Bob's blog - the realm of threalm

The 21st Century paradigm?   Left v Right was so 18 th Century. Collectivism v Individualism was so 19th Century Socialism v Capitalism was so 20th Century The cultural and political debates that are emerging in the 21st Century seem to be better framed in the related, but more informative, dichotomy of " Progress v Freedom", than the opaque, out-moded and blunt, " Left v Right ".  Labelling that tries to be  more descriptive of the political content of a person's ideas is more helpful than the arbitrary putative positioning of that person relative to  opponents. Admittedly there is a residual problem that "progress" is also merely a directional indicator , that on its own doesn't indicate a destination. This means it can be appropriated as a label by anyone who wants to takes us to a different place. "Progressive" is still used as a virtua...

What is stupider than being stupid while calling other people stupid? Nice question. It was put by Ann Althouse after reading  this piece of stupidity from progressive US commentator Jonathan Chait in The New Republic, whilst he sought to ridicule as stupid an economic recovery proposal put forward by the Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels: A proposal that seems remotely close to reality will be widely praised, as if we were watching a person with severe disabilities manage to finish a race. Wow, look at that! You have a plan! With numbers! Hooray for you! Yeah. Wow. Just how stupid is that? This sanctimonious galah apparently feels so morally superior that he could not even contemplate that whilst carefully crafting these acerbic words he could also be caught in the act of transgressing a sacred tenet of the Talibanic moral code of political correctness: thou shalt not to be seen to belittle mino...

During this intriguing inter-regnum as Australia waits to see if a minority government can be cobbled together in Canberra between one or two of the major parties and the independents, we have again been shown the brazen double reporting standards of Fairfax and the government media. As occurred throughout the Rudd Government, these influential news agencies have seen their primary self appointed role as holding the Opposition to account. As they see it, the Government is so clearly on track with their urban latte sippers' approved policy and clever news management systems, that independent press scrutiny can be focused on the easy sport of picking at the Opposition's failings, rather than the substance of holding the Government's actual performance to account. And some people still seem to wonder aloud why Australia was caught by surprise when the Labor party killed off...

. I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you—Nobody—too? Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know! How dreary—to be—Somebody! How public—like a Frog— To tell one's name—the livelong June— To an admiring Bog Emily Dickinson

HL Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem; neat, plausible, and wrong." Ronald Reagan: "There are simple solutions, just no easy solutions."

I reckon that if a bunch of well meaning central planning ideologues can choose to brand their artifical process for the global reduction of the main chemical element in all known life forms, carbon, the " Clean Development Mechanism ", without recognising the hubristic over-reach and irony of such aspiration, they deserve to have this happen to them .

There is something dangerously seductive about the idea of being able to deliberately plant an idea, cut down to its simplest form, so that it can take hold in the human psyche and self propagate like a virus. Whilst bravely putting to one side the whole of the advertising and marketing industries, I have recently been prompted to ponder the genesis and success of some quite influential ideas: There is but one God . Love thy neighbour as thyself. Christ died for our sins . From each according to his abilities , to each according to his needs; God is dead . Survival of the fittest . Anatomy is destiny . E = mc2 . Let freedom ring . Every man has his price . The answer is blowin' in the wind . You've  nothing to lose except your chains . You are only limited by your imagination. Freedom is a myth . Language determines how you think. It's time . The selfish gene . The greenhouse effect . The tipping...

I watched Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard with compere Tony Jones and a studio audience in Adelaide, on ABC1's Q&A program last night , 9 August 2010. She's certainly a clever and accomplished politician, with a plenty of negative schtick for her opponents. My abiding impression however was that it was like watching an over-confident  suburban school principal dealing with questions in assembly . No one dared challenge her on her display of well honed defensiveness about her ruthlessness, although there was the occasional cheeky little boy who tried to play it for some laughs. It was not a debate and there was little policy substance.  She returned whenever she could to her saintly parents, sacrificing themselves, emigrating from Wales and doing it tough in suburban Adelaide for the sake of the children, Julia and her sister. This stuff clearly must poll well in focus groups. And I must not be very f...

.   .. Whitlam , Fraser , Hawke ,  Keating ,  Howard , Rudd, Gillard & ... Abbott ? . ... The election news in Australia over the weekend was more than usually depressing. Yeah, I know it's just another election campaign and it is as always pitched at people who aren't interested in politics or policy: swinging voters in marginal seats. I'm not in that target audience. And I know that this is, due to the absence of any actual leadership, a Seinfeld election; about nothing, other than the identities of the leaders. And yeah, the Labor Party has recently and unexpectedly taken a potentially election losing hit in the polls, which, as usual, none of the Fairfax or ABC experts foreshadowed (now why might that be?)   But that's not why for me it's been so depressing. It's because of what we've now learnt, from people who actually knew him, about our former Prime Minister, Kevin...

. Kevin Rudd was right. Climate Change has been "the greatest moral challenge of our time". First Malcolm lost the Liberal leadership trying to lead his party into a path of challenging the climate. Now Kevin has lost the Prime Ministership for being seen to avoid leading his party into challenging it. So can Julia Gillard now survive the change challenge ? Or will Tony Abbott get away with evading the challenge ? The political climate sure seems to be a'changin' at present anyway. What with the recent demise of Gordon Brown in the UK and with the coming mid-terms in the US in November, there is much to chew on in all sorts of places. Then, as well as the Australian federal election sometime in the next 6 or 7 months, there's the  NSW and Victorian State elections looming as well. It is going to be an interesting 12 months. And amidst all this colour and movement in Canberra today, is Obama's replacement, in Washi...

. Check out this delightful story that has emerged from the current deep winter freeze in the Northern Hemisphere:   emergency workers and Police prevented from preventing a curling contest on a Scottish loch by the very Occupational Health and Safety regulations they were trying to enforce. From that well known curling website, Skip Cottage Curling : " Apparently it was quite a day in Lochmaben. The ice had been checked by the local council and was 7-8 inches, and solid. However, someone phoned the police to say there were lots of people on the ice and they didn't think it was safe. Anne tells the story, "Six police officers arrived but they couldn't go on ice to warn people because of health and safety so they passed the buck to the Nith rescue who came with a rescue boat but because of heath and safety they couldn't go on ice either. So the Coast Guard arrived, lights flashing! But guess what? Because of health and safety he couldn't go on the ice ei...

. It seems almost emblematic of how poor  Nature's communication skills are, that it can only bring itself to, sorta kinda, say sorry for its recent disparagment of sceptics, by sermonising to scientists about the perils of disparaging others: "... scientists should be careful not to disparage those on the other side of a debate: a respectful tone makes it easier for people to change their minds if they share something in common with that other side ..." Maybe  Nature could benefit from some research into how to communicate more effectively. But these clever scientific folk seem to have already thought of that. Here's Nature's prescription for preventing this malady of disparagement: ..Even as climate science advances, it will be just as important to invest in research on how best to communicate environmental risks. Otherwise scientific knowledge will not have the role that it should in the shaping of ...