For the enlightenment, advancement, and inspiration of its members
Proudly presents
With thanks to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
A filmed talk by Australian historian extraordinaire.
on
Israel – the only western country in the most volatile region of the world
For the enlightenment, advancement, and inspiration of its members
Proudly presents
With the kind permission of
Jeremy Boreing & Declaration Entertainment
A filmed talk in which
Narrates all seven “video essays” of
Topics: Small Government & Private Enterprise; Elitism; Wealth Creation;
Natural Law; Immigration; Gun Rights; American Exceptionalism
For the enlightenment, advancement, and inspiration of its members
Proudly presents
With the kind permission of
Intelligence Squared
A filmed talks in which
EXPLORES
competition + science + democracy +
medicine + consumerism + Protestant work ethic
My two recent articles about the Federation of Victorian Film Societies and the Australian Council of Film Societies:
List of films the PRODOS Film Society (Melbourne, Australia) will be including in its 2010 programme: HERE (2 MB PDF file)
The PRODOS Film Society is a member of the Federation of Victorian Film Societies. Our constitution is HERE.
Our purpose is to present and study movies that promote and explore free market thinking, capitalist ideals, the history of ideas, the life and work of creative heroes.
Above, a few people give their feedback after the PRODOS screening of NOT EVIL JUST WRONG on Sunday October 16 2009 in Melbourne, Australia.
Thanks to Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney for creating this superb documentary and for organizing the worldwide “tea party” Premiere.
Thanks also to Tim Andrews and Andrew Landeryou for their assistance.
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Derryn Hinch joins the Andrew Bolt school of global warming skeptics
A couple of days ago Derryn Hinch (Radio 3AW Melbourne, Australia – nicknamed “the human headline”) declared that he now considers himself a global warming skeptic.
CHICKEN LITTLE TIME
I’ve been coming round to this opinion for some time. The thought that just maybe, perhaps, no dammit! I’ll say it: The Emperor has no clothes.
I’m talking about global warming and carbon footprints and the emission trading scheme. And I have joined the Andrew Bolt school of sceptics.
… We have been swept along by the Ruddster (Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd) and if you challenge any of the dogma you are either an imbecile or a selfish, materialistic environmental Nazi who doesn’t give a fig about the future of our children and their children’s children.
… One Garnaut sceptic is the New South Wales Labor Government Treasurer, Michael Costa. He says “Chicken Little’ warnings about the dangers of climate change are no substitute for a rigorous economic and scientific debate.
… It is true we are being flooded with the economic arguments. But what about the scientists?
On The ABC the other day Prime Minister Rudd said that we must put a cap on the carbon pollution we put out into the atmosphere because if we just keep letting it rip, then the planet gets hotter and hotter and hotter.
And yet a meteorologist of 35 years experience told me carbon is not a gas … Carbon dioxide is a trace minor greenhouse gas in the greenhouse effect that controls the heat exchange of the planet.
He says water vapour primarily controls the earth’s heat exchange. So “when 99% of commentators talk about co2 as the key heat valve
you are seeing profound and basic misunderstanding of what it is all about.”That’s why I want to hear more from the scientists and less from economists and politicians who have vested interests. And if that makes me a Doubting Thomas. Well, I can live with that. And sleep at night.
The next day Derryn Hinch spoke further on this with New Zealand’s Newstalk ZB, Larry Williams. Click here for mp3.
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Some excerpts from my transcription …
Larry Williams: … Global Warming skeptics are starting to come out of the woodwork.
Derryn Hinch: … they’ve had so much hammering from the … gloom-and-doom-sayers and what we call the Chicken Little Brigade … last week we had the Garnaut Report … and he’s saying Kakadu could be gone in fifty years and the Great Barrier Reef and everything … now some of the … scientists are saying hang on, let’s look at Carbon Dioxide. Carbon Dioxide is not a major Greenhouse gas. … Water vaporizing is the main thing to do with temperature …
… you had the G8 [meeting] in Japan who have now said they will aim at a 50% reduction in [carbon] emissions before 2050. But Australia is going for [significant emission reductions by] 2010. That’s only 18 months away …
Larry Williams: … Australia a bit like us [New Zealand] [is contributing] … very minute emissions … it all comes from other countries … They’re saying [i.e. the G8] … half emissions by 2050, I saw that, but it won’t happen, will it? The developing countries – China, India – they won’t have a bar of it.
Derryn Hinch: China and India are virtually saying, When we get our emissions up to what you’ve been doing for the last 50 years then we’ll look at it. But … we’re not going to wreck our economies and out own industrial revolution – that you all had – just to keep you happy.
It’s a selfish attitude but I can understand where they’re coming from.
Larry Williams: … there’s something like 30,000 scientists who disagree with what’s going on here, but they are called “deniers”.
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Alexandra Mary Mirabella with Prodos (that’s me on the left)
Just got back from welcoming Greg and Sophie Mirabella‘s brand new, darling baby girl to the Universe.
Mother and child are doing very well. Healthy and happy.
Congratulations Greg and Sophie!
Love and Best Wishes to you from Barboo and me.
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So much for the … ehm … “consensus”
Australian columnist, Andrew Bolt, links to the just-screened Channel Nine Sunday show titled Questioning Science – with narration and interviews by Adam Shand – which challenges the pseudo-scientific content and cult-like character of Global Warming alarmists.
As well as giving Green Believers like Flim-Flam Flannery ample opportunity to expose their hostility to proper scientific debate, this is a beautifully produced and entertaining episode.
From the Sunday site …
there is a school of thought that our knowledge of climate systems is as yet insufficient to be so conclusive on the causes of global warming.
Today Sunday examines the political consensus building that has portrayed global warming as the most urgent crisis humankind has ever faced.
Skeptics point to the gaps in the knowledge base and the flaws in the measurement of vital climate and weather data upon which the consensus is based.
Social researchers also highlight the dangers of conducting science as a form of religion, divided into believers and deniers.
They warn that as governments prepare to make expensive policy decisions, such as carbon emissions trading schemes, this consensus may not reflect the best science.
I also recommend browsing through some of the astute and often hilarious commenters on Andrew Bolt’s blog.
Here are three YouTubes of the “Sunday” show …
Part 1 of 3 …
Part 2 of 3 …
Part 3 of 3 …
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John Pasquarelli with his fiance
Watch John Pasquarelli on Channel Nine’s Sunday program:
Listen to my interview (from 2006) with John Pasquarelli:
My interview with Australian free market politician, Sophie (Panopoulos) Mirabella (Liberal Party of Australia) is now online HERE.
Sophie has been presented with the Celebrate Capitalism™ campaign’s Annual International Capitalism Award, Melbourne 2008.
Past recipients of this Award have been:
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“Without property rights there can be no freedom.”
These are the words of Bob Day, whom I had the pleasure of hearing at a recent Australian Adam Smith Club meeting in Melbourne.
A copy of his talk is available HERE.
Bob Day’s talk centered on private land ownership and housing affordability.
As well as presenting many sound economic principles explaining the causes of rising housing prices in Australia, the United States, and elsewhere, Bob Day also made clear the foundational political/philosophical principles underlying the role of private property, and its indispensable role in the development of liberty and democracy.
He quoted the splendid British Historian, Paul Johnson, explaining that:
The connection between political liberty and the individual ownership of property is one of the great certitudes of human society. It is carved in granite where the words “freedom” and “freehold” come from the same root and have interrelated with each other through many centuries.
And here’s another quote from that talk.
This one by William Pitt, The Elder:
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. His cottage may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.
Last week Bob Day spoke on Australia’s ABC Radio National with Alan Saunders.
Here’s the mp3 audio file of that interview: CLICK HERE
Here are three videos from Australian comedy show The Mansion. They’re a piss-take of a young lass who embarks on a two week pilgrimage to Canberra to be part of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit.
What drives her? What’s the scope and depth of her leftie, greenie, politically correct Vision for Australia?
She struggles, she cries, she laughs. She even overcomes the impatience of a garage mechanic.
(Hat tip Andrew Bolt.)
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
To be continued.
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It’s as clear as … Rudd
Tonight in Melbourne, for our weekly Monday night DISCOVER CAPITALISM™ meeting, we study what has been coming out of the Australia 2020 Summit.
Gerard Jackson has published his third article critiquing the Centre for Independent Studies monograph, Exploring a Carbon Tax for Australia, written by John Humphreys.
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Do you support Sophie’s refusal to say sorry?
Then join the “I SUPPORT SOPHIE” campaign list: click here.
Show your support for Liberal Party parliamentarian, Sophie Mirabella, who stated her reasons for boycotting Sorry Day, Wednesday February 13 as follows …
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Australian Liberal Party parliamentarian, Sophie Mirabella, yesterday spoke in parliament, criticising Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s “We are sorry, We are sorry, We are sorry” (enough already!) speech – its flimsy foundations, its meaningless meaning, and its fraught future.
Read her full speech HERE.
I don’t agree with all her points, but it’s refreshing to find a politician who isn’t cringing and grovelling in the radiant fog that is Rudd.
On Black Wednesday, February 13, prior to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s speech, a group of Aborigines, “the traditional owners of the land,” referring, presumably, to this most pleasant little place …
… opened the Parliament and welcomed Mr Rudd “to the land of our ancestors.”
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A worthy man for a worthy award.
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INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this article isto clear up three misconceptions about a controversial leafletcreated and distributed by Danny Nalliah of Catch The Fire Ministries. These misconceptions have been busily circulating across the mainstream media, and the web.