Consistency Gets The Cold Shoulder

"IF THIS continues," writes catastropharian Stefan Rahmstorf at the Drum, "we will probably see an ice-free North Pole within the next 10 to 20 years."

The charts tell a rather different story about the state of Arctic ice -- and so did Rahmstorf in 2005, when he made a somewhat broader point to fellow warmists about the need to stick with the party line in dismissing the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), which troublesome sceptics kept bringing up, along with Viking settlements in Greenland and such

Just want to make sure you're aware of the attached paper by Goosse et al., which may be helpful in illustrating what we all know, but what here is shown in a citeable way: local climate variations are dominated by internal variability (redistribution of heat), only very large scale averages can be expected to reflect the global forcings (GHG, solar) over the past millennium.
Stefan

So "local climate variations"  don't count when raised by doubters, as only "very large scale averages" are relevant. But when a warmist misreports the Arctic charts and does so on the basis of a few decades' sample, well that's OK.

And The Drum publishes it.

NOTE: The Climategate emails remain a source of wonder. They can be found at this new site, which boasts a very handy search function.

A Dark Day For Australian Pride

IT CANNOT be easy being Tim Mathieson, which really is a surprise, as the First Boyfriend’s current job description does not seem too difficult. Yes, he has mastered the smaller challenges of the job, and our PM is well served by his rectitude. For example, he has not salted away ill-gotten cheques in a sly bank account his squeeze set up on his behalf, as she did for a former beau, nor has he tipped other people’s money into home renovations or wardrobes overflowing with of no-cost, size-26 frocks. But those virtues do not negate another shortcoming, which would appear to be the poor man's dreadful and crushing shyness. The picture below leaves no doubt about that.

The snapshot was taken at one of the sideshows to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where Just-a-Trim Tim hosted the visiting leaders’ spouses, most wearing colourful ethnic costumes. So what's with the suit and silver tie? Is Tim of the opinion that Australia’s national dress is best represented by the men who drive wedding party limousines? Surely not!

Now it is true that our national costume is a ticklish, prickly and unsettled business. John Howard nominated the drover’s Driza-Bone when George W. Bush and others gathered in Sydney in 2007, but that practical garment is clearly no longer an option. With his girlfriend having done all within her power to wreck the cattle export industry, and Environment Minister Tony Burke constantly likening Victoria’s alpine cattlemen to Japanese whalers, any visual reference to our bush heritage would be inappropriate in the extreme.

But there were other options he might have explored, costumes that capture the essence of the Australian experience as it being shaped by his girlfriend. For example, there is this outfit, quite fetching, which evokes the question on so many lips: “Tim, what the hell does your landlady think she’s doing?”

Or he might have reflected his partner’s political partner’s Green agenda. Bob Brown in particular would appreciate the display of a manly leg, and a costume allowing no forward vision and designed for dashing headlong toward godknowswhat would nail the Carbon Tax rather nicely

Yet none of the above really does our nation proud. The visiting First Ladies had the decency to don the garb of cultural heritage, so really, much as Tim would have made a head-turning sight in Lycra, it is incumbent upon him to look the dinki-di deal. And since the most unlikely Australians are these days reckoned to be Aborigines, as the legal system has now firmly determined, that makes it a no-brainer.

Behold! The perfect get-up for First Boyfriend Tim – indeed, for any Australian dignitary attending U.N. parleys, global warming summits or poverty symposia offering generous travel allowances and 300-count sheets of organic Egyptian cotton on the hotel bed:

As the national economy is sliding deeper into debt -- at the rate of around one billion extra dollars every week, just by the way -- the costume, first worn by a Russian figure skater, boasts the additional advantage of being available secondhand and at minimal cost. The Russian copped quite a bit of grief for getting about in what he conceived to be Aboriginal attire, but Tim will not to have to worry about snickers.

Who these days would titter at an elder of the Litijus-Mordies, other than masochists with a lot of money to waste on lawyers?

Why Are We In Afghanistan?

THREE more diggers dead, seven wounded -- and for what? This national interest both Gillard and Abbott go on about, what is it? The need to defend a corrupt government which has neither means nor intention of introducing Afghanistan to the most basic of Enlightenment values? To further destabilise Pakistan? To safeguard a kleptocracy quite happy to see a blogger sentenced to death for the heinous crime of "questioning Islam"?

This is why three more Australian lives been squandered. What a sick, stupid, obscene joke.

We were right to oust the Taliban in the days after 9/11. That was the mission and it was achieved with courage and competence. Now it is touchy-feely soldiering -- building roads and attempting by gentle, culturally sensitive means to persuade an insane, inbred smear of flyblown villagers and boy-buggerers that there might be some advantages to following the rest of the world's lead and leave the seventh century behind.

Osama is dead, finally. Now is the moment to throw up a cordon sanitaire around Afghanistan, patrol it with drones and if the place shows the slightest sign of re-establishing terrorist camps, blow them up from a safe, stand-off distance.

In the meantime, let's declare victory and go home.

Some people like to wallow in filth. Let them. Leave them to their fun before another drop of Australian blood is squandered. 

A. Dill's Prescription

THERE IS a bit of thick-headedness at the Billabong this morning, a consequence of an evening that began with several Boag's lagers, moved to some whites and then a bottle of red, plunged into the champagne and tailed off in the wee hours with a little port -- well, more than a little, actually -- before drawing to an end, according to the evidence of the morning on the bedside table, with, of all things, a vodka and orange. The last item is something of a mystery, as it has not been a favoured tipple since the Fourth Form break-up party, and that was back when John Gorton occupied the Lodge. The emptiness of the adjoining pillow is another riddle. Memories are foggy, but it is a near certainty that a special someone occupied that spot when the lights went out. Very shortly it will be time to place a diplomatic phone call, one that will need to begin with a carefully weighted choice of words and the option thereafter of veering into the realm of apology.

Not to worry. If there are to be  recriminatory words about  the Professor's behaviour -- and the remains of a barbecued lamb leg used as an ashtray, also on the bedside table, suggest there will be --  then praise be to the Great Bunyip for shaping from the clippings of social workers' manuals, dried-out chardonnay corks and designer coffee grounds the wonder that is A Dill Horin. It is true that the Silly's joyless scold seldom adds to the sum of human knowledge, but this morning's column is the exception. If there was bestial behaviour last night and if some judicious grovelling will be required, the latter can now be qualified by quoting from A Dill's praise for the Nanny State and its regulations.

Intoxicated? Obstreperous? Back on the fags? Thank God for Adele, who proves that all those grave flaws of character are the fault of naysayers who would stay the state's hand from crafting fresh rules to regulate  the individual's folly. As Adele explains it,

Yes, we have reason to be thankful that governments sometimes legislate in ways that infringe on our liberties. Personal responsibility is too flimsy a bulwark against the forces of irresponsible, laissez-faire capitalism.

So very true! If only legislation had been on the books to foil the mixing of drinks and gnawing of lamb bones in bed, the Professor's head would not be throbbing, nor would this post have been interrupted twice by the demands of a fractious bowel. In this instance A Dill is putting the case for controls on punters' right to lose their money on poker machines, but her wisdom is clearly universal. After the pokies, let our governments and bureaucrats save us from fatty foods and riding bicycles in unapproved attire. Hang on, they have already attended to the latter, so Adele and her morally superior friends will be free to focus on their next campaign of legislated betterment.

Compulsory jogging, anyone? Wait a bit and Adele and her pals will tick that box as well, no doubt about it.

Now for that ticklish phone call.

"Are You a Grant-Snaffling Climate Careerist?"

WHAT a good idea.

Worthless

LIFE, it's baffling. At the same time The Australian is sequestering its stories and commentary behind a paywall, the Financial Review is taking tentative steps to make access easier. And what is the AFR giving away? Why, Laura Tingle!

Then again, you don't have to pay a cent for Tingle's thoughts, which does make sense, as that is precisely what they are worth. (Sample: "Tony Abbott...the hollow man", "Abbott and his shambolic frontbench", "negative, opportunistic and hollow man" etc etc etc)

The AFR has a new editor and publisher, who are supposed to be rather sharp. The proof of that will come when they recognise that readers (and former readers) of a news organ devoted to investing probably don't have much time for a howling harpy and leftoid publicist. When Tingle is shown the door, or at the very least counterbalanced, you will know Fairfax is serious about reviving what was once a fine publication.

That was, however, a very long time ago.

Invest In Braces

IT REALLY is a pity young, firm women and giddy girls are not obliged to follow the fallout of the OPI's Overland leaks investigation, as it would bore the pants off all of them in no time flat. Mind you, other sections of the community, the mature and sensible bits, also face the challenge of staying securely be-trousered, but for different reasons. There is so much that is laughable about this latest Spring Street farce that convulsive contractions of the diaphragm might easily see the Fletcher Jones hit the floor. The papers are full of it this morning, black and white and dead in the head all over.

 

Should Police Minister and Deputy Premier Peter Ryan resign? Who knew what and when? Lots of end-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it quotes from the Opposition’s Rob Hulls, who is going on (and on and on) about probity, standards, ethics and violations of public trust.

 

Very low in the coverage is any mention of the twin questions that would seem to be at the nub of this ever more florid burlesque. Indeed, the second is not being put at all:

 

1/ Tapping phones, especially so many phones, is serious stuff -- so serious the suspected offence is supposed to come with the potential for a multi-year prison term.

 

Why was the OPI so quick to infest so many phone lines with bugs – ministers, reporters, political aides, union officers, even spouses -- and to do so on the strength of Simon Overland’s boo-hoo gripe that people were saying harsh things behind his back?

 

and,

 

2/ Why this case?

 

The very same Rob Hulls now presenting himself as a champion of the public’s right to know is also the former Attorney General who refused point-blank to allow his staffers to testify about the Windsor Hotel scandal. If the then-Opposition had enjoyed the same respect and affection Overland appears to command at the OPI we might now be enjoying the amusement of a voluminous chronicle of Hulls’ colleagues’ eavesdropped brainstorming about the best way to keep the Windsor facts under wraps.

 

So keep a close grip on your belts, sensible Melbournians. Further barrages of belly laughs are on the way – especially for those with a taste of for the petty, the self-righteous, the hypocritical and, most of all, the absurd.