Here Comes the Venom

An article in New Matilda complaining about the Royal Wedding typifies the venomous hatred the Left is so good at.

And anyway, who wants to watch someone else’s wedding on television?

I believe the standard advice is "if you don't like it, change the channel".

Would we give a rat’s if these people weren’t "royal"? Most people don’t care this much about their own damn weddings. Go to the pub and poison your livers, for the love of all that’s sentient.

Classy. I hope I get an invitation.

The classiness continues:

Who cares? Doth the lady protest too much? Who cares? Every drop of attention that is smeared over this wedding endorses a misogynist, backward, racist, religiously intolerant, inbred tradition that is fundamentally undemocratic. To return to an earlier theme: the royal family, indeed the very institution of monarchy, is a giant syphilitic guma resting on the head of our democracy. It is a congenital disease, passed from one Windsor to the next. We must rid the world of this disease and those who spread it, support it or are mindlessly fascinated by it.

Nothing quite says "who cares" like 1400 words...

The rest of the article is full of tired old cliches about royal inbreeding. In the same breath however, they condemn Kate Middleton, who one would assume might be the cure for inbreeding?

And what the hell is a "Guma", syphilitic or otherwise?

Respect for the PM

Gai Waterhouse commented earlier in the week about the Prime Minister's terrible dress sense. The media went nuts, with opinion polls and calls to talkback condemning everything from her hair colour (now believed to be fake), baggy clothing and lack of taste.

On the one hand, banal discussions like this lack the respect which should be held for the office of Prime Minister.

On the other hand, that discussion, together with the highly predictable Republic/Monarchy debate fuelled by the Royal Wedding served as a very useful distraction from certain other inconvenient issues:

Two men remain on the roof of the Villawood Detention Centre as their protest enters its eleventh day

The media is fuelling the wrong discussions. It is helping to avoid the political discussion this country needs to have and providing a great excuse for the PM to ignore genuinely important issues.

Julia Gillard's new nickname should be the Redhead Herring.

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift

Best-selling Author Antony Loewenstein announces:

My first book, the best-selling My Israel Question, has just been released as an e-book and is available via the Kindle, iBook and other formats. The title is currently being updated and translated into Arabic and Indonesian and will be released in various nations over the coming 12 months.

Genuinely Best-selling authors don't need to mention it.

Loewenstein was smart releasing his anti-Israel, poorly written book in a country known for anti-semitism and poor literacy. Should be a best-seller...

He continues:

My second book, The Blogging Revolution, is also being updated, in light of the Arab revolutions, and will be released in Australia, India and globally later this year.

Every competent analyst is waiting to see where the Arab revolution leads. Antony already knows. Like his error-riddled Israel book, he can always release a "second edition" when it turns out to be wrong, correct a few errors and claim it's due to huge sales, not pulping.

Adoring fans still await his third book:

Random House will publish his next book, on the Australian media, in 2007.

Spending a few weeks in Israel was sufficient experience to enable him to write a book on the subject. Presumably spending a few weeks employed in the Australian media, before being sacked wasn't enough.

Comments found

Some time ago, JF referred to Blogger mysteriously deleting comments to this blog.

Now that I have authoritah for a few days, I was looking through the Blogger management console and discovered it has spam filtering of comments. The comments weren't deleted, they were quarantined where JF would have never found them.

Apparently it's a "feature".

There are about 5,458 comments in there, including some of mine. Very few of them look like spam. Most date back prior to JF's move to Asian Correspondent and subsequent return here. Presumably Blogger have since improved their spam detection.

For my next trick, I'm going to change the wallpaper. Don't you love having guests house-sit for you?

Drum. Rhymes with Dumb.

Thanks JF for throwing me the keys to the blog for a few days. I know how hard it must be to keep addicts such as me, fed with content.

Luckily for JF, idiots like Antony Loewenstein provide an easy source of material to laugh at, without too much effort. Let's try. [starts stopwatch]

[Stop the watch]

The recent murder in Gaza of Italian human rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni was a shock to all of us. He was killed by a self-proclaimed Salafi jihadi group. The isolation of Gaza almost guarantees some extremism

Took me about five seconds to find an example of Loewnstein's terrible writing and stupidity. Would have been quicker if I had faster Internet. Nothing 30 or 40 billion of taxpayers' hard-earned wouldn't fix...

Firstly, what's a "self-proclaimed Salafi jihadi group"? Did they have to issue a press release or something? Or is that more like self-proclaimed "author" and "journalist"?

Secondly, don't you love, how there is no crime committed by a Palestinian, which can't somehow be blamed on Israel (or America). I mean, Antony may claim that the death of this guy was a "shock to all of us". But seriously, hands up anyone who is truly shocked that...Islamists murder people. Shocking, I know.

Not that it should reflect on the actual murderers. No. They were victims also.

It must be incredibly easy to get off fines in Gaza. "Sorry officer, the Zionists made me do it".

It is not the "isolation of Gaza" which guarantees some (ahem) extremism. It is the extremism which guarantees their isolation. Well, that and some of their reading material.

It just amazes me how easily Israel haters will believe anything about Israel howsoever ridiculous. Yet they can never, even for a second contemplate that maybe Islamists do, you know, Bad Things.

How frustrating it must be, for the evil masterminds of 9/11 to think that after all their hard work, most of Arab World believes Jews were responsible. I mean, how many people do you actually need to kill before you get some credit?

Don't bother trying to explain this to a Pal-supporter though. As soon as you dare point out some basic facts, they'll get all upset and start ignoring you. She blocked my tweets faster than Loewenstein can delete a comment left on his blog. You'd have to wonder why someone who supports a society which celebrates suicide bombers, headchoppers and genocidal Nazi wannabes, would be so precious...

As for Loewenstein? Well, he's still good enough for "Our ABC". If Tim Blair and Professor Bunyip want to know the reason why the ABC site needs a new editor so badly, I suspect it is because the last one is still on stress leave from reviewing Loewenstein's writing.

The real world intrudes

I'm taking a break from work over the next few weeks and plan to devote significantly more time to "real world" interests and less time to online activities. Posting could be intermittent for quite some time.

While I'm motorcycling through the southwest of WA over the next few days Daniel Lewis will be filling in with a few "guest posts". Daniel's opinions are his own, etc, etc.

Mad men

A famed author and journalist posts a cryptic tweet:





And a few minutes later:





A maximum of 140 characters allows a huge margin of error.

Nose hairs neat and tidy

Presumably to encourage asylum seekers to make productive use of time and divert their attention from life in detention, immigration detainees are offered points for participating in constructive activities such as sport and self-betterment classes. The accrued points can be exchanged for various goodies such as "battery-operated grooming gadgets, cigarettes, phone cards, snacks and confectionery". So the federal government is rewarding good behaviour with fattening junk food and deadly tobacco products. WTF?

And the most popular battery-operated gadget is not the iPod:

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship this week confirmed that the Christmas Island centre had recently received a bulk delivery of taxpayer-funded nose-hair trimmers.

The department refused to say how much they cost, but sources told The Sunday Times the figure was about $7000.

Again I ask, WTF?

Regardless, the rewards don't seem to be working:

A group of asylum seekers on Christmas Island has gone on hunger strike as other detainees continue a rooftop protest at the island's main detention centre.

An unspecified number of detainees at the island's lower-security Phosphate Hill facility had advised they were engaging in "voluntary starvation'', an Immigration Department spokesman told AAP.

Oh well, if they do voluntarily starve to death they will die with well-groomed nostrils.

Jewishness questioned

Atheist Jew Antony Loewenstein condemns Sarah Palin for wearing a Star of David necklace at a 'seder' dinner on the second night of Passover.

In contrast, proud atheist Jew Antony spent a part of Passover at a Merrickville Council meeting.

Dan Lewis responds:
















In his address to the Marrickville Council, Antony uses one his favourite words, "countless", in referring to "countless" UN resolutions. This will be news to the UN, which manages to number both its General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.

Master orator fails to persuade

Despite a crowd-pleasing oration from Antony Loewenstein – complete with a bogus reference to Israel's "Jewish only roads" – the Marrickville Council succumbed to reality in voting down participation in the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Better that the Marrickville Council concentrate its attention on matters of local relevance rather than trying to determine Australia's foreign policy.

Twitter tiff

New South Wales Greens are demanding an investigation into Carmel Tebbutt's use of a commercial Twitter service provided free as part of "Keep Carmel" during the recent state election campaign, which saw incumbent Tebbutt prevail over Greens challenger Fiona Byrne. According to Greens MP John Kaye the value of this free service greatly exceeded the $1,000 limit on in-kind donations:

This is no automatic post on Twitter. This is a well worked out campaign with at least seven tweets a day over a 54-day period.

That would require one person to be working at least full time, if not more people. That's worth well more than $17,700.

A value of almost $47 each for maximum 140 character tweets is maybe just a bit high.

Update Full-time tweeter Antony Loewenstein live-tweeted last night's Marrickville Council BDS meeting but neglected to mention this notable event:

A Jewish blogger and pro-Palestinian rights activist, Antony Loewenstein, said he was spat on on his way in and called a pig.

A subsequent exchange of tweets:















Only 140 characters and Loewenstein still mangles the language.

Update II Another contorted "sex with a horse" post from Jeremy Sear:

The point I wanted to make is that a tweet’s context is essential. Tweets are essentially like an SMS conversation open to any interested parties. Many twitter apps in fact display these exchanges as conversations – with back and forth remarks amongst the parties clearly developing a thread as the conversation proceeds. Because there are only 140 characters available, ideas have to be contracted (sometimes losing – or, worse, gaining – something in the contraction) and it has to be assumed that the reader is familiar with what went before. There is no room to quote previous comments.

Like in any conversation, someone who comes in late needs to ask what came before to make any sense of the last thing they heard.

So journalists and newspapers that present the tweets solo, without any context, without any explanation, are doing their readers a disservice. They are misrepresenting their targets and what was actually said.

All well and good except that the Twitter exchange offers no context whatsoever for what Bess Price said on Q&A that is deemed to be more offensive than watching "sex with a horse".

Bess Price's less than outrageous comments – not linked to by Jeremy – can be viewed here.

Brull-shit

Anti-Israel Jew Michael Brull has strong opinions on the blow-back from Larissa Behrendt's Twitter attack on Bess Price:

Perhaps the most vicious attack came from Marcia Langton, writing that Behrendt has “a repulsive hatred of everything that Bess stands for: the rights of Aboriginal women in remote communities to be protected from sexual abuse and violence”. Similarly, The Australian editorialised that Behrendt and others opposed to the Intervention “are prepared to risk the health, education, physical safety and futures of other Aborigines in the cause of an out-dated, leftist agenda which privileges "rights" above well-being. There is a "let them eat cake" touch about it all.”

Get it? Behrendt supports raping women and poverty in Indigenous communities.

Turning to reality, it may be worthwhile to find out just why Behrendt considered Price’s comments to be so offensive.

Price is a recipient of the Bennelong Medal. Another medal-winner is Mal Brough - a former Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

Tony Abbott and Philip Ruddock – well known for their sensitive views on race and Indigenous issues – have presented these awards. Kevin Andrews also gave an award: yes, the Immigration Minister who slashed our intake of African refugees because they “don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life”.

Brull, whose writing is suddenly, and miraculously, no longer the garbled Loewenstein-esque mess it once was, is obviously receiving considerably editorial support from ABC online editor Jonathan Green, et al.

The results are a classic of Lefty smear and innuendo. Brull starts off by noting that the "vicious attack came from Marcia Langton" but ignores Langton's qualifications to comment and immediately segues to an editorial in The Australian which apparently suggests that "Behrendt supports raping women and poverty in Indigenous communities." Right.

Even worse, Price has received a Bennelong Medal, which was also awarded to Mal Brough. What a load of crap – following that line of thinking all Nobel Peace Prize winners are tainted because Yasser Arafat was a recipient.

Brull's transparent smears and misleading characterisations should not be paid for and published by Australia's national broadcaster.

Crikey blogger "fundamentally misleading"

Jeremy Sear today truncates a quote so as to embarrass Victorian Education Minister Martin Dixon:

What I think young people need to be more aware of is bananas…

The quote in context:

The Victorian Government has scrapped an idea to create a new drink to improve the concentration of secondary school students.

A Government department had called on businesses to submit proposals for a drink that was "pleasant tasting, low priced and attention sustaining."

Education Minister Martin Dixon has told ABC Local Radio the plan came from a group of students who were seeking an alternative to caffeine-based energy drinks.

"We haven't put any Education Department money into it because that's not the sort of thing that we do," he said.

"But good on the kids for coming up with an innovative idea and tackling the issue."

He says the students were referred to the Department of Industry's innovation arm, which advertised to see if there was any interest in developing such a product.

Mr Dixon categorically denies that any such drink will be manufactured by the Victorian Government.

"What I think young people need to be more aware of is bananas, rest and getting up and walking around," he said.

"We should be spending our efforts on more natural ways of keeping our kids healthy and safe."

Regardless of the merits of the student-proposed drink, Jeremy only just the other day condemned those who view Larissa Behrendt's Bess Price tweet as worthy of condemnation:

Taking tweets out of context is fundamentally misleading, because the 140 character limit means that most tweets assume that the reader is aware of to what they’re replying. So, obviously, the tweet does not mean the same thing to its original audience as when it is displayed without context.

Do I really need to start randomly picking 140 character strings from News Ltd articles to demonstrate why taking them out of context is not a fair reflection of their authors ‘meaning?

Yet hypocrite Jeremy reduces Dixon's comments to 13 words and uses them as the basis for a blog post. The Left wants to make the rules but not abide by them.

Crikey corrections credibility killers

Investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein in a Friday Crikey article:

It’s comical to read today union leader Paul Howes – whose understanding of the Middle East has come from Zionist sponsored trips to Israel — condemn the Australian unions who support BDS as “divisive” when none of those unions are actually heard in the story.

The same paragraph as it now appears:

It’s comical to read today union leader Paul Howes condemn the Australian unions who support BDS as “divisive” when none of those unions are actually heard in the story.

And at the end this addendum:

CORRECTION: In the original story it was stated that Paul Howes has taken Zionist funded trips to Israel. Paul Howes has never been to Israel. The story has been amended to correct the record.

Howes was right in earlier noting Loewenstein's history of inaccuracy.

Crikey continues to publish Loewenstein despite his magnificent errors. Why?

Music teacher forces political meeting

Anti-coal protesters earlier this week disrupted a Victorian cabinet meeting by chaining themselves to a ladder:

The group was calling for the state government not to invest in HRL Limited's proposed dual brown coal and gas demonstration plant at Morwell in the Latrobe Valley.

Northcote High School music teacher Shaun Murray, one of the protesters who met with Mr O'Brien, said he was pleased the minister was forced to meet with the group.

Shaun Murray's position as a school teacher is obviously of interest, even at the Sydney Morning Herald, but is an irrelevant threat to employment when mentioned by Andrew Bolt.

Moving decision

Joe Hildebrand explains his decision to move from Marrickville to Ipswitch.

Australia: America's mercenary state

John Pilger imagines a great global military conspiracy with Australia at its centre but provides not a single link in support of his fantasies:

Anzac Day has become the preserve of those who manipulate the cult of state violence – militarism – in order to satisfy a psychopathic deference to foreign power and to pursue its aims. And the “legend” has no room for the only war fought on Australian soil: that of the Aboriginal people against the European invaders. In a land of cenotaphs, not one stands for them.

And:

[The war-lovers abuse] of our memory of the fallen, and why they fell, is common among all servitors of rapacious power, though Australia might be a special case. No country is more secure in its strategic remoteness, yet no western elite is more eager to talk war and seek imperial “protection” from those of threatening pigmentation who might fall down on us as if by the force of gravity.

Australia’s military budget is A$32 billion a year, one of the highest in the world. Australian Cruise missiles will soon be aimed at Asia for the first time. Less than two months’ worth of this war bingeing would pay for the reconstruction of Queensland in the wake of catastrophic floods and cyclone, but not a cent is forthcoming. In July, the same fragile flood plains will be invaded by a joint US-Australian military force, firing laser–guided missiles, dropping bombs and blasting the environment and marine life. This is rarely reported. Rupert Murdoch controls 70 per cent of the capital city press and his "ethic" is widespread.

Pilger's delusions are manifold.

Contorted "sex with a horse" apologetics

Larissa Behrendt's now infamous Bess Price tweet:










Victorian barrister Jeremy Sear weighs in with a contorted analysis:

Let’s be rational about this.

The hyperbole in Larissa Behrendt’s tweet about Bess Price, who at the time was on Q&A on ABC defending John Howard’s “intervention” in the Northern Territory, refers to a disturbing image – apparently courtesy of ABC-TV’s notoriously offensive Wild West show Deadwood – but there was no defamatory link drawn between that activity and Ms Price. The tweet simply rated the two on a scale of “offensiveness” to Ms Behrendt.

That might have been a slightly exaggerated contrast to draw (as is the whole point of hyperbole), but it’s not “obscene vilification”. It’s not an attempt to “control” or “silence” a different view. It’s not “outrageous” or “marginalising” anyone. It’s a tweet expressing Ms Behrendt’s view that what Ms Price was saying was extremely offensive to her. Ms Price’s apparent determination to seek legal recourse for someone finding her “offensive” is laughable.

Obviously The Australian, and the Liberal Party, and Ms Price, and a number of other far-right commentators, think they can ride the shock from the revolting Deadwood image all the way past the fact that it wasn’t actually applied to Ms Price other than by way of contrast, and use it to damn an opponent, an Aboriginal woman, who has dared to take on Andrew Bolt in the courtroom. They can raise the profile of another Aboriginal woman who is in favour of their “intervention” at the cost of a critic of it.

It’s pretty shameless stuff...

What's really laughable here, and totally shameless, is that Crikey's resident barrister has published such a shallow, deeply flawed and apologetic "analysis".

• On what basis is it concluded that Price and her supporters are not "rational" in finding the tweet offensive?
  
• On what basis is it concluded that Behrendt's comment was meant to be hyperbolic?
• The Northern Territory intervention was John Howard's intervention, then became Kevin Rudd's intervention and is now Julia Gillard's intervention.
• Deadwood is not mentioned in the tweet and has nothing to do with the offensiveness comparison – the tweet refers simply to "a show where a guy had sex with a horse".
  
• The tweet refers not to what Bess Price said as offensive but rather to Bess Price herself as effectively more offensive than a sex act with a horse.
• If tested in court it could well emerge that a "reasonable" person might find Behrendt's comparison considerably more than "laughable".
• On what basis is it concluded that Bess Price is a "far-right" commentator?
• Andrew Bolt has nothing to do with this matter whatsoever.
  

The "law is an ass" only because some lawyers are asses.

Update Skeletons in Jeremy's closet rule out a political career:

It wouldn’t matter how much my views had changed, any youthful indiscretion or internet quote that could be taken out of context and misrepresented, would be, and it wouldn’t matter how transparent the motives and how ultimately irrelevant the attack – it’s the personal smears that get remembered, that stick. I get enough of that abuse as a minor blogger – you can imagine how much would come back to bite me if I ran in an election. Particularly on a lefty platform that would threaten the interests of, say, commercial media proprietors. It would be interesting, but ultimately not worth it, to see just how effectively they could use their influence to destroy me or anyone else who hadn’t been careful their whole life not to say or do anything controversial.

Life is tough for an attention-seeking minor blogger who writes for Crikey.

NSW electricity bills skyrocket

New South Wales electricity consumers will pay much more for power:

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) says electricity prices for the average New South Wales resident will increase by 17.6 per cent from July.

The reason for the increase:

New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell says the State Government will seek compensation from the Commonwealth for the bill increases.

"I'm told between $80 and $100 of these increases are directly due to federal renewable schemes. It seems unfair that state consumers and state governments should be responsible for costs that are incurred by the Federal Government," he said.

Green power isn't cheap; and just wait until the carbon tax flows through to users.

Bing catching Google

If – and it's a very big if – current trends continue Bing will in 2012 overtake Google as the most used search engine. Cool. Typing "Bing it" is so much easier than typing "Google it".

Wild claims of "wildly inaccurate claims"

After voting in December to support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign the Greens-dominated Marrickville Council initiated a study examining the costs involved, the study revealing a cost of some $3 million for future implementation of BDS and $3.7 million for immediate implementation.

Whereas these figures are modest in the cosmic scheme of things, $3 million or more for a local council is a lot of money. Also, bear in mind that the estimates were produced at the behest of the Marrickville Council and are published by the Sydney Morning Herald.

It is therefore somewhat odd that anti-Israel activist Antony Loewenstein tweets:

Wildly inaccurate claims about #BDS in Sydney because #Israel must be defended, no matter what

It would be helpful if Loewenstein pointed out the "wildly inaccurate claims" in the SMH article he links to. Given his track record, it is almost certain that it is Loewenstein's claim, rather than the SMH's, that is wildly inaccurate – Israel must be faulted, no matter what.

Update Loewenstein, whose "Middle East expert" commentary is dispensed from the comfort of his Australian parents' spare bedroom, faults New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for staying in nice hotels when reporting from the Middle East.

Australian soldiers are, like all males, sexist bullies

A little known fact from PP boy Jeremy Sear:

As Bernard Keane pointed out in yesterday’s Crikey, social conservative commentators have lost their biggest support in their opposition to ending restrictions on women serving in Australian defence forces: much of the defence establishment itself is now keen for such reform.

This is, of course, bullshit, as this Wikipedia summary reveals:

Women have served in Australian armed forces since 1899. Until World War II women were restricted to the Australian Army Nursing Service. This role expanded in 1941–42 when the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force established female branches in which women took on a range of support roles. While these organisations were disbanded at the end of the war, they were reestablished in 1950 as part of the military's permanent structure. Women were integrated into the services during the late 1970s and early 1980s and can now serve in most positions in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), including combat roles.

But according to a Pure Poison commenter, Australian soldiers are rampaging rapists, as are all males should they be presented the opportunity:

I have been castigated on another thread for suggesting that mistreatment of women, particularly rape of women in occupied counties, has been widespread in the Australian defence forces and is inadvertently promoted by military culture. Accounts of this have been subject to cover-up and censorship since before WW2.

I welcome the Australian piece, and a similar one in the SMH today by Lynda Voltz as a vindication.

Military culture brutalises people, encourages bullying and sexism, and brings out the worst tendencies towards bigotry, racism and misogyny which I am afraid are buried deep within all our male souls.

Not every Australian soldier will behave honourably, of course, but unsupported blanket smears of diggers are unwarranted and intolerable.

The disaster that is South Africa

South Africa relentless slide into dysfunction:

The central problem of writing about South Africa is that it is almost impossible to explain the country's slow-motion catastrophe in terms that make sense to foreigners. Consider these headlines, culled from just a fortnight's newspapers. Johannesburg's City Press reports that the head of the ruling party's Political School—set up to nurture "revolutionary morality" among thieving civil servants—is declining to explain how he has come to own two new BMWs and a Maserati. South Africa's Sunday Times alleges rampant corruption in the administration of Northern Cape province. The same paper reports new attempts to silence a trade-union leader who likens the nation's rulers to "hyenas" who feed off the poor. Elsewhere, we have FAILED BILLION-DOLLAR EDUCATION PROGRAM; WHISTLE-BLOWER MURDERED; WIFE OF NIA CHIEF ON TRIAL FOR SMUGGLING COCAINE, the NIA being our CIA. And finally, the story of the hour: The National Prosecuting Authority has abandoned its investigation into the whereabouts of $130 million in bribes generated by South Africa's notorious 1990s arms deal.

In the West, scandals of this magnitude would topple governments. Here, they are almost meaningless.

Read the whole thing.

Antony Loewenstein: instant expert

Antony Loewenstein, who has yet to reveal the source of funding – thanks mum, dad and Centrelink – for his many overseas trips, has a question for Peter Hartcher, the political and international editor at The Sydney Morning Herald:

How many times does a corporate reporter need to visit Israel to repeat its talking points?

Loewenstein, who wrote his "best selling" My Israel Question after his first ever brief trip to Israel, does not detect the irony dripping from his question – better that Hartcher makes numerous trips to the Middle East than do as Loewenstein did in writing a whole book based on a single brief visit to the region.

More unintended Loewenstein hilarity:

We dismiss Wikileaks at our intellectual peril

An intellect must be possessed for it to be imperiled.

Natural isn't always better

The health benefits of consuming aloe vera are highly suspect:

Aloe vera food supplements and drinks are supposed to help your gut stay healthy – or so herbalists claim. But now a warning flag has been raised by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP), which has found that rats given drinking water spiked with an extract of the succulent plant developed tumours in their intestines.

The health risks of synthetic chemicals are surely overstated while the dangers of natural products are understated. Natural foods, organic or not, are in fact loaded with carcinogens.

"Armageddon" avoided

In a piece at The Drum titled The small problem of Armageddon ABC News Washington reporter Craig McMurtrie describes as "unthinkable" the prospect of a U.S federal government shutdown. In fact, the U.S. has experienced many such shutdowns without suffering anything near to Armageddon.

Regardless, the U.S. government should never have evolved into the cash cow on which so many people rely for sustenance.

Burqa bigots

France's burqa ban enjoys public support but is condemned by Australian Leftists:

France's burka ban comes into effect, a truly anti-democratic move by a bigoted leader

And:

Can you wear a burqa in France if you're making a film about morons who legislate what other people can wear?

Democracy is a bitch, ain't it?

Darryl Mason is a very busy boy

"Australia's most popular online leftist" continues his quest to dominate not just the entire Australian blogosphere but the twittersphere. Darryl Mason's superbly crafted internet products include, but probably aren't limited to:

YOUR NEW REALITY

The Orstrahyun

Darryl Mason

Max Murray a novel

RightWingDeafBeast

Mister Shuffles

Mister Shuffles

It's truly amazing that Darryl – not to be confused with his brother Darryl – finds the time to actually hold a job, and you know, earn money.

Blair's Law in action: far Left and radical Islam converge

Bruce S. Thornton reviews Jamie Glazov's Showdown with Evil: Our Struggle Against Tyranny and Terror, (Mantua Books, 255 pp., $18):

Glazov’s book focuses primarily on two themes: the need to understand the existential threat of radical Islam, and the lessons that we can learn from our earlier conflict with Communist tyranny.

On radical Islam's convergence with the Left:

As terrorism authority Steve Emerson argues in his interview, advocacy organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have exploited the notion that Muslims in America are victims of a “backlash” and “profiling.” Emerson discusses a letter sent in July 2009 by seven far-left House Democrats to Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of nine Islamic interest groups, including CAIR, that had complained about how the Department of Justice investigated terrorism cases. Some of these groups had demonstrable links to terrorist organizations and frequently acted as public apologists for jihadist attacks and anti-Semitic libels. Nevertheless, one of the congressmen who signed the letter, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, had sent a video message to the 2008 CAIR annual banquet, praising the group for promoting “the powerful message of Islam, a message of peace and reconciliation.” Incidents like these illustrate what Emerson describes as the legitimizing of radical Islam in the eyes of the government, popular culture, and media, all under the guise of defending civil liberties. The House letter also stands as a vivid example of what Horowitz, in his interview, calls the “unholy alliance” between the hard Left and radical Islam, both of which see liberal democracy as the most formidable obstacle to achieving their political utopias.

It's Blair's Law in action.

Yet more legal threats from Julian Assange

A cryptic description of Wikileaks: Wikileaks is noble art in tradition of information sharing

Bullshit, Assange and his group of shadow warriors are masters of the art of intimidation:

But the political commentator Douglas Murray, director of the centre for social cohesion, challenged Assange over the website's sources of funding, its staffing and connections with the Holocaust denier Israel Shamir, who has worked with the site.

"What gives you the right to decide what should be known or not? Governments are elected. You, Mr Assange are not."

Murray also challenged the WikiLeaks founder over an account in a book by Guardian writers David Leigh and Luke Harding, in which the authors quote him suggesting that if informants were to be killed following publication of the leaks, they "had it coming to them".

Assange repeated an earlier assertion that the website "is in the process of suing the Guardian" over the assertion, and asked if Murray would like to "join the queue" of organisations he was suing.

The Guardian has not received any notification of such action from WikiLeaks or its lawyers.

In the brief moments between legal threats, Assange fantasizes he's head of the people's CIA:

We are, in a sense, a pure expression of what the media should be: an intelligence agency of the people, casting pearls before swine.

Did Assange mean to claim he provides pearls of wisdom for the masses who are too stupid to appreciate them? Consider his megalomania and decide for yourself.

Greens: do-gooders or antisemites?

Very vocal support from Greens for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has drawn allegations of antisemitism, critics arguing that singling out Israel for alleged rights violations is more than odd considering that any number of countries might more appropriately be targeted by a BDS campaign. In short, of all the nations of the world, why is Israel singled out?

Jeremy Sear reckons it is absurd to claim Greens target Israel when they loudly criticise many countries, China, for example. This ignores that even though Greens might be critical of many countries, Israel is the only country against which they support a formal action campaign.

Sear sidekick Dave Gaukroger agrees, arguing that it is unfair to compare Israel's action to third-world countries ruled by despots:

There is an expectation that first-world countries behave better than third-world hellholes.

Sear than goes off on a diversionary tangent arguing that it's pointless to boycott despots because only the people suffer, adding:

It's a pretty fatuous line that you can't crtiticise somebody unless you run a condemnathon of criticising every other equally bad or worse person in the world before you can criticise this person or country, whatever.

BDS is much more than criticism, however, it's an effort to force change through inflicted pain. Dave and Jeremy offer no satisfactory justification for singling out Israel.

Carbon paper

Australia follows the European lead:

A Sydney carbon credits company thought to have been running some of the world's biggest offsets deals appears to be a fake, shifting paper certificates instead of saving forests and cutting greenhouse emissions.

Psst, wanna buy some hot carbon paper?

Nuclear radiologist sides with Caldicott against Monbiot

Dr Peter Karamoskos, "a nuclear radiologist and a public representative on the radiation health committee of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency", sides with Helen Caldicott against recent pro-nuclear-convert George Monbiot:

George Monbiot should read properly the BEIR VII report that Helen Caldicott gave him - all 423 pages.

It's no wonder Karamoskos is a Caldicott acolyte since his anti-nuclear argumentation is similarly iffy:

In 2006, the US National Academy of Sciences released its Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (VII) report, which focused on the health effects of radiation doses at below 100 millisieverts. This was a consensus review that assessed the world's scientific literature on the subject at that time. It concluded: "... there is a linear dose-response relationship between exposure to ionising radiation and the development of solid cancers in humans. It is unlikely that there is a threshold below which cancers are not induced."

The most comprehensive study of nuclear workers by the IARC, involving 600,000 workers exposed to an average cumulative dose of 19mSv, showed a cancer risk consistent with that of the A-bomb survivors.

What then is the unstated cancer risk, consistent for both A-bomb survivors and nuclear workers?

The researchers say, that from their evidence, 1 to 2% of deaths from cancer among workers in this study may be attributable to radiation.

But there's more from Karamoskos:

April 26 marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The pro-nuclearists have gone into full-spin-ahead mode, misrepresenting the latest UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) report on Chernobyl.

Two days ago on this page, George Monbiot (''How the anti-nuclear lobby misled us all with dodgy claims''), citing the report, wrongly plays down he death toll. He correctly states that the report found 6848 cases of thyroid cancer in children, although he fails to acknowledge it was due to the effects of radioactive iodine in the nuclear fallout. The number of cases will continue to increase, according to the US National Cancer Institute, for a further 10 to 20 years.

Thyroid cancer is easy to detect because it is normally a rare cancer. Most other cancers caused by radiation are not that easy to detect above the high background natural rates of cancer. It is the proverbial needle in a haystack scenario - but in this case the needles (radiation-induced cancer) look the same as the hay (other cancers). What the report therefore said was that statistical limitations and large uncertainties precluded being able to single out any radiation-induced cancers. It did not say there have been no cancers, as Monbiot and others claim, or that none will develop, only that it is not possible at this stage to detect them.

IARC states that ''by 2065, predictions based on these models indicate that about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur''.

Karamoskos apparently reads none too well, missing this from Monbiot:

In the rest of the population there have been 6848 cases of thyroid cancer among young children - arising ''almost entirely'' from the Soviet Union's failure to prevent people from drinking contaminated milk.

Karamoskos also omits this from Elisabeth Cardis, MD, head of the IARC Radiation Group, in relation to the 2065 prediction:

While these figures reflect human suffering and death, they nevertheless represent only a very small fraction of the total number of cancers seen since the accident and expected in the future in Europe. Indeed, our analysis of the trends in cancer incidence and mortality does not demonstrate any increase that can be attributed to the Chernobyl accident. The exception is thyroid cancer, which 10 years ago, increased in the contaminated areas near the site of the accident.

Peter Boyle, PhD, Director of the IARC summarises:

The study provides the best estimate to date of the effect of the Chernobyl accident on cancer in Europe.

To put it in perspective, he said, tobacco smoking will cause several thousand times more cancers in the same population.

It's a great big Caldicott style FAIL for Dr Peter Karamoskos.

Update Alcohol is more of a worry than is radiation:

Drinking more than a pint of beer a day can substantially increase the risk of some cancers, research suggests.

The Europe-wide study of 363,988 people reported in the British Medical Journal found one in 10 of all cancers in men and one in 33 in women were caused by past or current alcohol intake.

More than 18% of alcohol-related cancers in men and about 4% in women were linked to excessive drinking.

Then again, drinking is more fun than is being irradiated.

Is Rowan really Jeremy?

Did Crikey blogger Jeremy Sear again adopt a false identity – this time that of Rowan, as in Rowan Atkinson of Jeremy's beloved Blackadder – to again hassle Andrew Bolt? Gavin Atkins poses the question.

It's not a carbon tax, it's the removal of a "subsidy"

ABC Lefty opinionista of no particular claim to fame Tim Dunlop on the allegedly right-wing-dominated media's carbon tax reporting:

Look at the way Labor’s plan to put a price on carbon is reported across the media. It is simply referred to as a “carbon tax” when an equally valid way of describing the act of putting a price on carbon - the government’s actual intent - would be to call it the removal of a subsidy for carbon-producing industries.

Dunlop really should elaborate on exactly how this imagined "subsidy" is paid to carbon-producing industries.

Right-wing, anti-Rudd conspiracy noted

Kevin Rudd's Monday remarks on Q&A elicited a general response from Australian media outlets including Fairfax and the ABC. The Lefties at Crikey see it differently, however:

At the moment Kevin Rudd made some remarks on Q&A on Monday night, about Cabinet discussions after the Liberals dumped Turnbull and it became impossible to pass the ETS the ALP and Libs had negotiated, you could hear the nation’s political hacks (particularly those employed by a particular media organisation) slamming down their wine glasses and firing up their bullsh*t machines.

This "bullshit" from the ABC has gone unnoticed, however:

Labor has gone into damage control after former prime minister Kevin Rudd confirmed some of his cabinet ministers argued last year for the emissions trading scheme to be killed off.

Speaking on ABC TV's Q&A last night, Mr Rudd revealed his cabinet was deeply split over the issue that ultimately led to his replacement.

In an apparent breach of cabinet confidentiality, Mr Rudd said some of his ministry wanted to keep the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and others wanted it dumped permanently.

Yep, it's obviously a massive right-wing, anti-Rudd, "bullshit" conspiracy.

Most powerful modern rocket half as powerful as 40 year-old Saturn V

SpaceX has announced plans to build the heaviest payload (53,000 kg) rocket in existence. While able to deliver a payload much greater than the Space Shuttle, the existing heavy lift champion (24,400 kg), the Falcon Heavy falls well short of the 119,000 low Earth orbit payload capacity of the 1960's Saturn V rocket, the most powerful machine ever built – and it was based on 1940s rocketry.

For those who haven't seen it, video of the Saturn V's brutal beauty.

Western Australia's bad drivers

The top ten complaints of West Australian drivers:

1. Drivers who can’t merge
2. Right-hand lane hoggers
3. Tailgating
4. Rude, inconsiderate attitude
5. Lack of indicating
6. Not using roundabouts correctly
7. Bad driving at traffic lights
8. Using mobiles while driving
9. Speeding or driving too slow with restrictions.
10. Automatic drivers who keep a foot on the brake pedal.

This morning on the way to work I witnessed a classic example of driver stupidity: a child care pick-up van speeding at 20 km/h over the limit. Now whereas the driver of the van didn't do anything outstandingly stupid on early morning roads with little traffic he was still driving at 80 km/h in a residential 60km/h zone, which made me wonder what he would say to police if apprehended. Better yet, what would we he say to parents of the children entrusted to his care?

Kitchen equipment discounted tomorrow only

King of Knives, with stores around Australia, is offering 20% off all stocked items, including those already reduced, tomorrow (in-store, not online) only. So if you're in need of kitchen equipment, not just knives, you might want to visit your nearest King of Knives tomorrow to see what bargains can be had.

Signing up to the King of Knives email alerts is also worthwhile: I recently snagged the exquisite RAN three knife plus sharpener professional bundle, regularly $729.80, for $381.90 including postage.

Meat parade

Perth's sexiest butchers compete for inclusion in a Beefcake calendar.

Natural power paradox

A huge downside to energy generated by wind and waves:

Of the 47 TW of energy that we use, about 17 TW comes from burning fossil fuels. So to replace this, we would need to build enough sustainable energy installations to generate at least 17 TW. And because no technology can ever be perfectly efficient, some of the free energy harnessed by wind and wave generators will be lost as heat. So by setting up wind and wave farms, we convert part of the sun's useful energy into unusable heat.

"Large-scale exploitation of wind energy will inevitably leave an imprint in the atmosphere," says Kleidon. "Because we use so much free energy, and more every year, we'll deplete the reservoir of energy." He says this would probably show up first in wind farms themselves, where the gains expected from massive facilities just won't pan out as the energy of the Earth system is depleted.

Using a model of global circulation, Kleidon found that the amount of energy which we can expect to harness from the wind is reduced by a factor of 100 if you take into account the depletion of free energy by wind farms. It remains theoretically possible to extract up to 70 TW globally, but doing so would have serious consequences.

Although the winds will not die, sucking that much energy out of the atmosphere in Kleidon's model changed precipitation, turbulence and the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. The magnitude of the changes was comparable to the changes to the climate caused by doubling atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (Earth System Dynamics, DOI: 10.5194/esd-2-1-2011).

There is no such thing as a free ride.

Legal threats deplored, sort of

Victorian barrister Jeremy Sear deplores legal actions that stifle free speech:

Anyone who’s been watching the media landscape for the last decade or so will have seen some extraordinary things. People with entire national broadsheets at their disposal threatening to sue people who’ve tweeted remarks made by others. We’ve seen media companies themselves issuing proceedings on completely the opposite side from which you’d expect to find guardians of free speech. We’ve seen journalists whose entire business is using their pulpit to attack others, often in the most personal and misleading ways possible, having their lawyers demand salve for their own wounded feelings.

It’s all a bit silly, isn’t it? The powerful with all these outlets at their command demanding money and compensation from critics via the courts for their hurt feelings? Is robust speech to be, in practice, all one way – the privilege of the powerful at the expense of the ordinary person?

Yet Jeremy once threatened legal action against a blogger who republished a photo of his cat. The threat obviously meant to bamboozle a person lacking legal expertise.

And Jeremy also, via his Victorian Bar email account, demanded that I provide my personal details for the service of unspecified legal documents. These documents never arrived but the threat was obvious meant to intimidate. But Jeremy had succeeded in his primary goal: obtaining my home address.

Jeremy deplores legal threats only when he's not the one doing the threatening. Hypocrite.

ABC bias noted

Caroline Overington points to Leftward bias at the ABC as evidenced by last Thursday's The Drum on ABC 24, which offered further media exposure to expert-on-nothing Antony Loewenstein, who pitched the usual anti-U.S. line:

In a discussion about the US army "kill team" soldier Corporal Jeremy Morlock, who murdered civilians and has been sentenced to 24 years jail for the crime, Loewenstein said he had decided "this sort of stuff is common".

"It's part of how . . . the only way you can get through a day (is) to see the enemy as towelheads . . . these images sadly are far more common than we like to believe," he said of reports that rogue psychopaths had murdered a teenage boy and cut off his finger as a trophy.

Overington should check out Loewenstein blog, where the "rogue psychopaths" are "America’s Kill Team in Afghanistan".

Even better, on The Drum Loewenstein describes Liberal economics policy as "Reaganomics on crack". The ABC embarrasses itself by featuring Loewenstein's anti-Western pseudo-analysis.

Abused elephant liberated

I've never understood the point of animals performing for the entertainment of humans. It is therefore pleasing to see an abused circus elephant set free to do whatever it is elephants do.

Cyclone warning

Australia might experience fewer but stronger cyclones, maybe:

Debbie Abbs, a principal research scientist for the CSIRO's Marine Atmospheric Research Division, says her team looked at the outputs from 12 climate models that focus on the Australian region.

"We are finding an approximate 50 per cent decrease in the frequency of occurrence of cyclones affecting our region," she said.

"The reduction that we are talking about is by the end of the 21st century. There is a smaller reduction earlier on, but it gets more intense with time."

Dr Abbs says although there may be fewer cyclones, they could be more severe.

No speculation as to the net impact of a speculated fewer but more intense cyclones.

Jews and Zionists the same

Never one to miss a promotional opportunity in his quest to make it big as a journalist and thus escape the intellectual backwater that is Australia, Antony Loewenstein habitually links at his blog to even the most minor media exposure. It is therefore exceedingly odd that Loewenstein is yet to link to his second New Matilda article in a week.

There is indeed something strange going on here. Loewenstein reckons he didn't misquote Greens candidate and presumptive Balmain victor Jamie Parker:

I stand by my article and Parker’s quotes and I have the notes to back this up.

Any written notes Loewenstein has prove nothing, of course, Andrew Landeryou speculating that Loewenstein has an "audio recording" of his Parker interview.

It doesn't really matter who's telling the truth here, however, because from any angle it's clear that not just Zionists but Jews are being targeted as subverting democratic processes in Australia. It's almost as if the Left sees Jews as a monolithic political bloc that supports Israel at all costs. This is no more fair than subscribing to the delusion that all Muslims are terrorists.

Update Loewenstein belatedly links to his latest New Matilda piece, which he aptly describes as "My following story". Story as in fairytale. (By the way, the delay in the second New Matilda article can almost certainly be attributed to the extensive editing required to make Loewenstein's mangled writing understandable.)

Jew Nazis the same as Green Nazis

Jew Michael Brull, a regular The Drum Unleashed contributor and Antony Loewenstein clone, notes a seeming paradox:

It must be stressed - Jewish organisations routinely declare that comparing Israel to Nazis is anti-Semitic. It must be stressed - Jewish organisations routinely declare that comparing Israel to Nazis is anti-Semitic. It turns out - describing critics of Israel as Nazis is fine. For example, ECAJ puts out yearly reports on anti-Semitism by the sober and serious Jeremy Jones. This one explains that “When Jews are called Nazis it not only renders the unique crimes of Hitler's regime common-place, but also uses Jews' past suffering as a means of abuse.... This slander is sometimes conscious anti-Semitism, sometimes thoughtless polemic and sometimes confused rhetoric, but regardless of its motivation it is generally recognised, after consideration, as anti-Semitism”.

Why doesn’t this apply to those who call Greens Nazis?

Can Brull really be that stupid?

Jews as a racial/cultural/religious group have been subjected to prejudice and persecution for literally thousands of years, this targeting reaching its zenith in the 1930s and 1940s in Nazi Germany. It is thus an unparalleled slur to accuse Jews of becoming what they and every right thinking person abhors: Nazis.

Now whereas likening Greens to Nazis is somewhat hyperbolic, it is highly unlikely that the Greens will ever be subject to the prejudice and persecution – and attempts to exterminate – suffered by Jews. Its truly amazing that Brull can't comprehend this.

Investigator investigated

Here's what you get when "journalist" Antony Loewenstein dabbles in investigative reporting:

Crikey Ed: This story originally cited national occupational health and safety unit director Dr Yossi Berger in Victoria in relation to Zionist advocacy conducted in the AWU; this reference has now been removed due to inaccuracy.

Australian Workers' Union national secretary Paul Howes is mystified at the targeting of Berger, or maybe not:

Why he picked on Berger was completely beyond me - except that he has a Jewish-sounding name.

I suppose Lowenstein assumed that Berger must be part of the Zionist conspiracy.

Well acquainted with Loewenstein's inaccuracy, Howes decided to confirm for himself Greens candidate Jamie Parker's recent attack on Jews (as quoted by Loewenstein):

These Jews provide cover for extreme actions if they occur. If there's a sniff of you being critical of Israel, such Jews will attack you and cut you loose.According to Howes:I called Parker to double-check that he had indeed made the statement, and I'm glad I did because he told me he never said it.

Howes concluding:

So Lowenstein has form, and Parker, as much as I disagree with him politically, does not. Although I have no problem with people of different opinions expressing their views, I find it incredible that respectable outlets such as the ABC, Crikey and New Matilda publish articles on occasions when the author doesn't get their facts right.

If Loewenstein was published only when he got his facts right he wouldn't be published at all.

Update Loewenstein eagerly anticipates the Sydney Writers' Festival:

@reginapritchard thanks, looking forward to all my sessions at #SWF2011 to talk Palestine, prose and politics.

Loewenstein may be able to talk about prose but he sure as Hell can't write it.

April Fools fail for comedy genius

Noted Aussie humourist Scott Bridges is the comedy genius behind the Pepsi bottle penis, author of "Stone.Cold.Classic." political humour and discoverer of laughs in unexpected places:












































Bridges' latest, an April Fools gag was perhaps a tad too subtle; at least according to one reader:

Quite possibly the weakest April Fools prank I've ever read.

Better stick with penis, rooting and swallowing hard humour, Scottie.

Leftist sees eclectic anti-Greens conspiracy

Pip Hinman, far Left activist, regular contributor to Green Left Weekly and Socialist Alliance candidate in Marrickville (garnering 860 votes), exposes the vast anti-Greens conspiracy:

There was a de facto anti-Green alliance of both major parties, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Australian Jewish New, a powerful alliance that ran a slanderous campaign asserting that the Greens are anti-Israel (or anti-Semitic) because they support BDS and Palestinian rights.

The anti-BDS and anti-Greens campaign in Marrickville - which reached fever pitch in the last two weeks of the election campaign - included the outrageous accusation that the Greens are “fascists” and “Nazis”. Greens billboards in the Marrickville electorate were plastered with swastikas, as well as racist and sexist abuse.

And:

While some anti-BDS campaigners would disagree with this sort of slanderous tactic, they nevertheless equate criticism of Israel’s policies with a form of anti-Semitism.

Okay, billboards were defaced by parties unknown; what about all of those anti-Greens slanders perpetrated by "both major parties, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Australian Jewish New"? Hinman offers nothing more than a snippet from a single post-election editorial:

The March 28 Sydney Morning Herald editorial said: “They [the Greens] may have paid a price for their Marrickville candidate’s indulgence in childish gesture politics as a local councillor. Fiona Byrne’s support for an absurd ban on firms with links to Israel from doing business with Marrickville Council only cast doubt on her and her party’s commonsense."

Golly, that's pretty savage stuff.

Not content with appearing merely foolish, Hinman is determined to make a complete fool of herself by redefining anti-semitism:

Antisemitisim - a hatred of people of Semitic “race”, which includes Palestinians and some Jews - is of course racist. Racism, in all its forms (including anti-Arab racism) should not be tolerated.

It is unclear exactly why Hinman wants to deligitimise a word that in everyday parlance means "Jew hatred". Perhaps she's hinting that Jew hatred doesn't exist.

Bothered barrister forgets to use words of power

Outraged that David Penberthy, editor of The Punch and worse still, a former editor of the dreaded Daily Telegraph, claims New South Wales Greens directed preferences to Pauline Hanson, PP boy Jeremy Sear suggests Pure Poison readers take action:

You might want to let the Press Council know what you think about that kind of shamelessness.

Jeremy's outrage ramps up when the preferences claim is repeated by The Punch contributor Mark Kenny:

Will the Press Council in any way police this, or is the biggest media company in the land now free to just openly lie about political groups it wants to see “destroyed”?

Rather than immediately seeking intervention, Jeremy should try the first step in the "normal procedure" for complaints suggested by the Press council:

You should first seek to contact the editor or a senior editorial executive of the publication, outlining your concerns and the amends or redress you see as required. A reasonable approach from both parties can often bring a quick and satisfactory solution to a complaint.

So Jeremy should ring Penberthy, use the the magic "It's Jeremy from Crikey" words of power and discuss the matter. No doubt Penberthy, when he eventually recovers from the Jeremy-actually-rang-me swoon, will adjust the two The Punch articles immediately.

Update Jeremy, the awesomely significant:

I suspect News Ltd’s real problem with the Greens is people like me …

Loewy lazy

Stung by yet more criticism of his New Matilda article positing that a Jewish conspiracy of sorts dashed the Greens' New South Wales election hopes, Antony Loewenstein responds with a massive 2,399 word blog post defending his position and attacking "lazy [Murdoch] reporters".

But "journalist" Loewenstein doesn't detect the irony in accusing other of laziness when he copies and pastes entire articles into his blog post, with only some 399 words, or less than 17%, of the 2,399 word article written by Loewenstein.

If the guy could write he would; but since he can't, he disregards copyright, copying and pasting the work of real journalists.

Update Now you'd reckon just about any Jew would be familiar with Kristallnacht as the start of the organised Nazi assault on Jews; not Loewenstein, who refers to the momentous event as Kristalnacht. It's but one more error to add to atheist-Jew Loewenstein's catalogue of ignorance.