NOTHING TO NOBODY
Tim Blair – Saturday, July 02, 11 (05:44 pm)
Nice line from Tony Abbott, on Labor’s planned emissions trading scheme:
This is a market based on the non-delivery of an invisible product to no one, and is almost certain to be scammed.
Labor can’t stop a scam even when it involves big, highly-visible slabs of insulation. Imagine how they might go when nothing is worth something.
AFTERSHOCK
Tim Blair – Saturday, July 02, 11 (04:24 pm)
Margaret Simons reviews the ABC’s tsunami disaster:
The Saturday morning after the quake, as the Fukushima nuclear plant began to melt down and it became clear that this was not just a big story but one of the big stories of the decade, the ABC was screening repeats of current events shows …
[ABC managing director Mark] Scott hit the phone. “I wasn’t pulling my hair out but I was, well, let’s say I was aware of the problem. I am not temperamentally the kind of person who thumps the table or throws the furniture around. I am more temperamentally the kind of person who asks what went wrong, and how do we fix it, and how do we make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
But on this occasion, he couldn’t fix it, or not quickly enough. He asked if the news coverage could please be ramped up. And they tried. But this huge story followed several other big news stories that quarter – the floods in Queensland, the Christchurch earthquake. Scott says: “They were short-staffed and the resources they might have wanted to call in were not available … we learned about resources we need to have on standby. I’m sorry we didn’t do better on that morning.” But he is not apologetic about the coverage overall, saying only, “We had a couple of disappointing hours.”
Only a couple of hours, you say?
FABLE SPREADS
Tim Blair – Saturday, July 02, 11 (03:07 pm)
AFP reports:
A major US-based science association on Wednesday issued an open letter expressing its concern about harassment of climate scientists, saying such tactics could harm scientific progress.
The letter, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, followed an incident in Australia earlier this month when university researchers were rushed to a secure location after receiving death threats.
This never happened.
BRONCOS BUCKLE
Tim Blair – Friday, July 01, 11 (12:29 pm)
They couldn’t stand the heat, so Christopher Monckton is out of the kitchen. Thus a Queensland leagues club is shown to have a level of strength equal to girly academics.
GROANY JOE
Tim Blair – Friday, July 01, 11 (12:19 pm)
Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig – protected by what is described as a “heavy police presence” – faces angry cattle farmers at Mt Isa:
Mr Ludwig has taken two questions from the audience, each time he has begun his reply with “thanks for your question and can I say, it’s good to have a conversation with you” which has received much groaning from the audience the second time he said it.
There is some agitation within the crowd as Mr Ludwig repeats the same government lines that he will not keep the trade suspended for one day longer than it needs to be.
That’s already too long for some:
It was revealed yesterday that eight workers at Karumba’s cattle loading facility, in North West Queensland, had lost their jobs due to the live export ban.
Back to the Mt Isa meeting:
Another producer has called for the minister to provide one good reason why Mr Ludwig should not be forced to resign.
“You have thrown the lives of tens of thousands of people into jeopardy,” he called out to the Minister.
Mr Ludwig repeated his statement that the trade would not stay suspended one more day than it needs to be.
The audience then began jeering the Minister.
Telling line from Australian Agricultural Company CEO David Farley: “One Four Corners program and here we are today.”
… is from page 14 of James M. Buchanan‘s 2005 book, Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism:
But the classical liberal edifice would fall quickly if persons are independent in the sense that they fail to recognize themselves in an interdependent nexus of social interaction – a nexus that involves other persons to be reciprocating, acting and choosing human beings like themselves.
Indeed. No one person knows, has ever known, or can possibly know all that must be known to make a pencil. Vast social cooperation is required for the production of something even so mundane (to us lucky moderns!) as an ordinary commercial-grade pencil. We are all, each and every one of us, hugely and mightily dependent upon the creativity, knowledge, efforts, choices, and willingness to take risks of hundreds of millions – in some cases, of billions – of our fellow human beings.
In one of the most concise and well-reasoned reviews that I’ve read in a while, EconLog’s David Henderson – writing in Regulation – challenges the thesis Tyler Cowen offers in The Great Stagnation. (Scroll down to page 4 of the link to find the start of David’s superb review.)
I here add only this observation: although I don’t particularly like Tyler’s analogy of pre-1980s growth being the result of people having taken advantage of the “low-hanging fruit” of technological breakthroughs, large numbers of smart, educable kids yet actually to be educated, and free land (One objection: Frederick Jackson Turner lamented the close of the free frontier in 1893), the vast majority of K-12 schools in America today are filled with what appear to me are “low-hanging fruit” of the sort that Tyler believes no longer exists: boys and girls ‘educated’ in a government-owned and operated school system dominated by teachers unions bent chiefly on feathering their members’ own nests rather than expanding as much as possible the minds of their students. Destroy this monstrosity of an ‘education’ system and there’ll be plenty of low-hanging fruit to pick.
If Bill Shorten is PM, Quentin Bryce must resign
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (01:38 pm)
One complication to Labor’s leadership calculations: Bill Shorten cannot become Prime Minister unless his mother-in-law resigns as Governor General. The conflict of interest is simply far too great.
In fact, she may have to resign before Shorten is sworn in.
(Thanks to reader Give me Liberty.)
Scepticism becomes the new fashion
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (11:01 am)
German rapper Kilez More has a hit by rapping against global warming preachers.
I’ve always suspected the global warming movement’s real enemy, other than the facts, was the vagary of fashion.
(Thanks to reader Joe.)
UPDATE
Abbott exposes the great con
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (10:47 am)
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in an excellent speech yesterday shows what a gift a carbon tax is to a cash-hungry Big Government:
On close consideration, carbon pricing turns out to be just another pot of gold for government. It’s instructive that the International Monetary Fund has just recommended a 25 per cent hike in Iceland’s carbon tax to address not an environmental problem but its fiscal crisis.
Elsewhere in the speech, Abbott nailed many of the great deceits told by the Gillard Government and its paid progandists:
The Prime Minister frequently claims that that China is shutting down coal-fired power generation facilities “at the rate of one every one or two weeks”. What she doesn’t say is that they’re just replacing old and inefficient coal-fired power stations with newer and bigger ones – dramatically increasing the amount of coal they burn and the emissions they produce year in, year out.
Over the five years to 2009, China’s actual increase in carbon dioxide emissions was about 2,500 million tonnes per annum and I stress that these figures are from the Garnaut Report, not from Lord Monckton, and over the 10 years to 2020, Professor Garnaut projects these emissions to rise by a further 6,000 million tonnes per annum. To put this in perspective, the proposed decrease in Australian emissions over the decade is about 50 millions tonnes per annum – so the increase in Chinese emissions alone is expected to be over 100 times as large as our reduction, on top of an increase 50 times as large that’s already taken place.
And on that other much-parroted deceit, that the rest of the world is leaving us behind…
What’s more, India’s pledge at Cancun was merely to “endeavour” to reduce its emissions intensity by 20 to 25 per cent by 2020 from 2005 levels – in other words, a non-binding pledge to do about half that which Australia has already achieved without a carbon tax.
In the United States, all moves towards a national cap-and-trade scheme have been abandoned. Seven US states – Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Utah – had committed to a regional emissions trading scheme, but only California now remains officially committed to implementing one next year and the Productivity Commission notes that “it is likely that the permit price and abatement will be close to zero in 2012.” As well, New Jersey and New Hampshire are in the process of abandoning a regional greenhouse gas initiative while the Conservative Party in Canada recently won an outright majority on an explicit policy of rejecting any unilateral carbon tax or ETS…
But to put the European ETS into perspective, it raises only about $500 million a year. At $26 a tonne, an Australian carbon tax would raise more in three months than the European ETS has raised in five years.
Yet another deceit exposed:
Under the European ETS, the price of permits tripled in the first six months of the scheme then collapsed by half in 2006 before declining to zero at one point in 2007. Recently, the permit price has fallen by 20 per cent in just a week, including a fall of 11 per cent on just one day. Such volatility fatally undermines the argument that an ETS will provide “certainty” for emitters.
And one more:
There is another reason why the government’s modelling almost certainly understates the costs of a carbon tax. For example, Treasury’s CPRS modelling assumed sufficient progress in the development of commercially viable carbon capture and storage technology such that: “From the mid-2020s, carbon capture and storage (would begin) to replace conventional coal-fired technologies, including through retrofitting existing power plants.” These technological developments may well emerge over the coming decades, but the modelling is of dubious predictive value if key problems are simply assumed away.
Anyone seen a carbon capture plant being built here?
UPDATE
A casual drive-by sliming in the ABC’s coverage.
(Thanks to reader Patrick.)
Gillard shows Labor she cannot be trusted with time
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (09:50 am)
LABOR cannot let Julia Gillard go on like this, trashing her party’s reputation and embarrassing its ministers.
Time is up. An adult must take over fast as prime minister.
I’m tipping Simon Crean, who has at least led Labor before.
I thought Labor could afford to wait before dumping Gillard, even if the rest of the country suffered from the bungling of arguably the most incompetent Government in our history.
But this week is the last straw. This farce must end.
Few could have believed Gillard could top her past incompetence—the announcement of an East Timor detention centre that East Timor didn’t want, of a cash-for-clunkers scheme that was laughed to death, of a carbon dioxide tax we were promised, before the election, we’d never get.
But her destruction of our live cattle exports is a perfect demonstration of almost every one of the Government’s worst faults.
Let’s quickly sketch the outline of this latest fiasco, because it may well be the one that’s persuaded some Labor heavies that enough is enough.
First, Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig was completely blindsided by a disaster on his watch—the brutal treatment of Australian cattle by some Indonesian abattoirs.
When Four Corners a month ago showed the shocking footage of what went on, Ludwig seemed totally unprepared and clueless.
His first reaction was clearly inadequate—to call an inquiry. But his ultimate decision, forced on him by a caucus mutiny, went far too far—to stop all exports, even to abattoirs that slaughtered humanely.
Gillard’s first reaction to the cattle growers’ inevitable screams for compensation was just as tin-eared—to commit to nothing. The second was risible—an offer of just $3 million. The third, an offer of $30 million just days later, was pure panic.
Then there was the clueless PR. It took Ludwig far too long to go to Indonesia, in what turned out to be a fruitless attempt to solve the problem by a man out of his depth.
And Gillard’s decision to drag her Cabinet up to Darwin this week for a public meeting with cattle growers was almost suicidal, with the Prime Minister standing in front of Labor’s brooding heavies and TV cameras while distraught people explained how she’d cost them jobs, money and hope.
The closing down of debate
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (09:40 am)
A SCANDALOUS campaign to shut down debate on global warming should tell you how dodgy is the warmists’ science.
This week, 50 academics called on Western Australia’s Notre Dame University to cancel a speech by British sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton.
To compound the shame, the University of Western Australia’s Vice-Chancellor, Alan Robson, gratuitously issued a statement dissociating himself from Monckton, booked to speak at a private function on the university’s grounds.
“I ... find his anti-science stance and related comments offensive,” Robson said.
Shame on Robson. Monckton may be right in his criticisms of warming theories and predictions, or he may be wrong.
But anti-science he is not. His arguments are drawn from science, and the respectable way to counter them is not to ban Monckton but disprove him.
But when his critics are asked to debate him, almost all refuse.
The Spectator magazine had the same trouble when it asked warmist spruikers to a debate next month with noted sceptic Nigel Lawson, the former British chancellor of the exchequer, and geologist Professor Ian Plimer.
Those who refused included Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, Greens MP Christine Milne, Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery and Professor Ross Garnaut.
I get the same refusals when I ask alarmists on to my Channel 10 show.
This seems a deliberate strategy by warmists to both pretend there is no debate, and to avoid being confronted with dud predictions.
No wonder. Take the latest example of those predictions.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, along with many warmist scientists, claims the Great Barrier Reef is “already being damaged” by man-made warming.
But a new study by Townsville’s Australian Institute of Marine Science concedes “we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995”.
Your millions spent for less communications choice
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (09:35 am)
Paul Fletcher is astonished that the Gillard Government has paid Telstra and Optus not to compete too much against its $36 billion NBN:
Telstra has promised its major competitor that it will pull its punches in wireless, rather than going all-out to win.
Secondly, we learned that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will pay Optus $800 million in exchange for Optus ceasing to offer broadband services over its cable network.
So consumers in the 1.4 million premises passed by the Optus network will no longer have the option of taking broadband services over that network, and more than 400,000 customers who have an Optus cable broadband service will be transferred to the NBN.
How can it be good policy to spend $800m of public money to shut down a network that is only 15 years old and is already capable of delivering the same speed, 100Mbps, that the NBN is going to deliver?
And why would a government pay a private company to induce it to withdraw from the market and thus to reduce competition in the marketplace?The answer is obvious: because the Rudd and Gillard governments have abandoned the goal of increasing competition in telecommunications. This is profoundly bad news for consumers.
This time the analogy is justified
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (09:14 am)
Police say the rally turned violent when the group of more than 100 protesters refused to move from outside the Max Brenner store about 7pm last Friday.
Nineteen protesters from the Students for Palestine group were charged with offences including trespassing, besetting a premises and assaulting police.
Students for Palestine claims the company supplies chocolates for the ration packs of Israeli soldiers.
Again, I say sorry to Rudd. It seems Gillard’s fault
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (09:03 am)
Again, I apologise to Kevin Rudd. I have repeatedly accused him of deserting his post rather than helping to fix Julia Gillard’s self-created foreign policy disasters with East Timor and Indonesia.
But I underestimated Gillard’s weakness and fear. The evidence now grows that Rudd has been specifically excluded from helping out by a jealous Prime Minister scared that he’d show her up:
WHEN Kevin Rudd walked into the middle of a crisis meeting between Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig and live cattle exporters on Wednesday, there was little warmth between the two men....
A few days earlier, in a room in Parliament House near Julia Gillard’s suite, the Foreign Minster had privately got stuck into Ludwig over his handling of the decision to ban live cattle exports to Indonesia.
In a short time, the ban had rapidly turned from an animal welfare issue into a diplomatic disaster. At stake were Australia’s trade relations with its northern neighbour and the future of an agricultural industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars....
His fury was being fuelled by the manner of the cabinet decision to ban exports in an attempt to assuage the public and caucus outcry… Cabinet made the decision while Rudd was absent, attending a meeting in Budapest, without written submissions and without options other than a total ban....
Rudd was informed by telephone of the suspension and told to inform his Indonesian counterpart only a short time before they were due to meet.
The tense interaction between Rudd and Ludwig last Wednesday signalled the moment when Rudd and the well-oiled machine that is the Department of Foreign Affairs began taking a frontline role in the cattle crisis.
Ludwig’s ineptitude - especially in trying to do Rudd’s job - is truly astonishing:
The situation in Indonesia worsened upon Ludwig’s arrival there on June 20. He delivered the 21-page document outlining the animal welfare standards he wanted met by Indonesian abattoirs—in English.
Officials were shocked. Translated copies were provided a few days later but the damage was done. Those who saw the original English document said they could not “believe” it was such a lengthy document. They described it as unreadable...
Victoria revolts against Gillard’s tax
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (08:43 am)
The Liberal states revolt against Julia Gillard’s insane tax - one that will cause unbelievable disruption without changing the climate by a flicker:
JULIA Gillard is facing a carbon tax revolt from the Liberal states amid warnings of heavy job losses, unprecedented power price rises and a flight of capital…
The Weekend Australian has obtained a detailed, “Dear Julia” letter from Mr Baillieu to Ms Gillard in which he warns that the failure to consult and ad hoc planning have heightened fears of serious economic disruption.
Senior government sources said NSW and Western Australia were involved in talks with Victoria ahead of the next Council of Australian Governments meeting, where Ms Gillard will be confronted by a united anti-tax front.
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has warned Ms Gillard about the effects of a new tax, claiming 13,000 jobs could be lost in the Hunter Valley coalmining region....
“The introduction of a carbon price will drive change in the Victorian electricity sector of a scale not previously experienced,” Mr Baillieu warned.
“Inadequate commonwealth assistance has the real potential to threaten the reliable supply of electricity in Victoria while driving up electricity prices to unprecedented levels.”
And all for zero effect on a climate that may have stopped warming anyway. When will we wake from this madness?
UPDATE
Mining bosses who have been too weak to stand against the new climate hyseria (hello, Mr Kloppers!) get a whack from one of their own:
LONDON-BASED mining giant Anglo American has chided its industry colleagues for not speaking out loudly enough against the imposition of “excessive taxation” such as the Gillard government’s carbon tax.
Anglo American chief executive Cynthia Carroll told a gathering of Australian mining executives in London that “whether for reasons of politics or politeness”, some miners “have remained quiet” rather than speaking up for the industry…
Ms Carroll’s comments come as the mining industry in Australia is about to join several other industries in stepping up their opposition to the government’s carbon tax plans with a full-scale advertising campaign.
Macarthur Coal chairman Keith De Lacy said he agreed the sector had not been as vocal as it could have been.
“This whole debate is doing enormous damage to Australia’s reputation as an investment destination and our sovereign risk generally,” Mr De Lacy said.
Meanwhile, the AIG attacks the increibly costly renewable energy targets years after it should have spoken out, yet still doesn’t dare condemn the whole madness of the global warming hysteria:
THE Australian Industry Group has called for bipartisan political support for the renewable energy target to be reconsidered, attacking the measure for locking in high-cost investment and driving up electricity prices.Releasing a comparison of the government’s carbon-pricing policy and the Coalition’s direct-action plan by Ernst & Young, the AI Group calls on both parties to “address” the problems with the RET and urges both to make major changes to their policies.
UPDATE
The damage done by the tax - and Julia Gillard’s weak leadership - is already dragging down business sentiment, if not the economy itself:
...the latest Sensis Business Index ... found small business support for the federal government has fallen to a 15-year low…
And why is business cheesed off? It got down to no incentives, too many costs and “government policies worked against small businesses with specific mention of the proposed carbon tax policy”.About 53 per cent said a carbon tax would have a negative impact on their business, while 41 per cent believe it would have no impact. And 6 per cent believe it would have a positive impact.
Even Ita has had enough of Julia
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (08:37 am)
I sniff a revolt against the “new paradigm” of overmighty independents, a weak government, the carbon tax yammering and - above all - Julia Gillard herself:
ITA Buttrose has demanded that Prime Minister Julia Gillard show strong leadership and call an election… following similar calls this week by businessmen John Symond, Gerry Harvey and John Singleton.
“Australians are looking for strong leadership and because we have a minority Government with Labor continually having to capitulate to the wishes of the Greens and the independents, we are not getting it,” Buttrose said.
“A true leader would take a risk; would be prepared to put her leadership on the line. I think the PM should tell the Greens and the independents the party’s over and then call an election."…
Olympic great Dawn Fraser did not mince words either, saying she believed Australians had lost trust in Ms Gillard. “She needs to stop telling lies and be honest, then the polls might go up a bit,” she said.
Labor cannot afford to call an election that will wipe it out. But it can afford to change leaders.
The Greens will eat Labor if it does not reform
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (08:22 am)
The longer that Labor is led by mere process people like Gillard, the sooner Brown’s terrible vision will come true:
BOB Brown has a vision of the Australian Greens supplanting Labor as one of Australia’s mainstream political parties in the decades ahead… “I think that within 50 years we will supplant one of the major parties in Australia.”
UPDATE
But the old greens will first have to survive a challenge from the even older reds:
“WE all have a past,” Greens senator Lee Rhiannon proudly declared in a lengthy political apologia on her blog last year, but few have a past like hers.
Rhiannon was responding to tales of her time in the Socialist Party of Australia, a communist faction that stayed loyal to Moscow in the early 1970s after the Communist Party of Australia split over its response to the Soviet Union’s brutal suppression of the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968…
But what has not been said is that the federal Greens’ newly installed spokeswoman for “democracy”, then known by her married name of Lee O’Gorman, was producing Soviet propaganda even after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Rhiannon requested questions in writing from Inquirer for this article, then declined to reply...
Still, with a former leader of the Socialist Forum now as its leader and Prime Minister, Labor is hardly in a position to attack the Greens for recycling former communists back into politics - which, incidentally, was precisely the Socialist Forum’s role.
There’s doubt the same woman signed both?
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (08:16 am)
No disrespect intended, but I now find the judge’s decision in the Carnita Matthews case even stranger:
The Daily Telegraph won a court application to reveal the signatures at the heart of her conviction for making a false complaint - and a key point in the decision last week to overturn that conviction.
One is from her driver licence. She admits signing that.
The other is from a statutory declaration given to police in which the highway patrol officer who booked her for not properly displaying a P-plate is accused of racism and of trying to rip the full-face niqab, similar to a burqa, from her face. She denies signing that.
A magistrate and a judge have come to different opinions on whether the Muslim mother of seven was telling the truth in a saga that sparked a row about whether women wearing a full-face veil should be forced to remove it and identify themselves to police.
Last year in Campbelltown Local Court, Magistrate Robert Rabbidge said: “The signatures are almost identical.”
He convicted Ms Matthews - who did not give evidence - of knowingly making a false complaint to police and sentenced her to six months’ jail.
Last week in the District Court, Judge Clive Jeffreys said: “When I compare the signature on the statutory declaration and the signature (on the licence) I am unable to conclude they appear to be the same.”
Judge Jeffreys said he had observed a number of differences including in the letters “m” “t” and “s” and he could not say if the signature was hers or not.
He overturned her conviction on that and other grounds, including the woman who handed the complaint to police had not removed her niqab so he could not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt it was Ms Matthews.
Judge Jeffreys said he had made his decision about the signatures without the help of any expert evidence.
Only a sceptic can’t say “fascist”
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (08:01 am)
…in high school debating usually the first person to compare the other side to Hitler, or use any sort of Nazi comparison, just loses. Like, that’s just what happens. That’s it, you’re out, you’re done for.
ABC Sydney presenter Deborah Cameron is amused when a PR flack and former Ian Peacock staffer accuses Peter Reith of having allegedly fascist friends in the HR Nicholls Society:
Ian Kortlang: I mean, fancy letting him [Peter Reith] out of the box. He’s now going to go and set something up with that fascist policy unit in Victoria and to do it all about workplaces. So he’s going to go and haunt Abbott every day. Which is really bizarre. So we’re going to see Peter Reith coming out of the crypt to talk about Work Choices and Tony must be saying “Oh my god”
Deborah Cameron: [Laughter] “Peter Reith out of the crypt”. [More laughter]
Ian Kortlang : The mad uncle’s back. Totally back. And this, that sort of hunchback that he’s got now. And out of his own words: “I was born to plot.” Remember, I mean, the guy died. He’d gone away. I bumped into him in Washington DC I sort of wondered whether he was working there as a waiter or t’other. But no, he’s back again and he’s fully alive and he’s part of the Victorian establishment talking about all these weird wacky right-wing things. I mean, crazy.
Double standards for sceptics on the ABC.
Only a sceptic needs a licence to comment
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, July 02, 11 (07:31 am)
Lateline reporter Karen Barlow derides Christopher Monckton’s credibility:
KAREN BARLOW: Tonight, the man without academic qualifications on climate science has spoken at Notre Dame University.
Gerard Henderson reminds Barlow of the ABC’s double standards:
It’s true that Monckton is not qualified in climate science – or even science. But, then, nor are the majority of individuals who take part in the climate change debate. Even though you are not likely to learn this on the ABC.
Take John Connor, the director of the Climate Institute, who is a regular on the ABC. Next time Mr Connor’s views are reported on ABC, will he be branded as a man without academic qualifications in climate science? Not likely. And what about the likes of Malcolm Fraser, Simon Sheikh, Tim Costello, Ross Garnaut and Lord Stern…
And what about Cate Blanchett? When the thespian’s views on climate change were reported recently on the ABC, no one mentioned that she was a woman without academic qualifications in climate science. Moreover, what about Tim Flannery whose formal qualifications are Bachelor of Arts in English, Master of Science in Earth Science and Doctorate in Palaeontology for his work on the evolution in macropods?
And here’s how ABC presenter Kerry O’Brien introduced Al Gore, a man also without qualifications in climate science and proven in court to exaggerate and misstate:
Al Gore may yet run again in 2008 or even the election after that, but he spent much of the past five years on a sophisticated lecture tour around the United States, presenting compelling argumentsabout what lies ahead on climate change. And Australia is one of his targets. That mission has culminated with the documentary and a book called, An Inconvenient Truth. He’s here on a promotional visit, and I spoke with him in Sydney yesterday.
No mention of his lack of climate science qualifications there. Nor in O’Brien’s introduction of alarmist Tim Flannery:
Tim Flannery is Australian of the Year. He’s a scientist of world standing, a prolific and bestselling writer, a noted explorer, passionate about the Australian environment, and believes global warming is a calamitous crisis facing us all.
Lateline didn’t even think it worth mentioning our new Climate Commissioner actually had zero formal qualifications in climate science, and got the job simply for having a convenient, ABC-approved opinion:
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has been appointed to a newly-created position as Australia’s Climate Commissioner. Professor Flannery will lead a panel of science, business and economics experts to provide advice to the community on climate change and to build consensus on how to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. Well, to talk about his new role, Tim Flannery joins us now in the studio.
One rule for sceptics, another for warmists.
Shame on them
Andrew Bolt – Friday, July 01, 11 (08:42 pm)
What a shameful surrender to the enemies of free speech:
THE Brisbane Broncos Leagues Club has withdrawn its venue from the Lord Christopher Monckton speaking tour of Australia after complaints from its members.
The club’s general manager, Geoff Kuehner, confirmed the withdrawal last night.
Tour organiser Andy Semple said Mr Kuehner had told him the decision was because of member complaints and a discussion with the club board.
Michael Smith interviews Kuehner on his craven cave-in.
“Nothing to do with his views,” says Kuehner, before confirming the cancellation was indeed “about comments he made”. Says “we support freedom of speech” while showing no support for it. Wavers between claiming he knows the 100-odd complaints were from members, and conceding he may have been had by phone-in Leftist frauds.
What’s the betting that most of the complaints were actually from GetUp’s couch warriors? GetUp suggested followers bombard the club with complaints, and has now removed that suggestion from its thread. Not wishing to advertise their hatred of debate? Imagine a society run by this sort.
Barnaby, Peter and John
Andrew Bolt – Friday, July 01, 11 (08:35 pm)
An all-star cast on The Bolt Report on Sunday: Barnaby Joyce, Peter Reith, John Della Bosca - plus a couple of waxing dills.
Channel 10 Sunday, at 10am and 4.30pm.
@trojanpride69 What evidence do you need? There are billions living in poverty in the world because of socialism and communism. India is a good case study of the benefits of giving away socialism. It is sad for Vietnam that China was allowed to win, but I am confident that Vietnamese peoples won't be held down forever. I think even China is learning how socialism failed them But you don't really care about that, you support killers.
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