farmdoc's blog post number 417

Wikipedia calls H L Mencken, among other things, an acerbic critic of American life and culture who rather than dismiss democracy with open contempt, responded to it with a sense of amusement. Thus his quotes: ‘Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage’ and ‘Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance’. In the October 2004 Federal Election, in Victoria the right wing Family First Party polled 56,376 primary votes equating to 0.13 of a Senate quota. A deal done between Labor and several other groups to protect its third candidate backfired badly. Family First harvested preferences from groups including the Progressive Alliance, Christian Democrats, Aged and Disability Pensioners Party, Non-Custodial Parents Party, One Nation, Liberals for Forests, Australian Democrats, and DLP. And so Family First’s Steven Fielding (pictured) became a senator. After returning from a US climate change conference, last Monday Fielding said increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere might not be causing global warming; rather, solar flares could be linked to temperature change. Maybe he’s talking about this. Fielding’s apparently ignoring the consensus of the world’s climate scientists. Climate deniers have had their day. It’s a shame Fielding will be a senator until 2011. And it’s shame Mencken died in 1956. Because he would have had a field day with Fielding.