I see Clark has driven the Pacific Forum to suspend Fiji if elections are not held by March 2009. I'll bet bananarama is quaking in his boots. Excepting Australia and New Zealand, the GDP of those "countries", (rather than "beneficiary nations") in attendance probably would not cumulatively reach Fiji's - even in Fiji's current parlous state.

The Forum and Clark in particular have been stone faced silent on her's or the Forum's stance on expelling Russia from international institutions - eg the G8, not supporting their application to join the WTO etc.

One could take Clark and her new bro KRudd seriously if they discussed serious matters - like supporting the Americans and more latterly the Brits in containing an obstreperous bear. Don't forget we live in a benign strategic environment

p.s No further news on the A4's? Thought FilkOff had flogged them.

p.p.s Niue more important than being in Tekapo for her best friends funeral?

There are many signs Clark is moving to election mode.

1. Announcement by Treasury today the economy is in recession. The sign is not the content as blind Freddy can see the economic situation is very bad. The sign is that Treasury have announced it long before the June quarter results are available. They're not due till next month. The reason for the early announcement is to clear the decks for Cullen and Clark - when the actuals are out they'll be in full blown election mode and will be able to say - "Oh, that's old news"

2. News UMR Research are testing voters sensitivity to Clark's leadership over Peters and whether she had shown strong leadership, along with questioning whether voters thought John key was slippery (yawn). Hat tip Farrar's place, Kiwiblog

3. The independent Speaker referring key Labour coalition partner and Minister, Winston Peters to the Privileges Committee to check his disclosures to the House.

4. Trailers written by all gallery hacks in the past week suggesting Clark needs to get through this week and get the Appropriations Bill through with its attendant question of Confidence, before cutting Peters loose.

5. One can only assume Clark and Cullen have advice the economy will be worse than dire and offers no advantage to wait till November. Best to have a crack now...very un-Clark but may be she's no longer in total control.

Peters Admits to Glenn's $100,000 donation

Rather than try to peer through the sophistry and mendaciousness of Winston Peters the simple point is Peters and NZ First will have breached the EFA through simply not declaring the in kind services of his legal team. $100,000 of service is a material event. People need to know if a party has secret support to that level and the Act was written to expose it. The other option is unpaid legal bills were loans - those need to be declared as well - as Mingy Williams found out when he illegally hid the loan from Glenn.

Farrar as resident EFA expert will have all this down pat.

Peters should be dog tucker.

Kidnapped Ma Xin Xin found safe and well in Auckland

Update 1: Press Conference ongoing - found at 3.15pm - Chinese 25yo arrested. Found in house around corner from abduction site.

Helen Clark not implicated as yet. Winston Peters cannot be found.

Aussie Reactions to Rudd's ETS Green Paper

I have posted some initial thoughts over at Having a Blast

Australian ETS Green Paper Out

See more detail at Having A blast

• Agriculture not included
• Petrol Tax/excise to be reduced to compensate for carbon charges
• Free permits to emitters who are energy intensive exporters
• Direct assistance to low paid, beneficiaries and moderate income families to compensate

Looks to have been more carefully thought through than the misanthropic proposals from Clark and Parker in New Zealand

I have decided to Blog separately on energy and environmental issues.

The new site is Having a Blast.

See here for the first posting.

Bush Moves to Increase the Supply of Fuel

In an adroit political move President Bush has rescinded the decades long ban on drilling for oil on the Outer Continental Shelf of the USA. Taking aim squarely at the Democrat controlled Congress Bush is now asking Congress to support his initiative. The Dhimmi's must be rueing not following his call last month to go first. Now they are on a hiding to nothing. Agree and they look late and limp. Disagree and they open themselves up to electoral backlash.

While many are saying it would be years to bring any significant oil finds into production and reduce prices, I disagree - there is common knowledge the oil is there - having it available (sometime) significantly changes sentiment around supply and demand and the speculative margin in current pricing will quickly diminish as traders exit perceived exposed positions.

An interesting sideline is the executive order banning offshore drilling was put in place by his Daddy. Times change.

Cynical, Corrupt, Casuistry, Chicanery, Cheating or just straight Cullen

Now that we have witnessed Clark's outburst yesterday when she tried and failed miserably to corner Key on Toll/Tranz Rail the rail deal looks even dodgier.

What is now clear is if this was Labour's so called Neutron bomb - it was a fizzer. The stupid cow couldn't even get the facts right.

In order to get her bomb erected she needed to buy Toll's Rail operation. That provided her with the ploy to flush Key. Imagine spending $1000 million to try to skewer John Key. That is what she tried to do. She spent the money but came home with no prize - no money or bag (apologies to Jude). John Key was the sole reason for wasting so much taxpayers money on buying Toll Rail. That is corrupt.

She wanted a battle ground around privatisation and asset sales. Key was more than equal to the pathetic plan. Key was not an owner of shares at the time.

What is now very clear is Cullen and his sole negotiator were determined to buy Toll rail at any cost. The target was to create a fulcrum to bend John Key. Abject failure for Labour.

The residue is a very expensive asset on the government books eating its head off.

More on the Government's Savage Increase in Road User Charges.

Was the secret, sudden and savage increase in Road User Charges on the same day the Labour Government completed the purchase of Toll Rail simply a mechanism to abruptly increase the value of the railway they purchased that day - a non-road using transport asset?

Was an increase in RUC's part of the sales agreement with Toll - who have a sweet heart deal for some years on rail linehaul charges and access to key transport infrastructure linked directly to the railway network?

Given the paucity of information on the purchase and the Machiavellian and unapologetic approach of Dr Cullen to the public accounts nothing can be discounted.

See here for a good summary of the questions put to Dr Cullen and so far unanswered.

I smell an awful stink.

Truckers Protest is Getting Popular Support

For those a little longer in the tooth the popular support for the truckers protest Friday feels like the support generated by Tania Harris qwith her march up Queen Street in the early 1980's when basically everyone had had a gutsful of trade union strikes. The term nowadays is "Tipping Point".

When Banksie comes straight out in support you know the cause is a good one.

Friday's action will prove to be the start of the final chapter of the thin volume that will be the Third Labour Government

Annette King is the flinty face of a Government completely out of touch with the people they purport to govern. She said this morning a 10% increase was no big deal. Has she been in cave these past few months?

This scene from France will be repeated in Auckland tomorrow.

Key Labor Backers Back Nuclear Power

I have posted earlier on the move by Chairman Rudd to re-open uranium mining in Australia by the Labor Government after decades of opposition.

This has begun to get very interesting.

Last week while in Australia I read the front page of The Australian with some bemusement - it carried pleas to begin formal investment in investigating nuclear power as an option for Australia. The astonishing thing... The pleas were from the head of the strongest blue-collar trade union and the former head of a Labour NSW Government.

The Headline.

The head of Australia's biggest blue-collar union, Paul Howes, and former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr have called for Australia and the Rudd Government to purge its prejudices and embrace a nuclear power industry

The source of alarm for Mr Howes is the case mounted for years by former prime minister John Howard: that imposing onerous carbon limits in Australia threatens to send its heavy industry offshore at the cost of jobs for no environmental gain.

This is exactly the same issue for New Zealand.

This year's electricity shortage - broadly brought about because the NZ Labour Government has banned new large scale base load electricity generation - has meant industry has stopped production in key export areas. Witness the shutdowns at PanPac and Tiwai. On the basis their products were exported and had global demand (aluminium and pulp and paper for example) NZ has exported wealth creation and jobs offshore FOR NO GAIN.

The longer the lunacy around the ETS and the moratorium on new thermal power continues New Zealand will track backwards.

Interestingly the Australian labour movement is onto the threat and advocating far reaching change. We need that courage and leadership in New Zealand.

It would be most amusing to see a Rudd Cabinet meeting with what is rapidly becoming a schism between the labour left and the environmental greens within the Labor party- they have mutually exclusive positions.

Another headache for Chairman Rudd.

NZ Scientists Debunk Critical Climate Change Assumptions.

A recent article in the NZ Herald carried the astonishing story that recent research in Westland "puts the cat among the paleoclimatology pigeons"

In simple terms the story is research in Westland (of New Zealand) debunked a critical climate change assumption. The assumption that climate change occurs across the hemispheres simultaneously was speared by research from the University of Canterbury. This is a critical assumption for the warmists' anthropogenic climate change agenda.

I did think it deserved a post. I see now that Watts Up With That has picked the story up. They note:

University of Canterbury research indicating a glacial ridge in the South Island was formed by a landslide could pour cold water on evidence that climate change happened simultaneously around the world. Scientists had believed the Waiho Loop moraine was created during a brief cold snap about 13,000 years ago that also affected Europe and North America...

But no one had ever studied the Waiho Loop sediments. “...these new findings suggest the loop (see photo at Top) - which sits near the South Island’s Alpine fault line - was the result of a landslide, not climate change...”

“When graduate student Dan Tovar had a look, he discovered to our surprise that it was mainly made up of a rock type known as greywacke, which is different from the rocks that make up all the other moraines in front of the Franz Josef Glacier.”

Professor Shulmeister said greywacke occurred about 13km up the valley from the Loop. All the other moraines were predominantly composed of schist which outcropped near Franz Josef township.“The greywacke was also rather more angular than the rocks in the other moraines, suggesting it had not been transported in water or at the base of a glacier.”

It is this is the assumption that appears to be wrong. The team concluded:

...As a result of the study, Professor Shulmeister’s team believes a large landslide dumped a huge volume of rock on top of the glacier, causing it to advance and, when the advance stopped, the moraine was created.

This research is to be published in Nature Geoscience and the Abstract is here.

Perhaps the most critical comment in the abstract is this:

Our study shows that glacial moraines are not necessarily climatic in origin, which must be taken into account when evaluating the mass balance responses of glacial systems.

The criticality is that many/most of the warmists use glacier change (as demonstrated through analysis of the moraine) as proof of global warming.

KiwiRail purchase price confirmed at over $1Billion

Readers of this blog will recall I posted here that the upfront cash commitment by the Labour Government to purchase the rail operations from Toll would be in excess of $1Billion. Once the loss of Toll's current cash contribution of $48million to the network costs was added to the purchase price.

Fran O'Sullivan today confirms my analysis

Toll was supposed to pay Ontrack - another SOE which runs the national rail track assets - some $48 million annually for access fees.

The value of this over 10 n years at seven per cent would have been $340 million - money that will not now come into the overall business.

Add the $340 million forgone revenue to the $690 million purchase price and the $120 million debt and the overall Government investment quickly tops the $1 billion mark.

This is a shocker of a deal. All the benefits the Government claim were available without paying a premium to Toll. The supposed GHG savings from rail operations vs road arise from the mode not who owns the railway. If the efficiency of rail for linehaul is as Clark says, then high fuel prices and yesterday's shock 10% increase in RUC's costs to truckers will move traffic to rail. Again no need to own it. This is how markets work Michael....

The other reason put out by Clark and Cullen was to avoid giving taxpayer's funds to Australians. I guess a cheque for $690Million and forgiveness (sorry, assumption) of $120Million in debt does not count as giving taxpayers funds to Australians. Especially when the goodwill component was at least $400Million....

Bolger and Co have a hospital pass (smirk). He and his ilk cannot survive this. certainly Clark and Cullen will not be there to save them.

The Hive have a good summary of the news media's take on this "investment".

Obama Has a Dream Team Supporting Him...

Al Bore
Fidel Castro
Hamas

Yep - news that Al BoreGore has come out from behind his latest global warming scam in support of Barack Obama as Democratic Candidate is not a big fillip.

Wow - with friends like those Obama has few left as enemies.

Surprised to See More Homicides in South Auckland

I understood the Prime Minister had solved it.

Back in September 2006 the PM and other worthies ( Ministers Maharey and Benson-Pope - remember them?) announced urgent and quick responses to street related killings in South Auckland. Back then it was a lack of Education fingered for the violence. And, they had a plan to fix it and quick.

Now I note the PM has turned on Liquor outlets as the source of evil. Problem is the hit and run at Manaukau City Centre was not a Liquor store and nor was the old lady thumped to death in her home.

As we see day after day with this tired and out of touch regime - they have no clue. What is very clear is life is less safe under Labour.

More Carbon Lunacy

A business I am involved in has assessed its carbon footprint, according to the Ministry for the Environment's protocols. Reluctant soldiers for the warmists.

The analysis (draft) has been presented: The two biggest emissions sources are Direct emissions - so called Scope 1 under the GHG protocol:
Direct emissions (Scope 1): Are emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by the company. This is clear - no worries there. We use lots of diesel providing customers with service.

and

Indirect emissions (Scope 2): Are emissions from the generation of purchased electricity consumed by the company.

Well, with considerable forethought the company buys its electricity from a carbon neutral source....Meridian. Sweet.

Imagine my surprise to see this business has a net emission of 6,900 tonnes per annum of CO2 for (scope 2) electricity. The business uses a lot of electricity keeping its export customers products cool.

Why? I said. Our supplier is carbon neutral.

Well, here is the kicker. There is a standard emission factor in the GHG protocol for purchased electricity (and all the other factors) - the assessor just takes the electricity consumed and multiplies by the appropriate emission factor

(you simply read it at the Ministry for the Environment protocol)

See Table 4:
Emission factor for the consumption of purchased electricity – 2006
Emission source Unit Emission factor total CO2-e(kg CO2-e/unit)
Purchased electricity kWh 0.209

It's too bad that we use Meridian. We get no credit.

How stuffed is that?

Good Thinking by Nick Smith

A press release last Friday by Dr Nick Smith didn't seem to hit the spot with the MSM. It is a goody.

Smith takes apart the hypocrisy and double speak of the government's electricity generator Meridian's very public claim its electricity is carbon neutral - when one third of its generation is bought off thermal generators

The sophistry and mendacity of Meridian is outrageous. Meridian claims the carbon emissions from its thermal power purchased off the grid are offset by the purchase of carbon credits. These notionally avoided incremental emission units are being purchased from projects like Trust Power’s Tararua wind farm.


As Smith points out this is pure sophistry:

“The idea that Meridian can magically convert thermal electricity into ‘certified carbon-neutral electricity’ by buying these sorts of carbon units is modern day hocus-pocus. It has as much credibility as the old church practice of penance where money could buy forgiveness for sins.

Perfectly said.

Select Committee Reports ETS back with "Technical" changes only.

Radio Left 3pm has Minister Parker stating the committee has reported to parliament and made technical changes only to the bill, leaving the bill 'intact'.

Two Thoughts
There are over a 1,000 changes. If it needed "only" 1, 000 technical amendments it had to be dead on arrival at the committee.

By what measure is it still intact with 'only' 1,000 amendments...?

Reports in the Daily Telegraph Point to the Madness of Carbon Politics

The mad world of carbon trading

...As the latest data from the (UK) Met Office's Hadley Centre shows global temperatures falling this year to a level only slightly above what they were in 1979, the International Energy Agency presents the G8 governments with a report calling for the world to spend $45 trillion (£23 trillion) on halving its carbon emissions by 2050.

That is more than two thirds of the entire output of all the economies on the planet. Admittedly some of this unimaginable sum, it says, should be spent on nuclear power stations. But trillions more should go on 215 million solar panels, hundreds of thousands of wind turbines and, inevitably, on those "carbon trading" schemes beloved of Al Gore, rapidly becoming the most insane commercial racket ever seen.

An unlikely warrior in the battle to show the lunacy of the carbon game is the BBC World Service's Business Editor Mark Gregory.

Gregory has shown three projects in India that are paid to reduce GHG's under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism ("CDM"). These CDM payments are made to companies that are taking additional action to reduce GHG over and above what they would have down without the incentive.

SRF a small chemical firm in rural Rajasthan received 3.8 million "carbon credits" to burn off greenhouse gases that are a by-product of those used in fridges. The value of these "credits" at today's carbon price is $50 million. Over the next ten years the company will be able to sell these for a staggering $500 million to firms in the developed world, so they can continue "emitting".

Yet, as the company cheerfully explained, it would have bought the incinerator used to burn off those gases anyway. In other words, the $500 million is a free gift, handed over to achieve precisely nothing. Hardly surprisingly, 3,000 more firms are queuing up to join a bonanza already worth $10 billion a year.

This shows the global political system is run by lunatics for lunatics.

As the case for continued global warming (by any measure) falls to the floor, and the case for anthropogenic warming itself is absolutely unproven the lunatic fringe of warmists is pushing on regardless.


The IEA wants to spend $45Trillion on stopping climate change?
The UN is rewarding carbon schemes with hundreds of millions of dollars for doing what they were going to do anyway.

Shameful.