News
Anything that involves that smarmy, vile smirk being wiped off Andrew Bolt's piggy little face is good for the soul, so it was with open arms that I welcomed
the decision of a court yesterday to hold that Bolt was guilty of racial discrimination by impugning the rights of pale-skinned Aboriginies to claim their racial background. His defence was, of course, that this was a blow for free speech and offered the following justification: "I argued then and I argue now that we should not insist on the differences between us but focus instead on what unites us as human beings". A United States of Benetton defence which gels particularly well with the hate-filled drivel that he spews out on a daily basis. While there was no sanction asked for or given, it's just nice to see him squirm for once, y'know?
Julia Gillard has turned 50, officially twice her current level of public support! She is being given a Cavoodle to mark the occasion. Which look like this:
Potential new hope for Burma, long mired under the yoke of a brutally repressive military dictatorship, after announcing at the UN that
they will soon start releasing 300 of the 2000 odd political prisoners they have stashed in the country's jails. While not really the fodder of an overnight revolution, this is about as generous as they've seemed in living memory, and comes with suggestions that they might be eying off certain political and economic reforms as well. Even Aung San Suu Kyi seems loosely hopeful, and they had her locked in her own house for two decades.
Egypt has formally commenced its post-revolution reckoning, with
the Mubarak regime's Information Minister being imprisoned for seven years. The trial of Mubarak himself continues, but I will be surprised if he is dealt with quite so harshly, especially as, at the age of 83, he will probably at least pretend to be dead by the end of it.
The latest victim of a nude photo leak:
Gaddafi's son Hannibal and his lingerie-model wife, Aline. Yeah. I'm just going to leave that one where it's fallen.
The political fallout of Israel's decision to authorise another 1100 houses on once and future territory of the Palestinian state continues to expand, with even the US seeming pretty pissed off. Obama's spokesman described it as "deeply disappointing", which in diplomatic speak is pretty much the equivalent of peeing on someone's carpet to mark your disapproval. To be sure, this has probably scuppered any remote chance the Israelis had of avoiding a UN vote on Palestinian statehood, and could almost be marked as a deliberate invitation to violence (which the more cynical part of me sees as a possible rationale - cause the Palestinians to respond with violence, delegitimise their claim to being a peaceful nation). Just so unnecessarily messy.
Michael Jackson's trial continues. Today's headline: "Jackson hearing a real-life thriller"... I won't lie to you, I probably won't really be reading anything about this until it's all over, but, you know, use that link to your heart's content.
The EU is pressing on with what strikes me as such an eminently sensible move:
levying a tax on every large scale financial transaction that occurs within the EU. They being the first entity in the world with sufficient balls to suggest that financial institutions should perhaps give something back to the world that they've ravaged so well. It is expected to raise 55 billion euro a year, although there is plenty of concern that being the only people in the world currently entertaining such a proposition, that it might not really encourage the further investment that Europe needs right now.
Self-cannibalisation is a word I've become fond of using with regard to the News of the World scandal and its associated detritus, and it seems once again deeply relevant in the face of news that
a former editor of NotW stablemate The Sun also had his phone hacked by the paper. Which is obviously amazing. This is less a web of corruption than it is a web of corruption designed by M.C. Escher himself.
And here's a story about a giant panda breeding centre in China because OH MY GOD GIANT PANDA CUBS.
Features
Crikey on journalistic myopia and the least-surprising event of the year:
Vladimir Putin's return to the Russian Presidency. To be washed down by
the Washington Post describing him as probably the biggest political genius on Earth right now.
Why the Congo – lush, undeveloped, fantastically resource laden – is still a basket case and hasn't recovered from being the site of the most violent conflict since World War II.
Oddities/Curiosities
Someone has provided an answer to the age old question:
what does it feel like to be stupid? It feels somewhat like a warm hug from your mother, from what I can deduce.
Finally, the Tumblr the world's been waiting for:
unnecessary journalism phrases! It's a total game changer!
Yes, that's right Rick Perry, eat alllll the sausage.
Video
And this is why the world is screwed. A stockbroker talks about how much he's dreaming of the next global recession. BBC interviewers are speechless.