Sunday, July 17, 2011

Farewell: Googie Withers

Googie Withers dies aged 94 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Film star Googie Withers star of The Lady Vanishes, dies at 94 | Mail Online


Googie was a major film star - she was part of my growing up - some of the great British films
like One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) - IMDb

and she one of the cast in my great favourite Hitchcock comedies
The Lady Vanishes (1938) - IMDb

She married the Australian actor John McCallum and in 1958 they came here to live. They made many films together.
A great lady.......

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Carbon Tax

Sunday was the day when the PM told us what she planned - of course we'd heard it from the Greens already.
Then Monday was Q&A and a good reception for the PM - and several Tweets saying how wonderful she had been. She was All absolute spin proposing that Her Tax will fix the problem. All a Tax does is "encourage" people to do something - providing there is something to do. Has high tobacco tax stopped people smoking?

PM quote - by 2050 we will achieve reductions equivalent to taking 45,000,000 cars off the road. She mentioned we have 12,000,000 cars at moment and she is not taxing them because that would cause harm to families. And of course cost her votes. But the 45 million quote makes me think she sees cars as a major problem. So why nothing about moving to electric cars etc??????

One young person on a web question asked would we have 100% renewable energy sources by end of decade. She had to say well around 40%.

So lets get it clear the tax is to get people off carbon but there isn't anything really in her plan that creates energy in non carbon ways. So what we have is just a TAX not really direct action on alternatives.
 
Yes under the tax I could receive benefit providing the treasury costings are sound.
See here  to work out impact on you Clean Energy Future – Household assistance estimator

A possibly dubious Poll Carbon tax: Heat rises as voters reject Julia Gillard's plan | Herald Sun

Some good recent articles

Considered action on climate change - The Drum Opinion (ABC
Detailed discussion of Coal power station and the tax etc
Comments are also good and note Nuclear power is mentioned - surely the only way out from Coal power

How the carbon tax made me a Liberal - The Drum Opinion - A vote for the Labor Party's carbon tax is a vote for wealth redistribution. (ABC)

Abbott baits PM, Wong over carbon tax : World News Australia on SBS
"The finance minister couldn't explain the cost of the (carbon) tax," he told reporters. The opposition leader was referring to an interview Senator Wong gave on Monday when she said the revenue from the sale of carbon permits was $18 billion, when government papers say it is $25 billion. "And we now know the prime minister couldn't explain where the money was coming from ... to buy out Hazelwood (power station in Victoria)." Ms Gillard on Tuesday said an undisclosed amount of money to buy back 2000 megawatts from the nation's highest-polluting coal-fired power stations would come from the budget's contingency fund. "It's just not good enough," Mr Abbott said.