Andrew Bolt is still touting the Oregon Petition. Is he too lazy to spend the five minutes’ with Wikipedia and Google that would tell him this was a fraudulent exercise put together by professional shills, and that its main claims about satellite data have long since been abandoned even by hardcore denialists, or does he just not care?
Of course, with the denialist political position collapsing around him, Bolt is pretty much irrelevant. It’s startling to reflect that it’s only six weeks since he published this attempted hit piece on Al Gore duly demolished by Tim Lambert. At that time, it looked as if this kind of whack-a-mole game had a long time left to run.
Now the government in whose interests he wrote it is scrambling to pretend they’ve never doubted the need to do something big about climate change. But Bolt is still stuck in the parallel universe, and finding it hard to make his way back.
John Quiggin 
It’s important that he keep ranting – every time he does it he digs a bigger hole for himself and is inadvertently making the climate change consensus more credible in the face of increasingly baseless denials.
He’s got nowhere to go anyway – any credibility he had is now completely lost and an about-face would seem to much like defeat. Even the PM is making a more graceful effort and that is saying something.
Oh Big Dave,
Aren’t you are a sucker! Bolt’s only purpose is to make Howard look centrist/reasonable, and you have bought it!
Strange.. the Wikipedia article really doesn’t have much dirt on the Oregon Report.
Something about one of the scientists being a fundamentalist Christian, and two of the other scientists being “strongly affiliated” with a group that is funded by oil corporations. I don’t think that is exactly damning evidence.
Hmm. You didn’t notice “designed to be deceptive”, “nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences “, “did not require signatories to have a degree, or a degree in a scientific field, or to be working in the field in which the signatory had received a degree. ” and so on? And of course, if you Google Seitz+tobacco or Seitz+Exxon, you’ll find heaps more.
But maybe, as you imply, I’m just expecting too much of Bolt’s research skills here.
Bolt is to journalism as Jack the Ripper is to abdominal surgry. Who cares what he writes. He is now an ‘icon’ of the Howard era, and set to become its own caricature, out there for all to see and enjoy, the way you enjoy those photos of old backyards with wooden leaning clothes lines, and pegs in a jam tin. Gorgeous!
Isn’t the real story why on earth media watch is running around wasting taxpayers money following up on every opinion piece they disagree with?
Where’s the mediawatch expose of Philip Adams and his incoherent ramblings? Or 80% of the opinion writers for the Age?
You couldn’t design a programme to better expose the bias at the ABC.
JQ, I was just about to compliment you on your post on daylight saving.Even-handed,non political,even conceding that you may have been wrong(!)
And now this!
Do you deliberately write these posts to stir up the likes of proust?
And then admonish him for trolling?
Wikipedia indeed!
Unfortunately, ChrisL, when it comes people who are paid to lie about the future of the planet, I just get bad tempered. But, in the interests of even-handedness, I’ll let proust have his say about Philip Adams who does, I must admit, tend to ramble a bit.
Hi John,
Working as I do with IT I am running IE7 and Firefox 2. Your new layout is seriously broken in these browsers:
no left padding – the page background is supposed to centered?
the graphic is a bit out of alignment and the small caption underneath is right up against it
there is a horizontal rule or margin image extending across the entire screen
Good luck with sorting it out – hacking html and css is always such fun!
Cheers
“Bolt is to journalism as Jack the Ripper is to abdominal surgery”
Thank you so much for that stoptherubbish. A good belly laugh can be hard to find.
jquiggin:
I hear ya.
Hmm What to do about your bad temper JQ
1. Blog in the A.M (non daylight saving adjusted)
2. Camomile tea
3.Turn those climate graphs upside down(they make them up anyway)
Calm blue ocean
What a difference a drought makes combined with an influential film such as “An Inconvenient Truth”. It makes people like BOLT look stupid in denial. Even the PM is looking like he has had a Damascus moment – although his ideas seem silly. To compare the cost of spin with the amount of money spent on alternative fuels by the Labor Party today puts climate overheating into a whole new perspective along with the ideas from the Stern report. To be a denialist sounds and is very negative.
Poor Andrew – he must be feeling lonely.
Savvas Tzionis – if I bought it somebody forgot to give me a receipt. I figure Bolt is a figure of fun, like Ann Coulter or Gerard Henderson. It’s the kind of comedy that will replace the Glass House.
Interesting that proust has outed himself as the listener (singular) to whom Philip Adams often refers.
If as he says, PA is so incoherent why does he even bother to criticise?
I’d like to say ‘who cares’ about Bolt. But the problem is is that he’s actually quite widely read being in the highest selling Melbourne daily, and he causes no end of grief with people having to go round and refute him every time. And exactly how many Herald Sun readers do you think are aware of Tim Lambert’s reply? Pretty close to zero. He’s proven over and over again that he wont front up to his critics, that he’s a bully and a coward who never ever admits a mistake, and just keeps on crapping on.
But he’s only an opinion writer, lets not forget, he’s not a journalist!
Bemused, I never listen to Adams, but I occasionally read one of his rants in the Australian – his link is directly below Albrechtson’s (whom I read all the time).
I never listen to Adams, but I occasionally read one of his rants in the Australian. Proust
I don’t read his columns, but do listen to LNL. Yes, he can ramble on a bit like a friendly, half-pissed old uncle after a long Xmas day. But Adams is not stupid, is open minded, and goes out of his way to get informed, intelligent guests who have often very different views from each other and from him (e.g. Daniel Pipes, who has been on more than once), and they are all given a fair hearing.
You couldn’t possibly say the same about Bolt, who I notice you are not defending directly.
Seeker, I really don’t much care whether Bolt or Phatty Phil are balanced when they’re running on private money. They’re opinion-writers. I am free not to read them. And there’s plenty of outlets for alternative views.
But I do care if my taxes are used to pay for biased witch-hunts by the ABC.
What’s all this with the ABC. Bolt gets more than enough free time on the ABC to justify his wages. In his article, it’s interesting how he attacks the ‘green messiahs’, and through this attempts to belittle their arguments. Wayne Swan did this in reverse recently, saying the Stern Report must be taken seriously because the author wasn’t a greenie (spit) and didn’t have dreadlocks. I only wished these fools had listened to the greenie dreadlocked doomsayers a couple of decades ago, rather than now when it’s in all liklihood too late.
Stern has his own biases. I am still wading through his report (day job calls), but Lomborg has a good summary up.
Now, people: address his criticisms, don’t play the man. When you play the man it only reinforces the impression that you don’t actually have a counterargument.
“When you play the man it only reinforces the impression that you don’t actually have a counterargument.” “Phatty Phil”
Quod erat demonstrandum.
I’ve yet to see Phatty Phil make an argument coherent enough to warrant countering. But if you have one, I promise not to call him Phat when responding.
Proust having no argument doesn’t seem to quiet you now does it? Firstly, if you’re going to derive your opinions at “Albrechtson’s” feet – she’s a lady you “read all the time” apparently – you could probably come in time to spell her name as she does. Secondly your complaining about Adams being heard on what you refer to baldly as the “biased” ABC is a little whiney and pathetic given you’re either ignorant of the fact or unwilling to admit that your fine Howard toady Andrew Bolt is himself given free kicks weekly on the ABC to ignorantly rant against the hand that feeds him and other of your common foes. Thirdly … ah who gives a fig about thirdly, you’re flying featherless without a clue or a care in the world aren’t you? You’d be a paid-up member of Schooldudes for Ayn Rand too would you?
On a lighter note, my award to the most ridiculous suggestion from a federal politician on a way to minimise climate change is to Federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey, who yesterday recommends putting shade cloth on the Barrier Reef to protect it. Poor dear, nobody told her its not a small patch of reef off Heron or Dunk Islands but has an area of about 180,000 square miles. Take out the shipping lanes and that still leaves about 100,000 square miles to be covered. Now that would be a Federal Government make work program for next year, over to Costello to work out the cost of buying and installing 90,000 square miles of shade cloth capable of surviving gale force winds and seas. These people get sillier by the minute, is this a sign of genuine panic or merely the standard say anything (spin) as a diversionary tactic? probably the latter and the former both.
Proust asks why Media Watch is wasting taxpayers’ money on a disagreement with Bolt. The use of the word “disagreement” gets to the heart of the issue – not everything is a matter of disagreement, here they are pointing out a blatant inaccuracy. When opinion pieces cite “facts” to back up their opinion then they should be subject to the same standards as news reporting, and it is appropriate for Media Watch to address this. Indisputable facts are not a matter of opinion (the fact in question here is, of course, that Peiser’s study is worthless).
krusty, go read my comments. I never complained about Phatty Phil getting a guernsey on the ABC. My complaint was against media watch wasting my taxes chasing after right-wing opinion writers. I asked the obvious question: why not chase Phatty Phil, or any of the myriad other tripe-trotting left-wing opinion writers?
The answer of course is they should be chasing neither. Opinion is opinion. If Bolt reports stuff as fact rather than as an opinion piece, they should expose that. But otherwise, singling out Bolt for special treatment says a lot more about the ABC than it does about Bolt. Just as your confused rant says a lot more about your IQ than it does mine.
proust,
PA has had dis-honourable mention on Media Watch in the past.
Bolt’s far more frequent appearances may have something to do with the nature of his output than any ABC conspiracy. A possibilty you must consider, unless all you’re interested in doing is chasing after a percieved ‘left-wing’ ABC.
Bolt’s opinion about what is and is not a fact, is of course fair game. Especially when he gets it totally wrong in the process of claiming others are factually mistaken about a matter of serious public importance.
The tired old argument that the ABC is full of left-wing apologists simply holds no water. When, may I ask, has Kerry O’Brian ever held back from asking the tough questions of the Labor leaders – Kim Beasley, Simon Crean or Mark Latham? I have seen these politicians of the left wither under Kerry’s uncompromising manner many times.
The perception of bias, in my opinion is coming from the hard right, who scream if you don’t agree with their biased point of view. Showing independence of thought is not favouritism. Unfortunately (for the right) not all journalists are prepared to be yes men. Some value their integrity.
IQ? IC. now proust, what is it that you feel you may have in common with your literary namesake btw?
come on and don’t be shy, y do you not name the names of the tripe trotters who are attacking science daily from their media pulpit as does Bolt, and who ought to be called to account for it by mediawatch, yet who worse still are filthy lefties? or y not tell us what in your ‘umble opinion mediawatch ought to be doing if not calling to account a tabloid shill paid for spinning his antiscientific, self-impressed fictions as fact to the public? bet u have a recommended new libertarian agenda for mediawatch that has plenty of free kicks for approved rightthinkers such as your goodself, no lefty scientists here thank you!, come the revolution eh?
What would we do without proust?
Should Media Watch not have called Albrechtsen into account for plagiarism, sloppy research and misuse of sources?
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/090902_s3.htm
After all, she was only having a rant against Muslims, and all of those things are ok if used against Muslims, aren’t they? Muslims are, after all, a powerful majority in Australia, and there wouldn’t be any repercussions from slandering them, then, would there? I mean, other than rioting in the streets, there aren’t any repercussions from cooking up ‘facts’ to slander out of favour social groups, are there?
Terry Lane copped it with both barrels on two successive programs recently, and Adams has received a number of blasts over the years – he’s been picked up for plagiarism and laxity with figures inter alia. Use the search engine on the Media Watch website, if your research skills can locate it proust. The reason why Laws, Jones, Bolt et al have copped criticism on Media Watch was because they took secret commissions for what was allegedly personal comment, and because they plagiarise, make up facts to fit the argument, lie, and, like you proust, fill their copy with personal abuse at others. If dishing it out is your game, be prepared to cop it I say. Their thin-skinnedness is most amusing, and would be only a footnote (a useful device none of them seems to have heard of) were it not for the fact they carry their grudges like badges of honour right into the ABC boardroom and the Cabinet table. Adams and Lane have copped it sweet and perhaps had a good hard look at themselves, an ability the right wing commentariat seems never to have learnt.
Well Bolt did say that ideologically greenies are linked to the Nazis, so where can you go from there?
That’s not to say he is off his rocker on every subject he occasionally is on the money on Insiders and I’d prefer him to Ackerman anytime.
I listen to LNL not so much for Adams but he does have a nice line-up of guests.
It is interesting that I don’t think much of most of Michael Duffy’s guests on Counterpoint but I did realize that I’m much more likely to accept the words of one of Adams’ guests who tend to agree with my viewpoints.
Confirmation bias will do that, always good to keep that in mind.
It will be interesting to see the mental gymnastics as more climate change starts to kick in, will their brains explode as the cognitive dissonance becomes just too much or will they bite the bullet and admit they were wrong?
“What would we do without proust?”
We might not be so conscious of time. But, we might miss Glass House even more.
Hey Melanie, please don’t be so free with offers of Utopia. The prousts in our country have made it possible for the fascist, racist, selfish, exclusivist and authoritarian excresence who dares to call himself the prime minister to perpetrate the most appalling moral deliquencies not only on a majority of Australia’s citizens (i.e. those who don’t have the money to influence policy) but also in Australia’s name globally. Before John W Howard when did Australia have other than a good name internationally?
Apropos JQ’s comment (#8) re “when it comes people who are paid to lie about the future of the planet, I just get bad tempered” – I get that – but what about people who lie about any damn thing that they feel like as long as it serves to keep their party in government. People who are not troubled by conscience, ethics or morals, so they can deny their own lies, or simply back-flip on their position, or renege on a commitment at will. Eric Blair’s spirit must be thoroughly depressed at Australia’s real life incarnations of Minispeak, Minitru, etc.
Although I am not religious, I pray for John Howard daily. And I fantasise about a bottle, a genie and those three wishes. I don’t wish anyone any physical harm but a good dose of early dementia would be such a boon to the country.
As for the prousts (note: proust the prototype, please do not take this personally. Proust in this context is anyone who would deliberately vote for a John Howard Government. Prousts fall into two categories – ‘proustogens’ the sociopaths who do it as an informed choice and a matter of ideology, and the ‘pseudoproustia’ – the variously challenged who don’t even know they’re being got at and are still convinced that people with towels on their heads threw their children into a shark-infested ocean as a political stunt) – where was I? As for prousts, they are responsible not just for sustaining this horrible regime, but also for turning the ALP into a weak-kneed, right-of-centre caricature whose only asset is that they are not the Liberal Party.
It is hard to forgive fellow Australians who have made it so that I can only be ashamed of my country as a world citizen, and despairing at the retreat of humanity and personal freedom in the face of victim-blaming, social exclusion and state-based limitations on our freedoms. I guess I should include all proustogens in my prayers. As for the unfortunate pseudoproustia, I believe the answer is to push for non-compulsory voting. With the apparent trends away from class-based party loyalties, this is not as likely to harm the ALP as in former times.
And to paraphrase JE Renan, O Lord, if there is a lord, save my ALP’s soul, if it has a soul. In the end, that is the difference. Maybe, deep down, the ALP retains its soul. There has never been a doubt that the Liberal Party has none to save.
Adams and Lane have copped it sweet and perhaps had a good hard look at themselves…
Had Phatty done that I fear he’d no longer be with us. One thing you can say about Adams: introspection is not his forte. He’s the only one who thinks his sh*t doesn’t stink [I plagiarised that last bit – a prize to the first commenter with the source].
I think Bolt gave mediawatch too much of his time. If some interfering lefty busybody sent me a querulous letter and closed with
“We would be grateful to receive your reply by 5pm tomorrow, Friday 27th October 2006”
I’d be off to the bathroom to prepare my response.
[PS: Hal9,000,000,0000,000,000,000.000: measure the abuse ratio – it is almost universally a one-way street]
Ian you old radical,
I’ve heard people say that about the Communist Party and its soul. In the end you have to go by what they do, not what they say they do (or think they might do one day).
But that’s beside the point. My comment was really only intended to express my wonder that so many people who comment on this blog actually spend most of their time responding to proust, and other proustogens and pseudoproustia, rather than discussing the substantive issues.
John
Climate change or global warming?
And then to human affects or otherwise?
But if you annd your camp-followers believe you can affect the thermal state of the earth by breathing or burning oil, to raise it’s thermal state, then you are an idiot.
wilful is very right re Bolt. The Herald-Sun is read by a bazillion people – and he is not front and center in that rag for nothing – he pulls a big readership. And that big readership do not read him for merriment. They take what he says on board. Don’t worry, I get to hear his views recycled by his readers at work and at family BBQs – his influence is clear and present. Ignore him at your children’s peril.
“discussing the substantive issues”
I wonder how that fits into the Howard era?
You’re right of course Melanie but is it wicked to wish for much much more from proust and louis? Ask him nicely before he scampers away again and louis may speak further about his geological insights into the greenhouse “affect”. not to give too much away – there is none because it is warming from the core that accounts for the temperature at the Earth’s surface, to the exclusion of other “affects”. you can call it “Komedy Gold!”, to louis it’s more of a living. like, he’s into rocks and when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail or something. Louis?
“We can stabilise CO2 levels over the next fifty years at very low costs of around 1 per cent of GDP.”
As JQ points out earler this is one of the major conclusions of the Stern review. I put it to JQ et al, that if Bolt’s lack of concern over global warming is as unintelligible as they wail, then so is this conclusion. Just who is kidding who here and why?
I rather fear that whatever global warming problems there are, there will be too much tendency to take corrective action. That way Pilot Induced Oscillation lies.
“Isn’t the real story why .. media watch is .. following up on” an “opinion piece”?
Proust doesn’t like the message so he shoots the messanger.
If there are so many global warming denialists and so many global warming believers, then the latter should be able to purchase global warming insurance from the former.
Louis – “But if you annd your camp-followers believe you can affect the thermal state of the earth by breathing or burning oil, to raise it’s thermal state, then you are an idiot.”
So you have crawled out of your hole to call us ‘camp followers’ now. For someone that thinks the greenhouse effect means a sheet of glass this is pretty rich.
You should no by now because so many people have shouted it at you that the sun is doing the warming we are just piling on the blankets.
“If there are so many global warming denialists and so many global warming believers, then the latter should be able to purchase global warming insurance from the former.”
Should be, but the former won’t take the bet.
I’ll take the bet, Chris O’Neil.
Stern and his fellow alarmists claim GW will cost us 20% of GDP if we do nothing. I’ll give you $100,000 pa for every percentage point over 5% that GW costs us. You give me $100,000 pa for every percentage point under 20%. That’s spectacularly in your favour if Stern is correct.
“Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more”.
Click to access Summary_of_Conclusions.pdf
What a surprise that proust’s demisemiquote is the most alarmist possible he/she could have extracted while remaining in at least casual contact with the evidence, and that proust’s spin of Stern has allowed him/her to mischaracterise something as being “spectacularly” in Chris’ favour when – surprise! – the opposite is true. Read the actual quote again, proust: “if … wider … could …”. You misrepresented the odds didn’t you? Who by the way would be holding your wager in escrow were Chris to be interested in accepting your spectacularly unappealing odds – how about I hold your first $100,000 for you (big shot), you can trust me.
Frankis, the 20% figure is out there in voter land driving the politics, whatever you or anyone else says. If Stern had lead with the 5% figure, the whole report would have garnered far less traction.