Jara

Excellent news this morning - cervical cancer has almost been eliminated in Australia due to the introduction of screening.

No thanks to The Bananaby, of course, who voted against it on the grounds that it would encourage promiscuity among women. (My fingers are hovering over the keyboard, busting to make a crass comment about Barnaby and promiscuous women but.....oh god, it's tempting, but no, I can resist it...)  

4 minutes ago, nutbean said:

Ahh.. that argument will see you get pilloried on this thread.

I don't profess to know the answers as to the validity of all the data and opinions on this issue. However this has always been my belief. What is the consequences of global warming being a hoax and action being taken unnecessarily to prevent a non existent problem as opposed to the consequences of global warming being real but doing zero nothing because there is no irrefutable evidence as to the existence of a problem. I know what side I want to be on. 

You get intellectually knee-capped for holding views like this.

Yes, exactly, none of us here really know what we're talking about - all we can do is trust the science, the vast majority of which says that global warming is a threat to our civilisation. 

Personally, i think the denialists are in denial because, somewhere deep down, they are afraid to face the truth and its consequences. We've all got truths we're reluctant to face.

Re your last comment, don't worry - I've yet to meet anybody on this site capable of "intellectually knee-capping" me. 

On 1 March 2018 at 11:13 PM, Ethan Tremblay said:

. 

Ethan - re that list of scientists you quoted - I think even the staunchest believers in global warming accept that it's only a theory, and there will always be those who disagree. 

But from my reading of it, the vast majority of professionals working in the field are convinced that global warming is anthropogenic (for example, see the organisations I mentioned above). 

They may be wrong - but surely we should take steps to reduce our impact on the planet, just in case they're not?

And the American Chemical Society? One of the biggest scientific organizations in the world. 150,00 members. Nobel Prize winners, internationally respected researchers, peer-reviewed journals galore. Quite unequivocally state their opinion that global warming is man-made.

They're in on the conspiracy too, are they?

11 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

Trump has had a much better impact on the economy, employment and social cohesion than could have been imagined. Watch the left get more and more shrill in the lead up to the next presidential election as Trump's economic numbers get better and better.

Well, I hope the economy goes well, but look what happened the last time we had a Republican idiot in the White House. Eight years of letting the Wolves of Wall Street run the show and we had a bloody GFC - dunno bout you, but my super took a solid whack. 

2 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

If your enemy states a fact it is still a fact. You need to get over the association with the IPA and look at the content. It is damning.

But you still haven't answered my question. Why would the BOM want to fudge the figures? 

Like I said, I met some of them - they are very nerdy, precise, diligent individuals. Are you suggesting they're lying?

8 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

She’s holds a PhD in Biology. What are you a doctor of Jara? I have this odd rash... 

Alas, nothing as useful as medicine. I'd be happy to look at your rash, though - you guys don't seem too worried about the qualifications of the "experts" you use.  

Dr. Marohasy? That's the bloody IPA entomologist again. She's not a climate scientist's cake-hole. She's weird: look at her bio. Says she's got a PhD, but doesn't tell you what it was for (there's some very dodgy doctors around - I should know - I'm one myself). 

1 hour ago, Wrecker45 said:

He has smarts about him though that put him at a genius level.

Well, there's at least one person who agrees with you: Trump himself.

Oh and Wrecker, I'm not the one who is denying the views of reputable scientific organisations such as the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union or the American Geological Society, all of whom unequivocally support the view that global warming is man-made.

You are. Ergo, you are a denialist.

1 hour ago, Wrecker45 said:

The BOM has been widely discredited. Their scientific method at weather stations has been proven corrupt and a year 8 science student could identify that.

We could go over this again with very clear evidence, pictures that verify, refusals from the BOM to comply with basic FOI requests and a raft of other evidence but I assume you prefer to virtue signal and then pretend to yourself that others are denialists.

Yeah, yeah, I know, your IPA entomologist showed that the BOM is corrupt.

I interviewed several BOM scientists a few years ago. Those guys spend their lives trying to provide accurate information to the community.

What on earth do you think is their motivation for them to fudge the figures? 

Nice try, Earl, but the deniers don't pay much attention to reputable scientific organisations. They get their science from looking out the window and reading Andrew Bolt.

1 hour ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

I love how he just sucks people in. He’s brilliant. 

He's sucked you in.

Dunno if that requires much brilliance.

How's Trump? "If there was a school shooting, I'd go running at the gunman, even if I didn't have a gun." 

Yeah, sure, like you did in Vietnam. Heel-spurs - wasn't that his excuse? Or VD?

What a boastful, bloated, self-deluded moron. 

12 hours ago, hardtack said:

I’m starting to get genuinely concerned over my failing memory. Fixed.

No worries - it happens to us all -  barracking for Melbourne scrambles your brains. I did meet the GG, and as far as I can tell, she was a woman (coincidentally, I also met Chloe on another occasion, and boy, was she a woman). 

13 minutes ago, hardtack said:

Yes, Quentin Bryce, Chloe Bryce’s father. From the Courier Mail 2008:

”FEDERAL Labor parliamentarian and former union leader Bill Shorten has left his wife for the daughter of the new Governor-General, Quentin Bryce.”

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/shorten-with-ggs-daughter/news-story/1139db9114866dfa6ed8a18100fe2490

Of course I’m assuming ET was referring to the woman Shorten left his wife for... I’m not aware of any other such “transgressions“.

Er ...if Quentin Bryce was really Chloe's father, no wonder Bill was so in favour of marriage equality.

19 minutes ago, hardtack said:

Perhaps when it can be established that she was actually a staffer of his.... which will be never, due to the fact that she wasn’t.  They met at the swearing in of her father as the 25th Gov General of Australia.

her father?

Damn, I was hoping he'd stay.

13 hours ago, daisycutter said:

surely the record for the biggest crowd ever at the mcg speaks to his 'greatness', earl. mcchins can only drool.

Who's McChins?

You've got to hand it to Trump - he has this uncanny ability - he's almost like Stephen Curry, lobbing those three-pointers - I've never seen anything quite like it - he has this astonishing ability to say the wrong thing. His brain must be made of jello. 

His response to crazies shooting children: arm the teachers and re-open the madhouses of the old days. Can you imagine what kind of weirdo could come up with such inappropriate ideas? No consideration of the obvious solutions: stop selling assault weapons to anybody who wants one and improve your health system.

He's King Midas in reverse: everything he touches turns to merde. He's wrong on everything. (I wondered how he could have had the brains to build a property empire, then I remembered he inherited it)

Which leads me to the obvious question: you Demonland climate deniers, what's it like having this fruitcake in your corner? Forget the science: I'd say, the mere fact that he doesn't believe in global warming is proof that it's happening.

binman, dunno about 'great' I reckon our own wide brown land was pretty good - pre 1788.

Omg, Hardtack - it's worse than I thought. He was porking his Chief of Staff? As well as Miss Vicki?  And, presumably, Mrs Joyce from time to time? 

I didn't know that. What a man. 

I reckon that huge New England majority was largely based on the fact that people thought it was ridiculous that he had to resign from Parliament. I agreed with them on that one, and wasn't surprised he won so easily. 

That water theft business: jeez, how depressing. I'd thought it was just some cowboys sneaking out at night and opening the valves or something. Then I saw the 7.30 / 4 Corners reports: my god, the scale of the theft. Huge, multi-national corporates just building dams, diverting massive amounts of water, killing the river for those downstream - all with the connivance of scumbags like Bananaby.   

The worst thing is that those guys always win. Throw your hat in with the monsters and you've got it made. You can bet that the second Bananaby leaves Parliament, he'll be lowering his fat ass into some million-dollar job created just for him by The Rhino.

36 minutes ago, Choke said:

Trump is an idiot.

Repealed Obama's law that would have made it harder for the mentally ill to buy guns.

Fact check

Then he has the audacity to blame shooting on mental illness.

 

As for Obama's 'lack of action' on gun laws, the Democrats had control of Congress from 2009-2011. This was the window for action, and from memory that window was used to pass the ACA. After that, The GOP took control of Congress, making meaningful changes to gun control legislation extremely difficult. Even during that window in 2009-2011, the Democrats had fewer than 60 seats in the Senate - which is generally what is required to avoid a filibuster. So any significant gun control legislation would have stalled at this point anyway.

Sandy Hook happened in 2012. So America's greatest impetus for improving their gun control laws took place when the GOP controlled Congress - obviously nothing was going to pass.

 

Make no mistake here, the GOP is the biggest impediment to meaningful reform in the USA on gun control. The NRA has donated millions to them in order to keep gun laws where they are:

https://www.absentdata.com/blog/nra-politician-donations/

 

Terrific post, Choke.

Obama was constantly calling for greater gun control. Stalled by Republican hookers in the pay of the NRA.

The Fat Orangutan, by contrast, says it's nothing to do with gun laws, all about mental health. 

Crazy boy just wanders in to the corner shop,  buys a machine gun: 17 dead, most of them kids.  

12 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

There were more mass shootings (and more deaths) and mass murders (where guns were used) under Obama than there was under the four previous Presidents. 

What on earth are you trying to say, Ethan?