As people become sillier and sillier, it's amazing how the leaders of countries seem to be infected the most. Now, William Hague, a British Politician is discussing how UK troops could be used to stop countries cutting down rainforests and drilling for oil.
No problem with sovereign rights, property ownership, we'll just have a war to stop people doing what we think is right.
Where does it end?
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Robin
UBI is the concept of paying every citizen a certain amount of money regularly. They don't have to work or contribute in any way to get it, it just arrives in their bank account as a gift from the government. Or more correctly, the taxpaying public since governments don't have money.
In the European trials, it was found to be a disincentive for people to work. Why work when someone will provide sufficient to live on?
In the not-too-distant future, robots will take over many jobs now done by human operators. We've seen this in supermarkets where self-serve areas are provided. The days when young people washed your car window and filled your car with fuel are long gone. Robots have been used in manufacturing for decades already.
Now, robots are becoming more efficient with artificial intelligence and will progressively take over more and more jobs. This is expected to lead to greater unemployment.
Most governments in most countries don't have sufficient revenue via taxation to provide all the services people expect already; health, education, infrastructure and so on. How would they have sufficient to simply give everyone money?
I don't think it makes sense to give money to people who don't need it.
If our government addresses the UBI idea, I'd prefer to see it provide a Topup for people earning below a certain level.
That way, the lower-wage earners would get a boost to help them pass the poverty line. There would need to be some safeguard to ensure people didn't quit working to get the benefit.
Maybe at the end of a fiscal year when we submit our tax returns to the Australian Taxation Office, anyone with an income below a specific level would be given sufficient funds to bring them up to the predetermined level.
That approach would cost far less than simply giving everyone money.
It would be lovely for some kind government to simply give us an amount of money weekly, but it's not really feasible.
Robin
In March you can see that the global temperature actually dropped to -0.01 degrees Centigrade.
It's interesting to follow Dr Spencer's graphs from month to month and year to year, although you can see the trends going back to 1979 so you really only need the latest version to see how the temperature changed up and down during the period to March 2021.
Climate is cyclical and never linear.
Climate is also determined largely by the sun which, at present is in a low state of activity called Solar Minimum 25.
Any suggestion that C02 is a dangerous gas that leads to atmospheric warming and that the world will end in 12 years because of it is errant nonsense. Unfortunately, the global warming activists have frightened the sheep and governments are now wasting billions on unreliable renewable energy and ultimately destroying our energy capacities.
These activities are in line with the Lima Agreement that is intended to "flatten industries" in developed countries. The UN's Climate Change Alarmism was intended to achieve the same outcomes and seems to be succeeding.
Fortunately, I've only got another 10-15 years left so I won't be around to see the developed nations revert to Third World nations.
Robin
My mother always said, "You don't have to go to church to be a Christian''. My parents were good people.
I attended a Presbyterian-Methodist boarding school (there were no secular boarding schools) and was a captive during the Easter period and every other Sunday when we would march off to church, alternating between the Presbyterian and Methodist churches.
I enjoyed many of the hymns, but the stories of heaven and hell, fire and punishment, miracles, and all the rest I found boring and inherently nonsensical. Every Sunday we sat and listened to the same nonsense.
Whatever I felt, Easter did seem to be taken seriously by most people but over the years it became increasingly commercial.
Once, shops of any kind were not permitted to open on Easter Friday and from memory, Easter Monday. Only religious events were permitted.
Over the years, more and more venues and businesses were permitted to open and now, it seems that everything and anything is open.
As Australia is now a country with multiple religions that are not Christian and people are becoming more secular, I wonder how long it will be before Easter gets the flick. Maybe the cancel culture generation will eventually turn to Christian holidays as something needing change and push for it to be changed. Oh, that would mean not getting two days off work for any of them who actually work.
Will Easter disappear? What do you think?
Robin
