Evidence that Clay Lucas Is A Fuckwit, Volume 1.

Been a while since ranting. Been working every day for three weeks (actually, I've had two days off since about Anzac Day) so I've been saving picking on Clay Lucas until I had time to point out his many journalistic failings.

So, who the fuck is this Clay Lucas? He's a journalist with The Age, a broadsheet that's probably slightly left-wing (as opposed to the Herald-Sun, an extreme right-wing newspaper owned by News Limited).

Mainly, he's a transport journalist. Whatever that is.

However, he seems to hate public transport with a passion that is almost holy, which combined with a poor grasp of English, translates into foaming-at-the-mouth rants about the slightest problem into a monumental fuck-up of national importance. Case in point - this article about Myki.

Now, Myki has some problems, but the ones he lists are really fucking minor, but he manages to use his hatred for public transport to turn it into A Major Fucking Drama.

Look at the first line of his article:

MYKI, the $1.35 billion smartcard ticketing system bedevilled by a series of bungles

Fuck me, that's some alliteration there, arsehole. Bet you went and tossed one off over that piece of headline brilliance.
(Although the real bungles I think may have been the unavailability for his parents of an abortifacent).
There have been not that many bungles, and this is from someone who sees these cards in operation on a daily basis. But, who's to let facts get in the way of some third-rate hack's vituperation?

The problem? Seniors Mykis need a one cent balance to work, and this has been data-entered manually as they were on a zero balance.

Claims it cost $2 million to do, but no proof, other than his bullshit assertion, has been offered - mind you, it includes printing costs of letters which isn't cheap, plus postage, so it's not going to be free. But Lay Clueless, which he'll be known as, gets all weaselly with the next paragraph:

''This exercise took several weeks and was carried out by existing myki customer service staff. There was no increase in staffing costs,'' Transport Ticketing Authority spokesman Chris Veraa said.

The seniors cards are now ready to be sent out. The cost of adding the one cent, and putting a new letter with the cards after the departure of former minister Lynne Kosky, is $2 million.

First of all - so what if a new letter had to be issued? Ministers resign. Happens a lot (especially for fugly NSW transport ministers who like glory-holes). That's going to cost money, you fuckwicket. It's not newsworthy, and nor should it be - unless you're Lay Clueless, and need to express your hatred for mass transportation.

The bits that stand out though, for fuckwit attempts at creating drama out of nothing, is this

News of the latest myki embarrassment comes as a spokesman for the company contracted to create myki confirmed that a previously identified problem where cards were sent out with a balance of $151,000 was more widespread than previously thought.

[wankery snipped]

John Fergusson, said at least 40 ''jackpot'' myki cards were sent to those who registered for a card. Previously Kamco had said ''several'' such cards were sent out.

Forty cards are fucking several, you fucking cretin. How does that translate into "more widespread than previously thought", penis-breath?

No, wait. It just gets fucking worse.

Myki cards, which cost $10 without any credit loaded onto them, are also proving less durable than planned. Of 380,000 cards sent out, around 1600 have been found to be defective.

Let's see now - that's a fuck-up rate of....

...0.04%.

Now, how many Metcards fuck up? Be a lot more than that tiny fucking figure, dipshit. Can't remember where, but Metcards were fucking up at 5% when introduced.

The last paragraph though is a corker of stupidity and irrelevance.

Since the system went live on December 29, there has been $3.1 million of repairs to vandalised card vending machines and validators.

Yep. The station rats only target Myki, you fuckwand. Not anything that happens to be connected with railways, including the trains themselves, anything on a station and even staff members cars - and staff members.

I will, as I can, find more Lay Clueless articles and point out his many failings.