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Bad governments don’t just “waste millions of dollars” — mismanagement kills.
We live in one of the richest nations on Earth. But waiting times for one type of cancer treatment in Australia have blown out to the point where 2,500 people are dying every year. Why do we have money to waste on fruitless efforts to change the weather?
NEARLY 2500 cancer patients are dying prematurely each year due to poor provision of radiation therapy services, experts have estimated — with many more waiting far longer for the life-saving treatment than clinically recommended.
Graeme Morgan, former director of radiation oncology at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, said it appeared state governments were attempting to give preference to other treatments such as chemotherapy due to the high upfront costs of installing the linear accelerator machines required to deliver radiation treatments.
Yet he said the result was that nationally, 15,600 Australian cancer patients were missing out on radiation therapy each year, and 2500 dying early — figures he described as “a disgrace”.
Thirty percent of one cancer patient group was missing out on starting radiation therapy within six weeks (ideally, it ought to be within 4 weeks):
“If you don’t treat […]
It’s nice to know Christian Kerr of The Australian reads my site and wants to quote me, but really Christian, where’s the conspiracy?
“Science broadcaster turned climate-sceptic blogger and convoy backer, Jo Nova, let loose. “The ABC coverage is so shamefully biased, a government PR agency could hardly have done a better job,” she claimed.
“They carefully avoided selecting any of the key messages in the speeches or petition (but they put in any odd unconnected grievance they could find). They didn’t interview the organisers, instead just showing a snippet of a song and a truckie tooting.” But the opponents of the rally were no less inclined to conspiracy.”
When the media coverage of the Convoy was so dismally biased, I wasn’t suggesting a conspiracy. No one needs a conspiracy when good old fashioned incompetence will do. I have documented some of the poor media coverage of climate science, and especially ABC coverage, at length.
Indeed, Mark Scott, director of the ABC himself admitted that the ABC is there to help the government. The fact that he thought it was OK to admit that publicly tells you how far the ABC has come from any notion that it is […]
G.R.O.G. = Get Rid Of Gillard
… …
H/t: Just Grounds, Jeff, Craig. Thanks š
Please, will the original artist comment so I can give credit and a link?
UPDATE #1: Could be Alex Werchon on CAN-Do? 4-Mar-2011? (h/t Dave N if so).
UPDATE #2: Andrew Bolt describes the Thomson meltdown as “out of control” — Senior members of the Gillard government are being accused of heavying the Health Services Union for reporting the allegation that M.P. Thomson misused Union funds to hire prostitutes… “overnight a dirt-covered shovel is left outside the door of HSU secretary Kathy Jackson, who was home alone.” Bolt also notes that the Labor Party connection with union thugs and conmen has some history.
“What we are witnessing is more like scenes from a mafia vendetta, not the processes of a responsible government.”
Andrew Bolt
Have these people no scruples?
9.2 out of 10 based on 17 ratings
Finally, a new day has dawned and solar power is cheaper than coal fired electricity! Gadzooks! It must be true, the Sydney Morning Herald says so.
…
“Solar energy cost hits par with coal fuel“
Who knew they conquered the low energy density, high maintenance, poor performance, bad weather, and general darkness at nighttime — all in the last weekend? This changes everything… oh, but wait, that’s odd — this only applies in some parts of New South Wales?
Silly me, and I thought the sun shone on the whole nation (and sometimes on the rest of the world too)?
THE cost of solar power in parts of NSW has for the first time crept below that of coal-fired electricity – seen as a key tipping point for the expansion of renewable energy. [SMH]
The dead-set give away is the “parts of NSW” — straight away you know that either someone is stealing sunlight from neighboring councils, or this isn’t a real “cost”, not in the same sense that you and I would use the word. When we think of the cost of something, it means we want to know how much we’ll pay. If we pay less up […]
Well which way is it then?
Last year Professor Andrew Pitman said the science was settled, he was a poor volunteer, and skeptics were rich (which was why they were winning).
…climate scientists are losing the fight with climate sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organized, have nothing else to do, they kind of donāt have day jobs, they can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this isnāt one of them. All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas the sceptics are being funded to put out full scale misinformation campaignsā¦ā
[Source: It was so bad, the ABC broadcast it, twice — Eleanor Hall interviews Andy Pitman. Robin Williams thought it was so āusefulā he rebroadcast the same factually incorrect, irrelevant material.]
Tom Nelson caught him telling prospective students in the Adelaide Advertiser that they ought to rush to study climate science so they can get paid well, be political activists, and change our understanding of the climate.
Almost invariably, climate PhDs with a physics […]
It’s important for the big-government-dependent parties to deny the power of the Convoy.
Less than a week ago, there was a rally at Parliament House with around 3,000-5,000 people. And today there was another one, this one with around 600 vehicles according to Matt and Janet Thompson, and this one by people who have gone to extraordinary lengths, driving up to 5,000 kilometers from all corners of the country.
The convoy is a rolling protest that involved thousands of people across the nation. In Sydney, people switched their headlights on in sympathy, and Andrew Bolt records at least one witness suggesting half the cars on the road had their lights on.
Feelings and support for the convoy are widespread and running high. One of the convoy supporters from near Clermont reports: āIn only 24 hours, we gathered 300 signatures for the petition, local beef producers had organised fuel donations of over $13,000 and the CWA had organised food and drinks for everyone on the convoy. This support from a town of only 2000 was amazing and a testament to a united effort.ā
Dale Stiller’s comment is typical on Just Grounds: The convoy has experienced nothing but support. There have been […]
HFC-23 is 15,000 times as potent as CO2 in the greenhouse gas stakes. It’s only made by six factories in the whole of Europe.
Given that, you would think that they’d have this one esoteric compound completely tracked, measured to the nth, audited and cross checked, right? After all, how devastating would it be if governments can’t report something as simple as HFC-23 accurately, how could they possibly expect to run a global trading scheme on a gas like CO2, which is not just made in hundreds of factories, but thousands of cities, millions of cars, and billions of animals. Well, if you thought someone somewhere had a handle on those numbers, get ready to be corrected. Not only did people think it was a good idea if countries self-assessed their emissions, but they trusted those countries to accurately report numbers that millions of dollars of payments rested on, and nobody was looking too hard over their shoulder.
Who has been emitting twice as much HFC-23 as they admitted? That would be the whole of Western Europe. Italy, apparently, has snuck out 10 times as much.
So what does a “binding target” mean exactly? Not much. When we can’t measure […]
This was forwarded to me via email.
The modern version of “green” is so tame. When it comes to recycling material, living without disposable goods, and leaving a smaller carbon footprint, the real experts are the long lived people who’ve been there, done that, and did it so much better, so long ago.
Jo
Eco-friendly TV anyone? (via Amberley Working Museum, England). Photo: By Les Chatfield
The Green Thing
The original low carbon lawn mower. Photo: Kallerna
In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.” The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.” He was right — our generation didn’t have The Green Thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. […]
1,410 miles or 2,270 km to go
Fifty cars, trucks and vans, and there were at least four helicopters watching the action as the North Queensland Convoy headed through Charters Towers. Images like these will make the Labor Party break into a sweat.
These pics from the You tube of the aerial shots as the convoy went through Charters Towers.
The Convoy travels through Charters Towers
Over 100 in the convoy in the NT last night! ANNIE HESSE Katherine Times (via Carbon Sense Coalition Blog) 18 Aug, 2011 09:17 AM A Convoy of more than 100 vehicles – including road trains, campervans and utes – rolled into Katherine last night to show their support for the Convoy of no Confidence, a convoy heading to Canberra to raise a voice against recent government decisions.
Rashida Khan, who led a trail of vehicles from Darwin to Katherine yesterday, said she was on her way to Canberra to speak up for “some of the toughest people” she knows, who “have been pushed to the edge by the decision to ban live export”.
Have a look at the convoy passing through Ingham: (H/t Val Malkus). Send in those links!
7 out of 10 […]
UPDATED: Former CSIRO researcher talks about the lack of freedom to speak against the government.
See Angry Anderson’s speech and Art Raiches speech about the decline of CSIRO: Art Raiche on CSIRO Canberra Protest. Dr Raiche talked of the days when the CSIRO was a world class organisation and worked for Australia, Agriculture and Industry.
“Management learned how to bring the most senior climate scientist under their control. It was OK to think independentlyā¦as long as Management approved of it.
We were given very strict, VERY strict guidelines on not publishing anything or publicly discussing any research that could be seen as critical to Government policy.If we did not do it, we would be subject to dismissal.
We had now become a Government Enterprise. We were told by the Chairperson that we Scientists no longer worked for Australia, we had to learn that we worked for the CSIRO.”
Destination Canberra – nearly 4000 km away
This is a protest to set records. For these vehicles in Perth, it’s 4 days of driving nearly every waking hour (and another 4 days minimum to return). The cost of petrol, accommodation, wear and tear and camper-hire, not […]
UPDATED with links to the speeches.
New version of Dr Art Raiche, Retired CSIRO Chief Research Scientist – No Carbon Tax Rally, 16 August 2011<
David Archibald – No Carbon Tax Rally, 16 August 2011
Senator Bronwyn Bishop – No Carbon Tax Rally, 16 August 2011
David Archibald – No Carbon Tax Rally, 16 August 2011
All filmed by Phil Cole and edited by Sean Morris.
August 16th, 2011. It’s just another huge rally at Parliament House.
There was a crowd of 3000 according to the ABC report, but Nick Bryant from the BBC estimated 4,000-5,000, and significantly he also admitted that the crowd was not a red-neck, ute crowd, and that for many it was their first protest. For others, like one doctor, it had cost them dearly to get to the rally (see the quotes from his piece below). Such is the passion of the protesters.
And they filled the lawns. Photo: Dr Jim Sternhell
This is mainstream Australia talking
A few things struck me about crowd. Many of the protesters were old and retired, as one would expect from a protest in the middle of […]
Is the ABC biased? Do we even need to ask?
The local state Liberals (the conservative party, who are in government in this state of Western Australia) voted overwhelmingly in favor of a Royal Commission on climate change science. Now that is a news story all by itself. It could have had headlines like: “Liberals demand climate scientists be put to the test”, “WA Liberals demand answers from Climate Science”.
Instead the ABC makes its headlines from almost the only person in the room who disagreed:
WA Liberal climate change motion ‘stupid’: Washer and Liberal MP ridicules party’s royal commission idea
Actually, he wasn’t even in the room. As it happens, Mal Washer didn’t attend the conference last weekend, and sums up his total insight into why this motion was passed overwhelmingly:
” I don’t know who brought it up and I don’t know who would be silly enough to support it.”
“I don’t know how many were there when this, I was not there when this happened, right, so I don’t know how many people were there”
“… I don’t know how that slipped through. Whether theyāre a bit battle fatigued at the […]
Janet Thompson, organizer of the Perth Convoy (the Orange convoy) writes to me:
The Perth Convoy departs Thursday 7am sharp at Belmont Racecourse.
Please come and drive with them for a short while just to give them a big send off on their long journey to Canberra.
Janet also says: “Hey, you gotta watch this!” It’s a Convoy wrap up on Youtube. Nicely done too.
Matt and Janet explain below in a youtube spot, why they are joining the convoy, (as usual, they selflessly don’t mention their own shocking story).
5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]
Tomorrow, a road convoy will set off from Port Hedland in Western Australia for a journey across the country. Two more convoys will leave Perth and Cairns on Thursday. By the end of this week, 11 convoys will be in motion, all heading to a single convergence point next Monday. This is the ”convoy of no confidence”. [SMH]
Finally, the mainstream media has realized the Convoy of No Confidence is historic, real, and unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Monday, the news was front page of The Australian (Mass convoy to make ‘real’ voices heard), and thanks to Paul Sheehan, was featured by The Sydney Morning Herald too (Cattlemen driven to desperation by Canberra).
FOR some it’s climate change alarmism; for others too much wasted taxpayers’ money on boatpeople, school halls, or pink batts; and for others still it’s the importation of Chinese apples, the temporary ban on the live cattle trade, or same-sex couples rearing children.
But the common thread in what is emerging as a national Tea Party-style revolt in the form of a “Convoy of No Confidence” to Canberra is a burning conviction that politicians of all persuasions have lost […]
More evidence of the backlash against the dominant Green-memes. (There’s a rich field of possibilities there for the taking.) Funny or Die do a pretty good job. UPDATE: hilariously I hear, these are “warmer” personalities, thanks Bananabender and Curt, but if they thought they were poking fun at skeptics, it only shows how badly this has backfired. (The warmer-team are the ones who not only suggest we can control the climate, and they’re already asking us to pay up now for the service.)
"Stop the Environment", Funny or Die video snapshot.
“Stop the Environment“
Warning: Coarse language. (They’re saying, “F U,” to Mother Nature) This is a Funny Or Die creation by Thomas Lennon, Ben Garant, Ed Asner and Mindy Sterling.
Copy 1. š
Stop The Environment from Ed Asner 8.5 out of 10 based on 6 ratings […]
It’s hard to believe, but not long ago, people used to write to me to tell me not to use the word “skeptic” telling me it had a bad name. “Use the word realist” they said. But I wasn’t going to let the forces of darkness get away with destroying the English language. I’m proud to be a skeptic. I wasn’t giving that word up. And besides, I had a feeling that if we stuck with the truth, the distortion the-newspeak-team had set up would come back to bite them, and I rather wanted to whip them with that.
After all, what’s not to like about the word skeptic (or sceptic):
1565ā75; From the Latin scepticus, meaning thoughtful, inquiring
From the Greek : skeptikĆ³s, means to consider or examine (akin to skopeĆ®n, meaning: to look, “scope”)
“Skeptic” is a prize worth having.
In Nov 2009 I pointed out the bleeding obvious truth: What’s the opposite of skeptical — gullible. It caught on (if I do say so myself).
And if we are the skeptics, then it followed that they are the Unskeptics and who wants to be an Unskeptical Scientist?
Bitten by their own propaganda campaign, the […]
Monday 15th at Tanya Plibersekās office, Sydney 12 noon – 2pm. 150 Broadway. The Minister for Doomsday.
Tuesday August 16th 2011 Parliament House Canberra 12 noon. Details here
August 22nd The Convoy of No Confidence arrives in Canberra. See Just Grounds for details. (Get the petitions in the post now!)
Climate is a non-problem. What is happening is Cooling
Archibald Speech Rally Canberra 16th August 2011
My first duty to you today is tell you what is happening to the climate. What is happening is cooling. The oceans started cooling in 2003, and the atmosphere is following. There has been no warming since 1998.
In fact, the temperature of planet today is almost the same as it was when satellites first started measuring it in 1979. No one under the age of 32 has experienced global warming. Some of us predate that and remember the heavy frosts of the nineteen seventies. Those frosts are returning, and worse. Solar activity is weakening, and will remain weak for another 22 years.
We in this blessed country will be spared the worst of it, but a large portion of the grain belt in the northern hemisphere […]
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s obvious (to anyone who knows there’s no free lunch) that one way or another this Festival of Funny Money was going to end in tears. And so it flows… but let’s not forget what lead us to this, the problem that lies under all others.
The government can print (base) money from nothing, and they can set interest rates artificially low so as to encourage private banks to create (bank) money from nothing. And governments keep doing it, because it’s so much easier to be elected handing out loaves and fishes, and grants and solar-rooftop-subsidies, in a froth of easy money and rising asset prices. Any fool can spend someone else’s money, especially when the sucker doesn’t even know it was their money.
Thus does inflation steal from all and sundry. Silently.
Watch them print money… say hello to inflation.
In the real world, we have to repay our debts. But the world of the ruling class never has to make ends meet. Alan Greenspan admitted that this weekend — effectively announcing that the US is the United States of Wonderland, where no matter how high the debt is they can never default — because […]
Nice. The CanDo team have printed thousands of sticky notes with a message for consumers everywhere. Australian’s can order them and pop them on items that will cost more under The Carbon Tax (ie. that’s everything except subsidized Chinese solar panels, and bird-blending windmills.*)
Take a photo of your most inspiring spots and send it in to CanDo. People are using these sticky notes in restaurants, airports, petrol pumps, at home and in the office.
This is a chance to remind Australians that the Carbon Tax will cost them, and we will never know exactly how much.
Order your sticky notes here
Help them print and send more sticky notes with a donation.
*Actually, no I can’t guarantee that these won’t increase in price too. See Environmental tax threatens green energy research in UK.
5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]
Are you losing sleep because of the Carbon Tax? (Click to see a large version. Thanks to MaxL)
It used to be that being Green was assumed to be the done thing in any advert promoting something, especially something that aimed at the professional set (like a herbal sleeping tablet). So I was surprised to see an advert, on the front page of The Australian a few days ago (August 3rd) which unashamedly played to those-who-don’t-welcome-The-Carbon-Tax.
At least one herbal supplement supplier thinks the tax is the hot topic stressor of the moment, keeping business people awake at night.
I wanted to keep this turning point for posterity, for the poor PhD student in 2035 analyzing how the Great Global Warming meme went from Nobel prize winning grandeur in 2007 to well-known-scam status five years later. This is a point along the way. As far as I know, it’s a first in the Australian print media.
7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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