Blotism of the month - November

[angra]

"Inflation up - blame the carbon tax!

And remember, this tax - which costs us money and jobs - will do absolutely nothing to stop any global warming.

In fact, the planet has not warmed in 16 years. "

[angra]

OK I started a few days early. There are few choice Blotisms this morning. Here's another -

"Gillard’s pitch is to divide and smear. Rudd’s is to yuk it up. Take your pick. "

Andrew's already submitted the Ruddnam Style design for Kev's T shirt competition. However Kev has some T's and C's.

"Offensive and defamatory submissions will be deleted – so don’t bother."

So I don't think yours is a goer Andrew.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

"Inflation up - blame the carbon tax!"

I don't think Serious Economists are actually blaming the carbon tax at all. Dunno what the folks at The Oz are saying, though.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Well, I was inclined to give it some credence.

But then I read it on andrew bolt's blog.

White House told truth about Benghazi within two hours
Andrew Bolt October 24 2012 (5:41pm)

So why didn’t Barack Obama’s team say so?

Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

That's when I figured it was worth trying to debunk (I don't think it's deliberate, I just think he's ... unlucky). So I looked. And, sure enough, I discovered that this isn't news. And nobody needed any state department emails to know this, if they'd been following the developments closely.

Here's part of what that group actually said:

Ansar al-Shariah Brigade didn't participate in this popular uprising as a separate entity, but it was carrying out its duties in al-Jala'a hospital and other places where it was entrusted with some duties. The Brigade didn't participate as a sole entity; rather, it was a spontaneous popular uprising in response to what happened by the West.

The guys who translated that statement on the 12th also reckon it stops well short of "claiming credit".

Now ... I'm not an expert. I didn't know about that until I just looked. But it took me about 60 seconds to find that article once I decided to search. More importantly, I'm not a news organisation (and neither are the guys who've apparently had this information online since the day after the attack), constantly banging on about how amateur bloggers are undermining its crucial place in society.

This latest "scoop" in the benghazi milk-a-thon appears to be somewhat over-sold.

[angra]

Barbara Ramjan is suing Michael Kroger for defamation for comments he made about her over the Abbott 'wall punch' incident on both the Bolt Report and the Alan Jones radio show and in two articles in The Oz. Jones has already been forced to apologise.

Could get interesting.

[Sammy Jankis]

Bolt's trying the same trick with electricity as with CPI:

NOT THE CARBON TAX WE WERE PROMISED

HOW much will electricity go up? Ten per cent over five years. Modelling a Carbon Price, Treasury, 2011:

THE carbon price leads to an average increase in household electricity prices of 10 per cent over the first five years of the scheme.

Fifteen per cent in a month. TD Securities-Melbourne Institute Monthly Inflation Gauge, July:

DUE to the introduction of the carbon tax from (July 1), the price of electricity rose by 14.9 per cent.

Ten per cent. Julia Gillard, speech, August 7:

WHEN the government priced carbon, we forecast an electricity price impact on consumers of around 10 per cent, a forecast which has now become reality.

Fifteen per cent in a quarter. Australian Bureau of Statistics, yesterday:

OVERVIEW of CPI (consumer price index) movements. The most significant price rises this quarter were for electricity (+15.3 per cent).

He tries to imply that the whole of the increase is because of the carbon price, as if electricity wouldn't have gotten any more expensive if we didn't have carbon pricing. Of course, he appears to be silent on the $3 Billion overcharged by the power industry as revealed by the ACCC.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Today's little "aha!" about wireless making the NBN "obsolete" is breathtaking.

He appears to have utterly misunderstood what the researchers have achieved.

They haven't multiplied the bandwidth at all, they've proposed a more robust error-correction protocol so that the stated bandwidth can be used more efficiently.

So a link with 1Mb/s capacity doesn't suddenly have the ability to transmit 16Mb/s - it gets the ability (according to, I suspect, simlulations) to actually transmit 1Mb/s. They're talking about resolving scenarios where packet loss and retransmission causes a 10-fold reduction in throughput - they're NOT talking about increasing the stated capacity ten fold.

Any wireless engineers, feel free to jump in and say whether these sorts of figures are at all sensible. I'm having my doubts about 10% throughput. Serious doubts. That would, I suspect, make wireless completely non-viable.

Over fiber, it's not an issue. Because the packet loss is near-as-dammit to zero already.

The scale of this misunderstanding is awesome to behold. This is howler territory.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

And he's still clinging to the idea that these newly-revealed emails show something that wasn't known to the general public on the 11th of september. All they show is that somebody at State only read a portion of the statement by the militia group, and somebody ELSE at State doesn't like the democrats.

It sure as heck doesn't accurately show that al-wotsit-shariah took credit for that attack, and actually BOOSTS the "reaction to video" justification. The whitehouse would have had access to far more information than that email, and the full story said otherwise.

The right - the bastion of the fact-repelling, assertion-based community.

Andrew Bolt - somebody who's figured out how to make a buck out of it.

[angra]

There's a beauty this morning.

Andrew quotes Steve Kates on why everyone except Americans wants Barack Obama reelected, then adds his own priceless observations...

" Foreign correspondents tend, like most journalists, to be of the Left. In their posts, they mix with other foreign correspondents just like them and tend to read the papers and watch the TV reports of still more journalists much like them. Take the foreign corespondents posted in New York and Washington. They are already in heavily Democrat cities, reading vehemently pro-Democrat papers in the New York Times and Washington Post. If they watch cable news, I suspect they’d choose the low-rating Leftist CNN and not the high-rating centre-Right Fox News. And then they file their (largely borrowed) take on US politics to audiences back home.

And, of course, foreign editors back home grab the stories about US politics that appeal to their own largely Leftist prejudices."

So its all a big Leftist conspiracy fostered by those pernicious journalists. Sounds to me like he's setting up his excuses when Obama is reelected, despite all Blot has said. Just blame foreigners and most journalists.

And there's more gold to be mined from the amazing insights of Mr. B. this morning.

Delicious!

[angra]

Another one falls from the tree.

"Not racist, but worried...How is this headline justified?"

"This is not just misnaming a perfectly understandable concern about a lack of integration and a rising security risk, but is also stifling an important debate."

He quotes the first two paras of the SMH report. He obviously hasn't bothered to read beyond this, or he would find...

"The research, released today, is built on data collected over several years by Monash University, backed by the Scanlon Foundation and the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

The surveys, drawing on a sample of 15,000, also delve into the fears and aspirations across the country. The economy, the quality of politicians, and boats ferrying asylum seekers ranked as the three most serious problems facing Australia.

Boat arrivals are toxic for the Gillard government: the results show 6 per cent of people think Labor is doing a good job, compared with an overwhelming 66per cent vote of disapproval."

and -

"The results show 29 per cent of Sydneysiders hold a negative view of Muslims, compared with 15 per cent in Melbourne.

The violent protests in Sydney’s CBD last month over the depiction of Muslims in an American-made film sparked fears of a return to the tensions that followed the 2005 Cronulla riots, prompting an immediate condemnation from Islamic leaders."

[Matthew Of Canberra]

I suspect that this coverage was slanted and ideologically-driven even BEFORE bolta jinxed it by including it in his daily vomit:

More cuts a 'risk' to soldiers' lives, says army chief David Morrison

(google link)

The follow reassuring and forthright comments suggest that the article was not ... entirely balanced or representative:

Army Chief clarifies budget cut comments

I'm going to see if I can find the rest of that video, or (better) just some audio. That was shaping up to be an interesting presentation.

An interesting business model. Milk the clicks for outrage in the window of opportunity before one's bullshit gets overtaken by evidence.

Currently, it's now a republican candidate is trying to become president, and definitely how his supports do their barracking. It appears to be how certain elements of NEWS try to remain relevant and wield influence. It's the "first to be wrong, first to move on" communication model. The gish gallop with a megaphone.

Sadly, a lie can still get a long way before the truth gets its boots on. I hope that distance can be reduced, even if large numbers of people aren't honestly interested in a fair race.

[Sammy Jankis]

I see Bolt is already getting upset at the prospect of a Royal Commission into child abuse. Despite an original quiet approval, he's already shifting to a 'it's a witch-hunt' position, suggesting it may be used by TEH LEFT politically. Expect years of Andrew complaining about 'leftists and atheists sticking the boot in', and frequent reminders that Catholics have built hospitals and run soup kitchens.

[angra]

Funny he doesn't seem to be aware of any irony in using 'Witch-hunt against the Catholic Church'.

Pell just looked extremely uncomfortable repeating his "it wasn't us, Guv, honest!, but if it was there were others doing it too, and probably more of them than us!" lines.

According to Broken Rites, 9 out of 10 cases of abuse it has documented involve the Catholic Church.