About

December 2nd, 2009

Glen - Breakfast presenter …

For one of the more ridiculous, if tragic stories of the week, go to:

http://www.news.com.au/world/former-miss-argentina-solange-magnano-dies-after-plastic-surgery/story-e6frfkyi-1225805577650

The dangers of the search for the perfect body - one to die for, perhaps.

Elsewhere, AFP reports :

A protester who presented himself as an Iraqi journalist in exile hurled a shoe at the colleague who, one year ago, found fame hurling his own footwear at then US president George W. Bush.

Television reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi was in Paris to promote his campaign for the “victims of the US occupation in Iraq” when a fellow Iraqi critic turned the tables on him, shouting: “Here’s another shoe for you.”

The thickset man with an Iraqi accent made a brief speech in Arabic during the question and answer session, defending US policy and accusing Zaidi of “working for dictatorship in Iraq,” before throwing his shoe.

Following the commotion, the news conference continued with Zaidi taking questions about his famous assault on Bush on December 14 last year, which was shown around the world and made him a hero in the Arab world.

Zaidi, a journalist for Iraq’s Al-Baghdadia television, threw his shoes at Bush during the US leader’s final visit to Iraq, protesting the six-year-old occupation with a cry of: “This is the farewell, kiss you dog.”

The 30-year-old member of Iraq’s Shiite majority was jailed for nine months and was flown out of Iraq by his employers shortly after he was freed.

Zaidi’s shock action was shown repeatedly around the world and made him an instant hero among Iraqis and others who felt that Arab honour had been violated by the US occupation of Iraq.

Some of those present applauded him, but several Arab reporters complained that while his protest was legitimate for an activist, a journalist should have behaved more professionally.

Zaidi was unrepentant, insisting that given the opportunity he would do the same again to Bush’s successor, US President Barack Obama “whatever the colour of his skin, his origin or his religion.”

Asked about the huge sums and even offers of marriage made by admirers during his jail term, Zaidi said he had asked his family to refuse all gifts “until I find a way that they can be passed on to the people of Iraq.”

Shoes for everyone perhaps ?

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Marius - politics

In political coverage, there is reporting, there is analysis, there is comment - and then there is guessing.

The change at the top of the Liberal Party makes it a good time for guessing.

In broad terms, you would guess that the installation of Tony Abbot is the last change at the top before the next election.

When that election might be is now also guess work, because what sounded like a convincing promise not to go early from the PM is now in doubt, as the Opposition has directly rejected the ETS bill.

But we’ll guess the election won’t be very early, say after July, and the Abbott leadership will survive at least until then.

You can also guess with some confidence that the election will be won by Labor.

Tony Abbott’s election is a game changer, but history, logic and the bookies say Labor is pretty close to unbeatable.

The bookies, by the way, are lengthening the odds against the Liberals; last week, your one dollar on the Coalition would return $4.50 if they did win. That bet is now paying $5.15, if the Abbott underdogs get up.

So that’s the big picture, but within that frame many questions remain.

It is hard to see Abbott’s election not affecting the polls: he is not bland, he is not white bread, he polarises.

You would expect a honeymoon, so the only scheduled poll before the holiday season - that’s the Newspoll on Tuesday week - should see an uptick in Liberal fortunes, which now seem to be at their irreducible poll minimum.

Beyond that, the crystal ball becomes very cloudy.

If the polls are right, Tony Abbott is out of step with the general public on concern for climate change.

He is of the Right and will change the trajectory of the Liberal Party.

John Howard described himself as the most conservative leader the Liberals had had; Tony Abbott could give him a run for his money.

If that logic prevails, then after the honeymoon Abbott’s Liberals and the voters will part company and the Opposition’s fortunes will not improve, assuming they can’t get worse.

So here’s the next year in politics, at a guess…

2009 Dec - Abbott announces front bench includes Bronwyn Bishop and Kevin Andrews
World agrees on words, but not action on climate change
Newspoll, Liberal fortunes improve after the Abbott election

2010 Jan - Australia keeps winning cricket
Feb - Early election speculation grows as Labor maintains dominant poll lead
March - mini-scandal costs Government a second minister
April - mini-scandal costs Opposition shadow minister
May - easy Budget strengthens early election talk
June - Opposition slipping in polls after early Abbott honeymoon
July - Rudd calls double dissolution poll for August 14
Aug - Labor wins with increased majority - greens hold Senate balance
Sept - Hockey elected new opposition leader
Oct - Dec climate negotiations between government and Greens go on and on
That’s it, the psychic powers are flagging.

Keep this blog handy to confirm the impossibility of knowing the future.

December 1st, 2009

Mark - Breakfast E.P. …

When I first went to work at Parliament House in Canberra in the early 1990’s, a man called Tony Abbott was preparing to sign off as then Opposition leader John Hewson’s press secretary.

“You mean you haven’t encountered the ‘Mad Monk’?” my colleagues would ask.

A couple of years later, I moved to Sydney and finally got to meet the man himself.

I caught up with him in a car park in Forestville, where he seemed to be running his election campaign for the blue-ribbon seat of Warringah out of the boot of an old Rover.

I knew the encounter with the monarchist, former Rhodes scholar, boxer, a former journalist and seminarian would be interesting.

Tony Abbott didn’t strike me as “mad” at all.

He had a friendly, but businesslike approach, with voters.

He was realistic about the then plight of the coalition…languishing in opposition.

He had an affinity with the area….Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

“Gee, look at it. It’s God’s own country,” he sighed. (I’m sure he deliberately put the emphasis on God for effect - to see if a young journo like me would bite and file another “here’s the guy who nearly ended up a Catholic priest” story)

But it was extremely clear this was a man of steely ambition -a man who, even then, harboured ambitions to lead the Liberal Party.

I’m sure some of those who encountered Tony Abbott in student politics at Sydney University would say the same thing.

But over the years, despite the occasional gaffes and lack of sensitivity, and his penchant for subjecting the public to endless images of him in tight bike shorts or Speedos, Tony Abbott has actually been one of the best people on the centre-right side of politics at articulating a conservative view of the world.

You might not agree with him, but at least you know where he stands.

Or do you?

His critics would argue that he hasn’t always been consistent.

For example, the once staunch Howard loyalist - some would say apologist - is now only too ready to admit that mistakes were made during his hero’s long tenure at the top.

Malcolm Turnbull was also keen to point out how Mr. Abbott had dramatically shifted his position on the emissions trading scheme when he saw which way the wind was blowing.

Mr. Turnbull and Brendon Nelson before him weren’t always impressed by Tony Abbott’s apparent ill-discipline and his tendency to speak outside his portfolio.

The main thing about Tony Abbott is that he is not a slave to ideology.

Like John Howard, he is a total pragmatist.

And a political animal.

A true dry Australian Liberal.

In the tradition of Menzies and Howard.

Oh yeah, and Kevin Rudd.

___

Debbie - Breakfast sport

One of the most regular complaints we field here at ABC NewsRadio, at least about sports coverage, is our preference for using the term “soccer” when reporting on what most of the world refers to as “football.”

For some reason, a section of the audience seem to regard “soccer” as a derogatory term and take it as a slight on the sport each time they hear it.

As I’ve explained many times in emails and phone discussions over the years, the term is simply a well-established abbreviation of the title “Association football”, the official title of the sport, and the ABC recommends it simply for clarity.

Sure, if you say “football” overseas in most countries people will immediately think of the round ball game. But we’re broadcasting for a national Australian audience and if we say “football”, our audience (depending on where they are) will most likely think either Australian rules, rugby league, or maybe even rugby union. In the case of a story on radio especially, where there are no visual clues like in print media or television, it’s a bit silly to have listeners unsure what sport you’re talking about for the first 10-15 seconds of a 30 second story .

But if I say “soccer” there’s no doubt.

Even people who think of “soccer” as “football” understand the word. And obviously FIFA doesn’t think of the term as a negative one. Sepp Blatter was today attending a conference in Johannesburg of businesses from all around the world involved in the sport. Name of the conference? Soccerex 09.

Oh - and we do have a national team called “The Socceroos”.

Anyway, soccer, football, the world game, the round ball game, calcio … call it what you like, I bet you’ll get more information about it here on ABC NewsRadio than you will on any other major radio network.

So go with it, OK?

November 30th, 2009

Glen - Breakfast presenter …

Best not comment on what’s going on in politics at the moment.
God knows too many people have said too much already.
Only advice I’d give to whoever wins the Liberal leadership is: don’t get comfortable - it doesn’t appear to be a long term occupation anymore.

Elsewhere in news…

Nothing’s sacred.

The Vatican has warned Italy’s bishops against letting deserted churches be transformed into nightclubs.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s new culture commissar, urged “the greatest caution” after announcing that Roman Catholic churches with few worshippers could be sold off.

He gave the example of a church in Hungary which was “transformed into a nightclub and where striptease took place on the altar.”

The archbishop, who is president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said dwindling numbers of worshippers at some churches meant it now made sense to sell, or even destroy, the buildings.

“Faced with falling number of worshippers, a phenomenon which we are also unfortunately witnessing in the centre of Rome, churches without any artistic value and which need significant work can be sold or destroyed,” he told reporters.

Italian bishops’ groups would be responsible for deciding whether the sites should be sold, said Ravasi, adding each case would be separately assessed.

–

And speed kills…

Toyota says it will fix accelerator pedals on 3.8 million vehicles in the US, to prevent them from becoming stuck and leading to unintentional acceleration.

Toyota Motor Sales, the US division of the Japanese automaker, announced details of a major vehicle repair program.

Toyota issued a consumer safety advisory in late September on the potentially fatal defect of an unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mat, which could cause the accelerator pedal to be trapped “in the wide open position.”

The company recalled the vehicles in early October, in what it said would be its largest recall to date in the US market.

This came after a fatal accident in California, involving an accelerator pedal entrapped in the floor mat of a Toyota vehicle.
–
Less than ideal, I’m sure you’ll agree.

___

Marius - Politics

The phrase “fear and loathing” is the most lasting gift of the American writer Hunter S. Thompson to political reporting.

It is now a cliché - but for the reason that it so precisely captures the febrile and paranoid sprit that periodically seizes the political world.

That spirit is abroad in Canberra today, percolating through the national capital in a heady mix of policy, personality, passion, treachery, ambition, mendacity and duplicity.

Wilson Tuckey has been the most open in his expression of loathing for Malcolm Turnbull in the dying days of his leadership; he has been enthusiastically stoking the fires of dissent for weeks.

His disregard for his leader has been expressed bluntly. Others have wrapped themselves in the mantle of policy, or made ennobling appeals to moral high ground, or protested they are doing the honourable thing.

Malcolm Turnbull has responded to his critics in almost equally blunt terms.

Well, there is a policy war going on, the soul and mind of the Liberal party is now a battleground. But mixed in with that war of ideas are the personal hopes of would-be leaders, the personal fiefdoms of power brokers - their dreams, aspirations, jealousies, resentments and, yes, fear and loathing.

Careers are riding on the outcome of the leadership battle.

It is a complex gathering of human strengths and vices, which a leader has to orchestrate into playing a single tune.

It hasn’t worked out that way for Malcolm Turnbull, who is now slumped over the conductor’s stand with an array of daggers in his back.

___

Mark - Breakfast EP

Occasionally you hear something so breathtakingly wrong it makes you want to scream at your radio.

I had one of those moments last Friday.

I’d actually taken the day off and was coming to the end of a really terrific long bushwalk (if you don’t count losing my way about three times because the paths weren’t marked and the tiny spider who wanted to burrow itself into my leg!).

Feeling a bit news-starved on what I knew was a tumultuous day for the Liberal leadership, I turned on my brand new portable digital radio (highly recommended, by the way) and tuned into the ABC Radio’s PM program, where I heard the commentator and climate sceptic Andrew Bolt say the following
ANDREW BOLT: I’m certainly seeing that it is insane that we are embarking on this massive tax that will hurt everyone, be followed by no other country, won’t achieve any cooling at all, and this after Tim Flannery himself, who’s Australia’s leading alarmist as you well know, Tim Flannery himself this week on ABC TV admitted that in fact the world was not warming, it was cooling, and it was doing so against what the climate change models on which Kevin Rudd is relying were predicting.

How on earth can we do this?

Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy Andrew Bolt, especially when he’s doing battle (in the ideological sense) with David Marr on The Insiders.

And despite the often confected outrage, he writes well.

His piece on turning 50 is one of the finest pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time.
But he’s dead wrong about what Tim Flannery said on ABC TV.

Bolt was referring to Tim Flannery’s appearance on Lateline last Monday night.

I know, because we ran part of the interview (the bit which supposedly included the killer admission) on ABC NewsRadio early the next morning.
Professor Flannery was speaking to Tony Jones in his role as the Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a body which brings together scientists and business leaders from around the world to talk about climate change.

He was reacting to the story of the leaked emails to and from academics at the climatic research unit at the British University of East Anglia, some which appear to cast doubt on some of the mainstream scientific thinking about climate change.
TONY JONES: Are they (climate scientists who are members of the IPCC) right that cooling is occurring? I mean, 1998 was the hottest year, and there are many other of the hottest years since recorded history in that 10 year period. So are they right to say it’s cooling, or not?

TIM FLANNERY: We had a huge cooling event in Sydney between yesterday and today. The time scales are important. If you take too short a time scale, you won’t get a climate signal, you get a regional weather signal or whatever else. The scales that climate scientists use to look at the overall warming trend on the planet are century long, and on a century-long trend we are still warming. Sur,e for the last few years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend, we saw it in the 1940’s the same sort of thing, but that does not negate the overall warming trend.

The last bit is really important:
“…for the last few years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend, we saw it in the 1940’s the same sort of thing, but that does not negate the overall warming trend.”
You can see Tim Flannery is NOT saying:
“..whoops the theory isn’t working, the world is not warming, it’s actually cooling”, as Andrew Bolt said elsewhere in that PM interview.

And don’t worry, if Andrew Bolt gets misquoted and I find out, I’ll be the first person to correct the record.

November 27th, 2009

Marius - Politics …

One of the disappointments of political journalism is that some of the most interesting things said by politicians are in private and not for publication.

This morning, Friday morning, I spoke to some Liberals on air about the rockslide that is Liberal politics this week. Wilson Tuckey was in characteristic boulder-tossing mood. He’s been giving ever blunter assessments of Malcolm Turnbull over the past week or more.

Another interview was with the Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz, who was engaged in that most difficult art of trying to preserve and even improve your position in the midst of a rockslide.

But the most interesting conversation was with a veteran Liberal Senator who will remain nameless. If that anonymity was not preserved, my fate (he explained) would be very uncomfortable - something about a penknife.

He was not interested in talking on air, he said: “…that’s just a fast way to make a lot of lifetime enemies at a time like this……don’t need the publicity…leave that people like Cory Bernardi who want it.”

But in his unforthcoming way, he was very forthcoming.

Malcolm Turnbull, he said, was finished. He was saddened by the prospective loss of him as leader, but he felt that Turnbull had brought that fate down on himself to a significant extent, by not consulting enough and by not delaying the emissions trading bill.

As Turnbull was up against a group who are opposed to any ETS bill, a group that would like to see it delayed at least until hell freezes over, or both polar ice caps melt, whichever comes later, that is arguable.

But that argument has been had often enough in recent days.

“Will Turnbull stick around?” I asked.

“No, he’ll go…and he’s a loss.”

With another laughing reference to penknives and the fate that awaits journalist who reveal the sources of off-the-record conversations, the affable Senator rang off.

So if he’s right, the next stage of politics goes something like this…

Monday: Turnbull is rolled and Tony Abbott or Joe Hockey take over.

They get the job on the understanding they’ll back stalling the ETS bill. The Government then has grounds for an early election with climate change as the big issue.

Malcolm Turnbull said today that the Government would have to call that early poll - and, by general consensus, it’s not one the Opposition can win.

On that basis, we know Labor is in for a second term.

The only remaining questions are: will Malcolm Turnbull go immediately - thus forcing a by-election in his seat of Wentworth, a seat which is quite green and gay and generally ‘urban elite’ enough to perhaps turn on the Liberal Party that tossed out their local boy?

Beyond that, how long will the losing Liberal leader last after taking the party to the predicted resounding defeat?

Kevin Rudd already has a handsome array of Liberal scalps over the Lodge mantlepiece: Howard, Nelson and (presumably) Turnbull.

Bagging a fourth Liberal leader inside three years would make Kevin from Queensland the most formidable hunter the ALP has ever followed on its electoral safaris.

November 26th, 2009

Marius - politics …

Many substantial political careers have involved a near-death experience.

John Howard, Winston Churchill, Robert Menzies, Richard Nixon - any number of public figures have seen the guttering flame of their careers almost snuffed out, only to burst back into renewed life.

Of course, renewal and reaffirmation are not the only things that follow such experience. Sometimes what follows near-death is, well, death.

At the moment, Malcolm Turnbull is being assessed as being somewhere between political life and death - with a preponderance of opinion putting him more towards the latter end of that scale.

It is easy to make a case for the Liberal leader being doomed, if not immediately then in the fairly short term. He survived what was effectively a leadership vote this week by 48 to 35 and that was against a candidate in Kevin Andrews who was demoted in the Howard Ministry and associated with a string of policy failures.

That, so the argument goes, shows the anti-Turnbull forces, at a minimum, number 35.

Wilson Tuckey, who moved the motion against his leader, says it’s not the first vote that gets the incumbent, just wait for the next one.

If Turnbull does survive, he will face an election next year which nobody, certainly no analyst, thinks he can win.

Maybe the most reliable a guides to the election outlook are the bookies. They now give the Coalition about a 20% chance of winning the next vote.

Put a dollar on Labor to win now and you’ll get $1.18 back - put a dollar on the opposition and, if they bolt home, you’ll pocket $4.50.

They don’t have a market on Malcolm Turnbull, but you’d want good odds to back him to survive his continuing political near-death experience.

___

Debbie - sport

After trying to keep up with eight European Champions League matches, two English Premier League games and a clash between Rafael Nadal and Nikolay Davydenko across most of the brekkie show this morning, I’ve not much energy left and saving what little is in the tank for the start of the first test between Australia and the West Indies.

So only time and brain space left for something light!

During banter in the NewsRadio office the other morning, Marius Benson was regaling us with reports of his weekend tennis prowess. As he was talking, I looked up at my TV screen to see the Russian Nikolay Davydenko in action and it struck me Marius on court must bear a reasonable resemblance to Davydenko.

Don’t know he’d handle Rafa Nadael with quite the same ease that Daydenko did this morning, when he dispatched the world number two 6-1 7-6 - but I couldn’t get the similarity out of my head as I watched that victory this morning.

So, in the time-honoured sports section tradition of “Separated at Birth” I offer you:

Nikolay Davydenko

Marius Benson

November 25th, 2009

Glen - Breakfast presenter …

Some favourite stories of the week so far:

AFP reports dealing with the sublime , the ridiculous, and possible…
The manager of a bank branch in Germany who secretly transferred money from rich clients to heavily indebted customers was sentenced to a 22-month suspended jail term on Monday, a court spokesman said.

The 62-year-old woman, dubbed the “Robin Hood banker”, was found guilty of moving a total of 7.6 million euros (11.4 million dollars) between December 2003 and February 2005, in 117 separate transfers.

Her altruistic aim was to prevent clients from seeing their accounts closed for want of funds.

As a rule, she transferred the money back when the indebted clients were solvent again, but 1.1 million euros were lost when certain customers were unable to pay their debts.

The court, in the western city of Bonn, took a lenient view of the fraud as she owned up immediately and took none of the money for herself.

They also judged she had suffered enough after losing her job and paying compensation.

According to press reports, she now lives off a tiny pension.

–
US Santas want swine flu vaccine, so that sneezing children don’t give them an unwelcome present this Christmas.

Ernest Berger, head of “Santa America,” told NPR that the organization’s 200 volunteer Father Christmases want to be given the same priority as school teachers and health care workers for getting the H1N1 vaccine.

The website of “Santa America,” which visits sick and traumatized children in the Christmas season, instructs the men in red to take no chances.

“As wonderful as it is, be cautious of children burying their faces in your beard for a hug. If this happens, use sanitizer in your beard,” the website advises.

“Avoid touching your face, nose, eyes, or mouth. Do not touch children’s faces. If you do, immediately sanitize your hands,” the site urges.

“Santa should be taking needed vitamins and other doctor approved boosters to keep his immune system at peak performance.”

–

A Boeing 747, with one of its four engines powered by a 50-percent biokerosene mix, circled the Netherlands for an hour on Monday for what airline KLM called the world’s first passenger flight using biofuel.

“This is technically feasible. We have demonstrated that it is possible,” KLM chief executive officer Peter Hartman said after the flight, which took off and landed at Schiphol airport near Amsterdam.

“Government, industry and society at large must now join forces to ensure that we quickly gain access to a continuous supply of biofuel.”

KLM spokeswoman Monique Matze told AFP that of the Boeing’s four engines, one was powered by a mix of 50 percent sustainable kerosene and 50 percent normal fuel. The biofuel was manufactured from the camelina plant, sourced from a biotechnology company based in Seattle in the United States.

The test flight was also the first of any kind in Europe powered partly by sustainable biofuel, according to KLM.

KLM said its quest for biokerosene was conditional on forests, food and water sources not being jeopardised.

Matze said the company “dare not name any targets” for switching to biofuel for its commercial flights, saying “the difficulty now is the availability of biofuels.”

Monday’s flight, she said, was “the first step towards ensuring clean and sustainable air transport.”

___

Mark - Breakfast EP

Wilson Tuckey listens to ABC NewsRadio.

Religiously.

That’s the big headline out of the last extraordinary 24 hours in Federal politics.

A notorious early riser (the 74-year old thinks nothing of ringing in from a racecourse in Perth, or his Albany office for a chat at 4am WA time), Mr. Tuckey was this morning in full flight with Marius Benson at the relatively late (for him) hour of 7:15am EDST.

“I hear on your program this morning some suggestion from his (Malcolm Turnbull’s) selected spokesman, Senator Brandis, that he might not turn up (to a party meeting where a leadership spill would be on the cards)”, chuckled Mr. T.

He was referring to the Lateline interview with Senator George Brandis we re-broadcast earlier at 5:45am.

Mr. Tuckey was is no doubt Senator Brandis was trying to send a “Go ahead, make my day” message from Malcolm Turnbull, to all those in his own party opposed to the ETS.

Mr. Tuckey went on to send a none-too-subtle message of his own:

“If he (Malcolm Turnbull) attempts to avoid it (a party meeting at which there would be a leadership spill), then of course it is patently clear that he knows that he can’t win.”

Like John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Senator Nick Xenophon, Wilson Tuckey is a voracious electronic media consumer and knows all about the power of a few carefully chosen words uttered over the airwaves…especially in internal Liberal party battles.

About 10 years ago, John Howard talked about how when he was Treasurer in the Fraser Government, he’d use ABC Radio’s “AM” program to “send a message” to his Liberal Party colleagues.

Presumably, even to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, with whom he had fundamental disagreements about the direction of economic policy as Australia slipped into a deep recession.

So the moral of the story is: listen to ABC NewsRadio.

We have the big political stories covered from all angles.

All the coded and not-so-coded messages.

More political intrigue than you could poke a stick at.

November 24th, 2009

Marius - Politics …

One political theory is that when a party goes into Opposition, it comes increasingly under the sway of the zealots, the true believers, at the expense of the pragmatists.

The battle between ideologues and pragmatists is a permanent tension in politics. In fact, it’s a permanent tension in politicians.

John Howard’s public life can be usefully analysed as a battle between Howard the ideologue, pushing a heartfelt agenda in areas like industrial relations and Howard the pragmatist whose first political priority was to be in power.

Look at political history and you can see support for the view that defeated parties head off into their own preferred political wilderness. Labor’s long-dark night of the Menzies years saw it tear itself apart on issues domestic and international, keeping it on the wrong side of parliament for 23 years.

In American politics, the early, overwhelming dominance of Lyndon Johnson as President saw the Republicans heading to the far right under Barry Goldwater. Richard Nixon’s political life was made easier when the Democrat left secured their party’s candidacy for George McGovern.

Some political analysis now suggests something similar may be happening to the coalition.

The right part of the right-centre coalition has cut itself some slack and feels able to give its views on issues like global warming, regardless of what Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull might be advocating as the party line.

This tendency for Oppositions to become less pragmatic and more ideological is - according to the theory - increased by the fact that those surviving an electoral loss are those in safer seats as well as Senators, who are even better insulated from the sharper edge of community opinion.

That’s the theory: drop it on top of current events and see how well you think it fits.

___

Debbie - sport

For some months now, I’ve been wondering if anyone else was looking at Rafa Nadal and pondering what’s happened to his bulky upper body.

Since his injury layoff after defeat in the French Open in May, Nadal has seemed lighter in the shoulders and uppper arms to me.

For a while, I put it down to the fact that he’s wearing a t-shirt now, as opposed to the cut-off sleeved “muscle shirts” that he wore earlier in his career. But then, watching him change his shirt during a change of ends at the US Open a couple of months back, (for professional reasons, of course!) I decided it wasn’t just an optical illusion. He is slimmer.

A couple of times in recent months, I’ve googled “Nadal” and “weight loss” to see if anyone else was commenting on it, and couldn’t find anything. But there have been plenty of comments about him not playing like his old self. Finally today I notice it has started to become a topic of discussion.

At the Paris Masters earlier this month, where he was beaten in a semi final by Novak Djokovic, Nadal was asked about whether he’s lighter than he was and he denied it quite emphatically.

“I am still 86 kilos, the same as I was four years ago,” he said. “I think it is the clothes that make me look lighter but I am not, for sure.”

After today’s loss to Robin Soderling at the ATP World Tour finals in London, The Guardian’s Steve Bierley wrote an article headlined “Slimline Rafael Nadal suffers another defeat at hands of Robin Soderling”.

If you want to try judging for yourself, have a look at these two clips.

This one is from 12 months ago in the end of season tournament in Shanghai

And this is footage of him practising in the lead up to the current tournament in London.

…..

I’ve got mixed feelings about this morning’s story that Wigan players have decided to offer ticket refunds to the fans who travelled to London to watch them lose 9-1 to Tottenham yesterday.

The Wigan captain Mario Melchiot is quoted on the Wigan club website saying the players feel they let the travelling fans down and they want to give them back the money they spent on tickets.

Nice gesture and it’ll be interesting to see how many fans take up the offer. Personally, I think if you’re a fan you have to take the good with the bad — even when it’s really bad. At least they got beaten by a team playing football, not handball.

On that theme, the France coach Raymond Domenech is this morning denying that he got a bonus of nearly $1,400,000 (AUD) for guiding France to the World Cup finals.

He says the figure being quoted is ridiculous. Well, even if he got only half of that, he’s the one who should be offering refunds — to the Irish fans who travelled all the way to Paris to see their team cheated out of World Cup qualification.

Domenech would do well to just stop trying to justify whatever it is he’s being paid, instead of coming up with the theory that people in football cop more flak for the money they earn than do tennis players, or racing drivers.

“One is given the impression that those who make money in football are cheating. It is astonishing.”

What’s astonishing is that Domenech has even got the gall to use the “C” word.

November 23rd, 2009

Glen - Breakfast presenter …

So, things have certainly been getting hot & heavy lately:

Temperatures rising to heat wave levels in many states as November records fall - and all this before Summer has started.

What’s going on? Could the climate be changing? Could the globe be warming ??

To that end, the Federal politicians continue to wrestle with the so called solution to our continued carbon pollution problem.

But is the right solution or is it the wrong answer to the right question ? Can’t help but think sometimes that the longer this has gone on - the more exemptions, compensation, trade-offs, and pay offs get added to the scheme - the further away it gets from being an adequate way to address the issue.

Why not a carbon pollution tax - a CPT if you like - that, like the GST, would apply only to domestic use not exports? It would act as a disincentive to emitters, while raising revenue to boost the budget to allow for the funding of other initiatives and/or the removal of other taxes to compensate those hit hardest by the new impost.

God knows it would be easier to comprehend and perhaps support.

Also hot stuff going on in South Australian Parliamentary offices, or so it is claimed. Way too much information provided in that story of the Premier, the waitress, her car, and his desk. Steamy stuff that must’ve made the media mob involved think it was worth paying big bucks for.

Very interesting reactions already. Our poll question responses suggesting some people would rather not know the gory details. It’s been a big year for political sex - and there’s still 6 hot weeks to go.

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Mark - Breakfast EP:

She says they were both guilty of “bad behaviour”.

He says he rejects any suggestions he “preyed on her vulnerabilities”…

She says they had sex on the desk in his office.

He says the television program in which she went public about their alleged affair “included a series of allegations that were totally false”.

She says he coached her to lie about the alleged affair to her husband.

He says she WAS “a friend” and is a good mother.

I am, of course, talking about the former South Australian Parliamentary bar waitress Michelle Chantelois and the Premier of that state, Mike Rann.

Did they have an affair?

Don’t know. Don’t care.

Far more interesting is this wonderful piece by The Australian’s Pia Akerman on the sensuous surrounds of the leader of the Festival State’s office.

It’s enough to get you hot under the collar.

I’m moving to Adelaide…

November 20th, 2009

Glen - presenter …

Issues to watch:

The implications of the US Federal Court ruling that the deadly levee failures which led to the flooding of New Orleans during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina were due to negligence by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The $720,000 awarded to three homeowners and a business sets the stage for up to 100,000 more lawsuits which could end up costing the government billions of dollars.
Ouch ! Just what the Obama Administration needs - another billion dollar bill for a problem they didn’t create.

–

Whether the frequent use of Catastrophic fire weather warnings leads to alarm fatigue among the populace in such areas. Beware the boy who cried catastrophe !

–

Sarah Palin’s de facto run for the US Presidency as it picks up pace in the hand-picked parts of the American heartland she’s chosen to go to in promoting her new book - Fort Bragg Army base, for example. Will the return to the spotlight see her firm as a realistic candidate for 2012? Or see her stay as a kind of well paid cheerleader-in-chief who chips in from the sidelines between spots on Fox News without having to nut out and explain some coherent policies capable of demonstrating a capacity to lead the free world into the 21st century ?
What could possibly go wrong ?
–

And further to our previous discussion of the push to make us all pay for news content online, this report from the AFP news service:

Britain’s Times newspaper plans to charge for digital content from next spring, two weeks after his boss Rupert Murdoch said such plans may be delayed beyond next June.

In a speech to an editors’ conference this week, Times editor James Harding said newspapers had to “re-establish the public expectation that they pay for what is a valuable — sometimes invaluable — part of their daily lives.”

“We are going to take on the culture of free. We have seen it all but destroy the music business. We cannot afford, as a business or a society, for that to happen to news,” he said, according to the speech given on Tuesday.

“So from the spring of next year, we are going to start charging for the digital editions of The Times,” he told a meeting of the Society of Editors in Stansted, northeast of London, according to the text released by the paper.

And he added: “We are still working on the exact pricing model, but I expect we will end up with a price to buy the day’s paper — ie a 24-hour price for The Times online — and a subscription price too.”

Speaking earlier this month, News Corp chairman and chief executive Murdoch said that a plan to begin charging readers of his newspapers online may be delayed.

Murdoch had previously outlined plans to erect pay walls around his vast newspaper empire by the end of News Corp’s current fiscal year in June, but he indicated that was now unlikely.

“We are working all very, very hard at this but I wouldn’t promise that we’re going to meet that date,” he told reporters in a conference call after releasing News Corp.’s first-quarter results on November 4.

The Times editor, addressing a conference on what the newspaper industry will look like in 2020, said: “We have to put the news business on an economically sustainable footing.

“For a democratic society requires a real Fourth Estate, a genuinely independent check on power and a real capacity to investigate the powerful. We are in the fight of our lives. And we are fighting to protect what we really believe in: namely what is at the heart of our journalism.”

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Marius: politics

Anyone who wants to see how good Malcolm Turnbull is should go to youtube and pull up his conversation with the broadcaster Alan Jones of November 2.

If democracy is a pantomime - and it is - Alan Jones is the Liberal Party’s Panto Dame.

Flouncing on to centre stage - he would be nowhere else - Alan Jones fills an auditorium with his shrill tones. Young Liberal chicks are gathered under his skirts as he thumps into the Rudd Government, belabours the Liberal doubters and sets out the one true path ahead.

Jones is brilliant and not un-mad.

He has the degree of certainty available only to shock jocks. And he has genuine standing in Liberal ranks which makes him a feared enemy and daunting interviewer.

Joe Hockey was recently hauled into the headmaster’s office at radio 2GB to be sharply reprimanded by Jones for causing needless grief to Turnbull with a clumsy answer when he was asked if anyone had approached him about being Party leader.

Jones hit him with the same question and rehearsed answers until the chastened Joe Hockey got it right to the headmaster’s satisfaction and he was allowed to leave.

On November 2 it was Malcolm Turnbull’s turn to face the music.

Jones had had enough of this climate change nonsense and he was ready to explain a thing or two to the muddle-headed, stands-for-nothing, aimless Liberal leader.

Being interviewed by Jones in this mode is a bit like being interviewed by a hurricane. The strongest can be blown away, the clearest thinker can lose their way.

Not Malcolm Turnbull.

MT: “….you believe climate change is a hoax

AJ: I do

MT: …and your view is shared by about 15% of Australians…..I believe climate change is a real threat, I believe the world should take effective global action……I believe you are a great admirer of Margaret Thatcher: well, Margaret Thatcher set up the the international panel on climate change, she was the first world leader to argue for strong action…John McCain….your friend John Howard….”

Turnbull remained calm and logical in the face of an increasingly pyrotechnic display by Jones. If there were 15% of Australians in the “climate change is a hoax” camp at the beginning of the chat, there were likely to be no more by the end.

I know Turnbull supporters who are already mourning his departure. His timing’s wrong, they say sadly. The next election is lost, after that he’ll be tossed out with a canteen of cutlery down his spine or simply leave the tent and walk off into the Point Piper non-wilderness.

If they are right, the theatre of politics and the national debate will be the poorer.

November 19th, 2009

Debbie - Sport: …

Who’d have thought when Guus Hiddink departed the Socceroos for greener pastures at the end of the last World Cup campaign that we’d be going to the next World Cup finals and the Dutch Master would miss out?

Hiddink’s Russian team were beaten this morning by Slovenia in Maribo in a European playoff.

Russia had missed direct qualification when they finished second in their qualifying group behind Germany. But, like other group runners up in Europe, they got a second bite of the cherry. They had a playoff over two legs against Slovenia — for which they were hot favourites. They won 2-1 in Russia on the weekend, but lost this morning 1-nil. That meant it was 2-2 on aggregate, but Slovenia had an away goal and Russia didn’t. Net result = Russia gone-ski.

Wonder how long before the rumours start that Hiddink might bump Pim Verbeek out of the Socceroos gig before South Africa 2010?

Sure, Verbeek’s got us there, but he seems to have some entrenched critics in the Australian media. I’m not one of them, by the way. I think he deserves more respect than he’s been getting. Nevertheless the prospect of Guus without a guernsey for a World Cup will probably have a few coaches looking over their shoulders.

Earlier this year, I would’ve thought the first cab off the rumour rank would be that he’d go back to Chelsea in the English Premier League, but Fabio Capello has the Blues top of the table and the Italian is one of the few in the world who matches Hiddink in terms of managerial clout.

Actually, here’s a random, off the cuff prediction.

What about Hiddink for France? Given the trouble France had even qualifying (they got taken to extra time by the Republic of Ireland this morning) the immensely unpopular and apparently barely competent Raymond Domenech has to be on borrowed time. Last week, he and the French team turned up at the Paris Masters tennis. When the big screen showed Domenech in the crowd, the stadium erupted with booing and hissing.

By the way, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth this morning in the NewsRadio office — and the odd bewildered cry of “you’re kidding!” — when the coverage of the World Cup qualifier between Greece and Ukraine finished. Given that the France v Ireland and Ukraine v Russia matches were about to kick-off, it was something of an anti-climax when ESPN crossed to their coverage of a women’s billiards championship in the US.

I’m all for women’s sport getting a fair crack of the whip, but …. aarrrghhhh!!!!!!