Andrew Bolt's Blog, page 1901
January 17, 2011
How desperate they must be for even loose change
Doesn't seem much of a deal from what doesn't seem much of a government:
THE "$5.3 billion sale" of the state's power assets has been exposed as a dud, with the Government's sales team admitting yesterday billions could be ripped from the proceeds because of a web of contract deals.
It's also terrible timing. Selling coal-fired power stations just when you have a warmist federal government that wants to tax them out of existence isn't a winning strategy.
Drop in on us at MTR at 8am
I'm back at 8am weekdays on MTR 1377. Listen here or on the radio, and feel free to ring talkback on 131 873..
My column in the News Ltd papers will resume next week. Comments on the blog will probably resume then, too.
Greer keeps her head in the floods
A remarkably sane column on the floods from Germaine Greer, a warmist who refuses to buy the latest warmist spin and is asking all the right questions: What's going on in Australia is rain… The ground is swollen with months of it. The new downpours have nowhere to go but sideways, across the vast floodplains of this ancient continent. We all learned the poem at school, about how ours is "a sunburnt country . . . of droughts and flooding rains"… And yet we still don't get it. After 10 years of drought, we are having the inevitable flooding rains. The pattern is repeated regularly and yet Australians are still taken by surprise.
The meteorologists will tell you that the current deluge is a product of La Niña. At fairly regular intervals, atmospheric pressure on the western side of the Pacific falls; the trade winds blow from the cooler east side towards the trough, pushing warm surface water westwards towards the bordering land masses. As the water-laden air is driven over the land it cools and drops its load. In June last year the bureau of meteorology issued a warning that La Niña was about "to dump buckets" on Australia. In 1989-90 La Niña brought flooding to New South Wales and Victoria, in 1998 to New South Wales and Queensland… In Brisbane the benchmark was the flood of 1974; most Queenslanders are unaware that the worst flood in Brisbane's history happened in 1893. Six months ago the meteorologists thought it was worthwhile to warn people to "get ready for a wet, late winter and a soaked spring and summer". So what did the people do? Nothing. They said, "She'll be right, mate". She wasn't.
It takes La Niña to bring rain to the inland, in such quantities that it can hardly be managed. Manage it Australians must. The Wivenhoe Dam on the Brisbane river was built to protect the city of Brisbane from another flood like the one of 1974. For years it has been at 10% of capacity [er, that's a gross exaggeration, actually, but, yet, it was alarmingly low for a while], so when it filled this year nobody wanted to let any of the precious water out. It eventually became clear that the dam had filled to 190% of its capacity, and the authorities realised with sinking hearts not only that the floodgates would have to be opened [even wider, actually], but that the opening would coincide with a king tide in Moreton Bay. The question nobody [pardon?] has been heard to ask is whether or not the level of water in the dam should have been reduced gradually, beginning weeks ago…
The phenomenon is anything but momentary; the not-so-exceptional rainfall will continue, probably until the end of March. Professor Neville Nicholls, president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, believes that "the Queensland floods are caused by what is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) La Niña events since our records began in the late 19th century". He was asked if the intensification was a consequence of global warming, and declined to comment. Other people have been rather too quick to claim the extreme weather as a direct consequence of global warming.
Let's hope the warmist Age, which has the rights to Greer's columns, chooses to run this one. It would mark a decisive break with the warmist alarmism it's run these past few days.
(Thanks to reader Barry.)
Where did Gervais go?
Finally, a conspiracy theory I can enjoy:
The 68th annual Golden Globes veered into Cluedo territory last night as the event's host went missing for nearly an hour. Ricky Gervais's absence from the stage, following an opening monologue that drew more gasps than laughs, led excited observers to speculate that the British comic may have been collared backstage and fired … or worse.
Gervais opened the live telecast by poking exuberant fun at the likes of Tim Allen, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. He claimed to have had to help Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, off the toilet and "put his teeth back in". He introduced Bruce Willis as "Ashton Kutcher's dad" and explained that Johnny Depp's critically panned caper movie The Tourist had only been nominated because the voters of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association "accepted bribes". Neither Willis nor Depp appeared especially amused.
Then Gervais went missing, sparking lurid speculation on blogs and Twitter. Where had Gervais gone? Had the host been killed or merely given his marching orders?…
Even when Gervais eventually returned, observers noted that he seemed subdued, leading to suggestions that he had been asked to tone down his routine. According to CNN host Piers Morgan, Gervais looked "haunted". He vowed to ask the comedian: "What the hell did they do to you backstage?"
Some of the "jokes" were indeed pointlessly nasty, and I'm a Gervais fan.
The Washington Post's Hank Stuever isn't impressed:
Are we at war with England? If not, then why have we been subjected to two years of Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globe Awards, witnessing a growing hostility between the British comedian and a resentful audience of celebs?…
"I warned 'em," Gervais said at one point in Sunday night's lazy and perfunctorily smarmy show - he meant he warned the producers, but it seems we've all been warned now. Gervais proved last year that he wasn't the right bloke for the job. From his lame jokes about Charlie Sheen, "The Tourist" and Scientology to the uncomfy bit of open warfare between the host and the press association that puts on Hollywood's schlockiest award show, you kept hoping the crowd would rise up and pummel Gervais…
But why not let Robert Downey Jr. review the show, as Downey took the stage after Gervais introduced him with references to porn movies and stays at the Betty Ford Center: "Aside from the fact that [Gervais has] been mean-spirited with mildly sinister undertones, I'd say the vibe of the show has been pretty good, wouldn't you?"
(Audience coughs, laughs nervously, checks watches. Home viewers watch listlessly.)
Why secret policemen love the greens
Of course, some people go green just for the sex with an undercover policeman:
He acknowledged for the first time that during his time undercover he had been in sexual relationships with two activist women, admitting that what he had done was "wrong"…
But Mr Kennedy said other undercover police had also become sexually entangled with their subjects in a promiscuous environment in which some people had up to six lovers at a time.
"I was offered sex repeatedly," he told the newspaper.
"And I was not the only undercover operator having a relationship but our handlers never asked."
He added: "That is the problem about this whole undercover police operation. There seem to be no guidelines, no rules – I was pretty much left to fend for myself."
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
How to choose better immigrants
Immigrant Michael Galak proposes a new technique for improving the chances of importing people who'll fit in:
Is it time to say goodbye to fair play in the politics of Australian population growth? Welcome to a new, hard-nosed concept in immigration—the Successful Integration Index.
The main idea of this article is to offer a practical and objective tool for selecting immigrants, based on the record of immigrant groups already settled in Australia. At present we choose immigrants based on their predicted future value to society—judging by their skills, age, capital, connections to Australia and so on. However, such predictions are fallible.
How can we predict the future ability of potential immigrants to integrate into the new and sometimes alien culture of contemporary Australia? I suggest including the statistically valid record of integration into Australian life of the immigrant group a potential settler is a part of. This review could be based on the country of origin or ethnicity or religious affiliation or all of these indicators together. But until more sophisticated techniques can be developed, country of origin would have to suffice for now.
Read on to see how Galak would apply that index to certain problems.
(Thanks to reader William of Malvern East.)
With friends like these, I'd rather hear from our enemies
Just who do the authors of this Age burble call our "friends" and "peers"?
WHEN it comes to criticism, sometimes the harshest but most constructive feedback comes from friends. This month, Australia's human rights record will be reviewed on the world stage under the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review process. This is a peer review in which, every four to five years, the human rights record of each of the 192 UN member countries is reviewed by the 191 other countries.
On January 27, it's Australia's turn.
Let me do what the authors - Ben Schokman of International Human Rights Advocacy and Phil Lynch of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre - didn't and name some of our "friends" and human rights "peers" on the UN body about to give us this "constructive feedback":
Bahrain
China
Cuba
Libya
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi Arabia
If we're really the "peers" of that lot, we're in strife.
(Thanks to reader Andrew. No comments during break.)
Not such a great challenge for Rudd, after all
The "great moral and economic challenge of our time" has been washed down to number seven on Kevin Rudd's revised list of challenges:
Challenge number seven embraces food security, energy security and climate change. These are inter-related – the loss of arable land; the growing demand for energy resources from major emerging economies; the absence of a global price on carbon impeding the large-scale development of the renewable energy sector. For climate change in particular, the clock still ticks. This requires both global and national action.
Journalists should ask him if he was wildly exaggerating then or is a denier now.
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones. No comments during holiday.)
Abbott warned not to do what Brown does without comment. As for Rudd…
So many journalists seem so very worried that the Leader of the Opposition might ask whether the right things were done to avoid the worst of the damage from these floods.
Ten News:
HAMISH MACDONALD (to Tony Abbott): There has been some credit given to politicians for effectively keeping politics out of this for the moment. Do you think that it will remain that way or do you think this will become a political issue?
Nine News:
KARL STEFANOVIC (to Abbott): Earlier today there was a call for a more bipartisan approach to getting things up and rolling in terms of a recovery. At this point, I know it's early days but are you willing to provide that bipartisan support?
Seven News:
MARK FERGUSON (to Abbott): I spoke with the Prime Minister here yesterday evening. Is this the time that not only state boundaries come down but political boundaries as well?
Question. The only politician I've seen very obviously making political points out of this disaster is Greens leader Bob Brown, blaming coal miners for the floods. Why isn't he asked the same questions?
But wait. There has also been some criticism of one other politician, and from an unlikely source - a Sydney Morning Herald journalist on 5AA:
Mike Smithson: David Penberthy yesterday bought in the Kevin Rudd factor with the flood washup, Rudd's people let the media know exactly what Kevin Ruidd was doing at just about every moment of the day and were invited along….(for flood victims) the last thing you need is a man with a business short who can speak Mandarin coming along with the media in tow to help you out?
Phil Coorey: Yeah, I noticed that a bit….suitcase on his head…it all looked a little bit contrived….why did we know he was doing it, why did a whole bunch of camera crews turn up and do it, that was a little bit crass but that's Rudd…never miss an opportunity, probably felt a bit aggrieved because it was home town of Brisbane…it was absolutely one-upmanship, there's absolutely no love between those two (with Gillard) now and Rudd must have been rueing the fact he wasn't still Prime Minister….must have killed him not being able to do that in his home state so he did the next best thing, look at me, I'm Kevin. Gillard was sort of largely powerless…you can go around the comfort the people who have lost their homes, tour the disaster areas …. He hates what happened and he's not going to go away as much as they may like him to he's not going to and he's done that in a number of ways. He bought a great big house in Canberra -$2.2m just down the road from The Lodge…he's a very active Foreign Minister and he won't be pushed away.
Rudd has also helpfully given out medical bulletins to help the media keep track of the sufferings of flood victims:
The former prime minister, whose seat takes in many flood-hit east Brisbane suburbs, was admitted to the Mater Private Hospital on the weekend after a cut sustained during the clean-up became infected.
Mr Rudd this morning, told ABC Radio he was recovering well.
"I've been getting lots of antibiotic treatment on that," he said.
MTR today, January 17
- I go through some reasons why Greens leader Bob Brown is a fool for saying our coal miners are to blame for the Queensland floods, starting with some basic history.
- Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce gives us a few reasons of his own, including the need for a coal industry to help pay for the reconstruction. We also discuss the levels of the Wivenhoe dam, meant to save Brisbane.
- Associate Professor Stewart Franks, a hydroclimatologist, explains why Bob Brown makes him feel sick, and why there is zero reason to blame the coal industry for yet another flood.
- We discuss why Julia Gillard looks at sea in these floods, while Anna Bligh looks so good.
- The Mayor of Horsham confirms he did have a policy on flooding when he ran for office, and gives us an update on the floods now threatening his town.
- And more, including the most heartening thing about the floods.
Listen here.
And listen in tomorrow from 8am, and call in on talkback on 131 873.
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