Ever changing agendas- the proponents are simply unbelievable .

RE lateline with Tony Jones : The man from NASA undermines the super trade talks . The man from NASA is not playing the game, or is he ?.

So now Copenhagen is not trying to do what's needed. If Politics is about compromise, it is also in this case about being totally ineffective - let alone totally incredible .

Like Rudd, these quick fiz merchants and fearmongers are prepared to compromise on what would have cost us the earth, to fix up what they said was fixing the earth . Totally incredible-that's what they are!

How can this be? Tony Jones and our polys take themeselves too seriously - after all, what do they know? . A big picture scientist up the front on Lateline would probably not answer Jones standard repeat question ; "will you please say yes or No " - he would probably take so much time to answer the question that it would be "time to move on "- how convenient, how convenient a truth is the way we talk about the truth ?

Well , we've moved on alright, and current affairs on the ABC have run out of time running the same old same old reactionary agendas .

Did James from NASA deal effectively with any of the questions? ; lets just say without being greek, that he ducked and dived in the same way a man looking to defend misplaced concreteness would be expected to do.
As a scientist I didn't learn a thing, but that NASA are employing scientists , like they do here, to defend the blinkered views they have of how the world works .

The fact that NASA and CSIRO can't be trusted to give us more than what comes from the school of mere description, ( including the now infamous schools of wild speculation and monitoring ) shows just how sorry the state of objective science is in both places in some areas.

To say anymore would be to miss the point of these very words !

Reading the tea leaves

Leigh Sales seemed reluctant to accept tonight that politics can be more than bluff and bluster. Does it come from being in church too often, or is the possibility of some truth telling just too much of a shock.


Fortunately the democratic spokesperson was a little less interested in the tealeaves and like the other guests , made the real position of representatives a lot clearer. The combination of hype ,spin and substance is, like hot air, not subject to experimental observation.


Very interesting that both sides of politics on the ETS are using words like "credibility and effectiveness".
---The ETS could fail simply because the case has not been put very well .
---Has the ABC helped or hindered the debate over an ETS?

---Will the ABC be blamed by both sides of politics for the crisis of confidence that is now widespread.
---Too many tea leaves and not enough quiet and "effective" ( to use Malcolms word) teaching on a subject that takes more than a mere tax grab and a best intention to be effective?

Some good stuff

I wish I could do this more often, ...but the ABC have done very well to bring us LILIES -the reason for this post; its so good because it doesn't make light of personal challenges to change and review and its heroes are young people . Keep up the good work.
While I am at it thanks too for GEORGE GENTLY,COLLECTORS , MIDSOMER,THE WIRE. reruns of old movies on ABC2 and quite a few other things.

When the highest art is really the lowest

Mark Stone might be congratulating his team for being adventurous at the Andrew Olle lecture, but I've seen much better entertainment for YOUNG PEOPLE than the ABC provides at the school concert ( yr 8,9) this week .
Its time Mark Stone got serious about dealing with the cynics and wooses in his highly predicable and reactionary old spaceship I will call RAGE on indefinitely.

The compares on the stage at school were exceptionally original, funny, clever and realistic. The girls danced and sung a treat ,kept their clothes on , and the drama got everyone in to laughing and sharing big time.( nurds, nasties and naughty got to act and laugh at themselves and with the audience together - very therapeutic))
Here was a school where everyone enjoyed being there - wow! When are the ABc going to put that sort of video on?
Mark Stone might be congratulating his team, but many many Australians are looking for something better than they get on Wednesdsy nights. Maybe his staff can't get beyond their own cynicsm- contract some new ones before our young people become completely overwhelmed !

That much more balanced show called the Simpsons has some lessons for ABC management about dealing with the depth of an issue, not just the depression of an issue.
Mark Stone might be congratulating his team for being adventurous, but simply pulling down everything is a dopy dead end strategy . Good Comedy deals with serious concrete contradictions and doesn't live on careless condemnation of the other side . Constant Condemnation , criticism and crucifixion is indeed a dead street with nothing but the Devil to play with at the end of it .

Fence sitters on 4 Corners? Which fence ?

Sarah Ferguson's interviews with the malcontents on FOUR CORNERS on Monday night threw up something quite unexpected; esp to those who fancy themselves as agents of the predictable; the sure bet ,the need for change; the need for hype - the happy hedge merchants of the team. Short term gain mate -long term pain .

Here we have .....a party that THINKS ; now wouldn't that wake up a few marginals who think noone in the party does THAT any more.I for one was quite impressed by the range of views presented and their reasonability . Had a calming effect . Clearly Labor are all sitting quietly and reverently in church. The not so pushy party talk is good .
The 4 corners program was a good program in that respect - more clarity from the 4 corners of the ring ? lots of diversity in both opinion and commitment. We were sharing for a change, rather than sermonizing and point scoring . Sharing the reality that amongst the public and the scientists, there are a wide range of views . Healthy. The big guy might be throwing the punches but he is just warming the air?


Nobody likes to be pushed, but some leaders clearly don't know that - they tend to be the more dangerous sort of leaders ; They can be like some 2nd hand car salesmen, always claiming the vehicle has been "fully checked by those that know - those in our payroll" .
Naturally this bad and suspect behavior by our leaders pushes the not so stupid public to greater and greater doubts about where we are all going in this god forsaken rush to bridge the problem with the solution.
They can't even corner the problem - let alone the solutions!
Wong doesn't know where she is going wrong; her biggest and dumbest contribution on Monday was to fall for the olde " THEY are the ones with the ideological chains on " ;projection at work I suggest

Fighting with bubble bullets
Karoly is silly enough to mention the amount of licenced paper as a litmus test of authority . If you know what you are doing YOU only use ammunition of the right size and target it well. Bring out only big guns mate. Same with lining up the Institute clones ( "institute " is a word in modern use that is highly sus - eg AMI on our TV screens each week) . who knows? the public may well ask - The answer is an interesting one - even the children know . The reason we don't hear the story is because as Barnaby says the left have left off trying to convert us by branch stacking - they've build a bully base in the bureaucracy . Non reactionaries and conservatives ( those quiet achievers who studied and kept studying instead of reacting and reacting) give up trying to get a word in edge ways .like carter and Plimer you have to spend years of your life telling kindergarten stories when fellow geoscientists are too busy working . Unlike Wong's ever searching substance seekers they have found ways that work and were not just researching, but creating sustainable solutions . Who can compete with the media too-- when its on a downer .

Wong should give up selling - at least a 2nd car salesman would know --never ever change the car you first hit on . If Wong keeps "researching solutions" ( her words) we will all leave the car yard and wonder whether any of the cars have wheels on them . The children in the street have spoken, the cars have no wheels and many of the drivers want to hide their bodies from the shame .

Captain Tony - mutiny is always a risk

On a day when Ray Martin has followed George Negus into rejecting much that Current affairs so called " problem solving" has done, Tony Jones keeps alive the old format; hunting the poly/bad guy with pay up now questions.

At 9:30pm he would do better to try something new, He'd have some chance of getting to a decent subject and some "drawing out" time before time is up. Instead he wastes 30 minutes on old boat stories . Questions that drag out old predjudices just drag the program out . Maybe the questions could only be about non news issues- for a change at least ?
Very few insights into the public interests of politicians were gained. - largely only points to those who want to poke fun at them .
Sure we get to see some new sides to our leaders, but the guests would be much more interesting ( love to hear more of bertina )if the subjects were of actual interest to them . Why weren't they asked questions of genuine public interest -" Are you concerned about porn on the net and are we doing enough to limit it" . " What do women really want (Bertina) and rest of you - secret ballot before the show and then discuss it" ?

Does the ABC believe a bit more consensus might be nice at 10;30pm? No wonder our kids don't take politics seriously - when the HOST's "moving around" is only to ensure ringside entertainment for those who want yet another chance to beat up the other side with a lot of predictable old taunts.
as jonathon hinted, the real problem is often not "out there" , but in the room. Maybe many are just saying what they think they should say .
A CONSENSUS of sorts ( took a while- too long -as usual it was at the end )
Bertina, Jonathan and the "where's the motivational speech man " said it all - you've overplayed your hand, you spin merchants .
Even Bill Shorten chimed in, in a sort of a way, by overplaying the number ( rather than the quality) of the REAL things the government are doing.
Bill was sounding a bit like Father christmas Kevin i thought - maybe its Worse than father christmas -offering gifts before he asks us to pay a huge new tax in the new year ? -

Maybe labor is not seriuos; just doing what the program guests are doing - just talking about it ; talk just makes the leaders sound good; maybe the public are not seriuos either ; talking about it just makes them sound good. Lights and mirrors ?

One good gift ,like one good reason, is all we need to follow. If an ETS is so good for us - where's the speech Kevin or Peter or Penny ! Like Q&A maybe, its nearly all just talk.

Slick but not satisfying.

LATELINE can be good. On Thursday last they reported a range of views at Ryde protests over having a convicted man living in the neighbourhood. What commercial media would let the man be properly heard ?
Letting the "exterminate" advocate speak is part of recognising what starts trouble and exactly where it starts . As a result, Australians are reminded that we do have people( incl non muslim's and those in living rooms ) who use a genuine threat as their excuse to throw in a truly terrorist type one. Predjudice about the non human nature of other people isn't always reinforced and thats to the ABC's credit. The Eugenics societies of the 1930's were not only popular in Germany - they were big in England . Simple predjudices are dangerous in trying times .Safety is not in the facts ( there are too many of them ); the safety is in hearing both sides of the argument.
The home grown nature of terrorism and politicization of science (interpreting gene mechanics to promote eugenics) must be faced - if we are to stay out of wars we can't win and effectively target a tougher change in attitude that would go beyond quick fix. We have choices and we must not use nature as an excuse to deny them or to justify cheap tricks on the way . That would be to make all of us less than human .
George Gentlys (ABCTV that night )great final words to his apprentice also reflect on this truth that we are talking about a call beyond nature -not a call to just "come under nature". His question -why did the young man learn to hate? Good science is only good when it talks possibilities and is not stuck or conveniently lost in some soup of mixed recipe facts.

The Lateline team can do a good job - But science talk is not ABCTV 's strong point. They still think that Barry Jones is the archtypal scientist when he's really the achetypal priest of the school of mere description - the ideal agent for those who insist the part is the whole. We will do better using wikipedia .
If presenters and their guests are to stay out of naive discussions that go nowhere they need to see the danger of the dialogue being held within the walls of misplaced concreteness. ABCTV won't win any hearts against blind predjudice in one night by talking facts ; They won't establish confidence in a situation of no confidence using that tired old cringe culture recipe : a new book and a new foreign expert
A change in attitude is always beyond science, The breath of fresh air the ABC needs is where the various sides of an argumnet can be properly heard . ( Where too is the respect for home grown science? ).

For example , Lea Sales was very competent in asking some really good questions on climate change's credibility problems ...But they went nowhere ..the well groomed respondent was there to defend a position - not the policisation of science in general .
Lea was asking the wrong person - A good book/ author on the real problem of disinterest in objective science- the title (and its politicisation ) WOULD not have made the mistake of playing the political hot football issues of evolution and climate change ;Such a person would have actually talked the physics through in a way that no ABCTV guest has done to date .YHIFOB
Someone who didn't want to join the political confusion would have drawn the audiences attention to the billions going to fad science research over the last twenty years ( salinity , ozone ) Such an independant scientist/author would have gone to the lessons of history and the technological fix that has eaten the heart of sound pure science research for the last twenty years.

If the book says something new, I will eat my hat;
If this is news to you - well you just aren't hearing from the right people- when will the ABC realise they are letting SBS run rings around them by letting the people who know talk, rather than controlling the discussion.
The wastage is evident. ABCTV allow themselves ( and the long suffering ABC audiences) to be further confused by letting the pedants close off while the reality of real life mirror moving politics moves onto yet another fiddle ( art /science , predjudice and practice, media manipulation by those desperate to maintain power and avoid any hint of their own confusion).