It's Monday, so it's time for some fracking good conspiracy theories ...

(Above: look around, the pod people are already here).

It had to happen, as the sheep circle aimlessly, bleating "we've lost our golden fleece and we don't know where to find it."

That well known exponent of the art of snout in government trough, John Coates, is out and about, demanding that Australia take another step towards the East German system.

Coates: compulsory sport a missing link in medal evolution reports the chatter that's got the media excited. It seems as usual it's the government's fault:

The president of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, has urged Australian swimming to ''have a look at themselves'' and has blamed the federal government's failure to introduce compulsory school sport in the wake of Australia's disappointing London Olympics campaign, its worst performance since the 1988 Seoul Games.

Presumably the federal government didn't purchase enough mirrors to supply to athletes so that they could take a good hard look at themselves. (That was the favourite phrase of one of the teachers most loathed by the pond, a sports freak who roamed the corridors demanding that students take a good hard look at themselves).

In the manner of an East German gauleiter, Coates is big on compulsion:

''The one thing London has done is to get sport back into school curricula. They've made that their legacy and we would encourage the Australian government to look at competitive sport in schools. We've been saying this for a long time but maybe we're just not saying it loudly enough: we need to start in our schools.''

Naturally Coates would like to turn schools into feeder units so that the movement can select the best stock for future training (who knows, even breeding) so that once every four years Australia can compete against the best of other countries devoted to similar training (and who knows, breeding) programs.

Naturally the chorus quickly joined in, noting how sports were jolly good for the system, like cold showers and bed restraints designed to keep healthy thinking to the fore.

It was Caroline Wilson who picked up the Coates' story for Fairfax. We look forward to her editorialising how football should be banned from schools, since it's not an Olympic sport.

The punters might prefer it but Australia is wasting valuable resources devoting time and money to a game suitable only for boofheads and international matches with the Irish.

Dream on.

Naturally the pond went in search of famous libertarians - celebrated in their lunchtime by Mark Latham - determined to take a stand against Coates and his fetish for compulsory sport - why not compulsory opera, so we can compete on a level playing field with Germany in Wagner operas, why not compulsory Shakespeare so we can supply quality rep. trained baddies to American action movies - but was disappointed.

Not a bleat. Instead the Bolter was indignant about being associated with the Galileo Movement. It seems that was all the fault of Fairfax:

I note The Age has loved associating me with this movement and these comments, without going to the bother of asking me what my association really was. Only too delighted for the chance to smear. (here)

It seems that cunning Fairfax went off to the Galileo Movement and hacked into its site and put the Bolter's name up as an adviser to a bunch of climate denialists. As if he'd sink so low!

Jokes aside, it always gets a bit uncomfortable for the likes of the Bolter when it turns out that his avid followers and climate denialist true believers are actually barking mad international conspiracy theorists, but hey if you breed the pups you should own them.

Just down below his "I'm hurt and upset and smeared" routine, the Bolter provides in How we won - a gloat about how climate sceptics defeated climate science and Robert Manne all in one blow - a link to the website at joannenova, which was by happenstance also celebrating the defeat of climate science and Robert Manne.

Of course you don't have to look far to find there's zero degree of distance between the Bolter and Jo Nova and David Evans and ... Malcolm Roberts' conspiracy theories.

It's all laid out here, for the lazy, and the pond is naturally lazy, so let's just list a couple of quotes:

David Evans has written up a paper that describes just what kind of Octopus we are dealing with, and it’s bigger and more insidious than almost anything you can imagine. It’s a long paper, but if you are not aware of how our currencies are created out of thin air, backed by nothing, and why the Global Financial Crisis was not a surprise to those of us watching the money supply, then stand back, hold onto your hats and take a deep breath.
It’s like living in The Matrix. (2009)

Now let's get a little closer to the source of the troubles:

Nova cites one of her husband’s papers made available from notorious denial think tank, the “Science and Public Policy Institute” (the home of Lord Monckton). At the end of his paper (pdf) Evans makes the following claims:

“…There are a small number of families who, over the centuries, have amassed wealth through financial rent seeking. They are leading members of the paper aristocracy. For example, the Rothschild’s are the biggest banking family in Europe, and were reputed to own half of all western industry in 1900. That sort of wealth doesn’t just dissipate, because unless the managers are incompetent the wealth tends to concentrate. The banking families don’t work for a living in the normal sense, like the rest of us. They avoid scrutiny and envy by blending in and make themselves invisible. Since they own or influence all sorts of media organizations, it isn’t too hard. There are unsubstantiated rumors and conspiracy theories, but nobody can really credibly say how much wealth and influence they have…

…Perhaps today’s fiat currencies—the US dollar, pound, yen and so on—will go up in smoke in an inflationary crescendo in the next few years, perhaps as planned by the paper aristocracy. Maybe they will reintroduce an asset backed currency. And guess who has all the gold? Those banking families have been salting it away for years. Possibly a global currency, so one cannot escape the predations of the paper aristocracy. This is not just about money, but about power, of course. Anyway, these are only unsubstantiated rumors. We shall see.

The Rothschilds? Banking families? Global currency? International conspiracies?

And that dummy Bolt links to Jo Nova and her partner David Evans, and their international conspiracy theories, while proclaiming how he doesn't believe in international conspiracy theories?

Truly he gets away with murder.

At the same time, the pond was drawn to this poignant note to the out-tray of The Drum which draws together all the current inspirations for sceptics:

Australia has many bodies trying to expose the AGW hoax; trying to get the real "science" to the people.
There is, of course, the The Climate Sceptics Party, and the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party; there is Viv Forbes' Carbon Sense Coalition; Ray Evans and the Lavoisier Group; the Australian Environment Foundation; among others and then there are the bloggers who are contributing to the enlightenment of the science including Joanne Nova; Malcolm Roberts; Jennifer Marohasy; Australian Climate Madness
and the few marvelous columnists in the MSM who look outside the circle, who investigate instead of republishing party handouts -
Foremost is Andrew Bolt and then (in alphabetical order) Akerman (at sea), Albrechtsen, Blair, Devine etc and the amazing cartoonist Zeg.
More power to them all. (here).

Yes more power to them all because a lot of them have nibbled at an international conspiracy theory at one time or another, and in allegedly distinguished newspapers. For starters, anyone of them who has kept company with Lord Monckton has endorsed the notion of an international conspiracy theory.

The Bolter himself has been a Monckton devotee, calling him brilliant and providing links to his Australian tour and urging punters to trot off to see him (here).

That'd be the same Monckton who turned up at the Heartland conference to make birther jokes and admit he had no scientific qualifications. (here).

Who can forget Janet Albrechtsen's splendid effort in Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot back after a hefty drink of Monckton kool-aid:

Even after Monckton’s speech, most of the media has duly ignored the substance of what he said. You don’t need me to find his St Paul address on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by Alan Jones on Sydney radio station 2GB, Monckton warned that the aim of the Copenhagen draft treaty was to set up a transnational government on a scale the world has never before seen. Listening to the interview, my teenage daughters asked me whether this was true.

So Albrecthsen valiantly read further, for the sake of her daughters, that they needed to be alert and alarmed and listen to Lord Monckton:

At least we have heard from Monckton. He told Jones there had already been a million hits on the link to his St Paul address. “So the message in America is now out ... Now you know about it and you need to spread the word.”

Yep, spread the word that those who accept climate science are off with the pixies and Hitler Youth.

And who can forget the work of Miranda the Devine, Monckton devotee, given a nice going over here in Miranda Devine's Annus Mirabilis.

The Bolter claims that he despises Jewish world conspiracy theories, but gives no clue as to where he stands in relation to black helicopters and UN world conspiracy theories.

Given the company he keeps, and the assorted loons working for News Ltd who peddle this sort of tripe, we look forward to his denunciation of Jo Nova, David Evans, Janet Albrecthsen, Miranda Devine, Tim Blair, Akker Dakker and Lord Monckton, and his employer News Ltd for encouraging the peddling of far-fetched conspiracy theories. Then he can stand tall in his disavowal of Roberts.

Dream on.

And now, it being Monday, and your strength is strong, you're probably wondering what's happened to Paul Sheehan.

He's in spiffingly good form - it shows how playing jolly hockey sticks can sharpen the mind - and doing his very best Chicken Little impression.

The sky is falling in, NSW is running out of gas, we'll all be ruined, possibly by Friday, did we mention the gas is about to be switched off, and when that happens there's a Firestorm set to ignite when power runs out.

We must immediately, in no particular order, worship coal seam gas, frack until we've fracked ourselves silly, ignore silly deluded people concerned for the environment, frack everything in sight until it's well and truly fracked, give ACL a break, frack and frack until the cows come home, and whatever you do, don't listen to the greenies, the farmers, the Nationals, the ABC and Alan Jones - they're all in a vast domestic conspiracy together - because we need to frack ourselves stupid.

Or some such thing. Frack away until you're fracking dead.

The pond thought about writing about length about the column, but how far can you go giving paranoid doomsayer and chicken little fantasies credibility?

Truly Sheehan is out of control and each Monday he manages to make Fairfax seem like News Ltd and Andrew Bolt on a bad hair day.

There's only so much of this sort of circus comedy you can take before you're demanding someone hit something or somebody with a giant custard pie ... in the fracking moosh.

(Below: an oldie but a goodie, as useful for Paul Sheehan as for Andrew Bolt, and let's not forget John Coates).