Posts filed under 'Bizarreness'

Those “green” electric cars…well, they’re not really all that “green”

It turns out that the good old-fashioned petrol car isn’t that evil after all…or that it is evil, and the electric car isn’t the saintly solution that it was supposed to be…or something like that. I’ll let Yid with Lid explain.

Global Warming Moonbats believe that electric cars are one of the major solutions to the problem of man-made global warming which is causing the snow caps to melt, animals to die and your public library to run out of the book you have been waiting to read. According to a new study, electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than gas equivalents.

According to the study, an electric car owner would have to drive at least 80,000 miles 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 90 miles on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 100,000 would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

Yid with Lid then goes on to quote from an article out of The Australian:

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.

Darn, and there I was feeling all warm and fuzzy because my not-overly-efficient petrol guzzling car and my penchant for going on long drives for little reason (I’ve averaged 139 km per day over the last nine months, not including the kilometers travelled in the few weeks that I had a hire car) was helping to boost the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and feeding all of the plants, when all along I would apparently have produced more carbon dioxide in an electric car.

Then again, given that I can travel further before needing to refuel in my car than I would be able to do in an electric car, I probably am coming out ahead on the carbon dioxide count, but if I ever do become one of those “I only ever drive to work and the corner shop” people, then I’ll change to an electric car to keep that carbon dioxide count up.

(h/t to: Yid With Lid for the linked and quoted blog post, Mark Levin for bringing the blog post to my attention, and Ben Webster of The Times in London for the article which was reprinted in The Australian.)

Samuel

June 15th, 2011 at 12:22pm

Why wait five years?

Remember that story, was it last week, about the “anthropogenic global warming is real” climate scientists at the Australian National University who were receiving death threats because of their beliefs? Did the timing seem as odd to you as it did to me?

It certainly seemed odd to Andrew Carswell from The Daily Telegraph who did some digging and discovered that these death threats which supposedly had the ANU put these scientists in lockdown very recently, actually occurred up to five years ago.

CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.

Only two of ANU’s climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago.

Neither was officially reported to ACT Police or Australian Federal Police, despite such crimes carrying a 10-year prison sentence.

The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.

The university denied it was creating a ruse, maintaining the initial report, in the Fairfax-owned Canberra Times last week, failed to indicate when the threats were made.Reports also suggested the threats had forced the ANU to lock away its climate change scientists and policy advisers in a high-security complex. The Daily Telegraph has discovered the nine scientists and staff in question were merely given keyless swipe cards – routine security measures taken last year.

(The article goes in to much more detail, read more here.)

A few points about this:

One. When you receive a death threat or similar, the advice from police is to not talk about it, lest it encourage more threats…but of course these threats were never reported to police, which makes one wonder who seriously the threats were taken in the first place.

Two. If it happened so long ago, why bring it up now (and tell the left-leaning, global-warming-is-going-to-doom-us-all Canberra Times) unless you’re fishing for sympathy and trying to paint a negative image of people who believe the science from the other side of the debate?

Three. Why lie about the lockdown?

Now, don’t get me wrong, death threats are wrong, threats of harm are wrong. I’ve witnessed the effects first-hand and know how awful it can be to be on the end of such threats. The people who make these threats should be punished to the full extent of the law. But to the same extent, lying about receiving threats is also wrong, and strikes me as a sign of someone who is either unstable or seeking undue attention.

Now, can we please get back to the actual debate about climate change rather than the debate about which side of the debate is insane?

Samuel

June 9th, 2011 at 02:14pm

Camels for Carbon. These people really are nuts.

I first spotted this story this morning on The Drudge Report. Most of the stuff I spot on Drudge turns out to be correct, but this story was just so out there that even I wasn’t sure. Drudge was linking to a Financial Times article, this made me wary as the Financial Times, while filled with interesting stories, is a British newspaper…could this be our royal overlords having fun at our expense I wondered?

Then I noticed that the story is in The Australian this morning, which increased the story’s credibility even though The Oz credits the Financial Times for some of the story, and was noted by Reuters last week. My fears about the story being a hoax were quashed, but my fears about the Australian Government being insane were confirmed.

Details from The Australian’s Graham Lloyd:

A consultation paper issued by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency gives the first insight into how the federal government will decide what will qualify for carbon permits and what will not. Feral pests are firmly in the sights.

A proposal by Northwest Carbon to cull the estimated one million feral camels roaming the outback has made the list. The company’s plan, first revealed in London’s Financial Times newspaper, was based on an agreement with the West Australian Department of Agriculture and Food to develop a market solution to control feral camels.

Large areas of Western Australia are overrun with the camels, which do enormous damage to vegetation and have been known to terrorise townships in their search for water.

In its written proposal to government, Northwest says it would shoot the animals from helicopters or four-wheel-drives, muster them and send them to an abattoir or process them for pet food in the field.

The company has promised to use marksmen trained and accredited in animal welfare.

One camel is estimated to emit about a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, measured as 45kg of methane, and they each eat about a tonne of vegetation.

Camels are bad. We get it. So just go and shoot them and make pet food out of them. Don’t start insisting that you need carbon credits for it, especially when you’re flying around in carbon dioxide emitting helicopters to do it, because once we go down this road of saying that killing animals warrants carbon credits, there is no turning back and the ramifications are massive.

If killing a camel warrants a carbon credit, then it won’t be long before killing cows warrants carbon credits (and more of them than the other plan in the government report of giving cows some sort of medication which makes them belch less), and given the current ruminations about compensating farmers whose cattle isn’t going anywhere, I can see killing off their herds and giving them resettlement funds while the farms get turned in to government-run solar power plants as an option which the government will consider.

Or even worse (if there is such a thing as worse than destroying our agricultural sector), domestic pets. If the government sees camels as polluters (not that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, but you get my point), what about the domestic pets which also emit carbon dioxide? Will the government issue carbon credits for killing these animals…or even humans?

If people want to turn feral animals in to pet food, then good, go for it, make money by doing it like you would have done before the term “carbon credit” existed, but don’t expect the government to reward you for it with a set of carbon credits…the ramifications of such a scheme are alarming at best. The really worrying thing though is that the government is considering it and taking it seriously.

Mark my words. If this gets beyond the “consultation” stage and becomes policy, this country will not be worth living in. Obamacare’s death panels will be quite tame compared to this.

Samuel

June 9th, 2011 at 11:14am

The Sunday Bits for Sunday June 5, 2011

Good Sunday Morning. Plenty to get through this morning, so we’ll dive straight in.

A little while after I posted many details on the fact that the US economy is in serious trouble, more evidence of this came to light.

The US government’s jobs report showed hiring by US companies slowed markedly in May, while the unemployment rate kept rising.

Non-farm payrolls rose by 54,000 last month as the private sector posted the smallest job gain in nearly a year, according to the Labour Department. The jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, unexpectedly rose to 9.1 per cent in May.
[..]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 97.29 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 12151.26, led lower by Alcoa, which dropped US28 cents (1.7 per cent) to $US15.92. The blue-chip index has dropped 5.1 per cent during its five-week losing skid and closed today at its lowest level since March 23.

(h/t Steven Russolillo, Dow Jones Newswires, via The Australian)

The fact is, the US economy was never in recovery despite what the Obama administration would have you believe. It had a decent period of stability on the back of over-the-top government spending, but it never entered a recovery, and as was always going to happen, the government’s crippling debt is now an even bigger problem than the original economic woes were. If there ever was any doubt (I’d say that there wasn’t, but it’s an arguable point), it’s gone now, Obama owns this recession and seemingly has very little idea of how to fix it.

***

On a similar note, another market isn’t doing so well. The carbon trading market.

THE World Bank has revealed the global market for trading in carbon permits has stalled, just weeks out from the federal government’s release of its detailed plans to shift to an emissions trading scheme.
[..]
The value of the primary Clean Development Mechanism market fell by double digits for the third year in a row, ending lower than it was in 2005.

(h/t Graham Lloyd and Siobhain Ryan from The Australian)

Even the bankers can’t work out how to make a quid out of this crazy scheme. It seems that trading in fresh air just isn’t lucrative, so what makes Ms. Gillard and friends think that taxing the air will be any more successful?

***

In the news today we have a rather interesting story which seems like a good idea…and like many good ideas these days, somebody in the media has decided to label it as “radical”.

CHILDREN as young as 12 would be allowed to drive under a radical road-safety training proposal to be put to the State Government this week.

That opening line sounds crazy, but if we dig a little deeper, we find that it’s misleading.

Under the CAMS plan, schoolchildren would be given up to four practical lessons each year from age 12. CAMS will explore the idea of using dirt tracks or paddocks for lessons, which would include driving along a skid pan.

CAMS president Andrew Papadopoulos – who taught his own children to drive at age 12 – said the existing school driving courses needed to include a much greater practical component.

He said waiting until students were 17 or 18 to teach them driving skills was too late, because many young people had already developed attitudes towards driving by that age.

“This is about instilling the right attitude to driving in kids early,” he said.

(h/t Linda Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph)

If, as the opening line suggest, this idea was about letting twelve-year-olds loose on the roads, then I’d agree that it’s “radical” and alarming, but the actual idea is an incredibly good idea. Our current system puts kids (they’re under 18, they’re kids, even if the ACT government disagrees and thinks 12-17 is “young person” and not “child”) in a position where driving is a novelty to them, and generally a fun thing rather than a serious thing. The problems tend to be attitudinal ones more than capability ones.

This idea would change the attitudes of kids before they are old enough to drive on the open road by taking them through practical sessions which would imprint the fact that driving is a serious activity.

If it were up to me, I’d be implementing this idea immediately. I also have ideas to overhaul the driver’s licence system in a way which would make the process of getting a licence similar to the current arrangements for motorbike licences, with an emphasis on solo learning under limited demerit points. People who could successfully graduate from such a system would then go straight on to a full licence, while people who fail either by racking up too many demerit points or by failing assessments would be forced through a logbook system for basic skills before they could graduate back to the solo-learning system.

I believe that one of the great flaws of our current system is that it teaches reliance on a passenger rather than on one’s own judgement, and considering that the vast majority of driving is done on one’s own, it is important for people to learn on their own…and people who are incapable of that simply shouldn’t be on the road. Of course another thing I would do is get rid of the crazy system which is in place in New South Wales where artificial speed limits are imposed on L and P platers which prevent people from learning to overtake, prevent them from learning to handle a vehicle at highway speeds, and provide a slow-moving hazard for the rest of us.

Anyway, my plan could probably be legitimately considered “radical”. The plan from CAMS on the other hand should not be considered radical, and should be implemented immediately, and it’s good to see the O’Farrell government taking it seriously.

***

Also in New South Wales, and the sideshow this week has been centred around filibusters, not that I can work out why this has caused so much excitement.

The basic story is that the O’Farrell government introduced a bill which would give the Premier the ability to set wages for public servants, something which sounds like a sensible idea for a boss to be able to do. The Greens and Labor, predictably, didn’t like the idea and so tried to block it with a filibuster and a deluge of amendments. Nothing out of the ordinary here, this is a regular tactic in politics and is permitted under the rules of parliament, even if it’s not a regular occurrence in Australian governments. Then, after a few days of this, the Liberal/National coalition used their majority to, as is allowed under the rules of parliament, break the filibuster and restrict debate on the deluge of amendments.

The bill passed the lower house yesterday, and will pass the upper house soon.

Yet, incredibly, this has all sparked outrage from both sides of politics. On the right, there was outrage about the Greens babbling on and on for hours and hours and hours, with individual members setting new records for the amount of time a person has spoken in the New South Wales parliament, and now on the left there is outrage over the government using their massive majority to break the filibuster and pass the bill. Both sets of outrage are ill-considered. It could just be that, due to the rarity of these events in Australian parliaments, people think there is something wrong with the events, but it’s more likely that people are just using the opportunity to make their points on the bill rather than the actual events which have occurred in the parliament.

Either way, I think the simple solution here is to say “move along, nothing to see here” as the political machine just moves through its regular processes.

***

Of course there was also a sideshow in federal politics this week involving cat noises. While it was dumb of Senator David Bushby to meow at Senator Penny Wong, at least he had the grace to apologise for it afterwards. We’re still waiting for the apologies from Ms. Wong’s colleagues for the similarly sexist comments which are shouted at Julie Bishop during every session of parliament.

***

Back to the New South Wales parliament, and Queen Princess Clover is AWOL.

FOUR overstretched and stressed-out State MPs will quit their second jobs as mayors, declaring they can’t cope with the workload of both positions.

But the most prominent double-dipping MP – Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore – refuses to concede there is a problem despite missing every day of parliament last week while on a mayoral junket to Brazil and New York City.

In fact, while parliament was open for business yesterday continuing its marathon session about public sector pay, Ms Moore was tweeting from New York City, where she was checking out bike lanes.

Ms Moore, who has missed 25 per cent of parliamentary sittings since Barry O’Farrell took office, is tightly holding her grip as the Lord Mayor and the MP for Sydney despite politician mayors from all sides of politics admitting it can’t be done.
[..]
Ms Moore, who pulls two six-figure salaries, has three offices and two distinct sets of advisers and staff for each position despite insisting there is overlap in the positions.

(h/t Linda Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph)

It should be illegal to hold political office in multiple governments. It’s illegal to be a public servant and hold a political office, and the conflicts of interest there are similar to the conflicts of interest in holding multiple political offices.

In Clover’s case, it’s beyond me why she needs to inspect bicycle lanes in New York City when she has already plastered the darn things all over Sydney. And the climate change summit in Brazil…catch a plane to that one did we Clover? Wouldn’t a teleconference have been less carbon dioxide intensive? And how exactly are you being an effective member of the New South Wales Parliament if you’re absent a quarter of the time?

Beyond Clover, we’ve seen similar issues with politicians missing votes in the federal parliament. Here’s a thought, perhaps the rule should be that in order to get paid, the politicians have to turn up to the parliament. If you don’t turn up, your pay is docked…just like it would be in the private sector.

***

The AAMI building in Fyshwick
In business news, AAMI Insurance is set to close all of its branches, moving all of its customer service to the phone and online.

Spokesman Reuben Aitchison says the branches these days contribute just two per cent to the business and transactions of the Suncorp-owned company, while there has been a significant growth in business through the Internet.

He says the insurer will now concentrate on providing telephone and online services, and hopes to employ half of about 100 affected staff in call centres.

(h/t Australian Associated Press via The Herald Sun)

Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. If the branches, which are retail outlets anyway and not really able to manage insurance claims, are costing more to run than they are bringing in, then effectively my premiums are subsidising the branches, and I would much rather see AAMI’s running costs reduced than to see my premiums go up. I have no problem with their telephone and online customer service, in fact I have nothing but praise for it. If people really want to sit across a desk from an employee of their insurer, then they can go and pay some other insurance agency the extra money to make it happen.

(Image: AAMI’s Fyshwick building at a tad after 5am yesterday morning).

***

As a general rule, I find that most reasonable people like to help other people. A decent proportion of people are nice enough to want to go out of their way to help people that they don’t know, and are often willing to pay more for a product if they think it will provide a better deal for the person who produced the product. Unfortunately, as a result, these people tend to open themselves up to charlatans who have no qualms with pretending that an expensive product is helping someone, when in fact it isn’t.

For a very long time I have suspected that the “Fair Trade Coffee” market was a scam which was, at best, not helping farmers, and at worst, making their lives worse. Until recently, this was just a suspicion which lacked proof. Now though, proof exists.

That fair-trade cup of coffee we savour may not only fail to ease the lot of poor farmers, it may actually help to impoverish them, according to a study out recently from Germany’s University of Hohenheim.

The study, which followed hundreds of Nicaraguan coffee farmers over a decade, concluded that farmers producing for the fair-trade market “are more often found below the absolute poverty line than conventional producers.

“Over a period of 10 years, our analysis shows that organic and organic-fair trade farmers have become poorer relative to conventional producers.”

(h/t Lawrence Solomon, National Post, and additional h/t to Casey Hendrickson who alerted me to the story some time back)

Have a read of the article. Lawrence, its author, is very well versed in the coffee trade and goes in to some detail about how much of a scam the whole fair trade coffee thing is, and how it discriminates against the poorest of farmers. The highlight of which, for me at least, is:

It discriminates against the very poorest of the world’s coffee farmers, most of whom are African, by requiring them to pay high certification fees. These fees -one of the factors that the German study cites as contributing to the farmers’ impoverishment -are especially perverse, given that the majority of Third World farmers are not only too poor to pay the certification fees, they’re also too poor to pay for the fertilizers and the pesticides that would disqualify coffee as certified organic.

Their coffee is organic by default, but because the farmers can’t provide the fees that certification agencies demand to fly down and check on their operations, the farmers lose out on the premium prices that can be fetched by certified coffee.

To add to the perversity, it’s an open secret that the certification process is lax and almost impossible to police, making it little more than a high-priced honour system. Although the certification associations have done their best to tighten flaws in the system, farmers and middlemen who want to get around the system inevitably do, bagging unearned profits. Those who remain scrupulous and follow the onerous and costly regulations -another source of inefficiency the German study notes in its analysis -lose out.

I won’t repeat the whole thing here, although I do implore you to read it. Lawrence Solomon’s work here is exemplary.

***

In domestic media news, Derryn Hinch continues to fight his decades-long battle for the right to name sex offenders who prey on children, despite the fact that it could very easily see him spend his final days in a jail cell.

3AW drive time host Derryn Hinch has been found guilty this afternoon of breaching suppression orders relating to the naming of two sex offenders.

AAP reports that the journalist is facing the possibility of up to five years in prison, after Magistrate Charles Rozencwajg ruled he had breached suppression orders four times on his website and at a public rally. A fifth charge was dismissed.
[..]
Hinch remains defiant over his decision to name those guilty of sexual offences towards children.

“I still feel the same way I always have… people have a right to know,” he said outside the court.

“I know what I have done. I am not sorry for what I have done. It is a good cause and the law is a bad law.

“I don’t like getting convictions. There are always risks in doing the sort of work that I do and you pay for it.”

(h/t “Big Dan”, Mediaspy)

I happen to agree with Derryn on this one. I am of the belief that people who commit sexual offences against children are sick, vile people who are beyond help. I think they should rot in jail for life or face the death penalty, however in lieu of such laws, we should have the right to know exactly who these people are. The existing laws are wrong.

I hope that Derryn doesn’t have to spend his final days in prison, although if he does, then I have to admire his courage and his convictions (moral, that is, not legal).

***

To sport, and you may have noticed that I gave up on the footy tipping again. Truth is, I’m pretty hopeless at it, and I’ll gladly accept it and move on. I just can’t see the point in continually tipping with less than 50% accuracy.

That said, I am still a fervent fan of the Bulldogs in both the NRL and AFL. Alas that means this weekend has been a pretty poor one.

Watching David Smorgon’s (AFL Bulldogs’ President) body language yesterday, I got the distinct impression that he had a heavy heart from a difficult decision, and as such, I believe that Rodney Eade’s days as coach are very limited and he will not see out the season. This is a shame, because I think Rodney is doing a good job, and it’s the players which are letting him down. Just watching Rodney’s pure frustration in the box each week makes that obvious to me.

As far as I can see, the Dogs had a great chance at winning the Grand Final last year with a team which could not physically last beyond the year. The chance was squandered by the powers that be when they sacked Jason Akermanis. Jason provided the team with the extra option on the field that they needed, and were never able to fill once he left. Rodney Eade tried to work around the loss, but it simply wasn’t possible.

This year, be it through injury or an aging lineup, the situation is worse.

I strongly believe that Rodney could build up a great team within a few years if given the chance with some new talent in the side, and that this is our best shot at a flag in the coming years. A rebuilding phase is needed, but sacking Rodney is a bad idea at this time. I do hope that I misread David Smorgon yesterday.

In the rugby league’s version of the Bulldogs, it is reported today that coach Kevin Moore has lost the support of the board. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I’ve never been a big fan of Kevin Moore as a coach, and I don’t credit him with much of the success the club had in 2009 as I see a lot of that as being the result of board decisions and good players rather the coaching decisions. Kevin is one coach who I won’t miss should he happen to leave.

***

Some audio for you this morning which will touch the hearts of animal lovers everywhere.

Mark Levin, a great radio host and constitutional lawyer in America (we’ve discussed his work here previously), is a dog lover. Sadly his best friend, the lovely dog Pepsi passed away a couple weeks ago. Mark took a week off to mourn the loss and spend the time with his devastated family. I was very saddened when I heard about the loss (Mark mentioned it on Facebook before disappearing for a week) and sent a card to Mark which apparently arrived on Friday. Many thanks to the nice people in Landmark Legal Foundation’s Virginia office for passing the card on to Mark.

When Mark returned to work on Tuesday, he devoted some of his show to explaining what had happened, and just how much Pepsi meant to him. I cried when I heard it, and I gave Nattie a really big hug when I got home. The audio moved me so much that I have to share it with you, with thanks to Citadel Radio for the audio.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/MarkLevinPepsi20110531.mp3]
Download MP3

Mark Levin's dogs Pepsi, Griffen and Sprite

Mark, whose two other dogs Sprite and Griffen were shelter dogs whom he and his family rescued, is very passionate about rescuing dogs which have been abandoned. To that end, he and his family have set up a special fund, “Pepsi, Griffen & Sprite’s Legacy Gift” to help dogs who have been abandoned for one reason or another. All proceeds of the fund go to the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation who provide dental services, surgery, heartworm treatments, diagnostic testing and more for dogs who would otherwise be overlooked in crowded shelters. I know that Mark contributes greatly to the fund, so I simply ask that if you are at all interested in helping out and can spare a few dollars, please consider donating. I know that you will make a dog somewhere very happy if you do.

***

And that’s it for this week’s rather large Sunday Bits (3,500 words or thereabouts). I visited the Captains Flat weather radar during the week, so you can look forward to some photos from that trip soon.

Until next time, tada.

Samuel

June 5th, 2011 at 09:49am

They’re not a number-crunching musical group, Julia

i thought we’d made this clear to Julia Gillard months ago, but apparently not because she was out there doing it again today.

Julia, the terrorist group is the Taliban, not the Taliband, or worse yet, the Tally Band. On that last one, I shudder to think what the terrorists would sound like if they counted in that awful screechy musical style that seems to be popular over there. Truly terrifying.

Samuel

June 1st, 2011 at 07:45pm

The crazed greenies tell us how to save the planet

KSFO San Francisco host Brian Sussman went undercover at Earth Day celebrations in Santa Cruz to ask the attendees one simple question “how can we save the planet?”. The results are highly disturbing and just as amusing.

I tend to be a tad too trusting when it comes to picking up hitch-hikers, and am usually happy to pick up a hitch-hiker if they seem OK to me, however if the nutbar in that video who is hitch-hiking across the country happened to somehow slip through my defences and get a lift from me, I can guarantee that I’d be dumping her quick-smart the moment she started spouting that nonsense at me. Either that, or I’d lock the doors and force her to listen to Andrew Bolt and Mark Levin for a while…this would be more satisfying, but probably wouldn’t have any effect on someone as ditzy as her, so probably wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

As for that guy who reckons carbon trading is a good idea…well I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but he should take a look at the Institute of Public Affairs’ Tim Wilson’s piece in The Australian yesterday about how ridiculously convoluted a carbon tax will be if the Gillard government ever manages to introduce one. Tim examines the carbon tax calculation on a birthday cake and discovers that it can’t be thoroughly calculated in a 1,000 word article because of its complexity. You can bet that a carbon trading scheme will be just as crazy.

Tim was interviewed by Alan Jones yesterday morning. I sent Alan an email about that interview and further problems with the carbon tax after the interview.

Samuel

April 19th, 2011 at 05:35am

Two examples of government waste in the space of a couple days

I have come across two rather interesting cases of government waste this week. Two cases where money is being paid to government employees to carry out pointless tasks.

Firstly, I had a CT scan a couple days ago. Medicare was covering some of the scan, and I was paying the rest which, from memory, was $160. After I had paid the $160 and my Medicare details had been recorded, I was informed that I would be receiving a cheque from Medicare in about four weeks time which would be addressed to the doctor who performed the scan, and that I would be required to forward the cheque to the clinic.

This is utterly ridiculous. If I had paid the full amount for the scan, I could have walked in to any Medicare office and received the Medicare portion of the payment in cash on the spot. And if I go to a bulk-billing doctor, the payment for the consultation goes straight to them…so why are the government wasting all of this time sending out payments to people who aren’t the ultimate recipient of the payment, only for the cheque to be handed to the doctor who then receives their payment? Wouldn’t it be simpler to pay the doctor directly via an electronic transfer? The answer is yes…but I suppose the government wouldn’t need as many people to administer that.

Secondly, I received a call from the tax office. My phone was off at the time, so they left a message which included my full name and the fact that they wanted to talk to me about my superannuation, and oddly that I “have no need to panic”. So I called them back on the number provided and, to my astonishment, got straight through to a human (the number must have a high priority in the phone queues) who asked me for all sorts of personal information (I googled the phone number first, it was legit) and then informed me that they wanted to talk to me about a “lost” superannuation account so that they could instruct the superannuation fund to reinstate it. He took a few moments to look up the account and then said “oh, that’s odd, the account is active”. My immediate reply was “let me guess, the Australian Super account?”, I received an affirmative response and then said to him “I sorted that out about three months ago” after which he apologised for taking up my time and asked if there was anything else he could help me with…not that he had actually helped me. I declined and the call ended.

Apart from the wasted time and expense of having a public servant make calls about superannuation accounts which are perfectly fine, the whole “lost super” thing is a rort and a giant waste of time. You pay fees to a private business to maintain these superannuation accounts, so they should not expire (or “become lost” to use the government’s preferred terminology) and default to government ownership simply because you haven’t contributed to them for a while. That’s like having a savings account with a bank and the bank seizing the funds because you haven’t checked the balance in the last week.

And then there’s the question of, if he can just push a button and reactivate the account with Australian Super (although I suspect it’s not so much the push of a button, but rather the completion of about 73 forms, a number of letters to the super fund, and about seven government employees overseeing the whole thing), why doesn’t he just go and do it…why ring me about it?

It amazes me that my tax dollars are going towards funding these kinds of useless and wasteful activities. It is a clear sign that the government is too big and could do with a bit of a prune.

Samuel

4 comments April 7th, 2011 at 08:45am

Another Mark Colbran press release…

I’m sure the guy tries, but seriously, someone in ACT Policing’s media unit should check his press releases before they go out, because almost without fail he manages to say something stupid each time.

Today’s effort has suddenly made it legal for car passengers over the age of 16 years to not wear a seatbelt.

“It is an offence to drive while not wearing your seatbelt or to permit passengers under the age of 16 to travel in your car without seatbelts ” said Supt Colbran.

I wonder, if the police pulled you over for having an unrestrained passenger and you waved that press release at them, would they let you off with a warning?

Samuel

April 1st, 2011 at 02:29pm

It’s probably a good thing that pessimists won’t believe this…

How’s this for confusion? If you’re a generally unhappy type, you’ll probably live longer according to a study which is being reported on today:

Grumpy aged men now have a good reason to cheer up — they’ll outlive optimists, says a study.

Researchers have found that being cantankerous is the key to reaching old age — this is because happier characters are likely to take more risks through their lives including eating unhealthy foods, drinking and smoking.
[..]
Researcher Leslie Martin said: “We came to a new understanding about happiness and health. One of the findings that astounded us was that participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humour as children lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful.
[..]
The researchers from California University have spent the last 20 years analysing the results of research that began in 1921 on 1,500 10-year-old children.

If you’re an unhappy sort, and you just read that, you’re probably saying “not likely!”…well you might be right, according another study:

A study has shown that people with an optimistic outlook enjoy longer lives than those who are pessimistic about the future. The study started almost a decade ago when 999 men and women aged between 65 to 85 were questioned on various aspects of their life including, health, relationships, self-respect and outlook.
[..]
The optimistic participants in the study were 55% less likely to die from any cause, and were 23% less likely to die from a heart related illness.
[..]
“A predisposition toward optimism seemed to provide a survival benefit in elderly subjects with relatively short life expectancies otherwise” said the study, conducted by Erik Giltay from the Psychiatric Centre GGZ, Delfand.

It just goes to show that if you want to make a point, you can almost always find a study from an impressive-sounding organisation which will back you all the way.

Samuel

March 16th, 2011 at 07:53am

PETA wants you to eat Frankenstein

I don’t know what it is about Deniliquin, but every time I come here I end up hearing about some bizarre story, and I don’t know what it is about PETA (“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” by name anyway, no guarantees that they stand for anything along those lines) but every time I hear about them, they’re doing something nutty. Today is no exception, except that today the story is so nutty that I thought I’d woken up in another universe and not just another town.

Animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, claims scientists will soon make livestock farming redundant.

PETA is funding United States researchers to produce animal meats in a laboratory, using tissue culture.

Scientists have already successfully grown the first stages of animal muscle, but need to work out how to get it to look and taste like conventional farmed product.

Uh huh, so they haven’t actually made meat in a Petri dish, they’ve made imitation meat which doesn’t yet imitate meat in taste, appearance or texture…so far it’s about as close as me handing you a plate of bacon and telling you that it’s a cup of coffee.

This stuff will never really be meat as it never really came off an animal, but little details like that don’t matter to collective nutbar groups like PETA, after all, they’re “doing it for the environment”.

Asia-Pacific campaign manager Ashley Fruno says lab meats will be better for the planet.

“Well, at the time, I think we’re still a couple of years away from seeing it be publicly available, but everyone at PETA is rooting for science to produce an eco-friendly methadone for their meat heroin, simply because it’s kinder to animals, it’s better for the environment, and it can be disease free, which makes it better for human health.”

And presumably it does away for the need for humans to keep all of those evil methane-expelling, global-warming-causing herds of cattle around, so I wonder what will become of the cows? Perhaps they will frolic in the magic forrest…seriously, what do PETA propose that we do with the superfluous cattle? They wouldn’t propose killing them (would they?), so do we let them run free…gee, that seems like a downright silly idea, cows have less road sense than kangaroos.

And then there’s that strange comparison of meat eater and drug addicts. I wonder if PETA think that non-human meat-eating animals are also akin to drug addicts?

Anyway, farmers have treated the idea with the contempt which it deserves, put PETA back in their padded box and shipped them back to the nut house.

Greg Brown, the president of the Australian Cattle Council, says the environment would suffer if livestock farming ceased.

“She was heard to say it would be great for the environment, it would be a disaster for the environment, because we’d have all this uneaten vegetation which would be destroying the environment by ultimately getting burnt and putting all that stuff into the atmosphere, it’s just absurd.”

(h/t ABC Rural for the article and 2QN’s Paul Dix who brought the story to my attention).

Samuel

March 7th, 2011 at 10:19am

Senior Moment

I’m often jokingly told by people around my age that I come across as being a 70-year-old due to large differences in interests and views, and today I have to wonder if they might be on to something it terms of early-onset dementia, for last night I had quite the senior moment.

I had made myself a cup of coffee and retrieved a punnet of blueberries from the fridge, and was preparing to watch a DVD. I had placed the DVD case on my chair and went back to the bench to collect my coffee, which I did and brought it over to my chair. I then returned to the bench and collected the blueberries and put them on the arm of my chair.

I then went over to the television and turned it on, followed by the DVD player which, rather than turning on with the power button, I turned on with the “open/close” button, which both turns the DVD player on and opens the disc tray, saving me from an extra button press.

I went back to my chair, picked up the DVD case and took it over to the DVD player. I went to open the DVD case when it suddenly occurred to me that I was not holding a DVD case, but rather a punnet of blueberries, and that it would probably not be a good idea to place the blueberries in to the DVD player.

So I took the punnet of blueberries back to my chair and was going to pick up the DVD case, but it wasn’t there. This was baffling as it has been there only a couple minutes ago. After a quick search, I found it…it was on the bench. It seems that on my way back to the bench to collect the blueberries after delivering my coffee to my chair, I had moved the DVD case for no apparent reason.

Nattie, who was in her bed at the time, was watching me and giving me a rather odd look. I suppose that from her perspective it did look rather odd that I was walking back and forth across the room and moving objects around many more times than was necessary.

My very own senior moment. It’s not the first, and it won’t be the last, but it’s certainly the most amusing of them to date.

Samuel

January 26th, 2011 at 11:54am

Quote Of The Day

"Now in a sense that's beside the point, but in a sense it's not" — Garner Ted Armstrong

January 16th, 2011 at 06:08am

And it keeps getting weirder in Arkansas

Yesterday we heard about thousand of birds falling from the sky in a very small area of Arkansas on new year’s eve…today the news that more animals have selectively turned up dead. This time it’s fish, thousands upon thousands of a particular type of fish. Story again courtesy of THV11 TV News

Arkansas Game & Fish is trying to figure out why 100,000 fish in Northwest Arkansas turned up dead. They were found along a 20-mile stretch between the Ozark Dam and Highway 109 Bridge in Franklin County.
[..]
Investigators from local and state agencies took samples from the affected area. [Keith Stephens with Game and Fish] says fish kills occur every year, but the magnitude of this one is unusual, and disease could be the cause.

A pollutant would have affected cross species. Stephens says, “Ninety-nine percent of them were Drum, which is a bottom feeder. It’s not a game fish in Arkansas.”

Some fish collected were alive and visibly sick. They have been taken to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff for testing.

The affected area was never closed and fishing is encouraged. “Right now it’s fine to fish. If you go out there you can still fish for bass and crappie, catfish, it will be fine. Obviously don’t’ eat the dead fish.”

As for clean up, nature is taking its course. “We’ll have raccoon and birds and things like that will take care of it so there is really no clean up, it’s really too big. It’s contained along the river channel.”

The whole story is weird, but I find the official reaction a tad odd as well. In the same breath that they tell people not to eat the dead fish for fear of toxins, they also say that it’s wonderful that various animals are eating the potentially toxic dead fish as it means the officials won’t have to clean up the mess. Don’t they care that more animals could die as a result of eating toxic fish?

So here’s a theory for you. The drum fish died, why I don’t know, but they died late last week. The blackbirds came along, being the helpful citizens that they are, and decided to save the government money by eating the dead fish. The birds did this as a collective effort, dining at roughly the same time, and then flew off to their new year’s eve haunt over downtown Beebe, AR. Whatever killed the fish then took hold effect on the birds, causing them to plummet from the sky, scaring residents and creating an even bigger bill for the Game & Fish department for whom the birds had eaten the fish in the first place.

Well it’s a theory…and it makes more sense than Game & Fish’s theory that the birds were all struck by lightning or high altitude hail, both of which would have affected a wider range of birds than the rather limited range of birds which were affected.

By the way, true to form, CNN have misquoted Keith Stephens, making it sound like only one species of fish was affected.

“The fish kill only affected one species of fish,” he said. “If it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just drum fish.”

I’m just waiting for CNN to dig up some kook who will try and link this all with “global warming”. Oops, sorry, it’s already been predicted for both birds (blackbirds in particular) and fish. Hey CNN, check the articles and contact the rent-a-professors cited therein, that should keep you excited and entertained for a few days. You can probably get a week out of it if you make them debate the people who say global warming will cause bigger fish and that birds know how to adapt.

Away from the global warming nonsense and back to the news though. This is a story which I will continue to watch. It’s quite fascinating and I’ll be interested to see what conclusions the tests on the birds and fish reach.

Update: A person going by the alias “Sapper” over at The Blaze has come up with the most sensible possible cause for the mass fish death so far:

Looking on google earth, there is a wastewater treatment plant just upstream from where the fish kill is…….gee I wonder if anyone is checking out a possible spill from that place as raw sewasge will cause exactly this kind of kill. I saw it happen once when I was a health inspector after a major storm caused sewer system to overflow and drain into a bayou. Next day hundreds of bottom feeding fish were floating dead. City was fined $100 per dead fish by the TWC/TNRCC which was the state regulatory agancy. I would bet this wastewater treatment plant that sits on tributary less than a mile from the river and not far upstream from the fish kill is probably a good candidate for being responsible.

Of course we’re still no closer to knowing what happened to the birds, but I note from the other comments on The Blaze that I’m not the only one giving some consideration to the idea of the birds eating the fish and getting sick as a result. End Update

Samuel

January 4th, 2011 at 12:38am

When it comes to weird news…

2011 is off to a strange start with this story from Arkansas which reminds of last year’s TV series FlashForward, minus the blackout. (h/t THV 11 News)

Just before folks in Beebe rang in the New Year, many witnessed an uncanny resemblance to the Hitchcock movie “The Birds.” About 2,000 black birds fell from the sky off Windwood Drive, leaving quite the mess to clean up.

Folks Today’s THV spoke with initially thought the birds were poisoned because they are what they call a nuisance around this time every year, but they are surprised to hear it is more of a mystery.

Stephen Bryant recalls, “Millions, millions fly over every night. You look up at the sky and it’s just black and then last night at about 10:30 I came out here and saw a bird drop.”

In a matter of hours on New Years Eve thousands of birds fell from the sky to their death.

Melissa Weatherly says, “I immediately called mom because I had to go to work, I said you have to come get the kids and get the dog because I don’t know what’s going on.” She continues, “It was horrible; you could not even get down the road without running over hundreds. It was that bad.”

The mystery is unraveling like scenes from a movie, dozens of U.S. Environmental Services crews spent the day picking up the birds, walking between homes and climbing on roofs with protective hazmat suits and breathing masks,.
[..]
Officials with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission flew over the area and determined it’s a one mile stretch. There are a variety of dead black birds, mostly red winged and a duck was also found.

No one has been evacuated because the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) air test came back clean for toxins.

Weatherly is skeptical, “They’re walking around in masks and I’m wondering do we need the same thing because what makes that happen for them to drop out of the sky like that.”

Katherina Yancy with Today’s THV found one bird still living. It was confused, injured, continuously walked in circles and didn’t make a sound or attempt to fly.

Officials will confirm their findings when they get the test results, until then they are giving these possible scenarios: lightning, stress, high altitude hail or startled by fireworks, but neighbors just want answers.

This takes the cake for the strangeness as far as I’m concerned, and really this is the sort of story that, no matter what the officials eventually decide to blame (if they ever do decide to blame anything) there will be a dozen conspiracy theories which will seem more feasible.

I’m not going to pretend to have the faintest clue what actually caused this bizarre localised bird death, but I will say that I’m not in the least bit convinced that any of the officially speculated reasons are the cause.

Samuel

January 3rd, 2011 at 06:12am

Strategically located?

Some days some ads bewilder me:
Monaro Highway a strategic location?
(click image to enlarge)

Sure, it’s probably a good strategy to name your business after the place in which it is located…this probably cuts down on confusion, but in terms of the location itself, I don’t really see what is so great about an industrial area which enjoys traffic jams every morning and night of every weekday, much more so than any other industrial area in Canberra.

If it was a military installation like HMAS Harman, remotely located on Canberra Avenue between Canberra and Queanbeyan, then I might understand why it would be considered a “strategic location”…but in this case, I think it’s just false advertising.

Samuel

August 13th, 2010 at 06:39pm

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