Labor’s history of empty promises
Piers Akerman – Thursday, August 11, 11 (06:30 pm)
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard’s announcement of a national disability insurance scheme to be up and running some seven years in the future bears all the hallmarks of her predecessor Bob Hawke’s 1987 broken pledge to end child poverty.
Politically correct policing fails Britain
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, August 10, 11 (07:24 pm)
WHAT we’re seeing in London, as looters and rioters run amok and impotent police stand around watching, is the problem of politically correct policing writ large.
It is the triumph of a managerial, bureaucratic process-driven style of policing hatched in the rarefied confines of academia rather than the harsh reality of the streets.
Every now and then the two meet and you get bloody anarchy as a result.
There is reason for this tentative policing and it is political correctness. They tried to be brave and bungled a shoot to kill order, once. Tragic circumstance. This is a tragedy too. So was Cronulla, Redfern and Maquarrie Fields. I made my Picking Cotton series because I believe the issue is unrelated to political issues and strongly centered on hatred of police. But it is worse than that. Generations of privacy advocates have neutered police so as to maintain a balance involving law and order. I prefer police force.
Wed 10 Aug 11 (10:29pm)
Thu 11 Aug 11 (11:38am)
Sorry David and Miranda.
You are wrong in attacking political correctness as the cause.
Cause nr1: merit based promotion over experience/seniority based promotion. The unions always wanted and demanded experience/service based promotion. The Economist as liberals wanted promotion based off performance. They sugar coated this with equality an getting more women/ethnic minorities/whatever into senior positions. But the root cause Conservative Economics demanding performance based results!
You do not develop Loyality or Vocational drive by treating people as Numbers. Instead you get Career orientated head hunters!
Grow up and admit your Conservative economics is failing our public service!
Thu 11 Aug 11 (03:47pm)
Colin, just to be sure, you are claiming that the cause of the riots is merit based promotion among police? Was that the cause in Cronulla too? In Los Angeles? When did people develop such strong feeling about how the police were promoted? Do you think they know about NSW teaching service?
WILKIE’S WMD HISTORY
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 11 (03:20 pm)
Andrew Wilkie in 2003:
I just don’t believe that a war at this time would be worth the risk.
In fact, a war is the exact course of action most likely to cause Saddam to do exactly what we’re trying to prevent.
I believe it’s the course of action that is most likely to cause him to lash out recklessly, to use weapons of mass destruction and to possibly play a terrorism card.
Further from Wilkie in 2003, as he warns of a humanitarian disaster in Iraq:
[Saddam] could do it with weapons of mass destruction. He’s already used chemical weapons against the Kurds, and he could do the same again.
And now Wilkie demands an inquiry into weapons he once worried about but which have evolved into non-existence:
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie wants former prime minister John Howard to explain to a parliamentary inquiry why Australia sent troops to Iraq in 2003.
At the time, Mr Wilkie was an intelligence officer with the Office of National Assessments and resigned his post because he said the Government had no evidence Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Well, except for all the evidence from Wilkie.
(Via Alan R.M. Jones)
RICH AND LAWLESS
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 11 (11:45 am)
Interesting case studies emerge from the London riots:
Among the accused was, for instance, Laura Johnson, the 19-year-old daughter of a successful company director. She lives in a detached converted farmhouse in Orpington, Kent, with extensive grounds and a tennis court.
She is an English and Italian undergraduate at Exeter, favourite of the Boden-wearing classes. Before that, she attended St Olave’s Grammar, the fourth-best state school in the country, and its sister school, Newstead Wood …
At St Olave’s, she studied A-levels in French, English literature, geography and classical civilisation. Yesterday, at Highbury, she was accused of something slightly less civilised – looting the Charlton Curry’s superstore of electrical goods worth £5,000.
She’s one of Bruce Haigh’s “hugely disadvantaged” justice-seekers.
FICTION SHORTAGE ENDS
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 11 (11:22 am)
Just what the world needs:
Top writers tackle climate change in short stories
This is a response, claims the publisher, “to the absence of creative fiction dealing with climate change.” Really? I’d have thought the market for global warming fiction was in an eternal glut, judging by everything from recent death-threat hype to various video depictions of animals and children. Maybe all of these are thought too realistic by the literary community.
(Via Brat)
SHE SEEMED NICE
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 11 (11:19 am)
In the Canberra Times, Jenna Price outlines her philosophy of kindness:
The rule in our house is that if anyone needs a meal or a bed, we say yes. It’s not a religious thing, just a purposeful act of kindness since my own family have benefited from it over the years.
That’s lovely. But you never know when kindness will be betrayed:
I’m also still recovering from housing someone for a few days who seemed like a clever and nicely brought-up young woman. Listening to Radio National a couple of weeks ago, I discover she’s turned into a …
A drug dealer? A gun smuggler? A Norwegian Christian? What possible outcome could have disappointed Jenna so?
(Via Jack L.)
CASH QUESTION
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 11 (11:00 am)
Don’t forget to have your say in the Sunday Age‘s great climate change question-a-thon. To date, readers seem disinclined to follow the paper’s suggested line of thinking:
Who is funding climate change sceptics?
My personal Big Oil payments are still coming through, despite impressive efforts from the Deep Green Resistance.
RESIST WE MUCH
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 11 (10:06 am)
A rallying cry for modern leftists, from Al Sharpton:
(Via Gateway Pundit and CL)
Putin’s golden touch
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (04:59 pm)
Putin shows Gillard how to make even a dip in the sea seem a miracle of leadership:
Russia’s hard man Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pulled on a wetsuit Wednesday and went scuba diving at an ancient Greek Black Sea site in the latest populist stunt preceding next year’s elections.
State news reports said he descended just two metres (6.6 feet) and “luckily” discovered two sixth century urns in full presence of the media, because the water was so clear.
Another 100 boat people arrive
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (04:15 pm)
This is fast becoming a nightmare for the Gillard Government:
Another asylum seeker boat carrying about 100 people has arrived as Christmas Island this afternoon.
In just the three weeks since the Malaysian deal was signed, 205 people have arrived by boat. That means a quarter of the 800 quota Malaysia has agreed to take under its people-swap deal has already been filled.
Jobless up
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (11:33 am)
Unemployment up to 5.1 per cent. Some 22,000 jobs lost.
UPDATE
Two months ago, when unemployment was at 4.9 per cent:
Treasurer Wayne Swan drew comfort from the fact that the national unemployment rate remained below 5 per cent.
”When you’ve got an unemployment rate with a four in front of it that’s still a pretty good outcome,’ he told reporters in Brisbane.
And when you’ve got a five in front of it?
Drink we much?
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (11:24 am)
Race baiter Al Sharpton struggles with a tele-prompter.
(Via Gateway Pundit and Tim Blair. Thanks to reader Frank.)
Blog reader grills Republican candidate
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (09:56 am)
Reader Jodie meets a potential US President:
In Des Moines and have been busy checking out the Republican candidates… I saw former Governor for Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty talk about himself and what he would do if elected US president.
He was speaking at a meet & greet event in the small town of Winterset, Iowa (the birthplace of John Wayne)
I asked him a question about carbon tax and if elected would he bring one in..to which he categorically said no..
He was fully aware of just how unpopular Prime Minister Julia Gillard is at the moment in Australia.
Pawlenty told me “I understand your prime minister isn’t that popular at the moment, the opinion polls are bad aren’t they?”
He also told me he had met former prime minister John Howard and had been impressed with his work.
How sad that he had to say it. How inspiring that he did
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (09:41 am)
The pressure on Cameron followed a day of rising tensions in Birmingham as community leaders and police appealed for calm following the death of Haroon Jahan, 21, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30 and Abdul Musavir, 31. The three were part of a group of around 80 guarding a petrol station and shops from looters in Winson Green when they were victims of a hit-and-run in the early hours of Wednesday. A murder inquiry has been launched, and a 32-year-old man is being questioned.
Amid fears the deaths could spark inter-communal reprisals, the distraught father of Jahan made an emotional appeal to the community, revealing he had desperately tried to resuscitate his youngest son....
“I started CPR on my own son, my face was covered in blood, my hands were covered in blood. Why, why?”
“He was trying to help his community and he has been killed.... I can’t describe to anybody what it feels like to lose a son...”
In a message to the local community, he implored: “Today we stand here to plead with all the youth to remain calm, for our communities to stand united.
“This is not a race issue. The family has received messages of sympathy and support from all parts of society.”
Visibly emotional, Jahan added: “I lost my son. Blacks, Asians, whites – we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home – please.”
Yet others there warn of race riots:
One witness said four carloads of young African-Caribbeans had cruised down Dudley Road and suggested there had been no doubt what they were planning to loot.
The Bishop of Aston, the Rt Rev Andrew Watson, warned of events “potentially having an ugly race dimension”, following a heated meeting between local residents at a mosque. Anger was palpable. “Of course it was deliberate. No way was it an accident,” said one eyewitness. “The driver went on to the pavement and rammed them. He knew what he was doing”.
“If the police don’t sort this one out quickly, there will be race riots,” added the man, who declined to be named, but who has given a statement to police.
Mitchell floods again, just where a dam should be
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (09:24 am)
Remember how Labor refused to build a cheap dam on the Mitchell River for a quarter of the price of its desalination plant?
Remember how Labor turned the dam reservation on the Mitchell into a national park to stop anyone else from bulding a cheap dam on Victoria’s fastest-flowing river?
Remember how the Mitchell then flooded in 2007, sending a year’s worth of drinking water for Melbourne down to the sea?
Remember how Labor nevertheless kept insisting we couldn’t rely on rain for our drinking water, thanks to global warming, and had to build instead its $5.7 billion desalination plant that’s now way behind schedule, thanks to heavy rain?
Here we go again:
Major Flood Warning for the Mitchell River.
Issued at 5:51 am EST on Thursday 11 August 2011
Since 9 AM Wednesday, rainfall totals up to 122mm have been recorded in the Mitchell River catchment. Rainfall totals of up to 20mm have been forecast for Thursday.
Recent rainfall has caused significant stream rises across the Mitchell River catchment which hasresulted in moderate flooding in the lower Mitchell River catchment. Further stream rises and areas of major flooding are expected to develop around Glenaladale and Bairnsdale during Thursday.
So when do we hold those green charlatans and wasters to account?
(Thanks to reader Jamie.)
But these ferals do not consent to being policed
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (08:24 am)
Miranda Devine on the fashionable policing that inspires no fear among Britain’s rioting underclass:
Theresa May, the UK Home Secretary, espoused the British philosophy of failure: “The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.”
Well, I don’t think anyone in those traumatised communities agreed to being bashed unconscious and robbed, or to have their shops looted, destroyed and burned to the ground.
They didn’t consent to their houses being broken into as they cowered inside. They didn’t consent to being forced to strip naked so thugs could steal their clothes.
All this has been done under the watch of useless police, whose culture of impotence for more than a decade has just emboldened the mob…
In Australia, the British model of policing has been in vogue for over a decade in NSW and Victoria.
On a smaller scale, we saw the same phenomenon of impotent policing during the Cronulla, Redfern and Macquarie Fields riots in Sydney. In the hard-scrabble western suburb of Macquarie Fields in 2005, we saw police looking like sitting ducks as youths pelted them with rocks and molotov cocktails, and one officer was knocked unconscious with a plank of wood.
The same thing happened a year earlier in the Redfern riots, after which a NSW parliamentary inquiry declared that the police who had been attacked needed more “cultural awareness training”.
UPDATE
Precisely the kind of policing Miranda describes, and exactly the kind of contempt it inspires from those who should fear:
(Thanks to reader Shaun.)
Gillard to reopen “cynical, costly” centre
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (07:12 am)
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen in February 2010:
The Pacific solution was a cynical, costly and ultimately unsuccessful exercise introduced on the eve of a federal election by the Howard government.
But today Immigration Minister Bowen announces the Pacific Solution is back:
Papua New Guinea’s new Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, has agreed to open an asylum seeker centre on Manus Island.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s office confirmed last night a phone conversation had taken place between Ms Gillard and Mr O’Neill last Wednesday…
BHP deserts Gillard
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (06:20 am)
Business is now deserting the Gillard Government, trusting neither its policies nor its competence:
BHP Billiton chairman Jac Nasser has strongly criticised two of the government’s key policy platforms, with the head of the nation’s biggest company warning against spending $36 billion on the National Broadband Network and the aggressive timetable for a carbon tax…
Mr Nasser said although he was not completely familiar with the details of the NBN, the $36bn to be spent on the project was not an appropriate allocation of that level of capital in Australia.
“When you try and marry large capital expenditures with a fast-moving pace of technology change, I think that is fraught with risk,” he told an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia event…
Ralph Norris, the outgoing chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank, joined the criticism of the NBN, saying governments did not have a strong track record of operating commercial ventures… “What ends up happening is that they end up getting run on a non-commercial basis.”
Mr Norris said the cost of the NBN was a major investment that needed to be supported by a business case: “As for the NBN, there is a lot of infrastructure being made redundant and you have to ask yourself if that is cost-effective.”
Mr Nasser also warned against the government’s rush to introduce the carbon tax by July next year, arguing that it was a difficult time to push ahead with that type of reform… His comments differ from the original position taken on the government’s plans by his chief executive, Marius Kloppers, who last year called on Australia to take a global lead on pricing carbon.
I doubt Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Greens leader Bob Brown will praise Nasser as they praised Kloppers last year, when BHP Billiton was still singing their song:
“I welcome the statements today from Mr Kloppers,” Ms Gillard told reporters in Canberra.
“Obviously many members of the business community, Mr Kloppers included, have made statements and have called over quite a long period of time now for governments to deal with the question of pricing carbon...”
Senator Brown said the businessman’s remarks legitimised the federal government’s promised climate change committee of MPs and experts that will work towards pricing carbon.
“Mr Kloppers’s very timely statement yesterday - which is based on pure commonsense - will give strength to this committee, as it deliberates on the best way forward to a carbon price for Australia,” he told ABC Radio today.
If Thomson quits, the Government will likely fall
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (06:11 am)
Craig Thomson denies any wrongdoing, but the pressure on him is mounting - and a by-election would almost certainly end the Gillard Government:
The high-profile conservative Tom Switzer has been approached to run for the Liberal Party in the central coast seat, the Herald has learnt. Some local party figures have also been approached…
In State Parliament yesterday the Fair Trading Minister, Anthony Roberts, accused Mr Thomson of ‘’unacceptable and unlawful’’ behaviour in relation to an alleged breach of the Associations and Corporations Act.
The assault, made under parliamentary privilege, follows calls in recent days by two senior federal Liberals, George Brandis and Andrew Robb, for a criminal investigation into allegations that Mr Thomson misused his union-supplied credit card when he was the boss of the Health Services Union.
On Tuesday a union member lodged a complaint with NSW Police regarding the credit card allegations, claiming Mr Thomson may have defrauded the union while he worked there.
Thomson strongly rejects claims that he used his union credit card to pay an escort agency. He says someone else he won’t name used it, and he authorised the payment not knowing it was for a brothel. He denies the latest allegations, too.
(Thanks to reader the Great Waisuli. No comments for legal reasons.)
Confess: there was a white among the looters
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (06:02 am)
How scared are reporters to tell the public the truth about the race of many of the London rioters?
Listen and marvel.
Note how the reporter, having grilled store owner Big Jim for saying he found “at least 100 black youths” looting shops in his streets, did manage to make him admit he’d exaggerated.
Reporter: “You’re not being sterotypical there?”
Big Jim: “No, absolutely...”
Reporter: “Are you sure that they were black? I’m sure they weren’t all black, were they?”
Big Jim: ”OK, then. Let me just say they weren’t all black. I was the white guy there.”
Reporter: “Well, there were probably other white guys there as well.”
Big Jim: “I didn’t see any.”
Astonishing.
(Thanks to reader Marie.)
UPDATE
But the rioters include low life from many ethnic groups - and so do the victims:
A DEVASTATED father has told how he tried to save the life of his dying son who was mowed down and killed as he tried to protect their community from rioting looters in Birmingham last night.
They were mowed down as they stood on the pavement protecting their mosque and businesses.
UPDATE
Presenter Emily Bourke on PM yesterday tried repeatedly to paint the rioters as victims as political protesters. Here, for instance, are extracts of her interview with Luciana Berger, Labour MP for Liverpool:
BOURKE: Authorities have described the violence as mindless, but others aren’t so sure and they point to a cocktail of poverty, unemployment and disadvantage. So it’s of little surprise that violence has flared in Liverpool. Just months ago the city was declared Britain’s country’s most deprived community. Now angry and disenfranchised youths with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities…
There’s been so much discussion about the causes of these riots both long-term and short term causes. People have looked at the unemployment issues, the disconnect of the youths with the general mainstream society, the poverty and the loss of hope. What are your thoughts on what’s contributing to this and fuelling it?
BERGER: Well, the riots started in London and they were started in London off the back of a very serious incident where a young man of 29 years of age with four children was shot dead by police… I don’t think that what happened here in Liverpool can relate back to what happened in London. I think what we’ve seen is copycat criminals intent on looting and vandalising and using what happened in London as an excuse.
BOURKE: It doesn’t stem from the discontent within the community about unfairness for example?
BERGER: ... I think it would be remiss of me at this stage to try and determine why it was that this has been carried out.
BOURKE: ... are you hearing any talk about austerity measures being behind this and fuelling it? ... Do you see this as mindless violence or is it about the disenfranchised trying to regain some power and regain a voice?
BERGER: If people are intent or regaining power and voice then they should be carrying out legitimate protests to government.... But attacking people’s property, attacking people’s businesses, attacking people’s homes is an attack on our community and there can be never any excuse for criminality which is what we’ve seen over the course of the past few nights.
Hmm. Not much luck there in portraying the looters as protesters or blaming the riots on capitalism or conservatives.So Bourke tries again with Will Hutton, and bingo:
BOURKE: Some social commentators say the riots are symptomatic of a broken society. They point to a high and rising unemployment, public services being slashed and rife inequality.
Will Hutton is the author of “Them and Us, Changing Britain - Why We Need a Fair Society”. He blames discontent on a failed capitalist model, and unfairness that has engulfed British society....
HUTTON: It’s become an extraordinarily unfair place Britain. It’s got inequality; all capitalist economies have got inequality but what’s disfiguring particularly about the British and why I say they’re lost is because their innate sense of fairness, that actually rewards related to what you contribute has largely evaporated… And this has been building up for certainly the last 25 years and it was always likely there’d be some sort of crisis and I think that both the riots over the student fees in the autumn of last year and these amazing disturbances over the last few days in London are tribute to that.
BOURKE: How do you explain the genesis of the dysfunction and the beginnings I suppose of this unfairness?
HUTTON: ... I think a lot of it is to do with the notion that you should run a capitalist society on the basis of survival of the fittest and this is an idea that’s true also in Australia, and it’s an idea that’s been developing particularly in the United States…
The fact (protests are) most acute in Britain because I think that fairness is a really important value in Britain and secondly I think the scale of the unfairness, the speed with which the incoming coalition government has launched expenditure cuts so that for example in Tottenham where these riots took place, the local authorities simply eliminated, virtually eliminated, in a matter of weeks all the youth services.
Societies can’t take that kind of hit; they just can’t take that kind of hit....
I was very disappointed with David Cameron’s statement yesterday which was all about, you know, sympathy for the businesses that were looted and sympathy for people who were worried about it and making no attempt to understand or recognise that these people had reasons for doing what they were doing, which also have to be addressed… And if you just talk about repression, policing, that you’re just, you’re worthless criminals, you’re useless riffraff, we want you back indoors or behind bars, all you do is reinforce the sense of monumental unfairness.
Astonishing. So the protesters are people so motivated by a sense of fairness that they bash the innocent, burn their shops and steal their stuff. And if only a few youth services hadn’t been closed, well, they’d have stayed at home, causing no trouble to nobody.
What’s more, getting police to tackle the looters and rioters just adds to their legitimate sense of the unfairness of this capitalist society, which has denied them the free shoes they’re now stealing. A prime minister should seek instead to honor or at least excuse what they’ve done, and praise their political vision.
Really, such utter nonsense shows these ideologues are not just crazy but suicidally irresponsible. What the hell is the ABC doing? For one, it’s not reading the warning signs for us in these riots.
Spawn of a society in decay
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (06:02 am)
Theodore Dalrymple on the breeding of people with more self-esteem than virtue:
THE riots in London and elsewhere in Britain are a backhanded tribute to the long-term intellectual torpor, moral cowardice, incompetence and careerist opportunism of the British political and intellectual class.
They have somehow managed not to notice what has long been apparent to anyone who has taken a short walk with his eyes open down any frequented British street: that a considerable proportion of the country’s young population (a proportion that is declining) is ugly, aggressive, vicious, badly educated, uncouth and criminally inclined.
Unfortunately, while it is totally lacking in self-respect, it is full of self-esteem: that is to say, it believes itself entitled to a high standard of living, and other things, without any effort on its own part.
Consider for a moment the following: although youth unemployment in Britain is very high, that is to say about 20 per cent of those aged under 25, the country has had to import young foreign labour for a long time, even for unskilled work in the service sector.
The reasons for this seeming paradox are obvious to anyone who knows young Britons as I do.
No sensible employer in a service industry would choose a young Briton if he could have a young Pole; the young Pole is not only likely to have a good work ethic and refined manners, he is likely to be able to add up and—most humiliating of all—to speak better English than the Briton, at least if by that we mean the standard variety of the language.
...while millions are fighting for democracy and a better life in the Arab Spring revolutions, the little bastards on the rampage in England seem to be only interested in getting the latest iPhone or a LCD TV.
UPDATE
The secular mind may rejoice at the post-religious moment of Europe, and especially of Britain. But an unemployed youth, with no tradition and no real education, with enough money more or less but not many prospects, with no source of moral authority and no help in understanding any basis for right and wrong, nothing to control an impulse, and knowing nothing of British history except that it was shameful and sexist and racist—how exactly does this youth become integrated and whole, and indeed happy?
UPDATE
Rioting teenagers on ABC radio’s AM yesterday:
GIRL 1: It’s the government’s fault.
Girl 2: I know . . .
Girl 1: I dunno . . .
Girl 2: Conservatives!
Girl 1: Yeah, whatever who it is—I dunno.
Girl 2: It’s not even a riot—it’s showing the people we can do what we want.
Girl 1: Yeah, that’s what it’s all about—showing the police we can do what we want, and now we have.
Reporter: So do you reckon it will go on tonight?
Girl 2: Yeah hopefully, I want a few more things!
Girl 1: Innit?
(Thanks to reader CA.)
Sceptics demand answers from warmist paper
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (05:41 am)
The fiercely warmist Sunday Age has promised to answer the 10 questions most popular with its readers.
Sceptical questions dominate so far, which I suspect was not what the paper and the co-sponsors of this exercise were counting on. Here are the top five so far - and to lodge your own vote, go here:
1918 votes
“The very point of Australia’s carbon tax is to reduce global warming. How much will reducing 5% of Australia’s around 1.5% contribution of global CO2 emissions reduce global temperature by? If the amount is negligible (which it is), then given the present economic turbulence, what is the probability of Australia’s carbon tax inspiring major emitters like USA, China and India to make ACTUAL cuts to their C02 emissions (as opposed to mere carbon intensity) and economic growth? “
- -Jason Fong478 votes
“It is accepted that man’s carbon dioxide emissions are causing an amount of warming the climate. However, the magnitude of any future warming is highly uncertain. The IPCC acknowledges that its understanding of a number of key natural climate drivers and feedbacks is “low” or “very low”. Why is it, therefore, that the Fairfax press is reluctant to engage with and investigate this uncertainty with an open-minded impartiality, and instead continues to publish articles based on a rigid editorial agenda that “the science is settled"?"
- Simon James245 votes
“There are some very vocal and seemingly influential climate change sceptics who have been given well supported platforms by some media organisations in Australia. 2GB’s broadcasting of Alan Jones and News Limited’s publishing of Andrew Bolt is a couple of examples that spring to mind. It appears that these media organisations have the goal of destroying the credibility of anyone who supports the science of and actions to mitigate the effects of human civilization’s influences on earth’s climate. Do these media organisations obtain funding from any corporate, organisational or individual entities with a vested interest in maintain the industrial status quo where unlimited greenhouse gas emissions are largely the norm?”
- Mark Dennis233 votes
“If the government is so serious about reducing co2 emissions why do they keep ignoring the single most effective method for doing so: nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is far cheaper than “renewables” and kills less people per unit of energy produced than even solar or wind. New generation reactors improve safety significantly and render the long term waste storage issue moot, and thorium fast breeder reactors cannot melt down accidentally at all. France has shown how easy and effective nuclear is at reducing greenhouse emissions. Why doesn’t the government spend some of it’s enormous “clean energy future” research and advertising budget to help educate Australians about the facts around new forms of clean atomic energy?” - Russell Hamstead (11 comments)
189 votes
“The claim “the science is settled” is plainly false due to the many problems with the AGW hypothesis (eg. global temperatures have not risen since 1998 despite rising CO2 levels; alarmism is based on flawed models that do not reflect empirical measurements - positive feedback mechanism with water vapour absent/signature hot-spot in troposphere at equator is absent). Why is there no investigative journalism done to examine these flaws?” - Stephen Harper (6 comments)
The answer to question three is “no, no funding to influence the debate”. Indeed, the official policy of News Ltd is to “give the planet the benefit of the doubt”. But look at the sponsors, backers and designers of this Sunday Age project. Haven’t their funds and support influenced the Sunday Age’s coverage? Is this ethical?
Burn ye not leaves
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (05:17 am)
MEET the new conservatives. They are the keepers of a new and growing list of rules and regulations that must be adhered to lest we all face, not necessarily the fires of eternal damnation, but a less than perfect world.
There are some who subscribe to the view that we must repent now or face Armageddon.Unlike maiden aunts, who signalled displeasure with a single raised eyebrow, the new conservatives are more forthright in chastising errant behaviour.
So what are the new commandments of these straiteners?:
- Thou shalt not despoil the environment… And if a sufficient number do not repent, at a later date an almighty flood, in the form of rising sea levels, will rise up and wash away the damned....
-Thou shalt not be obese....
- Thou shalt not waste (or publicly store) water.... And while on this subject do not ever mention the d-word: dams.
- Thou shalt not burn leaves.
- Thou shalt not speed in a motor vehicle.
- Thou shalt not smoke.
(But, Bernard, you have abused and misused the word “conservative”.)
Allan sends it back
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (12:04 am)
This is the renewable energy the Government is counting on
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (12:02 am)
THE firm behind geothermal energy in Geelong has reaffirmed the credentials of the project despite multi-million dollar government grants going begging due to a lack of private investment.
Greenearth Energy yesterday confirmed it would push on with its Geelong drilling program, labelled one of Australia’s most promising projects.
On Monday Greenearth was one of four geothermal companies to announce it had passed up the Federal Government’s funding offer because it was unable to secure matching amounts from the private sector.
Due to the expiration of Canberra’s Geothermal Drilling Program, the Gillard Government rolled over the untapped money into the $126 million Emerging Renewables fund for hot-rock, wind and solar projects.
This is meant to be one of the main sources of renwable energy by 2050, according to the Gillard Government.
it doesn’t seem to be working.
(Thanks to reader Tom.)
Chocolate beats a Greens boycott
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (12:02 am)
I don’t think the Greens-backed boycott of this Jewish shop - a Max Brenner outlet- is actually working.
Could someone warn Lee Rhiannon?
(Thanks to reader Steve.)
Gillard picks a number, any number
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, August 11, 11 (12:00 am)
Pssst, but is the Gillard Government just making stuff up as it goes along?
AT FIRST it was thought the carbon tax would apply to 1000 of Australia’s biggest polluters, then it was 500, and now the climate change department says it’s “more like 400”. ...
“Under the previous (Kevin Rudd carbon pollution reduction scheme) package the number that we thought was going to be in the system was more in the order of 700,” climate change department secretary Blair Comley said today.
“(Now) the number of emitters that we think will be covered is more in the order of more like 400.”
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