Post the ABC broadcast on the Great Global Warming Swindle there was an “experts” discussion and then the floor was thrown open to the great unwashed. And unwashed they were with a fabulous collection of conspiracy theorists, creationists and Larouchites.
It was like a bar scene from Star Wars, with the difference being SpielbergLucas characters that were grounded in reality.
All that was missing was representation by those little citizens of Roswell that we hear so much about and the folks that think 9/11 was the work of the US government. But then again maybe they were there and just didn’t get a chance to enlighten us with their views of the AGW issue and how it all links back to Area 51 and Franz Ferdinand - the Archduke, not the band…..but you never know.
How this bunch of jokers got past the ABC audience screeners is beyond me, but I’m sure there will be someone out there claiming it was a conspiracy. Reality entertainment (and in this case I use that term really loosely) just doesn’t get better than this, Oh how I’d love to see this bunch together in a special edition of BB Unhinged.
Elsewhere: Helen reviews the Great Night’s Entertainment.
I think the local CEC branch had it’s meeting during the studio screening. The questions sounded just like the crap that filled my mailbox a month or so ago.
I recognised one of the nut jobs from a Larouche paper that has been circulating around my electorate in southern Melbourne. The one who attacked the CEO of WWF at the very end was Caroline Lamer, who is the lead senate candidate in Tassie for the Larouche movement.
I could find no links to “Carbon-14 is in coal! You’re all wrong” on the net outside creationist (and counter-creationist) websites.
Ah well, at least it kept me entertained. I was getting bored with Ray Evans making a fool of himself.
At last, LP sharing common ground with Tim Blair’s commenters. There’s hope for the world yet.
What was Duffy doing there,could they not find Ackerman or
Bolt to make gooses of themselves
Actually, I think the second quesetion was Ann Lawler, who is the NSW CEC senate candiadate. I don’t think we can accuse the ABC is bias after giving these nutters a soap box.
It’s a reminder, if such a reminder was needed, of what an intellectual wasteland the right has become in Australia.
More in this potted review in the Oz. It was not the ABC’s best night….even though it was ours.
One could almost accuse Old Aunty of bias by only inviting sceptics to the panel who couldn’t string together a coherent sentence, for example Bob Carter (?) whose so painfully prepared point went out the window as soon as he opened his mouth.
Hey, if you agree not to foist the CEC on the right, we’ll agree not to foist them on the left.
They’re their own little planet.
Beazer reckons those cranks are the real risk to the future of the Liberal party if they lose government.
Im with those who say lets have more of em on telly!
Joe and Jill Punter need to see the quality of the motley cranks, urgers, bludgers, no-hopers, and dribblin incoherent losers on the denial side.
Fair dinkum, the Carbon 14 dude was on anti-psychotic medication, plus a couple of brews before the show to really get him rolling.
I used to work in mental health, and Id see him coming from a mile off.
I thought that the LaRouchite violin student was highly convincing.
The highlight for me was Michael Duffy firstly stating that the market can’t be trusted to do the right thing, then following that up with the a statement that the market’s reaction to AGW is entirely appropriate.
I missed the screening of the documentary. Turned on the TV after 10, and found myself waiting for the Chaser crew to appear to announce it was joke. They didn’t.
Strange, I’m sure it was a joke, it had to be a joke. Surely?
For the last 5-10 minutes I didn’t know whether to cringe, cry or laugh.
The ABC promos said there would be experts - yet only Michael Duffy and his ilk turned up.
The right in Australia have been suffocated by having to be loyal to a government that flip-flops about. No right-of-centre government means they can be a bit more coherent and ideologically pure. Certainly the moderates will be buggered - so disgraced, so few in number and whose triumphs are so far back in the distant past that they will not be an effective countervailing force to the CEC/Dave Clark jihadists.
I also found the CEC violin student, who studied “physical economics” and astrophysics under Lyndon LaRouche, highly convincing. What with his incoherent rant about Jonnas Kepler (who apparently discovered universal gravity, which was news to me as I thought Kepler only formulated kinematic laws of planetary motion) disproving statistics, and the IPCC uses statistics and therefore it’s all incorrect. Or something.
However, what did it for me was the guy comparing environmentalists to Hitler. Had me convinced from the outset!
It was certainly very entertaining, so I won’t be doing to much complaining about it, but I must say it does not bode well for the ABCs new balance policy.
Recall that when the policy was announced concerns were raised about the prospect of it being used by disreputable nut jobs to demand that they be given a soap box at the taxpayers expense. Recall also that Mark Scott assured us that such concerns were unfounded.
Now climate change denial of all kinds is a fairly marginal view in Australia today if the polls about how many people see climate change as a problem are anything to go by. Martin Durkin is a marginal individual within a marginal group. Most climate change deniers see climate change as a plot against capitalism, not a plot to screw over the third world.
The CEC types are even more marginal than Durkin. Although mainstream deniers, Durkin and the CEC all see climate change as some sort of plot the CEC conspiracy theory is by far the weirdest, postulating as it does climate change as an excuse for genocide.
As I said, giving lunatic views an airing is very funny, but it does not do wonders for the ABCs reputation, and should definantly be remembered next time one of the usual suspects comes out and accusess the ABC of some transgression or another against mainstream values.
Andrew E, the CEC would hardly be likely to co-operate with the Clarke Clan, being such scrupulous anti-Catholics as they are.
However, what did it for me was the guy comparing environmentalists to Hitler. Had me convinced from the outset!
I’m not sure, but I think there were two Godwin’s Law violations in the audience discussion.
There were at least three people spouting environmentalism = eugenics talking points, obviously prepped beforehand.
a conspiracy theory involving conspiracy theorists
whee!
Lyndon LaRouche was right!!
With thanks to Spiros.
Shameless self-promotion
Fascinating. This probably explains why I was spammed by the CEC telling me to watch the documentary.
“Aliens. Bio-duplication. Nude conspiracies! Lyndon LaRouche was right!”
H.J. Simpson
No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. This (in particular the audience selection) was just a cunning plan by the ABC to expose the loony far-right for what they really are. And it worked brilliantly! Talk about self-immolation.
Janet Albrechtson got the program she wanted, and the balance she craves.
And to what effect? Durkin, Carter and the rest of that crew were chopped into little pieces. The denialists in the audience revealed themselves to be off with the fairies. The respectable AGW sceptics in Australia (to the extent that such people exist) will forever be tainted as being joined at the hip with the Larouchists.
Drawing a slightly longer bow, through this case study, the Albrechtson-Duffy Right in Australia, which once prided itself on being clear eyed and rational (as opposed to those emoting socialists) can now be firmly associated, on all matters, with the obsessives, cranks and nutters that until now they’ve managed to keep locked up in the attic.
Nice one, Janet.
You should be careful what you wish for.
I’ve only started watching, but it certainly seems like fertile ground for an afternoon’s entertainment.
Was Strocchi there?
Two questions in and already the panellists have adopted the ubiquitous ‘WTF!!?$##$’?? stare. Doesn’t look good…
I saw about two minutes of that discussion, and in that time encountered three fruitbats and one bona fide raving loony. Eek.
I choose to believe that the crowd was very carefully vetted, with the intent of sending a very strong signal to the ABC Board that this is the kind of result they can expect when they strong-arm the only national broadcaster airing legitimate science content.
Oh Christ! 6.29 in and a giant anal probe looms above the audience. Look out!
Helen, I’ve added a link to your post. I particularly liked this bit:
“The Gentleman with the hand” (Whose hand does he have? OMG!): Studied physical economics, astrophysics, and classical music under Lyndon LaRouch. Eat THAT Robin Williams!
Keppler refuted the method of the IPCC report 400 years ago. A visionary!
‘Environmentalists. Prince Phillip reincarnated as a deadly virus. Eugenics. Hitler Nazi race science. Africa destroyed.
‘Can anyone make a comment’?
Connections, people! Look at the connections!
Now we’ve hopped in a time capsule. Destination? Greenland 130,000 years ago. Check out those babes.
“I choose to believe that the crowd was very carefully vetted, with the intent of sending a very strong signal to the ABC Board that this is the kind of result they can expect when they strong-arm the only national broadcaster airing legitimate science content.”
It would be good if that was true.
But it probably just worked out that way.
The ABC was made to look very foolish by this whole sorry episode.
Either way, hopefully both the CEO and Chairman will deliver strong messages to the obsessives on the Board that broadcasting is for grown ups, and that amateurs and ideologues should keep their fantasies to themselves in future.
Some crazy yabbering on about risk-management plans to cope with rising sea-levels. Why doesn’t the ABC do anything to weed out these nutters?
Tony Jones: “Sorry to wind you up.”
No, don’t worry about it Tony. As wind-ups go it was hugely enjoyable.
Question - is it not unacceptable for a person running for office to appear on national television pushing their political agenda and not identify themselves?
Has anyone got a link to the Jones/Durkin interview? I’m a big fan of Jones’ interviewing, and I can’t think of a more deserving target for some scorn.
And my god the entertainment value of that clip. I can’t believe someone got a godwin out, huge applause for them.
My bad, I meant the ICC report
Don’t worry about it KW. You were 400 years in front, so we can forgive a stray consonant or two. Big ups to the predictions BTW.
Mad, bad and unhinged?
Just as an aside, the first hand waving nutter gibbering about Carbon-14 in coal was almost definitely a young earth creationist - it’s one of their obsessions to prove that coal is only 14 minutes old or something, and the existence of carbon-14 is taken as showing that coal was created just now while our backs were turned and the earth is not aged in millennia.
He was interrupted during a second gibbering question on the UN outlawing “weather war” - which is a fantastic conspiracy that purports extreme weather events are engineered by the US and Russia. On a sliding scale of one to ten for crazy, this man gets an eleven.
I thought these guys only existed on the internet as a long running practical joke, to see one slobbering in his own humanity right on the TV was, I think, a seminal moment in western history. The enlightenment is in fact over and we are now embarking on an inevitable slide back into the dark ages.
Jeezus, did you hear that sound…Twwwaaaacck.
That Johannes Kepler, eh - disproved the whole of modern statistics before it was even thought of.
Well, that’s it for your Pearson chi-squared, your paired t-test, your analysis of variance. Thousands of science and social science undergraduates will be sleeping a lot more comfortably tonight.
You don’t have to watch much of this video before it’s too much, do you! Are these people really amongst us, do they really have a vote, or are they Hubbard-like refugees from a parallel universe? Admirably restrained Tony Jones did an excellent job of keeping a straight face. The question is, do such people deserve such restraint?
I’m sorry I missed seeing Janet Albrechtsen sitting proudly in the audience. Surely she would have wanted to be present, wouldn’t she, to demonstrate how comprehensively the right has debauched the standards and the independence of the ABC - and to show the intellectual quality of the coalition’s supporters?
I’m sure that I’m going to go blind for this but:
Larouche on why Kepler’s systematics was right and Galileo’s empiricism was wrong.
Larouchers on why environmentalism is Julian Huxley’s and Prince Philip’s Nazi race-science.
Hmm, they’re quite proud of their effort.
Ah - apparently it’s being repeated on ABC2 tomorrow night. I wonder if they’ll re-run the audience bit.
They’re linked you see.
(Slaps self in forehead)
So it’s come to this. These are the people who are the most forcefull in the “debate” about wether global warming is caused by anthropgenic factors or not. Since they seem to know almost nothing about science in general (how does one collect data in a “dynamic” fashion? Does one formulate a momentum equation for sattelite determined IR flux readings, and then solve the resulting expression for the current temperature?). THIS is the opposition?
Oh well, given the the WYLM seems to equate Lyndon LaRouche intelectually with Bach and that statistics disproving Kepler (who, by the way, formulated his laws of planetary motion from a decade of carefull data analysis), it’s quite obvious that they’re not the shiniest coins in the fountain.
Look out for Quee Elizabeth II on your local street corner. She’s probably pedaling smack to your children:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche#The_.22British.22_conspiracy
Thanks DK.
Martin B: This link you provided to the LaRouchies includes this gem:
Edgy, these young people, ain’t they?
Sorry, ChrisC, I skipped your comment and see now that you had already highlighted this piece of genius.
Dude, she’s the Queen. I’m sure she can afford a car to deliver. Mind you, I hear that dealers in Amsterdam do tend to cycle around, so I suppose if she was on a Dutch holiday, yeah, maybe.
Gives a new meaning to ‘pusher’, though, doesn’t it.
It all sounded very convincing to me. The discussion gave me a lot of interesting new ideas, which I am eager to investigate, as soon as I finish working on my robot.
FdG, you’re just saying that for my benefit aren’t you?
Benefit, Phil? Do you have something to declare to the ATO that they don’t know about?
You say coke, I say caine…
Um, a technical point about the original post. Spielberg had nothing to do with any of the Star Wars movies. Nothing whatsoever. (Well, except for ET style aliens making a fleeting appearance in, I think, Episode 2.)
Now, back to the discussion.
Let see if I get this straight Carbon dating good when it proves coal deposits are only 4,000 years old (what the!!). Carbon dating bad when it proves, oh basically everything else other than that God created the earth in six days (remember people he rested on the 7th!) in 4004 BC.
Good to know but I’m still not sure of the relevance to Global Warming …
All part of the mysterious plan of the Lord of the Central Processors http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/07/12/the-government-gazette-fights-back-ii/#comment-384467 for barmaid standings http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/07/12/the-government-gazette-fights-back-ii/#comment-384476
Oh yes! yes! yes! That’s soooo goooood.
Mmmmmmm, mmmmmmmm, MMMMMMMMMMMM …
Thank you Phil for providing the clip, a delightful dose of ZOMG LOL ROFL!!1! if ever there was one.
Snork! zZZZ Snork! zzzZZZ Snork! Poot! Pfffffft! Snork …
I don’t want what she’s having.
I take LaRouche seriously,and I cannot condemn any of his statements,if indeed they are factual.I think,however the Australian movement of such,is potentially very lazy when it comes to the origins of the Australian Green Movement and anti-nuke movements.National Parks have existed in Australia long before Prince Philip had anything to say,and Jack Mundey of Green Bans certainly didnt seem inspired by the Prince. As for anti-nuke matters LaRouche assumed a film made at Frankston in Victoria inspired the anti-nuke movement modern.Having went to Frankston Tech. and walked along that beach and never seen the film,but remembered kids talking about it..they have the Australians, just accepted his convenient view on that. I carried banners for Aboriginal Land Rights anti mining of uranium. I think LaRouche is unfairly criticised often for all the wrong reasons. His pro science stance is good,why condemn it!? His choice of solutions is a bit lazy and lousy..I feel a lot of what he says about Green Activists today is a bit sad and unfriendly,I am not moved by eugenics when I support conservation values,and I would of thought on that matter,to be opposed to eugenics is surely left wing.There is a lot of sniping at La Rouche I think he doesnt deserve it,but maybe some of his followers are not the deepest thinkers on the block,and,must remember,they are Australian,which means something significant to me if somebody fires off a round of LaRouche bullets and does me a deep injustice in doing so.So how come all the workers in the coal industry are neither LaRouchers or Prince Philipists!? And not even known to be anti science as much more pressing concerns affect them! Being paid by the likes of Rio Tinto and Billington fairly.The ABC is no gatekeeper to the future and once again has proven it bludges on others for the sake of its own sense of superiority and those who think it is a fair and balanced reporter. As a opponent of nuke power stations,I think La Rouche is an improvement and worthy opponent,because he has got some integrity which is missing elsewhere.
I’m with the Hilker and Spiros ABC theory on this. There have been a couple of other more subtle instances of the ABC using its enforced balance at the behest of its right wing masters to allow the right to hang themselves on their own pittards (not as blatant or as wide in scope as TGGWS though).
All the ABC promos and press makes it appear as they are publicising some government or right wing cause, but when the thing airs they expose the soft underbelly and flaying mind of the right’s cause. They allow them to hang themselves. That disastrous interview for Howard on the 7:30 report was a case in point. The questions were subtle and on the outside had the appearance of being benign in favouring Howard, but cut straight to the problems Howard was having at the time forcing Howard to answer things he probably wanted to avoid.
If the TGGWS airing and aftermath was not just a conspiracy theory, but was planned in the deep dark back-rooms of the ABC where the remnants of the old ABC plot their revenge then there is hope for Aunty yet.
Being a trawler of conspiracy theories, I often find hardcore global warming denialism on the same sites that feast on 9/11 Truth. You’d be amazed how often these two controversies are mentioned on the same ‘front pages’.
Credit to the hardcore researchers, they really do gather lots of research to back up their claims, and some are open-minded enough to let you decide for yourself without SHOUTING AT YOU, whether they are talking about global warming as a fraud or claiming that the Twin Towers were demolished with explosive (thermite a recent favourite theory), or that Bush Co. knew the attacks were coming and let them through to the keeper, as it were, to get the NeoCons beloved War On Iraq, etc.
Does the Blair/Bolt/Ackermonster know they keep such distinguished hardcore conspiracy company as 9/11 Truth researchers? And why are they so willing to utterly dismiss any alternative theories on 9/11 but fully embrace the most dodgy alternative theories on global warming?
And the question is still relevant : If the ABC is willing to air such a flawed and conspiracy-minded doco as The Swindle, will they air a 9/11 Truth doco and follow it with a panel discussion? Or how about one of the numerous docos that competently prove that Bush Co. along with Howard and Blair twisted the facts and betrayed the intelligence agencies to force our nations into the Iraq War? Still relevant, the war is still being fought, and will impact on all of us for decades to come.
And how about the Great God Swindle? Or the Great War On Terror Swindle?
Take your time…analyse…evaluate…research…pause…rethink…burp…in the library of knowledge…anything is allowed in the dusty moments of your search for the Truth.
Blow, crack open that book…immerse yerself in that volume…check out that CD…clean, revisit that DVD.
Look, learn, listen…
Before The Eater…The Chaos Cloud…the Sun extinguishes…He Comes…She Arrives…The Apocalypse…”Only One Day Left”…by 2014 they…Phoenix Lights mean…saw a laser beam shoot out of the sea, the volcano…earthquakes & tsunamis…& fish that fly…Mechs…Daleks…
Time is running out…time dilates…
It’s up to you…
“Ziggy played guitar”
Re: Darryl Mason
I’m looking forward to the next science debaunking doco,
The Great Gravity Swidle:
The truth is the earth sucks.
Bruce,
It’s been done!
Let me belatedly point out that Alan Moron of electricity molecules fame is also unequivocal and persistent in his view that global warming is a “myth”. See here, here and here.
Indeed, in a letter published in The Age on 19 October 2006 (before the ABC’s decision to screen Durkin’s opus), he complained that the ABC’s bias was evidenced by its failure in over 10 years to host a single scientist who challenged the “greenhouse myth” to:
Obviously the activists think electricity consists of electrons.
This letter drew a response from myself, which included a prediction, intended in jest, about possible consequences of the ABC’s anti-bias policy. In the light of recent events it may yet eventuate.
Helen, that’s just beautiful
Unfortunately “Kookie” doesn’t cover it for this crowd - downright dangerous is more like it…
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/l/larouche-movement/no-joke/
Given they’ve taken over the CEC and now look to be trying to use the ABC to deliver their “message” (a lot of conspiracy crap and psuedo-mathematics) we might be seeing a lot more of this crap.
As for the ABC’s panel format - I say bring back Geoffery Robertson - he at least made people think about their answers and use some sort of logic (or am I being a little idealistic here?). The audience also tended to have more than one neuron (as one my friends says “brain so small it has a wave-function”!) and it really was good to see such an intelligent show/format.
Paul, the day Alan Moron and his cohorts read one article in a scientific journal and demonstrate an understanding of peer review…I think I’ll have to eat my lab-coat/safety goggles/GC-MS/etc