Bob's blog - the realm of threalm

. With supposedly the largest ever gathering of national leaders in Copenhagen at COP 15 imminent, just as the whole global anti-carbon push  seems to be unravelling , it's worth contemplating the role of reporters in this. Apparently there could be up to 30, 000 journalists in Copenhagen right now. Though many of them appear not to be getting access to any of the weighty deliberations in the Bella Centre. There is however some news that is falling on the very noses of these journalists. It is snowing in Copenhagen (and London, and Paris, and Warsaw, and ... Nice ? ). Ah. A white Christmas for the World's leaders ... sleigh bells in the snow. So where are all the usual soppy colour pieces from our news gathers during the slow Christmas silly season? After all Copenhagen is all about climate isn't it. What could be more climate- ish than snow in winter in friendly Copenhagen? Nah. Not here in Australia. Instead cricket . Is it possible that it might finally daw...

. Tell me what's wrong with my header? Yeah, yeah, I know its unimaginative, badly parsed and amateurish, but it fits, and I can write it without making up a story to fit it. That's the point. Is any one other than me absolutely gobsmacked that The Economist has taken upon itself the duty of publishing an article purporting to rebut the science in Willis Eschenbach's recent piece on instrumental temperature data adjustment at a Darwin weather station? The anonymous person who wrote the Economist article even admits they are unqualified to form any definitive view, but don't think that stops them from espousing a definitive view. And for goodness sake, what kind of flagrant hypocrisy is it for a journalist to write a first person attack, in a supposedly august journal like The Economist, questioning the integrity and competence of another commentator in a live debate , without the author even giving the readers the benefit of the author's own name? Sheeze one of...

. Willis Eschenbach at the website " watts up with that" has opened up more serious doubts about the integrity of adjustments made to the raw surface temperature data record relied on by the IPCC. The raw data on historical surface temperatures from weather stations around the globe is held on a database called the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). This is basically the raw data used by the other two main global temperature research institutions, the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) for their definitive publications of adjusted historical surface temperatures. The IPCC has relied very heavily on the CRU and GISS publications in making its proclamations about the alarming warming in world temperatures in recent decades. The contents of the Climategate emails from the CRU, that have recently come to light through unofficial sources, suggest that CRU's database could be serious...

. There seem to be some unexpected eddies and whirls emerging in this changing climate tide. . James "not the Muppett guy" Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute fame and Albert "Muppet model" Gore Jnr , Acadamy Award and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who are the two Arch High Priests of AGW Alarmism, both seem to be backing off promotion of the imminent Copenhagen conference, as our last chance to save the planet. Taken together with Bob Brown and the Australian Greens voting against Rudd's CPRS in the Australian Senate, it seems that the ETS or Cap n'Trade route to solving the World's climate woes, is facing concerted resistance from the the two principle opposing camps in the debate: climate sceptics and AGW true believers. . What that suggests, to me anyway, is that it is only those who take this global climate issue as seriously as it deserves, who are resisting the economically destructive but environmentally useless prescriptions that the world's ...

. The climate tide does seem to be beginning to turn. . The East Anglia CRU emails have revealed the lack of integrity in the IPCC temperature database and those who control it. Phil Jones, one of those responsible, has now stood down pending the outcome of an investigation and even Michael " Hockey Stick " Mann is now again under formal scrutiny from Penn State U. Australia is today temporarily no longer under the threat of a pointlessly damaging CPRS. And Copenhagen is now looking like it will just be yet another mutual hot air recycling venue for blowhard warming warners. It's worth having a look at this peice by Richard Lindzen published in the Wall Street Journal on 30 November 2009. Professor Lindzen's article suggests yet again, that the substantive causation argument at the heart of anthropogenic global warming alarmism; that "positive forcing" from increases in CO2 correlates to global temperature increases; is mere speculative posturing and lacks...

. The Liberal Party of Australia is currently undergoing a purge. It is quite spectacular. A technicolour yawn of conflicting principles, ideology and power lust is being spewed out across the pages of the press , on the current affairs programmes and in the 'sphere . Just over a year ago the Party Room removed Brendan Nelson from the leadership in favour of Malcolm Turnbull, ostensibly because Brendan was more circumspect than Malcolm about the pace at which or whether Australia should introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme. Brendan wanted to wait until after Australia had seen what the other nations of the world, mainly the big emitters like China, India and the US, were prepared to commit to before Australia made its commitment. Malcolm wanted to push ahead with an ETS before Copenhagen in the belief that this position would neutralise the electorate characterising the Party as unconcerned about Climate Change. Mal won. Brendan has now been given a gig as ambassador to NATO in fa...

. Seemingly un-remarked on so far, is an admission in the recent new publication from Albert Gore Junior. The Guardian says of his new book: "... Those conversations led Gore to politically inconvenient conclusions in this new book. In his conversations with Schmidt and other colleagues at the beginning of the year, Gore explored new studies - published only last week - that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide - while the focus of the politics of climate change - produces around 40% of the actual warming . Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions. "Over the years I have been among those who focused most of all on CO2, and I think that's still justified," he told the magazine. " [ Bolding added] The consequences of this admission by Al Gore are not insignificant, especially...

. It's Melbourne Cup day in Australia: a day full of strained horse racing metaphors, lots of forced jollity, and much illusion about chance; hence the superficial inspiration for my segue to: The interesting, refreshing and credible view now developing that "horse race" style politics is currently (if temporarily) on the outer in the big democratic conversation in the US. The argument runs along these lines: The triumph for grass roots democracy seen in the presidential election of Obama last year, cuts both ways: to big central planning idealists like Obama, but also to small government idealists like Ron Paul. This means that the previously dominant gamers and tacticians in politics (Karl Rove, Josh Lyman, Bill Clinton), who downplay substance and the ideas of candidates and who look primarily to the sport of political contests (the horse race metaphor), are now less important than they have been for ages. Triangulating, seeking the middle ground between poles, whic...

. Below is my review of Les Murray's novel in verse, Fredy Neptune . I finally finished it last night and have been captured by its spell of poetic mastery. I reckon its a candidate for "the" Australian novel. There might be some resistance to that because it is not written in prose. But who said a novel could not be a poem? . “ Fredy Neptune: A novel in verse ” By Les Murray. This novel was first released in 1999. It is arguably a candidate for “the” Australian novel. It is in verse. That is, it is written in eight line stanzas with a semi-rigorous metrical beat. Do not be daunted. You quickly forget that you are reading verse, and it is more than worth any little initial effort. The compression and lyricism that the poetic form allows, provides a loadstone in which Murray lavishly embeds polished gemstones of insight and he creates a word music that mere prose would labour too hard to emulate. It makes for a spectacularly rich and multi-faceted yarn, filled with action...

. I was going to post on the delightful news, via Garth Godsman , after a lengthy and curious embargo by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, that another dead specimen of the "extinct" Australian N ight Parrot, has been found in Queensland . This is great news for ornithologists and Monty Python fans. It is also a refreshing change to have some developing news from the natural history world that is not yet another tale of environmental woe or human devastation (excepting that this night parrot was found decapitated by fencing wire). There's been another piece of apparently good news that recently almost broke. It seems that based on satellite data this summer's Antarctic summer ice melt was at an all time recorded low. Presumably this means that waterfront property will continue to hold its value and Governments will now not have to spend taxpayer funds on the engineering works necessary to hold back the tides. This good news for mankind seems further enhanced ...

. Amidst the current surge of disasters in our region with tsunami in Samoa , quakes in Sumatra and floods in the Philippines , which provide more incontrovertible signs of the impending and inevitable Anthropogenic Continental Drift catastrophe, there is some good news for the Federal Labor Government. This disaster deluge has provided the cover necessary to release the long awaited results of the NT Police investigation into the deaths of five asylum seekers in April 2009. You remember this don't you? The media was playing out its carefully crafted narrative that these desperate boat people were all tragic victims of turmoil in far away places who required our sympathy and support not hostility and rejection. The increase in their numbers arriving here was not due to a perceived softening in the Government's stance, but to heightened troubles in the world. And then there was an explosion on a Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel. It burnt to the waterline killing five refugees and ...

. Mary Travers has died. Peter, Paul and Mary's songs were the songs of my childhood. It is melodies from pre-adolescence that live deepest in your heart; not the songs others would define you by from confused adolescence, yearning for cool. These songs transcend such callow transience. Here she is singing " 5oo Miles " and " If I had a Hammer ". A voice of beauty about justice and freedom. .

Jonathan Holmes, of the ABC's Media Watch programme , was, as usual, fulfilling his institutionally self-assigned duty of holding the Opposition to account the other evening. He was gratuitously, but unsurprisingly, openly sticking the boot into a carefully chosen target, the former Coalition Government's Treasurer, because he had had the temerity to be critical of a public broadcaster for using its taxpayer funded media resources to favour a political party. In the process Holmes drew our attention to a piece of research recently published by some Australian National University academics. Holmes crowed jubilantly, at the Coalition's expense, from his taxpayer funded ABC TV soapbox, and without a hint of irony, that, contrary to Mr Costello's suggestion, research showed that ABC TV did show a political bias in the research period: towards the Coalition. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it you Coalition whingers. Just why would ABC TV choose to broadcast this? As Hol...

. A glorious spell of seam bowling on a rain affected pitch by English all-rounder Stuart Broad that cleaned up the cream of the Australian batting on the second day of the fifth test at the Oval, has won the match and the Ashes series for England 2-1. Over night the improbable rearguard second innings fightback by Ponting's team petered out when a couple of incomprehensible run outs in the middle order took the heart out of the Australian batting again. Australian men expect of each other that we resolutely stand by our unspoken code that none of us should ever publicly concede to an opponent that they have succeeded in efforts to inflict pain on us. So here's the best I can muster in the circumstances: Well done England. Well done Andrew Strauss. A great series. You only won narrowly you Pommy bastards. We'll be back.

. Shouldn't Barack, Bob and that boy in blue now be sharing a bong in the White House? You know, to give us all a "teachable moment" in peaceful coexistence ? Lid dip: The Huffington Post .. . .

. Outcomes from computer modelling of c ontinental drift by scientists working for internationally accredited organisations have recently revealed yet another imminent threat to the world we live in from industrialised society: Anthropogenic Continental Drift . It is now plain that the millions of drill holes oil & gas and mining corporations have sunk into the Earth's crust to search for or exploit fossil fuels, minerals and metals over recent centuries, have now accumulated to such an extent that they seriously imperil the delicate balance of the Earth's tectonic plates by undermining their geological stabilty. The consequences of this folly could be devastating: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis , sea level rises, civil disorder, community dislocation, habitat destruction, property damage and loss of confidence in government. We must do something. Now. If we sit back and do nothing about this we, and our children and our children's children, are doomed . The...

. Its been harder than usual recently to keep up with what Kevin wants us all to think. Kevin's usually reliable communication conduit to his people, political correspondents at Fairfax, have been sending out quite conflicting messages from one day (hour?) to the next the last few days. After the Labor Government's "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme" bill (a scheme formerly known as an "emissions trading scheme") was defeated in the Senate on Thursday 13 August, when all the Coalition, Green and independent senators combined to vote against it, there was a real whiff of politics in the air. A major piece of Government legislation had been defeated. The main issues appeared to be: If the same bill is presented to the Senate again and rejected again after 3 months (ie after mid-November 09) then that would then give the Government grounds to call a double dissolution election. The CPRS bill also had tacked onto it a piece of renewable energies targeting and in...

This is a minor update and premature gloat on developments in the current Ashes series in England. The Third Test was a pretty tame draw , due mostly to English wet weather (which doesn't seem to have changed all that much afterall). Michael Clarke did score a classy second innings century to make the game safe for Australia, but it will otherwise be a forgotten match. The Fourth Test at Headingly in Yorkshire resulted in Australia inflicting a crushing innings defeat on England . There have been two main reactions from the English: Firstly, the fickle and superficial British press have suddenly and savagely turned on their own. Their batsmen are now apparently too fragile for Test cricket and their bowlers inept under pressure. Yeah, I know, it's a return to situation normal for the English press, and we are reminded yet again that they know not the meaning of steadfastness, nor dignity under fire; but how quick was that? Secondly, there is the betrayed hero: Freddy Flintoff. ...

.. Australia lost 20 wickets and the second Test at Lords in North London earlier this week. They had previously narrowly failed to get the 20 wickets they needed for victory in the first Test at Cardiff , when England ran out the clock on them. The Ashes are a wonderful full bottle contest between two nations battling for sporting supremacy in a long fought over tradition of rivalry. For most Australian males this is the pinnacle of the game. And we care. Deeply. It hurts to lose. It's a pity however that the people who run the game of cricket don't have a similar feeling for the importance of this contest. Australia had to be bowled out twice for England to win this game. And they were. 20 Australian wickets fell and England won by a little over 100 runs. But....at least 4 of the Australian batsmen who the officials ruled out in this match, have been shown by television replays to have been wrongfully given out. That's the rub of the green and it happens in most matches, ...

In recent weeks two larger than life Rugby players have experienced the tyranny of justice in a universe even more capricious and hostile than their sport: the world of sports officialdom. First Bakkies Botha , the great and brutal Springbok second-rower, got a raw deal from some small minded and ignorant Rugby officials. They banned him for a couple of matches over an incident that any disinterested rugby fan will tell you happens at nearly every ruck in every game of rugby: the clean out. The Springboks protested this dumb decision by each Springbok player wearing an armband saying "JUSTICE 4 Bakkies" at the following Test match against the British & Irish Lions in Jo'berg. And now the Springboks themselves have been cited by the International Rugby Board for "bringing the game into disrepute" and breaching the "IRB Code of Conduct" by questioning the disciplinary rulings of IRB sanctioned bodies. From little stupidities, big stupidities grow...