This is a quick, very simple follow-up to my presentation at the Media140 conference, where I was on a panel on political journalism with Annabel Crabb, Chris Uhlmann, Caroline Overington and John Kerrison.
Another great term coined at #Media140 by Crikey’s Bernard Keane: “Communities of interest, or ghettos of agreement?” tweeted @matthewsinclair yesterday. My immediate reaction was “what does he mean another???!” but in fact I don’t actually remember using the phrase. Nevertheless, I’m claiming “ghettos of agreement” as mine because it sounds good. Sorry Matthew.
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Good God, when you’re Miranda Devine you don’t want to begin an op-ed piece with an image of a plane on autopilot. But that’s what she did, to talk about bureaucracy. Bureaucratisation is just like a hi-tech pilot’s cabin, she twittered.
It obviously bloody isn’t, it’s the opposite.
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The environmental problems of using palm oil for biodiesel fuel and other products has been recognised for more than a few years. Less attention has been given to the widespread use of palm oil in food products. Widespread deforestation to expand plantations for palm oil has been occurring in countries to our north such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
The most widely highlighted environmental impact from this is the threat to the survival of the orang-utan. It seems appealing to people’s concern about orang-utan extinction connects with people more than appealing to concern about the impacts on human beings.
The logging, much of it illegal, threatens the survival of the culture, traditions and food sources of the Penan, an indigenous tribal group who live in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Read More »
Oh dear. The World Cup is nine months away, but we may not see a greater own goal than Greg Craven’s attack on the neo-atheists in today’s Age (sorry, National Times, the brave new collection of all the stuff that was available on Fairfax anyway) .
The neo-atheists – Dawkins, Hitchens and others – are an annoying bunch, taking the most literal version of monotheism, and then guffawingly mocking it (’oh a whale, really’) in a tone not unlike the baby in the Family Guy.
Trouble is Craven sounds worse…
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It’s bound to be one of the most controversial of the season’s cinematic offerings: Michael Moore’s Capitalism. Muddied low-brow critique or seminal turning point in the popular appreciation of a system past decay? You be the judge!
To help flesh out the argument, Crikey sent two of its most bristlingly politicised regulars to take in the movie and offer their thoughts.
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November 3, 2009 – 4:16 pm, by Eva Cox
There has been a lot of speculation about the causes of the big drop in the government’s popularity in the latest Newspoll. As someone with a strong interest in this type of research, I was curious to explain why it should be such a major drop. After all, the net result of Kevin’s Asylum seeker utterances was that he sounded very like Howard, with some minor difference. These did not seem enough to cause the big drop per se. It needs a much bigger issue than the relatively minor differences.
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Unit Man!
Each side of politics takes it as a given that governments should treat citizens at least a little paternalistically – laws which protect people against their own desires are too numerous to list.
But it’s one thing to mandate seatbelts. It’s quite another to completely treat us like children.
In that spirit, the ACCC has introduced Unit Man, a comic character which, in the competition regulator’s words, is designed to “help consumers better understand unit pricing.” Yes – unit pricing, itself a fairly patronising initiative developed under the belief that consumers can’t do rudimentary sums in their head while standing in the soup aisle. Quite a damning indictment of our school system.
To sum up – the government decides Australians aren’t smart enough to figure out the cheapest way to buy cereal, so it compels supermarkets to display their prices differently. But then the government decides that consumers aren’t smart enough to notice, so it creates a cartoon character to make saving money – and maths! – fun.
It’s the Piazzetta della Fontana, in the old city in Ventimiglia, where it looks as if nothing much has changed in centuries.
Certainly no money seems to have been spent on things. The sort of medieval-looking streetscapes that in France would have been tarted up – or at least kept clean – for the tourists, have here just been let go.
But what’s this? In the upper left corner of the frame? That’s right, it’s a bright shiny new security camera.
Priorities.
Can we fix it? No we can’t.
So according to the operator of the oil rig which been leaking 400 barrels of oil into the Timor Sea every day for the last ten weeks, the http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9BNDESG0.htm rig is now “engulfed in a massive blaze and is at risk of total collapse”.
The chief financial officer of PTTEP, the operator of the rig, said “The fire is out of control.”
Indeed, things are now so bad, Prime Minister Rudd is reduced to having to ask himself his own questions:
“Do I think this is acceptable? No, I don’t,” Rudd told Fairfax Radio Network. “Are we angry with this company? Yes we are. Are we trying to do everything we can to get this under control? You betcha.”
Not much to show from more than ten weeks of ‘doing everything we can’, but as long as we all know it’s unacceptable, I guess that’s OK.
According to the operator of the oil rig which been leaking 400 barrels of oil into the Timor Sea every day for the last ten weeks, the rig is now “engulfed in a massive blaze and is at risk of total collapse”.
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Speculation continues surrounding more than 20 people missing after the boat they were travelling on capsized during a rescue operation off the Cocos Islands late last night.
So far at least 17 people have been rescued.
And as sketchy news continues to trickle through, Daily Telegraph readers weigh in. There are nineteen comments so far, here are some highlights:
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