Headlines Tuesday 24th June

PM's sloppiness on show over childcare rebate
Kevin Rudd's worrying lack of attention to detail means that parents have been deceived when it comes to the childcare rebate, according to Alan Jones.
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Regime shames Australia
Piers Akerman
AUSTRALIA and its allies in the civilised world dismally failed the bleak moral test presented by the murderous dictator Robert Mugabe and his hordes of thugs.

Our nation, led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, stood by as Mugabe forced the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from next week’s run-off election with a campaign of brutality that has left more than 80 dead, more than 200,000 homeless and forced more than 3 million—a quarter of the population—to flee Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai was detained five times and beaten up and the party’s No.2, Tendai Biti, is in jail on subversion and vote-rigging charges and faces the death penalty.
Mugabe’s thugs attacked other opposition leaders and sent in riot police to break up church gatherings.
As Tsvangirai said: ``The bullet has replaced the ballot’’ in Zimbabwe and he could not in all conscience ask supporters to cast ballots ``when that vote would cost them their lives’’.
With the opposition removed, the 84-year-old dictator says ``only God’’ can remove him from office and, in the face of the lack of a strong, co-ordinated international response, he is probably correct.
The French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has branded Mugabe a ``crook and a murderer’’, and the Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, the chairman of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, has said it was ``scandalous for SADC to remain silent on Zimbabwe’’.
But the UN Security Council, which is likely to discuss the matter when it meets today, will probably be blocked by China and Russia from taking any meaningful action.
Rudd, who has relished the international attention his ability to speak Mandarin brought him when he visited the US and Europe, has done nothing to dissuade China, Mugabe’s largest international sponsor, from supplying the dictator with the arms necessary to cow his opponents into subservience.
Indeed, Rudd, who was hailed for mentioning the plight of Tibet during his talks with the Chinese leadership in April, last week reaffirmed his intention to accept President Hu Jintao’s invitation to attend the Beijing Olympics with his family.
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Smoking OK if you’re stoned
Andrew Bolt
Er, it’s a policy that must have been dreamed up in a coffee shop:

THE notorious Dutch “coffee shop” faces a unique conundrum under a new public smoking ban: its patrons can still light up their cannabis joints but no longer if blended with tobacco.
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Curses! Foiled again
Andrew Bolt
First my membership of a Paddy “McGuinness-led” conspiracy was rumbled by Robert “McCarthy” Manne. Sigh, now my latest evil cell has been busted, too.

Funny, how critics suspect foul work and evil intent when you start to mention mere facts.
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Wobblypedia blamed
Andrew Bolt
It applies in particular to any topic beloved of the Left:

WIKIPEDIA and other online research sources were yesterday blamed for Scotland’s falling exam pass rates.

The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said pupils are turning to websites and internet resources that contain inaccurate or deliberately misleading information before passing it off as their own work.
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“Fat bomb” bombs
Andrew Bolt
A new study - Australia’s Future FAT BOMB - generated the predictable oh-my-God! news stories, like this one:
The most definitive picture of the national obesity crisis to date has found that Australians now outweigh Americans and face a future “fat bomb” that could cause 123,000 premature deaths over the next two decades.

Junkfood Science picks the report apart, line by frayed line, noting:

The glaring problem with these claims is that their government’s own health statistics have been reporting that Australians are living longer and are healthier than ever, despite the numbers classified as “obese” and “overweight.”

Is there some reason we’re addicted to scares?
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National doctor shortage critical - report
AUSTRALIA'S doctor shortage is becoming critical, with new figures revealing a plunge in the number of general practitioners.
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Iguana-gate: AFP called on in Neal investigation - what kind of dirt has she on Rudd that he hasn't yet acted? She lied to parliament, lied to Rudd, plead to a lesser charge when discussing with Rudd and now has uncontested testimony that she perverted the course of justice. Or is it Della Bosca that has dirt? - ed
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World blind to growing horror
By Dvir Abramovich
AFTER the Holocaust more than 60 years ago, people asked how could we let it happen, how could the world's nations remain silent?

They also promised to never again be bystanders when others were attacked because of prejudice and blind hatred.

Well, the "never again" is happening right now. Who would have imagined that in 2008 similar stories of cruelty and despair would be coming out of Africa?

Indeed, the silence about the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region - the first genocide of the 21st century - is deafening.

The Italian poet Dante once wrote: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for people who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

One wonders how the world sits still when an estimated 400,000 people have died in a campaign of ethnic cleansing and 2.5 million people (more than 50 per cent are children) have been uprooted and deported from their homes into refugee camps?

The team of nine Australian Defence Force logisticians sent recently to join the UN mission to Darfur is mere lip service by the Rudd Government.
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Rudd is all blow and no torch: Nelson
The Opposition have accused of being soft on petrol, saying Kevin Rudd backed down from claims he was going to "apply the blowtorch" to OPEC over rising oil prices.
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Gatto wishes death on Derryn Hinch
Underworld identity Mick Gatto has traded verbal blows on radio with broadcaster Derryn Hinch, wishing the so-called Human Headline dead.
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Zimbabwe police raid opposition HQ
Zimbabwe police have rounded up more than 60 people in a raid at the opposition's headquarters, a party spokesman says.
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Tsvangirai takes refuge, wants null vote
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says the international community should declare presidential elections "null and void" and organise a new vote.
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HIGH AND DRY: Neal referred to police by Labor colleagues
Belinda Neal's involvement in Iguana Gate has been referred to the Federal Police by her own Labor colleagues.
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Art goes too far once again
The battle between artistic freedom and public standards rages on with a video exhibition at the Biennale of Sydney featuring a chicken being decapitated. Chris Smith reckons it's sick.
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Rudd's mind undisciplined, chaotic: Libs
Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop has accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of having an "undisciplined and chaotic mind".