Trad vs. Jones:

Angus Sharpe writes: Re. “Keysar Trad: my victory over Alan Jones” (yesterday, item 16). I don’t mean to play down Keysar Trad’s victory over Alan Jones, but assuming that this is about right, then Alan Jones probably makes $1M+ per year.

Or about $2,740+ per day (assuming that he works 365 days per year, which he doesn’t).  So this cost Alan about 4 days work (a loose change marketing cost).  And, of course, a forced on-air apology will give him even more publicity.

Worth the fight.  But he’s made money from this…

Rundle vs. Salusinszky:

Guy Rundle writes: In his long letter on matters of Quadrant, Imre Szaletc (yesterday, comments) spends a lot of time arguing against the proposition that he has shown bias as his chair of the Oz Council Literature Board. Strange, because it’s a charge I never made. I simply said that Quadrant‘s bump-up coincided with the years of Imer’s tenure. That may have been due to merit. or possibly other people involved unilaterally agreed to the bump-up because they thought it might keep the Howard government at bay. Or something else. Who knows?

As to teaching post-modern literary theory and free market economics Irme knows very well the point I’m making — having taught (and very well) at taxpayer’s expense an abstruse philosophy that very few would voluntarily pay full free-market fees to study, he left the public academy and began excoriating (with withering scorn, the closest he ever got to genuinely humorous writing) anyone who was subsidy dependent. He was particularly hostile to rural communities, though most would judge that helping rural towns survive was of greater public import than allowing someone to read and write about Derrida, Foucault and Northrop Frye, simply because it interested them.

Indeed, had he managed to rise higher in the Australian university system than Newcastle, one wonders if we would have heard from Ierm S*%!£?!#! the free-marketeer at all.

As to the name shit,  and its alleged offensiveness, it has nothing to do with the ethnicity, as readers will recall from my pieces on Lord Monckton, whose full name was something ridiculous, Baronness Lola Young, and others thus unfairly or offensively treated. If his moniker happened to be Secheverell Marjoribanks-Festonhaugh  (which is pronounced Marchbain–Fanshawe, just in case you’re ever at a UK Greens meeting), I’d do the same. What a pathetic piece of snivelling political correctness from a one-time Howard-humper! Stop crying in your goulash, you mad Magyar, and have me charged with racial vilification, if Murdoch will open his safe and give you back your balls.

Christmas propaganda:

Jo Dyer writes: For those, like Ava Hubble (yesterday, comments), concerned about the number of trees wasted to produce government propaganda and other junk mail, can I suggest the purchase of “Ghost Trees”, intriguing artwork created by Sydney artist Michael James Rowland that transforms paper from junk mail back into paper depicting elegant ghosts of the trees it once was…

Movies:

Darryl Rosin writes: Re. “The big movies of 2010 (with a sobering thought)” (yesterday, item 17).  The Last Airbender movie is an adaption of an award-winning children’s animated series “Avatar: the Last Airbender”. The IMDB page says it’s an adaptation, the Wikipedia pages say it’s an adaptation, the YouTube channel says it’s an adaptation, and it doesn’t reflect well on Luke Buckmaster’s observations and insights that he thinks it’s an original story from the drug-addled mind of M Night Shamila… Shununu… you know, that guy who made “Unbreakable”

Climate change:

John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Richard Farmer’s chunky bits” (yesterday, item 12).  Richard Farmer has missed the point. Tony Abbott has already displayed his green credentials in all their insipid glory.

Why he will mandate smaller trucks to lower carbon emissions a suggestion which has been described as a “a gaffe that flies in the face of long-standing industry policy to grant access for more productive vehicles.”

He will also introduce Soviet era land use controls as his major weapon against the (crap?) problem of carbon pollution/climate change.

How this fits in with the Minerals Council’s call for the urgent adoption of “market drivers to change behaviour” and “encourage the rapid deployment of new technology” is anyone’s guess.

— Mitch Hooke  CEO Minerals Council  (7.30 Report 21/12)

And last but not least :

The international electricity industry has rejected Tony Abbott’s “direct action” approach on government regulation as the worst and most expensive way to encourage business to shift to low-emission power generation…

Industry leaders from Europe, the US and Australia said a carbon market was the cheapest and most efficient way to drive the change, and that direct government regulations or subsidies were the wrong way to go.

Abbott’s tactics will blow up in his face when the farmers realize what is in store for them and the Greens turn on him and reduce the Lib’s 2pp vote to rubble.