The New Censor

Prof. Robert Manne Forbids Free Speech 

“I don’t believe it
makes sense for non-scientists
to have any views

on scientific
matters.  None can be expert
on complex issues

without a recent
higher degree.  Otherwise,
unlearnèd folk may

consider themselves
quite free to speak on any
topic of the day—

and we can’t have that!
No, we ought to have a board
which will then refuse

laymen permission
(unless they’re quite orthodox)
to speak as they choose.”

See Newspapers shouldn’t print opinion from non-experts: Manne, by Jared Owens, in The Australian:

“I do not believe it makes sense for non-scientists to have views on scientific issues,” [Manne] told the gathering at Gleebooks, in inner Sydney.

The report neglects to mention any subsequent righteous rebuke or indignant condemnation of the arrogant, academic wowser from others at the event, so we might assume that his audience meekly accepted the need for a board of censors.  Prof. Manne, by the way, though not a scientist (and not observably endowed with a capacity for logical reasoning or consistency), often expresses views on scientific issues.  He uncritically accepts the fraudulent, pseudo-scientific conjecture of anthropogenic global warming, and this M. Porcius Cato Redux is irked by the audacity of any impertinent, sceptical, critical thinker who dares question the alleged consensus that the world is doomed unless the Government impose a tax on the beneficent, vital trace gas, carbon dioxide.
See also “Rara Temporum”. 

UPDATE:  Andrew Bolt provides “the reaction” to the decision, in the Federal Court, which (some argue) finds against free speech if it might vex people pretending to be disadvantaged.  See also “Freedom of speech is dead in Australia”, by James Delingpole, and Jo Nova’s “Black day for free speech in Australia: Bolt loses case”.  Prof. Bunyip also adds his assuete wise observations here, here and here.  Quadrant Online furnishes trial reports and background to the case.

UPDATE II:  see John Citizen’s “Free Speech: Not something to be taken for granted”.

UPDATE III:  see a media release from the Institute of Public Affairs:

A new poll has found that 82% of Australians think protecting freedom of speech is more important than protecting people from being offended.

The poll conducted last weekend for the Institute of Public Affairs by Galaxy Research surveyed 1052 people across the country.  [...]

John Roskam, the Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs said ‘freedom of speech is a bedrock of Australian democracy.’

UPDATE IV:  slightly apposite is C.L. Bryant:

[American] liberals feel as though they can say whatever they want to say, but, don’t you dare say anything you want to say!  Why?  “Because you offend me with that!”

UPDATE V (30 September):  Andrew Bolt provides “more reaction” and a link to an article by Stephen Drill, “Geoff Clark reveals why he went after Andrew Bolt”.  Geoff Clark, a serial abuser, is the greedy, unpleasant loony who dresses in a possum-skin cloak and pretends to be an Aboriginal elder or, perhaps, a possum.

a threatening loony on his way to a soirée in uptown Bedrock

UPDATE VI (30 September):  Prof. Bunyip alludes to the meretricious Prof. Larissa Behrendt’s fibs and her impious, self-serving calumniations of her paternal grandfather here.

UPDATE VII (1 October):  see John Dawson’s “It’s the Act that’s racist” at Quadrant Online, which also lists various reactions to the Bolt case.  See also “Identifying as Aboriginal can hurt” by Dr. Anthony Dillon, and Andrew Bolt here and here; (UPDATE VIII, 2 October) and here; and (UPDATE XI, 3 October) here:

It is incredible to me that my appeal to stop harping on about differences of “race”, to acknowledge all the ethnic or cultural elements of our background and to stop institutionalising trivial “racial” divisions is seen as the most racist thing some people have ever heard.  How did arguing against racial categorising become racist itself?

Moreover, it is not just an abuse of me but of the truth to claim that I’ve ever argued anywhere, in public or in private, that Aborigines are an “inferior race”.

UPDATE IX (2 October):  see “UK police force man not to display Bible DVDs in his cafe”, at Wintery Knight.

UPDATE X (2 October):  Louis Hissink describes “The Hypocrisy of it all”.  See also James Board here and here, and Bill Muehlenberg, at Quadrant Online, “On the right to offend”.

UPDATE XII (3 October):  Senator Bob Brown wants to license journalists, so they won’t say that his pseudo-scientific conjecture of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, or that many of his ideas are based on silly suppositions or idiotic fantasies, and thereby upset him sorely.  My federal member, Andrew Wilkie, an aegerastic carpet-bagger, wants broadcasters to be licensed and censored so that they cannot reveal what a grasping buffoon he is; and now he’s vexed by commentators talking about a public issue publicly:

Sports commentators who condemned planned pokie machine reforms during NRL match coverage may have breached broadcast rules on political advertising, Andrew Wilkie says.

UPDATE XIII (3 October):  for a legal assessment of the Eatock v Bolt case, explaining that Andrew Bolt may still write and publish what he likes if he avoid factual errors in such publications, see “When white is too white and black is not black enough” at Kangaroo Court of Australia:

What I find most disgusting about the Pat Eatock v Andrew Bolt case is that after losing Bolt and others have claimed he has been denied his right to freedom of speech, which is false.  To run this argument really undermines and blurs a real freedom of speech issue that has been covered on [Kangaroo Court of Australia here], which also involves Bolt, and that is the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard trying to stop reporting on her corrupt past.

See also the Hon. Justice Bromberg’s decision, at ¶ 461:

It is important that nothing in the orders I make should suggest that it is unlawful for a publication to deal with racial identification including challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people.  I have not found Mr Bolt and HWT to have contravened s 18C simply because the Newspaper Articles dealt with subject matter of that kind.  I have found a contravention because of the manner in which that subject matter was dealt with.

(UPDATE XIV, 3 October):  even more by Andrew Bolt here.  See, in The Australian, Wesley Aird’s “More transparency, less hypocrisy”, and also Chris Kenny in “Silencing dissent won’t resolve indigenous issues”:

My experience of this harks back to the secret women’s business saga of Hindmarsh Island.  When Aboriginal affairs minister Robert Tickner banned a bridge development in 1994 on the say so, as it turns out, of one witness’s secret and fabricated evidence, it represented the high point of the left-liberal agenda for delivering symbolic victories to Aboriginal Australians.  As a young journalist I investigated the facts and revealed the fabrication claims.  All hell broke loose.  In my naivety I presumed it would be a simple matter of the truth winning out.

Instead, the resources of the federal government, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, environmental groups, the ABC and even some churches turned it into a cultural battle between black and white.  By the way, in that debate, the indigenous “credentials” of the dissidents were often questioned.  A royal commission eventually confirmed the fabrication, and after losing the government, Labor dropped the cause.  [...]

Those caught up in that storm believed the trauma and vitriol of the experience might be worthwhile to help prevent such cultural shenanigans in the future.  As Beryl Kropinyeri, one of the Ngarrindjeri dissidents who blew the whistle on the misadventure, said at the time; “Reconciliation starts with the truth.”

Yet time and again since, we have seen leading Aboriginal activists and the political class focus on symbolic indigenous victories over perceived white and-or conservative antipathy.  Instead of considering how best to educate indigenous children in remote communities, we have admonished ourselves over the wrongs of the stolen generation and the need for a formal apology.  When shocking abuse of indigenous children was revealed, triggering the Northern Territory intervention, the debate was not about repairing communities and providing hope for children, but about indigenous rights and discriminatory paternalism.

In the Kimberley now, indigenous locals are insulted as “coconuts” because they dare to choose an economically self-sustaining future over a triumph in environmental and cultural politics.  There are promising initiatives, such as Generation One’s push for indigenous jobs.  But it would be better to debate the tough issues Bolt raises, rather than leave the sorry saga of indigenous disadvantage to business as usual.

(UPDATE XV, 4 October):  at On Line Opinion,  Graham Young finds “The Problems with Eatock v Bolt”: 

Viewed from outside Wonderland, the decision in Eatock and Bolt is bizarre.  Unless and until there is a successful appeal, or the legislation is repealed or amended, you can breach the Racial Discrimination Act without actually racially discriminating against anyone, or being motivated by racial hatred.

Read the judgement and the convolutions to allow this to happen are obvious and painful.  Bromberg J looks at a line of cases, and the way in which the act was negotiated through parliament and concludes that to come within the ambit of the act you must have made a statement for reasons which include race and offended someone of that race, but that the plaintiffs do not have to demonstrate racial hatred.  [...] 

What is even more concerning is that the judge also determines that despite the plain meaning of what you have said or written it is possible to decide whether you genuinely hold those beliefs or not, and to judge you on the basis of what you are presumed to actually believe, not what you said.

(UPDATE XVI, 11 October):  John Izzard joins in the fun with “Bolt, the judge, and the gherkin!” at at Quadrant Online.  See also “The Andrew Bolt Showtrial”, by Tiresias of Canberra, wherein he aptly quotes Euripides: 

Australians will surely come to rue the words of Euripides’ The Phoenician Women.  When Polyneikes explains to his mother Jocasta that the worst thing about life as an exile is the lack of freedom of speech, she exclaims:  “This is a slave’s lot you speak of, not to say what one thinks.” [l. 392.*]

*  δούλου τόδ᾽ εἶπας, μὴ λέγειν ἅ τις φρονεῖ. 

(UPDATE XVII, 14 October):  Tasmania’s favourite pretentious Dick, Richard Flanagan, adds his usual, stately, measured bull-shtick—a popular but misguided “fact”, a stunning but irrelevant literary reference, incorrect assertions, and wrong-headed conclusions—on ABC’s Q & A:

Well, I think if you stood on the moon, two things would be visible, the Great Wall of China and the self pity of Andrew Bolt.  And it is extraordinary, after a court finds, in a very, very detailed and finely reasoned judgment of 60,000 words—that’s 10,000 longer than The Great Gatsby!—that there were numerous errors of fact, that this had offended, insulted, humiliated and intimidated these people, that Andrew Bolt, the next day, would present himself as a victim.  And it’s extraordinary that people would say that they are prevented from talking about these subjects when, if they read the judgment, it explicitly says you can continue to talk about these subjects.  It is how you talk about the subjects.  And the fact of the matter is that Andrew Bolt uses the literary methods not of a journalist but of a propagandist, and he was found out.  And Julie [Bishop] is right to talk about rights and responsibilities.  We have always recognised free speech as a right but also that there are constraints upon it.  I’ll leave it at that.  You know, I mean the point is he got caught out.  He got caught out. 

Presidential E-mails

Expect More

Killing Us to Save Us 

We may expect more

from those murderous green-shirts
who hope to arrange

all aspects of our
lives; Now, they’re burning children
to “fight climate change”.

The “No Pressure” ads
should have warned everyone
what those Greens might do

in order to save
us from warming, perhaps, half
a degree or two.

UPDATE I:  see also “By Their Actions Ye Shall Know Them”.

UPDATE II (28 September):  see “Killing Ugandans to save the planet”, by James Delingpole.

The Loathing of Julia Gillard

It’s Misogyny 

It’s only because she’s a woman
that people hate Julia so;
it’s only because she’s a woman
her government’s polling is low;
it’s only because she’s a woman,
the party and members concur:
it’s only because she’s a woman
that people are beastly to her.

It’s not that she lies to the people
and many don’t like the deceit;
it’s not that she just cannot govern
except for her party’s élite;
it’s not all the profligate spending
or her hypocritical ways
and not that she is incompetent
though getting the media’s praise;
it’s not that she reasons so poorly,
and constantly causes much woe—
it’s only because she’s a woman
that people hate Julia so.

It’s not that she has a proposal
for taxing the air we exhale
in order “to stop global warming”,
all based on some fools’ fairy tale;
it’s not that she sounds like a nanny
when she has some new guff to sell;
it’s not that her party is rotten,
and voters have noticed the smell;
it’s not that polling has proven a
majority want her to go—
it’s only because she’s a woman
that people hate Julia so.

See also: “(Vote for Her for) She’s a Woman”.

Our gracious Prime Minister teaching her Foreign Minister diplomacy

“Psychics” on Television

OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE WARNING:  a vulgar term for the pudenda muliebrum is below.

 

Cheating the Public

On late-night TV—

on GEM—some “psychics” pretend

to make predictions

and gullible fools

ring, at five bucks a minute,

to hear pat fictions.

GEM, quite knowingly,

defrauds credulous viewers

by such wicked stunts;

the alleged psychics,

of course, are avaricious,

unprincipled cunts.

See Psychic TV:

Connect with Australia’s expert mediums, psychics and clairvoyants – live and interactive on Foxtel.  Our team of specialist, hand selected psychics are ready and waiting for your call!  We operate our very own television channel as well as providing a number of top quality services that caters for everyone’s needs, including psychic readings by phone, text messages and email readings to name but a few.
We have psychic mediums and clairvoyant on call 24hrs a day, 7 days a week and subscription services that empower you and keeps you one step ahead. [sic]

UPDATE I (11 October):  in Britain, a renowned (but fake) medium, Sally Morgan, is seen wearing an earpiece, whereby she may be fed information which she can repeat as purported messages from the beyond, in one of her own videos.  An old schoolmate from Riverside High School, Michael Witheford, writes that Derren Brown, his hero, debunker of various frauds and scams, and a cunning trickster, “is the coolest guy on earth.”

UPDATE II (27 January, 2012):  Sally Morgan, the scamming fraud, is trying to obtain money from The Daily Mail; see “TV psychic Sally Morgan sues Daily Mail for defamation”, by Sarah Limbrick:

TV psychic Sally Morgan is demanding damages of £150,000 from Associated Newspapers over a Daily Mail story accusing her of scamming a vulnerable audience.
The article, published on 22 September, was headlined: “What a load of crystal balls!”
It alleged Morgan pretended to have psychic powers when she was in fact simply repeating instructions from members of her team via a microphone and hidden earpiece, according to a writ lodge at the High Court.
Morgan, who was Princess Diana’s former psychic, claims the story caused substantial damage to her reputation, as well as hurt, distress and embarrassment.
The story was widely reported in the national press at the time but Associated Newspapers is the only publisher named on the writ.  The story in question was an opinion piece by the magician and former psychic Paul Zenon.  [...]
In her High Court writ Morgan describes herself as a professional psychic and claims to have privately helped numerous people overcome traumatic or emotional situations.

UPDATE III (5 February):  see James Van Praagh:

UPDATE IV (30 March, 2014):  see “US ‘psychic’ Cynthia Miller jailed for $1.2 million fraud”:

A female “psychic” who admitted she defrauded over a million dollars from clients — including a mentally ill man who was hearing voices — has been sentenced to nearly three and a half years in prison.
Cynthia Miller, 36, who ran the Astrology Life store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was the last of nine family members sentenced for their roles in a psychic fraud conspiracy that federal prosecutors said fleeced more than $US20 million ($21.6 million) from clients all over the world.
Miller, who advertised as a psychic and “life coach”, admitted that she claimed she could communicate with spirits and had the power to remove curses and negativity from her clients’ lives.
She told customers that money or valuables they gave her would either be burned, sacrificed or donated to charity or churches. She made $1.2 million from the fraud.

The National Interest

The Prime Minister’s Theme 

Gillard considers
the national interest
far more than the rest:

she thinks only of
the national interest
with marvellous zest

whereas Abbott holds
the national interest
below what’s finest

for himself.  Clearly,
the national interest
(Gillard would suggest)

bears much repeating.
The national interest
is ever her quest:

she works and plans for
the national interest;
and, whenever pressed

for the full details,
the national interest
is aye mentioned lest

people forget that
the national interest
is close to her chest.

If Abbott favoured
the national interest
she’d keep him abreast

of all she’s wrought in
the national interest,
but he won’t request

such knowledge—he shuns
the national interest—;
only she’s obsessed

with what’s clearly in
the national interest
as her words attest:

that, when it comes to
the national interest,
Gillard is the best.

UPDATE:  The Fortunate Country

See, the national interest,
just happens to coincide
with what the PM would decide
to do anyway.  How lucky
we are to have as our mistress
one with history on her side
who is far-seeing, eagle-eyed,
made of stainless steel, and plucky!
(All happens as she prophesied:
happenstance is correlated
with the things vaticinated.)
The opposition has defied
her enlightened rule, but she’s tried
to silence them.  Of course, she lied
to us but only (she’ll confide)
to do right by posterity.
Whatever happens to us all—
should she demand austerity,
or bravely choose to make a call
to put a ‘carbon’ tax on us
(killing industry more or less)
or give another stimulus—,
you can bet that her choice will be
in the national interest.


Our Leader’s Reasoning

Gillard’s rationalisation,
which is not at all sinister:
what’s good for the Prime Minister
is therefore right for the nation.

The President’s New Plan

Hope and Change Revisited 

Obama’s new plan
is just like the last one; but,
weirdly, he expects

that he’ll be The Man
whom, henceforth, each fair voter
and straw-man respects.

This is stranger than
fiction:  he seems to have the
mindset of those sects

which would liefer ban
congress, for he’s dumbfounded
when Congress rejects

each stupid “We Can”
proposal wherein folly
though vice intersects.

Obama’s new plan
is just like the last one, and
with the same effects. 


A Topic of Debate 

Is the president
evil or stupid?  That’s the
question of the day.

The answer, surely,
is both:  Obama is a
wicked fool, I’d say.


More on the One

“You’re just a racist!
He’s really intelligent!”
Can you prove that claim?

See, apart from his
being able to read a
speech wherein he’ll blame
 
history, Bush, and
straw-men for his failures, his
smartness is the same

as the reputed
grace and charm of his wife:  not
according to fame.

If he were clever
he’d make achievable goals
his primary aim

instead of trying
to lower the handicap
of his outdoor game.

No, the US now
is led by a crooked clown,
and that’s a real shame.

(See also “The Con-Artist in Chief”.)

the First Lady of grace and charm

How Dumb?

Thanks to Rich Vail. 

The Elocution of Julia Gillard

Coaching the Prime Minister Not to Speak through Her Nose 

“Heow neow, theow breown ceow,”
says the PM, being taught*
to speak less queerly

by a therapist.
“‘Community,’ Ms Gillard,
has a t, clearly,

and ‘hyperbole’
has four syllables, not three,”
he says, severely.

“So, do try again:
practise saying that we must
all live austerely

whilst our leaders and
betters fly around the world
quite cavalierly.”

After a few days,
however, the therapist
halts.  “I shall merely

try, PM, to help
you, when you utter your lies,
to speak sincerely—

since the taxpayers
are paying for these sessions,
and paying dearly—;

let’s say, together,
‘There’ll be no rise of the air
tax—except yearly’.”


Meanwhile, Our Government’s Nannying Continues

In other news from
Canberra:  they’ll ban some foods†
lest folk wrongly feed

on hamburgers and
chips and other nosh which they
like but do not need.

Gillard must have vowed
during the last election,
“It is guaranteed:

there’ll be no tax on
carbohydrates under the
government I lead.”

*  see “Julia Gillard to get spin classes after PM sends SOS to image expert”, by Linda Silmalis, in The Sunday Telegraph.
†  or, at least, the advertisements thereof.  See also “Prime Ministerial Nannying” in “The Wisdom of Julia Gillard”.

UPDATE:  See also “Incredibly Challenging”, “Unfit to Lead” and “The PM and the People Agree”.

UPDATE II: 

    Before she wandered into politics,
    before she employed her Leninist tricks,
Gillard’s schnoz was fairly petite in size.

    If you now glance at her conk of a nose,
    it is far longer than Pinocchio’s;
Gillard’s beak reveals how often she lies.

Try Stopping This, Conroy, You Totalitarian Moron

to Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy:

My websites and my ’blogs are all based overseas.  Do you think that, by enacting licensing requirements for Australian media, you can stop my describing you, on various websites, as a witless, corrupt, incompetent, fascistic, widdiful moron, whenever you speak or act like a witless, corrupt, incompetent, fascistic, widdiful moron?

Think again, fool.

(See also Rara Temporum.) 

UPDATE I:  see Michael Connor, at Quadrant Online, on “Stamping out freedom”:

The free press, an unlicensed press, is one of the oldest of Australia’s freedoms.
If the Gillard government attempts to licen[s]e the media it will be an act of tyranny that has no place in our democracy.  In the 1820s and 1830s colonists fought government imposed controls by reminding everyone that they were British and had British rights.  Ms Gillard, and the government of despair she directs, might like to remember that we are Australians and our birthright is freedom.  [...]

This is a government that has completely lost its way.

UPDATE II (17 September):  see also TWAKI’s “20 ways the left is silencing dissent”.

UPDATE III (7 Deember):  Sen. Conroy, it seems, is a sooky wuss who blubs over spoiled milk; see Tim Blair’s “Crying over nuked milk” and Andrew Bolt’s “Conroy’s tears will not wash away the facts”.

“My family had no milk, for a month, five years before I was born!  Waah!

May the Governor-General Dissolve the House of Representatives?

According to § 5 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, the Governor-General may dissolve the House of Representatives at any time:

The Governor-General may appoint such times for holding the sessions of the Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from time to time, by Proclamation or otherwise, prorogue the Parliament, and may in like manner dissolve the House of Representatives. 

The approved website of the Governor-General provides an official acknowledgement of the Governor-General’s power both to dismiss a Prime Minister and to act contrary to a Prime Minister’s advice:

While the reserve powers are not codified as such, they are generally agreed to at least include:

1. The power to appoint a Prime Minister if an election has resulted in a ‘hung parliament’;
2. The power to dismiss a Prime Minister where he or she has lost the confidence of the Parliament;
3. The power to dismiss a Prime Minister or Minister when he or she is acting unlawfully; and
4. The power to refuse to dissolve the House of Representatives despite a request from the Prime Minister.

In addition, the Governor-General has a supervisory role to see that the processes of the Federal Executive Council are conducted lawfully and regularly.

Despite those calumniating commentators who accused participants in the “Convoy of No Confidence” of ignorance by their petitioning the Governor-General to sack the Prime Minister, dissolve the House of Representatives, and call a new election, the current Governor-General, with or without advice from the Prime Minister, may dissolve the House of Representatives immediately, if she think it right to do so.  She won’t, of course, because she supports the incompetent administration of, inter alios, her son-in-law, Bill Shorten, but she clearly has that power.

UPDATE I (6 September):  see Potemkin’s Village on Bill Shorten, the Governor-General and the Heiner Affair. 

UPDATE II (16 September):  I should add, perhaps, that, whilst the Governor-General has the right and power to call an election against the wishes of the Prime Minister, the Governor-General, conversely, may also reject a call for an early election.  The Governor-General  may refuse the Prime Minister’s request for an early election (as the Governors, too, in the States may refuse the request from a premier), and insist that the PM continue governing or, if that leader lost the confidence of the House of Representatives, ask the Opposition Leader to form a government.  Unfortunately, across the land, Governors and Governors-General too often meekly accede to the demands for early elections—sometimes very early, such as after only eighteen months of a four-year term—whenever premiers and prime ministers and consider it to their advantage to call them.

Tony Windsor’s Support for Incompetents

Keeping the Bastards Dishonest 

Tony Windsor says the
Government is going well.
Of course he’d say that.

“Give this mob a go,”
he shouts, “it’s democracy!”
He talks through his hat—

and by “hat” I mean
something else—, for Windsor has
the brains of a gnat.

Gillard’s rabble is,
as even he’d know, the worst
as has ever sat;

but, by supporting
Gillard, he shews the ethics
of an outhouse rat.

Whilst ordinary
folk grow leaner and poorer,
Windsor waxes fat.

Effectively, the
bastard is saying, “Stuff the
proletariat!”

“Just give us more time.
We are doing really well!”
Of course he’d say that.


Wherefore Does Windsor Want to Wait? 

He’s only in it
for the pension: he cannot
be a diplomat.