Vote for your favourite in the Bloggies

(Click to start voting)

Voting closes on Sunday, and there are lots of great sites to vote for.

I know voting is a bit of an effort, but if you get a lot from a site, it’s a way to say thanks. Awards are useful for bloggers — and it means blogs you like can reach a wider audience.

It’s already a success to be listed and linked as a finalist. Thanks to those who nominated and voted in that round.

For 2015 I’ll be voting for The Pickering Post in Australia-NZ, Steyn Online in Most Humorous, and Breitbart  in Politics (though American Thinker is also a great site). I’ll have to choose (darn) between Not a Lot of People Know That, and No Tricks Zone in Europe Tallbloke’s Talkshop and Climate Audit in Lifetime Achievement and Watts Up and Real Science in Weblog of the Year.

To make your vote count you do need to supply an email, check it, and confirm. See below for instructions if you need them.

How topical is climate science? In the last year 600,000 people visited this site. When Tony Abbott faced a leadership crisis last month his main competitor was an avid carbon trading fan. Hundreds of emails helped convince the Liberal Party not to vote for a spill — and this blog was the only one in Australia to post a list of politicians email addresses. Three things have really pleased me about progress in the last year: firstly the removal of The Carbon Tax in Australia; secondly, the recognition of the issue of the scandal of temperature adjustments and homogenisation in the mainstream media (especially in The Australian, and by Christopher Booker, and in The Daily Mail); and thirdly, we published original new scientific research about a possible cause of the recent global warming (and we have more on that soon — stronger and better than ever, overcoming this issue). Otherwise I’d like to thank most of the Old Media for their one-eyed, inept investigations and for leaving giant gaps in their coverage. The blog has now notched up 1,800 posts and 280,000 comments. It’s a testament to the success of the New Media. But there is much still to do — Paris is coming, the EU has already wasted $100 billion. How much more will go on the bonfire?

Thanks to all the supporters who keep me going with donations, emails and ideas.

In 2014 I summed up the work I was most proud of, much of which is still “topical” 😉 :

Since Sept 2008 I have written 1,403 posts and almost two million people have visited this site from over 200 countries. The Skeptics Handbook has found its way in hard copy to 220,000 people, including all politicians in Australia and the US, and was  translated by volunteers into 16 languages, and remarkably — in such a contentious topic — five years later, has survived unscathed — there is not much I would change. John Cook took two years to try to knock it down with help from four professors, but I only needed four days to take his arguments apart. Thanks to this blog, I’ve done repeated Op-Eds for The Australian, a sought after Diary post on the Spectator, and been named in the Australian Parliament — where Rob Oakshott “smelt a rat” and claimed I ran a well organized and well funded campaign “to her credit”. My favourite posts include an epic five part debate with Prof Andrew Glikson. I was one of the key protagonists getting Dr Paul Bain and Nature to issue a partial correction “regretting the offence cause by the term denier”. I still think my initial response to him is one of my best pieces. Among my readers are three national cartoonists, and at least a dozen MP’s and senators. I’ve been cited by and talked to the very people who I admire greatly — Mark Steyn, Matt Ridley, James Delingpole and Andrew Bolt, who described this post as outstanding and “a magnificent polemic”.

HOW TO CAST YOUR VOTE

1. Click on the 2015 Bloggies Page

2. Scroll through the categories  (you must vote in at least three categories).

3. Click on the small circle of your chosen blog. (Look for the tick).
.
bloggies 2015

4. Don’t forget to do the Captcha at the very bottom . (NOTE: – don’t use cursor keys, it will change your vote!)

5. Use a REAL email address. Press the SUBMIT button. Note- you won’t get spammed by doing so. See the fine print under the email box.

6. To make your vote count you must click  on the official link in the email sent by the bloggies. (Check your spam or junk folder if you don’t get it). You should see a success message page pop up.

7. Spread the word! Twitter, Facebook, emails, comments. Please share.

8. As Anthony Watts says: Don’t cheat. Don’t encourage cheating, and simply let the chips fall where they may. May the best weblogs win.

9.2 out of 10 based on 32 ratings

56 comments to Vote for your favourite in the Bloggies

  • #
    Truthseeker

    Just to be clear, it is one vote per email address.

    Be sure to use each email address to ensure voting equality.

    Leave no email address unrepresented!

    66

  • #
    PeterPetrum

    Done Jo. Managed to vote for you twice! Good luck and well deserved to be in the finalists. Obligatory daily read, you are!

    90

  • #
    ColA

    Yes, 1 vote per person is enough, Jo will get there and would not appreciate cheating to achieve what she rightly deserves.

    120

  • #
    Mike Burke

    Done, Joanne. You must by now be a red-hot favourite. 🙂

    50

  • #
    Leo Morgan

    I’m going to pile on also, so that nobody with any integrity on the warmist side (Hello to that one person) can say that the suggestion we vote multiple times was not immediately howled down.

    70

  • #
    pat

    as jo says, pass this thread around to everyone on email lists who doesn’t want to fund the CAGW scam for the rest of their lives.

    18 March: Business Spectator: Darren Willman: Australia is catching up on climate investment risk
    (Darren Willman is business development manager with Climate Friendly, which provides carbon management solutions.)
    Last week, the Bank of England became the first central bank to acknowledge the risk of climate impact investment risks in its One Bank Research Agenda Discussion Paper.
    The chapter entitled ‘Response to Fundamental Changes’ considers how physical changes in the environment and resource scarcity translate into financial impacts…
    As local and global laws and regulations take shape around climate change, litigation risk comes into play…
    In Australia, carbon investment risk management appears to have traction among the responsible investment circles, but less so from Australia’s chief investment officers and fund managers. One of the main roadblocks has been the availability and quality of solutions. But these are rapidly improving – online screening and reporting tools, data feed integration services and solutions, portfolio analysis work and forward-looking impact assessment consulting work – offered by organisations in the responsible investment space such as South Pole Group. With these solutions now increasingly available, hopefully Australia’s finance and investment sector does not become stranded itself, and can follow the rest of the world in this burgeoning trend.
    https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/3/18/energy-markets/australia-catching-climate-investment-risk

    Willman of Climate Friendly spruiks for South Pole Group:

    South Pole Group: Partners
    Climate Friendly – South Pole Group is major shareholder of Climate Friendly.
    Membership: UNEP, IETA (International Emissions Trading Association), HUB Zurich
    http://thesouthpolegroup.com/about/partner

    50

  • #
    pat

    more info on Climate Friendly/South Pole Group:

    Climate Friendly: Our Team
    Freddy Sharpe – CEO
    Before running Climate Friendly, Freddy was Chief Operating Officer of Australia’s largest residential energy efficiency company.
    Freddy has hands-on expertise in carbon markets, carbon and energy policies, energy efficiency and clean and conventional energy, developed in Australia and internationally for over 20 years. Freddy speaks regularly on climate change and related topics and was included in the inaugural ABC Carbon 50, a list of the 50 most influential people in Australia who are committed to the environment, the planet and the future of life on earth…
    Joel Fleming
    Founding Chairman (Innovations & Partnerships)
    Joel Fleming is an environmental scientist and Founding Chairman of Climate Friendly and previously a scientist with CSIRO…
    Josh Harris
    Manager – Australian Projects
    He has advised large corporates on carbon management including Virgin Atlantic, BSkyB, BP, JP Morgan and Tesco and headed up the Climate Group’s carbon market team in China. In his most recent role before joining Climate Friendly, Josh was an advisor to the Western Australian Environment Minister…
    http://www.climatefriendly.com/AboutUs/OurTeam/

    Climate Friendly: Board
    Dr. Christoph Grobbel, Director
    Christoph joined South Pole after 12.5 years with McKinsey & Company, Inc. where he worked as a Senior Expert for Emissions Trading and Electric Power & Natural Gas…
    Renat Heuberger, Director
    At ***South Pole he has coordinated the setup of local presences in China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa, and has originated several million CERs and VERs worldwide…

    Climate Friendly’s Blog – does anyone ever visit it?

    From the front line – the Official Climate Friendly Blog
    https://climatefriendlyblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/carbon-markets-youll-never-walk-alone/

    50

  • #
    pat

    18 March: RoadToParis.info: Q&A with Chris Field: The link between climate change and disaster risk reduction
    by Denise Young & Johannes Mengel
    ***Q. In your talk just now here at the Sendai conference you put a lot of emphasis on the fact that we can actually observe climate change now – rather than something we just expect to happen in the future. Is that something people aren’t sufficiently aware of, or not discussing enough?
    A. Yes. I think its a major new result, and it is important for getting people to focus on the value of near term actions. What we need in the near term is to take the issue seriously. We need to look at the science, look at the costs and benefits of deploying a wide range of alternative energy solutions and adaptation solutions in the context of sustainable development. What we’re really talking about on solving the climate problem is slightly tweaking the development agenda to produce the best outcomes for people everywhere.
    One of the really important conclusions from the IPCC report is that no matter what climate target we adopt, the world is headed for zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases…
    – Chris Field is the founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University. He is co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which led the effort on the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” (2012) and Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014). Field’s research has been recognized with several American and international awards, including the Max Planck Research Award and the Roger Revelle Medal, and with election to learned societies, including the US National Academy of Sciences (2001).

    http://roadtoparis.info/2015/03/18/qa-with-chris-field-the-link-between-climate-change-and-disaster-risk-reduction/

    reminder:

    27 Feb: US State Dept: Nomination of Dr. Chris Field as Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

    more from Sendai – World Bank wants more money – fails to convince?

    17 March: Devex: Manolo de Vos: At Sendai, meaningful steps toward mainstreaming disaster risk reduction
    “There is very strong consensus here that unless we really put disaster risk and resilience at the heart of how we think about and carry out development, we are simply not going to achieve the goals that we want for ourselves as an international community,” Rachel Kyte, vice president and special envoy for climate change at the World Bank, told Devex in an exclusive interview…
    “There is an emerging conversation around humanitarian relief, development assistance and the new emerging climate finance architecture — the three sources of international spending on disaster risk reduction,” Kyte explained to Devex. Each of these financing streams is governed by different rules and structures, a situation which the global development community is realizing might be too difficult for a vulnerable country to navigate, she noted.
    More than international financing for disaster risk reduction, Kyte highlighted that crucial questions about the sort of economic policies, fiscal tools and insurance mechanisms that countries need to spur resilience are being addressed.
    “How can local governments get access to funds to build their resilience? How can you make sure that women, smallholders and small-business owners have access to microinsurance and insurance?” she asked. “Those are some of the questions that are being answered.”…
    But for all her optimism, the World Bank’s special envoy admitted that the road to better disaster risk reduction is still long.
    Citing upcoming negotiations on a post-2015 development agenda, financing for development and climate change, Kyte noted that articulating all of these policies and priorities into a coherent and integrated vision for the future is bound to be a “complicated choreography.”…
    Meanwhile, in the context of cash-strapped development budgets, careful stewardship of domestic resources will be required in all countries. Development assistance and climate financing will also have to be used in a smart “catalytic” way, according to Kyte…
    “What has just happened to the people of Vanuatu must spur us forward,” Kyte said. “Every one of these storms is wiping out a large part of the growth capacity and development strides that many countries have earned in the last few years, and if that doesn’t spur negotiators forward, then I don’t know what will.”…
    (about the writer: Manola De Vos is a development analyst for Devex. Based in Manila, she contributes to the Development Insider and Money Matters newsletters. Prior to joining Devex, Manola worked in conflict analysis and political affairs for the United Nations, International Crisis Group and the European Union)
    https://www.devex.com/news/at-sendai-meaningful-steps-toward-mainstreaming-disaster-risk-reduction-85729

    50

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      A quick but comprehensive translation of Rachele Kyte’s diatribe.

      “There is very strong consensus here that unless we really put disaster risk and resilience at the heart of how we think about and carry out development, we are simply not going to achieve the goals that we want for ourselves as an international community,” Rachel Kyte, vice president and special envoy for climate change at the World Bank, . . .

      The UN and World Bank have orchestrated a conference in order to attempt to establish a concensus around what the UN Global Governance world government framework legal system should look like in the area of sustainable developement regulated growth. Unless we, the UN and co., are able to achieve this concensus, we may not be able to achieve our goals implement the vision that we want for ourselves as an international community to completely control of the worlds allocation of resources.*
      .
      .
      *”In order to do this we always stress the word resilience because this word implies a reaction to the outside forces of climate change. People need to be constantly reminded to be afraid of the future and be on the defensive. This word imparts upon our subjects the feeling of uncertainty in a very discrete, polite, manner without them really being aware of it. By putting them on the defensive, we keep them in a state of ‘fight or flight’ where they will invariably react according to what they’ve been educated trained to do.

      What we don’t want is for people to comprehend that what they really need is resolve [def 2]. Resolve implies proaction rather than reaction. Proaction requires self control by means of rational thought and the last thing we need is a bunch of uppity serfs thinking for themselves.”

      This may all sound really far fetched. Something out of some science fiction novel. Something like 1984 maybe?

      But look at all the rest of her doublespeak:

      i. emerging climate finance architecture
      ii. smallholders
      iii. microinsurance
      iiii. post-2015 development agenda
      5xi. careful stewardship of domestic resources
      6xi. development strides (these are especially neat because they go along with developement pathways, another example of the UN’s global governance nomenclature.)

      These ppl are living in their own little make-believe world and speaking their own private little language. They want to make their dream come true. And they’re creating all the sustainable pathways to develop a robust and resilient framework for global governance.

      Right in front of our eyes.
      Right under our noses.

      Capice?

      Abe

      50

  • #
    Yonniestone

    Yeah I voted for you Nova wasn’t much choice really, consider yourself the best of a bad lot…..

    43

    • #
      Dave

      Yonniestone – I dont really think that is a fair comment. How many of the other blogs in this category have you bothered to delve into far enough to get a proper idea of what they are all about? Each entry has reached the final, so that in itself is surely a merit to candidature.

      For example, I have been hugely intrigued by “The Human, Earth Project” blog in same category as Jo’s site. A young Australian fellow working with authorities to rescue young Vietnamese Hmong girls kidnapped and trafficked to China for forced marriages. Really a remarkable story of the effort of an individual against such harrowing and dangerous odds.

      I wonder how many of us can get a real grasp of this sort of a journey… have a read, it is quite an eye opening story that I hope would change your mind about everyone but Jo’s blog being the “bad lot”.

      20

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Dave

        Such a comment would never be expected of Yonnie who is obviously a big fan of this site.

        Sometimes sarcasm is very very subtle , maybe a little too subtle this time?

        🙂

        KK

        30

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Hey Dave I can’t believe you’d take the time to write such a good reply and not look at my comment below #10, as KK suggested a little to subtle and admittedly I hit post before I was finished.

        Bloody hell Brad Keys will have my head for insufficient use of /sarc. tags now! 🙁

        40

  • #
    Yonniestone

    Oh crap premature adjudication there /sarc. /sarc. for the love of whatever /sarc.! 🙂

    50

  • #
    pat

    re the PM – the battle is not over.

    last nite, the once-mighty BBC managed to fit in another attack on Tony Abbott, in-between their weightier, geopolitical propaganda pieces. they haven’t documented it.

    it was, of course, the revived outrage over the Guinness remarks & the Irish PM being offended. they even spoke to a female Irish politician about it.

    but amusingly, BBC played two recent Irish Tourism Board ads – including a St. Paddys one narrated by Liam Neeson, which is all over the internet & MSM, where it is described as “incredible” “very special” and “gorgeously Irish”, etc. naturally, guinness was mentioned in both:

    from the Neeson ad: (Ireland)… it’s a place where the music flows….welcomes are warm & delivered with a smile – a pint of Guinness is poured for a customer:

    15 March: HuffPo: Mohammed Omar: This St. Patrick’s Day Ad With Liam Neeson Is Gloriously Irish
    Tourism Ireland teamed up with the Irish actor to produce a video in honour of St. Patrick’s Day and to promote its four-day “very big, very beautiful and very green party.”…
    http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/03/15/liam-neeson-st-patricks-day_n_6873152.html

    Time Magazine began their coverage with “Liam Neeson’s smooth-as-Guinness voice has a St. Patty’s day message for you”…

    but the funniest bit was the BBC presenter repeatedly & patronisingly suggesting to the Irish woman that perhaps they could produce more SOPHISTICATED ads!

    the MSM can’t get worse, can it?

    40

  • #

    I could never hope to compete with the blog of an excellent communicator like Joanne.

    Now and again, there’s an opportunity to mock the fanatics which one simply cannot allow to pass. Enjoy.

    70

  • #
    pat

    worth noting: the following is the sum total of letters at The Irish Times, as opposed to the politically-partisan tweets upon which our MSM manufactures every anti-Abbott so-called “outrage”:

    18 March: Irish Times: Enda Kenny, Tony Abbott and St Patrick
    A chara, – Further to “Kenny rejects ‘stage Irish’ image in Australian leader’s video” (March 16th), I see that Mr Kenny rejects the idea of Irish people getting together “to share a Guinness or two, or maybe even three” on St Patrick’s Day. Has he ever been in a pub? – Is mise,
    ANGELA POLSEN-EMY, Dublin 6.

    Sir, – St Patrick’s Day is usually a great day of celebration in Australia as we salute our Irish heritage with fun and laughter – and, of course, a Guinness or two or three! It would appear that the traditional Irish sense of humour is definitely alive and well in our Australian prime minister but sadly lacking in Mr Kenny, whose comments about Tony Abbott were rather petty and humourless. Mr Kenny, with the greatest respect, get over it! – Yours, etc,
    JANET LYONS, Donvale, Australia.

    Sir, – One cannot but be astonished by the reaction of Enda Kenny to the innocuous and humorous comments by Australian prime minister Tony Abbot. What could be more stage-Irish than the Taoiseach touring America for the better part of a week dispensing shamrock to all and sundry, including the president of the United States? – Yours, etc,
    Dr OLIVER RAFFERTY, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
    http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/enda-kenny-tony-abbott-and-st-patrick-1.2142799

    30

  • #
    pat

    READ ALL:

    4 pages: 16 March: Forbes: JV DeLong: The Structure Of Climate Change Revolutions: It’s The Sun
    From one perspective, EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP) is a triumph of the Church of the Environment, a bold effort to remake the electric grid in response to the assumed imperative of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
    From another angle, CPP looks different. It is the last gasp of a dying scientific paradigm, one fated to join the museum of oddities of science, such as phlogiston, the idea that bleeding a patient is the road to health, and the rejection of plate tectonics theory…
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvdelong/2015/03/16/the-structure-of-climate-change-revolutions-its-the-sun/

    15 March: Forbes: John Tamny: Global Warming Hype Is Mocked By The World’s Most Powerful Market Signal
    A frequent reply to deniers from those on the true believer side of the global warming debate is the oft-mentioned stat revealing 97% consensus among climate scientists that humans are the cause of global warming…
    It’s an interesting statistic, but to quote Nigel Lawson, scientific truth “is not established by counting heads.”
    Whatever the actual rate of belief among scientists, nothing in this column should be construed as a presumption of scientific knowledge, or what scientists believe. While some skeptics well-immersed in the debate have called into question the validity of the 97% number, this piece doesn’t presume to referee who is right or wrong about 97%. In fact, what’s written here will actually attempt to shift the statistical debate back toward the kind of head counting frequently used by warming’s deepest believers.
    In that case let’s accept the 97% number as fact for the purposes of this piece…
    More interesting, they’ve convinced non-scientists like Vice Media founder Shane Smith that the threat of global warming is truly dire. As Smith put it on Vice’s HBO show last year, the melting glaciers [purportedly caused by global warming] “scare the piss out of me,” and to hear him presumably parrot actual scientists, sea level is set to rise substantially in the coming decades due to ice erosion in Greenland such that “80 of the world’s largest cities” will eventually be “under water.” The scientific consensus about global warming, one trumpeted by major members of the media well beyond Smith, is that things could get really ugly unless the carbon emissions that are purportedly causing the earth to warm are greatly reduced…
    Of course, the idea of reducing carbon emissions is a bit of a fantasy. And it’s no major insight to see why. All one need do is visit India and/or China, the most populated countries on earth. Thanks to the economic liberalization taking place after decades of staggering poverty, it’s fairly apparent that the citizens in each nation couldn’t care less about their carbon footprint; rather their focus is on living like we do in the industrialized world. We love our cars, airplanes, and air-conditioned living spaces, and they want in…
    The problem with the above, if global warming’s believers are again to be believed, is that we’ve run out of time already. Indeed, it was nearly 25 years ago that Noel Brown, then director of the United Nation’s Environment Program, talked about a “10-year window of opportunity” to solve global warming or else “entire nations could be wiped off the face of Earth by rising sea levels if the global-warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Or consider this prediction by prominent climate scientist James Hansen in 2009 that President Obama “has only four years to save the earth.”
    In defense of the warming believers, they could point to an absence of warming over the last 17 years (the latter according to some accounts, not all) to explain away overdone predictions, but such an argument – if true – might amount to some kind of inconvenient admission…
    In short, we might as well throw up our hands and start telling our best friends and family members how nice it was knowing them. We should because with it apparent that the Chinese and Indians are in no mood to stop buying carbon-powered cars that they drive home to their air-conditioned houses and apartments, it’s fair to say that there’s no realistic carbon-consumption reversal that’s about to take place…
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2015/03/15/global-warming-hype-is-mocked-by-the-worlds-most-powerful-market-signal/

    try explaining the above to the CAGW crowd!

    17 March: CBC: Don Pittis: How market forces are winning the climate change battle
    Greenhouse gases have stopped rising, and it’s not hurting the global economy after all…
    In the Financial Times, environment correspondent Pilita Clark warns that there is a danger the latest data could be a blip. She says that as poor countries try to catch up by building coal-fired power plants, their carbon emissions will continue to grow.
    “This is especially important in fast-growing economies that are home to the 1.2 billion people without access to electricity, including India,” writes Clark…
    “In some Indian states, renewable energy can compete with fossil fuels even without the benefit of any subsidies,” says MIT’s Fairley (Peter Fairley, contributing editor at MIT Technology Review ..
    (EASY TO FIND THE LINK ONLINE)

    30

  • #
    sillyfilly

    I for one will not be voting for any of that mob, but I must to disagree with your list of successes The ETS was necessary to limit carbon pollution from fossil fuels and deforestation (unfortunately CO2 is now some 40% higher than at any stage in glacial history and rising: as are NO2 and CH4). It was an economic folly to not implement it, let alone scientific incompetence. Indeed, we now look like scientific dullards to the rest of the world as they act in concert to mitigate and remediate the damage. GHGs are warming the planet (there is no valid scientific evidence to the contrary nor likely ever will be). The instrumental record is sound and minor variations have been correctly homogenised. GISS HADcrut BEST ACORN are all accurate and consistent in their records. UHI is minimal in all records. And a quick quote from NASA:

    “our world has witnessed extreme warm periods before, such as during the time of the dinosaurs. Earth has also seen numerous ice ages on roughly 11,000-year cycles for at least the last million years. So, change is perhaps the only constant in Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history. Scientists note that there are two new and different twists to today’s changing climate: (1) The globe is warming at a faster rate than it ever has before; and (2) Humans are the main reason Earth is warming. Since the industrial revolution, which began in the mid-1800s, humans have attained the magnitude of a geological force in terms of our ability to change Earth’s environment and impact its climate system.”

    Merely a matter of science, not so hard to synthesise the evidence!

    019

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I for one will not be voting for any of that mob …

      Well, well, what a surprise, not.

      I must to disagree with your list of successes

      Of course, it is your sole mission in life.

      The ETS was necessary to limit carbon pollution from fossil fuels and deforestation

      Please explain how a tax (which is only a concept, after all) can have a physical effect on the ratio of gasses in the atmosphere.

      (unfortunately CO2 is now some 40% higher than at any stage in glacial history and rising: as are NO2 and CH4).

      So why aren’t temperatures 40% higher than at any stage in glacial history and rising? Curious people would like to know.

      It was an economic folly to not implement it, let alone scientific incompetence.

      I am better off than I would have been, had I been taxed, which can’t be bad, and I still waiting for the scientific predictions to kick in. That doesn’t sound like folly to me.

      Indeed, we now look like scientific dullards to the rest of the world as they act in concert to mitigate and remediate the damage.

      Well having scientific incompetents in charge of the climate would make us look like dullards.

      GHGs are warming the planet (there is no valid scientific evidence to the contrary nor likely ever will be).

      That is absolutely true. Thank heaven for the GHGs, they are what make this planet habitable.

      The instrumental record is sound and minor variations have been correctly homogenised.

      Yeah, instruments read what instruments read. That is an indisputable fact. It is a bit like recording payments in a financial system. The amount is the amount. It is the dubious practice of changing the numbers post hoc, that could be interpreted as fraudulent.

      GISS HADcrut BEST ACORN are all accurate and consistent in their records.

      I am quite sure they are accurate and consistent, within the privacy of their own datasets.

      UHI is minimal in all records.

      Ho hum, especially so with the rural records, at least those that have not been homogenised out of existence.

      And a quick quote from NASA: Blah blah hotter before, blah blah colder before, blah blah this time it is uniquely different, blah blah

      … and flights to to climate conventions by thousands of climate activists are to blame.

      As you say, it is merely a matter of science. And it is not so hard to manufacture the evidence, when one’s tenure and hence income is on the line. It has happened before, you know. Read up on the science of Phrenology.

      Have a nice day.

      110

    • #

      Ah! sillyfilly, you still just don’t get it

      The ETS was necessary to limit carbon pollution from fossil fuels

      To limit Carbon (umm, Dioxide) pollution, you umm, turn off the plants emitting it, not hope that money will lower it.

      Go on, sillyfilly, get your puppet masters to turn them off.

      Be brave.

      I dare you.

      Tony.

      100

    • #
      Mark Hladik

      Interesting statement:

      “(1) The globe is warming at a faster rate than it ever has before; and”

      Say what? The current “rate” of ‘global warming’ (‘climate change’; ‘climate disruption’; or whatever it is called today … ) is about one or one-and-one-half Celsius degrees since the Industrial Revolution.

      Only Silly Scientists (and Filly’s) think that a Celsius degree over (more than) a century is larger than some four Celsius degrees over a few decades, which is consistently shown by the EPICA, Vostok, and GISP II ice cores. Glacial/interglacial transitions took place within a human lifetime, and dwarf the “current” rate of change (and, as pointed out, change is the only constant; stasis within a coupled non-linear dynamic system is fleeting at best; such a system is never ‘controlled’ by a single parameter).

      Unless I missed it somewhere, I’m still waiting for your cross-correlation coefficient between Veizer and Berner/Kothavala. Is there an estimate of when you might get around to producing your analysis? Unanswered challenges get Jo demerit points, and lead others to question the challengee’s credentials.

      Regards to all,

      Mark H.

      60

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        I’m still waiting for your cross-correlation coefficient

        You will have to keep waiting Mark. Like Margot before her (although not as good), Sillyfilly is a propaganda wonk, with no real science training nor aptitude. She wont even understand your question, let alone be able to provide you with an answer.

        The only reason she is here, is to make random statements that might, possibly, resonate with a casual browser.

        50

      • #
        James Bradley

        Mark,

        sf has a lengthy track record of not responding to challenges because they usually require research and information not contained within the alarmist manifesto, hence the typical propaganda about ETS/Carbon Tax:

        “It was an economic folly to not implement it, let alone scientific incompetence. Indeed, we now look like scientific dullards to the rest of the world as they act in concert to mitigate and remediate the damage.”

        The logic escapes me because for every 85,000 air molecules there is 32 CO2 molecules of which 1 molecule may be attributed to human industry.

        Australia, with a total population less than combined major cities in many other countries, contributes 1.11% of that 1 molecule of CO2, so that Australia actually only contributes about 1 molecule for every 850,000 molecules of air.

        The standcard illogical response is “…cyanide with similar concentrations will kill a human” to which is replied, but cyanide is a poison and CO2 is not.

        Then you get the atmospheric CO2 analogy:

        “bucket with hole leaking drip for drip with leaking water tank above therebye remaining in balance until human intervention adds an extra drip”.

        Again, totally illogical because as the water drains from the tank it leaks from the bucket and regardless of how much is placed in the bucket by the human it all comes from the same tank so the total amount that goes from tank to bucket to ground is finite, regardles of impetus, and will always be the same.

        I made a comment about relapse regarding sf.

        It should be regurgitation.

        sf is becoming boring.

        50

        • #
          ShrillyFilly

          James,

          You were far too generous, Australia only contributes 1 molecule of CO2 in every 8.5 million molecules of air.

          40

    • #
      James Bradley

      And… relapse, you can’t sink much lower, sf.

      30

  • #
    tom0mason

    Joanne just one thing (for the easily confused – like me). Your instruction say –

    HOW TO CAST YOUR VOTE

    1. Click on the 2014 Bloggies Page

    2. Scroll through the categories (you must vote in at least three categories).

    3. Click on the small circle of your chosen blog. (Look for the tick)
    …etc. etc.

    And sure enough the link instructions above takes you to 2014 page!

    Could you make it the 2015 date and page?

    Otherwise, yes I have voted.

    30

  • #
    Richo

    This article in Quadrant about your ABC is an absolute classic.

    40

  • #
    Mikky

    I voted for you Jo (despite your rather unscientific attitude to temperature homogenisation), thanks for giving instructions for bears of little brain, was it meant to be obvious to click those small circles?

    07

    • #
      Lucky

      Mikky – What actually is the scientific approach to homogenisation?

      Perhaps it would be rejection.
      Using the term ‘world’s best practice’ is not an argument.
      I am curious as to how destruction of original data can be justified at least in a scientific approach.
      Likewise, on the construction of virtual data by interpolating from (some) real data, and adjusting records from reliable temperature reading instruments but accepting records from less accurate and reliable instruments.

      40

      • #
        Mikky

        The scientific approach to homogenisation is to look at the data and produce the most plausible hypothesis for what caused it to be the way it is. If (say) Adelaide is (on average) 2.0 C cooler than Deniliquin for decades, then suddenly it becomes 2.5C cooler, which again persists for decades, then the most plausible hypothesis is that something in the measurement system changed, especially when there are known to be such changes, that can easily cause a 0.5C change in temperature.

        If a few years of data are missing during the decades when the temperature difference was 2C, it is reasonable to in-fill the missing data at the appropriate level from the other station.

        That is the scientific approach to homogenisation.

        05

        • #
          Just-A-Guy

          Mikky,

          That is the scientific approach to homogenisation.

          Even if we accept that the proceedure you describe is acceptable, it has been shown that what you describe is not what actually happens. In many cases, records were adjusted with no justification whatsoever. And while in this case there was no difference in the final outcome, there are other cases where the older data is lowered and the newer data is raised.

          Finally, if all that’s required is a trend, then there is no need to homogenize because the trend can be determined by calculating the anomaly alone. The actual temperature is irelevant.

          Abe

          40

        • #
          Matty

          Where would technology be today if all researchers treated real data with the contempt that Climate Science seems to?
          Lord Rutherford

          30

        • #
          Lucky

          Thanks. My comment-
          If the raw data said the temperature changed, then to me, the most likely explanation is that the temperature changed.
          Any other explanation using ‘the most plausible hypothesis’, has to be shown to be derived impartially. That is by stating- who, why, and how plausible?
          The Adelaide Deniliquin example assumes that there can be global changes but not local changes.

          To my standards, changing the raw data that is used for analysis is most improper even using the argument of ‘the most plausible hypothesis’. I may allow a change of data for a parallel analysis but the argument has to be close to ‘dead certain’ rather than plausible.

          Likewise, the ‘in-fill’ of data when it is missing. ‘the temperature difference was 2C’
          But this is not known when there is no data.

          Now, it may well be that such techniques are common outside of so-called climate science. Or not.
          There would be no merit due to statisticians for allowing that. If so, it could be a reason why government policy decisions are often so wrong. It is more than plausible to think- the old story, this is the answer, give me the data.
          Maybe I am just lacking a one day BoM seminar of teas and lunches.

          40

        • #
          tom0mason

          Mikky.

          Please explain how “…plausible hypothesis for what caused it to be the way it is…” is different from just a guess?
          A plausible hypothesis is of little worth to science, when it is checked against reality and found to be wrong. A wrong plausible guess has merit in that it is a signpost for others where not to go,
          .
          The UN-IPCC hypothesis of CO2 regulating global temperatures has bee shown to be wrong just by analysis of the last 20 years of CO2 records and temperature. Or much earlier records (1850-1950), or the study of ancient records revealed through mud cores, ice cores, and rock strata, etc.
          There was a brief period between the late 1980 and the early 2000 when CO2 did indeed appear to correlate with temperatures. However this was all for a very brief time climatically and subsequent evidence appears to indicate that this tracking was just a coincidence.
          .
          Your ideas of how science works is very new to me as you have conveniently forgot that science has checks and balances. Experiments and measurement must be reproducible and all methods/data must be available for third party scrutiny. (Look-up Professor Wood’s famous experiment for how to proceed)
          In other words CO2 mediated climate is a failed hypothesis, and has taught us that this idea has little or no merit in science.

          41

  • #
    pat

    i was just off to bed when i saw Fairfax has a new “Abbott Attack”. it’s so dumb, i will post it now in case it gets pulled.

    18 March: The Age: Tony Abbott proves he’s the new Einstein: metadata bends time
    by Tony Wright, National affairs editor of The Age
    Tony Abbott is a genius.
    He has proved Albert Einstein’s greatest theory, propounded 100 years ago. Time and space do bend!
    Tony Abbott, we learn, was pumping out metadata when he was a journalist years before journalists used the internet…
    Mr Abbott, we learn, was pumping out metadata when he was a journalist years before journalists used the internet. He was spinning stories in hyperspace before we knew it existed.
    We know this because the Prime Minister told us so on Wednesday.
    “In the days when I was a journalist,” he revealed to seekers of truth, “there were no metadata protections for journalists and if any agency, including the RSPCA or the local council, had wanted my metadata, they could have just gone and got it on authorisation. Look, I was perfectly comfortable as a journalist.”
    Mr Abbott was a journalist in the second half of the 1980s. He quit the craft in 1990.
    The first commercially available internet web browser, Netscape Navigator, appeared in 1994. Internet Explorer appeared in 1995. And even then, a computer with access to the internet was scarcer in the Australian news industry than a sober lunch.
    Mr Abbott, in short, had managed to bend time…
    And all along, back in the 1980s, Tony Abbott was happily beavering away on a keyboard, perfectly content that people like the RSPCA or the local council could sneak a peak at the metadata that didn’t exist yet was being captured within the ether, where time, just as Einstein had predicted, was being distorted. Tomorrow was yesterday. Or something.
    Genius.
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbott-proves-hes-the-new-einstein-metadata-bends-time-20150318-1m2emy.html

    there are already forums discussing what an idiot/fossil the PM is, & the following comment to the side of an SMH: “Politics Live: March 18, 2015” page by Stephanie Peatling:

    “mirrorsofsmoke: So the Prime Minister for Arrested Development isnt actually stuck in the 1950s ,hes more like stuck around 1984 when there was no meta data to speak of and global warming/climate change research hadnt reared its inconvenient head.”

    HOWEVER, the PM spoke of ***”call logs & other metadata”
    .
    Guardian: Tony Abbott signals he is unlikely to let journalists fight metadata warrants
    Tony Abbott has signalled he is unlikely to agree to allow journalists to contest applications to access their ***call logs and other metadata…

    Daily Telegraph: Metadata no magic bullet: AFP
    …telcos forced to retain call logs, ip addresses and other user information…

    26 Feb: SMH: Ben Grubb: What George Brandis and Malcolm Turnbull can do to fix metadata muddle
    Metadata usually includes phone numbers called or received when using a mobile phone or ***fixed-line telephone, the location from which the calls were made, and the duration of the calls. But when surfing the internet, the definition of what constitutes metadata gets a little bit murkier…
    http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/what-george-brandis-and-malcolm-turnbull-can-do-to-fix-metadata-muddle-20150226-13n6ui.html

    even ABC, whilst attempting a similar attack on the PM, at least has a quote that only argues about the “unprecedented amount” of metadata available today compared to the 80s:

    18 March: ABC: ABC: Data retention: Journalists’ union labels Tony Abbott’s defence of metadata protections ‘ludicrous’
    But head of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) Paul Murphy said the Prime Minister’s personal experience was not relevant
    “For Tony Abbott to compare his time as a journalist to now is ludicrous,” he told the ABC.
    “Agencies are now given access to an unprecedented amount of data about our lives and work.
    “The volume and type of data now available was beyond imagining in 1980.”…

    PLUS ABC HAS THIS SIDE STORY ON THE SAME PAGE:

    18 March: ABC: ABC: Metadata retention: What is it and how might it impact whistleblowers in media and politics?
    (Associate professor at the University of New South Wales school of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr Clinton Fernandes): There is no formal definition of metadata in Australian telecommunications law. A useful way to think about metadata is to describe it as machine-produced data. You control what you say and type, but not what the machine (***phone, computer, etc) does to enable you to do so.
    When you make a phone call, what you say is the content. What the ***phone does, to let you say it, is recorded as metadata…

    question for Fairfax’s Tony Wright: did Australia have telephones in the 80s? was their metadata ever accessed?

    YourDictionary.com: metadata
    The definition of metadata is information about other information.
    An example of metadata is a card catalog in a library, giving information about books…
    Meta-data has existed for centuries. Card catalogs and handwritten indexes are examples long before the electronic age…

    p.s. this rant does not in any way indicate how i feel about any invasions of our privacy, whether in the form of metadata or otherwise.

    30

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      About metadata

      From wikipedia:

      Metadata is “data about data”. . .
      . . . Metadata was traditionally in the card catalogs of libraries.

      As a novice programmer in the mid-eighties, I used metadata to write a short routine to convert data from a mainframe computer to data for a desktop PC.

      If Mr. Abbott had a Rolodex, (anyone remember those), then that too is a form of metadata. A Rolodex would keep data on ppl a journalist would contact to get information, or . . . data.

      The writer of this article is so misinformed I’m surprised he can find his way to the bathroom.

      Abe

      20

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      pat,

      I must have leaped before looking. Didn’t read your post to the end before replying.

      Sorriez.

      Abe

      10

  • #

    You’ve got my vote, Jo. Best to you and David. Cheers from AK –

    40

  • #
    Ruairi

    Being generally really impressed,
    With all the weblogs assessed,
    Which I thought should be lauded,
    And loudly applauded,
    Then I voted Jo Nova the best.

    60

    • #
      Annie

      100 thumbs up….brilliant yet again!

      40

    • #
      tom0mason

      Ruairi
      Yet again you make me smile with both amusement and amazement on how fast you are able to compose these intense verses

      30

      • #
        Ruairi

        Thank you Tom.
        Clearly, Joanne’s wonderful posts provide the stimulus for each limerick,but on saying that,it is also true that each of her posts also reflect my own sense of outrage,at what I consider to be the greatest assault on the integrity of the scientific method,that the world has ever seen.

        50

  • #

    “The physics is unarguable” – but as usual, no link to the unarguable physics.

    50

    • #
      Annie

      Well, those warmists can’t argue physics, can they? No more than they can prove ‘the science’…so called.

      40

  • #
    pat

    i want to get to the bottom of the Abbott Faux OUTRAGE campaign, usually sparked off by Tweets or activists.

    have chosen the St Paddys week-long-madness, & am posting on this thread, which has some St. Paddys links already.

    i think a similar exercise on any given OUTRAGE would throw up similar patterns.

    first, the St Paddys OUTRAGE was even more of a non-story than i had thought:

    19 March: Bolt Blog: Column – Abbott haters are the Irish joke
    ***Sydney’s Lansdowne Club of Irish Australian businessmen had invited people to come “enjoy a Guinness or three” at its annual St Patrick’s Day lunch.
    Abbott couldn’t make it, but sent a video in which he said this was “a great day for … everyone who cares to come to a party”. He was sorry “I can’t be there to share a Guinness or two or maybe even three”.
    See anything offensive there?
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_abbott_haters_are_the_irish_joke/

    the OUTRAGE began on 12 March and continues until today:

    this morning, 19 March, the Fairfax/Radio 4BC Breakfast hosts in Brisbane had Jimeoin on the phone to mock the PM in a lengthy piece on this non-story. 4BC date a piece about it as 18 March, but doubt they aired it yesterday as well.

    the 4BC write-up makes it appear Jimeoin is not offended, but it’s still full of Abbott jokes & idiocy from the hosts. there’s a button suggesting u can listen, but it isn’t working for me:

    18 March: 4BC: Jimeoin on the PM’s St Patrick’s Day message
    http://www.4bc.com.au/news/jimeoin-on-the-pms-st-patricks-day-message-20150318-1m23dl.html

    to be continued…

    30

  • #
    pat

    when the story began on 12 March, it immediately referred to the Irish Times & Irish Examiner:

    12 March: The Australian – Tony Abbott’s message on St Patrick’s Day shows no luck of …
    7 days ago – the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner, have both expressed …

    12 March: Irish Times: ***Padraig Collins: Abbott criticised for ‘patronising’ Patrick’s Day video
    Perth branch of Cairde Sinn Fein take legal action after being banned from parade
    An (ANONYMOUS) Irish businessman in Australia, who has seen the video, says the prime minister’s message is “patronising”…
    The prime minister, who has previously referred to climate change as “crap”, jokes in the video that “this is the one day of the year when it’s good to be green. As you can see I’ve got my green tie on for the occasion.”…
    The video was supplied to both the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce and the Lansdowne Club, but neither is playing it at their event…
    Meanwhile, preparations for Perth’s St Patrick’s Day parade, which is scheduled for Sunday, have been thrown into controversy with the city’s branch of Cairde Sinn Fein taking legal action over what it says is discrimination against it by the parade organisers.
    The constitution of Perth St Patrick’s Festival specifies that it is non-political and non-sectarian. But Cairde Sinn Fein says that as both Labour TD Alan Kelly and Australian Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan took part in last year’s parade, Sinn Fein should be allowed to take part in this year’s event…
    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/abbott-criticised-for-patronising-patrick-s-day-video-1.2136634

    (from Wikipedia: The Irish Times: Political alignment: Social liberalism. It is no longer considered a unionist paper; it is generally perceived as being politically liberal and progressive, as well as being centre-right on economic issues…
    Senior international figures, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, have written for its op-ed page…
    Circulation has declined in recent years. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a daily circulation of 100,951 during the first six months of 2011…
    Circulation then further declined to 76,882 copies per day in H2 2014)

    a few other articles prior to St. Pat’s Day in The Irish Times by Padraig Collins; they all relate to Sydney, so presumably he lives in Australia.

    Irish Echo claim to be behind the story going VIRAL:

    Facebook: Irish Echo Australia
    Good to see Irish Times, Daily Mail and The TheJournal.ie pick up on our story about Tony Abbott’s St Patrick’s Day cringefest video. Gone viral as they say. Almost 15,000 people have viewed the video…
    https://www.facebook.com/Irishechoaustralia/photos/a.10150109323273462.283538.99162108461/10152910584718462/

    13 March: UK Daily Mail: AAP: Abbott blasted for St Pat’s video message
    Irish media, including the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner, have run stories about how the video was patronising.
    “Preparations for St Patrick’s Day events in Australia turned controversial today,” the Irish Times reports.
    ***The Irish Echo, a newspaper written for Irish expats in Australia, was one of the first to release the video.
    “We approached the PM’s office to ask if he was attending any St Patrick’s Day events … and one of his staffers sent back a link to this video and said `have a look at this,” the paper’s founding editor, Billy Cantwell, told AAP…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-2992635/Abbott-blasted-St-Pats-video-message.html
    (14 shares, no comments, states “Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article)

    Padraig Collins who wrote the Irish Times article apparently writes for the Australian Irish Echo, which sparked the OUTRAGE in the first place:
    http://new.irishecho.com.au/author/padraig/

    not listed here however.

    The Irish Echo: The Publisher: Billy Cantwell, etc
    http://www.irishecho.com.au/about/staff-and-contributors

    (from LinkedIn: Billy Cantwell, Irish Echo: Honors & Awards:
    ***Lansdowne Club Chairman’s Award 2009)

    ***that would be the Lansdowne Club which Bolt’s blog says invited people to “enjoy a Guinness or three” with them on St. Patrick’s Day.

    to be continued…

    30

  • #
    pat

    Billy Cantwell at ABC in 2011 with a familiar story!

    AUDIO: 2011: ABC 666 Canberra blog: Irish joke is on Abbott
    Drive with Adam Shirley:
    Last month Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made a joke. An Irish joke.
    Abbott said the Gillard Government “was a bit like the Irishman who lost 10 pounds betting on the Grand National and then lost 20 pounds on the action replay”.
    The Irish Embassy in Canberra complained…
    Louise Maher spoke to Irish Echo editor Billy Cantwell about racial jokes, vilification and political correctness.
    http://blogs.abc.net.au/canberra/2011/07/irish-joke-is-on-abbott.html

    back to the present:

    13 March: Channel 9: PM Abbott’s ‘patronising’ St Patrick’s Day message slammed by Irish business leaders
    An Irish businessman based in Australia told the Irish Times that Mr Abbott’s message was “patronising”…

    would that anonymous businessman be Billy Cantwell, by any chance?

    most MSM carried the non-story:

    Sky News/AAP – 6 days ago – Abbott blasted for St Pat’s video message
    6 days ago
    ‘Oh please,’ The Irish Examiner wrote. Some took to social media to criticise Mr Abbott.’A bloke who just awarded a knighthood to a British Monarch celebrating St. Patricks Day?? You can’t make this s up!’ (sic) one wrote on Facebook..

    The New Daily – Abbott offside with Ireland
    by Ebony Bowden AM Producer
    6 days ago – The Irish Examiner also ran the video with a series of scathing Tweets..
    (Ebony Bowden is a journalist who has worked for news outlets like Al Jazeera, The Age and Business Spectator)

    so much attention given to a minor media outlet, the Irish Examiner, see figs below, by a writer whose Examiner pieces are all dated 2015. the full extent of outrage in the piece is “oh please”, but the tweeters are interesting:

    12 March: Peter Towe: Irish Examiner: Aussie PM’s St Patrick’s Day message hasn’t gone down well
    We’ve already seen Tourism Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day promo, using Liam Neeson’s voice over skills, and it wasn’t too bad.
    But Tony Abbott’s attempt hasn’t been going down too well…
    (BLAH BLAH)
    Oh please.

    (half a dozen Tweets, all dated 12 March, including)

    (1st tweet)
    ***Nic Halley: @EndaKennyTD check Tony Abbott’s St. Patrick’s day address.
    Can #Ireland declare war on him or something? http://youtu.be/HvP71iA0Cdc @IrishTimes

    ***Ben Eltham: Tony Abbott labels St Patrick’s Day “the one day of the year it’s good to be green”…etc http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/fun-times/aussie-pms-st-patricks-day-message-hasnt-gone-down-well-318049.html

    from Wikipedia: Irish Examiner
    According to National Newspapers of Ireland, it had an average daily circulation of 42,083 (NNI July–December 2011). This represents a decline of 23.5% since the same period in 2007…
    Circulation then further declined to 34,422 for the period July to December 2014. This represented a fall in circulation of 7% on a year-on-year basis…

    same 12 March, Peter Towe actually wrote a separate article about the Green/Music/Guinness ad for Tourism Ireland, by Liam Neeson, and it’s a hit on Twitter!

    12 March: Irish Examiner: Peter Towe: Liam Neeson’s done a good job of Tourism Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day promo
    “Every year, on St Patrick’s Day, the world goes green. But here in Ireland, every day is bathed in green.”
    Well, it’s much less threatening than “I will find you, and will kill you”, isn’t it?…
    Bringing Liam on board seems to have done the trick, by the looks of the reaction on Twitter…
    http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/fun-times/liam-neesons-done-a-good-job-of-discover-irelands-st-patricks-day-promo-318019.html

    final comment to come.

    30

  • #
    pat

    re the Examiner article tweets, which Australian MSM told us were “scathing” & suggested they were Irish tweets.

    no doubt there are other dubious TWIT-ters among the half dozen worth examining, “The Rupert Daily”, for example, but i’ve chosen two:

    ***Nic Halley is a serial ant-Abbott tweeter, who now has:

    Nic Halley – I was never worried about metadata protections when I was a journalist, says Abbott
    Which was before the net…(LINKS TO TONY WRIGHT’S AGE RUBBISH ON METADATA)

    a Halley tweet was inserted into a News Ltd story 2014 – “Prime Minister Tony Abbott under fire for commemorating D—Day landings then plugging business”

    Nic cares about CAGW:

    @NicHalley @harrypusspuss @TonyAbbottMHR So our insensitive PM, please tell us what are France & America doing to combat climate change?
    — bernymcatlady (@bernymcatlady) June 1, 2014

    Halley appears to be the owner of Mindbox, a Strategic Media Research company, in Redfern, Sydney.

    Mindbox: bottom of home page, go down til it shows “Case Studies:

    Mindbox: Case Studies
    ABC Television: Halved the ABC’s CPM rate and doubled reach and measurable KPI’s in the first 30 days of winning the account.
    Clients: ABC Television, Triple J, Double J, Charles Sturt Uni, Uni of Western Sydney, Teachers Health Fund, etc.

    20 Jan: Mindbox: Nic Halley: The ABC is Australia’s most trusted major institution.
    http://www.mindbox.com.au/the-abc-is-australias-most-trusted-major-institution/

    May 2012: AdNews: ABC appoints Mindbox for digital
    The ABC has hired independent digital agency Mindbox to its digital account across advertising and strategy. Mindbox began work for the public broadcaster in February and has been promoting the ABC’s new and existing programs.
    http://www.adnews.com.au/adnews/news-in-brief-25-may-2012

    the other Irish Examiner twit singled out is ***Ben Eltham:

    from Wikipedia: Ben Eltham is an Australian writer, journalist, researcher, creative producer and social commentator based in Melbourne.
    He has served as National Affairs Correspondent for New Matilda. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and a Research Fellow at Deakin University’s Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention…
    Eltham publishes in academic journals on cultural policy, social media, and communication theory…

    —-

    Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!

    Shame on the MSM for being complicit.

    THE END.

    50

  • #
    pat

    these days i can’t access The Australian at all, so it’s only now i have tracked down the source of their St. Pat’s story.

    i first saw the print edition result dated 12 March. also, i wonder if ***”To be fair, the Examiner’s Twitter responses come mostly from Australian accounts” was in the print edition. from the comments, there are differences between that version & the blog version:

    Australian: Abbott and the luck of the Irish
    Jack the Insider Blog | 13 March 2015 | 357 Comments
    The You Tube video released on the Liberal Party website has been greeted with furrowed brows if not mouth-agape horror by the Irish both here and on the Emerald isle. Watch it here and set the worthiness to hyper-cringe. You have been warned…
    Irish newspapers, the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner, have both expressed something akin to despair after watching the video. ***To be fair, the Examiner’s Twitter responses come mostly from Australian accounts…

    COMMENTS PAGE 2:
    Prince Planet
    Fri 13 Mar 15 (06:58pm)
    I’ve read three articles on the Abbott St Pat’s video.
    Apart from opinions of the writers, the only negative quote was from “an Irish businessman” who allegedly exists, and who allegedly complained that the video wasn’t properly directed to business people. There are repeated slippery attempts to have the reader think the video was specifically made to be shown at two St Pat’s Day business lunches.
    However, one article – in an Irish paper – at least quotes a named source, who states: “”We understand that the prime minister’s video message is a generic St Patrick’s Day message, not intended for the corporate audience at our event, and on that basis it is not part of the event,” said Barry Corr, chief executive of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce.”
    This is followed immediately with a return to greasy malice that quotes the other business function venue by claiming that “The Landsdowne Club said…” A talking Club, to be sure. None of what The Landsdowne Club allegedly said was put into quotation marks. Because the words used were those of the journalist, fully loaded with the journalist’s prevailing trickery/
    The PM’s a bit of a dag. Throughout his life hasn’t “invested” a lot of time and energy into being cool. He doesn’t ‘rate’ ‘it’ like a lot of try-hard, blow-hard types do.
    So anyway, we’ve been given the opinion/’work’ of three journalists, and nothing else. Individuals can think what they want – or, actually, feel what their bias leads them to feel. There’s an unmitigated tsunami of disagreement with Jack’s article where it appears in the Oz independent of the blog entry.
    Prince Planet
    Fri 13 Mar 15 (07:15pm)
    The Irish paper I referred to was the Irish Times, which Jack links to.
    Here’s a “quote” from the unidentified “Irish businessman”: “I would have hoped for a more business-focussed message in a video that was designed for business functions,” he said.
    Contrast to the presumably authentic and truthful statement by Barry Corr, chief executive of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce: “”We understand that the prime minister’s video message is a generic St Patrick’s Day message, not intended for the corporate audience at our event.”
    It’s clear that the unnamed source, real or fabricated, is full of shite.

    *******REPLY FROM JACK THE INSIDER

    Jack the Insider
    Fri 13 Mar 15 (07:40pm)
    Well, that is your opinion but it is a long way from fact and more imoortantly something you are unable to prove at the time you made your comment if called upon to do so.
    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/jacktheinsider/index.php/theaustralian/comments/abbott_and_the_luck_of_the_irish/P25/

    unbelievable.

    i know nothing about Jack the Insider, but online it is said he is a Peter Hoysted. however, the pic at the top of the blog page looks like Malcolm Farr to me. of course, i don’t really know what Farr looks like either, so i could be wrong, but i haven’t found any pic of Hoysted to compare.

    20