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Category: Current Affairs (Page 40 of 76)

Australia’s Leading Expert In Irrelevance

Former Australian Prime  Minister and big job at the UN hopeful Kevin Rudd gave a few tips today to the UN General Assembly on how to increase its level of irrelevance.

Speaking to a session to which almost one third of delegates turned up, Mr Rudd warned that:

“If we fail to make the UN work, to make its institutions relevant to the great challenges we all now face, the uncomfortable fact is that the UN will become a hollow shell.”

Oh Kevin, say it ain’t so….

Fortunately, having a deep awareness of what the great challenges are, Kevin was able to point the UN in the right direction:

“The unconstrained carbon emissions of one state impact on the long-term survival of all states.”

“Climate change is no respecter of national or geographic boundaries.”

“The most immediate and pressing threat to the physical security of Australia’s wider region lies in the scourge of natural disasters.”

Just put Kevin in charge, and you’ll see what heights of irrelevance are really possible.

Sorry, Julie, I don’t Agree

I like Julie Bishop. She has been a loyal and hard working deputy leader of the Liberal Party under three different leaders. It is not often I disagree with her.

But she said today that she thought it was important that Australia support India’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games.

No. It’s not.

Or at least, it is less important than the safety and health of athletes and other visitors.

India has had seven years to prepare for the games. The games begin on October 3rd – a week from today. But athletes are arriving to filthy conditions, collapsing beds, non functioning taps, toilets and other basic amenities.

National teams could stay in hotels in the city, at substantial additional expense. But it would not be safe for them to do so. The Indian government has said it cannot guarantee the safety of visitors outside the games village and games venues.

I’m surprised they think they can guarantee a safe location anywhere.

There have been at least fourteen major terrorist attacks in New Delhi since the year 2000. Hundreds of people have been killed.

There have been clear threats from islamic terrorist groups to kidnap athletes and other games visitors. These threats are not new. They have been made by al-Qaeda for the last several years.

Given the high level of risk to games visitors, it is simply inexcusable that India does not have adequate facilities in place a week before the games, and as athletes are arriving.

The Rising Tide of Stupid

Over forty morons were arrested in Newcastle in New South Wales today.

It is not that stupidity is illegal in Australia. In fact the government relies on it for lottery income.

These particular morons, repesenting ‘Rising Tide Newcastle’ broke into an area of the Port of Newcastle where coal is stored, and climbed up coal piles, loaders and terminals with banners protesting climate change. They managed to shut down the operation of the world’s largest coal port for most of the day.

No one denies that sea level has risen. It has been doing so for the last 10,000 years. The rate of increase has slowed rather than risen over the last three decades.

John Daly, sadly missed, made this submission to an Australian Federal Parliamentary joint committee on the Kyoto Protocol.

In it, he notes that there are myriad reasons for local sea level rise and fall, and that records showed that there had actually been a slight decline in sea level at Newcastle over the period for which data was then available.

Changes in sea level are not correlated to short term changes in climate, just as changes in atmospheric or ocean temperature are not correlated to preceding changes in atmospheric CO2.

But hey, why let an annoying detail like the facts get in the way of a good protest?

Incidentally, seaframe measurements of sea level over the last eighteen years show virtually no sea level rise in the South Pacific, including for the supposedly ‘endangered by climate change’  Kiribati and Tuvalu.

No rise in sea level in the South Pacific

No rise in sea level in the South Pacific

Some People Disagree With You. Get Over It.

The BBC website featured a picture of that silly old bugger Sir Ian McKellen protesting against the Pope.

Sir Ian was wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Some people are gay. Get over it.’

I am fairly confident, Sir Ian, that Pope Benedict is fully aware that some people are gay. He is faced with almost daily demands to apologise for, and make reparations for, the behaviour of a small group of predatory homosexuals over whose actions he had no control whatever.

And, Sir Ian, when was the last time the Pope turned up at an event featuring you, and publicly demanded you change the way you think?

Never?

So what makes you think anyone would be interested in your turning up uninvited to tell the Pope how to think?

But that’s the problem with these diversity loving liberals. They can’t stand anyone having an opinion that diverges from theirs.

Eda Anderson is a perfect example. She turned up to protest as well. ‘I think it is unacceptable for the UK government to part-fund the visit of a man who does not represent me or my beliefs,’  she said.

Oh. Right then. Before any future visits from heads of states are agreed to, we’ll just send the Prime Minister around to your place to check that the opinions of the proposed visitor are perfectly in accord with yours, shall we Eda?

More of this inclusiveness except of anyone they disagree with was seen this week in Sweden, where thousands of morons turned out to protest the fact that some poeple voted for a party they don’t like.

‘I’m not sure what should be done,’ said twenty one year old Thomas Zebuehr, ‘But something has to be done.’

The funny thing is, these loons complain that those who have the unspeakable bad taste to disagree with them are Nazis, racists, sexists, right wing extremists, or whatever other terms they think will cause the most damage. But they, the compassionate leftists, are always the ones who seem to want to shut people out or shut them up, or just get rid of them.

And I won’t even get started on the greenies’ calls for the suspension of democracy so that anyone not suffering from global warming derangement syndrome can be forcibly silenced and sent for re-education.

Why We Can’t Make Good Cheese

OK, so this is hardly a burning issue. And Australia does make OK supermarket, frozen food cheese.

But exceptional cheese requires unpasteurised milk. Because like good wine, really good cheese is complex. That complexity requires a variety of cultures.

The question is, should Australian producers be allowed to make, and Australian consumers allowed to consume, cheese made from raw milk?

‘Allowed to?’

Yes. We are presently not allowed to. Because a committee has decided the health risks are too great. And members of that committee naturally claim that those who question it are motivated purely by greed.

There are some very minor health risks. In modern manufacturing these risks are almost non-existent for harder cheeses, and only marginally more for soft cheeses like Brie.

But Australian consumers are babies. So even if cheesemakers label their products as being made from raw milk, the government still won’t let you make the decision to buy them.

Muslims Have More Rights

And are safer in Western countries than in any Islamic country.

So says Muslim woman Raheel Raza, formerly of Pakistan:

The Pakistan ambassador gets up and leaves in obvious annoyance that a woman should be allowed to speak to him in this way. It would never happen in Pakistan!

She makes the same point, that she would not have the same freedom of expression in her country of birth.

Nor are Muslims victimised in the West. So, she says, they should stop whining and get on with being responsible citizens.

Incidentally, I am thoroughly fed up excuses for muslim violence which are based on claims of oppression and provocation by the West.

The simple fact is, the Koran and the example of Mohammed both encourage violence against unbelievers.

The usual response to this fact from islamic leaders and appeasers is to deny that it is so.

Then when examples from the life of Mohammed are given, and verses from the Koran and the Hadith, the claim is made that it is not fair to point the finger in this way, because the Koran and the Bible are morally equivalent since the Bible also includes verses which incite violence.

This is either dishonest or ignorant.

The Bible tells the story of God’s revelation of himself to a small desert tribe, who initially undertood him through their own culture and modes of thinking and acting, which were typical of the time.

Gradually, as the Jews understood the nature of God better, and the nature of their relationship to him, they were led from ‘an eye to an eye’ (meaning measured and comparable response to injury – already an improvement on existing law) to ‘Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who insult you and persecute you.’ (Matt 5:44)

In the Bible, the later verses of love and forgiveness overwrite the harsh verses of a thousand years earlier.

The Koran is exactly the other way around. It takes a small group of desert dwellers, and leads them from the savage temperament of their time, into even deeper savagery and cruelty.

The later verses of violent aggression overwrite the early verses of reluctant tolerance.

The Koran undoes the Bible. They are not morally equivalent.

Gillard: What I Said Before, Forget About It

Julia says things are different now. And they are. She doesn’t need you to vote for her anymore, and won’t for the next three years, by which time you will have forgotten. So bye, bye promises.

Also, Julia says the Opposition should stop acting like an opposition, and just be nice. By being nice she means they should agree with everything she says.

Apparently, now is not the time to be disagreeing about stuff. We should all agree about stuff. Like a carbon tax, and the National Broadband Netwreck.

But the job of the Opposition is to oppose. To pick holes, to ask questions. To try to ensure that legislative and executive decisions made by the government are in the best interests of the country.

Which may not always co-incide with the best interests of the ruling party.

But Julia wants to keep a light burning:

“With restraint and civility we can put aside the empty rancour of partisanship and seek to work together,” she said.

“We can strengthen opportunity for all Australians and build an enduring legacy for future generations.

“That is how we will honour Ben Chifley and keep the Light on the Hill burning bright.”

At yesterday’s Liberal conference, Mr Abbott says Ms Gillard’s admission that several election promises will be broken due to the hung parliament is an example of why she cannot be trusted.

“The more we see of Julia Gillard, I’ve got to say, the better Kevin Rudd looks,” he said.

“I never thought I would say that, but Kevin Rudd looks strong and principled by comparison to the current incumbent.

“We have Prime Minister Gillard saying that she has a blank cheque to break promises.

“What an outrage. If the Prime Minister did not believe that she could put her election commitments into practice she should not have accepted a commission from the Governor-General.”

Hear that Julia? If you did not believe you could put your election commitments into practice, you should not have accepted a commission from the Governor-General.

Unwarranted Assumptions

It turns out unwarranted assumptions are the largest single source of renewable energy.

Take for example the Zero Carbon Australia, 2020 report which claimed that all of Australian energy could com from renewable energy sources by 2020. Ted (F.E.) Trainer, a well known Australian energy theorist pointed to some of the plans flaws,

To summarise, my back of the envelope impression is that when the foregoing points are added the ZCA conclusion is out by the following factors:

i. The efficiency gain assumed for electric vehicles should be perhaps halved.
ii. The assumed proportion of travel that can be transferred to electric vehicles is too high, in view of how well people and freight can be got to intended destinations by light vehicles and public transport, and in view of what people will accept.
iii. The embodied energy costs of plant might be much more than 10 times as high as has been assumed.
iv. Far more storage for solar thermal needs to be assumed, perhaps 96 hours, as distinct from 17.
v. The amount of solar thermal capacity might need to be trebled I am right about the peak vs average issue.
vi. Very optimistic assumptions and estimates have been made throughout, including regarding costs.

Trainer was not the only critic of the ZCA plan to point out its unrealistic optimism.

Dave Burraston has offered fact based critiques of the ZCA plans assumptions about wind implementation time, and solar facility construction times Martin Nicholson and Peter Lang, offered a long and detailed critique of the ZCA plan. They note, BZE make a number of assumptions in assessing the electricity demand used to calculate the generating capacity needed by 2020. In summary these are:

1. 2008 is used as the benchmark year for the analysis. BZE defend this by saying “ZCA2020 intends to decouple energy use from GDP growth. Energy use per capitais used as a reference, taking into account medium-range population growth.”.
2. Various industrial energy demands in 2020 are reduced including gas used in the export of LNG, energy used in coal mining, parasitic electricity losses, off-grid electricity and coal for smelting.
3. Nearly all transport is electrified and a substantial proportion of the travel kmsare moved from road to electrified rail including 50% of urban passenger and truckkms and all bus kms. All domestic air and shipping is also moved to electric rail.
4. All fossil fuels energy, both domestic and industrial, is replaced with electricity.
5. Demand is reduced through energy efficiency and the use of onsite solar energy.

Thus the net effect of these assumptions is to reduce the 2020 total energy by 58% below the 2008 benchmark and 63% below the ABARE estimate for 2020. The plan thus assumes that over 50% of energy demand will simply disappear by 2020 because of efficiency improvements.

The Nuclear Green Revolution site from which that comes is a left-wing climate alarmist site. But their analysis of the costs and practicality of so called renewable power is spot on.

If the whole disastrous anthropogenic global warming scary monster thing were true, and if reducing CO2 production by 20% would really do something to stop it (it isn’t and it wouldn’t), it would be possible to do so. But not with ‘renewable’ engery.

Reducing CO2 and other greenhouse emissions by 20% could be done if the pointless NBN was cancelled, and the $45 billion planned to be wasted on that was instead spent on nuclear power and the introduction of fuel cell technology for most land transport.

And that wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway.

She Wants to Look Attractive

She goes out of her way to look attractive. Her employers reward her for looking attractive.

But woe betide any man who finds her attractive.

NFL security officials are investigating the conduct of New York Jets players after complaints by Reporter Ines Sainz that players wolf whistled and hooted at her when she interviewed team members in their locker room.

This is she:

Ines Sainz Annoyed at Men Looking at Her

So let me get this straight.

A woman who goes out of her way to look attractive to men goes into a locker room where men are getting changed, having showers, etc, and then is outraged and her feelings hurt because some of the players whistle at her?

This comment from Lori Ziganto:

She chooses to look attractive. She wants to look attractive. Being attractive is, in fact, part of her image and it is actively pursued by her employer and Sainz herself. Yet, we are to be outrageously outraged – when men find her attractive? Here’s an estrogen-insider secret for all the politically correct, totally aghast at human nature people: most women want to feel pretty and they want to hear you say it. Hence, her clothing that accentuates all her, um, “positives.” It doesn’t make men evil and it doesn’t somehow magically remove the woman’s ability to do her job.

Teachable Moment: If you truly don’t want to be ogled and whistled at, don’t, you know, go into a male locker room sporting a camel toe.

But The Crime Was Stopped!

A bloke who had been trying to break into a neighbour’s house with an axe is in a critical condition after being shot in the neck.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crimestoppers.

But as one commenter to the Courier Mail story points outs, why contact Crimestoppers? The crime was stopped.

The article is worth reading for the comments alone.

Let’s just say the burglar, if you can call someone who tries to break down your door with an axe a burglar, gets no sympathy at all. And nor do limp wristed ‘Oh dear you poor thing, no wonder you felt you had to bash that old lady’ family therapy type judges.

Maybe the judiciary is a bit out of touch with community standards?

Of course we don’t know the whole story. Maybe the guy was just coming over to help the kids with their homework, and it was all a misunderstanding.

But I  have to admit, if someone was breaking into my house with an axe and I had a gun handy, I don’t think I’d spend much time meditating on the moral or legal issues involved in using a weapon to defend my home and my family.

Democracy Will Burn

On this day, September 11, Muslims burn US and UK flags outside the US embassy in London:

Other choice lines include ‘Queen and country go to hell!,’ ‘Burn, burn, USA!’

I think I agree with the loutish looking guy who appears near the end and tells them they are scum who should go back where they came from.

Interesting how placid the police are – they never express frustration or irritation as these loons trot out the usual nonsense: the US and UK are murdering Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are there because they  hate Islam and want the wealth of those countries.

It astonishes me that Western political leaders still so absolutely and blindly refuse to believe what Muslims themselves say: that they want democracy to burn, that Allah will kill the kaffirs.

If someone says he intends to kill you and your family, and destroy everything you hold dear, how many times do you let him try before you believe he is serious, and do something to stop him?

Back in NYC, the mainstream media report ‘duelling protests’ as they try desperately to give the impression that as many people turned out to support the ground zero mosque as to oppose it.

Not a chance. It was more like 2000 to 40,000.

Jeremiah 6:14 ‘They have made light of the wounds of my people, saying “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

Whether we like it or not, war is upon us.

Democracy and reason have an implacable enemy in Islam – these are the words of its leaders.

Many of that enemy now live amongst us, and believe, because their holy book tells them so, that the pretence of friendship, lies and violence are all acceptable methods of bringing about the ultimate victory of Islam.

We can choose to be Chamberlain or Churchill. But we can no longer cry “Peace, peace.”

Future Pie Makers

On 16th August the Sydney Morning Herald published a column by Paul Sheehan. Sheehan was writing about Gillard’s pork pies. He described her as a serial, brazen liar.

At the end of the article, he talked about the problems that arise for any country when a substantial part of the population becomes addicted to government spending – when the pie eaters begin to outnumber the pie makers.

People who demand, and feel entitled to, subsidies for their park, or industry, or art fest, or who rely on government benefits, schemes, funding or stimulus payments, are pie eaters. They have strong reason to vote in a big taxing, big spending government.

People who risk their own savings to begin business ventures which will produce goods and services, pay tax, and employ others, are pie makers.

The problem is that there comes a point when the pie eaters punish the pie makers so much, through taxes and over-regulation, that there is no incentive to risk anything, try anything, do anything. The temptation is for the pie makers to become pie eaters.

Then the economy grinds to a halt, because without profits, there are no taxes, and if there are no taxes, there are no subsidies, no social services.

When I was at university, I was taken in by the slogan ‘People before profits.’ Now I know that people need profits, that the whole structure of social welfare, health, roads, schools, etc depends on profits.

Some young people are wiser than I was. Ben-Peter Terpstra has been talking to some of them: young people who are willing to study and work, and who have a vision for Australia.

Future pie makers.

The Rainbow Alliance

The Labor Greens alliance has independents Windsor and Oakeshott by the short and curlies. Or over a barrel if you prefer.

They have been conned. 

Their fond notion that they might have a respected voice in a new inclusive government or have some say in policy is drying up like a light dawn mist on a hot Summer day.

The offer of a ministry to Rob Oakeshott was never more than a farce.

It would have been impossible for him to take up such an offer without ridicule and complete loss of credibility if it became known that he had discussed a possible ministry in NSW state Labor with then premier Morris Iemma. So of course Labor (who else could it have been) made sure that it became known just at the crucial moment.

So now Simon Crean, whose idea of rural is the high end of Lygon St, becomes minister for regional Australia.

Bill Shorten, the Governor General’s son in law, is minister for everything to do with money except completely stuffing up the economy, which is still Wayne Swan’s job.

Peter Garrett, formerly minister for stuffing up things in people’s ceilings, is now minister for stuffing up things at schools, a portfolio he takes over from now Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Kevin Rudd’s reward for stopping leaking annoying stuff to the press and pretending to support Julia is that he now becomes minister for bad breath and annoying the Chinese.

The two independents who supported Labor have nothing to do except stay out of their electorates and think about their job prospects of three years time, if this government lasts that long.

They will have no voice in parliament at all, nor any power to compel Labor to keep the promises it made to ensure their votes. They must support Labor whatever it does, or run the risk of an early election. If that happens, voters in their electorates will punish them mercilessly.

More on this theme from Peter Smith at Quadrant Online:

A lot has been made of the Government having to kowtow to these so-called independents. The kowtowing is over. It lasted for 17 days. The independents will now do as they are told. As turncoats, they will be as much despised by those whose ranks they have joined as by those who they turned against. Exactly what are they to do; where are they to go; when Gillard, Swan & Company tell them to fall into line. There is nothing to do about it and nowhere to go. They have cast their die. If they think differently, they are dumber than they look.

They need the Government to look as though it’s working to prove they were right; to shore up their own positions and tattered reputations. Any truculence on their part will simply make a new election, and their own demise, more likely. As it is, the Government will last as long as Gillard wants it to. If she sees the polls turning in her favour she will take advantage of it. The agreement with the independents to go a full term is worthless. Anyone who could knife Rudd in the back only minutes after making an agreement with him will have little compunction about doing over a couple of turncoats from the bush.

Floods and Dams

On Kangaroo Island, we have just been through a record breakingly wet Winter.

There have been floods on the mainland too, but water restrictions are still in place in capital cities.

The excuse for not building new dams has been that it isn’t going to rain any more. But then why have state governments been subsidising the installation of rainwater tanks at private homes?

‘Solutions’ like desalination plants are being built around Australia. But these massively expensive by comparison with dams, use large amounts of energy, require high levels of maintenance, and are untested over the long term.

There has been no overall reduction in rainfall on the Australian continent over the last century, so why are we still being given the ‘no point, no rain’ excuse?

Australia is a country of extremes. Long droughts followed by massive floods. Overall, there is plenty of water for everyone.

The problem is not that there is not enough water, but that there is not enough water storage.

The more water storage we build, the better we will be able to cope with the perfectly predictable dry periods, and the less damage will be done by floods (because more of the water will be captured).

Even if rainfall was reducing, this would be a reason to build more dams, not less.

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