Month: April 2008

Computer says: Global Warming Stop Then Go

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 April, 2008

From The Telegraph, a new computer model shows that global warming will stop till 2015 and then accelerate after wards. So much for the UN’s predictions on the matter. I guess the computer got it wrong, or was it the data and model fed into the computer by the human?

This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

And this is the killer, from the UK Met office:

If the model could accurately forecast other variables besides temperature, such as rainfall, it would be increasingly useful, but climate predictions for a decade ahead would always be to some extent uncertain, he added.

So what about UN climate predictions for the next 50 to 100 years?

What of our Federation?

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 April, 2008

If Australia became a Republic, what would happen to the Federation? The Australian:

The point is that the state governors make their oaths to the Queen, not to Canberra. If it became necessary to sack them, it would be the Queen who formally did so. In a republic, the only person who could appoint, and take the oath of loyalty from the state governors would be the governor-general, el presidente or whatever the federal head of state was called in the new system.

This would mean that the state governors would act in the governor-general’s name, not the Queen’s. The governor-general would also have the power to sack any state governor who displeased Canberra and appoint a new one.

This would mean they would be subordinate to the governor-general, but also – and this is the nub of the matter – it would mean, given that the state governors have the power to sack state governments, that Canberra, using the state governors, would have the power to sack state governments. This would basically mean, for better or worse, the end of the Australian federal system as we know it.

Religious Freedom: Not in Australia

Posted by Chief Blogger – 30 April, 2008

From the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney regarding homosexual ‘discrimination’:

“Personally I remain concerned about the impact of the gay lifestyle on our community, and I don’t believe any of us should be forced to accept it,” Dr Jensen said on ABC radio.

Don’t speak too soon. Seems there is a serious undermining of religious freedom in this country, brought on mostly by the homosexual lobby and their friends in state quasi-courts. The NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal ruled recently that:

Homosexuality as an intolerable sin was not a doctrine of Christianity, the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal ruled last month, because there were many dissenting views on the subject among Christian groups generally, and specifically within the Uniting Church.

So we now have these de facto kangaroo courts effectively telling religious organisations what doctrines they can and cannot believe in and as a result, what services and membership restrictions they can impose. When your entire world view is secular, rights and wrongs have limited meaning, all truth is relative so discrimination becomes the catch phrase for any one who dares to point out a moral wrong. From the ‘court’ ruling itself, with regards to a homosexual couple who were attempting to be foster parents through the Wesley Mission:

142 Given the diversity of views among adherents of the Christian religion about homosexuality, the prohibition against homosexual foster carers applied by Wesley Mission cannot be said to be necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of the adherents of the Christian religion.

143 Similarly if the alternative definition were to be applied it could not be said that the prohibition against homosexual foster carers is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of the adherents of the religion of the Uniting Church. In reaching that conclusion we note the range of views within the Church on the issue of homosexuality. We also note the evidence that a designated agency operated by the Uniting Church (not Wesley Mission) has authorised as ‘authorised carers’ persons who are openly homosexual and placed children in their care. There is no evidence that this has caused injury to the religious susceptibilities of the members of the Uniting Church.

Section 56 of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act provides an exemption on religious grounds on the condition that:

(d) any … act or practice of a body established to propagate religion that conforms to the doctrines of that religion or is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of the adherents of that religion.

Firstly, the court defines the religious standing of the church (decides what religion it is, even if the Church objects to the ruling) and then establishes or tells the Church what their religious view on a matter is. In this case the tribunal rules that homosexuality dose not go against ‘religious susceptibilities’ in the Christian world. They do this based on the experience of the Uniting Church and their acceptance of homosexual foster parents.

So because there happens to be a favourable minority view of homosexuality (the Uniting Church), within the Christian religion (which is a pretty broad category but the court decides), the state can force the homosexual world view on church operations because such a decision will not upset the religious susceptibilities of everyone in the religion (there is always bound to be someone that will disagree with their own church or with another denomination), regardless of what the leadership or majority of the religion or churches members might have to say on the matter. So the fact that the within Christian world there are various conflicting denominations is irrelevant. Religion is defined in the broadest sense to provide the best outcome for the quasi-court’s secular friends, the homosexual lobby.

Is this religious freedom? I think not.

Budget 2008-09, Part 3

Posted by Chief Blogger – 29 April, 2008

Last FY the Federal Government collected over $14.6 billion in fuel, diesel and oil related excise duties. Most reasonable people would regard that as excessive, especially during a period of inflationary pressures from higher world oil prices, but not the socialists over at ‘GetUp!‘:

The subsidies, which GetUp says amount to about $4 billion, include $1.1 billion in fringe benefit tax concessions for company cars, $800 million in concessions for the aviation industry and $600 million for the automotive industry.

“The $4 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry – they are wasteful and inappropriate in the context of the climate crisis that we’re facing,” GetUp executive director Greg Solomon said.

So that’s an extra $4 billion passed back to Australian consumers, and what is GetUp’s solution:

“All of the polling we’ve done shows that the Australian community supports renewable energy being subsidised over the fossil fuel industry.”

Well that’s great! I wonder if their polling included pictures of cars running on renewable energy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just hope it doesn’t rain.

Global Warming is to Blame

Posted by Chief Blogger – 29 April, 2008

Below is a list I complied of events, episodes and occurances blamed or to be blamed in the future on global warming. Basically think of anything bad and global warming is to be blamed – I have not included links for appearance sake, but each point can be easily found on the Internet.

  1. HIV epidemics,
  2. Gender inequality,
  3. More witch hunts,
  4. Forced marriage,
  5. Aggravated allergies,
  6. Heat stress,
  7. Animals living at higher elevation,
  8. Biological Arctic plant life,
  9. Disappearing lakes and rivers,
  10. Shrinking ground, More→

Rudd’s Honeymoon ending?

Posted by Chief Blogger – 29 April, 2008

From the Courier Mail, regarding Rudd’s honeymoon period:

I was there that cold Sunday afternoon in June, 1996, when Howard stood in front of an angry pro-gun mob of 3000 in country Victoria and said he wanted to take their semi-automatic firearms away for the good of the country.

What I, and the dozen other reporters sitting behind him, did not know at the time was that he walked out in front of that crowd knowing those responsible for his safety feared he could be shot. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest.

“If the political process of Australia turns against me because of this decision I have taken, I will accept that,” he said…

Fast forward 12 years and now Rudd is spending a lot of time telling the electorate what a good job he is about to do without actually doing anything much in the way of new policy or groundbreaking legislation.

Finally, some critique of Rudd. When you actually compare what Howard achieved in the early months of his Prime Minister ship and what Rudd has achieved, the contrast is stark. Rudd has just gone from event to event – signing Kyoto, saying sorry, renaming Australian Workplace Agreements, and hosting a summit of mostly like minded individuals, oh and kissing Cate Blanchett’s baby in hospital. Outcomes of substance, nothing… The upcoming budget will be a real key test.

Budget 2008-09, Part 2

Posted by Chief Blogger – 28 April, 2008

I was reading an article by Piers Akerman about how out of depth Wayne Swan is as treasurer. The same can be said for Rudd. Neither of them have any substantial economic training or background. They both have limited budget experience, although Swan was a union budget official at one stage, but not the sort of experience likely to put a resume up in lights.

While I enjoy Akerman’s conservative perspective, when it comes to Budget time or any economic issue for that matter, the main stream media always make one serious error. It normally runs like this, from Akerman commenting on RBA head Glenn Stevens and the economy:

On Budget night, Swan and Rudd will have to convince Australians that they, not Stevens, are actually in control.

Well last time I checked this was a market driven economy. No individual ‘runs’ the economy, thousands of buyers and sellers do in what are called markets. The Government and RBA provide an institutional framework for markets to operate in, to secure property rights and to send signals (information) to markets regarding the state of the economy, etc… Markets use available information to respond to economic problems, better than any type of state intervention could ever do. State intervention is the problem, eg. price controls during the oil shocks of the 1970s only created supply shortages and failed to control prices as intended.

In the present situation, inflation can be brought under control by ridding the Australian consumer of the Federal fuel excise, excessive food import restrictions and regulations covering foreign activity in the food retail sector, reducing the nearly $100 billion Federal welfare budget, a reduction in the money supply growth rate (currently running at 20 per cent per annum and growing faster despite a slowing economy), reducing state control over land supply for housing and providing serious broad based tax relief to grow the workforce combined with a round of labour market deregulation, etc… In other words, reduce the importance of the Treasurer and RBA in economic decision making. Let markets run the economy – after all they did win us the Cold War!!!

Budget 2008-09, Part 1

Posted by Chief Blogger – 28 April, 2008

Malcolm Turnbull was recently on the 7:30 Report. He indicated that for the up coming budget to have any impact on inflation, spending cuts would need to be nearly $5 billion. To what extent the ALP would have the gumption to make those cuts remains to be seen, but anything less is just talk by the Government. Treasurer Swan has also indicated that the Government is aiming for a Budget surplus of 1.5 per cent of GDP – this would be no great achievement given that in three of the last four budgets the surplus was around 1.5 per cent anyway.

The problem with inflation is primarily to do with supply side issues and exogenous shocks – oil prices, drought, infrastructure shortages, increased money supply – so at this time an extremely tight fiscal policy would have a limited role in reducing the rate of inflation. And further, tax cuts are ultimately deflationary because they create incentives to expand the workforce and boost savings – wait and see if the Government honours in full its election policy promise on this issue.

More of the Same Old ALP

Posted by Chief Blogger – 28 April, 2008

Interesting article in The Australian regarding the 2020 Summit and Aboriginal issues:

The 2020 Summit saw a revival of the con artists. The same old personalities attempted to hijack the debate and put governance and recognition above overcoming the social scourges affecting Aboriginal people around the country. It is a warped set of priorities that would have symbolism more important than overcoming substance abuse and improving household safety, education and economic participation.

Well of course, “…governance and recognition…” means power and stature for Aboriginal urban elites.

It is easy for well-known personalities to remain at the podium delivering tired old rhetoric. But indigenous Australia has heard that message a thousand times in the past two decades and it isn’t improving anybody’s life. Sadly, there is an industry built around indigenous affairs and many of the stakeholders will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo….

…Many policy solutions are wrongly personality-based rather than delivering measurable improvements. Instead of being sacked, the architects of these policy failures just do the rounds. There is a small sub-industry in indigenous affairs of bureaucrats who move from department to department or from one level of government to another. The result is that Aboriginal Australians suffer under soft social programs hopelessly incapable of solving complex technical problems. Politicians wanting to “do the right thing” make the easy or popular decisions rather than address the core problems, and year after year the scam continues.

Amongst all of this what ever happened to individual responsibility? As argued by George Will at Townhall:

Conservatism argues…that self-interestedness is universal among individuals, but the dignity of individuals is bound up with the exercise of self-reliance and personal responsibility in pursuing one’s interests.

The entitlement mentality encouraged by the welfare state exacerbates social conflicts — between generations (the welfare state transfers wealth to the elderly), between racial and ethnic groups (through group preferences) and between all organized interests (from farmers to labor unions to recipients of corporate welfare) as government, not impersonal market forces, distributes scarce resources. This, conservatism insists, explains why as government has grown so has cynicism about it.

The overwhelming experience since the 1970s is the type of sterile politically correct Government intervention of the past has not solved the social problems – but fostered dependency and destoyed individual responsibility.

Bob Carr: Bill of Rights Bad Idea

Posted by Chief Blogger – 26 April, 2008

For once I agree with Bob Carr, former ALP Premier of New South Wales. Carr has come out in strong opposition to an Australian bill of rights. This is probably the first article by an ALP member against the idea, and there are so many reasons that make it a bad idea, not least of which, it will remove power from the people and place it in the hands of judges. In other words, undermine the will of the people for the will of a few. As Carr writes:

A menu of abstractions – that is, any attempt to list rights – wrenches from the cabinet table and the legislature and delivers to the courtroom things that ought to be determined by governments.

Governments that are accountable to the people every three years.

When Kevin Rudd looks at the 2020 Summit’s endorsement of a bill or charter, he’ll be politically astute enough to know a move to enact a charter or bill in any form would meet the same commonsense opposition that doomed it in 1988, when Australians voted it down 69 per cent to 31per cent.

Hopefully. As far as I can tell the only people that support a bill of rights are the legal fraternity and some of their dream time cafe latte mates – many of whom seem to reside in the print media. Any right contained by a bill could be legislated for, with enforcement determined by the courts and review by the people through Parliament.

Rights count. So much so they need the give and take of the common law, rowdy parliaments and the ebb and flow of public opinion.

It’s the commonsensical ethos of a people – temper democratic, bias offensively Australian – not a declaration of abstractions that will keep us free.