Headlines Sunday 3rd August

Islamists Blow Up More Than Sixty Female Street Cleaners
A ROADSIDE bomb ripped through a group of female street cleaners in Mogadishu early today, killing at least 15, witnesses said.

The explosion went off in the southern K4 neighbourhood of the Somali capital as dozens of women supported by local NGOs gathered to sweep the area, leaving scenes of carnage in the street.

"They were cleaning the street when this huge explosion rocked the entire neighbourhood. I counted 15 bodies, most of them are women who were torn to pieces," eyewitness Hasan Abdi Mohamed said.

Mr Mohamed said the explosion wounded around 40 people. - well, that was successful. They won't do THAT again. - ed.
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Costello should praise Turnbull, not bury him
Andrew Bolt
Given how few people Peter Costello confides in now, I suspect “sources said” is the man himself - and this is his pitch to his party:

Mr Costello, who monitored events while on a family holiday in the South Pacific, believed the party had moved towards him, sources said.-I think that Turnbull is not being sidelined by the declaration, but ‘placed.’ Peter is not leader and if he becomes leader there will be no room for the squabbles that have undermined Mr Howard and Dr Nelson.
I am sure that someone like Mr Costello recognizes the talent of Mr Turnbull, and is well placed to appropriately focus it on the ALP, and not leave an opportunity for it to corrode the liberal position as Malcolm Fraser’s legacy of Howard Peacock did.-ed.
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China works the media
Piers Akerman
THE power of the massed international media proved too great for China’s leaders in the clash over Olympic Internet access, but this victory will be short-lived and meaningless, unless global pressure on the totalitarian leadership is maintained throughout the Olympics and beyond.

Letting thousands of international journalists log on to some media websites - such as the BBC and a few human-rights organisations, including Amnesty International - isn’t the same as permitting the Chinese people to speak freely, to read what they wish, when they wish, to read uncensored international websites or to discuss human-rights issues without fear of arrest.

Whether the historically corrupt International Olympic Organisation (IOC) was party to China’s crackdown on the Internet, as part of a secret deal, is immaterial.

The argument for giving Beijing the Games was, in part, to reward China for loosening its ties on its own citizens.

This clearly hasn’t occurred. Fly-in, fly-out members of the international media can celebrate their temporary success as freedom fighters, but ordinary Chinese will wonder what the fuss is about.
It shouldn’t have come as any surprise that China did try to curb press freedom as the foreign press descended on Beijing, even though Chinese officials had given unambiguous, concrete, non-negotiable assurances that an open-door policy would apply during the Games, with unfettered Internet access.

China is well-practised at making promises it doesn’t intend to keep. It’s a time-honoured Chinese tradition to tell foreigners whatever they wish to hear and keep doing otherwise.
The Han Chinese culture revolves around the notion of cultural and racial superiority, and these Olympics are designed in large part to reinforce that view.

This is just one of the similarities between the Olympics being held in today’s China and the Olympics held in Hitler’s Germany in 1936.

Although President Hu Jintao asked the international press not to politicise the Games, it must be remembered that China’s pledges to recognise civil rights were implicit factors in it being given the right to host the Olympics.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing to suggest China has attempted to address those issues positively since it was awarded the Games. Indeed, most international rights groups would agree it has failed to meet its promises on human rights and the environment.
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Save the neglected Obama school in Kenya!
By Michelle Malkin
Conservative bloggers aren’t waiting for The One Who Is The Change He Seeks. No, they’re doing it for themselves.
Doing what, you ask?
Doing the job Barack Obama wasn’t willing to do: Helping out a little school in Kenya that bears Obama’s name and which he promised to assist.
Shocker: It was an empty promise. The school remains in dire need of help, as It’s Vintage, Duh pointed out.
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The next movie will disguise Bush as a whale
Andrew Bolt
Turns out Nolan knew his stars only too well. As I said last week about the latest Batman movie:

FINALLY Hollywood makes a film that says President George W Bush was right. But director Christopher Nolan had to disguise it a little, so journalists wouldn’t freak and the film’s more fashionable stars wouldn’t walk. So he hides Bush in a cape. He even sticks a mask on him, with pointy ears for some reason.
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Stolen again. And we’re glad
Andrew Bolt
Repeating the “stolen generations”, but in style:

THE country’s biggest indigenous boarding school scholarship scheme is preparing to go national with a $5 million endowment fund to send hundreds of Aboriginal children to private schools throughout Australia. If the concept succeeds, by the time another decade has passed many of the nation’s most coveted private schools could have more than 50 indigenous students each, paid for by private and corporate donors.
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Dear Graeme, have you seen these whoppers?
Andrew Bolt

Reader Nigel has lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that you may wish to formally support:
Date received: 1st August 2008

Product description: Climate change advertisements

Product provider: Department of Climate Change

Complaint description: I wish to complain about the current series of radio and TV advertisements being run by the Department of Climate Change - in particular, their truth and accuracy. The advertisements mention “carbon pollution” - carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a naturally occuring compound vital to life on earth. Without it, there would be no photosynthesis, and therefor no production of oxygen for humans and animals to breath. We breath out CO2 when we exhale. DDT is a pollutant. SO2 is a pollutant, since it has a detrimental effect on plants when falling as acid rain. Ash and soot from power stations could be described as pollutants if they are not captured before release. Particulates in the exhaust of diesel engines is a pollutant.

CO2 is not a pollutant, so it is wrong to make mention of “carbon pollution”. I can live with CO2 being described as an “emission”, but not as a pollutant. It is inaccurate and untruthful to describe it as a pollutant.
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Most new research findings are false
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s Norman Swan interviews Professor John Ioannidi, author of Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. Unfortunately they restrict the discussion to medical research, when Ioannidi’s observations seem to apply equally to global warming theory:

John Ioannidis: I would say that most of what we think we have found originally turns out to be false eventually when we do more studies… However in the current publication environment researchers are really urged to report that they have made discoveries, competition is very fierce, they have to say that we have found something and they probably don’t have much time or even willingness to report and comment on what ‘negative results’, even though these studies may be just as important and as well conducted. So what we end up seeing many times is just the tip of the significant results that appear due to chance…
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Another reason to be depressed by Rudd
Andrew Bolt
I wouldn’t have thought Kevin Rudd would face anything more threatening to his Government than his mad plans to slash emissions to save the world from a made-up threat:

WA property sales have slumped to their lowest level in more than a decade amid fears that the housing market may be headed for a once-ina-century real estate recession.... The chief executive of property market analyst Residex, John Edwards, said prices had dropped in all of Australia’s major cities in June for the first time since just before the Great Depression.
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If China ruled the world…
Andrew Bolt
Just the usual precautions you take at a sports festival:

Britain’s official delegates to the Olympic Games have been told to use throwaway mobile phones because of security concerns, it has been reported. The measure is designed to avoid any Chinese officials spying on their conversations.
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STOOPING SHAMELESS
Tim Blair
Mikel Weisser joins the turkey roll:
It would be like trying to make it seem that Bush was so shameless a propagandist that he would make a Thanksgiving photo-op trip that was so bogus Bush would even pose with a fake turkey. A fake turkey? It would surely be a character assassination to suggest our president would stoop that low. But wait, he did that too.
Oh no he didn’t! Hit that Weisser link again to view a “premium left liberal blogad” promoting the Summer of Truth—featuring the Patriotic Labrador of Lies.
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CAMPAIGN GETS BLOGGY
Tim Blair
They will call him ... The One.

UPDATE. Hillary will also call him the one.

UPDATE II. Obama responds:
“They’re mocking the desire of millions of Americans to step up and take ownership of the political process.”
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MEET THE TROLLS
Tim Blair
Trolls look exactly as you would imagine. From the article, a nice definition of trollish (and leftish) online conduct: “They are liberal in what they do and conservative in what they construe as acceptable behavior from others.”

TROLL UPDATE. Former ABC, Webdiary and Crikey journalist Wayne Sanderson, posting as “MichaelF” at Catallaxy, claims I’m posting there myself under two pseudonyms (scroll down to comment 447, where the action—if it can be so described—begins).

This is untrue. I’m not even registered to comment at Catallaxy. Wayne/Mike also claims I was fired by the Bulletin; again, untrue. Also, contrary to Wayne/Mike’s understanding, I’ve never met Phillip Adams or Helen Dale. Of course, in the manner of his kind, Wayne/Mike can’t resist playing the cancer card:
There’s a theory in complementary and alternative medical circles that says deep self-loathing and self-hatred can bring on cancer. I think it’s rubbish meslef, but how’s the health been lately, Tim?
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LAND MIMES
Tim Blair
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sought to calm a fearful nation yesterday as the wave of French invasions continued.

“Fellow citizens,’’ the PM said from his bunker deep below Parliament House, “we are under attack. Remain inside your homes. Report any strange or arrogant activity. Monitor radio and television broadcasts for military updates.

“And may God protect us all.’’
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BY THEIR WORDS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM
Tim Blair
Dave S. speaks the absolute truth:
When someone uses the word “jackal”, you know you’re dealing with a 1000 horsepower supercharged nitro-burning tire-shredding raving nutjob.
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MUFFLEFLATION II
Tim Blair
Moved by his wife’s poverty plea—“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, complained the government’s $600 economic stimulus check was only enough to buy ‘a pair of earrings’—Obama ups the ante:
Sen. Barack Obama on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”
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US POLITICAL SCANDAL COVERED
Tim Blair
The SMH hasn’t mentioned the comical carryings-on of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter, but it does give space to a financial scandal involving little-known Republican senator Ted Stevens. And why might that be?
The news is positive for the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama ...
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Did Hitler’s gut instinct drive him to kill?
Andrew Bolt
Without the Farterland, Hitler might have been less lethal.
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Defending the IOC’s values … by defying the IOC
Andrew Bolt
Showing all the courage and principle the IOC never has:
Under the slogan “We are all Chinese”, nine German Olympians have posed in their sports kit for a Munich magazine while holding pictures of Chinese dissidents in front of their faces.
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Vote for God
Andrew Bolt
John McCain’s previous ad was a bit of a dog:

But this one is on the money - at least in psychological insight:

And here’s Obama’s latest attack ad. How often, and in how many ways, will he managed to slip in the “old” word between now and the election?

That age thing needs answering:

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Green cars are for schmucks
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd gives Toyota $35 million it doesn’t need to build green cars his ministers won’t drive:

RUDD Government ministers are driving gas-guzzling V6s and four-wheel-drives that consume as much as three times more fuel than smaller hybrid cars.