Thank you GetUp! Australians are finally talking about how they can get more media competition and how we can lift media standards. Read on to see Moncktons reply, and the call for interest
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Wait for it. This is the dark conspiratorial “secret” aim of free market thinkers that they uncovered. Remember some poor hapless soul had to view hours of free market discussion to find this:
“And it seems to me that putting some time into encouraging those we know who are super rich to invest in perhaps even establishing a new satellite TV channel is not an expensive thing, and then get a few Jo Nova’s and Andrew Bolts to go on and do the commentating every day and keep the news free and fair and balanced, as they do on Fox. That would be a breakthrough, and give to Australia, as it has for America, a proper dose of free market thinking!”
Christopher Monckton, Mannkal Office, 2011
What’s new? GetUp have milked a molehill into a donation-generating-scare. It’s hyperbolic spin, but their big mistake this time is that they are playing with fire. They’re exposing their most irrational fear, drawing attention to the thing they don’t want (media competition), and overplaying their hand. What exactly is so sinister about encouraging people to fund a new satellite channel that provides “free and fair news” in a balanced way? Where is the criminal sin, in “explaining how the free market business works every day” and competing with the other media?
Be very afraid of that deadly free market thinking!
And if Rinehart owning an eighth of Fairfax is “scary”, just think what would happen if Australia had FOX? Getupoplexy!
When I told Monckton his idea of Fox Australia had gone viral, he shot back a reply that ups the ante (keep reading below). His message: Wake up Australia. Fox news out-rates all the other news services in the US because it provides something the people want and voluntarily choose in droves. It gives them the news from both sides, and then fills a vacuum in political commentary that was begging to be filled. Based on the romping success of Fox in America, Monckton estimates Fox Australia would make about a million dollars a week, and more importantly, the nation would get real debate, better investigative reporting, and eventually better policies.
The only answer to propaganda is free speech.
–Jo
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Advance Australia Fox!
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The frenetic reaction of the dwindling and desperate climate-extremist faction to the news that I am working on putting together a consortium to establish an equivalent of Fox News in Australia and another in the UK is interesting and tells us much. At the invitation of Mannkal, I gave a talk in Perth on the opportunities for restoring political balance to the near-universally hard-Left news media in both countries and for making healthy profits by doing so. Since I gave that talk, the 2010 report and accounts for News Corporation, the owners of Fox, have been published. They confirm my proposed business model in spades.
I’d guess that a Fox News equivalent in Australia would do just as well as in the US, where Fox now has half the nation’s news audience …
The climate extremist Left are visibly, audibly frightened that their poisonous near-monopoly of the news media may be broken in Australia, just as Fox News has so swiftly and profitably broken it in the US. Given the enormous amount of support I get for my talks in Australia, I’d guess that a Fox News equivalent in Australia would do just as well as in the US, where Fox now has half the nation’s news audience, because anyone who isn’t a totalitarian Socialist watches it and all the competition are totalitarian Socialist.
Fox made $700 million last year, up from $500 million the previous year. Yet the advertising market shrunk. How did Fox do so well? The NewsCorp annual report says it is because viewership ratings have grown, and Fox’s advertisement revenue has grown with them.
Scale this for Australia. Population 22.5 million compared with 307 million. Mean GDP $950 bn against $14.5 trillion. GDP per head in Oz is not far short of the US. So Australia’s equivalent of Fox News might make $1 million a week, simply by the old-fashioned method of giving both sides of the story – on climate and on all else – rather than just the Left-hand side.
Fox has rediscovered something the so-called “mainstream” (for “mainstream” read “Marxist”) media have long forgotten. Audiences and advertisers will happily subscribe to news media that actually report what is going on rather than churning out a vapid, malevolent stream of unconsciousness that reflects only a dull, anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-democracy viewpoint.
Let me give a vignette that illustrates just how well the public worldwide would respond to a news medium which, like Fox, is fair, balanced, and unafraid to do a straightforward job of reporting.
I went to the UN’s ridiculous climate gabfest in Durban a couple of months ago. The organizers, remembering how I had revealed their attempt to introduce a world “government” in the 15 September 2009 draft of the proposed (and mercifully failed) Copenhagen Treaty, trumped up a bogus excuse to exclude me from the conference, even though I was an accredited delegate. So I parachuted in from 10,000 feet and got my grinning face all over the front pages of the local newspapers. The organizers, arrogant though they are, did not dare try to shut me out after that. When I got into the conference, I tracked down a copy of the “Draft Conclusions by the Chair”, the key negotiating document that was the centrepiece of the discussions.
I went through the document and was so horrified by the sheer lunacy of its contents that I stayed up half the night writing a 2000-word summary of its main provisions. Rights of legal personality, including the right to sue Western countries, were to be granted to “Mother Earth”. These and other rights against Western countries only were to be enforced in a new International Climate Court, which would have the power arbitrarily to order any Western country to pay any sum to the UN. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was to be reduced, according to one of the options in the text, to 200 ppmv, which is not much above the point at which trees and plants die. A CO2 concentration that low would drastically reduce the net primary productivity of trees and plants and make them far more vulnerable to extreme weather, leading to greatly reduced crop yields worldwide and mass starvation. And so on and so on.
I posted up the summary at the splendid WattsUpWithThat.com blog. The result: a couple of days later one of Anthony Watts’ colleagues contacted me to say that, of the 500,000 blog postings on all subjects that WordPress had carried worldwide that day, my item that had simply reported the contents of the Durban negotiating document was ranked no. 1 for the number of hits recorded.
The UN panicked. Within 24 hours, the negotiating document was split into two. All the points that I had listed as being manifestly insane were removed and confined to a separate dustbin document of no effect, merely recording that these were the conclusions that the various working parties had come to. The main document, therefore, became half as long and half as silly as the original, though still far too long and far too silly.
Here’s the thing. All the news media of the world were in Durban. The document was freely available to every journalist and every delegate. All one had to do was ask. Yet, as far as I can discover, not a single news medium, anywhere worldwide, had actually taken the trouble to report the main points of the central negotiating document of the conference. Not one.
Previously, the hard-Left media moguls have been able to get away with saying that their audiences wouldn’t be interested in the dry details of international negotiations. However, the internet has taken away their ability to get away with nonsense of this kind. If the worldwide news audience had not been interested, the summary of what was in the negotiating document would not have been no. 1 out of 500,000 blog postings on the day of publication.
It is this enormous gap in the market that Fox News has identified and has brilliantly exploited. In fact, there are two enormous gaps. First, there is the near-universal failure of news reporters to report news at all. When I was Ace Cub Reporter Scoop Monckton, the Man with the Golden Pen, if the Yorkshire Post sent me to report a political speech I reported it as accurately as I could. I did not add any comment of any kind, because proper journalism draws a meticulous and always clear distinction between the news, which the audience has the right to expect will be reported fully, accurately and without any prejudice, and opinion, which should be clearly labelled as such and which may legitimately go in one direction or another.
Fox News has restored this rule. In its news segments, which are 100 times more interesting than those of its rivals, it reports both sides of every question it covers, and gives the facts, facts, facts.
The second gap in the market is the political gap. Half of the US is not Marxist and it does not want the opinion segments in the media to be hard-Left all the way. Here, Fox takes an explicit, declared, one-sided view that is pro-democracy, pro-Western, pro-profit, pro-prosperity, pro-success, pro-freedom, pro-America. And half of all the news audience in the US love it. Interestingly, with characteristic stupidity, Fox’s Marxist rivals have moved still further to the extreme Left, allowing Fox to move in all the more rapidly on their former territory. Fox now makes more money than its two largest rivals combined.
So if anyone who may read this is interested in joining a consortium that can expect to make around $1 million a week in Australia and perhaps three times that in the UK, please feel free to get in touch. Advance Australia Fox!
Christopher Monckton
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Want more media competition in Australia?
If you are interested in helping to increase free speech in Australia with time, donations or suggestions contact the good people at Mannkal with the subject header: “New media competition in Australia:
| Website | www.mannkal.org |
|---|---|
| enquiries@mannkal.org |
See Rafe Campion talk about Hayek at the original “subversive “ Mannkal Event in July 2011.
I’ve had requests this morning to pass on notes of support to Gina Rinehart. I’m sure she would appreciate them. It’s probably best to send them via Hancock Prospecting.
More information:
Menzies House writes that there is a secret Soros funded lobby group launching a campaign to stifle free speech in Australia.
Andrew Bolt writes about the plan to silence free speech and their fear of Gina Rinehart.
I think Christopher should have his own chat show.
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Perhaps some people [at least 2] thought I was being glib when I made the suggestion but currently there is only ONE 1/2 hour program in Australia bringing a critical viewpoint towards AGW and a generally conservative tone; that is Bolt.
LM would be a natural for interviews and quite frankly I’m surprised he hasn’t been snapped up already.
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cohers, they had such a show on radio in WW2, with that nice Lord Hawhaw. I think Monckton could carry that off.
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A little bit of an exaggeration, John. Lord Hawhaw was a Nazi propagandist. Fox News is Republican.
I wonder if there’d be a place on Monckton’s station for a lefty who doesn’t believe in global warming?
BTW – even the Guardian has admitted that the glaciers haven’t melted for ten years:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains
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The reason the media is scared of monckton is cos’ the could change the face of the scam with help of other skeptics like Joanne Nova!
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Jo, the link on the video does not seem to work.
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Thanks Truthseeker: Fixed, though I was waiting on a link to the full event from Mannkal. Hopefully that will arrive soon.
Youtube short version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aX2kMAfJggU
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Jo, I’m sure Gina would appreciate the note of support. Can get it directly to Mrs Rinehart if you wish.
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For those who’ve not yet caught up by other channels (WUWT, etc) Pierre Gosselin writes that the cat’s out of the bag in Germany.
Deep cracks in the MSM veneer. Caused by only one thing; the intrusion of reality. A pebble at a time. Keep up the pressure.
Once more people like Vahrenholt recognize that they were effectively duped into escalating a vaguely-possible hypothesis into a certainty of catastrophe, the MSM will go with the direction of the wind.
Soon, GetUp! (and Soros-sponsored Avaaz) will be scurrying off under a rock. They’ll return when they think that the pickings have again become easy. Remain vigilant.
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“the MSM will go with the direction of the wind”
Ha ha, wait till you see what happens when the politicians calculate that the money they spend on climate science doesn’t return quality propaganda value any more. Imagine going to bed every night knowing, “I’m the Climategate whistle blower,” kind of like being the Easter Bunny dressed up as Clarke Kent.
Come to think of it, might be a fruitful bunch of T-Shirts to sell online:
I’m the Climategate
whistle blower.
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What a Classic!
Those stupidly blind green germans have fallen for the lot, hook, line and sinker!! HAHA LOL!
Now the truth comes out…
…what will those 10 million young green germans with stunned mullet looks on their face do now their life of protest becomes a farce?
With Europe about to collapse, the green machine is gonna die, no doubt about it?
Well said Bernd, I`m gonna grab some more Chips and an ice cold XXXX Bitter Beer… aaaahhhh it`s gonna be a great year!!
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Ummm, I seem to remember that Rupert Murdoch started out here in Australia. Remember those page 3 girls and the trashy gossip tabloids that make astounding amounts of profit? This was the genesis of Fox News.
Later Rupert discovered that conservatives had no voice in the media and plenty of money, so he stepped into the gap.
By the way, I did rather like the Murdoch coverage of Queensland and the flood enquiry. Got his timing right, smooth execution, very clean, very deadly. Good reminder of why you never pick a fight with the oldest warrior in the hall — because he’s only standing there after outliving all the other people who picked a fight with him. Darwin never sleeps.
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I’ll say – it hasn’t really gained Federal attention, but superb investigative journalism at The Australian has torpodoed the Bligh government, which was already listing heavily. The chain goes right back to the premiers office, as we all knew it would.
Imagine an enquiry having to be re-opened because a newspaper journalist dug deeper than they did.
It doesn’t seem like much now, but this will go on to be an award winner for the journalists involved.
The QLD election is the key turning in the lock of the Federal government.
For one, it will show that Kevin Rudd has no pull in Queensland and wikl probably sink him. It will also scare the pants off the Federal Labor party, not that they really hold many seats in QLD anymore.
For two, it will be another Labor slaughter rivalling that of NSW. This will make national news and won’t reflect well on the PM.
For three, it will usher in a conservative government in the biggest coal producing state. It’s no coincedence that Clive Palmer is talking about a High Court challenge on the Carbon Tax in April – because that’s when the QLD government will be changed over, and the QLD government can make the challenge on behalf of the mining and power generation sectors which it owns in parts.
The only cloud on the horizon is the Katter party, but I don’t think it will have much of an impact given that most of the support will come from already-conservative electorates, and Labor are on track to lose 30 seats – none of which will go to Katter.
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I agree brc.
Imagine an enquiry having to be re-opened because a newspaper journalist dug deeper than they did.
UNF#$#@ABLE !!
I cannot wait to vote this corrupt labour govt. out!!!
Bring on that election…..
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Hi brc, the investigative journalist that cracked the farce wide open is Hedley Thomas. He’s a bloodhound and a Walkley winner. The last award was for exposing the Haneef affair. Hedley gives no quarter to either side of the political spectrum.
Hedley lives in Brisbane not far from here so he has an attachment at the ground level and no fair thinking Brisbanite believes that the flood was anything but man made.
On the Katter Party, we’ll see how the election pans out. His state leader, Aidan McLindon will lose his seat (it’s a personal thing) so regardless, the head will be decapitated.
A quite eventful year is in the offing.
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Obviously this dam enquiry was meant to be another in the line of similar cover ups, like the climate gate enquiries. There was never any intention of “discovering” the truth, it was always well known.
Even during the flood it was well understood that the dam management took the weekend off, as usual. What would you expect of public servants.
It was also cynically accepted that that is what you would expect. Every time these bureaucrats are actually tested, [think Victorian fires, & those in Canberra before that], they come up failures.
So what else is new? The fact that this commissioner has rolled over, & started looking, with eyes open is what’s new. It’s not that hard, you just have to look at how much water ran down the river, & when. It really is a bit hard to hide how much there was not on the weekend, & how much there was on monday.
The entire management of Qld water, & their masters should be put in stocks, in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, with eggs supplied by those who were flooded. [snip]
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Hope you’re right
I’m wondering if Katter will split the vote, win a few seats, and if so, how will he allot his support?
Would hate another minority government with Labor in any front seat, driving or not–and Katter is naive enough to think Rudd is a man to like!
Says it all really!
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Katter is not naive; he is just unprincipled.
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Wonderful to hear that we may have a truly honest reporting of events rather than the present lot of half-baked opinions. I have been reading old newspapers on TROVE and the ‘who, what, where, when, which, why, and how’ method used then is sooooo refreshing!
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…And, that’s where I stopped reading.
Does Monckton have any evidence to back up this claim? You know, scientific studies, opinion polls, etc. Thought not.
The word you are looking for is statist. Statist media. Everytime a ‘right’-winger complaints about ‘left’ bias in the media, a truth seeker sheds a tear.
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Waffle, the denizens here think that the ABC is a communist conspiracy, and that Fox News is a fair and balanced news service.
I’m constantly amazed that the rich can get people to act against their own interests. Still, you can’t blame Gina for trying, and you can’t blame Monckton for trying to get on the payroll. As the locals here always say, “follow the money”.
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That’s odd John, from what we have seen you are one of the “denizens” here. And it is no surprise that you speak out against “the rich” getting people to “act against their own interests” as it is readily apparent from reading your nonsense that the only thing you do is act in your own self interest.
You couldn’t “follow the money” if we bought you a guide dog, a GPS, and put up neon signs saying “this way.”
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It matters not what people think of the ABC. You might find it head-noddingly correct, I find it infuriating to listen to or watch. The point being any group of people will come up with a different view of it.
You, like many who don’t actually watch Fox, confuse the opinion part of the channel with the news part. Yes, the opinion part is unashamed conservative in nature. The news part, however, does seem to me to try and walk the middle road on many matters.
The ABC rankles because we all have to pay for it – I could care less about Green Left Weekly or The Age as I don’t personally contribute any money to their running.
What we are talking about here is the entry of a new news organisation into the Australian market. There is no rule against this, nor should there be. I don’t bat an eyelid everytime some rich left nutter does his dough on yet another attempt to ‘up’ the socialist side of things, nor should you if a bunch of rich conservatives want to try their hand at the news market.
When you do complain, you reveal not only your bias (which is obvious) but also your intolerance, which is not becoming on any human being.
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I was hoping to post that you’d be along to pontificate as to how this would lead to the dumbing-down of Australia, or some such Stupidity, but you beat me to it. You should try to be Less predictable.
Up next: tristan or ross.
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JB,
What part of, `there is no warming and it`s a travesty we cannot find it…!!` does not compute with you?
What are you talking about?
We are talking about exposing the truth behind the biggest scam since paris did millsy…!!!
Wake up man!!! Election Now !!
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“As the locals here always say, “follow the money”.”
How are a local, jonnyboy. Local boys don’t want you in the same suburb, let alone share you a wave.
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When i read the bit in the OP where its quoted:
at that point, once over the giggles, really, you can pretty much tell how the rest of it was going to go.
Its posts like this that should get this site nominated for a comedy award. Makes it well worth coming back to on occasion for the laughs.
Still if Monkas can convince some of the credible rich in this country to back him, good on him. Wonder if he has any bridges to sell……….
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As a US citizen, I have the opportunity to compare the same story on Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS. There really is a difference in slant. The non-Fox reporters inject their own bias, removing parts of the story that don’t fit their narrative.
There are, of course, plenty of opinion shows on Fox, but they make no effort to disguise it as news. ABC, NBC, and CBS news are not worth watching if you want more than one side of a story. Unfortunately, liberals are perfectly happy that way. They hate to have to think and develop their own opinion.
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It must certainly delight the Left that there are a class of people who think that by getting rid of the rich they will help themselves.
Here’s a hint John: You can never get rid of the rich — either they are a class of talented (or sometimes lucky) free individuals who share the same human rights as you — or they are a class of politicans, tyrants, and bureaucrats with their boots on your neck (and your freedom).
It has been said that you can have freedom, or equality of outcomes, but not both. Actually, you don’t get equality when you lose freedom — the ruling elites simply enrich themselves at your expense. Check out Cuba and N. Korea for examples.
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… and most of Africa 🙂
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I don’t want to get rid of the rich. I’d like the differential between rich and poor to be less. I’d like it if the rich didn’t try and buy media to flog their agenda. I’d like it if we got a decent return for the minerals we are selling to China. I’d like to see children starting life on a more equal footing.
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So egalitarian, so handsome….er, I mean ‘Good post, Comrade!’
00
Interestingly enough the Pan-African socialists of the 60s-80s did pretty well in a lot of regards.
Unfortunately their transition away from protectionist trade policies was completely hamstrung by corruption.
As I said earlier, systems without accountability don’t tend to end well, be they capitalist or otherwise.
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Sir, the ABC is supposed to be unbiased ,totally unbiased, as it is paid for by the taxpayer–who first decided they would stock it with ex Labor Party staffers and their spouses?
That person did us all big disfavour!
It is not ” our” ABC– it is “their Aussie Bolshevik Collective”
Consider its coverage of the Climate change debate– the stance has been throughout that the science is settled and we dun it! , well I know and you know they wouldn’t have that opinion of the true rigours of science that was supposedly studying the genesis of some disease!
The ABC is only good for excellent British and other drama serials–otherwise more than half the country get no value from their cents daily paid to keep ‘It’s a win for the ABC, I mean ALP” O’Brien in the manner to which he’d like to become accustomed, likewise”let me stop you there” to any conservatives, Tony Jones and our favourite flogger of Abbott, “from the left circle ” Barrie Cassidy!!
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When you say “the rich can get people to act against their own interests”, I presume you mean to say that people need to get government to forcibly take more from these people than they currently are?
It amazes me in this country why people think they should get a cut of the mining just because they are ‘strayan. How they think they own what’s in the ground.
The average Australian is perfectly entitled to go prospect for minerals, set up their own business, put hard work and capital into getting the minerals out of the ground. There’s still plenty undiscovered. But they don’t want to do that. They want others to take the risks and do the hard work and then when it pays off, they’ll take their cut. Very mafioso.
Steal from the successful. Why? Because we can. That’s socialist Australia. Socialism and redixtribution are just nice names for massive theft.
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This is a business venture, not a scientific hypotheses. Those who may put up the money will decide whether Monckton has any evidence to back up his claim. If he is wrong, they’ll do their dough.
Quite straightforward really.
Were you thinking of investing or just waffling for the sake of it?
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Baa, I’m talking about the false claim of left wing bias. Every time someone says “left wing media bias” you can be sure that I’ll correct that mistake if I read it. All news outlets are pushing a statist agenda: police state global terror threat, nanny state pedophillia fear mongering, anti business comptetition of corporate advertising disguised as editorial, uncritical support of governement funded univertisty scientists, the list goes on.
Our media supports two groups only. The state and large corporations. They are the only groups within our society with the means to buy a critical threshold of advertising to co-opt editorial decisions.
FWIW, I’d invest if I thought it was a good business decision. Unfortunately, this is not going to get off the ground because TV and newspapers are in a death spiral. Those that rightly claim FOX News has more viewers then their competition conveniently omitt the fact that audiences, hence revenues, are falling across ALL TV broadcasters and print publications.
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You said:
To which I “sort of” agree. By that I mean from my perspective I agree completely. I don’t watch news on the television (other than the local 24 hour weather) nor do I read the newspapers. Haven’t for years. I find things out online, from overheard conversations, etc. The things that pique my interest will motivate me to go look for information regarding the matter. If it is important enough people (somewhere) will be talking about it. If it isn’t, then why do I need to hear about it from some over paid yutz on the television.
Sometimes I find things from FOX, AP, etc. and sometimes from blogs. But never from having it spoon fed to me via the nightly news or morning paper.
Now my mother can’t start the day without the daily paper, and can’t survive a day without watching the evening news. Which I then hear her parrot mindlessly without once ever thinking about what that “news” actually consisted of.
Perhaps it is a generational thing, my grandparents were the same way. I don’t know what to make of it really, but for all of us that don’t rely on MSM for our information there are just as many that still do. I don’t really expect that will change.
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Statists and collectivists are left wing by definition. Think all forms of Marxism such as Socalism, Fascism, Nazism, Communism ect. As Frederick Hayek said, socialism always leads to totalitarianism. This is because of the central principle of economic central planning. The economy is actually the sum total of every decision taken by every single person within an economic area, on how they spend or invest their wealth/money. It, therefore, eventually becomes nessecary for the central planners to control every single person and the decisions that they make in order to be able to plan effectivly. By definition, totalitarian. You can see this happening every day in Australia with more and more regulations coming into play that restrict peoples actions and ability to make their own decisions.This is not just restricted to the ALP. The LNP is also socialist with most of their policies. I would also add that you can still be leftist/ socialist as well as being conservative. The opposite of conservative is actually progessive.
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The Left have been trying for years to “prove” that FNC viewers were dumber than they. Clicking through Waffle’s link to a previous study shows that they test on “undeniable” facts such as:
…which is an utterly stupid question. Most respondents probably edited the dumbness out and responded to whether most scientists thought that humans were changing the climate significantly, which they do not.
A number of years ago when this Leftist meme was just getting started, I used to win $10 bets with Progressives over one of the standard “facts”: FNC viewers thought that Weapons of Mass Distruction (WMD) had been found in Iraq, whereas no such thing had occured. I would bet that I could find 10 articles in the New York Times (the bastion of Progressivism) announcing that WMD had been found in Iraq. A couple of minutes on LexisNexis is all it took.
(Which shows that Progressives have selective memories, or that even they don’t actually read the NYT.)
While you used to be able to do this search on Google, I have noticed that you can’t find these articles anymore. LexisNexis, however, has withstood the Leftist attempts at censorship (at least, the last time I tried).
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No doubt you think there was a connection between Al Qaida and Irag too…
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What do you think the fact that Saddam operated Jihadist training camps means?
(And what does it mean that this kind of information is never published in the left-liberal press?)
All these “FNC viewers are dumb” claims boil down to is “they don’t think what we want them to”.
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Mr. Brooks – try reading the following book – its written by an American
professor and comes out this month.
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/0312555938
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Fox is just another propaganda network.
Why would anyone think this?
The majority of Fox hosts are belligerent opinionated fools.
It’s basically unwatchable
Fox is also currently leading the charge to blackout Ron Paul.
Fox is just another corporate controlled media network.
Fox can’t even be shown in Canada because of the law against deliberate lying in news reports.
Watch ‘OUTFOXED’ and get a clue.
This carbon tax debacle should be reason enough to form a citizens lobby group.
‘AUSTRALIANS FOR GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY’ or similar.
Members could donate a small weekly/ monthly fee that goes toward public education on these scams/ laws/ taxes.
It has come to this point as the politicians we elect to represent us – LIE and do whatever they please once in power.
Australians need to practice some personal responsibility not rely on a news network who has there own agenda to push
A citizens lobby represents a voting block that could apply pressure on those govts that pursue those agendas not in the best interests of Australia.
These issues are wide and varied and not limited by party politics.
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What a load of diversionary twaddle. Most of us here, I assume, are interested primarily in one issue and one issue only, namely CAGW and those in the government and media who promote it.
That covers things like lying or promoting ignorance about the action of CO2 in our atmosphere and support for things like the economy destroying Australian carbon tax and our taxes being wasted on alternative energy sources such as patently ineffective wind and solar as well other CAGW alarmist, money wasting, schemes encapsulated in the now infamous Pink Batt’s saga.
As far as the Lefty journalists go one merely needs to observe that most of these addled brain dumb wits were educated in the Leftist milieu that defines our universities and some were formerly political party operatives.
I’m just as concerned with posters here and elsewhere who are conspiracy theorists and/or seem to be into the whole range of neo-Nazi ideas. I can live with that by filtering out or not reading those potentially dangerous sterile ideas.
So give us a break. We have enough intelligence to understand and argue against Leftist and extreme Rightist ideas whether appearing here or in the MSM. The same applies to the warmists who post here. Those who read Fox or say the NYT or the Australian or the Age uncritically are bloody fools who depend on others to form their basic presuppositions.
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I like Fox News.
They are editorially biased to the right and that’s a good thing because they exist in a sea of lefty media outlets.
In the US every TV network has a left bias. NBC, PBS, ABC, MSNBC and CNN are all relentlessly biased for Obama and socialism. Only Fox News is there to balance an onslaught on left wing propaganda.
We should also remember that conservative bias is biased toward the traditional values of journalism…. The fundamental separation of the Editorial Page from “straight” News Content.
The left do not respect journalistic ethics because they believe self-righteously that their cause justifies any means to an end. The leftist media has destroyed its integrity by abusing news reporting as a propaganda tool.
Monckton’s conception of Journalistic Ethics would seem quaintly naive to the cynical staff of our own ABC:
Yes, Fox News is biased to the right in its opinion content. That’s fine and ethical journalism. Fox News is the last American TV network to make an attempt to report the news fairly and balanced. And that’s why they are so successful.
Look at the New York Times:
It’s a slowly dying newspaper which once long ago was the world standard in journalistic excellence, printing “all the news that’s fit to print.”
Today the NYT’s “Public Editor” Arthur Brisbane openly debates whether they should be “truth vigilantes” in their news stories by making sure news reporting is always contextualised by the leftist narrative. Or as the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto puts it:
Taranto points out that news reporters have authority in an inverse ratio to the newspaper’s bias. One can dismiss the opinions expressed in the editorial pages as “the editorial board’s, as a product of their ideological predilections.” But statements made in the news are suppose to be FACT. The left abuses this public trust by inserting opinions into the news hoping to deceive the public into mistaking bias as fact.
On topics where the news so utterly refutes the leftist narrative the media simply do not report the news at all. Our Auntie is infamous for her myopia.
So are the semi-blind editors at the New York Times.
For instance the NYT took more than a few months to even mention the Climategate scandal and when they finally cluelessly mentioned it in passing, their audience already knew more about the CRU scandal then did the NYT itself! Of course, even people who lean left want to be well informed and the NYT often fails in this most basic responsibility.
The end result is that one by one the audience wanders off looking for a more reliable source of news.
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The idiots don’t recognise the pull of the forbidden!
Give us only leftist papa and we hear or another and all want it, like we wanted what we were told not to take as kids.
It’s what meant when the Berlin wall operated, anyone in touch with an easterner could ask any money for a pair of RED socks, simply because the comrades were all made to wear only drab clone grey!
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are all owned by globalist banksters that push the tides of continuous war that feed the military industrial complex and pretend to be left (whatever that means) but continually feed the population (mainly USA) of continuous hatred propaganda and lies to all other nations that the MIC want to push over (mid eastern and Asian incl Russia). AGW is just a small part of the New World Govt lie.
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If “Getup” have a sound backing for their claims, why are they scared of debating them? Surely this would be a chance to demonstrate the strength of their case?
You may recall that Monckton has a standing offer to debate with Al Gore, by the way. Bt “The Great Man” hasn’t taken up the offer yet…
Cheers,
Speedy
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But, you don’t make any sense Jo.
Fox news is not fair and blanaced. It is clearly a tool of/for the Rebulican Party. It is in their tax records – regular dontations to the Republican Governors Association – and they also love the shit out of the Tea Party – the “grass roots” movement funded by corporate america (what a joke!). It has attained control of the media landscape in the US because it feeds upon the fear of naive Americans – utilising standard bogeyman tactics (the communism monster?) – and is actually dangerous in the way attacks people it does not approve of. Do you not remember the Wikileaks debarcle? Having people scream for the blood of a human who has meerly shown the world the TRUTH (for a change) on a “news” network is not fair and balanced. It is PROPAGANDA.
I have never actually heard of you before, so I am still learning about your views, but I sincerly hope you’re not against the idea of the whilstleblower. I mean, it would actaully be contradictory to you general message of skepticism. The two concpets are deeply linked. Skepticism is a tool for finding the truth, is it not?
I must confess I am a deeply confused and lost individual. I struggle to find the truth in the world, and when you search for it what you generally find are people on whichever degree of the compass screaming how they are correct and everyone else is wrong.. It is a problematic arguement whatever your position because it displays a clear lack of skepticism and healthy debate. It is not possible for one degree of the political scale to hold all the answers. The answer is in fairness, collaboration, and rational and reasonable discussion. The answer will come through everyone having a voice and everyone having respect. Equality. Don’t you think? I don’t understand how mining giants controling a media network represtents equality. I don’t understand how propaganda fuels fair and balanced discussion. These are all contradictory concepts, are they not?
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As I said Luke, it must puzzle and delight the rich that there are a class of people who confuse the interests of the rich with their own.
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John,
You told us once you’re a university drop-out.
You limited your own life’s true potential by forgoing the opportunities that a tertiary education could have made available to you. Not some rich person. You did this to yourself.
Is it any wonder that you are discontent with your place in life and that you envy those around you who achieved more? … many of whom started with the very same opportunities that being born in the Lucky Country affords us all with.
I understand the temptation to blame other people’s success for your personal failure. That’s the basic tenet of Marxist class warfare. The poor are poor because of class oppression. And that was true in Karl Marx’s day.
But it’s not true in Australia today.
The interests of the rich are the same as for anyone willing to work hard and plan for the future of their family. Australia is one of the most socially mobile countries in the world. I sent my children to school and taught them the value of getting a proper education. They can expect to earn more in careers they love, live longer and ultimately achieve more than my generation has. That’s the Aussie way.
You would seek to have government force those who worked hard and achieved success to reward you for your poor life choices by transferring the wealth they created by hard work and innovation to the uncreative and indolent. Beside institutionalising incentives to under-achieve, the welfare statism closes down the life opportunities we had when we were young to today’s youth.
For instance, a friend of mine, a plumber for the last 35 years and owner of his own small business (one of John’s “rich”) told me over a few beers about the ever rising level of state regulatory harassment a trade business is subjected to. He started his business in 1975 with basically his ute, tools and his certificate. Today the statist barriers to starting your own plumbing business mean that a bloke with some skills and a ute are locked out. That’s how social mobility is destroyed when government becomes too powerful and too intrusive into the business of every day life.
Ultimately welfare states shut down socially mobility almost completely and divide the nation into two warring classes: An permanent underclass dependent upon the teat of an increasingly authoritarian state and the other struggling to create enough wealth to feed the ever expanding greed of government. The end result is the kind of societal collapse we’ll witness in Greece next month when they default on their debt.
No one is opposed to helping those out who need a hand to get back up on their feet to have another fair go.
But I’ll be damn before I willingly part with another cent to support envious class losers to maintain their pathetic lifestyle devoid of any useful contribution to society.
As Jack Kennedy (no hardnose righty himself) famously proclaimed: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
John should have gotten himself an education.
Now he should get a job.
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Wes, George Bernard Shaw once wrote:
“A government with the policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.”
And yes, I know he was a socialist.
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Pathetic Wes. Take social mobility. Rank the following countries in decreasing order of social mobility:
USA, Sweden, UK, Australia.
Well, the place with lowest social mobility is, you guessed it, the US.
But, you say, what measure did they use for social mobility? They simply looked at the extent to which rich fathers had rich sons and poor fathers had poor sons. The less strong the correlation, the greater the mobility.
Second last in the social mobility stakes is the UK. Thanks Maggie.
Australia faired slightly better, and Sweden, that horribly socialist state is higher still. Denmark was actually top of the lot, so if you want to live the American dream, move to Denmark.
Watch the video about this here.
If only the Danes and the Swedes knew that, they’d stop living their silly fairytales!
We all have our weaknesses Wes. The arguments which sound compelling, which we wish were true, but sometimes you have to take off your blinkers and see what is really there.
Perhaps the main reason I don’t want Fox News here is that I don’t want wrong but convincing arguments pushing the poor down and telling them that if they only worked harder they wouldn’t be in their current situation. We don’t need rubbish like that here.
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Luke, Fox News like all news channels has two faces. It has the more factual side and the commentary side. The commentary side is definitely right-biased to get into the huge market alienated by the left-biased of the rest of the media. The trouble with the rest of the MSM is that they think that their commentary side IS their factual side and it is only fooling themselves not the majority of the market place.
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[The trouble with the rest of the MSM is that they think that their commentary side IS their factual side and it is only fooling themselves not the majority of the market place.]
Fully agree with that. One thing that gives me the screaming heebies is when an interview is being done and the journo tries to make themselves the “star” of the show. If i’m watching an interview i want to hear what the person being interviewed has to say, not the silly commentary they throw in and their maneuvering for a trivial and pointless “Gotcha Moment”.
QANDA is a good format and can work well with the right panel. Needs the host to pull his head in though, and let the audience get more in the way of questions without notice in.
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Good comments from Truth and Cat.
While I don’t have much love for most MSM I find it pretty amusing that the peeps here accuse it of ‘leftist bias’. From where I stand, News Ltd is right leaning, Fairfax is pretty centrist and ABC is left leaning.
This doesn’t mean that everything from News Ltd and ABC is uncritical ideological crap, nor does it mean that Fairfax gives the straightest journalism.
I like QandA when it’s not just a labor v liberal stoush and I like Tony Jones when he keeps his opinions to himself.
My favourite program is Media Watch, especially when it drops the elbow on it’s own channel.
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Depends what you mean by left-leaning. All of Australia is somewhat left-of -centre compared to countries like the US. Europe is even further left for the most part (not as much in Britain), and the US is right-of-centre politically.
So it all depends on your frame of reference. I agree with the general positioning of ABC-Fairfax-Newscorp, reading left to right, so to speak.
The problem is that politics got involved in a subject that should be dominated by science. The left chose the CAGW camp, and the right the less Government-interventionist path of leave-the-*&^*& alone what ain’t broke path. And thereafter the debate disintigrated into petty name calling for the most part. After all, the very nature of politics is to be divisive. Any semblance of consensus is a mirage and readily dispelled. But I digress…
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Nice post Luke. I agree with everything you said.
Although most (but not all) of my views fall on the left of the political spectrum, I don’t identify with a political party or movement.
People have opinions for a reason. It’s important to interact with all sides of a complex issue so you can attempt to determine why people have their views.
I also strive to understand why I think the way I do. I feel it’s an extremely important element of improving my understanding of the world.
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Then you have a Looooooong way to go.
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Luke,
I didn’t realize you owned the meter to measure fairness and balance? I can’t wait to see the standard deviation. 😉
I didn’t say I agreed with everything I saw on Fox. But I agree with giving the viewers a choice, not beating them over the head with propaganda.
As for the whistleblower point, Que? Hardly anyone was calling the skeptics whistleblowers or volunteers until I posted the paper, Climate Money. Whistleblower is my middle name.
Yes, I agree 100% except you left out the part about logic, reason and evidence. Good manners is essential, but they won’t sort out planetary dynamics on their own.
Equality matters, but it doesn’t belong in that sentence. Yes, we want to give everyone equal opportunity. What we really want is for both sides of each human dilemma to get the chance to present their case, and may the best argument win.
If you are confused about which side has legitimate claims on the media (it’s understandable), one point will sort out the mess. One side asks that they get the chance to speak, the other side works hard to silence opponents. Now figure which one of those already has the media on their side, and which one would win an open polite debate?
PS: communism killed 100 million people in the last century. I think it qualifies as a “monster”.
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what an exellent reply.
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That is just a bit too sucky, mc.
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most things you say suck, john brooks.
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You are talking about Fox News aren’t you?
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Actually, Julian Assange has almost certainly been the cause of a number of deaths — some by torture.
Not exactly the innocent whistle-blower you portray him as.
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So Julian Assange, or more fairly, Wikileaks.org, can be considered being responsible for “a number of deaths”, well.. do you really want to play a numbers game? Besides US foreign policy actually being a whole other topic, I believe the US governement wins out many times over when you add up direct and indirect responsibility of deaths – torture included! I believe your point is weak and off topic, BobC.
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The point and topic was yours, Luke:
Assange has also revealed names of agents and knowingly put their lives in danger. Don’t you think that piece of information helps explain the disapproval?
Your statement of the facts was incomplete and deceptive. Pardon me for simply pointing out the TRUTH about your dissembling.
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It is known among the alternative journos of repute that they suspect Julian Assange is a CIA cover for getting certain so called “disinformation” out at “certain” convenient times. Beware before read.
Tarpley.net
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The disinformation “war” is a double headed beast…
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Sorry to disagree Bob, but I don’t see how you came to that conclusion. Torture and deaths at the hands of any individual, group or regime are unspeakable, but I am sure they are happening every day and at the hands of many Western regimes as well. To attribute unspecified tolls to the wikileaks releases is an incredibly long bow to draw, especially after the US and other national military agencies have told us repeadtedly that lives were not put at risk by the leaks (albeit, perhaps they were only referring to military personnel).
I don’t recall anyone mentioning that any informant names were ever released in the leaks, so how could anyone have been at increased risk as a result?
It is also interesting to see that the reporting world was totally on Assange’s side when he released a video of reporters being killed, but as soon as the leaks were not specifically of interest to the media people some of them turned on him quite quickly. Quite transparent.
I have no particular love of Assange, but I certainly don’t see him as some sort of antichrist. If one were to believe the right-wing media and some of the political nutters in the USA you would certainly think he was. Like the whole CAGW debate, the whole thing has been blown waaaay out of proportion. The reality is far less eciting than the polemnics.
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Here you go.
What Assange did is a felony in the US. If he comes here, he will be charged.
His US source is being court-martailed.
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I quote from your article (emphasis added for clarity):
Hardly an unequivocal statement saying the leaks threatened lives, but rather political weasel-speak projecting the perception of a threat on the reader.
And yes, the USA has many crazy laws on its books…
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Bulldust
February 8, 2012 at 1:47 pm
So, if a bank clerk published your bank account numbers, passwords, and PINs on the ‘net, would it be “crazy” if that were illegal?
In my work, I sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) often. I am promising to keep certain information confidential. There are civil (and even legal) consequences if I were to ignore my obligations. Is that crazy?
If so, I expect Australia has many “crazy” laws of its own.
If you think it’s crazy to keep one’s oaths and promises, then I would be chary of doing business with you.
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What a champion.
As the great Aussie rag ‘The Australian’ demonstrates how to do, daily.
The majority of print articles in Australian media are ‘skeptical’ of global warming so…
Dictators don’t kill people, Communism kills people! *Snorts*
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Tell me Jo, was it David who opened your eyes to Mann’s dastardly deception or was it your gift to him?
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Your recent posts have even less real content than usual. Not everyone is as shallow as you, Tristan.
I imagine it was the mathematical analysis by McIntyre and McKitrick, who showed that Mann’s algorithm would produce hockey stick shaped graphs if fed random numbers as “data”.
Jo has a habit of actually reading (and understanding) those kinds of things, unlike yourself.
If you were actually interested in the answer to your question (highly unlikely hypothetical position, I agree), you could read this
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Unfortunately she (and you, and the rest) also have a habit of uncritically accepting a lot of bunk.
McIntyre and McKitrick, while certainly sounding convincing to someone who is unfamiliar with the Single Value Decomposition algorithm, didn’t actually know what they were doing.
Although the original hockey stick underestimated decadal variation, the hockey sticks are alive and flourishing. I know the MWP doesn’t look as warm as you might like it to, but dems da breaks.
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I can certainly understand how someone who knows nothing about Singular Value Decomposition, would mistakenly call it Single Value Decomposition — which, as a description, is meaningless. Your attempt to claim expertise has failed, to no one’s surprise.
But, the particular mathematical methods used to try to find needles in haystacks is not the issue — as you would know, if you read M & M’s paper. The issue is, has the needle (trees’ response to a 0.7 deg average temperature change over 100 years) been found in the haystack (the trees’ response to tens of degrees daily variation, scores of degrees yearly variation, large microclimate effects, damaging extremes of wind, temperature, etc.).
Principle Component Analysis (PCA – based on SVD) is a way of decomposing a serial record into the fewest number of independent components (e.g., components that cannot be reconstructed by combinations of other components). Say a tree’s growth responds to changes in sunlight, changes in water, and changes in temperature. To the extent that these environmental effects were independent of each other, one would expect that their effect on the tree’s growth might also be independent. PCA separates the tree ring thickness (or density) record into independent components that one hopes can be identified with the independent environmental forces.
Since straight PCA of tree ring records doesn’t produce the “right” result (i.e., no sudden change in the 20th century — although usually a 60 – 80 year cycle shows up), Mann used selection to find the tree ring records that presumably were sensitive enough to the average temperature to stand in for thermometers. Mann, therefore, selected only those tree ring records whos first few Principle Components had a good match with the late 19th and early 20th century (up to ~1960) temperature records.
Mann’s use of PCA (e.g., not “centering” — removing the average — of the series before applying the technique) has been criticized as making it difficult, if not impossible, to draw firm statistical conclusions from the result. However, Mann was apparently not bothered by that as the result he got was the one desired — the tree ring data showed warming in the 20th century, but little on none before.
As McIntyre and McKitrick showed, however, this same result is easily obtained by substituting random numbers for the tree ring data, and performing the same selection proceedure. This is a clear indication to anyone with half a brain that the result is not due to the data, but only to the algorithm. This is similar to those jokes where someone picks a number, then is asked to perform a series of operations on it and the result is always a particular number, which the “magician” then predicts — the result comes from the operations, not the initial number.
In fact, the tree ring records behave precisely like the random “data”, in that they diverge from each other both before and after the temperature record they were selected to match. This is OK with the warmists before 1880, as the diverging records average to a mostly flat line — “See, temperature didn’t change for 1000 years until AGW!”
It’s not OK, however, that the same thing happens after 1960. The fact that tree ring records that were selected to match temperature records before 1960 fail to match the temperature records after 1960 is called the Divergence problem. Climate scientists’ response to this was to truncate the dendroclimatology record at 1960 and paste on the instrumental record — this is the “hide the decline trick”.
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I’m gonna save myself some effort here and borrow a response from someone else.
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(As I’m certainly not an expert in the field, nor would ever lay claim to be)
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So your “someone else” makes the argument that Mann’s proceedure wasn’t “really” wrong, just a “little” wrong (i.e., it only promotes “hockey stick” shapes a little, not a lot). What an endorsement.
Take a look at a more balanced critique, here (also follow the links).
And your source completely ignores the divergence problem: If the tree ring series that have been selected for presumably following temperature over a fixed selection period, diverge rapidly from each other both before and after that period, the hypothesis that they actually have anything to say about the temperature is disproven.
Of course, the climate scientists’ attempts to hide this fact does tell you that they are frauds.
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Fair enough Bob, I retract my statement and sentiment about the quality of MBH 98 until I have more information.
Unfortunately, as SVD is sufficiently beyond my comprehension at this stage, I’d have to see two people who knew what they were talking about slug it out. As both sides are accusing the other of big simple errors one would have to back pedal pretty quickly I think.
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You’re messin’ with my head now, Tristan. Just when I think I have you pegged, you go and say something reasonable 😉
SVD (or rather PCA) isn’t really the point here — there a number of mathematical methods that could be used to try to tease out a tree’s response to the faint average temperature signal. The point is that it is an hypothesis that that signal exists. Mann’s work legitimately shows (via the divergence problem) that the hypothesis is falsified.
The temperature = fast growth hypothesis is particularly weak with bristle cone pines. Bristlecone pines (of which there are many groves in Colorado) have a particularly complex relationship with temperature: They grow in places so harsh that other trees die out, and if the temperature gets too high, they die. They cannot be grown in town, for example. The reason they are used in these reconstructions is that they live for thousands of years, not that they are known to have a simple growth-temperature response.
Actually, the climate scientists are well aware of this problem with Mann’s algorithm — some of them have replicated McIntyre and McKitrick’s results.
As a commentor at the above link noted:
Actually, Cook’s comment is even more interesting, and reflects on the claims that these mistakes couldn’t possibly be overlooked by scientists:
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Lots of reading. I wonder if I have the energy to learn how to evaluate MBH98 myself. If I undertake this project I might as well get around to learning either R or Mathematica.
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The small size of the noise hockey stick PC1s is probably not important. caerbannog’s argument is a red herring. Stay tuned to CA??
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All the abuses committed under the guise of Catholicism is not a slight on the teachings of Jesus (not that everything he said was right).
All the abuses committed under the guise of Communism is not a slight on the teachings of Marx (not that everything he said was right).
Centralised power + Lack of sufficient external review = Disaster
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Nicely said, Tristan. People who want to do harm can always try and dress it up as something else.
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Funny, how all Communist countries are dictatorships. Has something to do, perhaps, with the fact that the only way to get people to go along with Communism is brute force.
Get a tissue for that blockage — be careful you don’t blow out what remains of your brains.
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Luke, this isn’t quite true. Rupert Murdock, who owns Fox, is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton. He also owns the National Geographic Channel, which relentlessly pushes the manmade global warming theme.
The evening shows on Fox News Channel include a lot of political bias, but they also include speakers from both sides: something the other channels never do. Fox NEWS programs, on the other hand, are very middle of the road, and their reporters and presenters, many of them lawyers, seem far better educated than their rivals on other channels. Fox’s female presenters are also infinitely better-looking.
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Both sides? What, “skeptics” and luke-warmers?
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John, you don’t live here. Anyone who has actually watched the Fox News Channel knows that it gives time to both sides of every controversial issue. Many well-known liberal broadcasters, writers, etc. appear as regulars on Fox, and are treated like everyone else. Many are paid Fox commentators. The other channels don’t have a single non-Democratic Party Member voice.
Repeated surveys of American reporters have shown that well over 90% identify themselves as “liberal” Democrats: something like six times the national average. We are bombarded with Democratic Party propaganda 24/7, and even though I’m fairly liberal, it becomes nauseating pretty fast. ABC (All Barack Channel), NBC (Nothing but Barack Channel), CBS (Church of Barack Sycophants), and PBS (Publicly-funded Barack Servants) are beyond ridiculous as news sources. Nothing is ever reported without a big dose of viewpoint and left-wing politics thrown in, and any information contrary to the Left’s interests deleted. When the notorious very late-term abortionist George Tiller was killed, the network news programs treated his death as the equivalent of Mother Teresa’s, with endless gushing tributes to Tiller, a sociopath who used to take and sell photographs of his little victims dressed in baby clothes to “grieving” parents, sold death certificates, and offered cremation services for an extra fee. This was the Far Left’s hero. CNN ran a two or three hour special in his praise and adoration. MSNBC has probably erected a bronze statue by now.
I’m not a fan of the Fox opinion programs in the evening, and I don’t watch them. But, all of them combined don’t amount to a drop in the bucket compared to the hours upon hours of Democratic Party disinformation spewed by the other networks.
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I lived in the United States up until 1993. Up to 1992, America did not have a free press.
The major TV networks (i.e. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and Public Broadcasting) were all mouth
pieces for the LEFT! They didn’t even bother hiding their bias against conservatism.
Collectively, they controlled about 90 % of the TV audience.
During the 1990’s FOX News came on air with a clear moderate to conservative bias. They
quickly gained 50 % of the TV audience, leaving the other 6 main TV networks to fight over the
other 50 %. Not surprisingly, FOX News’ success came about because they actually appealed
to the 50 % of Americans who were moderate to conservative.
The Australian media is 20 years behind the US now, since it has not had the diversity
revolution that swept America in the mid to late 1990s. Hopefully, we will get a free press
over the coming years.
This new book [February 2012] shows the vitriolic left wing bias of the US media.
http://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/0312555938
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The Great Lord, how great thou art?
… shall go down in history as a saviour of the human race from the stupidity of a zealous green ideology that threatened to send us back to the caves with no right to live and exhale CO2.
Long may he live, as we celebrate the Queens Diamond Jubilee….
We Will celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the CO2 Demise in 2072!!
🙂
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…further to that, this is CLASSIC MONCKTON, and I love it!
I went through the document and was so horrified by the sheer lunacy of its contents that I stayed up half the night writing a 2000-word summary of its main provisions. Rights of legal personality, including the right to sue Western countries, were to be granted to “Mother Earth”.
well well well well well…
Without his Lords insightfulness and piercing rhetoric, we are up the creek without a paddle.
He explains it so well. He is the master.
Does JB and Catamon want to give up their carnal, western pleasures for Mother Earth?
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Ba, is the above a lame attempt at self parody, or have you actually gone over the edge??
And i’m not really sure that discussion of the carnal pleasure be they western, eastern of lower Kalathumpian is really appropriate to a blog like this.
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Closest thing we have at the moment is The Bolt Report. I’ve been most impressed, Bolt labels himself a conservative but from what I see he peddles not conservatism but Common Sense, Practicality, respect for “everyones” property, privacy and rights, some real Egalitarianism along with a small dose of National pride, things you don’t see much these days.
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As a cousin of my wife says “people accuse me of right wing views, I call it common sense”.
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Actually, the media bias in relentless favour of the Greens and Labor has almost completely destroyed them. How?
It’s called the Taranto Effect after James Taranto, the Wall Street Journal wag who first outlined the meme.
It works like this:
Whenever Julia Gillard or Bob Brown come up with their latest hare-brained idiocy the press gallery swoon over its brilliance. Whenever, the Labor/Green government stuffs up, the press gallery is there to compose convoluted apologies for their inanities. The long term effect is to coddle an entire generation of inbred Labor, Union and Green politicians who can’t shoot straight, have no new ideas and are ethically questionable at the best and outright thieves at the worst.
On the other hand, the mainstream media subjects every utterance of the opposition to the highest levels of scrutiny.
It works like a natural selection process combined with a strict coaching and work out routine for conservative pollies. Bad ideas are identified quickly with glee, moral turpitude garners the death penalty and only the fleetest of mind and speech can hope to survive an ABC interview intact. The results is the thinkers and politicians on the Right who survive this natural selection process are well-prepared with spot-on ideas honed and polished by rational debate and a ruthlessly aggressive media, “speaking truth to power.”
Whereas as media worship of the left, leaves Labor politics dominated by intellectual sloth, corruption, an unjustified sense of self-righteousness and a contempt for the average bloke on the street who isn’t part of ABC Insider’s world view.
The people smuggling issue is case in point. Rudd ditched Howard’s Pacific solution to howls of approval by the mainstream media, even though he had absolutely no plan other than to thoughtlessly set up incentives which would predictably increase the people smuggling trade. With no intelligent scrutiny of his non-plan (other than Bolt and a few others) Rudd was never challenged by the media to consider what might go wrong. Fast forward to today. Hundred have drowned at sea, riots are common in the holding facilities and thousand more are expected to be lured to their deaths or overwhelm our capacity to accommodate and process them by labor/Green “compassion.” Yet even today, Labor and the Greens escape the sort of scathing criticism a conservative government would have received for policy that has killed hundreds at sea.
Australians are watching this fiasco in stunned horror. We understand that common sense could have averted the situation we find ourselves in now and that the media is complicit in the ideological idiocy that led the the deaths and the riots.
Relentless lefty media bias has not only crippled Labor and Green’s ability to create rational policy by offering no constructive critique, but also mortally wounded the media’s own credibility.
The chickens will come home to roost at the next election.
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Hmmm!
At first I thought you were talking about Climate blogs; e.g. the politically correct ones where sceptical comments get deleted or ‘edited’, rather than the sceptical ones like this which allow anyone with a different view point to join the debate.
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If I may offer a wry comment here.
Have you ever wondered about this, I mean, really wondered.
Go to Crikey (I don’t any more) or the ABC, or those, er, politically correct sites, and notice the number of comments to articles that they think may draw the politically correct responses, hence they are opened up for comment, and lo and behold, the desired result is achieved from all the usual suspects, mind you, all going through moderation, so they can, er, weed out the comments that might not be the desired result.
Admitted, the ABC, in their articles they do open up, can get up in the hundred or so comments, but they are alone as Crikey et al can barely manage 10 or so comments at best.
Now look at this site of Joanne’s. There are Comments from our own group of ‘against the trend’, all allowed to go through. (in the main, unless of course they are like our good Dr Smith with his ‘dud’ email trick)
Think about that for a minute, and then look at the absolute plethora of Comments for virtually every Post, numbering in the hundreds.
When you think of it, THIS IS THE DEBATE we are not getting anywhere else, unless it’s the odd comment allowed through at those other sites, the only reason being so it can draw the ‘flamers’ to support the ‘established view.
I can only speak from the area where (I think) I have some expertise.
I leave the odd comment at other sites, (mind you never using my usual screen name) and I am surprised how uninformed people really are, and the only responses I get are in fact those flamers. I expect that and it doesn’t matter to me, because they are not the people I’m aiming at. I’m aiming at that ‘silent majority’, those who never leave comments, but crave real information.
People WANT to know, and they can discern for themselves.
Fox or no Fox, ABC, Left or right leaning outlets, all will be polarising in their own way.
Independent Blogs run in this format like Joanne’s are where the REAL debate is happening.
The fact that John Brookes, Catamon, (the mysteriously missing of late) MattB, Tristan, Ross, and the other ones of their leaning are testament to just how REAL sites like Joanne’s are. They are allowed here with pleasure. At other sites they don’t even Getup.
Tony.
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Feel free to post at SkS, they’d love to have you.
Mind you, you’ll need to keep on topic, source your claims and avoid casting allegations. If you do all those things you will not be deleted or mistreated. 🙂
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Speaking for myself, Craptical Science does not love to have me.
If I was to “keep on topic” I’d also have to give up free thought. I’d have to accept Authority and the worship thereof.
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.SkS should burn in ………….
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As I have often said, when it comes to The Science, I prefer just to read the comments and to learn, increasing my own ‘knowledge base’.
What I (think I) have to offer is what would happen as the end result of going along with the cause being those CO2 emissions, and the hoped for replacement of traditional power sources with Renewables that patently cannot do what is claimed they can do, replace those CO2 emitting power plants.
My most common call is that if the CO2 emissions problem IS actually so dire, then they would be just closing the Plants down full stop. In four years, not one large scale coal fired plant has closed here in Australia, and in the U.S. the same applies. Not one of them.
At those other sites, people don’t want to read about what I have to say, and anyway, they don’t believe it.
As it stands anyway, what with looking after the editing at the site where I contribute, there aren’t enough hours in the day to visit as many sites as there are on the subject.
At the end of March, I’ll have doing what it is that I do for four years. During that time, I’ve discerned the sites that don’t want to hear what I have to say.
I’ll go there and read the contributions occasionally, but as I said, there are only so many hours in a day.
As to this comment:
Probably guilty on the first count, and I only use already existing actual data for all my own Posts and comments, and when I carefully explain what that means, either from the data, or from existing sites, people still reject it.
Tony.
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Admittedly Tony, you’d have to pick your tone pretty carefully when presenting your own work at SkS.
Something on the order of:
I like to learn by doing, but I’m clearly doing something wrong as I can’t get results that approximate the numbers I see on this site. Could someone check out what I’ve done and tell me where I’ve gone wrong?
Regardless of how you approach it (although it’s better to avoid sounding like this week’s Newton) sometimes the staff are patient, sometimes less so. Because there is a preponderance of homebrew ‘research’ which the proponents defend tooth and nail, there is a lot of skepticism when it comes to the value of engaging DIY scientists at times. It’s not ideal, but if you play it cool and persevere you might get some useful discussion (even if it doesn’t change your mind).
I’m sorry that people, wherever they reside, have been quick to dismiss you in the past
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You’re kidding, right?
Oh, that’s just choice.
Here y’are. Here’s a task for you then.
Go to this link.
Pick any one of those 24 Wind Farms listed there, just one, any one.
Then go and find their main site.
And then get back here with a correct explanation of the way that you understand what is written there.
Explain to me the total power that they theoretically hope to deliver. Explain how you worked it out.
Explain what is meant by how many homes they can supply, and if they really do supply all those homes, and if they really do supply all those homes full requirements.
Then calculate the Capacity Factor.
Then explain what they mean by how much CO2 emissions this Plant hopes to save.
From that, then do a comparison for an equivalent sized Coal fired Plant, and also an equivalent Natural gas fired plant.
Homebrew research really.
This is not homebrew.
This is correct explanation of disguised spin, used by green urgers to ‘sell’ something that cannot even begin to do what they claim to do.
Tristan, I am absolutely positive you do this as a ‘wind up’, because if you actually believe what you say, then you are the reason I stay away from sites like that.
You have no idea, no concept, and do not want to understand it when the truth is explained.
This isn’t ‘my own work’, my theory, my guesswork, looking for acceptance.
This is explanation for people who want to understand what is being said at sites like this.
Tone it down. Are you serious?
DIY electrical theory. Man I wish I knew that when I was sitting two hour exams for those 50 odd subjects spread over two and a half years.
I’ll bet you even thought you were actually being serious.
Tony.
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Apologies for the confusion Tony.
There are a lot of homebrew ‘researchers’.
Distinct from that, there are DIY scientists.
It’s not always obvious which is which.
If I thought you were the former, I’d not be recommending you post at SkS.
The energy quandary is something I’ve yet to apply myself to. Don’t be in a hurry to attribute opinions to me. As I’ve said before on this site, I advocate atomic energy and I advocate pricing pollution. I don’t dance around wind farms during the solstice and I don’t fantasise about acts of industrial sabotage against brown coal plants.
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Must admit Tristan, that it is a lot of fun here, because things go OT a lot more. SKS is kind of difficult, because it is often hard to contribute meaningfully. They have a post on a paper, and then people sort out their understanding of what the paper really means, what its implication are, what its limitations are, if they think it is robust etc etc They just aren’t as good at insults, and tend not to tolerate either AGW believers or “skeptics” saying utter rubbish.
When I go there, I need to focus and work hard to understand.
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SkS is like going to class.
JoNova is like recess.
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Tristan,
Since your name sake has become an ICON you should stop acting like it! Tell JB the truth – you only GetUp every day and tell people that deleted comments on SKS will be available for the future!
JB used to idolise MattyB – now he’s gone, you are just using him. Maybe a new TV channel screening the reality of NGC (Normal Global Cooling) with commentators that actually know something – will aid JB in the future instead of leading him down the creek (or
Crookor Cook etc)!00
Tristan:
Class=the place where somebody feeds you what they want you to know.
Recess=real life where you have to apply all that you know (not just what they wanted you to know.
So I’ll agree with you on this one.
Tristan @ 10.3 (way back)
Good comment. Do you ever change your thinking?
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Tony. The above statement should point you in the right direction as far as being accepted at the site/sites you are having trouble with. You only need to make a small adjustment to your approach by presenting yourself as a DDIY scientist, i.e., a Don’t Do It Yourself scientist. It’s not so hard, you just allow the “real scientific” authorities to do your thinking for you and you get yourself a genuinely valuable education as a result. EASY.
Cheers.
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http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2012/02/05/nielsen-53-47-to-coalition-2/comment-page-67/#comments
since 5/2 just that thread is up to 3333 comments.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=53&&n=1242
since 5/2 53 comments.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=53&&n=1262
since 7/2 53 comments.
Real? Damn! I thought this was a satirical humor site? Nah, just kidding. But you have to admit, without your listed “of their leaning” most threads here would just be conspiracy theorist echo boxes. An when that happens, blogs die, or the posters left frequenting them just turn on each other.
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Hey, fair enough Cat, you do the task then.
C’mon mate, it’s simple.
I could do it in five minutes.
Tony.
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Catamongst,
You’re good!
I’m still going through these GREAT sites you quote!
Take out the top three (KR, Rob Painting and agwnonsense- who gets cut more often than not) and what have you got since 5.15pm today – about 20 odd – maybe you should go answer Gillian:-
and help her out with a property purchase with Mr. Flannery!
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We have the government of no integrity.
Bring on the election so we can sack these incompetents.
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Jo,
A new media outlet to be absolutely unbiased….hmmm.
I don’t think such a thing exists?
Looking at all the other media and in someway each one is biased to the revenue they can generate.
If you wanted to pay for a HUGE add, the publisher has the right to say no and turn it down.
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For those who dismiss Fox, I would recommend checking out Tim Groseclose’s book Left Turn (also test your PQ on his web site). Fox in its news reporting is much closer to US sensibilities than any other cable or broadcast news outlet. Their political reporting is far superior to anyone else. Sure they have right wing commentators (none as insane as Sgt Schulz or the Rev. Al), but they have many more liberals and Democrats on their channel than MSDNC, NBC, CBS, ABC or CNN have Republicans and/or conservatives. There’s a saying in the States: if you’re watching CNN, you’re in an airport.
I think that OZ should try to make a strictly home grown center-right network along the lines of Canada’s Sun News. It would start smaller, but it’s likely it would evade some of the regulatory hurdles that would be thrown at the effort, not to mention the considerable xenophobia that will get stirred up by an intervention by big bad News Corp.
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I have had a brief dialogue with an Avaaz activist whom sent me an email regarding the plan to stop the “denier” Gina in her tracks. I think that my email and his/her response is quite telling:
Dear (name withheld),
Over the past two years I have become heavily involved in my own research into climate change. I have found the topic fascinating for it’s breadth – involving scientific, ideological and political facets. Needless to say it is a subject that is genuinely divisive with no shortage of opinions on both sides. (which is what makes it so interesting!)
My interest is mainly in the scientific case for the assertion that the actions of mankind (primarily CO2 emissions) are causing or will cause global warming and or “climate change” (which is really a descriptor of a group of potential adverse consequences such as melting of ice caps, rising of seas, increased storm intensity, reduced biodiversity, etc etc ad infinitum.)
I am active on a number of scientific forums such as Jo Nova in which debates about climate science and politics take place on a daily basis.I also use my Facebook account to highlight news clippings etc which question the assertions of the climate change movement. I have read a number of books on the subject, (admittedly mostly from a skeptical perspective.)
I believe that the current government has not been candid about the uncertainties within climate science – choosing instead to hype up the issue to sell tax increases etc. (the CSIRO, BOM are all government agencies in consensus conformity is a must) Of particular concern to me is the brainwashing of students in government schools as “climate change science” is being made a central topic of the curriculum.
I would be interested to hear your opinion on these issues. Do you believe that there is evidence that humans are changing the climate? If so what forms the basis of your beliefs? Do you think think that governments globally have a vested interest in climate change?
Yours Sincerely,
Sonny (name withheld)
BA Mechanical Engineering (Hons)
His/Her reponse:
Thanks for your email (Sonny). It’s great that you have such an interest in this very important topic. I think however that we are respectfully going to have to agree to disagree.
Best wishes for the future in all your endeavors
(name withheld)
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Very polite, aren’t they?
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For all prospective consortium members, let me introduce some commercial and technical realities. Since we are talking about a whole new channel, then we have a choice; free to air or subscription. Subscription TV means a much reduced market which means a smaller audience and consequentially lower revenue streams especially for just one channel. Therefore we have to be talking about a Free-to-air TV service which has to be national to have the numbers quoted in Lord Monckton’s sales pitch. The only national TV networks in this country are the ABC and SBS and SBS is patchy in regional areas. OK let us start with just the capital cities which means 8 broadcast points (Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin). This means 8 TV licences and broadcast frequency (not cheap) (assuming just a digital signal as analog TV is being phased out) and 8 sets of transmission infrastructure. This is 8 specialised transmitters, 8 program input equipment with alternates, monitoring equipment and specialist expertise to make it work and keep it running. You don’t have to have your own towers because you can add your service to the many services that are already broadcasting from the existing towers (all 15 free-to-air TV channels plus the other digital versions and specialist channels all broadcast from just 3 towers in Sydney). Now if you are going to do this yourself, you need to get all of this set up before you can earn one cent of that $1 million per week quoted above. The alternative to doing this yourself is to get an existing broadcaster service provider to install and manage your services for you. This can be done with the same private company (now Canadian owned) that broadcasts the ABC and SBS services nationally (TV and Radio, analog and digital) as well as many other regional stations around the country with a minimum of a 10 year contract (many are 25 year contracts) . So you had better be confident of your market and revenue streams. Much of the tax payer money spent on the ABC and SBS actually goes to the private company that broadcasts their signal. Now if you want a truly national reach you are now talking about over 100 broadcast points across the country.
Good luck with that.
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[…] GetUp-poplexy! Scared of Monckton, Mannkal, Bolt and JoNova: Fox Australia would be a hit […]
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The Viscount is certainly correct about the BBC. It’s news programmes are nothing but opinions from its left-leaning commentators.
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Jo near the end of the story you say:
And provide a link to Menzies House.
I know we’ve all discussed conspiracies here with mixed opinion. Can I ask “why do we keep seeing George Soros in almost every bleeding edge news story”? His hand is on the Arab Spring events, His hand is on the Occupy Wall Street, his hand is on Australia, his hand is on AGW. He seems to have a hand everywhere.
The conspiracy threat has been “poo pooed” here by several people because it is assumed that big secrets can’t be kept that way (humans don’t keep secrets well).
What if there is only one human keeping the secrets and running the conspiracy? Soros seems to be the candidate.
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This is what happens when you have such a huge tract of the emdia in a country going out of their way to ignore the views of a large chunk on the populace.
No group with monopolistic power over information is ever going to volantarily welcome a challenge to that power. The left will fight it, hard, but their squealing will only have an effect on their most hardened supporters.
With the current left and hard left focus of the tv media in this country, a centre-centre right channell will do extremely well. For a start it can expose the ABC for what it is.
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Bernd Felsche #4: Please do keep in mind that Herr Varendonck is Director of RWE and lobbyist with Merkel for his own wind energy. Now claiming that CO2 should not be seen as the enemy does not mean that he wants to let go of other forms of “green” energy. He is probably only trying to secure his own future and that of the organization that he represents. He writes himself on the back of the book, written with a fellow RWE employee: ““This provides the time to rationally develop and expand renewable energy sources, and to carry out the energy transformation in an economically, sensible and sustainable way.”
It may appear to be a crack but the message is still the same, we will have to keep forking money out to a bunch of greenies with a gripe against our world.
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Who’s “Herr Varendonck”?
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And the luvvies say nothing about the all left/green media enterprise outlined by Bolta
But that would be expected
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As a US citizen, I have had a fairly good view of the (ahem) antics of Fox News.
If you want such a ‘news’ outlet in Australia, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. And more than likely, in the head as well.
FN is not news, it’s ideology wrapped in a news format. The Daily Show and Colbert Report (comedy news/talk shows) love FN – it provides much of their material. You can take every FN segment and enjoy heavy drinking by taking a sip of beer every time they present something completely non-factual.
And I recall a segment where the talking heads on FN were calling for a Congressional censure of President J. Carter – because he had the temerity to criticize then sitting President G.W. Bush. Seriously? Who more than a past President has the qualifications to comment on presidential actions, whether you agree with that past president or not?
Now, if you really really want ideology rather than news, if you want every segment and every piece of information slanted to a tiny set of views, misstatements and (quite frankly) lies in every broadcast, feeding the monied interests running the network – go for it. Get your own Fox News.
On the other hand, if you want correct information, I would suggest you avoid it like the very plague. But that’s your call.
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You use right-bias press to offset the MSM … if you avrage the two, you often find yourself somewhere near the truth. Colbert is amusing, but is leftist streak is also painfully obvious.
Personally I sit near the middle and find both sides of the press demeaning and distasteful to watch when reporting any subject matter with a political spin. It would be refreshing if all the media could get back to basic reportage, but that will never (and probably never was) be the case.
It is up to the reader/listener/viewer to extract the bias from a story* and try to ascertain the underlying truth. Most people are too lazy and just swallow the drivel wholesale… There is no substitute for engaging one’s own brain.
* With most political stories this leaves you with no news at all, and I include any politically contentious issue here, such as climate science.
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I concur totally with bulldust here.
Here in Oz, the lamestream media has gone so far off centre, the only way to bring any balance is to provide a voice for the centre and centre right.
In order to compete, the other channells will have to actually balance themselves more.
Right now, there is no reason for a left leaning channell to balance out as the other views are not expressed on any other channel.
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Madjak – Not being an Aussie, I won’t claim to have any knowledge of the news outlets there. If you are suffering from a completely biased set of venues, then there is definitely room for other viewpoints.
Just make sure that those other viewpoints are factual. Biased is OK, in fact more than if you understand where the viewpoints are coming from. That’s vital!
But make sure that the alternative viewpoints are presenting facts, not (as I see in FN) nonsense – based upon spending more time than I like to think about fact-checking various broadcasts. Again, just my opinion.
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KR,
I treat all sources with a degree of suspicion. My frustration here in Oz is that there is very little right of centre perspectives in the Lamestream media – but wow, talk about the left getting a free ride!
A few years ago now, out of sheer frustration I tuned out to the mainstream TV media here in Australia. I hold some left of centre views myself, (believe it or not), but the sheer lop sidedness down here really started to get to me. I have become my own filter.
We are all our own filters, but I do think there needs to be a balance and that this balance is sorely lacking here in Australia.
Of course, all of these statements are subject to my own Bias and experience.
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I suppose KR, that you believe the news and programming on National Public Radio and Public Television is NOT “ideology wrapped in a news format”?
Do you kid yourself?
The greatest problem we all face is obtaining information (including scientific) that is the least biased by anything. Claiming that Fox is more biased than any other simply demonstrates your own confirmation bias.
Frankly, the MSM news has become so soft and tabloid-like as to be nauseating. At least Fox News carries stories I might be interested in.
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“”Now, if you really really want ideology rather than news, if you want every segment and every piece of information slanted to a tiny set of views, misstatements and (quite frankly) lies in every broadcast, feeding the monied interests running the network – go for it. Get your own Fox News.””
Well, we’ve got our own ABC, so now we can have two peas in a pod.
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Thank you KR for that wonderful example of why this post is so relevant and accurate about todays state of media and the GetUp state of mind.
You seem to have decided what is “correct information” based on who is disseminating that information. The very phenomena that leads to appeal to authority so prevalent among some of the commentors here.
Here is what I want KR. I want news outlets that cover the whole gammut of the political, social and economic spectra. I want news outlets dominated by extreme right-wing nut jobs as well as extreme left-wing nut jobs and all points in between.
It is this scenario that would give one a perspective from all angles in all dimensions with the added bonus of learning what makes them tick.
I trust people to be able to make up their minds once they’ve heard all points of view. You seem to think some points of view should be stifled. Your point of view (and that of GetUp) leads to conflict even though GetUp and the so called progressives keep preaching ‘kumbaya’ and ‘lets have a conversation’.
Your subconscious hypocrisy is palpable.
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Baa Humbug – “You seem to have decided what is “correct information” based on who is disseminating that information.”
No, I’m actually basing that on what is factual or not. I spend more time than I like to think about checking against other sources for any news I hear.
(And yes, Robert, I was around for Carter’s presidency. He did an unremarkable job in DC, I suspect because as a small state governor he was unprepared for large scale dealing – and as an emeritus president has accomplished 10x anyone else in the last half century has in foreign relations and pure humanity, for example with Habitat for Humanity)
And for those concerned about balance, I do subscribe to and read both right and left wing publications, evaluating both for what they show (and don’t). The problem I have with FN is that it is complete garbage. Yes, MSNBC is biased, and I try to account for that. Yes, US News and World Report and Forbes are biased (in the other direction) as well – but with good information. I read Skeptical Science, WUWT, and numerous other blogs on this (climate science) topic.
But Fox News? Ouch. It would be far more appropriate as a comedy show.
All that said – Australians should be the ones deciding what to watch, what to trust. I’m just offering my opinion… that any news service actually providing a set of correct information (biased or not) is preferable to the unspeakable crud coming out of FN.
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Apparently the truth hurts. KR offers no response to my question @ http://joannenova.com.au/2012/02/getup-poplexy-scared-of-monckton-mannkal-bolt-and-jonova-fox-australia-would-be-a-hit/#comment-957392
The unspeakable crud coming out of National Public Radio and/or TV.
Good for you to out yourself KR….
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My most sincere apologies, Mark D (/sarc)
I do, on occasion, listen to NPR. As well as to CBS (rather more centralist), reading the WSJ, and many others. Can’t stand Limbaugh, glad Glenn Beck (a parody of himself) is off the air…
And I take into account (or at least try to) the background biases of the sources. As to your preference (implied? Sounds pretty explicit…) to Fox – I would suggest reviewing this resource. If all you hear simply justifies your existing opinion, you are not learning anything.
Listen to some conflicting opinions from time to time, Mark D – whether you agree with them or not, it’s worth seeing what other people think.
—
This all gets to a basic issue for me (sorry, IMO). there are many opinions in the world that I do not (for one reason or another, based upon my personal experience) agree with. But I always _try_ to respect other peoples reasons for holding those opinions. And that means learning what those opinions are.
That means not just listening to “stories I might be interested in” [can you say “echo chamber”], but rather all the news. And evaluating it, judging all of it as to whether it’s factual, whether it agrees with the world as it exists, or not. Otherwise – you’re just reinforcing your preconceptions.
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KR, no doubt you’ll be surprised that I don’t watch Fox, I do listen to public radio and watch public television. You might be further surprised that I donate to public television. You might be surprised that I give people the same advice as you:
Where we differ (and maybe we don’t differ that much) is on what the vast majority of left-of-center thinkers find to be biased. That is why I asked you what you think of Public radio and TV. Even my leftist friends (yes I have a few) don’t argue that NPR and NPTV are unbiased.
I have NOT seen any MSM outlet admit that the quality of news reporting across all outlets has fallen to the tabloid level. WSJ is maybe the one exception.
Don’t you wonder sometimes why the left has failed to create a commercially successful radio persona like Rush L.? Sure you don’t like him but a LOT of people do. You’ll be surprised to hear that my two favorite radio programs are Prairie Home Companion, and Michael Savage.
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Just curious, were you actually around when that “past president” (lowercase intentionally) was in office? The unemployment figures, no clue about foreign policy, laughing stock of the world during the hostage crisis, and the list goes on.
I remember his years in office very well, he sucked. He was one of the most inept presidents in our history. So yes, “who better to question a sitting president?” Perhaps one who actually had a damn clue.
There is a reason Reagan was able to ask voters to “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment…than there was four years ago?” and be remembered for it while no one remembers (or cares) what Carter said that night.
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Robert says about Carter:
THE MOST INEPT. Until Obama. Good on you for paying attention about Carter.
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Oh yea Mark, I remember him well. I said “one of the most inept” because I was including Obama in that as well.
Not even going to bother responding directly to KR and his “as an emeritus president has accomplished 10x anyone else in the last half century has in foreign relations and pure humanity” claim (with the 10x in bold no less).
I expect his political analysis would be much like the alarmist science. No direct comparison of other former politicians and their accomplishments, no empirical evidence supporting the 10x claim other than perhaps Carter claiming it himself or it being KR’s personal belief, no acknowledgement that the “pure humanity” he speaks of involves the support of leaders hostile to his own country (and as a result the support of terrorists, dictators, racists, etc)…
Yea, Carter is a real “winner” there, apparently just like Obama supporters, Carter fans aren’t very bright or very aware of reality. To use KR’s claim about Carter that “He did an unremarkable job in DC, I suspect because as a small state governor he was unprepared for large scale dealing” just proves that point. If Carter wasn’t ready for the big leagues then why did he run? Was he too stupid to know what he was getting into? That doesn’t say much in Carter’s favor.
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I thought GW Bush was the most inept. Take a super power riding high into an unnecessary war, hock yourself to the eyeballs to China to sustain a ridiculous housing boom until it all comes crashing down. But maybe that wasn’t incompetence, maybe it was “strong leadership”.
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Considering Baby Bush was the idiot under which Iraq II happened i dont think inept really cuts it. Stupidly, Dangerously Inept is probably more appropriate.
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As usual the idiot twins ignore who controlled congress and display their lack of understanding of the US political system.
Bush wasn’t a genius by any means, but Pelosi, Reid, et. al. are the ones who put “inept” into that administration.
Do try and pay attention you two, we get so tired of correcting you.
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Well said, I wonder if it will be well understood?
JB:
So Bush single handedly raised the prices on all that real estate? Care to tell me how he did that? By the way, continuing your education on how money is spent by the Federal Government; all bills for spending originate in the House of Representatives.
Here is a graph of US deficits and here is a chart of what party had control of government. Compare the two and tell me what party controls the House since before Bush left office?
.
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.
.
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Lastly, I have heard a lot of BS from leftists about the supposed low intelligence of GW Bush. I’d like to compare his accomplishments with any of his detractors accomplishments.
Recall that he attended and received degrees from Harvard and Yale (Lousy schools no doubt) and is the ONLY president that has earned a Master of Business Administration.
He served as a military pilot, where he received an honorable discharge. (I’m sure that low IQ people regularly become military pilots.)
Made a successful career in the oil industry (where stupid people regularly make fortunes)
Co-owned a professional baseball team. (again that takes a lot of dumb)
Was elected as governor of the Great State of Texas not once but twice. The first to ever be elected to two consecutive terms and receiving a record 69% of the vote. (Only the unintelligent are able to pull that off)
Married for 35 years to one of the most outstanding First Ladies ever, who happens to hold a Masters Degree herself. (Yes smart women prefer idiots for long term relationships)
Of course being elected TWICE as President of the USA takes some real dumb……..
ANYONE WANT TO COMPARE CVs?????????
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It was interesting seeing a speech by Kerry O’Brien last year (I wish I remember what the occasion was, for I would Youtube link it), in which he bemoaned the trend in reporting in the last decade or so. Staff layoffs, diminishing profits and tight deadlines have led us to a point where “reporters” simply regurgitate press releases from the Government and NGOs without engaging a single brain cell. There is no investigative press in Australia, because the majority of them are not paid to think, they are paid to fill the few column inches that exist between advertisements.
Australia would welcome any show or channel that would set aside a few dollars to do unbiased, investigative journalism. What a concept!
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Yes I remember that as well and agreed with every word. Muckraking is something of a lost art in MSM. Not accidental mind you. People kinda want news and mostly want to read things that reaffirm their beliefs.
It’s also about how Journalism is taught at our institutions. At UQ it is so dreadful that many staff and students interested in real journalism decided they had to leave for greener pastures.
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That is what Four Corners is for. Channel Nine’s Sunday show used to do quite a good job until the pin was pulled.
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Yeah Fork Owners is good.
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JK @ 23 makes a very good point but as it’s made clear in the article: “Skeptic readers should not think that the book will fortify their existing skepticism of CO2 causing warming. The authors (Vahrenholt and Luning) agree it does, but have major qualms about the assumed positive CO2-related feed-backs and believe the sun plays a far greater role in the whole scheme of things.”
Perhaps oddly given the context, and I can’t speak for all on this, but I think the last sentence of that observation sets out the actual position of many sceptics very well!
However JK, I see the real breakthrough as the fact that leading MSM outlets in Germany like Bild and Der Spiegel have chosen to not only publish but actually highlight and positively comment on the thrust of the main argument of Vahrenholt that CO2 is not the villain it has been painted to be. Further, that it is only the first in a series of similar articles to be published by Bild.
As one of the headings in the article says: “They never wanted the debate and now the dam has broken”!
In my view, the other article highlighted in the WUWT post was even more telling and has greater relevance to many countries in the world including Australia.
“Germany’s Green Energy Supply Transformation Has Already Failed!” by energy expert Dr.Guenter Keil. I rate this a must read!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/06/germany-in-skeptical-turmoil-on-both-climate-and-windfarms
In relation to this thread, has anyone seen either of the articles above reported or given any prominence in any MSM outlet in Australia? Does anyone anticipate ever seeing the type of coverage that every new computer-model generated alarmist scare gets on the ABC, Fairfax and most other arms of the MSM?
Why would anyone argue against having a source which would fairly report actual news without the spin added by a biased presenter or editorial staff? All we ask is that we be presented with all sides of any debate to enable us to still make up our own minds but at least armed with all the facts!
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Are you kidding ? this won’t be covered in our press they have the skeptic filter engaged in the link and it wont pass any information through in relation to these articles.
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There are so many possible cogent comments I could make that I can’t count them.
Let it suffice to say, GO, FOX NEWS AUSTRALIA! 🙂
Let the cry babies moan and groan. A real, honest alternative view will do them good.
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I can think of nothing that would be more damaging to science in general and global warming realists in particular than having the liars and Murdoch whores at FOX news as their champion. I can only plead with my Australian colleague to please take Murdock back to Australia and dump him into the cesspool he came from.
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
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You really hate the other side speaking, don’t you?
Jo
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But it’s so much easier to deal with people when you have already considered what people say, before they’re even opened their mouth, they hand reaches the keyboard or their quill is wet by ink.
If all you have to do is remember the fundamental equation:
you don’t have to spend any time actually thinking about what is being said.
Heaven forbid: Thinking might lead to thoughtcrime such as that evidently committed by Professor Dr Varenholt.
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Who is this bloke, Dr. Martin Hertzberg, where does he get of calling Elisabeth Murdoch a cesspool.
The best he has ever come out with is a article about the climate machine composition and that temperature is not following IPCC predictions, well hello, we don’t need a Phd to know that. All he did, was say they are bad people, without knowing exactly why.
“”take Murdock back to Australia and dump him into the cesspool he came from””
I don’t think you have any real Australian colleagues at all Martin. A real Australian would have punched you in the head, weather he liked Murdoch or not, after that idiotic statement.
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Very odd statement. Let’s count the ways.
1. Doc Martin thinks it’s very important to let us know he’s got a PhD. That way we know he’s smarter than us.
2. Doc Martin thinks a TV network is damaging to science. Funny that, I didn’t know Fox News was a peer reviewed TV network whose positions counted in the world of science.
3. Doc Martin thinks Fox News is very damaging to some mysterious beast called a “global warming realist.” I too am concerned for endangered species, however I suspect this “global warming realist” is cryptozoological, like the Yeti and our own Bunyips. Maybe Dr. Martin hung out in Bulgaria too long while on his Fullbright?
4. Speaking of the Bulgars…Doc Martin believes anyone who believes anything he doesn’t must do so because they are prostituting themselves. Whoops, that’s more than we needed to know, Dr. Expert Witness! Now you have to kill us all! I suppose you actually could do that…..
5. Oddly, Doc Martin believes that prostitutes can be champions of a cause. Oxymoron alert. What was Marty doing in Bulgaria?
6. Doc Marty claims he has ONE colleague in Australia. (Colleague is up-yourself talk for a mate you work with.)
7. We can understand why Marty, who is a big world traveller, has only one mate in Australia, after all he thinks Australia is a “cesspool,” so I doubt he’s shouted many rounds down at the local.
8. Oh, wait…. speaking of “whores” maybe Doc Martin was engaged in a little psychological projection. It’s a subconscious coping mechanism commonly expressed by subjects exhausted with cognitive dissonance issues arising from guilt or trauma and/or suppressed self-esteem issues. Just guessing…
http://www.explosionexpert.com/pages/2/index.htm
My advice would be an extended holiday in the Maldives, you know, before they go under. But don’t leave a forwarding address. Those Bulgars can really hold a grudge.
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Tristan, you really are in your own little zombie universe. And to call the national daily a “rag” tells me all about the intellectual hovel you live in. It’ll be back to the ghetto for you soon with the rest of the temporary ruling class.
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I use rag to refer to newspapers generally, none of the negative connotations were intended when I said it.
That said, The Oz is full of hack journalism.
I agree that the world seems pretty zombified at times, but my hovel is some pretty sweet digs! It’s kind of you, but unnecessary to call me the ruling class and I hope I don’t end up in a ghetto unless it’s by choice.
Thanks for writing.
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I’d start reading the Oz again if they just balanced their skeptical rubbish. If they are going to run a piece by Plimer, run a piece by Karoly next to it.
I learn like that, because I can get both sides of the argument at once, which makes it much easier to see where the truth lies.
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John The Oz is a newspaper not an academic journal. Why would they run pieces one alongside the other?
My experience is that it has and does run pieces from all sides.
For instance you asked about that charlatan David Karoly. the Oz did run a piece by him HERE
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Sounds grandiose to me. Not touched by the reality of any business plan.
Megalomania is a psycho-pathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, or omnipotence. ‘Megalomania is characterized by an inflated sense of self-esteem and overestimation by persons of their powers and beliefs’. Historically it was used as an old name for narcissistic personality disorder prior to the latter’s first use by Heinz Kohut in 1968, and is used these days as a non-clinical equivalent. It is not mentioned in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders
Therapy
Unfortunately, ‘a person with megalomania may not be interested in self-reflection or personal change’, so the talking cures may be less effective than medication. An additional complication with analysis is comprised by the transference: ‘if the analyst has any tendencies toward megalomania or authoritarianism, the response of the patient to the analyst will strengthen them’. Nevertheless, the megalomaniac might do well to ‘remember, shrink is short for head-shrinker, isn’t it?….And as our swollen heads get smaller…as people we grow’
If ever a level head returns let the reality of it all work in.
You clearly underestimate the science of AGW. You clearly underestimate the extent science professionals will disagree with you. You clearly underrate the effect of “push back” – a term related to reversal thinking when one is given the “hard sell”. You clearly do not realise the quality of scientific papers out. Even updated weekly releases you guys NEVER take the time to read – let alone understand as rational human beings should as ONGOING EVIDENCE that may change your mind.
This is just ONE WEEK in the release. The march forward of Climate Science. How on earth do any of you – many undereducated in the sciences ever hope to achieve if you are UNDER qualified in your approach?
Do really think cognitive forms of megalomania will ever help you achieve things?
Permafrost carbon feedback amplifies global warming Estimating the near-surface permafrost-carbon feedback on global warming – von Deimling et al. (2012)
New NH temperature reconstruction shows current rate of warming largest in last 1200 years Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries – Ljungqvist et al. (2012)
Less population variability in butterfly range-edge due to poleward range shifts Reduced variability in range-edge butterfly populations over three decades of climate warming – Oliver et al. (2012)
Pacific-Atlantic seesaw seems to work only when Bering strait is closed The Pacific-Atlantic seesaw and the Bering Strait – Hu et al. (2012)
Global cloud height decreased between 2000 and 2010 Global cloud height fluctuations measured by MISR on Terra from 2000 to 2010 – Davies & Molloy (2012)
Not much polar ice during Jurassic and Cretaceous periods Warm Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous high-latitude sea-surface temperatures from the Southern Ocean – Jenkyns et al. (2012)
Earthquakes decrease groundwater temperature Transient change in groundwater temperature after earthquakes – Wang et al. (2012)
Meteorological tsunamis driven by atmospheric pressure disturbances Northern Adriatic meteorological tsunamis: Observations, link to the atmosphere, and predictability – Šepić et al. (2012)
Searching for causes of ozone weekend effect in California Airborne and ground-based observations of a weekend effect in ozone, precursors, and oxidation products in the California South Coast Air Basin – Pollack et al. (2012)
Volcanism drove Northern Hemisphere to Little Ice Age Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks – Miller et al. (2012)
Diurnal temperature range has increased in India Variations in diurnal temperature range over India: Under global warming scenario – Rai et al. (2012)
———————————-
Ross:
It’s weak.
1. Pop psychology tells us nothing about the climate. Don’t do it. Stop “diagnosing” us through your own delusions.
2. Permafrost feedback is only one feedback. Net feedbacks are negative. Lindzen et al 2011, Christie 2010, McIntyre 2010.
3. Hundreds of proxys show it was warmer 1000 years ago. See CO2science for the list.
4. Butterflys don’t change the climate.
5. Earthquakes? Cretaceous periods? Atlantic Sea-saws? Ozone ….blah blah … so?
6. Name the observations that show long term net positive feedback to give us warming greater than 1.2C.
Jo
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Beg to differ Jo – these are not weak papers.
Ross:
It’s weak.
1. Pop psychology tells us nothing about the climate. Don’t do it. Stop “diagnosing” us through your own delusions. You have used the same with great effect.
2. Permafrost feedback is only one feedback. Net feedbacks are negative. Lindzen et al 2011, Christie 2010, McIntyre 2010. _ Latest discoveries of massive permafrost reserves unknown BEFORE those papers were recently discovered in Siberia North in NOVEMBER 2011.
3. Hundreds of proxys show it was warmer 1000 years ago. See CO2science for the list. Yes it was very warm – why are you afraid to read the paper then?
4. Butterflys don’t change the climate. They show subtle changes in cooler climates. Just slight shift support the insect life that can not exist as established colonies before.
5. Earthquakes? Cretaceous periods? Atlantic Sea-saws? Ozone ….blah blah … so? All important – As we are able trace gases more accurately this leads to a better of how aerosols affect climate.
6. Name the observations that show long term net positive feedback to give us warming greater than 1.2C.
Why are you asking me question when such a threshold has not transpired? Trick questions will get you in trouble.
By calculating what we know already from observations and projecting forward we are right on target at present to be around Climate_Sensitivity =(>1C AND <2C) in estimates based by historic data.
In climate studies, the term "feedback" is usually used only of processes that modify the underlying "Planck response", which is the base temperature response assuming everything else about a system remains unchanged. However, in control theory the Planck response itself can also be treated as a feedback… a very strong negative feedback. This is described nicely in Appendix A of Bony et al (2006): Bony, S., et al (2006) "How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?", in Journal of Climate, Vol 19, 1 Aug 2006, pp 3445-3482.
It works like this. When you raise the temperature, you start to radiate more energy; and this leads to cooling. Using the notation of Bony et al, appendix A, let ΔR be the change in Earth's energy balance from some given equilibrium condition. Let ΔQ be a "forcing"; an imbalance imposed somehow which leads to a temperature response. Let ΔTs be the change in surface temperature. As a result of the change in temperature, there will be a change in energy balance. Let λ be the amount of energy balance change per unit temperature. This is the climate response. ΔR=ΔQ+λΔTs Equilibrium is restored once ΔR is back to zero, and the total climate response is the amount of temperature change ΔTs required to compensate for the forcing ΔQ.
The major effect of raising temperature is to emit radiation, in a way that can be estimated from simple radiation physics. This is about -3.2 W/m2 per degree, represented as λp. The negative convention indicates raising temperature lets Earth lose energy; it is a negative feedback and this keeps Earth stable. There are other factors involved. As temperature increases, so does specific humidity, which gives a positive feedback from the additional greenhouse effect, and a smaller negative feedback from a reduced lapse rate. There is a change in ice cover, which is a positive feedback, as Xnn indicates. There are changes to cloud; which is much harder to determine. Most researchers believe the cloud feedback is a net positive; Lindzen is famous for arguing for a strong negative feedback from cloud responses to temperature. The paper Saul has introduced does not attempt to identify the source of the feedback; it merely attempts to measure it.
The final λ in the energy balance equation can (for small changes, of a few degrees) be approximated quite well as a linear sum
λ=λP+λc+λw+λi+…The overall sum is negative; if it was positive then climate would be unstable. But when a paper speaks of climate feedback, they invariably mean the sum of all the terms other than the base Planck response. This is what Lindzen and Choi is arguing is negative, and what nearly all other researchers consider to be positive.
Note also; climate models do not make any “assumption” about feedback at all. The feedback is emergent from within the model, as a spontaneous consequence of the interacting processes. This is very clear in Bony et al (2006) which deals with the issue of trying to estimate feedbacks within models. This is quite tricky; because the feedback is not assumed at all.
Lindzen and Choi argue that the models are wrong; which is a point worth considering. But if so, it is because there’s some pervasive error in the physics of what they are representing. The most likely candidate for this is cloud effects.
With respect to volcanoes; the response is damped, certainly; that is because the net λ is negative. However, the study of volcanic eruptions indicates that it is not as damped as you would expect from λp acting alone; this is evidence for positive feedbacks on top of the planck response. See Wigley et al (2005) Wigley, T. M. L., C. M. Ammann, B. D. Santer, and S. C. B. Raper (2005), Effect of climate sensitivity on the response to volcanic forcing, in J. Geophys. Res., Vol 110, D09107, doi:10.1029/2004JD005557. Preprint, MS Word 97-2002
Lindzen and Choi CANNOT adequately refute Wigley at al. To resolve the discrepancy, one or other of the papers must be fundamentally flawed; and that needs to be identified within the flawed paper itself before the matter can be considered satisfactorily addressed. They argue that the models are wrong; which is a point worth considering. But if so, it is because there’s some pervasive error in the physics of what they are representing. The most likely candidate for this is cloud effects. I’m not so sure about that, but I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is that Lindzen and Choi are showing us.
First, their paper is limited to the tropics (20S to 20N) and they are not including any of the land which amounts to about 22% of the tropics. Second, figure 3 is showing us charts for long wave, short wave and a combination ONLY. Each chart plots Flux/T versus sensitivity and feedback factor. Thereby Lindzen only PARTIALLY proved by global data collection any evidence that the climate sensitivity was .05 as claimed!
I don’t do psycho babble generally.
I am conservative.
Denial of basic thermodynamic laws are wrong. And what of CO2 science itself.
Some do very poorly with their wild theories. Commentary balance allowed is good though.
Suggest you become more open to wider community and dialogue.
The above was just one week of science. What about the week before?
And next week what about those?
Why don’t you want to know the latest proxy studies. Don’t you realise the MWP is a very warm period in the Northern Hemisphere and we are in agreement? I read your post up of Dr Cook – pretty old stuff with juxtaposition against this person Lord Monckton was not even debating! That is not fair.
Anyway thanks for being much fairer then I ever thought in allowing the posts.
The week before last……
Parapatric species and the implications for climate change studies: a case study on hares in Europe – Acevedo et al. (2012)
Towards improved bottom-up inventories of methane from the European land surface – Grunwald et al. (2012)
Increasing prevalence of extreme summer temperatures in the U.S. – Duffy & Tebaldi (2012)
Impact of Antarctic ozone depletion and recovery on Southern Hemisphere precipitation, evaporation and extreme changes – Purich & Son (2012)
21st-century multi-model subtropical precipitation declines are mostly mid-latitude shifts – Scheff & Frierson (2012)
Variability and extremes of northern Scandinavian summer temperatures over the past two millennia – Esper et al. (2012)
Observations of radiocarbon in CO2 at seven global sampling sites in the Scripps flask network: Analysis of spatial gradients and seasonal cycles – Graven et al. (2012)
Observations of radiocarbon in CO2 at La Jolla, California, USA 1992–2007: Analysis of the long-term trend – Graven et al. (2012)
The projected effects of climatic and vegetation changes on the distribution and diversity of Southeast Asian bats – Hughes et al. (2012)
Ross J.
—————————–
Ross,
Not so. There is only one question that matters and that was it. “Name the observations that show long term net positive feedback to give us warming greater than 1.2C.”
The models assume positive feedback (net) but no one can name any long term observations that support their assumptions. IF there was net positive feedback the ARGO buoys would not be missing quadrillions of joules of energy.
As for your expectation that I ought to respond to every commenter by immediately reading all 30 papers he or she names (most of which are irrelevant, were not explained, or linked). Har Har. You parody yourself Mr-too-scared-to-answer-the-only-question-that-matters. Those of us who are not funded by multimillion dollar grants have other commitments.
Jo
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Ross is a knob, he wouldn’t know what a good model was. He seems to think he’s smart by trying to abuse a good sort, who happens to runs this blog.
Pathetic!
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Dire!
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To everyone: Consider a patch of rock being warmed by the Sun in the morning. The IPCC says backradiation will add more thermal energy, so it must warm faster. (It is not just a matter of backradiation slowing the cooling rate – it must be consistent in whatever it does. Either it adds thermal energy or it doesn’t.)
At some time soon after noon the Sun will bring the rock to a maximum temperature before it starts to cool towards evening. When at that maximum will the backradiation cause it to warm more? How could it, becuase that would be transferring thermal energy from a cold source to a warmer body. It is simply against the laws of physics. It simply cannot and does not happen. Yet the IPCC “explanation” of the GHE says it does.
Prof Johnson has proven why it doesn’t in his Computational Blackbody Radiation. The GH theory is debunked.
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Fox News has always been disappointment to me – I’m still waiting to see a news story about foxes.
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Malcolm, foxes are imported vermin in Australia …
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Here you go.
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I just love the way you’ve turned this back on GetUp! Jo.
Now as Christopher mentioned it,
WakeUp! Australia
might actually seem quite an apposite corrolorary to counter the GetUp! propaganda, as a name for a new TV channel or radio station.
🙂
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Fox News Libertarian???? helloooooo…thought we were realists. ask Ron Paul.
7 Feb: New American: Raven Clabough: Some Call Nevada Caucus Suspicious
Suspicions of fraud surrounded missing precincts in Clark County that, regardless of the various deadlines, had not reported when they were supposed to, and in fact, underwent a number of recounts, some of which took place behind closed doors…
Clark County is a significant county — the largest in Nevada, with more than 50 percent of the state’s voters.
It was in Clark County that the special religious caucus was held late in the evening so that strict religious observers could cast their vote without violating the rules of their Sabbath. That vote was held in a large precinct within the county, and was expected to be a poor showing for Paul because Jewish and conservative Christian voters are typically Paul’s worst demographics.
At around midnight on February 4, workers began to count the votes from the precinct where the religious caucus was held, and Ron Paul’s victory was a significant one, with 183 votes, compared to Romney’s 61 and Gingrich’s and Santorum’s combined 73 votes.
That is when the slow pace began to get a bit suspicious, as that precinct’s vote was recounted, and still, by the time those votes were recalculated, the official Nevada Caucus vote was still stuck at 47 percent counted, with 53 percent still outstanding.
Likewise, Paul’s supporters point to the results of that religious caucus and question how accurate it is that he came in third in the entire state caucus…
Mark Wachtler of The Examiner explains:
“Thousands of Ron Paul supporters still waiting up and able to do simple math, deduced that if Ron Paul won 58 percent of the vote in a large Clark County precinct and that was representative of his performance county-wide, the Texas Congressman should win the Nevada Caucus. Clark County alone represents more than half the vote in the entire state of Nevada. If Ron Paul won 58 percent of the 53 percent outstanding, compared to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent of the 47 percent counted, it’s a Ron Paul win.”
***But it was at that point that the live election coverage from Nevada was cut off by both CNN and Fox News. And yet, despite the fact that the precincts in Clark County still had not been counted, various sites on the Internet announced that Romney was leading with 42 percent, followed by Gingrich’s 26 percent, Paul’s 18 percent, and Santorum’s 13 percent.
The rest of the counting apparently took place behind closed doors…
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/10793-some-call-nevada-caucus-suspicious
i searched “climate sceptic” (tried “global warming sceptic” too) on Fox News and got:
Did you mean ‘climate septic?’
in the first results, not a thing about CAGW scepticism, but…
7 Feb: Fox: AP: Maldives president resigns amid protests
Nasheed was also an environmental celebrity, traveling the world to persuade governments to combat the climate change that could raise sea levels and inundate his archipelago nation…
Nasheed became an energetic global environmental crusader, founding the Climate Vulnerable Forum, to coordinate environmental policy among a group of about 30 countries most affected by climate change.
He held a Cabinet meeting underwater in scuba gear to dramatize the threat of rising oceans to his low-lying archipelago nation of 300,000 people, and said he may need to relocate his entire population if nothing was done. He also announced plans to make his nation “carbon-neutral,” using wind and solar projects.
A documentary on his efforts, “The Island President,” won awards at the Sundance and Toronto film festivals and is slated to open next month in New York.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/07/military-maldives-president-resigns-amid-protests/#ixzz1lkjYHL9o
6 Feb: Fox: Dow Jones Newswire: EU Confident China Airlines Will Comply With CO2 Rules
http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/02/06/eu-confident-china-airlines-will-comply-with-co2-rules/
someone explain how an Aussie fox news would be any better than our current CAGW alarmist Sky News, or Sky News UK?
ALSO CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY WE MUST BUY DOZENS OF CHANNELS SHOWING NOTHING BUT RUBBISH – AND THAT INCLUDES ALL THE NEWS CHANNELS – JUST SO WE CAN WATCH THE TENNIS?
WHY CAN’T WE BUY TEN CHANNELS OF OUR CHOICE FOR, SAY, $20/MONTH? THAT WOULD SOON SORT OUT THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF. MEANWHILE, BECAUSE OF THIS UNFAIR ANTI-FREE-MARKET PRACTISE, VIEWERS ARE ACTUALLY SUSTAINING THE GARBAGE THE CHANNELS CALL PROGRAMS.
DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE APPALLING NAT GEO AND DISCOVERY.
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This is because those who are arguing that Faux Noise is ‘fair and balanced’ are geting their climate, and other information, from the editorial programs. They are the described group who confuse news with editorial. In the same way they confuse the rantings of Andrew Bold and Alan Jones as news.
For every communist(left-leaning) news item on the main stream media I can point out a fascist(right-leaning) news item. And, no promotion of freedom and liberty to be seen.
SMH Headlines(L=left, R=right):
1. Shed death: man missing
Police are searching for the missing partner of a woman found dead in a shed, and say they “hold concerns” for him.
(R: crime, police state)
OK to defy party leaders: ex-speaker
Former Speaker Harry Jenkins has endorsed backbench rebels in Canberra.
(R: liberal party interest)
Guns in NSW: where they are … legally
Figures reveal over 190,000 gun licences in NSW.
(L: gun control)
I’m bad, but not that bad: thief praised
He stole phones, then turned himself in when he found child porn images.
(R: pedophillia)
$620m NBN solution for 3% of homes
Two new satellites will beam broadband to remote households.
(L: Labor party interest)
That’s our headlines from a supposed left-leaning rag. Left and right falsehoods is how the statists divide and conquer us.
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Probably correct, probably too late…..
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Waffle:
No a Shed Death is not right wing. It’s how it’s reported. Hopefully, they just reported what happened. If they said: “It’s more evidence Australians need to increase gun ownership to protect themselves from crime” that’s be right wing. (It’s probably never happened). If they said: The violent crime rate is rising because welfare payments have been cut and thus we need to tax the public even more to give more money to the unemployed, that’d be left wing. Gotit?
Jo
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Jo, you’re talking about editorial. I’m talking about what news is reported and what is not. The core of the propaganda gears system. Constantly reporting crime without any inclusion of reporting how communities are successfully tackling and reducing crime is bias by omission. Sure, you get a feel good story every once in a while to finish off a TV news bulletin, but you don’t hear about positive community action against crime on the news. Is that not news that the population hould be a aware of?
Instead, as a result, you get fallacious remarks from people who have drunk the right wing k00l aid like, “I won’t walk the streets after 10pm anymore” or, “I got a car because the train at night has become too dangerous”.
The whole, it used to be safer meme, is incorrect. But our perception of personal safety has been distorted by that right wing bias in the news that lets our politicians get away with treasonous legislation curtailing our civil liberties in the name of citizen safety.
I hate to say it but, please don’t confuse editorial bias with news bias. It’s about what is reported and what is not both in terms of the story and the, ahem, facts.
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I’m going to add to that, that this is the same bias you are constantly talking about when the ABC publishes a study for global warming but ignores literature with an opposing view. When one side of an issue always get the floor and the other doesn’t, is that not the news bias we are talking about?
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Pat,
ALSO CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY WE MUST BUY DOZENS OF CHANNELS SHOWING NOTHING BUT RUBBISH – AND THAT INCLUDES ALL THE NEWS CHANNELS – JUST SO WE CAN WATCH THE TENNIS?
As a long time customer of Foxtel I can say that their business model on what options to offer the prospective customer is not good. They should offer a much more flexible per channel package so that people can focus on their preferred subjects.
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So right! Can I sign up just for AFL, and just for the 6 months of the year when AFL is on? And how much would that cost? Anyone from Foxtel, give me a reply here and I might just sign up.
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Probably the same as you pay for the dose you mention here JB
I’m not from Fox Tel JB – but a new channel may help!
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Don’t have Fox at the moment, I’d mainly get it to see Kewell limp around the field.
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Hopefully, NBN coming in will kill Foxtel and bury it under a wave of IPTV offerings. Thank the Feds for that!!
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WAKEUP! AUSTRALIA
Agreed Joe V.
I registered it (and variations) as business, domain, etc names a couple of years ago.
Anyone interested?!
Alice
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Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
I was only ever middling keen on Springsteen, especially his early stuff, but he did have one that struck an ironic chord with me.
57 Channels And There’s Nothin On
Tony.
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Am a bit confused if we vote in Mr Abbott, we also get his taxpayer funded Direct Action Plan which on paper appears as much a carbon tax as Juliars. How about a campaign to back Barnaby and The Nationals who stand by their principles and not offering two views on the subject?
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Oh dear, do you really believe the Direct Action policy will come into being? It’s all political play.
Just imagine if a DD was called by Rudd just months after Tony Abbott became opposition leader? It was on the cards until Rudd squibbed it. The whole Labor and Green election strategy would have been, “The opposition are deniers!”
Just remember that around 60% of the population believed in the scam at the time. Do you really believe Abbott believes in AGW??? Abbott is careful with his words, he says he believes in climate change. Anyone that does not believe that the climate changes is an idiot!
Also, the policy involves no enacting and on several occasions the reasoning has been that it can be wound back if circumstances change. Got it now?
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I and 90% of the Australian population who will have nothing to do with our ABC because of their bias in news (as distinct from opinion), would happily pay for a news service that regularly performs exposes on the neglect of the facts by ABC, SBS and Fairfax.
The thing to straighten out the mess would be libel/slander/defamation laws where truth is the only constraint on what you can say.
(Which means I can publicly call someone an “evil witch” if it can be shown to be true.)
Deliberately lying on a national news service (as some are know to do regularly) should be treated as the criminal offence that it is.
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So, by that token, Fox news would be off the air 🙂
What are you really saying? I think the issue for you may be that the reality or the facts may just not be your cup of tea, hence they are biased, and hence they are lies. Correct?
I know I must sound hypocritical.. I am really trying to not. I just can’t quite comprehend the implication of your accusations.. Are you suggesting that the ABC regularly lies? Can you please point out an example?
“90%” is an interesting figure, too. Where did that come from?
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There own ratings figures.
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I think a right leaning news channel in Australia would be welcomed and well received, however it would not resemble Fox news (nor should it), because it would need to appeal to Liberal Australians as opposed to Republican Americans. The two are not the same (even though both groups are more likely to be skeptical re climate change).
For example Fox news coverage during the Iraqi war was despicable and perpetuated all the lies and propoganda we should not forget. Remember the WMD’s?
We need a more balanced news coverage in Australia. I am sick of hearing climate change BS stories e.g. unsustainable coral growth, CO2 drunk fish, houses near the shore needing to be “transportable” and all the rest!
At the very least, as these stories become more unbelievable and contradictory, sanity may begin to be restored. We have a long way to come.
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Tristan @ 13.1.1.1
I take it this latest post of yours in praise of John
CrookCook at Septic Science (yet again) means that you are on the verge of posting your much promised (for several months now) explanation of JohnCrook’s Cook’s methodical deletion of posts skeptical of his articles; “disappearing” of all skeptical posts that actually attract any interest from his customary readers; and wholesale “changing” of his original posts, AND subsequent comments – sometimes months after the fact – to make it look like he was right all along, when in fact he wasn’t.As I’ve said before Tristan, with regards to John
CrookCook it’s time for you to put up or shut up..
While you’re at it, you might like to give us your amended “Plan B” – you know – what people in the NH can do to survive if runaway CAGW is bunk and climate is cyclical, and it is now, in fact, going to get very cold for a while.
Your last callous effort – that they should wear a jumper – hasn’t worked out too well for the several hundred people who have frozen to death in the past week.
Mind you, you climastrology cultists seem to have a penchant for killing large numbers of people with your “unintended consequences”, so your personal, callous, utter disregard for what is happening in the NH now is hardly surprising.
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I’ve sent this message to Gina
Hi Gina; I’ve read plenty about you recently and from what I’ve read you’ve risen even higher in my esteem than you were before
As to Fairfax I am a small shareholder and I fully support you having a seat on the board; someone with your business experience could only be beneficial to a media company which is losing money; to such an extent that I am planning to sell my small shareholding
So, go Gina!!!!
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OMG. That sucks so bad. Or are you being facetious?
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OMG that’s so impolite, or are you just being faecious?
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Has to be facetious. No real person would be demonstrate sycophantic grovelling in pubic to that extent surely?
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If and I say IF, the ABC was true to its charter and was committed to scrupulous avoidance of any political bias in its programming or choosing staff, to avoid rather than maintain, a political bias to the left, I would say that we would not need a new news media/TV channel.
However the fact is, there is a well entrenched leftist agenda involved in the ABC culture. I don’t want and we don’t need a publically funded ABC to be either right or left, it should be the scrupulous fair and balanced media in Australia, but it is not.
There is a very dangerous culture, easily toeing the present government line skewing the media balance which builds upon an academic left wing that is also well entrenched in Universities also well funded by government monies.
Getup, is a behind the scenes extension of the labor Caucus, well funded by money channeled from government through convenient backdoor union sources, plus other donor organisations purporting to represent whatever environmental or green front that can be used to garner support.
Its true colours will be revealed in the next election when labor will try and dump the greens after testing the waters, as they lost too much ground and influence to the (crazy) greens at the last election.
Be also aware that the way the NBN is presented it is possible for a bad government to control and monitor/censor, black out sites that may be selected by the ruling political elite. In my view we absolutely need a new television channel that balances the bias of the left dominated media in Australian.
Heaven help us if we don’t have some news media to both bring in world news, run comment blogs on the internet, capable of bypassing the NBN toexpose attempts to limit the freedom of ordinary Australians, to counter propaganda and enable Australians make up their own minds and also get a message out to the rest of the world if those freedoms are under attack.
I have watched the ABC tone down bias when under media scrutiny, but when the watchers are otherwise preoccupied they soon revert to type. The best thing we can have to protect our freedom as Australians is to have competing media willing to expose stories and issues without fear or favour.
The labor party has already tried to muzzle the Murdock media so we need to watch carefully as if the greens by some accident get into power, liberty and freedom of Australians will go out the window under the greater good of the “cause”
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Trouble is the ABC, SBS, etc still put the opinions of the BBC (British BS Cooperation), CNN, etc etc as gospel of PC journalism to the extreme with out question. IF the BBC says its getting warmer (which they cant do this winter and have finally admitted it) then it is! The same BS applies to all the smaller networks of Australia and NZ and other small countries having to feed of the cooperate media empire (of the Sun).
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And Al Jazeera, they put stuff from them on too.
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Bris 31 hosts some Deutsche Welle and Al Jeezy.
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Tristan,
Al Jeezy – you’re Al Seezy – spelling is important!
الجزيرة is the fifth most popular brand after Apple Computers, Google, Ikea and Starbucks
Be careful son of Blancheflor – JB might find out about the new Get Rich Quick program you are writng?
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Ikea is cool, just don’t eat there!
I was actually named after this Tristan, which puts an upper bound on my age 😉
I wish Arabic sounded as beautiful as it looks.
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Tristan.
Why do you wish instead of finding out – but I think this is your method – just wish!
Go to the roundabout at the intersection of of two roads in Diera. You will find that the eternal Flame of Oil discovery has been moved to a park near the airport! Why do you not look for answers anymore – just replies with no substance?
Have you heard your name said in Arabic (check this is also correct Tristan) Tristan/ MO – didn’t think so. الجزيرة is not your channel until you look further!
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I’m sorry Jo (and Lord Monckton),
But like CAGW, this whole article (and Monckton’s “plan”) is based on a false premise: that, when it comes to views and beliefs, there is some passing similarity between the news market here and the news market in the USA. This simply isn’t true.
In the US, there tends to be “conservatives” and “liberals” in something reasonably close to the true and widely accepted meaning of those terms. Hence, while not set in stone, most “conservatives” will hold similar views to each other on everything from US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, to abortion, to home-schooling, to Israel and Palestine, to vaccination, and so on. And “liberals”, by and large, will hold diametrically opposite views on the same subjects. As such, each group represents a broad, reasonably easy to identify “market” for news.
That simply isn’t the case here in OZ. For a start, in OZ politics, there is not the clear distinction between “conservatives” (Republicans), and “liberals” (Democrats) that exists in the US. In both the Australian Liberal and Labor parties there are and always have been people who were somewhere “left” of Chairman Mao (Penny Wong, Malcolm Fraser), and people somewhat “right” of Genghis Khan (Paul Keating, Johnny Howard).
To be honest, I’m not quite sure if our party politics are a reflection of Australian Society, or if the state of Australian Society is a reflection of our party politics. It doesn’t matter: the point is that there simply isn’t the cohesion of “across the board” agreement of opinion across a wide range of subjects, such as exists in the US.
The very same people who band together here as brothers-in-arms to fight the glorious fight against CAGW, would nonetheless be at each others’ throats in a heartbeat if the topic of the post was one of the subjects I just listed above, or any one of a hundred other contentious issues.
Any attempt to create a “right” wing biased media in this country is doomed to the same commercial failure as our existing “left” wing biased media is experiencing today, and for the same reasons.
The only kind of news service that is likely to survive in current MSM form in the next few years, is one with a scrupulously unbiased stance in any direction. You know, like our taxpayer-funded ABC is SUPPOSED to be.
Rather than attempting to reinvent a wheel that is past its use-by date anyway, we would be better off attempting to extract some kind of commitment from the LNP to clean up the ABC and force it back to doing what it is supposed to be doing, should they win the next election.
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> The only kind of news service that is likely to survive in
> current MSM form in the next few years, is one with a
> scrupulously unbiased stance in any direction.
>
But there’s always got to be some kind of bias, otherwise you have nihilism. Our personal values and goals are the lens that allows to frame events as either advancing, maintaining, or inhibiting our ideals. Our biases are what make an event worth reporting.
Take civil liberties for example. If the majority of the media are statist, or fascist, or pro-crony capitalist, or jingoistic, then nobody in the media will report when a new bill in parliament wants to increase police powers. The journos have to at least recognise that civil liberties are a well known principle and that a recent event can be interesting because of it. That’s a good bias even if they don’t use the event to tell people what opinion to hold.
Is that a fair point or have I read too much into your use of the word “unbiased”?
Also, just on logistics, I’ll agree with the single unbiased station approach. Most stations have their news at the same time, so there is no chance to watch several sources, and even if you can you have to triple your TV time. That’s why having multiple stations with different biases doesn’t produce a fair system, because you’d always have to choose which half of the story to leave out. Only if every TV station makes an attempt at holistic reporting can TV news hope to achieve balance. It’s just a consequence of the broadcast medium and people’s limited time.
(That’s also why the Internet has been (and should be) capturing the news market from TV.)
IMO, exactly the opposite is true for entertainment. Just look at radio stations. The ACMA insist radio stations make “good use” of the spectrum they buy – apparently buying spectrum doesn’t make it free to do with as you wish!! So they always want radio stations to get the largest possible audience, and since the license fees are so huge this practically means compromising and appealing to the lowest common denominator. There’s no room for niche interests in radio, which is why some of the cooler dance music stations in Brisbane never lasted more than a few years. We end up with a system in which every radio station has to be mainstream, leading to less variety than if the fees were not so enormous. Five stations all the same, gee isn’t it great to live in a “free country” with “so much choice”. haha. So with entertainment encouraging biases and niche opinions is good, but for simply being informed it should be more objective and.. yes, probably all the same.
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Saying Fox is not biased is quite amusing. COme on people, we are surely not that stupid to believe that?
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Hold on, hold on. . . wait a minute. . .
Isnt Fox News in America basically regarded as trash news?
But in saying that they were the ones who spearheaded exposing the climategate scandal when other news outlets didnt even give it a mention.
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Which is a pretty good explanation for your assertion that they are regarded as trash news. Well done on making that link Sir!!
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who believes in the principle that in Australia each citizen is equal before the law
that is citizens who are judges, who are politicians and those citizens like me who are neither
If you believe each citizen is equal before the law in Australia then please visit http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1336
The Heiner Affair – 20 odd years of Labor and Government cover-up and add a comment
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Let’s see how biased ABC is when it comes to global warming.
Now, we are all aware of previous claims that climate change is stunting growth in the great barrier reef.
I believe this was one of Julia Gillards heartfelt selling point for the carbon pollution tax.
2 days ago, we see another “scientific study” into the omnipotent powers of global warming.
This time it’s causing SOME corals to GROW at a slightly faster rate (23%).
The logical conclusion might be: “Hooray!”, it looks likes global warming could cause reefs to grow and support more colorful and diverse fish!
However in what can only be described as the most ridiculous hyperbole scientists declare that this rate of growth is UNSUSTAINABLE!! and that corals even posses human emotions such as “being NOT HAPPY”.
I will be contacting this scientific institution to request their reports and data. I want to know what ocean temperature records they are using to prove warming, what corals they have measured (and why not all are growing at an alarmingly increased rate) and what statistical methods they have used to establish these horrifying facts.
Any advice on how to proceed tactfully will be appreciated.
Sonny
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201202/s3423899.htm
Scientists say WA reef growth unsustainable
By Jo Prendergast
Monday, 06/02/2012
New research has found some coral reefs in the Indian Ocean are growing at an unsustainable rate due to warming water temperatures.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science says the most southerly reefs on the West Australian coast, have increased their growth rates by up to 23 per cent.
Principal research scientist, Janice Lough, says that’s not sustainable.
“Corals are already responding rapidly to the environmental changes that we’re imposing upon them.
“When you get unusually warm waters you can get coral bleaching events, that’s one threshold corals can reach if the water temperatures continue to warm.
“There will be a threshold beyond which the corals are not happy with and they’ll just slow their growth down.”
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.
Maybe we could drop a thousand tons of Prozac onto these “unhappy” coral reefs.
They’d still be unhappy, but they wouldn’t care.
.
Don’t laugh – that’s apparently the mindset behind giving thousands of OZ primary school children anti-depressants.
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So does that make JB an OZ schoolie or a coral reef?
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Sonny
Just in relation to the ocean temperature data – where are they getting this from? To attribute this to climate change they must have long detailed data sets! Or are they just assuming the IPCC ocean temp data increases. If global temperatures haven’t changed – then surely if they haven’t collected their own data – this is just another set of “scientists” on the grant schemes that use IPCC data. Almost criminal in the world of science.
I haven’t seen any reports from The Australian Institute of Marine Science regarding increases of ocean temperatures on the West Australian Coast that can be attributed to climate change.
Maybe AIMS can provide you with data on this area with regard to increasing ocean temperatures data. And of the original research project – what temperature increase caused a 23% increase of growth (what time frame also – per day – per decade etc) – they have to provide growth analysis figures also?
This is going to turn out a big CON job by the scientists involved. Keep up the hunt on this one. Well done! The claims of unsustainable growth is amazing by this person!
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Growth of Western Australian Corals in the Anthropocene
Abstract
“Anthropogenic increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide lead to warmer sea surface temperatures and altered ocean chemistry. Experimental evidence suggests that coral calcification decreases as aragonite saturation drops but increases as temperatures rise toward thresholds optimal for coral growth. In situ studies have documented alarming recent declines in calcification rates on several tropical coral reef ecosystems. We show there is no widespread pattern of consistent decline in calcification rates of massive Porites during the 20th century on reefs spanning an 11° latitudinal range in the southeast Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Increasing calcification rates on the high-latitude reefs contrast with the downward trajectory reported for corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and provide additional evidence that recent changes in coral calcification are responses to temperature rather than ocean acidification.”
This theory suggests that coral growth plotted against T would be someting like an upside down parabola, with T_optimum at the peak.
The article seems to be suggesting that tropical reefs have warmed beyond Toptimum and are in decline (albeit inconsistenly) whereas reefs further south are growing as they warm to Toptimum.
It seems that for this theory to hold water, we need a detailed ocean temp record for both SA and WA, close to the sample locations. Does such a record exist? Or are we presuming that somehow corals respond to a hypothetical mean ocean temperature?
There also needs to be close correlation between a number of such samples and this instrumental record if it can honestly be said that corals are primarily growing in response to temperature (just how inconsistent are these samples?)
There needs to be a legitimate selection of coral proxies, rather than cherry picking the ones that best match the instrumental record.
Why am I reminded of a certain graph by Michael Mann?
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Unfortunately to access the full article It seems I need to pay for a membership to the journal Science? (over $200)
Is there any other way I could gain access to the full text for this article? The research was done in Australia and funded by the Australian government. The main findings are made available free of charge on the ABC. It seems unfair that I must pay for subscription to an American Scientific Journal for research conducted in Australia and paid for by the government. Doesnt it?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6068/593.abstract
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I am trying to locate this now – some internet people can get access like this guy
I Hate Paypal
Where he states –
So how in the world can you claim as the truth from the article these people wrote? So if Mr I Hate Paypal can find out about a study in reef response to climate change in regard to they did not take ocean water samples – I regard this whole study a joke and this report should be released to JONOVA et al for confirmation of data etc.
This is where they get their data from:
From the data I have been able to find they have been using this: Point & Click – which is only sea surface temperature!
This has to followed by someone who can get the data tables!
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I don’t agree at all. Fox News Australia would be a complete and utter failure. Australians are 1-2 standard deviations to the left of Americans.
The Bolt Report can still barely attract 200,000 viewers in total each week. The not very successful The Project on Channel 10 gets a minimum of 400,000 viewers every weeknight.
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At the risk of appearing supportive of Bolt’s efforts (which I’m not), your figures are probably more indicative of:
1) – Total available viewing audience in the two shows’ timeslots (vastly more adults are watching TV at 6.00pm weeknights than at 10.00am Sunday mornings; and
2) – The long-accepted maxim that a large number of Australians choose their “news” program (what’s on while they cook dinner), based on what follows it (IE – a lot of Australians watch “Australia’s Biggest Loser” – although, for the life of me, I have no idea why).
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It’s because they are Australias biggest losers.
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The point is that Bolt probably would be on at 6pm weeknights if a real market for “conservative” commentary existed. The fact that he is on at 10am Sunday shows that market doesn’t exist.
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The starkest difference between the green press in Australia and the few conservative outlets has been in the respective treatments of the 2 whistleblowers, Assange and the climategate guy.
The green press have fallen over themselves in sucking up to Assange and have largely ignored climategate guy; yet it is the later who has revealed the most fundamental corruption between science, academia and potentially government and business; if, as speculated, the remaining 20,000 emails detail the communications between the scientists and business and government then the dilemma for the green press will be extreme.
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So true.
But It’s worse than that. Assange is a hero of the revolution. The climategate guy is a reactionary criminal who should be hunted down and prosecuted like a dog.
The defining motif of the modern left is hypocrisy.
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More real climate…
If the cap fits.. well then..those who follow iceagenow will have seen this great graph..for the warmists looks like a we bit of a problem
http://iceagenow.info/2012/02/sunspot-cycle-chart-shows-strong-cooling/
(and controls La Ninia and El Nino of course)
I love the very close fit between the minimums and maxima.
Dr Niroma says its Jupiter, Landscheidt says its all the gas giants Id say all that gives the 170yr cycle. Sorry we got a demise in the solar output for a while me thinks (translates to freezing).
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For those who either love or hate FOX at least they had Joe Bastardi in one of his great interviews..http://iceagenow.info/2012/02/drastic-cooling-meteorologist-video/
and Survey 63 percent of TV weathermen think global warming is a natural process.
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Whoo Hoo, look how’s out in front now Julia.
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/4926-nigel-lawson-calls-for-decc-to-be-broken-up.html
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They’re under the pump eveywhere and are chasing any media outlet that will give them a voice.
No moisture in the atmosphere in January eh Bill? That wouldn’t be because it’s mostly on the ground killing hundreds would it?
With the CO2 bubble exploding in their faces everywhere Big Climate Bill goes into wagon circling mode or typically lapses back into lefty victim mode fighting the good fight against insurmountable odds of the dark lord Sauron of Exxon-
Pathetic aren’t they, when they’ve largely enjoyed the commanding heights and all the benefits of the polity for so long and now it’s all crashing down around their ears. Now they’re the victims begging for their ‘concern’ for their fellow man to be listened to.
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If Santorum wins in the US he will BURY AGW
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[…] nor Mannkal, have yet to comment, but Lord Monckton took to Jo Nova’s blog yesterday to defend his words: The frenetic reaction of the dwindling and desperate […]
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Now that would be a kick in the face of the corrupted ABC!
Just go for it!! The low trust in media has a very good explanation and thats that its gouvernment loyal. A media that earns trust from its viewers and readers is what the Australian people deserves. Im liviong in sweden and we share the same problem with the media and public service. they are working for the gouvernment loyal and leftwing ideologi. But your ABC bias on climatissue is hard to beat!!
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There’s also Sun media in Canada (nothing to do with Murdoch’s grubby newspaper) and their star Ezra Levant, showing up the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s taxpayer-funded distortions. Great stuff at
http://www.ezralevant.com
and Australia could do with its own version of this guy.
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Here is a perspective on the Anthropogenic Global Warming issue for those who took offense at my opinion of FOX News and Murdock.
The recent exchange of letters entitled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” and “Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate” are, either implicitly or explicitly, appeals to politicians based mainly on arguments from “Authority”. It is tragic that what should have been an objective evaluation of the available data by independent scientists, has instead degenerated into a partisan political diatribe.
Weather and Climate are controlled by natural laws on a scale that is enormous compared to the scale of human activity. Those natural laws engender forces and motions in the Earth’s atmosphere, its oceans, and its surface that are beyond human control. Weather and Climate existed long before humans appeared on Earth, and they will continue to exist in the same way long after we are gone, either individually or collectively as the human race.
Those forces and motions are driven by the following phenomenon. First, there is the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun: the periodic changes in its elliptical orbit, the rotation of the Earth about its axis, the periodic changes in the tilt of that axis, and the periodic precession of that axis. Second, there is the variation in Solar activity which causes changes in the amount of radiant energy that reaches the Earth and also causes variations in the Cosmic Ray input into its atmosphere, which effect the Earth’s cloudiness. Third, there is the distribution of land and water on the Earth’s surface which controls the temperature distribution of the atmosphere, the availability of moisture, monsoon effects, and the paths and intensities of hurricanes, typhoons, and other storms. Fourth, there is the topography of the Earth’s land mass which causes copious precipitation on the windward side of mountains and aridity on the leeward side. Fifth, there are the motions within the Earth’s oceans that determine moisture availability and its surface temperature distribution (El Nino and La Nina cycles).
The determinant of weather is mainly water in all of its forms: as vapor in the atmosphere; in its heat transport by evaporation and condensation, as the enormous circulating mass of liquid ocean whose heat capacity and mass/energy transport dominate the motions of our atmosphere and the precipitation from it, and finally as cloud, snow, and ice cover which influence the radiative balance between the Sun, the Earth, and free Space. In comparison, the human emission of CO2 is totally insignificant for the Earth’s weather and climate and there is not one iota of reliable evidence that proves otherwise.
This was all learned by me when I served as a research and forecasting Meteorologist while on active duty in the U. S. Navy. That was long before the ersatz field now called “Climate Science” was fabricated out of thin air for the main purpose of promoting the false theory that human CO2 emission was causing “global warming/climate change/extreme weather phenomena.” Note that the theory has become a moving target over the last decade, but it is still relatively easy to track and shoot down.
Martin Hertzberg, Ph. D., Stanford, 1959
Copper Mountain, Colorado
co-author of “Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory”, Stairway Press (2011)
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Much better Martin. You wouldn’t be the first person that was accidentally “flamed” as a result of a first impression.
Dr. Hertzberg says:
There it is for John Brookes, Tristan, Catamon, etc. So simple, so reasonable, so sensible and so logical.
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With the exception of the El Nino – La Nina cycles, pretty-much what I learned about “Climate” in “Science” in 1966 at high school.
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(Markus you are free to dispute anything he writes but try to be more respectful while doing so) CTS
Who do you think you are Martin, you’ve got a hide coming back here, beating your breast like a gorilla. It doesn’t impress me.
Your perspective on the Anthropogenic Global Warming is somewhat unedifying, you say;
Weather and Climate are controlled by natural laws on a scale that is enormous compared to the scale of human activity.
First, there is the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun
Second, there is the variation in Solar activity
Third, there is the distribution of land and water on the Earth’s surface
Fourth land mass which controls distribution of precipitation over land.
Fifth, there are the motions within the Earth’s oceans that determine moisture availability and its surface temperature distribution (El Nino and La Nina cycles).
The human emission of CO2 is totally insignificant for the Earth’s weather and climate and there is not one iota of reliable evidence that proves otherwise.
That’s it! Your claim fame is for a book that tells us that. Mate, you are a legend in your own mind. What sort of Phd would think that was a prognosis. Your not allowed in surgery, are you?
This is my prognosis of climate; This is the logic against the invalid greenhouse forcing of Co2 irradiation;
There is a *difference between the illumination and received energies. Received includes albedo but the albedo is affected by the presence of CO2 which reflects 50% of the Sun’s irradiance back to space at its absorption frequencies. Increasing CO2 will therefore increase albedo. This would suggest that CO2 cools but in fact the effect is net neutral because it similarly reduces emissivity in those same bands.
Consider an addition of two molecules of CO2, one on the day side and one on the night side (for simplicity). Each would have an equal chance of passing a photon on or back (as CO2 re-radiates omni-directionally). The four possible outcomes are;
1. Sun >[~>( 0 )~>]> Space. = Sun radiated photon in. Earth radiated photon out.
2. Sun >[~>(+1)<~] Space. = Sun radiated photon in. Earth radiated photon in.
3. Sun ^[<~( 0 ) Space.= Sun radiated photon out. Earth radiated photon out.
Key;
> Photon and direction.
~> Absorbing & radiating carbon dioxide molecule.
[Earth-atmosphere system]
(System energy change)
Where, over time, the average will be a zero addition to system energy. By the same logic reversing the process by removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, albedo will reduce and emissivity increase but again, system energy will remain static.
The conclusion is that ‘GHG’ concentrations in the atmosphere do not change system energy. Any energy level is therefore a function of the planet-atmosphere itself and supports the N&Z finding that annual average near surface temperature is independent of the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
* Illumination 343W, received 240W and radiated out 240W. 103W is albedo loss of illumination which includes CO2 reflection.
Given that logic of irradiation and the composition of the whole of atmosphere, it can also follow that additional atmospheric mass (black coal) gives a, if you will, extra brick to the atmosphere. Upper atmosphere turbulence can sheer off when entering or exiting timescales of planetary harmonics as described by Dr Scafetta. This, and other, e.g: solar isolation, information from multivariate data of a planet with atmosphere, can predict near surface climate exponentially compared to the greenhouse paradigm.
Co2 back radiation principle is analogous to steel balls, in a pinball machine, bouncing against the posts on a plane. The models have been guessing the result. As a first principle the greenhouse effect was wrong. The “science” that followed was also wrong.
Can you see the logic of treating atmospheric gases in a climate machine using the mechanism of the pinball machine plunger (solar radiation), and the slope of the the climate (force of pressure), to predict climate.
Of course, as the science suggests, atmospheric gases are only on part of the puzzle but combined with the other pieces, Macroclimatolgy models will be powerful tools in predicting climates. Something the invalid GHG GCM’s cannot do.
This is an improved planet with atmosphere energy budget over Trenbarths’;
Incoming Solar 100%
Reflected from surface 4%
” ” atmosphere 6%
reflected by clouds 20%
Absorbed by clouds and atmosphere 19%
Absorbed by land and oceans 51%
Atmospheric distribution 100%
Heat absorbed in clouds from surface 23%
Convection force of rising air 7%
Radiated directly to space from clouds & atmosphere 64%
Radiated directly to space from surface after
radiation absorbed by atmosphere 6%
The distribution of UWR from surface is,
Radiated to atmosphere from surface 21%
Radiated directly to space from atmosphere (6%)
radiation absorbed by atmosphere (15%)
Increasing albedo would reduce force available to convection and heat absorption in clouds therefore, cooling.
It can also follow that mass extinction of megafauna and flora, can occur by rapid increase in albedo, upper atmospheric disturbances lost to space, and a decrease in pressure affecting biochemical absorptions to such a extent, whole biological systems failed and became unsustainable, in a completely different atmospheric pressure.
Volcano’s may have very well exterminated the dinosaurs ,a light meteor shower, or a combination of both. But not by greenhouse.
Troposphere would cool initially whilst upper atmosphere would warm losing more mass to space. With a of gradual increase in Earths near surface temperature as pressure increases over times-scales. As the information in the geological record since the last glacial tells us. With a couple of little joy rides in between.
Get ready for another joy ride as the Suns isolation, and planetary harmonics, possibly cause a loss of atmosphere from recent climate anomalies.
Put thank in your pipe and smoke it Yank.
You should now be embarrassed by the designations you put to your name. You’re useless..
Martin Hertzberg, Ph. D., Stanford, 1959
Copper Mountain, Colorado
co-author of “Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory”, Stairway Press (2011)
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@Markus #60.3
Markus this post of yours was uncalled for, unnecessarily aggressive and personal, and to use your own descriptor, unedifying.
Furthermore, your opinions on the role of CO2 in the atmosphere are just that, opinions. Though entitled to your own, opinions they are just the same because you’ve offered not a shred of evidence to back your claims.
You may have valid claims to disagree with Hertzberg but you have no valid claims to take the tone you have and the one who should be embarrassed is you.
The denizens of Jo Nova are a forgiving lot. An apology would go a long way to regaining respect. If you wish to have your future comments taken seriously, I strongly urge you to do so.
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I apologise to all readers here for my brutal attack on the character of Dr. Martin Hertzberg. My retort to him was abusive.
I should not have taken such personal offense for his previous slur against my country.
(I read your long post and let it go despite some hard words in it.He was not innocent either even though his cesspool location may not be the nation of Australia itself? But in any case I appreciate your effort in trying to cool things down) CTS
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You’re a good man Markus.
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Warmer air holds more water vapour, hence ‘feedback’.
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Tristan,
The other day you stated that, in your opinion, the results churned out by climate computer models were superior in every way to mere observed data.
At that point you surrendered the privilege to be taken seriously, about anything, by anybody.
There’s no need for you to go on labouring the point. We all got it the first time:
.
You’re a dill.
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Mv
Don’t be so critical. Tristan is totally correct in saying that “Warmer air holds more water vapour, hence ‘feedback’.”
As everyone knows the more water the air can hold the more clouds will be formed.
This reduces UV getting to earth’s surface and increases reflected energy “turnaround” from top of clouds , thereby creating a Negative feedback which cools the planet.
Eventually there is no “warmer air” and we move to the ” clear sky” scenario that keeps our air temp “just right”.
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[…] nor Mannkal, have yet to comment, but Lord Monckton took to Jo Nova’s blog yesterday to defend his words: The frenetic reaction of the dwindling and desperate […]
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[…] nor Mannkal, have yet to comment, but Lord Monckton took to Jo Nova’s blog yesterday to defend his words: The frenetic reaction of the dwindling and desperate […]
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I suppose I might make a comment on topic for a change.
Don’t know about a Fox News type of format, might dilute the market somewhat. Better to take over Fairfacts incrementally and pouncing on the ABC when its privatised…indeed it will in the not too distant future.
Let the left eat soya bean cake!
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Neil Mitchell nails that GetUP creep!
Click on the audio and enjoy.
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Neil did a very good job. Nailed that hypocritical idiot. GetUp are just scared they are going to lose one of their main voices being Fairfax. They are an unbelievable lot. Getup should do a survey on how many of their members read The Age and how many are also left wing voters. I bet the percentages are quite high and the correlation would be strong as well.
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[…] nor Mannkal, have yet to comment, but Lord Monckton took to Jo Nova’s blog yesterday to defend his words: The frenetic reaction of the dwindling and desperate […]
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I agree scaper – good for Neil Mitchell – err my last answer was probably reflective of my reaction after listening to that interview …. probably why it got lost in the filter…..but that’s how I felt!!
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What is needed more than yet another free2air TV broadcaster, is probably a free2net channel and a simple bit of hardware to stream direct to a regular TV screen regardless of its vintage.
A company that did that would not only have the benefit of NOT having to set up expensive broadcasting infrastructure and pay massive licensing fees but also have literally a GLOBAL market for their programming and advertising … and at mostly the punter’s expense at that.
Additional bonus being that survey/ratings of viewing habits would be far simpler and far more accurate, too.
My massive samsung flatscreen already allows me to stream youtubes of “The Bolt Report” to it in all their glaring red background glory, and I’m sure, if I bothered to look, I could get it to stream other TV stuff already on the net to it. So, the Tech is already mostly there !
“Our ABC” are already utilising Xbox360 Live to make iView available to the world via the net and gaming consoles, so as a quick fix for now perhaps Fox should just set up an Oz chapter (with Ozzie announcers and Oz news, etc) and stream to us direct via the net ?
Print new-media and broadcast TV are surely on the way out and being replaced by the internut, yes ?
I guess that’s why the Resentful Left are trying so hard to bring controls upon internut content now. They are slowly realising that their days of Marxist Stream Media are drawing to a close and that market demand/directed media will see them relegated to utter irrelevance.
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Sweet circle jerk, i just popped over to see how the other side of extremists in this arguement think.
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This is a “comment”?
Where did you go, what are “they” saying, who are “they”, and if you’re not going to tell us, why bother posting?
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I see it this way:
Someone did some survey of the public back some years ago and determined that at the time, greater than 50% of the people were more left-minded than right-minded. So as a result, everyone decided to produce left-leaning news. It is sort of like having a survey show that greater than 50% of the people prefer chicken over beef. So everyone considering starting a business opens a chicken joint instead of a burger joint. Eventually you have nearly 100% of the places around are selling nothing but chicken. But wait, it gets worse. Because of wire services, not only are they all selling chicken, they all have exactly the same menu!
Now someone comes along and decides to open a burger joint. You have 100 outlets competing for the 50% of the population who prefer chicken but only 1 outlet catering to the other 50%. Is it no wonder that the one outlet outsells all the others?
It it gets even worse than that! The ones selling chicken are always alienating the people who prefer beef. The beef eaters don’t even want to TRY the chicken places because they have been called rude names, implied that they are somehow stupid, etc. So the chicken places are alienating 50% of their potential market.
Fox Australia would be a wonderful idea. Doesn’t Murdoch still own a paper and Adelaide? Maybe he could get the ball rolling there, I don’t know.
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Here is your Fox News, hardly a shining example of journalistic integrity. Monckton’s clientele have hit on what could be a great idea. Just a shame he killed it by making an analogy with… Fox News, of all the channels!
A news channel being anti-communist, anti-fascist, pro-prosperity, pro-democracy, and either pro-worker socialism or pro-regulated market capitalism would bring a helpful balancing force to Australian media. In the pro-capitalist case just remember that being Right of Centre doesn’t guarantee you are right on accuracy. You can have your bias, but facts first, “truth” second, and bias last. A fair and unbiased news source would ensure that every report contained facts which could allow two opposite moral judgements to form about the event based on that report.
What we don’t need is yet another outlet for government OR corporate propaganda. That probably makes SBS the best channel we have, in theory, though I don’t watch any TV news any more for many reasons. The tendency to reinforce groupthink is strong and the very nature of broadcast TV will probably lead any new channel to suffer this same deficiency. I think the best option is individually tailored news shows streamed over the net, which is composed half of reports on topics you express interest in, and half of reports which are completely the opposite in opinion or topic to the ones you’ve subscribed. This would give a balanced world view by forcing you to confront unfamiliar perspectives. Or you could just use the internet as it already is. There’s really no need for anything new here.
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shh Andrew, Fox is great, end of.
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Cataloguing the corruption of Fox News would be an unending task if I paid much attention. Here’s yet another example.
John Bolton dodges question from anti-war vet about blowback, insults him; Fox edits out the audience booing and replaces with it applause.
If that video is what went to air, then the allegation is true. The guy seen moving away from the front at 1:44 after Bolton finishes speaking and while everyone claps is not the guy who just asked the question. Fox edited in different footage to conceal the audience’s true opinion of Bolton’s official answer. Bolton has endorsed Mitt Romney, but encountered a Ron Paul audience.
The only pertinent question is which news channels propagandise equally as frequently as Fox?
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Choosing FOX -the why tell the truth when a lie will suffice and sell more news and programming- media juggernaut doesn’t do a service for the skeptical cause. FOX makes a mockery of journalistic integrity so I am surprised that someone with Monckton’s journalistic experience would make such a suggestion.
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GetUp dumber than an Orang-Utan
according to an editorial in the Melbourne paper the Herald-Sun.
the money quote…
Click here for the full opinion piece.
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I know this is not a phylogenetic debate but what did they mean by “closest primates”?
Closest in proximity to Australia? Nope, there are other primates in the region. It is the closest ape I suppose.
Did they mean closest living species taxonomically? Nope, that would be members of the genus Pan (the chimp/bonobo clade) which are more than 5 million years closer.
At least it wasn’t written by a science reporter (not that I am claiming that this is a guarantee of accuracy)
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Speaking of ‘juvenile and ludicrous’.
But I get the humour.
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Actually, an Andrew Breitbart might be what Australia needs. He gave a brilliant speech at CPAC in the US:
http://videos.mediaite.com/video/Watch-Andrew-Breitbarts-Epic-CP;recently_viewed
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