Australian people know they are being “sold” a message in the media. According to the Australian Election Study from 2010, just 17% are “confident” in The Press. [Story: The Australian]
Australians were underwhelmed with the politics on offer in 2010, Rudd hit deep lows, Gillard had knifed Rudd, yet, even in that unflattering environment over twice as many people (43%) said they were confident in “the federal government ” as said the same about the media. I wonder what these results would be now?
Trust in the media is a theme I will keep returning to in 2012 – when it comes to underperforming politicians, insane laws, over-reaching judiciary, corrupt bureaucrats, and failing currencies, the problem is The Media. None of the lackluster or self-serving talent on display would be able to continue for long if the media exposed them and relentlessly demanded logic, reason, evidence and manners.
It’s what is not said that matters.
Source: The Australian
Australians trust the armed forces, universities, and the police.
The gloss of universities is striking — they are riding on the rigor and achievements of past generations.
The last survey I saw (about May 2011) showed that 50% of Australians still think we need to do something about “the climate”, so none of those people have even the faintest idea of how some parts of our universities are not that different to the Press Corp — just wait til the sordid details of Climategate, lost data, and hidden files surface and the people find out how impartial and trustworthy those universities have been.
Even though voters don’t trust the media, in Australia, the MSM is still very influential. When election time comes, only 10% of the voters followed it through the internet. It’s rising fast, but fully 56% of people followed the election through their television or newspaper. We have five real channels (with many spinoff channel variants of late) and two of the five are government funded in part or in full. There is no Fox News in Australia.
...
Assuming that the internet remains largely free, that MSM influence can only fall, but why assume that free speech will stay free? The government censors are becoming ever more blatant – yesterday ruling that the media are not allowed to photograph asylum seekers arriving in boats.
Richard North finds an apt quote:
Some time ago, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, dissident Czech novelist Zdener Urbanek observed: “In dictatorships we are more fortunate that you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know it’s propaganda and lies. Unlike you in the West, we’ve learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines, and unlike you, we know that the real truth is always subversive”.
What he might have said, though, is that the whole truth is subversive. I am more and more convinced that the primary means by which the agenda is shaped is by leaving so much unsaid. News is only news – in the opinion of the MSM – when the MSM says it is. The rest, by inference, shall be ignored – and it is that which distorts our perception of the world.
The second graph comes from the same organisation and a related study (see below). I can’t find the results the Australian reported in the Australian Election Study site. The Australian lists them as “unpublished”. The timing of this news story is slightly curious. It’s a front page item in The dead news week.
All around the world the traditional media is failing. My brother in-law worked is whole life for a fairly large regional newspaper. As he retired, it was the the sound of the pressed being turned off, with printing outsourced, and the loss of 70+ jobs. 2012 looks like another 50 or so jobs vanishing. The advertising base is evaporating, they don’t have the money to pay real reporters/journalists, so rely on printing whatever “press releases” come their way, mixed with agency material.
They pay less and less, the only people willing to take the jobs are those serving an ideal, and making use of the job to promote their own agenda.
Just as the printed newspaper was the leading edge in the growth of the media empires, so it is in the collapse. Traditional TV will not be far behind.
The owners and management just don’t understand what is hitting them, they had a license to print money, but it no longer seems to be working!
Government and corporate bodies spent years and $$$$ establishing relationships (control) with the media, and are seeing their propaganda arms disintegrating before them.
There WILL be a strong backlash – attempts to neuter the Internet – already beginning in the US congress.
Coming soon to a government near you.
30
And your source for the above assertion is … ?
If you do a literature search on that quotation all you get are people quoting the phrase, and referencing other people who are quoting other people. It is a urban myth.
There is some truth in the fact that American Foreign Correspondents routinely filed “reports” from where they were stationed, in the same way that they filed “copy” to their respective editors. They were referred to as “supernumeraries”. The same applies to business people who frequently travel abroad. It is how most intelligence collection is done.
Yes! they always do, but the more feeble minded find it easier to go along with their tormentors than to tough it out – also toughing it out carries the risk of terminal consequences.
But note, brain washing, even under drugs, has seldom resulted in people taking definitive actions that were contrary to their own will, and sense of moral code. It can only enhance, and give purpose to what they would have done anyway. Often it acts to stop people doing things they are not comfortable with.
Not mind shattering at all.
30
I think you really meant to reply to Kevin (#4) rather than me?
30
I have watched them(the media whores) on the National Press Club asking their lonnngggg multi part questions trying to sound as if they had a clue about what was going on it’s painful to watch.fortunately there are a few who do have a clue.Question:-Didn’t that fool Juliar say NO to an amerikan base a few weeks ago? According to the “news” last night it seems to be a done deal.
30
Yes, even when they are admonished to only ask a single, short question they go ‘on and on’. By the time they have finished, the speaker usually has no idea what the questions were. Often, the reporter has to be asked what was the other part of his/her question which they originally asked.
This is so different to the questioners on PBS (American) who ask respondents very short, succint questions that can only be answered properly without otherwise being obviously waffling.
Our reporters seem so overwhelmed by the occasion or want to ‘show off’ their knoledge.
20
Of course. Reporting is all about the reporters.
20
Question: What group or groups would be represented by a completely ‘red’ circle?
Answer(s): (a) Used-car salesmen, and (b) the climategate AGW team.
20
The War’s On and the Front Line’s Your Brain
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you” –Leon Trotsky
“The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
–William Colby, former CIA Director
http://members.aol.com/opsgreen/
ARE YOU A FREE THINKER OR ARE YOU SPOON FED YOUR OPINIONS BY THE POWERS THAT BE? TAKE THE TEST.
1) Do you stand by your convictions, or do you routinely change your opinions when you find out that most people think the opposite way?
2) Do you research things yourself, or do you trust others to do the work for you?
3) Do you fall for the statistics, “experts”, and official opinions quoted by others without checking these sources out?
4) Do you feel that you have to quote these same sources whenever you say anything? Does it make you feel uncomfortable just to state an opinion simply because you personally believe it?
5) Do you believe that the majority is always correct, and because of this, it is advantageous to see how most people act before you make your decisions?
If you aren’t in charge of your own thoughts and opinions, then someone else is. You have an opinion you say? How can you be sure it’s really yours?
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” –Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects
Question: Does a person who is brain washed know that he is brainwashed?
Answer: No. That simple realization is the beginning of mental freedom
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/mind_control.htm
10
From http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/mind_control.htm
Keven,
Really?
10
So you picked out some points of the authors that are a bit wild.What is wrong with the article as a whole or the excerpt that I pasted?
10
Kevin,
What you pasted is fine. It has something useful to say. But then the article goes on… My problem is that what I pasted from it is tinfoil hat stuff and calls the credibility of the whole site into question.
People are easily enough manipulated as you point out. But mind control as this site describes it is pure fiction. I think we should not be lending any credibility to such ideas.
10
Tinfoil hat? More like a tinfoil three piece suit!
My mind has been well and truly washed. Only trouble is that there was some of that non colourfast red material in with it, and I’ve come out all pink.
10
They also over-did the fabric softener
10
I love it. I go on hols, come back and the hilarity just keeps rolling on.
10
I find what you have pasted from the website laudable as a measure of is one a free thinker. I reserve judgement about source since there is so much there. It looks interesting none the less.
I am a member of the Canberra Skeptics Society. I find it distressing that most in it would fail as free thinkers. We are a very controlled society mainly by the fact that there is less and less actual factual news content in the media.
20
My comment at #1.1 was in response to this comment, and not to Philip – my apologies.
10
Today’s media in the Western world is mostly radical controlled.
Otherwise they would not attempt global control trough UNFCCC in Copenhagen and now in Durban.
How do we deal with them?
10
If 50% of Aussies still think we should do SOMETHING about CC we are indeed suffering from a groupthink delusion.
Please why can’t we just talk about the facts for a change.
There are some facts that are not one’s opinion or point of view, but most Aussies are evidently totally unaware of these facts unfortunately.
From 1990 to 2009 the OECD countries (developed world) increased co2 emissionms from 11.6 giga tonnes to 12.6 giga tonnes.
Over the same period NON OECD countries ( developing world China, India etc ) increased emissions from 10 giga tonnes to 17.7 giga tonnes or 7.7 times as much.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=CG6,CG5,&syid=1990&eyid=2009&unit=MMTCD
We are told this will go on for a number of decades, so why isn’t the media screaming out this info to the Aussie taxpayer who will foot the bill for the greatest fraud and con in our history?
We can do nothing about tackling CC or taking action on CC so why do we persist in pouring billions $ down the drain for a zero return?
10
Funny how faith in trade unions matches the ALP primary vote almost exactly.
Without the public service and public-owned corporations like the ABC, the ALP would be nowhere in this country.
I would love to see this extended to two more topics : climate science and weather forecasting.
10
Yes
I’d also add the education system
Naturally I don’t trust Universities to be impartial–sadly–, so why would I trust the unionised state teaching services?
( of which 21 yrs ago I was a member so I know how it operates)
10
Take a look at this image. Clearly shows universities and other education groups one sided reporting of climate change and in general socialist views. Also take a look at who is supporting the event. The education system and socialism are closely linked.
10
Oops…the image link is below.
http://wakeup2thelies.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/CCSClft.png
10
That is quite disturbing – although the usual suspects of Green Left Weekly and the Socialist Alliance are behind it. Both organisations are seriously off the reservation and full of nutcases.
10
They are getting desperate!
10
Did either of you notice the raised fist symbol? Raised fists symbolise communism and/or socialism regimes. Unbelievable how they would use such a symbol.
10
Yes extending to “climate science” and “weather forcasting” would be good but aren’t they both oxymorons?
10
‘Weather forecasting’ is an ok term. That’s because it is just an educated guess as to what may happen in the near future based on present data. Even then a few hours can be too much for accuracy. But, forecasters don’t pretend to be all knowing.
However, the term “climate science” is ridiculous. All anyone can do is ‘study’ climate-no more , no less. Past climates can be ascertained to a very limited extent.
Future climates can only be in the arena of crystal ball gazing. If I say, “In 50 years the GBR will be dead (or thriving) it is akin to a fortune teller saying “You are going to come into a great fortune.” Who is to know so far ahead when the variables are so many and the forecasts forgotten by other events?
True science has laws and methods that can’t be wishy washy and forgotten unless more accurate changes in understanding takes place.
10
The only knowledge that pervades climate science is that super-computers are as pliable as chicken entrails.
10
The MSM is a purveyor of “news & entertainment”& a medium for advertising.
Unfortunately these three purposes are all to readily interchanged
Further, for the most part, as a one way communication, it is a perfect means to peddle & foster ideas while blinkering the recipients. This “one way valve” almost completely thwarts dissent. (Would we ever have had Kyoto Kevin 07 without “Sunrise ®”?)
It is not hard to feel empathy with dairy cows:- fenced in, regimented, milked regularly, fed dietary supplements, artificially inseminated ( no joy their) & finally lead up that last race to oblivion in complete ignorance…………….
Thankfully while the net still exists as an environment with a fair degree of freedom & sites such as this persist to present information & provide a free forum for interactive response, we can all sit in a Roman Senate ( or in the gallery) or make ourselves fools & or targets on soapboxes.
We still have an element of independence & freedom.
10
28 Dec: ForexPros: Andrew MacKillop: Liquidating Hot Air: Bargain Prices For Carbon Credits
One of the many ironies is that 2011 in Europe was one of the warmest, or least cold years ever recorded, but this has done little to restore credibility and more important, the cash flows needed to keep high-living carbon traders at their playstations rolling the dice.
The US emissions market CCX was at one time, at the start of the century apparently set for big success. Not only was a young Barack Obama a board member of the Joyce Foundation which seed funded the fledgling CCX, but over the years it attracted all the right, big name climate investors such as Goldman Sachs, Climate Change Capital and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management.
Then funny things happened on the path to the CCX growing like the expanding Universe in the few nanoseconds near its start: forecasts that its turnover would first hit $500 billion a year, then $10 trillion a year were dashed. The highly anticipated looting of taxpayers and consumers — to save the planet — imploded following its high water mark in the US with the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill (the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009), modelled on Europe’s enabling regulations, then laws starting with the 2005 start of the European Emissions Trading Scheme…
Its life support of investor support is weakening, shown by the falling value of EUAs: in the high times of 2009 these could fetch more than 20 euro or $30 per ton of CO2, but now hover around 8 euro with occasional shifts below 6 euro, but these numbers are still far from the CCX’s last days, at the end of 2010, when a US voluntary market credit fetched 5 US cents for the right to emit 1 ton of CO2.
SELLING OUT WHILE YOU CAN
The great thing about carbon credits is they can be printed, like any fiat money or stock certificate for a “cant fail” business or company: in 2009, European ETS credits of all kinds rode on about 2 billion tons of CO2, which if nothing like the “$500 billion a year” hopes of emissions boomers like Al Gore, was a nice turnover on wholly printed paper “value”. However, just like any paper promise thrown on the pinwheels of the global fiancial casino, the timing has to be right, and in particular you have to know when the market is going to crash – and sell out fast…
Europe’s EIB receives carbon permits from the European Commission, the regulator of the world’s largest emissions market, at the beginning of December and has to sell them within 10 months. Running a check on carbon market price trends, today, shows this latest wad of paper value could do serious and even terminal damage to Europe’s ETS. Generally, EUAs and other carbon paper, like sCERs and CDMs slump in value for a period of around 12 – 30 days after each dumping, but this year’s possibly panic-driven sale may be different: carbon prices could go down and stay down.
***Their only hope, by another twist of irony, is that oil prices soar…
Trading companies buying 2013 European Union carbon permits directly from the EIB are already accused of possibly having “privileged information”, which is coded language for suspecting the permits will be handed out to EIB-friendly players then dumped in a hit and run move…
***The EIB’s move promises more downward movement in paper carbon – unless oil prices rise.
http://www.forexpros.com/analysis/liquidating-hot-air:-bargain-prices-for-carbon-credits-109920
so desperate are the power elites, they cannot be trusted to NOT launch an unprovoked attack on Iran, in order to get the oil price skyrocketing up (as it did following the attack on Iraq) in order to save the CAGW/carbon trading scam. whatever u do, do not fall for the relentless MSM propaganda on Iran.
10
The term “presstitutes” describes most of the media quite well.
10
The media is undergoing life-threatening changes to its business model, but it has no-one to blame but itself for its plummeting sales, particularly in the newspaper industry. It shouldn’t be surprising that the media is loathed by the public because it has regarded public interest as secondary and optional. In Australia, News Limited tabloids keep cynically pushing their same content buttons (crime, law and order, etc) to generate sales according to a well-worn formula that treats the public like idiots, while the ABC and Fairfax have stopped reporting news unless it can be fitted with a victim-rich, collectivist ideology that is anathema to ordinary working people. As a journalist surveying the wreckage of my industry, it is tragic to me that so much damage has been done by so few dullards with so much power who forgot who their customers were.
10
Tom, you are absolutely correct when you say that the media “forgot who their customers were”. Media is a different business model because those that give them money (the advertisers) are not really their customers. The readers / viewers / listeners are their customers. They have been pissing them off for years and not realising that losing customers is bad for business because of the indirect nature of the revenue effect. They will die a slow death unless they can realise that getting back to clear and accurate reporting of events is the only thing that is going to keep them alive.
10
“getting back to clear and accurate reporting of events”
Truthseeker, this implies that the media once did this, and I am not sure of the truth of that. Or at least, how long ago you think it was that they lost their way.
For myself, I got rid of television, and stopped reading newspapers, in the early 1970s. I did this for pretty much the same reasons as the concerns that are being expressed here. I doubt that they have become much worse in the intervening period, as regards being basically a combination of entertainers and agents for social control.
10
Steve you may well be right, but now is the first time that the traditional forms of media have come under such widespread and enveloping competition in the form of the internet. The MSM have a small window in which to save themselves. I do not think that they will see or take the opportunity.
10
Talking about trust don’t miss Tallblokes legal update
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/legal-fund-and-action-update/#more-3985
and trust in universities is misplaced in some quarters
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/28/the-fishes-and-the-coral-live-happily-in-the-co2-bubble-plume/#more-53800
a bit of cut and paste
and quoting Walter Starck
10
Yes, I’ve got to wondering if Universities should receive zero government funding, or at least very small amounts like waivers of land taxes etc.
Universities started completely independent of governments and thrived for centuries. But somehow we’re at a point where governments ‘must’ fund universities or they go broke.
Sure, research is expensive, but this could be partially funded by donations and partially funded by student fees. Imagine universities going back to begging corporate donors and alumni for funds instead of bending politicians ears? How things would change! And then the universities can create money from commercialising technology. Stanford has a very good record here. Will this redirect universities towards ‘commercial’ technologies, and all that entails? Yes, and that is the point. Why are we training people for diversity and gender studies when what we need is materials and energy technology? For all the effort that goes on at universities – particularly in Australia – the measurable impact on society seems hard to quantify or find, apart from being a rich territory to recruit protestors and whingers from.
I say grant the top x00,000 students scholarships funded from taxpayers money and let all universities compete for the students. Anyone else with the cash and the entrance requirements can buy themselves a place. There are too many young people wasting years of their lives and amassing debt for a piece of paper that is almost as devalued as the dollars they pay for it with. All because everyone believes that a university degree is some magic pass to happiness.
10
Actually, they do beg alumni for funds, including me but I didn’t give them anything. At the time I figured the Uni must be going broke but so far they are still a going concern, even if well past their eyeballs in debt to fund their extraordinary expansion in the decade since I graduated.
10
JMD gives an underlying response here where he says:
Because of this we see the plethora (and yes, that is a correct use of that word) of Universities applying for funding in areas that will support the, er, intent of the Government to pursue its (the Government’s) agenda, that of introducing new taxes, something that has been so obviously proved.
If the words ‘Climate Change’ or ‘Global Warming’ are included in the application for the grant, that application is almost certainly approved.
Hence, the University gets what it so badly needs, funding that is separate from Higher Education funding.
To ensure further funding, then the end result will be that the University comes out with findings that will support ‘Climate Change/Global Warming’, not to prove their argument, but to ensure even further funding. It is obvious to most people that this quest for further funding actually affects the outcome, because it is almost a certainty that if there was no confirmation, then any application for further funding would come under serious threat, because if the Government sees a result that doesn’t agree with their agenda, then there’s no way they will ante up a second time, or a third time, or a ….
When those positive results do come out, then the Government gets what it wants. Confirmation that they are right to introduce their agenda.
On the other hand, the University also gets what it wants also. Access to further funding.
Don’t try and tell me this is not what is happening here.
How easy is it for a University to get that now ‘bastardised’ (excuse the French) term ‘peer reviewed’, and then the Government gets even further confirmation for their (separate) agenda, because, after all, it was, er, ‘peer reviewed’.
The Universities standard response to this is that those of us on the opposite side that they occupy are somehow funded by ‘big oil’ etc. That of itself is a deflection away from eyes that might want to look at the funding they (the Universities) get.
You then tell me which aspect of funding that the media will report.
Tony.
10
Maybe our Universities should adopt an American system where they have the kids play college football for free but under the tentative promise of a scholarship. All the while the University reaps in millions of dollars in sponsorships, advertising, tv deals, endorsements. . . etc etc.
10
This is most certainly true, and especially in the field of medicine. It is very apparent in papers coming out of the USA where all sorts of diseases are attributed to “climate change” and it is really just garbage.
10
Not all worth while research is expensive. Not all expensive research is worth while. Almost all the foundations of modern science is based upon simple and inexpensive research projects done by individuals. Many of whom were not properly credentialed by today’s standards. The projects that were undertaken were to answer a question and not bring in huge amounts of cash. That step was left to the inventors and engineers. They created the technologies and products that turned the new science into a huge money stream.
Big Science and Big Government are a tag team who’s purpose is to get still larger. Any actual knowledge acquired is an unintended consequence. The Government has the printing press and the power to reach into everyone’s pocket to create the money stream. The connection between climate science and Big Government is the most successful tag team of all. There was no unintended consequence of knowledge to slow the tagging and endless excuses to print money and pick our pockets.
10
As a graduate from Melbourne University (1976) I agree with your comments.
There is too much emphasis upon placements at the university level. On top of that the move to change the Colleges of Advanced Education into universities is a real fizz.
These days there is no acknowledgement of those who should leave school early, get a job or an apprenticeship and who then attend a college to complete their schooling. Also, the biggest mistake ever was to get rid of the technical schools.
10
Back in the 1960s, early 1970s, there was a UNQ (Dr. Endean…I think) marine biologist who said the ‘Crown of Thorns starfish’ would eat and destroy the GBR. The media took up his story with relish and film of what he said was happening.
Resort operators hired divers to spear the starfish from near their diving spots to keep some pristine coral for tourists. The Dr. appealed for more funds from the QLD government. He was astonished that the Joh Bjelke-Petersen would not cough up the money.
This went on for years. Mankind was blamed for the infestation of starfish. But, as more time rolled by, it was discovered that the starfish numbers increased in cycles. They actually were a boon to the GBR in the same way as pruning a garden is good for the plants.
True, Joh was sometimes drawn in by silly schemes, but this was not one of them.
10
When the Crown of Thorns starfish is active it does harm to the GBR and is more likely the cause of bleaching than any global warming. The current researchers completely ignore that particular fact.
10
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/28/the-fishes-and-the-coral-live-happily-in-the-co2-bubble-plume/#more-53800
Thanks for the link val. Went there and hopped over to the paper abstract in nature.
Not really sure whats up with this one to be quoted in the context they have? Pretty much an own goal as far as i can tell. Was pretty clear from the nature article that the coral reef near these vents was affected in terms of loss of diversity with everything that implies. On the page with the abstract have a look at figure 1 where they show photos of one of their low pH control sites vs the areas of higher pH. Pretty grim.
Would be a good study site for ongoing monitoring though.
10
Unfortunately, the era of the “press-hound”, doggedly sniffing (pun intended) out a story in the public interest, has been actively replaced with “infotainment” and journalist opinion pieces, some of which fortunately (for how long though?) still provide some balance via Bolt, Blair, et al in the Murdoch press, but generally are provided to anaesthetise the population, and to dull any dangerous inquiring minds out there who might be wrestling with any inconvenient original thoughts. Unfortunately, this is IMO an abreaction to the endless cycle of end of the world doomsday scenarios which have led us away from the path of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, independence, ingenuity and self-determination.
The Humanity that once strove for the stars, has now turned inward, insular, and act like frightened sheep- huddling together in the safety of the herd, afraid of every extraneous noise, every breath of wind and every faintly threatening cloud on the horizon. Two World Wars, flanking the misery of a severe economic depression, followed by a nuclear proliferation that pushed humanity to the brink of the precipice, has sucked the life-force, ambition and drive out of our species, allowing the unscrupulous and the controlling to take advantage of our fear and hesitancy. We are looking for problems, not for answers. We are regressing in our ambitions rather than progressing with the spirit of curiosity and adventure.
Our “Brave New World” is a place of Propofol-induced stupor (placidity), devoid of ingenuity, unable to analyse data or solve problems or think laterally, unable to genuinely show true concern/empathy for their fellow man (rather than sham, “symbolic”, empty gestures that mean nothing), lacking a sense of true spirituality (as opposed to religion of various kinds- both ideological and faith based), and even detached emotionally from their own feelings which have been codified and medicalised by members of my own profession, sadly. To think how far we have fallen in the space of a generation in Western society is something by which I am mystified, and ultimately ashamed. There are a lot of intelligent, perceptive, imaginative and progressive people out there with so much more to give than our present systems of controls (government, legal profession, institutions) allow. Unfortunately, I doubt there is the capacity for these resources to ever express themselves positively, rather their imaginations will continue to be subverted and distracted into backwaters of human endeavour, allowed to dindle on the vine of irrelevance, rather than identified, promoted and given the opportunities to flourish that should, in a sane world, be a matter of due course.
10
Bob Tisdale does more work that disproves the value of climate models and shows the strong link between el nino events and overall increase in SST. But where is the strong AGW link?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/27/on-the-ipccs-undue-confidence-in-coupled-ocean-atmosphere-climate-models-a-summary-of-recent-posts/#more-53769
10
I always said only a fool would believe climate “models” would accurately predict or confirm the climate when the BOM cannot accurately FOREcast our weather for three days in a row!
10
Which is a silly thing to say, but you can say it if you want.
10
Experiment each night record the maximum temperature forecast for the next day and the record the actual maximum reached for the day. I did and found them seldom to be correct. I thought it would be off but not by 5 and 6 degrees which was common in a three month period! A computer model is an hypothesis and is useful in scientific endeavour to guide one as to what the result might be. If testing by empirical data is not possible then it is a complete waste of time. So yes Jazza you are spot on and not the least bit silly.
10
‘True’ journalism is hard to come by these days on traditional media as a whole. Reporting by press release or news agency clipping is too much the norm. I’m always unfortunately surprised at the same phrases and emphasis coming through on one story from different media outlets – too much cut and paste off the Reuters/AFP news wire me thinks – and this is observed for local stories – not some event in foreign lands…
With this over reliance on too few central news agencies and basic laziness – its very easy to control the media on certain subjects with only a few people in the right places..
I’m hoping the rise of smart phones and news ‘on the go’ from exactly who ever you want will undo completely the traditional media – as they will not be able to compete with the targeting available to advertisers – thats the money shot… We are midway in the 1st generation cycle of this; 2nd generation will ‘blow the bloody doors off!’.
10
Farbeit from me to say that ‘Blogging’ is the ‘new’ journalism, but think about this for a minute.
Just think back over the last 12 Month period.
Where have you actually learned the most, about some of the things that (now) a lot of us consider to be important.
Has it been from the media (all forms of it) or here at Joanne’s site, or at Anthony Watts’ site.
Journalists ‘know’ about journalism, or what they are told by those on the next supervisory step up the chain in their media outlet will pass muster, so the job of a journalist is to
please his bosswrite articles that those bosses think will attract readers to their media outlet.They have no expertise in fields that their bosses think important, so they have to rely on getting the information, and then writing it is a way that ‘is fit’ to be published in that media outlet. Hence, any article is written in generalities because the journalist, scared to go ‘out on a limb’ about a subject he doesn’t know about, will try and ‘keep it safe’. Hence they want to be seen (by their bosses) as ‘being on the side of’ the, er, established thinking, knowing that if they do go into detail, their bosses will tell them that no one wants to read that, or, more importantly, they are told that no one will understand that, in effect, actually devaluing their reader base, because, as is seen here, people actually have a thirst to ‘want to know’ about these things that they (the readers) consider important.
Those who ‘run’ those Weblogs have an advantage. They can pick what they want to concentrate on, from their own field of expertise, and then write about that. However, the real advantage of those styles of Blogs that do this is if they then have the courage to open up their ‘headline’ story to free (within reason) commenting.
Joanne’s and WUWT do this, and people who have added expertise can come in and comment freely on that ‘headline’ article.
Incidentally, the vast majority of U.S. blogs do not have this, er, courage, and carefully send all comments through to moderation, even most of the ‘Majors’, hence commenting can be sporadic, because a lot of people (might) look for the instant gratification of seeing their comment, and waiting for moderation can take hours, and even longer, mainly because only the site owner does this moderation, and most are (very) careful about what they let through. They also do not have the facility to utilise people for that moderation task.
So then, is there a place in ‘real’ journalism for the blogging style of doing things.
You only need look no further than Andrew Bolt to see just how effective that has been. Love him or not, he actually IS successful, and his media outlet must be overjoyed, not with what he may say, but the actual count of visits to what is ostensibly The Herald Sun media outlet.
I’m even willing to bet that those from the other side of this so called closed debate who come to sites like Joanne’s have actually learned something new as well. They come here to ‘kibbitz’, and sometimes get shot down, and even driven off, (say has anybody seen Catamon lately) but I’ll bet that in their heart of hearts, they sometimes think to themselves, “say, I didn’t know that,” as much as they will never admit it.
However, when journalists from the media outlets see sites like Joanne’s, they discredit them, not because they ‘know’ that they are wrong in what they say, but they see it more as a threat to their own media outlet, and in fact, that is being proved.
Last question.
After you turn on your computer in the morning, (and, er, do the daily maintenance checks) what is the first site you come to?
Is it a news media outlet, or one of the blogs?
Tony.
10
The main danger I see in this is a series of blogs seem to be developing which purely reflect one paradigm or opinion stream, and which brook no argument or diversity of opinion, a sort of blog apartheid if you will. I frequent this particular site of Jo’s because –
1. I personally find the topics interesting/ at the forefront of the current, important world events playing out before our eyes- no “cat up a tree” feel good stories here!
2. the comments are often insightful and the opinions put forth are often not provided for within the framework of the MSM parameters.
3. often the comments reflect a wide range of beliefs (from Christians to Atheists, Civil Libertarians to Communitarians, Free Enterprise Advocates to Government regulation apologists, Economic Conservatives, etc etc)- and even the resident Green advocates like Tristan & “consiglieri” MattB, Soft ‘L’ Liberal old lefties like JB, Constitutional Law “Experts”/Advocates like Adam Smith, Labor party stalwarts like Ben & Catamon, even deluded BA/Enviroscience Get Up advocates like Maxine, all adding to the recipe – btw, I for one am glad these dissenting voices are allowed to contribute to the diversity of opinion herein, although Adam Smith’s carpet bombing did remind me of scenes from Apocalypse Now at times, and eventually went beyond the pale, the others have largely added spice to the debate and removed the groupthink prevalent at certain other blogs I’ve seen.
4. Her openness to minimal moderation has allowed the occasional intemperate comment on my (and others’) part, which while a touch embarrassing at times, does give one pause to evaluate one’s thoughts and analyse where emotion has sometimes overwhelmed insight.
Thus, I would personally like to thank Jo for providing this important outlet and opportunity for free expression in an increasingly colourless, hyper-regulated world.
10
I don;t need to think about it,Tony
I do not buy a newspaper, but I daily visit the internet, with all the conservative blogs in order from my favourites folder, first up .
In fact I’m so addicted,I’m missing the Bolta like he was my own !
I long ago realised the best thing–only good thing– about a daily newspaper was the puzzles page!
But guess what?….
And as for TV, I deliberately make sure I miss “news” time,as it is all a leftist wank since Rudd and his minions bought out the last vestige of integrity and soul any news editors had,and as for Their Aussie Bolshevik Collective, never do I take a word on current affairs from them, just pick their best British dramas to watch.
10
Jazza, one must prepare for life without the Bolt Blog. Maybe an extended show on Sundays with a political commentary during the week?
Maybe also a stint on the speaking circuit? Oh, Andrew will be speaking at a function in Melbourne in late February, the twenty fifth I believe. Mark Steyn, Dan Hannan and Janet Albrechtsen will also be speaking on the night. Michael Kroger will be MC.
Funny, never been to Melbourne. Should be a good night.
10
Jazza my usual access to the general goings on is much the same as yours and for the same reasons except I have more interest in the business world since I run our self managed super fund. There is a flow backwards and forwards from the economic world affecting the interest in CAGW.
I think we forget that the MSM is about entertaining so that whatever medium is perused so that they can advertise and maintain income streams. At the moment it seems they have lost there way because readerships are declining markedly. I think they misjudge their audience who are not as shallow or dumb as they think. We get less and less content and more authoritarian edict shoved at us. The idea that we should kerb our energy use because a Canadian named after a motor bike says it will affect people in a 100 years time just can not ultimately be sold.
BTW Australia’s ABC must sell the line of its funder (CSIRO the same) to survive without adversity. At this time when the core is left socialist anyway this is greatly amplified. But I wonder if a time will come when even the Labor Goverment worries about its shrinking audiences.
10
The news media is typically the last place I check. Even on Fox, it is “why bother?” most of the time. The content of today is predicable from the content of yesterday. So also for tomorrow. Sometimes a rare event happens but even there I usually get a hint from non news media sources.
It has been two almost three decades since I subscribed to a newspaper. It has been over three years since I last turned on my TV – an old low resolution analog CRT TV. It too became victim of “why bother?”
10
Tony my first hits are always the major news outlets
The Australian
The Courier Mail (I’m a Queenslander)
then the sentimentals
The Northern Daily Leader (being previously from Tamworth)
The Chronicle (currently living in Toowoomba)
so the blogs Jo and the rest (including Catallaxy Files) come after
And I’ve got a (to me) great project going at the moment so very little time for blogging
But thanks for reminding me (and others) that Jo, Jennifer Marohassy and WUWT need their New Year boost
10
I forgot to mention Warwick Hughes one of Aust greats
I’m sure Jo would agree
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/
when I first started to question AGW Warwick’s and John Daly’s sites were the ones I visited
Thanks to each of them for being honest and enquiring and courteous to lay (non science) people like me
and after that I came to WUWT and to Jo and Jennifer and to Climate Conversation Group (a NZ site and very well organised)
10
I too believe the level of trust the public seems to have in Australian universities is unwarranted and that peer review in some fields no longer has rigour. The universities have become politicised and it seems OK for academics to be activists and to speak out on issues outside their area of expertise.
Some experts in their fields seem to believe they have the right to present their findings to the public with a degree of certainty that they would not use among their colleagues or in their scientific papers.
Some Universities, individual faculties and individual academics sell their credibility to outside organisations such as environmental activist or industry groups and it seems some might get more work by coming up with the results their paymasters desire.
I blame politicians, academics and the media for the anti-bussiness rhetoric that has eroded the pride we should have in the businesses that help create the jobs and wealth in this country. Who wants to live in a North Korea or a Cuba.
10
Well, now that Fenton Communications is operating in Australia, expect it to get much worse. They are already winning “awards” in Australia for their PR work: http://www.pria.com.au/blog/id/1234 in the section “Government Sponsored Campaigns” Highly Commended, David Micallef, Melanie Wilkinson, Fenton Communications – Tasmania’s Biggest Job Campaign
https://www.tenders.gov.au/?event=public.advancedsearch.keyword&keyword=Fenton+Communications
They’ll be writing the stories that you will see more presenters reading on TV and reporters writing in the papers. They basically drop the entire story already written into the lap of the media outlet.
Good luck, you’re going to need it.
10
Now that’s interesting, crosspatch. I would have expected a couple of those contracts would normally have gone to Crosby/Textor. Hmmm…
10
Theres a term commonly used in the alternative media circles to describe the mainstream media reporters. . . presstitutes.
10
There is one moment in particular with Australian media which sticks in my head.
About a year ago I was watching the news and the second top story for the night was about a woman who opened up her shop in the morning, checked her security footage and saw a snake had slid in to her shop over night, then out again.
She called animal control who couldnt find the snake.
They news report interviewed the lady, the snake catcher, showed the footage at least three times, then the reporters had some banter back and forth about it at the end of the report. A good few minutes was devoted to this!
I though “Geez, must be a slow news day.”
So, I switched over to SBS news and saw a war had broken out. Thousands had been driven from homes. Suicide bomb attack. Further global economic crisis details. . . on and on.
That was the last time I watched mainstream news.
10
Reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI
Note: language
10
Oh thank you that link is just so right all that continually annoys me so succintly. No wonder people are turning off.
10
Why should we expect anything different from our msm; they are not very intelligent, they are opinionated and vain, and they are arrogant, turning up their collective noses at the hoi polloi; the msm associate with the movers and shakers and assume they have equal status and ability of the rich and famous that they report; it’s called secretary syndrome; it was never about news just ego.
The lack of insightful reporting about AGW also demonstrates how immoral and unethical the msm is; otherwise they would have used this as their template for reporting:
Currently the only source of unfiltered observation, good, bad and ugly, is the internet; hence Conroy’s NBN which will allow this mongrel government to more effectively censor the only genuine source of information in our society.
10
Well, at least we have something to be thankful for!
I don’t know why you guys don’t trust the MSM. They, or at least the Murdoch part of them, give contrarians and “skeptics” a fantastic run. You get far more column inches than you deserve.
In general, the media loves a controversy, and they are usually prepared to allow people to persist in their ignorance if it helps keep a controversy going. One of my favourites was the AFL policy on drugs. If the meejya was to be believed AFL players using performance enhancing drugs could get caught 3 times before any action would be taken. The truth was somewhat different. The 3 strikes rule applied to recreational drugs in the off season. But that would have ruined a good story. Of course, that truth was told somewhere early on, but it was not repeated, even though it was clear that the majority of the public weren’t aware of it.
So “skeptics” and the meejya are in a symbiotic relationship. The meejya need controversy, and you provide it, with climategate, and tours by climate showmen.
10
‘they are usually prepared to allow people to persist in their ignorance if it helps keep a controversy going.’
That explains why they give so much coverage to ‘man-made’ global warming! (but NOT the skeptic side of the argument.) It certainly allows people to remain ignorant.
10
John, you must read a different Murdoch publication to any one I can find on the net. If skeptics got a good run, someone somewhere would have published the photos of thermometers near air con units or air-ports – actually, every paper would have had at least one shot. McIntyres remarkable efforts would have got at least a feature article, likewise Watts project with hundreds of volunteers auditing $4b agencies. Send me the links with the extraordinary 30,000 signature petition project told on the front page or the headline “Nobel Prize winner speaks doubts of IPCC alarms.”
Welcome to your parallel universe — where the tiny 5% of skeptical stories in the media rate as egregious crimes of wild bias. Your delusions are showing…
10
^^BRAVO^^
10
Jo, if Watts publishes a paper which demonstrates that the land based temperature record is significantly in error because of those misplaced thermometers, then the press should and would publish. The fact is that Watts himself has found that only using “good” thermometers makes almost no difference to temperature trends. BEST found the same, despite being headed by a “skeptic” (although I hear he has been excommunicated for his heresy). That the press has not publicised his unsupported assertion that bad thermometers are biasing the temperature record is a mystery to me. Maybe they don’t like having egg on their face?
The extent to which Watts is hung up on the quality of weather stations is weird. He classified some Australian stations as “urban” or “rural”. Ceduna was classified as “urban”. Have a look at it on Google Maps. Yes, it is right next to Ceduna’s busy international airport, but it still looks pretty rural to me.
That 30,000 signature thingy is so silly. I have no idea why it gets mentioned.
10
John old boy, your lot created climategate, we just read it and were shocked because it is even worse than we thought. That was a complete team own-goal.
Interesting how many apologists disappeared after that little episode. The people who spent many keystrokes defending the likes of Mann and Jones and then found out they were standing up for rather less than ethical or scientific behaviour.
10
Their behaviour is still light years ahead of the “skeptics” like Monckton. How is it that you lot are so forgiving of his lordship’s, “arctic sea ice is recovering”, based on cherry picking two individual months out of 30 years?
When you start being “shocked” by the behaviour of your side, maybe people will take you seriously.
10
So JB what should we do when confronted by the Gillard govt’s lies that “we are tackling CC” or “taking action on CC?”
I mean this is bald faced lying at its best when we know that we export 3 million tonnes of coal for every 1 million we use at home in OZ.
Plus of course China and India’s co2 emissions are soaring year by year while the OECD countries flatline their emissions. Simple maths really so what is it you can’t understand?
10
We have to do our bit, and hope that the rest of the world joins in. The Chinese emissions are considerably less per capita than ours, so we can hardly tell them, “no more coal for you”. The best we can do is reduce our emissions.
10
John,
I just wish your side of this debate would stop using that absolute ‘crock’ of ‘per capita emissions.
The only reason ours (Australia’s) is so high is that ALL Australia is already industrialised, the by product of that being that we ALL have access to a reliable and constant supply of electrical power, something almost a Billion people in China do not have, let alone constant and reliable.
For example here in Oz, 38% of all power generated is supplied to the residential sector, while in China, not yet 10% of all generated power goes to that Residential sector.
This chart explains it so it can be seen more easily.
Power Consumption Chart
So, while China’s Population is greater than Australia’s by a factor of 60, the power they send to that residential sector is greater by only a factor of only 4.
Even when it comes to total power figures from the coal fired sector, China’s is only greater than here in Australia by a factor of 10 compared to that population multiplier of 60.
I’m disappointed that the same old ‘per capita’ emissions stat is always trotted out when it’s so easy to refute.
Tony.
10
In addition John,
while China is bringing on line one large scale coal fired power plant every seven days, they are not doing that to thumb their nose at the ‘environment’. The by product of that is that those hundreds of millions of Chinese who have NO power at all will end up having something that we here take completely and utterly for granted, access to electrical power.
That’s not just starting construction of those plants, but finishing them to the power delivery stage.
For us to reduce our emissions to the current per capita emissions level of China is to totally and utterly grind Australia to a full stop.
No power for jobs, no power in the commercial sector, and no power in the homes of all of us. No trains. No hospitals. Chaos on the roads with no traffic control or lighting. Making every building taller than three stories uninhabitable, and the list goes on.
When those on your side of the debate realise this, then you will see that we cannot deny them what we already have.
In effect, this per capita stat is subliminally an imposition of colonialism.
Tut tut.
We have it but, sorry you can’t have it, for the sake of the environment.
That ‘Per capita’ argument is so transparent just from the point of view of population figures alone.
Tony.
10
I know that this is something that is difficult to comprehend, or even to visualise, and sometimes, it’s even difficult to explain, so think of it like this.
For those of us here in Australia to achieve the same ‘per capita’ emissions as China, then this is what must happen, as of right now.
We must immediately stop China from industrialising any further, full stop, no correspondence entered into. They have to stay where they are now.
Then for Australia, this is what we have to do to get on an equivalency ‘per capita’ with China.
Shut down 5 of 6 Industries. Shut down 5 of 6 work places. Shut down 5 of 6 Hospitals, 5 of 6 electric rail networks, 5 of 6 shops, 5 of 6 high rise buildings and also cut power to 5 of 6 residential households. and on you can go with every part of society that uses electrical power. Shut the power off to 5 out of every 6 of everything.
Then, stop India just as you stopped China, and then the same for the rest of the Third World.
America, Europe and the remainder of the First World, well, they have to go the same way as Australia.
See now what the ‘side effects’ of this CO2 debate really are.
This is not guesswork, but the reality of it.
You can argue about the ‘so called theory’ of what CO2 does, but until you actually realise what it will actually result in, then the debate is amongst people who have no idea of what will happen.
If you seriously think ANY of the above scenarios will ever eventuate, then you are delusional.
You MUST be aware of what will actually happen if we are to go the way that you suggest.
There is no ‘Hey Presto’ in all this.
I can rabbit on till I’m blue in the face. I’m inured to people laughing in my face.
Whenever I say ‘stuff’ like this I await answers from ‘that side of the fence’, but as is patently obvious, you just cannot provide an ‘acceptable’ answer to this.
Tony.
10
Good on ya Tony! Great Series. You should become a writer.
I`m Blue too! AGW is so much crap!
Bloody do gooder, greenie, leftie wankers are ruining this country.
For Gods Sake, please build more coal fired power stations.
2012 must be the year of increasing plant food….
Happy New Year Tony!
🙂
10
Congrats yours is the first time I have seen anyone object to the patently obvious brainless “per capita” argument. It is obviously a thought up reason for how guilty we are! I wonder if there are those in Qatar whip themselves about their per capita being more than double ours or how lucky the Somalians think they are being a tenth of ours.
10
Just like you get here John.
10
Yes, but we CAGW alarmists are a necessary evil here, cohenite.
(When is CAWG going to show up? You have had your 130+ years of increasing CO2 levels.But still no CAWG is visible) CTS
10
Yes John B. the media do love controversy and scandal.
Unfortunately 83% of their audience don’t believe them!
Something else the media love is a nice juicy disaster, and if none are available, then the next best thing…a future disaster! All those column inches of the frying, freezing and flooding doom that will, or could, or quite possibly might, befall us all… Unless we start to live like Fred Flintstone.
Perhaps if the media had actually exposed climate-science for the scandalous fraud it has become, they may have had more than 17% of their audience believing what they say.
10
Remember the big Queensland cyclone fizzer earlier in the year?
Mainstream media sent all the reporters there ready for the big event. Hours and hours of tv time allocated to broadcasting it. Crossing from the news office to the reporter on the street.
And all they ended up showing was the same footage of the sign blowing down the street, over and over.
I counted it being shown six times in a ten minute period.
10
Must’ve been a Sign of the Times, then.
10
This article is most edifying, but I must say I am a sceptic when it comes to the trustworthiness of universities these days.
10
This may ‘seem’ a little off topic, but it is still about, er journalism.
Leigh Sales is on maternity leave, and while Chris Uhlmann is taking a break, 7.30 has been left in the hands of Scott Bevan, who may think he got away with this little howler on Wednesday night.
He was discussing the result of the Sydney Hobart and how there was a protest. He was talking with Amy Bainbridge on the docks in Hobart and discussing the protest when he came out with the following little gem.
Gee, I’ll bet famed Paralympian Kurt Fearnley, who was one of those celebrities crewing Investec Loyal, was happy being referred to as ‘human ballast’.
Now, what this highlights is the fact that some journalists think that they have a ‘name’ already, so they don’t need to do any background checks, not only as illustrated here, but on most subjects, where often, their lack of any research is so obviously demonstrated.
They’re so busy trying to set up a ‘gotcha’ that invariably, the ‘gotcha’ is a self inflicted wound on them instead.
As I mentioned above, they ‘know’ journalism, and think that because of that, they can just ‘wing it’, because after all, as journalists, they think that they are the ones setting the agenda, and that any expert is ‘on their turf’.
Some are worse than others, but sooner or later, it happens to all of them.
Text of the 7.30 segment
It seems that even with that ‘human ballast’ of ten ‘celebrities’, all of whom had tasks on the journey to Hobart, it was still enough to be first over the line, no mean feat for even a full yachties only crew.
Tony.
10
Kurt regularly trains past my place in Hamilton; lovely fellow and his feats speak for themselves; I know who I would prefer to have backing me up and it wouldn’t be Bevan.
10
Well for me he can do that since I will not be watching anyway. Sport commentary is usually more inane drivel than anything else. Maybe it has got better since I last watched but I have better things to do than to give it another chance.
10
.
This is so true; recently the article below was submitted to Fairfax with all links to evidence to support the assertions; not a peep; the MSM does not want to know about this:
10
“Australian people know they are being “sold” a message in the media”
You got that one right Jo!
Channel 7; Mark Riley and Kochie, now there is 2 quality journos`,
Channel 9; Laurie Oakes and his gut, now there is 2 quality journos`, 🙂
Channel 10; Hughesy and the blonde one on the 7pm project, now there is 2 quality journos`
ABC 1,2 or 24; Take your pick, they are all quality tossers!
SBS 1 0r 2; Refer to ABC above.
JoNova.com ; Well, I reckon we got 2 quality journos there, no doubt about it!!
Bring it on Jo, I`ll take my news from you anyday!
10
I heartily concur,so much so I don’t watch the idiot box for news or weather let alone worry about “their” climate reports!
10
And dont forget ‘A Current Affair’ and ‘Today Tonight’.
Theyre mostly paid infomercials.
10
So, if we all know that mainstream media is crap, where do you all go for your alternative news sources?
Favourite sites? Any recommendations?
My personal preference is Alex Jones at Infowars.com
Go to shoutcast.com and search for Alex Jones. Easy enough to find, hes always around the top of the radio station list.
For many years was widely regarded as a conspiracy theorist but pretty much everything he has warned about over his many years has come true. Eeeeeverything.
He goes off on wild rants at times and you may not agree with everything he says but his discussions on things like the GFC, Libya, Carbon Taxes, TSA, NWO, etc are great.
He frequently has Lord Monckton on.
Todays show he has Christopher Busby on who is the director of Green Audit, an environmental consultancy agency, and scientific advisor to the Low Level Radiation Campaign.
Right this moment hes discussing Fukushima and how everyone has forgotten all about it but theres still a massive danger there. Its still contaminating our food and water, poisoning people, but we dont hear about it, nor do we seem to care.
His radio broadcast is the biggest in the world. He does a three hour show six days a week. Then he does a nightly news program streamed over the net.
10
“So, if we all know that mainstream media is crap, where do you all go for your alternative news sources?”
What`s better than Jo, Watts Up, Piers and Bolta for a liberating morning, followed up by an Alan Jones highlights package at midday.
Might have to give Alex Jones a go though…
10
Well, i suppose if you wake up constipated??
10
Coincidentally, Mr McIntyre has a current post on Climate Audit titled “Evading Mosher’s FOI”.
Amongst other joys, he quotes from an Email from Jones(UEA) to M. Hume (5/8/09) which includes this gem:
“Issue here is blogsites have allowed these climate change deniers to find one another around the world.”
Long live bloggers! RIP the MSM.
10
“Investigative journalism is alive and well; it’s just moved house.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/the-death-of-journalism-and-the-irresistible-rise-of-the-blogosphere/
Pointman
10
Graph 2 implies to me that as the lamestream media has dumbed itself down to the investigative skills of a drug addled knat, the observant (and ironically, the younger ones who grew up with the net), have moved towards becoming their own editors.
The amount of times I have read something from the lamestream where they have pasted the same paragraphs in the same article this year just beggars belief.
I could chime in about how the lamestream business model is doomed, but for me the real question that really need answering is simply this:
How can specialised investigative journalism like what Jo does here be turned into a means to earn a living?
In otherwords, how can the people doing a better job than the reuters copy and paste monkeys be rewarded for their diligence?
(jo, I apologise in advance if my label for this blog doesn’t suit. Feel free to change it)
10
Who owns the UN – Who owns our Banks?
Beware – Tin foil stuff!
http://www.cleanairandwater.net/who-owns-fedbank.html
10
Kevin,
I really do not want to beat this to death. But it’s your credibility on the line here, not mine.
I get it that you don’t like central banks. Neither do I! Now tell me what you would put in their place. The complaint without the solution rings a little bit hollow. In the meantime, even granting that some of what you linked to is true, there is no possible way to put it all together to get the picture you apparently want to paint.
10
Thats a very defeatists response.
“Yeah, the banks are destroying our world economy. But hey, what can we do about it? Nothing, so lets keep getting screwed.”
10
So warcroft, have you got a solution?
Note that I never said we could do nothing about it. I asked Kevin for his solution. So far no solution offered. What is yours?
10
For starters the Americans need to vote in Ron Paul.
People need to withdraw all their money from banks and open accounts with credit unions, places not associated with Australias big four or the six global banks.
Next, GOLD! Invest in gold! Or to a lesser degree, silver. As the stock market and paper currencies are collapsing around the world all that money you have or have invested with will become worthless.
Gold prices have gone from about US$250/ounce to US$1700 in ten years!
Lets see how that goes for starters.
10
You don’t hesitate to propose that some several hundred million people all suddenly see things the same way and then all at once fire the one magic silver bullet that will solve everything.
I’ll not even bother to address Ron Paul.
Oh to be able to believe life could be that simple.
10
Roy Hogue,
Here is my solution –
“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” -II Corinthians 3:17
Where the Spirit of God [John 20:28] is, there is the spirit of freedom. Any other spirit brings slavery.
Why do the present rulers of this world hate Christianity so much?
10
Kevin,
They hate Christianity because it is personal and demands a change within the believer. They hate it because it demands allegiance to a King they cannot understand. They hate it because it cannot be bent to their will. And they hate it perhaps most of all because as you said, the Christian is a free man and doesn’t need anyone to keep him safe from himself all day and all night. And worse, the Christian has a direct path to God, no middlemen required. Oh how they rail against not being needed! It is anathema to them. It’s an unpardonable sin to not need your representative in Parliament or the Congress. You must need the mighty UN with it’s great wisdom. How dare you think for yourself?
But you already know these things I think. 🙂
10
Roy,
I didn’t expect that, and I agree with what you say.
To condense all remedies into a simple form, I believe that –
We only need one law and that is the law of love – do no harm.
“If you won’t be ruled by God,You will be ruled by tyrants” Jefferson,I think.
10
“Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.”
Benjamin Franklin
10
As a separate issue: Kevin, again you have linked to something that shoots its own credibility, not just in the foot but right smack between the eyes. It has science illiteracy written all over it.
10
So you are the moderator and arbiter of all truth?
Learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Should I send everything I wish to post to you for approval first?
I don’t ridicule you because I don’t agree with your understanding of reality, so show some respect.
10
No Kevin, I am not the moderator of anything. Moreover you don’t need my permission to post whatever you want. But if I may be blunt, the last two things you have linked are embarrassing to look at. I would think that point might matter to you because you quite obviously want to be taken seriously. But either way, I won’t continue to beat the subject to death.
By the way, you resurrected the tinfoil theme, not me.
10
Sorry you were embarrassed. Truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction.
10
Kevin,
A couple of things.
You agree above with Roy that Christianity is the solution (or one solution) to the tyranny of the NWO, yet you link to a site which claims “the third in their circle of NWO is the ‘Vatican Sovereign State'”.
This would appear to be an internal contradiction in your belief system, unless you would like to argue that the Vatican and the Catholic Church are no longer a faithful servant of the Christian deity.
A 2nd option is that you should extract which parts of that site you think we ought to take seriously, instead of just dropping some random link spam.
—-
By the way, I do think you are wacko, but this does not mean I should ignore everything you say. Wackos are sometimes the ones who discover unsettling facts or innovative solutions, thus wackos should be tolerated to some extent since having a diversity of perspectives is good for the long term health of the meme pool. Wackos are like cognitive germs: being exposed to them, especially at an early age, can help stimulate one’s psychological immune system and reasoning abilities. You are the lion that keeps the other gazelles nimble. 😀
Perhaps you can phrase your more outlandish suggestions in terms of how the average person might go about disproving it. If it is an earnest test, and the attempt fails when people actually try it, then the idea may have merit. The scientific method, basically.
—-
Personally I’d like to believe the banksters are the NWO (or the bankers for the “real” NWO) as it would certainly make a good target to blame a bunch of things on. This doesn’t mean it is actually true. In any event, there are real growing problems such as oil depletion, the urban sprawl, and a bunch of much more down-to-earth problems in our own personal lives that would make our lives much better in the long run if they were to be solved. To what extent is hating the banksters a projection or procrastination or a displacement activity for you?
—-
There’s evil, and then there’s business, and in both capitalism and worker socialism some degree of profit is permitted. So as another example, look at the JPMorgan Chase takeover of Greek assets. I’ve heard of the derivatives bait-and-switch used by GS against Greece, but that was to hide greek debt that was already there. How is this any more than an inevitable outcome in a for-profit banking system taking advantage of a money-making opportunity in a country full of lazy people who wouldn’t work at a rate that could pay for the benefits they demanded from the State? How is it not just an inevitable outcome in a single-currency ideology that was destined for failure for exactly the same reason?
If banks can invent money through debt contracts, does that not mean there is no fixed-size pie, therefore not a zero-sum game, therefore a bank’s profits are not necessarily the loss of the people? Or is that flawed reasoning?
The fact banks charge total repayments that are more than twice the size of a house purchase price is indefensible by any excuse I’ve heard, but is there anything else we can blame them for other than mortgage enslavement? And why?
10
I agree with you roy. Now more than ever, we need real and realistic solutions to the real problems being faced.
Not the imaginary problems, like AGW – The real problems which require real solutions.
Just whining about problems will achieve very little. Yes, I know capitalism has been bastardised, but what is the solution?
I really don’t see how electing one individual is going to do much either.
10
Madjak,
You’re quite right. Electing one single individual will do very little. One the other hand, electing the one right individual can be a start. And electing a number of single right individuals begins to have some power. The Senate has to be taken over as well as the White House and the majority in the House of Representatives needs to be strengthened. In Australia the prescription is the same with different names and titles.
But before anything can happen the people who vote have to be convinced that we’re in trouble and the change is critical to getting out of trouble again. That is a pretty high hurdle.
I’m seeing too many who just want to talk and don’t want to act.
Can we pull it off? I don’t know. But for certain we can’t pull it off if we don’t try.
Do I have some magic solution for the Federal Reserve? No! There isn’t one. I don’t think we can just eliminate it and go back to a gold standard a la Ron Paul. But we can take away some of its autonomy and redefine the power it has so it can’t hurt us with arbitrary monetary policy.
There are a lot of little things and some big ones too that can be done to get so much power out of the hands of federal governments. But you have to seize control at the ballot box first. To do that you need two things, a lot of dedicated people digging up the real behind the scenes machinations of government and another dedicated group to get the word out to the public. It’s not going to be easy.
10
“I’m seeing too many who just want to talk and don’t want to act.”
Even worse. . . people who, when presented with whats happening, are in complete denial or others who are just completely ignorant or unaware whats going on.
Too busy supporting their favourite football team or watching cricket for eight hours a day. X-Factor or some other garbage ‘reality’ show. Thats whats important to them. Mindless zombies. They dont read. They dont educate themselves. All are just a bunch of mainstream media junkies.
The powers that be know this and use it to their advantage.
10
So how do we turn the tables on them and start getting people to notice what’s wrong?
10
29 Dec: WSJ: RYAN TRACY And JIM CARLTON: California Low-Carbon Fuel Rules Halted
The decision puts on hold a major portion of California’s effort to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, at a time when the most-populous state’s stance has taken on extra importance nationwide because of a stalemate in Washington over greenhouse-gas legislation.
The judge’s move means that refiners and ethanol producers, which previously could have been faced with having to buy credits when importing oil and ethanol into California to comply with the rules, will now be freed of those obligations…
Judge O’Neill hasn’t issued a final decision on the case, but on Thursday he barred California from enforcing the rules while the lawsuit continues…
David Pettit, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which intervened in the case, said other states considering similar rules “would likely be scared off trying to do what California did if the decision is upheld.”…
“It is not surprising that the oil industry is attacking these programs, but like previous attacks in the courts and at the ballot box, we expect this one ultimately to fail,” said Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm based in San Francisco.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128972816077652.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
10
something to ponder concerning Investec, who sponsored the Syd/Hob winner, with Anthony Bell’s Loyal Foundation:
just what South Africa needs, when it has more than enough cheap coal for centuries to come!
1 Dec: Bloomberg: Investec, EIB Start 100 Million-Euro S. Africa Energy Fund
Investec Ltd. and the European Investment Bank agreed to start a 100 million-euro ($135 million) renewable energy funding facility in South Africa to benefit from a power shortage in Africa’s largest economy.
The facility “allows us to treat smaller projects with the same project management finance methodology that is usually used for large projects,” Investec Project and Infrastructure Finance Manager Fazel Moosa said today in an interview in Durban, on South Africa’s east coast. It will fund proven technologies such as wind, wave, gas and biofuels, he said…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-01/investec-eib-start-100-million-euro-s-africa-energy-fund-1-.html
Investec
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investec_Bank
only singling out Olivia cos she appears to have a hand in Pension Fund allocations:
Investec Australia: Board of Directors
Non-executive Director: Olivia Dickson
Olivia was a Managing Director at JP Morgan, where she served in a number of senior roles including Head of European Derivatives Brokerage. While at JP Morgan, Olivia was a non-executive Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of the London International Financial Futures Exchange. Olivia’s current directorships including Canada Life Limited, Invista Real Estate Investment Management Holdings plc, Risk and Assurance Committee of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme…
http://www.investec.com.au/#home/about_investec/structure_and_management/board_of_directors.html+execdirectors
10
the hypocritical EIB!
23 Dec: ProjectSyndicate.org: Manana Kochladze: Greening the European Investment Bank
Manana Kochladze is a campaigner at CEE Bankwatch Network, an NGO that monitors international financial institutions active in Central and Eastern Europe. She is the winner of the 2004 Goldman (not Sachs..LOL) Environmental Prize.
Over the past four years, the European Investment Bank – the European Union’s house bank – has loaned €48 billion ($62 billion) to energy projects around the world. Indeed, the EIB lends more to the energy sector than to any other, except transport (and its €72 billion total loan portfolio in 2010 made it a bigger lender than the World Bank)…
Unfortunately, the EIB’s lending priorities and energy-investment portfolio are making the problem worse.
In 2007, the EIB adopted its first energy policy – “Clean Energy for Europe: A Reinforced EIB Contribution.” Since then, the Bank has significantly increased its lending for renewable energy, which totaled €13 billion in 2007-2010.
Yet, over the same period, the bank compromised this performance by lending €16 billion ($21 billion) for fossil-fuels projects, one-third of the institution’s total energy lending. Indeed, the EIB’s fossil-fuel lending grew from €2.8 billion in 2007 to €5 billion in 2010, including new coal units in Germany and Slovenia…
Make no mistake: these are long-term investments. The energy infrastructure constructed today will be used for at least another 40 years, thereby tying countries to carbon-dependent paths…
The EIB must act more courageously to clean up its energy-lending portfolio. Coal investments must be stopped immediately, and a plan to phase out all fossil-fuel lending should be prepared and implemented as soon as possible. The capital from fossil-fuel investments could be redirected towards green projects instead…
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/kochladze1/English
nice and transparent!
29 Dec: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: EIB’s Carbon Disclosure May Learn From Oil, Standard Bank Says
The European Investment Bank, which may have started selling 2013 carbon allowances in a 1.8 billion-euro ($2.4-billion) program, may strive for more timely market disclosure, said a trader at Standard Bank Plc…
The EIB received the permits from the European Commission, the regulator of the world’s largest emissions market at the beginning of December and has to sell them within 10 months…
Companies buying 2013 European Union carbon permits directly from the EIB may have “privileged” information that other traders don’t have, according to an emissions trading lobby group. The lack of public information about the commencement of the sales means that “if you are a recipient of a large volume you are in a privileged position,” Simone Ruiz, Brussels-based European policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association, said Dec. 16…
The EIB may have begun selling privately the first tranche of 200 million EU permits for the third phase of the EU’s emissions trading system, which begins in 2013, to fund renewable energy and carbon capture projects as part of the EU’s drive toward a low-carbon economy, according to Orbeo and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
The EIB, whose president is Philippe Maystadt, will receive fees of as much as 45 million euros for its role in helping the EU sell allowances and choose investments, according to a co- operation agreement with the commission. It will get 15 million euros, or a fee of 5 euro cents a ton, for selling a total of 300 million tons of carbon and managing the proceeds, the agreement shows…
In the carbon market, the European Commission in Brussels said on Dec. 2 it had delivered 300 million metric tons of so- called NER300 phase-three allowances to the EIB, 200 million of which need to be sold by Oct. 2. Sales would start “soon” after the delivery, according to the bank, which has since declined to confirm whether sales had started. On Dec. 21, the EIB said it will publish on or around Jan. 11 its first monthly report on sales of carbon allowances from the reserve…
The EIB should seek to disclose its interventions in the carbon market almost as often as they occur, said Jan Pravda, director of Dublin-based CO2 brokerage Carbon Warehouse and an investor. “I don’t see a reason why they should use different disclosure rules than the U.S. Federal Reserve,” he said Dec. 21 by e-mail.
Disclosure may be made “not necessarily every day, but every time and very quickly, keeping in mind that the market responds in minutes to news like this,” Pravda said. Should the EIB sell or buy, it “inevitably begins filling the void because there is currently no central bank” for the main global-warming market, EU carbon allowances, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/eib-s-carbon-disclosure-may-learn-from-oil-standard-bank-says.html
10
with reference to the comment by Jan Pravda above about Fed Reserve’s disclosure rules!!!
28 Dec: WSJ: The Federal Reserve’s Covert Bailout of Europe
When is a loan between central banks not a loan? When it is a dollars-for-euros currency swap.
BY GERALD P. O’DRISCOLL JR.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577118682763082876.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
in case u need to subscribe to WSJ, here’s the story:
29 Dec: Wall St Selector: A Thinly Veiled Bail (UUP, FXE)
U.S. Banks and financial institutions do not want to lend European Banks more Dollars, and it would look bad for the Fed to do this unpopular lending directly, so the Fed has found an indirect route…
Mr. O’Driscoll argued that the Fed has no authority to bailout Europe. (Although lack of authority has not stopped the Fed from acting in the past.) Ben Bernanke met with Republican senators on Dec. 14 to discuss the crisis in Europe. According to Sen. Lindsey Graham, Bernanke told reporters that the Fed did not have “the intention or the authority” to bailout Europe. Nevertheless, the week Bernanke claimed he was not going to conduct an EU bailout “the size of the swap lines to the ECB ballooned by around $52 billion.”…
http://wallstreetsectorselector.com/2011/12/a-thinly-veiled-bail-uup-fxe/
10
Kevin, Roy, Warcroft, Madjak,
It is sad to read, on an AUSSIE site, AUSSIES bickering over “what can be done”. Time for a history lesson.
As a nation we ALREADY started working this out over a hundred years ago.
The truth is, we have already designed and implemented the fairest and most workable form of government in the world.
Then we sat back and let the politicians, the banksters and the corporations take it all away from us.
.
CREDIT
The original Australian Constitution allowed for the creation of a “Commonwealth Bank” to create and issue the credit of the nation. This was done at no cost (interest). There was no need for income tax (or most other taxes) and the nation of Australia prospered.
Today we have handed the power to create and issue credit over to the private banks, and sold off the Commonwealth Bank. Today, all credit, especially credit to the government of the day, comes into being as a debt with interest.
Since, at any given time, ALL the credit in existence exists as a debt, and that debt generates a further debt of interest, then the total debt (original credit plus interest) can NEVER, EVER be paid off. As a nation we just go on getting further and further into debt.
.
SAVING
As a nation we didn’t just work out how to be prosperous. We worked out how to look after ourselves. Most Aussies are unaware of it, but they now pay into not one, but TWO compulsory superannuation schemes.
A very long time ago now, we set up a compulsory National Superannuation Scheme. Most people who were working had 9% of their income paid directly into it. Federal and State government employees had their own, as did the members of the Armed Services.
Up until 1971 yearly income tax return forms were actually titled “Income Tax and Compulsory Superannuation Levy Return Form for . . . . .”, in much the same way as the title on today’s form includes the Medicare Levy.
In 1972 mention of the Superannuation levy was dropped from the title of the form, but the 9% deduction did not stop coming out of people’s pay.
.
HOUSING
Monies paid into the superannuation schemes were then allocated to bodies in each state. In WA it was called the State Housing Commission (the SHC). The SHC opened up land for urban development, and made loans available to people to buy blocks of land.
The price of these blocks of land were generally set by average taxable earnings, as determined by the Taxation Department, NOT some gerrymandered, crooked, cooked-up figure derived by the Bureau of Statistics.
When I was a kid, the average wage was about 3,000 pounds a year, and that was what my parents paid for their first block. Today, under that scheme, a block of land would cost $45,000.
Once a couple owned 40% equity in their block, they could borrow against it from the SHC again to build a home. Up until the late Sixties, this is how most Australian couples built and/or bought their first home.
.
WELFARE
Monies loaned by the SHC were loaned at 3% compound interest. Profits went back to the Federal Government and used to fund superannuation payments to the aged, the infirm, the widowed and the orphaned.
It is important for Australians to note that “pensions” for the aged, widowed, disabled and orphaned are NOT welfare payments like unemployment benefits. They are a superannuated entitlement due as a result of each and every working person having contributed 9% for their gross earnings for their entire working lives.
Note also that these payments are separate from the “other” 9% you must also now contribute to a “private” compulsory superannuation fund.
The original intention of the scheme was that, eventually ALL Australians would retire, whether by age or infirmity, on a “social wage” calculated at the rate of two-thirds their average taxable earnings for the last five years of their working life. These payments were non-taxable and weren’t means-tested.
However, while the scheme was in its infancy and just beginning to accumulate funds, the government was given the “temporary” power to set the rate of payments at what it felt could be afforded from general revenue. It is a power no subsequent government has ever given up.
By the late Fifties this scheme was so successful that the accumulating profits were becoming embarrassing. At least on paper. Truth was, actual payments to recipients were still well below what had been envisioned when the scheme had been set up, because successive governments of the day had been dipping into the cookie jar for years and leaving behind IOU’s they could never redeem.
By the early to mid Sixties the National Superannuation Fund which technically was worth billions, was in actual fact, broke. It was quietly absorbed into general Treasury. Rates of payment remained as whatever the government of the day decided, and has steadily declined to the pittance it is today.
.
TODAY
Not long after, “pensions” became means-tested, first on income, then assets. Gradually public perception was changed so that today, most Australians think of these payments as “welfare” and that the aged and the disabled should be “grateful”.
The State Housing Commissions and the 3% loans are gone. Today land is opened up by “property developers”, who, in collusion with local and state governments, deliberately limit supply to keep prices artificially high.
These artificially high costs are financed by people obtaining credit from private banks at usurious interest rates, on “money” the banks created out of thin air in the first place.
Meanwhile, the original 9% levy continues to be deducted as part of the income tax system.
Also meanwhile, stupid Aussies now pay ANOTHER 9% into superannuation scheme.
.
THE FUTURE
And guess what?
Next year, when the current international ponzi money scheme goes belly-up and all the “private” superannuation funds we are currently forced to contribute to go bust, the “government of the day” will undoubtedly decide to set up a “Compulsory National Superannuation Scheme”, and we will be right back where we started about 80 years ago.
.
THE ANSWER?
Learn from history, and stop letting politicians re-write it.
10
Excellent!
10
Been reading at
http://www.barnabyisright.com
till I got heartsick with worry about the future, especially that of my family in retail businesses in the tourist industry.
Recession,or depression, here we come, with only a mob of self serving clueless idiots at the helm for another two years!
Please God, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
10
Mayan calendar not needed?
10
You left out WWIII which is due anytime in the next five years, after the economic collapse.
Once again we will send the flower of our youth off to become cannon fodder for somebody.
Fortunately my sons are too old, and my grandchildren are too young.
10
If it goes for long enough, like WW1 and 2, they could grow to be old enough.
10
MV,
You could be describing the USA.
10
Good post except:
Debt is always rationalised. Etiher through inflation or bankruptcy. Even the $US700 trillion in global derivatives will be rationalised by unstoppable market forces. Look at the US housing bubble and subsequent collapse. That bad debt was rationalised. What has not yet been rationalised are not the loans themselves but, the loan hedges, hedges on loan hedges and, hedges on hedges on loan hedges.
10
Memoryvault
Thankyou, This would have to be in the top ten posts of the year.
Any more info would be much appreciated .
The 9% tax (Levy ) Could Pensioners , Challenge that in court.
10
Wow, just Wow.
10
Somewhere above I praised the American PBS (Public Broadcast System) for its direct approach to most subjects by its reporters.
However, its latest broadcast -Thursday 29- presented a view of the extreme weather events of 2011. It said, truthfully, that there were 12 extreme events in USA c.f. average of 4. And even the QLD floods got a mention. Fair enough.
But then 2 rep’s were interviewed. One was a head woman from NOAA and a man from ‘weather underground’ (I could be wrong.) Anyway, the tornado that hit Joplin was brought up. The NOAA woman took over from there. Did she speak about global warming and how the tornado may have been related?
No. Instead, she went on endlessly about the tragedy because she had been to Joplin. Again, that shows human emotion and not to be criticised. Except here she was on a national/international TV show.
The suffering of Joplin, great as it may have been, was not THE point for which she was invited to speak about. That is, the changes in weather. She did not, as the other guest did, say that no event could be pointed to climate change. In short, brought to the public gaze, she just waffled.
10
Waffled? Like the poster below at #43?
10
Elsie, Of the Queensland floods, the one from the management of the Wivenhoe Dam was a small storm in a small catchment. Had it rained a few km to the west, the other side of the Divide at Toowoomba, the flood at Brisbane might not have happened at all. It is not the stuff of global warming nor of any importance in global disaster counts.
We all feel for the victims, but no, it was not global warming.
10
[…] Australians can see through it: Media scores lowest low spot on “trust” poll […]
10
Almost all news items broadcast and published on the Australian MSM are created and distributed by either Reuters or AP(Associated Press). Reuters is owned by AP. AP is owned by Rothschilds. What’s not to trust?
Don’t believe me? Go to your favourite newspaper online and and view any story. Any story. Now play spot the AP/AAP/Reuters brand(filter/water mark) on the story page.
10
George Carlin – Why You Are In Debt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PkWf9M3rUw&feature=related
10
And most of the MSM still just “lob it in” for the unthinking $CAGW$ believers..
http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/murdoch-angry-over-elton-john-settlement-20120110-1ps5g.html#ixzz1izhzxnxF
10
But, if a brain washed person fell down in a lonely forest, would he/she make any confession?
This discussion is a little unusual, but you should not underestimate the extent of operations by intelligence units. Some people, now deceased, of my past acquaintance were deeply involved in secret, to the extent that their spouses did not ever know. I can’t say more because it could cost me money.
10