Headlines Sunday 19th October

PM’s greed-is-bad credo
Piers Akerman
IT’S hard to take Kevin Rudd’s studied look of concern over the global financial meltdown seriously, even given the severity of events. The problem is that the prime ministerial call to arms is undermined by Labor’s grossly inconsistent approach to fiscal matters. - under Rudd's Rhetoric, the Australian banking execs are in line with a substantial pay rise because they sidestepped the sub prime crisis. - ed.
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Dear Jonh
Andrew Bolt
Something wrong about this Sydney Morning Herald headline:

Kim Jonh-Il feared ill
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The price of Canberra’s green faith
Andrew Bolt
Canberrans suffer the price of their green delusions - and greener government. Take the price of the Labor Government’s policy to build no new dams, and drain the one it has for “environmental flows”:

One Canberra economist, Terry Dwyer, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, ... calculates the total cost of water restrictions thus: 16,000 trees have been lost due to lack of water. The replacement cost of a mature tree is estimated as $8000 to $16,000, so the cost of dead trees alone could be $300 million to $400 million.
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NSW Labor told it’s terminal
Andrew Bolt
Labor loses only one of the four NSW byelections today, but the results are nevertheless disastrous:

Labor has suffered dramatic swings in today’s four New South Wales by-elections, losing its first state Sydney seat to the Liberals in 20 years. - It is appalling that a good candidate like Dai Le lose to the second rater Nick Lalich. - ed
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Grabbing the excuse for grabbing the super
Andrew Bolt
In last year’s election campaign, Treasurer Peter Costello warned of Labor’s threat to your super:

Everybody’s super [will] be directed to pet projects.

Wayne Swan, now the Labor Government’s Treasurer, said then this was ”absurd” and “untruthful”, adding:

Mr Costello made the absurd claim knowing full well superannuation law requires funds and trustees to decide independently where they invest superannuation funds based on the interests of their members and on delivering the best returns.

Economist Professor Sinclair Davidson pointed out in the Australian Financial Review (no link - his letter in full below) that Swan was being evasive, and Labor’s National Platform and Constitution already committed a Rudd Government to doing much as Costello warned
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Another lecture on sacrifice from business class
Andrew Bolt
Ross Garnaut, climate change alarmist, demands we make huge sacrifices to slash our emissions and save the planet. But he himself won’t sacrifice the pride of seeing his sermons printed on the nicest, gassiest paper:

A GOVERNMENT department advocating environmentally-friendly practices used $18,000 worth of paper shipped from Italy to print a report.
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Two democrats on an escalator. It is an image of how our states have messed up infrastructure, and how they handle it.
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Cold facts on warming Arctic hype
Andrew Bolt
A big Arctic melt last year was hailed around the world as proof of global warming.

So what does a big Arctic freeze this autumn prove?:

Ice Reality Check: Artic ice now 31.3% over last year
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NYT’s latest tack: Make McCain’s wife cry
Andrew Bolt
The New York Times will stop at nothing in its campaign to elect Barack Obama. Printing a long, mocking vilification of John McCain’s wife is the depths to which it has now sunk.

How hard did the reporters trawl for dirt?
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Sarah Palin appears on Saturday Night Live
VICE-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has appeared in a skit with her lookalike, comedian Tina Fey.