Blasphemy Matters

A few months ago the Irish Government passed a law making blasphemy illegal and blasphemers liable for a fine of €25,000.

The law officially went live on January 1, and Atheist Ireland have come out of the gate swinging, publishing a list of their favourite 25 blasphemous quotes.

Fun fact: the first two quotes on the list are by Jesus Christ himself.

Let’s be clear about this … protecting the right to blaspheme is not about protecting atheists’ right to poke the bear and make fun of religion.

The point is that free speech is sacred; so much more sacred than any religion.

And what’s more, the right to blaspheme is a cornerstone of freedom of religion. It protects religious believers.

All you Christians … don’t you realise that proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah is a blasphemy against Judaism?

All you Muslims, don’t you realise that elevating Muhammad above Jesus is a blasphemy against Christianity?

And Scientologists, don’t you know that L.Ron’s stories are a blasphemy against all the truly great science fiction writers out there?

Blasphemy is important. Blasphemy matters.

And this law needs to be repealed. Now.

Hey Hey Let’s Not Overreact

I wasn’t going to weigh into this debate, but here goes.

Let’s get one thing very clear: a white person putting on make-up and pretending to be a black person is not inherently offensive.

This may seem obvious, but I have a feeling that this ridiculous Jackson Jive skit is going to cause some to disagree with that.

Let’s take a recent example: a few weeks ago the US series Mad Men had one of their white characters perform a minstrel show to an amused garden party.

Far from being offended, The New York Times (that bastion of liberal politics) hailed it as one of the best episodes of the series. So what’s the difference?

Simple. The Mad Men episode was relevant, poignant, funny and meant something.

The Jackson Jive skit? It wasn’t funny and it meant nothing.

It may have been a sad indictment on the state of Australian television but it said nothing about racism in Australia. If you want to find evidence of that just google “stolen generations” or “Cronulla riots”.

The point is that any reference to old American blackface shows in the Jackson Jive skit is a projection on the part of Americans. The performers weren’t aware of it.

Should they have been aware of it? Maybe. But maybe they’re just not as steeped in American culture as some of their detractors. That’s hardly a crime.

The people who should have known better were the producers of the show.

What the hell were they thinking getting Harry Connick Jr, not just an American but a white southern gentleman, to judge this thing? Did it not occur to them that he might be offended?

What next? Getting Cat Stevens to judge a pork-pie-eating contest?

No wonder it went viral. US cultural sensitivity around this stuff is running hot right now. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

What I’m worried about is this falling over into knee-jerk censorship, whereby any white actor in black make-up is automatically deemed censurable.

That would be a bad reaction.

Worse, it would mean we were giving trash like Hey Hey it’s Saturday an influence that it just doesn’t deserve.

Religion is Immoral

When I see stories like this I'm reminded why I reject the notion of religious belief.

Members of Iran's feared Basij militia forcibly marry female virgin prisoners the night before scheduled executions, raping their new "wives" and making it religiously acceptable to execute them …

Question: Who would claim this is moral behaviour? Answer: Those who committed this atrocity.

And in their own twisted little context, they’re right.

After all, under strict Islamic law, the greater immorality would be to execute them as virgins, so raping them prior to execution is the greater moral act.

And this, dear friends, is what religious belief does.

It tells us our natural and evolved sense of right and wrong can’t be trusted. It tells us our moral sense comes from without, bestowed upon us by an all-knowing God. It tells us to deny our innate sense of justice and submit to a greater will, even if we don’t understand it.

Of course in practice that “greater will” is the Word as interpreted by the priesthood and clergy.

If we’re lucky, the clergy in question will trust their innate sense of justice and selectively promote the truly good messages from their scriptures. We see this, for example, in Christian ministers who leave out the bits about burning in hell and concentrate on Christ’s social justice message.

But all that’s happening then is that the religious message is being manipulated to ape the simple message of humanism. The religion becomes subject to the person.

If we’re doing that, then why bother with the religion at all? If the message has value, then all this supernatural window-dressing is just a distraction.

And it can be a dangerous distraction, because sometimes we’re not so lucky.

Combine that “greater will” instead with a dictatorial theocracy and a brutalised culture, and all of a sudden the person becomes horribly subject to the religion.

The person is considered nothing more than a tabula rasa for the clerical moral code. The individual’s sense of right and wrong is rendered wholly irrelevant.

And before you know it, raping virgins is perfectly OK.

Discrimination In Religious Schools

A review of Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act has made some interesting recommendations.

At the moment, religious schools in Victoria have the right to discriminate on the basis of faith. For example, a Muslim school can refuse to employ a Jewish cleaner or a conservative Christian school a woman who is unmarried and pregnant.

A parliamentary review has recommended broadening the definition into “core” and “non-core” roles, so discrimination would only be applied to roles where it actually matters. Under this model the school chaplain can’t be a Satanist but it doesn’t matter so much if the maths teacher is (although he does go on about pentagrams a fair bit … ).

People running religious schools obviously think it’s a bad idea. And I agree.

This is just too one-sided. Even now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find any number of atheists teaching in Christian schools, where their atheism is overlooked just because of their teaching ability.

This proposal takes us in completely the wrong direction. We should give more discriminatory power to these schools, not less.

In fact, let’s go the whole hog. Religious schools should be obliged to only employ people who share their faith.

Before being appointed, applicants must prove their allegiance by swearing on their particular holy book and passing a detailed examination on the tenets of their doctrine.

All staff must be monitored constantly to ensure their behaviour is in line with the appropriate religious doctrine. Any breaches of protocol, whether on school grounds or in the person’s home, will result in immediate dismissal.

Of course religious schools might struggle to retain staff under such a regime, and student numbers would drop off as teaching standards fell.

And Government funding would have to be cut because they’d now be straight religious institutions rather than educational institutions.

And in fact, after a while we’d probably see very few religious schools remaining.

That’d be a shame.

But keeping the schools’ religious values pure is obviously critically important, so surely that’s a small price to pay.

Atheism ≠ Philosophical Materialism

Philosophical Materialism is an interesting worldview. It’s the belief that …

… all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance (from Wikipedia).

This belief is obviously anathema to theists, because it defines out of existence any notion of a supernatural God.

It also has its share of philosophical problems. It’s an easy target for philosophical deconstruction and reasonably easy to paint as irrational.

For this reason theological arguments often conflate materialism with atheism, because the philosophical issues with materialism can be used to conclude that atheism is also irrational.

In fact, most arguments of the atheism-is-irrational variety boil down to this particular point.

But the argument fails right out of the gate. While all Philosophical Materialists are atheists it obviously doesn’t follow that all atheists are Philosophical Materialists. That’s a simple rookie error.

Like most atheists, my position is simply that theism has roundly failed to make its case.

I don’t reject religion because I think the material realm is all there is. I reject religion because once you scratch the surface of any religion it becomes clear it’s been created by humans.

Of course I can accept the possibility that there is something beyond this physical realm. I just don’t claim to know anything about it.

And here’s the thing: unless you can present some pretty extraordinary evidence to the contrary, you shouldn’t claim to know anything about it either.

You Have the Right to be Offended

Suppose I call religion a waste of intellectual capacity.

Suppose I say the idea of an omniscient God is abhorrent to anyone who values true freedom.

Suppose I say dogmatic religion is a blight on society and does nothing but justify mindless obeisance and suppress genuine knowledge and progress.

You may be offended. You have the right to be offended.

What you do not have is the right not to be offended.

Argue with me. Tell me I’m wrong. Give me a reason to change my mind. Engage in meaningful debate.

But don’t try to silence me.

We must all have the right to freely call ideas dangerous, divisive and prejudicial. We must all have the right to freely call the people who hold those ideas foolish, small minded and moronic.

We must all have the right to free speech. And if our speech is not allowed to offend, then it is no longer free.

This is why UN draft resolution VI on “Combating Defamation of Religions” (document A/C.3/62/L.35) must be denounced as the blatant attack on free speech that it is.

The Assembly would emphasize that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which should be exercised with responsibility and may therefore be subject to limitations, according to law and necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others; protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals; and respect for religions and beliefs.

This is not only nonsense, it’s dangerous nonsense.

Every major step forward in society has required the denouncement of one or more deeply held religious ideals.

To suppress the defamation of religion is to stop society in its tracks.

After all, any idea worth anything is bound to offend someone.

Pope Benedict is a Dangerous Lunatic

In his first visit to Africa today, the Pope said these words:

“AIDS is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”

It must be true because he’s infallible, right. Right?

This is a perfect illustration of so many things.

. . . the fact that so many of our religious “leaders” are more interested in maintaining their moral authority than helping people.

. . . that religion is far from innocuous and has the power to cause real and genuine harm in our world.

. . . why it’s so important to keep religion out of politics.

But most of all, it throws into sharp relief the fact that the Catholic church is nothing more than a dangerous relic of a bygone age. With this one unconscionable statement, the Pope has damned his faith and his followers to the trashcan of history.

This is just cause for every Catholic in the world to denounce their leader as a misanthropic lunatic and demand his resignation. If they fail to do this, then the necessary response from rational thinking people worldwide is clear.

We must declare that the Catholic Church is no longer worthy of any political or social influence.

We must declare that its priests and cardinals are never again to be considered authorities on any matters of morality or ethics.

We must call on our governments to withdraw funding from Catholic churches, schools and organisations.

And finally, we must demand that this pompous and sanctimonious dipshit known as the Pope Benedict XVI, who has proven himself to be dangerously out of touch with reality, should immediately and without further delay pull his ignorant fucking head in.

Mathematical Proof of Republican Ignorance

This time they’ve gone too far.

On Thursday, 10 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted against an official (but non-binding) resolution declaring today, March 14, 2009 (3/14/09) as Pi day.

You can read the whole sad story here.

Screwing up the world economy is one thing, but really. This is just a travesty.

It’s nothing more than a Luddite knee-capping of a noble attempt to bring an awareness of Math to the Masses.

What do we expect though, from the crowd that gave us eight years of anti-science medievalism and Sarah Palin?

Never mind. It’ll always be Pi day in our hearts.

Let Me Repeat: Homeopathy is a Scam

I wrote a while ago about the homeopathy scam and its use on poor unsuspecting animals.

That’s bad enough, but it’s even worse to use it on poor unsuspecting children.

And especially heinous is the frankly dangerous idea that homeopathy could in any way be an acceptable method of childhood vaccination.

Check out this nonsense from the Homeopathy Plus website:

Homeopathic immunisation - also known as homeoprophylaxis - is a safe and effective way to protect you and your family against childhood and other epidemic diseases.

Effective? No. Safe? Well . . .

The homeopathic immunisations are “safe” because

they are free of harmful components

and

have none of the adverse reactions or side-effects associated with vaccines.

That’s true. It will have no side effects.

BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING IN IT. IT’S ONLY WATER.

What is not true is that homeopathic treatment will in any way protect anyone from anything.

After all, how could it?

It’s a valid question, and one that those promoting this ridiculous pseudo-science can’t even answer themselves.

Here’s their “explanation” of how it works:

The nature of potentisation is the mystery of Homeopathy. What is understood is that the potentisation process imprints energetic information from the original substance onto the diluting liquid during the stages of succussion. This liquid is then prescribed according to the Law of Similars as either drops or medicated pilules to the unwell person. They carry the energetic information into the body to trigger a self healing reaction that moves the person back to a state of health.

Notice how you get to the end of the paragraph and don’t know anything more than you did at the start?

That’s because it is nothing but utter, unadulterated nonsense.

This has got to stop.

Ripping off people who are happy to waste their money on placebos is one thing, but if this rubbish starts getting promoted as a legitimate alternative to vaccination, then we have the potential for a serious public health problem.

A Change on Climate?

Andrew Bolt has decided who’s to blame for those ridiculously high temperatures we experienced last week, and it’s . . .

. . . those evil Lefty Greenies!

That’s right. All those people banging on about stopping climate change instead of trying to protect people from the rising temperatures are the ones to blame.

For some reason this makes perfect sense in his twisted little mind.

Because what we need is more electricity use, not less! If we want to cool the Earth then let’s crank up those air conditioners!

We seem to be at an interesting point in history here.

We’ve just had a glimpse of what Mr Bolt’s focus will be once the fact of climate change is no longer deniable.

He’ll simply shift from ranting about it not really happening, to ranting about not enough being done.

His latest rant beautifully straddles these two lines of thinking, indicating that we might be somewhere near the tipping point.

It goes something like this:

“If the Earth is warming which it isn’t then it’s utterly ridiculous to tell people not to use their air conditioners because that would cool the Earth dummy and anyway it’s cold that kills people not warmth so global warming would be great even though it’s not really happening.”

He even added a caveat to his usual cherry-picked statistic that the Earth hasn’t warmed since 2002, saying “it may soon warm again”.

Andrew Bolt: neo-Greenie?

Heatwave II: The Reckoning

One might be forgiven for thinking that our state government is an incompetent pack of whinging little girls.

Apparently three days in a row of temperatures over 43° constitutes a “natural disaster”.

Sorry Mr. Batchelor, but no. It doesn’t.

This kind of thing should be expected and our infrastructure should be able to cope with it.

If a few hot days is all it takes to completely trash our public transport and power delivery systems, then that’s a serious indictment of our government’s dire track record in public maintenance.

News flash for those “in charge”:

This is not the first time this has happened. And it won’t be the last.

In fact, where the hell do you people get off being surprised by this?

The climate is changing. You might have read about it. It’s been in a couple of papers.

All utilities planning should be allowing for this sort of thing to happen every two or three years. Because a decade or two down the track, it will be.

We’re well past the time we can sit on our hands and start thinking it’s all going to get back to normal soon.

So Mr. Batchelor, Ms. Kosky and Mr. Brumby: get it the hell together.

The Theory of Gravity

The theory of Evolution, just like the theory of Gravity, is as accepted in the scientific community as any other scientific theory you care to name.

Both are based on years of careful research, observation and experiment.

Every new discovery in every related field serves only to further confirm and reinforce them.

There is no question that we have evolved into the creatures we are today, just as there is no possibility that gravity will spontaneously fail and send us all floating off into space.

But to some, the theory of Evolution is special.

To some the theory of Evolution stands alone, because unlike the theory of Gravity it stands in opposition to their chosen religious belief.

These same people will happily use a cell phone, eat refrigerated food and blog about their hatred of Evolution on the internet, and all the while fail to appreciate that each of these things is the end result of a scientific theory just as strong as the theory they reject as nonsense.

I was moved to make this point recently over at the blog Atheism Analyzed, where there was a silly article saying that because two scientific papers didn’t explicitly mention evolution, it’s obviously not all that important.

Thus was my response:

Hi Stan. Great point.

It's exactly like that ridiculous theory of gravity.

That's revered by scientists as well, with very little in the way of theoretical evidence to support it.

Take an example: there's a new building going up near where I work. I saw the plans, and gravity wasn't mentioned once. Not once!

And yet this building is apparently going to sit on the ground!

Surely such a thing is absolutely dependent on this 'theory of gravity', but it wasn't even mentioned!

There was no mention of gravitational forces, no mention of the inverse square law, and not a single reference to the quantum effects of gravity waves.

This clearly shows that the whole 'theory of gravity' is nonsense.

I'm so glad you've made this important point, Stan. The sooner we stop revering this silly 'theory of gravity' the better off we'll all be.

Homo-Christianity

Over at the blog “Apologia” I’ve been debating self-described Christian apologist Eric. The discussion has ranged over a wide spectrum, which was surprising given that Eric’s original post said he was sick of debating atheists.

Still, a few issues were passed over for lack of time, so I though I might pick them up here.

At one point in the discussion Eric made the comment

“It’s obvious to anyone who reads the Gospels that Jesus considered homosexuality to be a sin.”

This stopped me in my in my tracks for a moment, because it should be obvious to anyone who reads the Gospels that Jesus had precisely nothing to say about homosexuality.

Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a word.

And yet strangely, Eric’s view is very common. For so many Christians in the world today homosexuality is Public Enemy No. 1 when it comes to the nebulous field of “sexual immorality”.

And this is despite the fact that Jesus himself, the man supposedly at the centre of their religion, didn’t think it was important enough to mention.

Further damaging the Christian position is that the most common biblical quote thrown around (you know . . . “homosexuality is an abomination”) is from the Old Testament; that bit of the Bible that Christians mostly ignore.

Supposedly Christians are all about the New Testament. Or they’re supposed to be. That’s where Jesus came along and did away with all the old laws. This is, for example, why Christians don’t eat kosher.

But back to the Old Testament.

In the same section in which homosexuality is denounced we also have prohibitions against wearing clothes made from two different types of material (Lev 19:19), cutting the hair at the sides of your head (Lev 19:27) and sleeping with a menstruating woman (Lev 18:19 and 20:18).

These other things are obviously no longer important. But for some reason, homosexuality is an exception.

So what about the New Testament?

There are four references in the New Testament which could be regarded as relating to homosexuality. These were all made by Paul, the guy who took control of the nascent church after Christ’s death (and alleged resurrection) and in my mind, royally screwed up the humanist message Jesus was trying to deliver.

Each of these references is no more than a throw-away remark put in as a sideline to a different point he was making. None of them are decisive condemnations, and there’s a nice summary here (from a Christian website) of why they shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Modern Christianity’s obsession with and bigotry against homosexuals is one of the main causes of continued discrimination in our culture. The passing of the noxious Proposition 8 in California (largely because the Christian community mobilised to support it) is just the most recent example.

The sooner this attitude is seen as the irrelevant cultural relic that it is, and the sooner it’s recognised that even those who propound it have no reason to do so, even within their own doctrine, then the better off we’ll all be.

Freeview. Ho Hum.

The final move to digital television in Australia is still a long way off, with latest estimates putting it sometime in 2013.

It’s taking so long because getting the Australian government to organise something like this is like getting an Amish family to produce a video podcast about World of Warcraft.

They’re making feints in the direction of activity though, with the 2009 launch of something called “Freeview”.

The big claim on the official site is that there will be fifteen new free-to-air channels starting up sometime in 2009, ten standard and five in HD.

<sarcasm> Well, that should get the punters ditching their rabbit ears and flocking to Harvey Norman for a set-top box. </sarcasm>

The thing is, those of us with set-top boxes already know that those fifteen channels are already there, but the only ones being used for new content are ABC2, SBS News and Ten HD. Channels 7 and 9 are just showing their basic broadcast across all three of their stations.

So here’s my question: what’s going to happen in 2009 to encourage the networks to put different content on each one?

On the official government website it announces a big-arse industry conference in March to “discuss the future of Digital TV in Australia”.

All the interested parties will be there, so presumably that’s where all the bribery, blackmail and back-scratching will happen. And we definitely won’t be freeviewing anything until all that’s done.

It’ll be a nauseating exercise in faux-concern and ham-fisted negotiation, as the government tries to save face on its bungled implementation and the networks try to get away with doing as little as possible.

That’s the thing about free-to-air television. There’s no advantage to any of the networks in increasing the number of channels they transmit.

In the long term it might make them a viable competitor to Pay TV, but with streaming media just around the corner even that’s looking shaky.

In the short term, and this is where their focus tends to lie, all it does is increase expenses while spreading the fixed revenue base more thinly. No-one wins.

Except maybe the viewers, but no-one cares about them.

Homeopathy For Pets

Homeopathy is one of the biggest scams ever wrought upon a gullible public.

Here’s the thing: a homeopathic preparation is nothing more than water.

Seriously.

It's just water.

Supposedly the water retains the ‘memory’ of something or other diluted in it, but by the time you’re shelling out your money it’s been diluted so much that there’s nothing there anymore.

It’s just water.

I'm amazed anyone has the gall to charge so much money for this stuff. I'm only slight less amazed that people actually pay so much money for this stuff.

No study has ever shown homeopathy to have any effect beyond that of a simple placebo. Which is hardly surprising.

After all, it’s just water.

So imagine my surprise when I was in my local vet’s this afternoon, and they have on their shelf something called “Homeo-Pet”.

Yes. Homeopathic treatments for pets. At $37 a bottle.

For water.

I get that a placebo might work on humans. I do. But on animals? On dogs and cats?

Please.

They’re just not that stupid.

Won’t Someone Think of the Cartoons?

There comes a time in every moral panic when common sense completely takes a holiday.

Case in point: the ludicrous ruling by NSW Supreme Court Justice Michael Adams that pornographic cartoons of Simpsons characters constitute genuine child pornography.

Now, tell me: when did the crusade against child pornography stop being about protecting children?

Because that has most definitely stopped. At some point it become all about political point-scoring, puritanical moral grandstanding and theocratic thought-policing.

And that’s where we are now.

If our judges can consider stupid pictures of cartoons having sex as anywhere near equivalent to actual child pornography, then quite frankly we’ve entered the Twilight Zone.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sinister.

What’s next? Well, The Simpsons Movie will obviously have to be banned, because we got a glimpse of Bart’s cartoon willy.

Then we’ll have to ban all TV shows and films that feature crime of any sort. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t real . . . because it might encourage someone to really do it!

Then we’ll have to ban any books that describe crimes. It won’t leave us with much in the way of literature, just a selection of Dr. Seuss books (although obviously not The Cat in the Hat . . . he’s a bad influence on children) and Miffy by Dick Bruna.

And how many otherwise-abused children will be protected by all this nonsense? Precisely none.

But of course, that’s not the point is it? This isn’t about protecting children anymore. It’s about policing morals, even when those morals affect no-one except the individual.

And when the judiciary starts deciding they have the right to do that, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.

Michael Atkinson is Pure Evil

The Rudd Government is apparently gunning to out-conservative the conservatives, with a proposed mandatory internet filter that will

(a) significantly slow internet speeds,

(b) put Australian censorship in the same category as that enjoyed by China and Iran, and

(c) fail to stop one single person from downloading illegal content if they want to.

There's naturally been a major industry backlash, so here's hoping the whole ridiculous idea gets shelved.

Then, straight into this maelstrom of Luddite lunacy comes the announcement that Michael Atkinson (remember him?) is no longer satisfied just passively resisting the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games, but is now actively scuttling any chance of advancing the issue by blocking debate.

Back in March it was announced that there would be public consultation on the issue, which has apparently now been completed. It obviously had the results I predicted it would, because Atkinson has rejected its publication.

Just who the hell does this guy think he is?

Closing Hospitals in the Name of God

In a staggeringly arrogant move, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has threatened to close Catholic-run hospitals if proposed changes to abortion laws in Victoria are passed.

His position is that Catholic employees would be required to perform abortions and they couldn't possibly do that in good conscience and maintain their religious freedom and blah blah blah.

Please.

I'll leave aside the rightness-or-otherwise of the proposed changes, and I won't dwell on the fact that not all employees of Catholic hospitals are necessarily Catholic, and just say that this beautifully illustrates the danger of allowing essential services to be hijacked by religious interests.

Churches have long made a habit of attaching themselves to charitable enterprises. This is partly out of a genuine desire to do good works, and partly out of a genuine desire to promote their brand . . . much like a Hollywood celebrity being photographed holding a starving African child.

But like the child being unceremoniously dropped when the next $20m pay packet comes up, the charity will always come second to maintaining the Church's perceived moral authority.

So good works are done and people are helped. It's all well and good until they start believing their own publicity.

Case in point: Mr. Hart seems to think that if he makes good on his threat, medical services will suffer because surely nobody other than Catholics would have the social conscience needed to run a hospital.

Doesn't he realise there'll be a huge line of providers ready and willing to immediately step into the breach? There's lots of money in medicine.

But of course he knows that.

After all, that's the other reason the Church got into it in the first place.

Another Argument

Following on from the last one I have once again been arguing with Stan over at the Atheism Analyzed blog.

It's not quite as philosophically analytical as the last one, but still interesting nonetheless.

You can follow all the action here.

Distant Digital Futures

An article in today's Age talks about the eventual switchoff of Australia's analog television signals and the permanent move to digital.

The point of the article is that, for the Luddites among us . . .

". . . the Federal Government is considering offering financial and other incentives to convince people to upgrade from analog to digital television before the 2013 analog switch-off."

I would have thought that the option of digital-or-nothing would be incentive enough. But hey, what do I know?

Anyway, the switch-off date made me do a double take. It's 2013 now?

The last I heard it was going to be 2010. And that was after it had already been pushed back from the original target of 2008.

This is bad. Until the analog signals are gone and we've opened up the (much wider) digital spectrum to some decent competition, there's no incentive at all for our oligopolous free-to-air stations to lift their game.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the FTA stations have engineered the delay in an attempt to retain the status quo. If they have, then it'll prove a costly mistake.

They desperately need someone to drag them into the 21st century. In five years' time, free-to-air television will be even less relevant than it is now, with downloadable, streaming and subscription content continuing to take over.

If our FTA stations are still doing then what they're doing now, then before long they'll be nothing more than a distant memory.