Darwin, NT News are indeed great:
Northern Territory News Editor Julian Ricci writes: Re. “Media briefs: Digital TV changeover explained… UK reporters to subedit own copy…” (Monday, item 23). Crikey wrote:
Interesting enough that NT News are seeking sub-editors at a time when subs are being laid off worldwide in large numbers, but some may take issue with their claims that they are the ‘greatest paper in the world, in the best city in the world’…
There is no doubt Darwin is the best city in the world. Research has proven it. As for the NT News being the “greatest paper in the world”, a snap poll has shown three out of four people believe this to be true. My partner said it definitely was (as long as I unloaded the dishwasher). My mum said: “Yes dear, of course it is’”, then, “Who is this? Is this one of those prank call thingies?” My neighbour said: “Absolutely … as long as you keep giving me your home delivery copy … and keep your bloody dog out of my azaleas.”
But my dad said he preferred the Tablelands Advertiser because he got his name in the lawn bowls results column every other week.
We accept your apology.
Airport security:
“Trav Eller” writes: Re. Monday’s editorial. Airport security! A joke! I am a very frequent flyer. Especially overseas. 10 days ago I boarded an American Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Chicago. In my jacket pocket I had a razor sharp cigar cutter which is three times larger than the “box cutters” used by the hijackers for 9/11. Obviously I did not realise what was in my pocket at the time and just put my jacket through the sophisticated x-ray machines with my shoes. No problem.
A few days later I then boarded a British Airways flight from Chicago to London. Before I handed over my jacket to the cabin attendant I checked my pockets for valuables and found the cigar cutter. I showed the cabin attendant and I commented then it was razor sharp and that I was amazed that the x-ray had not picked it up. I told her naively that it was OK because I was not a hijacker. I put it back in my pocket and gave the jacket to her.
I then carried the same jacket through airport security over the next few days through Bangkok to Singapore, Singapore to Bangkok and Bangkok to Sydney. I just forgot I had it in my jacket. So I ended up carrying the thing through Las Vegas, Chicago, London, Bangkok, Singapore, and Bangkok security checks. The razor sharp cutter was never picked up!
What is the x-ray machine doing guys? Security? You have to be joking. Please do not print my name as this will completely stuff up my future travels. Seriously.
John Mair writes: All the security at airports is about keeping these things off planes, not securing the actual airport. Proof: try to get one of those queue bollards used to murder the guy onto a plane. A gang of bikies can turn up anywhere and brawl. No-one can stop it.
However I do wonder why the crew on the plane didn’t have the cops there by the time the plane landed. (Not our problem once they are off the plane?) Right now I would be buying shares in a plastic bollard company.
Matthew Brennan writes: With due respect to Sandy Logie (yesterday, comments) I would assume an effective airport security system would involve security patrols, surveillance and communications systems, all hopefully coordinated and set up to elicit a rapid response to any disturbance, any where, within the airport.
That a group of individuals could start brawling when they got off a plane, continue brawling to the baggage collection area where one of them is then bashed to death, and the perpetrators then walk out the front doors, hail a cab and escape successfully (all over the space of 15 minutes in a crowded airport terminal!) can only lead me to conclude that the absence of any terrorist attack at Sydney Airport is primarily because no would be terrorist has so far bothered to try!
Bikies and drugs:
Les Heimann writes: Re. “Absurd anti-bikie laws do not stop bikies, but legalising drugs will” (yesterday, item 10). Greg Barns postulates that legalising drugs will end the bikies wars. Of Course! Legalising drugs will end lots of wars, save zillions of dollars, dramatically reduce violence and save us from any more Underbelly series. Frankly one has to wonder what bloody idiot decided to make all these drugs illegal in the first place. It’s as if we haven’t learnt from the prohibition era in the USA.
What is the case against legalisation? There is no case! Why should we continue to fill up our jails, export countless dollars across the seas and allow violence and crime gangs to flourish? Why indeed when, if it’s legal, we can tax the stuff.
Reuben Braithwaite writes: With the unfortunate failure of the Victorian government to support the “dob in a bikie” hotline the burden once again falls upon your publication to keep us safe at night.
Every day my street in inner northern Melbourne is terrorized by one of these mounted marauders. Nonchalant astride his bright red machine, brazenly displaying his gang colours and mounting the footpath at will, this lone rider gleefully grins with a deathly leer at all who dare look his way. I would encourage any upstanding member of society to report other sightings of this villain’s murderous crew.
The colours of his gang may easily be identified by a blood red circle with what appears to be a stylized “P” in its centre. Indeed, such is the impunity with which these hell bound ruffians roam the streets they have even had the temerity to install a metal box, their grizzly logo upon it, on the corner and I regularly see the good people of my neighbourhood depositing envelopes into it — “protection’ money no doubt.
Yours in anticipation of a safer world, Reuben.
Turnbull:
Alan Kennedy writes: Re. “Is Turnbull’s honeymoon over?” (Yesterday, item 4). “Otherwise, Peter Costello, a man without courage, capacity for hard work or policy substance, will obtain the leadership having done nothing but destabilise his party since November 2007. And Turnbull, one of the finest minds ever to grace an Australian Parliament, will be lost to public life, before he’s even had a chance to show what he’s capable of.”
Apart from finishing a sentence on a preposition Mr Keane’s moistening of Mr Turnbull’s pockets with an outburst of man-love and affection is embarrassing for all of us having to watch.
Bernard please, you and Malcolm should get a room.
State politics:
David Lenihan writes: Re. Peter Lloyd (yesterday, comments) who wrote: “Each state is desperate to be rid of their stale and dodgy Labor governments…”
Oh, then of course last Saturday’s Queensland election was merely a figment of our imagination and Labor wasn’t returned with a majority of something like 15 seats. Obviously the majority of that state were not desperate to rid themselves of a Labor Government. Both the ACT and Nth Territory returned Labor Governments, but of course they are not States. In reality the only “State” that appears to be close to a change of Government is NSW and the Liberal Party there is probably in a worse “state” than the Queensland conglomeration was.
No Peter perhaps it is merely wishful thinking on your part, I wasn’t aware there was a frenzied desire among your mates in Tassie to get rid of that nice Labor Government, all seems love and peace down there. Incidentally you observe the Libs in Tasmania are controlled by booze, religion and Forestry. Substitute Forestry for big business and you have the Libs in all States and Territories.
Incidentally it appears all is not well in the Liberal/National camp in WA, murmurings and rumblings between the two partners are becoming louder. It seems not all marriages are made in Heaven and the Nats are becoming a reluctant bride.
Pollster Gary Morgan writes: Re. “Brent vs Possum: on accumulating accuracy” (yesterday, item 11). As with so many recent elections Galaxy and Newspoll have not always been as accurate as they claim. There are two reasons:
- Their estimate of the vote for each party has been out a lot — both were very wrong in their estimate of the Brisbane vote for each party (check it yourself), and;
- It is for this reason that they both wrongly said the Queensland election would be close — it was never going to be close — the ALP fooled the media “sheep”, as they do so often.
Peter Brent is “right” — both the final week surveys indicated huge swings to the LNP in and around Brisbane and modest ones (in aggregate) elsewhere in the State — unfortunately WRONG!
Correction:
Four Corners Executive Producer Sue Spencer writes: Re. “Last night’s TV ratings” (yesterday, item 15). I have no idea where Glenn Dyer gets his information but he certainly has not checked it with Four Corners. Marcus Einfeld was not “wired up when he was walking into court in the Four Corners story.”
The sound collected was from a trusty boom microphone operated by one of the ABC’s excellent sound recordists, who was waiting with the numerous other media in the immediate vicinity of the court.
This is an important point as there should be no suggestion that Marcus Einfeld was wearing a microphone into the court.
The F/A-18 Hornet:
Justin Templer writes: If Vincent Burke (yesterday, comments) is correct when he tells us an RAAF F/A-18 Hornet hovered over the crowd at a V8 car race in Adelaide we should all keep very quiet about it — if the Yanks find out that we’ve modified an FA-18 to hover they’ll want one too.
Steven McKiernan writes: Sorry Vincent Burke, RAAF fan of Adelaide, F/A-18 Hornets do not have an internal bomb bay, I can only assume he was looking at the open recesses for the landing gear.
Gaza:
Sonia Morris writes: Re. “IDF testimonials tell frightening version of Gaza war” (Monday, item 6). As a Jewish woman and a Zionist, obviously I would defend Israel rather than the Palestinians, but I must take you to task on your rabidly unfair articles regarding the ongoing conflict. Why do you always take the Palestinians viewpoint without ever putting forward the Israeli side? Have you forgotten the rockets from Gaza in to Sderot for example? Or the Israeli children killed by the rockets from Gaza.
I could continue in the same vein, but I don’t see the need, as Crikey never sees the conflict as being anything other than Israel’s fault. You can at least attempt to see the other side, but you won’t, will you?
ACMA:
Verity Pravda writes: Mark Newton (yesterday, comments) incorrectly states that I suggest the IIA was involved in the leak of the ACMA list. But he does agree the list was leaked from the existing process and the existing legislation — which is the framework the IIA supports. He asks how long the list for the ISP filter would take to leak, and the answer, as I wrote, is that it doesn’t matter — as with a filter in place the average Joe-blow at home isn’t going to be accessing the sites.
I think the issue about whether the list released is or isn’t the “ACMA” list is a little weird. Even the first list seemed likely to at least include the ACMA list. But, to repeat, the leak came from a nine-year-old process of distributing the list to filter providers who embedded it in software for further distribution. Can we all agree that that is a dumb idea? And, by the way, if we plan the filter right we only need to install it on the transit links out of the country rather than in every ISP – that is a lot more efficient and a lot more controlled.
And it really does become possible to institute a process for review of the sites listed on the list. Finally it is strange that Stilgherrian can be dredging up the “Conroy’s Big Brother” line (which is matched in the chat forums with claims that the Rudd government is totalitarian) in the same Crikey issue as John Faulkner’s review of FOI laws is reported.
Mel Richardson writes: Re. “It certainly looks like the ACMA blacklist, eh Senator Conroy?” (Yesterday, item 13). Is it just me or are other people getting a tad bored with “Stilgherrian” and his/her constant rants on the proposed net filter. I know that Crikey has, on a few occasions provided another point of view on this but Stilgherrian seems to have a daily platform for essentially the same opinion, over and over. We got the point.
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All vicious and malevolent leftists such as Marilyn, full off of their own incoherent anger, commandeer the Gazan tagedy quoting B’Tselem whenever possible.
B’Tselem is an NGO which the Jerusalem Post named as one of the “radical leftist organizations with a documented history of falsifying and distorting data”.
Not that a reasoned contrary argument would give a nutter such as Marilyn even a moment’s hesitation in before once more like the proverbial dog returning to its vomit she duplicates her folly by hurtling into her infamously repetitive and interminably poisonous anti-Semitic diatribes.
These can be found in many daily news blogs excepting the increasing number from which she is already banned
Ah, Verity, I was missing you! Well, not really. But that’s how comments like this are supposed to start when the Minister’s Special Little Troll re-appears after claiming they wouldn’t be commenting on my writing again, eh? As it happens, I only mentioned Conroy as Big Brother in order to point out Senator Minchin’s stupidity in trying in invoke the idea in relation to a standard media monitoring process.
Still, what I don’t understand is why Senator Conroy himself isn’t disowning this flawed process as a creature of the Howard government. He’s got his expert panel meeting in May. He’s got a review of existing research in the pipeline. He’s got a technical trial or something or other happening. And yet he’s still The Invisible Man on this issue.
As for “Mel Richardson”, if that is indeed his/her name, I’ll leave our illustrious editor to decide whether Crikey is covering the unfolding story of internet censorship too frequently. Outside my pay grade. But I write under my own name, and always have — as 30 seconds with Google would have told you. Which is more than I can say for some people… Shhhhh! SEKRITS!
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=5®ion=GAZA
Sonia, I suggest you stop whining about the fucking pissant rockets and look at the truth of the statistics compiled by B’Tselem and tell us all about the hundreds of Israeli’ children killed in Sderot by those pissant rockets.
When and if you ever find them dear get back to us on that but in the meantime face come reality.
Israel illegally occupies Palestine and has done since the day Ben Gurion rejected the partition plan in 1947 and then claimed the arabs rejected it as an excuse to ethnically cleanse 800,000 people from 531 villages and 13 urban centres and the dozens of massacres known about and the thousands literally thrown into the sea by terrorist gangs.
You zionists are the weirdest people in the world, blind, blinkered, ignorant. Jews have no historic connection to Palestine, zionism is a nationalist cult and nothing more and Israel is not a state.
If you can’t be bothered to read the works of jewish and Israeli historians like Ilan Pappe, Tom Segev, Akiva Eldar and many others then keep silent with the bleats about the crimes of the other side.
Israel murders children in their beds, at school, on the way to school and here is one you can’t be bothered to know.
The 1967 6-day “defensive” war was planned and bedded down in November 1966. Just like this latest attack was planned months in advance even while Israel was not holding to the truce and was busy starving 1.5 million people to death in the war crime of collective punishment.
Hamas on the other held the truce and got a kick in the face.
For your interest Sonia dear, the CIA report that the median age in Gaza is 17 years and 2 months which just goes to show the extreme cowardice of your ignoramus mates in Israel and abroad who adhere to the nonsense that jews can keep stealing Palestine.
The world at large is over this bullshit and it is time you grew up.
If Verity Pravda (surely a play on words ?) is in with Mr Conroy, could she please ask the Minsiter why he has involved himself with the so-called “child’s rights advocate” Child Wise and whether he has checked their credentials or made enquiries about the past ?.
Scandals will burst forth one day and anyone caught up in them only has themselves to blame.I know the Rudd government is new at all this but they have had years in Opposition to hone their craft and not be had in by dodgy folk. And just because they come with Keelty’s blessing-well that is actually double reason to check. You have been advised. Take it.
@Daniel I have tried to think of you with a personality but despite my understandably low expectations, you have consistently failed to demonstrate one.
You even now, and not for the first time, have failed to construct a single intelligible word.
It’s long been obvious you’re not the brightest crayon in the box, indeed you would be out of your depth in the proverbial car park puddle, however as I’ve implored you in the past, please endeavour (and if necessary seek outside assistance) to construct even a single sentence that makes sense.
C’mon Daniel! We want you to succeed…..
@ ‘Sensible’ Marilyn: Actions lie louder than words?