Miranda Devine, Akker Dakker, and stories of sheets and climate change ...

Today it is with shocked solemnity and pious hypocrisy that we feel compelled to lash out at Susan Renouf nee Peacock. I ♥ tennis?

What on earth does her dress mean? And who is this Bobby Riggs she's playing? And why is there a Humphrey B. Bear colour poster inside? Is there something kinky going on with Mama Grizzly?

Ah well, not to worry, I always thought poor Susan got a raw deal for doing a TV advertising campaign for bed sheets, and moving right along, there's another socialite caught in the media sheet spotlight, one Sally Bercow (please no jokes about the name, or the singular role that the cow plays in modern painting).

Oh dear, the sheet strikes again.

You can read more about Ms Bercow at the Evening Standard, the original source for Speaker's wife Sally Bercow: Furore over my picture is 'storm in a bedsheet', which should surely cop the blame for Ms Bercow turning up in a photoshoot and wrapping herself in a bed sheet (as all the best students do at all the best toga parties).

Naturally the image has flashed around the world in a trice - showing that mindless trivia is dear to the heart of tabloidists everywhere - but speaking of cows, here's my favourite reflexive Mark Tansey portrait of contemplative cows with meaningful stares:

Hang on, hang on, this is supposed to be a serious pond, full of dire warnings and paranoid observations, not some git banging on about cows. Not on Sundays, why never on Sundays, and certainly not with any reference to Sundays and Cybele.

And wouldn't you know, first up, there's boofhead, attention seeker and total irrelevance Mark Latham attracting attention to himself yet again in Love's Labor loser, Latham gets lashed.

... the femocrats will not like this statement, but I believe it to be true: anyone who chooses a life without children, as Gillard has, cannot have much love in them'.

Yes there's nothing like showing a total lack of empathy while talking about empathy. Even good old Barners - noted femocrat - thought Latham had jumped the shark and nuked the fridge, as Latham joined that political cowhide Bill Heffernan in the lower depths of political abuse.

So this is the nadir that The Spectator Australia has reached in its adolescent search for feeble controversy and antipodean subscriptions? Boofhead central? No link, and if you google them, make sure you click on the sponsored ad at the top of the page, so it costs them a penny ...

Meanwhile, there's Akker Dakker ranting and raving and wheezing fit to have a heart attack over at the Terror, but Taxpayers foot the bill for Queensland's incompetence is so predictable a pile of thundering bile that you could probably write it in your sleep. Sample words for future use in your 'imitate Piers Akerman' day, fun for all the family, especially children:

Rotting smell, bollocks to that, bollocks to that too, weak excuse, ad hoc, star-struck, the hard questions, the latest Labor messiah, ridiculously arrogant, political opportunism, cynicism, complete negligence and incompetence, most basic enquiries, smothering the state, look into hollow logs, raid one of the hollow logs, publicly examined and properly chastised, financial mismanagement, failure, sleazy and opportunistic, Florence Nightingale act.

Take all words, mix well with eggs, sugar and flour, and bake in an oven, and soon you'll have your very own Akker Dakker lamington, applicable to any Labor politician, policy, or political position. And don't forget the desiccated coconut! (full lamington recipe here).

Whatever you do, keep these fine lamingtons away from Tony Abbott, as he does his singular Florence Nightingale act and only receives sordid abuse (Frustration high in Yasi aftermath).

Meanwhile, it seems readers of the Sunday Terror can now settle in for a full blooded weekly dose of Miranda the Devine, producing the rambunctious meditations to be found in Crises put Bligh on high.

Here's how it's done. Find someone - a Greenie will do, Greenies are always evil - making an unfair comparison between Anna Bligh and Julia Gillard. Enter Lee Rhiannon:

Bligh had a "beautiful combination of humanity and authority," Rhiannon gushed to Sky News's Agenda program.

"Julia Gillard didn't come across as well. I can't say I've met anyone who's had a good word to say about how she handled it."

Rhiannon went on, describing the Prime Minister as "wooden", "remote" and "unemotional".

It's through no fault of their own that the chattering classes have pitched these two women against each other in mortal combat.

There, it's done and dusted. All you have to do is call over Pontius Pilate with a bowl of water to wash your hands, and you have a column blaming the chattering classes for debating the epic grudge match in the octagon, Gillard v. Bligh.

But, but, but, doesn't writing a column like this also make you a handsomely paid member of the chattering classes, noting the "unnatural emoting and cadences" of Julia Gillard, not to mention the gushing thoughts of Rhiannon?

Yep, you read it here first. Miranda the Devine has officially confessed to chattering class membership. With ribbon ...

She also confesses to being a socialistic believer in government, and a true believer in climate change:

The fact that there were no direct fatalities from Cyclone Yasi, and that property loss was no more than in previous cyclones, is a tribute to Bligh's leadership, to the emergency services, weather forecasters and in most cases the common sense shown by Queenslanders.

It was also, of course, a triumph of adaptation and sensible planning - the sort of adaptation that is the most logical and cost-effective response to climate change.

So climate change is happening?

No, no, no you silly billies, you billy goat gruffs, there's no troll under the bridge, just good old sturdy Bob Carter:

Carter argues that we should stop obsessing about the "chimera of human-caused greenhouse warming" and focus instead on the real threats posed by the natural variability of our climate system.

Yes, what we need is more sandbags, more luck, and more low tides, early warnings, clear instructions, and mass evacuations.

But whatever you so, sssh, don't mention climate change, or you'll get called an opportunistic alarmist, like Ross Garnaut.

You see, history shows nothing has changed. There's always been cyclones:

... Queensland's history shows how deadly the state's weather has always been. Over nearly 100 years from 1899, cyclones Mahina, Mackay, Innisfail, Ada, Althea, Emily, Winifred and Justin claimed the lives of about 630 people.

Note the easy way you can intermingle the concepts of weather and climate.

See, it's easy, and of course it proves you're adept at history. Meanwhile, what about warm sea surface temperatures in the Coral Sea?

JONATHAN NOTT: Well, there's very, very warm sea surface temperatures in the Coral Sea at the present time because of the La Nina that we're experiencing, and also the size, the sheer diameter of the system and its intensity, and also the speed that it's crossing the coast at.

That will also help to increase the storm surge. So all of those things combined are making Yasi one of the most dangerous tropical cyclones that we've ever seen in eastern Queensland.

Uh huh. But of course a scientist will likely be cautious, rather than resort to the blanket denialism, and routine confusion of a Miranda the Devine?

JONATHAN NOTT: Yes, well, we know that as oceans warm, tropical cyclones will increase in intensity, but we really need to see some years of data and a change in the trend of cyclones before we can actually state that these tropical cyclones are being influenced by humans in that sense.

So no one single cyclone or season of cyclones can definitely be pinned down to human causes, however, we just don't know. I mean, this is the type of thing that we expect to see as a result of global warming. (here).

Yep, we have our very own laboratory in Queensland, and if there's more cyclones, more severe and intense than the past, what response will we get from Miranda the Devine?

Why it's head for the hills, hand out more sandbags, and take out insurance ...

You would think that in such a place, insurance coverage might be a prudent and essential element of adaptation to climate change.

Say what? Climate change is happening again? And the canny insurers are going to be only too happy to help us out as big events ravage the country?

Of course insurers are dumb and have no idea of the high risk of the Queensland experiment, and are only too happy to hand over all their money - a veritable motza of love and care and concern - and at staggeringly low premiums too, because unlike the Devine, they're totally unaware of Queensland's cyclone history or the potential impact of climate change on the intensity of weather events.

Oops:

Munich Re says the number of weather-related natural catastrophes has more than doubled since 1980.

Overall losses from weather-related natural catastrophes rose by a factor of three in the period 1980-2009, taking inflation into account, while insured losses from such events increased by a factor of about 4 during the same period. Total insured losses from natural disasters in 2010 was $US37 billion, it says.

While taking into account rising wealth, population and urbanisation, "there is evidence indicating that the growing number of weather-related catastrophes most probably cannot be fully explained without climate change," the company says. (here).

Oh you naughty insurance industry, with all your talk of risk and uncertainty and hedging, wash out your collective mouths with soap. Just keep handing out those totally inclusive policies at terribly low prices like decent chappies ...

Well we've strayed a long way from sheets, so it's up to the Devine to bring us back to earth with her closing punchline - that voters will say to Bligh what they said to the cyclone. Kiss my Yasi!

Well here's what we say to an elitist member of the chattering classes who consistently confuses weather events with climate change science:

Oh dear. Did I just identify with a fat balding cartoon figure featured on a Murdoch channel? Excuse me, I have to go in search of a sheet ...