Henry Ergas, Ross Cameron, and a stunning, stupefying diversity and abundance ...

(Above: three fifty seven channels and nothing on).

Time to seek out some more of that independent thinking that's such a regular feature of The Australian's opinion pages - just love the singularly diverse thinking that always seems to arrive at a hive singularity - and wouldn't you know it, there's good old Henry Ergas at the top of the page Blowing the final whistle on Australian TV rules.

For those who came in late, some time ago, The Australian spent months in a state of shock at the way the Federal Government had gifted some $250 million to FTA operators by rebating licence fees, and in a state of outrage at the shocking way the current sports anti-siphoning regime helps position free to air over pay.

None of this had anything to do with the way that The Australian and Foxtel share a stable. It was just the way a noble independent rag could display its intrinsic sense of justice and fair play ...

Poor old Henry follows that line so closely that they felt the need to put up a disclaimer:

Henry Ergas has been a consultant on other matters to Telstra, which owns 50 per cent of Foxtel. The views expressed here are strictly his own.

Put it another way:

The rag publishing Henry Ergas's wise thoughts is owned by News Corp, which happens to own 25% of Foxtel, along with Consolidated Media Holdings Limited (25%) and Telstra (25%) (News Corporation Foxtel) and while the views expressed by Henry are strictly his own, they are enthusiastically endorsed by News Corp and the management of Foxtel ...

Yep, Henry delivers up in reliable style all the Foxtel current talking points, though is strangely silent about their current argument that government funding for programming should end up in their pockets, serving 33% of taxpayers, while the free to airs whistle dixie.

Perhaps that's because Foxtel is most interested in sport, especially in the new multi-channel environment where consumers have started to wonder about the need to pay for televisual crap in abundance when there's a plethora of free crap readily to hand.

Anyway, no need to canvas Henry's arguments. They're simple: sports bodies suffer, viewers suffer, give sport to Foxtel so consumers can pay for it, and by the way free to airs are bad ...

But then he delivers himself a doozy:

In the longer term, this entire edifice will collapse as internet TV eliminates the distinction between FTA and subscription TV services, with all operators deriving revenues both from advertising and from payments by viewers. Repealing the anti-siphoning rules would facilitate this transition, while removing distortions well past their use-by date.

Oh dear, the elephant in the bedroom, or is that the News Corp board room. Eliminate the distinction between FTA and subscription TV?

But Henry for internet TV to truly flourish and achieve the technical standards currently managed by broadcasting through the ether, the NBN would have to arrive, to deliver the kind of streaming required for bulk HD programming. And as we all know News Corp is mounting a fierce campaign against the very notion of the NBN - a totally useless concept - and you yourself have scribbled freely and endlessly about the futility of having the NBN.

Henry is one of those deluded free marketeers who think that the media will somehow escape government regulation and involvement and ultimately turn into an unblighted, splendidly pure system delivering value to consumers. It's a vision which reduces me to tears, especially when delivered by The Australian, part of News Corp, one of the largest and most offensive aspirants to monopoly status in the Australian media ...

I guess at least they're tears of laughter ...

Speaking of laughs, if you want a truly splendid laugh, look no further than the euphoric state of nature-loving ecstasy on view in Ross Cameron's Amid the climate gloom life goes on and nature thrives.

Cameron spends an excessive amount of words proving that no glass need be so half empty than that some moron can somehow imagine it completely full to the point of overflowing.

Everything's for the best in the best of all possible worlds, we are full to the brim with Wordsworthian wonder about nature, scientists are discovering new creatures, there's a riot of species, the starfish are on the retreat, the seas are in good shape - sure they might rise a little bit but that will only produce great opportunities for surfing - and the wild birds are back in Sydney town:

The lorikeets and kookaburras are back on balconies of Meriton Apartments, eating seed meal from Woolworths. It is no Arcadian idyll but it is successful adaptation.

Oh nature sublime, oh vision splendid.

Meanwhile, China is doing top notch environmental work - no need for Australia to embark on same - and Tokyo has adapted to subsidence, and it's going to cost the Dutch diddly squat to combat the rising seas, because they're not going to rise so much, and the Dutch are awfully clever.

Hmmn, why did I return from Shanghai with my throat constricted with a kind of black soot disease?

Not to worry, the Murray is flowing again, springing back to life with death-defying audacity:

Inflows in October were the highest in a decade. Shellfish middens dotting the dunes attest that this special place has sustained human and marine life throughout droughts and floods for 30,000 years.

Oh life giving midden, oh vision surreal. Thank the lord Australians can dine out on Murray basin shellfish ...

Sure, sure there are a few minor problems. What's that you say? The nine billion people anticipated to infest the planet like Sydney cockies might be a bit tricky? The effects of climate change might not be entirely sanguine?

What are you, some kind of Al gore type alarmist eco warrior? Don't you understand that climate change is going to be jolly good for everyone. Along with a minor rise in seas, we'll get a spiffing reduction in energy costs, and life will grow even more feral and abundant, and with greater diversity ...

Back to those minor problems which people have blithely overlooked while worrying about the big picture:

... we risk failing to respond adequately to soluble problems like why marine mammals beach or how to repel the European carp from Australian rivers and arrest the southern march of the cane toad. We can and must tackle the boring but important challenges of noxious weeds and feral cats. All are responsive to effort, ingenuity and leadership.

What? No mention of bunny rabbits and wild dogs and camels and pigs and water buffalo and pigeons. Or the way the cockies were due to be culled in Broadway?

Just the cat, the toad and the carp and a few noxious weeds? Oh and won't someone think of the whales, won't someone save the beached whales ...

Phew that's a total relief. Now since everything's so spiffing, if only someone can get Cameron to indulge in a diet of fish fresh from Sydney harbour ... he sounds like he needs a hearty dose of heavy metals, with some bonus mercury, to slow him down ...

Time now for an exhortatory wrap up complete with a wild eyed hysteria and a tendency towards sociopathic megalomania ...

Humankind must be accountable for its ability to affect the quality of life of all species on the planet we share but let's admit it is not possible for 6 billion humans to live anywhere in a ''steady state''. Nature doesn't. We mustn't get depressed by the hellfire gloom of those trying to scare us into submission. The story of life on earth is one of stunning resilience, abundance and diversity.

And of course stunning stupidity, and we thank Cameron for further evidence of same. The byline notes that he's a former federal Liberal MP, proving once again that a little culling of feral species is a good thing, even if it means the newspapers are soon littered with their droppings as they take up new nests in a display of stunning resilience, abundance and single minded cheeriness ...

Cameron is of course a Christian, of the kind that loves to confess their infidelities, and during his career, while following the standard line on abortion, gay marriage, single parents, and such like matters, also found the time to double deal his wife. Something to do with attention spans and memory perhaps:

Our lack of perspective derives in part from shortness of memory. It is not possible to recall the five mass extinction events that have, independent of man, wiped out more than 90 per cent of all species that ever lived - only to be followed, in each case, by an explosion of new life. Virtually no large land animals survived the end Cretaceous mass extinction 65 million years ago. As global temperatures rose six to 14 degrees higher than current levels, most plants and tropical marine life were decimated but all life on earth today is descended from the 10 to 15 per cent of species that survived that terrible wipeout.

Oh come on Mr Cameron, we all know the world started precisely - as best can now be verified - at nine am on October 23rd 4004 BC. What is this Cretaceous crap whereof you speak? And if this was god's work, need humanity emulate god?

Day by day, loon pond grows stronger, its wildlife showing stunning resilience and abundance, and soon enough, the pond will take over the world.

Now since it's been awhile since we've had a reading, how about a little Wordsworth, lines written in early spring:

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:---
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

And just so Henry Ergas doesn't feel left out by all this talk of nature, a little Bruce Springsteen:

I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a trunkload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past down
There was fifty-seven channels and notin’ on

Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There’s fifty-seven channnels and nothin’ on

Well we might’ a made some friends with some billionaires
We might’ a got all nice and friendly
If we’d made it upstairs
All I got was a note that said "Bye-bye John
Our love is fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on"

So I bought a .44 magnum it was solid steel cast
And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast
’Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet
And they busted me for disturbin’ the almighty peace
Judge said "What you got in your defense son ?"
"Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on"
I can see by your eyes friend you’re just about gone
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’...

This is dedicated to the man who used his shotgun to take out his TV, enraged as he was by the sight of a Palin dancing. Enjoy the wobbly cam coverage: