It’s one of those “what-ifs” of history. You know – what if the Japanese in World War 2 had modern fighter planes, what if the Romans had tanks, what if the Spanish Armada was composed of steamships. But another version involves communications. What if the internet, mobile phones, twitter and email, digital still and video [...]
Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
Fiddling while Rome burns
Posted in Media, politics, tagged history, media, Syria, television on February 9, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Give the order
Posted in Climate Change, Media, politics, tagged America, australian election, Carbon Tax, Climate Change, conservation, environment, global warming, history, king canute, monarchy, Sarah Palin, tony abbott on February 2, 2012 | 2 Comments »
You all remember Old King Canute taking his throne down to the beach, right – “Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal [...]
Ignorance is strength
Posted in Education, Media, politics, tagged australia, australian election, Climate Change, conservation, creationism, education, elections, george orwell, history, media, public schools, religion, science, television on January 30, 2012 | 21 Comments »
How can every human being on the planet not spend their days being puzzled about pretty much everything? Every day I ask myself questions like: How does that work? Why did that happen? Who was responsible for that? What was the purpose of that? Where did that come from? Constantly, one or more of the [...]
Extraordinary
Posted in Atheism, Climate Change, Media, politics, tagged alpine environment, America, Atheism, australia, carl sagan, Climate Change, creationism, environment, faster than light, guns, health, libertarian, media, religion, think tanks on January 19, 2012 | 30 Comments »
When I put in a complaint the other day regarding an extraordinarily biased tv report about cattle in national parks a twitter follower asked if I would have complained if the bias had been the other way. Made me consider the question for a moment. The answer of course is “no”, but why? Remember Carl [...]
Where the pine-clad ridges raise
Posted in Environment, Media, tagged australia, Cattle in high country, conservation, ecology, environment, man from snowy river, mountain cattlemen, nsw politics, science, Snowy river, television on January 15, 2012 | 9 Comments »
This morning (15 January 2012) I experienced an unpleasant sense of deja vu as Australia’s tv channel 7 ran a propaganda piece for the so-called “mountain cattlemen” who are battling the federal government to once again allow their cattle to smash up the national parks of the high country. The new conservative Vic state government [...]
Counting out his money
Posted in Economics, Media, politics, tagged australia, banking, banks, business regulation, Carbon Tax, ceo salaries, economy, free marketeer, history, law, monarchy, regulation, religion, think tanks on January 7, 2012 | 9 Comments »
What slogan is above the door of the free marketeer’s think tanks? No, it’s not “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”, you naughty people. It’s “Government small enough to drown in a bathtub”. These people believe that “government” should leave banks and financial institutions alone, get rid of regulation, has no business in business, [...]
Boo
Posted in Media, politics, tagged australia, immigration, iraq, julia gillard, media, refugees, tony abbott on December 29, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Every day commercial tv finds new ways to scare its viewers – bacteria in kitchens, exploding tables (yes, really), food poisoning, internet fraud, faulty electrical wiring, incurable diseases, end of world “prophecies” (yes, really), and so on and on and on. The reasons are simple, a belief that many readers will think “thank goodness that [...]
Fit to print
Posted in Media, politics, tagged australia, Climate Change, education, elections, media, media inquiry, newspapers, press council, television on November 13, 2011 | 6 Comments »
Much talk about the Australian media inquiry lately, and the inquiry into Murdoch’s activities in Britain. Calls for regulation on the one hand, outraged reaction about government control of a free press on the other. Fairfax Media chairman Roger Corbett said limits on media would be a ‘terrible mistake’. The Right emerged blinking from Think [...]
Miracle climate cure!
Posted in Climate Change, Media, tagged australia, Carbon Tax, Climate Change, ecology, environment, global warming, media, science on October 21, 2011 | 25 Comments »
A comparison between public perception (and I use the term loosely) of climate science and other sciences has been made in various ways from time to time, but is worth making again. You are sitting in on a case management conference in the oncology area of a hospital, with all the specialists, nurses, medical technicians [...]



