The more enlightened Australians amongst us would know that Today Tonight is the lowest of the low - tabloid television at its sensationalist best. When I saw a promo on TV for a segment that they were going to do on young Muslims living in Sydney, I thought “oh oh … this wasn’t gonna be pretty”. And though I didn’t watch the show (I can’t bring myself to - I loathe it that much!) my initial thoughts were proven correct. Thanks to Media Watch (media watchdog on Government TV that keeps the bastards honest), here’s a sample of what sneaky editing can do:

What was shown on air:

• “I mean you have all this talk about integration. Why hasn’t the Muslim community assimilated or why doesn’t it integrate into the Australian community as quick as other communities. Well, at the end of the day OK, we will never integrate.” - Today Tonight, Channel 7, 15 August 2005

Original intent of the interviewee:

• I was saying off camera to Tim [interviewer] - look we will never integrate like other cultures have done because it’s against our religion to drink alcohol and go to bars and clubs. He said “Ok, let me get that on camera”. I think what I said on camera was “We will never integrate to the extent that other communities have been able to and it also depends on what your definition of integration is.” - Ahmed Haouchar to Media Watch

As expected, radio talkback rednecks had a field day as a result and Today Tonight even had the audacity to follow up that inflaming episode the next day by canvassing “normal” ppl on the streets what they thought about the above statements that were taken completely out of context. Ppl who didn’t watch the show, when asked the question would obviously say things like “that’s very un-Australian” and “this is our country, if they don’t want to assimilate then don’t come” and so on.

You may ask why did they agree to be interviewed by Today Tonight knowing its reputation? Well they were misled. The interviewer claimed to be making a documentary for Channel 7. Only after filming had begun were the participants told that it was for Today Tonight.

F**k I hate racists but I hate sneaky tabloid “journalists” even more because they are insidious. To you assholes: if you like fanning the flames so much, you all belong in hell.

Transcript and video of the Media Watch episode can be found here.

An intense account, with photos of US solders experiencing a hostile encounter on the streets of Mosul, Iraq from the viewpoint of an embedded writer.

Kurilla was running when he was shot, but he didn’t seem to miss a stride; he did a crazy judo roll and came up shooting.

BamBamBamBam! Bullets were hitting all around Kurilla. The young 2nd lieutenant and specialist were the only two soldiers near. Neither had real combat experience. AH had no weapon. I had a camera.

Seconds count.

Michael Yon : Online Magazine: Gates of Fire

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Found via Clicked@MSNBC.

Was going through Mili’s blog archives (had an hour to kill before going home :P) and she posed some interesting questions after having blogged for 3 months. I’ll quote the pertinent portion of that particular post:

I know I initially started this for me. But I’ve come to a stage that all bloggers get to at some point: Should I just continue but make it private? Or should I just stop blogging altogether and not waste time looking for new blogging software?

I love blogging, and I know it’s only been three months…..but sometimes I feel that I am talking to myself..therefore there is no point doing proper alignments and photo cropping. Whats the point of spell checking if your audience is one - you.

Again, two very contrasting thoughts. Upgrading it cause I just NEED to have control over my blog, or shut it down cos I aint got anyone coming here to read what I write anyway.

Indeed, who do we blog for? Ourselves or for an audience? And if for an audience, how big does the audience have to be to make us happy? How many comments do we need to get for us to feel good about our blogging?

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Personally I went through 3 stages in quick succession:

1. Why no comments? Why no visitors? This is depressing! Why why why!? I even tried out Blogexplosion at one stage to get more hits. It did, as long as I visited other blogs as well but that was tedious. I didn’t wanna visit blogs that I wouldn’t normally anyway. And it didn’t create sticky visitors - ie. ppl who came back. The only good thing was that I stumbled upon two blogs that I still read today: italk2much.com and Sarcomical.
2. Must write more creatively to get ppl to come back - scour the popular blogs, absorb their blogging styles, blog about popular trends that ppl like to talk about etc. Plus leave comments on the popular blogs so that I can siphon some visitors from there. Not just braindead comments either because that won’t make ppl curious about you. I emulated certain bloggers’ styles for a while but just never felt at ease with any of them because I’m not *them*.
3. F**k it! Just write about things that you know and are passionate about. This is *my* blog. It should be more about my life and thoughts. So here I am now.

Well, more a combination of 2 & 3. I leave comments on the blogs that I read because I love the interaction and exchanging of ideas. I try to add flair to my posts and try to be interesting and I’m not as obsessed about getting comments and hits now.

My opinion: a blog should first and foremost be for yourself because that way you wouldn’t ever run out of things to blog about. Writing about things close to your heart is easier than trying to cater to a specific audience, or pretending to be something that you are not. As a result, your writing will automatically improve. Having an interesting life outside blogging helps too. Then lo and behold, the visitors come and they become regulars. Thanks, you guys!

And btw Mili, thanks for not killing your blog. Yours is one of many that have added colour to my daily life.

I’ve been hearing a particular radio ad on the drive home for the past week now. It’s for a nasal spray to help with premature ejaculation. That’s right folks - a medication that you spray into your nose to cure problems in and around your groin.

A few points worth noting though:

1. Would men be so affected by this that they would buy a drug that they only heard about on the radio? ‘Cos as far as I know I haven’t seen or read anything about this anywhere. And you get a lot of “weird” sites if you google it.
2. The ad is constantly being played around 5:30-6:00pm. This begs the question - do men usually think about the bad sex that they had been having on the drive home?
3. Is it wise to remind a man of his sexual dysfunction and thus making him depressed while he is operating a 1-tonne steel can?

Hmm, I wonder.

Hmm, surely there are better ways of making your point than desecrating someone’s grave? Especially someone that is only indirectly connected to the entity that you are protesting at.

London: A family that breeds guinea pigs for medical research is to abandon its farm in a final attempt to get back the remains of a relative whose body was dug up by animal rights extremists.

Have they gone too far? I think they have. And on a related note, this whole incident just reminds me of the movie “28 Days Later” where extreme animal activists unleashed a deadly zombie virus into the world through their reckless violence and arrogant self-righteousness.

I’m ranting on … full story can be found in the link.

Guinea pigs go in return for stolen body - Unusual Tales - Specials - smh.com.au

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Dilarang Masuk ke Malaysia

It’s her blog and she can blog whatever she wants to. So shall I on mine.

Xiaxue went to KL recently and had nothing good to say about it. Hey, you can’t really interpret it any other way when the title is “KL pretty much sucked“. (Note: lots of bandwidth sucking pics on that post)

Being from KL, I’d admit I was more than a little cheesed off. Some of her points were valid (eg. the taxis) but as for the rest … bloody hell can she bitch or can she f**king bitch?! I wanted to leave a comment but then thought it’d be lost in the sea of comments that the post would generate anyway. She created one mighty good flame bait.

There were some good counter-arguments made by Malaysians amongst the comments. Good on them! But shite … some of her sycophantic fans who are Malaysians are actually kissing up to her by parroting everything she says. Damn you bunch of disgraceful f**ks, can have some dignity or not?!

Wah lau the things this chaboh says … really kiam pah man. She is entitled to her opinions but I’d respect her more if she backed them up with good reasons, as opposed to her post/hate-mail. FYI XX: dress provocatively in a sleazy part of any town and you’d get leered at. Try the same in Geylang and tell me if it’s any different. I’d gladly eat humble pie if you can prove that it is.

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Yes I used to read her blog. But not after this. Part of me will forever be tied to Malaysia and when you insult it, you insult me. Her words were not constructive criticism. Instead they were malicious and prejudicial in nature. Some were even racist which I won’t repeat here. She seemed to have made up her mind about the place even before she crossed the border. If she was being sarcastic or if it was dry wit, it must have been too dry for me to pick up.

Fair-minded Americans cringe at “ugly Americans” - their fellow citizens who behave obnoxiously in foreign lands. If anyone qualifies to be an “ugly Singaporean” it must surely be her.

It *is* possible to be patriotic without being condescending. To XX: Spend more time understanding and appreciating the subtle nuances and differences between cultures and less being a spoilt whiny bitch. Ah f**k lah, if everywhere else is so disgusting to you, just stay in Singapore ok!?

UPDATE Aug 25th 7:48AM
She’s disabled the comments on that post. Didn’t see that coming.

UPDATE Aug 25th 10:10AM
Wahaha, someone archived all the comments. Steady!

UPDATE AUG 25th 2:33PM
Saw this comment she made on that post.

10:10 PM, August 24, 2005
Xiaxue said…
FOR CHRISTS SAKE GET A SENSE OF HUMOUR. GOOD FUCKING LORD. I can’t stand you serious people. Go away and don’t read my blog, ever again. FUCK OFF.

She’s been using “sense of humour” as her fallback a lot. That’s like saying something insulting intentionally and then adding, “I’m only kidding lah …” What the hell. And oh, the comments are back up.

OMFG! What have this guy done to Batman?!? And this is one of the tamer samples too. I don’t give a flying f**k about Robin. But Batman?! Shield your eyes children! Ok ok I’m a tad over-reacting. It’s only glorified fan art. Gotta admit, Batman & Robin always had that homo-erotic thing going on. So did Xena and Gabrielle and you all would have seen pictures of those. If not, google it.

Anyways, more Batman & Robin luridness at the Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts gallery. (warning: not exactly work-safe) The gallery has already received a stern letter from DC Comic’s lawyers to take the pictures down.

Apparently DC Comics do have gay characters (reference this list) but it is not ok to give the gay treatment to their hetero superheroes.

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Story originally found at The Register.