The never ending story …

Address by the President of the Royal Society to their Lordships of the Admiralty …

It will, without doubt, have come to your Lordships’ knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the circumpolar regions, by which the severity of the cold … in an impenetrable barrier of ice, has during the last two years greatly abated. This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened …

November 20, 1817.

The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday  from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway.

 Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far North as 81 degrees 29 minutes.

 Soundings to 3,100 metres show the Gulf Stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have completely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the Eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have so far never ventured so far North, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that, due to the ice melt, the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.

November 2, 1922,  The Washington Post.

Thanks to Rupert Wyndham, via JoNova.

Hey, Frank …

If you can divert your attention for a few moments from sexual abuse by the clergy, and the disenfranchisement of the Falkland Islanders, how about sparing a few thoughts for Sanal Edamaruku. You will, no doubt recall … being infallible and all, that Sanal was charged with blasphemy by the Catholic Church in India. He earned this distinction by exposing the miracle of Mumbai as a plumbing problem.

For anyone unfamiliar with the miracle, it involved water dripping from the toes of a crucifix, the overwhelmed faithful were collecting the holy water in little bottles. Sanal located the source in a nearby washroom. A very similar problem has been dubbed the miracle of Dunalley.

Well, it’s been a year now since arrest warrants were issued. Sanal has been denied bail in advance. He remains free by keeping away from home. Perhaps you could pray for him or something …

Job opportunity …

The man in charge of the body that oversees hunting in NSW national parks has been charged with illegal hunting and trespassing.

Game Council NSW acting chief Greg McFarland and another man were charged after police investigated claims two men trespassed onto a property near Mount Hope in western NSW and hunted illegally in December last year.

The NSW government are looking for a new looney to take over the asylum.

Your week … ?

Uh, mine?

Pretty good really, busy at work, no major hassles, rehearsals went well, charity gig at the Eye and Ear hospital this coming Sunday, did some recording on Garageband, bird banding Saturday morning with some good friends, caught a Pink Robin, first one for our study. Exciting. The dog’s on a diet so it really, really loves me. Oh and some arsehole declared nuclear war … how was yours?

Ya gotta laugh …

Super and Cyprus …

Let’s eat the rich …

Well let’s at least get seriously jealous and really hurt them …

After all it’s good that we let them employ people, pay lots of tax and spend money, we let them off  having to live on the age pension, we don’t make them live on New Start. Cool.

Let’s raid their super … big problem, one thing that the hysterical class warriors, from Rob Oakeshott to Wayne Swan via Fairfax’s Peter Martin, seem not to realise is that for people with squillions super offers a chance to reduce tax by a paltry amount. Here’s Peter Martin …

THINK about an executive on $1 million a year. Not quite one of Joel Fitzgibbon’s “battlers”, but someone several rungs above. His or her company pays a legislated $90,000 a year into a super fund of their choice, the payment is taxed at just 15 per cent. So instead of paying $41,850 in tax, the executive pays just $13,500. The gift from the tax system is $28,350.

What a terribly wicked rich person, well no what a complete load of bollocks, once the numbers are corrected it reads …

… a legislated maximum of $17,190 per year into a super fund of his or her choice; … The gift from the tax system is $5415.

The fact is payments into super are capped therefore the capacity to lower tax is also capped at a fairly low figure. The way to raise money from super is to forget the very rich, just hit all those who’ve been diligent in saving for their retirement. Those who gambled away their income have made their contribution.

But, notice too, the reference to a gift. I have worked hard, I have provided employment to others, we have paid our taxes and contributed to our retirement funds.

SOMEONE on $300k pays about $113k a year income (little or no govt benefits) tax yet someone on $50k a year pays about $7700 income tax (plus govt benefits). The person on $300k pays 14 times more tax for six times the wage than the person on $50k. (Terry … )

If you are going to call that amount of your earnings that the taxman allows you to keep a gift the Cyprus solution starts to look reasonable.

 

Carbon tax …

The carbon tax, that Julia and Wayne promised we would not have, is designed to increase the cost of energy.

I played the Inverloch jazz festival again this year, in the past it has had problems with flood, this year it happened to coincide with a heatwave. One of the venues is a council hall. To avoid the carbon tax the council would not turn on the air conditioning. The result was that the audience fled to the one hall that they could sit in without melting whilst some great musicians played to an almost empty house.

The availability of affordable energy is almost the measure of a civilisation. In hot places like Australia or in cold places like the UK people on low incomes are being forced to make a choice between keeping their houses at a comfortable temperature and putting food on their tables.

But the most ridiculous side effect of this ridiculous tax, ridiculous because it will have no impact on the world’s climate, is the burden placed on hospitals.

VICTORIA’S cash-strapped hospitals have been hit with an extra $6.7 million in energy costs due to the carbon tax in just six months, new data reveals. State government analysis of hospital bills shows carbon charges made up on average 15 per cent of hospital energy bills. Herald Sun.

How incredibly stupid …