Its back to work.

But to keep you amused here's a great add:

A couple of others I like are:

An amusing take on Levis.

And a somewhat more risqué view on Mastercard.

And in the same vein, a great Obama cartoon.

Cartoon: By Warren.

More great stuff from Daniel Hannan.

I was somewhat disturbed by Hannan’s acceptance of Enoch Powell, but I think his reasons in this clip are justifiable and some of the more extreme statements of Powell may not be well known to him as Powell is a fairly distant memory, and this guy is younger and may not be fully familiar with them.

This clip should be a warning to America of what it may be about to lose, and a reminder to the rest of us that we may be a lot better off if we were, (gasp) “More like America.”

Some people just never learn.

H/T Ben and Bawb’s blog.

During the last US election I supported John McCain after Fred Thompson pulled out as I thought that he was the best of the candidates left at that time, and I recalled the incredible impact he had on the 2000 campaign prior to being destroyed by the dirty tricks element of the Bush effort.

After he secured the nomination I watched with growing disquiet as he tended to display himself as increasingly out of his depth, at which time I seriously considered throwing my effort behind the Libertarian Party campaign which I was lending some support to anyway. At that time he made the only really good decision of the entire campaign, selecting Sarah Palin as VP nominee, which brought me back onside.

I then watched with growing disquiet as the entire Democrat campaign turned their guns on her, figuring that they could afford to dismiss him while she was the real danger. By the end of the campaign we only had one dog left in the fight, but she carried it to the end, despite treachery from the McCain campaign, which he made no attempt to stop. He at no time in the entire effort made any effort to support her even as her children were attacked.

McCain is less competent than the guy with a knife in a gunfight.

Nothing has changed since the election as his latest effort shows. Answering a question at a town hall he made the rather incredible claim that Obama is a man who respects the constitution. Any passing analysis of Obama’s statements clearly indicates that he is a total statist with little understanding of the reason or purpose of the constitution and no respect for its contents. Nobody with any understanding of the concept of liberty would rail against it being a charter of negative liberties, as seen here:

(2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio)

… And to that extent, I think, as radical as people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was, because the Civil Rights movement became so court focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And, ah, in some ways we still suffer from that."

Obama criticized the Supreme Court for only granting black Americans the same rights as white Americans, yet to listen to McCain you would think he was the leader of the Constitution Party, not the Democrats.

Not Evil Just Wrong

Agmates is a site with a number of networking groups associated with it, one being the Climate Sceptics Party forum.

An interesting topic which has come up is the release of the feature length documentary, “Not Evil Just Wrong” which examines the devastating consequences of the global warming hysteria. From a personal standpoint I have some difficulties with the title as I find it difficult to accept that people such as Gore, could keep repeating their views in the face of mounting contrarian evidence if their views were an honest mistake, but I suppose we can be generous and give them the benefit of the doubt.

A new line has been developed for the release, with the theme:

“Have your own CINEMATIC TEA PARTY!”

DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

The typical Hollywood distribution model wasn’t right for this film.
Hollywood’s long standing disconnect with the lives of every day Americans wouldn’t suit a film about the lives and livelihoods of hard-working folks like those profiled in Vevay, Indiana. This film is for the Southwest Virginia miner, the North Dakota farmer, and the hometown entrepreneur.

We’re shattering the original model and creating a new mold with the distribution of this film because this film truly belongs in the home of every hard working person. Home party packs are now available for pre-order for viewing the night of October 18th and onward, including a poster, red carpet and invitations. We are offering a unique, family-oriented cinematic experience to encourage discussion with your neighbors and friends.

Orders can be done here.



On the theme of honest mistakes versus deliberate misinformation it is hard to go past the following clip in which Gerd Leipold of GreenPeace finds himself with a questioner who is not a subservient acolyte and challenges statements made by the organization resulting in an embarrassing backdown, and an admission that they tend to ‘emotionalize’ or in reality exaggerate their causes to get their way. The interesting part comes in at around the three minute mark. For a shorter version go to this clip.

Banning the Criminals.

Interestingly after my post on bikie legislation my old mate Ron Kitching came up with the same conclusions, although a littlle more succinct:

By Ron Kitching.


The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, has announced that new laws will ban Motor Cycle Clubs.

On a percentage basis, the news informed us today that Queensland politicians have a higher rate of criminal conviction than those among Motorcycle Club Members.

If the odd member of a Motor Cycle Club breaks the law, he can be arrested and prosecuted by existing laws.

Considering the serious and destructive interventions of the Queensland Premier, (who closed the Proserpine Shale Oil project), and her counterparts in Canberra, (who are proposing an Emissions Trading Tax, which will wreck Australia’s economy), steps ought to be taken to ban political parties. If ever there were criminal gangs damaging Australian citizens, most political parties are the leaders of the push.

When Rome relied on the law, the Republic prospered. When the law became politicised, and inflation set in, Rome and the Republic collapsed.

If present political trends persist, Australia will suffer the same inevitable fate.

Renewable energy mandates passed.

The National Party deserve credit for their strong stance on the ration and tax (RAT) scheme on emissions, however the surrender on the issue of alternative energy is a disappointment.

Alternative energy will find its place in the market for power if and when it becomes viable in its own right, but until that time only deserves to be a product for the niche market aimed at those whose concerns are such that they feel the need to use it and feel good about paying the full cost of doing so. At such a time as there is sufficient popular demand for it entrepreneurs will be happy to supply all of the alternative energy the market wants as long as it is economically viable.

Regrettably the coalition has seen fit to join the government in ramming a social engineering exercise down our necks by mandating the use of alternative energy, viable or not. In doing so they are risking massive distortions in the economy, both now and in the future by forcing us to use systems based on what we have now in an evolving technology disregarding the potential for currently theoretical technology to be more efficient.

The whole idea becomes ridiculous, when the use of such clean and valuable sources as hydro and nuclear are unable to come into the equation for the simple reason that the environmental lobby that this is supposed to please, consider them to be uncool. Enel in Italy is currently building a hydrogen fueled power plant, yet this is not a considered option.

The following is an extract from a letter that was forwarded to me and puts the whole thing into perspective:

It is now widely agreed—even among the proponents of AGW—that the observed global warming for the last half of the 20th century amounted to about 0.7°C. 
(There has been a slight reduction in observed global temperature since 1998). 


If the global atmosphere's present component gasses (Nitrogen, Oxygen, water vapor, Argon, a few rare gases and, finally, Carbon Dioxide) were stretched proportionately along 1 kilometer, CO2 accounts for a 38 cm contribution to that kilometer. 


The human-generated CO2 would account for 12 mm. 
Australia's human contribution: 0.18 mm—less than the thickness of a human hair. 


We will leave it to you to work out how much our 0.18 mm would have contributed to the 0.7° temperature rise, even if the AGW hypotheses had been proven. 


It is high time our representatives stopped listening to the rabid zealots of the environmental movement, who seem to regard every aspect of human activity as subject to their self righteous judgmentalism, and would seek to have all of our lives controlled to the point that we fit their image of what they would have us be.

My message to all of you, and especially those guilt ridden souls who have fallen under the influence of the drab grey messengers of doom from the greens, the left, the right, and all those followers of bizarre lines of thought that lead down the road to authoritarianism, is:

It’s OK to feel good about yourself.

Bikie laws: Another Bligh knee jerk.

Cartoon: Day by Day.

Political knee jerk reactions are the reflex action of a government who believe their own hype to such a degree that they consider that only new action by big brother will fix any problem, which gets highlighted in the press. The fact that there are sufficient existing laws to deal with the situation, usually with several powers of overkill fails to impress or dissuade them from such a course of action. Consider the following:

QUEENSLAND will match South Australia with some of the toughest anti-bikie laws in the world, cracking down on their fortresses and group gatherings.
Premier Anna Bligh will today announce State Government measures to dismantle the dangerous outlaw motorcycle gangs.

She said authorities would be given stronger powers to stop the bikies' organized criminal activities, including manufacturing drugs, extortion and money laundering.

The moves come after two outlaw motorcycle gangs set up new headquarters near city centers in Queensland. …

The problem I have with this is that all of the activities that she seems concerned with are already illegal and have more than adequate laws in place to deal with them already. Drug dealing, violence, killing each other, and so on are all covered by existing laws, and it does not require new laws which are bikie specific for those existing laws to be enforced. Much of the proposed laws are on the face of it discriminatory, for example:

“ … gang members will be restricted from owning weapons, working in the security industry or holding a liquor license.”

There seems to be little justification in denying to members of disapproved bikie gang rights, which are not denied to other citizens under normal circumstances. The ‘owning weapons’ aspect is ludicrous anyway as most law abiding people are denied the right to own weapons. It is rather pathetically naïve of Bligh to assume that on the assumption of these people being law-breakers, such a law will be obeyed in any case. This woman is just plain dumb.

The main new victim in this exercise is the rights to freedom of speech and association. Interestingly, in 1951 the Menzies government passed a law banning the Communist Party. It was challenged in the High Court, which ruled that it was invalid. Following this, the government sponsored the communist referendum in an attempt to validate its position. This was opposed by the Communist Party, Australian Labor Party, and by the Young Liberals, on the grounds that it restricted freedom of speech and association.

Political parties consist of groups of people freely associating just the same as bikie gangs are, and with the current controversy in the Bligh government in relation to dirty deals, nepotism, ‘pay for play,’ and downright corruption, it is difficult to imagine a reason why political entities should be awarded any protection from the law not afforded to non-political entities.

The more things change …..

….. the more they stay the same.



Ronald Reagan made this commentary on the current healthcare debate in the US back in 1961 and it is still valid today. The truth is after all, eternal.

“Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another, but here for the first time in all the thousands of years of mans relation to man, a little group of men, the founding fathers, for the first time established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God given right and ability to determine our own destiny. This freedom was built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today, and strangely we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rule is all that is needed. Well majority rule is a fine aspect of democracy provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minorities.”

H/T Lemuel Calhoon.

Plans for Poverty.

By, Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

Introduction.

It looks like we have a couple of months to kill these Ration-N-Tax Schemes of Penny Wong and Malcolm Turnbull.

In a lifetime of observing, commenting on and participating in the Australian political process, I have never seen such bi-partisan parliamentary support for such destructive and baseless nonsense. Nor have I even seen such craven or avaricious behavior from most business leaders. This is not going to end well.

As usual, it is the minorities and a few brave politicians and journalists who first recognize the danger and who start the public opposition. We must encourage and support this.

We appreciate the support we are getting from all of you. Our numbers are growing steadily, and our web site gets many appreciative comments from ordinary people.

Plans for Poverty.


A Statement by Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today claimed that both the Turnbull and the Wong Decarbonisation plans were “Plans for Poverty”.

Forbes explains:

“The Turnbull plan aims to reduce 2020 emissions to 90% of the 2000 level.

“But we have moved on from the year 2000. To get back to 90% of 2000 would require a 20% cut on today’s activities. Moreover, the population by 2020 will be at least 30% above that in 2000. So the Turnbull carbon cuts will need to be more than 33% per capita.

“Emissions are produced by everything we do – if we use electricity, steel, cement, timber, cars, trucks, planes, ships, trains or food from farms, we will always produce emissions. Even people sleeping on the beach burn carbon food energy and emit carbon dioxide. How is each Australian going to trim carbon usage by 33%?

“2020 is just a decade away. There is no chance that wind, solar, geothermal or carbon burial will overcome their technical, engineering, infrastructure, environmental, transmission, economic and stability problems quickly enough to generate significant quantities of emissions-free base load electricity in that time.

“That leaves only three ways to achieve the Turnbull cuts – the Green Option, the Secret Plan or the Unspeakable Option.

“The Green Option requires less use of modern technology - a return to candles and chip heaters, wood stoves and wind pumps, charcoal burners and steam engines, sulkies and bicycles, horse power and sailing clippers, possum stew and kangaroo tail soup, mud bricks, shingle roofs and cement floors made from ant bed and cow manure. Some things will disappear unless Malcolm has plans for airships lifted by political hot air, for night-time power generated from moonbeams using lunar panels, or for vegie-steak produced from algae growing in backyard ponds of poo.

“Reducing population will definitely achieve cuts in emissions without cuts in living standards. Is that the Secret Plan?

“Or of course we always have the Unspeakable Option – a crash program to build nuclear power plants in the Latrobe, the Hunter, the Barossa, the Fitzroy and the Pilbara.

“Compared to these options, maybe a bit more harmless carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not so bad after all?

“The Wong plan and the Turnbull plan are Plans for Poverty.

“Both should be rejected.”

info@carbon-sense.com http://carbon-sense.com/

Mr Forbes is Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, based in Australia, a rapidly growing organisation of scientists, engineers and voters concerned at the baseless and senseless demonization of the harmless plant food, carbon dioxide.

Audit needed on the Green Jobs Program.

By, Viv Forbes. Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

It is time for an audit by the Productivity Commission into PM Rudd’s Green Jobs Plan.

Whenever politicians claim to create jobs, close examination usually finds that the jobs were created in another country and their policies have merely created more welfare recipients.

Much of the tax funded subsidy money being thrown at “alternative energy” is creating jobs in China making the hardware. Then it employs a few short term people installing the stuff. In the end, the only real jobs created are repairing wind towers and cleaning dust off solar panels. Even these are not real jobs because the moment the government stops forcing electricity companies to use their expensive and unreliable green power, these jobs will also evaporate.

Real jobs are those that produce unsubsidized goods or services that can be sold in open markets at a profit.

Jobs that depend for their existence on government subsidies or mandates are not jobs, but welfare with fancy names. They live off taxes paid by real jobs.

For example, spending $19 million of tax payers’ money on a mindless slaughter of wild camels “to save the environment” is green job creation. Harvesting camels in a sustainable industry is a real job.
Left: Government green job.

Right: Free enterprise green job.

Photos by Paddy McHugh.

Moreover, replacing the dole with “environmental training programs” is just creating indoctrination camps for green zealots. Al Gore has enough money to run his own training camps.

And managing carbon regulations, carbon taxes, carbon trading and carbon grants is not a job, it is an overhead.

Job creation is not just a matter of spending tax payer money.

All job creation starts with an innovative idea for satisfying a real consumer demand. Today, however, too many “innovators” spend their time dreaming up innovative reasons for getting access to government slush funds, protection schemes or “research” grants. The cost of supporting these green rackets always destroys jobs in real industry (see the example from Spain, below).

Grass is the most valuable green product in Australia. And managing grasses and forests to produce low cost meat, milk, grains, wool, timber and tourist products are the most important green jobs in Australia. They will be still producing sustainable green products long after the Green Jobs Program, the Ration-n-Tax Scheme and the Renewable Energy Targets are forgotten.

Disclosure: Viv Forbes and his wife Judy have real green jobs managing green grass to raise healthy cattle and sheep.

Obama, and snake oil.

In a rather extraordinary twist, President Obama has attempted to move the healthcare debate from ideological pedantry into the area of religion. Years ago in my youth I recall shysters and snake oil salesmen of the time invoking professed faith to push whatever line or shonky product they were pushing by invoking the name of God. The following is very reminiscent of that:

Repeatedly invoking the Bible, President Obama yesterday told religious leaders that health-care critics are "bearing false witness" against his plan.

The fire-and-brimstone president declared holy war in a telephone call with thousands of religious leaders around the country as he sought to breathe life into his plan for a system overhaul.

Without naming anyone specifically in the 10-minute conference call, Obama said opponents had been spreading lies.
"I know that there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate and there are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness," Obama said.

"I need you to spread the facts and speak the truth." …..

He said the reforms aim to carry out one of God's commandments.

"I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper," Obama said.

He called health reform a "core ethical and moral obligation."

Christianity has always seemed from my perspective an individualistic perception, not a collectivist one. It has always appeared to me to be a guide to ethical behavior, and living life in reasonable harmony with those around you, indeed that is what the ten commandments is all about. Face it, the following seems more libertarian than the sort of statement a creature of the state would make:

….. king that shall reign over you: he will take your sons and put them to his chariots and make his horsemen of them and they must run before his chariot, and will make him captains of them over thousands and over fifties, and set them to ear his ground, and to gather in his harvest, and to make instruments of war and apparel for his chariots. And he will take your daughters and make them the dressers of his ointments, and his cooks and bakers. And he shall take the best of your fields, and of your vineyards and of your olive trees, and give them to his servants. And he shall take the tenth of your seed and of your vines, and give it to his lords, and to his servants. And he shall take the best of your menservants and maidservants and young men, and of your asses, and do his work with them. And he shall take the tenth of your sheep, and you shall be his servants.

Given what we see from the state today, that statement seems rather optimistic, especially the one tenth bit. Generally, the whole statement from the president reminds me of the old expression we have here:

“When your neighbor talks religion, brand your calves early.”

Palin and forgiveness.

I’m heading away again tomorrow, and leave you with this for your enlightenment. Pamela Geller over at Atlas Shrugged reports:

H/T Steve Maloney.

Considering Obama and his operatives are beind the campaign of harassment, ethics charges and attacks on her and her children, Sarah Palin is nothing short of divine. The election is over.

It is time to repair friendships with the other party.

Gov. Sarah Palin is doing her part.

The rest of the world cannot understand how, after bitter election campaigns, American politicians can kiss and make up.

For instance, Gov. Palin has invited, to her great state of Alaska , the men who defeated her, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with their wives. She has set up a moose hunting trip for their enjoyment and hired three prominent experts in their field to assist them.

Dick Cheney will carry the gun, Ted Kennedy will drive them back to their cabins each evening, and Bill Clinton will entertain their wives.

Sarah is such a good sport! She thinks of everything!

These guys are evil, I hope Palin is not holding her breath waiting on the tarmac.

The Nurse Ratched meets Atilla the Hun state.

Cartoon from "The Peoples Cube."

Kevin Rudd has been referred to on occasions as “obsessed with micro-management,” which appears a fairly apt description. Kev likes to take a controlling hand in everything. In an age where we are seeing the state adopt the attitude that it needs to take an increasing role in our lives, Rudd excels at promoting this trend.

Declarations of war on unemployment, whalers, disadvantage, downloads, drugs, pokies, doping in sport and bankers salary deals in what has been called his war on everything. Generally we are seeing the rise of the control freak state, sort of Nurse Ratched meets Atilla the Hun. Kevin Rudd is a man of his time.

This is the latest effort. (From The Australian):

THE Defence Signals Directorate should be given new powers to spy on Australians at home or overseas to deal with evolving security threats including terrorism and cyber warfare, according to a leading national security expert.

Ross Babbage, an adviser to the Rudd government, says the DSD's charter, which strictly prohibits it from spying domestically on Australian citizens, should be changed to reflect the more fluid and dynamic outlook facing Australia.

His call for a change in the DSD's powers and a restructuring of the current tightly separated Australian intelligence community is backed by a number of senior government officials in Canberra.

Similar debates in Britain about extending the powers of GCHQ, Britain's main signals intelligence agency, and in the US, over the role of its National Security Agency, have sparked a political furore.

Who says Kevvy doesn’t want us to be like America?

He has however been surpassed by a man who is prepared to go much further to ensure his will be done, take the latest missive from the White House:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Even Rudd has not dared to push the limits so far as to ask the public to inform on their contacts who try to exercise what remains of their freedom of speech. Here is a video:

Labor's tupperware party of plastic politics

Barnaby Joyce is one of a small number of independently thinking members of the Australian Senate. I may be a little optimistic using the term ‘number’ as there are really not more than a couple, perhaps three, who actually think for themselves. Ever since his election Barnaby has been a consistent thorn in the side of both sides in the house. While I don’t always agree with him, it is refreshing to know that there is someone in there who won’t roll over when the party room tells him to do so. On this occasion he is in fine form.

From Australia.to News

The ALP conference seems more like a venue for Eric Zoolander than a forum of any serious debate. Democratic vibrancy has been curtailed, choreographed and scripted. The best this conference can deliver will be a new look, something along the lines of ‘blue steel’ or ‘magnum’ from the Prime Minister or some other senior catwalk participant. Maybe there will be a battle of the catwalk between Mr Rudd and Mr Emerson, hair dryers at ten paces; in any case I’m sure there will be hairdressers on hand to help in case of fatalities.

It would have been interesting to have seen a vibrant debate on who actually believes in Mr Rudd’s ETS. Perhaps this could be led off by Bill Ludwig, who stated that Professor Ross Garnaut was a ‘wakko’ and other members from the AWU, whose workers are going to get smacked between the eyes with a Zoolander like piece of policy from the Manic Monkey Café of inner suburban Nirvarnaville.

Maybe the Labor conference could have entertained a public debate about how we are going to repay the Nation’s Debt and they could have discussed which services are going to be cut because we can’t afford to pay for them.

Perhaps we could watch as the strongest Union made sure they were the last one standing as Australia’s access to borrowed funds runs out. Maybe the nurses will have more union muscle than the teachers.

A note for Mr Rudd’s ‘True Believers’ don’t forget to clap when the ‘Light on the Hill’ flashes. When the front table claps, you clap, when the front table stands, you stand, no matter how boring, puerile, pointless and self congratulatory the speech you just listened to was.

We can be absolutely guaranteed of not seeing anything today that even vaguely reflects the proper diversity of views in the Labor Party or allows those views to be ventilated. Is this democracy or is it a reflection of Mr Rudd’s micromanagement?

Has Mr Rudd finally managed to squeeze the last vestige of the liberty of self expression out of the Labor Party and are the ‘True Believers’ going to give him a standing ovation for it?

The ALP National conference has all the sincerity of a former head of the Nuclear Disarmament Party giving a speech on the benefits of uranium mining so that yellow cake can be sold to countries that produce nuclear weapons.

Mr Rudd has turned the Labor Party into the Tupperware Party, the big wow factor being ‘plastic politics’ with all the cameras focussed on its dear leader as he delivers to the nation the highly anticipated new look.

My sympathies go out to the ‘Fourth Estate’ because yet another venue, that allowed the Australian people to the see the breadth of the political debate, has now been emasculated and just like the Parliament, it’s now like ‘Show Time -Question Time’.

Concern on Carbon Costs of Camel Cull.

Cartoon: By Nicholson.

Carbon Sense is always worth a visit. On this occasion I found Vivs Global Warming Quiz which is very informative and begins with the following disclaimer:

Caution: This section contains sound science, not media hype, and may therefore contain material not suitable for young people trying to get a good grade in political correctness.

Here is the latest press release from him.

By Mr Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today claimed that the plan by Australian PM Rudd to cull one million camels may have unexpected carbon tax consequences.

Forbes explains:

“PM Rudd proposes to spend $19 million shooting one million wild camels.

“A big camel probably weighs about a tonne, so Mr Rudd is going to let a million tonnes of valuable meat rot under the Centralian sun.

“Each camel probably has about 190 kg of carbon sequestered in its body. As it rots and absorbs oxygen, this carbon will increase into about 700 kg of carbon dioxide which will then dissipate into the atmosphere.

“If the Australian Senate is silly enough to pass the Wong carbon dioxide Ration-n-Tax Scheme this shootout will thus trigger a huge carbon tax liability.

“At a carbon emission price of say $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide, the carbon tax on one million rotting camels would be about $28 million.

“If we add to that the actual cull costs of about $19 million and the carbon tax due on helicopter emissions and other activities, the total cost of the cull is about $50 million.

“This illustrates the dangers of costly unexpected consequences resulting from complex poorly designed bills being rushed through both Australian and US Legislatures by Mr Rudd and his buddy Mr Obama. Luckily Senators in both countries will probably reject this nonsense.

“If not, this $50 million invoice for the full costs of the camel shootout should not be presented to the taxpayers, but sent to Cull Commander Senator Garrett.

“This may convince him to chase up a few old Territorian buffalo shooters who could make a tidy profit at no cost to the taxpayer by culling the camels and selling the meat to Taiwan. Or we could sell permits to a few big game hunters. Or sell live camels to the Arabs.”

Viv Forbes
info@carbon-sense.com
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

Dan Rather, calls for Government Media.

Cartoon: Cox and Forkum.

I have on a number of occasions reported on the difficulties some of the mainstream media are finding themselves in with bankruptcies and falling revenues. I have on some of those occasions made the point that this is caused in no small part by the public losing confidence in the media because of blatant political bias:

There is a tendency among commentators to blame the current economic problems for this situation, along with the growing influence of the Internet. I have to note though that in many of these reports, including this one that there is reference to the last couple of years, note: - Revenue has fallen more than 20 percent since 2006.

There is another probable cause in my opinion, and that is that they have lost touch with the public at large, and have in the last election cycle seriously pissed off a fairly large proportion of their readers. ……. While in the past media have often favored one or another party, in the last election there was blatancy about it.

Few people are so biased as to be angered at reporting of things that may harm their parties chances, we all make mistakes, our candidates are the same, and when these are reported most of us are intellectually honest enough to accept that, “That was a stuff up.” Problems arise though when there is a constant bombardment of negatives toward one side while nothing but positive news is reported on the other. If media constantly beat one side of the spectrum around the heads, those people stop buying those papers.

Probably one of the clearest indications of the sad demise of the standards of the media is the latest offering from Dan Rather. Dan you see feels that “traditional journalism is under siege” and that media reform should become an “immediate national priority,” as well as claiming that “a democracy and free people cannot thrive without a fiercely independent press.”

Waxing lyrical, he went on to claim; “A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom. This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.”

In a somewhat ironic twist he railed about what he called, “the erosion of quality journalism, because of the corporatization, politicization, and “trivialization” of news. Those three factors, Rather argued, have fueled the “dumbing down and sleazing up of news” and the decline of “great American journalism.”

Dan, you see was the liberal hack who presented a Four Corners episode on Bush’s service record just prior to the 04 election, which was intended to discredit Bush and put Kerry into the White House. In order to achieve this the program produced documents that were so badly forged, (or as CBS says, “unable to be verified,”) that live thread bloggers had published the inconsistencies prior to the end of the show.

After this he still has the gaul to criticize online blogging and reporting, because of what he sees as their lack of accountability. Yeah, right.

And most bizarre of all, in his quest for what he calls, “A fiercely independent press without which democracy and free people cannot thrive,” he wants President Obama to establish a commission on public media and independent reporting.

After all, how can an industry be truly independent and adhere to the truth without the government there to guide it. (Just kidding.)

About all that CO2

The following graphic is from Malcolm Roberts and gives an excellent picture of the actual proportions of gasses in the atmosphere, and certainly puts the CO2 portion into some sort of perspective. Malcolm has written a number of interesting items, and I commend the following:

Facts on the fabricators of climate alarm, and:

Physics and Laws of Nature's Show IPCC Warming theory has No Legs

Click to enlarge.

One is Plenty.

Cartoon by Bill Leak.

The following is a letter to the editor by Ron Kitching.

Kevin Rudd cannot imagine that anybody but him can have constructive ideas, let alone those which are competitive. This self proclaimed genius, has now said:

* One Health System”, which he infers, will be superior to all others. He cannot imagine any serf having an idea superior to his.

It follows that :

* One political party will be superior.

* One car model will be superior.

* One fuel provider will be superior.

* One brewery will be superior.

* One food provider will be superior.

* One Education System will be superior.

*One Religion - The Anti CO2 faith - will be superior.

* One Canberra all around development plan will be superior.

The PM’s inference is, that competition is a wasteful, socially inferior process.

Rudd’s theories are yet another experiment in socialism, regardless of the failure of such experiments in Russia and elsewhere. The warnings of certain failure by eminent economic philosophers, is also ignored.

It does not matter about the cost. The remaining taxpayers will pay.

* Of course he may have a point. One Mother - in - Law is plenty......

Cost cutting Mayor

Quite a few years ago I lost in a local government election by seven votes in a pretty brutal campaign as part of a ratepayers group which went close to sweeping the entire previous council from office. Probably the most divisive issue apart from the fact that I was well known a strong supporter of the libertarian Progress Party was my insistence that the council should not be financing brochures for tourist operators and a number of similar policies.

The local bus company operator saw red and launched a vitriolic attack, which lasted for the duration. Generally the assertion was that in some wonderful way the whole community benefited from Duncan’s pockets being full and it was their duty to help him fill them. Sadly, my argument that the tourist operators getting together and organizing their own campaign and financing it themselves would lead to a better result fell on deaf ears.

That’s why I find this guy refreshing:

On his first morning as Mayor of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, Peter Davies cut his salary from £73,000 to £30,000 then closed the Council's newspaper for "peddling politics on the rates". The mayor’s chauffeur-driven car has also been axed by Mr. Davies and the driver given another job. Mr. Davies, born and bred in Doncaster, swept to power in the May election with 24,244 votes.

Now three weeks into his job, Mr. Davies is pressing ahead with plans he hopes will see the number of town councilors cut from 63 to just 21, saving taxpayers £800,000. Mr. Davies said: "If 100 Senators can run the United States of America, I can't see how 63 councilors are needed to run Doncaster ".

He has withdrawn Doncaster from the Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit, saving another £200,000. Mr. Davies said, "They are just talking shops"

" Doncaster is in for some serious untwinning. We are twinned with nine other cities around the world and they are just for people to fly off and have a binge at the Council's expense".

He has promised to end council funding for Doncaster 's International Women's Day, Black History Month and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. He has also announced he will slash funding for the town’s gay pride event, as part of a campaign against ‘political correctness’.

“I have nothing whatsoever against gays and lesbians, what they do in their private lives is absolutely fine,” said Peter Davies on his first day as Mayor. “But I don’t see why councils should be spending money on that sort of thing.” He added, “My policy on gays and lesbians is very simple. I don’t think councils should be spending money on them parading through town advertising their sexuality.”

An open letter to Malcolm Turnbull.

Cartoon by Nicholson.

The following is part of an open letter to Malcolm Turnbull, the
Leader of the Opposition by Hiram Caton. Turnbulls political philosophy seems to be based on not doing anything he can be held responsible for, and is generally born of confusion with an over-riding guiding principle of expedience.

Re: Global Warming and Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)

In your statement regarding the ETS, you say that ‘The Coalition supports, and supported when in Government, an environmentally effective and economically responsible ETS being put in place in Australia as part of a co-ordinated global response to climate change’. You then set out nine points that define the Opposition’s policy on this critical question.

Missing from your list is recognition of a key alternative. Australia’s carbon footprint is about 1.0 percent of the global total. Accordingly, nothing that Australians do can have any effect on global warming. How then is it ‘economically responsible’ for us to incur the high costs of transition to ‘clean energy’ when it will have no effect on the reduction of global warming? Isn’t it, indeed, irresponsible to pursue this course?

……..

Rejection of the validity of IPCC global warming claims is extensive among experts, including not a few former IPCC members who have converted from believers to skeptics. Among them are:

Richard Lindzen, an M.I.T. Meterologist who was among the first critics. He states that global warming advocates “are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn’t happen even if the models were right.” …….

Hendrik Tennekes, director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, states “there exists no sound theoretical framework for climate predictability studies” used for global warming forecasts.

Claude Allègre, member, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and French Academy of Science, he was among the first to sound the alarm on the dangers of global warming. His view today is that ‘The cause of this climate change is unknown’. Allègre is French President Sarkozy’s advisor on climate change.

S. Fred Singer, physicist at George Mason University and founder of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. He states: ‘The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that human activities have little to do with it. Instead, the warming seems to be part of a 1,500-year cycle (plus or minus 500 years) of moderate temperature swings.’
…….
Dr. Antonino Zichichi, one of the world’s foremost physicists, former president of the European Physical Society, who discovered nuclear antimatter - calls global warming models “incoherent and invalid.”

Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, world-renowned expert on the ancient ice cores used in climate research, says the U.N. “based its global-warming hypothesis on arbitrary assumptions and these assumptions, it is now clear, are false.”

Prof. Tom V. Segalstad, head of the Geological Museum, University of Oslo, says “most leading geologists” know the U.N.’s views “of Earth processes are implausible.”

Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, founding director of the International Arctic Research Center, says that much “Arctic warming during the last half of the last century is due to natural change.”

Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the space research laboratory of the Russian Academy of Science’s Pulkovo Observatory and of the International Space Station’s Astrometria project says that “the common view that man’s industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations.”

Dr. Richard Tol, Principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon University, calls the most influential global warming report of all time “preposterous… alarmist and incompetent.”

Dr. Sami Solanki, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, argues that changes in the sun’s state, not human activity, may be the principal cause of global warming: “The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.” …….

I hope that my comments will be of some service in calibrating the Opposition’s position on this very important issue.

Yours truly
Hiram Caton, PhD, DLitt

The full text can be found here.

Kevin Rudds new vision of the past.

One of the Graphs from Tim Andrews in Thoughts on Freedom article.

A recent diatribe by Kevvie Rudd in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Pain on the road to recovery,” raises the hoary old arguments he has pushed in the past that the current financial crisis is the result of “a decade of neo-liberal free market fundamentalism that reinforced a culture of corporate greed and excess in the financial sector.”

That’s right, folks, in case you missed it among all that regulation, all of our problems are the result of unrestricted, unrestrained, unregulated, uninhibited, unprincipled, and unmitigated, laissez-faire, free market capitalism.

In what could be best described as Kevin Rudds new vision of the past he comes out with the following:

“The alternatives were to do nothing or, worse, effectively replicate the Premiers' Plan of 1931 when governments cut expenditure, thereby compounding the problems created by a private sector already in retreat. The result, of course, was an economic rout, appalling unemployment and a decade of negligible growth through the 1930s.”

(The Premiers' Plan involved reductions of about 20% in government spending, public works and wages, and balancing the budget.)

Tim Andrews makes a great response to this in “Thoughts on Freedom,” with his article, “Stimulus Economics: The Data Says NO!” pointing out the vastly different results obtained between the US and Australia over the following period:

It is clear that 1931 is the year the policies diverge.

From the beginning of the year, the U.S increases spending by 45%, Australia cuts it by 15%. If the fundamental theory underpinning ‘stimulus’ economics holds, we should see, almost immediately, a change in outcomes. Australia’s GDP should decrease, whilst GDP should increase in the U.S. Similarly, unemployment should go up in Australia, and fall in the U.S.

So. What happened. This time I went to the OECD (behind paywall) to find out US and Australian GDP per capita during the early years of the depression, and plotted them such that 1929 was the base year of this index. And guess what happened?

…………

Australia’s GDP starts to grow. In the U.S it continues plummeting. In fact, almost immediately after Australia resolved to slash the size of government, it’s GDP began to rise.

I can not stress this enough. In the year that US Government spending increased 45%, GDP fell a whopping 17%. I repeat, 17%. In Australia, where government spending fell 15%, GDP increased 5%. In the following year, while the U.S “stimulated” economy fell 2%, Australia’s grew a whopping 7%. While the U.S economy eventually begins to improve, as the business cycle kicks in, it does so at a considerably delayed rate to Australia, where the government did not crowd out the private sector thereby delaying the recovery.

There could be no better example of how the economics behind ‘stimulus’ packages fail.

I thoroughly recommend the full article.

Carbon Sense comments on Ration and Tax (RAT)

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

While away I received a couple of great press releases from Viv over at Carbon Sense, who seems to be one of the most lucid voices in the climate change debate in Australia. Viv would make a great PM, but would probably never make the attempt, as he seems to share with me a complete disdain for the type of narcissistic pompous windbag the public seems to feel is required for such positions.

Here’s Viv.

Penny drops - carbon tax destroys jobs.

Mr. Rudd has woken up that Penny’s Ration-and-Tax (RAT) Scheme will destroy jobs.

But instead of killing the RAT Scheme, he proposes a massive carbon subsidy to offset the job destruction caused by the carbon tax.

Kevin and Malcolm need to make up their minds.

If they want to cut the production of harmless carbon dioxide, it MUST cause job losses in coal, power generation, cement, steel, farming and tourism.

But if job protection is important to them, they should abandon the RAT scheme immediately and concentrate on important matters.

Fiddling with it, achieves neither goal.

As for the subsidy, Kevin needs reminding that the money we get from Canberra is the money we sent to Canberra, less handling charges both ways.

A tax and subsidy policy always replaces real jobs in regional industry with fake jobs in the money laundering departments in Canberra.

Only three amendments are needed:

“Reject, Reject, Reject.”

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr. Viv Forbes, today called for a grass roots revolt by the real workers of Australia against the green militia and their socialite supporters who are leading the country into job cuts, power blackouts and poverty.

Mr. Forbes claimed that only three brave and outspoken politicians understand the real threats facing Australia, both from natural climate change (probably cold and dry) and from the stupid policies supposed to stop global warming (it has stopped).

“Martin Ferguson is in touch with real people who keep the wheels turning in the mines, factories and transport fleet. He knows that none of these industries could operate without using carbon fuels which all produce harmless carbon dioxide gas. He knows we need efficient reliable power stations, not wind and solar playthings.

“Barnaby Joyce represents the farmers, foresters and fishermen who produce the food, fiber and building materials we all need. He also knows that none of these essential items can be produced without producing more harmless CO2 gas.

“Steve Fielding stands up for all the Australian families hoping for jobs for themselves and their kids. He knows that every job in Australia depends on our basic industries making the minerals, food, fibers and processed goods the world buys from us.

“Public opinion polls show that ordinary Australians are increasingly swinging behind these leaders while Mr. Rudd trips the Climate Change Stage, and Malcolm Turnbull agonizes over how to make a more comfortable green noose for Australia. The only people who support such nonsense are the huge Climate Change Industry and those trying to buy green votes in the leafy suburbs.

“All real work produces carbon dioxide.

“The only way we can quickly reduce production of CO2 is by reducing jobs or reducing our consumption of food, fiber and minerals – the Ration-n-Tax Scheme thus offers unemployment and poverty in real industry in return for more taxes to create make-believe green jobs.

Mr. Turnbull thinks nine amendments will make the RAT scheme acceptable. Only three amendments are required: “Reject, reject, reject”.

Viv Forbes
info@carbon-sense.com
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition