If the world is not watching certainly Melburnians were!

The City Square was awash with demonstrators, police and then on-lookers who filled the outskirts of the Square spilling onto Swanston Street. Office workers were coming out of the offices in droves to view what was happening in their City Square. And it was a disturbing scene of force and counter force...hardly very edifying for the world's most liveable city!

Protesting is an essential counterbalance to feelings of inequity and social justice and our inability to deal with such events is likely to lead to civil disobedience borne of frustration that may have consequences beyond what we would have hoped. We live on a wire and if we stretch it too tight it is likely to break!

Abbott doesn't have to answer any questions...as no-one asks them!

Climate Spectator

Pricing in Abbott's carbon extremism
Giles Parkinson

How, exactly, do you assess the impact of the Opposition threats to rescind the carbon pricing legislation? As yet another tortured step in the evolution of the carbon market? Or just a really good couple of days for whiteboard manufacturers?

With each day that passes, the conservative Coalition in Australia more and more resembles the Tea Party reactionaries in the US, promoting policies that defy the science, are economically illiterate, are based on a distant technological past, and might as well have been orchestrated by Alan Jones, the NSW radio shock jock and Coalition puppeteer – or Rush Limbaugh, his US equivalent.
Scarily though, the prospect that this strategy might actually succeed threatens to add billions of dollars to the cost of energy in the country, and to the cost of carbon abatement. Sovereign risk has never been a greater threat. Read on........

What a lot of ABC and Fairfax dribble!

Of late I have been struck by the media portrayal of Julia Gillard in particular but also its thirst for the sensational! If its not bad enough having Andrew Bolt taking over the pages of the The Age it was last night on 7.30 Alan Jones being interviewed. Needless to say I turned off just as I have turned of RN Breakfast with Kelly and Grattan pontificating on whatever seems to be a way of pricking the Government bubble with flim-flam commentary that would make Tweedle Dum and Dee look insightful! 

Today The Age's report on the Queen's welcome by the PM takes the proverbial cake...all of it! The Age reported that "William Hanson, a British etiquette and protocol expert, told radio 3AW (Sic Fairfax) that Ms Gillard should have curtsied and worn a hat as a sign of respect for the Queen. Not doing so was "churlish", he said. "She is your Prime Minister, she is representing the people but ... the Queen tops her, the Queen is the top of the tree, so as a sign of respect, whatever her opinion on the monarchy is, she should have curtsied," Mr Hanson said.

We have a price on carbon...and not a drop of blood spilt!

The Age 12 October 2011

Tony Abbott's "pledge in blood" to repeal the carbon tax legislation if the Coalition wins office has been scoffed at by Finance Minister Penny Wong. "It's a bit dramatic isn't it really, it's like something out of a Boy's Own manual," Senator Wong told ABC television. Abbott's comment was not only 'dramatic' but also desperate and should send a message to us all of his preparedness to do whatever it takes to win power. Ironically it was the the other Tony Abbott that supported Howard's pricing of carbon!