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The Kings Tribune

The King's Tribune - February 2012

Editors’ Rant - Feb 2012
Jane and Justin Shaw - February, 2012
jane shaw

If you’re a Tribune fan (and we guess you must be since you’re reading this and if you’re not reading this then we...

Preface to a Counter Protest
Torrey Orton - February, 2012
abortion protest

Defence of the Fertility Control Clinic

The front gate of the Fertility Control Clinic in East Melbourne is a frontline of...

I’m not a climate scientist but...
Jane Shaw - February, 2012
climate scientist

Anyone who’s ever been in a car with children will know that when they’re not crying, pulling each other’s hair or...

What We Talk About When We Talk About Socialism
Tim Dunlop - February, 2012
socialism

The taxi driver in Maui picked the accent straight away.

“Look out!” he said. “The Aussies are here!”

Turns out he used to...

Science
Ben Pobjie - February, 2012
science

First of all, let me make it very clear: I do not have a problem with science. Secondly, let me make it even clearer: I...

Intelligent Design - It's NOT Science
Justin Shaw - February, 2012
darwin

Perhaps I should preface this article with “I’m not a scientist, but…”.

A long time ago, people used to believe that it...

Getting Rid of the Ute
Jo Thornely - February, 2012
uterus

I never used to drive my car. It sat outside my house, different random parts either rusting or drying out depending on...

Why I Can’t Get Behind Soften The Fck Up
Bill Street - February, 2012
soften the fck up

Soften The Fck Up is an initiative aimed at breaking down the “tough Aussie bloke” façade and getting men to open up to...

Weddings
Dominic Knight - February, 2012
weddings

In the last six weeks of 2011, I attended six weddings. Week after week I found myself donning a suit to spend the day...

On SOPA
Dan Nolan - February, 2012
stop SOPA

I imagine most of you reading this have a blog or your own little website, a place where you’ve invested time and energy...

A History Of Stupidity
Adam vanLangenberg - February, 2012
vaccination

In 1796 a very special and very dangerous kind of idiot was born.

Smallpox was running rampant throughout Europe until a...

Gaming is for Grown Ups
Bennett Ring - February, 2012
gaming

As a full-time technology journalist who has specialised in the critiquing of video games for over a decade, you’d be...

Simulation
Thomas Cummings - February, 2012
gambling

Oh yes, I’m the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to...

Nigella, The Antechinus Family, And The West’s...
Dr Jennifer Wilson - February, 2012
nigella

I used to love watching acclaimed kitchen goddess, the luscious Nigella Lawson, when she first appeared on the small...

Political Affiliation
Andrew Tiedt - February, 2012
bolt

Some people hold political affiliations with an almost religious fervour.

Their political beliefs shape everything, from...

Lessons from A Caravan Park
Dave Gaukroger - February, 2012
caravan park

Most of us have memories of staying in a caravan park. Whether it was as kids, parents, schoolies or backpackers, the...

Resurrecting the Hors d’Œuvre Course
Sunday Relish - February, 2012
hors doeuvre

An hors d’œuvre course to the French, like antipasto to the Italians, is the start of the midday meal. Individual, small,...

Wine Online
Duncan Wilcox - February, 2012
El Wino

Wine retailing, like the rest of the retailing world, is going through a bit of a seismic shift from bricks & mortar to...

Cryptic Crossword - Feb12
{ga=admin} - February, 2012

As always, first correctly completed cryptic crossword sent to

In a Better World - Feb 2012
Alex Hallatt - February, 2012
Alex Hallatt


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Politics

Political Affiliation
Andrew Tiedt - February, 2012
bolt

Some people hold political affiliations with an almost religious fervour.

Their political beliefs shape everything, from...

Preface to a Counter Protest
Torrey Orton - February, 2012
abortion protest

Defence of the Fertility Control Clinic

The front gate of the Fertility Control Clinic in East Melbourne is a frontline of...

On SOPA
Dan Nolan - February, 2012
stop SOPA

I imagine most of you reading this have a blog or your own little website, a place where you’ve invested time and energy...

Australia’s School Funding Quagmire
Bronwyn Hinz - January, 2012
school funding

Australia has one of the most complex, inconsistent and opaque school funding arrangements in the developed world. You...

What We Talk About When We Talk About Socialism
Tim Dunlop - February, 2012
socialism

The taxi driver in Maui picked the accent straight away.

“Look out!” he said. “The Aussies are here!”

Turns out he used to...

I Have A Question And My Question Is This:
Tim Dunlop - January, 2012
gillard abbott

Who the fuck am I meant to vote for at the next Federal election? This is not a rhetorical question. I really want to...

More POLITICS

Anecdotage

Lessons from A Caravan Park
Dave Gaukroger - February, 2012
caravan park

Most of us have memories of staying in a caravan park. Whether it was as kids, parents, schoolies or backpackers, the...

A Conspiracy Of Feathered Simpletons
Mat Larkin - January, 2012
editorial consultant

And then, of course, there’s the question of the evolutionary future of pigeons.

A while ago, through a series of...

Weddings
Dominic Knight - February, 2012
weddings

In the last six weeks of 2011, I attended six weddings. Week after week I found myself donning a suit to spend the day...

Thank You, Batman
Mat Larkin - October, 2011
batman

Time is a mighty river, and I am an ominously unpiloted rental kayak floating past the picnic area.

It’s my first day at a...

Science
Ben Pobjie - February, 2012
science

First of all, let me make it very clear: I do not have a problem with science. Secondly, let me make it even clearer: I...

From Swords to Soundbites - HENRY I
Jane Shaw - October, 2011
bayeux

King Henry I of England, known to later generations as Henry Beauclerc, the Lion Of Justice, succeeded his flamboyant...

More ANECDOTAGE

Media

Simulation
Thomas Cummings - February, 2012
gambling

Oh yes, I’m the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to...

On SOPA
Dan Nolan - February, 2012
stop SOPA

I imagine most of you reading this have a blog or your own little website, a place where you’ve invested time and energy...

Gaming is for Grown Ups
Bennett Ring - February, 2012
gaming

As a full-time technology journalist who has specialised in the critiquing of video games for over a decade, you’d be...

Why I Can’t Get Behind Soften The Fck Up
Bill Street - February, 2012
soften the fck up

Soften The Fck Up is an initiative aimed at breaking down the “tough Aussie bloke” façade and getting men to open up to...

A History Of Stupidity
Adam vanLangenberg - February, 2012
vaccination

In 1796 a very special and very dangerous kind of idiot was born.

Smallpox was running rampant throughout Europe until a...

Credentials & Democratic Decline
Leslie Cannold - October, 2011
credentials

‘People should be aware of what’s out there. And not believe what they read just because it’s written.’

Astro-turf...

More MEDIA

 



Steve Fielding You've Got To GO!

Steve FieldingHaving been flamed in the past by climate change deniers, and more recently by fundamentalist christians (no, these people don’t deserve a capital “c”) and, having seen what can happen put the loony left, the lunar right and a bunch of Jesus freaks in a blender, I approach the subject of Senator Fielding with not a little trepidation.

But Intrepid (along with Hawtness) is my middle name. Baby….. So it’s time to have a Shout about why Steve Fielding is not fit to be a senator.

We’ll get the easy target stuff over and done with first: Senators really should be able to master basic reading and writing. Yes, I’m talking about the “physical, I mean fiscal, spelt F-I-S-K-A-L” palaver. I know lots of people who read and spell badly, they’re not disabled in any way, they’re just people who read and spell badly (many of them have degrees, by the way). Fielding, after being caught out on the most basic of economic terms  , claimed to have a “specific learning disability”, which he refuses to specify. Such bullshit! Fielding is not disabled; he’s just a walking demonstration of what happens when an ego runs wild, mates with a lazy intellect and gives birth in a pool of self pity.

This is idiot stuff, but Fielding’s position on Climate Change is not. Particularly when you consider that one of the big election winners for the current government was the climate change platform.

Fielding wrote a piece on The Punch a while back, trying to explain why he doesn’t accept that human activities have an influence on climate change (segue – check out The Punch, it’s Crikey, edited by Andrew Bolt and Piers Ackerman).

His argument can be summed up in a couple of quick points, which I will demolish as we go…

He had a couple of specific questions about Climate Change, and, because nobody can show him iron-clad empirical evidence of every single step in every single calculation and prediction, he’s decided that it hasn’t been proven beyond a reasonable doubt; therefore it’s “only a theory”.

This is what Creationists do: point to a few minutiae in, say, the fossil record, and then clap their hands in glee, shouting “you can’t show me a fossil between this one and that one, therefore it’s only a theory!!! Yippee”, when what they’re really saying is “I do not have the intellectual capacity to understand the vast numbers and passage of time involved in all this, so I need a simple way out.”

Then he started whining about how when he went to the US (with a couple CC deniers in tow) Al Gore refused to speak to him.

So? I’m tipping Al Gore is kind of busy, and an Australian happy-clapper Senator, known to be a climate change denier, elected by less than 50,000 people (and a venal preference deal done by the ALP) would not be much higher on his To Do List than, say, Put The Bins Out And Then Scratch My Arse For A Bit.

Fielding also loves the “a carbon pollution reduction scheme/emissions trading scheme would cost jobs” mantra. This is what we keep being told by Big Business, in particular by the AIG, but their modelling and analysis is virtually non-existent; certainly there’s far less research gone into that than has gone into human influenced Climate Change. Yet Senator Fielding is perfectly happy to accept the AIG’s word without question or empirical evidence, proving again that he only wants to question the things he doesn’t want to believe.

So, he’s a bit of a knob. Big deal. There are plenty of knobs in parliaments around the country.

True, but the problem with Fielding is that he’s a special kind of knob. The current make up of the senate gives the balance of power to the independent senators, which means he’s in an extremely powerful position, he making decisions that affect the whole country and it’s future and he’s totally out of his depth.

When you are the balance of power in the senate, you need to be intelligent, or at the least, smart. Fielding is neither. You need to be able to deal, negotiate, and compromise. Fielding has consistently shown that he can do none of these things effectively. You need to be able to take in vast amounts of information and make decisions, or take positions, based on the information that you have read and understood. Fielding has shown no ability to take in information, let alone understand it. He has also demonstrated time and time again that he has a firm position on several issue (climate change, jobs, censorship, gay marriage, the list goes on) that will not be swayed, regardless of the all the evidence and information presented to him.

An independent senator also needs to understand that an accident of democracy gave him his power in the senate; he does NOT have a mandate from the Australian people. He does NOT speak for all of us, he does NOT represent all of us and he does NOT have the right to impose his agenda on us. He has an obligation to the Australian people to NOT stand in the way of their elected government – the ones who DO have a mandate. This is something else that appears to be too complex for Fielding to understand.

He has come to the Senate with a small, closed mind, and is doing the nation a grave disservice. He must go.


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THE SHOUT

Why We Turned The Comments Off
Jane Shaw - February, 2012
comments

The inestimable Tim Dunlop and I were having coffee together a few months back and discussing internet trolls, the...

Private Brutality and the Police
Jane Shaw - November, 2011
victoria police

There's been a bit of screeching in the blogosphere about police brutality at the OccupyMelbourne protests. It's not...

A Day In Life
Jane Shaw - November, 2011
hilary clinton

3:47am: Sit bolt upright in bed groping around for bellows. Stare around darkened bedroom trying to work out why am not...

Boats Under The Beds
Jane Shaw - November, 2011
octopus

"Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear."
Naomi Klein

Australians are...

Pokies Industry is Tekken Ur Jurbs
Jane Shaw - October, 2011
reform cost jobs

Ever since the vagaries of politics put Andrew Wilkie into a position where he could insist on gambling reforms, Clubs...

The Tribune on RRR Breakfasters
Jane Shaw - October, 2011
RRR Breakfasters

Popped my being-on-the-radio cherry this morning, with the help of the RRR Breakfasters.

As you can tell from the shaky...

News Ltd v Julia Gillard
Fake Paul Keating - August, 2011
john hartigan big harto

The slapfest is ON.

It started on Monday. Glenn Milne rehashed some old rumours about Prime Minister Julia Gillard that...

Choice between motherhood and career got a little easier...
Jane Shaw - August, 2011
samantha maiden

I went to the Melbourne Writers Festival panel on political journalism this morning, because if Lindsay Tanner, Samantha...

News Flash
Justin Shaw - August, 2011
london riots

News Flash, folks: there are shitheads in the world. Some of them are rich, some of them are poor, they come from every...

What's happened to The Tribune?
Jane and Justin Shaw - July, 2011

Some of you may have noticed that things have been quiet here at Casa Del Tribune lately. Too quiet.

About June this year...

Send Lawyers, Guns And Money
Justin Shaw - July, 2011
rupert murdoch

After about an hour of the Murdochs' committee appearance the other night I was just about ready to stick knitting...

Internet Killed The Rebellious Youth Star
Barclay White - July, 2011
kerry ann planking

If ever I need proof that each generation is softer than the last I think of this: When my grandfather was my age he was...

Musings From The Motor Show
Skoeman - July, 2011
MelbMotorShow

The Australian International Motor Show has returned to Melbourne this year.

I love the Motor Show, for it brings all the...

None of this should be anything new to anyone not living...
leLaissezFaire - June, 2011
go back

For the past few weeks our Australian public channels SBS and ABC have been on an emotional roll, with three stories that...

The Dangers of Not Wearing Genital Protection on Trams
Jane Shaw - June, 2011
Tram

I’ve been working from home for a while now, which, apart from turning me into a deranged shut-in, at least means that I...

The Dangers of Cream Coloured Pants
Jane Shaw - June, 2011
pants

Wearing cream coloured pants can be dangerous, not just a you-might-end-up-looking-like-a-very-large-biscuit kind of...

Defending Good Christians from ACL
Jane Shaw - June, 2011
wendy francis

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), their spokeswoman Wendy Francis and the Rip & Roll campaign for safe sex in the...

Slutwalk Melbourne
Jane Shaw - May, 2011
slutwalk melb

Slutwalk Melbourne. Read my thoughts on it here. Or not. Up to you really. But the photos are pretty cool, huh?


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The Bolt Report: Dull and Duller
Justin Shaw - May, 2011
bolt report

Did you know there's a Facebook campaign to get The Bolt Report off the air? The plan is to note who advertises on the...

My night NOT watching the wedding
Jane Shaw - April, 2011
Indigo girls

I didn’t watch the royal wedding, not because I’m a rabid anti monarchist or a hater of inbred gits (I’m not). I just...

More SHOUT