(Above: such a strange splash header, it's worth preserving in digital aspic).
That's the only explanation to be found.
Over at the lizard Oz, Mark Day earns a splash header with No need to break the bank building NBN, cavils about the cost of the NBN, but urges the construction of the NBN, and after outling any number of benefits to the media and consumers, concludes:
Well cost and structure in the hands of Senator Conroy were always key issues, as opposed to arguments about the usefulness of the NBN, and the growing reliance on the cloud, and Day doesn't even find it in his heart to mention Conroy's out of sight but still present 'great big new filter'. We've seen how that kind of filter can work its magic in the Middle East, or China ...
Day waxes lyrical about social and medical implications, and it's only when we get to this point, that it's possible to dissolve into laughter:
The Australian has not criticised the notion of high-speed broadband. News Corporation, as its ultimate owner, stands to benefit from developments in this area. What the NBN Watch news stories and editorials have done is relentlessly and forensically put the costs under the microscope. It has argued that the best high-speed broadband is that which can be most cost-effectively provided.
Uh huh. The Australian has regularly published stories minimising the virtues of fibre to the home broadband, argued for wireless, exaggerated costs to consumers (remember the $400 bucks a room routine?), and suggested there's simply no demand for the service (any of dozens of stories about Tasmania's roll out). That's not to count the numerous stories attempting to suggest that there's still viable life in the old copper networks.
What's most wondrous in the Day piece in the end is his denialism about The Australian's denialism, but if you want to relive the glory days, why not head off to Grahame Lynch's NBN is welfare for tech-heads, which trots out all the usual furphies, including copper ...
Indeed, you could spend the entire day reliving past epic Australian nonsense of a luddite kind, except there are lives to lead, in the present and into the future, so why revisit the alarmist nonsense which recycled the OECD and even a Mexican telco billionaire (Mexican telco billionaire's claim the NBN is too expensive backs our case: Tony Abbott).
The Australian has spent the past year throwing everything, including the kitchen sink and biased news reporting, at the NBN, to its eternal shame and diminished status as a reporter of news.
The uproar and the banging of drums and the circus and the clowning around suddenly becomes in the hands of Day a 'forensic analysis' of cost estimates and business plans. No doubt The Australian has also applied its 'forensic analysis' to the virtues of copper and wireless, and the technical limitations involved therewith ...
And Day can't resist getting in a plug for Foxtel and Kim Williams getting rapturous about his new generation of set-top boxes, with the future being "IP-centric with strong broadcast functionality."
Yes, but what a pity the boxes that'll be used in the future will tend to IP generic, within the TV or hooked up to the Intertubes and you won't have to pay sixty bucks a month to Foxtel for the pleasure. Go to it, cable cutters ... start that cable cutting now ...
Still, in his heart, Day likes the idea of the NBN. Stockholm syndrome.
Just make it an even more implausible day, there's Henry Ergas explaining how Sydney's public transport system has structural problems, and how Mere money won't get Sydney moving.
While stating the bleeding obvious - the under performing public networks and the mismanaged road systems - Ergas doesn't offer much by way of solution, except the notion that the government should get the structure right.
Here's an idea. Take a look at all the various plans and strategies announced by Bob Carr and never implemented. Who knows what you might find ...
Still Henry thinks something should be done. Stockholm syndrome.
Perhaps even more amazing, there's the sight of Paul Sheehan scribbling furiously in the SMH New broom in the grip of another machine.
Yes, only one week into the new state government, and Sheehan has effortlessly and shamelessly flipped from being an abuser of the state Labor government to an abuser of Liberal lobbyists and 'machinistas', before Barry O'Farrell has had time to dry the ink on his mandate.
The dangers? Well there's Michael Photios, who is a moderate and has been known to attend parties in company. (Photos show love rat's fantastic life). And then there's Nick Cambell, ally of Alex Hawke, and a battler of conservative David Clarke (Nick Campbell resigns, leaving unfinished business behind).
Naturally Sheehan doesn't mention the conservative faction clustered around the ultra conservative Clarke - the main reason many independently minded people feared voting Liberal.
That's the hidden agenda to Sheehan's piece - the ongoing denigration of moderates in the Liberal party, and their lobbyist chums, and never mind the extremes of Abbott-loving, Xian-loving Clarke, an actual extremist within the castle gates ...
Here's hoping the moderates lobby their way to wealth and fame, and in the process actually deliver effective managerial government to NSW, as opposed to Clarke, who offers "conservative, mainstream and Christian-based truths and values ... with missionary zeal." When we already have Fred Nile for all of that ...
Still, it's something to see Sheehan slagging off the Liberal party just a week after the election, in manner rather equivalent to a wolf donning a nightgown and pretending to be grandma. Careful Little Red Riding Hood, remember Stockholm syndrome.
It's all a tad unsettling, and it left the morning missing something, a genuine piece of loonacy, but thankfully there's always The Punch and David Penberthy.
Here's what Penberthy wrote in The Greens: when all else fails cry conspiracy:
To the enduring disgust of the Labor Party, the Greens chose to direct preferences to the One Nation founder ahead of the ALP, and she may now creep into the Upper House courtesy of their support.
Which is simply untrue. The Greens didn't direct their preferences to Labor, Hanson, or for that matter Calithumpians. You can argue about this, and say it's wrong what the Greens did, but you simply can't - if you have any respect for the truth, the English language or the facts of the matter - say that they chose to direct preferences to One Nation. Not unless George Orwell is your journalistic hero.
Here's what it becomes in Sorry Greens, we're not apologising:
The Greens are taking The Punch to the Press Council over my column of last Friday accusing them of pushing Pauline Hanson ahead of the ALP by refusing a preference swap with Labor at last weekend’s NSW election.
Uh huh, not only stupid, and an abuser of the English language, but defiantly stupid and egregious, because of course in that phrasing Penberthy has done a bait and switch.
You know, in the good old days newspapers used to publish corrections. The New York Times made its reputation by repairing mis-statements. The correction was published and everybody moved on ...
These days what you get is adolescent recalcitrance:
Yep, even if I'm wrong, the Greens are wrong anyway, and responsible for more Libs, gun nuts, a man who prays for rain every Mardi Gras and possibly the former member for Oxley heading to the upper house.
So now the Greens' preferencing, or failure to preference is responsible for the return of Fred Nile, who has been a Member of the Legislative Council since 1981? And members of the Shooters' Party are gun nuts?
It's such a stupid rant, that in a moment of blazing glory Penberthy enters the hallowed halls of the loon pond hall of fame ...
Mark Kenny had the grace to drop this remark ...
Indeed it may yet squeak home in the final upper house seat - edging out Pauline Hanson which the party had mystifyingly preferenced ahead of Labor, to its enduring shame - and is still something of a chance in Balmain.
... from his Saturday piece Green slip shows they're no compulsory third party.
Because it's wrong. You could phrase it other ways to blame the Greens and their failure to preference, as opposed to suggesting they actively preferenced Hanson - as the Labor party has endlessly done - but as phrased by Kenny and Penberthy, it's simply wrong.
Kenny showed some grace under fire. Penberthy shows none, because he knows there are no consequences.
If the Press Council rules against us we will happily publish its ruling on the site, as we have done in the past.
Yes, it's slap on the wrist, and I'm tough, and I can take a slap on the wrist. But it's this remark which is truly staggering:
Advertiser political editor Mark Kenny used the same terminology as I did on Saturday to describe the Greens’ position, but re-worded it after the party complained to avoid an ongoing stoush. I’m happy to let the stoush continue.
I’m not inclined to bow to calls by the Greens to alter or remove my piece, or offer them an apology ...
I’m not inclined to bow to calls by the Greens to alter or remove my piece, or offer them an apology ...
Yes, let's not worry about the facts of the matter, let's just keep having a stoush, so that the feeble brained can plug into The Punch, and keep generating hits and comments ...
Well it's only a blog, I suppose, and we must all remember John Hartigan's thoughts on bloggers:
Then there are the bloggers.
In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for – something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance. (here)
... And the difference between respectable journalists and mere bloggers?
The difference, he says, between professionals and amateurs is that bloggers don’t go to jail for their work – they simply aren’t held accountable like real reporters.
Like Keating’s famous “all tip and no iceberg”, it could be said that the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insight.
... In the blogosphere, of course, the mainstream media is always found wanting ...
It really is time this myth was blown apart.
Blogs and a large number of comment sites specialise in political extremism and personal vilification.
Radical sweeping statements unsubstantiated with evidence are common.
One Australian blogger who shoots first and checks facts later is proud to boast that his site is “Not wrong for long”.
And so on and so forth and etcetera at tedious, righteously indignant, pompous length.
Perhaps he was thinking of David Penberthy, defiant amateur blogger, committed to extremism and personal vilification, and keen to keep a stoush running. All eyeballs and no insight. Wrong for as long as you like ...
For a laugh, why not head off to one of those algorithmic web site evaluators, and type in The Punch. Here you go ...
Of course it doesn't mean anything, but then neither does reading The Punch ...
Stockholm syndrome:
In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness. (here)
Put it another way.
In journalism, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein professional journalists express adulation and have positive feelings towards bloggers, and begin to act like them ...
(Below: amateur blogger and loon pond hall of famer David Penberthy).
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