I note with disappointment (but not surprise) that the ‘global warming’ hoax is still proving useful to cash-strapped governments everywhere:
New Zealand’s farmers have criticised a proposed tax on the flatulence emitted by their sheep and cattle.
The move is part of the Wellington government’s action to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
Scientists estimate that methane emitted by farm animals is responsible for more than half of the country’s greenhouse gases.
To be known as the Federal Advanced Rural Tariff, it surely has to rank as among the most secure of long-term revenue raisers. Contrast this to the UK where draconian petroleum taxes are justified by HMG’s creepy ‘behaviour modification’ rubric. The argument goes that taxing people out of their cars and onto public transport is a good thing because it ‘saves the planet’ (stop laughing). Of course, if we ever did stop using our cars so much, the paladins in Whitehall would have a collective coniption fit.
However, short of turning them all into cheeseburgers, there is no way to persuade cattle to stop passing wind, so a different bonus has to be invented:
The money is be used to fund research on agricultural emissions.
Read: “Job creation scheme for the political classes”. Further proof that the Kyoto Protocol really was a lot of hot air.
Still, there is a political upside to this. Next time some veggie enviro-mentalist hisses at you for tucking into a steak, you can always respond by telling them that you’re helping to reduce global warming.
Next logical spet: a tax on the flatulence emitted men.
And the next logical step: a tax on breathing since that produces CO2, for animals and men alike (no discrimination).
Taxation stinks!
Insanity!
If cows really produce that much methane, maybe we should explore using them as an alternative fuel source.
How are they going to measure it? Men from the ministry sneaking through the herds with flatulence meters? What if they miss some? Do they still get the tax, or is it gone with the wind?
Maybe they will create a new department: The Department of Flatulence Control
This is the whole reason the U.S. (not just Bush, but 95 out of 100 Senators rejected it as well under Clinton) rejected it. It was a large plan for wasteful bureaucracy cloaked as a plan to “save the world.”
A tax on farts. A fart tax. Liberals always find a way to intrude on life’s pleasures. What “flaming bags of hippie crap gas.” Bwahaahhahahahahahah
the could call it a FLAT. TAX!
“Next time some veggie enviro-mentalist hisses at you for tucking into a steak, you can always respond by telling them that you’re helping to reduce global warming.”
If some veggie asshole had the temerity to hiss at my choice of meat, I’d respond by kicking him in the balls.
If it were a woman, I’d just ask whether she does this nonsense because she can’t get a man.
Morons.
And the Kiwis, usually so level-headed, seem to have had some kind of collective (non-methane) brain fart.
Next time some veggie enviro-mentalist hisses at you for tucking into a steak, you can always respond by telling them that you’re helping to reduce global warming.
LOL – I vote this quote of the day!
Heh. They could call it the Department of Farts. Nah, that would cover just about everyone working for the U.S. government. I would get a government subsidy to give my cows Beano that should solve the problem. Those leftists in N.Z. are some dumbasses, but the Kiwis keep voting for them.
Ironic that a fundamental argument against their draconian envirofascist policies… eg. that 98% of ‘greenhouse gasses’ are produced by nature… is now being used to justify implementing a ‘control’. Which is really their intention isn’t it?