Saturday, April 25, 2009

There is spin, then there is ignorance

Troop Stress

The Sydney Morning Herald ranks as one of Australia’s ore serious newspapers, and has a long history of stern, pedantic sub-editors. Several oddities today caught my attention, including the headline: Stressed out troops sent to war zones

Well I don’t know abut you, but I would be pretty bloody stressed going into a war zone! But the headline doesn’t match the story, which is focused on ‘military personnel who have returned from deployment’ and not receiving appropriate trauma councelling.

Cardboard king seeks fast exit

Again, this story should not conjure humorous thoughts, but alas… Pratt seeks ruling before he dies or the SMH Pratt waits on court ruling. Billionaire (Visy Holdings) Richard Pratt lies close to death with terminal cancer. He is facing four criminal charges alleging that in mid-2005, when under investigation for illegal cartel activities, he gave false and misleading evidence to officers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Pratt’s lawyer has pleaded with the court for ‘an indulgence’ which sounds a little medieval to me, so that he can die in peace. Legally of course when he dies the case dies with him. But I’m inclined to think he should be stalling any decisions, indefinitely, thus prolonging his grip on life.

Can you trust a politician?

Over in Chilliwack Canada, where there is a provincial election underway, disgraced former minister John Les is opting to campaign on the economy. The question is, how can a provincial member effect the economy, which is the aegis of a national government?

Okay, I’m being pedantic, but if a former minister can’t distinguish between economic policy and fiscal management, the latter being the role of the provincial government, we are in trouble. Well of course we are in trouble, and this could well be one of the reasons why; we are led by people ignorant of their roles.

5 comments:

abi said...

Stressed out troops sent to war zonesYou should send that into the Jay Leno tv show. He does the Tonite show on the US NBC network. Once a week he does a bit called Headlines, showing badly worded headlines like "Condom Found in Bag of Nuts" and "This is F.U. Youth Week" and other funny stuff. Here's a link:

"http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/Mercedes-Benz_Concert_Series/headlines/"

Cartledge said...

Thanks for the Leno lead, but they only take snail mail submissions. :(

lindsaylobe said...

Following the death of Richard Pratt I noticed reports in Sky news influential friends are now backing a strong call for a return of his Order of Australia (AO).

That groundswell of support has followed on with the earlier news before his death that the judge on the case ruled out certain evidence as inadmissible; in relation to giving false evidence to the ACCC in the price-fixing scandal.

The judge ruled Pratt's prior admission of price-fixing guilt, inclusive of a statement of agreed facts that culminated in a fine of $36 million was inadmissible.

In broad legal terms civil agreement don’t necessarily constitute admissible evidence to criminal case where the rules of evidence are different; e.g. they don’t cover what might be deemed or considered a compromise.

But I understand it was reported that Prosecutor Mark Dean said there was enough evidence to continue a criminal prosecution but it was not in the 'public interest' because Mr. Pratt at that time was not expected to live much longer. Prosecutors will not continue cases if they deem them not to be in the public interest.

Best wishes

Cartledge said...

Lindsay, maybe Pratt had no wish to prolong life, but he might have done himself an injustice.
As it now stands he has not been cleared and the doubt will always exist.
Let's face it, he has been one of the more lovable rogues and as you point out, the legalities of this case were not clear cut.

D.K. Raed said...

maybe the war zone they are referring is our V.A. system which is a real minefield to navigate for many vets.

and oh boy, "can you trust a politician" sounds like the beginning of a bad joke to me.