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The fifth biggest economy in the world suddenly frees itself from worlds biggest bureaucratic basket case, and everyone else is knocking at the door?.
Daily Mail: Countries are lining up to enter trade talks with Britain in the wake of the decision to leave the European Union, it was claimed last night.
American politicians are clamouring for an agreement, while talks could soon begin with Australia, South Korea and India.
Otherwise, Brexit is a disaster. Indeed it is so unthinkable, half the pundits are still thinking up reasons why it might not happen. Today uncertainty is what Tony Blair wants, and for as long as possible — “Let’s keep the options open” he says, as he thinks up a list of excuses to ignore a Yes:No vote, like an opinion poll. “People can change their minds” he points out. And they do, which is why we elect governments then throw them out two weeks later when their polls fall below 50%.
On the Twelth Day of Brexit the excuses are hitting the Orwellian-Turbo-Booster: If Britain leaves the EU it will lose sovereign control says some guy in Ireland. Black is white. Up is down. And […]
It was no accident that Turnbull turned out to be a lousy campaigner. He stood for things the people didn’t want, so he couldn’t mention his “successes” nor point at Labor’s big failures.
Andrew Bolt wonders why Turnbull didn’t run the carbon tax scare, which worked so well for Tony Abbott:
If only Turnbull had followed another critical tip from the shrewd Hunt, to hit Labor with an attack on his planned electricity tax – a new carbon tax. As Labor’s Mediscare has proved, the electorate is highly sensitive to threats to the household budget after several years now of living standards not rising. An attack on Labor’s electricity tax could have been decisive, but that was one more piece of good advice Turnbull ignored.
It was not about good advice. Turnbull couldn’t run the carbon tax scare — because he and Greg Hunt had bought a carbon tax in themselves — the hypocrites would be exposed. Worse, it would remind the electorate of what they voted for so emphatically in 2013 — a mandate to get rid of a carbon tax.
The last time the Coalition could campaign on getting rid of that great big carbon tax […]
…. nearly forgot this was a weekend. : -)
7.4 out of 10 based on 22 ratings
The Tally updates have just stopped for tonight, but things have shifted in the last hour. Welcome to holidayville-Australia, no one is going to count votes tomorrow. Bizarrely, they’re not even counting on Monday either — (that must be a misprint?)
Apparently we can pay double-triple-overtime for people to work til 2am on a Saturday, but then we all need two days off.
*UPDATE: The delay is probably due to waiting for postal votes to come in. Because of Australia’s preference system, preferences can’t be allocated until all the votes are in. h/t Analitik
Delcons mattered
Turnbull has taken a historic win in 2013 and converted it into a historic mash. Abbott knew what he stood for and carried a lot of people with him. Turnbull stood for nothing-much and communicated that exactly.
Everyone except Bill Shorten said Turnbull was likely to win, tracking to win, or has “won”. Andrew Bolt thought this win was likely to be so weak, so pathetic, even a minority-hobbled-government, that Turnbull should resign. But based on these newer numbers, it might be Shorten doing the minority government thing. Check it out: the magic number is 76 seats — and while 77 […]
The place to get results: ABC Federal Election 2016
Federal Election Results list (Seat by Seat)
See also Twitter #ausvotes and also #ausdecides2016
For Foreigners watching — Australia has 150 Seats in the House of Reps. The party with 76 gets to choose the PM and form Government. The SENATE or UPPER HOUSE has 76 members — 12 for each State and 2 for the NT and ACT. This election is rare in that all the Senate seats are up for grabs, normally we elect half each time, but this is a “double dissolution” election. That hasn’t happened for 40 years. There are 15 million voters, and voting is compulsory.
Almost all the newspaper and poll predictions were for a Turnbull (Liberal Coalition) win.
8pm: Lib 57 seats. Labor 58 seats. Booths closed everywhere now. Oakshott predicted to fail. Xenophon team look like they have a House seat (MAYO) 32% counted.
7:50pm Eden Monaro (Bellwether seat that has always gone with the government — appears to be going to Labor. Will it break the pattern, or is it a sign to come? Hendy was very pro Turnbull, so […]
Two days to go. How to vote?
WA skeptics can make a difference here, but I have to deal with the DelCon dilemma too.
Dr Dennis Jensen is the most qualified science trained and outspoken skeptic in Parliament, and he’s running as an Independent on Saturday. For Tangney voters, it’s a pointed dilemma. Jensen bravely spoke out as a skeptic in 2004, before almost anyone else. He also helped to toss out Turnbull in 2009. But then he bafflingly (to me) voted for Turnbull last year — undoing almost all the gains skeptics had made in the last 10 years. I wrote to him pointing out how far backwards we have gone: “We are now so much worse off than we were in 2010 or 2013. We don’t even have a major party in opposition offering us a skeptical alternative and we won’t get one as long as Turnbull is PM. In 2013 Tony Abbott won on a blood oath to get rid of a carbon tax that Australians overwhelmingly wanted. Despite that, a carbon tax starts in 3 days. We skeptics haven’t forgotten that you spoke out for skeptics when no one else did, but neither can we […]
Spotless Sun June 29th, 2016 | Spaceweather.com | SDO/HMI
The Sun is spotless again. I hasn’t been this inactive for a hundred years. This week there are a spate of news stories about a little ice age coming — even from the uber warmista Potsdam Institute.
Looks like a spot of bother for the people feeding off the carbon reduction gravy train? Not so. I predict they will mutate the argument, and with a completely straight face — the effect of carbon dioxide will turn out to be “more complicated”, scientists will rediscover that the molecule emits infra red too — and now rather than just simple warming, it will be responsible for “transforming regional patterns”, “shifting layers” and “wandering jet streams”. It will turn out the sun controls the climate but CO2 amplifies the solar effects. It’s bad, bad, bad — still causing storms, floods, rain on the weekends, rotting reefs and reckless fish.
Predicting discoveries is easy — just ask what establishment scientists would need to discover to keep their fame, status and salary package.
The Quiet Sun: “Winter is Coming”
A meteorologist at Vencore Weather, Paul Dorian, has stated that the sun has gone […]
This is such a change. It used to be that the best a skeptic could hope for was a politician who “believes the science” but spoke in a code about wanting more evidence. But here’s a candidate openly wooing skeptics — no pandering to political correctness. Imisides is equipped with a PhD in chemistry and he wants a debate: Look at me as a type of scientific Dirty Harry, he says. He explains why lawyer-politicians use the wrong reasoning and we need scientist politicians (like him, obviously). His points are not just about Australian politics but all Western governments. He skips the scientific details here (we all know them), but I can vouch that from his past emails he’s not only done the homework on aerosols, hotspots, ice cores, and different IPCC reports, he’s even familiar with the devastating Thompson’s case (skeptical farming family). This man is a serious skeptic. Well informed, and he understands how to reason. In a double dissolution election, he’s tackling a big vacant niche so he has a real chance (and with a lucky #1 spot on the ticket to boot). I wish there were more like him in every state — scientifically […]
India wants to be in the Nuclear Club — that’s the bargaining chip for signing the Paris agreement.
India won’t ratify the Paris agreement unless it gets membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) a club that was, as it happens, set up in 1974 when a naughty India set off a nuclear test. But China is completely against India earning its NSG badge. So the big two population elephants on Earth and the monster carbon emitters are not so concerned about the future of Earth that they are going to put other rivalries aside. Priorities, indeed.
Pretty much every nation on Earth has signed up for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – except for India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. In the NPT club there are five countries rated in the Platinum Frequent Flyer Bomb Class and the rest agree not to develop nuclear bombs but are (maybe) allowed to use nuclear power. Most of the few non-signers, like India, probably have bombs, but not the “license” for global bomb club membership. Now, China helps proliferate weapons in North Korea and Pakistan so it’s a tad rich that it claims to be afraid the NPT will fall apart if […]
EU fans are rightly fearing the unravelling of their empire, built on decades of sneaky, undemocratic bureaucratic creep. The French, Austrians, Finns, Dutch and Germans want a vote on the EU.
All over the establishment media, the derogatory narrative is that “Little Brits” are scared of the outside world, and are xenophobic, racists, too afraid to engage with the rest of the world. So let’s look at how inward-looking and timid the Brits were in times before the EU modern wisdom.
Here’s the British Empire circa 1920:
The Sun never set on the British Empire
Map adapted from Wikipedia
Get into the spirit Rule Brittania! Want more?
“Little Britain” ran the largest empire the world has ever known — spreading democracy, justice, and one language across a broader array of races and places than any other nation. (And the real Anglosphere includes The United States of America.)
The Brits are the bigots who outlawed slavery, widow-burning and fostered democracy in India.
It’s not surprising that the Brits are leading the way out of the false anti-democratic empire known as the European Union.
The fight has just begun
Based on past form, we know that […]
And What a Weekend it is too…
8.3 out of 10 based on 26 ratings
Watching those results come in on Marketwatch, and The Telegraph map from @WSJeurope.
FRIDAY MORNING: Results are swinging both ways. The betting is shifting. Pound falling. Remarkable rise in the spot gold price. Telegraph reporting that Brexit is now the favourite outcome, but Marketwatch and others saying that results still to come are more likely to favour Remain from heavily populated areas in London.
UPDATED: Who cares what happens in the Australian election next week. This is brilliant news and a historic moment! In the modern era finally the creeping growth of Big-Government has been pegged back. Fittingly, the spot price of gold melted up by $100 in hours and the Kitco site melted down. Pollsters and analysts were flummoxed. The UK is a nation divided with a patchwork of areas being strongly pro or against, and no easy trend across the nation. ABC radio here is painting BREXIT as a bit of an “emotional” decision over immigration, in contrast making out that the fear of a economic pain for leaving is “rational”. As if leaving the economic basket-case that is the EU would be bad for an economy which gave more money than it took. The UK is the […]
It takes bumper government subsidies to destroy this many trees for so little reason:
Six Flags Adventure Park goes Solar — Slate
The plan, the largest solar installation in New Jersey, will generate 21.4 megawatts of electricity, enough to power the amusement park’s Garden State facility. The company projects that the initiative will eliminate approximately 215,000 tons of CO2 emissions over 15 years…
“We are excited about the fact that this project will reduce carbon emissions by 31 times more than the trees and shrubs that will be removed, and that we will become the world’s first solar-powered theme park,” said Kristin Siebeneicher, communications manager for Six Flags Great Adventure and Safari.
The 66 acres of native wildlife may not be so excited.
Nor are the surrounding hominids. Can’t please em’:
Local residents and environmental groups—including Clean Water Action, Crosswicks/Doctors Creek Watershed Association, Environment New Jersey, NJ Conservation Foundation, Save Barnegat Bay, and the Sierra Club—beg to differ, claiming that razing nearly 15,000 trees will adversely impact water quality, air quality and sound quality; decrease the wildlife population; and affect biodiversity,…
Somewhere a plot of underground coal is being protected.
Welcome to […]
Perth readers may want to come tomorrow night as David Evans discusses the role of gold in western history.
Gold – Past, Present and Future?
Classic Nights — History of Western Civilisation An Adult Education initiative from St Augustine’s
Explores the history of gold as a medium of exchange, and its role in curbing financial shenanigans down the ages. The origins of banking, the global financial crisis, and the next decade — the world has more debt than ever before, the situation is not sustainable, and major changes of some sort are afoot. It’s a chance to discuss ideas that have shaped human history.
Current financial markers are a long way from the norm:
The welfare state enabled by the bubble in taxes, made possible by the bubble in money manufactured due to Greenspan’s policies.
To reduce the current bubble, central banks are trying to generate moderate but controlled inflation. The winners will be the borrowers (who don’t get wiped out with the volatility), the losers will be everyone else, especially the savers.
Event details below.
8.4 out of 10 based on 30 ratings […]
The terrifying effect of CO2
Feel the panic.
South Pole CO2 levels cross 400 ppm first time in 4 million years!
WASHINGTON: The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone when carbon dioxide levels surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years, according to US scientists.The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote location means it is the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption, the primary driver of greenhouse gas pollution, researchers said.
In response, the South pole temperatures “pause”
Satellites show the real warming effect of CO2 on the air over Antarctica (thanks Ken Stewart)
For thousands of years temperatures in West Antarctica have been higher than now.
Graph via WattsUP
Temperatures (orange) peaked around 4,000 years ago (top graph). Graph: T.J. Fudge | University of Washington
Notice how CO2 controls the temperature in Vostok – Not. 9.5 out of 10 based on 69 ratings […]
Compare the tallies. Sixty-five million years ago an asteroid smacked-down and only 10% of mammal species survived. So far in the Anthropocene Catastrophe, one type of rat has been wiped off a 300m island.
Press Release Mammals almost wiped out with the dinosaurs
A study by researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, reviewed all mammal species known from the end of the Cretaceous period in North America. Their results showed that over 93 per cent became extinct across the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, but that they also recovered far more quickly than previously thought.
Afterwards, mammalian life recovered with unexpected speed and diversity. Chalk one up to nature and evolution. Not so fragile?
8.8 out of 10 based on 51 ratings […]
From the Republican Attorney’s General in the US – the message that policing the “global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake.” The Rep AG’s point out this is a public policy debate, and if other AG’s are going to use the subpoena’s to shake down companies like Exxon for supporting free speech on one side of the debate, then suddenly a lot of players are opening themselves to similar cases.
Wall St Journal: Two can play at Climate Fraud
Eric Schneiderman and Sheldon Whitehouse, call your office. The New York Attorney General and Rhode Island Senator who helped to launch the prosecution of dissent on climate change may not like where their project is headed. Thirteen state Attorneys General have sent a letter pointing out that if minimizing the risks of climate change can be prosecuted as “fraud,” then so can statements overstating the dangers of climate change.
Since the money in this debate is so one sided, it follows that a lot more people have profited from exaggerating the scare:
But the AGs’ letter points out that, “If Exxon’s disclosure is deficient, what of the failure of renewable energy […]
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9.2 out of 10 based on 32 ratings
Time to pop some bubbles
There is a $1.5 Trillion industry selling us better weather. If this climate money bubble were to collapse, someone is going to make a motza-lot of money. (And it might as well be the skeptics who saw it coming, eh?) Would you like to help develop a hedge fund that can play that game, and take those bets, both to invest and divest, to hedge, donate, and fund research? Another task is to also grow a philanthropic hedge fund management company.*
One day soon, you may like the idea of short-selling overvalued renewables stocks, and doing other things that profit from cooler weather or collapsing subsidies — but which fund could you invest in to manage that? It’s a niche crying out to be filled. David and I liked this idea so much when we were approached by Chris Dawson two years ago, we got involved in developing Cool Futures (and obviously stand to benefit if this comes together, see the Disclosure at the end).
Cool Futures could change the game in so many ways. The vision here is much more than just profit making. It’s about being […]
Oh the burden! Global Warming Saviours know they are smarter than everyone else
So much of what drives the cult of climate fear is the rewarding affirmation that they are intellectually gifted. “Pat me on the back! Tell me how smart I am!” It fills the low-self-esteem vacuum of a B-grade brain or an untrained naive mind. It’s a sugar-hit to the undisciplined being, looking for the easy road to social acceptance and glory.
The New Nostradamus of the North has caught a Huff Po comedian Xavier Toby suggesting that “maybe we need to lie” for the climate. There is no sign of satire.
In order for us to start acting on climate change then, maybe we need to tell a few lies.
Advertising does lie to us all the time. The only difference with this issue is that instead of trying to convince us to buy stuff we don’t need and is often very harmful to us, by jazzing up the campaign against climate change, we’d be saving the planet and ourselves.
So let’s rename climate change: ‘lower energy bills’, ‘higher superannuation’, and ‘healthier children for generations to come’.
So instead […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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