Headlines Tuesday 1st July

How we're getting shafted by the great retail rip-off
How is it that a tennis racket that sells for $210 in the US, goes for $349 in Australia? Alan Jones takes a look at the way Australian consumers are being ripped off and how it could be triggering inflation.
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Kevin gets smart with his creepy Cone of Silence
Our Canberra correspondent John Barrington has been witness to a strange phenomenon over the last 12 months: Kevin Rudd's 'cone of silence' descending.
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Apartheid was better, say Zimbabweans
Andrew Bolt
The New York Times‘ Nicholas Kristof describes an ideological shock:

When I grew up in the 1970s, a central truth was that Ian Smith was evil and Mugabe heroic. So it was jolting on my last visit to Zimbabwe, in 2005, to see how many Zimbabweans looked back on oppressive white rule with nostalgia. They offered a refrain: “Back then, at least parents could feed their children.”

He adds:

If only Mugabe were a white racist! Then the regional powers might stand up to him.
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The ayes have it in for the ABC
Andrew Bolt
The weight of complaints to the ABC’s fairness boss says plenty:

Mr Chadwick reports that the ABC received 2374 complaints about its election coverage…

The national broadcaster received 590 complaints alleging bias, of which 358 alleged the ABC favoured the Labor Party opposition and 161 alleged it favoured the Coalition government… The remaining 71 complaints about bias concerned other parties.

Bear in mind also that these are complaints from an ABC audience, and the numbers speak even louder.

I accept there have been recent incremental changes towards balance under boss Mark Scott. Political editor Chris Uhlmann is certainly no Labor shill; Insiders often includes one conservative on its panel of three; Media Watch no longer sees its duty as shooting ideological malefactors; Q & A usually including two conservatives on its panel of five; Michael Duffy and Paul Comrie-Thompson once a week try soberly to redress the wild imbalance of four-times weekly Phillip Adams; and ... er .... well, there must be one or two other examples I could find. Or should have been able to.

And then, of course, you get an utterly over-the-top display of one-sided anti-Bush conspiracy-theorising like last night’s Four Corners effort, imported from the BBC, a Leftist riff on Halliburton and the industrial-military complex undisturbed by even the remotest concern for balance…
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Man arrested over Cowra axe murders
An elderly man wanted over the brutal axe killings of his wife and two grandchildren has been arrested in the state's south west, following a tip-off from a motel owner.
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Downer confirms he's quitting politics
Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has confirmed he will quit politics to take up a position with the United Nations, paving the way for a by-election.
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Iguana Joe's staff break silence to demand an apology
Staff at Iguana Joe's have broken their silence over the confrontation with John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal to demand an apology from the couple.
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Clairvoyant killer sentenced to 28 years
An unemployed Melbourne clairvoyant who shot dead his solicitor lashed out at the judge and the media after being jailed for 28 years. -he didn't see that coming? -ed.
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Why Don Chip's Democrats Failed
By Pia Akerman
DAVID Hicks has made his first public appearance since being released from jail for supporting terrorism, stepping out for drinks last night with outgoing Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja.

With his father, Terry, at his side, a relaxed Hicks sipped Corona beer and chatted freely with guests at Ms Stott Despoja's farewell in Adelaide.
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Bizarre sex pact: Stepdaughter impregnated at request of mother
A man had sex with his stepdaughter as part of a pact with his wife to get the teenager pregnant because they wanted another child, a court has heard.
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Prices rise, Rudd falls
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd’s support is down to its lowest level since the election. Moral: don’t trust what voters tell pollsters to seem good; just watch what they actually do:

MOST Australians are prepared to pay higher energy bills to fight global warming but support wanes when households are confronted with the extra spike in fuel prices likely to be caused by the inclusion of petrol in an emissions trading scheme…

According to the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend, 61per cent of Australians support an ETS and 56 per cent said they were prepared to pay “more for energy” to slow global warming.
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Downer gives Nelson a last lecture
Andrew Bolt
Good parting advice from Alexander Downer to Brendan Neslon:

What (the Liberals) need to do, which they have not very well so far, is develop a better narrative - both a negative narrative about the Rudd Labor Government and a positive narrative about the Liberal Party.

They need to build policies around that narrative. It is one thing to start barking on about reducing fuel excise by 5c, but what’s your point?

Why would you want to do that? You need a broader narrative. The Liberal Party does not have a story to tell at the moment. Just a bunch of ad hoc comments.- One understands why Bolt is keen to make this point, but it is over stated. The Liberal party's first obligation is to restructure itself for the future. Policy is supremely important, but not at this time. The Naats might merge with the Libs, and if that happens policy will be moot, as it will need to be renewed from the ground up. Dr Nelson has been doing a great job so far, but the oppressive press want to barrack for the ALP. Which is ok, so long as we don't start thinking that people like Bolt are trying to help the conservatives. - ed.
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This doesn’t compute with honesty
Andrew Bolt
The 7.30 Report reveals the extraordinary background to the revelation that NSW is demanding Kevin Rudd pay it extra to honor his computer promise:

Documents left behind by Treasurer Wayne Swan in a TV studio yesterday and later broadcast on channel 9 reveal that New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa threatened to scuttle the first round of the computers in schools program, unless his State received a $245 million sweetener.
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Why cut our own throats when others gas on?
Andrew Bolt
Henry Ergas says Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme needs the rest of the world to join in to make sense:

In the absence of such a regime, abatement in Australia, no matter how great, will have no direct impact on the risk of harmful climate change. The only reason for undertaking that abatement is the possibility that it will assist such a regime to come into place.

However, whether abatement in Australia would have a “demonstration effect” internationally, and if so to what extent, is highly uncertain…

As a result, if there is a likelihood that harmful climate change will nonetheless occur, we should be responding not by reducing our incomes but by increasing them and accumulating precautionary savings. In that scenario, bearing greater abatement costs now will not reduce costs in the future but merely increase the future pain.
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Content even poorer than the form
Andrew Bolt
I have some sympathy, but shouldn’t this have been marked down for content?

Pupils are being rewarded for writing obscenities in their GCSE English examinations even when it has nothing to do with the question.

One pupil who wrote “f*** off” was given marks for accurate spelling and conveying a meaning successfully…

The chief examiner, who is responsible for standards in exams taken by 780,000 candidates and for training for 3,000 examiners, told The Times: “It would be wicked to give it zero, because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for – like conveying some meaning and some spelling.

“It’s better than someone that doesn’t write anything at all. It shows more skills than somebody who leaves the page blank.”
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It seemed healthier read about than seen
Andrew Bolt
Like so many modern causes, it’s much easier to accept transgenderism in theory than it is when you have to study the scars. Suddenly it seems less about choice and more about sadness.
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Democrats must eat their own purple prose
Andrew Bolt
It will be lovely to see the sanctimonious made to eat their words at the Democratic National Convention:

Denver’s Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper ... challenged his party and his city to “make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet."…

Among (the rules): No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.” (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation.

Multicolored food, by order? These people are crazy. If they do this to themselves, what do they intend for the rest of America?
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Sack them
Andrew Bolt
From do-you-know-who-I-am to won’t-say-what-I-said:

POLICE are becoming increasingly frustrated with the failure of Belinda Neal and John Della Bosca to tell them if they will consent to an interview over the Iguanas scandal, despite the pair telling their parliaments they would co-operate fully with police.

Here are two Labor politicians giving every impression of thinking themselves too grand even for the police.
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Rudd means to hurt
Andrew Bolt
The basic, bottom-line reality that all the Government’s blather of “compensation’’ cannot - or should not - hide:

IF an emissions trading scheme doesn’t hurt, it won’t work, economist Chris Richardson says.
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Call it the Overdose Stadium
Andrew Bolt
We now honor people who kill themselves with drugs?

A NEW performing arts centre in Perth is to be named after Australian actor Heath Ledger.

The overdose may have been accidental (which isn’t?) but Ledger’s abuse of drugs was well known. Exactly what message is that mad State Government trying to send?