Yes, it's another stirring contribution from the ABC to the public debate, and as usual on The Insiders.
Don't get us wrong - we have an enormous respect for Akker Dakker - coming as he does from the twentieth century - but Akker Dakker's wiki records his own birth date as June 1st 1950, meaning he's now the wrong side of sixty, and so - only in the interests of science of course - the question must be asked as to who's using Akker Dakker to peddle the standard amount of guff and tripe on view in his The Science Behind Tricking the Public.
In the piece, Akker Dakker leads with a standard riff about Luddites (it takes one to know one) and blames the usual suspects:
In their (Gillard and Swan's) endeavours they enjoy the support of the self-proclaimed progressive media - the taxpayer-funded ABC and the collective of journalists within the Fairfax organisation (which last week stooped to publish a disgraceful plea for censorship from Elizabeth Farrelly that might have been lifted from the pages of a Stalin-era edition of Pravda) - but they are facing a growing revolt from an increasingly better-informed public.
Lordy, ain't it grand, to tell the old dame she should shut up because she's senile and over the hill and not physically able and being used by malevolent forces, and then rabbit on about disgraceful pleas for censorship by the Pravda press.
Lordy, ain't it grand, to tell the old dame she should shut up because she's senile and over the hill and not physically able and being used by malevolent forces, and then rabbit on about disgraceful pleas for censorship by the Pravda press.
Akker Dakker's own contribution to the scientific debate?
Tame scientists, propaganda diversions, claptrap, shonky IPCC science, specious attempt to garner some faux moral superiority, misguided media collective, unbridled zealotry of these anti-science barbarians, etc etc and so on, but this is the real killer diller blow:
Would you like some frothing and foaming with your inner urban elite latte this morning, madam?
Naturally the comments section is full of rage at the left, which somehow means that Rupert's mum is a Stalinist leftie.
Will Rupert ever notice that there's a ranting, ageing ratbag with a geriatric understanding of science at work in the in his Sydney tabloid, and ease him out, in the way Akker Dakker once played musical chairs at the Adelaide Advertiser and the HUN, or does the fat owl of the remove add too much entertainment value to the brand?
Akker Dakker has returned from his Pacific seas cruising in fine fettle, playing the man, not the ball in a standard tirade about the NBN, NBN chief takes broad approach to truth. This alleviates him of the need to find some actual dirt on the local roll-out, rather than rabbiting on about events in Costa Rica almost a decade ago.
That would be a bit like going on about Akker Dakker experimenting with cocaine in the seventies. Lordy, he's that old? Yep, he's that old, heading right into Dame Elisa turf, and perversely proud of it:
Gosh, TP, I didn’t realise you were that old. I never concealed the fact that I tried cocaine in the US in the 70s. No worries here. Nor have I concealed my distaste for those who use drugs in the past 30 years of writing. (here).
Eek, he's a degenerate baby boomer, still trying to make good for a sordid past.
I suppose we could listen to both Dame Elisa and Akker Dakker - despite his Stalinist attempt to censor her - and judge their points of view according to the arguments they might muster, but what if she won the debate?
Meanwhile, what about it Rupe, should used, manipulated old people be seen in public, let alone heard?
Oh hang on a second Rupe, what was your age again? Born 11th March 1931 according to your wiki? Hang on that puts you in your eighties. I really don't think old people like you should be running around expressing views, you might, in your simple-minded, dotish, doltish way, end up being used ...
Not to worry, moving right along, the lads at Counterpoint also tackled the complexities of climate change science yesterday, and perhaps thought they were on a winner by interviewing Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, under the tag Surface temperature measurements: how reliable? Part two.
Nielsen-Gammon had taken part in the preparation of a peer-reviewed paper about measuring station variabilities and Paul Comrie-Thomson produced a fine flurry of leading questions designed to produce a gotcha moment.
By the end of the chat, Comrie-Thomson was flinging around suggestions that the emperor wasn't fully clothed, and quoting Nigel Lawson, but dammit, Nielsen-Gammon wasn't for moving, suggesting that the impact of green house gases on the climate system was the most well known and the simplest effect to calculate, and that there were a lot of other complexities to consider.
And dammit, he suggested that while the impact of current trends was uncertain (Lawson's word), the science continues to suggest it'll be in the magnitude of two to four and a half degrees celsius. It could be less, it could be more, but we don't fully understand the consequences of where things are heading, and that means the inherent danger of what we're doing needs to be considered ...
Lordie, lordie, all that talk of emperors and clothes, and the need for science to be de-politicised and for people to achieve a better understanding of the way that science works, and it turns out Nielsen-Gammon accepts the weight of evidence is pointing to the current consensus. And all of Paul Comrie-Thomson's leading questions - a veritable push pulling poll of interview techniques - and his beguiling determination to find a rat in the hay stack was in vain ...
Still at least Comrie-Thomson engaged with the issue, and let the answers fall where they may, which is more than can be said for Gerard Henderson, who today offers up It's not personal, it's policy - why Labor is flatlining.
There's only so many days and ways to read Henderson, and at the millionth iteration of this talking point, even in space they could hear the pond scream:
This is a story that some journalists miss.
Akker Dakker and Henderson, at one with their fascination for the inner city elite, as if a sailing junket on the south seas or a handsome office in the heart of Sydney somehow disqualifies you from an elitist lifestyle.
Needless to say, the notion that coal mining is wonderful doesn't go down well with farmers in the Hunter or the Liverpool plains or other farming regions (try to talk to residents of the La Trobe Valley about the joys of living under the brown coal fuelled Hazelwood power station), but this is a story that Henderson regularly misses as he blathers on about the inner-city left, while exaggerating the employment benefits generated by coal and other mining, rarely pausing to consider how these days much of the open cut is automated up the wazoo, and so how turning the Hunter Valley into a moonscape is easy peasy.
Needless to say, complexities and differing community responses - won't someone think of the farmers and the food bowl - are not the sort of thing you need to hear if writing a paneygric to Tony Abbott and his policies.
It seems the essential problem for the federal government is policy, yet Henderson doesn't contemplate Abbott's latest wild-eyed exercise in "policy", a quaint word for publicity stunts.
Suffice to say that the pond is thinking about mounting a plebiscite as to whether the pond is by far the bestest web site on the planet.
Fair warning and fair dibs. It's a Tony Abbott kind of plebiscite - Tony Abbott admits he won't accept a yes vote on carbon tax.
... Mr Abbott also told 3AW today that if he was successful in forcing a plebiscite and the result found the people wanted a carbon tax, he would not accept it.
He said he would remain opposed to it and would “rescind it” if he became Prime Minister.
... Mr Abbott also told 3AW today that if he was successful in forcing a plebiscite and the result found the people wanted a carbon tax, he would not accept it.
He said he would remain opposed to it and would “rescind it” if he became Prime Minister.
So here's how it works. Either you can admit the pond is simply the bestest web site on the planet - especially in its use of English - or you can simply bugger off, because we'll rescind your vote because you're totally ignorant, specious fools of the first water. It's called democracy. Agree or get lost, we never intended to listen to a word you said anyway ...
Phew, now that's sorted, feel free to send in your lavish uxorious encomiums without fear or favour. Feel free to do a Gerard Henderson and admire the intricate depths of this pond policy. Sheesh, who'da thunk democracy was so easy to handle ...
What's that you say? Tony Abbott had a good new twist to the fear campaign and fucked it up through sheer stupidity?
Come again Hotheads Online of Australia:
I think that this is tbe biggest problem with the Liberal Party - they have an idiot as a leader. Fancy calling for a plebiscite about the stupid CO2 tax and then stating that if the people of Australia vote for it, he would rescind it anyway if he was elected. What an insane statement to make. Of course the people won't vote for a CO2 tax, we know that. But for Abbott to make such an idiotic statement shows that he's not fit to lead the Liberals.
Uh huh. Cease your inner urban elite ranting, wash out your mouth, and read Gerard Henderson on the wonders of Liberal party policy a hundred times, repeating after Alice that a stunt can be a policy, and a policy is therefore never a stunt.
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'
'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. 'I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.
'Exactly so,' said Alice.
'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least—at least I mean what I say—that's the same thing, you know.'
'Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. 'You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, 'that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, 'that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, ' that "I vote for what I believe in" is the same thing as "I vote for what Tony Abbott believes in" ...
... 'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't think—'
'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; Tony Abbott fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put Tony Abbott and the Liberal party into the teapot.
'At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'
(Below: almost every day feels like a tea party day these days, as evoked by the timeless John Tenniel).
"Either you can admit the pond is simply the bestest web site on the planet - especially in its use of English - or you can simply bugger off, because we'll rescind your vote because you're totally ignorant, specious fools of the first water. It's called democracy. Agree or get lost, we never intended to listen to a word you said anyway"
ReplyDeleteAll right. It's pretty good. I'll take back my intemperate remarks of a few weeks ago. Can't remember my profile name then.