One of the most outrageous aspects – and there were many – of the ClimateGate scandal was the flouting of Freedom of Information requests by the University of East-Anglia. Now we have our very own Department of Climate Change thinking that they can do the same thing.
RIGHT-WING think tank the Institute of Public Affairs has received a warning from the Department of Climate Change after it submitted more than 750 freedom-of-information requests in four months.
The institute, which strongly opposes carbon pricing, has made more than 95 per cent of FOI requests lodged with the department since April.
The department last week wrote to the institute’s director of climate change policy, Tim Wilson, and asked that he stop submitting requests so it could deal with the backlog.
This is in retaliation to yesterday’s op-ed in the Australian – we covered it here. What’s their excuse?
A government source said it took about 39 hours of staff time to process each application.
”He is conducting a political campaign against the government’s policy on climate change and this is coming at significant cost to taxpayers,” the source said.
The great irony here is that the government is making a transactions cost argument to justify their actions, yet in the Treasury climate tax modelling, they have assumed away all transactions costs and transition costs. Of course, if the government didn’t hide information about their policy he wouldn’t have to request it. We know, for example, that the Treasury modelling has been selectively released.
CHAIR: Was all of the Treasury modelling published?
Ms Quinn: Treasury has undertaken an enormous amount of analysis over a large amount of time. Key results and key features of the modelling were published. It is not true to say that all of the Treasury modelling was released, no.
CHAIR: Not all of the Treasury modelling was released?
Ms Quinn: Substantial amounts have been.
Dr Gruen: That would be thousands and thousands of pages.
CHAIR: Some of us may be interested in thousands and thousands of pages.
Dr Gruen: Indeed.
CHAIR: Are you in a position to release all of the Treasury modelling that was done? You have said that you have done the modelling and the government picked out of your modelling what it wanted to put into this report.
I think it is a bit rich complaining about the cost to the taxpayer, when we know that the policy itself will cost the economy about $1 trillion.
Most importantly it is not the Department’s place to decide that a citizen is unworthy of receiving information because they have determined he is waging a political campaign.
…and the climate change dept is running a political campaign for the govt’s policy on climate change
Adrian
16 Aug 11 at 8:55 am
If the costs are so small and the benefits so great, why do they keep hiding this stuff from us? It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they are telling us great big porkies.
johno
16 Aug 11 at 9:04 am
Is it possible that full disclosure of the documents would make the Garnaut study vulnerable to the technical criticisms explained by Garth Paltridge? The kind of helpful advice that was offered by a committee from the Academy of Science, which was tactfully reduced to a vague and innocuous comment after discussion with Garnaut himself?
Rafe
16 Aug 11 at 9:15 am
On a differnt note. Happy Anniversary to Juliar. It was on 16 august 2010 that she announced ‘there would be no carbon tax under a government I lead.’
If she takes carbon dioxide tax legislation to the forthcoming session of the Federal Parliament she is either not leading the government or a liar.
johno
16 Aug 11 at 9:26 am
How ironic. The IPA, which won’t tell us who is funding them, gets upset that a government department is complaining about a harrassing amount of FOI requests from them.
At a personal level, Sinclair ducked my invitation not long ago to make a succinct statement of his personal view of the state of AGW science – wouldn’t even link to a past statement of his that I might have missed.
Yeah, it’s all about openness, here at Catallaxy.
steve from brisbane
16 Aug 11 at 9:30 am
I have plenty of direct experience of the DCCEE. They are the laziest, most underemployed, least productive, and to a man and woman most rabidly pro-ALP and anti-Coalition group of parasites ever to disgrace the central bureaucracy.
And they are still not a complete department- they operate it must be said illegitimately in most cases and refer many real world functions to the Commonwealth Attorney General and Solicitor General as well as co-hosting biscuit dunking afternoons with the Dept of Agriculture.
And still, operational matters requiring urgent attention take six months and counting to action.
It would, under any other regime, be truly unbelievable. In this regime- it’s Tuesday.
Bamftiger (@Bamftiger)
16 Aug 11 at 9:34 am
you’re truly a drooling fool, steve. How is info about the IPA’s funding comparable to info about the details of tax modelling. This is now a debate about *means” (how much does the carbon tax cost? what are the assumptions behind the design of the tax?) not the science, and you’re still complaining?
jtfsoon
16 Aug 11 at 9:34 am
“39 hours to process each request”.
Yeah, right.
boy on a bike
16 Aug 11 at 9:40 am
Is the IPA funded by the taxpayer?
No.
Then it’s none of your business.
boy on a bike
16 Aug 11 at 9:42 am
September 19, 2010:
Let the sun shine in: Gillard.
Another lie.
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 9:52 am
Upset?? Are you out of your mind? That Age article is probably going to feature very heavily in fund raising activities. I reckon it’s worth at least $20,000 in the two weeks.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Aug 11 at 9:54 am
Why does it take 39 hours to find a document, fill in a couple of forms related to FOI, collect an appropriate signature or two, then pop the document in the post?
39 hours is roughly a standard full-time work week.
daddy dave
16 Aug 11 at 10:03 am
750 requests for FOI in 4 months?
Get real Jason: there is a harrassing way to use FOI, and the IPA is following it.
As for their funding – they run public anti climate change science campaigns as part of their drive again carbon pricing of any kind. (Correct me if I am wrong, but has there ever been an IPA paper suggesting that if you really want to have a policy to encourage reduced CO2, this is the best way to do it?.)
I think it is a matter of public interest to know who is paying for the promotion of crap science via the IPA, so I’ll complain about it as much as I like.
steve from brisbane
16 Aug 11 at 10:07 am
Poor filing system? Bad office management? Perhaps the Auditor-General needs to investigate.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Aug 11 at 10:08 am
steve from brisbane, says
“I think it is a matter of public interest to know who is paying for the promotion of crap science via the IPA, so I’ll complain about it as much as I like.
Whose public interest? It’s a private organisation and has a perfect right to question the Gummint, just as you or I have. That erstwhile institution’s behaviour of late has been opaque and hardly honest.
Steve! you just don’t want to see full disclosure. Also, if it is crap science as you say, then the IPA has lost its money. That’s a damn sight better than having bureaucrats skim it from us without any accountability.
Hubert East
16 Aug 11 at 10:29 am
Okay.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Aug 11 at 10:33 am
Steve
The IPA, which won’t tell us who is funding them, gets upset that a government department is complaining about a harrassing amount of FOI requests from them.
A case of Tu Quoque…
Sean
16 Aug 11 at 10:36 am
No Sean, your latin is wrong this is a non-sequitur.
Exhibit A: A government department failing to meet its legal responsibilities per FOA legislation.
Exhibit B: A request from a private citizen to a private organisation being turned down.
Token
16 Aug 11 at 10:41 am
I think I have seen that article before, Sinclair. Maybe it was the intricate detail of how it would work, at what rate, etc, that made me feel overwhelmed with detail and forget about it.
steve from brisbane
16 Aug 11 at 10:51 am
Vaclav Klaus asked…
“what do people that work at the Dept. of climate change do all day”?
Now we know. Fulfilling FOI requests because they don’t want to put all the information up on the web.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 10:55 am
Close it down.
That needs to be the Libs policy going into the election. Closing it down and making sure those ratbags never get another government job again.
They should also rip the freaking building down too with everything in it.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 10:58 am
wow, suddenly steve becomes the policy wonk when reading an article comparing two different approaches to carbon reduction but when it comes to govt departments designing the actual policy, never mind the details.
you are a two faced pansified hypocrite, steve
jtfsoon
16 Aug 11 at 11:00 am
You prefer the easy answers of the climate religion. “Tithe ten percent of your earnings to Big Government and carry on like a jerk”.
Infidel Tiger
16 Aug 11 at 11:01 am
750 requests at 1 week each – it would only take 28 officers to clear them within 6 months. Hardly an overwhelming task.
And now that we will have a pure market system for abating emissions, there is no need for any further direct action programs – right?
So what else will these people being doing? Tim Wilson has done them a favour.
Milton Von Smith
16 Aug 11 at 11:02 am
I have another theory why you can’t remember it.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Aug 11 at 11:04 am
I would be more enthusiastic about this tax if the govt actually abolished all these silly direct action plans – I thought that was the whole point? Instead we get another disastrous direct action plan – the energy ratings for homes.
jtfsoon
16 Aug 11 at 11:05 am
Tim Wilson.
Dude, keep at it. Don’t be swayed by anything they say or do.
Out of curiosity, how did the paper get information that the IPA was FOI’ing? They informed on them?
JC
16 Aug 11 at 11:08 am
Jason – I may be convinced that a outright carbon tax is the best way to deal with the issue – in fact, I often posted at my blog at the differences between the approaches and showed an inclination towards a carbon tax.
What I also know is that it’s pretty laughable to suggest that the IPA would be the body to support a carbon tax, while at the same time promoting all of the crap science reasons why there is no problem to be addressed at all.
As for the pansified stuff – typical of Catallaxy’s weird attitude that if you don’t agree with them, you’re not really a man.
Grow up.
steve from brisbane
16 Aug 11 at 11:09 am
Who gives a toss what you think Steve.
You’re such a wussified pansy.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 11:11 am
No steve, the pansified refers to your being coy about your double standards applied to a newspaper article versus a govt dept’s calculations
jtfsoon
16 Aug 11 at 11:11 am
a carbon dioxide tax in Australia will change the climate globally.
FTFY.
Gabrielle
16 Aug 11 at 11:11 am
You said last week that a doctor discovered your testicles were “moth-eaten.”
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 11:15 am
It got better, CL, I’m sure you’re relieved to know.
steve from brisbane
16 Aug 11 at 11:19 am
The moth?
Entropy
16 Aug 11 at 11:32 am
On a more serious note… It appears the government informed the Age about the IPA making FOI requests.
Now this is really fucking interesting as we have the state apparatus now divulging information on the public.
It doesn’t get rancid then this.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 11:44 am
If the IPA is grinding the FOI system to a halt as a vexatious applicant, then that is a legitimate public issue and the IPA is not above criticism. The Age would probably find out because they would be wondering why their own investigative unit wasn’t getting any production out of the system.
The title of this post is rather misleading, btw.
m0nty
16 Aug 11 at 12:24 pm
MontY
Firstly how exactly is the IPA behaving vexatiously? Where is the evidence to support this assertion?
Secondly, since when has a government the right to conspire with a newspaper to out someone or some group making FOI requests?
JC
16 Aug 11 at 12:29 pm
400 requests in a single day, JC! That would vex anyone.
m0nty
16 Aug 11 at 12:34 pm
Well its easy to see if its vexatious.
How many of the requests are for information previously requested but not delivered?
How many of the questions relate to partial release of information, thus leading to other questions?
Shades of East Anglia where because information wasnt released, requests were repeated, which then led to claims of “harrassment”.
Release the info. Or come up with a reason it shouldnt be. simple
thefrollickingmole
16 Aug 11 at 12:38 pm
I think you have to ask why the IPA is asking so many requests. Is it because they are getting new information that they are seeking clarification? Are they being blocked and so IPA is asking for the same or similar information in another way to try and overcome the blockage? Or is it, as claimed, that they are being vexatious?
Are the requests related? Can most of them be rolled into a small number of requests? I think someone is protesting too much. Particulary if, as it seems clear, it is all related to the modelling. The model, complete with assumptions, should be publically available anyway.
Entropy
16 Aug 11 at 12:38 pm
Tag frolicking!
Entropy
16 Aug 11 at 12:39 pm
Yes, but obviously they’re not being vexatious, because even the Age admits that the IPA is interested in climate change policy.
This is a policy they have opinions on, they’re interested in finding out more, and want to learn as much as they can about it.
FOIs that you don’t care about would be vexatious. FOIs about policy that you want to investigate is not vexatious, it’s using FOI as intended.
daddy dave
16 Aug 11 at 12:41 pm
Not just the modelling. Why even the need to go through FOI process – information should be available freely and online from the DCCEE.
Gabrielle
16 Aug 11 at 12:42 pm
Monty
Don’t be a dickhead. we don’t have to ask anything.
the government is way out of line discussing demands of FOI with a fucking low rent far newspaper like the Age.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 12:43 pm
This quote generally applies to this topic, in terms of the science behind the claims, and politics behind it.
“I’ve never seen anyone claim that something – anything – was so robust and certain … and then not want to prove it.”
MattyB
16 Aug 11 at 12:51 pm
So you see no upper limit on FOI requests for things you’re interested in? 400 in a day is not too many? Be reasonable, d-d.
m0nty
16 Aug 11 at 12:58 pm
It is a lot, I agree.
On the other hand, they didn’t submit 400 every day. They submitted most of their requests in one bundle, on one day, all together. You could argue that’s actually more efficient and helpful than doing it in dribs and drabs.
daddy dave
16 Aug 11 at 1:01 pm
Yes, difficult to know what the story is without more info. If they are requests for 400 documents, what is the issue? Presumably they are related and can be dealt with by the same staff, at the same time. In fact I would regard that as ONE request.
Unless of course the problem is trying to build the case why the FOI request should not be acceded to.
Entropy
16 Aug 11 at 1:06 pm
Perhaps the large number of requests is the fault of the department? Being clever little bureaucrats, maybe they have setup an FOI system where each bit of information needs to be requested separately.
They’re then in no position to whinge when a tenacious applicant decides to play the game their way and request the information one bit at a time.
That would be like Coles telling me that each purchase had to be put through as a separate credit card transaction, and then complaining to The Age that it took all day to sell me a shopping basket full of goods.
boy on a bike
16 Aug 11 at 1:07 pm
What else do they have to do all day? Surely they can process the requests in the morning and stare out the window in the afternoon? That’s the ususal public service day.
Infidel Tiger
16 Aug 11 at 1:09 pm
Haha.
I am tenacious.
You are vexatious.
He is mendacious.
m0nty
16 Aug 11 at 1:10 pm
That’s a very interesting theory.
daddy dave
16 Aug 11 at 1:11 pm
Nothing unusual about this. Dr David Jones and presumably others at the BOM have been doing this covertly for years for those who might have had dealings with the Warmophobes’ Anti-Christ. From a climategate email, Phil Jones to Wei-Chyung Wang and Tom Karl:-
Charles Bourbaki
16 Aug 11 at 1:13 pm
That’s odd – none of the IPA requests have shown up on the DCCEE’s FOI Log, which it has been obliged to publish since May 2011.
boy on a bike
16 Aug 11 at 1:16 pm
I was a bureaucrat once. I used to think up sh*t like this all the time to thwart our “enemies”. ie, the Minister, the government, the taxpayers and our customers. Anyone outside our department essentially.
boy on a bike
16 Aug 11 at 1:18 pm
You need to lodge FOI to see the FOI Log?
Deviously clever.
Gabrielle
16 Aug 11 at 1:18 pm
You might need to lodge an FOI in order to be given an FOI application form.
Very “Brazil”.
boy on a bike
16 Aug 11 at 1:20 pm
Why does it take 39 hours to process an application?
Indeed.
Adrien
16 Aug 11 at 2:15 pm
That’s a fair point. It doesn’t mitigate the government’s obfuscation one bit. Obviously the government’s lack of openness is more serious because they are the government but the IPA wields public influence and, considering the values it supposedly represents, being secretive about its income isn’t exactly virtuous.
Adrien
16 Aug 11 at 2:18 pm
Oh please, Adrien. It wields public influence and therefore its funding is a matter of public importance like the governmnt vis-a-vis the taxpayers. The IPA is a private organisation and is under no obligation to reveal its donors and financial backers.
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 2:25 pm
The IPA is not secretive about income – financial statements can be viewed here.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Aug 11 at 2:28 pm
Well, they do employ Labor voters.
benson
16 Aug 11 at 2:45 pm
Adrien
Assuming the IPA is 100% funded by Exxon, what the hell does that have to do with the validity of Departmental modelling?
jtfsoon
16 Aug 11 at 2:48 pm
The letter shows really bad judgment.
why provoke front page bad publicity?
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 3:05 pm
After the next election we won’t have a useless and expensive Modelling (Climate Change) Dept if Joe Hockey’s “Yep” means anything.
John of Cloverdale Perth WA
16 Aug 11 at 3:12 pm
Sinclair, I read the last annual report of the IPA.
The IPA, a supposedly a bought and pad for retainer of the corporate elite, gets by on not a lot less per year than a couple of public service super lump sums. The RSPCA has a better cash flow from just a few deceased estates of cat and dog lovers.
Comparing the cash flows of various public policy institutes would be a worth while project.
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 3:13 pm
Mr Wilson has engaged in this type of behavior before but in another area.
Pure opportunism and machiavellian just like Abbott. He might even be advising him as he is the tokenistic gay friend as seen in the media of late?
hmmmmmm discredits the reputation of the i.p.a, sorry peeps look bad to me.
helen
16 Aug 11 at 3:16 pm
I just had a gander at the last annual report; the Kochtopus watermark is a fine touch.
dover_beach
16 Aug 11 at 3:20 pm
Wowee, from the names alone, the IPA board has an albedo asymptotically approaching one. Just a bit of a sausage fest too.
All that list needs is Arthur Charles Herbert Runcie MacAdam Jarrett.
m0nty
16 Aug 11 at 3:26 pm
the multi-purpose IPA income 2009/10 = $1,73m
The single purpose climate institute income = $2.65m
http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/images/reports/tci_annualreport_20092010.pdf
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 3:29 pm
What’s the latest at the fantasy football site, Mont?
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 3:30 pm
If the Paltridge critique of the input to the Garnaut report is correct the Government cannot afford full disclosure because a lot of scientists who have no personal stake in the climate caper might get off the fence and become outright critics of the so-called settled science.
Especially when they realise that THEIR budgets are being squeezed to fund climate studies and the Climate Change bureaucracy. Maybe appleals to their self interest will work!
Rafe
16 Aug 11 at 3:39 pm
I had to collate papers for an FOI report and deemed it prudent not to include the minutes of a meeting where the head of my branch wrote in the margin “went to sleep at this point”.
Rafe
16 Aug 11 at 3:41 pm
Why thanks for asking CL, actually I… hey wait a minute…
m0nty
16 Aug 11 at 3:45 pm
an FOI squared request is an FOI request to see all the papers related to a previous request.
such requests are good at showing all the senior people who took an interest in the previous request.
an FOI request on the silly letter saying no more FOI requests is already submitted – I assume?
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 4:02 pm
Vexatious litigants have obsessive personality traits who refuse to accept adverse outcomes, regardless of weather thay have adequate legal representation.
This can be applied to both sides of politics.
Self serving in nature like politics itself.
gerry harvey
16 Aug 11 at 4:11 pm
If the Paltridge critique of the input to the Garnaut
So Rafe, according to you all scientists are either whores or cowards. As you have described them over time, there are: 1) Scientists who prostitute themselves by supporting the science of AGW to get funding (presumably falisifying or fabricating their findings in the process); and 2) Scientists who “sit on the fence” about AGW despite professional misgivings because they are cowards with nothing to gain from speaking out, but who might be convinced to speak out if they could be convinced there was money it it for them.
Your work is beginning to make the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion look sane and reasonable by comparison. Your Great Big Conspiracy Theory of science is barking mad. Your vile and vicious attacks on scientists are grossly offensive. (BTW, got any evidence for this crackpot nonsense?)
Here’s another view of scientists you might like to consider – that they are human beings like the rest of us, some good, some not so good, but for the most part they are a profession which goes about it work with dedication and integrity in order to promote the public good (with occasional lapses and errors that are inevitably corrected over time).
And yes, if you conclude from this comment that I have just lost the last vestige of the considerable respect I had for you, you are dead right. Your “work” in this area serves no good purpose and is a great discredit to you.
HandyMan
16 Aug 11 at 4:18 pm
Some are, Metro.
lol…You’re so reverential, metro. Get off your knee-pads and turn off the fridge.
Metro, in Roman Times… the good old days…. you would have been flogged mercilessly for talking to a free man such as Rafe like this.
go turn off the fridge and slow down the exhales.. Now please. Right away.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 4:23 pm
Bollocks.
A ‘straight’ FOI request takes about 20 minutes to draft responses to, 20 minutes to either locate the file OR request it from archive and 20 minutes to locate and copy the item when it does surface.
10 minutes to run past the next supervisor, 10 minutes to rewrite and resubmit, another 10 to get it re-signed.
The hierarchy (EL-2/SES levels) might mull it over for another 2-3 hours. yes is easy, no is not – the system is set up that way.
4:30 of staff time, tops, and most of that waiting for some EL-2/SES to make a call.
hell, double it, 9 hours.
Still nowhere near 39 manhours!
They are either lying through their teeth or lazy/useless/incompetent in DCC.
Or all three.
Mk50
Brisbane
MarkL of Canberra
16 Aug 11 at 5:55 pm
HandyMan, it is very disappointing that you don’t like me any more. Just when a door of my kitchen cupboards has come off its hinges.
It is not a matter of cowards and whores, it is just the incentives in the system as they evolved since the Government became bigger and more intrusive and more important than any other source of research funds. My fundamental research was funded by a grant from the Meat Industry Research Committee but that was in a very different political climate and a very different resarch tradition.
Paltridge desribed very clearly how those incentives work, and the way political imperatives intrude into climate studies more than most fields.
He provided a gold plated example of the “crackpot nonsense” that I am talking. That was Case 1 that I listed.
Rafe
16 Aug 11 at 5:57 pm
Such outraged indignation.
Arthur Schopenhauer’s 38 Ways To Win An Argument:
1. Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
An Australian professor of physics told Professor Brian O’Brien, “…the only funding I can get for them and to get their PhDs is greenhouse funding from Canberra or wherever…”.
manalive
16 Aug 11 at 6:04 pm
Just answer the fucking question [deleted]!
[Mark - No. Sinc]
.
16 Aug 11 at 6:23 pm
what about treasury modelling; that’s been so politicised during the Rudd/Gillard Govt I think that Dept should be disbanded and a competent accountancy firm be appointed; one who can produce a report without a disclaimer unlike the Garnaut, the BOM and CSIRO recent reports and even the Govt’s carbon tax brochure (the Govt does not necessarily endorse the contents …)
why can’t the people expect an entity who will actually accept legal responsibility for their work
val majkus
16 Aug 11 at 6:28 pm
Jesus Dot
Tal
16 Aug 11 at 6:31 pm
It’s called going Graeme Bird on someone’s arse…
I’m sorry. It’s an awful in joke that Adrien will get.
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/why-open-capital-markets-will-tend-to-impoverish/#comment-36451
Graeme thinks I’m some unseemly (far left!?) Joachim of Fiore figure opposing his shadowy and righteous John of Gaunt figure.
.
16 Aug 11 at 6:34 pm
The IPA apparently receives less in donations per year than the salary of your average ABC newsreader.
Yobbo
16 Aug 11 at 6:56 pm
Don’t tell me Wayne is back again, JC??
Is that really you, Metro? Anyway, congratulations on learning how to use blockquotes.
Fisky
16 Aug 11 at 7:19 pm
Oh fuck off you stupid, self aggrandising fuckchop.
.
16 Aug 11 at 7:23 pm
Fisky
I think it’s my carbon slave. I can sorta smell the varmint even over the web.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 7:30 pm
Who’s Metro?
Where is he?
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 7:33 pm
Note the latent ludicrous antisemitism and ahistorical rubbish this unqualified big noter supports.
.
16 Aug 11 at 7:36 pm
I wonder how the Treasury modelling handles international political contingencies.
Waxman-Markey Bill passed the U.S. house of representative in 2009 by all of seven votes.
A cap and trade bill stalled in the Senate, and was in effect pronounced dead in March 2010 in the face of opposition from Republican senators, as well as Democrats eager not to jeopardise their re-election chances. The Republicans boycotted the Senate committee’s work on the bill, insisting on a cost analysis of the proposal by the EPA.
Japan will be losing interest in climate change action too.
Such bills will never pass a republican controlled House now or the Senate after 2012.
Obama could lose in 2012. See http://rove.com/articles/323 for Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012.
Bachman is the candidate to beat in the republican race because the others lack unique selling points and a personal story – she was no time for climate change alarmism. Going to the centre does not win net votes for her rivals.
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 7:44 pm
Handyman says: “So Rafe, according to you all scientists are either whores or cowards”
The correct context is “Damned whores and God’s police”; it supposedly applied to women, which is neither here nor there. The only scientists who do not slot into either category are not working IN the system. Google Clive Spash.
cohenite
16 Aug 11 at 7:51 pm
“Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion look sane and reasonable” Says anonymous commenter! Outrageous outrage outrages!
wreckage
16 Aug 11 at 7:54 pm
It’s “Handyman”, CL.
Fisky
16 Aug 11 at 7:57 pm
I disagree on two fronts.
All the candidate have unique selling points and a personal story.
I also doubt that she’s ‘the candidate to beat.’ That’s Romney.
daddy dave
16 Aug 11 at 8:00 pm
I think we can assume that scientists are no better than the rest of us, perhaps worse, because of a competitive streak that leads to a cutting of corners.
Paul Johnson’s book Intellectuals illustrates this.
He was happy to admit the brilliance of Marx, Sartre, Shelley, Tolstoy, Brecht, Ibsen, Hemingway and others, but showed how appalling they were as people.
Their greed, their lust and promiscuity, their deceit and arrogance, and the despicable way they treated those around them and especially wives, mistresses, lovers and children while proclaiming a selfless love for humanity.
We would not want any of them as friends or even people we would let through the front gate of our homes.
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 8:13 pm
DD,
Romney has a base of support but the rest of his party will vote for anyone but him. He is a shape-shifter. He is like Hillary, but less trusted.
Bachmann raised 23 foster children and five of her own.
No matter what, everyone has to respect that.
Having everyone’s basic respect for your decency and willingness to really put yourself out of others is a big plus in an election.
That is why personal stories matter. They show what timber you really are made of.
Like Obama, Bachmann’s main claim for office will be the fact of running a successful campaign for president. she had a proper job before public office too.
If Bachmann’s political skills mature over the campaign, having the first women major candidate for president will grow in the rest of her party.
Her VP could be Senator Mario Rubio from Florida.
A women and an hispanic as the GOP ticket! That is a unique selling point.
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 8:22 pm
People respond to monetary rewards and penalties, whether you want them to or not. Indeed there’s some evidence that they will whether they want to or not.
If there’s money and jobs proving the existence, likelihood, severity, or politically aggrandising “solutions” of/to AGW, then the results will come.
wreckage
16 Aug 11 at 8:27 pm
wreckage, good point!
the supply curve for global warming slopes upwards, and sellers survive in competition by being the best at anticipating what buyers want.
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 8:31 pm
oops,
should be “the supply curve for global warming research”
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 8:32 pm
For Steve from Brisbane – I can reveal one source of funding for the IPA: me.
Gregoryno6
16 Aug 11 at 9:08 pm
Ignore the troll Gregory.
JC
16 Aug 11 at 9:15 pm
Rafe says first seeks to deny the accusation made against him “It is not a matter of cowards and whores but immediately goes on to confirm it: “it is just the incentives in the system as they evolved since the Government became bigger and more intrusive and more important than any other source of research funds. In other words, according to Rafe, scientists are whores who will prostitute themselves, their ethics, their findings in order the get grants. As if they could not get grants for other work; as if they would not publish honest findings if their research and observations disproved the theory of AGW. And if the science of AGW depends on Big Government Rafe, how come the stream of scientific papers on the subject did not slow under the 8 years of the Bush Administration in the US and the 11 years of Howard in Australia. See, in order to fit this dumb arse Great Bog Climate Conspiracy of yours Big Government has to be striped of all political character and just become this amorphous thing that wants to believe in AGW. And, why would that be Rafe? Where is the advantage for any government from AGW? Have you noticed how governments the world over struggle to deal with it as a public policy issue? Noticed how it has cost at least three political leaders their jobs in Australia? You and your theory are full of shit Rafe. This rubbish doesn’t pass the laugh test, let alone the common sense test.
But no, according to Rafe, scientist are prepared to lie and cheat – and in the process scare humanity into taking action to deal with a non-existant problem – simply to get grant money. Money which must be spent on research, it should be noted, and does not go to line their pockets. This is a gross libel, a monstrous accusation that is as ugly as it is stupid and completely without foundation.
At least Jim Rose has the virtue of not trying do deny the charge. He says scientist are worse than the rest of us, apparently persuaded by one book about “Marx, Sartre, Shelley, Tolstoy, Brecht, Ibsen, Hemingway” and “their greed, their lust and promiscuity, their deceit and arrogance”. What Jim gains in honesty he makes up for with stupidity. You will look in vain for a climate scientist among that lot. In fact, there is not a scientist among them. And even if they were guilty of these personal failings, that wouldn’t mean they were incompetent in their chosen field so just what this line of argument is meant to prove is anybody’s guess.
Menawhile as Rafe and Jim go on slandering scientists, they remain happy to enjoy the modern world benefits provided by science. Hey guys, guess who gave the world the computers you generate this filthy bilge on? No, it’s not science Rafe and Jim don’t like. It is science that does not fit with their ideological world view. Bad science! Bad scientists! You must be punished for disagreeing with Rafe and Jim, who on the basis of no work in the field, will vilify you for disagreeing with them. And they will trash anyone and anything who gets in the way of their precious world view. Including their own reputations. BTW Jim, I’m still waiting for that list of science journal articles about the great ’70s global cooling consensus … the chances of that turning up are as good as those for you and Rafe showing some decency and intellectual integrity.
HandyMan
16 Aug 11 at 9:56 pm
Shut up, Handy, you verbose buffoon.
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 10:02 pm
That’s easy.
Al Gore.
C.L.
16 Aug 11 at 10:03 pm
Some of my best friends are scientists; and they’re all jerks.
cohenite
16 Aug 11 at 10:13 pm
Speaking of “filthy bilge”, H Man’s effort: 591 words.
No sense, just empty words, like the empty vessel containing the filthy bilge.
still on about global cooling? lol it’s warming now, do keep up.
Gabrielle
16 Aug 11 at 10:17 pm
He already explicitly denied that that was what he was saying. But you go and put words into his mouth again, anyway.
The problem here, Handyman, is that you genuinely didn’t understand Rafe’s response. Try a little humility and try to understand people’s point, rather than imposing your own caricatures and prejudice onto them.
daddy dave
16 Aug 11 at 10:20 pm
Does that mean you are not going to offer to fix the door on my kitchen cupboard?
Rafe
16 Aug 11 at 10:29 pm
Hey guys, guess who gave the world the computers you generate this filthy bilge on?
Capitalism.
wreckage
16 Aug 11 at 10:32 pm
I love it when global warmenists crack up. Keep typing HandyMan.
Infidel Tiger
16 Aug 11 at 10:33 pm
Yes indeed, and I get paid a lot of money to do it.
Seriously though, your first question is one that Monkcton amusingly asked at the Press Club debate. What the fuck do they do all day at the Climate Change Dept?
Abu Chowdah
16 Aug 11 at 10:38 pm
Handyman, I think you missed a chance to go a Jack Nicolson and tell Rafe – “You want answers? You can’t handle the truth…”
Token
16 Aug 11 at 10:39 pm
Hey guys, guess who gave the world the computers you generate this filthy bilge on?
Vast, no, staggering quantities of electricity.
wreckage
16 Aug 11 at 10:45 pm
HandyMan,
I did post a range of studies of the incidence of academic fraud and miscounduct in the market for ideas based on self-reporting and reports of others.
I also referred to studies of workplace cheating and theft and misconduct.
What is the motto of the Royal Society? Take no one’s word for it?
Jim Rose
16 Aug 11 at 11:17 pm
Hey guys, guess who gave the world the computers you generate this filthy bilge on?
UPS?
Gabrielle
16 Aug 11 at 11:45 pm
OK, I’ll do my even handed man of reason thing here:
a. I share a hunch that the Department of Climate Change may have long been overstaffed; it is more or less a “traditional” Labor thing to build up a surplus of public servants in pet areas, although in this case, staff numbers may be high in anticipation of lots more work about to come, when a carbon price finally arrives.
b. from my limited knowledge and distant past exposure to the field, FOI requests can be extremely time consuming to answer, depending on the nature of the request and the complexity of material a department is handling. Requests re tax modelling would not be like pulling someone’s personnel file, or an investigation file. I strongly suspect that hundreds of FOI requests in a short space of time would be met with dismay by any Department.
c. The post is about the Department telling the IPA to stop sending in requests til the backlog is dealt with. It is not saying the current ones won’t be answered.
Big deal.
All governments, Labor or Liberal, have a right to warn off excessive trolling exercises conducted via FOI, whether or not they are done in the hope that it will turn up something of political use.
d. Of course the IPA has already decided that this scheme is rotten; see the comments of Wilson, as well as the fact that the organisation has long run a campaign against their being any science issue to address at all.
The IPA is clearly about running a campaign to persuade the public against this scheme, and (it would appear) against any scheme, despite the short article in which Sinclair noted a preference for a carbon tax over an ETS. (Something he has said in this blog too.)
Any criticism of the modelling of the scheme from an organisation that is approaching the topic from that angle has to be taken with a great deal of skepticism.
My hunch is that economic modelling of something like this is going to have a whole lot of guesswork anyway, given that it depends on stuff like international politics, possible but highly uncertain technological changes, and even indirectly on the weather in the next few years. This doesn’t mean you don’t try to model it, but at the same time, its inherent limitations should also be taken into account when trying to criticise it.
This view will no doubt be criticised, but I still suspect I’m right.
steve from brisbane
17 Aug 11 at 12:29 am
Key words:
C.L.
17 Aug 11 at 12:37 am
Oh fuck off. The IPA has a right to ask anything it likes whenever it wants.
You even admitted that rat-hole of a department is overstaffed so what is the problem with fulfilling those requests. All they needed to do was inform the IPA Tim Wilson that their request would take a little time as I’m sure there are a large number of RDO’s in that sewer trap.
Instead the Dept goes and rats to the government who in turn go rat to The Age. Dishonorable pricks.
That’s why that rat hole needs to be closed down with every single one of the hucksters told they will never get a job in the government again if they are still there when the Libs take back government shortly. Fuck’em. call it tough love.
JC
17 Aug 11 at 12:37 am
LOL. You funny tonight.
Gabrielle
17 Aug 11 at 12:41 am
Lol
And Abbott should turn around and tell those idiots point blank that they will all be fired without mercy when they’re back in government and not one of them will be allowed to ever work in government again if they’re found walking around the Department of climate change.
That’s the way to depopulate that rat hole right now.
The rest of the APS needs to be clearly warned that any hank panky in terms of taking Greens/ALP sides will be severely punished in the only way they know, which is the sack.. no matter how senior they are.
They only have to look at what’s happened in NSW to understand what’s gone on with the senior ranks.
JC
17 Aug 11 at 12:43 am
This article (with a speech dating from 1985) by John Stone in the current Quadrant is a must-read regarding the execrable state of the APS:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/7-8/the-degradation-of-the-public-service
Abu Chowdah
17 Aug 11 at 12:58 am
Abu
This stuff never applies to you. You know that, right?
Jc
17 Aug 11 at 1:03 am
LOL.
There are a lot of people in the APS who believe in public service. I’m one and I find the politicisation, boondoggling, empire-building, feather-bedding and plain nugatory effort to be a tragedy. The growth of useless APS departments and agencies is a curse under both the Left and Right.
Abu Chowdah
17 Aug 11 at 1:28 am
The public service ought to be admired. It once was.
.
17 Aug 11 at 7:03 am
Token,
you missed other posts of mine suggesting that said ‘et the science be settled’.
that would release the debate to discuss the economics is globawl warming.
Jim Rose
17 Aug 11 at 7:50 am
I used to laugh at claims Howard was politicizing the APS. Maybe at the DG (Secretary)level. He’ll, a know a babe who was heavily involved in young labor at uni who got a job at PM&C while the libs were in power.
But the QPS really takes it to a whole new level. The hacks would be neck and neck in numbers with the professionals at the executive levels. And we are in the midst of parachute season for ministerial advisors looking for a safe place to ride out the coming apocalypse. Down to AO levels.
Maybe it’s a Queensland thing. When the LNP get in, the night of the long knives will no doubt result in a lot of collateral damage, after which they no doubt will install their own hacks.
Entropy
17 Aug 11 at 8:08 am
For years lefties have been denying the existence of objective truth. ‘Science is accident’ they parotted in their semiotics seminars. It follows that they must have believd that ‘science’ had no special claim to be the one true knowledge.
But then a few scientists cottoned on to the fact that they could get lots of lovely grant money and fame if they promoted a theory that allowed governments to increase their sway over all our lives. Something was needed to replace the failed god of socialism. So a few scientists came up with the armageddon of AGW. Isn’t this all just a wee bit too convenient?
And if you want to do research that goes against the paradigm? Tough bosoms. You won’t get funding.
I still remember being told by scientists that ulcers were caused by diet and stress. That was the consensus for years. One man turned that around, but had to infect himself to do it. The history of science is littered with such cases of the consensus being totally wrong. And in many cases when you investigate you find that the consensus in question was actually founded by a very small group of scientists.
Of course scientists are whores and cowards, aren’t we all. The point is to overcome our inclination to moral turpitude. It would seem that the climate scientists behind the AGW fraud have not.
Rococo Liberal
17 Aug 11 at 8:43 am
- Lucretius
- Infidel Tiger
Nothing changes.
dover_beach
17 Aug 11 at 10:34 am
Thta’s possibly the first and last time I’ll be compared with an Epicurean poet!
Infidel Tiger
17 Aug 11 at 10:46 am
It can only happen on a cultured site such as ours, IT.
dover_beach
17 Aug 11 at 10:58 am
Token,
you missed other posts of mine suggesting that said
‘Let the science be settled’.
that would release the debate to discuss the economics is globawl warming.
Jim Rose
17 Aug 11 at 1:30 pm
39 hours per application,
So that’s 17160 hours for 440 applications in one day
2145 8 hour days
429 working weeks
= 8.25 years
So one day of FOI applications created over 8 years of work for government employees.
jen
17 Aug 11 at 2:47 pm
Running around the tan has it’s benefits i see.
wow what great enthusiasm and energy tim wilson has!!
henrietta
17 Aug 11 at 5:56 pm
How long does it take to texta out most of each line, on papers stored in sequence,photocopy them and place them in an envelope?
(My experience of FOI when asking for details of any contentious policy a Labor govt wants to hide away–eg Dangerous Dog Laws , in most states, for starters)
Oh, maybe the photocopier isn’t working?
The dept’s excuse just doesn’t cut it
Jazza
17 Aug 11 at 6:36 pm
Capitalists’ joke
There was this little boy, who after watching TV one night asked his father, “What is politics?” And the father said, “Well, let me explain it this way. I go to work every day and bring home the money – so I am what you call a Capitalist. Now your mother takes the money, pays the bills and makes sure everything runs well – so she is called the Government. And because we take care of you, you would be the People. Now your nanny is the Working Class and your little baby brother would be what we all consider the Future.” The little boy said, “Okay,” and went out to play. Later that night, he was awakened by the baby crying. He got up and went into the baby’s room and, WOW, did it stink ….very bad diaper. So he went into his parent’s room, but his mom was sleeping and his dad was missing. So he went looking for his dad and he heard sounds from his nanny’s room. He tried the door, it was locked then he looked through the keyhole and saw his dad and the nanny going at it together in the bed. So the little boy decided to go back to sleep. The next morning when he saw his dad he said, “Dad, I know what politics really means now!” His dad very proudly said, “Well, great. Tell me in your own words.” “Well,” said the little boy, “Politics is when the Capitalists screw the Working Class, while the Government sleeps, the People are ignored and the Future is in deep shit….”
Go Timmy you hot thing you!!!!!!!!!
Capitalist's joke
17 Aug 11 at 8:29 pm
Dear Tim,
Obsessive compulsive disorder=vexatious litigant= political bully boy????
Are you the socially inept nerd in need of a good media story again???
nice game plan at play here for the i.p.a obsessed with a leftists agenda .
have a lovely day
helen
18 Aug 11 at 9:20 am
In this age of Google, it’s mind boggling that it would take more than 5 minutes to gather all the required info for an FOI application.
Even if the DEECC don’t have an internal Google appliance (or it’s equivalent), everything should still be filed in an electronic records management system like TRIM or RecFind. They might even have a content management system like FileNet. I’ve never met a public servant that wasn’t in love with files….
If they don’t have something like this, they are worse than incompetent.
Maybe we should stick in an FOI asking what sort of filing management system they have, and what percentage of their files are properly managed?
boy on a bike
18 Aug 11 at 10:23 am
What does tim wilson exactly do there?
You guys are getting weird and not becoming sophisticated politicos.
emotionally stunded adults with corporate psychopathic tendencies and egos to match…?
dear oh dear, sad really and pathetic to some individuals
jen
18 Aug 11 at 3:21 pm
You’re right
This is climate gate all over again. The same dishonest fishing expedition by denialist trouble makers. The same attempt by the targeted organization to defend itself from a tidal wave of vexatious email requests. The same right wing conspiratorial crap from the hordes of gibbering media orcs waiting out there in the darkness for any factoids that might fall their way. How about the IPA comes clean and tells us whose interests Wilson is so frantically busy defending. Last time it was the tobacco donors to the IPA this time it is the electricity generators who donate. The idea that Tim Wilson is interested in the ‘truth’ about the carbon tax- ETS or anything else for that matter is enough to make a cat laugh. Like Wilson and the other adherents to the law of the jungle at the IPA Sinclair Davidson is just another smug, self-absorbed neo-liberal, media tart.
Doug Evans
18 Aug 11 at 3:41 pm
Yes but Tim Wilson is “nice” to look at according to my gen y shallow friend.. (excuse that dear sirs.)
All status and no substance..
Relax Doug.
jen
18 Aug 11 at 5:23 pm
[...] Instead of forcing the IPA to make FOI requests – the government could just make public the information about its carbon tax – but it won’t. [...]
39 hours… : Hey… what did I miss? | Institute of Public Affairs
18 Aug 11 at 5:31 pm
Clearly a palpable hit. This one’s been mortally wounded and is walking in circles blathering away like King Lear. Go the IPA!
Abu Chowdah
18 Aug 11 at 5:56 pm
OMG, sinc Dougy has outed you. LOl
I just love over top leftie derangement syndrome.
JC
18 Aug 11 at 6:36 pm
rent a crowd has arrived?
Rafe
18 Aug 11 at 7:22 pm
“Under the relentless pressure of the 24 hour news cycle we are forced to favour gotcha stories over substantive revelations in FOI documents. Judges travel costs and so on prevail over the public’s right to know the important news about their government. It’s our job to maintain this sense of proportion as the only truly credible media in Australia.”
And the i.p.a is…..?(insert credibilty here)
Tim Wilson won a walkely in the year…?
for gotcha journalism
jen
18 Aug 11 at 7:40 pm
I reckon Tim is going to win the Blair Comley Transparency in Government award this year.
Sinclair Davidson
18 Aug 11 at 7:43 pm
Who got the Ouija board out of the cupboard? Why are the dead editors of Pravda posting here?
Some critics of capitalism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pFC3LKMIQo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6q0slMhDw8&feature=related
.
18 Aug 11 at 7:45 pm
Doug Evans,
what is a neo-liberal? other than a sustained sneer?
It seems to be a vast pensioner conspiracy led by Friedman and Hayek in their retirements to rule the world – so secret because few had ever heard of Hayek, and Friedman was not so prominent outside the USA.
The people who have done the most of work publicising Hayak’s name is the Left in the course of their rants demonising him incorrectly as a member of the Chicago school.
Hayek did not make a comeback as an acceptable type to quote in most economic textbooks until the late 1990s.
Jim Rose
18 Aug 11 at 7:45 pm
Tim Wilson won a walkely [sic] in the year…?
Tim’s a journalist?
Gabrielle
18 Aug 11 at 7:46 pm
He is NOT i repeat Not a journalist that is the point!!!
Please read the Crikey blog below on this Very issue.
(Mr Davidson keep it coming sir, love the wit, it’s good but not perfect.)
Crikey on this very issue;
Readers might remember back in April, when The Australian was whinging about government departments releasing too much information.
Well, now that it’s the IPA’s voluminous demands for information, they’re suddenly big fans of it:
Transparency is about putting as much information in the public domain as possible, not about limiting the flow. The WikiLeaks exercise shows that volume alone does not make a free and open society. But it demonstrated citizens can never have too much information about the operations of governments.To suggest otherwise abrogates the compact between the state and the people.
check it out below….
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2011/08/17/the-oz-too-much-information-suddenly-okay-again/
jen
18 Aug 11 at 7:53 pm
Information. Not useless garbage.
.
18 Aug 11 at 7:55 pm
Don’t be silly darling. Everyone and anyone is a journalist.
Abu Chowdah
18 Aug 11 at 7:57 pm
Nope, can’t see ‘journalist’ anywhere:
And he’s damn fine looking too.
Gabrielle
18 Aug 11 at 7:59 pm
Do Crikey subscribers have interest in anything else except the editorials of the Australian?
Quentin George
18 Aug 11 at 7:59 pm
Gabrielle – only journalists can have opinions on things or access information. You know that.
Quentin George
18 Aug 11 at 8:00 pm
I was under the impression that only journos received Walkleys, yet Jen seems to think anyone can. Odd.
Gabrielle
18 Aug 11 at 8:02 pm
And one more for the road Mr Davidson,
http://foi-privacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/rsi-in-name-of-foi.html
Good-night to you all. (go have a nice lie down and vintage wine after all this sir(s)…..(Bows profusely)
Ummmmmm….What year would you suggest Sinclair?
agragarian socialist
18 Aug 11 at 8:02 pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/04/freedom-information-rules-access-data
readers comments are apt are they not?
anglophile
18 Aug 11 at 8:14 pm
Well that was a particularly incoherent, inchoate and ineffective little invasion.
wreckage
18 Aug 11 at 9:19 pm
Oh wait…. it seems to be ongoing.
I think the moral here is that the world is divided into people worthy of freedom (for example, of information) and people who must, regrettably, be suppressed.
Have I got that right, trolls?
wreckage
18 Aug 11 at 9:22 pm
What the hell is going on!!!!
Tal
18 Aug 11 at 9:27 pm
Gotcha…not trolling just foi in the name of freedom…from the other side
That,.is all folks and good day
Jen
19 Aug 11 at 1:30 pm
Gab
I believe Mr Wilson is playing for the other team and quite open about it too.
jtfsoon
19 Aug 11 at 2:06 pm
Yes Gab. You’ll have to stop fantasising about Tim and you reclining decorously on your fluffed up pillows on a Sunday morning while watching Bolt Report.
steve from brisbane
19 Aug 11 at 2:21 pm
gab, never the twain shall meet that is the attraction with wilson eh?
great comment from steve, she is not the only one.
hilarious observation and very ,very true.
If we want to wake up every boring with a liberal in our bedrooms ,who do you think people want ???
cheers
anglophile
19 Aug 11 at 2:48 pm
gab, never the twain shall meet that is the attraction with wilson eh?
great comment from steve, she is not the only one.
hilarious observation and very ,very true.
If we want to wake up every sunday morning with a liberal in our bedrooms ,who do you think people want ???
cheers
anglophile
19 Aug 11 at 2:49 pm
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/bad-news-the-buck-stops-with-you-dear-reader-20110813-1irh6.html
Yes Dr leslie, you are so right and that is why Gab watches Tim et al for shallow reasons like i do.
jen
19 Aug 11 at 4:03 pm
Leslie Cannold wrote the article? The Leslie Cannold of “a finalist in the best science tweet contest” fame? Doesn’t impress me.
Now if she was a journalist and had a Walkley sitting next to her Tweet-almost-trophy, then I’d read her article.
Gab
19 Aug 11 at 4:18 pm
Jase
Just because a player bats for the other team doesn’t mean one can’t admire his good looks.
Gab
19 Aug 11 at 4:19 pm
ummmmm You do know that Jen was being sarcastic with her Walkely comment don’t you peeps?
A great margrate cho observation on politics, the right and this line of conversation that rings true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF97qGgyq6w
Beware offensive language in the above clip Mr Sinclair.
[Nice boots. Sinc]
Agragarian socialist
19 Aug 11 at 5:29 pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/15/activism-protest
touche
gty
19 Aug 11 at 6:56 pm
Nooooooooo. Really?
Gab
19 Aug 11 at 7:02 pm
The kind of lefties that show up trolling on centre-right blogs are incapable of imagining that the right are not what they had imagined.
wreckage
19 Aug 11 at 8:15 pm
Gotcha…not trolling just foi in the name of freedom…from the other side
That,.is all folks and good day
Yes, yes. Other people only want freedom because they are bad. You deserve it because you are virtuous.
wreckage
19 Aug 11 at 8:17 pm
How is seeking information anything except looking for the truth? And if he has an agenda… so what? “Hide the truth so that the truth may live,” kind of thing.
daddy dave
19 Aug 11 at 8:24 pm
Sarcasim especially what i posted, is the lowest form of wit, so why did you respond to it…?
How do you know i am to the left and not right of centre or otherwise?
…………because of what i post..that is the machiavellian persona darling.
I like Tim Wilson et al and the i.p.a, i have no probs with them at all.
Cheers play nice.
jen
20 Aug 11 at 2:26 pm
Thanking you sir, glad you have a sense of humour.
cheers and have a good one!!;)
agragarian socialist
20 Aug 11 at 2:32 pm
jen, your thinking is a confused mishmash and you’re using sarcasm to try to skate along. It’s a common enough trick. But still, we like to call bullshit when we see it around here.
because you’re trying desperately to nail the Australian for hypocracy; you believe the Department when they say each FOI takes 39 hours; you accuse Tim Wilson of having no substance; various things.
daddy dave
20 Aug 11 at 2:52 pm
Hypocrisy and b.s.s is not akin to you as well?
Mindgames are played by all including you with the above post. nice try.
My misconstrued comments are not my problem but yours.
jen
20 Aug 11 at 3:14 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGbx-MvxC8&feature=related
Hope she makes better sense than my mishmash aka comments here.
jen
20 Aug 11 at 3:32 pm
It doesn’t really matter how offensive, threatening words are, nor does it matter how idiotic or mistaken their arguments are. It is in the overwhelming interest of the health of our “shallow democracy/ society that they be allowed to express them and it is an existential threat to our liberty if any-one is empowered to stop them.
keep that in mind daddy dave.
helen
20 Aug 11 at 6:01 pm
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/luiz_inacio_lula_da_silva/index.html
Future gen y leaders may like to have a look at this man’s 80% popularity and success rate.
Despite not having the overachieving and illustrious credentials of Tim Wilson, he has done something right in Brazil.
sally
20 Aug 11 at 6:48 pm