Café Talk VIII

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437 comments on “Café Talk VIII”

  3. On election day, what will the voters be more concerned about. Will it be carbon tax, as Tony believes. Not only on top of the list, but a referendum on.

    Could be the boat trade.

    Maybe it will be education followed closely by disabilities and health.

    There are others that will put IR on the top of their list.

    I feel that the carbon tax will be a long last for most.

    Miglo, the scum can always be disposed of easily when it comes to the top.

  4. Liberal getting a hard time on Capital Hill.

    No follow through on delivery. I am confused about what is it, that this PM has noy delivered.

    All we get from the other side, is it will not happen and where is the money coming from.

  5. Lyndal, is not the government following normal policy. Is not the budget the place for the finances to be detailed.

  8. Roswell

    Calling Roswell…….. Time to celebrate ……..the truth is out there and Voyager is off to find out

    “THIRTY-FIVE years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.

    Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space – the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.”

    Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/years-on-voyager-is-heading-for-stars/story-e6frfkui-1226465098901#ixzz25VAOUvDs

  9. Sue, what a joke the Voyager mission is in its search for extraterrestrial idiots.

    Among over things, the craft contains a message from Jimmy Cater and other chatter in over 40 different languages. And all stored on a gold plated record. Let us hope that the planet this craft bumps into can speak one of those languages and has a record player handy.

    This approach is so outdated. I say, if you want to make contact with an extraterrestrial the way to do it these days is to send out a Facebook friendship request.

    Or follow them on Twitter.

  15. Concerning Voyager (I think)
    I remember this from a book by Carl Sagan. He was involved in preparing a message capsule to go with the craft, & there was a drawing of a male & female member of our species. They had one arm outstretched with an empty hand. The idea was that other denizens of the universe who came across it would think “bipedal life form with one of its manipulative organs outstretched & empty, obviously in a sign of goodwill.”
    But Carl received a message from a fellow human saying “You fools! You’ve doomed us all!!” The reasoning was that WW2 movies broadcast on Earth travelled into space at the speed of light & these would be eagerly absorbed by extraterrestrial filmgoers. They knew from the movies that the bad guys walked around with hands outstretched saying “Heil Hitler” & on seeing the drawing on the spacecraft they’d conclude that the Nazis had won. They would then do the obvious thing & launch a mission to Earth to rid the universe of this scourge by wiping us out.

  16. I agree with the Greens on this. I do not trust Martin Ferguson, and sadly I have not been disappointed once again. At the same time, I do not see why the raxpayer should reimbursed them. Let them whither on the vine. I am sure we will see Abbott rushing to their defence.

    .

    …..alks aimed at closing down some of the country’s dirtiest power stations have collapsed, undermining a key element of the Federal Government’s carbon tax package.

    The Government had been negotiating contracts to close five high-polluting power generators – three of them in Victoria – as part of its plan to cut the nation’s carbon emissions…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/government-scraps-plans-to-shut-down-dirty-power-stations/4243888

  17. And now for a horse of a completely different colour 🙂

    It’s 10 years since I gave up smoking.
    @ 40 a day, I would have spent about $94,000 (in 2012 dollars) over the last 10 years on cigarettes otherwise 😯

    Better to spend it on red wine 😛

  18. ………..This idea sounds truly remarkable given that every opinion poll for the last two years has shown Labor would lose such an election in a landslide.

    Yet there is one advantage for the Labor Party in an early election – there would be no half-Senate election with any early House election.

    This means that a new Coalition government would be forced to try and govern with the current Senate for more than a year.,,,,,,,,,,,,,

    http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/09/which-party-wants-an-early-election.html

  19. ….However, given the government would likely lose any early election, the complications would all be for the Coalition, not the Labor Party.

    An early election would be about preventing the Coalition getting control of the Senate at an election in late 2013. It would also be about locking a first term Coalition government into an election in 2014, and perhaps even cutting short its second term.

    Section 13 of the Constuitution means that any election held before 3 August 2013 would be for the House of Representatives and the four Territory Senators. There cannot be a half-Senate election for state Senators before August 2013, and even then, the new Senators elected would not take their seats until 1 July 2014.

    This is one reason why over the next year you may hear much less of the Coalition calling for an immediat

    http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/09/which-party-wants-an-early-election.html

  20. CU

    Did you see Hartcher’s attempt at a political opinion piece today? On and on he went on why Gillard would call an early election, then in the last sentences he himself summed up his own opinion as a mere bag of wind.

    “But any election held before August 3 would put the House of Representatives out of sync with the Senate. This is entirely possible but creates complications

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/poll-position-gillard-arms-labor-for-early-election-with-new-committee-20120904-25cor.html#ixzz25YvRfxGQ

  22. Mo, it was only in January when you were guessing we might clock up 350,000.

    And next month we’ll record our 100,000th approved comment. We’re up to 104,000 unoficially but 13,000 of those were spam comments that snuck through before being removed.

    On a less than exciting issue, we’ve just passed the 50,000 mark for comments caught up in the spam folder, 99.9% of which were immediately deleted. The remaining 0.1% were hiccups in the system.

    Looking at the stats (country of origin of the spammers) it appears that spam comments don’t count as hits.

  23. Miglo, I believe you have been successful in what you set out to do.

    The visit of so may trolls today, point to a site they see as worth attacking.

    Congratulations. for a job well done, in spite of all your personal setbacks.

    May the next year be better, without the setbacks of course.

  24. Thank you, Cu.

    The blog was only meant to be open for a month while Joni was having a break from his blog, Blogocrats, where we used to mumble. The Cafe was only going to be a blogging alternative until Joni was back on board.

    Joni never went back to his blog and subsequently we never closed. In fact, Joni helped us out in the early days of CW.

  26. Thank you, Cuppa, and long may you always grace us with your great presence.

    Have you seen our wine list? It’s extensive. And if Bacchus hasn’t cleaned us out feel free to help yourself to a bottle of our finest.

    PS – don’t get lost in our vast cellar. If you happen to find Bacchus down there can you tell him he’s wanted on the phone? 😳

  29. Tony Abbott now insists his Direct Action policy never envisaged the closure of brown coal power stations, but only their “cleaning up”. But that isn’t what the Coalition used to say.
    Until July last year Mr Abbott’s shadow ministers were certainly talking about paying to close brown coal fired plants and build gas fired plants in their place.
    The Coalition’s climate spokesman, Greg Hunt, told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2010 that he expected big-emitting brown coal-fired power stations like Victoria’s Hazelwood or Yallourn to lodge competing tenders for the Coalition’s $3.2 billion emissions reduction fund, which was likely to pay for the gradual replacement of one of the generators with cleaner gas.
    Last year Coalition Finance spokesman Andrew Robb accused Labor of “stealing” its policy to pay for plant closures from the Coalition.
    Advertisement
    “Despite all these fevered claims that Direct Action won’t work, the single biggest measure in the government’s scheme happens to be a Direct Action proposal – namely the closure of Hazelwood power station,” he said at the time.
    But

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/clean-energy-policies-change-as-memories-shift-20120905-25e2b.html#ixzz25ZqNnx7a

  31. Wow, the Coalition shifting memory and rewriting history, who would have thunk it?

    Certainly not their rusted on supporters who will now be spruiking the new meme whilst either defending the old as the Coalition being misunderstood or even denying they ever stated it, even when the evidence is shoved under their noses.

    Hypocrites defending liars much.

  34. Roswell, I will sit there with you. We will create a noise, as Abbott does, and they serve us to get rid of us.

  37. shhh Roswell. I may know the ins and outs of the cellar better than Migs, but he is the rich bugger who funds all of this opulence 🙂

  38. Thanks Bacchus. See it works for Abbott, ot works for us. I believe the PM believes it will work for her, she is out everyday, everywhere, making her presence felt.

  41. 600,000 today probably.

    I can’t believe how quickly it went from 500,000.

    I know there are other more famous or infamous blogs out there for whom 600,000 is nothing, and many of the US ones would rack 500,000 up in no time, but for a humble little Café tucked away in a pleasant niche of the internet sidewalk it’s doing OK.

  42. More #RightWingProjection, this time from Gina Rinehart:


    … Ms Rinehart says in the video, which was posted on the Sydney Mining Club website, there’s incontrovertible data showing Australia is becoming less competitive, and that Labor’s mining and carbon taxes and too much business red tape is making the economy sluggish.

    “What was too readily argued as the self-interested complaints of a greedy few is now becoming accepted as the truth and more ominously is showing up in incontrovertible data,” she says.

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/14760573/aust-wages-wont-drop-to-2-a-day-pm/

    Right-Wing Projection: The political tactic of the Right using descriptions pertaining to themselves to describe others.

  44. I’m going to be without an Internet connection until tomorrow night so I won’t be able to put up a new post. 😦

    I could try via my iPad but I can’t promise success. 😦

  46. August Labour Force figures:

    AUGUST KEY POINTS

    TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)
    Employment increased to 11,509,100 from a revised July 2012 estimate.
    Unemployment increased to 629,100 from a revised July 2012 estimate.
    Unemployment rate steady at 5.2%.
    Participation rate steady at 65.2% from a revised July 2012 estimate.
    Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased to 1,619.5 million hours.

    SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)
    Employment decreased 8,800 (0.1%) to 11,498,100. Full-time employment increased 600 to 8,071,400 and part-time employment decreased 9,300 to 3,426,700.
    Unemployment decreased 10,600 (1.7%) to 622,600. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased 12,800 to 469,400 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased 23,400 to 153,200.
    The unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 5.1%. The male unemployment rate increased 0.1 pts to 5.2% and the female unemployment rate decreased 0.2 pts to 5.0%.
    The participation rate decreased 0.2 pts to 65.0%.
    Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 5.7 million hours to 1,618.8 million hours.

    LABOUR UNDERUTILISATION (QUARTERLY CHANGE)
    Trend estimates: The labour force underutilisation rate decreased 0.1 pts to 12.5%.
    Seasonally adjusted estimates: The labour force underutilisation rate decreased 0.2 pts to 12.4%. The male labour force underutilisation rate increased 0.2 pts to 10.6%. The female labour force underutilisation rate decreased 0.6 pts to 14.6%.

  49. More #RightWingProjection?

    Jacob Holman ‏@JacobLeigh

    The ACL’s tanty over this reinforces why Gillard was right to pull out. Having them accusing anyone of “demonising” is rich indeed.

  55. Turnbull is at it again
    “Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged that the National Broadband Network’s funding is correctly accounted for the in Federal Government budget as a capital investment and not an expense, in a move which opens up a divide between the Shadow Communications Minister and other senior Liberal leaders such as Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey.

    Over the past several years, a number of senior Liberal figures, including Opposition Leader Abbott, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, Finance Spokesperson Andrew Robb and Turnbull himself have repeatedly claimed that the tens of billions of dollars the Federal Government is investing in its NBN project should be classified as an expense under the Federal Budget. Several of these same figures have argued that because of this, the NBN’s funding could be more appropriate allocated to other types of public infrastructure such as roads, instead of spending it on an NBN project which the Coalition has largely seen as expensive and unnecessary.”
    http://delimiter.com.au/2012/09/06/backdown-turnbull-accepts-nbn-budget-accounting/

  56. Sue, I guess everyone has a natural limit to the amount of stupid they can say.

    Although, in some cases, that limit does appear to be inexhaustible

  58. Wonder what will happen with Turnbull from now until the next election?

    Surely the opposition can’t leave him attacking from the sidelines and telling the truth, destroying all the lies and deceits they have built up, not that many believed them anyway.

    I don’t think they can turf him either as what he could reveal would doom the opposition.

  59. The ‘Pacific Solution’ revisited: a statistical guide to the asylum seeker caseloads on Nauru and Manus Island

    Bit by bit the truths of the failures of the Howard years will be exposed. But when the 30 years limit is reached the revelations will be damning I’m certain. Too late of course for Howard and co to suffer any real recriminations and accounting for them, but at least they won’t go down in history as a great government, because they were a terrible government on so many fronts.

  60. Mobius Ecko, I suppose this is what Turnbull has to look forward to from now until the next election

    “We’re over his antics. In the partyroom, it doesn’t matter what he says, he will never, ever be leader again,” one said.

    Another Liberal source said: “He is still trying to position himself as leader. It’s a bit rich. He doesn’t have the respect of his colleagues.”
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/abbott-loyalists-slam-turnbull-antics/story-fn59niix-1226466318277

  61. But the question is what are they going to do with him. Turnbull is in a position to do a lot of damage and to constantly reinforce the Abbott Liar meme, and just as Abbott repeating an untruth over and over makes it true, Turnbull repeating a truth over and over will make it more so.

  64. The Libs have put up with Abbott as it seems he’s been brining in the bacon, as rancid as that is. But I believe Abbott is on a short leash and is being strictly controlled, but if he screws up too often I think they’ll cut him loose very quickly.

    Abbott only won by one vote, but it was only because the party room ballot was planned when two Turnbull supporters were not able to get to the room to vote. If they had been allowed absentee votes then Turnbull would have been the leader.

  66. Well the local govt elections in NSW have an interesting twist
    “Joanna Gash is running for mayor of Shoalhaven City Council. She is also a Liberal member of federal Parliament who has represented the south coast seat of Gilmore for 16 years.
    The problem is that Gash says she will not retire from Parliament if elected mayor. She would undertake both roles until the next federal election. This runs counter to democratic principles and perhaps to the constitution.”

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/mps-aim-to-become-mayor-runs-a-legal-risk-20120906-25h60.html#ixzz25joBgk2K

    No doubt after 16 years as a federal pollie her pension plan couldn’t be an issue.

  67. I voted for Joanna Gash when she was the member for Gilmore Sue.

    Because she won’t take up the mayor roll full time for 12 months after being elected I won’t vote for her in my local election tomorrow.

    Gash is going to give all of her Mayor salary and allowances to charity until she takes up the job full time.

    Gash was often a critic of Howard policies and was quietly censured because of it. In his entire 10½ years Howard only visited the South Coast once, and that was when he was failing in the polls here during his last election.

    She was a good local Federal representative, far better than the drongo Labor kept putting up and the local Greens candidate was not that good either. We also lacked any decent independents and most elections had none in the area.

    Too show how she was treated by the Liberals. Her and I think it was the Hawksbury representative were promised port folios by Abbott if they did well in the last election, and they both increased their margins. It was later found out that Abbott had promised those portfolios to the indies to get them onside, thus crapping on his own members and planning on reneging on them. I believe this is the reason Gash, who has been highly successful and well liked in Gilmore, quit Federal politics.

    And it goes to the heart of the decrepit person Abbott is and why he shouldn’t be allowed to rule this country. His word is worth nothing, his promises less.

  68. If you ever want evidence that the conservatives are great liars and promise breakers then you can’t go past this site.

    PolitiFact

    I wish they had a similar one for Australian politics, it would be damning on the Coalition, including their lie of the main party calling themselves Liberals.

    As an aside. I just read a piece where a Romney ad attacking Obama used an ex-Obama staffer who heavily cans Obama. Turns out the staffer is a member of the Republicans and their staffer never having anything to do with Obama.

  70. Well done Patricia. A little envious, after all I only met Howard twice and spoke to him on both occasions. Uninspiring is probably the kindest word I could come up with.

    But the MSM are still at it: Rudd’s attack on Newman sparks fresh comeback talk

    Note the reporter supposedly has all the inside running with the Rudd supporters, who tell him everything so he can blab it to the world.

  71. Gillard: From policy dud to economic hero

    Some good stuff and home truths in that piece from Brendan Brown. This is a very pertinent point from him.

    Labor is at its best when it combines a progressive ethos with economic rationalism, which ultimately leads to economic reform beyond which the conservatives are willing to go. Gillard is the first Labor leader since Paul Keating to understand this.

    As much as the Liberals and their supporters attempt to paint themselves as great economic managers, they really are economic laggards who sail along on autopilot in regards to reformations whilst cutting infrastructure and services in pursuit of the single goal of the meaningless surplus, for no other reason than to brag they can produce one.

  77. My condolences to the Gillard family.

    Is Parliament sitting? I wonder if Abbott will allow a pair for the PM to attend the funeral.

  78. Gillard rushed back from APEC, Craig Emmerson standing in for her. Putin announced the reason she left.

    I hope the planned meeting with Malaysia still goes well.

  79. And if it doesn’t, Mo, expect the opposition to attempt some political mileage. It’s in their genes to stoop low.

  81. Piece on ABC just a short while ago all but directly blamed Gillard for the boats still coming. They said the opposition are counting each and every boat and every asylum seeker who comes here to tally up Gillard’s failing.

  90. Migs’ last laugh didn’t last long … 👿 🙄
    …….thanks to Pips’, “Couldn’t even win the wooden spoon” 😀
    ..well its not as if Ive ever given him a hard time !!!???!!! 😆

  96. … whom has the last laugh on both of us,… anyway,.. move over Migs, I need to sit down too, for the rest of the season 😦
    …next week Pip v PatriciaWA ……. ode-ious game for sure 😀

  99. I’m pleased to see that the education issue is receiving some fair commentary..

    Those backpacks weigh more heavily on Australian children than their peers in Canada, Finland, Shanghai and Korea. Students’ backgrounds account for 55 per cent of performance differences between schools in the OECD’s developed industrial economies – in Australia it’s 68 per cent.

    So according to Pyne, it’s the fault of under performing teachers which is nothing more than a populist response.

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/the-invisible-backpack-and-why-it-makes-the-education-gap-hard-to-close-20120908-25lcv.html#ixzz25wOK78sB

  100. Pyne was also at it speaking out against the Speaker today.

    Get this in a display of blatant projection.

    The opposition want to engage in intelligent and policy debate in parliament but because the Speaker won’t reign in Gillard and her ministers the parliament is reduced to a farce.

    Yep you heard right. The farce that is the current parliament is all the Speakers fault for not reigning in Gillard.

  102. Mobius, one has to suspect that this just has to be deliberate..that is, rather than address their own failings the Opposition jumps in first to counter any possible future criticism.

    On the other hand, with Abbott himself I suspect that he is of opinion that reality is the one that he creates for himself in his tiny little brain.

  103. Running away and hiding for a time has been a tactic of Abbott’s or by his minders from the day he got the leadership.

    If you remember in the first months he got the leadership he would often brain fart or screw up in statements that would contradict what others had stated, and rather than face the questioning he would hide for for days and sometimes weeks at a time.

    It wasn’t until either him or his PR team turned him into Mr Negabore and limited him to three word slogans that he began making his frequent spinpress appearances and frequent stunts.

    Now he’s being pressed for substance other than the lies and three word slogans along with a past accusation he runs away and hides again. It should now be up to the media to strongly put out, “where is Abbott”. Why is he hiding and like he did with Gillard they should be saying he has questions to answer.

  104. Pyne doubts the wall-punch incident on the basis that if it really happened then the story would have surfaced long before now.

    Yep, only the Liberals are allowed to dig up incidences from the past and headline them decades later.

  105. Mobius, yet the msm call Abbott’s 3 word slogans clever politics. I think that you might be onto something, that by limiting Abbott to 3 words, then he cannot stuff it up too badly.

  110. Those of you who have no time for our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, had better read this. You might get an inkling of why some of us believe she is doing a sterling job of running this country. In the mainstream media, you are fed a continual diet of bad news, bad commentary, and bad opinion about our first female PM, and some of you may have seen or heard some of the vile material that circulates in the malignant blogosphere that is inhabited by the spiteful and the malevolent. In contrast, this piece paints a warm picture of an outstanding leader.

    I admire Julia Gillard for six attributes she exhibits every day. Three are outlined here; another three will be covered in the next piece.

    http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2012/09/10/Why-I-admire-Prime-Minister-Gillard.aspx

  111. Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has invested in another Euro telco building a fibre-to-the-home network, Senator Stephen Conroy says.

    The investment in Telefonica, Spain’s largest telco, was another example of following Malcolm Turnbull’s money, not his mouth, the minister said.

    ‘Ole! The register of member’s interests reveal Senor Turnbull has invested in Telefonica bonds that are helping to finance fibre-to-the-home rollouts,’ Senator Conroy told the upper house on Monday.

    Mr Turnbull opposes the national broadband network’s plan to roll out fibre to the home in Australia, preferring a mix of technologies including fibre, cable, wireless and copper.

    Telefonica is building a network in Valencia and to half of the population of Catalonia by 2013.

    Mr Turnbull said last month that his investment in France Telecom was ‘good value’…
    http://bigpondnews.com/articles/Finance/2012/09/10/Turnbull_invests_in_another_Euro_telco_793588.html

  114. Archbishop backs ACL stance on gay ‘lifestyle’

    Astounding. Archbishop Peter Jensen actually says the remarks he makes against gays may lead them to commit suicide.

    Surely then if he doesn’t stop making them and come out in support of gays he is complicit in driving a person to a death, and thus is going against everything his faith is supposed to be about.

  115. Truth Tally — What’s Wrong With Australian Political Debate

    People you really need to read every word of that article and take note of the stats.

    I was going to copy and paste bits here but I will leave it up to our posters.

    Whenever anyone says Liberals are better governments being more honest with better ministers, throw this at them.

    What the Liberals are better at is covering up for their own considerable failings, not at being better at government.

  117. Maybe Gina has got it wrong. Maybe they are not happy on $2 per day. What they have been earning for decades. It appears even shooting them. does not get them back to work. Poor Gina, where will she go.

    Striking workers have paralysed a gold mine in South Africa, fuelling fears that mounting discontent could spread to the entire mining sector and grip the continent’s economic powerhouse for months.

    Demanding the removal of their local union leadership and asking for tax-free bonuses, 15-thousand Gold Fields workers downed tools at its KDC mine west of Johannesburg.

    The stoppage, coming exactly a month after a deadly strike was launched at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine that left 44 dead, is the latest to hit South Africa’s vital mining sector.

    Mining accounts for a fifth of GDP, but the sector – which has become a symbol of the huge economic and social discrepancies that continue to plague post-apartheid South Africa – is also a major political battleground….
    http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=793754&vId=3521346&cId=Top%20Stories

  119. ………….We have a tax problem, not a debt problem.

    State governments, with the exceptions of the two territories and Western Australia, are under huge stress because of the infrastructure backlogs left by the Howard-Costello Government and reduced GST revenue. States have less fiscal flexibility than the Commonwealth — it’s much harder to close a school or hospital than it is to defer purchase of a couple of navy vessels or to shift the timing of handouts. And they’re responsible for labour-intensive services of health care, education and policing. Given the pressure on state budgets it’s hardly surprising that state government employees have caused a huge spike in working days lost to industrial action — another statistic released last week.

    The figures on our taxation shortfall, are in the national accounts. But no politician from the big parties has the gumption to raise the issue of taxation, particularly while there persists the false idea that we’re a high tax country. Nor should we expect the partisan Murdoch media to bring up the issue, because it would undermine Tony Abbott’s notion that we have room for even further tax reductions. And ABC journalists seem to be too stressed to spend 10 minutes to do the additions and divisions to produce the above figures from the national accounts — it’s easier to get a grab from an opinionated lobbyist or a statement of the conventional wisdom from Michelle Grattan.

    Perhaps this is one of those policy challenges to which Malcolm Turnbull was referring when he said:

    “There is almost nothing more important to good government and our nation’s future than the quality, honesty and clarity of political discourse: how we explain policy challenges and trade-offs, and educate voters about the constraints we have to work within.”

    http://newmatilda.com/2012/09/10/state-economy

  128. Gina Rinehart told her eldest children that if they proceeded with their NSW Supreme Court action against her, it would be held against them all their life, a judge has been told.

    Australia’s richest person made the threat against her three eldest children, John Hancock, Bianca Rinehart and Hope Welker, their barrister Andrew Bell SC told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

    The trio launched the proceedings against their mining magnate mother one year ago in a bid to oust her as trustee of the multimillion-dollar family trust.

    They claim she acted with “gross dishonesty” and “deceitfully” in her dealings with the trust, set up in 1988 by her father Lang Hancock, with her children being the beneficiaries.

    http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/mediation-bid-in-rinehart-case-rejected-20120912-25rl9.html

  129. Coalition divided on child care reforms.

    Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care Kate Ellis today said the recent splits in the Liberal Party’s position show they are divided and have no real plans to provide a quality child care system for Australian families.

    “Our reforms have built a better quality child care system and helped families out by making child care more affordable so that more children can get the best start in life,” Minister Ellis said.

    “The Coalition need to be clear with families – the wide differences between their positions is growing daily it is becoming clear the Coalition’s Shadow Minister does not have the backing of her Liberal Party colleagues.

    http://ministers.deewr.gov.au/ellis/coalition-divided-child-care-reforms

  131. In watts case, spreading lies and disinformation, and then running like a chicken little creep when his years of screeching ‘they’re wrong’ turns out to be ill informed (at best)

    (no, I didn’t click the link, life’s too short)

  132. Do you mean to say, that after all the trouble el gordo went to to find and provide the link you’re not going to click on it? 😯

    But it could be something worthwhile. 🙄

  138. If el gordo followed the AFL she’d be a Crows’s supporter. :mrgreen:

    But she’ll probably deny that too. 😦

    As I would. 🙂

  139. I agree with Migs, it was well written, and el gordo actually provided a link to what he said, unlike others who come here, which by the way, it is quite calm in here this morning.

  143. Go Barry, go Barry gooooooooooooo.

    “THE commonwealth will give less extra funding to non-government schools this year because some states have cut schools spending.

    If state and territory governments reduce their funding , that cut automatically flows on to commonwealth government funding.

    The system was set up under the Howard government and is said to take into account the real costs of schooling.

    For 2012, the AGSRC indexation is 3.9 per cent – two points lower than that of 2011 when the indexation was 5.9 per cent.

    “Because state and territory governments have been slowing the growth in spending on schools in recent years, the rate of indexation for federal funding to schools is 3.9 per cent for this year”

    http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/less-federal-cash-for-non-govt-schools/story-e6frea7l-1226473595274

    So Barry will help the federal budget. Now that’s funny

  149. Timmy Lambert must have academic work on his plate, he’s been running open threads for a couple of months. Mobius is right, spend time at Deltoid, they are a fun crowd now that the sceptics have a voice..

  151. What a joke el gordo.

    In the past you have attempted to infer that regional cooling weather events prove the globe is cooling and here you do the opposite, attempt to infer that a regional warming event linked to global warming infers the globe is not warming.

    Yet just a couple of days ago you said the globe was warming due to the sun.

    So what is it this week el gordo, cooling, warming or none of the above?

  153. btw, apparently, it is now GLOBAL warming. Some of the denialists have discovered the word recently, and seem to think it means something (duh)

  154. grattan apologises for tabot lying. He’s just a norty boy 😉

    Did he punch that wall? Quite likely.
    …..
    Does it matter? Not much.
    ………
    What matters is whether Abbott has been truthful.
    …………
    Later, with the incident about to get media attention and Abbott presuming there was no one else to contradict him, he flatly denied it.
    ………….
    But while he’s hardly a politician to romanticise, basically he’s a decent one.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/canberras-tale-of-two-characters-20120913-25v0e.html#ixzz26ORsOfPG

    😯

    A decent one, who, according to grattan, has just lied to the electorate, in a more blatant way than the PM is ever falsely accused of having done.

    And she lets him off 😯

    More bizarrely, the article ends up with more leadershit…for Labor 😯

    And apparently, their business model is still broken 😯

  155. Grattan was on ABC radio yesterday waffling on about the Rudd leadership takeover, that apparently is wanted by at least Christmas but will be earlier if Gillard’s poll numbers drop an iota in the meantime.

    The reasoning she used was amongst the longest drawing of bows I’ve ever heard. Grattan is apparently a super reporter, able to read minds, inflections, the slightest stumble in answering a question, a pause and any silence as being as good as a massive sports field screen displaying, “Leadership Spill”.

  156. ‘So what is it this week el gordo, cooling, warming or none of the above?’

    Regional warming and regional cooling is happening at the same time, which indicates it’s natural and not human induced. We could go on a cherry picking expedition….

  157. Why does the fact that areas have cooling and areas have warming indicate that it is not human induced?

    I don’t recall the science ever indicating that all areas will warm in unison, merely that, as an aggregate, over the entire GLOBE (for ian lol) the warming will be predominant.

  160. Tom, el gordo reminds me of the Benny Hill skit where as a weather reporter he said it was going to be 80 degrees F today.

    Somebody went outside and said he was definitely wrong as it was rather cold out there. It was not possible it would reach 80.

    Hill replied “Yes it will. It’ll be 40 in the morning and 40 in the afternoon”.

    El gordo really is the Benny Hill of the blogosphere.

  161. Bacchus, we are like the batsman facing that wide ball. The bowler is el gordo. The deliveries are too wide to bother offering a shot.

  163. Indeed Migs & Iain is the equivalent of former PM Howard bowling his shocker – all you can do is shake you head and laugh 😆

  167. Tom, they actually said the colder areas would show the most warming, so in that sense it appears like global warming has begun…except for Antarctica.

    Also, the warmists could argue that the cooling in the Pacific is due to natural variations, which will eventually be overwhelmed by AGW. I don’t think that’s likely, because sol remains relatively quiet.

  168. How can one make a statement about something that did not happen. Was not that the PM’s line.

    Will Abbott explain why a dirt unit could harm him, if there was no dirt ti find.

    Remember back to the dirt unit from his side that focus on Hanson and Rudd.

  169. Good interview to the link above. Did not sound like the media believed him. Still not answering the questions. Soon back to slogans. Did not seem to work. Reporters not interested.

  172. The Pacific is probably cooling because of a cool PDO…natural variability wins over AGW and CO2 has no case to answer.

  173. Ummm natural variability and AGW aren’t in competition, so how can either win? Natural variability and AGW are additive – they work in tandem, not in opposition…

  174. ‘they work in tandem, not in opposition…’

    That’s the AGW theory, but the denialati don’t accept the thesis and argue that natural variability rules. The idea that CO2 plays a larger part is badly flawed.

    Getting to the chase, fears of rising sea levels (because of global warming) has produced a generation of nihilists.

  179. I’ll have you know I’ve had TWO alcohol free days this week Migs. I feel quite unwell, so that won’t happen again in a hurry *clink* 😆

  181. nihilism: total disbelief in religion or moral principles and obligations, or in established laws and institutions.. now, that’s the pest from the west…

  182. Yes, Bacchus, both are true. Natural and man made. The natural we can do nothing about and continues over a long time. allowing the globe to adjust.

    Man made is different. It does damage over a short period and cannot be reverse for over seven hundred years.

    The globe will not have time to adjust. The globe will still be here, but I suspect not able to support the humans, animals and plants that it does today.

    If we take action and el gordo is correct, no harm will be done,. it will just be a cleaner and more efficient world to live in.

    If we do nothing and el gordo is wrong, future generations will suffer, without means of undoing the damage.

  187. ‘If we do nothing and el gordo is wrong, future generations will suffer, without means of undoing the damage.’

    The political wing of the Klimatariat thought up the ‘precautionary principle’ … its the ‘future generations will suffer’ meme.

    Throughout the western democracies the people are waking up to the deceit perpetrated by self serving scientists, a lame msm and vote hungry pollies.

    It really is a disgrace and a very expensive scientific experiment…for starters the desalination plants are white elephants.

  188. While the sun is indeed responsible for the fact that the earth is suitable for life, it is quite clear that other forces are at work in producing and maintaining the climate which we enjoy – otherwise why isn’t the moon a green and verdant paradise ?

    the moon is, after all, about the same distance from the sun – and is a lifeless desert, alternating between freezing and blistering temps depending on the solar aspect.

    why so different? perhaps because the earth, unlike the moon has an atmosphere, which apart from being breathable, “somehow” prevents some of the sun’s energy from escaping into space, as is confirmed through satellite readings,

    so what has changed to explain the observations which point to global warming occurring? well, one thing is the significant rise in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution. the study of basic physics in the 19th century demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 was able to act as a “heat trap”.

    increases in the global atmospheric CO2 can be attributed to various sources, recent, and much older according to the ratio of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere.
    measurement has shown that the increase in CO2 observed is composed of ancient sources, the primary source of such carbon emissions is the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas).(by us) 😦

    the Milankovich cycles, being currently at a minimum, cannot account for the observations of current warming.

    the “denialati” are gullible fools and/or completely dishonest in their desperate fight for relevance, as the facts show their “left wing bias” 😈

  192. I believe the fish have already started moving south. Some, fromk the north, have reached Tasmania. What happens when they all get to the south pole. Not much sea there.

    Desalination plants might be white elephants but they cause the globe little harm.

  195. The administrator appointed to the troubled East branch of the Health Services Union has been given an extra two months to oversee its break-up before new officials are voted in.

    Federal Court judge Geoffrey Flick on Friday granted the administrator, former judge Michael Moore, a 60-day extension to his original 120-day deadline which expires this month.

    The branch, which was formed from the merger of the Victoria No.1, Victoria No.3 and NSW-ACT branches, has been divided into its original parts and all offices have been vacated.

    The court on Friday heard elections for the branches’ new leadership were originally planned to take place in mid-August.

    Justice Flick said the elections would not be conducted until November 23 as Mr Moore needed more time to “complete his processes”.

    Justice Flick in June appointed Mr Moore administrator of the NSW state union HSUeast and of the HSU East Branch of the federal union, saying both had ceased to function effectively…..

    http://bigpondnews.com/articles/National/2012/09/14/More_time_for_HSU_East_clean-up_795004.html

    Still no charges laid.

  197. That is something which we’ve been arguing here, it seems to be for ever – that although something might not be strictly kosher, that one cannot be charged with a crime unless there is evidence of criminal activity.

    That’s the way the law works – if one does not like the Common Law, then there are plenty of countries which don’t have it….

  199. Channeling Tom R.

    There’s nothing worse that having your footy team unceremoniously dumped from the finals’ race after a great season that promised so much. It’s a moment when one should be left alone to spend a few thoughts wishing that things could have gone better.

    It’s during this time of solace that a bit of respect should be shown to the vanquished and their devastated supporters.

    But don’t expect any from me. I will give you hell. I’ll be your worst nightmare (if I aren’t already). I will endeavor to make your week utterly miserable.

    That your team will have been knocked out in straight sets is a point I will harp on religiously.

    Expect no sympathy. From any of us. :mrgreen:

  207. Do you know how stupid you are sounding el gordo?

    Contradictions abound and you have gone back to throwing in single sentence absolutes. No ifs, buts or maybes.

    And for stuff sakes, denialati is not a badge of honour, it’s a shame, a denigration and a name for a group who through sheer ignorance, ideology, paid for, just plain dumb ostriches and/or a combination of the former.

  209. ”Only a matter of days ago I was being absolutely pilloried by the Labor Party and others, because apparently my position on Cubbie Station was a sovereign risk, that it was populist,” he explained, before casting an eagle eye over the supertrawler bill.

    “Then literally days later [Labor makes] a decision which is populist and a sovereign risk!”

    But how could such an inconsistency occur?

    ”The difference between the two decisions seems to be seals and dolphins,” Barnaby observed, Poirot-like.

    Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/barnaby-seals-it-with-a-dolphin-in-a-dam-20120913-25vdz.html#ixzz26RVPAd5k

  211. ‘denialati is not a badge of honour’

    Oh…right.

    Denialati, as in being in a state of denial..as in having a mind which is closed to all other opinions…

  212. Maybe he is actually saying climate change has caused this

    Then again, who can argue with a dolphin in a dam?

  213. Maybe he was trying on a new policy, combining climate change, fisheries and foreign policy rolled into one, 😈 😈 😈

  215. On Barnaby..

    Senator Joyce has now demanded the government buy Cubbie Station for more than $300 million, despite being a fierce opponent four years ago when the property was mooted for sale to the federal and state governments for environmental purposes.

  217. Yep one of the very very very few things that you have said that’s correct el gordo.

    The government’s decision on the super trawler was populist and in my opinion wrong.

    Now I’m looking forward to you canning all of Abbott’s and the opposition’s populist positions, which is all of them.

  218. Morning Mobius…I don’t know of any populist things the monk has on his plate, but you are bound to find a few.

  219. ‘a mind which is closed to all other opinions…’

    We just don’t like being called denialists, its a non word and highly derogatory. We think the sceptics opinion that CO2 has a minor impact is worth considering.

  220. Abbott has promised $2.08 billion for the Pacific Hwy in NSW, having the Commonwealth restore the 80/20 costs of road funding. That’s a pledge of a total of $5.6 billion for the Pacific Highway, but apart from the $2.08 billion, no information on where the funding will come from.

    So how is he going to pay for the $2.08 billion portion?

    By redirecting the Federal government’s Epping to Parramatta railway funding and shifting that money to the road.

    Yep, there’s some real backward thinking there. And again the Liberal party screws the workers who support them, and for a National Party pork barrel.blockquote>Nationals Leader Warren Truss and Liberal Leader Tony Abbott will unveil this pledge at the weekend’s federal conference of the National Party in Canberra and promise to restore the 80%-20% funding balance between the federal and New South Wales governments. Abbott has said the Pacific Highway is more important than the NBN. What the…?

    Note that Truss states. “Regional Australia has been dismissed by the Rudd-Gillard governments“, which is a lie, especially at the State level where the Liberal State governments are slashing services to rural areas.

  221. And whose fault is it for the $2 billion shortfall and missing the 2016 deadline?

    Govt gets hwy upgrade deadline

    So what Abbott is saying is he’ll make up for the States slashing funding, for if he does it with this then the pressure will be on from all the Liberal states to make up for their slash and burns, which is what they are attempting to get the current Federal government to do.

    And this all beggars the question of just where Abbott is going to get all this money from. He’s already committed to $74 billion in unfunded liabilities and it seems he’s now saying he’ll take on the State Liberal government’s shortfalls as well.

  223. We just don’t like being called denialists

    ROFl You have proudly worn that badge for a long time. Now you deny it 😆

    Apt that you should be quoting barnyard as well. Apparently, he thinks cubbie is a boat 😯

  225. Covering tabots arse ME

    This is hilarious

    he finally came to his senses and met the issue head-on in a tough television interview on Nine’s Today show,

    http://www.news.com.au/national/actions-undermine-his-fitness-for-office/story-fndo4bst-1226474485053

    Describing that massage from karl as ‘tough’ is just laughable. Sure, it had tough questions, but he allowed any answer, no matter how lame, to go through to the keeper, and then declare the matter finished at the end

    tough 😆

  226. Mind you, the rest of the article is pretty good, if you aren’t tabot that is 😉

    A lot of people are making stuff up if you believe the Abbott camp.

  230. Perhaps it’s due to the source of your material. Try getting it from those in the know for a while, instead of contrarian hacks who don’t really understand just what it is they are saying.

    Certainly worth a try anyway 😉

  232. ‘Perhaps it’s due to the source of your material. Try getting it from those in the know for a while…’

    Maybe would could do a dig at Deltoid, they won’t let me in the front door, but if you’re with me we could do a comedy routine. With good humour they might let me stay.

  234. And here we had the younger Bishop in parliament yesterday saying the government back flips on everything.

    I wish someone had jumped up and made a list of all Abbott’s and the opposition’s back flips, the government’s list would be piddling in comparison.

  235. I’ll be off work after 2pm and will pop down to Timmy’s place to see if I can sneak in. All you have to do is come to my aid when they scream “troll alert”.

  238. Here it is TA debating climate change, it is actually a good laugh

    Tony Abbott: The important thing is what will it do to people’s cost of living and if it drives up your cost of living it is a tax. It’s effectively an increase in the rate of GST — that’s what it is.

    Tony Abbott: If Australia is greatly to reduce its carbon emissions, the price of carbon intensive products should rise. The Coalition has always been instinctively cautious about new or increased taxes. That’s one of the reasons why the former government opted for an emissions trading scheme over a straight-forward carbon tax. Still, a new tax would be the intelligent skeptic’s way to deal with minimising emissions because it would be much easier than a property right to reduce or to abolish should the justification for it change.

    http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/09/climate-change-cage-match-abbott-debates-abbott/

  243. The cafe gatekeeper is tolerant and allows heretical views.

    Tom there is grumbling over at Deltoid, people are complaining they can’t post and reading between the lines something unfortunate has happened to Tim.

    Its a perfect time to slip in while they are distracted. Are you ready?

  249. Maybe Tom could thwow himself woughfly to the gwound…… 😀
    Meanwhile I’ll guard the cellar…. as per usual .. 😀

  251. “Meanwhile I’ll guard the cellar…. as per usual ..”

    And might I say what an excellent job you do too Lovo 🙂

  254. As I mentioned the other day…its regional warming.

    And the denialati don’t have a gripe with the sceptics.

  259. I don’t know Min.

    There are sceptics who have changed from AGW opponents to proponents and indeed there have been scientists who have gone the other way, though in far few numbers than the former.

    A denier is a denier and at the drop of a hat will change position, change the science, support the sceptic who is an opponent of AGW and then lambast them if they become proponents, and follow whatever the latest meme against AGW is, whether that’s cooling, natural warming, no warming and will change this position as often as required, but unlike a sceptic they will never ever admit they got it wrong, even if the impossible happened and global warming was irrefutably confirmed as 100% anthropogenic.

  260. That’s not true el gordo. There are sceptics who contend there is no warming and others who say it’s natural.

    In the climate change context I don’t think you know what a sceptic is, and probably the difference between them and the deniers.

  261. A denier, at least thinking about it..is someone who completely refuses to even consider the possibility and will find any way to bring the science/scientists into disrepute in order that they themselves can be “right”. A sceptic on the other hand has a more open mind, and is prepared to change their opinion if/when they are presented with the right sort information. That is, a sceptic may change in the future, but a denier never will.

  265. UK News

    ‘I’m practical. I’m really amazed by the way this has all blown up. There has been significant opposition in my part of the world to inland wind farms – for the sensible reason there is no wind there.

    ‘But I am clear that climate change is happening – climate change has been happening and will continue to happen. And it is quite obvious there is a man-made element to that.

    ‘What I want to see is the right measures in the right place delivering the right results.

    ‘From my own direct constituency experience I don’t personally think that inland wind farms are effective at reducing carbon. I don’t even think they are effective at producing energy.’

    Owen Paterson in the Farmer’s Weekly

  266. Migs, “Möbius, by the time Bacchus and LOVO emerge from the cellar that’s all we have left. … Empty bottles”……….. thats not quite correct Migs, …seeing as there is no loo down there…… 😉

  267. …… LOVO realising that no one is listening decides to look for Bacchus 🙄 ……. “the problem”.. where to start…… East wing…mm, maybe….. West wing… na,. to new for Bacc’s……..Nth maybe ???…. this cellar is so damned big, must think 😕 …ah huh.. “the Plan ” …… ‘follow the un-opened Blackberry Nip bottles’ …… works for me…… 😀

  268. LOVO, for Bacchus’s pleasure and comfort we had some self-contained sleeping quarters built in the cellar about 18 months ago. Just listen out for the snoring. You’ll find him.

    He’ll probably wake up hungry so I’m sure he’ll appreciate a slice of pizza.

  269. 😆 by the by and by… Prof. Mo has been on fire today,as usual providing worthwhile links to back-up his commentary…. except, maybe for this comment, (without a link I might add) “I don’t call building a defensive wall out of empty bottles, one bottle at a time, defending the cellar?”…..
    …….as for wind farms… I’m think’n El Gordo should go into that field, mm !!! 😀

  271. “…sceptics believe there has been global warming and that’s its natural.”

    You really don’t have a clue do you? Thanks for proving it.

    Everyone with access to the historical scientific records and can read history literature going right back to the beginning of the planet knows there has been global warming and it has been both natural and caused by catastrophic events.

    What about the sceptics who contend there is no global warming?

    Don’t mix sceptics up with deniers, they have little in common.

    And in just two posts you again contradict yourself, saying there is global warming and global cooling.

    From the first post I ever read of yours over at Deltoid, you have not had a consistent position on climate change, shifting positions or views depending on what you read and cherry pick from the web at the time.

  272. There is warming and cooling happening all the time, that’s how the system works.

    It’s not out of kilter at the moment.

  273. ‘Don’t mix sceptics up with deniers, they have little in common.’

    Now you are making shit up. I go to Jennifer Marohasy’s blog on a regular basis and the sceptics who inhabit that place are not far removed from the denialati.

    On the MDB and Lower Lakes we are in accord.

  274. “It’s not out of kilter at the moment.”

    Evidence?

    Sorry glib emphatic throwaway lines that change your position every now and again, and now it seems from post to post, don’t cut it.

    Prove to us that outside of a catastrophic event the unprecedented speed of the current climate change is part of a natural cycle?

    If that were the case then the AGW proponents would have been proven wrong a long time ago and there wouldn’t be a large majority of climate scientists supporting the AGW theory. Natural climate cycles are the easiest things to demonstrate and tends outside of them to prove or disprove.

  276. ‘If that were the case then the AGW proponents would have been proven wrong a long time ago…’

    The bureaucratic structure holding up this fraud is enormous and will take time to unravel through come about through democratic elections.

    The dismantling of the Klimatariat is important, grants will stop going to scientists already on the gravy train.

  278. Oh stop it el gordo, and avoiding providing evidence I see. Are you back to trolling again, just throwing in one or two sentence nonsense to be contentious so as to provoke responses to satisfy a distorted ego?

    You have made a couple of serious accusations, so show the evidence for them or shut up.

    And what have democratic elections got to do with science?

  279. if deniers were in fact sceptical, how come they are so eager to lap up the nonsense from watts, monckton, marohasy et al ?

    from what i have seen the denialists who wish to term themselves as “sceptics” demonstrate their extreme gullibility in their eagerness to grasp at any any claim, irrespective of fact, which they see as supporting their denial, whether it be wrt to the “a” “g” or “w” composing the acronym of agw.

    as an example of such “scepticism”, i cite the irresponsible beat-up known as “climategate”, composed as it was, of selective quotation of text deliberately taken out of context from stolen emails, which was then used to misrepresent the authors’ statements in futile efforts to traduce the reputations of the world’s leading climate scientists. in other words, a massive “ad hominem” attack on the scientists was launched, given the complete failure of the denialists to come up with any credible science in support of their denialism,

    the only true (honest) sceptics in this field are the scientists whose questioning has led to the current understanding of the impacts of CO2 on the global climate. .

  281. Watts and Marohasy are sceptics…not sure about the Lord.

    The point I’m trying to make is that when funds are withdrawn from the grant hungry scientists, out to prove AGW, then a breath of fresh air will blow through academia. Post normal science will reign supreme.

    Imagine giving scientific grants to competent scientists to prove nothing unusual is happening to our climate. A flood of papers proving our earthly system is not out of kilter and the msm picks up on it.

    Its curtains for you lot.

  282. el gordo are you saying that 97% of the worlds scientist in this field are crooked. Would they not gain more attention from proving the science wrong.

    el gordo, they do not all work in academia, most work in the field. Most are dealing hands on with the changes they are witnessing.

    el gordo, most that say they are against the present so called carbon tax, also say they believe in man made climate change. They sas they do not like the tax.

    The problem I believe they have no idea what the CEF is about, are not aware tthat it will do what they wish. They do not realise there is much more to it, than a tax. M

    Much of what they want is all is already in place. The funding for the complete CEF comes from putting a market place mechanism in place, that is a price on carbon emission.

    el gordo this is really not for you, as nothing wil change your mind. Maybe others might be interested in an alternative opinion.

    There are many that believe they government has not gone far enough.

  283. el gordo are you saying that 97% of the worlds scientist in this field are crooked. Would they not gain more attention from proving the science wrong.

    It’s too obvious to be plausible CU 😉

  286. el gordo. So Watts, Monkton and those other opponents of AGW getting money from vested interests like the Heartland Institute, fossil fuel industries and Koch brothers are not doing it because they are being funded?

    Yet 97% of climate and other related field scientists, most who will still get money and grants, and many who would be better off being against AGW, are only doing it for money?

    You’re a joke el gordo. Nothing new, you have made these same claims before and been shot down but just keep bringing them up as a distraction because you’re attempting to avoid the challenge and questions I’ve put to you and to provide evidence for your contentions.

    Back here again, yet doing exactly what you’ve always done. Disingenuous in the extreme.

  287. @eg
    where exactly is

    A flood of papers proving our earthly system is not out of kilter ?

    it doesn’t exist, of course – multiple Nobel prizes in the sciences await any authors who can demonstrate the falsity of AGW, none have been claimed. .

    no evidence of your contention has been provided that is capable of passing peer review exists, let alone “a flood of papers”. Funnily enough, there is plenty of evidence of conspiracy among the Merchants of Doubt, many of whom have prior form as advocates for the tobacco industry, and denial of the science which demonstrated the dangers of tobacco use.

    what denialists don’t understand, is that the AGW theory has been developed as the most probable explanation for millions of observations made across multiple scientific disciplines , all of which observations and conclusions must also be explained by any alternate theory, in order to pose a realistic challenge to AGW.

  288. pterosaur1. The throwaway line on climate science funding is a straw man.

    I challenged a couple of statements made by el gordo and to provide evidence on one, and bingo out comes scientists’ grants. It’s a tired and worn tactic that as soon as challenged a distraction in the form of a contentious antithetic tact is thrown in.

    Two things never change with el gordo. The AGW denial based on no evidence and the straw men thrown in when challenged for evidence.

  289. ‘…are you saying that 97% of the worlds scientist in this field are crooked.’

    No…its a nasty mix of groupthink and enlightened self interest.

  292. “…its a nasty mix of groupthink and enlightened self interest.”

    Evidence el gordo?

    Especially since most of the scientists will be paid whether they researching AGW for or against, or any other aspects of climate.

    Yet most of those opponents of AGW, especially the non-climate scientists, only get paid by muddying the debate.

    So why don’t you criticise those who are getting paid solely to discredit the AGW science and scientists?

    Why don’t you answer my other questions and challenges?

    Why do you keep throwing in straw men?

  298. there’s a nice graph here, (for you, eg) it’s not sunspots

    note : the presentation of the graph, with supporting references, to its source(s), a useful method of determining credibility .

    @ Tom R
    more like, fingers in ears, eyes and mind firmly closed, while shouting “nah, nah, nah, with occasional attempted diversions into “look over there”. pathetic, when not offensive in the pathological avoidance of reality,imho

  299. Mo,

    Two things never change with el gordo. The AGW denial based on no evidence and the straw men thrown in when challenged for evidence.

    i too remember it from deltoid, was quite disappointed when it’s trolling appeared on my favorite blog (thanks Migs). 😦

    might have followed some “trash” in?

  305. Try that again..mm!!
    “Sceptical Science and Real Science…I’ll have a closer look later.”
    Cant wait to see that Graph 😀

  308. a quote from your link, eg

    n extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

    (my bold)

    have you finally awoken to reality?

    if not, why align yourself with the 3% whose “relative climate expertise and scientific prominence ” is “substantially below that of the convinced researchers.” ?

  309. You do know that article doesn’t indicate what you contend it does el gordo?

    Of course you don’t. Posting links to sources you think support your contentions but don’t are par for the course.

    (my bold)

    97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

    This study is widely sourced in the AGW debate as it shows the scientists who are opponents of the theory are of substantially lesser expertise than those who are proponents of AGW.

  311. ’97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’

    Most of the top guys have great jobs in the Klimatariat and support the idea that CO2 causes global warming. Why am I not surprised?

    Its a matter of perspective.

  313. “enlightened self interest

    Why would t be in their self interest to further what you claim is a lie. I am saying it would be in their interest to prove the science wrong. The word is proof, which all that you rely on have not been able to do.

  314. El Gordo ….from your link ..”Could the 97% claim still be true? It certainly could be, but it looks like quite a high estimate. As I said before, Rosenberg 2010 found more like 88% believed in AGW. I expect the number is higher than 66% and lower than 97%”…..
    … and theres this from the link below…” This is what passes for public debate over climate change today; two sides sniping at each other in a contest of “mutually assured rhetorical destruction.”
    http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/09/04/why-stop-talking-climate-change?page=0%2C0
    ….or how ’bout this “”This is happening before our very eyes,” said Jennifer Francis, a research professor with the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University. “It’s not something that’s happening decades from now or generations from now. It’s real and it’s now.”
    http://www.weather.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-record-low-20120911
    I am sick of the BS, from both sides, ..if one side is wrong then nothing will happen, if the otherside is wrong, then we are in a whole lot of poo…. which side should I and my young kids err on El Gordo. I have given up on whether its man-made or not… CC IS happening and at rapid pace…… we need to go onto a “War’ footing IMO… the talk needs to finish and the walk commenced….. deniers??? skeptics???? Get over yourselves… the Artic IS melting.. the perm-frost IS melting…… low lying Islands ARE noticing rising sea levels…… Co2 IS rising….
    .. Google that El Gordo ( heres some graphs for ya
    http://www.google.com.au/search?q=rising+sea+level+graph&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=GJpVUJuyHOmiiAfNmYDABw&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=585 )
    I would just like to end this rant with some words from one of Australias best ever PM’s ..” Friends, the fight is on, it’s the fight of our lives, let’s get out there and win it.”Julia Gillard 16/9/12

  315. ‘I have given up on whether its man-made or not… CC IS happening and at rapid pace…… we need to go onto a “War’ footing IMO…’

    David Archibald is an Australian who presents the denialati perspective….we are confronted by serious cooling.

    Onset of the Next Glaciation

  316. Welcome to Free Republic!
    The Premier Conservative Site on the Net!

    Read the comments. It’s all a commie plot.

    As LOVO states the stupidity of they’re in it for the funding and grants accusation is a fair amount of them can make more money by proving AGW false. There’s a good portion that will get paid the same no matter what climate science they are doing. There is no advantage of disadvantage whether they find for AGW or against it.

    And the one thing overlooked by all, especially those crying out conspiracy of a communist plot to take over the world is that the AGW opponents are getting paid far more to muddy the waters.

    So for some reason this is perfectly OK that mostly non-scientists or non-climate scientists are paid considerable amounts by vested interests and right wing think tanks to raise false information but it’s not OK for climate scientists to get paid for what they do.

    Another distraction anyway el gordo. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you changed tact.

  317. Oh for stuff sake el gordo. Just today you said it was warming but it was natural.

    Can we expect you to have just one position on this or are you going to switch between cooling and warming when it suits your trolling, because that’s what you are doing.

    Your old pattern of behaviour there in spades.

  318. Changed tact?

    This is a free flowing conversation and I’m saying we are about to experience global cooling and humanity is looking the wrong way.

    To prove the point will take a few more years, but clearly falling sea level would indicate climate is changing for the worst….because of low sunspot numbers.

    Its a complex theory…not simplistic like AGW.

  319. ‘Can we expect you to have just one position on this…’

    From WW2 to 1976 it was cool and then it warmed until 1998, now its cooling again.

    I’m seriously scanning for a tipping point into a mini ice age.

  320. Today in Antarctica was the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth:

    -119f. [~-84c]

    But it did warm up to -117f.

  321. Today in Antarctica was the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth:
    -119f. [~-84c]
    But it did warm up to -117f.
    Geezus H. El Gordo. Please provide a link….. fair(f’n) dinkom I will look at it… but other wise your just trolling 🙄 …… I used to look into your links often.. untill you started ‘doin’ the graph thingy etc…. then I started investigate’n you,mm, which ever ‘u’ that it is/was…. yup you got history.. I said pet, I said etc…. My only hope is that you are doing all “this” for money…. that, I could understand (not like very much, but umm, ‘understand’.. sorta..) if your doin’ all “this” for any other reason then your a complete and total…… 😕 over to you whisperers 😀

  322. I think he is trying to do an Iain and failing badly, noticed he hasn’t been in here doing what he normally does either, as he failed badly as well

  327. We’re not out of money. We’ve stopped taxing billionaires and corporations, and we’re funding war-preparation so generously that we’re sparking a global arms race that will eventually generate some enemies with which to justify the war preparation . . . which will make sense to students who were never taught to put events into chronological order. They couldn’t be taught that because their teachers had to be laid off so that greedy billionaires could stuff a little more cash into their fat “Job Creator” tote bags.

    Funding teachers doesn’t destroy our environment, erode our civil liberties, hollow out our economy, antagonize the world, or kill anyone. Funding teachers doesn’t get our embassies attacked in nations we’ve “liberated” and leave our Secretary of State wondering out loud how someone…………………………..
    http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11550-funding-teachers-doesnt-get-embassies-attacked

  328. The coldest day ever recorded is just weather and has nothing to do with CC, I only mentioned it for curiosity value.

    Don’t get me started on UHI, its a can of worms.

  330. Newspoll: 50-50; Nielsen: 53-47 to Coalition

    Note that Tweed who was prolific whenever the polls came out is now silent here.

    Maybe the improving poll numbers for the government and Gillard have something to do with it, and the latest set of numbers will have the wingnuts apoplectic.

    The numbers are mostly meaningless this far out from an election except to irk the Right who have been jumping on them for the last 12 months, but they do one thing, confirm what we have been saying for quite a while here and that is a week is a long time in politics and the numbers can change at the drop of a hat.

    And they can just as easily go south for the government again or more likely, unless the opposition gets rid of Abbott, go further south for them.

  331. Nah sue.

    Throwing in weather snippets is an old diversionary tactic of el gordos. The meaningless to the debate snippets are always about a record freeze or cold snap, never about record hot days or heatwaves, and if you trace back the thread you will inevitably find they were posted as a side step or in an attempt to change tact.

    el gordo returns and immediately engages in exactly the same posting tactics as always. It’s like el gordo never left, and adds about as much to the debate as if el gordo was never here.

  333. “Yes, but did he jump, or was he pushed?”

    el gordo stumbled sideways, as el gordo in responding always goes sideways or backwards, found the large obstacle of facts and science in the way, attempted to jump it with nonsense and distractions and was then pushed over the edge by the lucidity of logic for which el gordo had no automatism. Thus el gordo disappeared from view for a period being sucked up the own arse of meaningless inconsequence.

  334. arse of meaningless inconsequence

    lol Mobius. I’m sure that can be added into Wikipedia under the ‘AGW Denialist’ heading 😉

    Could also apply to anyone associated with a banner reading ‘Bob Browns Bitch’

  335. ‘…meaningless inconsequence.’

    Let’s get to the chase, better than splitting hairs. The big picture… you see global warming and for me its global cooling… we both predict disaster no matter what.

    Only one of us can win and the signs should be easy to spot. I don’t mind cherry picking on a casual basis.

  336. funny that one of the denialists’ previous “arguments” was that a consensus existed in the ’70’s that “global cooling” was a real threat, and that, therefore, agw was a myth.(both assertions being completely wrong of course).

    now we have eg claiming we are in for “global cooling” (without evidence, of course) and therefore agw is a myth and/or conspiracy. 😆

    the signs of agw are easy to spot, if you know what to look for, and you’ve already (long) lost that argument. 😀

    as to whether anyone will be a “winner” or not, is to be determined when it becomes apparent the scale of damages (we all have to endure) which can be assigned to the delaying tactics employed by the denialists to prevent or mitigate the adverse effects of agw.

  337. It’s not about winners or losers in this el gordo, and even in that you have it wrong.

    I, all those I know who follow AGW news and information and I believe most climate scientists who are proponents of AGW want to be proved wrong. It’s not about being right or wrong, it’s about presenting the data and evidence and then governments acting on that data and evidence.

    In everyday life we undertake actions based purely on what a majority of science has told us is the safest way the action should be undertaken. We do so without a second thought even though in many cases there are scientists and groups that say these actions can be harmful and the science isn’t complete.

    Governments at all levels with departments containing specialists in the fields constantly look at the science and information both domestically and internationally, and use this information to make recommendations or to take action to protect their citizens.

    No they don’t always get it right, but when an overwhelming amount of information and scientists in the field present a case for which there is no credible refutation or counter, then they act on the evidence presented, even if that’s only as a precautionary action.

    Many governments who are acting on AGW would be much better off both economically and politically not doing so, yet they still take the actions necessary to mitigate man made carbon.

    Yet you el gordo, a jumped up inconsequential no nothing professes to know more than all the climate scientists, specialists, vested interest organisations, departments and governments out there.

    Pull the other one.

  338. ‘delaying tactics’

    Even if the Coalition was in complete harmony with the government on CC and we replaced all our power stations with renewables overnight, it wouldn’t make an iota of difference to climate.

    Why don’t you bring up Dunning/Kruger in relation to my state ofd mind? That should get a few laffs.

  340. What if the entire planet did that el gordo?

    Going through each item in the denier list I see. Which one you going to pick next?

  345. @eg

    Why don’t you bring up Dunning/Kruger in relation to my state ofd mind? That should get a few laffs.

    1. already have
    2. you noticed

    why bother, you’ve just made the point for me 😆

    don’t like facing the truth? 🙄

  346. If I may enter into the Drake Equation discussion, I would hazard a guess that an upgrade is more than likely due to the number of new planets being discovered. The Drake Equation was drawn up before any planets were discovered beyond our solar system. They appear to be more common that first assumed.

  349. It’s Facts at ten paces.

    Will sheridan have the guts to draw?

    Dear Greg,As you are probably aware, I have taken extreme offence to your article accusing’many in the ABC’ of being admirers of totalitarianism.I have no problem with critical opinions. Indeed, I frequently criticize your paper, for example for its lamentable failure to cover the News International criminal scandal until forced to and for its execrable and dishonest coverage of climate science.

  350. My pleasure, el gordo.

    You might note that my assumption was based on logic. I actually have no idea if the Drake Equation has been upgraded or not. To me it’s rather pointless anyway as the existence of extraterrestrial life is beyond doubt.

  354. Don’t need a link el gordo.

    Please think about the bêtise of the statement you made, and I’ll give you a clue; .”..wouldn’t make an iota.”

  360. Is anyone surprise of the polls results. Is this not what the PM has been predicting for two years.

    As for the dirt. I suggest that Pyne and co are finding out that can work both ways.,

    As for the Tony story, I am perplex why the Opposition is saying they have just heard about it. On this site alone, it has been raise4d regularly over months, even years.

    The personal demonization began strongly with Rudd, carried on with Gillard and now at last aimed at Abbott. It can work both ways.

    Watching the younger Bishop, I am sure she would like to take the reins. Maybe the Liberals will follow others and hand the poison chalice to a woman, when things are bad.

  364. Cu, the results for both Abbott and Turnbull are 19%. Interesting is that the numbers haven’t changed since this morning with now double the number of votes.

  367. I noticed that Bernardi is wiping his hands with glee over that demonstration yesterday. One by the way that the community notified the authorities it was coming. One that the community disowned.

    It is not the face of multiculturalism It is the opposite,

    It is the face of racism, no matter which side it comes from. It is the face of fundamentalist, extremism, and fanaticism. It is the face of hate.

    It is bad, wherever it comes from.

    it is not the face of Muslims for most.

  368. This would have to be one of most feeble of arguments against marriage equality.

    Nationals Senator Ron Boswell, also speaking against the bill, said all children had a right to both a mother and a father.

    “Two mothers or two fathers cannot raise a child properly,” Senator Boswell said.

    “Who takes a boy to football? How does he go camping and fishing? Yes, there might be some attempt by one of the mothers to fill in as a father figure but it will not work.”

    Well umm, I coached a boys u14yrs basketball team and I’ll betcha that there are loads of women who might actually know a thing or two about going camping. I am waiting with baited breath for the argument that that boys with 2 female parents will turn out gay cos’ they’ll make ’em dress in tutus…that’s about the standard of logic of that argument 🙄

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/gay-marriage-bill-personal-for-senator-20120917-262c8.html#ixzz26igGI8QD

  370. Min, it was me that took my son to all those places. Father would not have the ability to put a worm on the hook.

    Men, with daughters, are not bad in the kitchen and dressing their daughters in my opinion. The one that comes to mind was a widower, with a young son and daughter.

    Woman can and do fish and camp. They even train and referee those young teams.

    They have too, as there are not enough men around.

    There must have been many women laughing when they watch him, even some with husbands.

  372. What was also said today, is marriage has always been between A woman and A man.

    Sorry, that is wrong. State marriage was first to protect wealth of kings.

    There have been many types of marriages. Between one man and many woman for starters.

    One had to be of the same faith. The list goes on and on and on.

    Very little was said about love in the near past. There were arranged marriages.

    The poor never bothered. There have been marriages based on culture. Marriages based on faith. Marriages based on where you sat in society.

    Religion adopted marriage from the culture is existed in.

  373. In the RC, marriage is a sacrament, church law. , that couples take between each other. Marriage is not conferred by the priest. All the priest does, is witness the marriage.

    In other words. a commitment.

    Saturday, I watch my granddaughter, renew her marriage vows. She married in Samoa four years ago. The service was for the mother.

    This took place in Emereton RC.

    What amazed me, was the priest asking the couple to accept all the children god sends them. Sadly I said, not under my breath, but a little too loud, no way.

    They have four beautiful children. Two born since they married. The last is a miracle baby that should not be alive. He is beautiful but still has many operations to face. I believe my granddaughter has done her bit. That adding that in, was cruel.

  376. el gordo. for once. we are in agreement.

    I thought we were too, until I realised he wasn’t talking about Roswell 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

  377. At seventy I could be faced with the option of remarrying. Listening to some, it would be wrong, for marriage is for having kids.

    In that regard, I had four. have done my bit.

    If I follow the reasoning, I have no right to marry.

    (It would be unlikely that I would go down that path. Was not that interested the first time back in 1966)

  380. One thing that people such as Boswell do not understand and that it’s all about aptitude plus interest, and very little about gender. We all know of people who excel in roles which 19th & 20th Century mores dictated were allocated to the opposite gender. And these attitudes do change, for example typewriting was once a male job as it involved a machine.

  382. I thought it could not get worse.

    11.03am: Liberal Senator Chris Back wonders why he can’t call himself Captain Back. Apparently, because he is not an aviation pilot. Why can’t he call himself an Aborigine? Because he does not meet the genetical criteria.
    The same sex marriage campaign is emotive and loaded. It’s propaganda, Senator Back says.
    This legislation is adult-centric, it’s ego centric. Marriage is the union of two reproductive systems.
    I confess I’m having trouble keeping up with the segues in this contribution.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/the-pulse/politics-wrap-september-17-2012-20120917-26122.html#ixzz26ixgbITz

    If Abbott and Co do not believe the numbers are there. why not a conscious vote.

  383. On Twitter, Pulser Simon Frazer @simonfrazer is merely confused.
    Why is the senate debating the issue when the bill hasn’t passed the lower house?
    Excellent question Simon. I should have explained this from the outset.
    There are currently four same sex marriage private members bills – two from Labor and two from the Greens. The bill being debated this morning is a proposal from Labor senators Trish Crossin, Gavin Marshall, Louise Pratt and Carol Brown.
    Social affairs correspondent Dan Harrison tells me a vote is expectd on this bill on Wednesday morning.

    10.35am: Here too is an interesting story from The Australian Financial Review’s Geoff Barker about departures at Defence. This tale is thundering through the news cycle this morning.
    Geoff reports:
    Defence Department secretary ­Duncan Lewis is preparing to resign as soon as tomorrow with the department in mounting turmoil over ­current and planned funding cuts. Mr Lewis, a retired army major- general, has been in the job for barely a year. His shock resignation seems linked to the reluctance of the Gillard government to explain how it will pay for major new weapons systems. It is also likely to trigger at least a minor reshuffle of departmental heads in the bureaucracy.
    An update here from Fairfax senior correspondent Dan Flitton.

    10.30am: While I continue some catch up conversations arond the place, here’s the lovely Tim Lester with this morning’s Breaking Politics summary. Don’t forget to turn off the auto-refresh at the top of the blog before viewing.

    10.08am: Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop will be in Mr Abbott’s chair for Question Time today.
    Meanwhile, the Senate has begun a debate on legalising same sex marriage. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is making a contribution on this subject now

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/the-pulse/politics-wrap-september-17-2012-20120917-26122.html#ixzz26iyPA6JN

  384. Tom is a fickle friend.

    Don’t take it badly Roswell. I also wish I was back in last century, if not just for the old fashioned chocolate milkshakes, and a simpler time, when the big questions were asked 😉

  385. And all that rubbish in the AFR, ( which coincidentally is now edited by an ex news ltd journo) is being refuted by Lewis by word and job description. It will be Lewis’ job aa NATO ambassador to assist in Australia’s exit from Afghanistan.

    Another error by Bishop to believe an article written by a journalist from the murdoch stable.

  386. Min, ““Who takes a boy to football? How does he go camping and fishing? Yes, there might be some attempt by one of the mothers to fill in as a father figure but it will not work.” …. WTF is this bloke ‘generalising’ aboot…. I’m a single Dad with 2 girls and a boy… my eldest is a girly girl (17), my boy(13) likes maths and computer related stuff, he is not into sport… my youngest girl(12) plays footy with the boys.. 2 seasons now…and I stand there with the other Dads and say “thats my girl” etc… Kids need love and support.. not ideologies from the 50’s….ALL KIDS ARE DIFFERENT… love them, feed them, educate them and they will be who they will be…. I’m a hetro bloke,.. if you follow this dicks logic then my girls are both going to be lesbians because their bought up by an ex-mining guy who now does concrete’n for a living….. and my boy is going to be some real macho dude…. not how it is fella…. sterotype’n…. not living in the ‘real’ (woteva that is) world….. and might I add being a single Dad in this day and age it just ‘seems’ that the “system” is weighted against you (me)…..as in things like baby change facilitiys are in womens toilets etc….. and the like… I was left with a 3 week old, a 19mnth old and a 4yr old and I can TELL you now that the world ain’t “weighted” in a blokes direction in that situ…. ay, cobba’s…. so saying that kids are gunna poofs or leso’s if bought up in an ‘exclusively’ gender type situ is BS, IMO…..

  390. LOVO, as I said, men manage as well. I suspect those making these statements have had little to do with their own kids.

  391. LOVO, I believe things are becoming a little better for men. Women are letting go of the strings that society imposed on them, when it came to the kids. The gender roles are breaking down. That is a good thing.

  393. THE man who led the Australian Federal Police investigation into the AWB oil-for-food scandal has alleged he was offered a promotion in return for shutting down the probe.
    In an explosive statement lodged in the Federal Court, former AFP agent Ross Fusca said another senior officer had told him that if he could ”make the oil-for-food taskforce go away, he would be appointed as next co-ordinator”…………….

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/top-job-offered-to-end-probe-20120606-1zwrh.html#ixzz26lhk13i4

  399. I believe that el gordo believed gas was the answer. Maybe not. It is becoming too expensive. Maybe, it will be the renewals. Renewals that are expensive to put in place, but becomes cheaper over time.

    ………………….”Probably as big a driver of anything in the future is not just the carbon price, but that gas price. If you have a really high gas price, that means gas is very unattractive [for generating electricity, and either you build coal, which probably is not going to be the right move, or you’re going to start building renewables and solar PV maybe looks competitive.”

    But if high gas prices mean a new lease of life for dirty coal, they also eventually mean good news for the renewable energy sector. As Kane Thornton from the Clean Energy Council observes, “we’ve already seen Origin Energy come out and say they don’t want to do any more gas generation for the next decade at least, so that I think is a recognition that there’s a trend at play there.”

    “I think it’s an acknowledgement that gas prices are going to continue to strengthen and really I guess it’s just a matter of time, therefore, before renewable energy is cost competitive with gas,” Thornton says……………

    http://newmatilda.com/2012/09/18/CSG-Boom-Or-Bust

  401. Bishop is not getting her way as acting Opposition leader during QT. Actually making a fool of herself.

    Poor Pyney. Nothing to his liking.

    All we are getting, is electricity bills. Little overcooked. Maybe time to look at something new.

  402. Garrett, we do the building up, they do the pulling down.

    Spoke to my son in law on the weekend, He is high up in Catholic Education. Said that the O’Farrell will have a disastrous effect on their schools. Said that the PM’s plan was good for all schools.

  403. Wadhams has spent many years collecting ice thickness data from submarines passing below the arctic ocean. He predicted the imminent break-up of sea ice in summer months in 2007, when the previous lowest extent of 4.17 million square kilometres was set.
    This year, it has unexpectedly plunged a further 500,000 sq km to less than 3.5 million sq km.
    ‘‘I have been predicting [the collapse of sea ice in summer months] for many years. The main cause is simply global warming: as the climate has warmed there has been less ice growth during the winter and more ice melt during the summer.
    ‘‘At first this didn’t [get] noticed; the summer ice limits slowly shrank back, at a rate which suggested that the ice would last another 50 years or so. But in the end the summer melt overtook the winter growth such that the entire ice sheet melts or breaks up during the summer months.
    ‘‘This collapse, I predicted would occur in 2015-16 at which time the summer Arctic (August to September) would become ice-free. The final collapse towards that state is now happening and will probably be complete by those dates’’.
    Wadhams says the implications are ‘‘terrible’’.
    ‘‘The positives are increased possibility of Arctic transport, increased access to Arctic offshore oil and gas resources. The main negative is an acceleration of global warming.’’‘‘
    http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/21229

  404. With some media emphasis in the past few days on Abbott’s thuggish temperament, I suppose it’s only to be expected that the Coalition will seek to portray Labor people as thugs. #RightWingProjection, as ever…

  406. I think we can do with a good news story for a change, Something positive.

    FORGET the polls, those short-term numbers unlikely ever to grace a history book. Forget, too, the personal sacrifice, professional brilliance and sheer guts it took to get into Parliament in the first place. And the years of patience required in opposition. Forget all that……………………

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/happy-ending-or-not-gillard-a-heroine-in-political-sphere-20120918-264i9.html#ixzz26tm6LA6v

  407. Oh dear!The Liberal Party @LiberalAus took that silly twt down?There,there,never mind.I kept you a copy.Stating cops will become criminals cos their mates are sacked:
    Labor’s Budget cuts create conditions for corruption to occur

    This is laughable on so many fronts it’s hard to know where to start.

    Opposition promising savage PS cuts if they get into power but here promising to increase the PS without saying where the funding is coming from.

    Having a go at the government for not detailing funding whilst not detailing their own funding on the same policies.

    The Federal Opposition endorsing the savage cuts the Liberal States are making, which includes Law & Order but canning the cuts the Federal government makes in the same area.

    Hypocrites.

  408. Inconvenient truth.

    The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has just announced that Arctic ice cover has reached its minimum extent for 2012, far below the previous record[1]. Peter Doherty discusses some of the implications here. As far as the broader debate about climate change is concerned, there are some big implications.

    * First, this is irrefutable evidence that the climate is changing, and that the idea that climate change stopped or slowed down after 1998 or 1995, as delusionists have regularly claimed, is nonsense. On the contrary, the loss of Arctic ice is accelerating, far ahead of model predictions{2] In this context, I have yet to see any “sceptics” actually accept the evidence proving them wrong. But, with a handful of exceptions, we have silence rather than the usual rash of talking points to explain the evidence away. A notable example is Andrew Bolt, who ran lots of posts claiming there was no problem (most recently here), but hasn’t mentioned the topic since the minimum extent record was broken nearly a month ago…………….

    and

    On the other side of the coin, there’s one predicted catastrophe that didn’t happen. As elsewhere in the world, the introduction of the carbon tax did not “send a wrecking ball through the economy”. In fact, adverse effects are barely detectable. Of course, a lot more action is needed, but the near-universal view of economists that the cost of stabilising the global climate will be of the order of 1 per cent of income is certainly supported by the evidence from the initial steps in this direction…….
    http://johnquiggin.com/2012/09/20/climate-and-catastrophe/#comments

  409. Arctic sea ice, a key indicator of climate change, melted to its lowest level on record this year before beginning its autumnal freeze, US researchers say.

    The extent of ice probably hit its low point on September 16, when it covered 3.42 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean, the smallest amount since satellite records began 33 years ago, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

    Changing weather conditions could further shrink the extent, the centre said. A final analysis is expected next month.

    The record was broken on August 26, when the ice shrank below the record set in 2007. After that, it kept melting for three more weeks, bringing the ice extent – defined by NSIDC as the area covered by at least 15 per cent ice – to nearly half of the 1979-2000 average.

    “We are now in uncharted territory,” the centre’s director, Mark Serreze, said in a statement.

    “While we’ve long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic, few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur.”

    The summer ice is not just dwindling. It has also become thin, relatively fragile, seasonal ice instead of the hardier multi-year ice that can better withstand bright sunlight.

    “The strong late-season decline is indicative of how thin the ice cover is,” NSIDC’s Walt Meier said.

    “Ice has to be quite thin to continue melting away as the sun goes down and fall approaches.”

    The Arctic is a potent weather-maker for the temperate zone, and is sometimes dubbed Earth’s air conditioner for its cooling effects.

    However, as ice wanes and temperatures rise in the far north, the Arctic could add more heat and moisture to the climate system.

    Recent climate models suggest the Arctic could be free of ice before 2050, but the observed rate of melting is faster than what is shown in many of the models, according to NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve.

    Both the Northwest Passage along Canada’s coast and the Northern Sea Route along Russia were open to traffic this summer, and investors gathered in Alaska last month to discuss commercial and transportation opportunities for the Arctic.

    Environmental group Greenpeace International took issue with that approach.

    “Rather than dealing with the root causes of climate change, the current response from our leaders is to watch the ice melt and then divide up the spoils,” the group’s executive director, Kumi Naidoo, said in a statement.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-20/arctic-sea-ice-melts-to-lowest-level/4271530

  410. Another bloody hypocrite
    Senator Sue Boyce
    “If my vote meant the Bill would get through I would definitely cross the floor”

    But and this I reckon is the issue Sue Boyce is up for election next election.

  411. Yes, a sensible debate is needed. We need to move beyond “where is the money coming from” “spending like a drunken sailor” and such. We need to look at what our priories are, and what is essential. Then we need to work out how we pay for them. Simple really.

    Australia needed a ”sensible discussion on what we expect governments to provide, and the tax system needed to support these expectations”.
    Treasury will soon publicly release its methodologies for costing political promises, giving the community and political parties a clearer idea of how it evaluates policies. It was severely criticised by the Coalition after the 2010 election, when it found what it said were up to $10.6 billion worth of errors in costings the Coalition had had certified by two Perth accountants. The Coalition said the accountants were unable to replicate the Treasury’s methods because it had not made them public.
    Treasury will also make the methodologies available to the new Parliamentary Budget Office, which will independently cost political promises on request.
    Dr Parkinson told the conference the typical

    http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/21317

  414. Do not think so. No accountants report available either. I seem to recall Labor bending over backwards, to make it acceptable to the Opposition though.

    No, I believe it is just capable of revealing 70 billion or more black holes. The Opposition can not have that.

    Lovely listening to the Opposition wasting time of a disallowance motion against the dental scheme, complaining that Labor is desperate to cut costs.

    Maybe the Opposition could assist in this regard by ceasing in it;s endeavour to waste parliamentary time. I imagine this effort, this morning, will result in the house sitting into the early hours of the morning.

  416. Swan pointing out what the AAA rating entails. Wonder if there will be similar questions today of excessive spending from the Opposition. Pointed out that they raced into the house to trash the economy. Swan enjoying himself. Once again, did not check facts. Swan would like an apology.

    .

  417. Pyne believes that the Opposition should not be slagged by Swan. Albanese asked that Mirabella withdraw. Pyne once again, raised the handbag brigade. Mirabella has been told to withdraw from her seat, not hobble to the table. I believe Pyne will not be here long. Attacking the deputy speaker.

    Of course, Mirabella makes a speculate of herself by going to the table. Pyne has been given a stern warning.

  419. Like the way the PM uses the word, bellowing. reminds me of the time when one brings the cows home late at milking time. Speaker said, even she would have problems asking Swan if he was reading from a picture. Aimed at Hockey.

    PM said the Opposition should be out there taking the economy up. Hockey once again jumps to his feet to continue to talk the economy down. Bet the answers begins with, they cannot help themselves. NO, PM just said “it is the facts” Accuses Hockey of misrepresenting facts.

  420. The member for Sturt now in trouble for standing in the aisles. He is having big problems keeping to Abbott;s script. Much more at home, being a noisy idiot.

  421. n a recent Facebook post Richard Denniss, from the Australia Institute, names the problem as political cowardice. He states:

    “The cost of the most expensive form of middle class welfare, tax concessions for super, are about to blow out from $30 billion per year to $45 billion per year! The blowout alone is enough to fund Gonski, NDIS and with change! It gets worse though, it’s not even very middle class welfare, with Treasury estimating that 37 per cent of the total cost goes to the wealthiest 5 per cent while the poorest third get literally none of it!”
    n a recent Facebook post Richard Denniss, from the Australia Institute, names the problem as political cowardice. He states:

    “The cost of the most expensive form of middle class welfare, tax concessions for super, are about to blow out from $30 billion per year to $45 billion per year! The blowout alone is enough to fund Gonski, NDIS and with change! It gets worse though, it’s not even very middle class welfare, with Treasury estimating that 37 per cent of the total cost goes to the wealthiest 5 per cent while the poorest third get literally none of it!”

    http://newmatilda.com/

  422. Bishop thrown out for trying to be funny or smart. Raised Rudd being unfairly dismissed.

    Abbott complaining. We are now having the new tactic of claiming to be misrepresented.

    Another time wasting new practice.

  423. “The federal government is considering cutting billions in superannuation tax concessions to pay for expensive new policies in education and disability services.

    Generous capital gains tax breaks for self-managed superannuation funds which invest in property are the government’s clearest target. For the first time, the government is also focusing on super tax benefits after people retihttp://newmatilda.com/re, when pensions paid by superannuation are tax free.”

    http://newmatilda.com/

  424. The Australian Labor party led by the Prime Minister Julia Gillard has finally become competitive in the latest national polls against the Liberal coalition.
    Labor primary vote rose by 3 percentage points to 36% while Liberals dropped by 5 to 41%, according to a Newspoll survey. But a Nielsen poll released soon after showed a 50-50 split between the two main parties.

    Despite the recent rise in numbers, the opposition led by Tony Abbott would still gain a comfortable majority to govern in the next election, however Ms. Gillard is the preferred leader among the two. Both polls confirmed that Australians prefer Gillard as Prime Minister when compared to Abbott. In the Newspoll, the shift was substantial as Gillard widened her lead as the preferred PM to 14 points while in Nielsen she has a 3 point lead over Abbott.

    But if polls are to be believed, then Australians,,,,,,……..

    http://www.egovmonitor.com/2012/09/20/new-poll-numbers-secure-gillards-job-as-pm-until-australian-elections

  425. Well there you have it, Senator Sue Boyce was paired with Joe Ludwig. So she didn’t have to have her vote recorded

    So much for the “bravery” and the “they are just people”.

    Reminds me of the tears of the refugee debate.

  426. Sue reminds me of tabot swapping his pairing arrangement with Gillard so he could get his vote recorded, and one who said she would abstain not recorded

  428. I read that pairs are not on when there is a conscious vote, which in this case was only Labor.

    It was said that she abstained. Not sure if there were others.

  429. CU
    i read the pulse about the sue boyce pairing, as opposed to abstaining

    “4.22pm: Liberal Senator Sue Boyce, who spoke out against the Coalition’s position on marriage earlier today in the Senate debate, was paired informally with Labor Senator Joe Ludwig.

    So she was not in the chamber.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/the-pulse/politics-september-20-2012-20120920-267r0.html#ixzz26zvgLbnL

    So we will never hear of her again. And Boyce can see where she ends up on the Liberal Senate Team numbers qld at hext years election

  430. School yard behaviour. Very thin skinned our esteemed Opposition. Julie was ropeable on more than one occasion today. It appears the government keeps giving offence. She and Pyne reckon it is just not fair.

    Poor Tony, the girls pick on him all the time. I assume it would be OK if it was one of the boys.

    ( I have a five year old grand daughter who is in big trouble at school for hugging and kissing a little boy. She is in big trouble, as he is so traumatise, he has nightmares. )

    Wonder what happens to Tony, after the girls, or as they are known, women brigade pick on him. Wonder if he cries on Margie’s shoulder

    It is sure hard being Opposition leader in today’s political climate.

    Before the 2pm hostilities, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon was deployed to be cranky in front of the television cameras about Mr Abbott politicising terrorism. (This relates to his call earlier today for the Gillard Government to provide compensation to all victims of terrorism – both past and present.)
    Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop was ropable about this.
    Day after day we are seeing Labor senior female members trotted out at the behest of the male strategists in the Labor party to attack Tony Abbott. We’ve had enough.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/the-pulse/politics-september-20-2012-20120920-267r0.html#ixzz270ECszlT

  431. Sue, who knows what the truth is. Two MP away at the birth of their baby. From each of the fence. Both support the bill.

    How does one have an informal pairing arrangement. Trying to have it each way, I suspect.

  434. El gordo, you’re just the person I’ve been looking for. You might want to click on the link on richardbyers name in the “I would have liked to have done something else’ thread.

    Just do it.

  435. The opposition cannot do anything right, This from the Herald Sun.

    Plibersek targeted over dental scheme.

    Health spokesman Peter Dutton on Thursday moved to disallow a government determination to close the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme (CDDS), which was set up in 2007 by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott when he was health minister.

    Mr Dutton told the lower house Labor was closing it to “trash” Mr Abbott as its architect.

    He said “incompetence reigns supreme” in Ms Plibersek’s office and accused her of “sitting around Canberra cafes”.

    They even had a shot at the Independents, Tony Windsor gave back even better the Peter Dutton.

    Opposition speakers also targeted the crossbench independents, telling them to carefully consider the needs of their constituents.

    Independent Tony Windsor hit back at suggestions from Mr Dutton that he wasn’t open to negotiation.

    “The first time that I’ve heard that the shadow minister has a compromise arrangement that he would like to speak to the independents about was when he was speaking this morning,” Mr Windsor told parliament on Thursday.

    He said Mr Dutton knew his door was always open to the coalition and government alike to discuss any matter.

    In fact, his office had been in touch with Mr Dutton’s as recently as Wednesday seeking more information about the opposition’s stance.

    “What is the point of raising these issues in a vitriolic fashion if you’re trying to convince someone who hasn’t made up their mind on this particular issue to support you?” Mr Windsor said.

    He said Mr Dutton’s contribution was almost an encouragement to vote against his disallowance motion.

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/plibersek-targeted-over-dental-scheme/story-e6frf7kf-1226477923202

  436. el gordo, I posted similar a week or so ago.

    I think it means, Labor giveth. Coalition taketh.

    Nothing new there.

  437. Paul, it’s very doubtful that the opposition wants to discuss anything whatsoever. The betterment of Australia? What’s that? All that matters is bringing down the government.

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