Headlines Monday 3rd November

Flying on hot air
Andrew Bolt
Al Gore has his imitators:
Contiki is the biggest youth travel company in Australia and it takes the pulse of the market with an annual survey.... (It’s} The Shades Of Green report, which records the answers of 515 people between 18 and 34, makes for interesting reading. Not least is the figure showing that a surprisingly low percentage of young travellers, 9 per cent, put their money where their mouth is to offset their travel, even though 54 per cent say they believe in carbon-neutral travel.
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Attacking Liberals for ALP Mistake
Andrew Bolt
Note the most obvious thing about this most obvious response today:

The Federal Opposition wants the Australian Federal Police to investigate how a private telephone conversation between Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and US President George W Bush became the subject of a newspaper article.

It’s the date. It’s taken two weeks for the Opposition to react, and it’s Deputy Leader Julie Bishop, not foreign affairs spokesman Helen Coonan, who is doing most of the belated lifting. Which makes two Liberal frontbenchers clearly in the wrong jobs.
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Kids, meet the killer
Andrew Bolt
Some court decisions are resoundingly, depressingly modern:

A COURT has granted a convicted killer described as “brutal, vicious and cowardly” a licence to work with children.
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Rudd no diplomat
Andrew Bolt
Glenn Milne says Australia will pay for Kevin Rudd’s gloating leak of his private chat with George Bush:

After the call, on the evening of Friday, October 10, Mr Rudd reportedly told guests he had insisted to Mr Bush that the G-20 was the appropriate vehicle to co-ordinate a response to the ongoing crisis affecting world markets.

“What’s the G-20?’’ Mr Bush reportedly replied.

That remark, and the notion Mr Bush had not already been considering the G-20’s role have been denied by a US national security official who monitored the 30-minute conversation.
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DOOM IMPENDS
Tim Blair
“For reporters and editors at The Times responsible for news about the election,” writes NYT public editor Clark Hoyt, “this is a tricky time.” Not really; all they have to do is write about an election campaign. They may have done this once or twice before. Hoyt continues:
They have to walk a careful line, reporting what appears to be current reality without predicting an outcome that nobody can be certain of, no matter what polls indicate. A lot is at stake: the newspaper’s credibility …
Whoa. When did that return? Meanwhile, while conservatives seem frustrated but calm at the possibility (even the likelihood) of a community organiser and a diversity coordinator occupying the White House, jittery leftists are suffering their usual panic attacks:
“Look, I have this sense of impending doom; we’ve had a couple of elections stolen already,” Mr. Downs said. “The only thing worse than losing is to think that you’re going to win and then lose.”

He considers that prospect and mutters, almost involuntarily, “Oh, God.”
The fellow is 53 years old and he’s in schoolgirl fright mode.
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Howard's running up bills of $8k a week
JOHN Howard is running up bills of $8560 a week in travel perks, staff, magazine and office costs, all picked up by taxpayers. - interesting news article. Of curse, Rudd is costing Oz million's of dollars a week with his bumbling overseas. - ed.
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White House puts Rudd in dog house
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd’s blabbing (and twisting) of the details of his phone call with George Bush last month is not the first time he’s tattled on the US President.

As I’ve mentioned before, he also eavesdropped on Bush and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin at the Beijing Games opening ceremony, and then blabbed to the media about that, too - and again simply to big-note himself.

But what I didn’t know was that the White House noticed that astonishing indiscretion, too.
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Not what the media has reported
Andrew Bolt
Most polls have Barack Obama streeting John McCain. But now the IBD/TRIPP poll says the race has closed up considerably - to just a 46.7 to 44.6 per cent lead to Obama.

That’s astonishing, if true, considering that Obama has had twice McCain’s money, all the favorable coverage, almost none of the scrutiny, most of the celebrity endorsements, none of the Bush drag and all the advantages of a huge desire for change, especially after this financial shock.
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Save these children
Andrew Bolt
Horrific:
ONE in four children who have been removed from the care of their parents and placed in foster homes are being heavily medicated to control their emotions and behaviour.
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Burned-out babies
Andrew Bolt
Glenn Milne says the Rudd Government is almos dysfunctional, and can’t keep its staff:

(T)he staff turnover rate among government personal staffers is 19 per cent: 63 out of 329. And the staff turnover rate of (departmental liaison officers) is a staggering 38 per cent: 27 out of 71…

Since January, the administration has cast off five chiefs of staff, all from critically important portfolios…

Rudd personally has had a 19 per cent staff turnover in his first 10 months as PM… Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard had a 33 per cent staff turnover rate in her first 10 months… And for Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, the number is a truly worrying 50 per cent.