Thus spake right-wing rag the Daily Tele when reporting on ’Muslim-friendly’ loans being offered by the National Australia Bank. To date it’s been difficult for devout Muslims to buy a home unless they have the full sum, since Islam considers riba (money-lending) to be haraam (forbidden). The NAB is getting around this by trialling new homebuying schemes where the customer makes alternative payment arrangements, different to the usual structure of principle and compounding interest.

Most reasonable people would think this a fair compromise: the customer still pays for their borrowing, the bank still makes their money and everyone is happy. Not the Tele, which reports it under a headline that screams of preferential treatment and reverse-racism. Its reporter also sees fit to avoiding mentioning a pivotal fact until the tail of the article:

The loans would also be available to non-Muslims.

Cue the hysteria in comments,where the great unwashed, ordinarily riled by the thought of mortgage interest, seemed to claim it as some kind of patriotic badge of honour:

You’ve got be bloody kidding me, right? Can’t people just adopt the Aussie way. After all you do live in our country. If you don’t want to work by our rules, then piss off.
Posted by: christine of sydney 8:17am today

You tell ‘em, babe. 

If it hasn’t started already, this is the beginning of the end for this once great country.
Posted by: Ralph Malph of Avalon 10:55am today

It’s all downhill from here, Ralph. Much like after your mate Fonzie ‘jumped the shark’.

Can the bank provide Christian and Buddist loans too? Shows the illusion.
Posted by: piggybank 4:41pm today

A Buddhist loan, gee that’d be good – I could buy a house now and defer payments until my second reincarnation.

Yesterday, after the Daily Telegraph put the call out for Tommy Lee’s internet girlfriend, I wondered if they would ever learn. And because I’m a sarcastic bastard I actually did email the photo as I claimed.

Half of me was surprised when I received the following reply yesterday afternoon, but half of me wasn’t.

Scott,

My name is Sam and I work at the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. After you emailed our internet section claiming to know who our mystery Pauline Hanson look-a-like woman is, they forwarded onto me. Can we call you sometime to have a quick chat about who exactly this lady is that you used to know? If you can send us your number or, alternatively I can be contacted on this email or on 9XXXXXXX. We’d love to find a name for this lady and chase it up.

Cheers mate, hope to hear from you soon.

Regards, Sam

Firstly, what part of the email subject line “Tommy Lee’s internet lover” and image file name “tommyleelover.jpg” didn’t they understand? Secondly, why are they still chasing this story after it so comprehensively backfired on their news empire? And thirdly, like, WTF?

Dickheads.

The Daily Telegraph has asked its readers to do the “journalism” for it (as far as a story about Tommy Lee’s internet romance is “journalism”.)

So I emailed them this photo.

Why doesn’t the Daily Telegraph want its blogs indexed by Google?

And why is News Ltd. cool with blogs from its other newspapers’ sites being indexed?

Joe Hildebrand is a blogger and sometimes a “journalist” for the Daily Telegraph, and he fancies himself as a really cool dude whose casual esotericness makes him, well, really cool.

“Look at my cardigan, sneer, beer and roll-your-own cigarettes. I’m so different and interesting.”

He also fancies himself as a bit of a comedian.

In recent days I have discovered something I call “the inter-net” and I think it’s really going to take off. It has lots of different stuff inside your computer which young people call “web sites”.

You can find many examples on Joe’s blog of his champagne comedy like the snippet above, but one of Joe’s recent posts is perhaps the most underwhelming, cliched and predictable piece of “comedy” that I’ve witnessed since my high school’s open mic night. Let’s analyse it.

International “I’m a Little Bit Scared of International Women’s Day” Day

Today is International Women’s Day.

Now as everybody knows, I’m a big fan of women. In fact some scientists believe that without women the human race could be in serious trouble.

Oh, that’s good. See what he’s done there?

But I have to admit I’m also a little bit worried by what they talk about when I’m not around.

Never heard this setup before.

When any of my ex-girlfriends got together with even just a couple of their friends, they used to stop talking as soon as I walked in and hurriedly put away the ruler on the table.

A joke about being insecure about penis size! Brilliant!

Imagine what would happen if there were millions of them.

A million times the shit jokes about penis size?

Anyway, if you are a woman and plotting something on International Women’s Day please ease the anxiety of sexually underperforming men everywhere and for the love of God tell us what it is. Chances are we’ll agree to it just so you don’t get cross.

ARE YOU A WOMAN WHO IS SECRETLY PLANNING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD? TELL US BELOW.

Lame. Just fucking lame.

How’s this piece of sensationalist stupidity on today’s Daily Telegraph website?

This graphic’s surely going straight to the artist’s portfolio.

And how about this pathetic effort in The Age last week?

There is so much wrong with this one that I don’t know where to start

One of our favourite bloggers, Timmeh Blair, likes to make fun of typos and spelling mistakes on various websites and blogs. Anyone who is either left-wing (whether real or imagined) or not his employer come in for some serious scrutiny.

Well, tonight, Timmeh’s employer The Daily Telegraph came in for some serious scrutiny when, against my better judgement, I decided to have a peek at their website. What I saw, I knew I had to share.

Thanks, Daily Telegraph, for this godawful photoshopping.

I wonder how long they’ve been dying to use that one?

UPDATE:

While perusing the Daily Telegraph online after the Budget to see if there were any other terrible photoshopping jobs, not only did I come across a claim by Doc Nelson that Labor’s first Budget in over a decade is “bringing back a left-wing agenda” (you serious, Doc?) and Julie Bishop’s claim that the Budget is a “war on wealth” (you and your poor rich friends, my condolences), I came across some piss-funny sulking from the wonderful Peter Costello, after his doorstop pre-Budget media interview this morning.

Snippet:

He bristled when Sky News political editor David Speers suggested that he knew the speculation [about Costello's leadership intentions] was damaging the [Liberal] party.

“Oh, do I? Well you say it is. Why don’t you interview yourselves?” Mr Costello said, putting on a mock deep broadcast voice. “You know, ‘David Speers – it’s damaging.’ ‘Is it?’ ‘I say it is.’ ‘No it’s not.’

“I’ve got to say to you that after dealing with you people for 20 years I just don’t feel that I have to be at your beck and call.”

Other journalists pointed out that he had called the doorstop.

But it was veteran Fairfax journalist Michelle Grattan who drew his ire when she said he appeared sensitive on the topic.

“Oh I’m sensitive am I Michelle? I’m sensitive,” he said to the reporter.

“I’m standing here looking so sensitive aren’t I? Furrowed brow, worried – how sensitive do I look Michelle? You ought to go and get a new prescription.”

Michelle Grattan wears glasses.

UPDATE II:

The Daily Tele goes from bad to worse with their oh-so-funny puns on Wayne Swan’s name.

The Daily Telegraph today broke the story of 43-year-old Jeff Fenech’s ill-advised embarrassing shock boxing comeback, quoting the three-time world champion as saying:

“I’ve got three months to train and I’ll train like never before.”

In a GrodsCorp exclusive, we can reveal that he ain’t joking.

There’s been a whole lotta hubbub about the Daily Telegraph’s abandoned baby headline yesterday: “How Could She”. Beyond Blue spokesperson Jeff Kennett slammed the tabloid for such sensationalist and uninformed stupidity while The Man Of Steel got in on the action pretty quick to give it his big ol’ Rodent tick of approval, saying: “In defence of the Tele, that’s what most people say. I feel for the mother, I feel for the baby, I feel for the woman’s family, but fair go to the Tele — after all, that is the natural reaction. How could you abandon a little baby?”

I took a look at the Daily Telegraph’s sister newspaper, the Herald Sun, at work this morning and it is curious to note how keen the Hun is to distance itself from its stablemate’s stance. In its front page story the paper doesn’t mention the Tele’s headline at all, simply noting that Kennett and Howard “locked horns” over “criticism of the mother.” Even Howard’s tick-of-approval comment was twice doctored to remove any mention of the Tele:

Above headline
“But, fair go… How could you abandon a little baby?”

In story
“I feel for the mother, I feel for the baby, I feel for the woman’s family, but, fair go . . . that is the natural reaction,” [Howard] said. “How could you abandon a little baby?”

The Herald Sun, fearless as always: won’t agree with the Tele’s views but won’t criticise them either.