Tony Blair’s announcement that he will resign within a year, but that he won’t say when, is one of those absurdities that seem to be inevitable in politics, a variant on the Galbraith score. There doesn’t seem to be any satisfactory way of handling this kind of situation, since most leaders want to be seen to be making their own choice to leave, but few are willing make that choice until most of their followers already want them to go.
Month: September 2006
Weekend reflections
Weekend Reflections is on again. Please comment on any topic of interest (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). Feel free to put in contributions more lengthy than for the Monday Message Board or standard comments.
For the record
Most of us have seen the picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in the mid-1980s, but my recollections of the extent of Republican support for Saddam at that time have always been a bit cloudy.
This piece by Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia, gives chapter and verse.
Inconvenient truths and awkward untruths
Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth is set for Australian release on 14 Septembe. I’ve already missed a couple of opportunities to see it, first at the Australian Leadership Retreat on Hayman Island a couple of weeks ago (I went on the sunset cruise instead) and then today at RiverSymposium in Brisbane (it clashed with my presentation).
In addition to the commercial release, ACF is putting on special screenings around the country, and the Brisbane event is on Friday September 15th, 7pm sharp, film starts 7.20pm, Palace Centro, 39 James St, Fortitude Valley. For all enquires email acf@acfonline.org.au or call toll-free on 1800 332 510.
And even the Howard government is getting in on the act. Andrew Bartlett reports a screening in Parliament House put on by Greg Hunt, who is the government’s Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment.
With the denialist position in tatters, the deplorable performance of our alleged national newspaper is in sharper relief than ever, and the Oz finally seems to be copping the criticism it deserves. Andrew Bartlett mentions it, as do Ben Oquist, Grant Young , Tim Lambert and Tim Dunlop (who focuses more on the coverage of Iraq, which is also poor).
The Oz has even attracted international attention. As Crikey reports, the Scientific American has slammed it, while the reliably silly Arts and Letters Daily gives a favorable link, as does Matt Drudge. For a comprehensive demolition, you can’t go past Real Climate.
If the Australian wants to salvage any credibility as a newspaper, it needs to correct its errors on this topic fast, and acknowledge the lapse in journalistic standards represented by its reporting and editorial comment.
Another landslide on the way?
The polls are predicting another landslide win for Labor in Queensland, and Centrebet is even more emphatic, with Labor as 50/1 on favorites (they’ll pay out 1.02 for a Labor win, on a dollar bet). I have mixed feelings on this.
On the one hand, the Beattie government could certainly do with a shake. On the other hand, while a massive majority has resulted in a fair degree of arrogance, the response to a narrow majority may be poll-driven populism. And on the third hand (stretching the metaphor a bit), a lot of the government’s best members are in very marginal seats. For example, I think my local member Ronan Lee is very good, but it’s unbelievable that he’s managed to win Indooropilly twice – it’s nothing down at the local shops to find more BMWs than Holdens in the car park.
In any case, the outcome looks clear, so I hope the soon-to-be-reelected government will take the signs of discontent seriously and get on with investing in physical and social infrastructure.
Monday message board
It’s time, once again for the Monday Message Board. As usual, civilised discussion and absolutely no coarse language, please.
The Oz blows it again on global warming
The Australian continues its deplorable coverage of global warming, in this editorial which contains more errors and misleading claims than it is possible to count, following on from an equally bad news story at the weekend.
The factual basis of the story is that the IPCC has confirmed the reality of anthropogenic global warming, tightening the error bounds around its earlier estimate of a 3 degree warming by 2100. Obviously, when you tighten error bounds, you raise the minimum estimate, but the Australian manages to mention this once in passing in its news story and not at all in its editorial.
The rest of the editorial contains allusions to all the denialist claptrap the Oz has been pushing for years now: claims that climate change is really natural (the IPCC confirms that the change we are observing is anthropogenic), suggestions that the report refutes the ‘hockey stick’ (it confirms it, even more strongly than the 2001) report, misleading references to the Medieval Warm period and so on.
At least, having publicly relied on the IPCC, the Oz might stop publishing the conspiracy-theory opinion pieces suggesting that the whole thing is a hoax.
The Australian’s coverage of this issue has been a disgrace. As a paper, it cannot be taken seriously on any scientific issue.
The Idea of a European Superstate: Military power and soft power
I was also going to review Glyn Morgan’s The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration, but it’s fortunate I didn’t, as Henry Farrell at CT has done a better job of most of the points I was going to make. So let me make just one more point, about the implications of soft power.
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Weekend reflections
Weekend Reflections is on again. Please comment on any topic of interest (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). Feel free to put in contributions more lengthy than for the Monday Message Board or standard comments.
Farewell to Earth Sanctuaries
The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I’m one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up, having been delisted. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia’s most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation. I suspect though, that most of the investors knew that, in all probability, they were making a donation rather than an investment (at least there’s a capital loss to offset against any more succcesful investments!). Still, there were some interesting ideas that could be useful if governments ever get around to creating price incentives for biodiversity preservation (this could include allowing the sale of animals, or at least offering to purchase them).
The big selling point of ESL for me was its founder John Wamsley and his idea of fencing reserves then eradicating all the feral pests before reintroducing native species. Wamsley is definitely one of the awkward squad, but often you have to make yourself awkward to get things done.
More from Harry Clarke at Kalimna, Jason Soon at Catallaxy and Nicholas Gruen at Troppo
John Quiggin 