FIFO workers camps; Queensland Parliament descends into yet more farce

Image:’ Enslaved’ FIFO worker. Courier Mail 

While not the most emotive issue around, Mining camps and fly in fly out workers tend to be up there in a number of circles.  Towns in mining areas tend to feel that they miss out on substantial trade that might have been had workers resided in the area.

Many workers though like doing it this way as it enables them to hold down well paying jobs out in the sticks in relative comfort without the need to relocate their families, who might be a bit harder to please.

Politicians of all persuasions love to go off about it for whatever reasons they come up with for doing so.  Labor’s Jo-Ann Miller has come up with one of the more extreme examples: 

... Opposition mines spokeswoman Jo-Ann Miller says the "harrowing stories" she has heard from FIFO workers in the mining communities of Moura, Dysart, Middlemount, Blackwater and Moranbah explain why the state's mining towns are suffering. 

"To say that mining companies are engaging in fly-in, fly-out postcode apartheid is no understatement," she told state parliament on Tuesday night. 

"Workers are being kept in what only can be described as mining concentration camps.”Ms Miller said workers were being told not to mix with locals and had to have written permission before being able to leave the camps. …

The premier, Campbell Newman has decided to grandstand the issue with an insistence that this represented some sort of Nazi slur which offended the Jews and the opposition leader’s Polish ancestors. 

It is not understood why concentration camps specifically relate to Germany, who had them but were not the only ones.  The British had them during the Boer War, and they have become a regular feature of history leading to the Soviet Gulags, the Serbian ones during the Balkans conflict, and are still plentiful in North Korea today.

Perhaps he is doing the old Basil Faulty, “Don’t mention the war,” thing.

The initial statement was rather idiotic; conditions and rules vary depending on the company and location involved.  Generally on locations where I have worked, interaction with the locals is encouraged, and there are few restrictions on matters like alcohol consumption, other than having to pass a breathalyzer test with a low level of tolerance prior to going in to work.

The government is grandstanding on the issue, but at least the time taken up with this nonsense is not wasted.  They could be using it to pass more laws based on economic illiteracy, or restrictions on an increasing number of the few freedoms we have left. 

Brandis supports limited freedom of thought but not of deed

With the rise of libertarianism the Liberal Party are becoming rather fond of getting back to their supposed roots in classical liberalism.  One of the problems they have in doing this is that they are not very good at it.

In 2010, now treasurer, Joe Hockey gave a speech to the Grattan Institute in which he lauded John Locke and John Stewart Mill and spoke at length on his avaricious reading of everything they had to say.  While there is no reason to doubt his reading of them, given his actions since, there is room for considerable doubt as to whether he had a clue as to what they were on about.

George Brandis is better in his actions on freedom of speech, but in an interview with Brendan O’Neill quotes John Stuart Mill as his inspiration while maintaining that the government has a right to be the arbiter of what people can do: 

So currently, Brandis is on a mission to reform Section 18C. He wants to remove the words ‘insult’, ‘offend’ and ‘humiliate’, but he is willing to leave in the stipulation against ‘intimidation’ of a person or group on the basis of their ethnic origins. … 

… Brandis says there are two reasons he’s bent on overhauling Section 18C. The first is because it expands the authority of state into the realm of thought, where it should never tread, he says. ‘There is a deeper question here, about the role of the state. To what extent should the state be the arbiter of what people can think? 

Now of course, the state is the arbiter of what people can do. The state, to use the most straightforward example imaginable, prohibits murder. It is the role of government to protect the weak from the strong. But this is about whether it is the role of government to tell people what they may think. In my view, freedom of speech, by which I mean the freedom to express and articulate beliefs and opinions, is a necessary and essential precondition of political freedom.’ … 

… As another bottle of wine arrives, he returns to Mill: ‘He said the only limitation on the freedom of the individual should be when he causes harm to others. Hearing views that you find offensive or outrageous or insulting is not a form of harm. If it is admitted to be a form of harm, then freedom of speech, freedom of discourse, intellectual freedom and political freedom become impossible.’

Brandis deserves kudos for his effort to reform the racial discrimination act, even if he fails to go far enough.  There is no real reason why section 18C (the hurt feelings law) should not be repealed in its entirety, however he seems to be hung up on keeping the section relating to intimidation of a person or group on the basis of their ethnic origins.

There are already adequate laws against intimidation in Australia which apply whether there is any racial aspect or not, thus making this section unnecessary.  To suggest that there should be a special one to handle complaints where a racial aspect is claimed means that the court is required to decide what an offender was thinking at the time.  This appears to go against his assertion that the state should not be the arbiter of what we think.

To have special laws, either for or against particular racial groups is a form of apartheid and have no place in a free society.

The problem with George though, is his assertion that the state should be the arbiter of what people do.  He offers no ifs, buts, nor even maybes on this. 

His statement on the right to regulate murder is a no contest, but harks back to the arguments of the religious right that were the state not to enact the ten commandments in full, then murder and theft would be legal.

The state has a right and function in preventing coercive acts in society but that is where the right to regulate human actions ends. From a libertarian perspective, we are OK with laws that prevent murder, theft, or the bearing of false witness, but we would have problems were it to enact them against adultery, graven images, or working on the Sabbath.  This does not indicate that we support such behaviors, but they are moral decisions that are not the place of the state to govern.

The Brandis/Hockey state sees no reason to steer clear of regulating our personal behavior. The mere fact that someone somewhere can do something without a license and without breaking a law, is seen as a compelling reason for an act of parliament to correct this.

Brandis is moving in the right direction, but needs to totally reevaluate his commitment to classical liberalism and try to go the whole hog.

Duck Dynasty star's suspension “fascist and Stalinist”; Camille Paglia

For those on another planet or who haven’t seen the show, Duck Dynasty is a sort of ‘reality show’ based on the lives of a real life family from the Louisiana bayous whose success is based on their production of duck hunting accessories.  The stars, the Robertson family, base their lifestyle around hunting and strong Christian conservative attitudes.

It is an immensely popular show with an estimated sixteen million regular viewers.

Patriarch of the show, Phil Robertson has been suspended from it owing to his views on what constitutes sinfulness including homosexuality, as expressed in an interview in GQ.  Some of his comments have been dropped from the article, but according to Katie Pavlich at Townhall included: 

GQ. What, in your mind, is sinful? 

Robertson. “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right. 

“We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?

This has caused consternation in GLAAD and other gay rights groups who believe that equality is not enough and demand universal approval.  They have successfully lobbied for his dismissal.

Lesbian libertarian, Camille Paglia has slammed the decision and the groups who demanded it as fascists, labeling it as Stalinist and a violation of free speech: 

“I speak with authority here, because I was openly gay before the ‘Stonewall Rebellion,’ when it cost you something to be so,” said Paglia. “And I personally feel as a libertarian that people have the right to free thought and free speech.” 

It’s unlikely that you need any background, but Phil Robertson Became the target of GLAAD and other one-track advocates for gay rights after his remarks in a GQ article reflecting personal views on the depravity of homosexuality and other Biblical sins went viral. A&E responded to GLAAD pressure by indefinitely banning him from appearing in future episodes of “Duck Dynasty.” 

That, according to Paglia, was a “fascist,” freedom-squelching move. 

“In a democratic country, people have the right to be homophobic as they have the right to support homosexuality – as I 100 percent do. If people are basing their views against gays on the Bible, again they have a right to religious freedom there … to express yourself in a magazine in an interview. This is the level of punitive PC, utterly fascist, utterly Stalinist, okay? – that my liberal colleagues in the Democratic party and on college campuses have supported and promoted over the last several decades. It’s the whole legacy of the free-speech 1960s that have been lost by my own party.” 

Don’t look under any rocks for more ideological liberals to join Paglia in the Robertsons’ defense. Then again – the Duck Commander clan likely doesn’t need it. A Facebook page protesting A&E’s decision to yank Phil had received 800,000 “likes” by late Thursday – only a few hours after it first went online.

For A&E, this is not a matter of freedom of speech; they have the right to hire and fire as they wish, on any pretext.

The real fascists in this are those who wish to muzzle any form of opinion that disagrees with their own, or disapproves of the cause they are advocating.  Unfortunately, it appears that they are winning. 

Doctor to be deregistered under sick abortion law

Abortion is essentially a moral matter for those who seek it, and it shouldn’t be the realm of the state, but apparently the state is incapable of allowing it to happen without taking away the liberties of others.  While the ability to procure an abortion is considered a matter of choice, for doctors in Victoria there is only one choice.

It appears that in matters of moral judgment, once the government gets involved the lines become horribly blurred as to what rights we have and what freedoms are to be taken away from others in order to accommodate whatever is now about to be granted the blessing of the state.

In Victoria, a doctor faces the prospect of losing his license to practice for refusing to conduct a sex selection abortion and failing to issue a referral to someone who would: 

Dr Mark Hobart, 55, has been under investigation by the Medical Board of Victoria for five months, accused of having committed an offence under the state's controversial Abortion Law Reform Act of 2008.  His patient and her husband requested a sex-selection abortion after an ultrasound determined their fetus was female. 

They only wanted a boy, the husband told Dr Hobart, who, as a practising Catholic, had a conscientious objection to providing the abortion. 

Under Victorian law, he was obliged to refer the patient to a doctor he knew would terminate the pregnancy.  But Dr Hobart doesn't know any doctor who would agree to abort a healthy baby for sex selection reasons. 

"The general response from my colleagues is disbelief and revulsion," he said.In any case, a referral is not necessary for an abortion. Hobart's patient independently procured the abortion a few days later. Neither she nor her husband made any complaint.  But Dr Hobart now finds himself subject to a star chamber inquiry by the Medical Board of Victoria. 

The complaint about his conduct was generated by members of the board itself, a so-called "own Motion."   Yet Dr Hobart's repeated requests for the identity of his accusers and the substance of the complaint have been rebuffed by the board and its parent body, the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency.

It is disgraceful that under the intended or unintended consequences of the human rights act, or the deliberate enacting of political correctness in legislation, acts which are optional for the public at large, are compulsory for those who may be called on to facilitate those acts.  If abortion is a moral issue for the general public, it should also be a moral issue for doctors.

To suggest that doctors do not have a right to act on conscience, is to make them slaves.

Australia has such an undersupply of medical practitioners that we actively recruit in the third world trying to lure theirs here.  We do not have the luxury of tossing doctors to the wolves for failing to comply with PC.

Caution with satire, they might take you seriously; Shorten did

In my previous post, I quoted an article in the Business Spectator in which Labor leadership contender (for want of a better word), Bill Shorten was calling for ethnic quotas to ensure that Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders were represented in parliament. 

Indigenous Australians already have a number of passionate and articulate advocates, such as Warren Mundine and Noel Pearson who would make great MPs in their own right and could get there on their own ability should they wish to go there.  But then, Labor prefers a sense of entitlement to ability every time.

Just for a bit of fun, and to take the piss out of Bill, I decided to play around with other minorities that could also have quotas attached to them for representation.  Among them were gay, lesbian, transgender, and a number of immigrant and religious groups. 

Now, today I find that Shorten is advocating quotas for gay, lesbian, and transgender people. 

Labor leadership candidate Bill Shorten wants to introduce quotas to boost the number of gay and lesbian politicians in Parliament.

Mr Shorten is continuing his pitch to the party membership, sending out a manifesto that calls for the introduction of quotas for politicians representing minority groups.  He says the party should consider quotas for Indigenous Australians and the lesbian, gay, bixsexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community. 

Neil Fharaoh, the national convenor of Rainbow Labor, which represents the party's LGBTI members, says it is a step forward.  "The LGBTI community has been underrepresented, particularly in political seats, both at a state and federal level in Australia," he said. 

"There's probably only 12 gay and lesbian identifying politicians across the country and probably not too much more in the history and its definitely underrepresentative.  "So we'd welcome any moves to increase the representation in politics.”

Labor is proving once again it is beyond satire.  I now have to hope that he didn't read my post, and get the idea from me.

Shorten advocates ethnic quotas

Labor is still in the throws of a leadership election. Under the rules brought on by Kevin Rudd in order to ensure he became the first Labor leader since Keating in 1996, to last a full term of government were he successful in the last election, the membership has the vote on the issue.

As result the two contenders are frantically attempting to come up with feel good ideas to distinguish each from the other. In order to get the drop on Antony Albanese, Bill Shorten (Left) has come up with a call to introduce ethnic quotas on Labor MPs, something like the ‘women quotas’ they currently have:

 Labor leadership aspirant Bill Shorten has flagged changing the party's rules to set a quota for indigenous candidates. The ALP has a 40 per cent quota for female candidates, but has no such aim in terms of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders.  

Mr Shorten told a Per Capita forum in Melbourne the party should think "freely and openly" as it considers new ideas to revitalise after the September 7 election loss. "(We should) consider quotas for sections of the community that are under represented in our state and federal parliaments," Mr Shorten said.  

"And I especially think here of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait islanders." Mr Shorten said the party also needed to boost its effort to ensure women make up 40 per cent of all candidates, through the involvement of women on selection panels, and better mentoring. 

"A rule is not a rule unless the spirit is supported," he said. 

Something like:

 
 It is going to be interesting though, to see how these quotas will play out with other minorities such as various immigrant minorities, gay and lesbians (will there be a quota for each or can they share?), and of course, religious groups. And, oh hell, I forgot transgender people, and the list is endless.
What will be even more interesting is to see how this is going to play out along with his other big idea of local branches selecting their candidates themselves:

He recommended more community-based preselections for candidates, a dropping of the two-year membership requirement to vote in internal elections and the use of technology such as Skype to allow people to attend branch meetings. 

So, local branches will be allowed to pick their own candidate, but to ensure that the correct diversity is attained, some will be told that it can only be a woman, Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander, gay, lesbian, Catholic, C of E etc, Buddhist, Muslim, or Kiwi.

 The good news is that the transgender issue can be solved by allowing some branches to pick either a man or woman provided they have been the other previously.

Abbott remarks; storm in a B cup

Says attractive candidate (L) has sex appeal

Probably the biggest problem Tony Abbott has is his tendency to run off at the mouth; he tends to let out the clutch on his vocal chords without putting his brain in gear.  There have been numerous examples of this, including his infamous advice not to pay attention to his unscripted remarks.

His ‘suppository of all wisdom’ comment was just a slip of the tongue, but a great deal of histrionics is being employed in the Labor, Greens, feminist response to suggesting that one of his candidates had sex appeal.  Kevin Rudd, always the political correctness fanatic is being especially pedantic: 

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says Tony Abbott would find himself in serious strife if he made his "sex appeal" comments in the workplace. The Prime Minister, campaigning in Cairns at the end of a sweep of marginal North Queensland seats, described Mr Abbott's comments as ''pretty odd''. 

“If any male employer stood up in the workplace anywhere in Australia and pointed out a female staff member and said this person is a good staff member because they've got sex appeal, I think people would scratch their heads at least and the employer would find themself in serious strife, ''Mr Rudd said. 

''In modern Australia sexism or racism or homophobia does not have any place,'' he said.Mr Abbott found himself at the centre of a twitter storm when he described one of the attributes of Liberal candidate for Lindsay Fiona Scott as having ''sex appeal''. 

On his first trip to the key marginal Sydney seat of Lindsay yesterday, the Opposition Leader was asked how Liberal candidate Fiona Scott compared with predecessor Jackie Kelly. 

"They're young, they're feisty and, I think I can probably say, have a bit of sex appeal," Mr Abbott said. … 

… Labor minister Kim Carr told the ABC Mr Abbott's words were ''pathetic''. ''Sometimes we should think Tony Abbott really hasn't crawled out of the 1950s.”

It’s good of old Kim to tell us what we should be thinking, but then, the doyens of correct thought and the current truth have been doing that to us for a long time now.  It’s probably time for us to stop paying attention to them.

Still, it’s given the remaining members of Julia Gillard’s old ‘hand bag hit squad’ a chance to wax lyrical on misogyny.

As for Rudd’s comments on statements in the workplace, he is probably correct but such a situation is wrong unless it forms a real part of some sort of sexual harassment.  Merely passing a compliment, albeit a clumsy one should not be the subject of condemnation.

It is also difficult to see where he is coming from on his ‘sexism, racism, homophobia’ statement.  It is not disparaging her, she is not of a different race, nor does ‘sex appeal’ appear to be homophobic, even if Ms Scott was a lesbian, something we have no reason to believe.  Rudd is merely trying to attach as many disparaging labels to Abbott as possible within the sound bite.

The media, which frequently uses such expressions as, ‘sexiest man/woman alive’, hot, ravishingly beautiful, and so on, are being rather hypocritical on this issue.

Abbott has many flaws and faults, especially on policy, but sexism is not one of them.

Had he referred to the candidate as, “Damn smoking hot,” it might have been inappropriate.

Richard Dawkins hits the PC barrier

Prominent atheist, biologist, writer, and a number of other things, Richard Dawkins has run foul of the PC crowd over his comments on Twitter. 

Dawkins, who tends to be scathing about all religions, apparently made the mistake of thinking that given his across the board disbelief in all faith based thinking, it was OK to criticise the religion of peace: 

RICHARD Dawkins has sparked a backlash on Twitter after he claimed the world's Muslims have won fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge, but added: "They did great things in the Middle Ages, though". 

The outspoken author went on to defend the remarks which sparked fury on the social network where he was accused of disguising his "bigotry" as atheism. 

A series of high-profile Twitter users weighed in to condemn the comments prompting Professor Dawkins to question what Muslims had achieved since the Dark Ages.
The row broke out after he observed: "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge.” 

He responded to the barrage of ensuing criticism by telling his followers: "A statement of simple fact is not bigotry. And science by Muslims was great in the distant past.” In a further posting he wrote: "Where would we be without alchemy? Dark Age achievements undoubted. But since then?” 

He sought to justify the controversial observation by adding: "Why mention Muslim Nobels rather than any other group? Because we so often hear boasts about (a) their total numbers and (b) their science.” 

One angry Twitter user hit out at the remarks telling the author: "You absolutely disgust me.” Writer Caitlin Moran added: "Think it's time someone turned Richard Dawkins off and then on again", while Channel 4 News economics editor Faisal Islam questioned Prof Dawkins' "spurious use of data". 

Writer and commentator Owen Jones told Prof Dawkins: "How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment.” ...

It appears, that while it is perfectly fine to knock the Bible, dispute Judaism, criticise Buddhism, Taoism, and all but one of the rest, Islam must be given a pass, even among atheists.

There appear to be ten Muslim recipients of the Nobel Prize, although six of these have received the largely discredited, or at least, devalued Peace Prize.  Two have won the literature prize, one, Physics and another, chemistry.

Trinity College has 32.

Muslim incensed at Australian stamp

Image: the offending stamp. (This appears to be the action at Tel el Saba, a Kiwi action.) Courtesy News .com.au 

The latest in Australian stamps that has been distributed jointly with Israel has incensed a Palestinian activist who is having conniptions over it being a ‘disgraceful insult’ to whoever.  The problem she is frantic about is that they feature the Battle of Beersheba.

The charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba is one of the iconic battles in Australian history.  The 4^th Light Horse was ordered to take the town by dark after the British XX Corps had attached the town for most of the day, making little headway against stiff resistance. 

The 4^th and 12^th Regiments were ordered to attack the Turkish trenches in a cavalry charge rather than the traditional tactic of dismounting and attacking on foot.  The town was secured within the hour. 

There only seems to be one complaint so far, but it has apparently been a slow news day: 

Australia Post's noble envelope-carrying mission is embroiled in controversy today - with the company accused of making a "disgraceful" insult to the Palestinian people in a range of 60c and $2.60 postage stamps. 

"Just the other day I needed a postage stamp," Australian Palestinian activist Sonja Karkar wrote on her blog, "I duly handed over my 60 cents at an Australia Post outlet and received far more than I bargained for - nothing less, would you believe, than a dollop of Israeli propaganda." 

The issue? The stamps feature World War I near the town of Beersheba where Australian soldiers fought the Turkish.  But Ms Karkar says the stamp is tied to Israel when Beersheba was a Palestinian town in 1917. Israel did not exist until 1948. … 

… An Australia Post spokeswoman said it received its information from sources including the Australian War Memorial. And the stamps were fact-checked by war historian Peter Stanley.

It is difficult to understand why this has been given publicity, given that the ‘outrage’ described consists of one blog post by a Palestinian radical who wishes to censor the history of this nation.  We can though, now expect plenty of bleating and bitching to follow from the usual sources.

Giving these idiots oxygen is only likely to result in more demands in the name of political correctness and the avoidance of offense to Muslims.  There is already far too much appeasement of these people who seem to find nearly everything ‘offensive’.

Probably one of the most ludicrous examples was a report by Veterans Affairs fretting over whether ANZAC day was likely to upset their delicate sensibilities: 

The Government squandered $370,000 so that Veteran’s Affairs Bureaucrats could finance a number of ‘Focus Groups’ to develop still more political correctness and tell us that ANZAC Day commemorations were “unpopular with younger people” and offend recent Islamic immigrants.   Someone forgot to tell the focus groups about the increasing numbers of young people that are attending dawn services and other ANZAC Day commemorations around Australia, at Gallipoli and other memorial sites on the battlefields of WWI and recent immigrants are offended by everything Australian. 

The Government then spent another $105,000 to measure the impact of ANZAC Day on recently arrived Islamic migrants and to tone down the commemorations by not mentioning the current and recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as Muslims may be offended.  What consideration was give to the offence that will cause the survivors and/or families of those Australian servicemen killed or maimed in those conflicts? …

About the only offensive thing about this stamp is the cost of posting a letter.

Illegal for kids to say gun in US

 Imaage: When this guy makes it to preschool he will be in real trouble for this.
Anti gun frantics in the education system seem particularly fond of picking on school children of late, especially the younger ones. 

Recently we have seen kids picked on and bullied by school authorities for a number of ‘gun related’ activities, from having cap guns, drawing guns, eating gun shapes into biscuits, pointing fingers and saying bang, right through to something involving bubble gum that was too bloody stupid to bother reading.  There was even a three year old deaf preschooler who was ordered to change his name from Hunter because the sign used resembled a gun, (Not making this up.)

Now a child has been interrogated and suspended for mentioning the word gun: 

Bruce Henkelman of Huntingtown says his son, a sixth grader at Northern Middle School in Owings, was talking with friends about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre when the bus driver hauled him back to school to be questioned by the principal, Darrel Prioleau. 

"The principal told me that with what happened at Sandy Hook if you say the word 'gun' in my school you are going to get suspended for 10 days," Henkelman said in an interview with WMAL.com. 

So what did the boy say?  According to his father, he neither threatened nor bullied anyone. 

"He said, I wish I had a gun to protect everyone. He wanted to defeat the bad guys. That's the context of what he said," Henkelman said. "He wanted to be the hero."

 Image: The origin of a liberal tradition.

The boy was questioned by the principal and a sheriff's deputy, who also wanted to search the family home without a warrant, Henkelman said. "He started asking me questions about if I have firearms, and [the deputy said] he's going to have to search my house.  Search my house?  I just wanted to know what happened." 

No search was performed, and the deputy left Henkelman's home after the father answered questions in a four-page questionnaire issued by the Sheriff's Office. … 

… The ACLU's Kumar said there are too many cases of school officials coming down hard on students for relatively harmless offenses.

How stupid and inadequate is the ACLU in the first place to regard this as an offense? These people have no concept of the rule of law.

These actions are nothing to do with safety, nor solving any perceived problem of gun violence. They are liberal political correctness mixed with an unhealthy dose of histrionics posing as public safety.  These people are child abusers.

ABC spins lower sea level rise

ABC news reported a story that has been doing the rounds of the news networks today about the lower expectations of sea level rises due to the melting of glaciers in Greenland.  The conclusion of the report gave the good news that the expected rise was now less than a metre (39.3 inches) by the end of the century.

While this is much less than the figures stated by such gurus as Tim Flannery and Al Gore who tend to think six metres is a bit optimistic, it will still make the climate frantics feel deliciously vindicated.

The only trouble is that that the actual expected rise has been revised down to between 40mm (just under two inches) and 85mm (around 3.3 inches.) 

European and US researchers predict the impact on sea levels from the island's melting glaciers could be as little as 7 per cent of previous projections of more than half a metre. 

The "state-of-the-art ice-flow model" calculates that melting ice from Greenland's 50-odd glaciers will raise sea levels by between 40mm and 85mm by the end of the century. 

The estimates, reported today in the journal Nature, are extrapolated from modelling of four "single-outlet" glaciers in southern and northwestern Greenland. 

The paper says glacier modelling is extremely difficult because of the complex forces at work.  "The complicated behaviour of narrow-outlet glaciers has not yet been fully captured by the ice-sheet models used to predict Greenland's contribution to future sea level," it says. 

"Complex pattern(s) with rapid changes may be transient and not necessarily indicative of long-term trends." 

Lead author Faezeh Nick, a glaciologist based on the Arctic island of Svalbard, said previous estimates had been based on "simple extrapolation".  "This is the first time we have managed to calculate the contribution of ice dynamic in sea-level rise in a realistic way based on physics," Dr Nick said. 

"Now we are more confident about our projections."

Well, it’s nice to see that they are more confident about their projections, but a downward revision of more than 90% in figures that were written on stone tablets of settled science is something of a setback, given that in the past anyone who dared to criticize or doubt this figure was branded a climate denier, web footed inbred yobbo, ignorant red neck, and so on by the very people who are doing the revision.

But still, the ABC is quite correct.  40mm is less than a metre.

Tasmania bans abortion clinic protests

Image: Tasmanian Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne. (This explains a lot)

In a draconian move by the Tasmanian government, protests cannot be held within a one hundred and fifty meter radius of an abortion clinic.  At this stage there is no other legislation on the books banning any other protests in a similar manner against anything else.

This action is part of the Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill 2013, so it only applies to protests against abortionists.  It also compels doctors who refuse to carry them out on conscience grounds to refer patents to others who will: 

“The bill proposes a fine of $65,000 or a 12 month jail term for the newly created crime of protesting in an area within a radius of 150 metres from an abortion clinic. This is an inappropriate limitation on freedom of speech. 

“General laws against intimidation already exist in the law and they are appropriate restraints on unacceptable behavior.  

“Singling out particular premises for special treatment undermines equality before the law. This bill does not make it illegal to distribute material outside supermarkets or sports grounds, for instance. The Tasmanian government should not ban protests, whether they occur outside an abortion clinic or a timber mill. 

“The bill also threatens freedom of conscience by forcing doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion to refer patients to another doctor who does not have such objections. A fine of $32,500 applies to counsellors who refuse to contradict their beliefs. This is a clear and unacceptable infringement of freedom of conscience,” said Mr Breheny.

Tasmania is a state with great potential but cruelled by successive governments over the years.  The current one is made up of far left Labor, in coalition with the Greens, who as close to Bolshies as you can get, this side of Stalin.  It is something like Australia’s California.

As much as the idea of abortion is distasteful, legalizing it creates a safer environment for women who undergo the process.  Its illegality has not prevented many from taking place, but has created a situation where women’s lives are at risk.  It is controversial however, and it is reasonable to expect protests against it.

The left though, regard it as some sort of sacred cow that must not be questioned, let alone be objected to. 

Dutch abandon multiculturalism

Much of the Western world is in the thrall of multiculturalism, a bad idea whose time has passed.  In Europe, which seems to have embraced the concept like a viper to its bosom, serious problems have arisen owing to extremely liberal human rights laws of the EU, and a virtual open border allowing unrestricted migration from the Middle East and Africa.

The Netherlands, where Party for Freedom (PVV) leader, Geert Wilders (L) and former politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali (R) live under constant threat of being murdered has had enough and are abandoning the concept: 

The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants create a parallel society within the Netherlands. 

A new integration bill, which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads:  “The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. 

In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role.”  With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.  

The letter continues: “A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. …

Among the changes, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, a tougher approach to immigrants who ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law, no special subsidies for Muslim immigrants, and a ban on face-covering, Islamic burqas.