Friday, June 01, 2007
LITTLE PEOPLE POWER
Power lunchers Tim Flannery and Margaret Fulton mobilise the little people:
Our culinary correspondent Keith Austin, who wrote about the duo for yesterday’s Good Living section, tells us Margaret Fulton and Tim Flannery came up with the “Three Phone Calls” campaign in response to Fulton’s desire to do something about global warming.
The idea, explained Flannery, is simple: “The first phone call is to your local parliamentarian to ask ‘what’s your policy, what are you going to do?’ And tell them point blank, if it’s not good enough, that you’ll actively work against them. The next two phone calls are to two friends who might be sympathetic, to get them to do the same thing.”
Fulton, a long-time supporter of Greenpeace, says it’s a move that would help what she calls “the little people” to make a difference.
Hit the phones, midgets! The spirit of Margo’s people’s court lives!
CHANCE MISSED
The SMH’s Adele Horin:
I suppose all of us wonder at some point what stuff we are made of. If really tested, how brave would we be, how principled, how selfless? Would we do the right thing or the easy thing? Would we have been collaborators in Nazi Europe, or resisters, for example; righteous gentiles who hid Jews, or part of the silent majority who turned their backs?
In recent times we have had the chance to put ourselves to the test.
How did that work out, Adele?
MOTHER MOVES ON
Mark Steyn farewells Mother Sheehan:
Cindy Sheehan announced this week that she’s retiring from ...well, whatever it is she does. She had a grand old run, spending two years being flown around not just America but the world, all the way to Australia. Alas, ingratitude is the prerogative of the people, as the late Shah of Iran once observed. And Cindy has been playing to smaller and smaller crowds, raking in less and less money and selling fewer copies of the many books she’s cranked out. The final straw was being rebuked by Democrats for her criticism of their weathervane Senators. She’s a sad figure and it speaks very poorly for the integrity of the anti-war left and their supporters in the media that they were willing to promote so assiduously someone who’s so obviously suffering from a freakish form of mental illness.
Also from Steyn:
In Gaza, Islamic Jihad is planning to send waves of female suicide bombers into action against the Zionist Entity. Asked by an Israeli reporter whether self-detonating ladies enjoy the same 72-virgin deal as the lads, an Arab scholar said no, but that the gals will be served in Paradise by “dwarfs.” Snow White got seven dwarfs, but it’s unclear whether Blow White will get the full 72: Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, etc., all the way down to Incendiary, Non-Alcoholic and Anti-Zionist.
UN DEFINES “BEST”
Congratulations to Liz Minchin, winner of the United Nations Association of Australia’s prize for best reporting on global warming.
BLAZE OF GLORY
Longtime News Ltd staffer Bob Cooper retired this week following years of setting himself on fire. Seriously; igniting his chest hair was Bob’s party trick, accompanied by a ritualistic chant from observers. On Thursday night, Bob blazed for the final time:
Note that Bob burns brighter than the gas-fuelled heater in the background. No accelerants were employed. Bob’s BTU output is all natural.
(Much thanks to Steve Fenech for forwarding that image)
POINT/COUNTERPOINT
Column from me; pre-emptive rebuttal from some gal at the Age.
UPDATE. Andrew Bolt: “In her 2090 words of abuse and moral bullying, Hughes not once - not once - discusses the actual arguments of these scientists, and disproves them.”
TERRIBLE COSTS IMPOSED
Yielding to demands from the Sydney Morning Herald (among others), John Howard proposes a carbon trading scheme. The Herald’s reaction:
Emissions plan hurts households ...
Electricity and fuel bills will rise and the only way to avoid the sting will be to use less, under the national emissions trading system to be adopted by the Howard Government.
Did they think such a system might somehow reduce costs? The Age is of a similar view:
Australians will face higher electricity and petrol prices and slower economic growth under a climate change blueprint branded too little too late by its critics.
We await from these critics a plan that will deliver cheaper power, increased economic growth, and reduced emissions.
INTO THE SUNSHINE
Jonathan H. comments:
Back in my younger days as an insufferable arts prick I used to tour with an Aboriginal comedian who was one of the happiest, most well-adjusted blokes I’ve met, despite seeing his father and most of his uncles commit suicide or rot away in prison. He used to get all sorts of racist abuse at times, and he never let it bother him. I asked him once how he stopped himself from getting angry. He just smiled and said: “I grew up in a dark room, and I got out of it and into the sunshine. I ain’t never going back into that dark room. Not for nothin’ or nobody.”
That’s what I call strength. Mastery of the self is the first essential step on the road to happiness. Yet we live in an age when the authentic self is not even held to exist anymore. So unhappiness abounds.
Well said. Of course, another key to happiness is watching Collingwood, especially Leon Davis. Also, has anyone noticed how closely Alan Didak’s style of play resembles that of Peter Daicos?
GLUTSCH GULPS
At a certain point, even Euroloids tell Gaia to step off:
Like most Germans, brewer Helmut Erdmann is all for the fight against global warming. Unless, that is, it drives up the price of his beer.
This spectacularly-named fellow is also hostile to costal warming:
Volker Glutsch, 37, complained bitterly.
“It’s absolutely outrageous that beer is getting even more expensive,” Glutsch said, gulping down the last swig of his half-liter dark beer at lunch. “But there’s nothing we can do about it - except drinking less and that’s not going to happen.”
OLD HOLLYWOOD ROCKED
Despite being dead, Robert Mitchum keeps it real.
(Via Paco)
TORTURE IN IRAQ! TORTURE IN IRAQ!
But nobody seems to care. In other double-standard news:
The United Nations called for an indoor smoking ban on World No Tobacco Day while not enforcing a ban on smoking at its own headquarters.
ONE OF THOSE AWKWARD MOMENTS
At work yesterday ...
Environment writer: “Planning anything for World Environment Day?”
Me: “Just the usual. Setting fire to a pile of car tyres in my yard.”
(Long silence)
Environment writer: “I meant for the opinion pages.”
HATERS HEART JOHO
John Howard is an inspiration to terrorists. Well, former terrorists ...
(Via Phil)
NEVIL’S ADVOCATE
Gideon Haigh in the Telegraph:
They don’t make novelists like Nevil Shute any more: a self-made millionaire who served in both world wars, allergic to literary society, disdainful of critics and against state support for the arts.
It’s 50 years since Shute’s On The Beach was published; quite a book, and quite a writer.