Don’t waste your money at the video shop…

Stupid is alive and well on the streets of America.

-weez

Few things interest me less than the leadership of the Australian Lieberal Party. Even though my housemate has been positively gigglesome about the whole implosive scene over the last week, I am yet overwhelmed by indifference. I may be the only person in Australia who doesn’t care. However, the surprise election of Tony Abbott to the Lib leadership is ponderous enough to merit a comment.

I can’t think of any political party in the English-speaking world aside from US Repuglicans who have worked harder to make themselves unelectable. The Libs have now squarely positioned themselves as flat-earthers on climate change in defiance of polling indicating that Australian voters want action on the issue. Now they’ve elected a leader who is roughly as popular as tofu in a steakhouse, even among Liberal voters (and women voters in particular).

All I can figure is that Abbott is a sacrificial interim leader, pending the installation of Ho Jockey as leader soon before the next scheduled election, provided of course that the anticipated defeat of Rudd’s ETS isn’t used as a double-dissolution election trigger. In one of the most complex breakdowns I’ve ever read on psephology in general, ABC’s elections analyst Antony Green isn’t terribly hopeful that this will happen in the near term. Given that Australian voters are known not to be fond of going to the polls any more than they absolutely have to, Labor would be wise not to pull this lever, especially since they’re shoe-ins to win the next poll at the usual interval.

We now return to our regularly scheduled nap.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz…

-weez

For the  first second time in his life, Australia’s beloved 82-year-old gardening expert Peter Cundall has been arrested, in this event for refusing to leave the steps of the Tasmanian Parliament:

Peter Cundall arrested at pulp mill protest

Growing dissent: Peter Cundall has been to several
anti-pulp mill protests but this is the first time he
has been arrested. (AAP: Paul Carter)

* Video: Gardening guru Peter Cundall is arrested outside Tasmania’s Parliament. (ABC News)

ABC gardening personality Peter Cundall has been arrested outside Tasmania’s Parliament during a protest against Gunns’ Tamar Valley pulp mill.

Mr Cundall was among 50 activists who were arrested at the rally organised by the group Pulp the Mill.

The 82-year-old told the crowd he had never been arrested but was willing to make a stand.

He was arrested after refusing police requests to move from Parliament’s front steps.

“Did you hear the direction before?” an officer asked him.

“I did hear it,” he replied.

“Are you refusing to leave now?”

“I’m afraid so, I do respect the law but I’m so sorry but I will be refusing to leave,” Mr Cundall said.

“Then you realise that if you refuse to leave you can be arrested,” the officer said.

“I understand that,” he replied.

“OK, I’m now arresting you,” the officer told him.

Several other protesters have also been taken away by police.

Cundall is a longtime resident of Tasmania’s Tamar Valley. If anyone can speak to the potential for environmental damage by the pulp mill that nobody wants, it’s Peter. Cundall retired last year from ABC’s Gardening Australia with the express intent of pursuing his objections to the Gunns pulp mill… and boy, do we miss him on the GA show. Gardening Australia is just not a (veggie!) patch on what it was with Peter at the helm.

There’s another Peter, once known for driving environmentalist causes, who needs to get with the program. If the Hon. Peter Garrett AM MP, Minister for the Environment, can’t reconcile his job requirements with his personal politics, maybe he should quit his gig, too.

-weez

MORE: Highly dangerous Peter Cundall banned from Hobart waterfront until trial. Cundall offered free legal help after arrest.

Fox “News,” take note: Unsubstantiable conspiracy theories and xenophobic rubbish don’t pass for ‘news.’ CNN have a lot of penances yet to pay before they regain some measure of credibility, but CNN’s remaining ethical journalists must be breathing a heavy sigh of relief.

Many moons ago, CNN was a golden source of accurate, unbiased and ethical reportage. Maybe they’re on their way back. Time will tell.

-weez

Dr Karl goes all punky with the help of Jay Whalley (Frenzal Rhomb):

Quintessentially nerdy as Karl is, his long simmering discontent with disinformation and pseudoscience makes for a credibly angry punk delivery. The fact that Karl can’t sing fer nuts also suits the nature of any good punk vocal. 😀

Luv the bit at 0:34, where the words “believing silly things” are superimposed over a bible. That’ll get George Pell, Jim Wallace and Fred Nile all huffy, stompy and ‘defund the ABC-y’ for a spell. Making popcorn now. 😀

Oh yeah, and go buy a copy of Dr Karl’s new book, Never Mind the BULLocks…Here’s the Science.

-weez

Bit of a shock that Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. For one of the few times in my life that it will ever happen, I actually agree with the far-right punditocracy that he didn’t really deserve it- not yet, anyway.

To be fair as one can be to a Peace Prize recipient who is presently in charge of a war, Rachel Maddow offers justification for the award:

For the record, there were some folks other than wingnuts that felt that he didn’t deserve it, either.

Good morning. Well, this is not how I expected to wake up this morning. After I received the news, Malia walked in and said, “Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo’s birthday!” And then Sasha added, “Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up.” So it’s good to have kids to keep things in perspective.

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

–Barack Obama

-weez

The UK has News of the World. The US has the National Enquirer. Australia’s got News.com.au.

This could be is without a doubt the stupidest non-news story published this year:

Atom-smasher ‘sabotaged from the future’

By staff writers and wires

October 19, 2009 12:20pm

• * ‘Time-travel from future to kill atom-smasher’
• * Hadron Collider to test for ‘God particle’
• * Scientists suggest God could be jinxing it

SCIENTISTS claim the giant atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being jinxed from the future to save the world.

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim the LHC startup has been delayed due to nature trying to prevent it from finding the elusive Higgs boson, or “God particle”.

Don’t miss the comments thread.

I don’t know why they are bothering. The Flying Spaghetti Monster will only fudge the result when he touches it with his noodly appendage.

Posted by: Pastafarian of Sydney

You gotta know it’s bullshit when the Pastafarians weigh in. ‘Scientists’ who suggest a ‘god’ is ‘jinxing’ anything are not scientists.

I wouldn’t trust so much as a weather forecast published on news.com.au.

Get this- Rupert Murdoch wants you to PAY for this rubbish.

Bring on the subscription model, Roop. The sooner he does, the sooner this sort of garbage will disappear from the ‘net.

-weez

Bill Maher rejects the fact-free nature of religion, but he’s perfectly OK with the fact-free nature of anti-vaccination and irrational hatred of ‘western medicine.’

Maybe Maher just gets better dope than most folks.

Bill, thanks for Religulous, lucky you for getting Dawkins’ award for it, thanks for commonsense about drug policy… but you’re in the Jenny McCarthy/Jim Carrey/antivaxer boycott bin until you wise the fuck up about medical science and particularly about vaccination.

-weez

On 30 December 2008, attorney Andrea Turner was travelling on a CityRail train for a bit of a summer holiday bushwalk when she encountered an outrageous abuse of authority at the hands of the NSW Police, which the officers involved subsequently- and quite clumsily- tried to cover up.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran the following story about the event and the $40,000 taxpayer-funded payout Ms Turner received as a result:

Compensation for lawyer after wrongful arrest
BELLINDA KONTOMINAS
October 6, 2009

After unjust arrest … when Andrea Turner lodged a
complaint, police records were falsified, the judge
found. Photo: Peter Rae

A LAWYER has won $40,000 in compensation after NSW police wrongfully arrested her and then falsified official documents, alleging she had committed a terrorist act.

Andrea Turner, 57, was arrested on December 30 last year when a senior constable mistakenly believed Ms Turner had taken a photograph of her conducting a routine patrol of a train with a junior colleague.

Ms Turner, a practising criminal lawyer, had been on her way to a bushwalk in the Royal National Park.

None of the police officers involved has been reprimanded over the incident and there has been no internal investigation.

”Don’t take my photo. If you take my photo I will put you on your arse so fast it will not be funny,” the junior officer had said.

The other told Ms Turner: ”You’re obviously a bloke.”

Ms Turner was asked for identification and when she refused, was told to get off the train at the next station or be ”dragged off”.

The senior constable told her she was being arrested for taking a photograph of an officer in the execution of her duty.

Ms Turner denied taking a photograph and pointed out it was not an offence to do so. As was her legal right, she again declined to provide identification.

She was then detained for 30 minutes in front of a crowd of onlookers at Kogarah station.

Ms Turner successfully sued the state of NSW for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment in the District Court, telling the Herald: ”How could I have backed down when I tell my own clients, ‘That is thuggery, that is unlawful behaviour and you can’t let them get away with it’?”

The state had admitted liability for the incident, but did not accept it should pay aggravated or exemplary damages.

Awarding Ms Turner $20,000 in aggravated and exemplary damages, Judge Anthony Garling found she had displayed no signs of aggression during her arrest and there was no suggestion that the officers had needed to use force.

Yet three police officers were called in as back-up before she was escorted off the platform. Another five – including two detectives – also arrived on the scene.

Despite several phone calls to their superiors, none of them knew which offence, if any, Ms Turner had committed.

”It was an unjust arrest, it was a wrong arrest,” Judge Garling said.

Without explanation, Ms Turner was freed without charge.

But what happened next was even more serious, with Ms Turner falsely accused of a ”terrorist act”, Judge Garling found.

Police had decided not to pursue the matter or formally record the incident in the police COPS system. But later the same day Ms Turner called the police station to complain about her treatment.

”The police officer then decided to lessen whatever complaint could be made against her by falsifying a public record, that is, by alleging that the plaintiff committed an offence which is related to railway property, not to photographing the police officer,” Judge Garling said.

The senior constable had written in the falsified COPS entry: ”It should be noted that at the time of dealing with the person of interest police were unaware of the exact offence. It is an offence to take photos on railway property under the new terrorism laws.”

The judge said: ”This lady was sitting on a train going for a bushwalk when the police mistakenly did what they did. In no way could [it] be suggested that it related to terrorism.” He criticised the police force for not removing or amending the falsified COPS entry or apologising to Ms Turner.

In a statement NSW Police said it would treat the judge’s comments seriously. ”The matter will be investigated and any issues identified as a result of that investigation will be addressed.”

Now, what’s missing from Bellinda Kontominas’ story? I’ll give you a clue. There are 5 “w’s” that comprise any proper news story- who, what, when, where and why. The pivotal ‘who’ in this tale of abuses of authority, the law, the public interest and the interests of the people of NSW to be well served by those entrusted with enforcing our laws, are the police officers. These two officers abused their authority by needlessly if not fraudulently detaining Ms Turner, simply because they wanted to punish her for lawful behaviour that they didn’t like, in particular, Ms Turner’s lawful resistance to being bullied by police officers.

Punishment isn’t the job of the police service and falsifying records to attempt to cover their own asses after the fact is absolutely a crime. The public purse is $40,000 poorer (at least) as a result of the unlawful acts of these two corrupt cops.

This is all fairly heinous stuff for police officers- possibly perversion of the course of justice, among other offences. The officers involved haven’t yet been charged with any offences nor are on trial for the same, meaning the SMH is not subject to sub judice restrictions on publishing particulars related to the matters.

So, why didn’t Bellinda Kontominas publish the names of these officers and the location of the local command to which they’re assigned? The public certainly has a right to know this information which is completely basic and core to the story. I dropped a note to the SMH and asked:

RE: “Compensation for lawyer after wrongful arrest” at http://www.smh.com.au/national/compensation-for-lawyer-after-wrongful-arrest-20091005-gjfk.html

Despite the serious and proven accusations against police, this story omits the number 1 ‘W’ of the vital 5 ‘W’s necessary for any news story- ‘who.’

Why did writer Bellinda Kontominas omit the names of the senior and junior constables involved as well as the location of the local command to which they were assigned?

Will SMH amend the online story to include the pertinent missing data? If not, why not?

Have SMH journos been threatened with similar intimidatory action by NSW Police if this data is published?

Ms Kontominas responds:

From: Bellinda Kontominas
Sent: Friday, 9 October 2009 10:42 AM
Subject: Compensation for lawyer after wrongful arrest

In response to the query about Andrea Turner’s unlawful arrest, I made the decision not to publish the names of individual police officers involved in the case because I felt the story was about the police force as a whole.

The names were read in open court so there was nothing to stop me publishing them. Nor did the police pressure me in any way to omit the names.
I simply didn’t think naming the officers would add anything to the story.

BK

This quite simply has to be the most astonishing response I’ve ever heard from a journalist.

I replied:

Dear Ms Kontominas,

You have got to be kidding me. I honestly can’t believe that you, as a journalist, are attempting to justify withholding information from the public. Your job primarily entails conveyance of information to the public, not concealing it.

Your employer has fought tooth and nail over the years to obtain information on the behalf of the public’s right to know, with FOI requests and even lawsuits against the government.

Naming the officers absolutely goes to the public’s right to know. Identifying officers implicated not just in abuse of authority but falsification of public records is information the public most certainly should know. Being named and shamed also may give other officers pause for thought when considering such thuggery and officialised bastardry in the future.

In all seriousness, these officers have breached their obligation to the police service, to uphold the law and protect the people of NSW. Not only would disclosure of the officers names serve the public interest, it without question would ‘add something to the story.’ In fact, it would lead to a whole new story, about lawless police officers who remain on the force despite perverting the course of justice.

Kindly reconsider your news judgment on this issue.

Let’s see if she does.

-weez

(cross-posted from FightDemBack!)

As FDB‘s resident American, albeit a ‘recovering American’ with some relative sobriety due my 13 years of residency in (and now citizenship of) Australia, I can understand to some degree why many Australians could not see the racial offence in the Hey Hey It’s Saturday blackface skit.

However, denying that the skit was offensive can not rely on any sort of excuse that such an offence can not occur in Australia. There’s certainly people present in Australia who reasonably can be offended by such a skit, starting with Harry Connick, Jr. I do confess to harbouring some cynical suspicions that the Hey Hey producers needed some outrage for the benefit of ratings- and Harry was a handy person to have around to be outraged.

If there’s any viable excuse for not understanding why the skit was offensive, it could be due to the fact that many Australians may be ignorant of the use of demeaning, stereotypical blackfaced characters in popular entertainment for many decades. Bear in mind that ignorance of why something is racially offensive doesn’t make it any less offensive nor excuse the offence.

The primary reason why Harry Connick Jr, a New Orleans native, took offence at the Hey Hey skit is in part because he’s very well aware of the history of the use of blackface to stereotype and demean Africans in a predominantly Anglo culture. Mind you, simple commonsense should tell you, even if you’re utterly devoid of any knowledge of the history of blackface theatre, that making-up yourself to look like a certain ethnic person and then acting like a buffoon is highly likely to be offensive to the depicted ethnicity (and I’m talking to you too, Borat). Aside from his knowledge of the history of blackface stereotypes, the commonsense explanation is in no small part why Harry took offense at the Hey Hey skit.

Blackface in theatre has been around for a long, long time- since the 1830s, in fact. The blackface tradition was carried forth into motion pictures as they became a popular entertainment form. Typically, a white actor in blackface makeup was dressed in ‘dandy’ attire, though often tattered and second-hand to indicate the low socioeconomic status of the black person being portrayed. Blackfaced characters also commonly employed mispronunciations and malapropisms to reinforce the popular racist stereotype that blacks were stupid and unable to be educated, but attempted to act ‘above their station’ or be ‘uppity,’ inclusive of the character wearing garish garb which they mistakenly consider to be stylish. As the early 20th century wore on, actual black actors appeared in film and theatre- in blackface makeup which emphasised the eyes and lips. A comprehensive history of blackface and the common stereotype characters can be found on Black-face.com.

Blackface theatre portrayed and propagated stereotypes of African-Americans so pervasively that black actors couldn’t get work in early 20th century film unless they themselves played the stereotypes…

Hattie McDaniel in
‘Gone With The Wind”

Bert Williams

Billie Thomas as
“Buckwheat” in
‘The Little Rascals’

Blackface stereotype characters carried forth even into television programs of the 1970s, inclusive of Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, What’s Happening and Diff’rent Strokes. Black actors playing roles which more resemble real people is really a rather recent innovation in popular culture and entertainment.

A lot of Australian commenters on news items regarding the Hey Hey skit who claim to not recognise the offence try to lever the excuse that the ‘Jackson Jive’ troupe were merely spoofing the Jackson Five, not blackfolk in general. However, the ‘Jackson Jive’ troupe…

…much more closely resemble the blackface ‘uppity coon’ minstrel characters who sing the old ‘negro’ song ‘Camptown Races‘ in the 1942 Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny cartoon short Fresh Hare…

than they do the Jackson Five:

The Hey Hey skit actors, who have since apologised, claim not to have intended offence. While the lack of intent to offend may be true, the players simply didn’t think this one through. The skit would have been just as offensive in 1989- the only difference being that 20 years ago, no-one in Australia was brave enough to stand up and say so. The 2009 version of the skit was also undeniably racially offensive. That it was even considered for repetition was fully thoughtless, on the part of the Hey Hey producers and the skit actors as well.

Harry Connick Jr should be highly commended for the bravery to stand up to the Hey Hey producers and audience and call this skit out for what it was- racist rubbish.

-weez