Thursday 15 January 2009

How to double count to make your argument sound better

This is a short, but fantastic article on how the IPCC has massively inflated the number of scientists that "support" global warming. It's only 2 1/2 pages long - make sure you have a look at it.
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Just for fun, I decided to go to the website for the Australian Government and add up all our MP's using the IPCC counting methodology.

I counted 789.

But we only pay for the salaries, expenses and benefits of 226 MP's. We only have seats for that many in the Senate and House of Reps.

Here's how I did it:

76 Senators
1 President of the Senate
150 reps
1 Prime Minister
1 Leader of the Opposition
1 Speaker of the House
54 Ministers, Whips, parliamentary secretaries etc (the way I have counted them is that if Joe Ludwig is both Minister for Human Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate, then I count him twice)
55 Shadow Ministers, counted using the same double counting methodology.

That gives me 339 people.

Then I looked at the committees, of which there are 20:

Agricultural and Related Industries—Select Committee

Members
Senator Heffernan (Chair), Senator O'Brien (Deputy Chair), Senators Fisher, Milne, Nash and Sterle

Participating members
Senators Abetz, Adams, Arbib, Barnett, Bernardi, Bilyk, Birmingham, Bishop, Boswell, Boyce, Brandis, Carol Brown, Bushby, Cameron, Cash, Colbeck, Collins, Coonan, Cormann, Crossin, Eggleston, Ellison, Farrell, Feeney, Fielding, Fierravanti-Wells, Fifield, Forshaw, Furner, Humphries, Hurley, Hutchins, Johnston, Joyce, Kroger, Lundy, Ian Macdonald, McEwen, McGauran, McLucas, Marshall, Mason, Minchin, Moore, Parry, Payne, Polley, Pratt, Ronaldson, Ryan, Scullion, Siewert, Stephens, Troeth, Trood, Williams, Wortley and Xenophon

6 members, 58 participating members

Appropriations and Staffing Committee—Standing Committee

Members
The President (Chairman), the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and Senators Faulkner, Lundy, Nash, Parry and Sherry

7 members.

Lundy, Nash and Parry are duplicated

Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity—Joint Statutory Committee

Members
Ms M Parke MP (Chair), Senator Johnston (Deputy Chair) and Senators Carol Brown, Cameron, Parry and Mr Chester, Mr Clare, Mr Hayes and Ms Ley

9 members

Duplicates are Carol Brown, Cameron and Parry (again).

Australian Crime Commission—Joint Statutory Committee

Members
Senator Hutchins (Chair), Mr Wood (Deputy Chair) and Senators Barnett, Fielding, Parry, Polley and Mr Champion, Mr Gibbons, Mr Hayes and Ms Ley

10 members

Duplicates are Hutchins, Barnett, Fielding, Parry (yet again), Polley, Mr Hayes and Ms Ley

There are 20 committees. I have only looked at 4 of them. These 4 committees provide 36 members and 58 partipants, for a total of 94 “supporters” in IPCC speak.

Just this small selection though throws up 13 duplicates.

The other 16 committees have between them hundreds and hundreds of members. I reckon the 20 committees must have at least 450 members between them.

Adding 450 committee members to 339 members, ministers and so on gives me 789 MP's.

You could prove almost anything you like with maths like that.

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