Ms Ogyny …

And perhaps then you will reflect on the darts of the pygmies who sneer at success.

Great line that, I must remember it.

Surprising thing is that it comes from the Labor side of politics. In fact it’s from John McTernan in defense of Kyle Sandilands. You will remember Kyle, of course …

The radio and television personality is well known for his controversial antics which include asking a 14-year-old girl live on air about her sexual experiences and calling a journalist a ”fat slag” after she penned a negative review about his television show.

He and Jackie O were fortunate enough to get the first media interview with Miss Gillard after the leadership challenge back in March. You will remember Miss Gillard …

Let’s go through the Opposition Leader’s repulsive double standards, repulsive double standards when it comes to misogyny and sexism.

Subsequently Kyle got to play the rabbit …

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Since then Kyle, who is on first name terms with Miss Gillard, has offered to lend her his convertible Rolls Royce phantom.

Leaning …

The bias that the ABC tells us it doesn’t have can now be tested by its very own impartial fact checking unit.

It has appointed former Fairfax journalist, Russell Skelton to head it. As the ad said …

The editor will lead and manage the unit, to deliver engaging content that builds a reputation for accuracy, impartiality and clarity.

Roger Franklin at Quadrant suggests that Mr Franklin might have  “a rather passionate distaste for conservatives,” in light of this piece from his portfolio …

The 2020 Summit has been just such an exercise. For one weekend a national conversation took place about the future of the country without a bunch of once-influential marsupials shouting down discussion of significant policy issues.

These are the possums of the conservative commentariat. They are an invasive, boisterous species. They make their nests within the pages of Quadrant magazine (an obscure journal with a circulation that is a fraction of the Kmart catalogue), and invade the columns of News Limited papers and the hollowed-out walls of right-wing think tanks.

Mr Skelton joins his wife Virginia Trioli at the ABC and should fit in quite nicely.

Leaner can have a couple of meanings

  • to be inclined (… to the left perhaps)
  • to have less fat

Hopefully the ABC will be much leaner after the next election.

 

Live odds …

South Australian Labor Premier, Jay Weatherill said …

 … it was “staggering how much match-day broadcast time is being devoted to sports betting and live odds”.

“It has become a pervasive part of the coverage,”

“It is of great concern to me that we will end up with a generation of children who believe gambling is a normal part of watching or even playing sport.”

… and I could not agree more.

Scolded …

A MUSLIM man standing trial over his role in last year’s violent protests in central Sydney has been scolded for his “disrespect” after refusing to stand before a magistrate.

Mohammed Issai Issaka, 44, has pleaded not guilty to rioting, resisting arrest and assaulting police during the protests last September, organised in response to an internet video defaming the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

As the hearing commenced in Sydney’s Downing Centre yesterday, Mr Issaka refused to rise from his chair as a show of respect to magistrate Jacqueline Milledge as she entered the room.

Ms Milledge then repeatedly demanded the defendant stand, refusing to accept his excuse.

“You can tell me where it is in his religion that it says he cannot stand,” Ms Milledge told Mr Issaka’s lawyer. “I was a magistrate at Bankstown court (in southwest Sydney) for four years and I have never had to deal with such disrespect.”

After a delay of almost half an hour, the case resumed with Mr Issaka waiting outside the courtroom until the magistrate was seated.

Round one to Issaka …

Place …

As a kid growing up in the east end of London, places like Epping Forest had an almost magical effect on me.

Australia is rich in places that have much the same ability, a little shiver and a sudden sense of smallness within a vast universe, others might say numinous but that would admit the supernatural.

My place in the country finds ways of doing it to me again and again.

Saturday morning we had our first frost for the year, as the sun gots its edge over the trees along the creek it highlighted a mist suspended on an inversion about 20 metres above the ground with a red sky backdrop, by the time I got the camera the whole place was enveloped in fog.

DSC_9431My morning walk …

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May thirty-first …

Even more scary than carbon dioxide …

“This is a really big asteroid, similar in size to the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and it’s getting very close to us,” she said. “Fortunately we’ve been tracking its orbit very carefully so we know with great certainty it won’t hit us.

“We don’t need to panic, but we do need to pay attention,” she said.

Is that like, 97% of space scientists agree?

It’s 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby.

Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT.

Maybe it is, the trajectory of objects is space is about observations and calculations, not computer modelling. Still asteroids pose a far greater risk to life on earth than does CO2.

Full article <HERE>.