Headlines Wednesday 11th June

Bullying culture at the heart of Della Bosca affair
Even if reports of John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal's behaviour have been exaggerated, there's no getting away from the fact that a bullying attitude is at the centre of things, according to Alan Jones.
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My Della Bosca question
Why has a garden variety nightclub disagreement involving John Della Bosca become such major news? Tim Brunero thinks he has the answers.
But who would have an interest in booting Della while he was down? Apart from the Liberal Party? Tim Brunero
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Belinda Neal will have to undergo counselling: Rudd
The Prime Minister says disgraced Labor MP Belinda Neal will undergo counselling for a pattern of unacceptable behaviour.
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Rudd seeks more easy applause
Andrew Bolt
KEVIN Rudd’s ministers were starting to worry about his erratic performance even before his latest big announcements.

So how do you feel today, boys?

Truth is, I’m alarmed, too, by the Prime Minister’s latest thought bubbles - a new Asian union and a new committee to rid the world of all nuclear weapons. (Yeah, right.)

Can’t the man do something I could praise, if only to let me show I’m fair?

Instead, Rudd is tossing off one half-baked scheme after another in what seems an increasingly manic attempt to distract his growing band of critics.

Consider these two latest plans - and Rudd’s terrible misjudgment in visiting the Hiroshima shrine.
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Sex and the city firm
Andrew Bolt
This is the most positive way to spin a gender stereotype:

Women in business are far more likely than men to tap into fellow business owners and friends for advice, new research shows.

And they are much more adept at developing support networks, the study commissioned by Westpac Banking Corporation Ltd suggests.
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Sudoku snafu
Andrew Bolt
A few more numbers to add up:

AFTER 105 witnesses and three months of evidence, a drug trial costing $1 million was aborted yesterday when it emerged that jurors had been playing Sudoku since the trial’s second week.
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For $35 mill, can I be in the photo, too?
Andrew Bolt
Excuse me?

Toyota will receive $35 million from the Federal Government in return for building a new hybrid car in Victoria from 2010…

Mr Watanabe conceded the hybrid Camry would be more expensive than the regular model, but suggested the $35 million subsidy might be used to keep the retail price down.

”It was only recently that we heard about the amount so we are not sure how we will use it,” he said.

Is Toyta saying they’d already agreed to build the hybrid in Victoria BEFORE Kevin Rudd handed them $35 million?

So what was the handout of our money for? To put Rudd fingerprints over the decision? I smell a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.
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More accounts emerge as friends rush to defend Della Bosca
Four of John Della Bosca's friends have signed statutory declarations directly contradicting accounts written by staff at Iguana Joe's. -are ALP mates willing to lie by stat dec? -ed.
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Vodafone to launch iPhone on July 11
Australia's second biggest telecommunications company Optus and international mobile phone provider Vodafone will launch Apple's third generation iphone on July 11.
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Garuda pilot 'should be locked up for life'
POLICE say the pilot of a Garuda plane which crashed, killing 21 people, should face life in jail for deliberately causing the tragedy.
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Belinda Neal's red card rampage
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is under pressure to sack hot-headed Labor MP Belinda Neal amid even more shocking revelations of appalling behaviour.
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Wimp upset
Andrew Bolt
The ultimate man bites dog story
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Dr Nelson was spot on with his denouncement of Belinda Neal's behaviour. Some lefty journos don't agree.
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Bush: I’m a man of peace
Andrew Bolt
He’s always struck me as a fundamentally decent man, often portrayed to be just what he wasn’t:

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”

Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. He said that he found it very painful “to put youngsters in harm’s way”. He added: “I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.”
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Lame Lambert
Andrew Bolt
If someone claims to find 24 mistakes in your work and you manage to kind-of defend just three, it might be wiser to actually stay quiet. If you don’t actually have the integrity to admit and repent, that is.
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Iraq rises
Andrew Bolt
Interesting insights from Mike Tharp in Baghdad:

Real peace, of course, has hardly broken out, and the improved security environment may be fleeting. But recent substantial gains by the Iraqi army, flagging insurgent violence and civilians reclaiming a sense of confidence have produced expectations that are higher than at any time since 2003.
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The blind faith of Ross Garnaut
Andrew Bolt
Nice essay by Peter Gallagher on the dogma of Ross Garnaut, Kevin Rudd’s warming advisor. An excerpt:

What positive reason does Prof. Garnaut offer for accepting the ‘uncertainties’ of the IPCC as reasonably indicative of a probability? No scientific reason, as it turns out. This is the most curious argument of all in his address. His reason for accepting the need for elaborate, ‘impossible-to-measure’ schemes of carbon-emission mitigation (the second two-thirds of his address) is a religious reason.

Prof. Garnaut invokes “Pascal’s Wager” - a sort of bargain struck de profundis in the heart of this brilliant but deeply disturbed 17th century philosophe - to accept the existence of God on the basis of faith alone, rejecting the counsels of reason, out of fear of the (metaphysical) consequences. Pascal resolved to accept the existence of God out of an irrational fear of an eternity of torment in hell should he deny God and happen to be wrong.
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Rudd in Asia will take years to fix
Andrew Bolt
Professor Purnendra Jain gives Kevin Rudd a bollocking in the Asia Times:

Rudd has proposed an Asia-Pacific community by 2020… Cobbled together hastily before his departure this week to Japan and Indonesia, Rudd’s proposal is unlikely to go very far… His proposal is at best premature and at worst presumptuous…

Rudd’s obsession with China and the hope that by jumping in bed with Beijing he could both serve as a bridge between China and the West and secure diplomatic leverage in Asia has produced nothing but contempt for him in the region… Rudd has also managed to spoil Australia’s budding relationship with India.

Rudd has already made far too many unforced diplomatic errors and it will take a huge amount of time and effort to put the relationships with its major Asian partners back on track.

Diplomacy, of course, is Rudd’s strongest suit.
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Neal kicks as she should be kicked
Andrew Bolt
Labor MP Belinda ”Do You Know Who I Am” Neal, who had such a robust discussion with the staff of a Gosford bar, now introduces herself to a fellow soccer player:

LOOSE-cannon MP Belinda Neal was sent off the soccer pitch and suspended for two matches for repeatedly kicking a rival player just two weeks before she allegedly abused staff at a nightclub.

Shouldn’t this woman be kicked herself - out of Labor and then out of Parliament?
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How did we just buy a $70 million car?
Andrew Bolt
How did we end up handing Toyota $70 million to do what it was going to do anyway?