Say “Yes” to Government Propaganda

These days, the Government’s only policy seems to be to spread its fraudulent message that carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming—and everything else that is wrong; for example:

Meanwhile, our pragmatically mendacious PM calls in vain for the media to write less crap:

(Thanks to the Tizona Group.)

Say “Yes” to More Conceits

In “$23 carbon price, but fewer pay”, it takes two writers, Tom Arup and Michelle Grattan of The Age, to compose this:

the government is expected to reveal its plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles, which have been simmering on the backburner for almost a year, since Ms Gillard foreshadowed them in last year’s election campaign.

Labor floated a target to reduce average emissions of new cars, sports utility vehicles and light trucks.  But its targets were denounced as ‘weak’ by Greens deputy leader Christine Milne, who pledged stronger targets.

Plans (or, perhaps, new vehicles), which were foreshadowed, simmer on a back-burner; and weak targets float.  With such marvellously metaphoric writers, running along such tight tropes, and supplying the public with insightful and independent political news and analysis, one may well wonder how the newspapers are losing readers.

Say “Yes” to New Fuels

There’s new fuel like an old fuel.—old proverb.

Alstom which claims to be “a world leader in power generation”, and which supports the incompetent Gillard Government’s proposals to tax some industries which emit carbon dioxide, describes some of its projects on its web-site:

for a wide variety of fuel, including hydro, nuclear, gas, steam and wind.

We have a solution to the world’s energy problems: use steam!  Steam is clean and renewable, and we can use it to produce steam to power steam-engines!  As long as we have water, and steam, we shall never run out of steam power.  “What takes our heart must merit our esteem.”*  Let us steam ahead with steam!

*  Matthew Prior, in Solomon (1718), II., 101.

Say “Yes” to Self-Interest

The Sydney Morning Herald, by way of AAP, in “Businesses back price on carbon”, reveals:  “More than 50 companies including GE, AGL and The Body Shop have signed a statement backing a price on carbon.”  Similarly, the ABC’s Midday Report announced that “fifty businesses” support the Government’s plans to tax industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.  However, the ABC chose not to reveal that those companies which support “a price on carbon” expect huge subsidies from the Government if the carbon dioxide tax be imposed, and will expect far greater profits with official support for the supposedly cleaner energy technologies they spruik—at the expense of the taxpayer by way of higher costs for electricity and the like.

At Wake Up 2 the Lies, you can see a list of the companies which support the stupid tax out of unenlightened self-interest.

Say “Yes” to Defamatory Advertisements

An organisation, which exists to enrich and to promote its widdiful, proctoleichous, pæderastic, coprophagous, ægerastic and lucripetous founders and representatives whilst pretending to be a “new independent political movement to build a progressive Australia”, could not (rightly) broadcast its maliciously mendacious advertisement by way of public television; accordingly, it calls upon its gullible supporters to spread its mischievously defamatory disinformation over the internet.

UPDATE (8 July):  Now, GetUp! is threatening to arrange boycotts of any company which does not support the incompetent Gillard Government’s plans to tax emissions of carbon dioxide.

Say “Yes” to Lies on Ties and Knots

Sen. Bob Brown, in answering a question from Mark Riley at the National Press Club, said:

I was doing my Windsor knot [he fiddles with the knot of his necktie] before I came here thinking of the House of Windsor and, of course, they always get wound into these conspiracies, don’t they.  No—look—we are moving towards a globally informed community that’s got to live with itself, and we have always espoused democracy.  I can tell you that the two moves the Greens have made for a Global democratic—umm—support for moves in the United Nations, have been voted down by all other parties, both in 2002 and earlier this year—this is conceptual.

Did anyone at that function believe that Sen. Brown really had a notion of the House of Windsor as he knotted his necktie that day?  Judging only on appearances, the notorious senator’s necktie was not noticeably tied with a Windsor knot because it was not markedly wide or particularly large.  According to the Duke of Windsor, in A Family Album (1960):

The so called “Windsor knot” was I believe regulation wear for G.I.s during the war when American college boys adopted it too.  But in fact I was in no way responsible for this.  The knot to which Americans gave my name was a double knot in a narrow tie—a “Slim Jim” as it is sometimes called.   It is true that I myself have always preferred a large knot, as looking better than a small one, so during the nineteen twenties I devised, in conclave with Mr. Sandford, a tie always of the broad variety which was reinforced by an extra thickness of material to produce this effect.  As far as I know this particular fashion has never been followed in America or elsewhere.  [p. 116]

According to Thomas Fink, co-author of The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie, the Windsor:

produces a large, solid, triangular knot, which is not worn as frequently as it was in the first half of the 20th century.  [In From Russia with Love], Bond thinks the Windsor knot is “the mark of a cad”.  Today it is, curiously, the knot of choice of (once) communist leaders and dictators; Hugo Chavez, Putin and the Chinese leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao are examples.

Now, nota bene, this may seem to be a trivial matter—what knot may or may not be a Windsor knot—but of great importance, notwithstanding, is how casually the leader of the Australian Greens may prevaricate when questioned—though, we recall, the Greens “value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth”.  Sen. Brown is either unaware of how a Windsor knot (a knot of nine moves) differs from a four-in-hand (a knot of five moves, also known as the schoolboy knot) or he naturally dissembles when attempting to invent a credible response on the Greens’ policies of one world government (or, of course, both)—or was referring to a half-Windsor knot: see UPDATE II below. 

To us here at Say “Yes” to More Taxes, Sen. Brown’s necktie appears to have been tied with a stock-standard four-in-hand knot, but we could be wrong.  We have asked the senator to settle this knotty matter and we shall notify our readers of any response.

UPDATE I (6 July):  John Dodd of Sen. Brown’s office has kindly responded to our enquiry; he writes:

Senator Brown ties his tie in what he has always understood to be a Windsor knot but, being unfamiliar with the intricacies of the ins, outs and unders described by you, is unable to say to which of the models you have described that his practice conforms.
He will however keep you in mind if he ever feels the need for a personal style consultant.

UPDATE II (8 July):  We were wrong—or half-wrong.  Sen. Bob Brown (by way of Kelly Farrow) has very kindly responded; he writes:

You spotted it correctly!
It was indeed a half-Windsor made with very thin material.

We thank the senator for his message and, accepting his clarification, we apologise for our error.  Thomas Fink, by the way, writes this:

If a man claims to know a second knot in addition to the four-in-hand, it is likely to be the half-Windsor, the third of the four classic tie knots.  This symmetric knot [of seven moves] is medium-sized, with the silhouette of an equilateral triangle.  It can satisfactorily be worn with collars of most sizes and spreads.  Although the name of the half-Windsor suggests it is derived from the Windsor, there is little direct evidence for this claim.  Moreover, the half-Windsor is not half the size of the Windsor, but rather three-quarters.

We should also like to add that we here at Say “Yes” to More Taxes, though disagreeing with the senator and his party strongly on many issues, have met Sen. Brown many times over the years, and have found him always to be a kindly and courteous gentleman.  On the issue of CAGW, we consider that Sen. Brown acts honestly, though mistakenly: he is not evil, just wrong.

Say “Yes” to an Honest and Informed Debate

Sen. Christine Milne demands that the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance:

call off its planned advertising campaign against a price on pollution until it is in a position to engage in honest and informed debate.  [...]

Misinformation, as is being foisted on the Australian public every day by Tony Abbott and his allies, can only undermine our democracy.

“These groups should call off their campaign until an agreement is reached and announced and they are in a position to engage in honest, informed debate instead of a scare campaign that spreads yet more misinformation.”

The Australian Greens, of course, always engage in honest and informed debate, but is “undermining our democracy” really the only thing that the alleged misinformation of “Abbott and his allies” can do?

The “pollution” whereto Sen. Milne refers is not pollution but carbon dioxide, the trace gas essential for life on earth.

The Greens would never engage in an hysterical scare campaign for, remember, they “value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth”:  they’d never claim, despite a complete lack of scientific proof and with no empirical evidence, that anthropogenic global warming would inevitably cause more droughts, more floods, higher seas, more warmth, more coolth, coral bleaching and more bushfires, would they? 

Greens leader Bob Brown says bushfires like the ones raging across Victoria and New South Wales this weekend [February, 2009] will be more frequent if climate change continues.   [...]

“Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25%, 50% more,” he told Sky News.

“It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”

The oil, coal and big-resource companies put off the day of action and edged the world further into super-heating  [writes Sen. Brown in the Herald Sun, December 21, 2009].

That means worse drought, bushfires, snow-melt, tropical storm damage and accelerating sea level rises.

The Greens will force the introduction of a carbon price if it wins the balance of power in the senate, leader Bob Brown promised hundreds of party faithful in Brisbane [in July, 2010].
Senator Brown gave two Queensland examples – coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, and the recent impact on water supplies of coal companies pushing into farm land on the Darling Downs – as direct reasons why.

“Burning coal is a major cause of global warming [claims Sen. Brown in a media release of 16 January, 2011].  This industry, which is 75% owned outside Australia, should help pay the cost of the predicted more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades.  As well, 700,000 seaside properties in Australia face rising sea levels.”

UPDATE:  Despite the hysterical and deceitful shrieking of the duplicitous Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg, the corals of the Great Barrier Reef are not deteriorating from supposedly warmer seas.  See Kate Osborne et al., “Disturbance and the Dynamics of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef (1995–2009)”:

While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980's suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995.

UPDATE II (4 July):  For more on the very silly Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, see “The Hypocritical Coral Whisperer”, at ABC Watch.

UPDATE III (5 July):  For even more on the foolish Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, see “Slurred by a Coral Whisperer”, at ABC Watch. 

UPDATE IV (6 July):  For an account of Sen. Brown’s ability to give trustworthy, truthful descriptions, see “Bob Brown v. Reality” at Stop Gillard’s Carbon Tax.