The super stadium debate goes haywire – and so does the Daily Astonisher.

The paper is caught in a vicious undertow of cross flowing issues that make a mockery of its ‘stadium at any cost’ stance – and much of the problem is of its own making. Also this week, Bentley nails Jolly Joe Hockey and his weird automotive commentary, an American general’s witty ‘f..k you’ to his Commander in Chief, Barack Obama, and the publishing industry’s pin-up gal, emma, is outed as an untrustworthy strumpet – but the local Iditor is sticking by her.

Sports quote of the Week goes to who else but Gus The Goose Gould (yep, the one who once famously said he didn’t believe in superstitions because they were bad luck).

In the tight tussle between the Bulldogs and the Eels last night, with the score 16-18 late into the second half,  Goosey Goosey decided we needed an in-depth analysis of the situation, so he told us” One team is in front by two points, the other team’s behind by two points’.

Well, at least he wasn’t wrong, so he’s doing better than our Treasurer, who spent most of the week looking about as happy as an NRL executive looking at an AFL crowd.

Jolly Joe Hockey had to stop smokin’ and jokin’ and blub out a groveling apology – several times – for his dopey and insulting mathematics about lower income earners being less affected by a fuel tax excise. Understandably, everyone went into a tizz of either rage or helpless hilarity at this twist on the  ‘let them eat cake’ dismissal of the ‘battlers’.  Bentley was less than amused.

In fact, given the PM’s complete rejection of the Treasurer’s reasoning, Joe’s jape might be a seminal moment in the life of this government. No one will be able to believe a word he says from now on, given his enhanced ‘born to rule’ bit of bastardry. not that The ‘Pie did before.

Of course, the risk of unpopularity is part of a politician’s lot, everywhere.

This bloke ….

Scottish Nationalist Alex Salmond

… is one Alex Salmond, who is leading the faltering charge for Scotland to sever it’s ties with Britain when the country votes on independence on September 18. And talk about unpopular. This from the Independent paper:

“Arrogant, ambitious and dishonest”, were the most common words used to describe Alex Salmond in a recent poll of Scotland’s female voters.”

But it seems Alex has everything conspiring against him, even when trying to get the message across on one of the world’s most famous trains.

And by the by, what is it with politicians and fish. We’ve got The Kipper and Mayor Mullet, but if Salmond (almost a fish, maybe just fishy) get’s up (he won’t) , the leadership team would be…  ta da ….

(Alex) Salmond and (Nicola) Sturgeon. For those of you who haven’t been further away than Rita Island, the dictionary tells us that a sturgeon is ‘a very large (northern hemisphere) primitive fish with bony plates on the body’.  It also produces caviar, which is no doubt among the list of impossible goodies being promised to gullible Scots to opt out of the UK. She’d be a handy travelling companion though; ‘Hey, darl, punch out a couple of serves of caviar, I’ll make the toast’.

The ‘Pie cares not a whit about Scotland or the outcome – how can anyone care about a country whose golf courses look like drought-stricken paddocks near Cloncurry – but cutting away from the UK is clearly shown to be a financial and economic disaster. Just as well Poms can’t vote in this referendum, most that The ‘Pie knows would be happy to be shot of their dour, often bad tempered and mostly humorless northern neighbours.

Back to more local matters, our current fish exports to China … a kipper and a mullet … has been going … well, swimmingly (sorry!). They jetted out last weekend and alas, return this weekend. Bet they can hardly wait to tuck into a good ol’ Aussie steak, after what they’ve had to scoff down all week.

Don’t know if ‘Braised Intestine Surface’ is what you eat or the result of eating it.

But now The Kipper is back in the loving bosom of his cash cow Townsville, perhaps he might get around to telling us why we can’t see that feasibility study on the proposed ‘super stadium’. Clr Pat Ernst wants the report – minus any commercial-in-confidence stuff – published in the paper and let the punters make up their own minds – quaint idea, Mr Ernst, but sounds a tad … ummm … democratic?  But as Mr McCartney famously warbles, what’s wrong with that, I’d like to know.

The paper is proving to be a bit of headless chook on this one, and looks like they’ve got their editorial policy tits well and truly caught in the wringer. Here’s how that is a reasonable deduction.

On page 3 of Tuesday’s paper, we were treated to a Simpo gush about JCU’s bid for a big slice of the asset sale pie, with a new marine science and research center for the CBD.

All very ‘you beaut’, with the usual quoted overstatements – Chairman of the Dudley Do-Nothings, Kevin Gill said ‘the precinct would help build on the city’s reputation as a world leader’. Oh, purleese! But let that go, a stab at positive news, anyway.

But wait. Let’s thumb through to page 14 of the very same paper, where we find a clearly panicked iditorial which obviously had the iditor’s sphincter hyperventilating.

HUH? ‘… but more details need to be provided before it should receive financial support’???

And further on, you have to suppress a sympathetic chuckle at the iditor’s distress when he squeaks:

‘ … but we need to make sure all the financial details of the proposal stack up before investing in it.’

You’re kidding, old son … or at least trying to kid your readership, because that is exactly the exposure you are trying to block for your own personal little baby  Gammy, the flawed super stadium. In other words, you’re saying get off our patch, JCU, we want the dough for our stadium.

And even further on, you say ‘ … but the community also needs to be realistic with its expectations’. Now, that really is a bit rich, Lachy, when you are acting the sock puppet for vested business interests, to the exclusion of alternative arguments, right or wrong, and are stifling debate in the most obvious and crude manner. Thus it follows, old mate, you are raising unrealistic expectations … or if they’re not unrealistic, how the hell would we know?

Just here, The ‘Pie feels he must go on record yet again and declare, for what it’s worth (bugger all) that he thinks the stadium/entertainment/convention center in the CBD is an excellent idea if the dough stacks up and we aren’t bamboozled into leapfrogging it up the list over more worthy and socially fair priorities.

But all that was way back then on Tuesday, so let’s zip forward to Thursday, when the King of Wishing Well House, David The Kipper Kippin’s column appeared, flogging the ‘asset sales are good’ line. He even manages to quote a supportive speaker at a Townsville business breakfast during the week, although how he’d know is a mystery, since he was in China.

We were given a break on Friday, which is just as well, because we have been swamped today, from the dog whistling front page about a negative poll result for the three LNP sitting state members

… and inside double spread …

… making it clear that the three LNP state members are on the nose, the hint being that’s in part because they’ve been lukewarm on the stadium. The paper reckons two and probably the three of them, are for the high jump next election.

But hang on a sec … the story is based on an up-to-date poll of the community, which clearly shows that a majority of those surveyed are against asset sales. And no asset sales means no stadium, but Simpo can hardly risk leaving that out of the story.

In that story, member for Thuringowa Sam Cox gets the quote of the day, telling Simpo ‘I’ve got a job to do, not a job to keep.’ Neat saying, but you’d better match it with actions, Mr Cox.

To top this off, Simpo churns out a pompous column suggesting that the government should fund the whole cost of the stadium element of the plan.

But hang on a further sec … have a look at the story in the pic on the right hand side. It tells us that the Townsville Enterprise wish-list for projects that could be financed by the sale of the port (this just gets more muddled as it goes on) is waaay too greedy – Simpo quotes the word ‘ambitious’. So it’s going to have to be pared down somewhat. And one can bet that the negotiations on that exercise will be by a select few behind closed doors. We won’t get a look-in on how or on what our taxes (which is what port money is) are spent. Watch out for a lot of empty flapdoodle about ‘community consultation’.

To mix metaphors, the whole issue seems to be blowing up in the paper’s face, and as Mongrel the Barrister says, they seem to be moving in ever diminishing circles until they disappear up their own basic fundament.

All the foregoing is probably one of the reasons we are bombarded with this highly questionable … and embarrassing … flummery 0n page 2 of today’s Astonisher..

The shining insincerity of some highly selective figures – from a highly questionable source, the industry’s new emma outfit  – is cringe-worthy in extremis. Lachlan, do you really expect us to believe – do you think we’re stupid enough to believe – your claim, despite plummeting circulation, that the Bulletin’s readership has gone up 8.7% – IN THE PAST THREE MONTHS. And that every weekday issue is read by the same number that read the Weekend Bulletin (give or take a thousand)? It is passed around among 5 people, each and every issue?

That’s not just funny, it really is insulting.

That’s especially so since it comes at the end of a week where advertising industry heavies – who do the media buying – have said they simply don’t believe the emma figures on which such sunny outlooks are trumpeted around the country.

They still look to the well-established and independent Roy Morgan surveys, which consistently show readership figures more in line with plummeting circulation (weekday readership at 57,000.) EMMA was created and is owned by, the publishing industry. That perception of possible jiggery pokery is why only seven of the top twenty buying agencies subscribe to emma.  Such unbelievable figures prompted this frank assessment in a story on the media and advertising MuMbrella website:

A number of other agency CEOs, who declined to be named, but questioned the cost and reliability of EMMA’s data, particularly after the first year on year data showed increases in print readerships and readers per copy of a number of newspaper and magazine titles, in the face of collapsing print circulation.

Mark Coad, CEO of PHD said, “I think that the recent readership data release confirmed what many in the industry had feared; that ownership of the data measurement would result in unrealistically inflated/favourable readership data,” said one agency CEO.

Ya reckon, De Nozo.

But all that ain’t gunna stop Lachy claiming emma’s 100,000 daily weekday readership for the Astonisher, when the latest Roy Morgan figures put it at almost half that.

Now Mr Heywood is entitled to choose which set of figures he likes …umm, actually, no he’s not, those riding orders that can’t be questioned come out of Sydney HQ. But still, it sure looks like it’s the Heywood reg grundies smouldering away with claims like today’s page 2.

Finally, a neat yarn out of the Oval Office, which the author, the highly decorated General McChrystal says true in his tell all book Never Stand In Line Again. He explains where the title came from.

Some men carry and handle their diplomacy better than others. When former U.S. Military commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, was called into the Oval Office by Barack Obama, he knew things weren’t going to go well when the President accused him of not supporting him in his political role as President.

“It’s not my job to support you as a politician, Mr. President, it’s my job to support you as Commander-in-Chief,” McChrystal replied, and he handed Obama his resignation.

Not satisfied with accepting McChrystal’s resignation, the President made a cheap parting shot. “I bet when I die you’ll be happy to pee on my grave.”

The General saluted and said, “Mr. President, I always told myself after leaving the Army I’d never stand in line again.”

Enough now it ia away to Poseurs’ Bar, where The ‘Pie will toast his own (improving) health for his birthday during the week when he struggled on to 69 – and that is probably the only context in which that number will be mentioned or contemplated by him again. The old bird was aghast to discover that he shared the birthday week with the Brisbane Bantam, Campbell Newman, but felt much better when he realized that the week was also shared by a much better role model, Big Bazza Taylor. All the best to you, Bazza, old mate heh heh heh.

But we’re all getting on. Caught up with Mongrel the Barrister and old English teacher mate Peter Pluperfect during the week. The conversation went something like this:

Magpie: It’s windy today.

Mongrel: No it’s not, it’s Thursday.

Pluperfect: So am I, let’s have a beer.

On such occasions, it’s fitting to surround yourself with friends who understand you.

Like my new friend Kitty.