COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, December 14, 2007

The Bali Roundup




Gore hits at US over climate change

By John Aglionby in Nusa Dua, Bali and agencies

Published: December 13 2007 13:35 | Last updated: December 13 2007 14:52

Al Gore savaged the US government’s “obstructing” attitude and urged delegates at the UN conference on climate change to ignore Washington if necessary to pursue the “moral imperative” of a new global regime.

“My country is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali,” the former US vice-president told 2,000 of the 12,000 people attending the conference on Thursday. “[But] over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now.”
*************

Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference


BALI, Indonesia – A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, told Inhofe EPW Press Blog following the panel discussion titled “A Global CO2 Tax.” Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm

Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.”

The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to this global fund,” Schwank explained. He also added, “It is very essential to tax coal.”

The UN was presented with a new report from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment titled “Global Solidarity in Financing Adaptation.” The report stated there was an “urgent need” for a global tax in order for “damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world.”

The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would “flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund” to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.

Schwank said a global carbon dioxide tax is an idea long overdue that is urgently needed to establish “a funding scheme which generates the resources required to address the dimension of challenge with regard to climate change costs.”

'Diminish future prosperity'

However, ideas like a global tax and the overall UN climate agenda met strong opposition Thursday from a team of over 100 prominent international scientists who warned the UN that attempting to control the Earth's climate was "ultimately futile."

The scientists wrote, “The IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions." The scientists, many of whom are current or former members of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sent the December 13 letter to the UN Secretary-General. (See: Over 100 Prominent Scientists Warn UN Against 'Futile' Climate Control Efforts – LINK)

‘Redistribution of wealth’

The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday.

“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.
***************
A bureaucrat's dream'

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen warned about these types of carbon regulations earlier this year. "Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life," Lindzen said in March 2007. (LINK)

In addition, many critics have often charged that proposed tax and regulatory “solutions” were more important to the promoters of man-made climate fears than the accuracy of their science.

Former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said in 1990, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." (LINK)
(LINK)

50 comments:

  1. A President Barack Obama would spend $150 billion over 10 years on a push to develop new renewable fuel and clean coal technology, reduce greenhouse gases that fuel global warming and requires those who pollute to pay for that right on a per-ton of carbon basis.

    ReplyDelete
  2. U.S. Digs In to Guard Iraq Oil Exports

    KHAWR AL AMAYA OIL TERMINAL, Iraq -- The U.S. Navy is building a military installation atop this petroleum-export platform as the U.S. establishes a more lasting military mission in the oil-rich north Persian Gulf.

    While presidential candidates debate whether to start bringing ground troops home from Iraq, the new construction suggests that one footprint of U.S. military power in Iraq isn't shrinking anytime soon: American officials are girding for an open-ended commitment to protect the country's oil industry.

    That is a sea change for the U.S., which has patrolled these waters for decades.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Teresita's post demonstrates that we may well have such an ignorant electorate, that national suicide is an inevitability.
    Maybe we can all round-up on Albob's Farm, sit around the campfire and commiserate about the good old days, and the Har-Magedon to come.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just what we need. Coal fired plants. Obama is an ignoramus. But which part? The white half, the black half, or both? Both, is my quess.

    ReplyDelete
  5. O, let us sit upon the ground
    And tell sad tales
    Of the death of Republics...

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Obama's targets mirror California's goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a goal that exceeds the European Union's. Among candidates, only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has announced a more aggressive goal: 90% by 2050."
    ---
    Talk about selling pure Blue Sky!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bobal, the Carbon Tax presupposes that CO2 is a pollutant. That means every breath you or any other animal takes, you are befouling the Earth. Therefore, with the aim of reducing our carbon footprint, we must eliminate all cattle and reduce the human population to as little as possible, preferably a small coterie of forward-thinking vegetarian homosexuals who won't go around having babies who would grow up to be cowboys anyway and take us back to the planet-endangering errors of the past.

    ReplyDelete
  8. And how can one argue with that?
    xxxxxxxxxxx

    Huck's theology degree is Horsepuckey Preached his first sermon in his teens, getting a late start compared to Reverend Sharpton.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Bobal: Huck's theology degree is Horsepuckey

    Right after your ordination, within 24 hours you should receive an email message from us confirming your new ordination. If you did not receive the message, then please contact us to verify that your ordination was added and sent to Headquarters. (Due to volume, responses to email inquiries may take up to 72 hours.)

    Click here & Proceed With Your Ordination

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Dream Ticket:
    Huckabee Sharpiesharp!

    ReplyDelete
  11. 20 million ministers, think of it!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rufus is on record being for Hillary if Huck's the choice:
    He knows them Southern Baptists up close and personal.
    The left has MoveOn, we got religious Wackos, Southern Fried.
    ---
    Hewitt got so many of them, he finally said no mas, today.
    Know-Nothings, like some writer said about Paul.
    (Steyn?)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wasn't Arkadelphia the Nation's Capital, back in the day?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Where's the candidate that will reduce CO2 emissions to zero?

    ReplyDelete
  15. For whatever reason, there's a lot a vacant audience chairs at that debate picture in your post, Doug. Do you read anything profound into that?

    ReplyDelete
  16. "Where's the candidate that will reduce CO2 emissions to zero?"
    ---
    Sips the Poison on YouTube!
    Handling Snakes and Drinking Poison
    "While Christ’s words in Mark 16:9-20 do promise some extreme signs to accompany the Apostles’ ministry, all but the poison drinking actually do occur in the books of Acts. I think it is important that we do not base major doctrine on a single scripture, especially if the scriptures are disputed like these. The majors themes and pillars of Christianity seem to be conveniently and consistently repeated throughout the New Testament. Though if you choose to “prove your salvation” by sipping down some poison, then you are on your own.
    I’ll stick to sipping on gin and juice…laid back…
    "

    ReplyDelete
  17. I Caint Read, but I'm Born Agin!
    A Gin is more like it.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I may have to watch that sucker!

    "When Keyes was asked his thoughts, he gave a long answer condemning the betrayal of U.S. sovereignty, elite politicians and the destruction of the Constitution.

    Thompson jumped in to say: "I agree with Alan Keyes' position on global warming."

    As the audience laughed, Keyes said: "I think the most emission we need to control is the hot air emission of politicians who pretend one thing and don't deliver."
    "

    ReplyDelete
  19. Barry got to Washinton by Defeating a Carpetbagging Alan Keyes, when the Handsome GOP Guy was found to take his beautiful wife to porn shows in France, or some such.
    Beats Wide Stanced Tap Dancing!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Night Club in Jerusalem--

    Abrahams's Boozers

    ReplyDelete
  21. On August 8, 2004 – with 86 days to go before the general election – the Illinois Republican Party drafted Alan Keyes to run against Democrat Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate, after the Republican nominee, Jack Ryan, withdrew due to a sex scandal, and other potential draftees (most notably former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka) declined to run. Keyes was called a "carpetbagger" in the media,[39] since he "had never lived in Illinois."[40][41] When asked to answer charges of carpetbagging in the context of his earlier criticism of Hillary Clinton, he called her campaign "pure and planned selfish ambition", but stated that in his case he felt a moral obligation to run after being asked to by the state GOP. "You are doing what you believe to be required by your respect for God's will, and I think that that's what I'm doing in Illinois".[42]

    ReplyDelete
  22. Electoral Show-Stoppers.
    (for GOP, only)

    Senate Race Sex Scandal - June 22, 2004 The performer alleged that she refused Ryan's requests for public sex during the ... while Jack Ryan retained a $40 million stake in the investment giant. ... www.thesmokinggun.com

    CNN.com - Ex-wife of GOP Senate candidate alleged sex club forays ...
    The ex-wife of Jack Ryan, the Republican candidate for the US Senate in Illinois, alleged in court papers filed in 2000 that he took her to sex clubs and ...

    ReplyDelete
  23. The old BGod made me do it line.

    Danbg it I spilled coffee on my keyboardand now tnhe bg comes up b bg,and tnhe nh comes up n nh.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Know your candidate nibgnht.:)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Jeri Ryan said her then-husband took her on three "surprise trips" in the spring of 1998 to New Orleans, New York and Paris, during which he took her to sex clubs. She said she refused to go in the first and went into the second at his insistence.

    "It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling," she said in the court document, adding that her husband "wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused."

    She said on arriving at the third club, in Paris, "people were having sex everywhere. I cried. I was physically ill. [He] became very upset with me and said it was not a 'turn on' for me to cry."
    ---
    Ryan also said he intends to stay in the Senate race, despite unease among fellow Republicans about the potential political fallout.

    "I think we'll be victorious in November," he said.

    Jeri Ryan, who starred in the TV shows "Boston Public" and "Star Trek: Voyager," also issued a conciliatory statement, saying that she now considers her ex-husband "a friend" and has "no doubt that he will make an excellent senator."

    While not addressing the sex club allegations directly in her statement, she said that "there was never any physical abuse in our marriage -- either to myself or to our son -- nor, to my knowledge, was he ever unfaithful to me."

    "Jack is a good man, a loving father, and he shares a strong bond with our son. I wish him all the best," she said.

    ReplyDelete
  26. (hope springs eternal, see: Larry Craig)

    ReplyDelete
  27. Hot Springs Eternal,
    First Bubba, now the Huckster.

    ReplyDelete
  28. You nhave to admit Doubg people mibgnht start watcnhinbg C-Span!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Tnhere/'s action on tnhe floor of tnhe Seante today, folks.

    I bgot to bgo to WalMart and uy a cnheap keyboard, later.

    ReplyDelete
  30. AlBob said,

    Crap!
    I was going to show off something I just learned in HTML, but Blogger doesn't allow it:
    I was going to use the Text-Reversing tag bdo and quote Albob backwards!

    < bdo > insert text here < /bdo >

    ReplyDelete
  31. Thanks for the Hilarious Posts, Albob!

    ReplyDelete
  32. How come "Walmart Keyboard" came out intact:
    Is that a message from G_d?

    ReplyDelete
  33. No g or h in WalMart, Doug.
    Teclado de 107 Teclas--Hecho en China.. $9.95 gringo. Works good, but have to type a little harder to break it in.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Ah, you're not buying that, are you Doug? It's a waste of water, and the cat probably can't push the flush handle. Just leave your window open a crack, so she can jump outside when she needs to go. Works here great. She's never made a mess yet. I mean inside.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Unless you share, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  36. If another jerk-off Republican could have stayed home with this Jeri Ryan and taken care of business, we would not have Caracko as a contender.

    ReplyDelete
  37. God, she looks so different in some of the pictures!
    Sometimes beautiful, sometimes freakish.
    Must be Hollyweird.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Nations Agree on Steps to Revive Climate Treaty

    In a dramatic turnaround, the U.S. agreed to a compromise that sets a two-year timetable for reviving an ailing, aging climate treaty.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Some Republicans say they always understood that Mr. Rove had a say in prosecutor appointments. “I basically felt when I was talking to Karl I was talking to the president,” said former Senator Peter G. Fitzgerald, an Illinois Republican.

    Early in the Bush administration, Mr. Fitzgerald said, he sought to recruit a prosecutor who could investigate Gov. George Ryan of Illinois without fear of influence by the state’s political powers. But Governor Ryan and his political ally Speaker J. Dennis Hastert argued to the White House that they should have a voice in the decision and insisted that someone from Illinois get the post. Mr. Fitzgerald, who had hired Mr. Rove as a consultant , called him to settle the question.

    “Peter, it is your pick,” Mr. Rove told Mr. Fitzgerald, the former senator recalled. “But we don’t want you to pick anybody from out of state. For your Chicago guy, it has to be from Chicago.”

    Undeterred, Mr. Fitzgerald sidestepped the White House. He made only one recommendation — Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a New York prosecutor — announced it publicly, and drew public acclaim that made it unstoppable. Some time after the appointment, the former Senator Fitzgerald said, Mr. Rove “kind of yelled at me,” telling him, “The appointment got great headlines for you but it ticked off the base”— a phrase that the senator took to refer to the state’s Republican establishment.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Bobal: OVER 20 million ministers.

    You will address me as Right Reverend Teresita!

    ReplyDelete
  41. time to embrace small scale geo-thermic heat exchange for all homes & businesses.....

    1. lower home heating, water heating and airconditioning by 70%

    2. reduce green house emmissions

    3. use less oil, thus screwing opec

    4. pay LESS carbon taxes thus screwing the tax man, whoever that is..

    ReplyDelete
  42. I came across and interesting idea. Future news. Here is my attempt:



    China shocks the world by revealing the first completely pollution free coal fired power plants are supplying energy to the Olympics. Every gram of carbon the plants produced is trapped and recycled.

    In further news it is announced that you may save the environment by getting drunk. Distilled spirits manufacturers finally realized that they could trap and recycle CO2 produced by sour mash fermentation by adding just a little extra plumbing.

    And finally, one of the largest sources of waste paper was eliminated as phone books the world over went on an "opt in" system. After it was realized that many people who communicate via cell phone and internet never even open a phone book, it was easy to cut the number of phone books produced in the world by 90%.




    

    ReplyDelete