As you may have deduced from earlier blogs about global warming I don’t believe we’ll have time to worry about the gradual increase in temperatures leading to asphyxiation from carbon dioxide, world’s end will be due to a well-overdue Dansgaard Oescher event.

Reading the weekend press my theory is bolstered by the revelation that cataclysmic levels of methane hydrate will be released from warming seas, causing accelerated raising of air temperature and snowballing into increases of 7 to 10 degrees C over as little as one decade.
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I got some more emails from Tarun and Dan today, if you want to read about their adventures click here.

Not only is global warming scepticism dangerous, but so too is blogging. News Online reports on yet another blogger dismissed from her employment for exposing her personal life in the blogosphere. However, in this case it’s very personal indeed. Jessica Cutler, whose nom de blog was Washingtonienne, was an aide to a Republican Senator, and her blog is frank to say the least. But although she certainly deserves high marks for frankness, commonsense is another matter. Here are a couple of representative extracts:
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Don’t you hate the way advertisers treat you like a moron.
UP TO 99% OFF
screams the ad. What a waste of money !! Does the advertising guru really believe that the average consumer watches/listens to/notices garbage like that; or has (s)he used so much nose cleaner that connection with reality has been totally severed ?

How stupid does the enterprise Marketing manager/CEO/proprietor, who actually commissions and pays for these ads, think the audience is ? Even in light of the quotation “Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” I groan with disbelief at some of the rubbish masquerading as advertising these days.

Then there is the petrol prices lies. When the $AUS nudged 80c how come petrol prices (measured in $US) didn’t result in lower pump prices ? Notice that it only takes a couple of days of high oil prices before pump prices go up; and much longer to fall after the world price falls. Why do we have to meet world parity pricing anyway? I thought that the benefit from being (almost) self sufficient is that consumers are protected from the volatility in prices. But I think the worst lie of all is that the petrol companies, the airline companies, the transport companies and the government (who benefits in extra tax derived from higher prices) all expect us to believe that oil prices are not hedged, i.e. the price is fixed for as much as twelve months ahead. So no matter what happens to the spot price the big producers and consumers have their purchase price locked in; not that it stops them from raising pump prices or adding levies to air tickets.

And if there is one thing worse than advertising to the lowest denominator, it’s spinning statistics to make them seem what they aren’t. Take for example this recent report in the NT News under the heading ” Profits up for NT businesses”.

Sales and profits are up for the Territory’s small and medium business enterprises [the Sensis Business Index] survey has found. Sensis chief economist Steven Shepherd said; “Profits have increased four percentage points to negative one percent”.

When I did arithmetic, negative one percent was a loss not a profit.

BTW, as soon as that Pakistani bloke cleverly disguised as Steve Vizard tells me that his rugs are 100% off, I’m buying some.