(Above: Mandrake the magician working his tricks on sensible climate change sceptics. If they believe a woman can float in the air, next thing you know they'll believe the ice caps are melting).
Poor Miranda the Devine ... she's a sensible person and she's been driven to screaming point.
Then he launched an extraordinary tirade against "the climate change sceptics, the climate change deniers" who he claims are "powerful", "too dangerous to be ignored", "driven by vested interests … quite literally holding the world to ransom … Our children's fate - and our grandchildren's fate - will lie entirely with them."
If he had any shame, the Prime Minister would be mortified to be associated with such a hysterical, undergraduate piece of ad hominem hyperbole. History will record his embarrassment and the debasing of his office.
One of the few public figures with the courage not to conform, the Liberal senator Nick Minchin, was smeared by anonymous sources in his own party this week as "crazy" for expressing scepticism about the extent of man-made climate change.
Now here's where it gets funny. Worried about rising food and energy costs? Well that's all due to the global warming scare. It's scaring up prices, like the ghosts at Halloween scare you to hand over treats:
As the impacts of the global warming scare already are being felt at home in rising food and energy costs, taxpayers will be demanding credible evidence of the necessity of an ETS. It is unlikely the one-party state Rudd is attempting to fashion will be popular.
Rudd claimed in his speech there would be only "modest cost rises" associated with his scheme. The facts tell a different story.
The "most significant" price rise in the CPI index for the September quarter was for electricity, up 11.4 per cent. The Business Council of Australia's infrastructure report last month predicted prices will double by 2015, with the "first and most significant" driver being the ETS.
I have looked at my Energy Australia bills for the past two years and found large and unheralded price increases already.
From October 2007 to October 2009 the price per kwH of my electricity soared from 10.84 cents to 15.60 cents for the first 1750 KWh, and from 14.76 cents to 23.10 cents for the rest, which usually accounts for one-third to half of electricity used in the average three- or four-bedroom house. This is an increase of 44 per cent and 57 per cent respectively.
That's hardly modest.
Against the apocalyptic rhetoric pushed by Rudd comes a cool-minded new book which unpicks the science underpinning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports. Global Warming, False Alarm by Ralph Alexander, an Australian-born US scientist with a PhD in physics from Oxford, is subtitled ''The bad science behind the United Nations' assertion that man-made CO2 causes global warming". Alexander wrote the book, "because I'm a scientist. Because I'm offended that science has been perverted in the name of global warming."
Let's just cut to the punchline:
Don't get him started on computer climate models which he says are "full of unfounded assumptions". He points to the drop in the earth's temperature since 2001 which wasn't predicted by the models.
Ultimately, "trillions of dollars could be wasted to fix a problem that doesn't exist''.
Alexander's book is a useful tool to make sense of climate change.
As they did in the republic debate, regardless of elite consensus, Australians make up their own minds, and are probably turned off by official attempts to stifle dissent.
And then I stumbled on this, and I knew the world was ruined. Sob, even Mandrake peddling the new fangled religion of caring for the earth. Oh no, not Mandrake. Now all we have left is Miranda the Devine and Nick Minchin ... and energy prices rising even as we speak ...
Poor Miranda the Devine ... she's a sensible person and she's been driven to screaming point.
Now you might retort that if Miranda the Devine is sensible, then white is black, and black is white, and deep grey is the color of cats in a coal mine, and roads are not suited to louts like that bicycling mayor of London Boris Johnson.
You might even mutter darkly about the Devine always pointing north by north west (try finding that on a compass), and that since the wind is never southerly, she has difficulties telling the difference between a hawk and a handsaw.
To which there's only one response: tish tosh, and why haven't you read Science cooks the books, driving sensible people to screaming point.
For there you will find such a jumble of hawks and handsaws, it's like walking into an op shop and mistaking it for organic alien intelligence. Over there is a discarded umbrella - now what's that tell you about climate change - and useless galoshes, and winter clothing long discarded while the summer stock seems low.
Sorry, I seem to be rambling. Who suggested an op shop as a metaphor for Miranda the Devine's brain? Right you, yes you, the one picking your nose and eating your ear wax, put on the dunce cap and stand in the corner, for an hour or so, and meditate on your sins. Golly, that's one of the best educational tricks I ever learned from the nuns.
Now where was I? Was I reading Miranda the Devine? Is that why I'm rambling and shrieking?
Never mind, let's get down and boogie. First of all I want to express my shock and outrage at Chairman Rudd, who has reduced the Devine to a level of vituperation and spluttering she can only manage when climate change and cyclists are in her sights (oh and greenies too):
Kevin Rudd went over the top last week in a speech to the Lowy institute, declaring it was "time to remove any polite veneer" from the climate change debate, which he claims is the "moral challenge of our generation".
Then he launched an extraordinary tirade against "the climate change sceptics, the climate change deniers" who he claims are "powerful", "too dangerous to be ignored", "driven by vested interests … quite literally holding the world to ransom … Our children's fate - and our grandchildren's fate - will lie entirely with them."
If he had any shame, the Prime Minister would be mortified to be associated with such a hysterical, undergraduate piece of ad hominem hyperbole. History will record his embarrassment and the debasing of his office.
Oh the cad, the fiend, the abomination, the alarmist cuckoo clock. But stay, soft, who comes from behind the curtain to save the Devine from incipient insanity? Why it's none other than Nick Minchin, dubbed by one of his own frontbench from the safety of anonymity as a "complete fruit loop" for finding a leftist conspiracy in climate change science. Thank the lord the Devine has therefore found her knight in shining armor:
As the public cools towards this new energy tax, politicians, green groups and other alarmists with the real "vested interest" in this debate are stooping ever lower in their attempts to shun dissenters.
One of the few public figures with the courage not to conform, the Liberal senator Nick Minchin, was smeared by anonymous sources in his own party this week as "crazy" for expressing scepticism about the extent of man-made climate change.
Now here's where it gets funny. Worried about rising food and energy costs? Well that's all due to the global warming scare. It's scaring up prices, like the ghosts at Halloween scare you to hand over treats:
As the impacts of the global warming scare already are being felt at home in rising food and energy costs, taxpayers will be demanding credible evidence of the necessity of an ETS. It is unlikely the one-party state Rudd is attempting to fashion will be popular.
The global warming scare is driving up food and energy costs! In a one party state! Like in communist China or Russia.
Oh yes, the Devine and Nick Minchin are soul mates. Worried yet? Let's really crank up the fear mongering. Because it's certain that Chairman Rudd's scheme has already driven up energy costs, no matter that it hasn't been implemented, signed off, passed, or finally voted on. By golly, there's a heap of karma in that scheme:
Rudd claimed in his speech there would be only "modest cost rises" associated with his scheme. The facts tell a different story.
The "most significant" price rise in the CPI index for the September quarter was for electricity, up 11.4 per cent. The Business Council of Australia's infrastructure report last month predicted prices will double by 2015, with the "first and most significant" driver being the ETS.
I have looked at my Energy Australia bills for the past two years and found large and unheralded price increases already.
Already? Yes already!! Without being passed!! And in effect and deeply impactful, in an impacting way, these past two years!
And you know what? There's a really simple explanation for the sensible person! They didn't need a bill in parliament, they just push up the prices, and it's all the fault of an ETS that doesn't exist.
The fiends! All due to the climate warming scare and Chairman Rudd's insidious, perfidious scheme. But wait, it gets worse, and there's no steak knives:
From October 2007 to October 2009 the price per kwH of my electricity soared from 10.84 cents to 15.60 cents for the first 1750 KWh, and from 14.76 cents to 23.10 cents for the rest, which usually accounts for one-third to half of electricity used in the average three- or four-bedroom house. This is an increase of 44 per cent and 57 per cent respectively.
That's hardly modest.
No, damn it, it's immodest. And it's all the fault of a scare that doesn't exist and a bill that hasn't been passed. How do they manage it? Well didn't you see what Mandrake can do to a young woman at the top of this piece? Don't you understand anything you fools.
You see, we haven't even got the scheme in action, and the prices are going up. Talk about scaring up prices. Just imagine what might happen if the scheme gets going.
Sure it's hardly modest logic, well it's not logic at all, but remember when the other day Janet Albrechtsen was bemoaning the left as fear mongers? By golly they've got a lot to learn about being a complete fruit loop.
But stay, soft, we need a new hero, one who will put the science in perspective? What about Ian Plimer? Sorry, old news, discarded like a rusting hulk at the bottom of the harbor. How about Christopher Monckton? Always good for a giggle, but not fresh, not the visionary we need.
How about that chappie who wrote about the climate caper with a foreword by Monckton? Paltridge feller? No, he's so yesterday too. And that CSIRO chappie? Well they repressed him, but it seems he might actually think climate change is happening, and just doesn't like Chairman Rudd's scheme. The same way the greenies think it's flawed.
Not the greenies. Anything but the greenies. Who mentioned the greenies? Go wash out your mouth with soap! By golly, those nuns knew how to keep a classroom in shape.
Sorry, wandered off again.
Golly, we need a dynamic new voice, a strident wise expert for these troubled times:
Against the apocalyptic rhetoric pushed by Rudd comes a cool-minded new book which unpicks the science underpinning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports. Global Warming, False Alarm by Ralph Alexander, an Australian-born US scientist with a PhD in physics from Oxford, is subtitled ''The bad science behind the United Nations' assertion that man-made CO2 causes global warming". Alexander wrote the book, "because I'm a scientist. Because I'm offended that science has been perverted in the name of global warming."
Phew, it seems he was born in Australia. And a degree in physics! Well that's a relief, that should sort out all those wretches who spend all their days actually toiling in the fields, superstitious religionistas seeking cushy jobs and government funding to fuel their vast international UN black helicopter conspiracy.
But hasn't that book been around for yonks too, published back in July? Never mind, he's got the good oil, and so it flows:
He became a sceptic when he taught a course on physical science and found the textbook presented the "alarmist line on man-made global warming without question".
"To me that made a mockery of the history of science presented in the course, which featured several examples of how mainstream scientific thinking has been wrong in the past."
He became a sceptic when he taught a course on physical science and found the textbook presented the "alarmist line on man-made global warming without question".
"To me that made a mockery of the history of science presented in the course, which featured several examples of how mainstream scientific thinking has been wrong in the past."
What follows is the standard stuff about the IPCC, and Miranda the Devine's understanding of the science. Via her inhaling of Alexander. No need to recite the catechism here, yet again. I always get up to the twentieth hail mary and the hockey stick graph and I nod off.
You should know it well enough, and the Devine offers no bonus insight, or understanding, or even that set of steak knives I keep yearning for.
Let's just cut to the punchline:
Don't get him started on computer climate models which he says are "full of unfounded assumptions". He points to the drop in the earth's temperature since 2001 which wasn't predicted by the models.
Ultimately, "trillions of dollars could be wasted to fix a problem that doesn't exist''.
Alexander's book is a useful tool to make sense of climate change.
As they did in the republic debate, regardless of elite consensus, Australians make up their own minds, and are probably turned off by official attempts to stifle dissent.
Well don't get me started on a writer who can so blithely link the debate on climate change to the debate on the republic, as if a debate on constitutional structures is equivalent to a debate on scientific matters.
That said, here's to the talking tampon, and long may he rule over us, happy and glorious, send him victorious, scatter his enemies and make them fall, confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks, on the talking tampon our hearts are fixed, may all loyal souls obey, join heart and voice huzzah, god save our future king. And let all who believe in the monarchy join the talking tampon in his valiant attempts to save the planet from the scourge of climate change. Thank god we're a monarchy, it will save us from rising waters and energy bills.
Quickly, even now you can rush to get your free copy of the carbon report for the year ended 31st March 2009 for the household of their royal highnesses the prince of Wales and the duchess of Cornwall, here, and while in the neighbourhood, drop into the prince's site for the most recent alarming trends in the evils of climate change - start here. Oh it's better than a set of steak knives, and make sure you read about the prince's save the rainforests project.
But where was I? Clearly bored mindless by Miranda the Devine, but alarmed by the thought that the consensus elites, those nattering nabobs, those chardonnay sipping, latte swilling inner western trendies are driving the country into the ground, and driving up food and energy prices without even introducing the scheme that will drive up food and energy prices.
Mandrake the magician couldn't be so clever, even if he sometimes gestures hypnotically, and people see that which isn't there.
Why do I sometimes feel like Mandrak, surrounded by strange objects threatening to take over my mind? Could I have been reading Miranda the Devine in some kind of trance? Oh I feel dizzy ...
And then I stumbled on this, and I knew the world was ruined. Sob, even Mandrake peddling the new fangled religion of caring for the earth. Oh no, not Mandrake. Now all we have left is Miranda the Devine and Nick Minchin ... and energy prices rising even as we speak ...
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