I don’t usually promote commercial products on this website, but I’ll make an exception for this T-Shirt, which is available in a choice of colours from Zazzle.

The saga of the BBC’s amazing journalistic precognition on 9-11 is discussed on A Tale of Three Broadcasters, written in December 2007 but still relevant today.

Yeah right!

In early August I blogged The Ingenuity of the Markets – featuring a skit by the brilliant British satirists John Bird and John Fortune.

This is in similar vein about the famous South Sea Bubble (circa 1720).

It was not the Bubble to End All Bubbles as advertised. They never are…

I live in a very pleasant location on the north east coast of Queensland, an hour’s drive from Cairns. I’m fortunate. It’s a beautiful part of the world.

There’s only one place close to city-size around here (that’s Cairns), but there’s plenty of reef and rainforest, great beaches and lots of nice things to do.

Not surprisingly, plenty of visitors come every year to Cairns and the surrounding region. Tourism is big business – and while it’s going through a relatively depressed period at present Cairns is always busy.

Pacific Islands Forum

This week – starting from today (Tuesday 4th August 2009) – Cairns will be busier than usual. It’s the venue for this year’s Pacific Islands Forum. As well as politicians, their entourages, NGOs and media, there will doubtless be lots of security, police and ’secret police’. The Pacific Islands Forum is not quite the G-20, but it’s the closest Cairns is likely to get for a while.

I shall NOT be visiting Cairns during the week, unless under duress or in dire emergency. Meeting up with some of the social justice and environmental NGOs – which include Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and Greenpeace – would be interesting. I strongly support what these fine people are trying to achieve at this Forum. Good luck to them! But I’d rather not push my own luck. I think I’ll leave a respectable distance between myself and the melee in Cairns.

British political satirists John Bird and John Fortune discussed the so-called credit crunch back in October 2007.

This skit isn’t dated in the least. The biggest joke of all – failed gambler-bankers walking away with massive bonuses at the taxpayer’s expense – is still breaking news.

Here’s an extract from the report in yesterday’s Daily Mail: How bailed-out U.S. banks kept on dishing out bonuses

Nine Wall Street banks received a combined £75billion in taxpayer cash last October to help them survive the financial meltdown.

But according to a shocking report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, bonuses paid by several of the biggest institutions were ’substantially greater’ than the banks’ earnings.

• Goldman Sachs’s net income was £1.4billion, yet it paid out nearly £2.8billion in bonuses. It received £6 billion in bail-out funds.
• Morgan Stanley earned £1billion and paid nearly £2.7billion in bonuses. It also received £6billion from the taxpayer.
• JPMorgan Chase earned £3.3billion, paid £5.2billion in bonuses and received £15 billion from the government.

Citigroup, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which all needed government funds, also paid billions to hundreds of executives despite posting massive losses.

The report claimed that America’s biggest banks awarded a total of nearly 4,800 bosses with bonuses of a million dollars or more each last year.

Only a joke Mom…

Note:  This hilarious Prank Call has already been deleted from Jokeroo.com

On past form, the ADL may axe it from YouTube before too long.

I’ve been following the career of Mark Regev with interest for some time now.

Actually, I have little choice – unless I completely stop watching English-language TV News.

A week rarely passes when Regev’s rugged good-looks aren’t featured on my box, as he earnestly provides ever more implausible rationales for Israeli war crimes. When Israeli violence hots up, on religious holidays or prior to elections, Regev appears on my screen daily.

Mark Freiberg: did this Aboriginal activist from Victoria think a name change could mask his real identity?

It doesn’t seem that a change of government makes any difference. A year ago, Regev was spinning for Mr Olmert. Now he spins for the government led by Mr Netanyahu (known to his mates as Ben Yahoo).

Does anyone else find this a tad suspicious?

My personal theory is that Mark Regev (born Mark Freiberg) is a deep-cover Australian agent.

He may seem like an Israeli these days, but it’s just a front. This rude boy from Melbourne is deep down a fair-dinkum Aussie. He’s even joked about it on occasion – a tactic often used by spooks to deflect criticism while they continue to operate in plain sight.

Mr Freiberg has probably been tasked by his controllers with eroding the Zionist Entity from within, by coming up with such absurd excuses for the Shitty Apartheid State’s recurrent crimes against humanity that even the world’s most foolish people see through them with ease.

The Israeli Tourist Board is keen to get more Britons to visit the SLASOUPT (Shitty Little Apartheid State on Usurped Palestinian Territory).

It’s latest advertisement carries the rather modest slogan: “Few countries pack so much variety into such a small space as Israel!”

Fancy bird-watching in the Golan Heights? How about a fishing holiday in Gaza? Don't miss the all-inclusive tours of checkpoints and Palestinian refugee camps!

Users of the London Underground have been treated to these delightful ads in the form of large wall posters (presumably secure beneath the watchful eyes of CCTV cameras, strategically located to discourage paint-bomb attacks?)

But the advertisements may may not be up for long. Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority received a torrent of complaints and has upheld the principal  concern: the ad includes a map which, to put it bluntly, wipes Palestine completely off the map!

The boundaries of Gaza and the West Bank are marked, but with lines so delicate they’re almost invisible.The ad is therefore in breach of the Committee of Advertising Practice Code 7.1 , which comes under the quaintly old-fashioned heading of ‘Truthfulness”: “No marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.”

According to the BBC report Advert Implied Gaza in Israel:

Advertising Standards Authority: promotes honour among thieves

Message from the Supreme Leader*

I call on the Great Australian Workers and Masses to publicly criticize Comrade Turnbull’s reckless and irresponsible quasi-Libertarian and neo-Liberalist tendencies!

Comrades must also criticize the dangerous opportunism of Left-Deviationalist Brown!

Oh Great Australian masses!

Follow only your Beloved Helmsman!

Unite in praise of Chairman Kevin, who basks in the adoration of all Working and Peasant Families (unlike the discredited Post-Blairite revisionist London clique!)

The Gang of Three: Enemies of the Free Peoples Democratic Republic of Murdochistan

Long Live Chairman Kevin!

Long Live Deputy Gillard!

Long live the Free Peoples Democratic Republic of Murdochistan!

________________________

CHAIRMAN’S BIG PICTURE THOUGHT OF THE DAY…

Reports have reached me that there are many Bad Thoughts on the Interwebs.

Bad thoughts are the People’s Enemy!

Bad Thoughts are not tolerated in the Free Peoples Democratic Republic of Murdochistan!

Comrade-workers must report all transgressions immediately to:

Comrade ‘Wally’ Conroy,
Peoples Commissariat for the Eradication of Bad Thoughts
Parliament House, Canberra

_________________________________________________

* Winner 2007, 2008 & 2009
Australian Friends of Plutocracy Top Service Award
Murdoch-Lowy Institute for Plausible Sycophants

Not a day goes by without someone being accused of being an ‘anti-Semite’.

The consequence of such an accusation is often to derail free speech and squelch open debate.

Typically, the subject of this complaint feels obliged to explain that they are not, in fact, an  ‘anti-Semite’ (perish the thought!)

Israeli soldier confronts an anti-Semite

A conversation, which might start out about Gaza, Israeli settlements on occupied territory, mistreatment of Palestinians, Israeli spy-rings, World War Two, 9-11 or the attack on the USS Liberty, quickly degenerates into a slanging match about whether or not one or more of the participants is an ‘anti-Semite’.

Suspicious folk have concluded that levying this dreaded accusation is merely a trick to divert attention away from the substantive underlying issues. I must say I’ve thought that myself.

Accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ are somewhat special. It’s one thing to be accused of being a rapist, child molester, mass murderer or something else that’s really tangible. We all know what a mass murderer is. He/she turns people into dead bodies before their time. If accused of this, without basis, it may be able to sue for damages.

But what’s an ‘anti-Semite’?

Intelligent discussions on this interesting subject are already available – along with vast amounts of dross. On this occasion, I won’t try to compete with the former – and I don’t want to add to the latter. Today I’ll try a different tack.

The definition of 'anti-Semitism'

In case anyone is inclined to relax for even a moment, I bring you the next great global health scare. It’s a world exclusive.

Mammoth Flu: you feel hot, even on cold days

This latest threat to human survival is like a real-life Jurassic Park scenario, with just enough plausibility to justify an elevated state of alarm!

Be very afraid – and if this turns into the BIG ONE, remember you got your first warning here…

The (as yet) slender factual basis for a Level 5 Alert is in this seemingly inoffensive article in yesterday’s Independent: Microbes found miles beneath Greenland ice given new life. I know, the storyline needs a bit more fleshing in. But I figure the mainstream hacks can do that.

Incidentally, if your dog ever digs up an unusually large bone, you might get it checked out by a paleontologist. You don’t know what might have chewed it last.