Headlines Thursday 15th May

Rudd’s in retro vision
Piers Akerman
WITH Budgets, as with good books, the devil is often in the detail and those little details, added together, give away the whole plot.

Thus, an excellent clue to the true nature of the Rudd Labor Government is contained in a paragraph buried on page 250 of the weighty 439-page Budget Paper No. 2, in the section dealing with Immigration and Citizenship.

“The Government will provide $1.7 million over four years to ensure that international touring companies employ at least one local band or artist as a support act. This will boost the employment opportunities and exposure of Australian music industry performers technicians.”
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Bush kinder than painted
Andrew Bolt
Cherie Blair confirms that the media image of George Bush is not much like the warm reality
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Football isn’t in the genes
Andrew Bolt
She’s right - but I suspect she won’t be thanked for that or for being so principled
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Such power, such terror
Andrew Bolt
Video of the moment the Chengdu earthquake struck.
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The quokka mocker confesses: Buswell is innocent
Andrew Bolt
Matt Hayden is astonished. In January he posted, as a joke, this absurd item of mockery on his blog Die, Fluffy Wuffy, Die:
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Watch that Roxon next time
Andrew Bolt
Health Minister Nicola Roxon played dumb just three days ago on a figure we now know proves she’s bungled
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Where’s the heat? Where’s the link?
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Failed children failed again
Andrew Bolt
Reader L. writes:

I am a deputy principal at a school in ... and am currently running a Howard Govt program called ‘An Even Start’. This program provides much needed tuition to children in years 4,6 and 8 who were caught in the national year 3,5 & 7 testing from the previos year. This is the only direct funding provided to schools that falls out of the data provided by these tests. I can vouch for the fact that it was successful for those students who took part. Rudd Labor has scrapped this program and provided not a cent to primary schools. This is after the spin of the ‘Education Revolution’ that our ‘wonderful’ union rammed down our necks in November.

Was it the private tuition that offended? The link to Howard? The way the program validated that national testing?
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Treasurer admits alcopops tax a con
Andrew Bolt
Curious. The huge tax rise of alcopops was sold by the Rudd Government not as a tax grab, but a pious attempt to stop teenagers from binge drinking. As Health Minister Nicola Roxon said
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Paying for Rudd
Andrew Bolt
Reader John says one Budget tax hike breaks a promise by the Rudd Government to keep prices low:
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Can’t see green in the dark
Andrew Bolt
The spotlight on green guru Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Californian Governor, is flickering through his state’s lack of power
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Saddle Club star Jessica Jacobs killed by train
A YOUNG rising actress was killed by a train while she was on her way to buy her brother a birthday present.

Jessica Jacobs, 17, tripped and fell on railway lines at Cheltenham railway station in Melbourne on May 10 and was struck by a train, family friend Jeff Joseph said today.

She was heading to buy her brother Adam a birthday present.
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Survivors left to die in China earthquake rubble
RESCUE teams have been forced to leave trapped survivors of the China earthquake to die because it is too dangerous to try to save them.

TV footage of just one rescue effort unfolding in devastated Sichuan province has shown despairing relatives collapsing in the street as attempts to save their loved ones are called off.

Rescuers managed to pull a heavily pregnant woman and her mother out of a collapsed apartment block, relatively unscathed.

But the cheers of joy at the rescue was short-lived as experts judged the building unsafe - calling off further rescue attempts.

At least four people were known to be trapped, but still alive, in the ruins of the complex.
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Men accused of gang-raping 14-year-old
FOUR men will appear in court today charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in Brisbane's city centre.

Police allege the men, aged 30, 25, 21 and 18, took the girl to a hotel room on May 3 and assaulted her.