Beating the climate change drum

The ABC launched its new opinion site The Drum/Unleashed on Monday. It was interesting that one of the very first articles was a bit of climate change denial by Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University. I felt a little disappointed that the ABC had chosen to give the climate change denialists more space [...]

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The rise of the trollumnist

I first came across the word “trollumnist” in this article from New Matilda. I tweeted about it and also mentioned it in an e-mail to Dan Bloom. Dan added the word to the Urban Dictionary (although misspelt as “trollumist”). Crikey mentioned it on their Pure Poison blog. Range also mentioned the word on his blog. [...]

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Cars are the problem not bikes

Miranda Devine published an incendiary opinion piece attacking cyclists in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday. It was in response to an incident involving a cyclist riding a busway. In that incident the cyclist may have been in the wrong, but she used it as a starting to point to launch an all out war [...]

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The power of Twitter

While a large percentage of tweets on Twitter might be inconsequential garbage, the power of Twitter should not be underestimated. The tweet, shown in a screenshot above, showed that in the age of the internet social media has the power to challenge the clout of corporations. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger’s tweet links to an article [...]

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China knows while Australia in the dark

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (L) meets with Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Canberra, capital of Australia, March 21, 2009. (Xinhua/Liu Jiansheng) On Saturday 21 March 2009 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had lunch with Li Changchun, [...]

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Tibet in the media

The Tibet issue gets quite a lot of media attention. However, the quality of a lot of what is written is not great. News from the Chinese media is nothing more than propaganda and it often gets re-reported by the major news agencies. What is written in the media outside China does a good job [...]

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Cadel Evans says Free Tibet

photo from The Age Cadel Evans wore a Free Tibet t-shirt during the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic on 27 April. But according to the IOC he won’t be wearing the same t-shirt when he competes in the road race at the Beijing Olympics. The Age reports: AN AUSTRALIAN Olympic hopeful, the star cyclist Cadel Evans, may [...]

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“Balanced” reporting is biased

I often think society is overly obsessed with bias in the media. Or perhaps to put it in another way it rails at one kind of bias and ignores another. First, there can really be no such thing as an entirely objective reporting, or if there was it would be too bland and uninformative. Second, [...]

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