut the ribbon, take your iPhone and fuck off!

A photo op of a ecstatic nerd cutting a yellow ribbon celebrating that his lack of a life has paid a rare dividend - in that be beat thousands of other people to getting an iPhone by a matter of minutes, has the The Age jumping up and down.

Apparently the guy, Brett Howell, is an Optus employee, leading The Age to speculate that he is part of a well contrived publicity stunt.

Oh, you fucking think?

Whether or not Howell was a genuine customer means jack shit. The Age, like all other mainstream media outlets sent reporters, snappers and camera men to various Apple outlets to cover this story. Yet it has taken the suggestion of a customer being planted for any of them to suggest that they have been pwned into believing that this is a real news story, as opposed to a very valuable free plug for Optus and Apple.

Defence Minister Fitzgibbon - my suspicions confirmed

Having, as Iain Hall puts it, broken my conservative virginity (for my protest vote in the Kororoit by-election) I have flushed the condom down the toilet and had a long shower and put the experience down to one of those dirty one-night stands you have that mean nothing.

I should point out that I would never think of voting for the Federal Liberal Party as long as my feet touch this ever warming planet. So after scoffing at Brendan Nelson’s spin on the aftermath of the Gippsland by-election, and yelling at my computer screen “fuck you to hypocritcal elongated-forehead cunt”, I came across this article on the Rudd Government’s Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon - I liked what I read.

I don’t know too much about Mr Fitzgibbon, but like Lindsay Tanner, he immediately struck me as a straight shooter who takes the Defence portfolio very seriously and won’t simply meld into the background to maintain the status quo - unlike the stream of bell-ends that that Howard put in there.

My intuition was, if not confirmed, sataisfied by this entertaining article in The Sunday Age by political columnist Paul Daley, which descrbes Fitzgibbon as a “no-bullshit former auto-electrician from Cessnock in country NSW. He has a turn of phrase that could make Belinda Neal blush — the product, perhaps, of knocking about with tradies, cock-fighting through the NSW Labor Right and playing first-grade rugby for the Cessnock Goannas.”

How good’s that! I haven’t been this excited about a politician since I saw a pic of Julia Gillard’s three-bedroom house in Altona!

Daley writes about Fitzgibbon’s approach to his job that, in these days of carefully, but misguided spin and populism, by the prime minister, rather excited me.

For example:

Then, just before Christmas in a closed-door meeting of NATO defence ministers in the shadows of Edinburgh Castle, Fitzgibbon let fly at the organisation’s lack of coherence on Afghanistan. Some were taken aback. Others, however, appreciated the plain talk. American Defence Secretary Robert Gates approached the plucky Fitzgibbon in the bar, put his arm around him, called him “son” and said he was glad someone had finally stated the truth. The two have been close since, and will meet for the fifth time when Fitzgibbon goes to the US next month.

Remember the bullshit line Howard ran about Australia jeapordising the security relationship we had with the Americans? At least Fitzgibbon has shown we can be friends with the Yanks without sucking their cock.

Theen there’s this anecdote about Fitzgibbon’s talks with Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter:

The JSF’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, knows Fitzgibbon is on the warpath. At a recent meeting with a senior company man, the Australian minister purportedly said: “Look mate, don’t f— us around. If there’s something wrong with this plane then tell us now.”

There was, it is said, a sharp intake of breath. But no clear answers. Fitzgibbon will meet Lockheed Martin for round two in Fort Worth, Texas, next month. Oh to be an official in that room!

It’s great to see an old-school politician in a senior position who has lived a real life and hasn’t come through the party-hack ranks. Let’s hope he can continue to be himself and kick some defence establishment arse and undo the damage done by the Howard Government.

 

Here’s what’s wrong with The Age

A couple of letters appeared in The Age, bemoaning the frneact that people with $100,000 plus 4WDs are complaining about the high cost of petrol. This is cause for another blog itself, but the point in these letters that struck a chord with me is the fact that The Age does not recognise that Melbourne extends beyond the inner-city AB demographic.

As Michael Taylor of West Preston writes:

First it was the Bugaboo bourgeoisie bemoaning the loss of the baby bonus. How were they ever going to afford private health cover, a funky inner-city address and saving for private school fees-all on only $120,000? Now it’s the cost of petrol our middle-class battlers have to contend with. How can the fourwheel- drive mum afford to take her kids on their Torquay holiday? And how can she cope with pain of making them walk to the East Malvern schools? Or how about the Port Melbourne management consultant who winces while spending $165 filling his wife’s BMW 4WD?

While I’m aware you must cater to your AB demographic, please stop insulting people who are really doing it tough by giving these middle (upper?) class whingers space to tell us of their severe pain. Maybe your reporter could actually talk to someone beyond a 10-kilometre radius of the city in working class suburbs such as Hoppers Crossing or Berwick …

Michael Taylor is right that it’s fucking insulting to people really doing it tough and who do not have transport options to see very well off people bemoan what for them more of an inconvenience.

And As a journalist I feel it is poor news judgement to do a story on fuel prices and not find people who are at the other end of the scale and actually having to make sacrifices to pay for petrol. Surely that’s the real story.

Unless of course The Age has an ulterior motive, as Michael Doyle of Wheelers Hill suggests:

The Sunday Age (8/6) front-page story on the increasing cost of petrol had a photograph of a person filling up a vehicle. Was it a farmer with his ute? No. A doing-it-tough pensioner and her clapped out Camira? No. What about a worker with a battered Barina? Nope, it was trendy Suzy, the recruitment manager from Brighton, with her shiny gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive.

Now, a cynical person would write a letter to the newspaper and suggest that The Sunday Age was being deliberately provocative and falling over itself to goad a lefty- Green readership into writing letters to the editor. But then I’m not that cynical.

Either way The Age, is seriously out of touch with most Melburnians because it has a pool of journalists who are obsessed with their own little worlds and wouldn’t even know half the issues in Melbourne of they kicked them fair and square up their collective arse.

 

 

AFL, the power and the glory hole

 

If I could see a concept BMW looks like a vagina at first glance, why did no one at The Age notice anything wrong with this effort, in Thursday’s paper - as highlighted in Crikey.com.au. 

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”. 

Greenies salivate at bullshit car pollution figures

The Age, still smug over convincing a few people to turn a few lights out for an our before going back to their usual high-consuming lives, has published a story headlined Car lovers drive pollution surge which says “Victorian motorists have contributed to a massive surge in greenhouse gas emissions, with State Government figures showing transport pollution has soared by more than 25% in the past two decades.”

Shocking stuff. But then about 10 paragraphs later this line: Road transport, which includes all passenger vehicles and truck freight, is the largest component, contributing 14.8% of the state’s total emissions (I would have thought it was much higher).

Truck freight? So it’s not just car lovers then. That’s what the headline implied - lying fucks!

Interesting too how the story does not mention how much growth there has been in the number of vehicles in the past two decades - selective fucks!

What shits me about these kinds of stories is that it assumes that people get up in the morning and get on the West Gate, Eastern or Monash Freeways to get stuck for 40 minutes because they love nothing better than  listening to Kate and fucking Hughsey. Or that when they have to drive grandma to hospital it’s simply because they fancy the drive. Why are cars becoming the new smoking? I am fucked if I’m going to apologise to any cunt for driving a car or justify when or where I fucking well use it.

The story then goes on to say that these damning statistics will bolster opponents of Sir Rod Eddington’s recommendations to link Melbourne’s freeways - that’s all we need, more fucking NIMBYs.

Don’t these stupid fucking people realise that if there were seamless freeway links and better traffic flow that cars would spend less time on the roads thus there would be less pollution. Same with parking spots.

Greens MP Greg Barber predicted Labor would “lose votes everywhere” if it built the new road tunnel. He said the project would “soak up billions of dollars that could be used more efficiently moving people around by fast public transport”.

Yeah? Well Greg Barber knows shit!

There needs to be better public transport AND better roads. One need not be stronger than the other. We live in a huge city and unlike some inner city types, who live, work and score drugs within a one kilometre radius, most people have to work, access services and shop well beyond where they live.

For fuck’s sake, let’s stop this anti-car bullshit and ensure that Melbourne is easily accessible by all forms of transport.

NB: The author catches the train to work everyday.

Oh I get it, climate change is working class people’s fault.

 

I’m normally a fan of The Age columnist Catherine Deveney, but I was rather peeved by her column this morning that suggested that while inner city folk were doing everything in their power to be good environmental citizens, those who live in the outer suburbs are nothing more than environmental terrorists.

Perhaps my chip in the shoulder is taking what some would construe as jest too seriously, but this is not a new opinion. It also again demonstrates how The Age thinks Melbourne only consists within the tram network.

The paragraphs I mainly took issue with are:

The aspirationals continue to build their McMansions an hour’s drive from where they work and then hop in their fuel-guzzling monster trucks every morning to pay for their five wide-screen televisions, air-conditioning to counteract poor design and petrol to fuel their “lifestyle”, which is basically shopping. Am I the only one who’s a bit happy when the price of petrol goes up? “Good,” I think. “Make those dickheads suffer.”

Because nothing will make them think, or change.

They bleat: “We can’t afford to live closer.” Yes, you can. You just won’t have a double garage, a parents’ retreat, a rumpus room, a home cinema and five bedrooms with en suites.

Let’s disect this typical blinkered, inner-city, bullshit, call-me-Mother fucking Theresa view of the world.

For starters I hate the term McMansion. It’s offensive and patronising in that it implies that a certain class of people not be allowed to live in big homes.  What’as next? Do my kids go to McSchools and thus should be shunned by perspective employers because they don’t have an inner-city school tie - who says Australia doesn’t have a class system?

People live in the outer suburbs because they grew up in the area and feel at home there or because they can’t afford what The Age will tell you are the more desirable suburbs. For Deveney to say someone can sell a $450,000 house in the outer suburbs and buy something closer to work, regardless of size, is an absolute joke and totally blind to the housing crisis.

What this smacks of to me is a reverse envy, where people who bought two-bedroom dog boxes in the inner suburbs with a view to upgrade find they can’t afford to go anywhere else and are stuck in their little shit holes with a changed set of life priorities brought on by having a family.

Meanwhile their friends, who couldn’t afford to live in the cafe belt, managed to get over the whole bullshit “location-location” con and live like kings in a house where the dust doesn’t predate Federation. 

Do they feel guilty? Like fuck they do!