Wednesday, July 20, 2011

News items and comments

STICK TO EATING THEM

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (02:36 pm)

Pie boy gets his day in court:

The protester accused of throwing a paper plate of shaving foam at Rupert Murdoch as he gave evidence to MPs has been charged with a public order offence.

Jonathan May-Bowles, 26, of Edinburgh Gardens, Windsor, was bailed to appear before City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

He is charged with behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, said Scotland Yard.

May-Bowles, who goes by the name Jonnie Marbles, was on Tuesday night suspended from the Labour Party.

UPDATE. Even the Guardian is understandably impressed by Wendi Deng:

Deng lunged while startled police officers were barely off the back foot. While a roomful of male advisers also appeared stunned, she scooped up the paper plate fired at her husband and launched it like a grenade back at May-Bowles, a comedian, with an amazing right hook.

Such was the force of her shot that the foam directed at her husband’s face landed on a police officer and on her own blue-painted toes.

Witnesses believed that if it wasn’t for that officer she would have continued round the table to finish the man off.

Beautiful.

===

TRUE BELIEVERS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (02:07 pm)

Simon Benson, July 4:

The PM’s aim is to have her backbenchers go out into their communities and sell the [carbon] tax to the punters …

When Parliament rises on Thursday, it will go into recess for five weeks for the winter break. Many MPs, however, will be planning to go on holidays and getting as far away as possible from the toxic environment of their electorates and this tax.

And the exodus begins:

The Queensland Labor MP with the state’s second safest Labor seat has left the country on a taxpayer-funded tour of France as the Federal Government tries to sell its carbon tax …

Senior ministers including Anthony Albanese, Mark Arbib, Stephen Conroy, Nicola Roxon and Penny Wong are all taking annual leave as the government ramps up its carbon tax sales pitch.

(Via Feral Abacus)

===

348 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S CLEAN LABORLESS FUTURE TAX

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (05:29 am)

The Age‘s Michelle Grattan:

When cabinet met on Monday, after the shocking Age poll showing Tony Abbott 11 points ahead as preferred PM, Julia Gillard indicated she’ll soon be broadening into issues beyond just carbon pricing.

The quicker she does so the better for her. This high-profile dashing around the country talking carbon, carbon, carbon has become counterproductive.

Don’t listen to her, Julia. Keep talking. Keep talking.

UPDATE. The Electrical Trades Union has heard enough:

A big blue-collar union has broken ranks and says it cannot support the Gillard government’s carbon tax package because of the ‘’total absence’’ of a jobs plan for the struggling Latrobe Valley.

===

THE LEFT’S NEW HERO

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (02:31 am)

Leftist comedian Jonnie Marbles – real name Jonathan May-Bowles – observes Rupert and James Murdoch offering testimony before UK politicians, and tweets:

It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before

He then assaults an 80-year-old man:



UPDATE. Here’s the idiot.

UPDATE II. He’s a climate idiot. And what a climate idiot.

UPDATE III. Great work from Wendi, who was faster to respond than British security:

“Rupert murdoch pied by protester. His wife slaps protester. Then she picks up pie and shoves it in his face,” tweeted Ben Fenton from the Financial Times, who was in the room.

UPDATE IV. Immediate reaction:

News Corp. shares soared 6%.

UPDATE V. Time correspondent Olivia B. Waxman is amused by Twitter “gems” that followed the assault.

UPDATE VI. UK Uncut, a group with which Marbles is associated, describes the assault as “funny” – and then deletes that post.

UPDATE VII. The local angle.

UPDATE VIII. Fat and stupid: portrait of a leftist in his mid-20s.

UPDATE IX. Marbles in December:

An amazing year draws to a close and thoughts on the left are finally turning to how we can best f**k ourselves in the twelve months ahead.

Looks like he found a way.

===

EconLog’s David Henderson discusses further his e-mail exchange with Ian Fletcher – a fine discussion that gives me an opportunity to discuss further the confusions that a focus on ‘national economies’ injects into economic thinking.

Fletcher understands the importance of savings. But the confusions that gush forth from the wide-open nationalist spigot in his brain drowns this understanding.

(Note: in what follows I presume – likely unrealistically – that Fletcher understands just why savings is important and that opportunities to save and invest are not fixed.)

To build (say) a productive new factory requires that some resources be diverted from satistying consumption desires today and used instead to builid the factory and to equip it (and, of course, to train workers) so that greater amounts of output will be available tomorrow to satisfy greater consumption desires tomorrow.

Consider three people: Jones, Smith, and Williams. Each works and earns his or her separate income. We can all agree that the greater the portion of the total income earned by these three people that is saved and profitably invested, the fewer will be the consumption desires that these three people, considered as a group, satisfy today, but the greater will be the consumption desires that these three peope, taken as a group, satisfy tomorrow.

We can should all agree also that there is no objective (hence, no objectively determinable) correct amount of savings and investment – either for each of these three people considered individually or for the three considered as a group. One’s time preference is a subjective preference just as is one’s apple preference or one’s preference for having a pet dog.

We can should also agree that for each individual (say, Jones), he or she is very likely made better off the higher are the amounts saved and wisely invested by the other two considered as a group (in this example, Smith and Williams). Higher savings means more capital investment and, hence, more total output and, hence also, more competition that drives real prices downward). So even if Jones saves nothing, he is very likely made better off the greater is the savings of other people.

We can should agree that, just as Smith would increase his own material prosperity by working harder and longer, he would thereby also very likely increase the material prosperity of Jones and Williams. Again, more total output (a ‘bigger pie’) and lower prices brought about by the competition to sell this greater output.

We can should agree that, even though Jones and Williams benefit the harder and longer Smith works (and, hence, suffer the lazier and less Smith works), Jones and Williams have no legally or morally enforceable claim on Smith’s work effort – meaning, Smith is and ought to be free to work as hard and as much, or as lazily and as little, as he chooses. (Ditto, of course, for Jones and Williams.)

We can should agree that, what’s true for work effort is true for savings. Even though Jones and Williams would benefit more the more Smith saves and wisely invests, Jones and Williams are neither legally nor morally justified in forcing Smith to save and invest more. (Ditto, of course, for Smith with respect to Jones and Williams.)

Now suppose that Williams increases his savings and uses these saved resources to build a factory in town. Jones and Smith very likely benefit even if they don’t save more or otherwise change their behavior (see above).

Questions for Fletcher and other protectionists: What does it matter if Williams is a resident of the town in which the factory is built? Are the potential benefits enjoyed by Jones and Smith as a consequence of Williams’s increased saving and investment less if Williams lives not in the town where the factory is built (and where Jones and Smith reside) but lives instead in an adjoining town? What if Williams lives on the other side of the country? What if Williams lives in a different country?

If saving is good for Americans, the nationality or place of residence of the savers whose saved resources are invested in the American economy is irrelevant. If saving is good for Americans, then given Americans’ saving rate, savings invested in the American economy by non-Americans are a blessing – a blessing that is bigger the greater is the amount of this foreign savings and investment in the American economy.

Yes, we Americans would be even wealthier materially if we Americans saved even more – wealthier materially both as a product of many or all of us having larger financial portfolios, and as a product of the economy of which we are a part having an even greater volume of total output. But for this very reason we Americans are made wealthier also when foreigners save more and invest their savings here, regardless of how much or how little Americans save and invest.

===

Gillard blows hard at her new wind farm

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (04:01 pm)

Julia Gillard today warned us what trouble she’d cause with her green plan:

JULIA Gillard has upheld the renewable energy sector in economically-devastated Spain as an example of the potential transformation of Australia’s energy mix under her carbon tax.

Opening a wind farm at Gunning near Canberra, the Prime Minister today shifted her carbon tax sales pitch to renewable energy profit opportunities for investors and farmers…

“Today (Acciona chief executive Jose Manuel) described to us how, in Spain, 35 per cent of its energy is coming from renewable sources,” Ms Gillard said.

“And, as he remarked, we are a nation perfectly positioned to seize this clean energy future...”

However, the Spanish solar industry is heavily subsidised through a feed-in tariff of about 64c a kilowatt hour - well above anything offered for solar systems in Australia.

As Spain struggles to overcome its deepest economic slump in 60 years, the Spanish government is trying to crack down on assistance for many renewable energy projects in a bid to lower electricity costs for businesses and household.

And Gillard’s spin also came unspun in describing why the local farmers had offered their land for the wind farm:

Visiting the Gunning Wind Farm in southern NSW on Wednesday, Ms Gillard met farmers Alan McCormack and his sister Elleen (Elleen) who allowed Spanish company Acciona Energy to build the wind farm on their property at Gurrundah…

Now it will provide the McCormack family with an extra source of income after years of drought. Ms Gillard joked that there should be smiley faces at the centre of the wind turbine propellers.

In fact:

While Mr McCormack welcomed the environmental benefits generated by the wind farm, he said he was against Ms Gillard’s carbon tax from a farmer’s perspective.... He said once the carbon tax is introduced, he is worried about rising power and fuel costs - “and everything else”.

Mr McCormack’s son, also called Alan, is the farm manager and he agreed with his dad.

“Somebody said to us, ‘Lucky you’ve got this wind farm because you’re going to have to pay through the nose for the carbon tax’,” the 28-year-old told The Daily Telegraph.

===

As if Canberra politics wasn’t already tense enough

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (01:36 pm)

Kevin Rudd having aortic valve replacement surgery on August 1. He will be off for two months, but will stay in Parliament.

The operation is a significant one, and I wish him the best.

UPDATE

Kevin Rudd eases out to $10 as Labor’s leader at the next election, and Simon Crean is now $9, down from $101 less than a fortnight ago.

===

On it goes

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (01:16 pm)

Why doesn’t Julia Gillard tackle these emissions first?

TEAR gas and bean-bag rounds were fired at asylum seekers on Christmas Island after riots broke out late last night. One man has been arrested after about 50 people at the detention centre began protesting and set fire to wheelie bins.

(Thanks to reader Chris.)

UPDATE

Sky News says it’s told up to 200 people are involved in the strife. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says about 50

===

Abbott reveals the inner sceptic that will win him votes

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (11:45 am)

When you’ve promoted policies you know are frauds to fix a problem you think is exaggerated, it’s hard to later remember what you said:

LABOR has seized on a second contradictory climate change statement by Tony Abbott in the space of just a few days, in which he said he’d never supported putting a price on carbon.

The Opposition Leader made the claim on Gippsland’s Star FM yesterday, saying: ”I’ve never been in favour of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.”

But in October 2009 Mr Abbott publicly backed an emissions trading scheme in an interview on the ABC’s Lateline program.

“We don’t want to play games with the planet. So we are taking this issue seriously and we would like to see an ETS,” he said at the time.

He made a similar comment on radio 2UE in November that year. “You can’t have a climate change policy without supporting this ETS at this time,” he said.

Earlier this week, Mr Abbott criticised a proposed 5 per cent carbon emissions cut as “crazy”, even though the Coalition supports the target.

At some stage the Liberals will have to decide whether to attack the global warming scaremongers or just potter along in this dangerous way, paying lip service to a false god.

Still, I can’t see for now that these contradictions hurt Abbott that much. Labor will scream that he’s really a sceptic, which many more voters hope is true, while he can keep telling the media he isn’t, which avoids a fight with the true believers there - and in his own party.

Yes, that course has hazards of its own, but it may be the one that hurts him least for now.

Another example to illustrate my adage: that you can count on your enemies to be loudest in advertising your virtues.

===

Let’s look at these Greens

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (11:32 am)

image

Important scrutiny in a new book that comes at an important time:

THE GREENS: Policies, Reality and Consequences

Edited by Andrew McIntyre…

The idea for this book came from an awareness of the alarming void in media analysis of the Greens’ policies at a time when they have been gaining in political strength.

This book brings together leading Australian experts who look at a wide range of their policies in detail – from Agriculture to Z00phytes – to reveal the practical consequences of these policies.

The book suggests that the Greens have an uncontrollable urge to spend our money, a mania for legislative and regulatory control – of both institutions and individuals – a disturbing and unwarranted confidence in central planning and a belief that government knows best. Underlying this is a thoroughly naïve understanding of how the real world works.

The irony is that the Greens’ policies would not only destroy our economy but actually make the environment worse.

MELBOURNE LAUNCH of THE GREENS

At the Melbourne Celtic Club
Brian Boru Room: 316-320 Queen Street, Melbourne, Vic 3000
This Thursday, July 21st, at 6.30pm
To be launched by
Hon Kevin Andrews MP (Shadow Minister for Families)…
RSVP: bookings@connorcourt.com

SYDNEY LAUNCH of THE GREENS

At Portico Books and Fine Stationery
1 Jamison St Sydney NSW 2000
(http://www.portico.com.au)
August 5th, at 6pm
To be launched by
Janet Albrechtsen (Opinion Writer- The Australian)..

RSVP: bookings@connorcourt.com

===

Gillard smears the Murdoch press

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (11:27 am)

Julia Gillard today again tries to turn the News of the World scandal in Britain into political advantage here, saying News Ltd papers here have ”hard questions to answer”.

In fact, there is no suggestion by anyone that the practices at the News of the World have been employed by a single paper here. Instead, Gillard is angling to smear and potentially muzzle a media outlet that has been critical of some of her most disastrous and irrational policies.

Gillard, in her desperation, is trying to intimidate critics and scapegoat media outlets. Be very wary is she attempts to translate her mearing into an inquiry - and new laws.

UPDATE

Brendan O’Neill on the hysterical Murdoch-hating of British journalists:

It isn’t surprising that Murdoch-bashing often sounds eerily similar to conspiracy theorising - because, like conspiracy theories, it too is underpinned by its adherents’ own profound sense of dislocation and angst. It was largely the left and the cultural elite’s inability to make inroads with the public which led them to conclude that some other, super-sinister force must have us in its dastardly grip. It is no coincidence that the liberal-commentariat view of Murdoch as the controller of minds and the dictator of agendas really took off in the 1980s: because it is directly proportionate to the declining fortunes of the Labour Party and of mainstream left-wing thinking in general.

(Thanks to reader Professor Frank.)

===

On Campbell Newman’s kisses

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (07:09 am)

image

CAMPBELL Newman has lots to offer as a politician. For a start, he gropes his wife in public after 20 years of marriage.

Youths may blush and prudes frown, but many of us stand taller in our comfortable shoes when we see the fondling Newmans at play.

And it’s extraordinary just how often that is.

For instance, Newman - leader of the Queensland Liberal National Party and Brisbane’s former lord mayor - exchanged a passionate kiss with wife Lisa as he entered his pre-selection interview last April.

Since then, Lisa Newman has been often filmed stroking her husband during interviews or public events, a lusty look in her eye for the shaven-headed 47-year-old father of her two daughters.

In return, Newman repeatedly clutched and cupped his wife’s firm backside at the Liberal National Party state conference last weekend.

Maybe he was just over-excited by the near-inevitable election win that will be his within the year.

But so eagerly did Newman come the grope that his wife seized his hand to move it closer to her waist, before seeming to relent.

I guess I should disapprove of this lack of restraint, not least because it can make the rest of us feel we’re interrupting something more important than us.

And tactically, such tactility risks putting off younger voters who tend to think anyone over 40 has no right to sensuality, being repulsive in the sagginess of their flesh and the thinness of their hair.

Certainly, such spousal fondling is unusual on the campaign trail. I don’t believe I saw then prime minister John Howard exchange more than the most chaste of kisses with his wife in public. Even the demonstrative Bob Hawke seemed to hold Hazel’s hand only when hoisting it up in a victory salute.

Now it’s almost a declaration of war if Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is merely photographed next to wife, or is caught confessing he even has one.

Here is how The Australian reacted when Abbott mentioned Margie in one of his debates with Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the last election campaign: “Asked whether she believed the Opposition Leader’s focus on talking about his wife and family was an underhanded swipe at her during Sunday night’s debate, (Gillard) said she did not.”

Abbott’s restraint is not just due to his wife’s shyness or his own primness.

Gillard’s own reserve with her partner, Tim Mathieson, has made the campaign canoodle by anyone else seem a rude reproach or a wink at bigots.

===

The blueprint for Labor’s next leader

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (07:07 am)

THE next Labor leader must repair Gillard’s damage. Voters must be given respect before the issues of multiculturalism and population growth are tackled.

Labor’s new leader - possibly Simon Crean - cannot take over as Julia Gillard did a year ago.

The damage Labor has already done to itself and the nation is too shocking and menacing for that.

When Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd last year, she promised only to do what Rudd had done, but better.

More consultation, a smoother sales pitch, and no worries, a “good Government that had lost its way” would soon be on track.

But Labor’s next leader - former Opposition leader Crean, perhaps, and just possibly as soon as next month - cannot now come in on such a meagre promise.

Most importantly, he will need to start with a profound apology and a promise of complete change.

He will need to bow to a truth so implacable it can no longer be denied: Gillard stole the last election on a lie.

Everyone knows it. “There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,” the Prime Minister said, just days before the last election.

This is Labor’s original sin. As a result, Gillard lacks legitimacy, and so does Labor.

More dangerously, even government itself seems to some to be suspect.

All this damage was recklessly inflicted by Labor, whose urgent job now is to admit to it, apologise for it and fix it as best it can.

At stake is not just Labor’s reputation, so stained by this sin that its poll support is at record lows. Also at risk is something far more serious - our trust in democracy and in each other.

The mood on the streets is, frankly, scary.

Sure, let’s now tut-tut the few nutters talking about taking up arms against the Government.

Let’s deplore the talkback hosts and their callers who chant “Ju-liar” and mock “the witch”.

Let’s regret the lack of respect shown to Gillard by shoppers who call her “liar” to her face.

Let’s damn the Hazelwood union official who last Saturday stood behind the Prime Minister and made a repulsive sexual gesture.

Let’s demand angry demonstrators tone down their language, and that Gillard supporters cut out the physical intimidation of their opponents and the shutting down of debate.

But to wish all this fury gone is not just naive and unrealistic. It is to overlook the deceit that so predictably unleashed it.

Labor could not steal a close election with such a brazen lie and then expect the public to politely take it. It could not cheat voters so shamelessly and expect them to just suck it up.

No explanation from Gillard can ever excuse having promised one thing and delivered the revolutionary other, just to suit her ideology and lust for power.

She broke a fundamental compact with the voters. She placed herself beyond their control and treated them as fools. And now she’s surprised they’re angry? Shocked they want a new election, to seize back the control over their politicians they thought they had as members of this free country?

Sorry. It doesn’t work that way, Julia. Nor should it, if democracy is to mean much.

Labor cannot hope to right this terrible wrong with smooth words and clever slogans. The public rage has gone well past that.

===

Costello warns: the free press is being threatened

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:57 am)

Peter Costello says Bob Brown’s call for a media inquiry is just a sinister attempt to intimidate critics of his politicies:

Brown has suggested a new licensing regime so that newspapers can be published only by ‘’a fit and proper’’ person. By definition, a person who spreads hate is not ‘’fit and proper’’ to publish a newspaper. So there you have a neat little formula to strip an owner or threaten a newspaper with closure. If its coverage engenders ‘’hatred’’ for certain policies, then you take away the licence.

Julia Gillard and Stephen Conroy seem to be keen on an inquiry. They are not silly enough to try to close down newspapers - no matter how critical they get. But they are smart enough to know that if an inquiry opens up ownership and regulation issues, they can promise benefits or withdraw privileges that may have a real financial effect on publishers. And with an inquiry under way, owners and their editors might be a little more careful about their criticism…

All my experience tells me that when a government begins to play around with new forms of media regulation what they really have in mind is content - in particular how to promote favourable comment and discourage critical comment.

In my time in politics, some of the most disgraceful reporting came from the ABC. But senators Brown and Conroy have no proposals for new regulation there. The proposals are aimed squarely at news media that they regard as critical.

===

But throwing shoes at John Howard deserves a tribute

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:48 am)

The Australian exposes the hypocrisy behind the manufactured campaign to demonise protest again the carbon dioxide tax:

Jonathan Holmes on ABC1’s Media Watch yesterday:

You remember the No Carbon Tax rally in Canberra last March, with all those charming posters? 2GB’s presenters urged their listeners to go to that one, too, and Chris Smith broadcast live from the event . . . is he paid to help organise political rallies?

Like this? Ben Cubby in The Sydney Morning Herald, March 24:

“Turn off the lights on Saturday”
Earth Hour, which is supported by the Herald’s publisher, Fairfax Media, started in Sydney in 2007. The PM, Julia Gillard, recorded a message for Earth Hour, saying she was “going beyond the hour” by bringing in a carbon price. “My commitment for this year is simple: I will do everything in my power to deliver a carbon price,” she said. “I believe 2011 is the year Australia will choose action. Everyone taking part in Earth Hour this year is helping to make sure this is so.”

Holmes again on Media Watch yesterday:

What sort of opinions about the Prime Minister, whether expressed by [Chris Smith on 2GB] or his listeners, are OK?

Caller Bonita to Chris Smith on 2GB:

Look, I can say this, but you can’t: she’s a menopausal monster, and she needs to resign.

What if you throw a shoe at former PM John Howard? Peter McEvoy, executive producer of ABC1’s Q&A, tells the SMH, October 26, 2006:

Perhaps they could be framed, someone mentioned bronzing . . . we will give it some thought in the coming weeks.

Another opinion it’s OK to express on their ABC. A tweet on Q&A yesterday:

If karma is real how is Rupert Murdoch still alive and so rich.

===

The wilful closing of the Western mind

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:39 am)

Olive Marc Hartwich is worried when a country does not dare to even check the facts before shooting a messenger such as Thilo Sarrazin, since hounded from his directorship of the German Bundesbank:

Sarrazin was mainly known to political insiders. All of this changed last August when he published the book Germany abolishes itself (Deutschland schafft sich ab). Within months the provocatively titled tome of 464 pages, laden with statistics and footnotes, became the best selling non-fiction book in German post-war history. More than 1.5 million copies have been printed to date…

The main points Sarrazin made in his book were neither particularly new nor were they factually incorrect. Like many authors before him, he pointed out that German society is ageing and shrinking because of low birthrates. He also offered a blistering critique of the welfare state, which he claimed had created a persistent, uneducated underclass.

Sarrazin then dared to suggest that due to the availability of welfare entitlements for the poor and career incentives for the rich the great majority of children are now born to parents from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Finally, he explained how Germany’s haphazard immigration system had failed to attract high potentials and instead became exploited by poorly educated migrants. The additional point that Muslim migrants are segregating from mainstream society, again backed up by unambiguous statistical data, was the icing on the cake of Sarrazin’s assault on everything that the guardians of political correctness regard as sacred.

The media and Sarrazin’s former colleagues in the political class were quick to condemn the book and its author. The empire of political correctness was striking back.

Before the book had even been released, Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the attacks on Sarrazin. “The book,” she declared, was “not helpful”, as if that had ever been a requirement for new publications. Of course, Merkel had not read it as she was frank enough to admit. Neither did she intend to, as she told a newspaper weeks later.

What was the slogan of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four? “Ignorance is strength.” Quite.

Sarazin is about to visit Australia to speak here:

You Can’t Say That: Freedom of Speech & the Invisible Muzzle

Where: The Masonic Centre
66 Goulburn Street, Sydney 2000
Date: 01 August 2011
Time: 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

The theme for this year’s CIS Big Ideas Forum is political correctness and its insidious march into Western society. Ostensibly a tool of civility and respect, it is often, on closer inspection, a way of silencing unpopular opinion, and is a serious threat to freedom of speech.

Join Dr Thilo Sarrazin, former central banker and author; Dr Janet Albrechtsen, columnist with The Australian; Professor James Allan, bills-of-rights scholar; and Brendan O’Neill, pulls-no-punches journalist and editor of the popular online UK publication spiked for a closer look into the pervasive problem of political correctness.

Book here.

UPDATE

Meanwhile, the BBC restricts another debate:

Opponents of global warming should be given less coverage by the BBC than the climate change lobby, the corporation will rule.

The BBC is set to publish a report tomorrow on its science output announcing changes to rules on impartiality.

Following the overhaul, programme makers and broadcasters will be compelled to give less prominence to those who oppose the scientific community’s majority view.

(Thanks to readers Lisa, Carrington and others.)

===

Whoever says “pollution” is trying to trick you

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:34 am)

Ziggy Switkowski, chancellor of RMIT University, is growing more frustrated by the deceptive language of the warmists:

I am offended by the manipulation of the argument by deliberately coding CO2 as a pollutant, which it is not, and implying some environmental agenda where there is none.

When fossil fuels such as coal, gas and petrol are burned, there are a number of by-products....

Water vapour, as seen billowing from the hyperboloid cooling towers much favoured by photo editors, is not pollution unless we include clouds and rain in that definition, which few do.

Carbon dioxide, which is produced in great quantities also, but is colourless and normally benign, is not a pollutant. It is a greenhouse gas which, as its concentration increases in the atmosphere, contributes to the warming of the planet. It is a greenhouse gas, not a pollutant, in the context of climate change.

CO2 is necessary to plant life and in regulating our temperature and climate.. Many cold regions in the northern hemisphere welcome global warming. Think of Scotland, parts of Scandinavia, Russia, Canada. To them, increasing CO2 is not a problem. Is it possible for CO2 to be a pollutant in the southern hemisphere but beneficial in large parts of the north? What previously unknown principle of chemistry is at work here, which changes the character of a molecule depending on location?

UPDATE

Dr Tim Ball agrees:

Gillard doesn’t know she’s talking crap climate science.

(Thanks to reader George.)

===

No wonder the warmists hate debate

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:28 am)

The National Press Club debate’s results:

Lord Monckton - 10

Former Greens adviser Richard Denniss - 1

Journalists - 0.

(Thanks to reader Adam.)

UPDATE

Note that Denniss’s entire argument was to follow the “consensus”. There was no attempt at all to explain the evidence contradicting this manufactured consensus.

===

If this is warming, the crops are loving it

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:23 am)

The warmists cry starvation in 2008:

Impoverished farmers in South Asia and southern Africa could face growing food shortages due to climate change within just 20 years, a new study says…

“The majority of the world’s one billion poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods,” said the lead author of the new study, David Lobell of Stanford University.

“Unfortunately, agriculture is also the human enterprise most vulnerable to changes in climate.”

But so far, so great:

China is expecting a bumper harvest this year, with a successful summer harvest already completed and autumn grain production “going smoothly,” agricultural officials said Friday… China had a bumper harvest for the seventh consecutive year in 2010, with grain output up 2.9 percent year-on-year to hit 546.41 million metric tons.

(Thanks to reader rukidding.)

===

No place for such laws

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:18 am)

People should be free to make their own private arrangements by their own moral code, where those arrangements do not conflict with our law. So what worries me here is not so much that shariah law is being implemented, but the specific things it’s being used to justify:

SHARIA law has become a shadow legal system within Australia, endorsing polygamous and underage marriages that are outlawed under the Marriage Act.

A system of “legal pluralism” based on sharia law “abounds” in Australia, according to new research by legal academics Ann Black and Kerrie Sadiq....

But in family law, not all Muslims were registering their marriages and some were relying on religious ceremonies to validate unions that breached the Marriage Act.

This included “polygynist marriages”, in which a man takes multiple wives, and marriages where one party is under the lawful marriage age…

The findings come soon after Ikebal Patel, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, triggered a backlash inside the Islamic community when he called for Australia to compromise with Islam and embrace legal pluralism.

(Thanks to reader the Great Waisuli.)

Underpinning these arrangements is a view of women which I find deplorable.

===

Union rejects tax

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (06:08 am)

One union, at least, is honest enough to say this tax kills the jobs of its members:

A BIG blue-collar union has broken ranks and says it cannot support the Gillard government’s carbon tax package because of the ‘’total absence’’ of a jobs plan for the struggling Latrobe Valley.

Electrical Trades Union state secretary Dean Mighell said while the union supported pricing carbon, lack of a detailed plan for new industry or assistance to workers meant there was a risk of a ‘’massive social impact’’ from the likely closure of Hazelwood power station.

Mr Mighell said about 800 direct jobs would be lost if Hazelwood closed while the loss of indirect jobs could flow into the thousands. He also warned that shutting the plant, without alternative base-load power, increased the risk of brownouts in Victoria.

But, being a union that backs the Greens, its preference is for more insane policies that will drive up prices, suck up taxes and put even more people out of work:

Mr Mighell said while there were some ‘’great’’ elements of the package, such as the funding for renewable energy and putting a price on carbon, a plan was needed to create a ‘’renewable energy hub’’ in regions such as Morwell or the Hunter Valley.

===

Wendi Deng is a hero

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, July 20, 11 (03:03 am)

A thuggish global warmist attacks:

RUPERT Murdoch was attacked by a comedian brandishing a cream pie who stormed into a committee hearing in London’s Houses of Parliament.

But what a tiger. Deng takes that pie and shoves it right back:

On the BBC clip of the incident, destined to be repeated with 9/11-like regularity, you can just make out Wendi launching herself at the out-of-shot perpetrator. She goes vertical – a Tiger Wife in full battle cry – and then you hear a terrific slap. Cut to the dishevelled-looking protestor, face covered in shaving foam. ”I got him,” went up Wendi’s cry. And by Jupiter, she did.

image

The incident was a reminder to the committee that bad things can happen - like lax security - to the most august of institutions.

The Murdochs’ testimony was reassuringly impressive, after so many stumbles in dealing with this scandal:

Much as he dodged the pie, Murdoch appeared somewhat unscathed by the previous two hours of much-anticipated MP questioning. He repeatedly denied that he knew anything about bribery, blackmail and phone hacking at his newspapers and insisted he was the right man to lead the cleanup.

Murdoch’s position at the head of the multinational corporation he started 57 years ago was said to be hanging on the outcome of his performance at the grilling.

The most immediate metric was positive: News Corp. shares soared 6%.

Rupert Murdoch’s statement to the committee.

===

The last book Gillard should launch

Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, July 19, 11 (05:15 pm)

I cannot believe Julia Gillard’s press people could be so stupid, but they’re letting her launch Christine Nixon’s autobiography Fair Cop in Melbourne on August 3.

This the book for which Nixon, then Victoria’s Chief Police Commissioner, spoke to her co-author Jo Chandler during Black Saturday for an hour or more, when she should have been overseeing the frantic emergency response to those terrible fires. And this woman who then knocked off early that day to go to dinner.

“I had to eat!”

For Gillard to agree to launch the book sets herself up for all kinds of unflattering comparisons and contrasts, as in: which is the more incompetent leader?

Who on earth approved this? Has Gillard lost all sense of self-preservation?

===
He isn't playing golf with Murdoch or Obama
Taliban spokesmen are denying reports that the insurgent group's leader Mullah Omar is dead.


===
Is this a wiki leak? Assange expressed entitlement too.
www.news.com.au
FORMER AFL player Andrew Lovett felt a sense of entitlement to the woman he is accused of raping and was not going to take "no" for an answer, a court has heard.
===
You aren't a natural politician, kev. Just let it go.
www.news.com.au
KEVIN Rudd expects to be back at work as Foreign Minister about eight weeks after being given a new heart valve.
===
Obama is subject to the rule of law, although he might not feel like it.
www.news.com.au
PRESIDENT Barack Obama was fined £120 ($193) for not paying the London congestion charge during his state visit to Britain.
===
Gillard is a lawyer but she seems to have little ability or facility
www.news.com.au
NEWS Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan has described comments by the Prime Minister about News Limited as an affront and a "slur on the professionalism of our people".
===
What the figures hide is it is better to be married. Gen Y may be too young ..
www.news.com.au
DO you earn more than $80,000 a year? If you do, you're probably too busy having sex to read this article.

===
Ha ha, teen girls don't like poor abusers.
www.news.com.au
DISGRACED former AFL player manager Ricky Nixon has been ordered to pay a $250,000 business debt even though a court heard his financial situation was "dire''.
===
Magic. I am older. I don't have children. But it is still magic.
The box office records set by the final installment of the "Harry Potter" movies is bittersweet. Nothing will quite match the last 14 years when childhood was framed for many by the reliable time-released progression of the "Potter" books and films.
===
Maybe the NSA or MI6 can use 'em. Otherwise I think jail without a computer is appropriate .. for many decades.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police's e-Crime Unit in London arrested a 16-year-old boy in South London Tuesday afternoon, the latest arrest in an international sting operation targeting the notorious hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec.
===
But they are paid much better than those who achieve those skills.
www.news.com.au
A QUARTER of all players who come into the AFL system have reading and maths skills lower than year 10 level.
===
@Atheeizm Have you some reason for your assertion? Can you raise something brought up in the debate or elsewhere which might lend any substance to it? As it happens I have also manned the Science reference desk of Wikipedia, but that might have es...
Source: www.youtube.com
Petition your MP http://www.nocarbontax.com.au/​petition-your-mp/ House of Lords Act 1999 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/​ukpga/1999/34/contents Climate Change Disclosure-Lord Christopher Monkton Debate Dr Richard Dennis at the, National Press ...
===
Ridiculous. Anyone is allowed to act on conscience if it complies with the law. It doesn't create a shadow law.
SHARIA law has become a shadow legal system within Australia, endorsing polygamous and underage marriages that are outlawed under the Marriage Act.
===
An industry the ALP tried to destroy
MORE than 85 per cent of cattle producers are out of pocket because of the Indonesian live export crisis, with half having to sack staff and others struggling to meet bank payments.
===
Stupid argument fails if they are more profitable overseas
COALMINERS are each earning $1 million in profits for their employers, generating enough wealth for the sector to absorb the impact of a carbon tax, according to new government figures.
===
My experience shows this is a real concern. However ALP are not the ones to draft the legislation
New measures are expected to make it easier for warring parents to lay claims of abuse and violence against each other.
===
This will happen because there is no legitimate means for online contact. Teachers need to fully engage and be a presence online too .. In a teacherly way.
TEACHERS have become the targets of cyber bullying - and have found themselves powerless to stop it.
===
Good idea
A JOBS-READY arts degree? Sounds like an oxymoron given stereotypes of arts students not knowing what they want to do other than find the uni bar.
===
Why did the ALP want bendy buses?
SYDNEY commuters could soon return to the age of the double decker bus to reduce congestion on busy roads like the M2, industry experts said.
===
Imagine what a good policy could achieve?
IMMIGRATION Minister Chris Bowen says the government's refugee swap deal with Malaysia has helped cut the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australian waters.
===
Good idea.
NON-WORKERS using public transport should have access to concession fares only if they travel outside peak hours, a university researcher said.
===
Gillard's bad government costs lives
PATIENTS could miss out on new medicines after drug makers warned they could delay introducing new therapies to Australia over the Federal Government's decision to stall funding for seven drugs.
===
It is sad that one needs to be labelled to get help. It is bureaucratic, costly and ultimately self defeating. That is the gift of the ALP
SOME parents and doctors are colluding to deliberately misdiagnose school children as autistic so they can get help for other problems, a medical professional claims.
===
Sounds like they hired private investigators as every other newspaper does. That doesn't mean they knew how the PIs do their job.
FORMER News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has begun her testimony at a hearing on phone hacking.
===
McLelland cannot wash his hands of this. His government may be complicit in supporting the accused.
BURMESE-born artist Htoo Htoo Han has declared that his goal in confessing to the murders of 24 young people in his homeland is to give evidence in the International Criminal Court.
===
Welcome
EVEN during an exercise the US Marine Corps doesn't do things by half.

===
That is 1512, I have not been to visit the GP
NSW is one of the sickest states in Australia, with more than 1500 people struck down with the flu so far this season.
===
The costs soar due to bad policy. Not because the people are bad, as some stupid people say.
UPGRADING the overflowing asylum seeker detention centre system is costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, including a $20.4 million contract for a Darwin hotel developer.
===
I am angry that a drug using drunk has been leant on to create a pretext to smear News Corp, shutting down a 168 year old newspaper and blocking a legitimate bid for BSkyB. The politicians grilling Rupert and James appeared indulgent.
RUPERT Murdoch was attacked by a comedian brandishing a cream pie who stormed into a committee hearing in London's Houses of Parliament.
===
That explains my wife
Is there a little Fred Flintstone in you? According to a new genetic analysis, some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals -- but it's found exclusively in people outside Africa.
===
Remember, Obama wants him dead, not in a US jail.
Representatives of Muammar al-Qaddafi's embattled government held face-to-face talks with U.S. officials in neighboring Tunisia over the weekend, a Libyan government official said Monday, describing the meeting as a first step in opening dialogue.
===
Ralph Seberry once left a program he had used to hack Sydney Uni comp sci student accounts in his own directory, reasoning that the culprit could have put it there to frame him. The University didn't buy it.
The FBI is executing search warrants at two Long Island, N.Y., homes and one Brooklyn, N.Y., home of three suspected members of notorious hacking group Anonymous early Tuesday morning, FoxNews.com has learned.
===
We'll be back.
www.news.com.au
EARTH has put on a show for NASA's last ever shuttle mission, giving astronauts a stunning view of the Southern Lights from space.
===
A different technique. In Australia a magistrate recently said it was ok to run from police.
www.news.com.au
NEW Zealand police believe a pregnant woman conned officers into thinking she was in labour in order to evade arrest after a pursuit.
===
Oh thank the Lord, to not have to put up with that music ..
www.news.com.au
South Korean experts said today a vigorous gym exercise session caused a high-rise building in Seoul to shake for 10 minutes earlier this month, prompting hundreds to flee it in panic.
===
Australian law is followed by law abiding Australians. Sometimes we don't do things according to our conscience, but our conscience does not require us to break the law.
www.news.com.au
A MUSLIM who allegedly broke into the house of an Islam convert and whipped him 40 times for drinking alcohol has "complete and utter disregard for the laws of this state", police say.
===
I think the activists should be jailed until the threat to peace is over. Whenever that comes.
www.news.com.au
ISRAELI naval forces today boarded a French yacht that was heading for the Gaza Strip in defiance of its naval blockade and began towing the vessel to shore, a military spokeswoman said.
===
Malcolm Farr twists what was said to accuse Abbott. In fact the Liberal plan is not all about CO2, but is about a new direction in investment which allows growth. It isn't like Gillard's aggressive attack on all industry.
www.news.com.au
TOURING British climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton today told Tony Abbott to drop his Direct Action plan to cut carbon emissions.
===
DSK is a world class socialist.
www.news.com.au
THE mother of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's French accuser revealed late yesterday that she had a "consensual but brutal" sexual encounter of her own with the former IMF chief, around three years before her daughter's alleged rape.

No comments: