{"id":10459,"date":"2007-04-09T16:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-04-09T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10459.html"},"modified":"2007-04-09T16:00:01","modified_gmt":"2007-04-09T20:00:01","slug":"tax-on-bbq-no-just-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/tax-on-bbq-no-just-a-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax on BBQ? No, just a joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you missed it, about a week ago, this item<\/a> ran on some overseas news wires.<\/p>\n

The government of Belgium’s French-speaking region of Wallonia, which has a population of about 4 million, has approved a tax on barbequing, local media reported.<\/p>\n

Experts said that between 50 and 100 grams of CO2, a so-called greenhouse gas, is emitted during barbequing. Beginning June 2007, residents of Wallonia will have to pay 20 euros for a grilling session.<\/p>\n

The local authorities plan to monitor compliance with the new tax legislation from helicopters, whose thermal sensors will detect burning grills.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, after the first three sentences, I found this rather hard to believe, but the last sentence made it clear this was meant in jest — Belgium is going to use helicopters and thermal sensors? To find people using a grill in their backyards? No, this was obviously some kind of joke. In this case, an April Fools’ Day joke.<\/p>\n

Alas, some of our friends on the right fell for it. Sundries Shack, a regular read for me, seriously believed<\/a> Belgium would use helicopters to root out backyard barbecues. Blue Crab Boulevard, another site from my conservative list that I read every day, said<\/a> the tax is “insane,” adding, “[B]ut here’s where it really crosses into stark, raving madness: The authorities will monitor compliance using helicopters and thermal imaging equipment. No, really.”<\/p>\n

Both have added corrections to their posts, but the poor folks in Wallonia are still feeling the blow-back. Apparently they’ve been bombarded with complaints<\/a> from those who didn’t realize this was a joke. (thanks to W.B. for the tip)<\/p>\n

The press secretary of Wallonia’s minister for agricultural, rural affairs, the environment and tourism, said, “We have repeatedly denied this information, which is nothing but an April Fool’s Day joke. But we never imagined it would create such a fuss.”<\/p>\n

April Fools’ Day can cause all manner of trouble sometimes, can’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you missed it, about a week ago, this item ran on some overseas news wires. The government of Belgium’s French-speaking region of Wallonia, which has a population of about 4 million, has approved a tax on barbequing, local media reported. Experts said that between 50 and 100 grams of CO2, a so-called greenhouse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}