National Broadband Network will kill us all!

Maybe EoR just imagined all this but, listening to Howard Sattler's radio show on Wednesday he heard MP Dr Dennis Jensen apparently prophesying the end of the world due to the National Broadband Network. EoR didn't hear the whole thing, so he may have totally misinterpreted Dr Jensen's alarmist ranting, but it seems the terminating nodes for the NBN which were originally to be placed outside buildings will now be placed inside them. The terrible outcome is that these release chlorine gas when they burn. And chlorine gas is what the Germans used!!!

EoR may be unusual but, if his house was burning, he wouldn't be hanging around to breathe in any fumes, toxic or otherwise. And what gases are released by burning televisions? Computers? Carpets? Plastics? Treated wood? Stored pool chemicals?

Will Dr Jensen also call for the banning of wood fires?

Dennis Jensen, though he's a legitimate scientist (his specialty is materials engineering on ceramics) doesn't seem to cope with technology well. His webpage, for instance, still includes a call to "Oppose the Government's Emissions Trading Scheme". He also seems to release a media statement every six months or so. Which is probably considered value for taxpayers' money these days. But nothing about the NBN or chlorine gas is evident there. There's no mention of it on the 6PR website. And Google also seems ignorant of these claims (whether made by Jensen or anyone else).

Dr Jensen is on Facebook but EoR didn't have the strength to become his friend. He does, however, note that Dr Jensen 'likes' Carl Sagan and Climate-gate (sic). And his favourite movie is "Not Evil Just Wrong".

Then there's his Twitter account with its regular tweets (averaging about one a month). The most recent:

No reputable scientist would claim 100% certainty that humans are causing climate change, but govt advisor Prof Will Steffen does!

Any reputable conservative politician, however, would claim that global warming is fake 100% of the time! Also, isn't that statement defamatory, since it clearly implies that Professor Will Steffen (Executive Director ANU Climate Change Institute, BSc, MSc, PhD) is not a reputable scientist? But, again, nothing about the NBN and how it's going to kill everyone.

On the 24th February he tweeted:

Rudd is totally lacking human feeling. 4 deaths from his insulation disaster, and he cannot even express sympathy

Well, Rudd is probably just as inhuman as Dr Jensen:

Dr Jensen boycotted Parliament on the day that the formal apology to the Stolen Generations was made by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Perhaps EoR was having a really strange dream? Or is this just the stalking horse for an 'NBN is the new Insulation debacle' initiative by the opposition?

Lazarus dissembling

Does anyone understand what this man is talking about? Former PM John Howard, on the book-selling trail now, featured on Counterpoint delivering a marketing talk to an audience organised by Quadrant magazine so he could be assured there'd be none of the nasty shoe-throwing brigade but only The Faithful (many of whom he seems to know on a first name basis).

In discussing the reasons his government was reelected in 2001, he states this was not because of the MV Tampa or the World Trade Center attack:

The truth is that the government had recovered its political fortunes by the time of the Astin by-election held on Bastille Day in 2001 and then also for those who follow political programmes as fanatics the night before the inaugural programme of Insiders on the ABC. I remember it very well because I'd gone to watch the Wallabies the night before um, ah, defeat the er, the er, British Lions in the last test and retain whatever trophy ah, ah, was then available in relation to that and was very hoarse and could hardly reply to Barry Cassidy but I was feeling very happy because we'd won the Astin by-election.

So that's all clear, then?

Answering questions from the audience, he clarifies those pesky Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam Hussein had. There were, apparently, two possibilities. Either the WMDs would be found (which would be clear evidence that Saddam possessed them) or they would not (which would be clear evidence that Saddam had possessed them but had hidden them).

The truth about people's attitudes in 2003 on the eve of the operation is that there was really no argument amongst most people that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction. My successor as prime minister, Kevin Rudd, told a meeting of the Zionist Council in Victoria that it was an empirical fact that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

I detail in the book a meeting I had with the then head of MI6 at the High Commissioner's residence in London late in February of 2003 in which I was shown some of the most compelling intelligence material imaginable. And the detail I've got in the book is I cleared its use with the person in question, Sir Richard Dearlove, who is now the master of Pembroke College at Cambridge University, and the truth is that there was widespread material strongly suggesting Iraq did have weapons. There is a view that the actual weapons themselves that did exist were deliberately dismantled or taken elsewhere, and there are a number of countries that qualify as a possible destination. It was established after the military operation by the Iraq survey group that there were plenty of weapons programs.

So the argument that is now being used and was used for a long time that we somehow or other made it all up and it was all a pack of lies, it was anything but. The actual weapons themselves, stockpiles, were not found, and there are a number of explanations possibly for that, I don't know what the real truth is. But there can be no argument that there was a widespread view at the time that they certainly did exist.

As the bastion of truth and reality at the ABC, regularly exposing the lies and frauds of the Left and Science (especially Climate Science) EoR is, however, bemused at the fact that the transcript of the question and answer section has been doctored. Surely the impeccable and incorruptible hosts of that outstanding show would never stoop so low?

One questioner addresses Howard as "Prime Minister" (the one who poses "The current government by its composition has been forecast by some to have a very short-looking vision") but this is excised from the transcript. Other salutations are there in full, but only this one is missing. Is it because revealing the time warp these people live in, where John Howard is still Prime Minister, is too embarassing?

Malcolm's Pretty Good Broadband

While politician quibble, why are we being left in the broadband dust by the Isles of Scilly?

Malcolm Turnbull appears to be going into business in competition with Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery according to a recent speech:

[T]he FCC observes that speeds of less than eight megabits per second are sufficient to deal with most uses, including two-way videoconferencing. Again, where is the need, the applications, that will consume 100 megabits per second to the household?

"If you can't download it with Malcolm's Broadband you can probably get by pretty good without it."

Election 2010 (2)

Australia now has two People's Choices arguing that they are the clear new winners and should govern for the next three years. The Liberal/National Party argues that they received the largest primary vote (even though Australia doesn't operate under a first past the post system). The Australian Labor Party argues that it got the largest overall vote after preferences were distributed (even though there was a heavy swing away from them). While there was over a 5% swing away from the ALP, only 1.8% went the L/NP way, and 3.7% went to the Greens (ie a leftwing party) so it could also be argued that the Australian people wanted a more socially progressive government.

EoR thinks the obvious solution is for the L/NP and the ALP to form a coalition. They'd control around 143 seats in the Parliament. Their policies, politicians and poll-driven reactiveness are the same. They're both right-of-centre parties.

At least there was one pleasing result: the Climate Sceptics Party only polled 3,486 primary votes. Even the Australian Sex Party polled better, gaining 8,728 votes. In Western Australia, the Greens polled 14% of the vote in the Senate, the Australian Sex Party 2.14%, and the Climate Sceptics Party a paltry 0.14%. The Australian Sex Party generally outpolled Family First, leading The Register to comment:

The party was born out of a sense of grievance that national politicians were playing to the moral grandstanders and quite failing to represent the views of the majority of Australians, who are on the whole fairly laid back about sexuality.

Of course, being laid back is only one position.

Bob Katter, though, is back as an independent. He is on record as denying climate change, arguing forcefully and clearly:

"I mean, if you could imagine 20 or 30 crocodiles up there on the roof, and if all that roof was illumination, and saying that we wouldn't see anything in this room because of a few croco-roaches up there."

Bob Katter also understands the important things for Australia's future. Like promoting the building of a giant illuminated statue of Jesus on Queensland's highest mountain.