censorship

Reading the excellent The Australian, in particular a viewpoint regarding "LGBTIQ" (written by a G), I came across a remarkable comment, also from a G. Not entirely fair to a certain other culture, but completely on point regarding our own. Here is some of it:

Christopher Monckton of Brenchley draws our attention to another highly-paid individual in a position of trust who had taken the easy way out when called upon to stand up for principles.

In the U.S. we have had a number of attacks in which police have been murdered in the course of their duty. Whether there was a good reason for the anger of the murderer, there was no justification for this response. But my point is this: We still see American police out on the street doing their duty, even though doing so might cost them their lives.

But there is no such edifying example from Professor John Butterworth, "the useless bureaucrat in charge of the College’s department of Physics and Astronomy", as Monckton calls him. Faced with protests about some colleagues running a seminar on climate change - but one (HORROR!) at which a skeptical eye would be cast upon the mainstream viewpoint - the cowardly Butterworth asked the organiser to cancel his booking.

Compare: Ordinary police continue to risk their actual rives to do their job; but Butterworth, in a much more privileged and responsible position, cannot even risk some criticism.

Both butterworth and the entire UCL have trashed their reputations over this.

There is a more general point to be made here.

I've been trying to get raw temperature date from the BOM website. Remember, this is data whose collection we as taxpayers have financed over the years: from thermometers behind old post offices in one-horse towns in the 19th century, all the way to modern computerised weather stations. But we paid for it, just as we pay the salaries of the alarmists who populate what is laughingly called a bureau of "meteorology".

So let's see what the site looks like:

Around 1930, some prescient souls warned the Germans that Hitler wasn't just a hot-head. That is, the coming holocaust was foretold. But most good Germans said it was rubbish, things like that just don't happen in a cultured nation like Germany.

It did. And now we have to wonder about the future for Australia, even if Australia with its easy-going attitude seems like the very last place this sort of evil might take hold. A major national newspaper—not some peripheral extremist rag—published this cartoon:

Let's be very clear about what we see here. That isn't a depiction of any actual Jewish leader against whom some accusation is being levelled. It isn't the group of Jewish youth on a hill who, some say, were cheering the bombing of the Hamas rocket launchers that had been pounding the Jewish homes. I'll tell you exactly what that hook-nosed fellow in the armchair is.

The University of Queensland has sent an extraordinary letter to a researcher who wrote a paper exposing the bad research in the Cook et al "97% consensus" nonsense paper about climate change.

The researcher is Brandon Shollenberger, whose website is at http://hiizuru.wordpress.com. In their letter UQ not only threaten legal action if Shollenberger publishes research based on the data, they also threaten legal action if he reveals the content of the letter itself to anyone! This is beyond disgraceful. It would be bad enough from a commercial enterprise, but coming from a publicly funded institution whose every output is paid for by the taxpayer, it beggars belief.

UQ, you have received my last ever alumni donation! You have become trash, beneath contempt. I am ashamed to hold degrees awarded by you.

Here is a portion of Brandon's blog post about the UQ intimidation letter:

Despite the fact that a peer-reviewed journal was cancelled for the stated reason that it published work critical of the IPCC claims, two distractions have now surfaced:

1. that the peer review was actually "pal review" - i.e. review by known friends, associates, etc., of the author(s);
2. that this has somehow compromised the entire 'climate sceptic movement'.

So let's deal with (1):

If the publishers discovered all this in 24 hours and gave the editors a chance to defend themselves, and made a decision to cancel the journal, they are superhuman. So I'd love to hear any theory as to what actually went on except for either:

• they knew about the 'pal review' in advance but it didn't matter to them until they learned that the journal was publishing results they didn't like; or
• they cooked up this excuse after the fact.

As I've said before, one of the most worrying circumstances in our time is the obvious danger that the entire planet is steadily sliding into a new dark age. Things that used to be obvious - the need to truth and integrity in scientific debate, for example - are not only being forgotten, but the exact opposite (deceit, dirty tricks, falsifying evidence) is now being lauded by scientists, ethicists, journalists, and many others.

In this vein, one of the most dangerous and irresponsible documents ever produced on Australians' taxpayer dollars has appeared. Its purpose seems to be to establish what used to be called a Star Chamber - unelected, unaccountable, secret - to remove from the media anything that said star chamber finds objectionable. And who can say what that might be?

This is the new report, commissioned by the Gillard government, to 'solve' the problem of - well, it isn't exactly clear what the problem was, as I'll show in a minute. But first, Tim Andrews summarises the problem:

Mr. Ray Finkelstein QC, a left-wing former Federal Court Judge with no media experience, at the request of the Gillard Government, issued a 400 page report which calls for a Big Brother Super-Regulator to 'regulate' political speech and - among other things - impose new laws with the power to stop climate change realists from speaking up. 

Its “recommendations” will sicken every single Australian: They actually call for a Big Brother Super-Regulator to censor not just the newspapers and TV, but websites, personal blogs, and even what you say on Twitter!

One small suppression of free speech in Australia, one giant leap towards the coming dark age.

Gillard's tame ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) is threatening businesses with million dollar fines if they have pre-carbon tax sales, or blame price increases on the carbon tax.

A few things: First, to non-Australians, the ACCC used to be a service to the country, but I have seen nothing useful done by them since their former chairman Professor Allan Fels retired. Time and again they seem to be refusing to act for the consumer and making lame excuses for not doing so. They aren't anybody's servant, just another tame bureaucracy doing the biddings of their political masters.

Next, this might seem petty. It is far from petty. When this story was reported on Wattsupwiththat.com, a commenter got the entire thing backwards:

The Chairman was quite clear about the organisations’s position in his presentation, which is no different than it has been in the past about any other misleading advertising ... “Business costs increase all the time, and businesses are free to set their own prices. However, if a business chooses to raise their prices they should not misrepresent this as a result of the carbon price when it is not the case.”

Baloney. The cause of a price increase is not a misrepresentation of the same kind as pretending prices have gone down when they went up, for example (which has been happening in Australia with the ACCC as usual doing nothing). And everyone, yes everyone, should have special leeway in commenting on government policy simply because governments are so much more powerful than individuals, or even businesses. If you can't risk being wrong when talking about a government, then you can't risk saying anything. As the writer of the story, Willis Eschenbach, explained to the above commenter:

Anyone who is still in doubt that the era of freedom and tolerance is rapidly drawing to a close, please note this week's shocking news. From Menzies House, we hear of this behaviour completely unbecoming a government of any free people:

Four thousand, five hundred Australians have just been censored by the Gillard-Brown regime.

I thought I had seen everything. I thought after all the attacks on freedom of speech I have written to you about before, that nothing could surprise me.

I was wrong.

In a shocking and historically unprecedented suppression of political expression and abuse of democracy, 4,500 Aussies - all opposed to this unnecessary and destructive tax on carbon dioxide - have just been told that they don't count. That their opinions don't matter. That their thoughts are not allowed to be heard.

The background: As you will remember, last month, the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Clean Energy Future Legislation asked for submissions about the carbon dioxide tax legislation. They specifically stated that they "encourage submissions to its inquiry from a wide range of individuals and organisations". There were no terms of reference.

Although they only gave us one week, four thousand five hundred of us took the time to write to the committee. Four thousand five hundred Australians took the time to read the over 1000 page legislation. Four thousand five hundred Australians wrote in depth submissions detailing the flaws in this proposed legislation.

Yesterday we discovered that their work will be suppressed. Will be silenced. Will be censored and stripped from the record without a trace.

This is the most disgraceful piece I have yet seen from global warming alarmists. The site 10:10 has made (and very quickly withdrawn) a supposedly comic video that should tell anyone with sufficient wisdom just where we are headed by supporting this anti-scientific hoax. Here it is, please don't watch it with children around.

In the face of immediate condemnation this has hastily been defended as quirky British humour. Sorry. That excuse won't wash. Let’s try to analyse the comedic logic of this video.