My letter in this morning's

paper is going to make some people unhappy. It says much the same thing as I said in my blogpost the day before yesterday. I am a little surprised it was published.
I know I am going to be accused of being a "climate change denier" because I do not accept the need for a "carbon tax".
Just for a start though could they get it right and say "carbon dioxide"? Even the Prime Minister insists that the government is going to "put a price on carbon". That really irritates me - and the Opposition is no better.
There have been a great many letters to the editor about "the carbon tax". Some of them are political rants, others are from passionate environmentalists who believe they are doing the right thing, others come from people who believe that it is all nonsense. Some come from scientists - and by no means all of them are of the same opinion. Naturally those being paid by the government support the government line. That is why they were chosen in the first place. There are other equally eminent and well respected scientists who hold other views. They are now being lambasted by the media which, on the whole, supports the government.
Our "news" gets filtered through many layers before it reaches us. It is adjusted and sanitised. It is designed to influence our opinions and make sure we accept certain values and ideas and then behave in certain ways. Old style communist propaganda has nothing at all on modern media.
It is said that voters get the government they deserve. There may be some truth in that statement. Now however it is much more likely that voters get the government which is best able to (ab)use the media in order to (mis)inform the voters.