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Insights from Quadrant
JCU’s latest frolic
JCU Vice-Chancellor Sandra Harding with a well-known steward of the public purse.
Back in April, Judge Salvatore Vasta delivered a withering judgment against James Cook University, which he concluded had abused Peter Ridd from pillar to post. Before reading on it is worth reviewing his criticisms of JCU, especially this one:
The manner in which JCU trawled through his emails, to try and find some more evidence of breaches of the Code of Conduct, was reprehensibly unfair to Professor Ridd, especially since he was entitled to write everything that he wrote.
And this:
It would seem that the only way in which Professor Ridd could potentially mitigate his loss is if there were a changing of the guard at the University and [Vice-Chancellor Sandra] Harding and [Provost Chris] Cocklin were no longer in their positions. There is no evidence this will happen any time soon.
One might think the judgment’s 34-page flogging would be enough to see JCU lick its wounds, write some cheques and hope that the education minister, formerly Simon Birmingham and currently Dan Tehan, had not been paying too much attention to the disgraceful state of academic freedom on the North Queensland campus.
But not JCU, which is tapping what amounts to a bottomless pit of public money to mount an appeal. Professor Ridd isn’t so well-heeled, so must once again rattle the cup. At his fund-raising site he writes:
On hearing that JCU was appealing, Cheryl and I seriously considered just walking away. After all, why should I ask donors for $1.5M to fight a pointless battle that the State or Federal education ministers could settle with a phone call to JCU. $1.5M is a crazy amount that could be used for much better things.
JCU will use its infinite financial resources – effectively government money – to appeal. They have hired three or four senior barristers, one of which we are told charges over $20K per day and between them must be over $40K per day.
Last week JCU also stayed the judgement and capped my access to the compensation for legal fees.
So I must very regretfully ask again for help. We need the best legal assistance to ensure a win. My fabulous legal team led by Stuart Wood AM QC has greatly discounted their costs so far. But appeals are horribly expensive and we need to be prepared to ultimately go to the High Court.
Insights from Quadrant
Suffer the little children
How proud some green teacher must be of this brain-washed adolescent vulgarian.
Once upon a time, afflicting children with the trembling terrors was regarded as abuse. Today, encouraging little ones to believe they have no future, that they are the soon-to-be casualties of a dying planet, is seen as a virtue.
“What kind of monster afflicts children with eco-anxiety by telling them they will be dead in 12 years?” wonders US writer John Nolte.
“I’ll tell you who: the child abusers in the establishment media, the environmental movement, and the Democrat Party — that’s who.”
Nolte is writing of America’s eco hysteria, but give the warmist hysterics a nasal accent and he might just as easily be writing of the no less shameful exploitation of Australian children for political ends:
Even if Climate Change were not a hoax, even if Global Warming were real (it’s not), burdening children with eco-anxiety would still be indefensible.
You don’t do this to children. You don’t shit all over their childhood… Even if this massive hoax were not a hoax, it is not the child’s responsibility to fix it. That responsibility falls on the adults, and another responsibility that falls on adults is to not only protect children, but to protect their innocence, protect them from the horrors of real life, protect the magic of those wonder years.
Sadly, once you realize Climate Change is a hoax wrapped in a left-wing political movement, this deliberate act of terrorizing children with lies, a lie every bit as audacious as saying a meteor will hit the earth in 12 years, is revealed as something truly insidious.
Unfortunately, though, and we see this in our public schools and popular culture, the happiest place in the world for a leftist is that spot between parent and child, and that influential spot is mercilessly abused to destroy the most precious gift of childhood — innocence.
His piece can be read in its entirety here.
Insights from Quadrant
Crazy for a reason
Victor Davis Hanson on Donald Trump and the New Establishment’s apoplectic derangement:
… the real source of Trump derangement syndrome is his desire to wage a multifront pushback — politically, socially, economically and culturally — against what might be called the elite postmodern progressive world …
… Trump has so enraged his Democratic adversaries that the candidates to replace him have moved farther to the left than any primary field in memory. They loathe Trump, but in their abject hatred he has goaded the various Democratic candidates into revealing their support for the crazy Green New Deal, reparations for slavery, relaxed immigration policies and trillions of dollars in new free stuff.
In a way, the left-wing Democratic presidential candidates understand Trump best. If he wins his one-man crusade to stop the progressive project, they are finished, and their own party will make the necessary adjustments and then sheepishly drift back toward the center.
The Hanson essay can be read in full here.
Insights from Quadrant
UNSW must be
so very proud
so very proud
Failed libel litigant Michael Mann will soon add his lustre to the University of New South Wales’ climate corps, where a grand total of 37 professors, associate professors, lecturers, ARC fellows, ARC laureates and post-doctoral researchers evidently aren’t enough to grapple with a problem that doesn’t exist.
And soon it will be 38, with Climategate star, Nobel Prize non-winner and peddler of discredited data Michael Mann on his way to join the team.
Yes, that Michael Mann, who just had his eight-year libel action against Tim Ball thrown out of court by a very irate judge. Mark Steyn, target of another of Mann’s slow-motion libel suits, has an update that includes a link to the Ball judgment — a document that adds a special irony to the title of the lecture Mann will be delivering on October 19 at Sydney Town Hall, “How to Win the New Climate War” (emphasis added)
Professor Michael Mann will present the urgency of current climate change science as we see the impacts playing out in the daily news cycle and on our social media feeds. Coastal inundation, withering heat waves and droughts, devastating floods, unprecedented wildfires. This is the face of dangerous climate change. It has arrived. As a consequence, fossil fuel interests can no longer claim nothing is happening and have shifted to “soft denial”, distraction and delay in their effort to prevent climate action. With MC Craig Reucassel (ABC’s War on Waste), Michael will present his experiences on the front lines of the battle to communicate climate science and his unique insights into what steps we can take now to defend our planet from the assault by polluting interests.
Funds raised by 350.org Australia for this event will support bringing Michael back to Australia to work with UNSW in early 2020 during our most intensive climate change impact season.
“Our most intensive climate change impact season”? Take that to mean every hot day, summer storm, bushfire, heavy rain and high tide will be shopped to unquestioning reporters as proof positive that all those snouts in the climate trough are needed to save the planet.
Insights from Quadrant
JCU’s latest frolic
JCU Vice-Chancellor Sandra Harding with a well-known steward of the public purse.
Back in April, Judge Salvatore Vasta delivered a withering judgment against James Cook University, which he concluded had abused Peter Ridd from pillar to post. Before reading on it is worth reviewing his criticisms of JCU, especially this one:
The manner in which JCU trawled through his emails, to try and find some more evidence of breaches of the Code of Conduct, was reprehensibly unfair to Professor Ridd, especially since he was entitled to write everything that he wrote.
And this:
It would seem that the only way in which Professor Ridd could potentially mitigate his loss is if there were a changing of the guard at the University and [Vice-Chancellor Sandra] Harding and [Provost Chris] Cocklin were no longer in their positions. There is no evidence this will happen any time soon.
One might think the judgment’s 34-page flogging would be enough to see JCU lick its wounds, write some cheques and hope that the education minister, formerly Simon Birmingham and currently Dan Tehan, had not been paying too much attention to the disgraceful state of academic freedom on the North Queensland campus.
But not JCU, which is tapping what amounts to a bottomless pit of public money to mount an appeal. Professor Ridd isn’t so well-heeled, so must once again rattle the cup. At his fund-raising site he writes:
On hearing that JCU was appealing, Cheryl and I seriously considered just walking away. After all, why should I ask donors for $1.5M to fight a pointless battle that the State or Federal education ministers could settle with a phone call to JCU. $1.5M is a crazy amount that could be used for much better things.
JCU will use its infinite financial resources – effectively government money – to appeal. They have hired three or four senior barristers, one of which we are told charges over $20K per day and between them must be over $40K per day.
Last week JCU also stayed the judgement and capped my access to the compensation for legal fees.
So I must very regretfully ask again for help. We need the best legal assistance to ensure a win. My fabulous legal team led by Stuart Wood AM QC has greatly discounted their costs so far. But appeals are horribly expensive and we need to be prepared to ultimately go to the High Court.
Insights from Quadrant
Suffer the little children
How proud some green teacher must be of this brain-washed adolescent vulgarian.
Once upon a time, afflicting children with the trembling terrors was regarded as abuse. Today, encouraging little ones to believe they have no future, that they are the soon-to-be casualties of a dying planet, is seen as a virtue.
“What kind of monster afflicts children with eco-anxiety by telling them they will be dead in 12 years?” wonders US writer John Nolte.
“I’ll tell you who: the child abusers in the establishment media, the environmental movement, and the Democrat Party — that’s who.”
Nolte is writing of America’s eco hysteria, but give the warmist hysterics a nasal accent and he might just as easily be writing of the no less shameful exploitation of Australian children for political ends:
Even if Climate Change were not a hoax, even if Global Warming were real (it’s not), burdening children with eco-anxiety would still be indefensible.
You don’t do this to children. You don’t shit all over their childhood… Even if this massive hoax were not a hoax, it is not the child’s responsibility to fix it. That responsibility falls on the adults, and another responsibility that falls on adults is to not only protect children, but to protect their innocence, protect them from the horrors of real life, protect the magic of those wonder years.
Sadly, once you realize Climate Change is a hoax wrapped in a left-wing political movement, this deliberate act of terrorizing children with lies, a lie every bit as audacious as saying a meteor will hit the earth in 12 years, is revealed as something truly insidious.
Unfortunately, though, and we see this in our public schools and popular culture, the happiest place in the world for a leftist is that spot between parent and child, and that influential spot is mercilessly abused to destroy the most precious gift of childhood — innocence.
His piece can be read in its entirety here.
Insights from Quadrant
Crazy for a reason
Victor Davis Hanson on Donald Trump and the New Establishment’s apoplectic derangement:
… the real source of Trump derangement syndrome is his desire to wage a multifront pushback — politically, socially, economically and culturally — against what might be called the elite postmodern progressive world …
… Trump has so enraged his Democratic adversaries that the candidates to replace him have moved farther to the left than any primary field in memory. They loathe Trump, but in their abject hatred he has goaded the various Democratic candidates into revealing their support for the crazy Green New Deal, reparations for slavery, relaxed immigration policies and trillions of dollars in new free stuff.
In a way, the left-wing Democratic presidential candidates understand Trump best. If he wins his one-man crusade to stop the progressive project, they are finished, and their own party will make the necessary adjustments and then sheepishly drift back toward the center.
The Hanson essay can be read in full here.
Insights from Quadrant
UNSW must be
so very proud
so very proud
Failed libel litigant Michael Mann will soon add his lustre to the University of New South Wales’ climate corps, where a grand total of 37 professors, associate professors, lecturers, ARC fellows, ARC laureates and post-doctoral researchers evidently aren’t enough to grapple with a problem that doesn’t exist.
And soon it will be 38, with Climategate star, Nobel Prize non-winner and peddler of discredited data Michael Mann on his way to join the team.
Yes, that Michael Mann, who just had his eight-year libel action against Tim Ball thrown out of court by a very irate judge. Mark Steyn, target of another of Mann’s slow-motion libel suits, has an update that includes a link to the Ball judgment — a document that adds a special irony to the title of the lecture Mann will be delivering on October 19 at Sydney Town Hall, “How to Win the New Climate War” (emphasis added)
Professor Michael Mann will present the urgency of current climate change science as we see the impacts playing out in the daily news cycle and on our social media feeds. Coastal inundation, withering heat waves and droughts, devastating floods, unprecedented wildfires. This is the face of dangerous climate change. It has arrived. As a consequence, fossil fuel interests can no longer claim nothing is happening and have shifted to “soft denial”, distraction and delay in their effort to prevent climate action. With MC Craig Reucassel (ABC’s War on Waste), Michael will present his experiences on the front lines of the battle to communicate climate science and his unique insights into what steps we can take now to defend our planet from the assault by polluting interests.
Funds raised by 350.org Australia for this event will support bringing Michael back to Australia to work with UNSW in early 2020 during our most intensive climate change impact season.
“Our most intensive climate change impact season”? Take that to mean every hot day, summer storm, bushfire, heavy rain and high tide will be shopped to unquestioning reporters as proof positive that all those snouts in the climate trough are needed to save the planet.
