Murdoch Corporate Bosses Are Proud They Educated Billions On Climate Change Threat By Info-Dosing The Simpsons

By Darryl Mason

A very, very interesting Green Corporate video from ex-Australian Rupert Murdoch's News corporation, detailing how Fox has been purposely seeding its most popular TV shows, and in particular its highest rating cartoon shows like The Simpsons, The Family Guy and King Of The Hill, with what local Murdoch employees (the Herald Sun's) Andrew Bolt and (the Daily Telegraph's) Tim Blair would normally call "glorbal warmening" and "the most superstitious pagan faith of all".

TCFTV's Climate Change Commitment Video



Some of the key quotes from the vid, with deciphering of corporate speak in italics, in brackets, in the style of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair :

"What could we do on a practical level to start making a difference (how can we get some taxpayer-funded action on this climate change scam)?"

"The biggest thing we've done is inserting messages about the environment into some of our content (he means TV shows like The Simspons, they're scaring our children and nieces with hysterical claims about a warming that does not exist)."

"The lifeblood of our company is the quality of our TV shows, and we would have accomplished nothing if we compromised that quality (they're sneaky bastards, these Nazi-Green Corporate Socialists)."

"....the most powerful way we could communicate the commitment on behalf of our company (corporate greenism), was to change the practices within the production (how many flights do you take? Huh? Huh?), as well as work in a message about global warming (that actually stopped in 1998), about environmental changes (the world's environment has been changing for billions of years, it has nothing to do with us), about empowering people to take responsibilities (they want to take away your plastic shopping bags and make you live in a dimly lit house and eat cold lentils)."

And how closely Murdoch's executives echo the declaration of their boss Rupert, when he pledged to turn his most popular TV shows into climate change education tools, back in June 2007 :

"We need to reach (our audience) in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way.

"...we can change the way the public thinks about these issues..."

I never realised just how much I'd learned about the dire threats of global warming-induced climate change simply by reading The Daily Telegraph, watching Fox News and enjoying immensely, globally, popular entertainments like The Simpsons and 24.

The last word in the Murdoch Green Corporate video about how the most influential and powerful media company in the world has educated billions of people about the dire, catastrophic threats of climate change goes to an Al Gore clip from The Simpsons :

"Finally I get to save the Earth with deadly lasers instead of deadly slide shows."

In other climate change related news, a new blog has been launched called The Daily Degree.

I didn't know if Tim Blair, associate editor of the Daily Telegraph (a newspaper that seems to running many more Climate Change Is Humanity's Doom-type stories these days), was aware that there's a new blog pumping 'glorbal warmening' propaganda, because he normally loves to tear apart such blogs and mock their claims of climate change posing catastrophic threats, so I sent him an e-mail to give him a heads up on the new blog. Here's my e-mail :

Hey Tim,

I've found an hilarious new Climate Change blog for you to hammer and shred. And it's not one of those puny blogs run by one hairy old greenie with a few hundred deluded visitors, it's a big fat corporate blog. In fact, it's a new blog from the biggest and most powerful distributor of Global Warming/Climate Change propaganda in the world today.

I look forward to your witty, cutting takedown of these crazed warmenistas.

http://gei.newscorp.com/daily-degree/

Don't forget to include a 'hat tip' to me for the link if you use it.

Then again, you probably already got the memo from HQ, didn't you?

I was going to e-mail Andrew Bolt to tell him that there was yet another big money Corporate Green blog trying to pump the "the most superstitious pagan faith of all" and going on about hybrid cars and saving energy, and renewable and Green Energy initiatives that Bolt has said will "cost jobs" and destroy industries, and how this Corporate Greenism blog tells us we should ride a bicycle to work and take our own bags with us when we go shopping. You know, the usual mad claims exposed by Blair & Bolt that try to turn us all into eco-responsible, hairy, smelly, fat old hippes.

But seeing as Bolt has a number of helpers, I knew there was no way he was going to miss the launching of a major new Corporate Green blog like The Daily Degree. He doesn't need me to alert him to blogs like that.

I'm sure Bolt's attacks and comprehensive debunking of the claims made on The Daily Degree blog are all coming soon. No doubt, Tim Blair is writing up his takedown of The Daily Degree as you read this.

If past efforts are anything to go, Bolt & Blair should both be hammering The Daily Degree any moment now...because the fact they work for the same company that now admits to being the most powerful and most influential distributor of "glorbal warmening propaganda", by subtly inserting what Bolt & Blair call eco-hysteria into our favourite TV shows, won't influence their scathing criticism of a blog like The Daily Degree not one little bit.

Unless they're both total fucking hypocrites.

Murdoch Media Spreads More Eco-Alarmism : The Great Human Cull Is Coming, You're All Doomed! Doomed I Say!

Rupert Murdoch's worldwide media empire continues to be the most powerful, most influential distributor of climate change related hysteria, following Murdoch's June, 2007 announcement that "climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats".

Today we learn, at News.com.au, that up to 90% of the world's population will be wiped out by extreme climate change by 2100 :

Alligators bask off the English coast, the Sahara desert stretches into Europe and 10 per cent of humans are left.

Science fiction?

No, this is the doomsday prediction if global temperatures make a predicted rise of 4C in the next 100 years. Some fear it could happen by 2050.

Vast numbers would have to migrate away from the equator and towards the poles.

National borders would have to be knocked down and humans would become mostly vegetarian with most animals being eaten to extinction.

Fish numbers would drop dramatically as acid levels rose in oceans.

People would live in high-rise cities to preserve fertile lands for food, and scientists suggest energy could be supplied by a giant solar belt running across North Africa, the Middle East and the southern US.

The number of humans could drop to a billion or fewer.

So will The Herald Sun's Andrew "Global Warming Has Stopped" Bolt and The Daily Telegraph's Tim "Global Warming Is Utterly Bogus" Blair finally admit the truth? That the media company that pays them to mock climate change alarmists is in fact Climate Doom Central?

Or will they do their usual trick of just linking to similar reports in The Age or Sydney Morning Herald when they attack these latest "You're All Doomed!" claims, completely ignoring the fact their boss and media company are spreading more eco-fear-mongery than Al Gore could ever dream of?

UPDATE : Andrew Bolt, examplifying exactly why I've been calling him The Professional Idiot for two years, jumps on this latest example of "eco-porn" :

Hands up anyone who seriously believes this scenario - given serious treatment by a newspaper - is remotely likely within 100, let alone 50, years...

A newspaper? Well, no, News.com.au is not a newspaper, it's an internet news portal, and it's part of the parent company of the newspaper this shameless liar works for.

Of course he knows this, he links to the news.com.au story, but he knows most of his readers will never click to read the full story and thus will not learn that the corporation that pays The Professional Idiot is responsible for helping to spread the exact same kind of "eco-porn" he continually claims he is denouncing.

Joyce Refuses To Goose Step Around Liberal Party Offices

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is not a disciple of Al Gore. Climate change is, according to Joyce, basically bullshit, and the emission trading system is a scam to introduce a crippling new tax, on everyone (he's not far wrong there). But don't go thinking that these beliefs put Joyce at odds with Liberals leader Malcolm Turnbull in any way at all, or that a clash of their beliefs will cause yet more chaos for the coalition.

Hell, no :

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has played down suggestions of a rift in the Coalition over climate change.

Joyce voiced strong opposition to the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme, labelling it as nothing more than a "new tax" and adding: "I think that is a load of rubbish to think that Australia is going to change the climate."

Cue Malcolm Turnbull with plenty of buckets of cold water for all the other Nationals and Liberals who think Joyce is spot on :

"The Coalition's position on this issue is very well known - it's the same that we had in government," he said.

"We're very committed to action on climate change that is economically responsible and environmentally effective."

Joyce :

"[Does] one has to sort of fall into a lock step, goose step, and parade around the office ranting and raving that we're all as one?"

Yes, according to Turnbull, one does :

Mr Turnbull says the Coalition will be responding with "one voice" when the Government releases its legislation for the scheme in the coming months.

Joyce is convinced that there are plenty of votes out there for politicians who will stand up to The Green Terror (of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair fantasies), and that the overwhelming number of Australians who backed Rudd on climate change policies are now dwindling away as the economic sleeper hold begins to take effect.

Joyce may be right about climate change true believers peeling away, but there's not a lot of poll proof to back it up. Yet. Regardless, a very public and extended clash between Turnbull (poncy inner city Lefty-friendly, Green religionist, disguised as a Liberal Party leader) and Joyce (Bloody Rational Nationals, mate!) certainly seems to be on the cards.

Rudd will let them brawl out their climate change differences in public, while intricately analysing the public response, and will presumably change his climate change policy accordingly. That is, enough to ensure a second term in office if Joyce's A Great Climate Change Swindle manages to become a bigger issue of concern for most than, say, not having a house, or a job, or reliable sources of food.

If there is a great, unrecognised mass of Australian voters who believe carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and thinks trying to stop climate change is more of a risk than letting it happen, Joyce will no doubt find them.

But if they're there, Rudd will no doubt find a way to reach them, and win them over, once Joyce has pulled them from the shadows.

But for Rudd, 2008 was a warm-up. In 2009, the RuddBot will joined by Ruddzilla. Well, hopefully, if covering politics in even a distracted and half-hearted way is going to be any kind of intriguing entertainment. I've seen circling flies fall asleep, mid-flight, when Rudd speeches are were droning out of the television last year.

Barnaby Joyce already believes he would make a damn fine prime minister, and that most Australians harbour an affection for him and his straight-talking ways (probably true enough), and perhaps Joyce smells the blood in the water over Turnbull's abysmal polling in the past few months. Turnbull didn't exactly have Rudd, or Julia Gillard, on the ropes in the second half of 2008, did he?

Let's face it, the Liberals-National coalition isn't exactly brimming over with credible leadership choices right now. They've got Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce, and that's about it.

Unless, of course, they all come to their sense and bring back Brendan "We've Lost Your Son's Body" Nelson.

Get Another Job You Middle Class Welfare Bludgers

By Darryl Mason

The Professional Idiot gets the nod from his ex-Australian boss and declares war on the Australian middle class, with all the venom and bile he usually reserves for single mothers, Aboriginal activists and immigrants :

"The explosion in welfare money hasn’t gone to bludgers so much as to middle-class and lower-class families that do work, but feel entitled (justified or not) to handouts of other people’s money for anything from first homes to child care. It’s bludging..."

How refreshing to hear someone who is fortunate enough to be able to work from home and still earn more than $250,000 a year lecture the middle class because they can't afford to put their children into childcare while they hold down full-time and second jobs and because they were gullible enough to believe John Howard's lies about them all being "relaxed and comfortable".

Even better to hear the same hectoring from one of the richest men in the world, about how shameful it is that the Australian middle classes (or the New Poor) want and/or expect minimal financial help to prop up their McMansion, two kids in childcare, two cars, two jobs reality, even though that fantasy was routinely primed and pumped through all of Murdoch's Australian newspapers for a decade :

...while real incomes increased since the end of the 1980s, about 20 per cent of the working aged population today receives income support, compared with only 15 per cent two decades ago. While a safety net is warranted for those in genuine need, we must avoid institutionalising idleness. The bludger should not be our national icon.

Yes, better our national icon be the working poor instead. Or perhaps a 50 year old man who worked and stressed himself to an early grave and missed out on seeing his children growing up.

But of course, when it comes to handouts, Murdoch was all for stiffing the American taxpayers with the $700 billion BailUp, which ensured some of those who traverse the same canape circuits as he does, back in Manhattan, are not forced to give up too much of their wealth because they monumentally fucked up the American economy and the retirement plans of millions of aging workers.

The lyrics of an old Insurge song, circa mid-1990ss, come to mind :

You tell me everyone without a job should go away and die,
And what the government spends on welfare really makes you cry,
Well, you're a strange little thing,
You don't mind if a rich man does his thing,
When he gets his subsidies and tax breaks,
And his research and development grants
This is welfare for the rich,
but because it's welfare for your mates,
Here I am living in a welfare state

Here's a comment I made yesterday on The Professional Idiot's near total supplication to his boss, and why he should feel the hot sting of shame for being such a monumental wuss :

Andrew Bolt’s response to Murdoch’s speech was as expected : lame and just plain sad.

Here’s the biggest and most influential promoter of Global Warming in the world, who uses his media to endorse the reality the global warming and its “catastrophic” effects on the climate (seen Fox News lately?), and Bolt has nothing to say. Nothing.

Tim Flannery? Hell, he’ll do two hundred posts on Flannery for being an “alarmist” and a “true believer” and supposedly trying to destroy the world economy, but Murdoch gets a total pass. Is Murdoch a “true believer” in the “new pagan faith?” According to Bolt’s definitions, he sure is.

Does Bolt remind Murdoch that global warming has supposedly stopped? Or that climate change belief makes you a Green Nazi? Does Bolt tell Rupert that his mind has been poisoned by Al Gore’s new religion, statistical fakery and enviro-fascism? Of course not.

The fact that Murdoch is Bolt’s boss is not enough of an excuse for Bolt not taking Murdoch’s claims and advocacy of, for starters, climate change and Aboriginal reconciliation down to the mat.

Murdoch is reiterating primarily the Labor Party platform that won them the election, and Bolt has nothing to say. AT ALL. Even more bizarrely, Bolt’s followers mostly agree with Rupert, and support Bolt’s echoing of Rupert’s Ron Paul Meets Al Gore beliefs and opinions. In fact, they praise him for his vision and clarity.

It’s hallucinatory reading those comments. How many of these commenters are paid for their work? How many are News Ltd staffers? What other explanation can there be for almost unanimous support amongst Boltists when Rupert wings in from hanging out with Evil Pagan Lefties and ‘The Hollywood Elite’ in Manhattan and LA to remind Australia that climate change is a reality, that Aboriginal reconciliation is a priority, that welfare for poor people is a necessity and that John Howard was wrong on just about everything?

Bolt doesn’t believe what he writes, not really. That couldn’t be any more obvious now. How he handles Rupert Murdoch is always a good test. No doubt, Bolt is a passionate believer in some of his regular subjects of mockery and derision, but only just a few. Most of it is there for pure entertainment, to tap and trap a target audience of dwindling Howard-era conservatives.

What sort of man lets his boss trample all over his supposedly passionate, righteous beliefs and then hails him for doing it?

It’s clear too, now, that Bolt is also there to feed really bad ideas and self-circling missions to the Liberal Party, who plunge deeper into The Shit the more they do what he tells them to do. How can Coonan, Turnbull and Abbott not see that doing Bolt’s bidding harms them, not helps them?

A perfect example of this is Bolt’s demands that the Liberal Party go nuts over Rudd’s public mocking of President Bush over the G20 phone call. The story didn’t catch fire with the media because there is essentially nothing there. Bolt knows this, but he drives the Libs on and on to chase their own tails over it, when next to no-one outside of politics or the Boltarium could give a shit. Bolt also knows that the editor of The Australian newspaper was present when the Rudd-Bush call occurred, and that’s why the story got into The Australian newspaper in the first place. Does he tell his readers this? Of course not.

Murdoch’s got five lectures to go, where he will continue to essentially shore up much of what Rudd is planning for Australia, and our eventual integration into a larger Asia community, with China as our new, more powerful, more wealthy bestest friend.

Bolt will have five more opportunities to shred what he has told his readers, daily, he believes are dangerous and culturally disruptive ideas and policies. That they come from Murdoch should make absolutely no difference to Bolt’s usually venomous dismantling of such Evil Pagan Lefty ideals and beliefs. Considering the prominence, influence and power of the man delivering these messages of mostly liberal idealism, Bolt should be expected to spend a great deal of time indeed going at him.

Unless Bolt really is a fake, a mere entertainer, a carnival huckster, which would be disappointing for his fans and critics alike.

Rupert Murdoch Doesn't Back Climate Change Fear Mongering, Except When He Does

I asked Daily Telegraph opinionist Piers Akerman why he shreds Labor and professors and Al Gore and the ABC over climate change fear mongering, while continuing to give a free pass to his own boss, Rupert Murdoch, now the most prolific and influential promoter of climate change reality in the world :

Your boss backs the fear mongering as well, Piers. Why don’t you get in his ear?

Akerman denies that his boss uses his media to spread fear and unease about the effects of climate change :

"I don’t think he backs fear mongering, I believe he makes decisions on the best available evidence and is not afraid of admitting his mistakes when he’s been wrong..."

I stand corrected. Rupert Murdoch and his media, like the Daily Telegraph, do not back the fear mongering promotion of climate change reality, apparently. Which is why stories and headlines like this never appear in The Daily Telegraph, except when they do, which is often :


Akerman also claims that "Murdoch’s editors are responsible for their own decisions," meaning that Murdoch has no influence over editorial decisions made by his newspapers. Except, of course, when Murdoch openly admits that he does indeed tell his newspaper editors what to publish :

Rupert Murdoch has admitted to a parliamentary inquiry (in the UK) that he has "editorial control" over which party The Sun and News of the World back in a general election and what line the papers take on Europe.

The minute stated: "For The Sun and News of the World he explained that he is a 'traditional proprietor'. He exercises editorial control on major issues..."

He also helped "shape" the pro-Iraq War message across his worldwide media empire, and admits it here.

Embracing Corporate Greenism has proven very profitable for Rupert Murdoch, and his media, as energy giants flood his newspapers and websites with advertising promoting their new Green Consciousness.

The blogs of former Murdoch 'global warming deniers' now 'climate change realists', like Akerman, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt are where you will now most often see such Corporate Greenism advertising.

If there's money in it, Rupert's always a true believer.

Climate Change : We Believe! We Did It!

This must be the only controversial issue that so many Australians are in such complete agreement on. A mind-bogglingly high level of agreement, and belief :

According to Newspoll, Australians overwhelmingly believe climate change is under way now and that humans are partly or entirely responsible.

When asked if climate change was caused by human activity, 96 per cent said it was entirely or partly caused by human activity; 84 per cent believed climate change was currently occurring.

96%? They must be the highest "We Believe! We Did It!" numbers relating to climate change of any country in the world today.

Yes, The Professional Idiot is correct. Now is the perfect time for the Liberals to come out as die-hard climate change sceptics.

Most Australians Want Carbon Tax, Now

More Chaos Looms For Libs As They Plot Delaying Introduction Of ETS

Some stunning poll results on how Australians feel about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme :

As the Coalition meets in Canberra today to forge a climate change policy that would delay an emissions trading scheme beyond 2010, it will be confronted with evidence that most Australians support the Rudd Government's position.

Brendan Nelson is expected to adopt a policy with his shadow cabinet colleagues that opts to delay an ETS until greenhouse gas giants such as India and China act to cut their emissions.

But the latest Newspoll survey has confirmed widespread public support for an ETS, with 60 per cent of voters backing the adoption of a scheme "regardless of what other countries do".

Another 23 per cent support a scheme if other countries act.

Only 11 per cent of voters oppose an ETS under any circumstances.

I'm surprised at how low real opposition to the carbon tax amongst Australians actually is. You'd think such a controversial, and likely very costly scheme, would be far more divisive, and generally opposed. Apparently not.

Expect failed Melbourne Age 'journalist', former Labor Party advisor and now full-time Liberal Party climate change policy fantasist Andrew Bolt to once again call most Australians a bunch of idiots, or worse, for not subscribing to his anti-progress, Greens = Hitler hysteria and fear-mongering conspiracy theories.

However, it should be entertaining to see Bolt go into an apoplexy of rage that his claims of a Vast Green Pagan Lefty Conspiracy over climate change are simply not getting through to the public, despite him having the highest combined online, newspaper and TV profile of just about any commentator in Australia.

The Professional Idiot is all over Murdoch newspapers and websites, as well as the ABC, but few believe what he shouts through a growing collection of visible ticks, eye-rolling and general head-shaking. Perhaps his message would get through more, and be more influential, if he didn't come across as such a petulant, whiny, fringe-dwelling, hysterical fuckwit.

Those poll numbers are really going to suck the wind out of the Liberals who thought they could knock the shit out of PM Rudd, and in particular climate change minister Penny Wong, over the introduction of a carbon tax, and capitalise on what The Professional Idiot claims is growing scepticism amongst Australians on the reality of man-made climate change.

And Opposition transitional leader, Brendan Nelson, will be utterly smashed by the next Liberal Party leader, Malcolm Turnbull, over those poll numbers on the ETS and climate change in general, and of course, these utterly dire Liberal polling numbers as well :

It also confirms the Government's dominance over the Opposition, with Labor leading the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis by 57 per cent to 43 per cent.

Kevin Rudd also kept his 50-plus percentage point lead over Dr Nelson as preferred prime minister...

Mr Rudd had 66 per cent support as preferred prime minister compared with Dr Nelson's 14per cent.

And these :

Newspoll shows the Rudd government would trounce a Nelson-led opposition if the election was held today.

Labor's primary vote rose four points from the last poll to 47 per cent - the highest since the election.

Kevin Rudd has a satisfaction rating of 58 per cent, with 66 per cent saying he makes a better PM.

Amazing. Rudd and the Labor government are polling almost better now than they did when they flogged John Howard's then government at last year's election.

But why?

Is Rudd really that popular, or are the Liberals so boondoggled and their message and policies so confused and hard to keep up with that most Australian voters just don't want to know about them anymore?

Tough Stance On Licorice Legs

The Liberals are mounting a tough opposition to the introduction of the Carbon Tax (or emissions trading system). They're totally against Australia joining an EU-initiated program to impose a global tax on every kilometre you drive, the food you eat and just about everything you buy that hasn't been grown by a neighbour.

The Federal Opposition has intensified its attack on the Government's emissions trading scheme, warning it has "very big flaws".

Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull went on the offensive today, saying parts of the scheme were absurd, it was too rushed, and the whole country was at risk from the scheme not working out.

So, the Liberals are finally taking a real stand of opposition to one of the most radical plans for a global tax ever devised.

The Government, which could struggle to get the scheme through a hostile senate, is putting pressure on the Liberals to approve the scheme.

But Mr Turnbull was in no mood to be conciliatory today as he spoke out against the Government's proposal.

The Liberals think a carbon tax is wrong, evil, and will destroy the Australian economy and smash tight household budgets to dust. Wow, how exciting it must be for Liberals to finally have a major Labor policy issue that their party leaders are mounting real opposition against.

Mr Turnbull said the Liberals' policy was to move towards emissions trading but to do so "with great care and with great deliberation".

Oh.

Sorry. It appears I've been mistaken. Turns out the Liberals are not opposed to the introduction of a carbon tax after all. They're all for that, of course. Just as John Howard was in his last months in office.

The Liberals aren't ready to oppose something they've clearly been told must be introduced, they just want to fuck around claiming the Rudd government are doing it wrong.


And is this the most curious thing of all? The introduction of a carbon tax for all Australians is the one issue upon which the Liberals, The Greens and Labor all agree.

We must have a Carbon Tax, just like Al Gore says.

Did they all get a divine memo from Green Jesus or something?


How desperate and bizarre it must be to be a decades-dedicated, die-hard Liberal voter, who truly believes that global warming is a New Green Order hoax and thinks Greenism is prettified socialism, that Nelson is a tool, but that Turnbull is even worse.

How galling it must be to them that Peter Garrett, for Menzies sake, is a senior government minister and regularly represents Australia on the world stage.

How shocking it must still be to see Bob Brown being interviewed, taken seriously, shown respect, not just on the ABC, but on the morning, midday and evening news on 9, 7 and 10.

How nauseating it must be for Howard-era Liberals to hear the dirty tree hippie chants and envirolosophy of early 1980s anti-logging and anti-dam protests being repeated by almost the entire front bench of the Liberal opposition every time a microphone turns in their direction.

Who do they turn to for representation now? The Nationals?

Labor might have moved centre and fully adopted (for now) Rudd's promised 'economic conservatism', but the Liberals turned long lines of humiliating backflips to update themselves to modern Australia's Green-soaked belief systems and passion for clean(er) energy.

The Greens are now the real third party of Australian politics.

Bob Brown didn't need to become prime minister to see entire slabs of his environmental conservation and anti-global warming policies become reality.

So popular had long-established Green Party platforms become by 2007 that we witnessed the brain-frying Theatre Of The Absurd that was John Howard's Liberals and Kevin Rudd's Labor actually fighting in public over who loved and cared for the environment more, and who would be best at fighting climate change.

In the shaping of a new pro-environment, clean energy Australia, it wasn't Labor or Liberal ideas that won in the end.

It was The Greens.

They were there first, and they did most of the ground work in re-introducing city-dwelling Australians to the wonders of our rainforests, wetlands and wilderness areas, promoting the theory and suspected consequences of global warming, demanding expansion of solar energy usage and investment in alternative energy sources, while raising the original arguments for why we have to have a carbon tax.

A carbon tax that both Labor and Liberals now fully agree must be introduced, but the details of which are now being squabbled over. Like it will make any difference in the end.

The Greens won.

Pell : The Catholic Church Is Now Pagan

Back in 2006, Cardinal George Pell believed that calling for reductions in man-made carbon emissions was part of a new paganism. Now that the Pope is calling for reductions in carbon emissions, and a stepped up fight against environmental destruction by man, has Pell pulled him aside in Sydney to warn him of the invasion of paganism into the Catholic Church?

Cardinal Pell knows The Greening is real competition for the Catholic Church in the recruitment of the fresh hearts and minds of youth :

"I'm a bit of a sceptic about the claim that human activity is likely to produce a man-made catastrophe."

Lack of religious beliefs amongst youth is not the key threat facing the popularity and longevity of the Catholic Church, it's the faith and belief system attached to environmental conservation that is proving to be far more appealing to youth around the world. You can have sex with whoever you like, as long as you also take action to lower your carbon emissions.

"Jesus Was A Greenie" was a shortly popular chant at rainforest saving protests in the early 1980s. The Catholic Church are only now coming around to the idea, and marketing potential, of 'Green Jesus.'

The Pope has used his visit to Australia to get the word out that the Catholic Church is down with the fight against climate change. The Pope is re-branding the Catholic Church as true believers in the doctrine that humans are bringing on their own Apocalypse because they think electric lighting is pretty cool, they like warm homes and they prefer to drive cars that grunt, not hum :

"We have to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life."

He said politicians and experts must be "capable of responding to the great ecological challenge and to be up to the task of this challenge".

Pell knows his skepticism must not go too far :

"I'm well aware that over the years, there have been great changes in the climate."

"We have an obligation to care for our environment, a moral obligation," he said.

"We also very clearly have a moral obligation not to damage or destroy or ruthlessly use the environment at the expense of future generations."

Cardinal George Pell has actually wound back his rhetoric on the fight against climate change being comparable to a new pagan religion. That is, a far more attractive religion for the youth now peeling away from the Catholic Church in favour of saving the world through The Greening. Here's Pell in May, 2006 :

Some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature. Belief in a benign God who is master of the universe has a steadying psychological effect, although it is no guarantee of Utopia, no guarantee that the continuing climate and geographic changes will be benign.

In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

So according to George Pell, the Catholic Church has, by embracing a world rallying fight against climate change, become a pagan religion.

UPDATE : During his official welcome in Sydney tonight, the Pope expanded his rebranding pitch on how the Catholic Church is now the house of Green Jesus, to the hundreds of thousands of youth gathered in the city for World Youth Day (Week) :

"God's creation is one and it is good. The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity," Pope Benedict said.

"Perhaps reluctantly, we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth - erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption.

"Some of you come from island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising water levels, others from nations suffering the effects of devastating drought.

"God's wondrous creation is sometimes experienced as almost hostile to its stewards, even something dangerous."

Maybe all those devastating earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis have something to do with that.

Professional Idiot Andrew Bolt Announces Boycott Against "Global Warming Hypcocrisy"

But Will He Boycott His Own Newspaper?

Dammit, you've got to have standards if you want to be viewed as a credible journalist. Which is why Rupert Murdoch's pitiful Australian Bill O'Reilly clone, the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt has announced he is going to boycott Virgin Airlines over it's "global warming hypcocrisy (sic)".

In order to stay true to his boycott of corporations that undertake hypocritical promotion of global warming, and to avoid accusations of hypocrisy himself, Andrew Bolt will now have to boycott his own newspaper and blog.

Why?

Because his boss, Rupert Murdoch, is a self-admitted true believer in the "dire consequences" posed by global warming induced climate change.

"We need to reach (our audience) in a sustained way. To weave this issue (climate change) into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way."

And keep on a few flacks, like Bolt, to keep those who think Al Gore is the AntiChrist happy, and to sustain the illusion that Murdoch media haven't already chosen a side on the climate change controversy.

Rupert Murdoch announced last June that he was going to use his worldwide media empire, including Bolt's Herald Sun, to 'change peoples' minds' about the "dire consequences" of climate change. In short, Murdoch admitted that he was going to use the 70% of Australian newspapers he controls to ramp up the fear and terror of how global warming will destroy Australia unless we cave in and pay a carbon tax.

Rupert Murdoch is now the world's most powerful and influential promoter of the "dire consequences" of global warming-induced climate change, but Bolt, supreme hypocrite that he is, is quite happy to take Murdoch's money while he rails against the ABC and nobody columnists and non-influential university professors who don't own media for pumping global warming hysteria.

Show just how principled a journalist and man you are, Bolt, and in the process show just how huge your alleged unspoken for mass of Australian conservatives are, by quitting your hypocritical corporate salary and becoming an independent blogger.

Your boss is the world's biggest promoter of the "pagan religion" and "myths" you claim will send us back to the Dark Ages, and your own newspaper refuses to give reasonable coverage to deniers of the global warming theory. You can rant all you like in your own columns, but it doesn't mean zero unless your own newspaper is showing the other side of the story in its news pages. Unless of course, you are just a professional contrarian and entertainer instead of a principled journalist and a man who stands by his beliefs.

Flannery : Use Chemtrails To Fight Global Warming

Carbon bad, but sulphur is good?

Scientist Tim Flannery has proposed a radical solution to climate change which may change the colour of the sky.

But he says it may be necessary, as the "last barrier to climate collapse."

Professor Flannery says climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump sulphur into the atmosphere to survive.

The gas sulphur could be inserted into the earth's stratosphere to keep out the sun's rays and slow global warming, a process called global dimming.

"It would change the colour of the sky," Prof Flannery told AAP.

"It's the last resort that we have, it's the last barrier to a climate collapse.

"We need to be ready to start doing it in perhaps five years time if we fail to achieve what we're trying to achieve."

Prof Flannery, the 2007 Australian of the Year, said the sulphur could be dispersed above the earth's surface by adding it to jet fuel.

He conceded there were risks to global dimming via sulphur.

"The consequences of doing that are unknown."

Flannery should come clean. Trials of dumping sulphur and other chemicals into the atmosphere from planes to create a 'sun shield', to encourage global dimming, has been going on for years. Distributing a substance like sulphur from planes is the very definition of a 'chem trail', and these test runs have been on show over Sydney in recent months, for anyone who bothers to look up occasionally.

The 'dimming' that Flannery talks of will be similar to the skies we've come to know well over some Australian cities in recent years. The cloud cover spreads early in the morning, and fills the sky, thin cloud but from horizon to horizon, blocking out much of the direct sunlight, and the cloud cover stays around for days. It's not the miserable grey of London skies, it's just...dim.

You will hear much, much more talk of using chemtrails to fight climate change very soon, if Flannery is speaking of such plans on behalf of international interests, and presumably he is.

ABC's Four Corners current affairs program ran a story on the dangers of global dimming in mid-2005. Despite what Flannery claims, scientists have a pretty good idea of what global dimming will do to the planet :

Noticed less sunshine lately? Scientists have discovered that the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface has been falling over recent decades.

If the climatologists are right, their discovery holds the potential for powerful disruption to life on our planet. Already it may have contributed to many thousands of deaths through drought and famine.

Global dimming is a product of the fossil fuels that cause global warming. It is the result of tiny airborne pieces of soot, ash and sulphur compounds reflecting back the heat of the sun.

Scientists have also linked global dimming to the failure of rains in sub-Saharan Africa – and the catastrophic droughts that hit Ethiopia in the 1980s. They worry that the same thing will happen again in areas like Asia, home to billions of people.

The overriding concern expressed by climate scientists in this program is that our climate will be radically altered, rendering many parts of the planet uninhabitable - unless concerted action is taken to combat both global dimming and global warming.

So more pollution will counter global warming, as long as it's sulphur pollution, but we need to cut carbon pollution and then increase the amount of sulphur in the atmosphere to encourage global dimming, which masks the full effects of global warming, which will destroy much of the world if it's not stopped, but global dimming is also destructive, but not as destructive as global warming, which is being held in check by current global dimming so we need to increase global dimming with sulphur while cutting down on carbon to stop global warming...or something.

I'm sure it makes perfect sense, if you're a professor.

Help, My Brain Just Melted



Andrew "The Iraq Was Is Won" Bolt splutters with helpless fury at Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson's new mantra on climate change :

For heaven’s sake. Brendan Nelson gives a speech to define the Liberals’ identity, and winds up channelling Al Gore instead:

Dr Nelson said the challenge of climate change and the need for a genuine global solution was the “most important economic, political and moral challenge to face our generation”.

Moral challenge? A scientific, technological and economic challenge, maybe, but moral?

With that one stupid word, Nelson damns the better-qualified sceptics in his party (and those silent ones in Kevin Rudd’s ministry) as not just wrong, but immoral.

One of the reasons, one of the many but certainly a key reason, why John Howard lost the election was he didn't keep up with the changing national belief and debate on climate change. One of the main reasons Howard did that is because he believed Andrew Bolt was right, and that Australians would always see global warming as a Green Conspiracy to take away their big screen TVs and make them live by firefly illumination.

When Howard was still claiming the debate was not yet over, and all the facts weren't in, the consensus amongst voters had already settled that climate change was real enough for them to believe that it threatened the livelihoods of their children and grandchildren and, therefore, was not an issue to be ignored. Or denied. Or mocked.

Some Howard advisors, like a good number of his personal staff, found refuge in 2006 and 2007 with Andrew Bolt And The BoltOns, where they mingled online with a small slice of the minority of Australians who sincerely believed that Al Gore was almost Hitler-evil, and that climate change really was a Green Conspiracy that would have us all living in bark shacks without electricity and flush toilets and sustaining on mung beans and tofu within five years.

But the real kick in the guts for Howard, and for Bolt, came when Bolt's boss Rupert Murdoch (who Howard once referred to as "God") announced in mid-2007 that he believed climate change was real, that it posed "dire consequences" and that most of the Murdoch media around the world would begin full-blown promotion of climate change as a reality that cannot be ignored.

Howard didn't see that coming, and obviously wasn't told in advance what Murdoch was going to announce, and so he was caught out with no time to prepare, or to soften up his Liberals for a superbackflip and spectacular "Me Too!" on dealing with climate change. That came only weeks out from the November election.

The Liberals know all too well now what happens when they take Andrew Bolt-approved conspiracy theories to the Australian people. They lose government. Which is why Brendan Nelson doesn't parrot Andrew And TheBoltOns the way Howard, Alexander Downer and Tony Abbott used to. They learned their lesson.

Bolt's fury is not so much directed at Nelson as it is towards himself for being left so far behind on the climate change issue, for being so out of tune with the majority of Australians, for having so much less impact and influence on the Australian mind than Al Gore, or Tim Flannery, and for helping to destroy the Liberal Party.

Andrew Bolt knows this, all of this, of course, but is not yet man enough to admit his vital role in the downfall of John Howard and the immolation of the Australian conservative movement.

Supreme Court Cites Climate Change As Reason To Ban Houses By The Beach

This story's a few days old now, but it didn't get much attention from the mainstream media. Strange, considering it sets a precedent for less homes being built near Australian beaches and along our coastlines :

In a portent of how climate change could transform town planning along the nation's coastlines, the South Australian Supreme Court has ruled that predicted sea level rises are a valid reason to reject beachfront housing developments.

The rejection of a subdivision on Yorke Peninsula, west of Adelaide, is likely to be repeated across the country as councils progressively write climate change provisions into their planning regulations.

The South Australian Supreme Court cited local sea level rises of 30cm over the next 50 years in ruling yesterday against Northcape Properties' plans for 80 holiday homes at Marion Bay, 150km west of Adelaide.

Judge Bruce Debelle endorsed earlier decisions by the state's Environment Court and Yorke Peninsula Council, which is one of the first coastal districts to incorporate stringent climate change clauses into its planning rules.

In ruling against Northcape's appeal, Justice Debelle confirmed the Environment Court's conclusion that the Marion Bay waterline would "recede inland by 35-40m" in the next 100 years.

Council chief executive Ricki Bruhn was delighted the court had vindicated his council's decision to add climate change clauses to its development plan in 2004.

"We're aware of rising sea levels and erosion in that area now," he said. "And being surrounded by water on three sides, we bear the brunt of any storm surges."

It's not just the courts (one court so far) that use climate change projections in deciding such matters. Whether you believe climate change will adversely impact Australia or not, most insurance companies now figure in the presumed effects of climate change in devising home insurance policies for the next decade or two.

That is, we will soon see a day when insurance companies will refuse to insure homes on beachfronts, or close to our coastlines, and make it harder to insure homes against what will be battled in courts as something like "climate change-related damage."

In a few years, if you own a home along a stretch of coastline predicted as likely to be hit by tidal surges, you will likely pay heavily in insurance premiums. If you can actually get insurance, that is.

The great Australian dream of owning a home by the beach is already almost out of reach for most Australians, with beach and coastal property prices on the east and west coasts mostly staying strong.

If Australian courts are now more likely to rule out beachfront and coastal developments because of climate change, a beach house for most Australians in the future will go from a perhaps reachable dream into the realm of pure fantasy.

Australia's New Climate : 'Extreme Dry'

How long do you call a drought a drought before it becomes so permanent it demands to be called something else?

A drought describes a climate state that is not permanent, but weather experts are now wondering if the current drought hammering south-eastern Australia, and now recognised as the worst in more than 100 years, will ever lift :

"Perhaps we should call it (the extreme dry) our new climate," said the Bureau of Meteorology's head of climate analysis, David Jones.

He was speaking after the release of statistics showing that last year was the hottest on record in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT.

NSW's mean temperature was 1.13 degrees above average. "That is a very substantial anomaly," Dr Jones said. "It's equivalent to moving NSW 150 kilometres closer to the equator."

It was the 11th year in a row NSW and the Murray-Darling Basin had experienced above normal temperatures. Sydney's nights were its warmest since records were first kept 149 years ago.

"There is absolutely no debate that Australia is warming," said Dr Jones. "It is very easy to see … it is happening before our eyes."

The only uncertainty now was whether the changing pattern was "85 per cent, 95 per cent or 100 per cent the result of the enhanced greenhouse effect".

"There is a debate in the climate community, after … close to 12 years of drought, whether this is something permanent. Certainly, in terms of temperature, that seems to be our reality, and that there is no turning back.

"Last year climate change became very evident in south-eastern Australia, with South Australia, NSW, Victoria, the ACT and the Murray-Darling Basin all setting temperature records by a very large margin," he said.

2007 was an extraordinary year of extreme weather events in Sydney and New South Wales.

Sydney had its stormiest year since 1963, with 33 thunderstorms, compared with the historic average of 28.

The highest temperature recorded in NSW last year was 46 degrees, at Ivanhoe on January 11. Charlotte Pass shivered through the state's coldest night when the mercury dipped to minus 11 on July 23.

The suddenly changing weather in Sydney is getting so weird maybe we need umbrellas with both heaters and air-conditioning built into the handle. Solar and wind powered, of course.

A few weeks back, a weatherman on the evening news was left absolutely flummoxed by the appearance of sudden and massive thunderstorms, where none had been predicted. During the chit-chat between the weatherman and newsreader, the newsreader asked "So should we be packing umbrellas tomorrow." The weatherman shrugged, and said : "We don't really know."

A few seconds of dead air followed.

We don't really expect the meteorologists to know exactly the state of our skies tomorrow, or next week. But they're supposed to make us believe they do know what's coming. When they give up and say "Who knows what's going to happen," it's more than a little weird, and freaky.

Cyclones Heading For East And West Coasts

What's climate change? Don't be alarmed, this is all very normal, global warming is a big Al Gore conspiracy (Andrew Bolt says so) and these kind of bizarre weather events have been happening for millions of years....maybe :

Parks and wildlife rangers have begun evacuating holidaymakers from Fraser Island as an intense low pressure system packing gale-force winds headed for the popular tourist destination north of Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

As the volatile system headed slowly south, threatening to bring huge waves and high winds to much of the Queensland coast, the Bureau of Meteorology said there was a significant risk of a severe tropical cyclone developing on the other side of the country, off Western Australia's northwest coast.

There's a good chance that both 'cyclones' will blow themselves out before they do any real damage. Or not. It's always disturbing to hear meteorologists on TV saying stuff like "We don't really know what's going to happen." And of course they don't.

We just wish that they did.

The Quote Of The Year Tim Blair Somehow Missed

Daily Telegraph light-relief columnist Tim Blair has rounded up a bunch of quotes from 2007, including some examples of the fear-mongering associated with climate change and global warming.

But how did he miss this one from Rupert Murdoch, which must surely rate as one of the most fear-mongering quotes of the year?

"Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats."

Or this one from Murdoch where he explains how he will use his vast global media empire to inflict psychological warfare on the public and make them believe climate change is a dangerous reality :

"We need to reach (our audience) in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way.

"...we can change the way the public thinks about these issues..."

Al Gore and Tim Flannery are fine targets if you want to highlight how public figures are terrifying the public about the possible effects of climate change. But Gore and Flannery can only dream of having the media influence and control to get their message out that Rupert Murdoch has. Murdoch is the biggest promoter of climate change in the world today, and his newspapers and cable channels regularly ramp up the fear-mongering.

But of course, Tim Blair is thoroughly compromised. Rupert Murdoch is, after all, his boss, and like all good Murdoch employees know, you don't diss the boss, even when he's making you look like a massive hypocrite.


September 2007 : Murdoch Media Launches 'Coup' To Take Down Australian Prime Minister

Rupert Murdoch Lectures Australians On The Dangers Of Becoming Too "Anti-American"

Hey Rupert? What Happened To All Those Post-Saddam $20 Barrels Of Oil?

Murdoch Admits He Tells His Newspapers What To Print - "We Can Change The Way People Think"

Murdoch : "Climate Change Poses Clear, Catastrophic Threats" - Fear Monger In Chief Warns Of Apocalyptic Future

Tim Blair's Bush-Mandela 'Gaffe' Gaffe

Blair Forced To Trawl Blog Comments When 'Anti-War Lefties' Fail To Live Up To Soldier-Hating Cliches

Tim Blair Just Can't Stop Lying

Massive Emissions Cuts? Not So Fast

It appears there was a 'misunderstanding' in how prime minister Kevin Rudd appeared to be backing international calls for Australia to meet cuts to greenhouse gas emissions of 25-40% by 2020 :

The Australian delegation to the United Nations climate talks in Bali has indicated it supports the target as the basis of negotiations in the next round of the Kyoto Protocol.

But Mr Rudd says he will take advice on whether the targets are workable.

"We will be determining, based on the merits, and based on the advice that we get through the... commission of inquiry, the interim targets which are appropriate for Australia," he said.

"The reason for doing it in a methodical way which we've outlined is to ensure that those targets are meaningful environmentally, and responsible economically."

Rudd Announces Massive Emissions Cuts By 2020

Australians To Feel Full Force Of Economic Fight Against Climate Change

A few hours after telling the United States that they had to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and getting knocked back, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that Australia would leap headfirst into setting a world standard for cutting carbon emissions with a stunning declaration of up to 40% cuts within 12 years.

Only days before the election, on November 24, Rudd was still refusing to announce Australia's interum greenhouse gas emissions target, that would fall between now and his announced target of 60% cuts by 2050. Rudd said he would wait until he received a report on how emissions cuts would affect Australian business and the economy before announcing a 2020 target.

The announcement that Australia will aim to cut emissions by 25 to 40%, by 2020, came after both China and Indonesia demanded that all countries who have ratified Kyoto (as Australia has just done) must meet the targets agreed to in an "understanding" earlier this year :

Last night Australia publicly aligned itself with the nations under the Kyoto Protocol that have agreed to consider these cuts, distancing the new Rudd Government further from the US position. Saying Australia "fully supports" the position, the delegation said Australia was, "happy to proceed on this basis".

....when (Rudd) arrives in Bali next week he will face international expectations from Europe, China and Indonesia to make Australia's position clear whether, having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it is committed to its own deep cuts.

...China, Indonesia, India and most of the poorer nations speaking at the Bali conference yesterday made their views clear that rich countries, including Australia, must commit to deep cuts to their greenhouse gases within 12 years, by 2020 and keep the model of the Kyoto Protocol in the new climate agreement.

"It is a successful model and we should persist with it," the Chinese delegate told the talks.

Yvo De Boer, head of the United Nation's climate team, who are hosting the Bali talks, has told Rudd that if he serious about "bridging the gap" between developing and industrialised countries on climate change, he should get himself to Bali immediately, and not next week as originally planned.

If Australia is to meet emissions cuts of 25 to 40% within twelve years, we are really going to feel it. How exactly Rudd intends to get Australia to make such massive cuts, in such a short space of time, is unclear but it will obviously require some drastic measures, or Australia will face huge international fines, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Paying Papua New Guinea to preserve some of the last great expanses of ancient rainforests left in the world today, to act as carbon sinks, will probably figure to a large degree in Rudd's plans, as will the rapid roll-out of solar, wind and geothermal energy.

China and Indonesia are obviously playing hardball, and Rudd might have spoken too quickly about his plans to 'bring the world together' on climate change, now that he has decided such a move will be his Look What I Can Achieve mission in the next month.

While China and Indonesia will obviously want the so-called 'roadmap' on climate change under discussion at Bali to benefit them financially, they may only push so far, as it is unlikely they will want to embarrass Rudd, who they view as an important and beneficial ally, so early on in his leadership.

But then again, this is international politics, and international economics.

Rudd may be about to receive one very nasty wake-up call to how the rest of the planet, including China and Indonesia, really view Australia, and its place of importance in the world today.

It should also be noted that Rudd has many of Australia's largest corporations, including mining companies, backing his announcement of a 2020 target. They're ready to dive into the new global economy of carbon trading, and work emissions cuts and carbon credit values into their business plans and profit projections for the next few years. Something they were unable to do, and were growing increasingly annoyed about, under the Howard government.

Rudd To Bush : It's Time For US To Ratify Kyoto

Bush Official Tells Rudd Government : Not A Chance

On the eve of major climate change talks in Bali, during which he hopes to "unite" the world in fighting global warming, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called on the US to join the world's major industrial powers and ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Within hours of becoming prime minister last Monday, Kevin Rudd undid a decade of obfuscation and global warming denialism on the part of the Howard government and signed Australian up to full Kyoto ratification. Less than 48 hours later, Rudd has called on the US to do likewise :

"Our position vis-a-vis Kyoto is clear cut, and that is that all developed and developing countries need to be part of the global solution," Mr Rudd said.

"When it comes to developed countries, we need to see our friends in America as part and parcel of that as well. "And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state when it comes to Kyoto."

But earlier today, during the first official meetings between the Bush administration and the new Australian government, Kevin Rudd was told by US Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns that the US would not ratify Kyoto and was instead looking to a post-2010 deal on carbon targets that would include China and India.

MORE TO COME

I Can Unite The World On Climate, Says Rudd

Rupert Murdoch Admits He Does Tell His Newspapers Who To Back And What To Print

"We Can Change The Way The Public Thinks About These Issues"

By Darryl Mason

Okay, prepare yourselves, and try not to be too shocked by this revelation :

Rupert Murdoch has admitted to a parliamentary inquiry (in the UK) that he has "editorial control" over which party The Sun and News of the World back in a general election and what line the papers take on Europe.

Mr Murdoch's comments were revealed in the minutes from evidence he gave behind closed doors on 17 September in New York, during the committee's inquiry into media ownership.

But the News Corporation chairman said he took a different approach with The Times and The Sunday Times. While he often asked what those papers were doing, he never instructed them or interfered, he said.

The minute stated: "For The Sun and News of the World he explained that he is a 'traditional proprietor'. He exercises editorial control on major issues – like which party to back in a general election or policy on Europe

Which raises the obvious question, how many of the 70% of all Australian newspapers that Rupert Murdoch controls does he instruct to back or attack chosen politicians, political parties or political causes?

Is the Sydney Daily Telegraph as editorially independent of Murdoch's influence as the London Sunday Times?

Or can The Australian newspaper claim that honor?

Was the Herald Sun free to back Howard over Rudd in the elections? Or was the Herald Sun's pro-Howard line more for reasons of 'balance'?

Perhaps the UK parliamentary enquiry revelations explain why Murdoch blogger Andrew Bolt (whose blog features on the main news.com.au portal, as well as the Herald Sun and Courier Mail websites, reaching hundreds of thousands of Australian online readers) was so enthusiastically pumping the fact that, just before the election, the Sydney Daily Telegraph backed Rudd, while the Herald Sun did not, and why Bolt was earlier so vehemently denying that Murdoch's papers went hard after Howard when he refused to step down.

Murdoch's revelation of purposeful editorial control should not be a revelation to readers of The Orstrahyun blog.

As regular readers would remember, Murdoch clearly admitted, back in June during his climate change awakening, that not only did he instruct his newspapers to push a certain reality that he favoured, but he could also muster the entire forces of his internet, newspaper, cable and TV empire to push his belief systems onto the world and change not only what they believed, but how they behaved.

Here's Rupert Murdoch explaining how this would be done on the issue of 'waking up' his readers to the reality of climate change :

"We need to reach (our audience) in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way.

"Now... there are limits to how far we can push this issue in our content."

"...we can change the way the public thinks about these issues..."

Within weeks of Rupert explaining how effectively his vast media empire can wage a psychological war on its viewers and readers to influence their beliefs and behaviour, most of his dozens of Australian city and suburban newspapers became champions of fighting climate change, launching special liftouts, dedicated websites and awareness campaigns over the next few months, under such Al Gore mantras as 'Saving Planet Earth'.

UPDATE : On September 10, 2001, John Howard had a long, private dinner with Rupert Murdoch in Washington, DC. Howard was suffering some of the worst poll numbers of his career, and the Liberal Party was scoring its worst poll ratings since the mid-1970s. But Tampa was heating up and 9/11 was about to shock the nation.

Murdoch allowed himself to be interviewed by the media when he exited the restaurant, in scenes that were repeated in early 2007, in New York City, with then Labor prime ministerial hopeful Kevin Rudd.

From an ABC Radio report on the Howard-Murdoch 2001 dinner :

For two hours the two men sat alone in the upmarket Oxidental Grill deep in conversation. At 10:00pm local time they emerged and Mr Murdoch was asked by waiting journalists who'd win the next election.

RUPERT MURDOCH: No, we never discussed it.

REPORTER: Do you think Mr Howard deserves a third term in Office, Mr Murdoch?

RUPERT MURDOCH: Mm?

REPORTER: Do you think the Prime Minister deserves a third term in Office?

RUPERT MURDOCH: It doesn't matter what I think. You ask my editors.

REPORTER: Mr Murdoch, how do you think Kim Beazley would go as Prime Minister?

RUPERT MURDOCH: It would be very interesting.

REPORTER: Were they productive discussions with Mr Murdoch?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, we had a pleasant dinner.

REPORTER: Did you talk politics?

JOHN HOWARD: We talked everything.

MARK WILLACY: There's little doubt about that, given Rupert Murdoch's interest in media policy and the extraordinary influence of his Australian print empire. His response when asked if John Howard deserved a third term is well worth another listen:

RUPERT MURDOCH: It doesn't matter what I think. You ask my editors.

Rupert Murdoch was far more forthcoming on Kevin Rudd when he was asked by a journalist in April, 2007, whether or not he thought the contender would make a good prime minister. The reply then was, "Oh, I'm sure..." Big smile.

A note we received yesterday, from a person who claimed to be a former staffer in John Howard's office, said that it was common gossip within many government departments that when John Howard refused to hand over the leadership to Peter Costello at the end of 2006, Rupert Murdoch was less than happy. And that editors of at least two Murdoch Australian city papers, likewise, were less than happy.

The self-claimed former Howard staffer said that when Rupert Murdoch publicly appeared with Kevin Rudd in New York City in April, 2007, laughing and grinning after a long meeting at the News Corp. headquarters, and then dinner together, a climate of doom descended amongst many in the prime minister's department. The belief was that Murdoch had given Kevin Rudd the Big Tick, particularly after the "Oh, I'm sure" quote was aired, which meant Howard was probably finished.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph soon became very obvious champions of Kevin Rudd, and Howard suffered a sustained stream of extremely negative Daily Telegraph front pages, featuring large photos showing Howard looking old, stressed and confused.

But then again, one city newspaper doesn't win an election. Does it?