Opinion

Burning your country's flag is usually roundly condemned as the most unpatriotic and despicable act you could ever do. Proposing laws banning flag burning or accusing your opponent of supporting flag burning is a sort of political superweapon that gets rolled out when things get pretty desperate.

What happens if you burn an American flag in the White House? That was a storyline on one of my favourite episodes of The West Wing. You can watch the main scene below:

Popular magicians Penn & Teller perform the flag burning trick regularly in their stage shows and were invited onto The West Wing to perform it during an episode of the show. You can watch them perform the same trick in their Las Vegas show here, including an demonstration of how it's done:

It would be nice to see the standard of social and political debate elevated to this level more often. Flag burning is such an inflammatory issue, and yet far less important in the scheme of things than public health or sending young men off to die in pointless wars. They say we get the governments we deserve. The hope for the future then must surely be in elevating the level of thought within society as a whole. I hope my blog will help in some small way.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that although there were several calls made over the last decade by prominent Australian politicians and public leaders to pass laws banning flag burning, they were always rejected by the Prime Minister. It's one of the few things I did actually admire our dear departed John Howard for.

Earth Hour is coming up again this Saturday, and by all accounts it's looking to be an even bigger farce than last year. I am a strong supporter of environmental issues, but I feel that cheap feelgood stunts like Earth Hour and Cate Blanchett's Who On Earth Cares campaign really do little more than distract people from real issues and confuse the already contentious environmental debate.

Those who care deeply about environmental issues are well aware of the long hard fight it has been to have environmental concerns even considered, let alone acted upon. Now that the reality of climate change has finally turned the environment into an economic issue, environmental awareness has skyrocketed, but already risks being turned into another social fad - "What better way to cool the earth than to wear a really cool Earth Hour T-shirt?"

When I tell people that Earth Hour is a farce and does nothing to help the environment, people stare at me in amazement as if a bunch of mega-corporations, mass media and marketing can't be wrong. For a start, the event itself is flawed. As Michael Pascoe writes in Crikey today:

What better symbol for Earth Hour than its AGL-sponsored WWF-logoed hot air balloon furiously burning gas over state capitals. That’s AGL the energy company – the one incinerating countless tonnes of gas and coal and, presumably, part of the electricity lobby pushing the federal government for discounts on the eventual carbon credits.

The conclusion to the Crikey junior science class’s first term assignment reads: An average one hour balloon flight over Melbourne uses approximately 180-200 litres of propane, which burns to form water and carbon dioxide; in addition to the fuel used by the balloon's ground retrieval crew. We have estimated that the activity to launch and retrieve one hot air balloon uses the equivalent of 378.1 kilograms of greenhouse gas.

Multiply that by the number of sorties the AGL-WWF giant light bulb is making over four state capitals and you get a lot of black balloons – and if you don’t know what a black balloon is, you haven’t seen how Steve Bracks spends his taxpayers’ money on whitegoods greenhouse awareness.

In the process, WWF and its fellow travellers continue to push their misleading claims of recording a drop in electricity production during the Sydney event last year – the electricity generators recorded a statistically negligible 1.7% variation for NSW and there’s no accounting for extra greenhouse gas production before and by the event.

And if you're wondering what it's all supposed to achieve, consider this piece of information posted on the official Earth Hour FAQ page:

Is it correct that most large coal fired power station operate 24/7 and while there maybe less energy used on the night the power stations will still be running at the same capacity?

It is correct, however…when demand changes (i.e. lights and other electrical devices being turned on/off) power generation plants regulate their output accordingly. So in the case of coal fired plants, they will have to consequently increase or reduce their coal usage (in the case of Earth Hour this would be a reduction). Other types generators, such as gas fired plants and hydro plants also have to do the same thing.

In summary, the effect of Earth Hour will be to reduce electricity demand. Output from power plants will reduce (coal fired plant, gas fired plant and hydro plants). Which ones will reduce are dependent on what is operating at the time and what is determined by the electricity market(NEMMCO). Based on the time and day that the Earth Hour event is planned, it is very likely Earth Hour will cause a reduction in fossil energy power generation.

Just to make that clear, turning the lights off for an hour has no direct effect on the amount of electricity produced. It does have the indirect effect of reducing electricity demand, which it did last year by a whopping 1.7%. And what about those candles everyone will be burning instead?

Jennifer Marohasy, progressive environmentalist and proprietor of the Politics and Environment Blog further explains:

Earth Hour was held during a time of peak electrical load, so any electricity generation displaced would be peak load, probably running on natural gas. Such generation produces about 500 grams of CO2 for every kilowatt-hour.

So turning a 100 watt light bulb off for an hour saves 50 grams of CO2, or 13 grams of carbon. A candle is mostly carbon by weight, and candle wax is only moderately less dense than water at room temperature. This means that burning just 5 cm of a typical 2 cm diameter candle will produce more CO2 than running the 100 watt light bulb for an hour. If the light that was turned off is fluorescent, then even less candle can be burned if there's to be a net reduction in CO2.

A lot of this is simply nitpicking, as overall Earth Hour is fairly harmless and does get people thinking about environmental issues. But what worries me is that in a world where fear, uncertainty and doubt are so effectively used as stalling tactics and weapons against change and social justice, tacky stunts like Earth Hour, no matter how innocent, just give further ammunition to those with darker agendas, like Australia's chief environmental fearmonger Andrew Bolt who picked up on it all last year.

By all means switch off the lights on Saturday. But more importantly, switch on your brains.

If you're into politics as I am, you draw on news and information from a variety of sources, and it can often be difficult to explain to others what's happening without going into a lot of often very boring background and detail.

Occasionally though, you come across something that stands alone as a welcome summary-so-far, which is how I would describe Guy Rundle's piece in Crikey today. Guy is in the US following the campaigns around and writes a daily essay on it all for Crikey readers which is usually rich and thought-provoking, thankfully detached from the frenzied sound-bite driven mainstream media approach.

Here is Guy's piece from today...

There's no doubt now, if there ever was, that John McCain – now leading in the polls as preferred President against both Hillary and Obama (leading the latter by, by some measure, as much as 51 to 41%) -- is getting an easier ride from the press, than either of the Democrats. The question is why?

Consider the recent revival of that classic Reaganism, "mis-speaking". Reagan was a fool and a figurehead who only looks good by comparison with the Republicans who came after him.

Spotted in the early 60s by a bunch of California machine politicians, at a time when his career was tanking, the one-time liberal Democrat and actors' strike leader was competent enough as governor of California – although even then news footage suggests that he was more playing a role, of the no-nonsense conservative, than expressing any deep insight or opinion.

By the time he was elected he was mostly over, and the 1981 assassination attempt pushed him further over the hill. By 1986 it seems pretty clear, in retrospect, that Alzheimer's had begun (how can we tell? Because he was getting smarter), and may have been responsible for one of the few positive moves in his presidency – the disarmament deal with Gorbachev in Rejkyavik. Quite possibly they came about because he simply forgot his act, and responded to Gorbachev's proposals with a measure of plain common sense.

Nothing indicates the frankly fantastic nature of the Republicans today than the god-ancestor worship with which Reagan as regarded. "What would Reagan do?" Became a refrain during the GOP primaries when any crisis issue was suggested for debate. We all know what he'd do – consult his astrologer, eat some cookies, tell a story about Jimmy Stewart and have a nap while his staff dealt with the situation, but that wasn't what was meant. Reagan is referred back to because he is redolent of an era when conservatism was monolithic and stable, its identity defined by its purported foe, communism. [click to continue...]

Last week Barack Obama made a speech on race relations in the US. It's already been widely publicised, discussed, deconstructed and chopped up for 10-second sound bites, but this morning I actually sat down and watched the whole thing. It was certainly worth the effort.

This is the change America needs. Barack Obama is the one offering to take up the torch. I have been a supporter of his in this long, drawn-out campaign now for many months, but I am even more deeply convinced now than before. Some say he is inexperienced. I say how do you become experienced in being president until you've been president? Experience definitely counts. It defines you.

Hillary Clinton is prepared to do anything to get her party's nomination, and she's ok with that. She believes that's how you get things done. And in Washington, that's how it's been done for years. That's Hillary's experience. America already has someone who's prepared to do whatever it takes, whatever the cost. His name is George Bush, and he has done more to damage America in his time in office than anyone before him. Hillary is offering nothing different. Sure, I agree with her policies a lot more than agree with Bush's, but policies change and it takes more than one person to change policy, even if they are president.

What I care about are values. Dignity, honour, thoughtfulness and respect. Values won't solve anything on their own, but they do inform every single decision you make, and if you have none, then it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, you're going nowhere. People won't follow someone who stands for nothing.

John McCain has values. I don't agree with many of his policies, but I think he would do the country a much greater service than Hillary Clinton would, simply out of his respect for the position and the process. As for Barack Obama, I believe he is the greatest hope America has had for a long time. I hope there are enough people who feel the same way who actually turn out and vote for him, otherwise American and the world will miss an opportunity it needs so badly.

Obama's speech and the incident that prompted it below.

Local council elections were held yesterday and here on the Gold Coast it was an interesting race. Gold Coasters are a funny bunch. We come here for a different lifestyle - a chance to live with the sun, sand and surf while enjoying all the facilities and convenience of a modern city. We are fiercely proud and independent, and deeply conservative when it comes to politics, which I feel masks a deeper cultural insecurity.

Politically, the Gold Coast is conservative heartland. All Gold Coast federal seats are held by the Liberal Party, with some of the safest margins in the country. The Liberals hold only 8 of the 89 seats in the Queensland State Government, but of those, 3 are Gold Coast seats.

To say the Liberals are faring poorly as a party lately would be a gross understatement. Out of office federally and in every state around the country, their only seat of power is the Brisbane City Council, led by re-elected mayor Campbell Newman who romped home yesterday with 60% of the vote.

Many people believe that political parties should not interfere with local government as the needs of the community are intensely specific to each area and not the subject of the broad central policy which political parties are built for. They say that council business should be open and accountable and not conducted in closed party meetings, and that power struggles between parties and independents stops getting things done. Brisbane and its City Council are a bit of an exception to this rule however, because unlike cities like Sydney which has more than a dozen separate councils, Brisbane City Council is Australia's largest local government authority and has an annual budget of over $2billion, making it arguably large enough to accommodate the familiar two-party structure.

The Gold Coast City Council, on the other hand, has not been home to party politics before, so the Liberal Party's decision to run candidates for mayor and in all 14 divisions meant no-one really knew what to expect. [click to continue...]

From The Times Online...

A Catholic bishop has accused the gay community of leading a “conspiracy” against Christianity by allying itself with Holocaust survivors.

The Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Devine, says a “homosexual lobby” has aligned itself with minority groups, including Holocaust survivors, to gain persecuted status.

He said there was a “huge and well orchestrated conspiracy” taking place in the “gay movement”, which the Catholic Church neglected “at our peril”.

The Bishop evidently is longing for the days when gays were thrown in jail...

In an attack on openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen the bishop said: “I saw actor Ian McKellen being honoured for his work on behalf of homosexuals, when a century ago Oscar Wilde was locked up and put in jail.”

He made the comments during a lecture on “Christian faith and inconvenient questions” in Glasgow on Tuesday and has since stood by them, “These groups are defending their position, I am defending mine”, he said. “It is all about a lifestyle alien to the Christian tradition. There is a giant conspiracy against Christian values, an agenda here."

Read the full article here.

Personally I think that if people truly believe things they should stand up for them and defend them, so I respect the guy on that level. I also respect every sane and rational person's right to call him a maladjusted bigot, and ask the question, what does the church really offer people?

I am all for true christian values, though why christians think they have a monopoly on them is beyond me. I just don't understand why I need a bureaucracy between me and God. Religion seems to me to be the very epitome of worldly distraction, though tempting it ain't.