Are all people who disagree with you engaging, seemingly somewhat ironically given your particular choice of words, in a “circular exercise in piffling pedantry” or just the ones with whom you apparently have no intelligent argument to counter?

After his failure in Singapore he said:
“There are only two choices here - action or inaction.”

Apparently he doesn’t know the difference between a choice or two…….
I wonder if John Bennets attended Nambour High?

And thanks for the Yeats , f@ck knows where english literature would be without the Irish giants.

Marxist, yes but I’m no Althussarian

As for the Mensheviks, what can I say?

I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.
- Yeats

Still Marxist, but what a different world it would have been. JamesK, I know what you’re going to say, don’t bother.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/11/australia-state-of-intolerance

(EDIT: No need for that)

(EDIT: again, keep it on issue pls).

You have not even pretended to address the argument addressed to you above.

Instead you address an argument I did not make.

You created a straw man and attacked that.

One of the Aristotelean logical fallacies and you use more than one of those and more than just occasionally I notice

You twit.

You didn’t even pick up the main point I was making, again and again, which is:
You can either try to make this into a revolution, or you can work with business on this.

If you choose the former, you will have to swallow your pride and allow big business to continue making profits out of a new, clean, energy regime. Among other things, this requires artificial economic moats for the ones that currently have resource-based economic moats that they stand to lose. In this scenario, there will be a significant taxpayer cost, but the public have effectively voted a mandate for it, and in doing so have volunteered to fund it. That includes me.

If you choose the former, that revolution will lose. Everybody loses. You will sacrifice the environment in doing so, but at least all the true believers will be able to have a group hug and console each other that it wasn’t their fault. Is that what you want?

That said, AR and Raymond have a point. The comments section is turning into facebook for boilers.

You both seem to be poorly educated, so that is the first task… build a real understanding of the issue in the population at large and sideline those who, for whatever reason, don’t get it.

Persuasion is needed to maximise the demand for change for the better in our world’s energy options.

Rally, not necessarily in the physical sense, but in a more general team-building sense - get vocal, change the poll results so that politicians realise that failure to act effectively will lead directly to their being voted out of office.

Not on Gaia’s side? You will either very soon be shunned by the majority, or we will all find life tougher and much more brutish as options and resources such as arable land, clean water and safe society become scarse.

Now, I know that some of the poorly educated and closed minded of the of the current generation will probably never agree totally about the real and increasing of effects of AGW, but that’s really an issue for them alone. The main problem for the future of the world is shaping up to be climate change brought about by Westerners, and as this reality becomes even more abundantly clear, the nay-sayers will find themselves isolated and despised.

That is what humans tend to do with difficult, irrational minorities.

I dearly wish that it was otherwise, but the writing is well and truly on the wall for all to see, and time is running out.

BK’s article, especially his advice to the Libs, is spot on.

I suspect that it’s not Labor that’s mad except maybe maybe the extreme left wing.

It’s Rudd. His personal poll popularity is what keeps him there and his colleagues fear of returning to opposition.

I doubt there is much personal loyalty from or even mutual conviction with his colleagues.

Committing to legislation the roles played and costs to be paid by various Australian interests before we know neither agreed targets for other similar and competing economies nor the means they’ll use to get there is simply stupid.

No other accurate word really.

This is still the party of hard heads. It is still the party of Hawke and Keating. Grow the pie and make sure workers and not just unionists get their fair share of that growth.

Good piece by the glorious Annabel Crabbe:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-shapeshifter-in-the-lodge-20091113-iem9.html

And thank you Venise. Very kind of you.

I suspect that it’s not Labor that’s mad except maybe maybe the extreme left wing.

It’s Rudd. His personal poll popularity is what keeps him there and his colleagues fear of returning to opposition.

I doubt there is much personal loyalty from or even mutual conviction with his colleagues.

Committing to legislation the roles played and costs to be paid by various Australian interests before we know neither agreed targets for other similar and competing economies nor the means they’ll use to get there is simply stupid.

No other accurate word really.

This is still the party of hard heads. It is still the party of Hawke and Keating. Grow the pie and make sure workers and not just unionists get their fair share of that growth.

Good piece by the glorious Annabel Crabbe:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-shapeshifter-in-the-lodge-20091113-iem9.html