Senior Liberal Eric Abetz believes the ABC TV political talk show Q&A has failed in its attempt to provide a representative cross-section of the community because the audience was overwhelmingly made up of Labor and Greens voters.

Rather than seeing conspiracy everywhere, has Abetz considered the possibility that Coalition leaning voters have not applied to join the Q&A audience in the same numbers as Greens and Labor voters?

So, the important question for Abetz to ask of the ABC is how many self-identified Coalition voters have applied to participate as a Q&A audience member?

I’m sure the sign up form database would provide him with the answers he’s looking for, though I suspect he may not like what it reveals.

Or is it that Abetz prefers to take a free kick at alleged bias and lack of balance at the ABC rather than a deeper look at what may be a statistical or political (cultural) anomaly?

By the way, I presume he’s been happy with the panel representation to date.

I’ve been reading another bad book over the past week – a really bad book. It’s a long spray at consumerism and urban sprawl. It follows a fairly familiar formula – after the introduction (where you tell the reader what you plan to say), the author moves onto a quick survey of the human condition, cramming in as many references as possible, then launches into several chapters of condemnation and denunciation.

Writing that first chapter is a complex job. To show readers you’re not an intellectual snob, you have to mention popular culture, so references to pop music and movies (but not cinema) are a must, the earlier the better. Of course you now have to convince them that you’re not a bogan either, so you bung in the literary references. Reference one or two web-sites to show that you’re not a complete Luddite (very necessary in this writer’s case). Top that off with some guff about human evolution, neurology and psychology, add a dash of philosophy and religion and there’s your first chapter written.

Pull it off, and your readers will be convinced that you’re a very knowledgeable person, whose facts are reliable and opinion trustworthy. Well, some of them – enough, you hope to preserve you from the ingnominy of the remainer bin. As long as no-one notices the non-sequiturs and the fact that you’re relying completely on emotive argument – including the odd dose of alarmism – you’re home and hosed.

Here’s an entertainingly alarmist passage from that first chapter, with some explanatory notes from me.

The fantasy [of a world without pain or mental suffering] approaches. A recent Scientific American article by Stefanie Reinberger showed how unpleasant tastes could be eliminated with a new type of food-additive called adenosine monophosphate (AMP).

A very good start – scare the reader by dropping in a frighteningly polysyllabic chemical name lifted from one article in Scientific American. On no account should you do any further background reading – you might learn a couple of facts that might get in the way of your very enjoyable self-inflicted panic:

• Adenosine is one of the four nucleosides that make up RNA – a vital part of the biochemical mechanism that transcribes DNA sequences into proteins. Without adenosine, there would be no life as we know it.
• Adenosine monophosphate is a precursor to two other compounds – adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). All three compounds are used within living cells to transfer energy obtained from breaking down sugars and lipids (fats) to processes that build other cell constituents – like proteins. Without AMP, ADP and ATP there would be no life as we know it.

Moving on:

AMP is a ‘bitter blocker’ that overrides our ancient sensitivity to bitterness, acquired to protect us from eating toxic substances like strychnine, by preventing communication of the recognintion of bitterness from tastebud to brain.

A good, strong continuation: OMFG! They could use this “new” food additive to poison us all with strychnine and we wouldn’t even know it!

The additive has already (2004) been approved by the US Food and Drug Admininistration; the application of similar principles could mean we never have to taste anything unpleasant.

A bit of a slip there – noting the US FDA’s approval of the drug was a plus, but the second clause of the sentence is a bit of a let-down. Most of us prefer to avoid unpleasant tasting stuff, most of the time, which is why some cook, others eat out, and others buy take-away. But this is bad for us:

Brussels sprouts could taste like gruyere, or ice cream, or chocolate and still be as good for us as the bitter cruciform original.

It’s important, in alarmist writing, to strike the right note of hysteria and the prospect of chocolate flavoured brussel sprouts is certainly hysterical. Also, while a malapropism (cruciform for cruciferous) assists in convincing the reader that you’re hysterical, it reinforces the reader’s tendency to respond with the kind of hysteria you don’t want to create.

But is this really what we want? Do we, even at the relatively trivial level of taste, want a world where our only sensations are pleasurable ones? Will pleasure have meaning when that’s all there is?

Poor execution, but the author of this passage has the right idea – miss the major issues completely so you can pose a set of rhetorical questions whose answers will strike guilt and fear in the hearts of all but the most decadent of hedonists. The reason that adenosine monophosphate poses such a threat to civilsation and culture as we know it is because it’s us that have gone soft – it has nothing to do with anything the food processing industries might do. Nothing at all.

The book, by the way is Blubberland by Elizabeth Farrelly, of the Sydney Morning Herald. This post is a by-blow from a more extended review that the anonymous one appropriated for another shot at temporary notoriety and a bit of ready money, fame and fortune being completely beyond his capabilities. No doubt that review will turn up here, later in the week.

Akerman got the dirt ball rolling and has posted no less than eleven malicious pieces on the affair from mid August to now, including some choice quotes attacking The Australian over it’s approach to the matter.

But sections of the media, led by The Australian newspaper, also want to muzzle debate on the festering sore that is the Heiner Affair, the tragic business of the unresolved pack rape of a 14-year-old girl when in the care of the Queensland Government nearly two decades ago and the subsequent shredding of evidence gathered by retired magistrate Noel Heiner.

And then there was this wonderful bit of tinfoil he picked up on his way to the grassy knoll.

That Rudd won’t address the issue and that The Australian has chosen to ignore, and to argue against, any review without reading a word of the 3000-page, nine-volume audit of the case, prepared over the past two years by respected Sydney barrister David Rofe QC, is nothing short of bizarre. Five months ago, the big three Australian media organisations – News Limited, the ABC and Fairfax – united to fight for free speech. The Australian’s campaign to prevent the first full investigation of the Heiner case has undermined the struggle.

The Oz for it’s part did a fine job in digging deep and slyly linking Akerman to some of the far right fruitcakes who continue to push this barrow.

An August edition of the league’s newsletter, On Target, carries an article headed: “Long Running Suppurating Sore – The Heiner Affair”. The newsletter reproduced parts of a column by journalist Piers Akerman, of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, who will appear at a public meeting with Mr Lindeberg in the NSW parliament next Tuesday.

Akerman then returned fire with this personal aside.

I would think there is a closer relationship between Chris Mitchell and Kevin Rudd, the godfather of Mitchell’s young son, than there is between me and a cabal of racist extremists.

That was something I thought interesting to know. Who needs Media Watch when you have these two going after each other.

There was more from the Oz last weekend on the Shreddergate “obsessives“.

Lindeberg, a Pied Piper for conspiracy theorists, has led an odd coalition including One Nation diehards, Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce, the Liberal Party’s Bronwyn Bishop and NSW Opposition legal affairs spokesman Greg Smith and, in recent weeks, conservative commentators Alan Jones and News Limited’s Piers Akerman.

Nah, just the usual suspects really.

The Australian is doing everything they can to scrape this story, and Akerman, off like a turd on a shoe by swamping the zone with regular reports to match the Telegraphs resident Colonel Blimp.

They may have thought they had finally succeeded in dominating the story with this, but as we saw a couple of days ago Akerman continues with his attempts to keep the dirt ball rolling by barking at the moon along with the loopier denizens of the far right.

PAULINE Hanson has endorsed Kevin Andrews’ views on African migrants, saying the Immigration Minister was right to be concerned about crime and other issues.

Far Right behind Shreddergate bid.

A COALITION of right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists has been identified as the driving force behind moves to revive the so-called Shreddergate affair as the federal election approaches.

Speaks volumes.

Update [by MB on 11/2/08]: The article linked to in this post was the subject of a determination by the Press Council which can be accessed here:

THE Press Council has upheld a complaint that The Australian unfairly associated author and webmaster Scott Balson with organisations known to espouse racist, conspiracy and extreme right-wing views.

Australia is not even at first base. We cannot produce a map today that tells us what are the likely implications of sea level rise for vulnerable coastal communities. That is a disgrace when we know the science of climate change. So I urge the Senate and the “Prime Minister in waiting” to get realistic about climate change, to stop obfuscating, to recognise that we are facing the greatest crisis that we have known in our lifetime. This is a much bigger issue than terrorism. Climate change and the Earth’s vulnerability are in our face right now. We, as elected leaders, must respond to that.

Sensible stuff, and the Democrats – with a good comment from the blogosphere’s own Andrew Bartlett – and Labor supported the inquiry. In supporting the motion, Labor’s Penny Wong pointed out the sad truth about the Coalition – they’re still chock full of people who get their science reporting from Michael Crichton and the Weekly Standard:

We on the other side know that this is a government filled with people who deny the reality of climate change. That is not verballing them. All you have to do is listen to some of the speeches given by Senator Minchin, the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Read some of what he has said, or read the recent article by Senator Cory Bernardi, from my own state of South Australia, who yet again put forward the view that the case for human activity having impacted on climate change is still out. I think the Australian electorate is tired of that debate. I think the Australian electorate is tired of politicians who, for ideological reasons, want to hide their heads in the sand and run away from one of the critical, central challenges that this country faces, that the globe faces and that humanity faces.

And this is what we get in response: Senator Alan Eggleston:

I looked up on the web causes of climate change-and I have said this in another speech as well -and the listed causes of climate change include continental drift, volcanic eruptions and changes in the orbit of the earth. The earth sometimes just slightly changes its axis and inevitably that brings climate change, because the seasons are related to the position of various parts of the world on the globe – therefore, if the axis of the globe changes, then obviously there will be climate change. Most importantly, there seems to be a correlation between climate change and episodes of sunspots. That has been going on for thousands and thousands of years.

More recently: there have been increases in world’s greenhouse gases since the 1700s and the industrial revolution. It is true that there have been increases in the levels of CO2 and methane in our atmosphere and that those emission levels have accelerated, particularly in this century. In the opinion of many people greenhouse gases do contribute to climate change, but they are not the whole story. There are other things to consider, such as changes in the earth’s orbit and sunspot activity. I do not think the Greens or the ALP can rationally deny that those are factors in climate change.

Nobody does, Senator, they just accept that overwhelming scientific opinion is that the current warming is inexplicable in terms of natural events, and the effect of anthropogenic global warming will be far more dramatic than climactic change experienced in human history, if we don’t act (and, sadly, probably even if we do).

But, more broadly, even when the debate isn’t actually about the causes of climate change – even when the leadership has been forlornly trying to establish credentials on the topic – they can’t help but parade their denialism in public. For that alone, they deserve a lengthy spell on the Opposition benches until they get it.

Update: Christine Milne at the Greens’ new blog, discussing the Government’s decision to block the inquiry. There’s also a YouTube commentary from Senator Milne.

Questions over [Osama bin Laden's] beard cropped up at a Congressional hearing Monday featuring top US security experts, including Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell.”First, is this his beard?” Republican Senator Norm Coleman asked the spy chief. “Do we expect that — is it a signal?”

According to AFP, McConnell’s responses to Norm’s questions on the beard showed that the beard had “baffled the top US spy.”

I think it’s more likely that he was baffled by the same thing that baffles me – what is this wingnut doing in Congress?

HOLES have emerged in the evidence Australian intelligence agencies have relied on to paint former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib as a national security threat.

Authorities have used phone calls made by a US terrorist to Mr Habib’s Sydney home in 1993 to bolster their case against him.

But The Australian has learned the terrorist could not have made the calls, which phone records reveal were made after he was arrested over the 1993 bomb attack on New York’s World Trade Centre.

The two calls – from a New Jersey phone number linked to the convicted terrorist Ibrahim El-Gabrowny – were made nearly three weeks after he had been arrested…

A spokeswoman for the federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said it would be inappropriate to comment on the evidence. “It is appropriate that the allegations concerning Mr Habib are tested in proper proceedings in the context of all relevant material,” she said.

Pity Phil didn’t think of that a few years ago.

A DETACHMENT of F/A-18 fighter jets will be deployed along with 1500 Australian Defence Force personnel to bolster security at the APEC leaders’ meeting in Sydney next month.

The troops would provide general support to the security operation but would also man checkpoints, conduct vehicle and venue searches and be on standby to respond to any calls for assistance, Defence Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said yesterday.

Yeah, F-18′s buzzing overhead probably tops it off for Sydney residents, who’ll also have to put up with noise and military traffic, the road to the airport being monopolized by motorcades, cancelled elective surgery, and massive concerete security barriers around substantial bits of the city, all so John Howard gets his photo-op with George, Hu, Bambang, and the gang in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. As a Melburnian, this is one major event Sydney can have all to itself…

A DETACHMENT of F/A-18 fighter jets will be deployed along with 1500 Australian Defence Force personnel to bolster security at the APEC leaders’ meeting in Sydney next month.

The troops would provide general support to the security operation but would also man checkpoints, conduct vehicle and venue searches and be on standby to respond to any calls for assistance, Defence Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said yesterday.

Yeah, F-18′s buzzing overhead probably tops it off for Sydney residents, who’ll also have to put up with noise and military traffic, the road to the airport being monopolized by motorcades, cancelled elective surgery, and massive concerete security barriers around substantial bits of the city, all so John Howard gets his photo-op with George, Hu, Bambang, and the gang in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. As a Melburnian, this is one major event Sydney can have all to itself…