Sanctimonious Scott Ludlam on Q and A in Perth

Disappointed I didn't know that Q and A was in Perth last Monday. If I had, I would have gone along and had a look.

Needless to say it was handled in the simplistic and biased way that we've come to expect from Tony Jones and their ABC. And it featured one of the more pompous hand-wringers in this state, Scott Ludlam of the Greens.

Not unlike his fellow inner urban nature boy from Victoria Adam Bandt, Ludlam has an affected, prissy manner. He's obviously desperate to convey an impression of perspicacity. On the contrary, the po-faced sneering actually highlights his infantile credulity.

Really, some of his arguments were amazingly puerile. Par for the course with the Greens, they were also incoherent and sanctimonious as all get out.

Take this contribution on the carbon tax:

SCOTT LUDLAM: I think it is a really useful question. When the wholesale price of electricity goes up 10% and somebody comes along the next day and slugs you for an import cost that’s 400% higher, I would be with Tony on that. I would be paying very close attention to what the ACCC is doing. But can I just ground this question very quickly as to why we didn’t vote for the first one is because it wouldn't have worked. The carbon price would have been one euro a tonne at the moment. That was why we didn’t vote for it. What Kevin Rudd has just done, for short-term tactical advantage, which I agree with Narelda probably will be quite popular, is sacrificed and cost us another year. This is about the weather itself turning against us. Could we please, just for a moment, ground the conversation about why we pass these kind of laws, why we are trying to prevent the worst and most dangerous impacts of climate change is because they will wreck the economy. They will wreck the economy not just here but all of our supplier and customer countries, within our life spans. This is not something for our kids to deal with. This is on top of us now. That is why we are coming to grips with this situation. I would like to quickly acknowledge and shout out to the kids at Power Shift in Melbourne, who have been conferencing on this stuff all day and over the last couple of days to try to do a better job than the old parties have been doing, quite frankly. Having Tony Abbott marching around the landscape saying, “Oh, it’s some kind of invisible gas. We're just wasting our time,” really, grow up. Grow up.

Eh? He's saying that Gaia has cracked the shits with us and is destroying the global economy via the climate. And the end of the world isn't just nigh, it's now! Then he tells us to grow up? Unbelievable.

Revealingly, Tony Jones let Ludlam deliver that whole balmy spiel uninterrupted, strongly implying that he agreed with it. In marked contrast Jones repeatedly interrupted the rational, measured Julie Bishop during the same discussion. 

Speaking of rational and measured discussion, that's what Ludlam himself says he wants to see more of during election time.

SCOTT LUDLAM: That’s okay. It’s good practice. Thanks to the questioner and thanks to Narelda for framing the discussion. We've both heard really measured contributions, both from Julie and Stephen, and if only that was the case during election campaigns, where we see political parties getting into a law and order auction, tough on crime, tough on kids, lock them up, stay safe, kind of really degraded political debate. What we should instead be looking at are exactly the kind of things that have been said here in a much more measured way, but it's not often what we get. We get things like the intervention, where they sent the army into the Northern Territory and totally disempowered people who are now campaigning against it being rolled out elsewhere. Look for justice re-investment. Look for transferring money out of the criminal justice system and into precisely the kind of services that people are talking about, it's hard to have that conversation if the election debate is degraded. So maybe we can continue this type of discussion over the coming months.  

So the pure and virtuous Ludlam doesn't like a "degraded debate" ...

Hell, this is politics he's talking about! It's not pretty but our elected representatives should be able to, and must, speak freely on these issues, no matter whose delicate sensibilities are offended.

Saying you don't want a "degraded debate" is just another way of saying you don't like debate at all. The last thing he wants is for politicians to "continue the discussion" as he claims. Clearly, he'd much rather they stop arguing and go along with what he and his fellow hand-wringers demand. It would be a refreshing change if he just 'fessed up and said openly that this is what he wanted.

But the height of his brazen hypocrisy came late in the discussion when the panel was discussing asylum seekers.

SCOTT LUDLAM: Just to remind us that these are human beings that we are talking about.

JULIE BISHOP: And they’re drowning at sea. And they’re drowning at sea.

TONY JONES: Yeah, I mean the people were clapping then but Julie Bishop made a very powerful point, it seems to me.

SCOTT LUDLAM: That they’re drowning. Absolutely.

TONY JONES: They are drowning at sea the way things are.

JULIE BISHOP: They are drowning at sea now.

SCOTT LUDLAM: Yeah.

JULIE BISHOP: That’s right.

SCOTT LUDLAM: And if you want to know why they are coming, go and see a film about it called No Fly Zone about what just happened in Sri Lanka that the Australian Government turned a blind eye to. And people will continue to leave there no matter how cheap and nasty the debate gets in Australia, no how many racist billboards go up that Tony Abbott gets to stand in front of. The people will keep coming.

For a start, Ludlam cares more deeply for the welfare of bilbies and quolls than he does about people. And the reason they are drowning in their hundreds is because of the very policies that he and his sanctimonious, censorious ilk espouse. 

What a silly, pompous, spoiled and most of all heartless child he is.

PS: In the ABC transcript, Ludlam's last little brain fart above is incorrectly attributed to Jones. Considering how similar their opinions on such matters actually are, it's easy to see how the error was made.

Maurice Newman, Robyn Williams and leftie pedo smears

It's not surprising that the ABC decided Maurice Newman's complaints about Robyn Williams linking climate change skepticism to pedophilia have no validity. Their reaction is just so typically leftist. PC luvvies habitually use the most extreme analogies in order to denigrate their opponents, but then shriek and squawk up a storm if the same tactic is used against them.

Remember all the hyperventilating that occurred when Cory Bernardi linked gay marriage to zoophilia? The guy was sledged all over the Oz meeja, and was even demoted as a result of his statements. Yet while even some conservatives might have considered his comments extreme, they were tame compared to Williams's smearing of Newman and his intellectual ilk.

Bernardi's linkage was at least category-consistent, since both gay marriage and zoophilia pertain to sexual behaviour. He also alluded to some actual evidence, namely that there are influential people out there who see nothing wrong with humans schtupping animals -- Peter Singer, philosophical father of the Greens, being one. Compared to this, Williams's sliming of climate skeptics was right out of the ballpark.

In any case it's interesting how fond lefties are of their pedo smears. They tend to equate anything they don't like with sex with children almost as often as they do with racism and Nazism. Take this intriguing bit of graffiti in the Hay St Mall, for example. Not quite sure what the activist was trying to get at, but I think it's a safe bet he had some issues with the likes of Coke and Pepsi.

Pity he didn't make his point more eloquently. Getting up there was no mean feat.

So, what he lacked in coherence he certainly made up for in chutzpah. Have to give him a few cool points for that ...

Prof Kuruvilla George, "marriage equality" and freedom of speech

Hey, ever notice that whenever censorious, Stalinist lefties try to limit freedom for speech, they always preface their devious arguments with the phrase "This isn't about freedom of speech". It's kind of a fluffy wuffy, huggy wuggy version of "I'm not racist, but ... " The pinko doth protest too much, methinks.

Here's the latest example: The Victorian Attorney General seems to be reluctant to condemn Professor Kuruvilla George in the way the zealots at VHREOC are, citing freedom of speech. Cue the predictable denial from a gay marriage advocate. (Sorry, the truly politically correct term is "marriage equality". With these social engineering projects, the proponents always use language that obfuscates the true meaning of what is intended -- like "pro-choice" instead of "pro-abortion".)

The beginning of his open letter to the Attorney General reads:

The issue in relation to Prof George is not freedom of speech, but deceptive conduct. He participated in a scam which attempted to hoodwink a federal senate enquiry by presenting discredited evidence and religious dogma as scientific 'evidence'.

Typical tactics. Don't deal with his argument, but play the man. Demonize your opponent as a bad, 'orrible liar, motivated solely by religious dogma. Claim that Big Religion is behind everything here, not unlike Big Oil funding all those eeevil climate change skeptics.

Speaking of which: The wording of the first paragraph is just askin' for it. Just replace a few key words and voila, you have a rather neat description of a certain well known warmist:

The issue in relation to Professor Tim Flannery is not freedom of speech, but deceptive conduct. He participated in a scam which attempted to hoodwink the citizens of Australia by presenting discredited evidence and Gaian religious dogma as scientific 'evidence'.

Irony, much?

James Delingpole on The Bolt Report

James Delingpole is one of several prominent climate change skeptics. They're all having a great time showing what bunkum these predictions about "dangerous climate change" are. But Delingpole is persuading more people than the others, I think.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, he's younger than most well known climate change skeptics (and looks younger than his years, too). That confounds warmists in the meeja, who repeatedly cast the climate change issue as a generational battle between whippersnappers who care deeply about the future of the planet and greedy old farts who don't give a rat's. When they see Delingpole younger folk who would usually be happy to go with the warmists' generational narrative experience a bit of cognitive dissonance and start looking into the whole thing anew. When they do that, they're much more likely to become skeptics.

Secondly, he's very witty and amusing. He has a knack for encapsulating the crazy desperation of the catastrophist fear mongers with humorous metaphors. Take the one that he uses quite late in this interview with Andrew Bolt. In it, he equates their attempts to outdo each other with a poker game. It's both very funny and bang on the money.

James Delingpole vs Jon Faine

ABC broadcaster Jon Faine's interview with James Delingpole is hilarious. It's actually a lot like the one the climate change skeptic had with BBC airhead Richard Bacon.

Faine's disdain for his subject is obvious right from the outset. And Delingpole comes out fighting. The discussion is very snippy indeed.

What's most revealing is Faine's tragically thin skin. He keeps protesting that he's not a greenie (yeah sure, and polar bears'll fly out of my butt!) and that he's just being "professional".

That's a standard tactic of the deep green, PC left. They always say "We are detached, dispassionate, objective, scientific. Those eeevil, greedy, planet-raping capitalists are the extreme and emotional ones!" Not only is this a slimy, dishonest tactic, it's also very cowardly. Faine, like all those other commie weasels, just doesn't have the balls to nail his colours to the mast.

As Delingpole himself says in the interview: Why don't they just be upfront about their sympathies? Hell, everybody knows what they believe anyway. The commissar has no clothes, that's for sure.

Delingpole is honest about his bias. He, like so many conservatives, believes that capitalism, democracy and freedom of speech are great things. Not only are they the best way to improve the lot of us humans; they also cause less damage to the environment than leftist, utopian regimes.

James Delingpole promotes Killing the Earth to Save It in Perth

James Delingpole, controversial climate change skeptic and writer of the book Killing the Earth to Save It, commenced his tour of Australia at the Royal Perth Yacht Club in Nedlands last night. I attended the event, which was organized in major part by Joanne Nova, seen here introducing the author.

The book promotion was well attended. I'm not sure of the exact number but there must have been around two hundred people there. What I found interesting about last night's audience was that while a majority were over fifty, there were also quite a few twenty somethings present.

This was not the case when I saw Christopher Monckton in Sydney back in 2009. At that debate -- in which he totally pwned Tim Lambert -- the vast majority were oldsters. This seems to be confirmation that climate change skepticism is getting through to more and more young folk -- clearly a good sign. (Sure, my statistical sample is small, but it's still bigger than the pool from which that widely touted 97% consensus figure was drawn, so I think this conclusion has some validity.)

Speaking of Monckton: Delingpole has now reached a comparable level of prominence. But he's very different as a public speaker. Monckton has a slick, theatrical and tightly scripted show that makes effective use of PowerPoint. He uses a lot of facts and figures, stats and graphs to blast holes in the case for dangerous climate change.

Delingpole comes at the issue in a different way. He's much more focused on politics and sheds light on the many motivations behind the global warmist movement, which he accurately describes as mass hysteria.

Unlike Monckton, he prefers to extemporize. Much of last night's presentation consisted of his responses to questions from the audience. By doing this he managed to cover a wide range of subjects, often punctuating his clear points with witty ad libs.

Delingpole speaks just like he writes, somehow managing to be brazenly provocative and pithy in a simultaneously disarming, almost self-effacing way. He clearly enjoys the controversy he's generated, saying that "if you're taking flak it proves you're over the target". His unique persona is one of the reasons he's getting so much publicity. I suspect that younger people who may be turned off by Monckton and Plimer are warming to Delingpole.

Among numerous subjects he covered the Climategate scandal, which garnered him a massive amount of publicity almost overnight. Interestingly the bloke who actually coined that term -- the memorably named "Bulldust" -- was also present at the event. I photographed him from behind to maintain his powerful aura of mystery and danger.

And he wasn't the only other well known figure in the war against warmism. Dr David Evans was also there, as was Paul Ostergaard, inventor of an  iPhone app for climate change skeptics.

As Joanne Nova mentioned, Perth is a bit of a hub for climate change skepticism. The individualist culture of the place clearly has something to do with that -- as has the fact that Western Australia is pretty much bankrolling the rest of the country with its booming resources industry. The crowd were overwhelmingly supportive of the author, and he ended up selling a lot of books.

Delingpole is definitely worth catching when he appears in your city. Details are here.

You can buy the book online at Fishpond (affiliate link):
Killing the Earth to Save it: How Environmentalists are Ruining the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Jobs

Earth Hour satirized on Rod Quinn's ABC radio show

Had the wireless on in the wee hours of this morning. Was channel surfing and I ended up on ABC Local. Rod Quinn was chatting to a bloke about Earth Hour. It seemed like it was a dinkum, prearranged interview.

Anyway, this guy said his name was Nick Day, and he was a member of the International Coalition of Earth Hour Supporters. He sounded like your typical garden variety climate change catastrophist and I thought he was the real deal. But then he turned it up a notch, saying that turning off the lights should be mandatory for all citizens, and that the power stations should be shut down for Earth Hour. 

That's when I started to sense a piss-take. Among other things he said that if transport accidents caused by these national shutdowns resulted in deaths they were a "small price to pay for saving the planet". He advocated the widespread use of candles, and more fondue style cooking. When Quinn quizzed him further on this he became indignant, railing at the imputation that he had anything to gain financially from this position. 

It was actually pretty funny in a sly, wry way. This bloke, whoever he was, carried it off well. And Quinn played his part convincingly. I didn't twig while it was happening, but in retrospect I now realize that it was an April Fool's Day prank. 

I continued to listen for a little while after this and those callers I heard responding to this segment mostly seemed to have taken it seriously. Just one guy I heard suspected Day "was having a bit of lend".

This cheeky, prearranged satire of Earth Hour zealotry was a small but not insignificant sign that the warmist mindset at their ABC is shifting somewhat. If a late night presenter can do this on one day of the year when irreverence is expected then more prominent broadcasters in the organization might one day follow suit, maybe even at any time they feel like it.

Sir Crispin Tickell on China, climate change and democracy

I often listen to the BBC World Service in the wee hours. One of the regular shows is called One Planet. It's hugely biased, but still quite interesting. One recent interview really caught my ear.

The presenter Mike Williams was taking to British diplomat and environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell about China and its approach to climate change. Tickell's observations were revealing because he invoked several of the most beloved cliches and misrepresentations of the deep green Left. (You can listen to it here. Tickell starts about a minute and a half in.)

Of Australia he said that we are the biggest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide. The nation is "doing a great deal of harm, thereby".

This is just completely irrational. So what if each person here has a comparatively large carbon footprint? We are a small nation and the cumulative impact is negligible.

Tickell then said of our addiction to fossil fuels that "Australians are increasingly aware that they are dependant on what doesn't work".

Clearly, the opposite is true. We are increasingly aware that these methods (coal in particular) are "oldies but goodies". One of the reasons we're so resistant to the carbon tax is that the much hyped renewables are neither reliable nor affordable enough to replace what's been working very well for a very long time. And we've still got mountains of the stuff, so why not keep using it?

Like so many warmists, he also repeated this massive lie about China being an environmental exemplar -- "pioneers of clean, green growth" as he puts it. Williams didn't pick him up on this point, but accepted it, adding that having such a policy is easy if you're an authoritarian regime.

They then got onto the subject of democracy in general, with Tickell saying the Chinese really "aren't that bad" in this regard. Rather than accept that China is itself very undemocratic, which is clearly the case, he shifted the goal posts on what democracy actually means. 

And there's a classic interchange in which a clearly shocked Williams says: "You're surely not suggesting China is a democracy." To which Tickell replies: "I don't know what you mean by democracy." It's truly jaw dropping stuff. When you can stun even a BBC journalist into incredulity with such a take on tyranny, well you really must be "out where the buses don't go".

Tickell's whole attitude in this interview is a distillation of the classic warmist position. It's inaccurate, irrational, and well on the way to being totalitarian.

Monckton may not be a lord but Gillard is certainly no prime minister

Interesting that so much of the meeja coverage of Christopher Monckton's debate today with Richard Denniss focuses on the question of whether he is a dinkum member of the House of Lords. Even the climate change denying, phone hacking, News Ltd hate media is taking this angle.

But this is yet more playing the man, not the ball. For anyone who saw the debate, the story should be how thoroughly he trounced Denniss and made fools of the climate change "bed wetters" in the National Press Club audience. 

If journos must focus on the official titles of prominent players in this carbon tax stoush, why not ask whether Julia Gillard deserves to be called "Prime Minister"? She was twice selected, never elected, after all. If Monckton is twisting the truth a tad, then the sin is nothing compared to the ginormous porkie that got Joolya into the Lodge.

Even if you think she does deserve the title it's looking increasingly like she won't be hanging onto it for very much longer. And if she does get the chop (along with her stupid carbon tax) in coming weeks there's no doubt that many in Labor will be just as relieved as most of the country. The woman is a complete embarrassment on so many levels and they should just get rid of her now!

Hell, they didn't waste any time offing Kevin Rudd, and that was when he was still ahead in the polls. They did it mainly because they hated his guts. Now most of the nation feels that level of hatred towards Gillard, yet they continue to support her! Eh?

What a strange, sad state that party is in ...

Fear of nuclear catastrophe in Japan is like fear of climate change

If you're a half-way rational person, I'll bet you're struck by the strange priorities of most media outlets in their reporting of the quake and tsunami disaster in Japan. The fixation on the nuclear angle is weird as.

Sure, it's scary, with all these explosions occurring as a result of the quake. But as many have pointed out, it's nowhere near as serious as what has already occurred in that nation. Many thousands of people have died horribly in a natural disaster, yet there's a greater media focus on what might happen as a consequence of the nuclear reactors exploding.

This is sooo like climate change. People are more worried about imaginary problems in the future than they are about very real ones now.

I think this just says something about human nature generally. That is, that fear is often deeply irrational. (Well, it's likely it would be -- it's an emotion, after all! Perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that it often results from irrational perceptions.)

The other element in this weird mix is the crazy idea that nature is always good, and mankind is inevitably bad. This is very clearly demonstrated in this nuke fear, as well as climate change hysteria. In the latter condition carbon dioxide is all fine and dandy if it comes from natural processes, and baaad if it's produced by humans. Hell, it's even given a different, more eeevil-sounding name if that happens: carbon.