Steve Fielding's descent into madness

I think the stress of the upcoming federal election has finally broken Mr. 1.9%'s tenuous grip on reality. Faced with the undeniable facts that he will be booted out of an electorate he never deserved in the first place, Steve has been driven, as the Joker would say, stark slavering mad. That's the only reason I can come up with for his increasingly erratic press releases and speeches.

Firstly, his attack on the Greens' drug policies:

Family First Leader Senator Steve Fielding says the Greens are up to their old tricks with their plan to stick heroin injecting rooms on street corners across the country.

Senator Fielding’s comments come after it was revealed that the Greens will continue their soft stance on drugs ahead of this year federal election.

“As a community we should be getting tougher on drugs not softer,” Senator Fielding said.

Because the war on drugs has worked out so well for the US and Mexico. But here's the gold:

Senator Fielding said the policy of introducing heroin injecting rooms would only support the supply of illegal drugs and line the pockets of dealers. “Melbourne has already had one drug war too many, just imagine the increase in demand for these illegal narcotics if the Greens were able to get their way,” Senator Fielding said.

To quote Robot Chicken: Seriously dude, what the fuck. The whole point of decriminalisation is to negate a drug war and take the criminal element out of drug use, the freakin' opposite of what Steve claims will happen. Steve isn't just for supporting a failed drug policy, he simply doesn't have a clue of the issues he's talking about. Which, frankly, is unsurprising as Sarah Palin being a clueless liar (maybe they should bunk together sometime).

And having finished that sideshow, it's on to the main attraction:

Parental leave open to abortion rorts: Fielding

Only a true fundie could link a parental scheme to the dreaded surgical procedure. Long rant cut short, the Fluke is adamant that if the Bill is passed, welfare queens all over Australia will be getting pregnant just so that they can have an abortion at 20 weeks and collect the parental payment. Even Andrew 'Wormtongue' Bolt is saying "Dude...that's just low."

Steve has also written an opinion piece for the Punch. The entire piece reads like grade 6 material. Scattered with childish phrases like "mums who slog their guts out all day", the writing doesn't even achieve basic logical sense (even Piers 'Scattergun' Akerman can convey his messages). The notion is that the Bill will treat prisoners better than stay-at-home parents, which is bizarre as the point of the Bill is to treat them equally. The Fluke writes that these parents "don't receive a dime", a problem which the Bill Steve is lambasting is designed to rectify. Like I said, no logical sense.

Finally, to add insult to desperation, he writes " even prisoners and prostitutes are valued more highly than stay-at-home parents" which ignores the truly horrifying thought that sex workers may be entirely normal people with children themselves.

After this election, the Senate just won't be the same.

Mr. 1.9%: the Senate's village idiot.

Steve Fielding doesn't like Greens. I have an impressive collection of articles in which Mr. Morality launches childish attack after childish attack, each of which is unsatirable* in its petty partisanship and amateurism. The Bongmeister, however, has come to the conclusion that these past works are too subtle for his Christian base. Thus, Stevie has dropped all flimsy pretenses of professionalism and gone for the lowest, crudest and downright laughable smear he can imagine:

GREENS’ PLAN ECONOMICALLY LAUGHABLE, FOOLISH AND LUDICROUS

Says the fellow who's sole economic policy consists of cutting the petrol tax. I know Steve lives in the 14th Century, but that's no excuse for not using the caps lock hey.

The Greens would rather send Australia back to the Stone Age than use common sense in negotiating on an Emissions Trading Scheme, Family First Leader Senator Steve Fielding said today.

“I don’t know what planet the Greens are on, but by the look of their ‘Safe Climate Bill’ they look like they're lost in space,” Senator Fielding said.

I don't know what Steve was gunning for with those space puns-it's not like NASA is involved. Anyway, the rest of the piece is utterly juvenile-calling Bob and co. "hippies" and sloppy accusations of hypocrisy-by using planes, no less. I don't know how Greens Senators are supposed to travel in a less gas-emitting way, given that planes are a form of public transport. I presume Fielding also think Bob is a hypocrite because he emits carbon emissions by breathing.

But seriously, I can't understand what Steve expect to gain from schlock like this. Anyone even considering voting Green is sufficiently left-wing as to dismiss Fundies First as a group of fringe nutters, and vice-versa for FF voters. If anything, Steve is alienating what incomprehensibly tiny support base he has by acting like like such a jerk. Compare this release to what freshman/woman Senators Ludlam and Hanson-Young have produced. These political youngens have only been in Parliament since July 2008, yet they have displayed a political professionalism that completely outstripes Steve (and most major party backbenchers as well, to be honest). The Fluke is a child in a grownups' world: he stumbled into the Senate through luck and Labor's cynicism, was irrelevent from 04 to 07, and, now having been thrust into the balance-of-power limelight, has demonstrated that he hasn't a clue in parliamentary processes. Steve knows that he has barely a hope of re-election on primary votes-barely being the operative word-and has resorted to stunt after stunt in the vain hopes that he will increase the visability of his party enough to scrap in a re-election.

I, like all groupthing lefties, simply cannot wait for the 2010 election. Asides from an anti-Greens propaganda overdrive from all parties (which will be a joy to read, I can assure you all), Rudd has shown that he is a skilled and shrewd politician. The likelihood of Labor preferencing the Fundies in 2010 is infinitesimal, especially how much Steve has pissed Kevin off (Medicare levies, alcopops taxes and luxary car taxes, anybody?). Labor is a right-wing government, but Rudd knows that the Greens are a better deal than Steve, and that's where Labor's 2010 preferences will be heading. To humbly quote Field Marshall Editor: Steve: you and your Pentecostal mates are headed for the political dustbin of history and no stunt on Earth is going to save you. Perhaps when you fail to get re-elected in a couple of years you could work for Today Tonight.

Cross-posted at Officer Cadet Orville Strayan.

Various article goodies found here, here and here.

*That's a word, OK?

Some religions are more rational than other.

Incisive piece from Andrew "Spank me, Rupert!" Bolt, in which he reveals his views on some religions:

As I say, we’re on a retreat from reason:

THE Victorian Ombudsman has criticised a left-leaning inner-city council for spending $620,000 of ratepayers’ money on a self-styled “white witch” to assist with “change management”.

Port Phillip Council’s ad hoc but costly arrangement with pranic healing and astrology devotee Caroline Shahbaz was savaged in a report by the Ombudsman tabled in the Victorian parliament yesterday...It has also emerged that the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment has used Ms Shahbaz as a consultant, as have the Victorian Department of Planning, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water and the Reserve Bank.

If you were wondering what kind of irrational, superstition-raddled brains left us with water supplies critically low, forests dangerously overloaded with fuel, housing land too scarce, and useless wind farms scarring the coastline to fight a warming that actually stopped a decade ago, now you know. It’s the kind of minds that took a witch for their guru.

Of course, could you imagine Rusty saying such things about Christianity? Or Judaism? Heck, even Islam?

Personally I see all religions, by and large, as irrational as each other*. Christianity involves magic Jewish zombies, Hinduism features a human/elephant/spider hybrid creature, and I don't know what paganism and witchery involve, but I doubt either is based on sound science. Religiously, I see no difference between a new-ager and a Baptist-so long as they don't try to force their beliefs on me, I've got no problem.

With Bolt, and I imagine other conservatives, is that Christianity is more 'logical' than other religions-the only possible explanations I that the monotheistic religions are older and more common than more recent ones. Which aren't so much reasons as they are fallacies, but I doubt that's the point.

And, true to form, he can't help but use this case as a way to bash environmentalists. What witchery has to do with controlled burning, water supplies and sustainable energy sources is beyond me-and probably beyond Bolt, given that he doesn't give any link to his hyperbole.

*When I say 'irrational' I'm referring to the belief systems. One can certainly be an entirely rational person and be religious.

Piers and Andrew. Pornstars in other lives.

Piers 'Idiot's Andrew Bolt' Akerman is a well established idiot.

The Left, which has been pushing for this new global wealth redistribution scheme, must decide whether it really wants to punish nations like India, where 42.5 per cent of children under five are malnourished.

Fracken' genius (although it should be spelled 'teh Left').

But the true gold comes from Andrew 'Murdoch's bitch' Bolt. I wonder how Andy would feel if he knew his material has such strong support from leading white supremacist forum Stormfront?

Thank God for Andrew Bolt

We all know that Greens are Nazis (reductio ad Hitlerum notwithstanding). So it comes as no surprise that Andrew 'Woodward' Bolt has uncovered the terrible truth; that the Greens are directly responsible for the bushfires.

Greens literally added fuel to the fires by planting “carbon offset’’ forests - which have now burned, adding the carbon dioxide emissions they were meant to remove:

Greenfleet will assess the impact of these fires on our forests over the coming weeks, with a view to replant if necessary or monitor recovery in areas where the impact was less severe.

But I don't think Andrew goes far enough. After all, as long as there's forests in Victoria, they could burn. And kill people. Thus, the only solution is log the state. If we wipe out the forests, the chances of a bushfire will be 0%. You don't want to people to die, do you?

What ever happened good ol' days of blaming Jews for everything?

[Note: blogger is being a shitter with the font, which is why it randomly changes. Not my fault]

People with a working conscience would refrain from blaming any movement or community for the current bushfires, unless they had a mountain's worth of hard evidence to back up the claim. Which makes it pretty clear that not everybody has a working conscience.

From Miranda 'I can has Bolta controversy?' Devine:

It wasn't climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend. It wasn't arsonists. It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts, and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.

Man, this is so easy-we can blame everything on the greenies! No water? Blame the greens who

support alternatives oppose dams! Power shortage? Blame the greens who oppose building more coal plants! Terrorist attack? The Greens opposed that anti-terrorism bill, which, coincidentally, is highly authoritarian and is easily abused! They're pro-jihad!

I should take a job at one of the Heralds.

Ignoring the fact that anything short of totally logging the entire state would be ineffective against the fires, I love the fact that Devine hates greenies so much that she absolves the arsonists (who I'm pretty sure have contributed more to the fires then Greens have) of all blame.
It's rather ironic that the SMH, which publishes Devine's rants, also published this:

The Catch the Fire Ministries has tried to blame the bushfires disaster on laws decriminalising abortion in Victoria.

The Pentecostal church's leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, claimed he had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with "a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb"

So in response to Victoria slaughtering innocent children, God decided to...slaughter even more innocent children.

And in other news, Piers 'Poor-man's Andrew Bolt' Akerman* hasn't blamed the fires on teh feminazis, but in his usual "Subtlety's my middle name" style, takes on the environazis.

Greens leader Bob Brown has taken no responsibility for the huge lock-up of forest reserves. It is bewildering to listen to Brown and other extremist environmentalists call for more wilderness areas, areas left in as pristine a state as possible, when they also purport to support the claims of Aboriginal Australians that they managed the “wilderness” for perhaps 40,000 years through regular burning.

Yes, Brown is totally responsible Victorian policies-except for the fact that he's a Federal (not a Victorian) MP and therefore not responsible for any Victorian policies.

The “green wedge” is now a blackened, crisped monument to those green policies.

As compared to Forestry Tasmania, which has never destroyed forests through burning.

And what would an Akerman article be without shoehorning into his rant (no matter how irrelevent) his pet hate-the Islamonazis?

Treating arson as terrorism should not be a huge leap, given that a group of Islamic extremists last year singled Australia out as a target for “forest jihad” as a weapon of terror.

What I've noticed is that it's the Right who make these claims. Bob Brown stated that the firestorm was (at least partly) caused by global warming, but he didn't exactly say afterwards "It's HoWARd's fault for the fires! He didn't listen to us years ago!," and then blame climate change skeptics as killing 180+ people. In contrast, we've have Devine, Bolt (see most cross posts below) and Nalliah all using a national tragedy to And these guys aren't fringe lunatics; Devine, Bolt and Akerman all publish their work in mainstream newspapers, whilst Nalliah is President of CTF.

So my humblest question is: is it just me, or is the political Right a touch less civil then the political Left on these issues? And why? Compassion and conservatism aren't in any way mutually exclusive, so why do such prominant columnists (and one rogue 'Christian') who proclaim to represent Australian conservatism (I'll find some link sometime) are so utterly brutal and without compassion themselves? Just wonderin'.

And before I forget-donate.

Cross-posted here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

*Might I be stepping over the line in calling anybody a 'Poor man's Andrew Bolt'? It's a pretty low blow.

Scum in human form

I've never particularly liked Andrew Bolt, as he comes off as a selfish, self-centered, hypocritical, cowardly, misogynistic turd in his columns (probably because that's precisely what he is). But for some reason I thought there something in there that could distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, etc.

Clearly I wasn't thinking properly. Recently there's been the tragedy of an infant being discovered dead in a bag at a bus stop. Personally, as I know almost nothing about it, I currently feel extremely sorry for both the baby and the parent/s who most likely have gone through the most terrible of ordeals and horrific circumstances to have had to abandon the infant.

What does ol' Shameless write about it?

Utterly tragic, but in some ways a grim metaphor:

Homicide Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Iddles said: “Sadly, about 5.30, a gentleman living on a rural property went out to put out his rubbish bins, went to a bus shelter and found a green shopping bag, looked in the bag and found the body of an infant or a baby, aged somewhere between one or two weeks and three months old.”

In the hysteria to “save” Earth from a warming that’s actually halted, we ignore a true and growing threat to children.

I'm not religious, but I try to live to the standard of compassion of "loving your enemies." And you know what? I can't. Bolt, you are pure and unadulterated evil. Go drag your knuckles back to the cave, because you clearly have yet to evolve what might pass for a conscience. You want to help the littlest children? Why don't you? Instead of posting bullsh*t on your blog every half hour, trying to use an abandoned infant to score cheap political points against your strawman environmentalists, why don't you go out to the soup kitchens? Hold fund raisers to help fight poverty? I don't know, maybe just something TO HELP FIGHT THE CAUSES AS TO WHY A BABY WAS ABANDONED AT A BUS STOP INSTEAD OF SMEARING GREENIES.

Who knows? You might even develop enough compassion to pass for a human (although I doubt it).

Cross posted here, here and here.

Greens Watch-watch part 2

With little else to post on, I figured I'd do another GWW. This time, I'll take a look at their use of photos. One problem with the GWers is that they believe that if a Greens supporter appears in a photo, then that supporter is responsible for all views shown in the photo. Look closely at the following photos:

It takes a trained eye, but it would appear that the Greens members in each photo aren't responsible for burning the Israeli flag or referring to the Australian flag as racist. Surely it was a mix up? Surely GW wouldn't try for such a blatently obvious smear? I think I'll go contact GW and correct them on this perfectly honest mistake.

Introducing...Greens Watch-watch!

Ever heard of Greens Watch? Try to imagine the lowest, most contemptible (and quite often just plain bizarre) smear campaign in world history. Every possible dirty tactic against the Greens is used here-jumping to comically implausible alternate futures if Greens policies were implemented (and transforming hyperbole into an art form while they're at it), selectively using news sources to paint the Greens as being Satan incarnate, highly emotional imagery with no relation to the Greens, providing their own captions to photos (and, unsurprisingly, linking said photos to the Greens) and of course, outright lying when it suits them.

Every example I've mentioned will have its own dissection, and exposure for the slimy BS it is.

Their page on Greens' animal policies is a fine example:

One of the more bizarre Greens' Policies is their Animal Policy.

The policy is so extreme, Greenswatch is very suspicious that the Terrorist Funding PETA Extremists ^{^} are involved in its formulation and will be investigating further for possible links.

The link goes to the PETA website. I entered into the search bar "Greens" and "Bob Brown". "Greens" hits were entirely about green vegetables, whilst "Bob Brown" referred to people with "Bob" or "Brown" in their names. So, predictably enough, the "Greens secretly sympathise with terrorists" smear fell apart*

Moving on:

Banning Leather and Wool

3.1.4. Ending the captivity and killing of animals for the cosmetic and fashion industries, including the use of fur and skin. ^{^}

Leather (skin) and Wool (fur) are products used by almost everyone and banning them is extreme.

I followed the link to the Greens site, and found this:

When I said that GW wasn't above lying, I, well...wasn't lying. BUT: even IF that policy statement was an official Greens policy, it still wouldn't change the fact that

• there's a difference between wool and fur (one that GW clearly doesn't understand)
• synthetic fur is available
• leather and wool isn't being 'banned'. It's simply that in Australia it can't be produced, and instead be imported.
  

And when I referred to GW's dystopian futures...

If this policy was to be implemented an underground leather and wool blackmarket would develop as people secretly buy and sell their leather and wool. A special police force would have to be developed to enforce the Greens' crazy Wool and Leather prohibition. The Greens are opposed to prohibition of Drugs, but support prohibition of Leather and Wool ?

Except, of course, for the fact that that legal imports and synthetic furs would kill off any chance of an 'underground black market.' Which would in turn negate the need for a specialised police force. Nice try, guys.

Banning Pets

3.3.2. Discouraging impulse buying, by restricting the sale of live companion animals to authorized and regulated breeders. ^{^}

So only breeders can buy animals ? What about the elderly who value the companionship of animals to cure loneliness ?
What about people whose existing pets get pregnant ? Since they can't sell them to anyone they'd have to do it secretly, or dump them. Again there would be pet smuggling rings and a pet blackmarket, with forged breeder licences being sold on the streets. The Greens are opposed to prohibition of Drugs, but support prohibition of Pets?

I checked that link, and to no surprise came with the same result: a policy that doesn't exist.
And by the way, just in case the policy did exist:

1. The elderly can still buy animals. The policy doesn't mention anything about oldies.
   
2. If people's pets did get pregnant, I'd bet my internal organs that legislation would exist that these pets could be sold to professional breeders
3. "Pet blackmarket"??!!1! What are these guys smoking?

The lunacy becomes even more hysterical in point 3 as GW drops any facade of legitimacy, literally making up a series of random policies without any links or quotes:

• Ending live animal exports - Why ? It's the same as a farm pen but on a ship

Not what from I'm reading:

Animal charities say that thousands of animals die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, thirst, suffocation, and crush injuries.^[1] The National Hog Farmer reports that 420,000 pigs are crippled and 170,000 die each year in the U.S. on the way to the slaughterhouse.^[2]

^{To quote Captain Jeremy (from another context but still accurate nonetheless): They're shameless.
Their final point is equally ludicrous:}

This one is interesting:

3.6.1 Ensuring that cruel acts and practices against animals by corporate and private offenders are treated as serious crimes. ^{^}

The Greens think crimes against animals are serious, yet crimes against humans, such as drug crimes, aren't serious at all. Good to see the Greens have their priorities in the right order.

<sup>If you thought that the link would go to a non-existent Greens policy, congratulations! What GW is doing here is using a type of logical fallacy-if no contrary information presents itself (in this context, the information that crimes against humans aren't OK), then hurting humans is definitely fine, because the quote doesn't say that hurting people isn't fine. Hope that made sense.

Almost there, and this has to be broken down almost sentence by sentence:</sup>

Humans are Animals are Humans

3.6.2. Replacing the status of non-human animals as “property” within current legislation to one of “beings” with recognizable legal rights. ^{^}

The sentence itself is self evidently bizarre. “beings” with recognizable legal rights ?

Policy like this is embarrassingly bad.

Why? At least give me an insanely stupid reason why you think it's "embarrassingly bad."

However there's more - analyse the following sentence closely:

Replacing the status of non-human animals as “property”

'non-human animals' ? Think about it. If they'd left 'non-human' out of the sentence, it would have still made sense ie "Replacing the status of animals.."

So why'd they put it in there ?

Probably because it's accurate: humans are animals.

Because the Greens believe humans are animals, equal with chickens, cockroaches, grasshoppers and sheep.

The first part is fine...the second part veers off track harder then Alan Stang.

The 'human-animals' here at Greenswatch disagree.

^{Brown, Nettle, Milne and Siewert would also disagree.}

Sentient Animals

2.7 Animal husbandry must respect animals' sentient nature, and maximise their quality of life.

We have enough trouble in maximising the quality of life for all humans, let alone making sure a cow leads a happy and fulfilling life.

Imagine a struggling farmer being jailed for not keeping his pigs content in an air-conditioned sty to the Greens specified 18.27 degrees Celsius.

From wikipedia:

Straw man

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.^[1] To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position).^[1] A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it carries little or no real evidential weight, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.^[2]

Bingo. You're going to have to use less obvious smear tactics, GW.

^{It took forever...but it's done. A half-decent examination to what the Greens half to put up with. Don't worry, boys and girls. There is, sadly enough, plenty more where those smears came from and I intend on blowing their digital brains out soon enough.}

*A smear that could have been done far better if GW had tried the "the Greens oppose those counter-terrorism measures that give the police to raid your home without you even knowing! Clearly, they support the terrorists" smear. Man, I could do this better then GW.