Mind lost

Antony Loewenstein presents another stunning series of facts in The Guardian online:

Australians love consuming illicit drugs. We enjoy smoking, inhaling and losing our minds.

...And drafting our next column.

Do the maths. The state is spending billions of dollars every year imprisoning drug pushers and users,

No it isn't.

Australia spends around $3 billion to keep people in prisons each year. All of them. This includes rapists, murderers, thieves, thugs, terrorists, arsonists, kidnappers. Oh, and drug pushers and users.

Sadly it doesn't include Grauniad fact-checkers.

with private prison owners reaping the benefits.

There are only three privately run prisons in the entire country. Fulham Correctional Centre, Mount Gambier Prison and Port Phillip Correctional Centre. Reapers!

Antony 'Do the Maths' Loewenstein doesn't know how to put down the bong and do Google. Nor apparently do his publishers at The Guardian. Perhaps they were high. You see, according to Antony:

Governments and their media courtiers talk about being “tough on crime” and bravely fighting a battle against the drug scourge. They should look in the mirror and question how frequently politicians and journalists snort a line of coke on a Friday night. Hint: pretty damn often.

Antony knows this how? He doesn't spend much time around politicians or employed journalists. Hint: He's talking out of his arse. Surprising considering how easy it would have been to find some facts or simply quote someone else's more thoughtful piece. Op-eds about legalising drugs are the journalistic equivalent of comedians doing a bit on airline food. Even then, he blew it.

The Guardian is onto a real winner.

Ken O'Keefe needs to take his meds.

Hilarious 'debate' on Iran's Press TV, featuring journalist Lee Kaplan and International Scumbag Movement member Ken O’Keefe.
It's got everything. 9/11 denial, whipping out penise denial and, of course, denouncing the US.

H/T MEMRI.

Six Degrees of Loewy

If someone invented a game in which you had to take any topic howsoever irrelevant and link it back to Israel-hating, Antony Loewenstein would be the world champion. Here he is on The Guardian's blog talking about Papua New Guinea and Australia.

Australia treats its neighbours with contempt. As soon as the latest contortions of refugee policy were announced last week, I tweeted that Australia could possibly expect international sanctions, not unlike against Israel due to its human rights abuses of Palestinians.

Israel suffers international sanctions?

Loewy's resume puffery continues. Not only is he a 'best selling author' he is now a publisher as well.

Last week I published a piece in the Guardian on the necessity of journalists being far more transparent in their dealings and allegiances, including a call for them to declare for whom they vote. It caused a stir.

How much of a stir?

To the point where I was interviewed on South Korea’s Busan English Broadcasting.

International broadcaster!

Two Tabloids

Both the Sunday Telegraph (News Corp) and the Sunday Herald (Fairfax) reported today on the impending 'changes' to the landmark Oxford Tavern in Petersham. New owners are likely to abolish the topless barmaids which have been a hallmark of the venue since its early days.

Compare the photos which accompanied the two articles.

Sunday Telegraph

Sunday Herald

The g-string photo and the article which accompanies it ran ten pages earlier in the Herald than it did in the Tele.  The Herald's online version features the same image, in all it's NSFW glory.

Remember when readers of the Herald would sneer at the 'gutter journalism' of the Telegraph and those who read it? I wonder if they've noticed...

Compare the Wikipedia articles of the two newspapers' (daily editions). The Sydney Morning Herald's entry notes:

The Sydney Morning Herald is historically credited with high standards of journalism but in recent years it has been criticised for declining standards, with an increased focus on gossip, large photographs and racier headlines.

No! That represents the sole criticism of the paper.

The Daily Telegraph's Wikipedia entry page is instead a long list of 'controversies' dating back over a decade as though still relevant and as if the Herald had never been dragged before the Press Council. The 'talk' page is full of lefties  (and Tim Blair haters) arguing whether the Telegraph is evil or really evil (when they are not editing Gerard Henderson or the Liberal Party's Wiki pages). Clowns.

Loving the Conversation

Antony Loewenstein:

The Guardian’s media writer Roy Greenslade has responded to my column and challenged its logic. I love this conversation

I loved it too. Greenslade suggested he was a simpleton.

Loewenstein's opening paragraph:

Are mainstream journalists dedicated to journalism? This may seem like a strange question, especially since I’m a journalist myself, though independent and not tied to a corporate news organisation.

Read: Unemployed and unable to construct a basic sentence.

Mariloon

In a letter published in today's Australian, Marilyn Shepherd writes:

JAKARTA will not allow us to tow boats back from Christmas Island to Indonesia. Australia looks like having a race-hate election. We look more and more like a nation of racists prepared to abandon people in the name of winning votes in western Sydney.

Marilyn Shepherd is a Holocaust denying antisemite and fully taxpayer funded. Someone should tow her offshore.

Mos Def is a Giant Pussy

Via Antony Loewenstein's blog:

Devastating short film that demonstrates the brutal reality for countless prisoners under the Obama administration:

As always, Antony can't count. Luckily others can.

As Ramadan begins, more than 100 hunger-strikers in Guantánamo Bay continue their protest. More than 40 of them are being force-fed.

Countless!

In this four-minute film made by Human Rights organisation Reprieve and Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadia, US actor and rapper Mos Def, who now goes by the name Yasiin Bey, experiences the procedure.

Watch him ham it up for the cameras.

Loewenstein claims force-feeding inmates is torture. Rubbish. The alternative is of course letting them die and wouldn't there be complaints then.

Any of the Guantanamo Bay 'victims' of what was gleefully shilled by the Guardian and Loewenstein describes as "torture" could simply change their mind and eat a nice meal instead. Oh the humanity!

There is also a good chance those in the video didn't know what they were doing. Here's a video showing how it should be done. I'm no medical professional but even without the 'sips of water' that a hunger-striking inmate might reject, there were some fundamental errors in the head positioning. This is rather weak propaganda.

The late Christopher Hitchens (who has crushed Mos Def previously) copped a waterboarding and he didn't cry like a big girl.



Conclusion: Mos Def is a pussy.

Update: Little white girls are also tougher than Mos Def.

Facts Deductible

A sneering letter to the SMH demands James Packer give to charity. As if he didn't.

It is impossible for the average punter to even conceive of such massive wealth as that held by James Packer and other members of the billionaire brigade. It is more difficult to understand their incessant drive to make even more money. Really, how many mansions, luxury yachts, private jets or, in this case, gambling casinos can one bloke need? Obviously more! 

Having trampled all over regular planning and construction restraints at Barangaroo, Packer, in his greed, sees fit to ignore sensitive Sri Lankan religious beliefs to build yet another casino. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Packers of this world invested just a minute percentage of this obscene wealth in solving some of the world's problems. 

Jack Timms Suffolk Park

They do. For example the Lowy Packer building which "houses the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and the St Vincent's Centre for Applied Medical Research (AMR)". 

Kerry Packer donated $30 million to cancer research in the USA, at least $10 million to the Westmead Children’s Hospital and millions to the NSW Ambulance Service ensuring every ambulance in NSW would be fitted with a portable defibrillator after he suffered a heart attack in 1990. They were nicknamed "Packer Whackers".

This is above and beyond anonymous donations or those not reported. Stories of Kerry Packer's philanthropy emerged after his death and I expect it's a lesson followed by his offspring.

I wonder what percentage of his income Mr Timms gives to charity each year. I also wonder whether in light of the above he would still sneer and write-off the Packers' philanthropy as a mere tax-deduction.

Last year he wrote this letter to the Byron Shire Echo.

Perhaps Norm Sanders was a little harsh in his criticism of the Suffolk Park Cape Byron State Conservation Area. A parking fee of $7 is hardly excessive. Many national and state parks in NSW charge similar rates. Norm, you could either stress over the fee, or be content in the knowledge that for the price of two coffees you have contributed to the upkeep of a beautiful park.

Jack Timms Suffolk Park

Timms is very good at telling others how they should spend their hard-earned, isn't he?

Ruddy Hell

A great letter in today's Oz.

Welcoming of boatpeople: Rudd carpet. Government bureaucracy: Rudd tape. Australia's armed forces: Rudd army. Talking in circles: Rudd herring. Putting up with dysfunctional leadership: seeing Rudd.

Scott Patrick, Pacific Pines, Qld

I feel like a New Zealander just for having Rudd it.

Caption Inaccurate

Antony Loewenstein's latest appearance on TV:

Today all us writers of the For God’s Sake book appeared on Channel 7′s Weekend Sunrise program.

It's unclear what sort of "writer" would produce a sentence like that. Loewy and the panel were trying to promote their new book. At least this time Antony couldn't claim full-credit for it.

A recent review in The Australian noted:

Of the atheists, Loewenstein has his own tic. No matter what the topic, he manages to introduce his conviction about the infamy of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. He is the most openly perplexed of the panel,

 True to form Antony leapt out of the gate talking about.... The Usual. In his own (mangled) words:

It was strange watching this segment back and noticing that under my name on the screen it read, “Jew”.

Not an adjective many others in the Jewish community would use to describe him...

It was a unique opportunity to explain that Judaism and Zionism aren’t the same thing and increasing numbers of Jews worldwide oppose Israeli apartheid against Palestinians

There was nothing unique at all. Whilst most of the panel were charming, when it came to Loewenstein it was the same tired argument and even his colleagues were visibly wincing as he prattled on (watch from 2m30s). Host Andrew O'Keefe kept turning to the others in an attempt to stop viewers switching away. Loewenstein is as painful to listen to as he is to read. Just try it.



My favourite line: "There's no doubt in the last ten years since 9/11 there's been Christian Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism and I'd say Jewish."

Idiot.

Fire the Lasers

Local Police and Aviation authorities hyperventilate when laser pointers are fired at a police helicopter.

Now take a look at Egypt where literally thousands of lasers are pointed at helicopters, journalists and pretty much everything else by celebrating and/or rioting Arabs.

Arab pilots regard this as a tremendous safety improvement from traditional ways of celebrating - firing automatic weapons into the air.

Guardian of the Clueless

Antony Loewenstein inflates his resume once again:

My following article appears today in the Guardian:

Well, not exactly. It appeared on their 'Comment is Free' blog. As in - nobody would pay for it.

When I met Abbott in Sydney in 2010 and challenged him to learn more about Israel’s flouting of international law, he reverted to familiar, right-wing Zionist talking points.

And Loewenstein reverted to complete fabrication.

I approached Abbott again and we talked for a few minutes about the conflict. He said he had visited Israel as a guest of the government and only been taken to where they wanted to show him. When I said that there were Jewish-only roads in the West Bank, he said that was “bad” and looked uncomfortable.

Probably because it is a complete lie and Loewenstein knows it. He has been called on it before.

Loewenstein has never said anything about "Muslim Only" roads, which actually do exist in Saudi Arabia.

Abbott told me that he “admired” Israel because of its supposedly thriving democracy, free and open debate and ability of Arabs to vote and participate in the democratic process.

Real journalists know how to quote someone and inserting their own sneering opinions isn't it.

I sensed he didn’t know too much about it all – at a few points he stated that he wasn’t an “expert”.

As opposed to say, Loewenstein who genuinely believes he knows what he is talking about.

Standby for Loewy's keen insight into the political change in Egypt. Just as soon as someone else writes something he can copy and paste.

Arabs Angry, Confused.

Via Elder of Ziyon, news of another cunning Zionist plot. Or not:

A number of Arabic media are saying that the new interim president of Egypt, Adli Mansour, is actually a Jew!  

They get this little factoid from a Facebook post by Ahmed Mansour (presumably no relation,) an Al Jazeera reporter who is clearly a fan of Mosri. 

According to the post, Adli Mansour is really a Seventh-Day Adventist. This means, according to this well-informed journalist, that Adli is really Jewish. 

If that isn't evidence enough of Adli's guilt, Ahmed says that Adli approached the Coptic pope for baptism and was turned down. I'm sure that's relevant. 

Ahmed Mansour ends off his post by saying "Congratulations, [Egypt], you are now ruled by Jews and Christians."

Looking around the Middle East, they could do a lot worse...

As we speak the Egyptians are demonstrating Democracy, Arab Style. Step one - win an election. Step two - kill your opponents.

Algemeiner calls out idiots (including the Guardian) who believe that a simple election makes a democracy. Worth a read.