“Back to the Horse and Sulky?

Cartoon by Ramirez.

"The Australian" reveals that we might owe a debt of gratitude to Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner if the senate rejects Rudd's cap and trade bill.

FAMILY First senator Steve Fielding, whose vote could be critical to the Rudd Government's emissions trading system, yesterday heard warnings of dire economic consequences if carbon trading schemes were introduced.

Wisconsin Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner told a climate change conference in Washington attended by Senator Fielding that electricity bills would double or triple under US cap-and-trade legislation. And he denounced the climate change movement as simply transferring wealth to developing countries.

Mr Sensenbrenner said that without China and India signing any climate change legislation, it would be foolish for the US or any other country to take the lead, arguing that capping emissions in the US would allow other countries to take an advantage. ....

While climate change advocates challenge these claims, Senator Fielding said the arguments presented yesterday were giving him pause to reflect on the entire debate over climate change.

"I'm not sure we should be signing anything before Copenhagen," he said after listening to Mr Sensenbrenner. "If it's true climate change is driven more by solar changes, then I have to consider if (climate change legislation) is worth doing."

The latest press release by Viv Forbes sounds reasonably optimistic as public opinion seems to be changing and hardening against the governments grab for power and revenue in response to the great global warming scam. I have included most of the introductory letter above it.

The Public is Cooling.

By Viv Forbes.

The public is turning very skeptical as the threatened global warming is not occurring as forecast, and as the huge cost of the Ration-N-Tax Scheme becomes obvious. Industry leaders who should have been leading the fight against the whole idea of trying to control climate by rationing the production of carbon dioxide are now scrambling to get special exemptions for their industries or companies.

As the public cools, and the weather refuses to show warming, the alarmists are becoming even more alarmed. They are desperate to get any law onto the books and to get any silly unachievable international agreement signed. We must make every effort to stop them.

There are interesting times ahead.

“Heaven and Earth” is Moving Mountains

The publication of Ian Plimer’s best-selling book “Heaven and Earth” has created volcanic eruptions in some circles. Here is a video on the Quadrant web site of Professor Plimer being interviewed by Brian Carlton (courtesy; "Quadrant Online"):


Third International Conference on Climate Change

This influential world conference held in New York recently and attended by more than 250 scientists, economists, policy makers and media concluded with the release of what will become a key publication in the global warming debate:

“Climate Change Reconsidered, the 2009 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)” by Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer.

For a video of the launch of this book by Heartland President Joseph Bast, editor of “Climate Change Reconsidered”, see here.

A Recommended Website: http://www.drroyspencer.com/

Good Riddance to the Good Old Days

There are those who wish to return us to the “Pre-Carboniferous Era” before we started to use coal and petroleum, and when the world ran on “green” energy.

I lived in the end of that era, and I do not want to go back. Stories and pictures from those times can be found here:

The Media Release below has constructive suggestions for World Environment Day, Friday 5th June. As always, we hope you will help the debate by spreading this newsletter and the release around.

“Back to the Horse and Sulky?

A statement/letter by Mr. Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.

On World Environment Day 5 June 2009

If environmentalists were really concerned for the environment, they would spend time on World Environment Day worshipping carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, not demonizing it.

All life in the biosphere depends on the carbon cycle.

The cycle starts when plants using solar energy and photosynthesis extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere converting it into plant sugars and proteins. In that process, plants provide food for all herbivores (and vegetarians) and also for the carnivores that live on them. Plants extract carbon from the carbon dioxide and return oxygen to the atmosphere for the use of animal life. To complete the carbon cycle, the waste products and decaying bodies of all living things return the carbon to the atmosphere. Atmospheric CO2 is the key element in the cycle of life and worthy of worship on World Environment Day.

Life on earth evolved in times when CO2 levels were about 400% higher than at present. The current level of 386 ppm is not far above the 200 ppm level at which plants stop growing because of carbon dioxide starvation. Nurserymen know this and use gas burners to increase the CO2 level in their greenhouses and plant nurseries to 1,000 ppm or more. If the atmosphere reached this level there would be massive improvement in plant growth, with benefits for the whole environment. There is no danger to humans at this level - the CO2 levels in submarines may reach 8,000 ppm without problems for humans, and our exhaled breath has about 40,000 ppm of CO2.

Warmth, increased evaporation from the oceans, increased precipitation and increased CO2 would be the magic combination for a greener planet. Burning fossil fuel adds CO2 and water to the atmosphere, and helps to return the world to the verdant conditions prevailing when our great coal deposits were formed.

However most environmentalists, in their hatred of humanity and technology, are trying to take us back to the days of the horse and sulky. They extol the simple life where a few lucky people lived in a Garden of Eden with no nasty cars, trains, planes, engines or electricity.

Our pioneering ancestors lived such a life, and one grandmother summarized the feeling of many of them on “The Good Old Days” when she said:

“Thank God the good old days are over.”

Here is a true story about life on a genuine “green” farm in the horse and sulky days.

If this doesn’t piss you off you are on the wrong site.

H/T Libertarian Republican.

A tale of Three Presidents.

I am heading off for another swing at work tomorrow so I'll not be online for a while. I am leaving this for your amusement, courtesy of an Email I received. As a working man I can leave it up to you to figure out which two I prefer and which one I have little time for.



We start with W.

Then we have an action shot of Reagan.

Then the not so outdoors  type.

Ron Paul on economic collapse.

H/T comments on Libertarian Republican.

This video starts as commentary on torture and Pelosi, but after the first couple of minutes goes onto Paul’s 2003 prediction of the current situation.



I generally get in the shit with Paulists when I comment on him, however I have great respect for him on economic issues. He starts to lose me however when he apes the lefts crap about empire. The US is not an empire and not likely to ever become one. I agree with him on many of the cuts he proposes but in the current situation defense would not be one of them.

I would however try to aim first at cutting the size and scope of those departments rather than their immediate abolition, which Paul aims for. I believe much of what he claims can be eliminated, can be and should be eliminated, but to insist on doing so immediately is will pretty much guarantee the election of those who will build them up. They should be wound back as quickly as possible and ultimately abolished, and we can get there and maybe even further than Ron envisages now, but we have to use language we can win with to have a chance.

Vic Summers: Competing at 90.

Vic Summers (foreground) on the way to winning his first heat at the Gympie Show. (From Gympie Times)

Vic Summers must be one of the most retiring guys I know, it seems that every time I have spoken to him over the last 20 years or so he is retiring from competition in wood chopping. This year is no exception although he has left it a little open, stating that he might keep going if he wins, and he won the Veterans Standing H/cp.

Vic was a world champion and a legend of the sport when I was knee high to a grasshopper, and is still a great competitor at the age of 90, although less well known outside the sport. Handicapping seems to be a feature of these competitions, and he always seemed to be the last one starting, even to the point where some of the competitors would be well into the other side of their block before he was allowed to strike a blow, and he would still give them a run for their money.

I hope to see him there next year, I am betting he will have a go. Unless he stops enjoying the sport, or can’t compete to his own satisfaction, I think he should keep going after all it would be a shame to toss away about 80 years of experience.

Gratuitous advice from Labor and ‘less important’ promises.

I have commented before on the habit of the Labor Party of giving helpful advice to those who have no interest in it, and this is no exception. The Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner seems to be so disappointed at not having the chance to go toe to toe with the former Treasurer Peter Costello, he wants him disqualified from the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Peter Costello should be disqualified from ever taking on the Liberal leadership, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says.

Speculation about the former treasurer's ambitions flared again last week after the government accused him of launching a personal website to coincide with the federal budget.

The former treasurer should be barred from the leadership because he didn't step up when the party needed him most, Mr Tanner said.

He did not have the "intestinal fortitude" to lead the party after the election loss.

"(And) what he's trying to do now is let (opposition leader) Malcolm Turnbull do all the hard yards in the hope that he, Peter Costello, can just cruise in at the last moment and take all the glory," Mr Tanner told Network Ten.

"I think that disqualifies him from any ambition to lead the nation."

Former PM John Howard made a comment yesterday and was accused of being the defacto leader of the Liberals by the same people who would without doubt adopt the same tactics against Costello if he stepped up to the plate in order to fuel leadership speculation and destabilize the opposition.

If Labor are concerned about leadership they should look to their own. Rudd claims that it is responsible to borrow unprecedented amounts of money and splurge it, even maintaining that it is “In the National interest.” Apparently the national interest consists of making Kevvy popular among those receiving all those $900 checks and keeping him in power.

Most politicians tend to be a little confused about what constitutes their own interests and what are those of the nation.

Meanwhile in Qld Anna Bligh has put aside her former outrage at John Howards concept of core and non-core promises, and adapted it to “Some guarantees are more important than others.”

This of course applies to such promises as “No new taxes,” made a few weeks ago in the lead up to the election which she claimed was necessary as she was the only all knowing person who could lead us out of the recession.

Funny how quickly things change after an election.

Stupid Reasons for Gun Control.

Cartoon By "Lester."

"The problem is not that we have too many fools, it's that the lightning isn't distributed right." .......  Mark Twain.

H/T Bill Lee at Progressively Conservative Conversations.

The above site linked to a great article from the Kentucky Coalition to Carry Concealed called “40 Reasons For Gun Control.” This was in turn excerpted from an article by Michael Z. Williamson, called "It's amazing what one has to believe to believe in gun control," which unfortunately seems to have been deleted.

One of the most difficult things about arguing for gun ownership in modern times is the incredible naivety of many of the supporters of gun control fostered by those who seriously promote this idea. The core promoters are those who seem to believe that the state should be the sole armed entity in the nation and push the concept that we will all be safer if the police and military are the only armed people.

This item lists a few of the more incredibly stupid ideas one has to subscribe to in order to support the whole concept of gun control: -
Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."

We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.

The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.

An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.

A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.

The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns & Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.

Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.

Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by because they can be trusted.

"Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.

Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.

The whole article is here.