Above is a photo of some place in Greenland. The unknown place looks a lot more hospitable than most of the photos I’ve seen of Greenland.

Greenland offers up a cold, icy, unwelcoming landscape. And this is the evidence, apparently, that the world is cooling – not heating.

Some climate change denialists are really stupid. The voice behind the logic that gives us Greenland as the best evidence that the world is cooling belongs to one of them.

I’ve read some amazingly inane comments from climate change denialists, especially from those who oppose solar or wind farms. You’ve probably seen them too: wind farms will blow the Earth off its axis; too many solar panels will soak up all the sun’s heat. Or then there’s the old favourite: It’s cold and it’s raining today so how could the planet be getting warmer?

Then I met one. In real life. They look and act like ‘normal’ people … but then they speak.

I am so amused with the one I met that I feel compelled to share it with you.

Said man was hired to do some handy work, which he promptly completed before bailing me up about this climate change nonsense.

“Look at Greenland” he roared. “The place is covered in snow. It must have been green once – that’s why they called it ‘Greenland’. It sure ain’t green anymore. Because the world is getting colder it has been snowing there for the last hundred years. What more proof do we need?”

Everything I offered in objection was padded away as an excuse. Greenland dispelled the climate change conspiracy!

He left without me educating him on how Greenland got its name. Apparently Erik the Red named it Greenland in an effort to entice settlers there. If the settlers had any inclination beforehand of how cold and miserable the place was then they wouldn’t have set foot near it.

Thankfully for their descendants … the place is getting warmer.

Hardly a day goes by where we don’t learn of something utterly terrible happening to our environment, our economy, our reputation, or our people. And the underlying thread to all of these is an incompetent government. The Abbott Government, to be precise.

Think back to the days of the Rudd/Gillard Governments and the daily dose of gloom and doom we were fed by the Murdoch media. Plus of course, their endless sensationalism about anything and everything from the clothes Julia Gillard wore to the way Kevin Rudd flicked his hair. It was so pathetic.

As was pointed out by someone here the other day, Julia Gillard was the first Prime Minister in 40 years to see interest rates, the unemployment rate, and the inflation rate under 5 per cent at the same time. But according to the Murdoch media we were all going to hell in a basket. And weren’t they rabid about it?

Well, what a mess we’re in now, but what does the Murdoch media say about these, to name just a few examples:

• The crashing dollar.
• The Stock Market’s worst day in three years.
• Low interest rates (which were bad under Labor, according to Joe Hockey).
• The highest unemployment level in 20 years.
• The Prime Minister’s excessive travel claims.
• A Prime Minister who talks like a raving mad man.
• Funding cuts to essential services.
• Housing affordability (or lack thereof).
• Business closures.
• Budgets not being passed.
• Links to the Mafia (no matter how remote),
• Asylum seekers dying under the government’s watch.
• Protestors taking to the streets (on which they’ve been quiet, but I remember them giving oxygen to the ‘convoy of shame’ against the ‘carbon tax’).

I could go on, but I’ll leave that up to you to add to the list.

The point is, any of those would have been thrashed to death by the Murdoch media if we had a Labor Government. Their silence now is disturbing. Don’t you think?

It’s rather amusing that they claim to be the voice that holds governments to account. It’s a pity it doesn’t include the Abbott Government.

There’s something odd about Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella’s wedding.

You most probably think that the odd thing is “why would anybody want to invite Bronwyn Bishop to their wedding?”

No, that’s not it.

Or you might think that it’s odd that anyone would want to attend Sophie Mirabella’s wedding anyway.

No, that’s not it either.

This is what I think is odd:

Tony Abbott (another person I wouldn’t invite) attended the 2006 wedding and charged the taxpayers for his attendance. In 2013 he paid that money back.

Other attendees from the Coalition who had charged the taxpayers for traveling to the wedding – George Brandis, Scott Morrison, Barnaby Joyce – have also paid the money back.

We are to believe that Bronwyn Bishop hasn’t.

So where is this odd?

Well, if in 2013 Tony Abbott paid the money back, as did the other three luminaries as noted above, why wasn’t Bronwyn told to as well?

Wasn’t she made aware that this could go pear-shaped?

Or maybe she was, but thought she was above all that.

I don’t like listening to Tony Abbott at the best of times, but sometimes he comes out with some absolute gems of stupidity that can’t be ignored. At other times he astounds me with his penchant for hypocrisy, and of course there are his litany of regular lies that are nothing less than jaw dropping.

And just when we think we’ve heard everything up pops this little gem from a speech he made in 2004 to the Young Liberals:

Politicians shouldn’t tell lies. But some information (about private conversations and private lives, national security and Cabinet discussions, for instance) is necessarily confidential no matter how much journalists (and possibly their readers) might like to know. Governments shouldn’t break promises but if circumstances change in ways that make keeping a commitment wrong, a full explanation should be given to the electorate.

Definitely a man of his word, isn’t he?

When Peter Slipper was Speaker all hell broke loose over the misappropriation of cab charges totally around $900. Tony Abbott had this to say:

“The Speaker is the guardian of parliamentary standards. The Speakership is one of the most important offices in the Parliament. The Speaker is there to uphold the integrity of the Parliament and now we have very, very serious allegations against the incumbent Speaker, allegations … of potentially criminal misuse of entitlements. These are very serious allegations indeed. Yes, the Speaker is entitled to the presumption of innocence but he does have quite a lot of explaining to do.

It’s also very important that the Prime Minister act to ensure the integrity of the Parliament. … The Prime Minister, to uphold the integrity of the Parliament, needs now to require the Speaker to step down until these matters are resolved. It’s also incumbent upon the Australian Federal Police to swiftly investigate the potentially criminal allegations that have been made against the Speaker.

I can’t underestimate the seriousness of this. The Speaker is required to maintain parliamentary standards and yet there are now these extremely serious allegations against the Speaker himself. So in order to maintain the respect and the reputation of the Parliament, in order to preserve the integrity of the Government and our institutions, it is very important that the Prime Minister act swiftly to require the Speaker to step aside and it’s very important that the Australian Federal Police quickly investigate these matters so that they can be resolved as soon as is humanly possible”.

I thought – based on his hardcore beliefs that Speakers need to uphold certain standards and that these are to be upheld by the Prime Minister – that he would go into an absolute rage over Bronwyn Bishop’s arguable misappropriation of $5,200 of tax payer’s money to hire a helicopter (of all things) to get from A to B.

“He is sure to join in with the public outrage”, I thought. He set the goal posts during the Slipper saga. But no, he had this to say: it was all “village gossip”.

Hypocrite.

At least Christopher Pyne could be trusted to stand by his word:

“The Opposition is calling for Peter Slipper to stand aside until he has been cleared of all the allegations against him, as the embattled Speaker faces new claims of travel rorts.

Mr Slipper stood aside yesterday from his position as Speaker of the House of Representatives while criminal charges about his possible misuse of taxpayer funded Cabcharges are being investigated.

Mr Pyne has also called on the government to help resolve the matter by going to an election.

“He is sure to join in with the public outrage”, I thought (once again). But no, he had this to say: “Awful on the day we remember the anniversary of the destruction of MH17 that Labor wants to play politics over the Speakership”.

Hypocrite.

Hypocrites the pair of them. Either that, or different rules apply to the Liberal Party.

Reproducing emails from the Labor Party is becoming quite a habit of mine. At times I’ve been critical of their messages – such as when they think that signing a petition is going to change the government’s mind on whatever – and at other times I’ve been quite happy to help spread their message.

Their latest email – from George Wright (ALP Campaign Director) – is one worth spreading.

Most of what is raised in the succinct little email is not news, however there might be one or two points in there that conveniently escaped the notice of our media, and subsequently your attention too.

Anyway, here’s the email:

Dear Roswell,

This week, in the paper, Tony Abbott was quoted as saying he and his Government have had “the best fortnight in the life of this Parliament.”

Let’s quickly examine the Abbott Government’s “achievements” over the last two weeks:

1. Tony Abbott undermined the independence of the ABC and banned his ministers from going on Q&A.
2. He prevented the Clean Energy Finance Corporation from investing in wind farms.
3. He also asked the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to stop investing in rooftop solar.
4. He caused division in his Cabinet by approving a coal mine in the Liverpool Plains.
5. The OECD rated Australia as the 6th worst in the developed world for women in the ministry.
6. His Government and Party started tearing itself apart about marriage equality.
7. His $8.43 GP tax came into effect.

Sadly, this is the kind of fortnight Tony Abbott likes to have . . .

This was disappointing but predictable news yesterday:

The Abbott government has opened up another front in its war on renewable energy by pulling the plug on investments in the most common form of alternative energy, rooftop and small-scale solar.

As a storm raged over the government’s directive to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation [CEFC] to no longer back wind energy projects, it emerged that it has also put a stop to solar investments other than the largest industrial-scale projects.

The CEFC, (we are told in the article):

. . . had made it possible for low-income people and retirees to invest in solar and take advantage of the power bill savings that flow.

And that, because of this latest move:

“Tony Abbott is keeping people trapped paying higher electricity prices . . . “

Let’s stop there and go back a couple of years.

Here’s (just one instance of the hundreds of times) Tony telling us we’d be be pocketing $550 because – you guessed it – he was scrapping the dastardly ‘carbon tax’ and electricity prices would tumble by that amount:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ADNkD9mM0&feature=player_detailpage&list=UU3rLL1h9swUpQszCPJPVoOg#t=202

And here he is explaining it in absolute detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RUN1PIRaHU

And now, with his latest directive, people will be trapped paying higher electricity prices.

Yep, he’s a man who will do and say anything.

By the way, who among you experienced a drop in your electricity prices when the ‘carbon tax’ was repealed?