On Ted Cruz
Ian Thomas writes: Re. “Rundle’s Christmas Argument Clearing-House, Vol 1” (yesterday). If Cruz was born outside the USA (ie, Canada), how can he become president? Much fuss was made of Obama’s allegedly “doubtful” Hawaiian birth (rather than Africa or elsewhere) to try and derail his run eight years ago.
Coal and the poor
Nic Maclellan writes: Re: “Debunking the ‘coal will rescue the world from poverty’ lie” (Monday). Every time I hear an Australian politician say that expanded coal exports are necessary to “bring people out of poverty”, I reflect on the response from Kiribati President Anote Tong: “I keep hearing this argument that it’s about the poor. Well, we are the poor and we will disappear. I don’t think it’s about the poor, it’s about the rich.”
On MYEFO
Jock Webb writes: Re. “More red ink as Morrison unveils another MYEFO write-down” (yesterday). I would like to see a return to a carbon tax, very low level requiring minimum compensation. The big end of town likes emissions trading for one reason. They get to play with the money and siphon of still more into their bulging pockets. It will become a haven for shonks and merchant bankers, if the two are not one and the same. We are doing very badly out of being governed by oligarchs and their neo-liberal proxies
I’m using humour
John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Oz defends ‘racist’ Bill Leak cartoon: critics didn’t get the joke” (yesterday). I suspect Bill Leak’s cartoon is not so much racist as a poorly thought out attempted dump on environmentalists. He should do bit more research before he expounds in an area for which he is clearly ill equipped. Electricity distribution requires expensive infrastructure. Stand alone solar power may be the only way poor people remote from the power grid of the big cities will ever get electricity.
Ian Thomas,
I gather Ted Cruz is eligible to become POTUS because his parents were both native born citizens. The Birthers claim that Barack Obama wasn’t because one of his parents wasn’t a native born citizen. And they deny that he was born in Hawaii, which would otherwise make him eligible. Except, he was born in Hawaii.
I second Jock Webb proposal for “a return to a carbon tax, very low level requiring minimum compensation”. It presents an opportunity to instigate accounting of all fossil carbon being extracted from the ground or implicit in the goods crossing our borders. If negligible penalty is involved, emitters would be unable to plead disadvantage. But they would be exposed to scrutiny – at last.