Another weird day in Murdochian la la land ...

There's always unfinished business, bits and pieces that only float to the surface of the pond after a couple of days.

For example, of all the lame defences of someone doing the very opposite of what they espouse, surely Julia Baird offered the very lamest:

There has been much scratching of heads this week about why an avowed republican would accept the title of Dame. In truth, she had little choice. It would have seemed churlish to refuse in her final hours, especially because it is now built into the position of governor-general: refusing would involve a very loud, awkward change to the Letters Patent. 
Asked if the reintroduced knight and dame title were a “prerequisite for a governor-general designate to accept before they’ll be appointed”, Tony Abbott said: “there is no reason why a Prime Minister could not change the Letters Patent if necessary to accommodate someone who, for whatever reason, was reluctant to be a Knight or Dame in the Order of Australia. But people who love our country, who want to serve our country should they be approached to serve in this particular capacity, I think would normally be happy to accept this honour because, in the end, yes, it is for people who have served our country in an extraordinary and pre-eminent way.” 
In other words, you could say no, if you wanted to be rude and did not love our country. So Dame she is. 

Little choice? She had to do it? It would have been awkward and loud? Why fight? Why struggle?

How many times have women told not to be rude, to be submissive, to fall into line and not to rock the boat? And then even more offensively to swallow without dissent, patriotic bullshit from that scoundrel who routinely seeks refuge in patriotism, Tony Abbott ...

So sellout she is, and Baird a panderer of the very worst kind.

If you want to be a republican, be one. But if you want to be a toadie of the monarchist establishment, be one. Just don't attempt to conflate the two.

And don't get the pond started on Earth Hour - anything that makes the pond share the same view as Bjorn Lomborg is a serious worry.

And now to the day's business.

There have been many stupid and bizarre interpretations attached to the missing MH370. Panhandlers and losers and dropkicks have been having a field day. Remember this one:

Happily Colbert and Stewart are back after a break, and a few days ago Colbert had a field day with these sorts of pundits saying stupid things:

The desperation to fill TV slots reached such an extreme level that CNN even brought on a psychic. That’s right, a psychic.

It's usually hard to link to Colbert because of geopolitical territorial limitations - though determined viewers will know how to spoof Firefox to get there - but it seems that if you're in Firefox private viewing mode, you can see the skit here.

It couldn't get any sillier or more bizarre, right?

Wrong, for today Miranda the Devine pitifully attempts to link the plane to climate change.

Oh sure, MH370: Global warning on our frailties starts off vaguely in the ballpark, by talking of the limitations of current technology:

You know, frailty, fear being where hubris and reality collide, and other zingers, but then this zinger:

So, you have to ask: if we are finding it so hard to find a missing jumbo jet, how can we possibly think we can stop climate change? 

Actually, Miranda the Devine, the pond didn't ask such a stupid question. We didn't have to ask at all.

There are reasons why it's been tricky to find the missing plane, what with all sorts of instruments turned off for unknown reasons, and while we're at it, please, reserve the name 'jumbo jet' for the 747 that earned that nick name when it took to the air back in 1970 ...

But please, as soon as a neo con asks that sort of rhetorical question, there's no doubt plenty more gibberish in store for the world, so do go on:

 Computer models have proven no more useful for forecasting global temperatures than a flight tracker app is for finding MH370. 

Did you pause for even a nano second to consider just how incredibly stupid that sounds?

For the past 15-17 years, temperatures have not budged, despite rising carbon dioxide emissions. This so-called warming hiatus, or pause, makes a mockery of climate models which predicted drastic global warming due to the atmosphere’s supposed allergy to greenhouse gases.

Uh huh. Supposed allergy. Mockery. So called.

Top notch science.

What follows is a classic example of befuddlement of the illogical kind, where the Devine flings everything and anything at the very notion of climate science.

It's bizarre stuff, though in a newspaper where the owner advised the world to head off to the caves of northern Pakistan to find the missing plane, it probably sounds quite sensible.

Please contemplate the Devine in full denialist model. Oh dear, you cluck, is it right to call her a denialist. Well yes, but only because one of her gambits is to talk of alarmists and a climate alarm industry, which can neatly be juxtaposed to the climate denialist industry:

The entire climate alarm industry was built around those unreliable models. The dire warnings issued by the United Nation’s IPCC rely on their temperature forecasts. 
But, year after year, the actual temperatures defy the predictions, and climate scientists have not been able to explain why. 

Which is simply not true. Either a lie or ignorance strutting its stuff. Many climate scientists have explained why, with many citing the oceans - their heating and their ongoing acidification - as matters of keen interest.

Whatever, and dispute their findings as you will, don't adopt a posture of woeful ignorance and say no one has a clue.

So maybe the atmosphere is not as sensitive to CO2 as we were led to believe. 

So 'maybe' is now a scientific paper and a scientific position?

Maybe our contribution to climate change is not as significant as we imagined.

Or maybe the Devine is using 'maybe' as part of her befuddlement methodology. Maybe 'maybe' is jut window dressing for full blown denialism.

The obvious conclusion is that our quest to stop climate change is an arrogant delusion. 

The obvious conclusion? An arrogant delusion?

This from someone who began it all with talk of a plane gone missing ...

The planet will warm or cool at will, regardless of any heroic sacrifices we make. As the eminent American physicist Fred Singer wrote last week: ”All the evidence suggests that Nature rules the climate – not Man.” 
The dawning realization of our powerlessness is driving a new more realistic imperative to adapt to climate change rather than trying to stop it. 

Yes, you know where this is heading.

Last week, the Devine was in full denialist mode talking of shags on a very cold rock (here).

This week it seems it might be happening, but we're powerless and helpless, a bit like Quentin Bryce unable to refuse a gong. It seems there might be climate change, but we should just stick our paws in the air and surrender.

So why is the Devine in such a tizz?

The latest IPCC report on the impacts of climate change is due out tomorrow (Monday) and leaked stories paint the sort of apocalyptic scenarios that have been scaring a generation of children witless since The Day After Tomorrow showed tsunamis drowning everyone on the east coast of America.

Yes, because the go to image for climate scientists around the world is a Hollywood disaster movie.

Just as the best way to discuss the technical details of a missing plane is to reference a Hollywood disaster movie. Go on, pick the plane movie of your choice, here, and let's get down to some solid science.

But there are signs that the church of climate alarm is under siege. 
First came news last week that a lead author on that IPCC report’s chapter on economics has demanded his name be taken off it because he says it was rewritten to exaggerate the impact of climate change.

Which is outrageous when you think of it. Because climate change, global warming, ocean acidification, simply isn't happening.

‘The message in the first draft was that through adaptation and clever development these were manageable risks,” British climate economist, Dr Richard Tol, told reporters. “This has completely disappeared from the draft now, which is all about the impacts of climate change and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” 

Yes, we all know the stages, and it seems for the moment that the Devine has shifted from her usual 1 to a mix of 3 and 4:

When even IPCC grandees are breaking ranks you know the game is up. 
Another good sign is that the IPCC report will contain a “new emphasis” on adaptation rather than preventing global warming, and is more cautious than before about the overall costs, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Say what?

In just the previous par, the Devine quoted someone denouncing the report as being about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and in the very next breath, the Devine quotes someone as saying the new report is more cautious, and the Devine's too dumb to be aware of the contradiction, never mind it's between two consecutive pars?

What sort of fuckwit is she?

As reality sinks in, it’s only a matter of time before the climate charlatans who have misled us for two decades are brought to account. WA MP Dr Dennis Jensen kicked off the process of discovery last week with a bold call in Parliament for a formal audit of the climate data processes of the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. 

Sorry, we shouldn't have asked. She's a Dennis Jensen-quoting sort of fuckwit.

How does Jensen do his science?

Stupid people in an echo chamber.

Yet if you asked the Devine this Sunday about whether a wafer is the actual body of Christ, she'd swallow it whole ...

Which no doubt explains how she can swallow Jensen.

He claims they have been picking and choosing data to suit an alarmist agenda. He has a PhD in Materials Science and Physics, and has worked for the CSIRO and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation as a research scientist, so is uniquely placed among politicians to question the information which has driven absurd and wasteful government policy on climate change. 

Uh huh. How lucky that the pond has an advanced degree in garbology and so is uniquely placed amongst bloggers to question the drivel that emanates from cola and carbon as a lesson in climate science.

Imagine what we might have achieved if, instead of engaging in a futile bid to change the climate, all those great minds had been focused on curing cancer or bringing potable water to the poorest corners of the planet, or stamping out child sexual abuse. 

But how could we do any of that? We can't even find a fucking plane. We're helpless, we're hopeless, quick form a circle and do the Miranda the Devine Chicken Little dance.

If last night’s Earth Hour and all those meetings in Copenhagen and Kyoto had been for something useful and important, what might we have achieved? 
One thing the mystery of MH370 should teach us is humility.

Actually the one thing that MH370 teaches us is the endless, fathomless stupidity of the media commentariat, and points to a mystery more strange than the Bermuda Triangle - how did so many of them end up in the bottomless pit of News Corp, headed by a man who thinks the plane was to be found hidden in Pakistan ...?

Of course the plane might still be found in a cave in Pakistan, in which case Chairman Rupert will be perceived as a genius.

And the Devine might well be right, up against the thousands of scientists about to present a report tomorrow on the latest state of climate science, though it's already being reported in detail, as you can read in a report more interested in the science than in befuddlement, confusion and a silly attempt to conflate a missing plane with climate science:

Yes you can read IPCC report: climate change felt 'on all continents and across the oceans', or Governments reject IPCC economist's 'meaningless' climate costs estimate.

Or you can go cave hunting in northern Pakistan looking for missing planes.

Or perhaps just spoof Firefox and watch Colbert.

Oops, did he get in trouble or what? You see, in the Sporrrr Reporrrr segment, Colberrrr went from sending up the pathetic attempts of Washington Redskins' owner Dan Snyder to bribe native Americans - because Redskins isn't offensive if you only use it once in your name ...

... to this.

And conservatives couldn't make the satirical leap.

Where's George Brandis and the Bolter when they're needed?