China has ordered its airlines to ignore a 2008 European Union law that imposes a “ carbon emissions tax ” on all flights traveling to and from the EU. The carbon emissions tax will cost the airline industry an estimated €9 billion ($11.8 billion) by the end of 2020, Reuters reported back when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the 2008 law was reasonable and “fair.” “Application of the emissions trading scheme to aviation infringes neither the principles of customary international law at issue, nor the open-skies agreement,” the ECJ said in its ruling. It has also been estimated by The European Commission that costs per passenger will increase by €2 ($2.60) to €12 ($15.60) for airlines participating in the cap-and-trade program. Unsurprisingly, international airlines are unhappy with the expensive new tax, as vocal opposition from both Canadian and U.S. airlines has made abundantly clear. However, going one step further than either the U.S. or Canada, China is the only country to outright disregard the EU’s expansion of its carbon cap-and-trade system . See the Euronews update: “China has ‘banned’ all airlines in the country from joining the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) aimed at cutting carbon emissions,” the BBC reports. “The authorities have also barred the airlines from increasing their fares or adding new charges for the scheme.” No compromise. “China objects to the EU’s decision to impose the scheme on non-EU airlines,” Xinhua quoted a statement by the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying. Analysts believe that China has chosen to disregard the EU’s cap-and-trade law because the airline industry is volatile enough as it is. “The sector is already facing quite severe challenges,” Chris De Lavigne of Frost & Sullivan told the BBC. “The airline industry as a whole has already been hit by high fuel costs in the past couple of years and no one wants additional cost factors coming in.” Obviously, the decision by China to ignore the carbon emissions tax puts the EU in an odd position. Does the EU simply turn the other cheek or does it attempt to enforce its carbon tax? “We are not backing down and this legislation will apply to companies operating in Europe,” said Isaac Valero-Ladron, spokesman for EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard. He warned that the law carries fines for airlines that ignore it. But will that make any difference? “It is going to be very tricky. You have to wait and see how the EU will react,” Siva Govindasamy of Flightglobal told the BBC. “They would be able to stop the Chinese airlines from flying to the EU, but that could see retaliatory action by China which will not be good for either side,” he added. Analysts believe that because of the parties involved, the EU will be forced to seek assistance from an international authority. “It could potentially end up on the desk of the World Trade Organization as the countries who are against it have said it is an unfair trade practice,” said Frost & Sullivan’s Mr Lavigne. “Both sides have claimed that this is either fair or unfair, so it is very difficult to see how this is going to shape up.” (H/T: Newser )
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No Surprise Here: China Orders its Airlines to Ignore EU Cap-and-Trade Scheme
AP – Seeking cooperation in a polarized climate, President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to act quickly on bipartisan measures that would extend tax breaks for small businesses and help startup companies raise money. He said he would sign the legislation “right away.”
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Obama wants small-business bill this year
(AP)
On Thursday, a controversial bit of anti-piracy legislation seeking to prevent copyright violations on the Internet was passed by several countries in the European Parliament, moving it one step forward to becoming law. As the Telegraph reports, there is strong opposition to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), including the hacker collective Anonymous, which polices the world for an uncensored, freely shared Internet. The Telegraph has more on some of the opposition: The Anonymous group itself says it is now preparing to mount a ‘huge operation’. The European Parliament has also previously voted against ACTA, saying that its negotiation has been undemocratic. Kader Arif, rapporteur for ACTA in the European Parliament, resigned and wrote that “I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.” He said right-wing parties had “depriv[ed] the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens’ legitimate demands. I will not take part in this masquerade.” Anonymous is known for using illegal tactics to hack into private websites and has released private information of individuals and organizations to the public. Most recently in the United States, Anonymous diverted those visiting CBS.com to another website and brought down the U.S. Department of Justice website for several hours. Some Polish Members of Parliament pulled up Guy Fawkes masks to protest the country’s majority support of the legislation. As elected officials, this was poor form. Regardless of their corresponding beliefs with Anonymous against the legislation, they are now seemingly supporting the actions of a group known for illegal hacking activity.
Lawmakers from the leftist Palikot's Movement cover their faces with masks as they protest against ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, during a parliament session, in Warsaw, Poland. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
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Polish members of European Parliament support Anonymous by wearing Guy Fawkes
On social media sites, text and links just aren’t cutting it anymore. If you really want to make something go viral, on say, Facebook you have to appeal to your visual audience. Take this example from ProPublica: The image was posted on ProPublica’s Facebook on the night of Jan. 19, according to Media Bistro, and within two days of its posting it: Earned more than 17,000 likes Was shared more than 10,100 times Got 1,298 comments Image what the response would be if ProPublica wrote out: Before the SOPA/PIPA blackouts and protests on Jan. 18, the legislation had 80 supporters and 31 opponents. After the protests, support dropped to only 65 with 101 now against. Media Bistro points out that the numbers ProPublica achieved is a huge leap when compared to other posts on its Facebook page, which generally look like this: Basically, if you want point to be heard loud and clear and spread through the Facebook world — use an image and save the text and links for the image description — should the reader decide to glance there. Check out the rest of Media Bistro’s post for more on why this image resonated so well.
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A picture is worth thousands of words, er, likes
-By Warner Todd Huston Remember back in the days of the debate over Obamacare when unions were the biggest voices screaming in support of the legislation? Many labor union bosses said that nationalized healthcare was exactly what they wanted. Further they said it was what was good for the country. Yet now we learn that Obama
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Obama Excuses Over 500,000 Union Members From Obamacare
The Obama administration challenged the legislation, and a ruling favoring Arizona could hand the president a huge election-year defeat. At Los Angeles Times , ” Supreme Court may weigh in on Arizona immigration law “: The court has already agreed to decide whether the Obama healthcare law is constitutional. If it takes the immigration case as well, both decisions probably would come down by late June, just months before the presidential nominating conventions. FLASHBACK : ” ‘Phoenix Rising’ for SB 1070 at Arizona State Capitol .”
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Supreme Court May Rule on Arizona’s SB 1070
Now that the GOP controlled House has passed at least 15 economic bills designed to stimulate jobs, which are languishing in the Democrat controlled Senate, they are free to pass other legislation. This one should be rather interesting (Politico) If congressional gun-rights stalwarts get their way, a firearms owner with a concealed-weapons permit issued in Utah
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House Looks to Pass Concealed Carry Reciprocity Bill
Don’t want information to be associated with your real name? Don’t want to tell people on Match.com how much you really weigh? There’s a simple solution for situations like these that many on the Internet have been doing since its inception: lying. But did you know this could violate the website’s terms of use? Have you even read the terms of use for websites you frequent? You may want to start, as the Department of Justice is pushing for lying on the Internet to be a prosecutable crime — if it violates the terms and conditions of websites where the lie takes place . CNET has more : The law must allow “prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider,” Richard Downing, the Justice Department’s deputy computer crime chief, will tell the U.S. Congress [today]. Scaling back that law “would make it difficult or impossible to deter and address serious insider threats through prosecution,” and jeopardize prosecutions involving identity theft, misuse of government databases, and privacy invasions, according to Downing. CNET describes how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act had been used by the Justice Department to convict Lori Drew in 2008 for using a fake name on MySpace to harass a 13-year-old girl who then ended up committing suicide. The conviction was later dismissed: What makes this possible is a section of the CFAA that was never intended to be used that way: a general-purpose prohibition on any computer-based act that “exceeds authorized access.” To the Justice Department, this means that a website’s terms of service define what’s “authorized” or not, and ignoring them can turn you into a felon. According to Wired, the CFAA was meant to be an anti-hacking law : When the legislation was first enacted in the 1980s, it specifically targeted computer hacking and other computer misuse, Kerr argues in a written version of the testimony (.pdf) he plans to give. But since then, Congress has broadened the statute significantly four times, expanding the law’s reach and rendering it “unconstitutionally vague.” The law as it currently stands allows prosecutors to criminally prosecute users for violating an internet service provider’s terms of service agreement, something that would normally be a breach of contract issue handled in civil court rather than through criminal prosecution. CNET reports that the Justice Department not only seeks to enforce terms of use but to expand the reach of the CFAA, and that many groups including ACLU, Americans for Tax Reform, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and FreedomWorks this as a “gross misuse of the law.”
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Could You Be Prosecuted for Lying About Your Weight on Dating Sites?
From Martin Feldstein, at Wall Street Journal : Congress’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is struggling to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This is a unique opportunity to use tax reform to reduce future budget deficits while lowering individual tax rates. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, enacted 25 years ago last Friday, showed how a tax reform that includes lower rates can change incentives in a way that grows the tax base and produces extra revenue. The 1986 agreement between President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill reduced the top marginal tax rate to 28% from 50%. A conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat could agree to a dramatic reduction in top rates because the legislation also eliminated a wide variety of tax loopholes. A traditional “static” analysis that ignores the response of taxpayers to lower tax rates indicated that those combined tax changes would leave total revenue unchanged at each income level. But the actual experience after 1986 showed an enormous rise in the taxes paid, particularly by those who experienced the greatest reductions in marginal tax rates. RTWT.
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The Tax Reform Evidence From 1986
