Richard Farmer’s chunky bits: Abbott wins the TV race

Full marks to the advance guard. Preparing the photo opportunities when your boss is out cycling in the never-never is no easy task, especially when notice about the needed picture opportunity for the day is often out of your hands. The Abbott Liberal team thus deserve great credit for their efforts this week.

Yesterday they provided their man with a chance of show off his lycra and continue with this campaign’s image of choice – smiling children everywhere.

The day before was even better.

I know many of you would like to think that elections are won and lost on serious matters but this battle of the images counts and so far the Liberals are winning it.

Give him the flick. I suspect that the most significant political event of the week in so far as the forthcoming election is concerned had nothing to do with the toing-and-froing over a national disability scheme. Attorney General Mark Dreyfus will surely get the award for his fracas with the crew of a Qantas flight for refusing to turn off his mobile phone when asked.

The arrogance of a tall political poppy is something everybody can understand and dislike. The actions of Dreyfus will do Labor considerable harm.

Bring back the long lunch. As someone who thought Australia’s fringe benefits tax ended civilisation as I knew it, I note that the campaign against eating on expenses has now spread to China. And spread with devastating economic results.

Recently available data confirms that the anti-corruption campaign of the new Chinese leadership has concentrated on stopping ostentatious corporate entertaining. Reports the Sober Look website:

Catering sales for large enterprises suddenly plunged earlier this year. Cutbacks in extravagant welcoming parties for central government officials, which drove down catering sales, also created a dip in the overall retail sales.

Warm temperatures and above average precipitation. The World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the Status of the Global Climate released overnight confirms that 2012 joined the 10 previous years as one of the warmest — at ninth place — on record despite the cooling influence of a La Niña episode early in the year.

The 2012 global land and ocean surface temperature during January-December 2012 is estimated to be 0.45°C (±0.11°C) above the 1961-1990 average of 14.0°C. This is the ninth warmest year since records began in 1850 and the 27th consecutive year that the global land and ocean temperatures were above the 1961–1990 average, according to the statement. The years 2001–2012 were all among the top 13 warmest years on record.

The 2012 climate assessment, which the Geneva based international organisation describes as the most detailed to date, will inform discussion at WMO’s Executive Council meeting (15-23 May 2013).

News and views noted along the way.

• How to be a political opinion journalist
• Economy key in Malaysia’s tightest poll and Stakes high in Malaysia’s pivotal election
• The new economy of fealty — “Since the late twentieth century, most employment growth has come in services, particularly personal services — a pattern that looks like a reversal of a previous historical trend.”
• Six ways to separate lies from statistics
• Is that God talking? — “We often imagine prayer as a practice that affects the content of what we think about — our moral aspirations, or our contrition. It’s probably more accurate to understand prayer as a skill that changes how we use our minds.”
• Twitter tweaks Huffington Post by dpoiling the duspense — “The Huffington Post is known for sucking readers in by offering snappy headlines via Twitter. But those efforts are being thwarted, or at least called out, by a Twitterfeed that’s been gaining steam over the last week.”