Monday 23rd of December 2024
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the windmills of their minds...

donq

One should remember.

 

More than 11 years ago, Al Gore should have become President of the most powerful nation on earth should there had been no cheating in the presidential elections, in Florida.
But there was cheating in Florida.

In a parallel world, where Florida was irrelevant to this crookery, planet Earth 2 was led by Al Gorean. Saddamu Husseini died of natural causes in 2004 and Osama bine Ladeno killed himself out of boredom in 2005. 9/11 did not happen. Meanwhile, leader Al Gorean made the larger portion of people in the US — and the world — understand that climate change was something that could be tackled, and that evolution was the core bio-story of the planet. By 2011, on planet Earth 2, humans had most of the global warming problem under control. Meanwhile having had to develop alternative energy sources, economies of the world were flourishing and supporting each others towards a neutral carbon growth and a limited human population. The capitolistol economic system had been rewritten to fully take the environment as priority number one in its equation. Without such a proper care of the environment, planet Earth 2 would suffer. A biotic planet in suffering would have been a bad paradigm for its future. Actually it would have been a dark bleak future if any. Al Gorean had enlightened this number 2 world and everyone felt quite smug for having understood the message.... Comfort had been maximised while destruction of nature was a thing of the past in the mindset of (now enlightened) people...

I am of course dreaming of reality...

But as the Australian Federal government is trying its darnest to protect this — our own and only — planet, there are stupid dark forces trying to destroy this reasonably good work. One has to realise that since the US election where the illegitimate president, Bushit the Second, got the gig, despite stupid costly wars and world economies tanking by 2007-08, humans have added 30 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, meaning that we've added nearly half a degree Celsius to the average temperature of the planet.

For most people this is innocuous. Unimportant. All this means, is that we Aussies get longer cancer-inducing tanning days, more pleasant winters and glorious sunsets in springtime. For people somewhere else on earth it means another typhoon in Autumn. La Nina is back... El Nino was a fizzer. The oscillation index is topsy-turvy and we're in for more storms and wetness in the neither tropical Queensland regions.

So the radio shock jock — on Joe-Hockey-for-PM-North-Shore radio station, Sydney — Nicholas Vida, a pissy amateur trying to emulate Glenn Beck on community radio, had an interview with Henry Ergas, an economist with a university pedigree as long as a tape worm. See, Ergas has written in the Murdoch press, about the "poison pill in Labor's carbon tax"... It's full of mis-calculated rubbish, and of course lapped up by Uncle Rupe's ritewingnut rabid readers.

I am not an economist and "I have no idea" where Ergas comes from with his economic "facts" which are mostly political conjectures that don't add up when I do the sums...  Most of his arguments are based on illusionary future economic possibilities and the value of the US porkie belly which in my own little mind has far too much elasticity depending on where one comes from and has no relevance in regard to what the planet does or will do. We burn carbon, create CO2, the thin layer of the atmosphere reacts: it warms up.

Sure, Ergas blames the Labor government for doing the same as he himself does, that is to say assume future economic situations that could go ape-shit. Nothing new, here. Everything can go ape-shit, especially economic planning. But I would trust that the Aussie government planning — via its learned public service — is actually far more astute than a shock-jock and an illustrious contrary fantasist economist. People have to weight the pros and the cons of situations and will not make assumption that silly assumptions are made to destroy the future.

Throughout the world, most economists know the pitfalls and imponderables of their trade but also the right thing to do when confronted with a situation in which 99 per cent of serious scientists are acurately demonstrating with an irrefutable A+B that the planet is is grave danger due to humans' world carbon based economy...

The Australian government plan is that we've got to reduce the burning of carbon and to do this, the most effective mechanism is a carbon tax — as approved by most serious world economists — then move on to an increasing ETS with more measures that HAVE TO BE imprinted into the next economic sessions of the Australian business for continuity. Anything less would be negligent. The "poison" is not poison just a small bitter pill for getting things better tomorrow.

From the onset, Vida "acknowledges" that the planet is warming up and that humans are responsible for it. But I sense a swifty, a dubious lip service here to "show" he's fully "aware" of whatever , as basically Vida offers no solution to it nor does he even hints to the silly Abbott direct action plan which is basically doing nothing much apart from pissing into the wind for fun, while wearing some budgie snugglers over a green clown suit and bright red galoshes...

Direct action has been discredited by most serious economists and by Turnbull — himself a political business man too smart for his own boots who was prepared to compromise with Rudd on an ETS until the ritewingnutters took his party over and killed the deal...

The Labor government's Carbon Tax proposal is thus ridiculed beyond belief by silly Vida and pooping Ergas, using some silly imagery of dumb kids doing guess work in primary school... Of course as a community radio station, Vida should be also sourcing opposing points of views to his rabid idiocy. But no. He and Ergas alone know far more than a zillion scientists and all the economists at the treasury combined. It's Don Quixote versus a million windmills.

By the end of his rabid demonisation, Vida acknowledges that there is little he can do to change the carbon tax from being implemented — an implementation which in his mind is destined to destroy Australia into a pile of rubbish and send it to the burning pit of hell. He does not so subtly acknowledge that the electorate in which he preaches with evangelical fervour is of course a liberal bastion — the fiefdom of Joe-Hockey-for-PM-North-Shore radio station, Sydney (North Sydney, based in Chatswood). Thus he pleads people in other electorates to twist the arms of independents and Labor MPs.

Well don't.

To the contrary. Praise Oakeshott, Windsor and others for having the guts to do something apparently highly unpalatable, but which by 2030 will give them the right to have their bronze statues erected on the town square of the capital of their former electorates.

Meanwhile at Joe-Hockey-for-PM-North-Shore community radio station, "scratch-our-back-and-we'll-scratch-yours" is the motto for catching sponsors... We won't hurt you if you give us money... Crap. I am so happy for you at weight watchers...

Coming back to the reality of global warming, I say — in full knowledge of the problem since the late 1970s — please, let's get this show on the road. It won't even cost as much as we think. ( Nick Vida has been aware of his own views on this subject for the "last four years" and thus is a complete expert)...

 

Let's get Australia on the way to help reduce CO2 emissions. The Chinese are waiting for our lead (actually, they started a long time ago with stiff population reduction policies and some quite nifty alternative energy sources) . Forget the US. Yes forget that grand lardy land of ignoramuses. The US will stay in the doldrums of understanding global warming until the next three or four Katrina, called Bernard, Kurt, Polly or Zoe (Ophelia is on the way). We can't wait for them, though such a hurricane could come again as soon as next year, while they had their Irene-good-night recently...

On top of their crappy economic gymnastics, Ergas and Vida also attack the Australian government for not releasing the modelling (even for a million bux) that led to a decision of 23 dollar carbon tax. Well fellows, do your own sums, you should soon find out the extra price on carbon should be 50 dollars at least. But, in fact, most of the modelling is available online if you know where to look...

Ergas and Vida, like seagulls pooping on your fish and chips while lunching at the beach, also ridicule the fact that Swan has been anointed the best treasurer in the world. Go and drown in your own swimming pool, guys...

My calculation based on my own modelling since the early nineties is that we should have gone to a ZERO EXTRA CO2 EMISSION BY NOW, WORLDWIDE. Whatever economic model one chooses to achieve this is open for debate but let me say this: Tony Abbott's direct action is the most insane and costly ineffective way of dealing with the severe global warming problem... Sure, one can accept that planting trees should be part of any solution, but to actually do this and be effective one would have to plant billions of trees on an area three time the surface of the planet to make an impact that would take at least 40 years to root anyway. 

Severe? Yes, the global warming problem is far more serious than our daily comforts let us see. By the end of this century, should we do nothing now, world temperature average would have climbed at least five degrees Celsius, if not six.

To allow this to happen due to human usage of extra carbon for economic expediency would be criminal. Economists like Ergas and blabbermouths like Vida are thus such mal-intent. They promote ignorance through an illusion of fake confused economic rectitude on which they should be impaled with shame...

Bring on a media inquiry into Vida's weekly grandstanding. That would keep him busy for a while...

GTEM...

GTEM is ABARES dynamic, multi region, multi sector, general equilibrium model of the world economy. The model was developed by ABARES specifically to address policy issues with long term global dimensions.
In the past, GTEM has been used to analyse issues such as the climate change response policies including the Kyoto Protocol, trade reform under the World Trade Organisation, and trends and issues in international commodity and energy markets.

world carbon tax...

The World Bank and IMF are proposing global carbon taxes on aviation and ship fuels in developed economies - including Australia - to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, according to a draft proposal seen by AFP on Friday.

The proposal suggests an international charge on aviation and maritime bunker fuels of $US25 per ton of CO2, which it said would "reduce CO2 emissions from each sector by around five to 10 per cent".

Such a charge, if implemented well, could also bring in $A256.86 billion in taxes in 2020, according to the report, which focuses on how funds to fight climate change can be mobilised.

The report recommends the plan for the 23-country strong "Annex II Countries" of the UN Climate Change Convention, including most developed economies.

The report stressed the difficulty of co-ordinating such a global tax, especially for bunker fuel, which ship operators can easily source in countries that would not be covered by any such agreement.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/imf-world-bank-eye-global-carbon-tax-on-fuels-20110924-1kqg8.html#ixzz1YrnDrzdI

balmy arctic...

 

If you want to witness climate change, just head north — and keep going until you run out of globe. Of course, that's easier said than done; the Arctic is a forbidding, isolated area, short of people and encased in ice much of the year. But those who make their way to places like Barrow, Ala. — the northernmost point of the U.S. — or the icy seas of the Arctic Ocean will witness a part of the planet that is warming and changing faster than anywhere else. While the world as a whole warmed by about 1°F (.55°C) over the entire 20th century, parts of the Arctic have warmed by 4° to 5°F (2.2° to 2.7°C) just since 1950. The physical changes from global warming are visible in the Arctic almost in real time — and they are a warning for those of us who live in more comfortable latitudes. As the polar expert Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has put it: "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic."

That's bad news, since not only is the warming threat in the Arctic bad, it's almost certainly intensifying. Earlier this month scientists at the NSIDC announced that Arctic summer sea-ice extent had fallen to its second lowest level since at least 1979, and likely long before that. Just 1.67 million sq. mi. (4.32 million sq km) of the Arctic sea was covered by ice as of mid-September — a little larger than the all-time record low of 1.608 million sq. mi. (4.16 million sq km) set in September 2007. And that may be a lowball figure: a separate group of researchers at the University of Bremen in Germany did their own estimate earlier this month and reported that there was even more melt in 2011 than in 2007.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2095114,00.html#ixzz1Z9Sevb7S

 

For scientists studying the health of Arctic sea ice, satellite observations are absolutely essential for providing the big picture. It was satellites that revealed in September 2007 a record minimum ice coverage in the region — the result of a massive summer melt. And it was satellites that showed in 2008 and 2009 the modest recovery of late-summer Arctic ice that suggested to some that the specter of a totally ice-free polar ocean might be somewhat less imminent than feared.

But those high-altitude observations need occasional reality checks from scientists down on the surface. It was during one such on-the-ground research expedition last fall that David Barber, an Arctic climatologist at the University of Manitoba, got an unwelcome surprise. (See pictures of the Arctic.)

Barber was aboard the Canadian research icebreaker Amundsen, checking on ice in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and Western Canada. The ship was well inside a region the satellites said should be choked with thick, multiyear-old ice. "That's pretty much a no-go zone for an icebreaker of the Amundsen's size," says Barber. But the ship kept going, at a brisk 13 knots — its top speed in open water is 13.7 knots — and even when it finally reached thick ice, he says, "we could still penetrate it easily."

In short, as Barber and his colleagues explain in a recent paper in Geophysical Review Letters, the analysis of what the satellites were seeing was wrong. Some of what satellites identified as thick, melt-resistant multiyear ice turned out to be, in Barber's words, "full of holes, like Swiss cheese. We haven't seen this sort of thing before."


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1956932,00.html#ixzz1Z9TaeH1O

 

See story and image at top...

his last parting shots...

Strangely, today was the last weekly broadcast by Nick Vida on the North Shore Community Radio station. His parting shots were on the Bill of Rights and on the freedom of expression in regard to the Australian Government Media Inquiry. I did not grasp his full position on both issues. Due to my own schedule, I only listened to about two minutes of the Bill of Rights discussion with a QC who at the end of the interview acknowledged that Vida's questioning was "by far superior to any other journalists" (I don't know if Vida is a journalist but he was a "volunteer" commentator on the radio station) ... none to say that Vida's reasoning might have been faulty. I did not have time to take notes as I usually do in such instance thus I can't remember the name of the QC...If someone can elighten me, that would be good.

Their last exchange was about needlessly shouting "fire" in a crowded American theater, which in many ways can be contentious, like shouting "bomb" on a commercail aircraft.

Nicholas Vida is moving on to another "media platform" from which, I believe, he will shout the same stuff about the Carbon Tax without the burden of being accurate (which he never was on this and other issues anyway). May he come to terms with the tax concept...

putrid bile and old spew...

Meanwhile at Joe for PM radio Station, the bile continues to ooze freely from the microphones in support of their "ritewingnuts" led electorates.... Yesterday it was a very nasty blast against Kristina Keneally for having sold the retail arm of electricity supply in New South Wales when she was Premier of this State... Whether one agrees with that sale, it's not of the shock jocks business to harp on repeatedly that she should have been put in prison for doing so... Their arguments were inane, senseless, idiotic and consisting of putrid bile and old spew as usual. Before that, in the morning, it was a pile of mucky malicious bitterness presenting a list of three or four electorates, led by independents, receiving a few millions in "preferential" treatment for supporting the Labor government...

Of course  the campaign "let's get rid of this Labor government" was promoted many times, forgetting to mention that many other electorates including Liberals and National also got some dosh as well from Labor — and forgetting too that the practice was also well-used by Rattus in his generous moods towards Liberal (conservative nuts) electorates. Yes, this "North Shore" radio station HATES all the Labor governments so much that had Keneally not sold the retail side of electricity, she would have been lambasted anyway for not doing it.

It's like the Libs (conservatives mutts) used to gripe about the GIO (government insurance) when it had sole right to third-party insurance at a modest cost which they claimed private enterprise could deliver much cheaper... The government rescinded and suddenly one could buy green slips at half-price for about three weeks... Soon after, the price of insurance went up and up and within a year the premiums were about double what the government used to charge... Now the cost is about ten times what it used to be (even counting for inflation, it's more than 5 times than what it should be.

Of course, in the Libs (conservatives) ranks there are oodles of sharp lawyers and mincing money men making a killing at every opportunism... Yes the sock-jocks and the knickers-jockettes on Joe-for-PM radio are all full of private enterprise bullshit, but since they don't like Labor one bit (they are really full of hate!!!!) they don't like it when Labor gives private enterprise a go at public assets. When a Liberal (conservative) like Rattus-the-first sold Telstra, they would have snapped up the shares and, obviously, tanked in glorious beatitude then blaming Labor for the sorry price that followed.

Today the relentless spleen ranged from a gnarling annoyed woman who had tried an obviously too small wedding dress and was rudely served by a bloke in a well-known chain of wedding garments to yet more vile angry rants about the pokies laws that Wilkie wants to implement via the Labor Government.

The apprentice shock-jocks, as usual, talked of "getting rid of this Labor government", let the unsaid subtext fill in that it'be replaced by their own superb Tonicchio and Joe the debonaire (his god is merciful, thank you, while that of muslims is vengeful — my snide comment here). There again, the gabbers use complete misinformation about the Wilkie's proposal to be claiming it is going to kill the clubs — with bilious interviews with a club's CEO to make their point (interview done on an earlier day I think). Yet again, they roll out the 40 percent loss of revenue from the pokies... Please note that this 40 number is a fictitiously made-up figure by their PR campaign that has no substance at all and that is used as a constant weapon against the Wilkie proposal — which is to institute a reasonable limit gambling system for problem gamblers.

These gamblers more than often place themselves and their family at dire risks by betting more than they should, leading to constant and increasing hardship, possibly crime and other problems such as irresponsible consumption of alcohol. Also quoted via bilious sound bites on this J-f-PM (Joe for PM-FM) radio station, not a popular proposal amongst the footy motor-mouths, from Johnny Warren to Phil Gould, who both also want "to get rid of this Labor government"...

The bile is putrid and relentless at North Shore one-track "community" radio station.

If Maxine wants another go at one of the electorates in the North Shore region, she will have to do something about this totally "non-community" bent radio designed to support the Libs (conservatives) exclusively...

I have the strong feeling here that the Libs (conservatives) have highjacked (or created?) the station because they don't want a repeat of their beloved Rattus losing his seat to a Labor person (Maxine). Maxine would be "persona non grata" at this nasty radio station... There, the Liberal (conservatives) blabber mouths would have made sure at the last election, via their aggressive ritewingnuttery, that a ritewingnut Liberal (conservative) tennis player, inexperienced at politics, got her spot.

 

They do HATE Labor... See image at top...

Anti-pokie reform comments...

Anti-pokie reform comments made by commentators during coverage of an NRL game were ethically out of bounds and could have had a persuading effect on the audience, media analysts say.

South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon and Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie have launched a formal complaint against Channel Nine over what they see as political advertising during a semi-final over a week ago.

The comments at the heart of the controversy were less than a minute long, but included Phil Gould labelling the Federal Government's proposed mandatory pre-commitment reforms as a "rubbish policy" that "won't work".

Fellow commentator Ray Warren also joined in, saying "if they keep hitting the clubs, the ones that are going to suffer are the ones at the bottom of the ladder".

Senator Xenophon and Mr Wilkie say the criticism of the proposed changes was ill-informed and should have been clearly labelled as political advertising.

Media analysts, too, have been anything but shy about staking out their positions.

Dr Brett Hutchins, co-director of Monash University's Media Studies Research Unit, was watching the match and heard the commentary live.

"I had two immediate reactions," he said.

"The first one was it was distracting me from the football game I was trying to watch.

"The second one was that it seemed an unusual intervention by an entertainment program and sports coverage into a public policy and political issue, which for football commentators certainly stood out as something that doesn't occur very often."

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-03/media-analysts-slam-channel-9-pokie-comments/3207378

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Of course Radio North Shore should be taken to the media investigating body for using the Ray Warren and Phil Gould comments as supporting evidence for its own anti-Labor government diatribes... Radio North Shore's licence should be revoked.

the plot thickens...

A RESPECTED NRL commentator has admitted that ostensibly off-the-cuff remarks during a rugby league final attacking proposed poker machine reforms were provided to him by Channel Nine management.

The admission by Ray Warren, one of Australia's most famous sports commentators and a former gambler, emerge as the two independent politicians backing the pokie reforms lodge a formal complaint with the broadcaster over the remarks, which they say break the law.

Warren and fellow commentator Phil Gould have been criticised for statements made just after half-time in the preliminary final between Manly and Brisbane on September 23. ''The proposed mandatory pre-commitment that they've put forward is a rubbish policy. It won't work,'' Gould said.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/attack-on-pokie-reform-came-from-up-top-says-warren-20111003-1l5dr.html#ixzz1ZlCzL4qA

sticking to the script...

Channel Nine is being investigated by the communications watchdog over an attack its rugby league commentators made on the Federal Government's proposed poker machine laws.

During the broadcast of the semi-final between Manly and the Brisbane Broncos, commentators Ray Warren and Phil Gould took aim at the proposed poker machine laws, with Gould branding it as "rubbish policy".

As they spoke, the address of a website campaigning against the changes appeared on screen.

The next day on Triple M radio, Warren said he had been directed to make the comments by Channel Nine.

"It was a directive from up top that it be read by at least somebody," he said.

Clubs Australia and the NRL say they did not pay for the comments or script them.

South Australian independent Senator Nick Xenophon and Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie launched a formal complaint against Channel Nine.

Now the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has confirmed it is investigating whether Channel Nine broke its licence conditions on political advertising, rather than an industry code.

In a statement, Channel Nine says it is confident it has not broken any code provisions, but will not be providing a running commentary on the matter in the media.

Senator Xenophon says his complaint against Channel Nine is more serious than he thought.

He says if Warren's remarks were not off the cuff they should have been identified as political advertising.

"If it was scripted, if it was deliberate, then a whole range of other rules ought to come into play," Senator Xenophon said.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-04/ch9-investigated-over-pokies-comments/3208422

 

Channel nine should be fined at least 1 million dollars — or whatever the fine is at the communication watch-dog which would be about 5 cents..

bad media...

Robert Mane at Unleashed

commenting on the response to his essay "Bad News"...

...

There is, in my view, no other serious newspaper in the English-speaking world that would have responded in the mad, obsessive way The Australian has responded to the publication of "Bad News". It is as if the paper has been determined to prove my thesis true, namely that it is not only the principal enforcer in this country of the core values of the Murdoch empire - market fundamentalism and American global hegemony - but also that it is now so boastful and bullying in character that it cannot rest until it feels that those who have dared to criticise it have been crushed. In addition, the response has confirmed another hypothesis of the essay: the paper's cult-like character. The manic response of the Australian to "Bad News" makes it clear that even its most senior journalists cannot bring themselves to tell its editor-in-chief that his behaviour is not only doing harm to his personal reputation but is helping to destroy the credibility of their paper in the eyes of the observing, discerning public.

This article was first published on Robert Manne's Left, Right, Left blog at The Monthly.

Robert Manne is Professor of Politics at La Trobe University.

 

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Gus: unfortunately, Robert, there is less and less discerning public at large as the Australian, the greater Murdoch press and many ignorant shock-jocks have been brainwashing most people's mind into submission... For example on the issue of climate change, the science — and the evidence — is very clear but the idiots want to discuss and fight the facts...

See toon and article from top to bottom...

idiotic american public opinion...

In the US state of Montana, the Glacier National Park - an area sometimes called the “Crown of the Continent” - is famous for its snow-capped mountains.

But it could soon lose its glaciers due to global warming.

Scientists warn if the ice keeps melting at this rate, the park's 25 remaining glaciers could all melt away by the year 2030.

However, public opinion polls show that nearly 50 per cent of Americans believe that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.

Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds reports from Glacier National Park.

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/americas/2011/10/2011108221514393816.html

gus is drawing attention to some media ningnongerry...

The media... Ah the media... This morning on the Channel Ten Breakfast show, "they" interviewed some "fantastic" fellow who had started a new employment agencies working slightly differently to those already established... It's called, ah bugger it you don't need to know... Anyway, I smelled a rat and I may be wrong... From what I understood and I'm a bit thick sometimes, the fellow's firm "auctions" workers to "employers" and only takes 300 per cent of one hour's of such worker's wage for the privilege... unlike some agencies that keep a cut of the employment contract for a year or so. 

I am prepared to believe that the offers are genuine but... BUT... BUT... First, I would say, there is no screening of workers per se... For example, most employment agencies weed out the unwanted, unqualified and the non-suitable for the job by actually having complex criteria assessments and interviews with applicants. On top of this they have to maintain a certain reputation (and insurance?) thus provide the best candidates for the jobs... I believe (I could be mistaken) this new "auction" of workers web-site does none of that and the onus is on the employer to gauge that the person they employ, and pay for, is top-notch... In some areas of work this would not matter much — say you need a person to push a broom to clean up a workshop... But if you need a qualified expert engineer, one needs to be far more careful...

 

The auction web-site smells a bit like the old "slave auctions" that Romans, Greeks in antiquity and the Europeans till the 18th century use to have... At least now the workers are paid and let's thank the Federal Government for implementing a decent "minimum wage".... Though some employers go round the bend not to pay it...

 

But what drew my ire far more, was the compere, Paul Henry, on the show started to bag the Federal Government's own employment office, even saying "this stupid government" as a fait accompli on air... Brother... The government employment office is dishing far more jobs to employers than this interviewed guy and his new web-site!!! 

Sure, the TenBreakfast show according to the Merdoch-press is attracting a negative viewing audience, but this is no excuse:

 

TEN'S morning TV experiment, Breakfast, is in total turmoil - both on and off the camera.

Fed-up producers have left, one host couldn't get out of there fast enough - and one day last week only 1000 viewers tuned into the 6am show. In TV terms it is an unmitigated disaster.


Despite a makeover, with the departure of founding co-host Andrew Rochford, the weekday ratings have been abysmal and show no signs of improving.


Last Tuesday, more people were tuned into SBS's Al Jazeera News.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/ten-serves-up-a-dogs-breakfast/story-e6frfmyi-1226426046055#ixzz21bPWk08H

 

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Meanwhile on the coloured front:

 

A regional mayor is demanding an apology from Channel Ten over what she says was a derogatory comment referring to Aboriginal people.

Joy Baluch said her regional city of Port Augusta in South Australia was referred to as 'Port Au-gutta' on the program The Project last Monday night.

Mrs Baluch said actor Hugh Sheridan was ignorant in calling Port Augusta by what many consider to be an offensive nickname.

He had been promoting a program which was partially filmed in the region and said he used to "sing New York, New York on the way to Port Au-gutta" when he was a child.

Mrs Baluch said the nickname was old and intended to mock the speech of Aboriginal people.

She said Channel Ten should apologise.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-25/the-project-derogatory-to-aborigines/4153098

TEN, you better lift your game...
Ah, I know you can't... Because you're the TV channel where Gina is pushing editorial control, especially with the totally biased Bolt Report... With this slant, Ten is turning fast into a bad smell, lucky it still has Good News Week... but for how long?
And by the way, TEN, despite the shit that Andrew Bolt is pushing on global warming, global warming is real and CO2 anthropomorphically induced...
See image at top and read articles below it...

 

x, a security risk...

Federal independent Senator Nick Xenophon has been detained by Malaysian authorities after being told he was a security risk.

He was taken into custody on his arrival at Kuala Lumpur airport about 10:00am (AEDT).

Senator Xenophon, who is outspoken on human rights issues in Malaysia, is under escort and expects to be deported.

The South Australian senator had been about to join a delegation which had meetings planned with Malaysian opposition members and officials from the electoral commission ahead of this year's national election.

Nationals Senator John Williams, Labor MP Steve Georganas, and Liberal MP Mal Washer were also part of the delegation, but have now pulled out.

"Malaysia is due to have elections here very soon. I think the Australian Government has been incredibly silent about some of the abuses that have been occurring here in terms of the way the democratic system runs or doesn't run," Senator Xenophon told ABC News 24.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-16/nick-xenophon-detained-in-malaysia/4522944?WT.svl=news0

See image at top and read articles below it...