Swindle -

Tony and Robin have reason to panic
1. --if they threw all they could at the the swindle film , their panel of supporters was not convincing
2-- Popular maybe? they so like so many our society are vulnerable to simplicities and the desire to simplify
-- In relation to 2 they need to read the maladaptive tendencies of the modern media age ( outlined in the towards 2000 telecom report)
--In relation to 2 above ABC needs to recognise the poor standing of scientists ( the panel wasn't mostly scientists as the film mostly was!) and the irrationality of having a high standing of technological fix in our culture ; common confusion of science and techno fix as the same thing.
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--Both of them ,as organisers, failed the test of good debating - they got too involved in the subject and they had no adjudicator .
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Will the ABC ever regain its ability to hold debates?

Much is expected of Tony Jones tonight . Will he bring the ABC back from the brink of predictability. When will ABC managemnet stop the ageing reactionaries from their withering vines of pedantry: from stifeling us with the same old same old .
ABC managemnet seem at last to be stopping the wannabe prophets of the future from getting their way - when will the ABc realise we the audience, are really switching off ( even on wednights after S&S) ,to nothing , or even occasionally SBS for some relief from their boring deterministic diatribes ( almost like the ABC wants to just like some clone of something predictable ) .

Hopefully JONES won't get distracted . If he's not a scientist he may well be distracted by those who industry is distraction .Lets hope he gets with the new age and says "At end , well the debate appears to only have started , if you are interested , you can follow real debate more closely ( Heresy and horror ---- abcchurch is not the final word on gospel ) on following blogs .Wow wuldn't it be great if it happened . Time the lumbering logomachists supported scientific not journo debate- greek idol bleeters who are not scientists . bleeters who quote scientists to suit ONLY their part of their argument- adding to the story instead of reporting what is said ------ with its limitations

The question TONY ( and stick with it till you get and answer) "Is co2 clearly linked to the warming and HOW " .


Or if you do that one well ---"Isn't there a risk if you proponenets of cahneg continue to us ethe medai the way you do that the momentum for real cahnge will be lost ?' more on here

Well done Noel

Your beauty mate . It wasn't racist but respectful truth telling and about time !

Denton does well

The home of sell, sell sell is no place for any of us to easily overcome our fear of people who come across too strong. Those who by their very vehemence can be expected to ignore people, logic and reason .
Denton could well have presented a case that they are all mad, and got away with it . Yes, Faith people are dangerous especially those “Christains” who “ believe the impossible-“ - and can you believe it " they have heard from God personally" . Andrew did well to both present and let us hear what he heard from that strange group .

Be realistic unbelievers - It's a wonderful story that these salesmen are selling It's a story that's almost too good to be true—an advertisers dream ??? Some relief from the cynicsm of your friends ;
Forget the label - were' all religiuos . Like people who believe in strong government, for all the right reasons -there is lots of careless words. There are lots of careless words said by those who take Christ's promises seriously too , but that rather should draw reporters to what the man said - not what his followers say .especailly when they celarly insist on obedience to those words - not the speculation beyond them .
Thankfully the key salesmen was pretty clear about the dangers of false faith and the sufficiency of His revelation Cynics trying to paint his followrs all mad don’t get anywhere accussing them of using more dangerous weapons than reporters think they are prepared to use ( passion and idealism) - seems to me they hold more cards than the poor people they cut and paste into their pictures and should just " report them " .
You also don’t win the reason war by ignoring the ammunition esp when Christianity is ready and willing to fight stand and stay on words alone. words that are known known known

Zapruder have done well to demonstrate that at least one of the fears of many Australian non believers , is not sound . The fear of those who “hear God personally” is generally well constrained by the very clear teachings of Jesus (even across the book to the author of Genesis) on the sanctity of every human decision - and that includes the sanctity of the lives and minds of all men and their freedom to chose what they believe.

Punching questions -if only

O Brien ( 7:30 report) asked the question of the century , but Chaney didn't really answer it .I wished for a moment that we had Carleton back. Australias bureaucarcies and the change for changes sake merchants need a big bomb under them - noone seems game or competent in their questioning, even when given a good lead like Chaney gave. We don't need change; we need competence and consistency.
Trioli ( lateline ) didn't ask the tough questions of the leader of the Wentworth group , maybe because she is in awe of professors . I used to be too, Virginia , until i worked out in the real world . Be like richard(afternoon in shep ) and doyle - (in a tinnie ) ( 774); Get out in the real world and meet a few experts who haven't got tickets on themselves and who don't cause the people to stumble because they have.

Government guaranteed investment

Every thinking person since the dawn of history knows that good intentions provide the fodder for the greatest waste and disaster .

When ministers of the people play merry careless hell with tax incentives its even worse because they start a drip feed they can't stop .Sure they get results but not ones that put plannattaions where they make the most sense. The market will decide they say hypocritically knowing that tyhe taxincenetives make such discretion unlikely and maybe even uneccsray - they can afford the best land when theu need to use the marginal land .
MIS will be one of those types of investements because it fits the bill of goverenment guaranteed = giuranatedd that by the time the goverenmnet realises the long trem rate of return is sus and all the the smarties ( managers ) who run them , have made their killing,
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Thwaites was as keen on the idea as Hawker was and thats the rub - they are only bubs . They did not throw their own money but allowed billions at a rash of rural invetsement that t will do little to reteurn anything like a good return to invetseors in the long term . Good intentions that slash and burn the rural areas where they are now located.

With care these wannause power merchants might have encouraged the david jenkins of this world to add value to their farms . Now we have a hotch potch of monocultures and mediocre products that are unlikely to ever pay for themselves

Pay for themselevs in ways which unlitimately goverenmnets are supposed to manage money.

Listen to earth scientists , not scaremongers

I used to think Foreign Correspeondent checked whether they were running hype instead of real reporting. I won't watch it as much now knowing its wastes listeneres time by not listening close enough when they go visisting islands overseas . supporting sensstaionalist trivailiazation and plain ignoring of tentonic activiy on the pacific faults . The flooding or sinking of islands is all down to global panic indeed. The big picture of the pacific islands and risk out there was not mentioned , neither was the risk term pretensioning.

I'm sure the Solomon Islanders this week wished reporters spent their time supporting effective warning systems about known and real risks rather than looking for evidence of dangerous and man induced global underwatering which they themselves are in no position to sort-- fact from fear, big picture from mere fact .

Roxon - a definite Labor handicap

Lateline . Unable to address the proper processing of accusations and deal with the issues -Lateline forum FRIDAY was little more than a vehicle for a noise fest from an incompetent wannabe trying to get her word in edgeways - and in the way of anything deep, she got !
This is a woman who aspires to be attorney general!??

Crisis driven consensus

(McMullan gets the experts to solve the watercrisis all in 60 minutes - a mirror of the quick fix going on the election stage at the moment .
Crisis driven consensus- using pressure but not one that would offend our new Pc way of working ?
If such resolutions happened at your home it would seem too good to be true.perhaps these stage sets are for fantasy distraction and entertainmnet . We resolved something really difficult without anyone getting heated- we must be more evolved than our parents ?
The solution : Everyone will just pay more for water --unfortunately its more predicatable than it looks - such a bucket brigade would really help their 4 causes The audience just pays bigger taxes and the money would come to them! The leaders are right and we pay to be wrong . The wonders of consensus .

Perhaps there is no crisis - its just a media and cause driven fundraiser ; water is getting to SA's in the driest period on record , the only bit of the dead Murray to get an unchallenged option was its dead mouth -something it has often had in its long history. lots of recently failed innovations (water trading and focus on rice ) ignored and Cullen unable to talkk about something real and deep like flooded cities or bare paddocks

Why didn't Cullen hit home with the amount of irrigated land likely to go out of production in the next twenty years. He choose rather to ignore the dig at the careless rice critics and refer to some dying red gums .His advocacy of the ricing mechanism suggests he is more an engineer and market sycophant than an economistwith an ecology focus .They might as well call the new Murray Darling commission the J curve interpreters because they will have little time for little else if they try to price water .
Why did the Wentworth guru advocate market solutions when the bucket is empty one day and full the next. why does he talk diversity not the myopic monocultural market motivation theory - different economic paradigms apply to rainfed, rooffed and riverfed.maybe thats the idea - agree to fund more research - the outcomes are less important .
I suggest The only ones to benefit from higher water prices will be the institutions and the speculators. The only ones to feel the pinch ( as mike young so willinly admitted re cities )
will be the producers who will get their options and security slashed and their methods of using the stuff increasingly questioned . When the economists and non practicals in that group couldn't even admit to the ravishing stupidity of a monocultural market solution that has already proven its incompetence and can't put diversity of apprach into prcatice the people who alerady have tanks and mange water well will,sure as eggs, be cut savagely and unfairly .
And its all in the name of winning the election - is it not?

BONO was great ---Enough Rope

RE Making poverty history in semi arid areas

The question: What stands in the road of the future?

The glass is certainly more than half full, but if we are going to kep the momentum going ---lets be realistics the glass does have some leaks .
What stands in the road of the future? Sometimes the audience themselves. That means aid agencies and the media don’t even know what they do wrong . I know may caring people in the system who do not know or see the dangers of misplaced interest in the rural poor in particular.

Do good but do it well

Learning to cope with drought

Hopefully the city will learn to cope with the drought

STATELINE Friday --While Ted came out tops, he did it for a reason - he was more reasonable . Bracks, and top of the tops ABCites were not tough enough or targeted enough to touch base with the real world as well as he did .
It didn't matter that the questions were toughly put - the substance on water conservation ,for example, was shallow, secular and superficial. The sort of stuff we expect from the margins , not from our ABC .
Bracks was nervous, as he should be , about whether even the logic of his advisors is right? ; he didn't even take his cue from that leading question on logging.

Shower roses- Very nice to give us a little shower lecture during a drought, but as any country person could see, the crowd in that studio talked more like a bunch of big birds splashing around in a birdbath; leaders using a vessel small enough, but clearly not deep enough, to avoid the dunking they deserved . Selling such simples may please some of your city folks , but you can restassurred that something will come back to bite you boys - and it won't be just be the mossies from your million dollar meddling with tanks .
Lesson 1 on droughts and really dry times. If you going to really solve environmental imperatives and manage risk from rainfall ( not just talk about a problems existence etc etc etc ) you need proper ecosystem advice - otherwise you risk being sucked in by mere tokens, tritethings and terrible things.

Sustainability is the stuff that works year in year out -- water and resource conservation is bread and buter ---it has to work for us each and every year -WE plan for the occassion, not necesarily spend up big when it arrives.
SO plan for those mozzies - that way you may learn to cope with change like we can every year!
People who encourage those sorts of solutions are profligate; unworthy to be called conservationists, unworthy of governing in the interests of the country.

The too simple ABC's of ABC BUSINESS are too much . AS is too often the case on this shallow look stuff, Hon Coonan and the presenter were smiling too much to convince us the discussion was focused on real issues of eco sustainability.

RUDD surprises the ABC, most irreverently.
"Surely your'e not taken in by all this anti-intellectual stuff, Kevin "? Surely you are still a secularist.......aren't you ? please tell us we are not being surrounded by .....by something we don't understand "
Tony jones was a bit shocked , and so he could be expected to be . ABC church has been happily ignoring the great variety of keen Christians whose minds are in full gear and operate for public good across both government, all parties , science and practice as well as running many , many independant industries for those can't pay their own way economically or to get the truth told . Jesus must have said something pretty well to breed supporters on both sides of politics for so many centuries ? Maybe not all religions teach the same simple political imperatives? Maybe there is something worth understanding about our Christain heritage ?


We no longer wait for ABCTV and local rdaio to wake up and address this possibility (like the democrats might have )because there appears to be only one church there . Where is Geraldines Dooges Australians story on the work of someone like Gordon Moyes- a man whose History ( like that of Bonhoeffer) might help build some understanding of the practical people between "the new rudd image of christianity" and "the costello one" --
THE COMPASS NEEDLE IS STUCK
we haven't been watching COMPASS for years, cause the Compass NEEDLE is stuck- to the old greeks - and its so predictably, self satisfied, tight little circle of go no where , decide nothing woosiness and cyniscsm . How did rudd get to tell the truth - that pentecostals are not madly selfcentred . 1.5 million dollars in the knox city area. Good on him and shame on the ABC for running its tired old predjudices as gospel for decades !

Are Tony and the crew now wondering "How did we let Mr Rudd get into our pulpit to talk about religion -- We're here to talk ONLY, in this church, about what we can touch and feel?" "He sounded like you almost believed some of this stuff about theology - that there is a rational connection between faith and reason." "You mean a theologian (Bonhoeffer) said something helpful" . Unfortunately many in AUST have been missing out on the facts , even though they may be watching too much TV ; don't realise that theology/worldview is an obligation of citizenship in the real world of humanness . Theology ( Of whatever version you choose ) is the underpinning rationale for sorting action ,ethics and value discussions .
Read the 1st chapters of either romans or corinthians and you can get some idea of the gist of the rational key to "the light switching on" for that old intellectual and rational Paul - "circles" are where we were . something beyond us is where we find ourselves - if we are honest ( read new scientist this week ) . Like those who celebrate with Tevye and the men before Jesus , Faith can provide a way through the endless but restricted little circles of greek type rationalism that cages most largely worldview uncritical, reactionaries in the West to this very day .
Go kevin go - just remember as the emperors of old found out - you never can predict who will back who or from the big picture point of view , what is really going on in the background - just beyond what we mortals know and see place

Peter Costello CHURCH STATE ACL Peter Costello used an important bridging concept in his speech to those "overly religious folks" at ACL conference yesterday; The word “science”. More here. What keeps our religious worldview in tune with reality is its ability to deal with facts. A good test of how effective your particular worldview is , surely is how effectively it works for you.
Nothing more symbolises the general consensus of functional democracies over the last 400 years than the correctness of having both, but not mixing both . Diversity is accepted not stifled.
The important tension between the 2 must not be dissolved by putting them in the same box ( Church and State)

Australian audiences are very keen to keep its egalitarian culture, but are not quite sure of what ideas and worldviews got it there and keep it there. But whether we want to admit it or not maybe we need both our own "church" and the state , we need diversity with distinction ;diversity and tension between the extreme parts : If some don’t know which way to jump in a crisis of faith like now – they can simply woose out - the good men do nothing apathy that is helping kill our own culture .Do we not all need to decide “which way “is best and seek agreement on what we have in common. None of us like being branded “religious” but thankfully according to the modern science/practice , we all are in the same boat with it anyway .Modern Psychology science says not only that we have to choose the paradigm , but that we have probably already chosen.

There is also all the evidence in our backyard and around the world that democratic traditions require more than mere force and structure to work, They need ideas; they need closely held values , they need faith systems that work .
Mind you Christians have no excuse for doing otherwise throughout history. Jesus clearly stated when he got his disciples to pay their taxes;Very clearly they didn't like that idea and he had to do some powerful persuading .Luke 20 "they have their job and we have ours" . Pity the polys of the time didn't think or practice the same to those courageous men in agreement about the principles of good politics. With Jesus view of power and how it is to be used how could there not be a difference . copyright

We'll all be rooned, said the chicken ?
Has MR GORE really added any credibility to the circus of filmmakers and fearmongers who play up to the people's fears? - I think not ; Rather the reverse. Panic merchants who peddle facts as fears ( can you visualise the falling glaciers filling up the big bath of the world ?)risk the true sustained and economic benefits of reality therapy.
The annoying part for those of us who agree that we need to do really big things in conservation is that this completely uneccesary haste and makes for huge waste.
The overly worshipful approach to tokens and quick fixes ( a whole program in hushed silence) put a dent in dear Denton's often delightful willingness to let the man or woman talk.
You've got to wonder what has bewitched so many of our journos to dissolve their long diffident relationship with Americans -let alone USA polys. They think they are reporting science, but they act like they are in church ,
Well ive got facts for em . They are reporting polys and scaremongers; Not geoscientists,
If they want the synergies of big picture thinking and facts maybe they should joining the scientology movement like other famous ....... leaders of the image age?
Gore and those who joust at things they feel are important --don't know what geoscientist know ---He was totally unconvincing on using the facts -So ....Short term gain long term pain for the latest campaign to set the city free from its fears .To avoid fear and lost causes look deeper and wider and to real scientists -not those who quote them to make their stories and pics sound convincing. Dumb really dumb and they and so many don't even KNOW it. so much for the media painting the big picture by reportingbeyond mere facts (http://swearthnews.blogspot.com)

IDEAS ARE EVERYTHING
Grahame morris made the point very well, but is anyone in the major parties really listening .Not a chance as both he and Rod pointed OUT!

Even Ms MCue was concentrating on pressing HER view . Maybe people who KNOW are not being heard? .
There have got to be areas of "on the nose" ideas and actions that don't work--- why haven't the stunned mullets across state and fedaerl politics got a whif of them? Tell us what you think stinks !

Zee Tuesday Book Club. Peter Cundal said it all,just OLd trash .The young girl has moved on, but was afriad to overstate it lest she break ranks on the silly old chorus of ABC church worshipers . This new moral stance or ignorants surprises the chief chanter, cause she wants to belive noone ever moves on from the 70"s. To talk of morality.. cut that stuff short!
Don't waste our time jennifer. Not the idea of a book club but the now stale go nowhere except down, ideas of the me generation, their innocence about evil and their woosy parents who can't see the cul de sac, even now . Byrne, like so many ageing reactionaries, has to worship the new at the cost of what's good.

It may be a classic girls, but so is your self imposed living in the 70's attitude . You see this show could have been done 30yrs ago and it would have got the same reaction from people who study ideas and history. That's how much ABC Church members are behind the times .
Jennifer . why don't you get a few folks to read a book about islam - that might liven it up this cosy club a little enough to make us want to join .

At least when ABC or SBS does history - some reality has to come forward .

Don't watch the ABC much these days on Sunday nights cause it so timid about REPORT%ING the worst and the best of history in a way that HONORS what they did and doesn't pretend too much about what they thought in doing it . Piss off all those film makers waiting at your door ing to tell youthere version of history- its not only patheiticllay obvoius, its a turn off on Sunday nights as are the period pieces with the makeup substiting for the messup.


So it was pleasing to see some reporting on Catherine the great.
However brilliant Catherine the greater becomes as a new age woman model , I 'v got a feeling, like shapekespeare's richard , Grand duke peter is not the main target of the makeover merchants SO I may not have yet met catherine but thansk to the subject mater I may have met the woose and am the wiser .

Good to refect on peter s form -defined in reaction, he sought popluarity but lost his power when the people recognised his woosiness.few around is there ?


and Cornertones reporting on Bill the preacher thsi Sunday . I wonder if we have to have more race riots in Sydney or damage near Darwin before ABC will report on the good work being done in Aust by dare I say it, "religoius folks " God bless them .

4 corners top the list of good reporting this month .
Chris masters does it again or should we say Canadians have done it again .
Understand health care risks before we kill medicine and risk takers. see more cuttingedgecare