Liar, liar?

“Thanks for all the support. I believe what happened today is completely unfair .. And I am seeking advice on the matter” tweets CamPriceBris after being sacked for lying about where he was reporting from during ‘live’ television coverage.

According to his now former employer “Cameron Price joined WIN Television in Toowoomba after graduating with a BA of Journalism from the University of Queensland. After a two year stint there, Price joined the Nine Network in 2008”.

I would’ve thought that Queensland Uni would have taught him that indulging in fakery to ginger up the nightly news is just not on.

It's all about E*T*H*I*C*S, Cam.

Pic from The Age story

News footage video here.

How could anyone believe anything that appears in this cellar-dwelling rag

Thanks, ABC North Coast Radio, for alerting listeners to a very bodgy newspaper that had a free, below the belt, shot at Rob Oakeshott, the independent member for Lyne.

The piece in the rag was written by its editor Sharon Davidson.

Davidson has extensive form in The Nationals' camp. She spent a bit of time at a desk at a Grafton local newspaper, but she's spent a lot more time in the company of  North Coast National MPs.
Davidson's CV lists, among others,

1. Former MP for Page Ian (Bull) Causley

2. The do-nothing MP for Clarence, Steve (One-Too-Many-Trips-to-the-Boxing-Ring) Cansdell, who said  Davidson was one of his "gals" in his inaugural speech , and

3. Luke (Tilting at Windmills) Hartsuyker

Another local voice on the big stage

Wooli's Don Firth, who's a frequent contributor to the letters pages of The Daily Examiner and The Sydney Morning Herald, has been part of the ongoing shots at QANTAS in the Herald this week.
 

SMH Letters, August 24, 2011

Qantas flying low

Michele Zehnder (Letters, August 21) is quite right: Qantas should lose the right to adorn the tails of its planes with that wonderful stylised kangaroo. It should, instead, be given to Ausflag, the group looking to secure support for a truly Australian flag, so it can produce a flag to match Canada's in the instantly recognisable stakes.
Don Firth Wooli

 SMH Letters, August 25, 2011

The flying prawn? It could take off

I really like Don Firth's suggestion (Letters, August 24) that the wonderful stylised kangaroo from Qantas be given to Ausflag. It could then be flown above all government buildings and internationally, and would represent all things good. For instance, the downsizing of the Australian international fleet and also the utilising of offshore resources to save shareholder investments, a clear representation of our broken economic motor that is creating holes in our national fuselage.
Michael Cronk Dubbo

OMG! Does this mean that Alan Jones is Prime Minister?

One of those amazing wingnutters over at Just Grounds this week seems on the brink of declaring that The Parrot is the new Oz prime minister:

Talkback Radio…..the defacto peoples parliament.

While another has a very peculiar idea of how the reserve powers of a governor-general operate:

Ian Strawbridge said:

I think we need to get the GG to action! Lets all write / fax to her demanding she sack Juliar! Allegedly she still has 'the power' ! (Yes, I know how she was appointed)

Governor-General, Ms Quentin Bryce AC
Government House, Canberra ACT 2600.

fax: 02 6281 3760

Cheers, Ian

Memo to Clarence Valley Review: don't publish advertisements and pretend they're news items

This week's Lower Clarence Review provides yet another example that it doesn't know the difference between news items and advertisements.
What it's doing is publishing advertisements and trying to pass them off as news.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
Here's a snap of part of this week's page 5, but there's no mention that it's an advertisement!

Students studying juxtaposition 101 will readily see the classic irony of the piece appearing immediately below the above item.

Flying fox dispersal is the wrong way to go - NSW O'Farrell Government increases Hendra risk

We have to wonder about our best and brightest. By that I mean our politicians. This week the Minister for the Environment, Ms Robyn Parker, announced that the Office of the Environment had approved the Department of Education and Communities’ (DEC) application to disperse flying-foxes in Maclean. Ms Parker said she had asked the Office of Environment and Heritage to expedite the assessment of the permit, following representations from the local Member for Clarence, Mr Steve Cansdell.

With an outbreak of Hendra virus just up the road at South Ballina, and scientists saying stress in flying-foxes can increase the virus, our best and brightest are proposing to stress these animals. What are they thinking?

A study found that in times of nutritional stress (food shortages) the prevalence of disease in flying foxes increases. Dispersal is a slightly different type of stress but we do know that it's very stressful to flying foxes. The Qld government has also warned, dispersals could increase Hendra virus loads in flying-foxes and increase the risk of spillover into horses.

Despite this knowledge our pollies are keen to pursue this because they claim they want to reduce the “ impact on the amenity of students and teachers at the school”.  But what about the rest of the community? Isn’t there a plan for them?

And this is where it gets really silly. The bureaucrats have just spent two years working on a plan for the whole community. Seems the Minister and the MP don’t know about that.

Chiroptera

Northern Rivers

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com for consideration.

Andrew shoots his bolt

Andrew Bolt produces a WTF moment over at The Telegraph:

“Meanwhile, the Greens confirm they are indeed the new haven of the fashionable anti-Semite”
Apparently carrying on in a similar vein, the televised Bolt Report is now receiving some flak.
It doesn't take a crystal ball to foretell more court time for Teh Bolta if he keeps on like this.

John Xavier Berlin jailed for fraud - history of child sex-offences revealed in court

THERE is no way John Xavier Berlin could have been a police officer, after being convicted of child-sex offences and spending two years in a Queensland jail.

That was the conclusion drawn by magistrate David Heilpern when he sentenced Berlin to 12 months behind bars at Grafton local court yesterday.

“Mr Berlin, you have never been a police officer,” he said.

“That is the source of all these problems.” Source: The Daily Examiner, 24/8/11

Today's Examiner gives Berlin much more attention than he'd ever like. Berlin is front-page material, gets more coverage on page 5 and is also the subject of an opinion piece written by the paper's chief-of-staff. Topping things off is a front page photograph of Berlin.

Read The Daily Examiner's report here.