If you sat through this evening’s rather sycophantic Howard Years on ABC1, you may have noticed that, according to Costello, John Howard was all for preferencing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party in the 1998 Federal Election. Nice. Well, were their policies really so different? “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” The reason Howard’s line became infamous, of course, is that refugees were treated like prisoners – and in fact had, in many instances, less rights – and many were returned to regimes where they faced almost certain death.

On Wednesday, SBS is screening a doco which promises to be anything but sycophantic towards the Howard government. A Well-Founded Fear follows the fates of some of those political refugees and their families. It is reviewed in The Age’s Green Guide (13/11/08) by Jodie Pfarr:

There are even claims that the Government used false passports to deport detainees to their or other countries. A report into the treatment and fate of over 250 deported refugees is to be presented to the Government and the United Nations. That will not be our finest hour.

But how many of us will actually watch A Well-Founded Fear? Rather less than the 21 million Jodie Pfarr would like, I suspect. There’s plenty of US pap on offer – Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, House – and the trend is towards custom video channels online, where any news is likely to be of the E variety and the choice for hot doco perhaps a behind the scenes with The Veronicas.

One person I can pretty much guarantee won’t be watching is John Winston Howard.

► A Well-Founded Fear screens Wednesday, 19th November at 8.30pm on SBS.

Image: The Age

Hey, did anybody check out the list of the best 100 Australian web 2.0 apps?

Interesting to see Gnoos on there. I’m surprised the site was up long enough for Ross to rate it. Also, I’m not going to name names but some of the other sites on the list have already closed down. Go click through and have a look at some… be mindful of the ones that probably wouldn’t call themselves Australian unless you were buying a round.

Anyway… I think that’s a sufficient dose of abrasiveness for the moment. After all, the many people who put hours of hard work into ausculture.com every day are undoubtedly just insanely jealous.

Still, I was looking at the list and noticed a few other sites that had simpy whacked a crappy theme on top of Pligg. I say “other sites” because that’s exactly what ausculture.com did. As I was looking at these sites though, I noticed that 95% of the links were straight into the websites for major Australian newspapers. Honestly, I think that is kinda missing the point. Part of the reason people liked Digg in the first place was in the charm of sending truckloads of users to small and obscure sites to look at really interesting content. That the Digg effect usually brought those sames sites to their knees was part of the fun.

It’s not so much fun when your social news aggregator is just giving you an alternative top ten articles on the major online newspapers. Those sites already have most popular lists.

Of course, this causes me to ask the question “Is there any room for an Australia social news aggregator?” - particularly one that is aggregating more that four sources and concentrating on Australian content?

I’d have to say that so far, it’s looking like a no from where I’m sitting. Anyone have a different opinion?

Maybe there is, but that such a site would have to do more than reskin pligg (or reddit.) I notice, however, that perthnorg isn’t just a reskin and their traffic looks less-than-stellar.

Possibly related stuff elsewhere

• Nielsen: Digg Traffic Sucks. Mashable: That’s What She Said
• The 30 Top Social Bookmarking Web Sites on ebizma.com.

18th of May, 2008. The erudite (yeah, right) Corey Worthington is interviewed by Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O’Neill:

Jackie: “You preferred Bec. What about Bianca?”

Corey: “Oh, she was alright, I guess.”

Kyle: “Bit dopey though, Jackie, don't you think?”

Jackie: “Bianca? You think she's – You're talking about Brigitte?”

Kyle: “Oh, Brigitte – sorry, I get them confused.”

You get them confused? You get Brigitte and Bianca confused? Perhaps try looking up at their faces. It’s just a suggestion.

25th of May, 2008. Sandilands has had a week to remember to take his pills and try to grasp the most basic information relating to the Eviction shows he’s supposed to be co-hosting. For instance, the public votes for their favourite Housemates and the least popular three are put up for the HMs themselves to nominate for eviction. This week, they have a choice between Nathan, David and Rory. That’s three people, you see? The kind of maths even Corey would be capable of.

It’s a double Eviction, so Bianca (that’s the one who does know what ‘illiterate’ means, Kyle) has to vote out two of the three who are up. She nominates David for two points and Nathan for one, the latter being because she was close with Renee before Nathan came along and whisked her away to a quiet corner of the garden. And when she has finished:

Kyle: “That's a bit of an odd choice.”

Jackie: “No, I got that. I mean, you know, he [Nathan] is spending all this time with Renee. And I reckon she's a bit different around him.”

Kyle: “Well why wouldn't she vote out Renee, if she thinks Nathan's the nicest person on the planet?”

Jackie: “No –”

Kyle: “Is she not that smart either?”

Jackie: “Rory, you mean? Why wouldn't she vote out Rory?”

Kyle: “Oh, I don't know.”

Jackie: “You don't know what's going on.”

Kyle: “She was just – she just looked like a giant bugs bunny up there, that's all I could see.”

No, Kyle, it’s true, you don’t know what’s going on. I think this is about the point that the psychiatrist would be asking you what day of the week it is and who’s the Prime Minister. (The answers, Kyle, me old pal, are Ketchup and Wa-boo, Wa-boo. Don’t mention it.)

Images: Network Ten

Aren’t these the guys overcharging me for my phone service?

This page from the National Gallery of Victoria What’s On – May-Jun 08 booklet shows visitors naively viewing the Sidney Nolan exhibition, unaware of the imminent dangers. Look closely and you see that the visitor on the left has her stiletto caught in the floor grill. Alas, we’re not shown the frame of her crashing back onto her coccyx.

In this age of interactive performance art this was a natural progression: the gallery becomes one large installation, and the toppling tourists an integral part of the piece. This is art that affects the viewer; art in which the viewer is recognised and acknowledged. The artist is saying “Yeah, this person knows her arse from her elbow – her arse is the one that’s sore.” Good on ya, NGV!

That’s how the official site of the Australian Open is billing this afternoon’s match between Russia’s Maria Sharapova, seeded 5th, and Serbian 4th seed Ana Ivanovic. But isn’t that objectifying the women and devaluing the tennis? Well, in the minds of the players probably not. Here’s what Sharapova had to say about the rise to prominence of her Finals nemesis:

“It's great to see new names coming up that are doing well, that are bringing excitement and whatever it is, glamour, to the sport. Even to bring fans that are not just tennis fans, but other fans into the sport, is wonderful.”

And both players have exhibited glamour with a capital ‘G’ off-court. Sharapova was a model for the 2007 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, amongst many other assignments, and Ivanovic’s body of modelling work shows no shortage of body either.

Seven’s coverage, though, will doubtless be scrutinised for impropriety by one S. Collins of Box Hill North, Melbourne. In a letter to The Age’s Green Guide s/he wrote “...slow-motion technology was abused for grossly inappropriate purposes in the night match between Venus Williams and Zi Yan. Straight after one ad break, there blazing on the screen appeared Venus' backside in action with extreme close-up and extreme slow-motion cast upon it. Seconds later, Roger Rasheed stated ‘I don't know about all the other ladies out there, but to me that's a prrretty good sight’.” Thank god Seven was broadcasting in widescreen!

I saw that coverage, and actually yes, it was a bit of a visit to Wrongtown – Venus would have been appalled. But using that yardstick for this afternoon’s match, things are not the same. Perving rights have been given...

Images: youngteenidols.com and si.com

It’s reported that Chrisco will not be delivering some hampers this year due to problems with a new logistics system.

If ensurance is part of your customer experience this is the last thing you what to happen. What a shame.

We’re all still keeping in the Christmas spirit though right? I mean, there’s a few Australian based websites with their logos currently sporting Santa hats, Christmas lights and ribbons. Loath to be left off any bandwagon, ausculture.com has a Santa hat on order and expects it to arrive kinda soonish. We’ll confirm the timing when we know more.

In addition to the Santa hat, ausculture.com will also be getting into the spirit by posting or re-hashing, uninformative articles about all kinds of things, so long as there is some way we can talk about Christmas at the same time - this very post being the first instance.

Media Watch had a story about one of the recent Bonds underwear commercials (pictured above). Interesting to see the translation of the Portuguese lyrics for the commercial:

Marina Amphetamine
Marina Gasoline
Marina is on fire!!!
Hum ooh hah
Meet me after school
And I’ll beat you like a gorilla
Bite you like a whore
Come and play with my pussy

Should anybody be surprised or fussed? They are selling underwear. I suspect Bonds would be less successful at that if they made something more like the Huggie fabric softener commercial. Much like our metro newspapers would be less successful at selling “newspapers” if they didn’t have online galleries featuring porn star Jenna Jameson.

Yeah, I know there’s a reason why we pretend like we’re outraged but I can’t remember what it is.