You gotta feel sorry for the poor bastard caught looking at those saucy shots of Miranda Kerr. I mean, they were pretty mild - hardly "nsfw". And even if they wouldn't have been acceptable at other places, they clearly were at Macquarie Bank (at least until today), as evidenced by the fact that the bloke was openly looking at them, and kept doing so even when a co-worker ambled over and had a yack to him. The only thing he did wrong was get sprung - by hundreds of thousands of people!

The fact that the meeja have made it a big international story is pretty revealing. Shows just how low the bar is for something to qualify as "news" these days. Also, it's kind of ironic in a surreal "endless hall of mirrors" kind of way, because if you were to read the story about the bloke on your computer at work then in all likelihood you'd also be looking at those same snaps of the babe, and thereby be just as guilty of pervicitous licentiosity as he was.

Really, it's all so silly it could easily justify that most hackneyed of headlines "Storm in a D-Cup!" (er, except Miranda Kerr's bust isn't that large). If the bloke loses his job over this it'll be completely unfair. 

UPDATE: Yep, he was sacked. By acting so harshly, management at Macquarie Bank have made their organization look a lot more stupid than he did. 

UPDATE: According to this, more recent article, the bloke still has his job. However, he has been identified. This will probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

Sure, he was dopey enough to look at the photos on live TV, but it was journos who turned it into a story and told the world what his name was. This is galling, especially when you consider that those working in the mainstream meeja are hardly blushing violets themselves. Journos do a great job when they nail the powerful for abusing that power. But they are very destructive when they condemn some little guy to a lifetime of embarrassment (or worse) for a few moments of completely benign foolishness.

Sadly, they do very little of the former (and too much of the latter). And it's not like there aren't enough big, powerful targets for them to aim at. Think of the corruption - both scientific and political - associated with climate change. Hacks could have been shooting fish in barrels for years, doing an immensely valuable service to society in the process. But they just went along with all the dodgy dogmas doled out to 'em instead.

Now, since the tide has turned on climate change, they're finally doing their jobs. Their delay in getting around to this reflects very poorly on their profession. And it makes you wonder what other important issues are not being aggressively scrutinized because most hacks are too lazy, gutless or ideologically biased to even want to try.

UPDATE: Just went back to that first link which reported that he was sacked, citing a rumour. The URL now contains the updated story, saying he may face the sack. 

So, they reported something they hadn't verified, then quickly corrected it without saying they'd got it wrong. Hardly a sin - and of course the technology allows you to do such things very easily. Still, not a good sign ... 

The socialist squitterati are nothing if not predictable. They never give up, they hate Australia with a passion. And they're always trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Take today's award for ideological compliance. Rather than naming the recipient "Oz's Most Dutiful Lefty Suck" - which more often than not would be a far more accurate title, but less likely to convert as yet un-indoctrinated Aussies to their smug, self-loathing views - they call him "Australian of the Year". 

This is clearly to give the impression that the winners are not remotely radical, but reasonable mainstream figures who are proud of their country. Therefore their views must necessarily be well-considered and admirable and should consequently be endorsed by everyone in the nation. (That said, the winners aren't always lefty sucks. Just more often than not. The National Australia Day Council Board does hurl the proles a bone every now then as a nod to political, er, diversity. But the trend is very clear. Have a squizz at the list of recipients over the years. It's chockas with hand-wringers, greenies, republicans and sorry-maniacs.) 

The fact that mouthing the dogmas of the left is what the winner is almost always being rewarded for (and not his contribution to his community in his chosen field, as stated) is pretty obvious, because often the first thing he does is make an overtly political (and invariably politically correct) statement to the media - who, being overwhelmingly left-leaning themselves, lap it up eagerly. 

Last year it was Mick Dodson, who used his award to condemn the very day on which he received it! For sheer sanctimonious hypocrisy, that was pretty much unbeatable. I mean, if he thought Australia Day marked the day that his people's "world came crashing" and wanted the date of it changed for that reason, then surely he should have refused the bloody thing, shouldn't he?

But nup. He wanted to have his gong and slag it off too. In this he displayed stereotypical fluffy wuffy behaviour to a tee: gallons of gall, but no balls at all.

Today's winner, Patrick McGorry, follows the script perfectly. (Though he's still not a patch on Dodson.) As soon as he got the gong - ostensibly for his work with mentally ill youth (ha!) - he expressed his disdain for Oz immigration policy, saying that detention centres were akin to "factories for producing mental illness". (Funny, I would have thought that description was much more appropriate for the humanities departments of Australia's universities.)

Ironically he found himself in a bit of a pickle, since by saying this he was necessarily condemning Labor, a tribe crawling with sanctimonious PC types and therefore not a group to antagonize if one craves more official adulation, which McGorry clearly does. Some serious grovelling was in order, so he sheeted home blame to previous governments, sucking up big time to the present regime. In a nauseating spiel, he said that when it comes to detention centres Rudd is now "digging us out of a hole".

Eh?

Now, because of Rudd's caring, sharing policy of letting people smugglers call the shots, more and more leaky boats are heading towards our shores - several of which have sunk ... Rudd's digging us into a hole, more like; a hole full of drowned asylum seekers (and more traumatized survivors, now in detention centres).

If McGorry truly thought that detention centres were eeevil, then surely he would endorse a policy that at least attempted to negate the very need for them. The best way of getting anywhere near that goal is a hard-arsed immigration policy in which boats full of asylum seekers don't even leave for our shores in the first place.

But that's too sensible for the likes of McGorry. Much better to endorse something touchy-feely and completely impractical, guaranteed to cause far greater human suffering. He can publicly wring his hands about it then - and be officially lauded in the process. 

Bloody fluffy wuffies. It's always all about them, isn't it?

The debate about who, or what, killed off all those big-arsed wombats, kangaroos and bilbies from yonks back is in the news again. There seem to be two main schools of thought on the subject. One: Natural environmental causes including climate change (non-anthropogenic, of course) were to blame. Two: That newly arrived humans (Aborigines) hunted them to extinction. Looks like the second theory is in the lead at the moment. 

Of course, some people don't like this. It conflicts with that well tended delusion about Aborigines being "in harmony with nature", after all. 

But if they were responsible, it's a badge of credibility as far as I'm concerned. Just goes to show that, in being rapists and pillagers of nature, they were no different to humans the world over (racist concept, I know).

Remember that pretty much everything good we have in modern society (stuff like medicine, technology, law, democracy, etc) has been created in defiance of nature. You tend not to find any of those things when you get out into the boondocks proper. (Try it, and you'll see!) So if a culture sees nature as the enemy, well, they're clearly heading in the right direction. 

In any case, living in harmony with nature is completely impossible. It's pretty obvious that nature doesn't live in harmony with itself. So how can man live in harmony with it?

But even if it were possible, the whole idea is pretty revolting. What would it say about the people who do so? To be in harmony with something, you must be more like it, right? So even if you think Gaia is kind of cool you'd have to accept that She doesn't have a moral code. And even if She does, it's undeniably pretty dang brutal. So aren't you then implying that Aborigines and other tribal cultures are naturally brutal, even amoral, too? How is this a good thing?

Sounds like racism to me ... 

Here we go again. There's another racism scandal beaten up by perpetually outraged Seppo fluffy wuffies. This time it's an Aussie KFC ad that appears to invoke the degrading stereotype of black people preferring fried chicken.

Talk about a storm in a chook bucket. In the above-linked article, Dr Brendon O'Connor argues that the Yanks "have a tendency to think their history is more important than other countries". A good point, although it could - shock horror! - be seen as a racist stereotype in itself ...

Interesting that shrieking Oz lefties are happy to invoke that one when it suits. Though I doubt they will now - just as they didn't when that Hey Hey It's Saturday! blackface scandal erupted here recently.   

And re that: Wasn't it arrogant of Harry Connick Jr to interpret an Aussie act, performed in Australia, in terms of his own nation's history? Also ironic that the American star, a privileged white guy, made his name in jazz, a musical form long seen as a predominantly African American genre. It could easily be argued - and probably has - that there are many black musos way more talented than he is who never enjoyed his level of success because of their race. 

So wasn't his condemnation of the Jackson Jive act not only racist, but culturally imperialist as well? Why didn't the usual suspects here, who bang on about "racist" American popular culture and how it's eroding Australia's unique identity and culture, arc up about that? Well, they were too busy advertising their own spurious moral virtue along with their fellow fluffs across the Pacific, weren't they!

The sanctimonious twits.

Saw Avatar the other night. Amazing stuff. 

While it was technically brilliant all round, the main advance was in the subtlety of the expressions of the blue hippy-monkey aliens. Up until this point, CGI characters moved pretty realistically, and blended in with the live actors, but they always fell just short of seeming truly alive, unique and sentient. 

A case in point is the movie I Am Legend, starring Will Smith. In it, the "Darkseekers" were computer generated. While they were well realized, they didn't come across as believable individual characters in their own right and consequently the whole movie suffered. A previous adaptation of the book, The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston, was made way before anyone other than a few boffins at NASA even had computers, let alone decided to create characters with 'em. That flick's nocturnal bad guys were all played by actual actors, and were way more creepy and menacing as a result.

But Avatar has changed all that. James Cameron and his team of geeks have really overcome that "inner life" barrier.

That said, thematically the movie was truly nauseating in its zealous promotion of dark green delusions and clapped-out Rousseauvian cliches. I only hope that right-wing film-makers soon get hold of his revolutionary techniques, so they will then be used for good instead of weevil.

This snapshot of inner city Perth dwellers reveals something quite significant: 87% of them said they'd fork out more cash for "an environmentally sustainable home".

I reckon you'd see a similar statistical spike in cities right across Oz, and probably the western world generally. As well as smug yuppies with mildly emerald pretensions your hard core, dark greenies tend to live very close to central business districts. It's in these comfortable urban areas, far from the harsh realities of nature, that they can entertain their delusions about how warm, fuzzy and peaceful it is.

(Often when I see one of these dirty, smelly hippies, I've been tempted to say: "You reckon Gaia's so grand, mate. Then walk your bloody talk! Yep, walk right out into the bush. Shack up with a bilby ... then remove the shack. You'll really get a handle on what nature's all about then!" But I always restrain myself, of course. I'm too civilized for that ... And besides, relieving them of their wallets when they're not looking is a much more productive activity. It's not stealing; just a way of reclaiming the tax dollars they've stolen from me by way of the dole. It's also helping them live lives more consistent with their stated ideals. They do despise capitalism, after all.) 

But back to the stats: As you go further out from city centres there's a marked swing to the right - at least as it pertains to environmental policies. So when you get into the Australian countryside proper, where nature is all around, the Nationals, a notoriously conservative crowd of climate sceptics, are most popular. In short, the folks who grow greens are the least likely to, er, vote for 'em. 

Funny that. 

Back in Perth for the silly season. As usual in summer, the weather is refreshingly dry and hot, with mostly clear blue skies. The air here is always so clean compared to Sydders. I just feel so much more relaxed in this city.

There's also something about the greater sense of space here that is very calming. Sydney is very cramped, with so many more people in the same area. Probably wouldn't be such an issue if you grew up there. But coming from Perth it's something I still notice - even though I've lived there on and off for several years now. 

Even though we've had the GFC and all, Perth still seems to be going strong economically. New buildings have shot up all over the place since I was last here for any length of time (coupla years now). There are also several half finished skyscrapers in the city centre, with cranes on top of them. Last time Perth looked anything like this was back in the mid eighties in the lead up to the America's Cup.

So, it seems the GFC was just a bit of a speed hump here. Growth will continue in earnest in the not too distant. 

What a relief that all those world leaders couldn't get anything binding and unanimous nailed down at Copenhagen. Sure, there'll be another climate change quackathon in Mexico in a year or so. But it's even less likely they'll be able to pull together the strands then. Copenhagen really was the (UN) Holy Grail for fulminating ferndies across the globe. It was the culmination of many years of sustained activism, misinformation and doom mongering; their absolute best effort to get a binding global agreement. And it's failed, thank God!

They're pretty much spent. And they won't be able to re-gather anything like the momentum they had until recently in such a short time. 

Just as the warmenists' momentum is waning, the climate change sceptics' momentum is gaining. Prime Minister Rudd and other world leaders have been using climate change as an effective political tool for a while. His pledge to deal with the looming global threat it was purported to pose was one of the things he was voted in on, after all. But more and more people are becoming sceptical; seeing it for the ginormous scam that it actually is. 

It might even be that in 6 months or so, polling will show that a majority of Aussies think it's a complete crock. If that occurs, won't it be fun to watch Rudd try to weasel out of that situation! Torn between his ambitions to keep his gig as PM and continue impressing the UN power-brokers - who he believes can give him his next one, as Secretary General - he'll spin himself into a bloody tornado of tosh! His current dodginess and duplicity will seem Honest Abe Lincoln-esque by comparison.

And re the UN, and its plans for global governance (Gore's words): There's a lot of leftie eye-rolling over this argument that climate change is a commie plot. "Don't be ridiculous!" they snort.

Yeah, well, communism was a commie plot, too. And look at the misery that inflicted on the world.

You don't need a groundswell of righteous rage to bring about a revolution. You can do it with deceit, from the top. If even a few highly committed, unscrupulous and very persuasive people high up in the political heirarchy get hold of a few of the levers of power and some of the national purse strings, before you know it they've got anyone who matters well and truly over a barrel.

That's clearly what's happened with climate change. But the warmenists' Gore-y days are over. And thankfully the Third World, embracing capitalism, will be going full smoke ahead. In the words of Tracy Chapman, "poor people gonna rise up, and get their share ... Talking 'bout a revolution, yeah, yeah ..."

It had to happen: The Tiger Cheetah Woods serial sex scandal is now deemed a racial one by many in the black community. See, 'cause Cheetah is seen primarily as a black athlete (although he prefers not to see himself that way) and he's been enthusiastically schtupping "white hoochie-mamas" this constitutes some sort of betrayal of his race.

As this article states, the condemnation he's received reveals "blacks' resistance to interracial romance". Though we dare not call that racism, of course. If we did, we'd be judging blacks by the same standard as whites. And we can't have that, can we. That would be, er, racist wouldn't it? 

In other politically correct news hatchet-faced, hammer-headed harpies have wheeled out that ol' chestnut: Aussie theatre is a boy's club and where are all the women? etc, etc, ad bloody nauseam ...

Actually, the accusation is probably true. And the boys they're arcing up about are mostly gays who don't like women. But if you point that out you risk being called a homophobe. (Er, unless you're a chick - preferably a dyke - because then you have an equally useful perception of victimhood that adds heft to your gripe.)

Whatever ... I just don't give a tinker's anymore. The whole Oz theatre scene is drearily, tub-thumpingly tendentious, elitist and boring. Its squitizens don't speak to anyone but themselves. They're just a bunch of smug tossers with their heads up their own artses. 

Still, all this state-funded squawking has provoked a comparatively courageous act by a young playwright. He reckons the current gender-based jawfest makes the competition he entered (and ultimately won) meaningless, so he pulled out of it. Pretty gutsy - particular considering he's a bloke. 

While hardly riveting, it's probably the most passionate act that's occurred in the joint for quite some time. Pity the plays themselves can't match it for drama.

No wonder no one wants to see 'em, and taxpayers have to keep shelling out to keep the whole tawdry enterprise going.  

So glad that Tony Abbott is now the Leader of the Liberal Party. They've finally shown that they've got some sense and spine.

Joe Hockey seems like a nice bloke but he's a complete sap. And he was totally captured by the ferndies. So was Turnbull, of course. Revealingly both Hockey and Turnbull said that the Liberal Party is "progressive". How chilling was that? What a relief that the Libs have finally rediscovered their identity as conservatives.

Turnbull's behaviour was utterly terrifying. He wasn't opposing the Government at all; he seemed to merely be doing Rudd's bidding. It was as if the two had been colluding behind closed doors.

Rudd has a history of appointing former political foes in high powered positions. I wouldn't be surprised if there had been some sort of deal between them ... And even if Turnbull hadn't been promised anything, I got the distinct impression that he had ambitions for some sort of managerial possie in the New Green World Order.  

Both of them are international socialists, see. Being at the top of Australia's political class is just the beginning of their career path. Rudd's bizarre behaviour becomes clear when you realize that he's just trying to beef up his resume so he can be the next UN Secretary General.

The big lie of AGW has spawned dreams of global governance for the tiny-minded busybodies of the left. By spooking so many world leaders into thinking that we're all gonna die! unless we follow their absurd instructions they have managed to bring those dreams within reach. 

But with these recent revelations of warmenist "scientists" dodgying up their data, they can't keep ramping up the fear factor any more. The people know they've been lied to big time, and they're not happy about it.

Abbott and Minchin had the intelligence to see through the lie and the balls to reclaim their party. Now there really is some opposition. Things are gonna get interesting from now on ...

The meeja often sneeringly invoke Abbott's pugilistic past to portray him as a bully. But it's they who are the real bullies - cowards who can only act en masse upon their politically correct instructions to destroy the dissenter. The thing they detest about Abbott is that he's an individual with strong principles and he's prepared to fight for them.

And now it looks like there really will be a fight over the ETS. The Libs have time to really take it apart and use the fragments to beat the snot out of Rudd and his creepy clique of warmenist weasels.  

Sure, they will probably lose the next election but they'll start to reveal what a bunch of deceitful, sneering totalitarians are in charge of our country. No wonder Rudd and Penny Wong were so determined to ram through the ETS without any scrutiny. The implications for the people of Australia were horrifying!

I am an atheist but all I can say is: Thank God for Tony Abbott.