The funny things that distract me

Distraction. 

The problem with the internet is it just opens up a vast and endless opportunities to be distracted. 

One thing links to another and time just disappears. 

I was checking the Twitter feed of a news service which led me to an artticle by Michael Mann titled 'Michael Mann's Hotlist of the 9 Most Prominent Climate Deniers'. 

Not surprisingly Rupert Murdoch is listed and unsurprisingly it says this.

Fox News has constructed an alternate universe in which the laws of physics no longer apply; the greenhouse effect is a myth and climate change is a hoax... 

I am not sure how it happened but some time later I found myself on Source Watch and was reading this about Murdoch and the Iraq War.

In March 2003, Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Murdoch backed Bush government plans to invade Iraq. "We worry about what people think about us too much in this country. We have an inferiority complex, it seems," he said.
"I think what's important is that the world respects us, much more important than they love us ... There is going to be collateral damage. And if you really want to be brutal about it, better we get it done now than spread it over months," he said.  

And then later I'm on Counter Punch reading 'Rupert Murdoch and the Israeli Genie'  where author Michael Dickinson is asking of Rupert Murdoch

Don’t you want people to learn that you are part-owner of an Israeli-American company which has landed a shale oil exploration and production license covering 238 square miles in the Judean Hills and on occupied Syrian land, even though this is plainly illegal under international law?

And then the next paragraph makes me go a-ha!

Should not FOX News and Murdoch-owned news outlets disclose this hot story to their millions of viewers and readers? Should they not be made aware that the Murdoch-owned news outlets which generally support U.S. military action against Syria, do not inform their viewers and readers that the bossman has a vested interest in war and the overthrow of the Assad government in Damascus in order to further Genie’s oil exploration efforts in occupied Syria? 

And this is happening while I am being further distracted by coverage of Australia's prime-minister, Malcolm Turnbull, telling the United Nations how wonderful Australia's asylum seeker policy is. (Malcolm Turnbull tells world leaders to follow Australia's asylum policies)

And where is it that many of those who are held in Australia's off-shore detention centres are from again?