Saturday, 4 December 2010
An interesting dilemma for one local newspaper
One of the persistent news items recently in a local newspaper has been the question of Wooli village and the potential effects of ongoing beach/land erosion.
What is interesting about this coverage is the fact that at least one senior staff member is reputed to own property there and, at the time of writing this post, one journalist (currently on leave) is listed as part of the 10 member media team on the Save Wooli website.
Readers could rightly suspect the motives of any published article on the subject which does not carry a byline and, when appropriate, a declaration of interest.
Medicalising social media in 2010
I suppose it had to happen. The medical profession and drug companies big and small have been redefining the human condition as dysfunctional and in need of pharmaceutical intervention for so long that any significant change in our social culture is bound to become the subject of scrutiny.
This week it was reported that:
Presumably Sanofi-aventis which owns the Cenovis brand is wanting to explore increasing its market share in relation to an allegedly stress-reducing substance which seems to be aimed at the younger end of the consumer spectrum.
What better way than by co-opting the media into doing a bit of free advertising for a small survey?
K-K-Keneally hits back at jibe about her alien birth
So.... it's not just the front bar at my local.
NSW Parliament Hansard 2nd November 2010:
Mr ANDREW STONER: My question is directed to the Premier. After 15 years of Labor and a year of her Premiership, in which she has spent attacking the New South Wales Liberals-Nationals in the absence of any substantial policies, will she finally spell out her plans to fix the State, or is she still in denial about the problems?
The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: I will answer that question but, as members know, in recent days I have spent a lot of time at my desk reading. I have an advanced copy—
Mr Barry O'Farrell: Point of order: I refer to Standing Order 129, relevance. In the spirit of the season, I have a book for the Premier with a few facts about Australia. It is the Little Aussie Fact Book; it has everything the Premier needs to know about Australia!
The SPEAKER: Order! Members will cease clapping. Members will come to order. I call the member for Lismore to order. I call the member for Wakehurst to order.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: What a remarkable contribution by the Leader of the Opposition!
[Interruption]
Hear me out, because I am about to pay the member for Murrumbidgee a compliment. A few years ago the member for Murrumbidgee made a private member's statement about how people should value the contribution of those who have immigrated to this country.
The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Epping to order.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: In a private member's statement in this House the member for Murrumbidgee talked about valuing the contribution of people, regardless of what country they come from or with which accent they speak. I acknowledge him and his leadership in doing so. Often on weekends I attend functions with the Leader of the Opposition. Every time he stands in front of a multicultural community group he gives a speech about valuing the contribution of migrants to this country.
The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Hawkesbury to order.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: He attends functions, whether it is the Korean community fair, the Chinese New Year—
Mr Andrew Stoner: Point of order: I refer to Standing Order 129. I hate to interrupt the Premier's soliloquy, but this is a serious question to which the people of New South Wales deserve an answer.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of The Nationals will resume his seat. The Premier has the call.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: The point of order of the Leader of the Opposition deserves to be acknowledged and addressed, because he attends a number of multicultural community functions.
Mr Andrew Stoner: Point of order—
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: Members opposite can try to use my time, but I will get this out.
The SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled on the point of order. Does the Leader of The Nationals wish to take a different point of order?
Mr Andrew Stoner: No, it is still relevance.
The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of The Nationals will resume his seat. I call the Leader of The Nationals to order.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: I find it extraordinary. The Leader of the Opposition attends multicultural functions and makes speeches about valuing the contributions of migrants and the contribution they make to the people of Australia. However, when there is a cheap political point to be made in this Chamber he is willing to make it.
Mr Adrian Piccoli: Point of order: I refer to Standing Order 129, relevance. If the Premier uses a prop to make a smart alec point, then she is asking for it.
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Murrumbidgee will resume his seat. The Premier has responded to the point of order taken by the Leader of the Opposition, but I remind her of the question before the House.
Ms KRISTINA KENEALLY: I will end on this point: Today we have seen a gross example of hypocrisy. The Leader of the Opposition stands condemned.
The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Epping to order for the second time. As today is the last question time of the year, I have extended a degree of latitude. However, members are pushing the envelope way too far. I will not tolerate further unparliamentary behaviour. Members who continue to interject will be removed from the Chamber.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Cablegate highlights geo-political hypocrisy
Michael Rennie and Benno Hansen deserve a big thank-you for trawling through the Wikileaks Cablegate website for information on climate change geo-politics.
Michael is posting on Think About It and Benno’s document collection can be found at Scribd.
With DOS attacks being more frequently reported by Wikileaks during the last week and Amazon terminating its hosting service to the website, it may be that second party reports such as these will eventually become the blogosphere’s primary source on this subject.
While website connection problems drag on, Wikileaks’ Twitter account continues to offer intriguing hints on other international issue such as:
WikiLeaks reveals US Nuclear Weapons in the Netherlands http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/11/09BERLIN1433.html
Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent, who represents Julian Assange in the UK, is a trustee)
26 November
Julian Assange, Editor in Chief, WikiLeaks
to
US Ambassador to London, Louis Susman
27 November
Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser, United States Department of State
to
Julian Assange, Editor in Chief, WikiLeaks
28 November
Julian Assange, Editor in Chief, WikiLeaks
to
US Ambassador to London, Louis Susman
It is interesting to note that in this exchange a U.S. Government (increasingly careless of international law and human rights) asserted that release of the diplomatic cables would:
Place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals – from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information to further peaceand security.....
May the gods bless the Australian Broadcasting Commission.....
ABC News on Friday 26 November 2010:
The editor-in-chief of The Australian is threatening to sue a journalism academic over claims published on Twitter that he told a staff member what to write in regards to the paper's coverage of climate change.
In an article published on The Australian's website, Chris Mitchell says he will sue Julie Posetti for defamation because of tweets she made purporting to quote a former rural reporter for The Australian.
Ms Posetti tweeted alleged quotes made yesterday by Asa Walhquist at a journalism conference at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Ms Posetti posted: "Walhquist: 'In the lead up to the election the Ed in Chief was increasingly telling me what to write.' It was prescriptive."
In another tweet Ms Posetti claims Walhquist said: "'It was absolutely excruciating. It was torture': Asa Walhquist on fleeing The Australian after being stymied in covering #climate."......
ABC News has now published audio of a relevant section of Walquist's presentation to the 2010 JEAA Conference (on what I think is Day 2) which appears to support Julie Posetti:
Audio Part One
Audio Part Two
Since those tapes surfaced The Australian appears to be backing down from its hardline stance with this admission on its Media Diary Blog:
Her Tweets are a fair summary of what Wahlquist said.
Sadly (and probably due to those legal threats) the Twitter account julie_posetti appears to have been deleted by its owner, however I'm sure that this incident will make for great reading in Ms. Posetti's work-in-progress thesis The Twitterisation of Journalism.
Julie blogs at http://www.j-scribe.com/ and will be tweeting in future at JounTweet.
* Jonathon Holmes writing on this situation in 140 characters of legal nightmare
Update:
Julie Posetti's original Twitter account appears to be online once more.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Engel's word picture of the Australian Federal Parliament and Tony Abbott in 2010
Only the British media would approach the subject with this much bile, but there is more than an element of truth in Matthew Engel's article Up a Gum Tree in The Financial Times on 26 November 2010:
I have seen a few crazy parliaments. I have watched the Israeli Knesset, where one extreme would happily exterminate the other – and the Dáil in Dublin, the only known gathering of inarticulate Irishmen. I have seen the empty shell that constitutes the US Senate. I have done time at the Commons, and been appalled by the pathetic lack of individuality of the whipped curs. I thought I was unshockable. But Canberra’s House of Representatives is the worst. These curs only snarl as instructed.
Some of the kindly journalists in the Canberra press gallery asked me what I thought. This being a country that prides itself on candour, I told them. They looked at me as though I were crazy. “You should have seen it a few months ago,” they said. “It’s improved no end.”....
Unless they swing round, which Tony Abbott does all the time, turning his back on the PM to confer with his colleagues – especially when she is speaking, a gesture of contempt that would be recognised among primates. There is indeed something rather simian about Abbott: he is a hulking fitness fetishist-cum-exhibitionist, often photographed in the skimpy swimming trunks that Aussies call “budgie-smugglers”. The other week he was spotted running through the parliamentary corridors, past the coffee shop, in his tight black shorts: “It was like watching evolution in reverse,” said one latte drinker........
Under all the circumstances, Australian democracy is a kind of miracle. The country has a remarkable respect for the rule of law and a great sense of civic responsibility (greater than Britain’s, I would say). Quietly, good work does get done in parliament – speaker Harry Jenkins insists – although much of the legislative scrutiny is done by the less powerful Senate. The federal structure ensures that the decisions that affect people’s daily lives are largely made by the individual states.
The entire article can be found here.
Another wonderful Trioli blooper
Crikey and mUmBRELLA might have had it first after YouTube, but it's still worth another airing:
This clip now joins that other delightful gaffe from last year:
Cancún Climate Change Conference: yada, yada, yada
Right now in Cancún, Mexico, the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP16/CMP 6 is underway until 10 December 2010.
As national representatives get to their feet and (as they have done on so many occasions before) talk ineffectively of the need to address global warming, it is worthwhile looking at a visual representation of where Australia’s energy was being drawn from in November 2010.
These pie charts from The Climate Group's The Weekly Greenhouse Gas Indicator represent energy consumption in four of the eight states and territories over one 7 day period.
In descending order, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria:
Given that only South Australia has managed to consistently reduce greenhouse gas emissions below the 1990 baseline (10% below in this 7 day period), it is also the only state which could be said to be seriously addressing Kyoto commitments.
Victoria is 26% above the 1990 baseline, New South Wales 5.8% above and Queensland an almost unbelievable 109% above that same baseline.
Unfortunately, in Australia energy consumption is still predominately drawn from carbon-based resources and relies heavily on 'dirty' coal.
As the Gillard Government continues to drag its feet on an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax and the Coalition Opposition goes deeper into denial that global warming even exists, how is the average citizen going to respond?
I suggest that individual responsibility does not stop with reducing our personal carbon footprints, it extends to voting out of office every politician who blocks legitimate legislative response to global warming or seeks to water down bills addressing climate change so that carbon-reliant energy companies and industry can continue 'business as usual'.
Now I've heard everything! A Press Council LOL
Darryl Mason 28 Nov 10 5:23 pm
Considering The Press Council couldn’t even get Piers Akerman to publicly apologise after he said intellectually disabled people can’t understand “plain English”…no thanks.
http://tinyurl.com/y94fc5n
mUmBRELLA gives the cyberspace laugh of the week by reporting:
"Prof Disney suggested that the Press Council could seek to regulate bloggers . He said: “At present, only one of the Council members publishes solely on-line. The Council will continue to invite other on-line publishers to become members and thus subject to its regulation. This reflects a desire to avoid unnecessary duplication, inconsistency or gaps between the regulatory processes which apply to print and on-line publications in the area of news and current affairs. Consideration will also need to be given to the possibility of encouraging membership by serious bloggers who focus on the same area.”
I'm with Darryl Mason - when the Press Council begins to seriously address the ethical failings of paid professional journalists, then it can raise the possibility of extending the juristiction of its 25 member toothless tiger.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Call for Seven or Nine to commission a drama about a cricket team
Tweed Daily News has hit out at former Aussie cricketers who are the face of everything on commercial television.
According to TDN, It seems you actually can't turn on the television without seeing a former (or current cricketer) parading around on screen. Okay, fair enough it's cricket season so you would expect to see them out there in their whites or coloureds (depending on the type of game they're playing) but it seems they are no longer confined to the field.
Sure there are plenty of retired players in the commentary box, too, but the vast majority of them now seem to have branched out. They seem to be in about every ad on TV - hawking everything from Johnny Walker Whisky to mobile phones and motor oil. But in recent years they have also branched into television shows as well, and this is not only confined to Fox' Inside Cricket either.
I'm wondering how long it will be before Seven or Nine actually commission a drama about a cricket team?
I mean former Test opener Matthew Hayden has had his own cooking show, and at the weekend while everyone was discussing "what went wrong with day three of the Test match" Haydoss was on the Lifestyle Channel hosting a show about "Australia's answers to the Griswalds at Christmas".
Cricketers are no strangers to Lifestyle, with former spin bowler Stuart MacGill hosting his own wine show on the same channel.
But of course Nine has always been the home of cricket, and they brought out the big guns last week - Warnie. Shane Warne's new TV talk show came across as a cross between a toothpaste and hair re-growth ad with famous people thrown in. It received a luke-warm reception from the audience. But it is early days; I suppose - you don't always get a wicket with your first ball.
Actually, with all our famous cricketers busy with their TV commitments, it's little wonder our team is a bit "hot and cold" at the moment. The team might need some new blood, and where better to look than on TV. Well let's face it, with Warne and co taking the TV jobs, we need to do something with the out-of-work showbiz types. I mean I can see Andrew Denton bowling a flipper at the SCG, and I reckon one of those Packed to the Rafters guys would have a good turn of pace.
Maybe someone should have a word to Greg Chappell, Andrew Hilditch and the boys?
Credit: Tweed Daily News, 30/11/10
King Canute gets to his feet in the House of Representatives
The majority of residential and commercial development at Wooli is located along a narrow sand spit which separates the Wooli River from the Pacific Ocean. The sand spit has been actively subdivided and developed over the years, with a significant number of dwellings erected close to the beachfront. Approximately 90 dwellings, the public school, voluntary rescue and storage facility, public hall, playground and RSL cenotaph are located on land fronting the beach. Wooli Beach suffered severe storm damage in 1954 and 1974. Also, in the mid 1990’s and during the last few years, the frontal dune along Wooli Beach has been severely eroded leaving a high, steep escarpment along much of the beachfront. The escarpment has continued to recede during this time with successive ocean storms, in particular a recent storm event during late May 2009. [Wooli Beach/Village Review of Coastal Hazards Report]
I know I’m maligning the historical figure of Canute by playing to the error that he really did try to turn back the ocean, but that myth perfectly fits the Nationals Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker who is trying to make political capital out of the woes of residents in the coastal village of Wooli on the NSW North Coast by promising the impossible.
This is his effort recorded in Hansard on 16 November 2010:
and this is what he said to the national media:
Mr Hartsuyker says he will not let people's homes fall into the ocean.
Will not let people’s homes fall into the ocean? How on earth does he expect to stop the relentless wave action erosion process and effects of storm surges, when at their basis are the increasing impacts of climate change?
Mr. Hartsuyker would be more believable if he had ever confronted his party and leader over the total lack of support for any legislative change which would effectively mitigate against global warming over time. According to Hartsuyker, his party’s lack of support is a win for regional Australia.
Elsewhere in the local media this wordy MP expressing dissatisfaction with the degree of hydraulic modelling applied to the problem – cheerfully ignoring Clarence Valley Council’s own commissioned 2010 Wooli Beach / Village Review of Coastal Hazards and the 2007 CSIRO study Projected Changes In Climatological Forcing For Coastal Erosion In NSW which specifically looked at modelling for Wooli.
The sad fact of the matter is that Wooli primarily built its houses on a thin strip of sand between two tidal bodies of water with predictable results.
Google Earth image of Wooli with a 1 metre predicted sea-level rise From North Coast Voices in 2007: Clarence Valley Council admits there is little that can be done for property owners in the face of 'inevitable' coastal erosion
Every wondered what the Americans were doing while Julian & Chas 'trashed' APEC in 2007?
Wikileaks excerpt from U.S. diplomatic cable transcript:
S E C R E T STATE 152317
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/31/2027
TAGS: PARM PREL
SUBJECT: POST REQUESTED TO FOLLOW UP ON ONGOING MATTERS OF PROLIFERATION CONCERN RAISED AT APEC BY PRESIDENT BUSH
REF: (A)STATE 071143, (B)STATE 073601, (C)STATE 72896, (D)BEIJING
5361, (E) STATE 148514
CLASSIFIED BY EAP DAS THOMAS J. CHRISTENSEN: 1.4 (B) AND (D).
¶1. (S) URGENT ACTION REQUEST: IN SEPTEMBER DURING THEIR MEETING AT THE APEC SUMMIT IN SYDNEY AUSTRALIA, PRESIDENT BUSH DISCUSSED WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT HU STRONG CONCERNS RELATING TO THE ONGOING TRANSSHIPMENT VIA BEIJING OF KEY BALLISTIC MISSILE PARTS FROM NORTH KOREA TO IRAN'S MISSILE PROGRAM. PRESIDENT BUSH PLEDGED TO RESPOND TO PRESIDENT HU'S REQUESTS FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. EMBASSY SHOULD ON NOVEMBER 3 AT THE MOST EFFECTIVE LEVEL POSSIBLE, DELIVER THE NON-PAPER IN PARA 8 WHICH RELATES TO SPECIFIC, TIME-SENSITIVE INFORMATION ABOUT AN IMMINENT TRANSSHIPMENT. IN ADDITION, AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY POST SHOULD DELIVER THE NON-PAPER IN PARA 9 TO MFA AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL POSSIBLE, PREFERABLY BY THE AMBASSADOR SINCE THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENTIAL-LEVEL DISCUSSIONS.......
Earlier that same year U.S. diplomatic sources had this to say:
Equally important is an active U.S. leadership
role in the international community. The UK is ham-strung
by its colonial past and domestic politics, thus, letting them
set the pace alone merely limits our effectiveness. The EU is
divided between the hard north and its soft southern
underbelly. The Africans are only now beginning to find
their voice. Rock solid partners like Australia donQt
pack enough punch to step out front and the UN is a
non-player. Thus it falls to the U.S., once again, to take
the lead, to say and do the hard things and to set the agenda.
Wikileaks Cable Viewer.
The trouble with K-K-Kristina
Premier Kristina Keneally may have been the worst state planning minister in recent memory, been installed as head patsy during troubled times for the NSW Labor Government in the hope that her gender would add a fillip to a tired and toxic political cocktail, be way too close to unpopular factional warlords, in a my cojones are bigger than your cojones sh*t fight with the unions and all the rest of it.
But the reason K-K-Kristina won't win the fickle heart of the state-wide electorate in March 2011 will probably be due to none of the above.
Because if you apply the local pub test, what she's seen as first and foremost (in spite of that politically expedient citizenship certificate) is as a brassy, pushy Yank.
It may not be all that fair, but the sentiment appears to be heartfelt after a few beers loosen tongues.
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