Lindsay Lohan, $US will soon be worthless.

H/T Big Hollywood.

About the kindest description I have seen of Lindsay is “troubled,” but at least she is a bit more lucid than Ben Bernanke and Wayne Swan. Perhaps they should seek her advice, either on economics or substances.

The man who put parliament in its place.

Thanks to Economics.org.

The late Kerry Packer was probably one of the most courageous Australians who ever lived. He was a man who politicians loved to hate, and despite the risks of retribution, attempts at which were common was prepared to stick to his guns and stand on principle.

In 1991 parliament decided to make an example of him, and in my minds eye I can still see an Australian Democrat Senator saying how he would be brought to account. The result was that Kerry put them right back where they belonged with his unique straight talk. Once PC is disposed of, politics has little to support it.

Here are highlights of Kerry Packer's 1991 House of Reps Select Committee on Print Media Appearance. It includes perhaps the most famous Australian anti-government quote, where Packer says that anyone who pays more tax than they can get away with needs their head examined:



Bloody hell, I miss this guy.

ACT: Restore the Youth minimum wage.

ACT Is a New Zealand classical liberal party, which is strong on individual freedom, personal responsibility, small government, and financial responsibility. They have begun a campaign for the reintroduction of the youth minimum wage, the abolition of which has had a devastating effect on youth unemployment. The following is their case, trimmed down a little for space:

There are 41,400 young people out of work – enough to fill Westpac stadium and then spill onto the pitch. An estimated 12,000 are unemployed as a direct consequence of the abolition of the youth minimum wage. 



Youth unemployment is the highest level it has ever been - even after taking recession effects into account - with 27.5 percent of 15-19 year olds unemployed. That equates to almost one in every three young people out of work. 



While unemployed our young people are scraping by on the dole. But the more insidious problem is not the money. The problem is that, while unemployed, they are missing out on vital work experience – experience that would benefit them for years to come. 



Abolishing youth rates; the consequences: 



Why did abolishing the youth wage push so many young people out of work? Surely it gave youth a more livable wage? 



No, it didn’t. When given the choice between an older, more experienced worker and taking a punt on an inexperienced school-leaver an employer will, more often than not, hire the older worker. It’s simple – you get more experience for the same wage. 



In abolishing the youth wage the Government forced young people to compete with experienced workers, placing youth at a serious disadvantage. Despite declining rates of overall unemployment, youth unemployment continues to rise. 


An entire generation of young people is growing up without the work experience that the generations before them have benefited from. The 16 and 17 year olds that are unemployed today will tomorrow become 19 and 20 year olds who have never held a job.

Reinstating youth rates - the consequences: 



ACT has fought tooth and nail for the youth wage to be reinstated. We submitted a Private Members Bill in 2010, which would effect change and curb youth unemployment. National, Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party voted against this. Since then youth unemployment has skyrocketed. 



Reinstating the youth wage would allow young people to get a foothold on the job ladder. Most of us will remember our first job - most of us will also remember that it probably didn’t pay too well either. But we all remember our first pay rise. 



The key to getting a pay rise is work experience – it is this experience that is now out of reach for so many. 



Minimum Wage Myths Busted: Click here.

The Greens, and those 69 portfolios.

Cartoon: by Nicholson.

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. - H. L. Mencken, 1926.

The Courier Mail has run an article, “Ten Greens politicians juggling 69 portfolios from whaling to inter-sex issues,” which reminds me of an old line from “The Two Ronnie’s” from way back. It went, “Next week we will be asking, does the government have too many departments? With the Minister for Steak and kidney pie giving his opinion.”

THE gang of Greens poised to take control of Australia's Senate come armed with an unprecedented 69 areas to put on the national agenda.

From high-speed rail to whaling and Antarctica, democracy, dental care, and Tibet, the Greens have portfolios that have never before been subject to a ministry.

The Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate from July 1, with leader Bob Brown yesterday declaring the party was "happy and cohesive'' and the "most stable party in this Parliament''.

While most parties give politicians between two and three areas to look after, the Greens each have about seven responsibilities. The decision has seen Senator Brown split the more typical portfolio of "foreign affairs'' into the separate portfolios of Burma, West Papua, PNG and Tibet.

Generally the use of more portfolios tends to mean that a party or government is more inclined toward micromanagement. Were a government to intend to have a consistent non-interventionist stance then only a few areas would need to be covered in a small number of wide ranging ministries. Treasury, defense, foreign affairs, and odd others should cover it.

The current situation where Labor have roughly 48 portfolios spread over 20 ministers is excessive, but 69 is getting into la-la land, especially given that they have only 10 people to do it. There is little to suggest that the people administering the positions are likely to act in the best interests of the people or industries involved.

Larissa Waters, an environmental lawyer will take on the portfolios of environment, biodiversity and natural heritage, population, Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, Cape York, world heritage, tourism and mining. The mining industry must be really happy to have Larissa relishing the opportunity to deal with them.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young holds the most interesting combination as she has been named Greens spokeswoman for a string of portfolios including gay-lesbian-bi-transgender-inter-sex issues, and Tibet. Bob Brown probably understands that the Dali Llama has the problem of being reincarnated, and has no guarantee of what he is going to come back as. If he turns up next time as a gay, cross dressing, transgender, bipolar bear, then Sarah has it covered.

Best answer to Clinton’s, ”Whose side are you on.

H/t; The Agitator.

When Congress got stroppy over the war powers resolution in relation to the Libyan action, Hillary Clinton tried to spin the issue into treachery by facetiously asking, “Whose side are you on.”

Ken from Popehat has come up with the following in a post titled:

“In Which Ken Asks His Secretary To Clear His Schedule Later So He Can Apologize For Completely Losing His Shit Like This”:

Whose side am I on?

You vulgar, upjumped, snake-oil-selling, midway-barker huckster. You venal, amoral, mendacious harpy. You vile, preening, scheming hack. Whose side am I on? I’m on the side of fuck you, bitch. I’m on the side of the Constitution, limited government, limited executive power to kill people, limited executive power to put our armed forces at risk, and the rule of motherfucking law. I can’t believe there was a time when I couldn’t grasp why people despised you. Whose side am I on? You Senator, can you name a nanosecond when you’ve ever been on anyone’s side but your own?

That’s whose side I’m on. What’s it to you?

Sounds like a reasonable and measured response to me.

The New Dark (Green) Age

By Viv Forbes, Chairman,

The Carbon Sense Coalition

Please help us by spreading this report around.

Last week while driving, I happened to hear part of the farewell speech of Senator Nick Minchin. We will sorely miss people like this stalwart senator. It struck me that this one sad event was like the bell tolling for the new Dark Age to come. In the next few weeks, unless a miracle occurs, and for the first time ever, dark greens and their fellow travellers will gain control of the both houses of parliament in Australia.

No doubt we have won the battle for the minds of the Australian people – every poll shows a strong majority is opposed to the tax on carbon dioxide. And there is growing scepticism for the claim that man causes climate change. But the green elite, who have never won majority support in their own right, are determined to pursue their destructive goals.

Their long-term agenda is to destroy human industry and reduce human population. Thus they are opposed to farming, mining, fishing, forestry, exploration and cheap power.

Their preferred strategy is to divide and conquer. Their tactics are to grab any real concern and magnify and divert it into another reason to destroy or hobble the industries they hate – cattle, sheep, mining, oil and gas, uranium, farming, forestry, fishing and land developers. Their greatest success is achieved when they harness and inflame one industry and use it to ram another – use farmers to destroy the gas industry, use animal lovers and meat workers to destroy live exports, use small business to attack big business, make all industries compete against one another for a dwindling supply of emission permits, get farmers to fight food retailers, cry crocodile tears about the loss of fertile land, and then lock up grazing land in trees, heritage areas and other sterilised ground. And all the time they use their domination of the government media and education empires to spread their half-truths.

They know that the best way to encourage fights is to destroy all vestiges of defined property rights and to encourage poorly defined and overlapping rights, so that eventually nothing can be done on any property without approval and adjudication from the local green committee.

The Green Guards are coming, and they will be far more oppressive and destructive than Mao's Red Guards.

What do we do?

There is no choice. As Churchill said once, it is best to fight now, while we are still on our feet, or we will be forced to fight later, when we are on our knees.

If, as appears likely, they manage to ram a carbon (dioxide) tax down our throat, we must continue the fight to abolish it together with all the other climate taxes, subsidies, mandates and bureaucracy.

At the start they will use the favoured Fabian tactic – make the introduction of the new tax as painless as possible, just to get the principle established. Years ago, when the Whitlam government proposed virtual nationalisation of the medical industry, he was asked "How will you overcome opposition from the private doctors?" His very perceptive answer: "Stuff their mouths with money", which he did.

So we can expect that the initial carbon dioxide tax will be at a low rate, it will have many exemptions, and there will be massive bribery of consumers, taxpayers and pensioners.

Then when no industries close immediately on introduction of the tax and there are no sad stories of aged pensioners freezing in the dark, people will forget about the carbon tax and the big squeeze will begin.

No matter what happens in the next few months, we must fight to stop/abolish the tax and make sure those planning to live off the carbon tax teat are warned of the risks they take. For example, directors who waste shareholders money on things like wind farms or carbon sequestration should be warning their investors that there is a distinct risk that all the subsidies, tax breaks, market mandates and protected high prices may go immediately after the next electoral rout.

The alarmists want to ration our access to cheap energy and cheap food.

Their promise is a New Dark Age – a dark green age.

More anti-bikie nonsense, WA banning them from pubs.

Image: The sort of people you meet at bikie rallies.

The ongoing campaign by state governments started after a brawl in Sydney airport where one of them was killed. Being a public spectacle has resulted in a sky falling knee jerk reaction nation wide. Most states are working on bans on bikies, and two of those efforts have been overturned in the High Court.

Now Western Australia is joining in the stampede with probably the stupidest action of the lot:

POLICE want every known bikie and crime figure in WA banned from pubs and clubs under tough restrictions being negotiated with the State Government.

The move comes as the WA Liquor Commission considers a new application from police to outlaw veteran Coffin Cheaters bikie Eddy Withnell from licensed venues, in what is a test case for sweeping prohibition orders against all bikies and crime figures.

Sources told The Sunday Times that if the Withnell application was successful, it would open the floodgates to a deluge of applications by police for blanket bans no matter if the individual has convictions or is accused of committing offences in a licensed venue.

But civil libertarians and bikies yesterday slammed the proposal, branding it "ridiculous" and discriminatory.
They said prohibition orders should be considered case-by-case.

Under the Liquor Control Act, the Police Commissioner can apply to the Director of Liquor Licensing or the Liquor Commission to prohibit a person from entering a licensed venue because of a criminal conviction or suspected involvement in serious and organised crime. Anyone who fails to comply can be fined up to $10,000.

Until now, police have only applied to have bikies banned if they were involved in offences at pubs or clubs. But under the new moves, the orders will be sought based on their gang links.

Were a person or group likely to commit offenses at licensed premises then the publicans themselves would not want them. In such a case they would be quite within their rights to ban them from their own premises, and others would if they saw fit do the same. The idea though that people can be banned from entertainment venues over matters that have no relevance to those premises, regardless of the wishes of the owners is nothing short of draconian.

I confidently predict another win for the bikies. Good luck guys.

Police union opposes random drug tests for officers.

The Crime and Misconduct Commission carried out Operation Tesco into allegations of problems with some police officers in the Gold Coast region. A number of problem areas were discovered, among them use of drugs and alcohol related matters. As result the Police Commissioner is moving to bring in random alcohol and drug testing.

The police union is determined to fight this matter, claiming that it is too expensive, and would reflect on the integrity of the force, which should be considered to be above reproach. There have been mandatory tests for some time for occasions where there is reasonable suspicion of use, and these have been carried out on a number of occasions.

As a worker in the mining industry I have been subject to random testing for the best part of twenty years and do not have a problem with it although I have to admit I resented it at first as an intrusion. Employers however have a duty of care to provide a safe workplace and having guys operating machinery, or in areas where they need their wits about them, while under the influence of grog or other substances go against this.

Police are employees like most of us, and as such should be subject to the rules like the rest of us. Employers have the right to mandate the behavior of employees in the workplace and have a right to satisfy themselves that it is drug and alcohol free.

Given that police carry guns and drive vehicles in the course of their duties it is imperative that they are clear headed and substance free during their shifts. As this action is the result of an inquiry finding that there is a problem in this area, it is more likely that this action will improve the public perception of the force.

Testing in the workplace varies from place to place. In some places an alcohol test is sprung on you occasionally while in others you blow in the bag as you sign on at the start of shift. Drugs are tested for less regularly but the main deterrent is that it can happen at any time and failing a test results in suspension, loss of wages and loss of job for a repeat offender.

Muslim thugs at Court were from “Islamic Brotherhood Worldwide.”

Image: Mathews supporters outside court. Her lawyer reassures us that it is merely a matter of, “They are obviously happy with the result and are expressing it in a way that is culturally appropriate to them”.

In a recent post I reported on the case of Carnita Mathews, who was sentenced to jail for making a false claim against a police officer who pulled her up for a random breath test. The court of appeals overturned that verdict when it became evident that the person who took the complaint in question did not verify her identity.

The decision was unusual in that the judge said there wasn't enough evidence it was Ms Matthews who handed in the written complaint to Campbelltown police station and, even if it were, there wasn't enough evidence to prove that she "intentionally, deliberately and purposefully" made a false complaint. It is difficult to see how a complaint that was proven to be demonstrably and totally false could be anything other than deliberate.

It is understood that the Atourney General is seeking to appeal the verdict.

It has now come to light that the Muslim radicals who accompanied her out of the court are members of the self-styled Islamic Brotherhood Worldwide.

With the name of their organisation across their backs and aggression in their faces, community leaders say the men are students of radical cleric Sheik Feiz Mohammed, who has denounced other religions in his sermons.

Sources say the group is linked to the Bukhari Bookshop in Auburn, also a drop-in centre for Muslim youth and recently purchased by the radical sheik.

Sources say the group grew out of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool which was founded in 2000 by Sheik Feiz, who has urged children to die for Islam.
The men flanked the niqab-wearing Ms Matthews at the District Court on Monday when her conviction and jail sentence for making a false racism complaint about the police officer who booked her for a P-plate offence was overturned.

After kneeling en masse to pray, the men clashed with the media in noisy and aggressive scenes, prompting police intervention.

Sheik Feiz Mohammed has featured in a British documentary “Undercover Mosque,” over a series of DVDs, which were called the Death Series. He says of non-Muslims, "Kaffir is the worst word ever written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt.” He blames women for being raped, and that children should be encouraged to become jihadists: "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam... Teach them this: there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid. Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom."

He has also claimed, "Jews are pigs that will be killed at the end of the world,” and incited Muslim followers in the Netherlands to behead the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, claiming that those who insult the teachings of Islam must be killed.

“Dangerous” disillusionment with political leadership.

Image: ABC word clouds.

The ABC asked readers to submit three words to describe their views on the performance of Julia Gillard's minority Government and Tony Abbott's Opposition over the past year. The top 100 responses in each case were published around the image to form what was called a word cloud. Noticeably as most would expect, the responses were mainly negative.

There were only 18 positives for Gillard, compared with 26 for Abbott. This was fairly predictable given the current opinion polls, and the only real information that can be drawn from the whole exercise is that, currently Abbott has more sycophants with positive views of him than Gillard does.

Now however, a political analyst who is not really in touch with mainstream Australia is claiming that it reflects a "dangerous" sense of disillusion within the community for Australian democracy and leadership.

"Most words are negative rather than positive because there's a great deal of negativity and cynicism in the air towards leadership in Australia at the moment," said Dr Troy Whitford, Charles Sturt University politics and history lecturer.

"We're seeing harsh and angry words. It's interesting to think what are people actually reading or analysing to come to those particular words or conclusion."

Dr Whitford believes Australians, while generally taking a negative view towards politicians, are more cynical towards leaders today.

"There's a growing sense of disillusionment in our political system that's catching on. In some respects, it can be quite a long-term and dangerous problem," he told ABC News Online.

It’s difficult to see what the problem is and why anyone would possibly view it as dangerous. It really means that we are more politically astute than was previously thought. There are two major parties here, neither of which you would bother feeding in a drought, or give standing room in your paddock, even in the good times. It is not all that difficult to understand. Take for example:


“There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” Could it be any clearer? And whats more, it is backed up by none less than the treasurer of the nation. Should we be so gauche as to take this statement as an indication that no carbon tax would be imposed under a Gillard government? Obviously not.

Jules has pointed out that she never meant to mislead anybody over the carbon tax. It is just that we are a bunch of ignorant, uneducated hillbilly bastards who are too dumb to understand the subtle political nuances at play in that statement. Clearly, we were too stupid to take into account the fact that she always intended to put a price on our carbon usage.

Seriously, she must wonder what she ever deserved to have us inflicted on her, while we wonder the same thing in regard to her, only the other way around.

Davis: Pimps treated differently.

Kristin Davis, dubbed The Manhattan Madam ran one of the most successful prostitution businesses ever discovered. She was busted during the Spitzer investigation and ended up doing time. Since this she has become a strong anti prohibitionist, and advocate for women’s issues and reform. Here she takes on the inequality of the law. Kristin’s website is here.

By Kristin Davis

When I was arrested and charged as a first-time offender with ONE count of promoting prostitution, which I eventually pled guilty to, I received bail of $2 MILLION dollars. After spending 4 months in Riker's Island, my bail was later reduced to $400,000 and I had to wear with an ankle bracelet that confined my movement to the 5 boros. I have written, extensively about my time incarcerated where I was subjected to cruel psychosexual torture in filthy and squalid conditions. I have brought the abuses at Riker's Island to the attention of Governor Andrew Cuomo without results.

I now find it interesting that David Flory, the college professor charged with FORTY counts of promoting prostitution received a bail of $100,000. Jason Itzler, who ran an escort service in New York City, was arrested with a bail of $500,000 after running from the police for a couple of days and having an extensive criminal history for which he had numerous prior Felonies and served time in prison.

Then of course there is Eliot Spitzer. He violated both federal money laundering laws and The Mann Act, which is a charge for transporting a prostitute across state lines. In 2009, Justice Ronald Stills was charged with violating The Mann Act and sentenced to 1.5 years in jail. Why has Eliot Spitzer- a white male- paid no penalty for his illegal acts while I did hard time on Riker's Island?

It amuses me now to see Spitzer opining on CNN regarding congressman Anthony Weiner when he is himself guilty of much greater hypocrisy based on his governmental efforts which in 2007 increased the penalties for men soliciting prostitutes from a felony to a misdemeanor while Spitzer was engaging prostitutes himself.

It is apparent our justice system does not equally deliver Justice.

A dressing down for Congress.

Rep Mike Kelly is a businessman and as such is a no nonsense type of guy. Here he lets rip over the failure of the government to pass a budget. He means what he is saying, his contempt for those responsible is written all over his face.

Geert Wilders cleared of hate speech.

Image: Geert Wilders.

Geert Wilders has been a firebrand Dutch MP for some years and an outspoken critic of the Islamisation of Holland and Europe. There have been numerous attempts to silence him and he has been under death threats from Muslim extremists to the point where he is under guard full time.

After a considerable number of complaints against him for hurt feelings, he was ordered to stand trial. Probably the strangest aspect to the whole thing was that the prosecutors had to be ordered to take the case forward by the appeal court after their initial refusal to do so, stating; "That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable. Freedom of expression fulfils an essential role in public debate in a democratic society. That means that offensive comments can be made in a political debate." He has now been acquitted.

Even the prosecution asked for his acquittal:

DUTCH far-right MP Geert Wilders walked away from hate speech and discrimination charges today for statements made attacking Islam, calling his acquittal a victory for freedom of speech.

"You are being acquitted on all the charges that were put against you," Judge Marcel van Oosten told Wilders who has been on trial in the Amsterdam regional court since October last year.

The flamboyant MP faced five counts of hate speech and discrimination for his anti-Islamic remarks on websites, internet forums and in Dutch newspapers between October 2006 and March 2008, and in his controversial 17-minute movie "Fitna" ("Discord" in Arabic).

He also compared the Koran with Hitler's "Mein Kampf" while in "Fitna" he shows shocking images of the September 11 attacks in the United States and other onslaughts against Western targets interspersed with verses from the Muslim holy book.

"The bench finds that your statements are acceptable within the context of the public debate," the judge told the platinum-haired politician, whose case was boosted by a prosecution unwilling to take aim at him.

"The bench finds that although gross and denigrating, it did not give rise to hatred," said Judge van Oosten. …

… His case has been helped by a reluctant prosecution, which last month again asked for his acquittal, saying that although his comments may have frequently caused anxiety and insult, they were not criminal as they criticised Islam as a religion and not Muslims as a people.

The prosecution's unwillingness to take aim at Wilders dates as far back as 2008 when it refused to take up a case against him following complaints. On January 21, 2009, however, the Amsterdam appeals court forced the prosecution to mount a case against him.

Wilders' trial also comes against a backdrop of plans by the central-right Dutch government to move away from a multicultural approach towards a tougher stance against those who ignore Dutch values and break the law.

Hells Angels decision, a win for all of us.

Image: there is nothing quite like a little oppression to unify groups.

News has just come through that the High Court ruled that Hells Angels have succeeded in their attempt to have NSW's Crimes (Criminal Organisations Control) Act declared invalid.

For two years now governments across Australia have been moving to outlaw bikie gangs. Legislation in all cases tends to follow the pattern of allowing Supreme Court judges to outlaw motorcycle gangs, after a request by the police commissioner, and ban bikie gang members from associating with one another, with stiff penalties for those who disobeyed the ban.

While few Australians have much sympathy for bikies, a point the various states count on while doing this, some of us understand the wider implications of allowing this to happen. Once laws that allow certain groups to be singled out as outlaws, it is a relatively easy matter to extend that to any other group that the state disagrees with. Usually this can be done by executive order.

The law should be there to deal with real crimes, which involve actual coercive acts, not to deny certain groups the right to associate. There are plenty of laws on the books already to deal with any criminals within any group.

From SMH:

The High Court ruled on Thursday that Hells Angels have succeeded in their attempt to have NSW's Crimes (Criminal Organisations Control) Act declared invalid.

The law was enacted in April 2009 by former premier Nathan Rees following the death of bikie associate Anthony Zervas during a brawl at Sydney Airport several weeks earlier.

Effectively the law allowed Supreme Court judges to outlaw motorcycle gangs, after a request by the police commissioner, and also to ban bikie gang members from associating with one another, with stiff penalties for those who disobeyed the ban.
But barrister Wayne Baffsky, acting for prominent Sydney Hells Angels member Derek Wainohu, who brought the High Court challenge, says he believes the law could easily have been applied to other groups.

"We're very, very happy," Mr Baffsky told AAP.

"It's not just for them (Hells Angels), it's for the people of NSW.

"Because the extent of the law was extraordinary.

"It was a frightening act in my opinion that targets two or more people."

Greg Hirst, spokesman for the Brotherhood Christian Motorcycle Club, who helped raise money to fund the legal challenge, also welcomed the ruling.

"Our club is pleased with that result because we believe that the legislation was exceedingly dangerous for the whole of Australian society," he told AAP.

"Our club wholly endorses the importance of governments to address law and order issues, particularly violence, but this is about inappropriate legislation ... that takes away the rights, responsibilities, freedoms of general Australian citizens."
Legal costs have been awarded to the Hells Angels, Mr Baffsky said.

Interestingly, this legislation has unified all groups for the common cause, from Hells Angels and Comancheros,through to the God Squad.

Brain dead leftie tax supporter ridiculed.

The Gillard government is about to embark on a carbon dioxide tax that we were assured would not happen in the life of her government. Unfortunately there were sufficient numbers of credulous and deluded voters to nearly get her over the line, after which some very expensive deals with independents got her there.

Sometimes I wonder if I really get much advantage from sending all that money to Canberra to allow Julia to toss billions to unprincipled bastards like Katter, Windsor, Wilkie, and that giggling idiot Oakeshotte, who would sell their grandmothers grave if it could get them some relevance.

This clip is of one of the Green sycophants who believe that a massive new tax is really the best thing for all of us being put down on the ABC G&A program.


It is difficult to tell if the idea that by taxing us the government can make the birds sing, the sun come out, and the seas begin to fall, is the most idiotic reason for this sort of imposition. My money tends to be on Keating, who as Treasurer back in the 80s told us we needed tax hikes because the economy was being damaged by pricks like me, having too much money sloshing around in our pockets.

Atlas May be shrugging.

The following is the latest from Wayne Allyn Root under the title of "The Strike," and pointing out that the wealthy are already going on strike against Obama.

The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence?

Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand's famous book, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, Atlas Shrugged has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today.

The central plot of Atlas Shrugged is that in response to being demonized, over-taxed, over-regulated, and punished for success, America's business owners were disappearing -- dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support those unwilling to put in the same blood, sweat and tears. They were going on strike. Because of that the original proposed title of "Atlas Shrugged" was "The Strike."

They were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government. That without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In Obama's America, fiction is becoming fact.

The lesson of Atlas Shrugged is that without the $100,000+ earners paying into Social Security, there are no pensions for the poor and lower middle class. Without the wealthy owners of million-dollar mansions paying $25,000 and $50,000 annual property tax bills, there is no funding for public schools. Without the wealthy paying into Medicare, there is no "free" healthcare for the elderly. Without capitalists motivated by profit, there are no discoveries to eradicate polio or create miraculous cancer and AIDS drugs. Without capitalists motivated by profit, there are no jobs, period! That is what happens when the producers of society go on strike to protect themselves from the looters.

Ayn Rand was warning the looters that there are consequences to their overzealous actions. She was warning that if the productive classes felt used, demonized, ripped off, and taken for granted, they would go on strike -- stop working, retire early, go underground, or move to places where achievement is celebrated and they feel appreciated.

The latest U.S. Census proves Ayn Rand right. Under Obama the wealthy are striking, voting with their feet. They are moving to low-tax red states in droves, escaping from high-tax blue states where they are being demonized and punished by the millions.

The Census proves that Obama's tax and spend philosophy is a dismal failure, an economic disaster killing jobs. It is no coincidence that 1.9 million FEWER Americans are working than before Obama's stimulus. It is no coincidence that jobs are not returning to the private sector. It is no coincidence that tax revenues have dropped dramatically and cannot support Obama's bloated Big Brother government. The innovators, risk-takers, and wealthy he demonized and punished are on strike.

The high tech revolution has killed the progressive-liberal tax-and-spend dream. Because of the Internet, email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Satellite TV, I-phones, I-pads, and cell phones, business owners are no longer prisoners of Big Brother. Take a look at states where the latest Census shows Americans moved during the past decade: Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Virginia -- all low- or no-tax red states, states that lead the USA in economic freedom.

Now look at states they escaped from: New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan. Taxpayers, business owners, jobs creators, retirees with assets are fleeing the high tax, big spending, Big Brother states -- the states being run like Obama is running the nation.

Progressives be afraid, be very afraid. If Obama is re-elected, these valuable producers will pick up and leave America altogether. There is a big world out there begging them to come. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Monte Carlo, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Bahamas, and Cayman Islands are low-tax havens that appreciate business owners and their sacrifices. They welcome wealthy ex-patriots. They celebrate individual achievement. They reward instead of punish business owners and financial risk-takers. They are wonderful places to live and are aggressively pursuing Americans.

I am just one small businessman, a third-party Libertarian political leader. Yet I personally have heard from thousands of fans, friends and supporters who have left America, are thinking of leaving America, are visiting other countries right now to decide where to go, or making preparations to leave in case Obama is re-elected. Just as Ayn Rand predicted, business owners are going on strike. Permanently.

The high tech revolution has freed them to run their businesses from anywhere in the world. The same high tech tools and toys that toppled a powerful and invincible 30-year dictator in Egypt and now threaten to topple powerful leaders throughout the Arab world, also offer mobility and freedom to U.S. taxpayers. Obama better learn the lesson of Mubarek before millions more business people decide they do not need to put up with looters, free loaders, and politicians who despise them.

Atlas is shrugging. Ayn Rand is saying "I told you so."

And The Strike has begun.

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of "The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts." His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com

Muslims make mockery of Australian law.

Image; Ms Mathews supporters celebrating in a 'culturally appropriate' way.

Some time ago a Muslim woman who was pulled up at a random breath test became abusive towards the officer and was booked for not correctly displaying her P plates. She claimed in a statutory declaration to police that the officer who stopped her was racist had attempted to tear the burqa off her face. This claim that was proven untrue by the police patrol car video camera.

A magistrate last year found her guilty of making a deliberately false statement and sentenced her to jail for six months. Ms Matthews appealed, saying there was no proof she was the person in the burqa making the statement and Judge Clive Jeffreys in the District Court yesterday upheld her appeal.

Today her appeal was upheld as the judge ruled that the person laying the complaint had not been positively identified as she was wearing a burqa at the time, and oddly, that he was not satisfied that it was knowingly false. Here is the Channel 7 footage:

There have been a number of attempts overseas by Muslims to attempt to defy normal attempts at identification through this ploy with mixed success. It is bizarre to think that police would accept a complaint by a person who refuses to positively identify herself, however they tend to find themselves at the sharp end where reality meets political correctness. Politics is so PC whipped that police are left swinging in the wind on the issue. The complainant’s lawyer correctly pointed out that there is no law covering the issue.

This complaint could have destroyed any future chance of advancement for the officer involved, so he is rather fortunate that the camera caught what actually happened. It is unbelievable that a person could make up a story and lie like a pig in shit to police and have a judge maintain that it may not be knowingly false.

Another disturbing aspects of the report was:

More than a dozen Muslim supporters linked arms and began chanting “Allah Uh Ahkbar” as they stormed out of Downing Centre, Sydney, with Mrs. Matthews concealed behind them. Tempers soon rose and they began jostling with police after several members of the group began attacking TV cameramen. Mrs. Matthew’s lawyer Stephen Hopper defended them, saying: “They are obviously happy with the result and are expressing it in a way that is culturally appropriate to them”.

Since when did assaulting cameramen and police become “culturally appropriate? These people have to be pulled into line.

Scientists demand respect, while fudging the data again.

Images: Loy Yang A power station. (L) as it is, and (R) as depicted by a Melbourne newspaper.

"The Australian," has published a report (as usual, complete with belching smokestack photo) on how climate scientists are demanding to be respected, claiming:

“The valuable and credible work of all scientists is under attack as a result of a noisy misinformation campaign by climate denialists,'' the Chief Executive of the Federation of Australian Science and Technological Societies, Anna Maria Arabia said.

At an anti-carbon tax rally of up to about-400 people in Melbourne yesterday there were placards such as ``Co2 is Good'' while promotional material from the organisers the Consumer and Tax Payers Association said Co2 was ``100 per cent beneficial.''

FASTS said the ``misinformation campaign'' on climate science was undermining the work of all scientists.

``It is this rigorous peer review science process that provides decision makers with the confidence they need to make important decisions about our nation's future,'' FASTS president Dr Cathy Foley said.

This is probably the same rigorous peer review process that resulted in Climategate, the discredited ‘hockey stick’ graph, and numerous examples of fudged figures.

Himalayagate falls into a special category of peer review. Apparently some ‘reputable’ climate scientist got on the piss with a couple of guys who had been told by a Sherpa, that the Himalayan glaciers were disappearing at an alarming rate. As the two guys were equally lubricated at the time, it was considered to be peer reviewed and thus found its way into the IPCC Report.

Now it appears that we are having a ‘virtual’ sea level rise:

The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters -- or about the thickness of a fingernail -- every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.

"Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring," said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute.

Steve Nerem, the director of the widely relied-upon research center, told FoxNews.com that his group added the 0.3 millimeters per year to the actual sea level measurements because land masses, still rebounding from the ice age, are rising and increasing the amount of water that oceans can hold.

Perhaps the ‘rising’ land might account for the tendency of climate scientists, politicians, and environmentalists to think the sky is falling.

Welcome news; Afghan traitor shot dead.

Image: Australian soldier Lance Corporal Andrew Jones, who was shot dead by a rogue Afghan soldier in Afghanistan.

Every battle casualty is a tragedy, but to have troops murdered by the very people they are attempting to train and protect is galling. Lance Corporal Jones was shot in cold blood when another Afghan soldier left for a few minutes, leaving him alone with the killer. He has now been tracked down and killed:

UPDATE 4.05pm: THE cowardly Afghan soldier who murdered army cook Lance Corporal Andrew Jones has been shot and killed by coalition forces.

Shafidullah Guhlamon was cornered by coalition troops near his home village in the Khost Province of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border and told to surrender.

He refused and drew a weapon and was killed by the joint American-Afghan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith confirmed Shafidulla's death today, saying he was killed by a coalition special forces operation with "limited Australian involvement".
Mr Smith said Shafidullah had "placed himself in a position where he was a direct threat to coalition forces and was shot dead as a result".

He said it would have been preferable if the murderer had been captured so he could have been interrogated, and that the investigation into the causes and reasons behind the death of Lance Cpl Jones would continue.

Shafidullah's brother, who was with him when he was shot dead, has been detained by US forces and will be questioned.

Time the US cut Europe adrift.

Cartoon: Ken Catalino.

A Washington Post opinion piece by George Will, “Libya and the Potemkin Alliance,” began as a criticism of the refusal of the Obama Administration to abide by the War Powers Resolution with regard to their action in Libya. He then went a lot further in criticizing, not only the war but the lack of judgment in the US policy of propping up Europe militarily when Europe seems to have little desire to accept responsibility itself for its own defense.

When, in March, Obama said, “building this international coalition has been so important,” he meant merely that a minority of the members of a 62-year-old alliance would seriously participate. Eight of NATO’s 28 members are attacking Gaddafi’s ground forces.

Obama, a novel kind of commander in chief, explained in passive syntax that, “it is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions.” These “others” would rather finance their welfare states than their militaries, so they cannot wage war for 10 weeks without U.S. munitions and other assets.

Last month, this column noted that NATO was created in 1949 to protect Western Europe from the Soviet army; it could long ago have unfurled the “Mission Accomplished” banner; it has now become an instrument of mischief, and when the Libyan misadventure is finished, America should debate whether NATO also should be finished. …

… Hence Gates warned that “there will be dwindling appetite and patience in” America for expending “increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.” Already, U.S. officers in Afghanistan sometimes refer to the NATO command there — officially, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) — as “I Saw Americans Fighting.”

While there may be some legitimate reasons to have a strategic presence in various parts of the world to protect American interests or to assist allies, or forward defence, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the US is being left to look after the security of the entire free world. While Britain has shown a willingness to assist, albeit on a much-reduced scale, it seems that Continental Europe is happy to leave it to stupid while they spend on welfare, bread and circuses rather than its own security.

The Libyan action is illogical in any case, even for Europe to be involved in. While the whole world was concerned about the real probability of a massacre by Guddafi’s forces, the intervention was launched when the Arab League called for it. This creates the ridiculous situation where the regional powers, some of which are among the wealthiest and best armed in the world, are able to be onlookers while someone else goes to the aid of their fellow Arabs.

In any case there is little benefit to be had by the US in supporting over a hundred thousand troops and masses of expensive equipment for the defense of Europeans, an action that appears to be counterproductive. Rather than use the US willingness to help hold back the threat of invasion by the USSR to rebuild their defensive capability, European countries have wound back their capability while using the resources thus freed to engage in an orgy of welfarism resulting in them being not worth the effort.

It is probably time for the US to give Europe a few years to get its act together, and then pull out.

Gary Johnson at the New Hampshire debate.

Gary Johnson was as we know excluded by CNN from the debate for no genuine reason. Some of the other candidates who were in it are poling lower than he is but were included, so go figure. Anyway, he hasn’t taken it lying down and has made a video in which he answers every question that was asked at the event:


I believe his performance gives an indication as to why he was excluded. CNN and the other channels doing this are trying to dictate to the Republican Party who they are to have as candidates, in other words picking winners. Johnson is not in the mould of the usual type of candidate and while Ron Paul isn’t either, he tends to be dismissed.

There is a great deal in common between the two, but Johnson is more articulate and can present ideas better to the voter. He is the type of candidate more likely to be taken seriously.

With Johnson, you get what you see and hear. He will not be saying one thing in Illinois, and another in Texas. The message he has presented here is not tailored to suit the audience, but is what he feels needs to be done to pull the nation out of the mire it finds itself in. By the time the primaries come around many people will be responding positively to this sort of straight talk.

The media does not like what it cannot understand.

Terror cleric Abu Bakar Bashir gets 15 years in jail

Off to the slammer.

Abu Bakar Bashir, the terror cleric behind the Bali, and Marriott bombings is finally behind bars where he belongs. The sentence is not for those bombings but for inciting and motivating others to commit terrorism by orchestrating and funding a terror training camp in Aceh.

Bashir was the founder of Jemaah Islamiah, a jihadist group set up with the intention of enforcing sharia law throughout Indonesia and creating a South East Asian Caliphate to include all countries in the region.

Last year, police arrested Bashir after linking three members of his new, above-ground Islamic organization, Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid, to the group in Aceh.

The group trained in Aceh’s remote, jungle-covered mountains and stockpiled weapons, authorities said. Last year, the police killed and arrested more than 120 people suspected of having links to the group, including Dulmatin, one of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorism suspects. The authorities said the group had been planning attacks against foreigners and had previously made plans to assassinate moderate Muslims, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Bashir accused Australia and America of playing a big role in his imminent demise. This is typical of these zealots, who have little sense of reality. On being convicted of crimes such as planning attacks on foreigners and the president, it has to be someone else’s fault. He further claims:

“The trouble makers are these two, (Australia and America) the enemies of Allah. They try to eliminate me from Indonesia. Because they are the ones who started the crusade war, America, George Bush. Until now Australia and America still have role in my case. That's clear,” Bashir told reporters through the bars.

“I am not a terrorist,” he declared. 
“Kill me if they can, if they can't, then just how to eliminate me from the society, because they think my struggle for Islam is dangerous. My trial is not regular trial; it is a battle against Islam. It is a battle between defenders of Islam and Musrik, the defenders of evil. I am an Islam defender.”

He claims that the verdict is unfair because it is based on laws that are made by infidels, not on sharia.

Credit given to the War on Drugs.

Some of you might be inclined to think from my previous post that there is nothing to recommend the WOD. There are some positives, and here Arlo Guthrie credits the Narcs for bringing about his successful career:

War on Drugs celebrates its 40th.

Today, Nixon’s War on Drugs is celebrating its 40th birthday. Nanny staters everywhere are joining with sadists, wowsers, police state groupies, and dog haters in raising the odd glass, while thinking up new ideas to get tougher on the population at large. After all, ‘if it saves one life....”

Some of the images here are sickening to the point where most of our current crop of authoritarians will probably get off on it:


Australians remember Rudd’s War on drugs, but compared to these guys, he was not really taking it seriously. Of course, his was just one of the campaigns in his wider “war on everything.”

FEE has a fitting tribute to the occasion here including Nixon’s ‘mission accomplished’ statement.

Rubio's maiden speech.

I can't say I agree with everything here, but it is nice to hear from someone who still believes in American exceptionalism. Certainly the spirit of enterprise that comes to the fore in what is now only a partially free society, is the thing that has made the nation great, not the power of the state.



Unfortunately there are too many media types like Tingles Mathews, who love the way the collectivist Obama talks and will have little but disdain for this.

Electric cars: we get duded again.

Global Warming has drawn about itself the cloak of a state religion, which as is often the case when belief gets mixed up with power, has become extreme. In this case as has occurred throughout history, it has resulted with the irrational becoming the ideal. Making power and fuels more expensive and putting industry at risk is now sold as the moral imperative, rather than the stupid.

Solar panels, wind farms and ethanol, none of which can pay their way without massive subsidies or mandates are now considered the way of the future. IF it has the green tag, it must be adopted regardless of cost, even if it actually does the opposite of what was intended. Electric cars have now been found to fall into this category.

Research now indicates that electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries:

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tone of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

The Committee on Climate Change, the UK government watchdog, has called for the number of electric cars on Britain's roads to increase from a few hundred now to 1.7 million by 2020.

Britain's Department for Transport is spending $66 million over the next year giving up to 8,600 buyers of electric cars a grant of $7700 towards the purchase price. Ministers are considering extending the scheme.

The study was commissioned by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which is jointly funded by the British government and the car industry. It found that a mid-size electric car would produce 23.1 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 tonnes for a similar petrol car.

Emissions from manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 per cent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.

Many electric cars are expected to need a replacement battery after a few years. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 tonnes, compared with 5.6 tonnes for a petrol car. Disposal also produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery. The study also took into account carbon emitted to generate the grid electricity consumed.

Greg Archer, director of Low CVP, said the industry should state the full lifecycle emissions of cars rather than just tailpipe emissions, to avoid misleading consumers. He said that drivers wanting to minimize emissions could be better off buying a small, efficient petrol or diesel car. “People have to match the technology to their particular needs,” he said.

OK, so the whole idea is a flat wrong pipe dream, which has never been properly costed prior to implementation by the wankers who are PC whipped into accepting it. It might be discredited, but don’t expect it to be reversed any time soon.

John Hospers, RIP.

The following is from Wayne Allyn Root.

I have sad news to report...John Hospers, the very first Libertarian Presidential candidate in 1972, has passed away. John was 93. Because of our close friendship, I was asked to announce his death to the LP and his many fans and supporters.

John passed quietly away in his sleep, on Sunday morning June 12 without pain and suffering, of natural causes. He died only 3 days after his 93rd birthday.

He was a true friend of individual liberty and freedom.

A sad day for all. But a devastatingly sad for me, because John was a true friend to me as well. I spoke to John often. He was a trusted political advisor and confidant. And in his last years, when he was in the hospital, his friends always asked if I could cheer him up with a call. I came to enjoy those calls. John was my personal "Tuesday with Morrie."

He was the sweetest man alive, and a very loyal friend of mine. He will be greatly missed by all. The Libertarian movement has lost a pioneer and hero.

I send my condolences to the Hospers family.

And I wish a lifetime in heaven for John.

Many of us in the libertarian movement know of John Hospers who was the LP’s first Presidential candidate in 1972. The ticket was made famous by receiving an Electoral College vote, when Roger McBride, a Republican delegate felt he could not support Nixon and opted for the LP candidates. I was fortunate enough to meet Roger when he addressed a Progress party meeting in Brisbane.

That Thatcher/ Palin snub.

H/t (and image) Big Journalism.

It was stunning to hear the leftist media gloating over the fact that an audience Palin was to have had with former British PM had been rejected. The rejection was not the issue that was stunning, but the reported discourtesy in which Thatcher was alleged to have referred to Palin as a nut was. It would be extraordinary if this were the case. It now seems not to have been so.

A reader of the Guardian who was skeptical wrote to the Thatcher Foundation inquiring about it. Mentioning that President Obama has sided with Argentina and calls the Falklands the “Malvinas,” she felt that comments attributed to Lady Thatcher’s staff being used to discredit Palin, a leading US conservative seemed wrong. The reply is here:

From: Margaret Thatcher Foundation

To: ————

Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 4:51 PM.
Subject: Mrs Palin
Dear Mr ——-,

Thank you for your message.

I have no inside knowledge of this business to offer I am afraid and certainly am not in a position to make any kind of statement on Lady Thatcher’s behalf. I’m happy though to give you my personal view.

The Guardian, of course, is not a newspaper at all sympathetic to Lady Thatcher (or to Mrs. Palin), so reports on this topic, from that source, have minimal credibility. If nothing else, would Lady Thatcher have ever described a prominent US conservative politician as ‘nuts’, or approved an ‘ally’ who used the description? I would hope that question answers itself.

Of course, sadly, Lady Thatcher’s health is not good these days and such considerations naturally dominate her schedule. That much is true. Someone once said that if you plaster together the true and the false you thereby manufacture the plausible, but in this case I don’t think even that much has been achieved by the Guardian.

On the ‘Malvinas’, the OAS never learns and the State Department endlessly seeks to curry favour with it for the sake of the a quiet life. The question is a closed one as far as we in Britain are concerned, as it is in the Falklands themselves where opinion is undivided.

Best wishes,

Christopher Collins

Margaret Thatcher Foundation

It seems likely that either the newspaper made the whole thing up, or a staffer or staffers added their own perceptions to the reporter. It is highly unlikely that Thatcher even at 85 years of age, would release such a statement.

How to Create a Carbon Credit – Kill a Camel.

By Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

The people who brought us pink-bats and cash-for-clunkers have a new scheme - we can earn carbon credits by shooting wild camels, humanely of course.

Surely it would be far easier to shoot tame cattle? There are big mobs near all of our northern ports, going nowhere.

And if greens have their way and stop all live exports, we can earn heaps more by shooting millions of sheep and goats, humanely of course.

What about those mobs of kangaroos? They burn carbon fuel and emit dreaded carbon dioxide. Why should they be spared when the future of the planet is at stake?

One small problem - what do we do with all those carcasses? Left alone they will release all the carbon sequestered within their bodies within a couple of weeks, thus incurring massive carbon debits.

And who counts the dead camels? To prevent carbon cull fraud the economy will boom with jobs for regulators, inspectors, auditors and prosecutors.

And of course, we must not burn diesel, av-gas or gun powder to do the slaughter, so the hunting must be done from horses using bows and arrows.

And if killing camels earns carbon credits, why can't cattle, sheep and goat abattoirs also earn them?

Further Comment:

Wild camels are a valuable resource for those with eyes not blinded by the smog of global warming dogma. This is a comment we made two years ago when this silly suggestion first surfaced.

And here is a comment by Paddy McHugh who actually knows something about camels:

Does anyone believe that riflemen in helicopters will kill every camel cleanly and painlessly? Yet our whole live export industry is threatened for a few misdeeds. Here is the most likely final product from the carbon credit harvesters:


Camel Carcasses, Central Australia.
Photo by Paddy McHugh.

Below is the final product from the live camel harvesters:

Camel Auction, Australia
Photo by Paddy McHugh

Think this is all a hoax? Then check this out.

Yep, our bureaucrats have put together a 62 page proposal to issue carbon credits for killing feral camels. They note that there is not much use in killing an old camel so the cullers will be required to declare the age of each camel killed, so that that the Government auditors can determine how much pollution will be saved. To help this complex calculation the government is researching the average life expectancy for feral camels.

The document is full of endless dribble, including how the cullers discount the credits they will get by the amount of pollution that is created by the culling.

Here is a sample:

“There are two options for measuring fuel consumption for EVc,j,y as detailed below. Option 1 is preferred.

Option 1) Recording of all fuel purchased or pumped for use in these vehicles during the management activities.

Option 2) Recording of all ground vehicle and fuel types and odometer readings before and after management activities.

For Option 2 the amount of fuel consumed is calculated by taking the fuel consumption rating of the vehicle as a litres per kilometre figure and multiplying this by the kilometres of travel undertaken as part of the management activity, then divided by 1000 to convert to kiloLitres, as per the equation below:

Where:
GDgv,c,j,y = Ground distance travelled by vehicle gv using fuel type j in undertaking the management activities c in year y

LPKgv,j = Litres of fuel type j combusted per kilometre for vehicle gv”

(Thanks to Helen Dyer for this explanation of the calculations.)

Eccentric new party in Australia.

The big news this week was the much anticipated arrival of Bob Katter’s bright, shiny, new, Australian Party.” After weeks of fevered anticipation on something new on the political horizon, the reality is like Bob himself, a mish mash of populist semantics, varying from the meaningless to the economically dangerous.

There is a creature that’s known as a political chameleon, who will go wherever the political wind blows, design policies to the color of his surroundings, do deals that have himself as top priority while appearing to benefit the people he represents. He essentially stands for himself, in the name of others. Bob is a lot like this.

He is short on policy, preferring instead to come up with core principles, which are essentially a list of feel good vanilla flavored references to church, motherhood, sunshine, warm feelings, a greater more caring nation, caressed in the loving arms of the right sort of government. In other words, the usual guff most parties adopt.

Katter himself has never stood for anything, preferring to pitch himself as the guy who listens and cares about the little guy, and wants a better nation without actually offering much in the way of specifics. The party is a reflection of this, claiming to be a group of united independents, not bound by party unity except when voting on Bob’s obsessions, like Coles and Woolworths.

This party will probably unravel when called upon to come to specifics, something he has managed to avoid until now. Reports indicate that he has a tendency to miss votes on nearly half the occasions they come up, and is one of the least active members of the house. If he leads a party, he will not be able to avoid decision making.

It will be interesting to see what legislation he would implement in order to "break the Coles/Woolies duopoly," and find out why he is establishing a party with the stated purpose of attacking two of our most successful major retailers. There is no mention of how he intends to create a massive reduction in their trade without throwing the retail sector into chaos or what he would do to compensate the shareholders for the losses they would suffer. Shareholders are not all 'big' and this will hurt quite a lot of small investors, either in the companies themselves or funds etc.

Consumers will be affected by his opposition to free trade. They will be harmed by the price increases that would inevitably follow from a return to the old McEwenist protectionism, but hey it’s for the common good. This party will be the new agrarian socialists on the model of the old Country Party.

They, like the old Country Party display an incredible naivety, which is borne out in their aim of equitable distribution of income. Even Gillard would not be stupid enough to say that. The Greens however will love it. Distributing population growth widely throughout Australia and especially into northern Australia is important to Bob. Perhaps he can achieve this with his stated desire to control those bastard banks, who are pricks enough to operate on a commercial basis.

Paying politicians what they are worth.

When seeking pay increases, politicians are fond of lecturing us on how, “If we pay peanuts we will get monkeys.” Unfortunately, this does not guarantee that paying more will keep the monkeys out. There are many people who would be the right sort to trust in office, who have nothing but disdain for politics. Pay will not change this; it is the institution itself that they shun.

Labor backbencher Robert Schwarten, is the latest to launch into an irrational diatribe on the issue:

QUEENSLAND politicians are poorly paid and deserve more money, according to a senior Labor MP.

Member for Rockhampton Robert Schwarten today said fewer people were attracted to a career in public life because the profession had fallen behind in the pay scales.

``When I entered Parliament, backbenchers, such as I am now, were paid more than these high-school principals," Mr. Schwarten said in a letter to his local newspaper.

``That is no longer the case and we are well below most senior public servants, council officers and certainly below most private sector executives. …

…``This means only the seriously wealthy, semi-retired or very young will increasingly find parliamentary service appealing," Mr. Schwarten said.

Backbenchers currently earn $133,804 annually but also receive thousands of dollars more in allowances that they can pocket as extra pay if they don't spend the money on their electorate offices.

Schwarten is basically claiming that it is in our interests to have a professional class of politicians like him. For some reason he seems to believe that on election, Joe Blogs and Mick Sneed immediately become the equals of highly paid professionals from other fields. There is no logical reason for this to be the case.

Other professionals tend to get to where they are by years of study and/or hard work, which in itself is no guarantee of attaining this status. They also have to achieve results with a minimum of screw-ups. There is no comparison between them and someone who has managed to bullshit enough electors in his region to be voted in, or in most cases simply supported a leader who has done this on a larger scale. Politicians tend to have inflated opinions of their own importance and this guy is no exception to the rule.

There are two main types of politician that inhabit the Valhallaian halls of modern nanny state politics:

(1) The power-crazed authoritarian who believes in his own mind that he knows best what’s good for the rest of us, its he wants us, and we had bloody well better accept that, and:
(2) The simple minded altruistic twit especially the one who ‘feels for us’ and only wants the best for all of us and knows what that is. This one is generally led by the nose by (1).

The thought pattern of both were inadvertently penned by Don McLean in “American Pie:”

“And I knew if I had my chance:

That I could make those people dance:

And maybe they’d be happy for a while.”

Perhaps the better option might be the person who at the end of a successful career doing something useful decides to enter this field in the hope of sorting out the mess the professional political class has gotten us into.

Political Alzheimer’s; Campbell Newman not recognized.

The Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman being popular, a Liberal, and capable of coming up with new ideas, was invited by party bosses to switch to parliament and take the helm. While it is unprecedented to have an opposition leader who is not an MP, he seems to be making good decisions and is backed by the parliamentary party representatives.

This move seems to have been so successful that Sportsbet is currently offering shorter odds of Harry Reid being keynote speaker at CPAC than for Bligh to win the next election.

The State Governor Penny Wensley though, claims she is not able to recognize him as opposition leader. The Opposition acknowledges him as such, and acts accordingly but apparently that doesn't count.

For many years the UN and most Western nations including ours recognized the murderous Pol Pot regime that had murdered more than 20% of the nations population as the government of Cambodia even after it had been overthrown.

But Campbell cannot be recognized as Opposition Leader:

QUEENSLAND Governor Penelope Wensley says she cannot recognize Campbell Newman as LNP leader.

Speaking on ABC Radio, Ms Wensley said she had taken advice on the issue of Mr. Newman's appointment as leader from outside of Parliament.

She said because Mr. Newman's position wasn't official under the constitution, she had to recognize Jeff Seeney as Opposition Leader.

``I did look at that closely because it is clear that the former lord mayor can not be the Leader of the Opposition and function as the Leader of the Opposition as someone who is not elected to Parliament,'' she said.

``So he holds a different position and I am meticulous in my recognition of Jeff Seeney as the Leader of the Opposition.''
Ms Wensley said on occasions when she had cause to write to politicians she engaged with both sides equally but this did not include Mr. Newman.

In Australia the Governor General and State Governors, while being technically ‘the Queens representative and appointed by her, they are actually selected by the relevant government.