BS: Flatulence Tax

Subject: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 01:33 AM

Yes, it's true! New Zealand, went 'nuclear free' yonks back, and signed up to Kyoto straight up. We're getting 'cleaner and greener', with a 'pay-by-fart' tax for farmers, for their flocks' methane emissions. The best link I could find was from an Auzzie Paper. There's many more on a Google Search for "Flatulence Tax" - have a good time! I'm back for another squid at Kat's Tavern.

Now, I don't want to knock a major player in the world scene, who wouldn't sign up to Kyoto, because it may have 'cost a bob'! BUT, there's food for fart there - and potential for windy songs...

BURP - Sam in NZ

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:23 AM

Geez, we should hook Spaw up to the nearest Gas main and have ourselves a green, renewable, everlasting source of power! That way he'd be able to afford the tax!

Manitas could act as backup when Spaw needs to refil on beans and Guinness.

Surely 'Blow the wind southerly' would fit the occasion?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:46 AM

Crossposted LTS, just don't get grumpy about 'antipodes' OK?

BTW "Blow the Winds Southerly" belongs in the Squid Jigging Ground.

And, as to Spaw?

I'm getting GWB and team onto you! Your description of Spaw is the worat MWD I could imagine!

AWWWW... shit.... no, it's only a fart... no lumpy bits!

Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:56 AM

RE 'Blow the winds southerly' ~ this was the song my grandfather (fathers' stepfather) would quote, to herald a blast from the posterior foghorn. It just seemed fitting.

I'm not having a go at Anti Podes, just one incomer. And Spaw, but he expects it.

And as I work for HM Government, how can I say that any tax is a bad thing (unless of course, they try to make it affect me)?!

How would one pay? A blanket charge, or does someone go round counting individual botty burps? Do they choose one animal and take a count over a given period of time, thus calculating a mean output for each animal? Are there sensors in each field assessing the amount of methane in the atmosphere?

LTS

And who says pigs don't fart?

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:13 AM

Luvyaliz - you and I seem to be crossing swards at the moment.

Just watch I don't get grassy-kneed and greasy. Like you, I'm waiting for Spaw to pick the bait and start spawning....

Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:26 AM

Ah, give Spaw a couple of hours... he's still tucked up in his little bed, making the duvet hover.....

Why should we be crossing grassy areas together? My own grassy sward is covered in bits of plastic table, flower pots and a fence panel..... there is grass on it, but not a great deal.....

Certainly not enough to create more than a gentle guff of methane....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:46 AM

Threads, me darlin', check your recent threads. We've been cross-posting. So get off the grass!

Chortle, splutter, what thread an I in? Oh, this one............

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP....

Beat I can do .... Wake up Spaw,,,

BTW, LTS, have your guff, but don't breath in - 'MethanekKng' there may be something here that gets you gassed gal....

Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:50 AM

No no no, that's the Mornington Crescent thread!!!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 08:34 AM

Shucks, lost again, should I have turned left at Pick-a-Dilly?

LtS - from the other side of the world, all I hear on the wireless about 'Mornington Crescent' is confusing - I don't have a Lunnun Map, or a Tube to put it in.....

Howsomever, should you care to check the 'Mornington Crescent' thread, you may find a reference to an NZ train....

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 01:34 PM

Question I have asked before- the relative volumes of gas from farm animal flatulance vs that from humans (especially vegetarians who eat a lot of beans).
A methane tax on beans! Boggle my britches!

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 01:49 PM

But what about me Thain of Cawdor, is this a tax demand I see before me.
Surely it must be better to bear the stinks and arseholes of outrageous farting.
Than to pay alms again, for a seethe of bubbles[In the bath]
Methinks it is nobler in the behind.
I commend the motion to the house.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 01:57 PM

I remember being puzzled back in the early 70's by the fact that my new young friends in Toronto were all using the expression "old fart" to refer to people over a certain age (50? or ?). I thought it was just some sort of arbitrary derogatory term, and not a very nice one.

Now I realize it was not arbitrary! There was a physiological basis to the expression. Oh the horror!!! I have become what they were referring to, in the smug arrogance of their youth (which was soon to vanish).

My only comfort is that they have no doubt all become "old farts" as well, assuming they are still alive...and given the foolishness of most of them regarding diet and the use of mind-altering substances, I figure the chances of them still being alive are getting slimmer all the time.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 01:58 PM

Methinks I'd go broke in no time....

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 02:22 PM

Where e'er ye be, let your wind gang free
In church or chapel, let the jolly thing rattle.
or
Tis best to fart and bear the shame
Than not to fart, and bear the pain.

I think it's about coat time again......Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 06:40 PM

"No new taxes - watch my..."

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 09:13 PM

"Fart proudly!" -- Ben Franklin

Now, if all this methane could somehow be contained, it could be utilized, perhaps as a substitute for natural gas which is, after all, methane. "Mother Earth News," back in the '70s, used to run plans for a methane digester, but that created it instead of getting it from mobile sources...hmmmm. Special underwear, I think, which collects methane in the fabric and weave -- every night when you take it off you toss it into an extraction apparatus, which uses the gas to supplement your household heating.

Cows and other runiments could wear special nappies...use the gas to power the farm.

There, I've solved that problem. What's next?

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: GUEST,cookieless paddymac
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 11:53 PM

The humor of farting is nothing new, but I suppose each of us thinks it so when first we discover it. Take a look at Mark Twain's "1601: A Fireside Chat in the Time of the Tudors." Hillarious thundergusts abound.

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 04:45 AM

Save gas - fart in a money box!

Incidentally - did you know that Income Tax was only supposed to be a temporary measure, to raise money for the Military Campaigns in India, The Peninsula War and Waterloo? I suppose after 200 years, it's kind of hard to break the habit.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 05:04 AM

Road Tax was temporarily borrowed to help the war effort, in about 1940, with the promise that it would be restored to pay for the roads as intended, after the war is over. I haven't noticed any German bombers going over recently, have you?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 06:11 PM

I see a pattern emerging here... the Eiffel Tower was only supposed to be a temporary erection too.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 06:30 PM

We ain't gonna have no Temporary Erections around here!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 06:34 PM

Yea my bruvver-in-law was trying to explain the fartax, and the farmers have kicked up a stink (I'll get my fleece.....)

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 06:45 PM

Back in the 1860s the US government put a tax on distilled spirits, requiring that they be aged in charred casks to prove that the tax was paid. "White" whiskey, as opposed to "red", was therefore illegal whiskey.

The tax, the government's third attempt, succeeded. It was intended to pay off the costs of the Civil War.

Your whiskey's still "red" -- and the CW has been over for a couple of weeks....

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 08:15 PM

Mr Red, the farmers have started a Raise a Stink Campaign - they are posting parcels of poo to Parliament. Talk about sending coals to Newcastle!

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: NicoleC
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:13 PM

Okay, here are your Fart Facts. (Other sources mixed in.)

On average, a person produces about half a liter (600 cc) of fart gas per day, distributed over an average of about fourteen daily farts.

A cow, whose diet is totally plant material, produces 300,000-600,000 cc of gas per day. (That's 250 to 500 LITERS!)

According to Dr. James L. A. Roth, the author of "Gastrointestinal Gas" (Ch. 17 in "Gastroenterology", v. 4, 1976) most people (2/3 of adults) pass farts that contain no methane. If both parents are methane producers, their children have a 95% chance of being producers as well. The reason for this is apparently unknown. Some researchers suspect a genetic influence, whereas others think the ability is due to environmental factors. However, all methane in any farts comes from bacterial action and not from human cells.

Scientists say a massive 25 per cent of all methane gas in the world's atmosphere is produced by cows.

It's not the farts as much as it is the burps that contain the high methane content. It's not a fart tax, it's a burp tax!

Methane fart collection picture... really

So what about human burps? They don't contain methane.

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 11:03 PM

Nicole - thanks for those links, they help prove my original thesis that us Kiwi are being responsible about global warming, just as we were about going 'New Clear Free'..

Thanks for your Roth's-Child's-Stats. I can now blame my parents (deceased) for my burnt bum, when I got a 'blowback' in a fart-lighting contest in the 50s....

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 02:32 PM

I'l get my coat and the engine is running so I can make a quick exit..... BUT

no one seems to have pointed-out "hoof hearted"

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: ossonflags
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 02:15 AM

Laugh and the world laughe with you
Fart and you sleep alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 01:01 AM

Is CatsPaw sick?

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Jul 03 - 06:59 PM

or sleeping? Alone!

ROTFLMAO - alone!

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Gurney
Date: 25 Jul 03 - 07:02 AM

And today the cockies had a tractor protest through a town.. Cambridge I think.. in support of their campaign
Fight
Against
Ridiculous
Taxes

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 12:48 AM

A month down the track, the argument still rageth. We could now promote this thread to the music section. I've just heard me old mate Martin Curtis singing the "Flatulance Calypso" on the wireless. It's a hoot - alas, I didn't have a blank tape handy to record it. No probs, I've just been yapping with Martin on the phone. The song was written by an Oz based, ex-pat Pom mate of Martin's, Bernard Carney. Martin recorded it a decade back, but it is just SO appropriate right now. It's available on his "SAVE THE WILDERNESS" CD, in the "Albums" section of his website. You'll find some other fine music of Martin's there too - even if he's just another ex-pat Pongolian "Downunder" **VBG**.

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 01:30 AM

Beleive me - it's genetic!! Bratling has inherited her fathers' bum and her mothers' sense of timing and disruption (to say nothing of volume.....)!

We know it's her fathers' bum because her uncle has the same family trait.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 08:27 AM

Burping methane would certainly give a whole new dimension of smoking, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Flatulence Tax
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 11:40 AM

So bums run in your family then Liz!! Noses run in mine. They do say that if your feet smell and your nose runs, you're upside down.

Giok