Atheist Foundation of Australia President David Nicholls has finally persuaded Metro Tasmania to run bus advertising promoting atheism, but not before having to go to conciliation via the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission after Metro knocked back the atheist ads in 2008.

So, Taswegians will soon be seeing something like this on buses:

This text is a bit watered down from the original proposition, which was Atheism: celebrate reason, sleep in on Sunday. This was apparently interpreted as unnecessarily targeting christianity. I do agree that atheism really should go after religion in general. Given the prevalence of xianity in Australia, Australian atheists can on occasion be a bit myopic and fail to address the nonsense propounded by all religions, not just xianity. The first approach thus is certainly excusable in Australia on that basis alone, but I suppose the final draft is in the end most appropriate (and less wordy to boot).

For the record, I’m still a fan of the text used by Ariane Sherine’s original UK bus ads, There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Mind you, even that text was softened by the use of the word ‘probably.’

I see no reason for atheists to soften their message. Religionist advertising has never been subject to such limits, nor have religionists traditionally had to fight to get advertisers to run their tripe.

The AFA are now taking a new tack, one that I agree with very strongly. AFA will be asking that religionist adverts be subjected to truth-in-advertising laws. I don’t know how successful this will be, but it’s definitely worth a crack. There’s no proof gods exist, so if the letter of the law is obeyed, most religious propaganda won’t pass muster.

-weez

Blogs are all about opinion and interactivity. If what you have to say isn’t controversial, it’s probably not worth saying. The interactivity comes in the comments. Good blogs get insightful commenters. Great blogs get stalkers. Brilliant blogs get legal threats.

slackbastard, published by Melbourne’s @ndy, is a sledgehammer in the hand of a skilled yet rabid wordsmith. @ndy covers current events from an anarchist/anti-corporate and anti-racist perspective. @ndy normally forges intense, insightful, well researched bits, but every once in a while he’ll fire off a short sharp mortar round. Such was the case in January 2008, when @ndy published “Aaarrrggghhh! Dylan Lewis! Tania Lacy! So Much Hate!”

@ndy locks & loads:

Number Ones

Dylan Fucking Lewis is back on my TV screen, this time acting zany while flogging mobile phones belonging to Crazy John. According to a culture industry source “Dylan Lewis is a multi-skilled musician and media personality who can entertain and keep a crowd engaged anywhere, anytime!” but I think he’s actually one of the most annoying cunts to ever be spat out of a womb. “The rare experience of hosting an abundance of television shows combined with his professionalism, elite talent and ‘wow’ factor allows him to deliver at the highest level”, but substitute “thick eyebrows” for “professionalism”, “dickheadedness” for “elite talent” and “vomit-inducing” for “wow” and I think you’ll be much closer to the truth.

Caulfield Fucking Grammar has a lot to answer for, that’s for sure.

Even with my not knowing who the hell Dylan Lewis is, @ndy’s satirical Hunter S. Thompsonesque spray cracked me up.

19 months later, @ndy gets an amusing email:

Dear Sir,

We represent Dylan Lewis. It has come to our notice that a website titled “slackbastards” which appears to be controlled or owned by you has made reference to Dylan. Under the subheading “Number One’s” references to Dylan of a defamatory nature have been made. We have obtained legal advice confirming the status of the material as being offensive and defamatory. We seek to have the article/paragraph removed immediately from the website.

Should you not remove the offending material we are instructed to brief solicitors on behalf of our client to seek an injunction and damages.

Mark Klemens
Managing Director
Profile Talent Management
323 Montague St,
Albert Park, Victoria
Australia 3206
MKlemens@profiletalent.com.au
T: +613 8598 7810
M: 0412 386 765

O RLY? 😆

@ndy replied to Klemens:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your email.

First, two very minor corrections.

The title of the blog is ‘slackbastard’, not ‘slackbastards’; the subheading is ‘Number Ones’ not ‘Number One’s’.

Secondly, a few questions.

1. Could you please identify precisely which passages, and which terms, in the paragraph below, that you allege to be defamatory?

======

Number Ones

Dylan Fucking Lewis is back on my TV screen, this time acting zany while flogging mobile phones belonging to Crazy John. According to a culture industry source “Dylan Lewis is a multi-skilled musician and media personality who can entertain and keep a crowd engaged anywhere, anytime!” but I think he’s actually one of the most annoying cunts to ever be spat out of a womb. “The rare experience of hosting an abundance of television shows combined with his professionalism, elite talent and “wow” factor allows him to deliver at the highest level”, but substitute “thick eyebrows” for “professionalism”, “dickheadedness” for “elite talent” and “vomit-inducing” for “wow” and I think you’ll be much closer to the truth.

Caulfield Fucking Grammar has a lot to answer for, that’s for sure.

======

2. Could you please explain to me why you seek the removal of the article as a whole?

3. Further, given that the post was made on January 4, 2008, why was your email sent 19 months later, on August 6, 2009?

4. I have received four comments in response to my post of January 4, 2008. I am unaware of anyone else paying it any attention other than yourself. Given that this is the case, could you please explain to me what ‘damages’ have been inflicted upon Dylan Lewis?

Klemens replies:

I refer to my previous email. Should the paragraph as requested not be removed within 48 hours then I will seek our clients instructions to brief solicitors forthwith to commence proceedings against you. Our client will seek an injunction and damages. The result will mean, inter alia, substantial costs orders against you. Please confirm by return when the paragraph has been removed.

Mark Klemens
Managing Director
Profile Talent Management
323 Montague St,
Albert Park, Victoria
Australia 3206
MKlemens@profiletalent.com.au
T: +613 8598 7810
M: 0412 386 765

inter alia! Wow, is that French? mmrrrowr. 😆

Klemens pretends to not understand that one person’s honestly held opinion of another, such as @ndy’s opinion that Dylan Lewis is ‘annoying,’ cannot be claimed to be a defamation. Such speech is protected under Australian law as ‘fair comment.’ @ndy has not accused Lewis of any unlawful activity nor accused him of an act which he has not committed. @ndy merely offers his opinion of Lewis as ‘annoying.’

As I said, I had no idea who Dylan Lewis was before @ndy let me in on this note from Lewis’ agent. I did some looking about; Lewis is apparently a DJ on a Melbourne radio station. His Nova100-FM bio says:

[…] Dylan then went on to do a couple more music telly shows – “The 10:30 Slot” and “Pepsi Live”, and then he appeared in “Celebrity Big Brother” (which he won because of his amazing style he learnt as a boy in Adelaide), “Celebrity Circus”, and “Celebrity Nob-ends”. Clearly the use of the word “Celebrity” in these shows was an overstatement and pretty much marked the end of his TV career. So he moved to England for a while to drink pints. Upon his return and David Bowie-ish reinvention, he landed a gig at Nova and has been there ever since. Dylan had a little bit of experience in radio having had a go at PBS and JJJ a little bit during his “Celebrity” years. But he wasn”t very adept at it so had to sleep with the boss and be a gimp for a few weeks in order to get the gig.

He”s very glad he prostituted himself [per barista in comments, why doesn’t Klemens threaten to sue Nova for defaming his client as a prostitute, hmm? -weez] though because now he”s less shit at radio and wants to stay forever. […]

You know what? @ndy’s right- Lewis IS annoying. Anyone who had anything to do with ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ would be so by definition. Due to defamation law reform in Australia in recent times, you can no longer defame with truth. However, a defamation case defendant making a claim of ‘fair comment’ need not even prove the truth of the statement, rather only state that the comment was based on their honestly held opinion to prevail against any defamation claim.

Electronic Frontiers Australia notes:

[…] there are several defences for defamation, including truth and fair comment. If the statements are either true or are phrased in the terms where it appears that the maker is giving an opinion rather than a statement of truth, then the maker is unlikely to be liable for defamation.

Furthermore…

SUPREME COURT RULES 2000 – REG 263K
263K. Defence of fair comment

(1) A defence of fair comment at common law is sufficiently pleaded if it alleges that the matter complained of was a comment that ”

(a) was based on ”

(i) true fact; or

(ii) material that was published under privilege; and

(b) related to a matter of public interest; and

(c) was made honestly by the defendant.

While he IS annoying, I don’t think that Lewis necessarily fits @ndy’s colourful characterisation as the ‘one of the most annoying cunts to ever be spat out of a womb.’ The ultimate honour goes to Mark Klemens, who thinks he can heavy a blogger into silence with lawyery shit for said blogger expressing their honestly held opinion about a public figure.

Clearly, Klemens is just hoping @ndy will piss his pants and pass out upon receipt of a couple of brief yet lawyery sounding bluff emails. Given the ironclad protections afforded to speakers under ‘fair comment’ specifications, Klemens would not only have zero chance of success in a defamation claim, he’d unquestionably find himself liable for @ndy’s costs incurred in defending the case.

The possibility exists that Klemens will do a lot more damage to Lewis’ career than @ndy ever could through the Streisand Effect. The world now knows that Lewis has a bullying, threatening cockhead for an agent and thus will be as well-known for that as anything else.

I wonder what the remainder of Klemens’ clients think of being represented by an agent who bullies bloggers over legitimate fair comment. There’s no doubt they’d be unhappy with having to pay defendants’ legal costs associated with any such ill-considered action.

However, I fully support Klemens’ decision to sue bloggers. Nothing pumps up the readership numbers like an arrogant millionaire former barrister with a team of lawyers who tries to suppress the public expressions of a hobbyist writer. Suing bloggers definitely shuts them up, too. This item you’re reading is prima facie evidence of that, innit?

Awaiting my writ. Don’t you want one, too?

-weez

CNBC’s Erin Burnett has smeared Kevin Rudd (spin on to 3m15s) as a ‘serial killer‘ after he approved a cull of a million feral camels in the outback.

“There is a serial killer in Australia and we’re going to put his picture up so you can see who it is.”

“That would be the prime minister of Australia Kevin Rudd,” Burnett said.

“OK well do you know what he is doing?

“He has launched air strikes – air strikes – against camels in the outback.”

AIR STRIKES!! STRAFING!! SHOCK, HORROR!

I guess killing camel jockeys (and wedding parties) with air strikes is OK, but *snif* leeeeve the por CAMELS alone!

In fairness, one ignorant American newsie does not a national character make, unless of course, you think it’s OK for all Australians to be stereotyped on the example of, say, Piers Akerman.

Burnett’s definitely not scoring a lot of gravitas or credibility as a journalist.

Maybe she otta stick to getting her kit off for lads’ mags.

Oh, wait, Burnett now says it was just a ‘deadpan joke.’

Sort of like the rest of her reporting?

-weez

image: Ali Rahimi, Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, Noah Vawter
MIT, 2005

Historians of the future will one day mine deeply buried seams of compacted factoids, blogger blather, twits’ tweets and 24-hour cable news coprolites in search of the date when unsubstantiable idiocy pulled straight out of one’s ass (if not outright fraud and deception) mutated into considered opposition opinion worthy of standing up on the world stage against verifiable fact, in pursuit of the 21st century definition of ‘balance.’

Birfers, moon hoaxers, 9/11 truthers, teabaggers, drug warriors, racists who wouldn’t recognise racism if it jumped up and bit them on the ass who declare others to be racists, holocaust deniers, cryptobigots, climate change skeptics who somehow got elected to public office, HHOax scammers, quitters quitting for the greater good and many more denizens of their own realities all get a bite of your attention span at the moment.

Why?

Not because these nongs know anything, but they’d sure like to let you know that they know something you don’t, whether it’s got a skerrick of factual basis or not- and when they can register a domain name for under ten bucks, you can bet they will.

Here’s the latest conspiracy theory, this one’s all mine AND I’ve got my own website with a blog with which to tell you all about it: Walter Cronkite really didn’t die at age 92 from any so-called ‘cerebral vascular disease’ (as if a moon-hoax-believing, Fux Noise addicted birfer would know what ‘cerebral’ means). Walt actually died of disgust and sheer embarrassment at what passes for news and journalism in 2009.

In 1969, Buzz Aldrin had the right stuff. In 2002, Buzz had the right response to stupid.

-weez

I live in the Blue Mountains, a mere hour’s drive from the centre of the most populous city in Australia. This close proximity to civilisation fools many tourists into thinking it’s not a terribly dangerous nor isolated place. In actual fact, one only has to get a few tens of metres off bushwalking tracks before finding one’s self in a situation where a rescue may require days of searches by the NSW SES and victims possibly requiring winch-out by helicopter.

If you look at a map of the Blue Mountains, you’ll find areas named ‘The Devil’s Wilderness‘ and ‘The Blue Labrynth.’ You might glean from the names of these places that getting lost is rather easy. Several bushwalkers become lost in the Blue Mountains every year. Deaths from hypothermia and exposure, notably in winter, are not uncommon. With winter overnight temperatures hovering around 0-5C (32-41F), an underprepared bushwalker will only last 2-3 days.

British backpacker Jamie Neale appears to have dodged a bullet after spending an astonishing 12 days wandering around Mt Solitary near Katoomba, not far from where young David Iredale’s body was found in December, 2006. Neale claims to have survived by eating leaves and seeds. While I’m very glad Mr Neale was found alive and looking relatively unharmed to boot, he really should have carried an emergency locator beacon.

Blue Mountains bushwalkers can borrow an Emergency Locator Transmitter for free from Katoomba Police and Blackheath NPWS or hire one for a nominal cost for use in many popular bushwalking areas across Australia. It is important that old style analogue 121.5MHz beacons are not used. AMSA ceased monitoring them by satellite on 1 February 2009. 121.5MHz is an aircraft emergency communications frequency and is now only monitored by high-flying passenger airliners, meaning detection may take hours or days and the resolution of location is very poor compared to 406MHz+GPS units, meaning a very large search area for rescuers. The new 406MHz beacons with integrated GPS automatically transmit a distressed person’s location to rescuers with an accuracy of 120 metres and usually within minutes, without the victim having to explain where they are to an emergency services operator as one must do when trying to contact emergency services with a mobile phone, which was a very big problem for poor David Iredale. There are non-GPS 406MHz beacons available, but while less expensive to purchase, these only have a resolution of 5km and may require 2 passes of a satellite over the area to get even that close. You’re easiest to find with a 406MHz+GPS beacon.

You don’t need to get lost to need a beacon, though. The rough terrain of the Blue Mountains means it’s all too easy to slip and fall, even on the marked trails. A simple twisted ankle can render a bushwalker unable to get off the trails before nightfall.

Don’t be stupid. Register your bushwalking plans with NSW Police at Katoomba… and borrow a beacon!

-weez

Don’t miss the Censordyne spoof site.

-weez

Rabid Facebook racist Terrie-Anne Verney thought she could get away with vomiting vile racial vilifications all over the planet.

Wrong.

Verney was employed at a community FM radio station where the continued good character of the licensee is a key condition for licence renewal. The character of the licensee is assessed by ACMA on a number of factors, inclusive of the good character of the staffers.

Suggesting that Indian students should have a gun held to their heads to persuade them to return to India to study along with spewing countless other racial vilifications, as Verney did while she was an administrator of the patently racist ‘Fuck Off We’re Full’ and ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ Faceboook groups, along with her membership in xenophobic Facebook groups such as “Stop the Islamisation of Australia while we still can”, “Australian Conservative United Party”, the “Australian Protectionist Party” and “Australians against Multiculturalism” can in no way be deemed to be indicative of her good character.

Further, most employment agreements contain a caveat enjoining the employee from participation in conduct that may cause the employer to be held in disrepute. There’s little more disreputable than racial vilification, notably with utter falsehoods.

Much to their credit, the Griffith Community FM Radio Association recognised that Verney’s administration of and participation in racist Facebook groups was highly likely to cause 2MIA to be held in disrepute- and sacked her within 24 hours of being notified of her public misconduct.

Verney’s racist mates have naturally run to her defence, but it truly takes an extremist nutbag to see the silver lining in a mushroom cloud. Kid you not, the bigots in FOWF are attempting to claim that Verney’s the persecuted party, that she is a victim of ‘political terrorism’ and are attempting to launder a little money in her direction, as though racism and threats upon ethnic minorities are valid political positions worthy of free speech protection. Hate speech is never free speech. Verney herself attempted to excuse her racism by claiming to be a ‘patriot.’ Racism is not a character of any patriot, anywhere on earth.

Not until the Virgin Terrie makes daily appearances on toast will her misconducts be considered persecutions worthy of canonisation.

-weez

News editors have a powerful position. They can’t change the news but they certainly can affect public perception of the importance of certain stories through how they place or ‘play’ a story. At reputable publishers or broadcasters, the good judgment of the editor along with public response and interest will determine whether something is on the front page or 1/2 of a column inch on the bottom of page C-34. At disreputable media outlets, the political affiliation of the editor makes the determination.

Ever since the email Malcolm Turdbull was relying upon to hang Rudd and Swan as corrupt was revealed as a fraud, News Ltd editors have been playing down the story, decidedly against the concept of public interest and the actual public’s interest. The News Ltd line at present is that ‘the public are tired of the story and want it to go away.’ Ex-News Ltd editor David Penberthy on his blogsite ‘The Punch‘ goes so far as to spell out what the people are thinking. The front pages this morning of news.com.au, smh.com.au and abc.net.au/news are telling. Only news.com.au has no stories linked from the front page about the so-called ‘utegate’ or OzCar story.

Worse, News Ltd been manipulating the comments threads in OzCar stories which have been given them. As an experiment, I placed 20 comments under differing usernames and through various proxy servers to prevent the comments editors from knowing all of them were coming from one computer. 10 comments supported Rudd & Swan, 10 comments supported Turdbull. Of those 20, 9 were published. All 9 were those supporting Turdball.

News Ltd: It’s not news- but it is limited.

-weez

Turnbull apparently believes anything he reads in an email.

Aw-right!

Just sent:

Dear Mr Turnbul,

Pleaze alow me to introduce myself. I am HRH Prince Phuque de la Mountaine. After a recent violent coupe in my native countrey of Mountaine, I fled to Nigeria with aproximately $USD100,800,756,236.00 in Mountaine government funds to keep it from faling into the hands of the goddless socialist rebbels. This money is in a Nigerian bank at the moment, but I have fergoten the password and can not excess the funds.

My Australian frends compliment you. They say that you are a ‘dill’ and a ‘silvertail’ and as such are the guy to ask for help in this matter. If you would be so kind as to forward $USD1000 so I can pay a hacker to crack the bank website, I am happy to give you half ($USD50,400,378,118.00) of the sum on deposit.

If u can not find it in your Christien heart to help with this matter, could I interest you in a 13-year-old Japanese ute? $1000 ono.

Cheers much,

Prince Phuque de la Mountaine

I’ve already spent the $thou, BTW. 😀

-weez

Cover-up claims over Taser death

By Annie Guest for PM

Queensland’s Police Minister has admitted he has known since Monday that police released false information about the use of a stun gun in an incident where a man later died.

Today it was revealed that Antonio Galeano could have been tasered up to 28 times before his death during an arrest at Brandon, south of Townsville, last Friday.

It was not until the media reported today that the Taser was used 28 times, and not three, that the Minister, Police Service and Union all publicly acknowledged the truth.

It’s not a cover-up. Queensland Police are just really, really bad at math.

-weez