Tag Archives: Energy Tax

News

Australia rejects cap and trade tax, New Zealand caught hiding the decline

1 Comment

Story from the UK Times. (H/T Hot Air)

Excerpt:

Australia’s plan to be at the forefront of efforts in Copenhagen to tackle global warming has been torn to shreds after the Senate voted against carbon emission legislation.

The Government’s Bill was voted down 41 to 33 this morning at the end of a marathon debate. The defeat became inevitable yesterday when the main opposition party dumped its leader and replaced him with a climate change sceptic.

Tony Abbott, a right-wing maverick, ousted Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal leader, by one vote in a backroom ballot. He immediately vowed to oppose the Government’s proposed carbon emissions trading scheme Bill.

[…]“The last thing we should be doing is rushing through a great big new tax just so Mr Rudd can take a trophy to Copenhagen,” Mr Abbott said minutes after taking over the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Earlier this week, I blogged about the new opposition leader Tony Abbott.

A good summary of the week’s climate news is here at Michelle Malkin‘s blog.

New Zealand may be hiding the decline, too

And finally, Watts Up With That is reporting about a conflict between New Zealand’s official climate data and the raw climate data. (H/T MandM, Evolution News)

Excerpt:

The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century… But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result… Gone is the relentless rising temperature trend, and instead there appears to have been a much smaller growth in warming, consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.

[…]There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.

About half the adjustments actually created a warming trend where none existed; the other half greatly exaggerated existing warming. All the adjustments increased or even created a warming trend, with only one (Dunedin) going the other way and slightly reducing the original trend.

The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming, as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.

One station, Hokitika, had its early temperatures reduced by a huge 1.3°C, creating strong warming from a mild cooling, yet there’s no apparent reason for it.

We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2—it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.

Here we go again! If you click through, just compare the first two graphs. The first graph is the official data, the second graph is the raw data. They are completely different because of the apparently unjustified “adjustments”.

News

Evaluating Sarah Palin’s speech in Hong Kong

2 Comments
Sarah Palin giving a speech on economic policy
Sarah Palin giving a speech on economic policy

Story from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Caffeinated Thoughts, Muddling Towards Maturity)

Let’s take a look at her speech.

Somebody has been reading Thomas Sowell’s book “A Conflict of Visions”, in which he talks about “the constrained vision” and “the unconstrained vision”.

We don’t believe that human nature is perfectible; we’re suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it’s trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is.

Here’s her defense of the free market.

Lack of government wasn’t the problem. Government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn’t fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to. The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who, as I say, couldn’t afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks.

The speech also discusses cap-and-trade, free trade, and more.

Critical acclaim

Caffeinated Thoughts did a great job of linking some of the reactions from the left.

The New York Times:

A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.

“The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners…

[…]Mr. Goodé, a New Yorker who said he would never vote for Mrs. Palin, said she acquitted herself well.

“They really prepared her well,” he said. “She was articulate and she held her own. I give her credit. They’ve tried to categorize her as not being bright. She’s bright.”

My view? I say that Thomas Sowell prepared her. She probably ordered all his books from Amazon.com. Then she read them all at the kitchen table, with her glasses on and a laptop in front of her for her notes.

I am becoming more and more comfortable with her as a solid advocate for my point of view.

Check out her Facebook page where she’s been writing lately.

Share

News

Barack Obama after 100 days: Worst President Ever!

2 Comments

Hans Bader has the details at the Open Market blog, the blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

What about Obama’s campaign promise for a net spending cut?

The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s proposed budgets will explode the national debt through massive spending increases, increasing the already large deficits left behind by the Bush Administration from $4.4 trillion to $9.3 trillion. His record-setting budgets flagrantly violate his promise to propose a “net spending cut.”

His promise not to raise taxes on those making less than 250K?

Obama broke his campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year by signing a regressive SCHIP excise tax increase, and by proposing a cap-and-trade energy tax that could charge up to $2 trillion, a massive cost that Obama himself has said will be passed “on to consumers,” as well as homeowners and motorists.

His promise to improve transparency?

Over and over again, Obama has broken his campaign promise to give the public five days of notice before signing bills into law, including his very first law, the trial-lawyer backed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

…Obama broke seven campaign promises dealing with transparency and clean government in signing the $800 billion stimulus package, much of whose contents were secret until shortly before Congress voted on it, and whose 1400 pages went unread by most Congressmen who voted on it.

And there’s more in the post! He doesn’t even mention the federal cigarette tax hike!

I posted some nice charts showing the messes we are in as far as spending, debt and jobs.

RELATED: The Heritage Foundation has more details on the spending catastrophes of the first 100 days. And he hasn’t even gotten started on card check, health care and cap and trade, yet!

UPDATE: A friend e-mails me regarding this essay by John Hawkins, (of Right Wing News), documenting the 20 most notable features of Obama’s first 100 days.

My favorite:

7) In the best example yet of Obama’s over-reliance on a teleprompter and the mainstream media’s fervent devotion to him, during an appearance with the Irish prime minister, there was a mix-up — and “President Obama thanked President Obama for inviting everyone over.” The same mainstream media which relentlessly mocked George Bush for his slip-ups wouldn’t even release the footage.

Read the whole thing! Early humor before this week’s Friday funny.

Worst. President. Ever.