Auspundits

The Five Faces Of Darkness

Despite the setbacks that God has inflicted upon us, these painful blows will mark the beginning of the wiping out of America and the infidel West after the passing of tens of years, God willing. - Osama bin Laden, 17 December 2001

Adams Gets On His High Horse

I am not sure whether I should take Adams' latest column as a delayed April Fools joke or whether he is writing something "serious":

Horses can make the difference in the war on the weather, too. I write these words from a home surrounded by horses and horse-studs owned by sheiks from the Emirates and Gerry Harveys, by Filipino billionaires and John Singletons...Trade in diesel-guzzling tractors for Clydesdales. Garage the buses and get the local kids to do what their parents did – ride horses to school...Then reintroduce horses to the cities – not only as posh pastimes for the wealthy in Centennial Park but for taxis, pizza deliveries and funerals.

It may surprise this neighbour to billionaires that parents of teenage kids walked or took public transport to school. As for me, like my parents before me, I walked and took public transport. Mummy did not have a Land Rover in the garage.

If this is an attempt to be satirical a la Tim Blair, Adams has failed miserably. Possibly because his piece is humourless:

I RECENTLY announced changing my name to Chlorophillip, a rechristening intended to emphasise my personal crusade on greenhouse gases...Still dripping from my second encounter with the baptismal font, I revealed breakthrough technology to tackle climate change concerns...But I’ve decided that making greenhouse gases green is not quite enough. So I’m changing my name back to Phillip, which is, appropriately, Greek for “lover of horses”.

Call this the Traceeee Nation effect. Or maybe my mirth was suppressed by his attempt to slime the police force:

Our police are ready – they’ve been using horses to trample protesters since Federation.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that police horses only manage to trample the St. Pancakes of this world.

Neither Here Nor There

Tonight, the Environmentalist denomination of the Gaia Cult has foisted Earth Hour on the world with the help of shrieking high priests in the IPCC and deacons from Hollywood.

At the other end of Gaia zealotry, Tim Blair has been advocating blasphemy on this religious occasion by proposing The Hour of Power.

As for me and my household, we will remain steadfast in our pattern of power consumption and environmental degradation. Which is minimal (we don't like power bills), but realistic (I will be watching The Bill tonight).

For the two types of zealots above, it begins in 15 minutes. For me it continues.

Cheney Tangos With Saudi King *BUMPED*

Over the last three months, the two most powerful men in the world, U.S. president George Bush and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, have visited Riyadh. At both meetings, energy security (read, oil) was discussed. With the price of crude oil persisting over $US100/barrel, this should not be a big surprise. During the first meeting, it was well publicized that U.S. President Bush requested the Saudis loosen their oil spigots and pump more crude on the world market, only to be rejected. Some even called the request groveling. Not so the second meeting Cheney attended. This time, Cheney came armed. No one tells the U.S. where to go.

Evolution Of British Maths Teaching

Sent by a friend today...

1. Teaching Maths In 1970
   A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980
   A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or £80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990
   A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000
   A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2008
   A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of £20. What do you think of this awful way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers. )

6. Teaching Maths 2009
   à ÇáãÓÌá ÊÈíÚ Íãæáå ÔÇÍäÉ ãä ÇáÎÔÈ ãä ÇÌá 100 ÏæáÇÑ. ÕÇÍÈ ÊßáÝÉ ÇáÇäÊÇÌ ãä ÇáËãä. ãÇ åæ ÇáÑÈÍ áå¿

A Brief Look At Climate Change Subsidies

Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, has alerted households and businesses that they will be paying significantly more for energy as she wacks homes with an energy tax. This could explain why Rudd's razor gang is super keen on cutting billions from government spending and reduce/wind back tax cuts: they need to fund their climate tax subsidy to "working class" families from some kitty.

Unfortunately, this is a terrible idea compounded on a terrible idea. Here's why.

Climate Change News

Some tidbits that have come together over the last few days:

• The truth comes out: climate change/global warming is being promoted despite serious scientific objections because these would impinge otherwise flourishing environmental initiatives such as population control and economic deceleration:

  The climate crisis is a powerful tool to motivate change - like checking the ever-expanding global population and excessive resource consumption - and if the urgency of climate change is compromised, other environmental projects may fall by the wayside.

• The Earth's climate has an inbuilt stabiliser with regards to CO2 concentration and temperatures. How do we know that? Because a young scientist bothered to look at the maths underlying those fancy global climate models and found a problem: the math that these models are built on assumed that the atmosphere was infinitely thick. Oops. What's worse is that his employer, NASA, refused to release the results because the $US5billion it receives for climate research may fall as a result. His paper was later published in a peer-reviewed journal and supported by statistical analysis performed and published in another peer-reviewed journal. He was once a global warming activist. His new model has also been successfully backtested on data from Mars. That's how science is done.

• Oh and that consensus? Bang it goes. Over 500 attendees at the International Conference on Climate Change that included scientists, economists, bureaucrats and business leaders supported a statement that said amongst other things:

  ...there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change. Now, has anyone read about this in their newspapers? Yeah, I thought not.

H/T: Andrew Bolt

The Economics of Modern Day Fertility Rates

By Grant Harris*

I will seek to demonstrate that declines in fertility rates in Western civilisation over the last three to four decades can be directly attributed to the economic consequences of adopting at the policy advice level and implementing at an institutional/government level radical New Left philosophies borne out of the protest movements of the 60s generation.