Is The Townsville Bulletin is spreading anti-Islamic propaganda under the guise of responsible reporting?

Either way, they get this month’s Janus Two-Faced BUMM Chalice for Barefaced UnMitigated Mendacity.

And that makes the Astonisher a triple award winner this week, also taking out the IronyMan Award for HIV (Hypocritical Ironic Verbiage), decrying on-line ‘haters’ while harboring one of their own – a Townsville Bulletin reporter. The paper also gets the Huh, how’s that again? Trophy.

The terror thing is going well for Wingnut Abbott and his treasurer, so no one is keeping the heat on the most confused budget the country has ever seen. But all the hysteria about terror alerts overshadowed a senatorial speech that socks it to this and all governments and their misuse of OPM – Other Peoples Money.

Resident ‘toonist Bentley reckons the Scottish referendum will have royalty up in the air about the result – but not the way you might think.

The referendum which voted to stay with the UK saw Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the independence camp, Alex Salmond, resign.

It is said he took this step, because he had been convinced of a move to independence and he believed that Scotland would become either a kingdom and he would be king, a empire and he would be an emperor, or possibly even a principality and he could at least be a prince. But the people decided it should remain a country and he should carry as he always has done, so he decided to go.

Bentley was quite taken with the report that said the Queen was ‘purring’ at the result, but he foresaw an unanticipated split in the royal household.

The terror thingy has everybody flinching this week, and the recent gruesome acts reported in such detail have been bringing the sociopaths out from under their emotional rocks everywhere. BUt there are those who think the media has lost its head over it all (sorry, sorry) and we’re being spooked unnecessarily.

But how fast have things moved on. Just a year or two ago, the internet was rocking with guffaws at a commentary on terror alerts supposedly written by pommy funnyman John Cleese. It’s a classic worth a re-visit.

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France ‘s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”

The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be alright, Mate.” Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is cancelled.” So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.

A final thought – ” Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC”.

 As said, a classic.

But the dominance of the immediate terrorist issue put almost everything else in the shade, which is a shame because there was a bitingly witty speech by Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm …

… in which he accused just about all past and present politicians of being OPM addicts   … hopelessly addicted to spending Other Peoples’ Money. It’s about 8 minutes when you have a moment, but well worth it for a thought provoking look at why so much of our taxes is clearly wasted. Leyonhjelm has been described as having ‘perhaps the most clearly articulated and consistent views’  of all the newly elected senators – not a great compliment when you look at the fruit cake factory of other new senators.

Moving along to the local scene, we go from ha-ha to funny weird. The Astonisher continues to astonish and sometimes amuse – except when they go into puppy dog-wetting mode, slavering over a story to the point where ethics and common decency go out the window.

The case in point this Tuesday front pager, as a local follow-up to the mounting concerns about Islamic extremists.

The basic story was fair enough, but in their puppy dog eagerness for the journalistic slam-dunk, reporters Matthew Dunn …

… and Josh Alston,

… decided to broadcast the hate messages posted on social media, and that a mosque wall carried a anti-Islam message (‘graffitied’ was the innovative language used in one story). They also told us of  another graffiti attack which defaced a local billboard.

Err, chaps, just in case it hasn’t been pointed out yet, yes, you should report that there have been such grubby attacks, but NO, you SHOULD NOT lovingly repeat the messages in detail – by doing so, you are simply amplifying the message you say you so indignantly decry. So instead of it being a bit of a mini-storm on social media, where the contact is generally like-on-like among a couple of dozen whiffleheads, with the occasional dissenter chipping in, these disaffected dimwits now find their foam-flecked messages plastered all over what passes for mainstream media around here.  One would think it obvious that to report the actual messages was not just dopey, offensive, hypocritical and thoughtless, but also unethical, so what were you thi ….. oh, wait a moment. Oh, right.

Come to think of it,  Josh Alston has form in the ethical kindergarten in  Flinders Street West, declaring his own personal jihad on The Magpie when the old bird revealed that he had manufactured a quote by deputy Mayor Vern Veitch about uranium mining, when the deputy doo-dah had said nothing of the sort.

But he’s not alone in this dumb and dumber circus, his iditor Pinocchio Heyward picked up the quoting theme in his iditorial on the same day.

Under the headline We Welcome Muslims But Haters Can Go, Pinocchio writes: ‘Townsville prides itsef on being a tolerant and inclusive community. Over the years, it has been a city that has welcomed people from across the globe. But there is a small minority who are anything but tolerant and inclusive. They are haters … these are the trolls who take to online sites and call for (XXXXX )to be exterminated. We do not want our haters in our community.’ The Magpie’s XXXXX is the pejorative term for Muslims that Pinocchio decided to spell out in his pompous statement of the bleedin’ obvious.

However, The ‘Pie was mighty glad to read Pinocchio’s sentiments, since on e assumes he will no longer harbor among his staff a ‘troll’ and a ‘hater’, a person who posts witless and juvenile comments on, among other targets, the Magpie blog. That person, who tries to hide behind the pseudonym Ruthless Toothless, recently decided to make it personal, with comments like ‘Enjoy your throat cancer, Malcolm’ and ‘you will be missing a chunk of your throat from the cancer eating away at you. ‘, comments which say everything about him and nothing about The ‘Pie. Now this sort of pond scum behavior is nothing new to the comment section of the blog, and most of those contributions go immediately to delete heaven. Water off a duck’s etc, especially since The ‘Pie knew from the outset who was firing these shots from the ramparts of Coward’s Castle.

Incidentally, this all happened shortly after The ‘Pie revealed Mr Alston’s front page peccadillos with the deputy mayor.

But Ruthless Toothless made one fatal error, and has subsequently become a somewhat toothless tiger.

The error?

While The ‘Pie himself wasn’t fussed (his was a somewhat overstated medical prognosis), Toothless unwisely incurred the wrath of the old bird’s tech-savvy daughter. Bad, bad move. Having herself been the victim of News Ltd bullying (it must be said the company itself behaved immaculately in that instance, forcing former Astonisher editor Peter Gleeson to write her a personal apology), The Pie-ette set about tracing the origin of the comments. And wadda ya know … at least two of them came from News Corpse servers in Queensland, and another from a Hermit Park address here in the ‘Ville.

All this info – with a sweet personal note to Toothless from the Pie-ette – was duly published in the comments sections of last week’s blog, where they can still be viewed. This blog knows the identity of the sad little emotional hunchback but in considerations for others near him, declines to publish the name.

But the interesting aspect is this: the Astonisher, let alone the News behemoth itself, has an IT dept which, using the information published here,  could … and probably has … identified Toothless in a nanosecond. The question, which The ‘Pie will probably never know, is what if anything did they do about it? Or are their pompous sermons about not tolerating trolls and haters just all hypocritical cant. Maybe some of you would like to ask the iditor if he’s as good as his word or is just piss and wind.

Anyway, brainless Toothless has blessed us with a deafening silence since he was outed.

And we may as well make The Astonisher a triple award winner with the HUH, How’s That? Trophy for its front pager today about magistrates failing to widely utilize the government’s new law that allows juvenile repeat offenders to be named and ‘shamed” (read ‘made heroes by their peers’).

The reliable court reporter Emma Channon tells us that only 208 of the 280 little snots who have  come before the courts a second time (28%) have been thus ‘named and shamed’.  Ms Channon covers both pro and con opinion (what, a balanced story, I hear you cry), so initially allows a victims’ rights advocate to go to town, describing the percentage as ‘disgusting’ and asking ‘why can’t (all the children) be held accountable’. All fair enough until we come to the gob-smacker that prompted the somewhat skewed headline, where Ms Channon reveals that “ Townsville magistrates have developed a local protocol to prohibit the publication of young offenders (names) until they are convicted or plead guilty to an offence’.

Now the paper clearly suggests it is admonishing magistrates for this rule with the use of the word ‘despite’ in the headline, BUT, until the poor little misunderstood darlings  are convicted or plead guilty THEY ARE NOT ‘offenders’, they are the ‘ACCUSED’. Now it’s old fashioned of the bird, but innocent until proved guilty is still the law of the land – despite strenuous efforts by the fascist governments in Brisbane and Canberra – and the News Corpse jingoism factory – to wish or want otherwise. Cripes, some of these unnamed may be found to be not guilty, and by remaining unnamed, won’/t face any extra burden on getting back on track.

The Astonisher’s trophy shelf is getting close to collapsing under the weight of its awards.

Enough now, but no Poseurs’ Bar tonight, The Magpie is staying in, and is in dire need of urgent help. he has just heard the emergency assistance he so desperately needs has pulled up outside. ‘Til next week, have to go out now and see if things will be OK.

Phew, close call, that!!!