Parilamentary English: nasty, nerd and bitch.....

On Tuesday 2nd June 2009 Bernard Keane writing in Crikey said: "The Coalition's discipline, which held more or less solid for the eleven years of the Howard Government, has never really recovered from the election defeat. Malcolm Turnbull was busy running his own under Brendan Nelson. Since Turnbull's ascension, Peter Costello has felt no apparent compunction to do anything to help his leader or his party. Wilson Tuckey and Bronwyn Bishop insist on behaving like senile old relatives. And the Nationals, with Barnaby Joyce elevated from maverick to Senate leader, are not so much off the reservation as permanently on the warpath, and don't much care if its Liberals or the Government they're fighting."
Everyone it seems is noticing.
Yet despite the entire country looking on askance at Coalition disintegration, the Leader of Opposition Business withdrawing comments made in the House of Reps during Question Time on the same day attempted to get on the record the interjections "Nasty, nerd and bitch".
How much longer do we have to endure these childish behaviour and puerile name-calling?

So predictable that only Steve didn't see it coming......

Speaking from Washington, Senator Fielding said that asking the White House to explain why it is convinced global warming is linked to greenhouse emissions was part of "picking up the fight for the underdog".

He earlier attended a climate sceptics' conference run by free-market think tank the Heartland Institute — part of a trip to "hear both sides".

Senator Fielding said he found that Dr Aldy and other Obama Administration officials were not interested in discussing the legitimacy of climate science. [The Age,6 June 2009]

A little light beginning to illuminate the scene yet, Senator Fielding? That's right - thinking people know that the junk science is not coming from IPCC.

Of course Obama's aides might also have seen this:
















Fielding's bottle imitation from ABC News online

UPDATE 8.06.09:
On ABC News Radio this morning an excerpt from AM was played in which Steve Fielding stated he wants the solar flare theory investigated before the Rudd Government's national carbon emissions trading scheme comes up for a Senate vote.
Senator Fielding also calls for an open debate on the science. If he was serious about this call he would have published on his own website those Heartland Institute conference graphs he keeps citing as evidence for legitimate doubt concerning climate change cause and effect.

Why we need a fact checker during President Obama's speeches

Politicians make so many speeches that it is hard not to make a verbal slip or two, like substituting the word privacy for piracy.
However Barack Obama goes beyond the usual tongue-twist and now it's wise to double-check his supposed facts.
It seems that the US President really needs his aides to be a little more vigilant whenever that unknown someone pens the first draft of his speeches.
Sometimes these silly mistakes ruin what could almost be inspirational moments.

FactCheck highlights these bloopers:

1.
* He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
* He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
* He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
* He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
* He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.

2.
* President Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" in terms of population. That strains the facts mightily. The U.S. Muslim population probably doesn't even rank in the top 50.

3.
* President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don't actually support that claim.

4.
* President Barack Obama made one factual error in his first speech in office when he said, immediately after being sworn in: Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. It is true that Obama is counted as the 44th president, but he's only the 43rd person to take the oath. Grover Cleveland is counted

While Voter Fact Check cites:

1.
* Did Obama incorrectly say his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz?

Yes. Obama's great-uncle helped liberate Ohrdruf, which was a subcamp of Buchenwald, not Auschwitz....

Turnbull couldn't take a trick until......

On 1st June the Leader of the Opposition was twittering negatives about the Australian economy under the Rudd Government:
TurnbullMalcolm in case you have not seen it - our new TV ad http://tinyurl.com/nyklya

The very next day his doom and gloom ad campaign hit a hurdle:
"The trend estimate of the balance on current account for the March quarter 2009 was a deficit of $3,676m in current price terms. This was a decrease of $2,691m (42%) on the deficit recorded for the December quarter 2008 where:
* the goods and services surplus rose $2,091m (52%) to $6,112m
* the income deficit fell $634m (6%) to $9,602m
* the current transfers deficit rose $34m (22%) to $186m.
In seasonally adjusted current price terms, the current account deficit fell $1,743m (27%) to $4,614m between the December quarter 2008 and March quarter 2009 where:
* the goods and services surplus rose $900m (22%) to $5,075m
* the income deficit fell $862m (8%) to $9,498m
* the current transfers deficit rose $18m (10%) to $190m."

Then matters darkened even further for Malcolm with the announcement of GDP quarterly growth and publication of "Debt for Development Makes Sense say 21 Prominent Australian Economists", which removed the last of the air from his little campaign.
Every time poor Mal thought he'd found a silver bullet to fire at his political opponents, along came economic reality.

However the gods must have listened to his desperate prayers, for up popped Fitzgibbon and Ute Man.
Ah, saved to fight another day! Even if nobody gives a toss - when you've shot your credibility wad you've shot your wad period.

The rest of Australian Bureau of Statistics 2nd June 2009 analysis and comments here.

Chapman uses Chaser blunder to hit back at Media Watch

Image from The Daily Examiner

In this clumsy attempt to hit back at ABC TV Media Watch (for this item and probably this earlier item) under the guise of commenting on The Chaser's War on Everything's lapse in good taste, I particularly enjoyed Peter Chapman's silly jibes about ABC employees:

where many journalists go to retire

they prance around with an air of superiority and arrogance watching the clock tick from 9am to 5pm

They live in a world of their own where they believe their snobbish upperclass views are indeed the only views that have any merit

While his dig at ABC radio news coverage on the NSW North Coast begs the question as to why The Daily Examiner editor, who is notorious locally for his advertorials and product placement in supposed news articles, dares to point to journalistic failings in others.

One almost feels like echoing the comment of his young daughter; Zip it, Dad. [The Daily Examiner,"Slants on Life",6 June 2009]

Though comments on the ABC Media Watch website go further:

Bred and born in the Clarence :
18 Apr 2009 2:36:13pm
I've lost count of the number of people I have spoken to who no longer buy the Daily Examiner due to its degrading gutter journalism. Reports continually try to divide our wonderful coastal community on a variety of issues.
Perhaps the community should call for a "vote of no confidence".

clarence valley gal :
15 Apr 2009 9:44:15pm
Thank you for drawing attention to the pathetic attitude of the editor of the local paper [ Daily Examiner]. We have to suffer through his boorish comments on a regular basis.

Jen :
14 Apr 2009 6:53:26am
Well done Media Watch. This newspaper editor writes rubbish on a regular basis and it's good to see him called on this. Unfortunately he also writes articles with serious bias and disses local towns such as Yamba and South Grafton. The former apparently on the grounds that all its shops were not open on New Year's Day for the benefit of his relatives. In addition - one of his very early stories on the Clarence Valley almost lost it the services of Rex Airlines.

National interactive map of GM-free farms, businesses and councils - register now

Gene Ethics has developed an Australian interactive map which shows those farms, retailers, restaurants, caterers, seed suppliers and local government councils which are proudly GM-free.

The map also shows GM farms and receival depots.

To get your NSW North Coast GM-free business on this register, Download this form and email it back to Gene Ethics.

Congratulations to Truefood Trading at Diggers Camp for being the first North Coast business to register.

First Dog on the Moon asks the ultimate Internet question

Cartoon from Crikey on 2nd June 2009