The Climate Change Insurance Scam

At Sir Roger’s boarding school [all right, that's enough of that!] the interhouse swimming competition was called the Monckton Shield.

Sir Roger’s nightmares used to be full of the horror of the only event in which he ever stood a chance – underwater distance swimming, or the Open “How Long Can You Hold Your Breath Before Your Lungs Burst Underwater Torture”. Sir Roger (he was merely The Hon. Roger, back then, of course and the other boys were required to let him win) never managed to reach the other end of the Olympic Pool. But he did try very hard.

Well, there’s another Monckton nightmare and it’s called “Lord Christopher”, or “How Long Can You Hold a Ridiculous Pseudo-Scientific Conspiracy Theory Without the Entire World Realising How Crazy You Are Before Your Bubble Bursts?”

We were alerted to the nightmare by the cloyingly umble and insincerely obsequious Andrew (Uriah) Blot on our weekly torture session, The Insiders. Watching Insiders, like the water torture, the strongest, toughest and most highly trained typically scream (bubblingly) for mercy within 10-15 seconds.

Speaking of Andrew Blot reminds us of the day Sir Roger remonstrated with his youngest progeny, “You’re a blot on the family escutcheon!” “What’s an escutcheon?” he asked. His brother, the presumptive heir to the Migently Estates, replied, “It means you’ve got a small penis and no friends!” Which brings us nicely back to Andrew Blot.

Blot is a fierce defendant of Monckton because the Mad Monk, his new clingy-man-love-infatuation, is. (Blot is always infatuated with whoever is the leader of the conservative party and always makes anything except a serious, rational case in their favour. Is Blot perhaps the most intellectually dishonest “journalist” in Australia?)

So here is what Monckton – once science advisor to Margaret Thatcher (if anything should ring alarm bells . . .) – told an American audience was DEFINITELY going to happen in Copenhagen and why:

At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regime from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.

I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfication of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world.

Yay! The Reds under our beds are back! It’s all a communist conspiracy! World government! Aaaaarghhh!!!! Bring back Ming!

UPDATE: Penny drops. Duh. Monckton is proselytising against climate change and is willing to peddle his nonsense, in fact to say anything, NOT because he believes the science is wrong but because he thinks it’s all a conspiracy to bring about communist world domination. His agenda isn’t climate change. It’s anti-communism.

But, by the way, WRONG! ON ALL COUNTS! The great oracle, soothsayer, prophet and fortune teller of the denialist front was 100% wrong about events that were supposed to unfold within just a few weeks. How wrong must he be about events that are years, decades, off?

Is Monckton “potty”?¹ You might be interested in this demolition of Monckton’s ideas and exposure of his massive lack of integrity.

Also on this morning’s horror show nightmare was the Mad Monk himself, trying to extricate himself from the contradiction of his fundamental climate denialism (“The climate change argument is absolute crap”, he told a country Victoria audience in October last year) while proposing a policy to deal with it. He seems to be going for a compromise: “on the insurance principle you are prepared to take reasonable precautions against significant potential risks”. Tony, just a note: “absolute” is non-negotiable. “Absolute” is absolute. Absolute crap means there is no truth in it whatever and there is no point in taking any measures against it.

While trying to distance himself from his “absolute crap” remark he made the same point he made in Victoria’s deep West (a bit like Tamworth, NSW, but with slightly more grazing on the knuckles): you may as well have an insurance policy against the non-existent threat to make the worry-wart wife and the communist-teacher-taught kids happy, but choose the cheapest, dodgiest policy on offer.

The trouble with this attitude is that it falls between two chairs. It is either too much or not enough and there is nothing whatever in between. Either action is “absolutely” unsatisfactory. If someone is threatening you with a sword, and they say they are aiming to slice you through the gizzards, you have a choice. Take a calculated risk that they are bluffing and do nothing, or prepare to jump 4 feet in the air. What Abbott is proposing is that we just split the difference and jump only 2 feet. Trouble with that is, when and if he strikes he’ll take you off at the knees. And you’ll lose your two feet. But, hey, Tony, I can see you now, scrabbling in the dirt, bellowing like the Black Knight, “‘Tis but a scratch!”

What Abbott and his followers and handlers need to understand is that the people who are managing the campaigns of climate denialism, climate scepticism and of climate uncertainty and obfuscation are having a lend of you for their own political and economic agendas and you’re too stupid to see it.

As George Monbiot says of people who have bought the unscientific, irrational, intellectually dishonest, intentionally distorted denialist “absolute crap”:

These people aren’t sceptics; they’re suckers.

¹ According to the SMH: ‘Monckton is also the full bottle on epidemics. Tens of millions need never have died of AIDS, he said. The world’s mistake was the failure “to isolate all carriers immediately, compulsorily and permanently”.’ Yes, Monckton is potty. And dangerous. And as the SMH concludes (and might have said equally of Andrew Blot) “where do they get these people?”

Technorati Tags: climate change, global warming, environment, climate denial, climate denialist, denialism, climate sceptic, sceptic, Insiders, Abbott, Andrew Blot, Monckton, Christopher Monckton, Lord Monckton, Monbiot, ETS, insurance, climate insurance, politics, economics, government, Monty Python, Black Knight, Victoria, Western Districts, communism, communist conspiracy, conspiracy, Menzies, dishonesty, intellectual dishonesty, integrity, intellectual integrity, science, climate science, forecast, forecasts, prophecy, oracle, soothsayer, fortune teller, Tamworth, absolute crap, United Nations Climate Change Conference, IPCC, Copenhagen, water torture, escutcheon, Migently Estates, swimming, values, Australian values, Australian environment, Australian environmental values, global environment, journalist, reporter, newspaperman, blogger

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh on TV news tonight shining in the glow of the biggest heap of burning coal ever sold to the world’s greatest polluters, saying,

“The challenge for all of us around Australia is to make coal a cleaner burning fuel.”

So let’s just reiterate what, if she had been attending in her Year 7 science class, she would surely know.

If you burn coal you get carbon dioxide.

All the rest is horsefeathers, especially the spectacle of a Premier in deep shit, about to lose the next election, sacrificing the future of the planet – and our children – on the altar of her career, gaily waving at an impressed press the greatest scientific/technological shit sandwich of our time – the bullshit of “clean” coal.

It’s like putting your babies in a rowboat, attaching a 70hp outboard, pointing it at a waterfall and asking people to trust you that you’ll work out a way to stop it before it goes hurtling down onto the rocks below.

But what about you? Do you think it’s the epitome of stupidity and irresponsibility, or is it just pragmatic politics, or rational economics?

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change, pollution, science, technology, CO2, coal, clean coal, Queensland, Qld, coal export, China, energy, chemistry, Anna Bligh, values, Australian values, Australian environmental values, environment, environmental values, politics, government, election

Bertrand Russell said¹ (you know, a long time ago):

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.“

Later, in 1999, a couple of academics from Cornell turned it into An Effect – the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”

Barnaby Joyce, of course, instantly springs to mind in relation to the former category. The entire Howard ministry. Bush, Blair. Tony Abbott, naturally. Every suicide bomber that ever did us the favour of removing themselves from the gene pool. Oh, and George Pell.

And the Dunning-Kruger Effect is what characterises the imbalance in the Global Warming “debate”. The stupid (Joyce, Abbott, Pell etc.) and the really stupid (Alan Jones) express absolutely no doubt in their convictions that it is all a hoax while the scientific community always falls short of absolutes and allows uncertainties, as science must.

Sir Roger, however, was discombobulated by the news, wondering whether his renowned arrogant self-assurance was indeed a sign of utter stupidity. Perhaps so. But he determined to have it out, bring it to a head with a compress of Magnoplasm™ and lance the Boil of Uncertainty.

What luck, then, that PZ Myers at Pharyngula has a post on one’s “Risk Intelligence Quotient” [RQ] which includes a link to a site where you can test such things!

Sir Roger is somewhat less upset than before, having scored a 76 which the test-makers claim is “high”. Not perfect, however, which leaves Roger Migently (Bart.) a little miffed (particularly since PZ scored significantly higher than Sir Roger….)

But, you, dear Reader, what do you score on this 5-minute RQ test? Please try it and let Sir Roger know!

¹ but so did Mark Twain:

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”

“Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.”

Technorati Tags: risk, risk intelligence, risk quotient, RQ, intelligence, stupidity, arrogance, cockiness, uncertainty, magnoplasm, values, Australian values, global warming, climate change, Barnaby Joyce, Tony Abbot, George Pell, Alan Jones

Sir Roger always thought he was the ultimate grumpmeister but there’s this crabby old fart, Donald (I-don’t-care-much-for-young-people-and-I’m-not-too-sure- how- I-feel-about-you) Mills who is off the scale!

At his blog (not bad for an old fart his age to have his own blog!), The Problem With Young People Today Is…, He reports his responses to the Alzheimer’s Quiz that he took just to keep his personal care worker happy.

Q2: Do you experience behavior and mood changes?

I’ve been pissed off since 1971. My mood soured the day the Ed Sullivan Show was cancelled and hasn’t improved much in since.

Young people, on the other hand, seem to fluctuate rapidly between mania, depression, sullen indifference, bratty sulkiness, bouts of self-importance, violent anger and stifling stretches of profound boredom.

And that’s all before they haul their asses out of bed.

And so on.

Plus, in a post called “Life Cycle of a Damned Young Person“, there’s an excellent graphic deconstruction of Life in the Damned Good Old Days compared to Life in the Damned Modern Days. His basic conclusion is that

these damned young people today are scattered in 9 directions at once and doing half of the things a man is meant to do in ass backwards order. If they bother to do them at all.

Worth a read?

Technorati Tags: humour, humor, comedy, old people, age, aging, grumpy old men, grumpy old man, old man, trouble with young people, young people today, Donald Mills, Alzheimers, life cycle, erection, pharmaceutical, good old days, ageism, values, Australian values, social values, senior citizens, blogging, life, internet, culture

We don’t really push our hosting company. We’ve got that ad over there on the right, of course and if you decide to host your website with them through that link we get a little money (really, a very small amount). But the reason we put that ad there is because we have used HostGator for many years and love them and want to recommend what we think is probably the best hosting around. While they are one of the biggest, they weren’t when we first signed up. But their service is even better and quicker now than it was then (not that we’ve ever needed much service – the servers have been incredibly stable).

But the reason we mention them now is that some of our more astute visitors who are considering setting up a new website or transferring an existing site may be looking for a really good webhosting company. And, being our astute visitors, they might be the sort of responsible people who consider their carbon footprint.

We received this from Hostgator today:

HostGator has just purchased additional certified REC’s (renewable energy credits) for our nearly 9,000 servers. This covers our entire server base, plus it gives us room to expand while more than offsetting the server’s carbon footprint. Instead of just offsetting our server’s emissions, we’ve committed to a 130% offset. As a HostGator customer, you should know that your web site is being powered by a 130% green server.

And so you should know that Values Australia is powered by a 130% green server. Hey, who knows how much difference one website would make. Just the thought makes you feel good. (Sir Roger was so impressed he nearly fell off his shooting stick and spilled his Merlot.)

So, you know, just in case you’re in the market and this news might make your decision just that little bit easier.

Technorati Tags: web, internet, web hosting, site, website, web page, hosting, global warming, climate change, hosting server, hostgator, host gator, energy, electricity, carbon, carbon footprint, carbon offset, global values, environment, environment values, environmental values, global citizen, corporate citizen

They used to say that fusion energy as a global, pollution-free energy source was always “about 30 years away”, no matter when you asked.

Now there seems to have been if not a breakthrough then a significant advance that may bring that future date much closer.

According to the BBC ["Laser fusion test results raise energy hopes"],

A major hurdle to producing fusion energy using lasers has been swept aside, results in a new report show.

A major hurdle to producing fusion energy using lasers has been swept aside, results in a new report show.

The controlled fusion of atoms – creating conditions like those in our Sun – has long been touted as a possible revolutionary energy source.

However, there have been doubts about the use of powerful lasers for fusion energy because the “plasma” they create could interrupt the fusion.

An article in Science showed the plasma is far less of a problem than expected.

[ ... ]

Dr Glenzer is confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon. He added, quite simply, “It’s going to happen this year.”

Technorati Tags: science, fusion, reactor, environment, BBC, fusion power, nuclear power, laser, plasma, pollution, tritium, deuterium, National Ignition Facility, NiF, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, technology, hohlraum

What has Astraya got to do with the America’s Cup challenge which is scheduled for February this year?

Well, a lot. Reports from Valencia, Spain, where the races will be … um … raced, show that the technological edge is now held by the Swiss Alinghi 5 team – the catamaranic Defenders – over the trimaranic BMW Oracle challengers.

The techno-edge results from the use of microlight aircraft (trikes) to determine wind speeds and direction at mast height, rather than at sea level where the winds are different. This involves GPS, Iridium and even iPod(!) to send the telemetry to the helmsman.

What’s Australian is that the aircraft are designed and built in Australia by Airborne Aviation and the chief pilot, Peter Wilson, is an Australian who runs a flying school in Tumut, NSW and trains pilots all over the world.

So Australian technology and Australian pilots could well mean the difference in the outcome.

You can read more about the exploits at AirEscape.com.au where they’ve got pictures and video etc.

Technorati Tags: Australia, sport, sailing, yachting, America’s Cup, Alinghi, Alinghi 5, Oracle, BMW Oracle, microlight, trike, flying, weather, telemetry, technology, computing, GPS, Iridium, iPod, Australian values, airescape, adventure, escapade, adrenalin, learn to fly, flight training

From the Onion News Network:

Less than two weeks after converging upon the site of a devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake, American anthropologists have confirmed the discovery of a small, poverty-stricken island nation, known to its inhabitants as “Haiti.”

[ ... ]

The Haitian civilization was discovered on the night of Jan. 12, when relief workers were rushed to several resorts in the Dominican Republic to see if any American tourists had been injured in the quake. During an aerial tour of the island of Hispaniola, members of the Red Cross noticed signs of human life coming from Haiti.

Also at the Onion

Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger

and from Onion TV’s True Crime Show, Raw Justice:

Technorati Tags: Haiti, civilisation, earthquake, Hispaniola, Dominican Republic, J D Salinger, author, Catcher In the Rye, literature, phonies, sex, sex crimes, values, global values, Australian values, literary values, comedy, humour, humor, media, television, crime show, video, politics, government, racism

NYTimes: 117 Russians in Hospital After Drinking Holy Water

It’s a mystery …. Perhaps they could pray for a miraculous cure?

Technorati Tags: religion, holy water, Russia, values, religious values

How exciting is it!?? How time flies! Already it’s the fourth anniversary (more or less) of the famous Strayan Cultural Respect Seminar first held at Cronulla Beach, a famous sewer near Sydney!!!

Come along! Bring your own own slab, flab, flag and fag.

And in order to help you fully appreciate the event we present some training materials on what it truly means to be an Aussie.

To participate in Australian culture all you need is a Ute, a girl in a wet t-shirt and know how to burn a sausage on the barbie and you’re a Suburban Hero and a Great Aussie Bloke.

Basically, every Australian is always having a barbecue, or “barbie”.

Barbecued burnt bacon, eggs and sausage for breakfast, barbecued burnt sausage and onion sandwich for lunch and barbecued burnt steak and sausage for dinner. Barbecue meat is always marinated in VB (except in Leichhardt and Carlton and the whole of Adelaide, where they have barbecued wogmeat for every meal washed down with a barbecued imported chardonnay before they go off and have a committee meeting of the marxist socialist alliance or what is called the “greens”).

Aussies have barbecues because they are a spiritual people and it says in the bible they have to:

And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that [is by] the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.

And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:

And the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that [is] on the fire which [is] upon the altar:

But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, [to be] a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

Aussies don’t eat veggies.

Australians value the pavlova and the lamington. Lamingtons are scarce. They are hard to catch because they are always running away and jumping off cliffs.

Australians don’t value Vegemite. They pray to it as a black deity. If you want to be an Aussie you have to prove you like it by eating it out of a jar with a spoon.

Australia is a big country almost entirely covered in suburbs. There is a little bit in the middle where we keep some special things like the last remaining farmers and a big rock and a small hill we paint white in the winter. Real Aussies don’t ski. They pose around in silly-looking boiler suits and a couple of planks and drink heaps of wog drinks like gluwein and get completely pissed and then go back to Sydney and strut around in front of their mates.

Opera House

All Australian architecture is based on the first structure ever built here, called the “dunny”.

Australian men spend most of their time in the dunny with “a good magazine”. This inspired the famous Fielman Utz to design the Sinny Oprouse. Utz was removed from the project for being too “artsy-fartsy” (and therefore probably a poof). While the building is impressive from the outside, the interior was designed by bureaucrats and as a result it has been described as looking “on the inside like a huge outback dunny”. Very few accolades could be more satisfying.

Poa Tree

The Poa Tree was the birthplace of Australian verse. It was planted on Dad & Dave’s selection by the pioneer, explorer and failed sheep rustler, William (Billy) Bong. Decades later A.B. (Alan Border) Paterson camped beneath its branches, as did the great fast bowler Henry Wadsworth Lawson. Both gained inspiration from the Poa Tree to write great Australian classics such as “The Imam from Snowy River” and “The Drover’s White”. Thus began the great nexus between sport and poetry in Australian competitive culture, or what is called “versing”.

Darwin

Darwin is a world-class beer-drinking contest named after a Beagle.

The contest is held once a year and lasts twelve months.

White people in Darwin are called “Darwinians”.

Darwinians are the world champion beer drinkers.

When Darwinians get drunk it’s so funny we piss ourselves laughing.

Black people in Darwin are called “prisoners”.

When black people in Darwin get drunk it’s degenerate and typical of their depravity.

Northern Terrortory
Darwin is in the Northern Terrortory, so-named because the Northern Terrortory is where heaps of Terrorists always try to get into Australia. We know they are terrorists because they try to get into Australia without filling in the visa application where it says you promise you are not a terrorist.

The Northern Terrortory is also the petrol sniffing capital of the world. Everyone is responsible for trying to find out who has responsibility for this problem but so far no one wants it. Australians respect and value their women. The value of a young aboriginal girl in the Northern Terrortory is about a jamjar of petrol.

Australian Sense of Humour

What’s a really funny Australian joke?

Farting in a lift full of Pommies. Everyone gets it, guaranteed.

Great Aussie Blokes

What is a Great Aussie Bloke?

Dean Jones is a Great Aussie Bloke. He says what he thinks about terrorists. He’s not politically correct and that’s what makes him a GAB. Plus, he creamed the Poms lots so he’ll be made an archangel when God puts up the finger.

John Hopoate is a Great Aussie Bloke. He demonstrated how God puts up the finger.

Barry Humphreys could have been a Great Aussie Bloke because he makes us piss ourselves laughing, but he wears a dress.

Donald Bradman was a Great Aussie Bloke before he ascended into heaven to sitteth on the right hand of the father. Although he was a pompous, narrow-minded old turd, that didn’t count because he smashed the Poms at cricket lots and lots of times and anyone who can give the Poms heaps is God’s right-hand man and a Great Aussie Bloke and a Saint.

Boonie’s a Great Aussie bloke who can sink 52 tinnies between here and London and still get up and thrash the Poms at cricket.

Cathy Freeman is a Great Aussie Bloke. Cathy Freeman singlehandedly won the 2000 Olympics for Australia. That makes her an honorary Australian, and a white man and a great Aussie bloke.

For more information, contact your local branch of the Skinhead Alliance or anyone under 30 hanging around Cronulla or Brighton le Sands.

Or anyone with an Aussie flag on their car.

Technorati Tags: Australia, Straya, culture, Cronulla, Brighton le Sands, skinhead, jingoism, patriotism, Bradman, Boob, Dean Jones, Barry Humphreys, Cathy Freeman, barbecue, BBQ, pommie, pom, cricket, pavlova, lamington, vegemite, great aussie bloke, Australian values, values, Aussie values, Australia Day, citizenship, Australian citizenship