Sometimes it's hard whip up the enthusiasm and head down into the coalmine of commentariat columnists.
Even though no one has to do it, it's a dirty job, and the chances of turning up clean coal is a bit like hanging around waiting for real world clean coal.
The mindless repetitions of ideological chants becomes a bit numbing - something like enduring three hours straight of Gregorian chanting when you should be able to hypnotise yourself in five minutes flat.
So it is with Janet Albrechtsen, and her hymnal PM, ignore Massachusetts warning at your peril, in which she seeks to extract domestic significance from the win of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, and seeks parallels between the American health system and Chairman Rudd's ETS response to global warming. Because they're sooh similar.
Well no doubt if you can find the many similarities between chalk and cheese, no doubt there are many unnerving parallels, but in her bid to become The Australian's version of Akker Dakker - the more simple minded the chanting, the more it can be endlessly repeated - wouldn't it have been a lot simpler just to say "I hate Chairman Rudd, and I hope that someday the electorate will give him a good paddywhacking, just like Scott Brown gave Martha Coakley, and I hate his ETS because I don't believe in global warming, and now can we all go home."
It would have been vintage Dame Slap and mercifully short. And who could argue, since it's hard to love Chairman Rudd at the best of times.
But no, doggone it, she has to go and dress it up with arguments and attempts at rational thinking, and the result is like watching a slow motion train wreck of ideological posturing and silly ranting and illogical connections that suggest the synapses were snapping but the neurons were't home.
After all, the news that electorates vote out some politicians as a way of punishing them is hardly news. But linking the American health care debate - Massachusetts actually has a decent system, so why should they care about the rest of America - to the global warming debate is the kind of nuttiness we might expect from Lord Monckton.
It can happen anywhere. It can happen in Australia. Just as US Democrat leaders failed to explain a convoluted health policy that raised legitimate concerns about higher taxes, neither Rudd nor his Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, have explained the real costs of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to the Australian people.
Yep, only Malcolm Turnbull seemed to understand it. And just as I failed to explain the concept of 2 x 2 = 4 to a four year old, so that kind of educational failure stands as a real warning to Chairman Rudd about legitimate concerns regarding his education revolution.
Sorry Malcolm, get out of the middle.
In the US, as Mickey Edwards wrote in The Atlantic last week, many Democrats treated opposition to health care as the "bleating of dumb rednecks, nasty, uncaring and too stupid to even be able to read the bills." The Rudd government has done the same, treating opponents and critics as dumb nut climate change deniers. That "we know better than you" arrogance will not go down well with those working-class families who voted for Rudd and now have legitimate concerns about the CPRS. Yet just as the Obama administration pushed ahead in the face of mounting opposition, Rudd is doing the same.
So what's the state of the science these days?
His problem is the political cycle is turning against man-made global warming. Daily, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is losing credibility. Just this past week, it has been rocked by its own unsubstantiated claims that Himalayan glaciers would very likely nearly disappear by 2035.
The Massachusetts election should teach Rudd to beware of pushing ahead with an unpopular policy. He would also do well to ignore Obama's reaction. Trying to distract voters and cheered on by the left-wing media, the US President has decided to pivot left with economic populism. Obama is busily bashing the banks with new taxes that will drive down profits. It may be a hit with voters but it's a short-term one. When profits fall, the customer suffers.
There are, of course, plenty of differences between the political landscapes in the US and Australia. The American people have been rocked by rising unemployment, soaring deficits, bank bailouts, sweetheart deals for union industries such as car manufacturing, and most recently the President's radical health proposals that scream big government to a nation of individuals who are proudly anti-establishment.
Any move to make the US health care system more equitable and less costly should be encouraged. Any move to make their health care system more like our own (or like most other first world nations) is not particularly radical. Surely doing what the USA's conservatives want (nothing) is the more radical option. And could you please just read the science on climate change for once? The flaws that exist in the political process do not change the science, which shows overwhelming evidence that man is affecting the climate by CO2 emissions. It is frustrating that your analysis of these issues is so obviously clouded by your politics and seemingly oblivious to facts.
'I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; 'but it isn't so, nohow.'
'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.' (here).
His problem is the political cycle is turning against man-made global warming. Daily, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is losing credibility. Just this past week, it has been rocked by its own unsubstantiated claims that Himalayan glaciers would very likely nearly disappear by 2035.
Hang on, the political cycle? Does that have anything to do with the science cycle? Did the political cycle unduly affect the credibility of Einstein? Who knows, but the atomic bomb surely sorted out a few sceptics. (Albert Einstein and the Atomic Bomb). And daily losing credibility? While presumably the venting of Dame Slap is daily gaining credibility? In a parallel universe:
While the barracking Sydney Morning Herald has been busy making excuses for the IPCC, its reputation is in tatters. The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, used bogus IPCC claims of Himalayan catastrophe to secure grants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for his Energy and Resources Institute. And then came reports on Monday that the IPCC used more shoddy research to link the rise in natural disasters to global warming.
And if the SMH is barracking, what does this pitiful attempt by Albrechtsen constitute? Well you'd hardly call it rational debate. It's just more of the standard paranoid ranting expected from those anxious to politicise the debate, and turn it into a minefield of argumentation. Even the most simple minded anxious to consider the evidence might have referenced the story Glaciergate threatens a climate change, amazingly published in The Australian, which picks up and runs with a story published in New Scientist, Climate chief admits error over Himalayan glaciers.
Bob Ward, a geologist and former journalist who has published academic papers on the misrepresentation of climate-change evidence by environmentalists and climate-change sceptics, says the Cato Institute's response is predictable. "People who have an axe to grind are trying to use this incident to undermine the credibility of the whole IPCC," he says.
"But in order to do that you have to enormously exaggerate the significance of the paragraph about the Himalayas," says Ward, who is now policy director at the London School of Economics' Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
"We are talking about one error in a three-year-old 3000-page report that was clearly a rather glaring mistake. Groups who don't want to see any action on climate change are using anything like this they can get their hands on to try to undermine the science. It is happening particularly in Australia and the US where there are political debates going on about domestic legislation related to climate change.
"Cogley exposed this 2035 date as inaccurate not because he disputes the fact that glaciers are receding -- he doesn't -- but because he genuinely wants all the science to be as accurate as possible. But a lot of the people who are leaping on to it just want to raise as many doubts as possible to try to slow the whole process down."
According to Ward, the most concerted opposition to climate-change action "is coming from ideologically driven right-wing groups like the American think tanks that oppose any sort of restrictions on the market" and fossil fuel companies "that are trying to delay any new restrictions on their business for as long as possible".
"It is very similar to the way the tobacco industry managed to delay health regulations for years by playing up any element of doubt at all about the medical research on smoking. That is why it's so dangerous and so stupid for the IPCC to let mistakes like this happen."
"But in order to do that you have to enormously exaggerate the significance of the paragraph about the Himalayas," says Ward, who is now policy director at the London School of Economics' Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
"We are talking about one error in a three-year-old 3000-page report that was clearly a rather glaring mistake. Groups who don't want to see any action on climate change are using anything like this they can get their hands on to try to undermine the science. It is happening particularly in Australia and the US where there are political debates going on about domestic legislation related to climate change.
"Cogley exposed this 2035 date as inaccurate not because he disputes the fact that glaciers are receding -- he doesn't -- but because he genuinely wants all the science to be as accurate as possible. But a lot of the people who are leaping on to it just want to raise as many doubts as possible to try to slow the whole process down."
According to Ward, the most concerted opposition to climate-change action "is coming from ideologically driven right-wing groups like the American think tanks that oppose any sort of restrictions on the market" and fossil fuel companies "that are trying to delay any new restrictions on their business for as long as possible".
"It is very similar to the way the tobacco industry managed to delay health regulations for years by playing up any element of doubt at all about the medical research on smoking. That is why it's so dangerous and so stupid for the IPCC to let mistakes like this happen."
The cavorting and the carry on by the extremists on both sides is clearly enough to send a few around the bend - see Ben Sandilands' exasperated Melting glaciers: the canary in the mine shaft of global warming. And if Dame Slap had wanted to reference a real slap down of the game she'd have mentioned Conning the climate: Inside the carbon-trading shell game, by Mark Schapiro, but hey that's a leftie rag, and sorry subscription only.
Well do you expect any uncertainties or equivocations or rational discussion, or even a pox on extremists, by Albrechtsen? No way, not when you can rely on polling:
The Morgan Poll shows support for the ETS sliding from 50 per cent in August to 46 per cent last week, with disapproval growing from 24 per cent in August to 36 per cent in the most recent survey. If that trend-line continues, Obama's healthcare disaster could well be a mirror of Rudd's ETS nightmare in the coming months.
Yep, polling is the new science. Sloppy science, but before you can get a word out about such sloppy thinking - unless you believe in a mystical way in the wisdom of the crowds, in which case you can go off and contemplate the wisdom of two world wars and sundry lesser ones - Albrechtsen's there first:
In November, Rudd relied on this sloppy "science" saying "we will feel the effects of climate change fastest and hardest and therefore we must act this week" to enact the CPRS. If Rudd's reliance on alarmism did not work in that week in November, it has even less chance of working now. The Copenhagen conference was a failure. No global agreement emerged. After the Senate pasting in Massachusetts, US Democrats won't be wasting much political capital on a cap and trade system. Against that background, Australian voters are entitled to be even more sceptical about alarmist predictions of global warming and the unnecessary costs of the CPRS on the Australian economy.
And there you have it: Lord Monckton in disguise, yet again, and 'alarmist predictions of global warming', as if there's no need now or in the future for Australia or other nations to attempt to box clever with sources of energy and ways of planning so that the future won't turn pear shaped.
Not that I care that much, since it's hard to care when you're in the ground, but the blatant cheerleading for a particular point of view is what makes this kind of train wreck of illogical thinking so bizarre. Usually it's the kind of rant I'd exercise on Manly Rugby League supporters, unless I was trying to show I had no class bones in my body and so ranted at the rich man's working class club South Sydney Rabbitohs (boo, Rusty), unless of course I was ranting about how much I hate thugby league, unless of course I was ranting about how much I hated football in general. You know, barracking about Rudd bad, Obama awful, policies vile, as hard rain is gunna fall, ya ya, miss the kick lolly legs.
All silly, and of no interest to anyone except the partner across the table who knows what to expect after a glass of white and the football season pending.
Of course the thing that seems to have upset Albrechtsen the most is Obama's recent attack on banks:
The Massachusetts election should teach Rudd to beware of pushing ahead with an unpopular policy. He would also do well to ignore Obama's reaction. Trying to distract voters and cheered on by the left-wing media, the US President has decided to pivot left with economic populism. Obama is busily bashing the banks with new taxes that will drive down profits. It may be a hit with voters but it's a short-term one. When profits fall, the customer suffers.
Albrechtsen's partner works for dem debil banks (Where does Janet Albrechtsen's husband bit in?), but you'd never guess it from reading her columns, since she's no doubt full of independence and integrity, though curiously gets upset whenever dem debil banks are given a hard time. Which makes Obama a dangerous radical, way to the far left:
To be sure, Obama has pursued a radical agenda while Rudd has, in the main, stuck to cautiously pedestrian policies. That said, Massachusetts is a powerful lesson that political hubris will be punished by the people.
Except of course poor old Obama has been copping a right royal pounding from the far left for not being radical enough, and for settling for a dud health policy.
But that sort of weird logic is grist to the Albrechtsen mill as she warns chairman Rudd of the dangers of getting into bed with them debil greens.
It will be political poison for the Rudd government to deal with the Greens, who have suggested a two-year interim tax ($23 a tonne for carbon emitted from July, rising to $24 in 2011-2012). If Rudd pivots left, he may find himself facing the same voter backlash that has greeted Obama.
It will be political poison for the Rudd government to deal with the Greens, who have suggested a two-year interim tax ($23 a tonne for carbon emitted from July, rising to $24 in 2011-2012). If Rudd pivots left, he may find himself facing the same voter backlash that has greeted Obama.
Uh huh. But as usual in such splendid rants, replete with dire apocalyptic warnings and hopeful signs that political enemies will be cast into a hellfire for eternity, troublesome reality must intrude on even the most hysterical commentariat columnists:
There are, of course, plenty of differences between the political landscapes in the US and Australia. The American people have been rocked by rising unemployment, soaring deficits, bank bailouts, sweetheart deals for union industries such as car manufacturing, and most recently the President's radical health proposals that scream big government to a nation of individuals who are proudly anti-establishment.
Uh huh, well I'm sure that makes it all the more remarkable that the careers of chairmans Obama and Rudd are so remarkably entwined, and their policies - from a new health system to global warming - are just like Tweedledum and Tweedledee - except of course when they aren't, and really don't have much connection at all. And it's all just a monstrous pile of blather, like a sodden haystack ready to erupt in spontaneous combustion (and here's a handy hint to farmers anxious to avoid hay fires, in much the same way as some want to avoid larger scale warming for the world).
Never mind, back to the Albrechtsen mariner stopping two of three:
Sooner, as was the case with Obama. Or later, as may be the case with Rudd and his CPRS. The question is whether Prime Ministerial hubris will prevent him from heeding that lesson.
Sooner, as was the case with Obama. Or later, as may be the case with Rudd and his CPRS. The question is whether Prime Ministerial hubris will prevent him from heeding that lesson.
Yep, just another day in the commentariat columnist coalmine, and does the hubris of silly argumentation ever cross Dame Slap's mind? Or is she just happy slapping away in an ideological fervour?
Whatever. As usual the loons came out in force in the comments section, and it occurred to me that we could cut back on hot air, carbon emissions, and solve global warming if we could just impose a vow of silence on commentariat columnists. Oh, but whatever you do, don't try any actual logic:
Any move to make the US health care system more equitable and less costly should be encouraged. Any move to make their health care system more like our own (or like most other first world nations) is not particularly radical. Surely doing what the USA's conservatives want (nothing) is the more radical option. And could you please just read the science on climate change for once? The flaws that exist in the political process do not change the science, which shows overwhelming evidence that man is affecting the climate by CO2 emissions. It is frustrating that your analysis of these issues is so obviously clouded by your politics and seemingly oblivious to facts.
Silly possum.And did I mention how much I hate loose arguments and irrational discourse? Just like Dame Slap:
In 2010, healthy scepticism will continue to rise against the global warming alarmists. But only if those such as Monckton treat the public with respect by sticking to the facts and using measured language, not fanciful claims and name-calling.
Healthy scepticism v the alarmists and the hubristic barracking of the far left with their dangerous bank-bashing radical extremist agenda which has left climate science in tatters, thanks to a good bout of polling, and can the communists be far behind in this global conspiracy to hurt working class people and John Howard's battlers?
I wonder when Dame Slap will get around to making some fanciful claims and indulging in a little name-calling?
'I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; 'but it isn't so, nohow.'
'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.' (here).
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