It’s a Johnson/Gray LP ticket.

The Libertarian Party nominated former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson for President of the United States, expressing confidence he will be able to find effective small-government solutions to the country’s most pressing problems and mount a strong challenge to his major party rivals.

Mr. Johnson was declared the party’s Presidential nominee after he won 70% percent of the vote in the first round of balloting by the 595 delegates of the National Libertarian Convention held at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, NV. His closest challenger, R. Lee Wrights of Texas, finished second with 25% of the ballots.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Johnson promised to present a clear and viable alternative to major party candidates, saying his victory in November will offer Americans effective solutions to slow economic growth, high unemployment and endless foreign military commitments that sap the country’s financial strengths. America, for the first time in modern history, is poised to reject the tired two-party duopoly that has brought the nation to its knees economically.

“I am honored and I just want to pledge that no one will be disappointed. We're going to grow the Libertarian Party.” said Mr. Johnson.

A successful businessman who lives in Taos, NM, Mr. Johnson is known as an unwavering crusader for fiscal responsibility, free enterprise and individual freedoms. During his gubernatorial tenure, he used his veto pen more than 750 times to forestall attempts to grow government and put an end to wasteful government projects. He cut taxes 14 while maintaining New Mexico as one of only four states in the country with a balanced budget. The state boasted a $1 billion budget surplus when Mr. Johnson left office in 2003.

In other news, Judge James P Gray is the nominee for VP:

The Libertarian Party on Saturday nominated Judge James P. Gray of California for Vice President of the United States, giving him a chance to take his agenda of downsizing the federal government and marijuana decriminalization to Washington.

Jim Gray was declared the party’s Vice Presidential nominee after he won 59 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting. He received 357 votes from the 600 delegates of the National Libertarian Convention. His closest challenger, Lee Wrights of Texas, finished second with 229 votes.

“I am proud. I am invigorated. I am excited. With Gov. Gary Johnson. I am determined to bring back prosperity and liberty to the United States of America.” Judge Gray said. A successful jurist who lives in Newport Beach, Calif. and presided over the Superior Court of Orange County, Judge Gray has been active in the Libertarian Party for several decades.

LNP central planning not interested in uranium development.

Image: Barry Goldwater poster.

“We have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. We are plodding along at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse.” – Barry Goldwater Republican nomination acceptance speech, 1964.

Campbell Newman and his ‘can do’ team are now in power with an overwhelming majority, holding 78 seats in an 89 seat parliament. With that sort of advantage they can pretty much do whatever they wish in implementing the policies they were elected on.

‘Can Do,’ and his team presented us with their famous ‘action plan’ featuring their vaunted ‘Four Pillar’ strategy: “Grow a Four Pillar Economy through focusing on tourism, agriculture, resources and construction and by cutting red tape and regulation.”

It appears now though they are stuck with the same old central planning approach that we are accustomed to dealing with under Labor governments, whereby nothing can happen without the state seal of approval. Governments here tend to be terrified of deviating from the old five-year plan concept, lest the perception arise that they are not really in total control.

In reply to newly elected Mount Isa Mayor Tony McGrady and his push to have a uranium mine develop just out of the city, the government has stated that its opposition to uranium mining would not be relaxed. The curious aspect to this is that opposition to uranium mining was always a Labor policy, not a LNP one. This begs the question, “Just who the hell is running things, the government or the bureaucracy?”

Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps says the LNP has no plans to develop Queensland's uranium resources.

The government had identified other mining and energy issues as "being significantly higher priority than uranium mining", Mr Cripps said in a statement.

It seems from this statement that if the people of Mt Isa want a new mine, they are going to have to find something that central planning has priority for, or perhaps convert their uranium into coal or perhaps iron ore. The city and surrounding area has been mined for over a century, so it is not likely to require much in the way of infrastructure beyond what a mining company would be responsible for.

If the uranium is there, companies will wish to mine it, providing investment and jobs in the area, as well as royalties for the state. All the LNP and government at large, have to do is get out of the way and let it happen.

Climate scientists get Windsor style ‘death threats’.

H/t: Australian Climate Madness.

Around a year ago independent Gillard backing MP, Tony Windsor was feeling rather friendless, (something he is now used to) and made the rather dramatic claim that he was getting death threats. Rather than accept that his support for the carbon tax was responsible for enraging the electorate, Tony blamed radio ‘shock jocks’ and likened himself to Gabriel Giffords.

This got him sympathy from the Canberra Press Gallery for a time but after being challenged to release the threats he eventually came up with one saying: "You're a f**kin liar, a dog, a rat, a big f***en MP dog doing damn nothing. You wait. You're not going to get voted in again. I hope you die you bastard.”

This is somewhat intemperate but hardly a death threat, unless it came from someone with a bit if influence from the Almighty like Cardinal Pell, Arch Bishop Phillip Aspinall, or Rev. Fred Nile however this is unlikely. Being men of the cloth they would tend to frame it more delicately such as, “I fervently pray for your imminent demise, you bastard.”

Not wanting to be left out of a good drama, our Australian climate scientists, at least the sort who get government grants for their work, decided to claim that they were just like Tony. The public broadcaster the ABC, declared breathlessly:

Several of the scientists in Canberra have been moved to a more secure location after receiving the threats over their research.

Vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young says the scientists have received large numbers of emails, including death threats and abusive phone calls, threatening to attack the academics in the street if they continue their research.

He says it has been happening for the past six months and the situation has worsened significantly in recent weeks. …

Professor Young says the outrageous behaviour has left the scientists shaken. "Academics and scientists are actually really not equipped to be treated in this way," he said.

Blogger Simon Turnill from Australian Climate madness submitted a FOI request for the documents relating to these claimed threats, which was rejected. He then appealed this decision with the result that the Privacy Commissioner ruled that none of the documents produced contain such threats:

CLAIMS that some of Australia's leading climate change scientists were subjected to death threats as part of a vicious and unrelenting email campaign have been debunked by the Privacy Commissioner.

Timothy Pilgrim was called in to adjudicate on a Freedom of Information application in relation to Fairfax and ABC reports last June alleging that Australian National University climate change researchers were facing the ongoing campaign and had been moved to "more secure buildings" following explicit threats.

In a six-page ruling made last week, Mr Pilgrim found that 10 of 11 documents, all emails, "do not contain threats to kill" and the other "could be regarded as intimidating and at its highest perhaps alluding to a threat."

Chief Scientist Ian Chubb, who was the ANU's vice-chancellor at the time, last night admitted he did not have any recollection of reading the emails before relocating the university's researchers. "I don't believe I did," Professor Chubb told The Australian. Instead, he said he had responded "as a responsible employer."

"I had a bunch of concerned staff and they thought they should be moved to a more secure place so I moved them," he said.

Curiously, despite the claimed nature of the threats to life and limb of the 'scientists' involved, no complaints were lodged with the police on what is normally considered a very serious matter.

Pickering’s comment on parties is valid.

Most of Larry Pickering’s commentary on government and politics have been done via the medium of his cartoons, quite a few of which are used here with his permission. After becoming our foremost political cartoonist in the 70s and 80s he retired but has been drawn back after finding today’s silliness, too hard to resist.

(Left) One from the late 70s on Fraser’s propensity for early elections from his gallery.

He also runs the odd commentary on his blog, among them the following:

HEY TONY, BACK OFF MATE.

The woman is down... don’t keep kicking her! It’s a crook look.

The nation is already watching her death throes. Even those facing public execution are afforded a modicum of dignity.

You have not taken the Coalition to ascendancy. She has led the ALP to oblivion. Her support now is hard-core rank and file adherents who you could never win the hearts of anyway.

Sit back and watch the implosion. There is no need to keep punching a comatose opponent. If you do, you will edge dangerously close to exactly what they are accusing you of.

You are in the luxurious position of having to do nothing, so do nothing, except express genuine sadness at what has happened to our country and Parliamentary process.

Promote good policy and desist from throwing right hooks. Tell Robb and Hockey to shut their conflicting traps. There is nothing more to be gained, only ground to be lost.

The bell has rung, the decision made. You have won... you don’t need to land more punches. The public won’t like it and it begs “underdog” support. Oh, and lose that supercilious “gotcha” grin. In fact you have done nothing! They have done it all themselves.

Possibly the one area that this can be faulted in is the call to lay off her. When in opposition a leader has to have some of the mongrel street fighter in him to attack the actions of the governing party where wrong. In the case of the current government though, Abbott needs to find a balance. The problem for the opposition is that this government is so incompetent that it leaves itself open to criticism in everything it does. The opposition needs to pick its targets.

He is correct in his call to promote good policy. This is the really weak spot of the opposition, in that they tend in any policy they have come up with to follow the lead of the government but with a different, but not necessarily a better one.

The Liberal climate policy sucks, only just a bit less than the carbon tax. On parental leave, the Libs have the rather idiotic notion of six months on full salary up to $150,000 per year funded by a tax surcharge on our most productive companies. And then there is the one about a nanny in every home; fair dincum, it is only the dysfunctionallity of the current government that allows Abbott to get away with it.

The current situation we have, whereby the opposition have a primary vote of 51% is not caused by its effectiveness, it is as Pickering has said, something the government has done to itself. Most rational people are hoping for a change of government, which is about the only reason the Liberals have any traction.

There is a deep uncertainty as to whether Abbott and his moribund crowd of 50s era conservatives could maintain a lead over Labor were the latter to find a viable leader, say Turnbull.

If the Liberals were to offer some initiative and come up with fiscally conservative small government approaches with a winding back of business and nanny state regulation , they might deserve to be considered a viable alternative. In the meantime we have to worry as to whether Abbott will shoot himself in the foot with his mouth before the next election.

Flogging a Dead Horse

Cartoon: By PIckering.

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


Back in July 2009, when Penny Wong’s Ration and Tax Scheme was the talk of the town, “Carbon Sense” made a forecast:

“The aging galloper “Ration-N-Tax” from the Wong stable is knackered.

“Anyone with any economic or political nous knows that the carbon cap proposals are neither politically nor economically possible in Australia or the USA. No electorate in the western world will sit by to see their standard of living reduced until their carbon emissions per capita are equal to those of India or China while they transfer their businesses and technology to these growing industrial giants of Asia.

“From now on, those pushing the RAT Scheme are flogging a dead horse. Public opinion is changing swiftly and any time soon even Malcolm Turnbull will switch his bets.

“But the canny handlers anticipated this result and have another nag saddled and ready.”
Read on:

However the backers have overloaded “Carbon Tax” and he is already having trouble getting traction. In the image above, Larry Pickering captured the scene on the Molonglo Training Circuit recently.

Wind power – more accurately wind impotence, since turbines operate at just 24 per cent of capacity – is the curse of Scotland. One of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe has been brutally ravaged, families have been driven into fuel poverty, pensioners have been presented with the lethal dilemma “heat or eat” – all to appease the neurotic prejudices of global warming fanatics. - Gerald Warner, Scotland on Sunday 11/3/12

It's never been said here before, but Ariana’s right.

In an unusual twist, Ariana Huffington has offered scathing criticism of the recent ‘killing bin Laden’ Obama ad:

"I agree with the Romney campaign, that using the Osama bin Laden assassination killing the great news that we had a year ago, in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney may not have done it . . . to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do."

Generally finding Australian politics gives me more than adequate reason to be outraged, I have not bothered to view it before and was stunned by the narcissistic politico centric thought behind it:


Bill Clinton has dropped a few notches in my estimation over his statement:

“Nobody can make that decision for you. Look, he knew what would happen. Suppose the navy seals had gone in there and it hadn’t been bin Laden, suppose they had been captured or killed, the downside would have been horrible for him. …”

So, “the downside would have been horrible for him” [the President]. How about for the team involved? These are the politically forgotten men floating out of sight on a sea of presidential hubris. These are the men who laid it all on the line to bring justice to a mass murderer hiding in a phenomenally difficult place to attack.

All that the President risked was a small amount of political capital, which could have been mitigated by time, claims of a courageous decision, or laying the blame on someone else.

The contrast is stark.

‘Small government extremists’ a threat; former reserve bank head.

Former Australian Reserve Bank head, Bernie Fraser found someone willing to listen to him today and cut loose on all that is wrong with the country from his perspective, that is. It seems that what we need most is a caring, compassionate government committed to ‘fairness’.

Bernie is upset that Treasurer, Wayne Swan is talking about bringing the budget into surplus, which he calls a “Dud Policy.” Given that Labor has not produced a surplus in living memory, and this government immediately went from Howard surpluses to massive deficits, Bernie has little to worry about other than the damage that could result from anything Gillard/Swan attempt.

For this government to produce a surplus would require a book cooking effort good enough for Swan to win ‘Master chef’ next season.

Fraser rails against the incompetence of this government, and rightly so:

But Mr Fraser says Labor's "disastrous" mismanagement of stimulus programs it put in place to counter the global downturn have given government spending a bad name.

"The education building program, the insulation building programs, unfortunately those programs were pretty disastrous and the implications of those sorts of failures have rebounded on all government spending and it's really given the Coalition some free kicks," he said.

"Here is a Government spending money and wasting money and therefore governments shouldn't spend, they shouldn't run deficits, they shouldn't have debt.

His main problem with this though is that it will provide ammunition to proponents of small government, who he views with contempt:

He says Labor's failings could pave the way for a long era of politics dominated by an extreme ideology of small government with parallels in the United States. "To listen to the Coalition spokespeople, I hear echoes of the Republicans and the more extreme Tea Party Republicans - all this folksy nonsense about governments have to live within their means, deficits are bad, debt's bad," he said.

The main argument for smaller government is not coming from the Liberals, The people of Victoria have discovered that a change of government merely gets rid of big government Laborites, and replaces them with big government conservatives. It is coming from the populace, who are tired of profligate busybodies who have their hand in every transaction in the nation, and have watched the current government pass new regulations at the rate of 77 per week for the last four years.

Four years of Labor has resulted in another 16,000 regulations to be obeyed over the top of all the ones we had before.