All pain, no gain

Terry Dunleavy runs some figures that New Zealand government should’ve calculated and made available to public scrutiny before commiting the whole nation to Kyoto ptotocol:

The rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 has been about 1.5 parts per million (ppm) per year over the past 15 years. New Zealand produces about 0.2 per cent of the world’s man-made production of CO2. Even if NZ totally eliminated CO2 emissions, the difference would be to reduce the annual rate of increase in the atmosphere by 0.2 per cent of 1.5ppm, equalling 0.003ppm which equals 3 parts per billion. This of course is a far lower amount than can even be detected.

Are we seriously going to shatter our economy, restrict ourselves to a fragile electricity system, cost every family in the land $1000 to $1500 per year in electricity expenses alone, seriously damage our agriculture industry, etc. by trying to reduce New Zealand’s minuscule CO2 contribution?

But it’s worse than that. The Government’s stated goal is to reduce our CO2 emissions by 20 per cent . So if we were to succeed in this, and thereby reduce New Zealand’s 3 parts per billion contribution to 20 per cent of this figure, the reduction in global CO2 arising from our action would amount to 0.6 parts per billion per year.

To put it simply, NZ’s government is pissing away taxpayer dollars for no measurable benefit whatsoever. Such position cannot be sustained by reason. But guess what, Global Warming is a moral challenge and therefore logic and reason are not welcome. Only denialists, evil capitalist and oil industry stooges use reason and logic, while enlightened individuals cheer loudly upon whatever absurdity is committed for the “good cause”. For such enlightened folks no amount of money is large enough not to be waisted on making themselves feel like responsible world citizens. New Zealanders are lucky that they are still wealthy enough to be able to afford to be stupid. But how long can their wealth be maintained in a society hell-bent on throwing away money for no gain.

via Tim Blair

Labor’s anointed tax alcopops

Thomas Sowell’s ”The Vision of the Anointed Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy” is a brilliant insight into Rudd’s Labor and into the thinking of the so-called “progressive” elites at large.

Alcopops tax is a good illustration. First identify a “crisis” that the chosen elites will solve. Then put in place solution that confirms with elite vision. The solution is then put in place without any reference to how the real world works often making matters worse.

Here alcopops are perceived as a problem. Partly because they are a preferred drink of many young but also because elites find Cruisers and Breezers distasteful unlike wine or beer.

In science we are often told that correlation is not causation. But in elite’s vision correlation is causation. In this case teens are binge drinking, and they are drinking alcopops, means that alcopops are responsible for teenage binge drinking. Talk about simplistic. But the pattern repeats itself. For instance, Aboriginals have higher unemployment rates and they are a different race, which makes elites assume that Aboriginals are unemployed because of their race. The screams of racism ensue. We know that women on average get paid less than men and despite there being plenty of good reasons for that, again correlation is causation. For “thinking” elites women get paid less because they are women. The screams of sexism ensue. And on and on…

Back to the alcopops. The proposed solution is to tax alcopops higher than other drinks thus making them more expensive and less attractive to teens, therefore reducing the overall rate of teenage binge drinking. But this solution completely disregards how the real world works.

Firstly, there are still youth out there that will buy alcopops no matter what. In this group the drinking is not reduced but the drinkers are made poorer by the elites.

Secondly, there are readily available substitutes such as spirits, wine and beer. Again the actual incidence of teenage binge drinking is not reduced.

Thirdly, some substitutes are more dangerous than the original problem. Spirits for instance produce the same taste as pre-mixers but the strength of the end product is harder to control. When you buy a Breezer it has a number of standard drinks printed on it and it doesn’t change. In a cocktail, the volume of alcohol varies and they can be a lot stronger. Stronger drinks may result in more drunkenness related problems such as violence and sexual assault and more drivers losing their licenses, as the drinks may be stronger than drinkers assume.

Fourthly, older drinkers and responsible younger drinkers that like alcopops are punished by the elites.

Andrew Bolt also points out an apparent increase in shoplifting crimes due to the higher prices of alcopops.

Funnily enough all this could’ve been predicted by anyone with half a brain. But that matters little for the anointed in the Rudd’s Labor. Common sense is just to “simplistic” for the people who know better than the people. Stay tuned for more…

Do women really get paid less than men?

Thomas Sowell gives simple explanation to why women earn less than men:

Q: We’ve frequently heard, and will hear much more I am sure if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, that women make 76 cents for every dollar a man makes. Can you give us a basic rundown of why that discrepancy exists?

A: There are lots of reasons. Men and women do not work the same number of hours. They do not work in the same occupations. They do not work continuously the same, and so on.

You know, if it was really true that you could hire a woman for three quarters of what you could hire a man with exactly the same qualifications, then employers would be crazy not to hire all women. It would be insane to hire men. Not only would it be insane, it would probably put them out of the business because the ones that were smart enough to hire women would have such a cost advantage that it would be really hard for the others to compete.

Sowell’s explanation is elegant, brilliant and entirely logical! Why didn’t I think of it myself???

Sowell continues:

There are lots of gross differences between men and women and other groups and some of them shocked me when I first started doing the research. For example, I found that young male doctors make considerably more than young female doctors. But, when I dug into it a little deeper, I discovered that young male doctors work an average of 500 hours a year more than young female doctors. Obviously, a doctor that works 500 extra hours is going to make more money than the other doctor.

So the answer to the question: do women earn less than man, is YES, but there are good reasons why that is the case. Contrary to the commonly advanced liberal theory of “sexist and unjust male-dominated world”, other factors are at play. Men work more hours and spend more time in the workforce while women take time off to raise children and favour part time employment. My own wife, who earns more per hour than me, chooses to work only three days a week to look after our child. Her annual salary is lower than mine even though she would earn more if she worked full time. There is no conspiracy at play, it is only fair that those that work more get higher rewards.

This is not to say that sexism doesn’t exist and that women are always treated fairly. But as a general rule it is inconceivable that employers could hire a female worker for the three quarter of what they would have to pay a man with the same qualifications.

The whole interview is worth a read.

Bettina Arndt (female) has more on why women earn less than men. Again no conspiracy.

UPDATE:

Professor Mark Wooden of Melbourne University agrees:

Melbourne University social researcher Mark Wooden said men were earning on average 15 per cent more than women because they put in more time at the workplace.

“All high achievers in all walks of life … put in long hours into their activity,” Professor Wooden said.

“It’s (the pay equity gap) got a lot to do with the fact that women are not prepared to work longer hours.”

…

The only male taking part in a National Press Club panel discussion about the pay equity gap, Prof Wooden’s remarks drew gasps from the mostly female audience. [ ]

….

Prof Wooden said closing the gap would require a change in the traditional family structure.

“The only way we can achieve this is if we have lots of role reversals, lots of men behaving like women and lots of women behaving like men.”

“I don’t think women in Australia want that, I don’t think that women anywhere in the world want that.”

Water boarding

Fun at Five Feet Of Fury:

“if water boarding was a sexual preference, they’d be teaching it in public schools…”

Relevant questions

Mark Steyn asks the relevant questions:

After Sept. 11, 2001, many agonized progressives looked at America and its allies’ relations with the Muslim world and argued that we need to ask ourselves: why do they hate us? As Brian Dunn, a Michigan blogger, put it, a more relevant question is: why do we hate us? After all, if all our institutions, from grade school to public broadcasting to Hollywood movies to Canadian “human rights” commissars, operate from the basic assumption that Western civilization is the font of racism, imperialism, oppression, exploitation and all the other ills of the world, why be surprised that the rest of humanity takes us at our word?

Are you Lesbian or Lesbian?

Mark Steyn on the lawsuit we should’ve seen coming:

Three islanders from Lesbos—home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women—have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

“My sister can’t say she is a Lesbian,” said Dimitris Lambrou. “Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,” he said.

Doom and gloom

Washington Policy Center has recently published the list of predicted eco-disasters we can now safely laugh about. Read for yourself just how spectacularly wrong these doom-merchants were:

• “…civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.

• By 1995, “…somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.

• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “…the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.

• The world will be “…eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.

• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.

• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.

• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” Life magazine, January 1970.

• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

• “…air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.

• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.

• “By the year 2000…the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.

Why should we trust the current prophets of doom any more than those before them?

The end of Global Warming?

Lubos Motl reports:

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is a temperature pattern in the Pacific Ocean that spends roughly 20-30 years in the cool phase or the warm phase.

In 1905, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 1946, PDO switched to a cool phase.
In 1977, PDO switched to a warm phase.
In 1998, PDO showed a few cool years.

In 2008, PDO seems to be switching to a cool phase. (NASA).

Note that the cool phases seem to coincide with the periods of cooling (1946-1977) and the warm phases seem to coincide with periods of warming (1905-1946, 1977-1998). It’s probably no coincidence. Warm (cool) PDO regimes tend to encourage El Ninos (La Ninas) that help to warm up (cool down) the Earth, respectively.

The Chinese proverb says: “may you live in interesting times”. Indeed, we are living in interesting times. Solar activity is reportedly in decline and the PDO could be shifting into cool phase. The theory of Global Warming is about to be tested by the authority even higher (can that be possible!?) than the UN IPCC - the planet Earth herself.

I can predict without any computer models that politically motivated Global Warming science may become extinct long before polar bears. Indeed the consensus may be settled very soon…

More from Anthony Watts.

Children that don’t exist

Attorney-General Robert McClelland was on ABC Radio this morning plugging the upcoming Labor’s legislation to remove same-sex discrimination from a wide range of federal laws. Amongst many things McClelland mentioned that “children of gay couples” will no longer be discriminated.

Robert clearly doesn’t understand biology. Children of gay couples don’t exist. It is biologically impossible.

Obviously, we understand what McClelland meant, but he could’ve worded it differently. Even in the 21st century politically correct latte-sipping world, it still takes a male and a female to have a child. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “the facts of life are conservative”.

Four Corners. Tell ‘em they are dreaming…

I watched the ABC’s Four Corners - America Dreaming last night. Here is the show’s synopsis as per ABC website:

Can Barack Obama unite America - and deliver on Martin Luther King’s dream? Chris Masters reports.

My personal highlights were:

Black resident of Harlem housing prospects saying that people never talk about racism because racism is in their hearts. A minute before that she was saying that while Obama is seen by many as “not black enough”, he was black enough for her. Later in the show she complained about gentrification of Harlem as a white conspiracy to drive blacks out “like cattle”. Obviously white folks paying black folks loads of money for their houses is racist. Certainly seems like racism is in some people’s hearts…

Black female complaining that racism is still alive and well, minutes before she was awarded at the “Black Achievers Awards”. The irony of the situation was evidently not understood.

Black Harvard academic dismissing Jeremiah Wright’s rants as the sort of silly over the top black rhetoric that is absolutely harmless. It doesn’t take a Harvard Phd to figure, that if any white was to apply Wright’s “harmless rhetoric” to blacks they would be shouted down as racist if not jailed. The above academic also calmed that Obama’s 20 years association with Wright is irrelevant. Would it be irrelevant to him if say McCain had a 20 years association with a KKK member?

Young black girl told about her Southern friend that had a wallet with Confederation flag on it. Even though the person only had the wallet as a fashion item, she was dismayed and implied he approved or pro-slavery South by caring it. By the same token, when Obama’s aide hangs Che Guevara poster on public display in her office, does it imply that his staff support summary executions?

The whole show left me dismayed and angry. It made it quite clear that right now American race problems are not as much the fault of the “racist” whites but the black identity industry that continues to nurture and perpetrate the black victimhood it relies upon for its own survival.

I was also angry at the attitudes of white liberals who in order to redeem their white guilt patronise and segregate blacks with their “special” pity programs. I mentioned the “Black Achievers Award” before. It was given out by the white man. He looked like he was the only white man in there. I understand that being nice to blacks may make people feel god, but if you give out a special award only for blacks you are treating them as inherently different, special maybe, but different. This what racism is about - treating people different because of their race. Don’t you get it? And why don’t blacks object to such openly condescending treatment? Why do they accept the white man’s “special” award for blacks only? For all the talk of black pride, don’t they understand that accepting such “special” awards is an admission that they are not good enough to get awards open to non-blacks?

The only sane voice on the show belonged to the conservative African-American scholar Shelby Steele (strangely no other punter on the show was labelled as a liberal or left-wing scholar), who dared to criticise Obama’s lack of substance, called Jeremiah Wright’s bigotry for what it was, and mentioned that if Obama was to lose the elections it would not be because he is black, but because of his numerous failings. Steele also believes that America is long ready for a black president and Powell would’ve beaten the weak Bill Clinton if he decided to run.