All Was Not Lost

Opening Quotes:

"The claim that global warming is the result of human activity and not an entirely natural, cyclical phenomenon is the greatest deception of the 21st century so far - and a direct consequence of the politicization of modern science, environmentalism and the mainstream media."
Peter C Glover, English writer, journalist &
site director, Global Warming Hysteria.com

"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster."
KevinVranes, climate scientist, University of Colorado talking about global warming hysteria, January, 2007.

"The sleep of reason brings forth monsters"
Francisco de Goya.

"The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance."
Michael Crichton, Science writer and author 'State of Fear'.

\FACT: The liberal Left sees the manipulation of the environmental movement and especially global warming alarmism as the ideal scare campaign to secure increasingly strict controls over peoples lives.

http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/





All was not lost, surely, in the Christmas time, in the spring mornings, in another day. The ancient chrones may have been slumped in the hospital. His body may have been wracked with pain. But it was another day, another opportunity. Where there was life there was hope. Where he came from, any excitement was an adventure of the soul. Those dark, wind whipped trees that had haunted his childhood, the glowering hatred of his father, the fear, all of it dissolved into a different life, a different era. Nadal has just beat Federer at Wimbledon; and televisions everwhere record the exuberation, the applause, the defeat, the despair. We live in a world of multiple images, multiple pain. We register nothing. We walk the earth lightly.

It's the school holidays and our little family are going their separate ways for a few days, the farm, Lismore, Sydney. We won't be beaten, the voice said. You will shrug off these illnesses and live a long life. But those ancient bodies, slumped in the hospital. He sat with Joyce for a couple of hours, with North Shore Robin and all that was there, all the kindness and self interest they had displayed. Once upon a time he had thought any one who was sober for five minutes was a saint. Then a few things happened and he knew they were treacherous dogs, callow, shallow, as self interested, as gossipy and as superficial as everyone else.

Yes, he had railed against the system. Yes, he had fought for justice. Yes, he had listened to the voices and sprawled beauty across the page. But in the dark nights, when he was alone now, when he followed every bit of his own aging with great consternation, he knew the window bashing wind would come again. Could there be a time of happiness, the glass half full? Could he take their measure and triumph, a joke, a sad little joke squirming in the ether. Or would he take the easy way out, there in Calcutta, where heroin was cheap?

The same women sat in the chairs opposite Joyce yesterday, slumped, speaking to no one, visited by no one. Joyce, in contrast, had a regular stream of visitors and we all cared. What a lovely person, the television crews said, as they trailed out, after interviewing her about the $500 Rudd was threatening to take away from the pensioners. Howard's one-off payments got instantly installed; and Rudd, with his weak, pursed little mouth and his fowl language, with his unthinking embrace of left wing shibboleths, began to instil horror in us all.

Climate change is the great moral challenge of our age, he said. Winning yet more hearts from the urban left who would never have to pay the price. But what would have taken real moral courage would have been to stand up and put a stop the hysteria: to be honest and say, the science is not in, we will not turn this country on its head for a theory, we will not destroy the economy and the country. Everyone had forgotten how bad Labor are in power, and the filthy egotistical putrid self-serving crap of the former leader had poisoned the conservative side of politics, no doubt for years to come. We were worn, we were beaten, by the weight of politics, by the rigged nature of the game.

And they kept on spewing forth propaganda, they kept on making up crises to scare the wits out of us all, they kept on moving through the shallow darkness to a hazy light on the hill, a theory of social justice, rhetoric, a chimera. All of them, one day, would be slumped in those hospital chairs, unable to speak, visited by no one, facing off with God. Indifferent nurses would clean them and put them back to bed. They would never admit, not for a moment, that they had been wrong. While the present government is already being mugged by reality; many will go to their graves never admitting wrong, perhaps not even realising it. Look at the creators of family law. Look at the damage. Look at the conscience free zone of the perpetrators.

And so in wisdom he smiled, and fought back tears, and looked mistily into another day. Had Joyce survived the night? Was there hope for renewal. You're very good for your age, the nurse said, and she smiled, struggling to let them know that she was coherent, she hadn't lost her marbles, she wasn't like everybody else there. And the darkness surrounded us. And the curtain came down. And he realised one simple, terrible truth: life is not a rehearsal.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/who-pays-up-for-a-loss-its-a-secret/2008/07/06/1215282652826.html

Who pays up for a loss? It's a secret

Matthew Moore Freedom of Information Editor
July 7, 2008

AMONG the many uncertainties about World Youth Day is who will pick up the bill if the pilgrims don't come. A week out from what's promoted as the year's second biggest event after the Olympics, the answer to the big money question is no clearer now than it was when Sydney won the event in 2005.

While there's no doubt that thousands will come, financial success is based on organisers reaching the target of 225,000 paying customers called pilgrims. Organisers are still insisting they are on target to reach or exceed that number but refuse to say how many have paid up so far or provide a breakdown of which countries they are coming from.

History shows that predicting attendance to this event is fraught with difficulties.

When Canada's Catholic Church was organising the 2002 World Youth Day in Toronto, they originally expected 750,000 pilgrims but ended up getting only 187,000, of whom just 49,000 were Canadians, way short of the 200,000 predicted.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23979406-5013871,00.html

KEVIN Rudd faces a savage backlash from unions and state Labor over an emissions trading scheme, with calls to offer free permits to polluters in order to protect electricity prices and prevent jobs moving offshore.

In his attack on the Garnaut report, NSW Treasurer Michael Costa has backed free permits for electricity generators, saying today in The Australian that "Chicken Little" warnings about the dangers of climate change are no substitute for a rigorous economic and scientific debate.

The Government faces growing calls to offer free permits to polluters to stagger the impact of putting a price on carbon, or embrace the Howard government option of a safety valve system that would place an effective cap on the price of carbon, allowing polluters to pay a fine rather than buy more permits once a certain price for carbon was exceeded.

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes has also accused the Rudd Government of being "hell bent" on meeting a 2010 timetable, despite the risk of forcing jobs offshore, creating a new class of low-income earners and the effective reintroduction of trade tariffs "against ourselves" if China and Brazil are not dragged into international agreements.

As the Prime Minister conceded yesterday that rising electricity, food and petrol prices were an inevitable consequence of the scheme, he pledged that the Government was mindful of the risks to inflation.

But Mr Costa warns that while the states support the implementation of an ETS, the risks to the economy are severe if the Rudd Government gets it wrong, citing the children's fable of the hen that thought the sky was falling after being hit on the head by an acorn.

"Chicken Little arguments are no substitute for getting right the important details on issues of far reaching consequence, but Professor (Ross) Garnaut himself has said his detailed economic impact modelling won't be available until August," he writes.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23979468-664,00.html

IN THE strongest hint yet that carbon guru Ross Garnaut may be on the money when he calls for strong measures to reduce emissions, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday appeared to soften her assessment of his advice.

Following the release of his Climate Change Review on Friday, Senator Wong yesterday said he had made an "extraordinarily important contribution" to government thinking.

After months of labelling his report on the economic consequences of global warming as just "one input" into the Federal Government's design of an emissions trading scheme, Senator Wong quoted from Prof Garnaut's report to support her answers in an interview.

"We have now a very good focal point for the discussion in Prof Garnaut's report," Senator Wong told Ten Network's Meet the Press program yesterday.

She said the report had elicited a good debate in the community about climate change and the government would add its own "focal point" when it issued a green paper on emissions trading next week.