HST - how can you tell when politicians are lying?

Easy - when their lips are moving and/or their keyboards are clacking.

Yesterday BC FinMin Colin Hansen posted this incredible excuse on Facebook for why the Liberals said one thing during the election "and something else now":

... the party was asked about the HST. The answer was that the party's platform, while aware of the benefits the HST offered, did not contemplate the adoption of the HST in BC.That was an honest statement and, while I did not write it, I will defend the fact that it was totally accurate.After the election, I was able to "re-engage" with Finance Ministry staff. At that time, it became obvious that some key issues had changed dramatically (including, in this context, the HST world).

... What changed everything for us was the announcement by Ontario that they would sign on to the HST system effective July 1, 2010.

The Ontario decision to go to the HST was announced as part of the Ontario budget on March 26th. So why did the BC government not pick up on it until late May as Hansen says?

"On March 26, when the Ontario budget came down, to be honest I didn't pay a lot of attention to it." [For two months through the May 12th election and beyond!?]

That’s hardly believable but if true it reflects extremely poorly on his abilities. But whatever the truth of that statement, surely Hansen’s staff fully understood the implications - and surely they briefed him. The Feds have been pushing the HST since Chrétien said he’s kill the GST. So the BC government has known for decades all of the implications of HST and would have known almost instantly what it meant for BC if Ontario were to adopt the tax.

He also claims he didn’t know the rules have changed allowing BC flexibility to set a 12% tax rate instead of 13% as for the Atlantic provinces. Also not believable.

From the story in today’s Victoria Times Colonist:

NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston said Hansen's claim that he missed Ontario's switch to HST defies belief. More likely, Ralston said, Hansen has fabricated the story to cover up the fact that the Liberals hid their tax plans during the election campaign. "It's pathetic that he's trying to resort to this tortured explanation when it's just clearly not true," Ralston said.

He said that Hansen would have been briefed on the Ontario budget and his office would have been anticipating the HST announcement for months.

As early as January, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty told Canadian Press the province would take a "long, hard look" at adopting the HST.

Later that same month, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty indicated the federal government was willing to show more flexibility in its HST negotiations with the provinces.

"The reality is they knew about it before the election," Ralston said. "They had a serious discussion about it, they planned to implement it, but they didn't want to talk about it in the election campaign, because they knew it would damage their election chances."

As today’s TC editorial sums it up:　

... It defies belief to believe the tax went from nowhere to announcement in less than 10 weeks.

... Campbell promised years ago that he would run an open, honest government. The HST is just the latest announcement to make a mockery of that promise.

The political choices in BC are abysmal: Lieberal, NDP, Green and Marijuana. That last one is looking better all the time.

Obama enemies lists and thuggery

Obama will brook no opposition to his medicare legislation. Informants are encouraged to identify critics and snitch directly to the Whitehouse:

... On Monday, White House director of new media Macon Phillips posted a note on the White House web site complaining of "disinformation about health insurance reform." "These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation," Phillips wrote. "Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

Hugh Hewitt comments:

... Appealing as the president did via the White House web for snitches to turn in "fishy" citizens smacks of the lowest sort of thuggish politics. It took Chuck Colson a couple of years and the repeated leaks of national security information and massive protests of the Vietnam era to get the Watergate-era Plumbers up and running. A mere six months into his unsteady start, the new president is reaching for the political blackjacks.

Meanwhile Democratic union thugs beat up a protester at a townhall meeting.

All of which inspired this great video:

HST tax grab - how we’re being screwed

One thing the BC HST pronouncement is doing is shedding some light on how we’re being screwed under the current system. A major benefit of HST touted by BCFinMin Colin Hansen is that sales tax on business inputs would be eliminated and only the HST would be collected.

Double taxing plus tax on tax. How many people knew that businesses paid sales tax at the wholesale level. GST is not charged and I’d bet most people thought that PST was a retail value added tax. So what the government is now admitting is that they have been double taxing products all along. The weasels are collecting sales tax from retailers on their wholesale purchases, then collecting sales tax again on the higher retail price of the products. And, worse, consumers are paying tax on business input taxes.

So the government thinks we should be grateful that they're implementing the HST on the grounds that they’ll stop screwing us through double taxation and tax on tax. Grateful my ass! They shouldn’t have been screwing us (and making business uncompetitive) to begin with. They were counseled not to, by Preston Manning, for one:

"The five provinces that still apply sales tax to business inputs, namely British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island, should immediately end this practice. ..."

Anyway, how will the BC tax-grabbers now make up for lost business input tax revenue? Obviously by taxing everything that wasn’t previously taxed. Some businesses will be more competitive under the new HST regime but consumers, that’s EVERYBODY, will really be screwed and then some.

Stop the HST! And stop double taxation and tax on tax!

Jokers: Double standards

On seeing this depiction of Obama , an LA Daily writer snaps out the race card: "The only thing missing is the noose." (Check out the comments).

















While this Vanity Fair rendition of George W. Bush is apparently considered "high art".

More on libs' short memories.




[via]



Anyway, my favourite Joker is still this guy.

Cosmic rays and climate - update on CERN's CLOUD experiment

Last May the CLOUD experiment team at CERN took delivery of the project's cloud chamber.

To recap: AGW proponents deny that solar variation plays any significant role in climate change. Deniers! However:

"I think the evidence for a link between reconstructions of past climate change and solar activity is too strong to ignore," explains Jasper Kirkby, Spokesperson for the CLOUD experiment. "There are a lot of observations showing that variations of the sun seem to be affecting the climate, but we don’t yet know what the mechanism for this is."

"The aim of CLOUD is to understand whether or not cosmic rays can affect clouds and climate, by studying the microphysical interactions of cosmic rays with aerosols, cloud droplets and ice particles." This is one of the possible mechanisms for solar-climate variability since the solar wind – the stream of charged particles ejected from the sun – varies over time and affects the intensity of the cosmic rays that reach the Earth.

... This is the first time a particle accelerator has been used to study atmospheric and climate science and CLOUD therefore lies at an intersection between several different disciplines.

Also note this from Kirby:

"... Particle physicists are always happier to look at the simplest, most fundamental systems, whereas most atmospheric and climate physicists approach from one of the most complex systems possible – namely the atmosphere and climate."

Data collection will begin later in 2009.

Now this is science. None of that "the debate is over", "the science is settled" BS.

DeSmogBlog’s PR flacks and propagandists

Though I’d heard the name before, Anthony Watts drew my attention to DeSmogBlog in a post about a mini-kerfuffle over copyright infringement. Apparently DeSmog’s Kevin Grandia, rather oddly and embarrassingly, attempted to inject himself into the issue - presumably for purposes of self-promotion.

Anyway, Anthony piqued my interest in DeSmog. Who are these people?

From DeSmogBlog’s ‘About’ page we learn that it’s founders and contributors are Canadian PR professionals with law and/or writers’ credentials:

The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates, one of Canada's leading public relations firms. By training a lawyer ... a Board Member of the David Suzuki Foundation.

... benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller

... Editorial Assistance on the blog is provided by renowned author Ross Gelbspan

...Richard Littlemore, an award-winning science and magazine writer, a speechwriter and a senior counsellor at Hoggan.

...Kevin Grandia oversees the project as a whole and manages the social media and online marketing components.

Their mission is to "desmog" what they claim are deliberate attempts by unscrupulous people to "intentionally subvert the public awareness" about man-made global warming. This, in a way, explains some of their zeal. DeSmog is a bunch of PR flacks fighting what they see is a righteous propaganda war against an evil AGW ‘denialist’ PR machine:

... Although all public relations professionals are bound by a duty to not knowingly mislead the public. [Maybe, but in practice they know the opposite is closer to the truth.]

... some have executed comprehensive campaigns of misinformation on behalf of industry clients ... Lately, these fringe players have turned their efforts to creating confusion about climate change.

And, moreover, they see vast conspiracies at work.

This PR campaign could not be accomplished without the compliance of media as well as the assent and participation of leaders in government and business.
[Uh huh, even though nearly every media outlet and government on the planet,
(not to mention many an oil company), has lined up four-square behind the
campaign with billions upon billions of dollars to "fight climate change."]

The ‘DeSmoggers’ apparently are convinced that these climate change obfuscators are so evil, that even knowing full-well that man-made CO2 will surely destroy the planet and kill millions of people including their own children and grandchildren, they will do everything in their power to ensure that mankind keeps on pumping more of the deadly gas into the atmosphere. That’s really some claim when you think about it.

Whatever, the intrepid propaganda super-hero DeSmoggers have joined the evil enemy in battle. Anything and everything that might possibly contradict the official UNIPCC (or worse, James Hansen’s) global warming orthodoxy must be stopped. Any and all skeptical views are part of an evil plot hatched by the oil industry and fronted by its paid agents at the Heartland Institute. For example:

Richard Littlemore reviewing Lawrence Solomon’s "The Deniers": It's harder still to think that [Solomon] could then continue to pursue his desperate argument that a legitimate debate still exists about the central question of anthropogenic global warming. [What’s really hard to imagine is how Littlemore, after reading "The Deniers", could still insist that a legitimate debate does not exist. His is a severe case of denialism.]

Conclusion? DeSmogBlog must be in the pay of big-enviro.

More climate non-consensus

Via Anthony Watts - American Chemical Society scientists revolt against their journal’s editor in chief:

... The editorial claimed the "consensus" view was growing "increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers." The editor now admits he is "startled" by the negative reaction from the group’s scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the "world’s largest scientific society."

The June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor in chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society member scientists. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that "deniers" are attempting to "derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change." ...

Originally reported at Climate Depot.