His Eminence promotes climate skepticism

Article below by Cardinal archbishop of Sydney George Pell

ANOTHER year has passed quickly; too quickly for those who will run out of time before they run out of money. Undoubtedly, the most important event in the Australian year was the election last month of a new federal government. The transition was smooth, and the new Prime Minister is striving to avoid antagonising the various elements of the broad coalition that brought him to office.

The unions are impatient about the proposed pace of change to workplace regulations, while the maverick ACT Government's proposals to downplay marriage are causing apprehension among Christians.

The Bali summit on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change was a public relations triumph, although I'm hopeful the new government will not impose major costs on the people for dubious versions of climate goals. We need rigorous cost-benefit analysis of every proposal and healthy scepticism of all semi-religious rhetoric about the climate and, especially, about computer models for the future. It is difficult to predict what the weather will be like next week, let alone in 10, 20 or 100 years. We hope the drought is coming to an end in country areas, but Australia will always be susceptible to recurrent droughts until the arrival of the next ice age.

There is little reason to be optimistic about peace in the Middle East despite the Annapolis meeting, and unfortunate, suffering Lebanon teeters on the edge of another disaster. Australian troops will remain in Afghanistan, probably for years of struggle, and will slowly withdraw from Iraq, where fragile signs of an improving situation have been appearing.

US President George W. Bush survives as the only continuing head of government from the major allies of the "coalition of the willing". Tony Blair has resigned as UK prime minister, although his government is still in office. One of the most remarkable politicians of his generation, Blair possesses communication skills rivalling those of Bill Clinton. Apparently a religious man, Blair remains an enigma at many levels. He has attended Mass every Sunday for many years with his wife and family, and has just become a Roman Catholic. Yet he implemented and personally supported anti-Christian legislation over the years.

Source




What stupid paternity laws do

INFERTILE couples desperate to have children are facing agonising waits for donated sperm. The Royal Hospital for Women has had no new sperm donors for more than 12 months. Reproductive specialists say attracting enough men to satisfy demand has always been difficult, and waiting lists are longer because of the growing number of childhood cancer survivors rendered infertile by treatment. The dwindling stocks are also sought by single women and same-sex couples.

The director of the hospital's department of reproductive medicine, Stephen Steigrad, said at least 20 men who had undergone aggressive cancer treatments requested donor insemination for their partners every year. Without new donors, the service would have to be stopped within six months. The Centre for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick says one in 900 Australians aged between 16 and 45 has survived childhood cancer.

Changes to NSW legislation this month requiring donors to register their names on a mandatory central register had turned potential donors off, said Professor Michael Chapman, from IVF Australia, which has a waiting list of two years. The Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill guarantees children access to their father's name, date of birth, education and medical information once they turn 18. It may also require details of the donor's partner and other children to be listed. "Previously men could donate knowing there was no way they were going to get a knock on their door," Professor Chapman said. "Now men are less likely to donate."

Dr Anne Clark, from Fertility First Hurstville, said the sperm shortage would be compounded by the new laws, which legislate that one man's sperm can go to only five families, down from 10.

Source




A few secrets among friends

Comments on the Australian media by Andrew Bolt -- at his sarcastic best

EVERY week I get emails from readers asking me how on earth I do this job, filling endless pages with columns as wise as they are brilliant. Take this latest email from reader Geoff: "I don't know how you get away with that bulls---." Or this, from Mary of Fitzroy: "It just amazes me you can print that f---ing stuff in the paper week after week."

And not just the paper, Mary. As the man officially voted Australia's "most influential public intellectual" confided in awed tones to Age readers: "Bolt has a Herald Sun blog-site . . . (that) took my breath away. Thank you, Professor. (And apologies for cutting your quote. Words such as "omissions" and "distortions" are too bloated for newspapers. Short and sharp, please!)

So how do I do it, dear readers? First of all, by having a thick skin, of course. After all, if I let all this praise get to me, my head would swell to Tim Flannery dimensions and I'd lose the common touch that has made me the talk of so many academics expert in such matters. ....

And so many options to consider. Shouldn't I really help out The Age's editor, still tearing out his hair at being unable to find a single conservative columnist in his entire staff of 1599 journalists and tireless reviewers of the perfect cappuccino? How well I remember the poor man earnestly discussing his woes as sweat sogged his Scottish shirt, the air-conditioning of his office having been turned off to save the planet. How uncomfortable I still feel, having left him to slip all alone into his office bath, over which hangs a framed copy of his bracing editorial of January 18: "Our consumer society has long abandoned the fan or the cold bath as the way to keep the summer at bay."

But don't I also owe it to Channel 9 to take over from Ray Martin, now so hopelessly lost to the Left that he this week confessed not only that he was a friend of anti-American hysteric John Pilger, but that "most positions he takes I agree with"? You might actually have gathered that already from Martin's documentary this year, Caged Animal David Hicks - A Nation's Shame, one of the segments that explains why Sunday now gobbles like a Christmas dinner.

Or should I instead listen at last to the pleas and promises of the ABC's managing director, so short of conservatives that he's been forced - against his will, of course - to hire the eighth straight Leftist in a row as host of Media Watch? How often has he privately confessed that if he could but find a witty, cultured and modest conservative willing to leave, say, Australia's biggest-selling daily, he'd hire him like a shot. A shot of rat poison, I thought he added under his breath, but he assures me I heard wrong.

I mean, haven't ABC radio listeners, for example, earned a break from yet another season of Jon Faine complaining yet again about people richer than him, even asking our new Prime Minister: "What do you do about people making too much money?" Shoot them, perhaps? But, hey, we deserve all that money, Jon. It's not as if it makes us happier than you, dear boy. No, that's something else entirely.

So I know that before I pack, I should leave behind a few tips for my successor, if such is needed and can be found. Jill Singer, perhaps, re-educated and redeemed? Such secrets of success as I possess must not be lost with me, and so here they are, as pinned to my empty chair last night: Here are my top tips to writing opinion pieces guaranteed to amaze and inform.

A word of caution, though: I have left out the boring stuff that you might think obvious, but which in fact barely seems now to matter. Sure, I'm as much as stickler as you for the facts, but I can see now that accuracy is no longer a qualification for a modern columnist, providing their views are sufficiently fashionable.

A for instance? Well, here's Age columnist Tracee Hutchison just last Saturday demanding forgiveness for David Hicks: "He was certainly not the only Australian who considered the warmongering activities of George Bush and his allies to be abhorrent and worthy of opposing." See? It doesn't matter that Hicks actually joined al-Qaida before the September 11 attacks, and before Bush went to war in response. Doesn't matter! Who cares, as long as it feels right.

Likewise it doesn't matter that the Australian's Mike Steketee can claim there were 100,000 "stolen" children without being able to name one; 60 Minutes' Tara Brown can claim global warming is wiping out the polar bears that are actually, uh, increasing; the ABC's Phillip Adams can claim "no nation has a more bloodstained history than the US"; and historian Christopher Shiel can write "Menzies led the Liberals to defeat in 1941" - setting a personal best of three errors of fact in just eight words. A lack of facts hasn't hurt any of them, so I've scrubbed from my list any Gradgrinding advice about facts, facts, facts. I have far more practical tips.

Don't go out. You'll only meet people you've offended, and grow tired of speaking blunt truths.

Thrive on insults. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote an essay on 38 ways to win an argument, with abuse at 38 - so when someone starts screaming "fascist" you know he's run out of all other ways to prove you wrong. Enjoy your victory.

Name and shame. "Ow" is still the best proof you've hit a target. Second, even villains move when stung. Third, the unrighteous deserve a little smiting, and blood sports are always more fun for the viewers. So make an example of Profit of Doom Al Gore or of Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery. A proper example.

Repeat yourself. Say it once, and people will forget, when you actually want them to remember, years later, who it was that said the Y2K bug was exaggerated, Melbourne was running out of water, GM crop bans were insane, the stolen generations was a myth and global warming was hot air. I mean, there has to be reward one day for the abuse today. And one bang of the hammer never drove home a big nail.

Never drop the key. Have I mentioned often enough that the world has actually not heated since 1998? That Professor Robert Manne, our leading "stolen generations" propagandist, cannot name even 10 children truly stolen just for racist reasons? That a new dam for Melbourne would give us more water at a third of the price of the Government's desalination plant? One sharp fact can cut through a mountain of waffle.

Lastly, don't forget your real friends. Those friends are not your contacts. Not your fellow journalists. Not the judges of media awards. They are you, dear reader. If I please you, I'm safe. Please you, and I'll be back next year.

Source





Governments are great friends of car manufacturers -- it seems

NSW train faults quadruple, report says. Not a good way to get people out of their cars

The number of faults on Sydney's trains has nearly quadrupled, and there were nearly 1,000 collisions, a public transport watchdog has found. The report says the NSW government faces a major challenge to upgrade the network to allow for both the planned new CityRail fleet and large freight trains.

On Sydney's trains last year 436 faults were found but this year there were 1,693 faults, according to the Annual Transport Industry Safety and Reliability Reports. The Sunday Telegraph reports the majority of the incidents related to faulty doors and included 120 broken rails. There were 1,000 recorded brake faults, 706 on passenger trains, the report said.

The safety report also recorded 217 incidents of drivers passing a red light, 337 cases of signal failure and 181 train fires. In terms of safety 366 passengers have been seriously endured and seven of eight fatalities arose from injuries to trespassers. Overall 2,439 incidents were reported.

Source