Tax is destructive

Having high taxes distorts economic behaviour and changes peoples priorities and goals. Well, not really their goals. Most firms and individuals have the goal of maximising profit, but once you introduce a highly regulated and high taxing labour market, the methods of acheiving this are corrupted.

Ideally, firms would compete to secure the highest profits. They would concentrate on a range of factors that contribute to this in a free market; i.e the quality of their products, their marketting, image, pricing, reputation and most importantly - how they stack up against the competition. But when you introduce tax into the equation, a main consideration becomes "how do we minimise the tax we pay?"

And here we come along the subject of "deductions". You see the tax on businesses can be oppressive, especially given that businesses have business-related expenditure to sustain such as furniture, offices, wages, software and computers. So these businesses then rely on the governments tax legislation to see what the after-tax cost of these expenses are in order to fully evaluate them. And this distorts behaviour in a harmful way, as highlighted by the Mises institute:

Even the shape of your office is influenced by intervention. Thirty years ago, offices started using cubicles to house workers. Cubicles are still the largest selling office furniture, despite a huge range of management experts who say that they create a bad business environment. Why do they persist?
In 1968, the Treasury Department created new depreciation schedules that subsidize cubicles at the expense of separate offices. Companies can depreciate office furniture (including cubicle walls) in 7 years, whereas permanent office structures are given a 39.5-year rate. In other words, the costs of cubicles are more quickly recoverable than offices. This one change alone is what turned our workplaces into pictures out of Brave New World instead of the comfortable and humane places that they should be.

Murder, slavery and rape in the Congo.. whose to blame ?

Johann Hari has written an incredible and shocking, must-read account of the hell that exists in the Congo. He describes his first-hand encounters with the victims of violence, rape and slavery, and gives an insight into the many militias that exist in the lawless region.

After describing such despair, poverty and violence suffered by Africans, he unfortunately continues, in the way only left-wing ideologues can, to place some blame on us folks in the West:

In reality, they are immense holes in the ground, in which men, women and children – lots of children – pick desperately with makeshift hammers or their bare hands at the red earth, hoping to find some coltan or cassiterite to set on the long conveyor belt to your house or mine. Coltan is a metal that conducts heat unusually brilliantly. It is contained in your mobile, your lap-top, your son’s Playstation – and 80 percent of the world’s supplies sit beneath the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Ingo Mbale, 51, explains how the West’s hunger for coltan is fed. “We were enslaved three years ago,” he says. “An RCD captain [from one of the militias] arrived and forced us to mine for them at gun-point. They gave us no money, it was slave labour.

Somehow, I just knew Johann Hari would find the "blame the West" angle, just as he does in any story. There are huge ethnic divides in Africa, and many people form violent militias that go about seizing land, executing children and raping women. But somehow, just because some resource that is abundant in Congo is valued highly by Asia, Europe and the US, we are to blame. Even in the Rwandan genocide where the ethnic majority formed militias that used machettes and old firearms to butcher the ethnic minority, leftists managed to find a way to blame the West, saying that we should have intervened.

Without doing any fact checking or research, Johann Hari goes on to promote this brazen anti-American lie:

Lumumba claimed to be a democratic socialist who wanted to overcome Congo’s ethnic divisions. We will never know if he could have fulfilled this dream, because the CIA decided he was a “mad dog” who had to be put down. Before long, one of their agents was driving around Kinshasa with the elected leader’s tortured corpse in the boot looking for a place to dump him, and the CIA’s man – Mobutu Sese Seko – was in power and in the money.

The reality is that a subsequent investigation showed the CIA to have no involvement whatsoever in the removal of Lumumba. But facts are just a mere nuisance to left-wing gospel. Nonetheless, this account is a must-read. So long as people read things with an open yet skeptical mind, you can distill the facts and horrors in the story from the left wing editorialising and assignment of blame.

Unfortunately though, Andrew Sullivan who considers himself a conservative, when linking to this article shamefully wrote:

Read how cheap playstations have led to gang rapes, enslavement and massacres.

The UN is a waste of money

Mark Steyn has another great article, this time about the genocide in Darfur:

I SEE George Clooney and Angelina Jolie have discovered Darfur and are now demanding "action". Good for them.
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I wish the celebs well. Those of us who wanted action on Darfur years ago will hope their advocacy produces more results than ours did. Clooney's concern for the people of the region appears to be genuine and serious. But unless he's also serious about backing the only forces in the world with the capability and will to act in Sudan, he's just another showboating pretty boy of no use to anyone.

Here's the lesson of the past three years: The UN kills.
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Well, Washington learned its lesson. Faced with another thug regime that's no threat to anyone apart from selected ethnocultural groups within its borders which it kills in large numbers (African Muslims and southern Christians), the unilateralist cowboy decided to go by the book. No unlawful actions here. Instead, meetings at the UN. Consultations with allies. Possible referral to the Security Council.

And as I wrote on this page in July 2004: "The problem is, by the time you've gone through the UN, everyone's dead." And as I wrote in Britain's Daily Telegraph in September 2004: "The US agreed to go the UN route and it looks like they'll have a really strongish compromise resolution ready to go about a week after the last villager's been murdered and his wife gang-raped."

Several hundred thousand corpses later Clooney is now demanding a "stronger multinational force to protect the civilians of Darfur".

Agreed. So let's get on to the details. If by "multinational" Clooney means a military intervention authorised by the UN, then he's a poseur and a fraud, and we should pay him no further heed. Meaningful UN action is never gonna happen.

Quotes of Richard Carleton

As I'm sure many know, veteran 60 minutes reporter Richard Carleton yesterday died from a heart attack during a press conference at the Beaconsfield mine disaster in Tasmania.

Personally, I hated his work in the past. His arrogance and bigotry were his characteristics. I don't take any joy from his death, I would have much rather he retired from journalism altogether and kept his opinions away from the 60 minutes program.

Here are some famous quotes of the spin-master:
Regarding Michael Moore's documentary:

"It’s pure propaganda, and I fully support it because I oppose the war.”

Regarding the death of 12 year old Palestinian boy Mohammed-al-Dura, whose death was ultimately proven to be caused by Palestinian gunfire:

The "overwhelming evidence," averred Mr Carleton, "is that boy was targeted, murdered, by Israeli soldiers."

Describing Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount:

"a brazenly provocative act".

(gee, what about all the other times Ariel Sharon and other Israeli ministers have visited the Temple Mount before ? )
And the report I personally hate the most was when he covered the Israeli defence barrier:

"Madness is the currency in Israel right now. Acts of madness are commonplace. And this is perhaps an expression of just how barren and brutal thinking has become here. A concrete wall to segregate Israelis from Palestinians, occupiers from occupied. Formidable as it looks, though, this wall will not solve the problems, because the source of Israel's problems lies on the other side."

And this little exchange shows why I think the guy was an arrogant prick:

YISRAEL MEDAD: We took this territory as a result of a defensive war in 1967.

RICHARD CARLETON: And you should give it back.

YISRAEL MEDAD: If that's your opinion, fine. My opinion's very different.

RICHARD CARLETON: No, world opinion. World opinion as represented by the United Nations.

"Feminist media studies" makes your head bleed

This is what 2nd year professional communication or media students at Melbourne's RMIT university are forced to cover as part of their prescribed reading. I must warn you that it will make your head reel and your brain to turn to mush and leak out through your ears. Such nonsensical and incoherent arguments are hard to come across in modern times, but it seems our post-modern thinkers are always ready to supply us with more.

I quote you a paragraph from L. Van Zoonen's "New Themes in Feminist Media Studies", 1994:

For a boy to become a man he has to separate from his mother and identify with his father. The little girl on the other hand pases these phases differently. As she becomes aware of her own lack of a penis, she develops penis envy and resents the mother for badly equipping her. To take revenge she turns to the father, competing for his love with her mother and desiring his penis. Only of the girl succeeds in substituting her phallic desire by the wish to have a baby - the ultimate penis substitute for women according to Freud - will she develop as an untroubled mature woman.

Victoria is a socialist gulag

Lets be realistic here, the standard of living is fantastic in Victoria but our personal freedoms and liberties have never ever been more restricted.

The racial and religious villification laws slam free speech. They make it illegal to criticise a religion.

The water restrictions are nothing more than centrally planned nonsense. Rather than allowing water providers and customers to come to a voluntary agreement about what they may exchange, government has put its tentacles into the market and limited the ways in which a household may use water. My South East Water bill has the following on the back page:

One Year On: The Permanent Water Saving Rules that apply in Melbourne celebrated their first anniversary in March 2006. Please remember to follow these simple rules because every drop counts...

You hear that you stupid slaves ? The rules "celebrated". All hail the legislation. This is the kind of Orwellian language that comes from socialists who value their party and the size of government far more than the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Also on a federal level, our rights and freedoms are utterly trashed:

Holders of a tourist/visitor visa DO NOT have permission to work in Australia.

You may apply for permission to work by lodging an application for a Temporary Residence visa. Temporary Residence visas allow Australian employers, who are unable to fill highly skilled positions from the local labour market, to sponsor overseas personnel for up to four years.

You cannot start work until the Department has approved your application.

Working without permission is an offence that attracts a fine of up to $10,000. It can also result in your visa being cancelled and your holiday cut short.

I also heard a caller ring 3AW talkback radio this morning saying that the ABS mailed his household telling him they wish to interview him for their social trends survey. Because the man worked full time, he initially refused to be interviewed in his household, and the ABS responded by issuing a letter threatening a $10,000 fine against the man unless he helped them with their survey.
Surely this is an outrageous form of coercion against individuals by government. Or how about this little gem, that our farmers have to deal with?

In general the government will own all water on or below the ground, a farmer will be given an allocation for each year, if it’s a dry year and he goes over his allocation it will be deducted off the next year and so on until he runs out of water.

If a farmer refuses an NRM board officer permission of entry on his land, the maximum penalty is a fine of $10,000. If the farmer users abusive language a $5,000 fine can apply.

And in Western Australia, people in rural areas aren't allowed to clear trees and vegetation from their properties:

It is recommended that the Environmental Protection Act 1986 (henceforth “the Act”) be amended to provide that clearing of more than 0.2ha of indigenous vegetation is an offence.
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A failure to comply with this provision may attract a maximum fine of $10,000. Perhaps more significantly, a pastoral lessee who has contravened section 109(1) must restore the land and vegetation to the satisfaction of the Pastoral Lands Board.

Just remember that when governments give themselves the power to fine or imprison individuals over "undesirable" behaviour, they are using coercion, violence or the threat of violence against individuals. When the government spends more time restricting liberties and freedoms, than actually upholding them, it becomes an institution of violence.

Hamas keeps on killin'

Today's Honest Reporting update highlights some media whitewashing of Hamas violence and aggression against Israel:

Perhaps more conspicuously absent from the media's coverage is the revelation, covered extensively in Israeli sources such as YNet and Haaretz as well as wire services AFP, Xinhua and Zee News, that Hamas was responsible for funding and training the terrorists of the Popular Resistance Committees, whose attempt to detonate a booby-trapped truck at the crossing was foiled by PA police in a shootout. While coverage was missing from the newspapers, as we went to press, even the BBC's website reported on the story.

This is the first time that Hamas has been exposed as being directly implicated in Palestinian terrorist activities since winning the PA elections in January, while claiming to have adhered to a self-proclaimed ceasefire.

Yet, while some sections of the media choose to report on the growing funding crisis in the Palestinian territories, it seems that the hypocrisy of Hamas is ignored by many. For, as the Jerusalem Post points out:

Government officials noted the irony that while Hamas was warning of a humanitarian disaster inside the Gaza Strip, and while the Palestinian Authority was lobbying the world to pressure Israel to keep the Karni crossing open, Hamas was involved in an attack aimed at blowing up the crossing. Due to numerous terror specific warnings, Karni has been repeatedly opened and closed by Israel since the disengagement from Gaza last year. The closures are often depicted by the PA as collective punishment on the Palestinian people, which relies on the goods transferred through the crossing.

Sickening. These barbarians shouldn't be in power, they should be in prison.

Environmentalism is nothing more than a PR campaign

How hypocritical is this (via AP)!

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a news conference at a local gas station in Washington.




Environmentalism is nothing more than an assortment of PR and marketing gimicks. Supermarkets and manufacturers boldly offer bio-degradable, eco-friendly products. But consumers rarely question what the so-called environmental benefits are. Hey if its advertised as something green, well then it must be good for the planet, no ?
Rational people should be doing a cost-benefit analysis on certain actions. If you ride a bike all the time, like any good eco-friendly hippy would ( instead of driving ), you reduce emissions from your car.
But wait, the story doesn't end there. There must be some kind of trade off. Its clear that the bike-rider is now burning much more energy. That energy must be replaced with more food and calories. But food itself is a resource. More cows and chickens need to be fed grain and slaughtered to provide food. The meat has to be transported which uses fuel and electricity. More bread needs to be baked which itself uses electricity. And on it goes. But these facts rarely figure on the average person's calculus.

As seen above, even political figures will drive a hydrogen car in front of the media whilst switching to gas-guzzling SUVs when the cameras are gone. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton do exactly the same thing. It doesn't make them any more hypocritical than the rest of us carrying green shopping bags, purchasing "fair trade" items and/or driving hybrid cars.

NY loonies on the march

An "anti-war" protest took place near ground zero in Manhattan. I say anti-war with scare quotes because the biggest oponents of the Iraq war were actually quite fond of Bill Clinton's bombing of Kosovo. I guess they are only anti-war when a Republican president is in power:

One of the many signs in the crowd read “End this war, bring the troops home.” Another read “Veterans for Peace.”

One woman who marched says she “had a lot of anger” and has to do something. Marjori Ramos of Staten Island said, “We’ve been lied to.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson, actress Susan Sarandon, and Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son died in Iraq, were among the marchers.

Ahh yes that scholar on world politics, Susan Sarandon. And now peace mom Cindy Sheehan has become something of a celebrity herself. The mainstream media are wilfully blind to the fact she is a proven liar

I will tell the world why Casey has no marker yet. In the first place, does anyone who is attacking me know how Casey was brought home from Iraq? We picked him up in the United loading dock in a cardboard box and he was off-loaded into a hearse without one honor guard. We had to wait for about a half hour on a curb near the United freight area for his one escort, who rode from Dover Air Force Base in a seat, while Casey was treated as an over-sized piece of luggage. Has anybody held her other sobbing children who are sitting on a curb in San Francisco, waiting for the remains of their big brother to be carried over to the dock by a forklift?

WE don’t see them because Mama Bush doesn’t want to “bother her pretty mind” with the images... Our government discards and dishonors its own.

But Gateway Pundit has the following to say about her outrageous claim:

The Nadeau Funeral Home has a fine tradition of serving the Vacaville community and they went out of their way to make sure that the Sheehans were well taken care of during the difficult period when they had to bury their son, Casey. Nadeau Funeral Home has also helped two other families of fallen soldiers. They work hard to help these suffering families of fallen soldiers.

Mr. Nadeau is very upset about the article that Cindy Sheehan wrote regarding the Nadeau Funeral Home in Vacaville, California. He also said that the funeral home is being inundated with calls of support from the community since the article was published. Mr. Nadeau said he wrote The Reporter in Vacaville but the paper did not publish most of the information that he had provided. Here is that information...

When questioned about the casket:

“The casket arrived in San Francisco from Dover which is 67 miles from Vacaville. Sacramento would not have been as far. The casket was a beautiful hardwood casket, government regulation. It was covered in an ”airtray“ to protect it during the flight. It is a certified covering that all caskets must be covered in when they are flown from one location to another.

What about the forklift?

”There was no forklift. The military men present and the airport employees were very reverent in unloading the casket of this young man. They set the casket on a set of rollers and were very respectful in unloading Casey Sheehan.“

On the Sheehan Family:

”This was very upsetting because we have known the Sheehan’s for years through St. Mary’s Catholic Church where Cindy Sheehan was the youth director. Casey Sheehan was a wonderful young man. We have known the family for years.“

On Cindy’s article:

”We do not know why she would want to bring down the name of this fine and respected funeral home. Cindy is sticking with her story. We have, of course, kept all of the receipts that show we paid the cemetery. If Cindy Sheehan wanted to pick on someone, she picked the wrong ones."

Even though she is clearly unstable, emotional and hateful, she is still touted as a celebrity by the media. Whats more, she is on her way to Melbourne this month, so maybe I will get the opportunity to hear her talk in person.

I'm sure those in attendance will be of a similar maturity to the protestors in NY: