New Catallaxy

The Energy Realists of Australia are about to progress the program that started three years ago with a series of briefing notes to 800+ state and federal members. Some will recall the letter-writing campaign that was a part of the program, whereby volunteers would write to their local member at their electoral address to follow up the mass mail and ensure that the member was aware of the note that was probably buried by his green minders in the Canberra office.

It turned out to be too hard to get useful interactions happening with the local members and the letter-writing stopped.

One aim was to put the pollies in a position where they could never say that nobody gave them good advice to avert disaster, we did not expect very many to change their minds, and certainly not to admit that in public.

That is a very minimal aim and more is required to get a shift in the public mood about energy policy. Hence the plan.

We are now aiming to get more support in local electorates so the members become aware of a groundswell of public opinion in their own electorate. .The thing is to get out of our own bubble .

The first thing is to recruit letter-writers to cover all the Federal representatives. Of course writers will be invited to get to their state member as well. We don’t expect them to take any notice but the point is to put them in a position where they can never say that they were not given access to information that they needed to be realistic about energy policy.

The next thing is to recruit people to be more active, ranging through different levels of commitment to the pinnacle where some people are working practically fulltime.

Two things about this. First, unlike the requests that are made by political parties, the commitment does not involve donating money, spending hours doorknocking, making a public spectacle of yourself or pushing pieces of paper at people who don’t want them.

Second, we are speaking to the condition of people who are upset about their power bills and the threat of blackouts. Unlike the climate realists (and of course we are all climate realists) the commitment does not mean trying to change people’s minds about things that they can’t understand.

We are kicking with the wind and not against it, provided we don’t get sucked into useless confrontations with green fundamentalists.

To summarize the plan at this early stage.

Network of agents of influence

Purpose: To shift the opinions of politicians and the public on energy matters.

Strategies:

1. Notes to politicians, continue as before.
2. Follow-up from local agents to ensure that they have seen the notes. Build beyond the 70 recruited two years ago.
3. Irrigation system to get to the grass roots of the electorate. The twin purposes are to find more people who will personally contact their local member and also to build the body of public opinion in favour of sensible policies.

The dam or reservoir for the system is the body of information in the notes and supporting material on our website

This material will travel through every channel we can find. The big channels are the big lists that reach a large number of people. In addition to the usual suspects like Jim Simpson and Viv Forbes I want to persuade the list of 20 or so liberal/conservative groups -IPA, CIS, Mannkal, Advance Australia, Aust Taxpayers etc to distribute material or advertise our site even if energy is not a part of their portfolio.

Smaller channels are people with local groups, some formed to fight wind farms, anyone with some organizing ability and the initiative and energy to organize a network and especially any good independent candidates from the recent election who are prepared to continue to be active on this front, using the networks and contacts that they formed for their campaigns.

The smallest channels are individuals who are prepared to talk to friends and relations with the benefit of our information.

A critically important initiative that I have not managed to get under way is a youth group using social media to get to their own generation.

The Covid vax will soon become de rigueur for Australian babies and infants, aged six months to five years. The FDA has approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for this voiceless cohort in the U.S. population and our TGA is busying away going through the motions before giving Moderna a tick here.

Interesting, isn’t it. At the same time that the federal government and state governments continue to push Covid vaccines, and multiple boosters, on healthy people and children, and shortly on babies and infants, to “save” them, antiviral drugs to combat those catching Covid are severely restricted.

And who are they restricted to? Well, according to a report in yesterday’s Australian newspaper, to people over 65 who have two additional risk factors (obesity, immunosuppression, cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, cerebral palsy and other debilitating conditions) and to people over 75 with at least one additional risk factor.

In other words, when it comes to treatment, those at risk from the virus, and in fact only those at risk, are identified. But, when it comes to vaccines, that considered policy goes out the window. Why is that? In a hyphenated word, Vax-mania. (Mania; to wit, a type of mental abnormality or obsession; e.g., kleptomania, tulipmania.)

This particular Vax-mania condition has its origins in drug company profits, in attendant lobbying efforts, and in the eagerness of the political class to impose saving solutions, for real or imagined ills, on their needy and grateful populations. And, by the way, populations in need of nanny governments and ready to be grateful predominate these days. No shortage is evident. God has been replaced. Only pockets of populations retain an independent, self-reliant, temperament. Smaller pockets still think God is more powerful and life-giving than governments.

So, there we have it. Roll up your sleeves and be damned grateful. De-pram your baby and offer him or her up to the government medicos to be “saved.” Saved – from nothing at all. From an imaginary threat. Never mind peons, be thankful to your government and full of grate.

The decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation is a necessary victory on the path to eradicating the wrong of abortion. Few would have believed it possible, let alone see it realized in their lifetimes, yet here we are. We have the tireless work of an anti-abortion movement to thank for this, which spent the last several decades since Roe make the argument against abortion and for life. The decisions of Roe and Casey were wrong and depended upon the most tenuous and tendentious arguments. In the end, the appeal was largely to inertia; that is, having made a terrible decision and enabled the practice to generate a unjust social order, stare decisis remained the only legal bulwark protecting it from being struck down. Finally, owing to the choices of Trump, three new justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett, when given the opportunity, joined Alito, Roberts and Thomas in a stunning 6-3 decision in the most extraordinary of circumstances reversing Roe and Casey.

However, as much as we may rejoice in this decision, it is palpably only the end of the beginning. In order to eradicate the wrong of abortion, we had to reverse the lie that there is any fundamental human right to kill the child in utero (let alone that this right could ever be reserved to the mother (and father)). And I dare say that none within the anti-abortion movement is satisfied with the decision about whether such a right or privilege exists being left to the states. Even before Dobbs, minds had already considered the grounds for a federal ban on abortion based on the 14th amendment. The impetus for this will only intensify as states that permit abortion promote interstate travel, often paid for by employers, so residents where abortion is prohibited or strictly regulated can travel out-of-state to one where an abortion can be procured.

To paraphrase Lincoln in his House Divided Speech:

“A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half pro-abortion and half anti-abortion.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of abortion will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

After being repeatedly told that the Left is neither Imperialists nor Nationalists, it is always interesting to read the details of “the Great Patriotic War that saved the Motherland”.

From Chapter 49 of Antony Beevor’s book, ‘The Second World War’:

“It must be very pleasant for you,” Harriman said, making conversation [at the Potsdam Conference] “to be in Berlin after all your country has suffered.” 

The Soviet leader eyed him.  “Tsar Aleksandr went all the way to Paris”, he replied.

This was not entirely a joke.

A meeting of the Politburo in 1944 had decided to order the Stavka to plan for the invasion of France and Italy, as General Shtemenko later told Beria’s son. The Red Army offensive was to be combined with a seizure of power by the local Communist Parties. 

In addition, Shtemenko explained, a landing in Norway was provided for, as well as the seizure of the straits with Denmark.  A substantial budget was allocated for the realisation of these plans.  It was expected that the Americans would abandon a Europe fallen into chaos, while Britain and France would be paralysed by their colonial problems.  The Soviet Union possessed 400 experienced divisions, ready to bound forward like tigers.  It was calculated that the whole operation would take no more than a month.

All these plans were aborted when Stalin learned, from Beria [via his spies within the Manhattan Project], that the Americans had the atom bomb and were putting it into mass production. Stalin apparently told Beria that, “If Roosevelt had still been alive, we would have succeeded”.

This passage says much about the Left, nuclear deterrence, and adds countless saved lives to the argument that constantly surrounds the nuclear program. Tangentially, it’s none too complimentary of Roosevelt…but that’s for another post.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley famously wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus which originated in 1816 when herself, her lover and future husband Percy Shelley and Lord Bryon had a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After a number of days, Mary Shelley was inspired to write this great novel after imagining a scientist who would create life and then became horrified as to what he had made.

It is one of my favourite novels and I view it more as a science fiction story rather than a horror story and the novel has had a considerable influence on literature and on popular culture where it has brought to life to a complete genre of horror films.

The first sound version of the story was Frankenstein released in 1931 which was directed by James Whale and starred Boris Karloff as the creature, and, along with Dracula also released in the same year, set off a series of horror films that would become a staple of the Universal studio.

The film was really a loose adaption of Mary Shelley’s novel but it established Karloff as a horror icon star and it provided the most famous portrayal/look of the creature as Karloff’s performance still resonates today, nearly 90 years later with his hissing venom.

A sequel followed in 1935, The Bride Of Frankenstein, which again was loosely based on the original. Again directed by Whale and starring Karloff, it’s a delicious black comedy horror movie that still manages to entertain today.

Another sequel followed in 1939, The Son Of Frankenstein, which was then followed by a number of B grade entries with The Ghost Of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, The House Of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula. The series was increasingly becoming silly which was capped off with Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein albeit this is still quite a good comedy horror flick.

It wasn’t until 1957, with the release of Hammer’s The Curse Of Frankenstein with Peter Cushing as the Dr. Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the creature did the story regain fresh impetus.

Again, like the Universal cycle, the Hammer films were only very loosely based on the original novel and Hammer produced another six films in the series – The Revenge Of Frankenstein (1958), The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), The Horror Of Frankenstein (1970) and Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell (1974).

I find the Hammer films still quite enjoyable to watch but I was longing for a reasonably accurate interpretation of one of my favourite novels, and finally in 1994 with Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein an attempt was made.

Taking it’s cue from Francis Ford Coppola’s successful interpretation of the Dracula story with 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Branagh went back to the original novel with an attempted faithful adaptation, albeit still with a number of differences.

Here, at least was an attempt to bring Mary Shelley’s great novel to life, although it was more operatic in its depiction than the subtle nuances of the novel. I could admire the effort and intent but it didn’t quite reach the heights it aspired to.

So I’m still hoping for a faithful film version of one of the great novels although I’m not confident of seeing it anytime soon given the dross we are served up now.

And, of course I should not forget to include Mel Brooks marvelous comedy horror send-up Young Frankenstein released in 1974. But, of course, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder were referencing the classic 1930s films not the novel.

Enjoy.

PS I will do a future post on that other great horror film staple – Dracula !

Energy, education, health…

Is there currently any aspect of life where this doesn’t seem to apply?

We see it almost everyday on this blog (H/T Monty).

Ok, let’s see if I understand the basic premise of this Government video.

In its drive to eradicate discrimination and bias from its hiring practices, the Federal Government undertakes a trial of a recruiting process designed to remove it.

The trial does indeed identify discrimination and bias in the public service hiring practices, just not the ‘incorrect’ type.

In a response to the unexpected result, the government cancels a plan to instigate this anti-discrimination process, warning everyone that it might actually remove discrimination (the ‘correct’ type).

In a final master stroke of double speak, despite finding reverse discrimination, the government assures us that we are still guilty of the ‘wrong’ sort of discrimination, they just haven’t found it…yet!

Be assured though, they’ll keep looking for the problem that results in their predetermined ‘correct’ answer.

The only surprising aspect of this whole thing is that it was authored in 2016, not 1984.

The whole report:

https://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/projects/going-blind-see-more-clearly-unconscious-bias-australian-public-service-aps-shortlisting