Blustery Winds and the Gobal Warming Scare

Standard apartment blocks in Bucharest
Photo: Wikipedia

A blustery winter Hawk is blowing wind gusts of 60 mph and the temperatures are 15 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.  It is not unusual, it is winter time, and the weather has alternated periods of extreme cold and unusual balmier temperatures. The global warmists, of course, are blaming it on man-made global warming. The climate change industry’s golden goose is laying larger and larger eggs to those who stand to gain from this false narrative. And of course, the biggest gainers are the United Nations and its third world corrupt members who demand ever more redistribution of wealth and destruction of capitalism.

The real reason behind the global warming scare and why the United Nations’ alarmists have been driving us into forced submission of environmentalist stewardship of Mother Earth is that they want capitalism destroyed and replaced with their vision of a utopian communist economy that has never worked across the centuries.

These progressives have a problem with the Industrial Revolution, with “fossil fuels,” (They are not so fossil since the earth keeps producing them), with the only successful economic model that has provided generous income to all these hot-air spewing, idle bureaucrats, who have nothing better to do than meet in exotic locales planning the destruction of the goose that lays the golden eggs that feed their exorbitant lifestyles, salaries, bonuses, and pensions.

Christina Figueres, Executive Secretary of U.N.’s Convention on Climate Change, disclosed the real reason for the climate change industry when she told us that they are not interested in saving the world from global warming Armageddon but they want to destroy capitalism. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

Having lived under such economic model that these progressives advocate, I can say with 100 percent certainty that, on a cold day like today, the proletariat in the village would be huddled around a cast iron stove, or an adobe stove made of mud bricks and straw with a cast iron top, or a porcelain stove fed with chopped wood, trying to keep warm further than a few feet from the source of heat, providing they had money to buy the wood, and the wood was available since it was forbidden by the state to cut down trees.

City dwellers, who were forced to live in high rise concrete block quarters, heated their tiny apartments with steam sent from a plant via underground pipes. By the time this steam made its way up to our fifth floor apartment, we were lucky if the ambient temperature was 45-50 degrees F.  Bundled up inside the house like Eskimos, with icicles forming on the inside windows, we sometimes turned on the gas stove to heat the miniature kitchen, if the flame was strong enough. We were slightly better off than our communist Chinese brethren, who did not even have heat in winter time. There were times when we stayed in bed, fully clothed and covered by heavy wool comforters.

Have these promoters of communist utopia and of an unproductive but supposedly “equal” and “socially just” economy ever have to live like this? Of course not, their elitist reality comes from the Ivory Tower of academia, political office, and from college textbooks’ propaganda at Ivy League bastions of progressive thinking that enslaves people rather than frees them to pursue free-market capitalism.

Even the poorest person living under free-market capitalism has food, heat, medicine, health care, electricity, refrigeration, phones, TV, running water, water heaters, a bathroom, and other amenities that make life more pleasant, healthier, and double human life expectancy.

On a day like today when it is so dangerously cold even domesticated animals are sheltered, Americans should remember that these environmental global warmists and the United Nations want to put them out freezing in the cold, in the dark, hungry, sick, and hopelessly dependent on the global elites, who are wealthy, healthy, warm, and happy, bureaucrats that never produced anything, but would control our survival with a law, decree, or a treaty, dropping crumbs to keep us alive and under control.

Copyright:  Ileana Johnson 2015

Agenda 21, Cooked Science Data, and Property Rights

The State House voted 79-36 on February 4, 2015 on HB490 introduced by Rep. Becky Currie. “The State of Mississippi and all political subdivisions thereof shall not adopt, nor implement, the creed, doctrine, principle or any tenet of the United States Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Statement of Principles of Sustainable Development known as ‘Agenda 21,’ adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and development, held from June 3-14, 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or any other international law contravening the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Mississippi.” A companion Senate Bill, SB2809 has been introduced by Sen. Melanie Sojourner. Other states have proposed similar bills, Maine, Wyoming, Washington, Tennessee, and Missouri.  http://overpassforamerica.com/?p=4820

As I’ve demonstrated in my best-selling book, U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy, the globalist governance uses “Agenda 21” to control every facet of our lives: global land use, education, population control, health care, reduction of economic activity, and population reduction to a “manageable size” determined by the global elites who drive U.N.’s  “Agenda 21.” http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423586115&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

These globalists, who use the global warming/climate change industry and Agenda 21 as tools of control and wealth redistribution, have deemed “not sustainable” most human activities that form our modern civilization: private property, fossil fuels, consumerism, farming, irrigation, commercial agriculture, pesticides, herbicides, farmlands, grazing of livestock, paved roads, golf courses, ski lodges, logging, dams, reservoirs, fences, power lines, suburban living, and the traditional family unit.

Paul Homewood wrote on his blog on January 25, 2015, an article titled, “Massive Tampering With Temperatures In South America.” According to Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), one of the “hottest ever year” regions was South America, Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. Homewood stated that “much of this is fabricated, as they have no stations anywhere near much of this area,” as NOAA map showed. https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/massive-tampering-with-temperatures-in-south-america/

Homewood found out that there are only three rural stations in Paraguay that are operational – Puerto Casado, Mariscal, and San Juan. All three “show a clear and steady upward [temperature] trend since the 1950s with 2014 at the top.” When he looked at the raw data available on the GISS site through 2011, “the past has been cooled.”

Homewood collected raw data from GISS here http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data_v2/ and the adjusted data here. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/

 

According to Homewood, the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN), an integrated database of climate summaries from land surface stations across the globe, “show the extent to which they have adjusted temperatures [upwards], the best part of 2 degrees.” He continued, “Even by GHCN standards, this tampering takes some beating.”

Traust Jonsson, who ran the climate research for Iceland met office, was surprised to see how Iceland’s sea ice years had been disappeared around 1970, “when a period of extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

It is sad to reflect that government policies and scientists around the earth rely on these tampered data to fight phantom global warming, giving rise to a huge climate change industry that does nothing but redistribute wealth and fleece the population.

And educators frighten and brainwash children into the same man-made global warming fantasy, using cuddly and lonely polar bears floating on ice floes as examples of a vanishing species due to global warming, when in reality the polar bear population has increased five-fold.

When the frequently adjusted data by NOAA is questioned, the response usually includes the word “consensus.” Consensus, a word that denotes agreement of opinion, does not constitute science. “Government climate scientist Peter Thorne, speaking in his personal capacity, said that there was consensus for the adjustments.” http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/20081-global-conning-temperature-data-cooked-in-biggest-science-scandal-ever

Christina Figueres of Costa Rica, London School of Economics graduate and chief of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters that U.N. is redesigning the world economy on purpose: “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution.” She continued, “The international community is quite grateful for the fact that in his second term, President Obama has turned his attention quite clearly and quite decisively to climate change.”

Should the American public be happy that EPA will finalize in 2015 the rules to cut carbon emission even further on new and existing power plants, thus negatively affecting our economy through more job losses and higher energy prices? Since there is no such thing as carbon, except on the table of elements, they are going to cut CO2 emissions, the gas necessary for plant life to thrive. Can any global warming expert explain how millions of years ago the atmosphere had more than four times the CO2 that is currently in our atmosphere yet there was no industrial activity or humans to cause it?

Should the American public be grateful that the EPA has released a 344-page rule to make wood stoves more environmentally friendly, forcing millions of Americans to buy more expensive wood-fired stoves? We have more EPA rules affecting poor people who cannot afford the higher natural gas and electricity prices, forcing them to pay more for using wood-stoves. The EPA says, at a cost of $45.7 million per year, 360 to 810 fewer deaths will occur from reduced carbon emissions. But, “there are no cordwood test methods yet for many appliance categories, much less data using such test methods.” http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/05/epa-wood-stooves/

The one hundred plus bankrupted green energy companies that squandered billions of taxpayer dollars can add one more case to the roster – FutureGen clean-coal facility in Illinois that would have used carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. FutureGen, with proper environmental permits and funded with 2009 stimulus package money ($1 billion) and some private investors, touted “the future of coal in the United States” by President Obama, will be suspended “to protect taxpayer interests,” pending litigation with Sierra Club. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/4/obama-pulls-funding-top-clean-coal-project/

Michael Bastasch wrote about a March 2009 EPA memo sent to officials to convince them to connect its regulatory agenda to “personal worries” of average Americans. “Polar ice caps and the polar bears have become the climate change ‘mascots,’ if you will.” The memo wants to use children in an effort to fight global warming and to “ramp up clean air and water regulations.” EPA wants to change the discussion from the mascots to people with respiratory illnesses and to environmental justice. EPA chief Gina McCarthy said, “Asthma disproportionately affects African-American kids.” Yet we all breathe the same air. http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/26/exposed-epa-memo-tie-fighting-global-warming-to-americans-personal-worries/

Helping the United Nations with its new world order “sustainability” goals, the Bertelsmann Foundation publication, “Winning Strategies for a Sustainable Future,” can be purchased on the Brookings Institution website. Bertelsmann Foundation “recently awarded former Secretary General of the U.N., Kofi Annan, € 200,000 ‘for his exemplary efforts to promote sustainable development around the world.’” Sustainable Development is the lynchpin of U.N.’s Agenda 21. Bertelsmann is quite influential in its publishing empire of social justice, wealth redistribution, and anything that promotes a one world government. According to Susan D. Harris, “Since 2001 the Poky Little Puppy [Little Golden Books] has been providing revenue for Bertelsmann to employ covert political and economic transformations around the globe.” http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/02/poky-little-puppys-covert-nwo-agenda/

U.N.’s Agenda 21 is so insidious that people do not connect the dots between global warmists, the climate change industry, extreme environmentalists, property rights battles with NGOs around the country, main stream media, publishers of textbooks and other publications, Common Core education standards, International Baccalaureate schools, land conservation, conservation easements, regionalism, living in tiny homes and tiny spaces, re-wilding of America, removing Americans from their cars into public transportation or bikes, taking roads out of commission, sustainable development, smart meters, destroying suburbia, smart grid, and the green agenda with wind and solar power.

Nobody batted an eye when a small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was raided in 2013 by a SWAT team who searched for ten hours. The Garden of Eden had been cited for code violations such as “grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises.” http://huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/texas-swat-team-conducts- n 3764951.html

Martha Boneta has been fighting the intrusive Piedmont Environmental Council, the NGO that holds the conservation easement on her Liberty Farm, for eight years. She was instrumental in bringing to the public the plight of small farmers who are being pushed out of business by environmental groups who want to preserve the land unspoiled and put an end to farming.

The small farmers in Virginia rejoiced when Senate Bill 51 and House Bill 268, dubbed the “Boneta Bill,” passed both houses and the Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe signed it in 2014. The bill gave farmers legal protection from overreaching and overzealous county bureaucrats who imposed unreasonable requirements and unnecessary fees on small farmers. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/62043

 

The new 2015 “Boneta Bill,” the Virginia House Bill HB 1488, passed on February 2, 2015 by a vote of 87-9 addressed conservation easements, tax benefits, and disputes over easement terms. The bill now goes before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Resources on February 12, 2015. This bill “allows a landowner or other party to a conservation easement to request that the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation use the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act to resolve a dispute relating to the interpretation of the easement.” http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+sum+HB1488S

 

A conservation easement is a contract between a private property owner and a land trust. Conservation easements are signed because some people want to protect their property from unwanted development in the future but they also want to retain ownership of the land. The donation of an easement to a land trust may give financial advantage to the donor.  The conservation easement is passed on to any future owners of that land. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/56159

 

I dedicated an entire chapter in my book in 2012 to Martha Boneta’s story, to her organic farm in lovely Paris, Virginia, and to her ordeal with the local board of supervisors and PEC, but her harassment is far from over and continues to this day. She has vowed to continue her fight until small farmers are free to do what they love best, provide wholesome food to America’s table, exercising freely their property rights.  http://www.varight.com/news/virginia-land-trust-falsifies-stonewall-jackson-slept-here-claim-by-michael-thompson/

But land conservation is one arm of U.N. Agenda 21. All across the U.S. land is locked in conservation projects and easements contracts are convenient financial hooks to take land out of agricultural use in perpetuity under the guise of protecting it.

President Obama included for example up to $37.8 million in the Fiscal Year 2016 Budget to fund land conservation projects in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. We all want clean water, soil, air and want protection of watersheds. But the money is used for public access to our waters or lack thereof. Governor McAuliffe of Virginia stated on February 4, 2015, “If enacted by the Congress, these funds will protect key land areas for habitat, water quality, scenic views, and cultural resources.” The money authorized trails, historical parks, and civil war battlefields. But this is done by taking agricultural land out of production and using it to run a few show horses on perfectly manicured miles of green grasses. https://governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/newsarticle?articleId=7656

The Virginia Land Conservation announced 14 grants totaling $1.7. Such grants “are used by private land trusts, local governments and state agencies to protect and acquire special lands in the following categories: farmlands and forestry, historic areas, natural areas, and open spaces and parks.” Five of these grants are slated for conservation easements and seven are to purchase land from farmers in order to “protect” them, a euphemism for taking prime farm land out of agricultural use or lock land from residential/commercial development and turn it into wild habitat for “rare animals and plants.” https://governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/newsarticle?articleId=7634

“Nearly 150 conservation projects have been made possible through VLCF grants since 1999, when the foundation was created,” said Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward, who chairs the foundation’s board. “The program provides an economical and efficient approach to conserving precious lands, protecting rivers and streams, and preserving farms and historic places for future generations.” http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/virginia_land_conservation_foundation/

The “visioning” grants and “challenge” grants are not really just meant to protect a clean environment for future generations to enjoy, they are part of a region-wide and country-wide plan to force local and state governments into Sustainable Development when we should be concerned about our Sustainable Freedom.  If the government was so worried about future generations, they would not spend us into oblivion and destroy our language, borders, and culture with unchecked invasion of illegal immigrants who have no desire to assimilate into the western way of life.

All these progressive platforms pushed by academia and the regime, i.e. social justice, environmental justice, green growth, equality are not cures for war, famine, pestilence, genocide, and poverty, they are recipes for global communism and control by moneyed elites, politicians, and U.N. bureaucrats who fancy themselves the arbiters of humanity’s rights and of the climate. They are intent on restricting and denying us freedoms.

What is morally repugnant to real scientists and logical thinkers are the lies and deceptions surrounding the manufactured global warming crisis with all its strings attached, created for political and financial gain at the expense of billions of people around the globe who must suffer the consequences of treaties, laws, rules, and regulations controlling their lives and economic activity so that a small number of global elites can enrich their bank accounts.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

 

 

 

 

My radio segment with Silvio on taxes, unemployment, and the Greeks. February 6, 2015

My national blogtalk radio segment with Silvio on strange taxes and the Greek economy. Click on my segment, the oval with the time, 00:39.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2015/02/06/taxes-and-other-us-economy-issues-with-dr-ileana-johnson

The Big Lie

Puppet Shop window in Florence
Photo: Wikipedia

While the country is busy blaming the measles outbreak at Disneyland on the official story line that it came from “overseas,” and the main stream media is pushing the agenda of vaccination, blaming the outbreak on the statistically insignificant number of Americans who refuse to vaccinate their children, the media is deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room, the illegal aliens bussed and flown in continuously since last year by this administration from countries where measles is endemic because of lack of vaccination and poor or non-existent healthcare.

The media is also gloating over the 5.6% unemployment rate which the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, Jim Clifton, described in his article as “The Big Lie:  5.6% Unemployment.” “The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.” http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx

While Americans have been told that their refunds may be delayed due to Obamacare penalties and calculations for those who may owe money to the IRS for overpaid subsidies, illegal aliens, as usual, are getting the red carpet treatment with taxpayer dollars. American taxpayers have to file an additional form, 8962, with 12 rows and 6 columns (72 boxes), to compute subsidies for each month of 2014.

“Consumers may be subject to tax penalties for any month in which they had neither insurance coverage nor an exemption.”

Do not expect speedy service or prompt answers from the IRS as they are busy with other issues. Thirty types of exemptions from penalty have been set up by the federal government, including for those in states that did not expand Medicaid, religious beliefs, or premiums higher than 8% of household income. Documentation must be provided to the IRS for such hardships.

Illegal aliens, who were working under the radar of the IRS were encouraged to pay taxes via the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). Many illegals took advantage of this loophole and claimed numerous children in the country and outside of the country under the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to the tune of $4.2 billion in 2010.  

According to Washington Times, “IRS Commissioner John Koskinen confirmed Tuesday that illegal immigrants granted amnesty from deportation under President Obama’s new policies would be able to get extra funds from the IRS for money they earned while working illegally, as long as they filed returns during those years.“ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/3/irs-offers-extra-tax-refunds-to-illegal-immigrants/#ixzz3QnJt4B1q

The new amnestied illegals, will receive official Social Security numbers, enabling them to file retroactively three years for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), “potentially claiming billions of dollars in additional payments they were ineligible for before the amnesty.” The Earned Income Tax Credit was established in 1975 for American citizens whose income fell below the federal poverty line.

Likely 4 million illegal immigrants are going to receive this administration’s “deferred action” or “deportation stay,” and thus work permits. Supporters of ITINs and EITCs say that it would be “unfair” to withhold billions from children who are likely U.S. citizens anyway because they became “anchor babies” when their illegal moms gave birth in this country.

In the meantime, while you lost your doctor, your premiums skyrocketed, the deductibles went through the roof, co-pays were larger than ever, your medical care took a dive, had to see a nurse practitioner, and you had to drop your good health insurance and accept substandard insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, the illegal aliens are receiving income tax refunds and free medical care, while you are trying to find three jobs to replace the one full-time job you lost because of the Affordable Care Act mandates. But, on the bright side, if you are a man, you now have free contraceptives.

 

Looking Good Past 50 Is Torture

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2013

There comes a point in life when comfort is more important than looking good, when wrinkles don’t matter as long as the clothes are clean, and focusing on someone’s stained shirt is like a Rorschach test. After the age of 50 we’ve become those people we used to joke about in our ignorant youth—the sans-a-belt, stretchy Hagar-pants wearing old men and women with stretchy Wrangler jeans. We are a bit more sophisticated and fashionable in our elastic comfort, opting for Not-Your-Daughters-Jeans.

Looking good is torture! Wearing stretchy clothes is heaven on textile. Stilettos were invented by men who convinced women, who desired to look like the big screen plastic stars they were never going to be like, that walking on stilts will somehow make them more attractive, svelte, and desirable to men. But our generation of 50 year-olds wear orthopedic shoes with painless joy and secretive pride.

Constantly digging floss out of their rear ends, young and middle-aged women torture themselves and get awful bacterial infections so that their derrieres are more attractive in thongs and clothes show no panty lines just in case someone happens to ogle them.

The t-shirt, flannel shirt, football jersey, sweats, and pajamas become necessary wardrobe implements for someone’s comfort after the age of 50. After all, people born in the 1950s have lived in seven decades and two centuries, we earned the right to fall off the fashion train and adopt the liberal Birkenstock sandals worn proudly with white knee high socks.

Then you can be liberated from the crowded and expensive shopping malls. Good Will becomes quite attractive and cheap, especially in a well-to-do neighborhood where donated clothes are practically new.

It’s good to be over the hill if you want 50 cents discount on meals at McDonalds. On the other hand, who wants to admit they are on the downside of life for 50 cents? You can take naps any time of day without being thought of as lazy and nobody cares what you look like unless you are carrying the remnants of the last meal on your chin or shirt.

You can stop sucking in your stomach around your friends and relatives.  They already know you have a gut and nobody is fooled by your pretend svelteness. Besides, your face starts turning blue if you hold your breath in for too long.

Walking and farting in unison with each step becomes a necessary Beano gut cleansing, a sort of yoga without the contortions, the head stand, or the humming.

Going out to dinner after the age of 50 becomes an early bird excursion at four in the afternoon.  The restaurants are quiet, the help is awful, but you avoid the balding liberals with their young progeny and trophy wives eating at 9 p.m. and disturbing the entire restaurant. You go to bed by nightfall because you can.

You stop speeding because the road looks perennially foggy but cops ticket you now for going too slow and for forgetting to turn off the turn signal, confusing other drivers. Every other driver, frustrated by your slowness, gives you the finger because you block the faster lane but you wave at them with a silly and toothless grin.

If you want to know about the weather tomorrow, you no longer turn to the weather forecast, you just consult the level of pain in your arthritic joints. And you’ve learned to look at the phases of the moon to tell whether it will rain tomorrow or not.

It’s acceptable now to stay in pajamas all day and even wear them under clothes with a slight peek of flannel from under your high-water pants. People will ask you when they call during the day if they woke you up and nobody will get offended.

You can now tell all your deep, dark , and embarrassing secrets to your friends over lunch because your secrets will be as safe as Fort Knox – nobody will remember a thing after they wake up from the early afternoon nap.

Loud music will no longer be annoying because you can turn down your hearing aid and smile, nodding in agreement with everything.

Go ahead and take those around the world tours you’ve been saving yourself for your entire life. Make sure there are wheelchair ramps and the cobble stone or unpaved roads are wheelchair friendly. Take a good supply of diapers, diarrhea pills, and bribe money. Don’t worry, nobody would want to take you hostage abroad in order to demand ransom! They know your family does not want you back.

And don’t forget your health care insurance card. After all these years of paying high premiums, you are finally beginning to get some returns on your investment. The doctor knows you by your first name and is glad that you are helping pay his child’s expensive liberal tuition at Harvard.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

Taxes, Taxes, Everywhere

The only guarantees in life are death and taxes. Death follows life and taxes follow you everywhere like an incurable disease.

Nobody woke up one day and said, let’s tax the heck out of people for their bad behavior, for existing, for traveling on roads, for smoking, for drinking, for trash disposal, for luxury goods, for pollution, for phone use, radio, TV, Internet, for buying goods and services, property, hunting, fishing, building, learning, farming, and other purposes.

Taxes were added slowly over centuries for the “common good,” to redistribute wealth, to subsidize politicians and their parties, for “climate change” and for not buying health insurance. It was a slow, one paper cut at a time until the tax-paying and hard-working citizens bled to death from the burden of taxation.

Taxation has become a very lucrative bottomless funding industry, easy revenue for the ever-spending politicians who keep squandering or giving away taxpayer dollars often to the enemy.

Taxes are so ancient, they are even mentioned in the Bible. Tax collectors during the time of Jesus could stop a person and tax them for what they were carrying.

Matthew 22: 15-22 talks about Caesar’s imperial tax levied on non-Roman citizens:

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

¹⁸ But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, ²⁰ and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

²¹ “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

²² When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22:15-22

Ancient Egypt used scribes to tax cooking oil. The annual flooding cycle of the river Nile prompted the taxation of people based on the flood level; those whose land was never flooded paid lower taxes. Egyptians whose land was flooded annually paid the highest taxes.

Ancient Greece taxed its citizens during times of war and rescinded the tax once the war was over. How unheard of to rescind taxes, they certainly would not do it today! Foreigners had to pay a poll tax called metoikion for not having an Athenian Mother and Father.

The Romans were tax happy. They paid customs duties called portoria. An inheritance tax paid for the military retirement. The corrupt Roman tax collectors in the British Isles led to Queen Boadicea’s revolt in 60 A.D. with her army of 230,000 which killed 80,000 people before Emperor Nero crushed it.

Cato convinced the Senate in 181 B.C. to pass laws imposing high taxes on foreign goods such as carriages, perfume, silk clothing, and highly educated slaves.

Cemeteries were exempt from property taxes in Roman times, so the poet Virgil came up with an ingenious idea to avoid paying taxes on his home. He buried a fly in his yard with pomp and circumstance, speeches and food, in order to exempt his villa as a cemetery. We are not sure if his loophole worked.

Emperor Vespasian placed a tax on urine collected from public toilets. Those needing urine to launder (whiten) wool paid a tax when they bought it.

When Judea became a Roman protectorate following its conquest by Pompey in 63 B.C., the Jews had complete religious freedom as long as they made a daily contribution to the Roman emperor’s coffers. They were exempted from military service and were allowed to run their own businesses.

Assyria (mât Aššur) was the ancient empire located in the northeastern part of modern Iraq, on the east bank of the Tigris River. The Assyrians treated their neighbors so badly during their pillaging raids that the chieftains decided to pay tribute and swear allegiance to the Assyrian king in order to avoid the hordes descending on them from the desert. The system of taxation in the name of their god Ashur was so efficient that it supplied the empire with money and men.

The Chimu Empire which existed in northern Peru between the 13^th and 15^th centuries did not have a system of coinage. As master weavers, they used textile as payment for taxes and tribute.

The Incas used an elaborate system of one foot cords with other colored strings attached called quipu, “knot,” with which they were able to record “the tributes received from conquered tribes and taxes owed to the king by his subjects.” Those who kept up with the quipu were called quipucamayocs and were exempt from taxation and other duties.

The Anglo-Saxon Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of town to persuade her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to reduce taxes on the residents of Coventry in the 11^th century England.

Poll taxes were levied in 1377-1380 by the Regency of Richard II in order to pay for the French war. The taxes were extremely painful to the poor since both rich and poor had to pay the same rate. In late spring 1381 a crowd of 20,000 peasants and laborers rebelled outside London against the aristocrats whom they blamed for the high taxes they had to pay in order to support the failed war with France.

Armed with axes, bows and arrows, the rebels refused to pay taxes and marched through town and burned buildings owned by aristocrats, destroying legal documents that implicated those who did not pay their taxes.

Excise taxes on goods such as meat, grain, tobacco, wine, lamp oil, silks, spices, and even luxuries were quite burdensome across the centuries.

In Cordoba, the capital of the Muslim Andalucía, the non-Muslim citizens had to pay a poll tax based on income and could be paid in installments. The source of revenue to Andalucía was so large, the Moors discouraged conversion to Islam.

The colonists paid import duties on sugar, wine, and molasses under the Molasses Act. The Stamp Act collected taxes from colonists on newspapers and commercial and legal documents.

There were English taxes on soap, a property tax based on the number of windows, on the number of bricks, scutage (opt out of war duties), candles, wig powder, salt, perfumes, printed wallpaper, TV (black v. color, even blind people must pay), a property tax based on exterior appearance (Italy), a tax on freedom (Rome), beards (Russia), furs, cooked v. raw food, stolen property, and many other strange taxes in various American states. http://www.efile.com/unusual-strange-funny-taxes-throughout-the-world-and-history/

Some taxes are necessary for the running of a large empire but others are burdensome and unnecessary, often necessitating a licensed accountant to understand the ever-intricate code. The IRS code, famous for its complexity, comes to mind.

It will be interesting to see how much revenue will be generated from the Obamacare insurance non-compliance tax/penalty. A lot of health exchange beneficiaries who receive subsidies will be apoplectically surprised when the subsidy or part of it will be taxed.

 

 

 

"Climate Change" Hypocrites and Their Fossil Fuel Guzzling Jets

Vostok Ice Core Team in Antarctica
Photo: Wikipedia

While the northeast is preparing for Snowmaggedon, 2-3 feet of snow, as if we’ve never had a few feet of snow before, the global warming turned climate change crowd is preparing for the upcoming global climate negotiations in December in Paris.  Pharrell Williams tweeted “Let’s unite a billion voices to take #ClimateAction now” urging climate change awareness from his private jet in which he is pictured sitting alone.   http://twitchy.com/2015/01/22/does-this-private-jet-make-pharrells-carbon-footprint-look-fat-singer-plugs-live-earth-agenda/

A crowd of influential rich people, 40 heads of state, 2,500 business leaders, and former VP Al Gore has gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, Jan. 21-24, 2015, to discuss climate change and “how to make fabric from recycled plastic.” Other topics included the IMF’s forecasting of 3.5% economic growth, European Central Bank’s quantitative easing package, the decline in oil prices, Japan’s monetary easing, and technology. http://www.weforum.org/sessions/summary/global-economic-outlook-5

Co-chaired by Oxfam’s executive director, Winnie Byanyima, the five day conference also highlighted inequality and the need to further spread the wealth, a “larger share of the economic pie,” to the rest of the impoverished world.  Oxfam is calling for “free universal public services by 2020, including education and health” and living wages for people who have no qualifications.

Felipe Calderon, former Mexican President, told USA Today, “Decision-makers meeting in Davos must focus on ways to reduce climate risk while building more efficient, cleaner, and lower-carbon economies.”

Keep in mind that, while the attendees discussed “income inequality,” how the globe’s rich do not pay their “fair share,” and gender inequality keeps women economically repressed, the conference tickets cost $40,000. Who decides what is a “fair share” and how? When is wealth redistribution through taxation and welfare to poor countries enough?

It does not matter that thousands of real scientists and the Vostock ice core samples have debunked the man-made global warming/climate change theory, what rich liberals care about is lining their pockets with more economic activity taxation based on the non-polluting CO2, the gas of life, which they call carbon.

Global warmists know we are not God and we cannot change the climate and climate change existed for millennia. The globe’s climate underwent major ice ages, small ice ages, and warmer periods even in times when humans did not roam the earth.  Solar activity, volcanic activity, and oceanic currents play a significant role in the ever-changing climate.

The prominent liberals in the media and Hollywood sure hate global warming but they love their private jets, yachts, multiple homes, cars, helicopters, and other gas guzzling toys while urging the rest of us to drive tin can, preferably bicycle everywhere, and live in jail cell-sized tiny homes.

No hypocrisy here in needing extra airport space in Switzerland to park the 550 or so extra jets that arrived for the conference in Davos. The military opened up their airport to accommodate them. Only the “climate change” hypocrites flying alone can burn more fossil fuels in a few hours than most of us burn in years and then have the gall to lecture us on protecting the earth.

Environmentalists worried over fossil fuels may be thrilled or disappointed depending on the outcome of the five-year plan, 2017-2022, that may allow drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. The Washington Examiner said that “the president is likely to permit exploration and drilling off the coast of Virginia and possibly the shorelines of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.” http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-expected-to-allow-drilling-in-atlantic/article/2559140?utm_campaign=Prospect:%20Politics%20Today%20pmi&utm_source=Prospect:%20Politics%20Today%20pmi%20-%2001/25/15&utm_medium=email

The Washington Post announced that President Obama is proposing to block 12 million acres of Arctic refuge from oil and gas drilling by “designating the area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, the highest level of federal protection that would ban oil and gas drilling.”

Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, new Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell during a phone call, “What’s coming is a stunning attack on our sovereignty and our ability to develop a strong economy that allows us, our children and our grandchildren to thrive.” She continued, “It’s clear this administration does not care about us, and sees us as nothing but a territory. . . . I cannot understand why this administration is willing to negotiate with Iran, but not Alaska. But we will not be run over like this. We will fight back with every resource at our disposal.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/01/25/obama-administration-to-propose-new-wilderness-protections-in-arctic-refuge-alaska-republicans-declare-war/

And any Snowmageddon should be worrisome to Americans for a very good reason. EPA’s over-regulations have shut down almost 20 percent of the coal power plants which means that your electricity during severe cold spells could become unstable, unreliable, and a matter of survival. Natural gas can be used instead but the spot prices are expensive and delivery more difficult.

But don’t worry too much about your family’s finances and survivability as long as your carbon foot prints are very small. You’ll look environmentally-smug, unsafe, and duped behind the wheel of a Smart Car or something running on renewables such as solar, wind, or whatever unaffordable form of energy the “climate change” hucksters develop. Meanwhile, the U.S. oil futures have surged following the death of the Saudi King Abdullah.