Global warming a hoax? No, the hoax claim is a hoax…

Interesting.

See Global warming a hoax? No, the hoax claim is a hoax. Rush Limbaugh fell for it, though, as did several others who profess to be skeptical of global warming.

Meet a blog

In this case I stumbled upon the blog in question via Perry Middlemiss’s Matilda which I had consulted when putting up the last Friday Australian poem. I soon found that The Happy Antipodean and I had much in common, except that he is younger and probably brighter. Further investigation confirms this and more, as we in fact had known each other in the past. The Antipodean was one of the helpers on Neos Magazine, my one-time venture into the world of publishing. (We didn’t do too badly: Judith Wright and Patrick White were regular readers.) Even more investigation — not difficult in this case — revealed The Antipodean’s real name and a biographical site that confirms the Neos connection:

From 1982 to 1986, I help edit and distribute little lit mag Neos: Young Writers after meeting Neil Whitfield in Cornstalk Bookshop, Glebe. Production, in an office near St Johns Road, Glebe, uses set type pasted onto a grid. Published biannually from Gleebooks, the mag receives assistance from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and other bodies.

I don’t remember the office, I have to say, unless he’s thinking of the typesetter’s office near the old Gleebooks. There is some fascinating family history on the autobiographical site; I enjoy such things, as you will know from the pages here.

And it turns out he really is Julie Bishop’s cousin.

This is interesting…

I’m not an avid science fiction or fantasy reader, but neither am I a hater of such work. While I had never heard of writer Darryl Sloan, therefore, I am sure many will have.

Remember when private armies were considered evil?

You don’t have to be very old to recall a time when the only private armies we heard about were shady operations somewhere in Africa… Not any more of course.

I came across a good post on the matter via a comment on Seeking Utopia.

Racism and racists and The Plonker’s latest foot-in-mouth attack

I have been giving much thought to Jim Belshaw’s post Race and racism in Australia. He is quite right to say that pseudoscientific racism, the kind that was official policy in Nazi Germany and more widely accepted elsewhere in the not too distant past than we now find comfortable to admit, is probably a minority position in Australia. Jim prefers the word “prejudice”, the term “racist” having become a generic term of abuse that shuts down discussion. This is certainly worth considering. I will let Jim explain, but do read all his post:

…By global standards, we live in a remarkably open, pluralist, tolerant, polycultural society. We have transformed ourselves as a country and a people. Yet based on our own reporting of ourselves, an outsider could be forgiven for thinking that this is a place were racial bigotry runs rampant.

Mr Andrews is not known for his ability to handle things in a sensible and tactful fashion. Yet when I look at the facts, the ones who introduced and then followed up the race issue were the media and commentators more broadly. They created the problem.

There are a small number of genuine old style racists in the Australian community who do try to take advantage of this type of event. They did so in Tamworth following the controversy. As happened with Tamworth, they will fail.

I’ll watch this with interest

Jim Belshaw has more blogs than I do, I think… 😉

This one he made “absent-mindedly” back in August with a “call for volunteers”. He has now found a rather interesting one with impeccable Surry Hills connections. Perhaps I should join, but I am not sure what I would do. If anything, it would be very occasional…