all right

Occasionally adding corroborative details to add verisimilitude to otherwise bald and unconvincing,
but veridicous accounts
with careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination.

23 June, 2011

Rara Temporum

Dicere licet*

Quite rare are the times

when you may think what you like
and speak as you think—

so Tacitus said,

and I, for one, will attempt
to maintain that link

between thought, speech and
the right of free expression
lest all freedoms shrink.

*  written in response to a post at Watts Up With That—and posted thereto—on Lord Monckton’s being too extreme when he associated the vile, deceitful, meretricious, authoritarian, intolerant, anti-democratic, totalitarian Prof. Ross Garnaut with the Nazis.  I also posted an earlier comment:
If the loons who try to order every aspect of my life would have their way, I shan’t even be allowed to call Mussolini a Fascist or Hitler a Nazi.  When newspaper columnists intimate that I should be tattooed, or imprisoned or gassed because I heretically oppose their fraudulent, pseudo-scientific conjecture, then calling them merely wrong-headed is not quite strong enough.  Sometimes, totalitarians, authoritarians, and all sorts of would-be-aryans have to be called by the right name—and Godwin’s Law, surely, does not apply when discussing real, murderous, send-opponents-to-concentration-camps Fascists or Nazis.
I’d liefer that Lord Monckton not display the svastika [when quoting Prof. Garnaut] but I shall defend to a small degree of inconvenience his right to do so.
I posted similarly at Australian Climate Madness:
Godwin’s Law refers to the almost certain probability that any internet discussion will, at some point, feature an inappropriate comparison to Hitler, Nazis or fascism.  Godwin’s Law does not refer to a public speech wherein a person of undoubted authoritarian bent (such as the arrogant Ross Garnaut) is legitimately compared with other totalitarians.  Godwin’s Law does not refer to a comment (such as this) which mentions fascists in proper context.
I defend Lord Monckton’s right to make comparisons, even odious ones, and I defend his right to refer to the contemptible Garnaut with appropriate invective, even if it upset people.
†  P. Cornelius Tacitus, Historiae, I. 1:  Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet.  [Rare the felicity of the times when to think what you wish and to say what you think is permitted.]

UPDATE I (26 June):  see also “Die Grüne Bierhalle”, by Prof. Bunyip, whereto I commented:
People must give up
their normal expectations
of modern science;

the directing State,
as contract guarantor, shall
insure compliance.
UPDATE II (16 July):  see Merv Bendle’s “Eco-fascism & the Greens” at Quadrant Online.  See also the comments on my post, “Gore Redefines Reality”, at Impact of Climate Change.

UPDATE II (27 June, 2014):  see Sen. Dean Smith speaking in the Senate on freedom of speech:

The Bubble of Our Time

Any day now the bubble will burst

The IPCC
would dump some iron filings
into the oceans;

Pseudo-scientists
also suggest sending large
mirrors into space.

How stupid is that?
All because of their fear of
man-made climate change.


Global warming is
neither catastrophic nor
anthropogenic,

but misanthracists
tend to be misanthropists
who would kill us all

to protect nature.
How arrogant!  Nature will
look after itself.

Anyone who says
that CO2 warms the world
dangerously lies;

carbon dioxide

is not pollution:  it is

essential for life.

17 June, 2011

If People Cannot Trust the Government, Spend Even More

Stupid Public Is Not Persuaded Yet

Minister Combet


will spend twelve million dollars

on advertising

his ridiculous


scheme for a “price on ‘carbon’”—

a tax on a gas.

The minister says,


“we add carbon dioxide,

world warmth is rising”;

but, correlation


is not causation. Clearly,

the man is an ass. 


The Public Responds
 
Whom does Greg Combet,

Minister for Climate Change,
think he is fooling?
 

Has not the man heard?
The latest evidence shews
the world is cooling.

Cents and Sensibility

Coins on the Floor

If I saw dropped cents,
how many times would I scoop
up a coin? Plenty,

when I was a lad
(ones, twos, fives, I’d grab ’em all—
the wont was
thrifty);

but you know that you’re
growing old when you won’t stoop
down for a twenty.

Now, with a bad back,
I must leave coins where they fall—
even that fifty.



in alteris verbis

Manete nummi,
ego vos relinquam, ne
laedar a vobis.


[Stay where you are, coins;
I leave you on the ground lest
I be hurt by you.]



It Always Comes Back to Politics

Now, I’ll be accused
of conservatism for
a dislike of change.

Conservatism,
when things are so screwed, might be
obligatory.

16 June, 2011

The Con-Artist in Chief

Who Is Harrison J. Bounel?

So, the President
of the USA is a fraud:
what melodrama!

Harrison Bounel
is Barry Soetoro who’s
Barack Obama.

Someone, you might think,
could have made some inquiries
before polling day.

As always, of course,
the old, effete media
wend their merry way

and dismiss calls for
serious reform without
much introspection.

No need to hurry!
There’s plenty of time before
the next election,

and this time, perhaps,
some might show fortitude and
have the O-man traced

with a modicum
of the effort lavished on
Mrs. Palin’s waste.

13 June, 2011

Heed Gaia’s Smoke Signals

Climate Eruption

Yet more volcanoes?
Certain proof of the dangers
of global warming.

Fewer Hurricanes,
small warmth; but those volcanoes
are quite alarming.

Volcanoes are not
caused by emissions, you say?
This we should conceal:

we need disasters
to make people recognise
climate change is real.

06 June, 2011

Say “Yes” to Increased Taxes, a New Site


Cate is right, I guess;
she must feel free to express
that we must say “Yes!”

I should ask her, though,
whether I may speak too; so,
how might I say “No”?

01 June, 2011

The Foreign Minister Clarifies

Let me say this*

“The PM’s been transparent, quite true blue and dink-di,
she was explicit and clear cut, as open as—well—I.
She never hid her change of mind, for she’s had nought to hide,
and she has been explicit, right?  So that is clarified.”

the PM is explicit as the Foreign Minister reflects on her honesty

*  according to Joe Kelly of The Australian, in “Kevin Rudd declares voters will have their say on the carbon tax at the next election”, Hon. Kevin Rudd said“I believe that [Julia Gillard] has been clear-cut in being explicit about the change in her position subsequent to the election [...]  She’s been explicit about that.  She hasn’t tried to hide from it.”  The “change in her position” refers to the Prime Minister’s assurance, during the last election campaign, “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.”

Let’s All Jump Together

An exhortation*

Cate Blanchett:  “Come on, you people,
let us all bravely jump out
of this aeroplane!”

Other Passengers:  “But we shall die!”  Cate:  “Tush!
You can do it if I can;
it won’t hurt a bit!”

Other Passengers:  “That’s all very well
for you to say because you
have a parachute!”

Fairfax and the ABC:  “Shut up, hateful slobs!
Those with parachutes also
have a right to speak.”
 
Our Darling Cate, relaxing at home
Our Beloved Leader, calming the masses

Criticism is so hurtful 

Cate’s imploring us
to say ‘Yes’ to a new tax
to ruin us all.
 

Gillard has the hide
to tax carbon dioxide:
that’s just suicide.


The artistic Cate
supports the ruling party:
how adventurous!


Here’s her argument:
“It’s for the environment!
Back the Government!”

*  A very slightly recast comment by MediaWatcher, Wed 01 Jun 11 (10:39), at Tim Blair’s blog.

An Explanation of Change

At the conclusion of a post, “Greenland cold snap linked to Viking disappearance”, wherein a researcher explains that a “previously unknown 12th century temperature plunge” would explain the demise of the Viking settlement of Greenland, the good editors of Yahoo News provide this thoughtful analysis:
Scientists fear that the 21st century warming is caused by climate change[.]
Change brings change!  No!
Similarly, we may conclude that the worrisome, declining standards of our education system are caused by the declining standards of our education system, and the dearth of sound journalism is caused by a strange paucity of effective and trustworthy journalism.
I await further announcements from experts:
An Archæologist:  Studies suggest that the decline of the empire of the Hittites occurred because of the disintegration of the Hittites’s empire...
A Palæontologist:  Our data demonstrate that the overall annihilation of the dinosaurs was caused by a mass extinction of dinosaurs...
My GP:  Ah, Deadman, the general degradation of your body is probably caused by osteosarchæmatosplanchnochondroneuromuelous, or to employ a more intelligible term, osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary deterioration...
Alas, I fear that modern scientific incompetence is caused by modern scientific incompetence, and human folly, irrationality and stupidity are caused by human folly, irrationality and stupidity.

UPDATE (18 July):  See “A Clean Energy Future”.