No greenie dealings here:

Alex White writes: Re. “Kohler: Abbott’s clever climate change policy” (Wednesday, item 23).  Kohler wrote: “Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will now have to quickly do a deal with the Greens to get a government scheme through parliament, or else simply give up and blame everyone else.”

Unfortunately, this kind of commentary is completely misleading, unhelpful and uninformed. For a business analyst, it shows a concerning naiveté in the political process and the dynamics of the Australian Senate. For the record, the Labor Government needs seven (that’s seven) additional votes in the Senate to pass legislation. Seven votes.

The Greens Party has five (that’s five) votes in the Senate. There is simply no possible way for a “deal with the Greens” to deliver a carbon tax or anything else. A “deal with the Greens” would deliver an extra five (that’s five) votes in the Senate, falling two (that’s two) short of a majority. Even if Senator Xenophon voted with Labor and the Greens Party, Senator Fielding is an avowed climate denier (and so wouldn’t vote for a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme). “Dealing with the Greens” would not deliver a two-year carbon tax. It would deliver precisely nothing at all.

Abbott joins the climate change cage match:

Peter Lloyd writes: Re. “Abbott to the lunatic fringe: it’s OK, I’m one of you” (yesterday, item 10). Expect Abbott’s climate change plan to see further vast subsidies for Gunns and, therefore, the CFMEU in Tasmania.  Creative accounting will see the release of carbon in cable-logged-and-burnt old growth forest* ignored, the carbon absorbed by the resulting, ecologically barren plantations exaggerated.  This is the payoff for the enthusiastic support of the Tasmanian Liberal Senators for his ascent, and, indeed, the key role Eric Abetz played in felling Turnbull with the Grech email “mistake”.

Incidentally, just as Abetz and crew put the party interest last and their personal forestry fortunes first in the months before Turnbull’s ousting, the ALP has named Scott MacLennan on its ticket for Bass in the impending state election.  That’s right, the one who told his men (and they are all men), to vote for Howard in 2004.  Down here, the parties are just another thing to hijack in the course of maintaining absolute power for a few mates.

* and when the forest mafia deny they cut down “old growth”, look for a creative definition to allow such a claim to be made.

The Australian on the Kindle:

Bob Joyce writes: Rupert’s Aussie flagship is now available by subscription in mobile format, which can be read on the Kindle reader. The Australian is one of the papers offered by PressDisplay.com, and costs $US9.95 for 31 issues — about $AUD0.37 per issue. Very affordable. The downloading to Kindle is clunky, however, requiring the use of a cable from the PC to the Kindle. The Australian is not yet available wirelessly from Amazon.

On the Kindle you get a thumbnail sketch of each page, and the ability to view the articles in text format. The easiest way to read it is to skim through the whole paper in text format, stopping to read the items of interest. There is also a table of contents available, allowing you to go straight to a favourite section.  Reading it this way, there are no advertisements visible. You can zoom in on pictures, but on the Kindle they are monochrome. If you want something to read on the train/tram/bus on the way to work, this is the least expensive option, providing you already own the Kindle.

Is this a viable subscription model? Advertisers won’t like it. Do PressDisplay.com subscriptions count in circulation figures? 37c per day — isn’t that about what we pay for the ABC?

Barney Barnaby:

Kim Lockwood writes: Re. “When good sense can’t hit the broad side of a Barnaby” (yesterday, item 1). In regards to “Jethro” Joyce, the illustrious Bernard Keane offers “the Coalition has the weakest economic line-up in modern political history.”How memory fades. Remember Hawke’s short-term treasurer, John Kerin? Well, come to think of it, Barnaby makes him look like JM Keynes.

Apples and oranges for Farmer:

Mark Reydon writes: Re. “Richard Farmer’s Chunky Bits” (yesterday, item 13). Reluctant as I am to enter the Climate Change Cage, with respect to Richard Farmer’s line about how confident we can be with climate modellers forecasts when economists’ models get it so wrong:  the key difference I think is that climate models have an underlying basis in physical laws.

Yes, there are many factors and interactions in the system that climate scientists have an imperfect or even appalling understanding of, but fundamentally, if more energy is entering the system than is leaving it, the system has to heat up.

Economics on the other hand, is a social science and seeks to forecast the vagaries of a human based system. There are no physical laws underlying the system’s behaviour, merely economists’ guesses as to how the future might unfold based on how things have happened in the past, so there is necessarily a much greater chance of economists’ models being completely wrong.

Comments on Conroy on censorship:

Stilgherrian writes: Re. “Conroy: we know filtering isn’t a silver bullet solution” (Wednesday, item 17) He closes with the observation that “Filtering is one component of the [cyber safety] policy but unfortunately the rest of the policy is largely ignored by those who oppose it.”

Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but in my case that’s because the rest of the policy is sane and sensible, if under-funded. Ninety-one more federal police to chase the bad guys? Excellent! Double it! Same for the “additional funding for prosecution of offenders”. $32.8 million for education and outreach programs? That’s less than $12 per child. Shouldn’t we care more than that?

Research into cyber bullying and online threats? Well, that should have come before deciding to waste money on a magic filter, but at least we’ve started now. And a Youth Advisory Group on cyber safety? Good. As long as it isn’t a token effort for the sake of a photo opportunity.

I agree with those who say it’s great to have a Minister discussing the issue. More please. But can we please drop the “no silver bullet” line? It doesn’t have to be in every media piece.

Enough trolleys, let’s talk population:

Tim Deyzel writes: Re. “Isn’t growth and sustainability mutually exclusive?” (yesterday, item 14) I find the lack of debate about Australian population (and immigration) targets/forecasts both in the wider media and in Crikey puzzling and disturbing. In the lead-up to Australia Day, Dick Smith (Australian of the Year 1986) called for limits to growth based on a sustainability perspective. Around that time we had three days of Crikey letters about abandoned shopping trolleys yet nothing about the population debate. Unless, of course, you count your own Richard Farmer’s vituperative gibberish about an “inherent selfishness” in NOT increasing the population as a meaningful argument.

So it was refreshing to see Dr Douglas Goudie’s  piece on the need for a sustainable population in Crikey yesterday. Could I suggest you contact Federal Labor MP Kelvin Thomson for a contribution? This careful and considered politician popped up in November from relative obscurity advocating a population target of 26 million. A bold move when both major parties seem content meandering towards a vague forecast of at least 35 million.

Not just trying to kill people:

Denise Marcos writes: Some readers have failed to absorb a vital word in my suggestion on voluntary euthanasia paring health care costs: the essential word is “voluntary”. Jenny Morris (Wednesday, comments) plays mischief with her paraphrasing. Nor do I, as Jackie French opines, (yesterday, comments) mistake surgical prevention of death with palliative care — in this context the differences would be irrelevant if the patient opted for an early, legalised, departure. If the patient opted… elected … volunteered.

The imperfect art of economy:

Robert Johnson writes: Re. Drovers Cat’s (yesterday, comments) on “Clueless Economists”. Resorting to astrologers for improved economic forecasting may be a bit desperate, although the US government budget forecasting graph from the NYT in Richard Farmer’s chunky bits column yesterday illustrates why they may be better than economists.

However, a report I recall (probably imperfectly) in The Economist sometime around 1994 about a study of the predictive accuracy of three groups and a control on monetary rates may be helpful. A sample of European treasurers fared worse than economics professors who, in turn, fared worse than their students.  The most accurate results came from the control group of garbage collectors. Not that there’s anything wrong with economists; some of my best friends…  Perhaps the garbage collectors were economists rendered unemployable due to a lack of the excessive optimism that seems, from the NYT graph, to be mandatory.

Medibank reply:

James Connors from Medibank Private writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (yesterday, item 6). Medibank welcomes our customers paying up to 12 months in advance. However, if a payment is received after the due date our system will automatically default the member to a lesser payment period for the next payment — this is designed to help members manage payments, rather than as a policy to deprive them of rate protection or prevent them receiving the full benefits of paying in advance.

Seven may be sly but they can’t spell:

Tim Villa writes: Re. “Media briefs” (yesterday, item 19). In ‘a notable absence from the Macquarie cross today’, it looks like Seven have some trouble spelling “Macquarie” as well, despite of it being plastered all over the screen behind Martin Lakos!