The Bolt is back in town

[Matthew Of Canberra]

I wonder if bolt even knows what a race riot is. This isn't a race riot:



And neither is this:



That's just a bunch of rowdy protesters. They looked a lot less dangerous than the police and minders, who decided to have a nutty:



Appearing to be (literally) falling over themselves to express their commitment:



Notice the "race rioters" in the background, making no attempt to chase the PM, or tony abbott, or anyone else for that matter. Notice all the camera crews everywhere:





That suggests to me that the crowd itself wasn't really posing a threat to anyone - not even that scary-looking rioter in the wheelchair. The crowd looks pretty flamin' scary in this shot, though. That lady appears to he POINTING!:



The police, on the other hand .... they were scary.



Now, let's compare that scene (bemused non-rioting bystander being attacked by an amped-up policeman) with one from an ACTUAL race riot, from 2005:



That's often a good way to spot the difference between a protest and a riot. In a riot, the rioters are usually attacking the police, in a protest, it's sometimes (but not always) the other way around. Here's another example of a non-race-riot:



To compare with more scenes from an actual race riot:



That's people who're actually attacking somebody for being of "middle-eastern appearance", who's sitting on a train, at cronulla station. That's a race-based attack. It's not about politics, or history. Here's another picture from an actual race riot:



That's actual violence, against actual people, hence the word "riot".

Not everyone seemed completely shattered by the goings on in canberra that day. I'm still not sure how to read this photo, for example:



But who are we kidding. Australia doesn't really do race riots. For REAL race riots, we have to look across the pacific:

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Damn, I'm spending too much time here today. I actually logged in to comment on this:

blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/fictional_tiger_scares_academic_into_warming_alarmism/

Bolt's poking some fun at a lawyer who wrote a bit of silly drawing links between life of pi and climate change. Fair enough.

Except bolt points out that said lawyer has no qualifications to speak on climate change, because he's a lawyer (unlike bolt himself, who's .... something, but definitely not a scientist either)

Bolta then points to a REAL expert, an ACTUAL SCIENTIST, who explains that ocean acidification is a load of nonsense:

Article in WSJ by one Matt Ridley.

But there are some problems with bolta's chosen source. Just for starters, google the term "Matt Ridley Wrong". That'll give you an overview. Pretty quickly, you'll see that the article in question has been fairly soundly debunked already (can't even blame the bolt curse for this, unless it violates the basic laws of causality):

switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lsuatoni/can_we_keep_discussions_about.html

There are plenty of others, but one will do.

But even better, there's one great big problem with deferring to this particular pundit on matters of risk. Check it out for yourself.

[angra]

MoC - Bolt's logic is similar to Eccles foolproof method for knowing the right time, even though he doesn't have a watch.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnW0HoFbuAE

[Matthew Of Canberra]

I think we're also now far enough from the event that we can call bull-hockey on the charge that the PM's office incited that riot.

As media watch has nicely documented:

www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3424264.htm

The first instance of anyone broadcasting that tony abbot had called for the tent embassy to be closed was 2UE (who claim that they took it from AAP). According to one person at the tent embassy, that's what they "heard on the radio". So it doesn't seem to me like anyone from the PM's office primed that particular pump.

According to kim sattler, what tony hodges told her was:

ROSS SOLLY: In vague terms - what was he saying, in vague terms?

KIM SATTLER: That Abbott was attacking the embassy, saying it shouldn't exist any more, it should move on.

ROSS SOLLY: It should move on. That was the strongest he said, that it should move on?

KIM SATTLER: That's right.

The PM insists:

JULIAN GILLARD: Mr Hodges spoke to Ms Sattler by telephone. Ms Sattler was in attendance at the 40th anniversary events for the Tent Embassy. Mr Hodges accurately conveyed to her the statement made by Mr Abbott.

And as far as I know, nobody can demonstrate otherwise. The daily telegraph can harrass and stalk hodges all it likes - they can't prove that he misrepresented the oppo leader. And without that bit of evidence, all anyone can say is that he told them tent embassy where abbott was, and invited a response.

It looks to me like an obvious political ambush - there was (apparently) a press conference scheduled after the award ceremony, and it would have been awfully entertaining to see tony abbott explaining his earlier comments to the people that they actually affected. He was, after all, mere walking distance away - he could have invited them.

It went wrong, though. And that's a pity, because if the protesters had figured out that abbott was where he was all by themselves, tony abbott would have ended up looking a bit of a goose.

Instead, the response to his comments was successfully portrayed as part of a conspiracy. Rather than turning up with a crowd, the tent embassy organisers should have done the sensible thing and wandered over to confront tony abbott by themselves. As it was, they let themselves be portrayed as a "riot", and tony abbott got away scot free after making yet another divisive statement.

I mean, come on - making a statement like that on australia day? Sheesh. Way to be dismissive (and to appeal to the one nation crowd). I don't actually agree with the tent embassy objectives either, but I'm not mad enough to suggest that we can just "move on from all that" because things are just peachy. Coz they're clearly not.

[jack]

The 'race riot' meme seems pretty well entrenched now. In the Oz article Andy cites, Pearson's first para states outright, "It is the first anniversary of a race riot fomented within the Prime Minister's office."

I see Catallaxy, for another example, have also commemorated the "First anniversary of the Australia Day Race Riot." Google the term for more.

For all those fellow travellers (which major party do they invariably support again?), the "Australia Day Race Riot" feeds the sense of crisis which makes the fall of Gillard and the ascendancy of Abbott a matter of national urgency.

Frankly, there has to have been an Australia Day Race Riot. Or something similar. Or something.

And so the alleged actions of Hodges, presumably intended merely to discomfit Abbott, becomes "the PM's office fomenting a Race Riot."

Like Catallaxy, Andy uses initial caps in his post's title. Before long that may become accepted usage for certain sections of the MSM in relation to those events.

In years to come these people will be writing commemorative columns recounting where they were and what they were doing "the day we lost our innocence." (In fact, race riots are historically not unknown in Australia. For example, google "clunes race riots".)

As for Matt Ridley - that's Viscount Ridley, if you please. We know about a most-read columnist's propensity to cherry pick agreeable sources, but... what is it with english peers and climate science?

[angra]

Remember what the rightie lapdogs said about the 2010/11 floods and tried to pin the blame on Bligh? And again releases from Wyvenhoe are under suspicion.

Well now the same thing is happening, and Newman says "The dams are doing what they're meant to do."

Maybe weather transcends politics.

[angra]

Anyone note the irony in this?

"Captain Cook made him do it

Another grim step towards treating people not as individuals but representatives of a “race”, not masters of their own destiny but victims of a collective history...

Never mind how many Aborigines live lives richer, freer, safer, healthier and fuller of possibilities than any that Aboriginal society could have provided. "

So no Aboriginal society could have provided people with rich, free, healthy lives just like British convicts.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Among so much nonsense today ...

UPDATE
So how much cooler has the world become, thanks to this sacrifice?

Peak retail industry body the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) today supported the Australian Industry Group’s (Ai Group) findings that surveyed business’ costs had increased by 14.5 percent on average as a direct result of the carbon tax.

ARA Executive Director Russell Zimmerman said it supported ARA data from a survey* conducted in late 2012 showing 80 percent of retailers felt their business had been negatively impacted since the introduction of the carbon tax in July 2012.

What’s been the gain from this pain?

(No link to press release.)

No link to press release? Why not? The original press release from AIG is online right here

Sadly, bolter's readers will never read the following, which didn't make it to his blog:

"The high profile of the carbon tax appears to have led to some over-estimation by businesses of the specific impact of the carbon tax on their energy cost increases over the past year. In the November survey, manufacturing businesses attributed close to 85 per cent of their total electricity cost increases over the past year to the carbon tax, whereas data from other sources suggest that, at least for many smaller businesses, the contribution of the carbon tax to total energy price rises was probably closer to one half.

Can't imagine why.

[jack]

"Can't imagine why."

*splutter*

I saw on the HS twitter feed he had a post with the title, "How does Mundine get away with it?"

LOLBolt!

ROFLMFAOBolt!!

[Matthew Of Canberra]

A certain lack of perspective:

A certain lack of proportion:

A MUSEUM dedicated to Sydney's gay and lesbian history is as important as institutions that preserve Jewish history and Australia's military past, says a leading broadcaster and gay rights activist.

"I'd compare it to the Australian War Memorial," said Julie McCrossin.

Really? One group - including gays - laid down their lives for their country. More than 100,000 in all.

The other group were simply born gay. Some suffered for it, others did not.

Yep. You read that right - "Some suffered for it, others did not".

So it's no big deal. I mean, not EVERY gay person was discriminated against before the modern era - some of them just kept quiet about it. And there were heaps of gay people around the country who were never even once beaten up or arrested by the police, and not even thrown in the torrens to drown. But sure, it was a mixed bag - there was good and bad, and we have to keep that in perspective. It all balances out - some suffered horribly ... and some didn't. What's the big deal? Maybe it's time to move on from all that?

Honestly - it's TOTALLY julie mccrossin who needs to get some proportion.

As for the rest of it ....

I have to admit that a mardi gras museum doesn't really interest me all that much. But I don't see anything all that wrong with what mccrossin said. I will just quietly suggest one thing, though - I don't think the guy who wrote the SMH article that bolta quotes was striving for positive coverage. Just judging by the headline, for example:

Gay museum as vital as War Memorial - activist

Yep. "Activist". And no, I don't think she said that anyway.

Oddly enough, I think NEWS' coverage was ever so slightly more forthright than fairfax', and actually afforded julie a bit of context:

Broadcaster and activist Julie McCrossin said there was as much a need for a permanent Mardi Gras museum as there was for the Jewish Museum and the Australian War Memorial.

"We need a museum just as we have the Sydney Jewish museum and the Australian War Memorial," she told AAP.

"I mean it respectfully.

"Museums help people in a democracy understand each other"

I honestly don't think that's something to man the barricades over. It is possible to have both, andrew. I mean ... if the AWM fell over one day, the nation wouldn't stop in its tracks until it was rebuilt. It isn't so utterly, massively important that nothing else can proceed without it.

If I happened to be gay, then perhaps I'd see commemorating the progress of acceptance and change as somewhat important. I don't think mccrossin is proposing to take OVER the AWM or anything.

Chill. And stop writing so many of your own words in these posts - just quote stuff and add a little misleading quip at the top, and we won't have so much to roll our eyes about.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

This is impressive:

Note also the implied assumption that colonisation was a disaster for Aborigines today. Never mind how many Aborigines live lives richer, freer, safer, healthier and fuller of possibilities than any that Aboriginal society could have provided. Never mind that colonisation for almost all brought not only their “oppressors” but some of their own ancestors.

Actually, I don't think any such assumption was implied in the material he refers to, but I can't help thinking how that particular popular argumentative device could re used elsewhere:

Note also the implied assumption that the atlantic slave trade was a disaster for african americans today. Never mind how many african americans live lives richer, freer, safer, healthier and fuller of possibilities than any that african society could have provided. Never mind that slavery for almost all involved not only their “oppressors” but some of their own ancestors.

or

Note also the implied assumption that apartheid was a disaster for black south africans today. Never mind how many black south africans live lives richer, freer, safer, healthier and fuller of possibilities than any that zulu society could have provided. Never mind that colonisation and apartheid for almost all benefited not only their “oppressors” but some of their own ancestors.

No, I don't think "they owe us" is the solution.

[angra]

And if you are looking for an antidote for all the Bolt balderdash, try Bran Nue Dae.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_-EGqgQn8w

[jack]

fuller of possibilities

Er, "more fullerer of possibilities"?

No wait, "more full of possibilities" is more correcter.

Never mind that colonisation for almost all brought not only their "oppressors" but some of their own ancestors.

How about those scare quotes for 'oppressors'?

What is it that he doesn't understand about guns, Black Wars, Black Lines, strychnine in billabongs, decimation by smallpox, etc. etc. etc.?

But okay, if invasion by superior armed force is such a good thing, then why the endless hysterics now over piddling boat arrivals? We're certainly not full. Indeed, we could be more fuller... erer.

the implied assumption that the atlantic slave trade was a disaster for african americans today

Yep, and moreover you can blame Lincoln and the rest of those do-gooder abolitionists for all the lynchings, segregation and other abuses, urban riots, etc. etc. etc., since the Emancipation Proclamation.

Doctor Pangloss knows in his gut that all's for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Pity about the abnegation of historical memory.

Truly, he paints those binary landscapes with such broad strokes. Trouble is it's all in black-and-white.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

"What is it that he doesn't understand about guns, Black Wars, Black Lines, strychnine in billabongs, decimation by smallpox ..."

NAME JUST TEN!!!!1!

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Bolta's linking enthusiastically to this:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9831912/I-feel-like-a-stranger-where-I-live.html

Notice the image accompanying that article:



And the chilling caption:

Multicultural: the shops in Acton Vale, west London

Now, I truly believe in the bolt curse. So this morning I had a look on google street view:

maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.506372,-0.253919&spn=0.005396,0.005064&key=ABQIAAAAExfD0iIhH656N8ofDw1wVBQIBuRTaGEQ1kbR0T47NJa5OZkoxxSNeHQsk7boU_i7rjXzHnllcN05ow&mapclient=jsapi&t=m&z=17

And after a bit of a walk around, I can declare that the photographer managed to find the only two even vaguely ethnic shops on the whole street. The rest of it is standard blightly suburbs.