BOTH CAN’T BE MORE WRONG

Guest post by Dam Buster of Preston

Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt have again shown their complete ignorance of the facts with their latest feather-fisted attack on comments made by Tim Flannery.

Blair makes the suggestion (to which Bolt dutifully links) that a recent report in The Age contradicts what Flannery stated in 2005.

Here’s what Flannery said during a Lateline interview on June 10, 2005:

MAXINE McKEW: And South Australia and Victoria — what would you say? What’s the good news, what’s the bad news?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, the good news for South Australia is that we are at the end of the Murray River catchment, and our water can taste awful at times and can be rather poor quality, but we do have a large catchment behind it for a relatively small city. So water quality is going to be a significant issue for Adelaide. There is increasing recycling, of course, here as well, which is a good thing. Melbourne’s doing very well with recycling but Melbourne’s also vulnerable to water deficits. It’s a large city, it’s in an area of quite dramatic climate change, and therefore will be vulnerable as well.

MAXINE McKEW: Let’s cover the issue of pricing of water, Tim. Who’s ahead of the game there?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, Jeff Kennett, for all the terrible things he did, perhaps, to many of us, actually did a lot of reforms that were quite important, and water was among them. It used to be in Melbourne that water would be on a rated basis with a little bit of a cost for your extra water. That’s changed now and you pay for the water you use and there’s a stepped tariff, and that’s a great — that sends a strong signal to the user that water is a precious commodity not to be wasted, and you’ll have to pay for water, and if you use a lot of water you pay a lot more, and that’s the sort of message we really need to get through. I really can’t emphasise that enough, that, you know, in this period of uncertainty, we have to be very careful of our water resources because a lot’s at stake.

Nothing new there. Melbourne is vulnerable to climate change, as highlighted in the CSIRO Climate Change Study.  Refer to page 17, which states in part that:

“the impact on water supply availability, both streamflow changes due to climate change and population growth scenarios were used. The system yield analysis showed that the streamflow reduction for the mid-range climate change scenario in Table 2 would result in an 8% reduction in the average annual volume able to be supplied in 2020 rising to 20% by 2050. This data was then used to assess the shortfall and buffer between supply and demand.”

Of course, over the past 10 years the actual streamflow into Melbourne’s storages has been well below even the 8 per cent reduction:

So what does The Age report state that contradicts the above? Here’s what Blair quoted:

Melbourne will have so much water in the next few decades it will no longer make economic sense to install rainwater tanks or greywater systems in new homes, a State Government-commissioned report has found.

However, if he’d quoted a little more of the story, we would have seen the following:

MELBOURNE will have so much water in the next few decades it will no longer make economic sense to install rainwater tanks or greywater systems in new homes, a State Government-commissioned report has found.

The Government’s big water projects, including the controversial desalination plant and north-south pipeline, will eliminate the need for ambitious water saving targets for new homes, apartments and renovated houses, according to the report by the Institute of Sustainable Futures, based at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Despite Melbourne Water chairwoman Cheryl Batagol last week expressing concern that the Government’s water plan “may not be enough”, the report said the $4.9 billion projects will yield an extra 240 billion litres “resulting in a likely surplus … until well beyond 2050″.

Do Blair and Bolt even read the articles to which they link? Seems not, and it appears as though they’ve “beclowned” themselves for the umpteenth time.

Flannery was right: Melbourne does have a shortage of water. It will continue to have a shortage of water supply due to the combination of increased population and industry, and less reliable rainfall. The construction of the desalination plant and the North-South pipeline will alleviate the current and future water deficit.

Yet again, Blair and Bolt have demonstrated their profound dishonesty by cherry-picking quotes to create a story.

Not a platitude

By Ant Rogenous
Cross-posted at GrodsCorp

Andrew Bolt, from his liveblog of Sarah Palin’s Republican convention speech last week:

12.35pm: “As the mother of one of those troops [about to serve in Iraq], [McCain] is exactly the kind of man I want as Commander in Chief.” Ding! Fries are done Hit the bell.

Whose bell? The only Americans prepared to be consumed by patriotic zeal upon hearing a platitude like that are bound to be Republican voters anyway.

More importantly, I’m not convinced that reminding the rest of the voting public about their nation’s involvement in a vastly unpopular war, and tying John McCain into the narrative, is such a great idea — no matter how many times Andrew has shot his Bolt declared victory for the US and its allies.

ADVICE DISPENSED

By Ant Rogenous

Tim Blair today disputes Philip Adams’ assertion that Malcolm Turnbull is the federal opposition’s best bet for leader, and that the Liberal Party would do well “to attack Labor from the left, as British conservatives are learning to do with new-style leaders such as David Cameron and Boris Johnson”.

Ever the climate-change opportunist, he counters Adams’ argument on environmental grounds, claiming Cameron’s rise in popularity follows his “shift away from greenism”. He also cites a couple of Johnson’s “about-faces” on environmental issues.

Tim concludes with the following:

Australian conservatives tried to neutralise global warming as an issue last year by making happy sounds about carbon trading and such. They lost the election anyway, and now find themselves tied to various warmster words. They should cut loose and declare themselves the party that will save the jobs Rudd would destroy.

Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t seem like the man for the job.

Tim Blair isn’t the only high-profile NewsLtd blogger arguing along these lines (and we’ll be awarding no boxes of cigars for guessing which other outspoken, fiercely independent thinker is nodding furiously in agreement), but his advice for the Liberals warrants some analysis.

It seems to me madness to suggest there are enough votes in climate-change denialism to get the Liberals across the line in a forthcoming election, irrespective of who leads the party and notwithstanding the jobs Tim alleges will be “destroyed” as a result of the Rudd government’s environmental policies.

Tim appears already to have forgotten that John Howard’s reticence to acknowledge the electorate’s concerns — or make “happy noises” — about climate change was one of the key contributors to his government’s resounding defeat at the 2007 ballot.

Can this tide of pubic opinion have changed so dramatically so soon? Could it do so before the next election, or even the one after that? I wouldn’t have thought so.

Tim Blair’s and Andrew Bolt’s daily pronouncements that the scientific proof is mounting against the thesis of anthropogenic climate change are, as we’ve argued at this site, often little more than bluffs and white lies delivered to a gaggle of sycophants eager to gobble them up.

It goes without saying that Tim’s and Andrew’s regular commenters are not representative of Australian society as a whole (to be fair, neither are ours), and that these two bloggers wield far less influence than they or their employer would like to believe, preaching as they do to the largely converted. 

So what is the prevalent mood in Australia about the challenges we face in dealing with climate change — whether the problem is real or imagined, anthropogenic or natural, trivial or critical? And seeing that the debate is now utterly politicised, what shade of government would be best equipped to tackle such issues?

Furthermore, is Tim’s advice to the opposition indicative of another form of denialism — i.e. an unwillingness to acknowledge that Australian attitudes moved well beyond the Howard government’s right-wing ideology in the latter part of its incumbency, and that the last thing that will bring the Liberal party back into power is a sudden, uncompromising return to its thoroughly repudiated (electorally speaking) conservatism?

Love to hear your thoughts.

Don’t mention the (end of the) war

By Ant Rogenous

Andrew Bolt can barely contain his glee in posting what he believes is a “gotcha” of epic proportions for John Pilger and anyone else who believes the USA’s dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was a monstrous, and unnecessary, act of barbarism:

John Pilger says Japan wanted to surrender, so the bombing of Hiroshima was yet another American war crime. Japan’s war-time Prime Minister begs to differ:

 

HIDEKI Tojo, Japan’s prime minister for much of World War II, wanted to keep fighting after the atomic bombings because he believed surrender was a disgrace, according to journal entries published today…

In the run-up to Friday’s anniversary of Japan’s surrender, the Nikkei newspaper said it had discovered Tojo’s diaries from the last days of the war.

“Without fully employing its abilities even at the final moment, the imperial nation is surrendering before the enemies’ propaganda,” Tojo wrote, as quoted by the newspaper…

Tojo said Japan was surrendering because it was afraid of more atomic bombings and of the Soviet Union entering the Pacific front.

Gosh, whom to believe about Japan’s intentions — it’s (sic) leader or Pilger?

There is the customary amount of obfuscation and appalling research in this latest effort by Bolt. 

First of all, calling Tojo “Japan’s war-time Prime Minister” and then discussing him in the context of the highly contentious end to the war is disingenuous in the extreme — Tojo was forced to resign MORE THAN A YEAR before the bombs were dropped, and promptly went into seclusion after stepping down. He had no official role in the surrender.

This fact make the utterance of this line:

Gosh, whom to believe about Japan’s intentions — it’s (sic) leader or Pilger?

yet another of Bolt’s blatant acts of dishonesty.

In any case, Pilger claims Japan wanted to surrender before the bombs were dropped. Bolt then uses Tojo’s dear diary from “the last days of the war” as evidence that the country didn’t want to surrender, which clearly is not what Tojo wrote or was even capable of writing with any authority by that stage.

Obviously, since it was nothing more than a personal diary, Tojo was offering nothing more than his personal (i.e. unofficial) opinion about what he thought would constitute an honourable course of action for his country.

Tojo also surmised that Japan was surrendering because it was afraid of more atomic bombings. That may well have been the case, but it doesn’t in any way refute Pilger’s (and other war historians’) claims that Japan was ready to surrender before the Americans decided to drop bombs they knew damn well would kill hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Execrable stuff from Bolt, as usual. But, surprise surprise, his gullible flock is lapping it up straight out of the fetid trough that is his blog. 

Here’s the best comment so far. The jubilant sentiment is eerily familiar to Bolt’s — in fact, the only thing that really distinguishes the comment from the post is its idiotic prose and the jettisoning of Bolt’s famed pretence of civility:

Hahahahahaha. Take that, Lefties!!!! Fay of Perth and I have said this many times, but we always had lefties come on and say how Japan was going to surrender. Well suck it up morons, you were wrong. Come on. Where are all of you now?

*Does a happy jig as the mental institution comes and takes him away*

Inquisitivemind of Brisbane (Reply)
Tue 12 Aug 08 (07:45pm)

It really is a case of the wilfully blind leading the culturally retarded over there.

LIES EXCUSED

By Ant Rogenous

To a bold crusader for truth, justice and the neoconservative way like Tim Blair, a lie is a lie is a lie … unless, of course, it relates to something he’s fond of.

Earlier this year he excused the Australian Grand Prix Corporation’s flagrant fudging of crowd numbers at the Melbourne event because, well, Timmeh likes fast cars and feels there’s very little difference between attendance figures of 300,000 and 400,000.  

Today, our man of unwavering integrity and intellectual honesty agrees heartily with Peter Gebhardt’s absurd argument that there was nothing wrong with Collingwood footballer Heath Shaw’s lie about teammate Alan Didak’s involvement in a recent drink-driving incident, because it was just a case of mates looking after each other.

Why does he agree? Well, two possibilites spring to mind.

First, Gebhardt — in a truly shameless analogy — invokes Teh Anzac Spirit, most likely engorging Blair’s jingoistic sense of national pride.

Second, Timmeh is a diehard Magpies supporter — and Shaw and Didak’s suspension for the rest of the season could very well hurt Collingwood’s chances of staying in the hunt for the finals.

Silly me: here I was thinking moral relativism was the preserve of Teh Left.

PLURAL ADDED

By Ant Rogenous

Tim Blair never misses a chance to sink the slippers into The Age columnist Catherine Deveny. Here he is today, going disingenuously to town on her latest piece, deliberately misinterpreting her point:

Leftist Age columnist Catherine Deveny rejoices in price rises:

I’m glad the price of petrol is going up and the price of food is rising. It’s the only way that we’re going to stop, look around and realise what things are really costing us.

Not so long ago, leftists demanded things like “wage justice” and a reduction in the difference between low and high wages. Now they’re celebrating economic circumstances that hurt the poor.

[...]

But here’s the real zinger: “Now they’re celebrating …” 

And BAM! Entire hemisphere of politics: pwned.  

Except for one tiny detail: although Timmeh and his commenters take great pleasure in reminding us that Deveny is rather a big gal, I’m still fairly certain she’s only one person, and that her largely satirical writing only constitutes the views of one “leftist”.

Still, you can’t keep a persuasive, truth-seeking crusader down, can you?

Civility and logic from our righty friends

By Ant Rogenous
Cross-posted at GrodsCorp

Anyone silly enough to bother with Timmeh Blair’s blog nowadays might have noticed this fatuous little dig at a recent post by Kim at Larvatus Prodeo.

Let’s contrast that with the overwhelmingly lovely, heartwarming and not-in-any-way-despicable behaviour of several of his good mate Andy’s BoltStrokers™ over here, commenting on the news that Gough Whitlam is in hospital. 

Pompous git will only be missed by the Labor nostalgics.
kevin of Armidale

  

Um, who cares? He was wasted space as a politician now he’s wasting space in a hospital bed. The sooner these overinflated egos are off the public nipple the better.
Craigresides of Newbridge

   

Nothing trivial I hope – this bastard ruined my Australia.
An Australia I lost a father and a grandfather to in trying to save it from external tyranny only to be betrayed from within by this…
Hell will be too good for him.
Lawrie of Sydney

   

May he suffer the long and painful death that he and his ilk have inflicted on Zimbabwe in supporting terrorism in Rhodesia.
Mournful of Brisbane

  

If it is terminal, it is 38 years too late to help any one.
Parlirama of Dural

 

Thank heavens for “conservatives” — politics would be a filthy arena without their shining example to guide us all.

 

As heard in Bolta’s office this morning

By Ant Rogenous
Cross-posted at GrodsCorp

“Hold all my calls, Bernard.

“Oh, and hand me my apologetics hat — it’s going to be a long day.”

Bold predictions

By Ant Rogenous

Tim Blair has provided yet more irrefutable, scientific evidence to disprove the crackpot leftist conspiracy that is anthropogenic global warming. And because his discerning readers demand variety, he’s taken the highly unusual step of tying it in with a pot shot at Tim Flannery:

2004:

Australian paleontologist and popular author Tim Flannery said Perth was a city on the edge – isolated, dependent on energy and declining water supplies and more likely to feel the effects of global warming …

Perth will become a ghost city within decades as rising global temperatures turn the wheatbelt into a desert and drive species to the brink of extinction, a leading Australian scientist warns.

2008:

Before today, persistent lows have soaked the city with 107.8mm of rain since the start of the month and only 41mm of rain needs to fall to break the 1926 April record of 148.8mm.

Perth remains on track to break the record for the wettest April ever recorded …

The embarrassing trouble for Tim’s argument, however, is that he seems to have bolded the wrong words in the second sentence:

Perth will become a ghost city within decades as rising temperatures turn the wheatbelt into a desert …

Still, we mustn’t be too tough on him: as this pre-Iraq war interview shows, Tim’s not all that astute when it comes to analysing potential catastrophes and predicting their outcomes:

JOHN HAWKINS: If and when do you see the United States hitting Iraq? How do you think it’ll work out?

TIM BLAIR: It all depends on Iraq’s fearsome Elite Republican Guard. Why, those feisty desert warriors could hold out for minutes. Dozens of US troops will be required. Perhaps they’ll even need their weapons.

Don’t know when, of course. Wouldn’t expect it to last long once it happens.

That’s five years and counting now, Tim. Yet you suggest Flannery’s decades-long prognosis has been disproved after four because of a wet April.

Your Ph.D will be ready to collect from Kwik Copy in about 10 minutes.

Iraq is won

By Ant Rogenous

If Iraq wasn’t won the last time Andrew claimed (or perhaps didn’t claim) it was, those pesky insurgents surely don’t stand a chance now that Bolt the hero and his little rodent pal Timmeh are on the case.

Oh, the adventures they’ll have together!