Headlines Tuesday 16th December

Rudd attracts widespread condemnation over ETS
Green groups have universally condemned the government's "weak" plan to cut Australia's carbon emissions, but big business isn't happy either.
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Bag of bones: dead husband a murder suspect
Police believe a woman whose remains were hidden on a balcony for eight years may have been murdered by her husband.
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Robbers go empty-handed as another ATM blown up in Sydney
Another ATM has been blown up by bandits in Sydney, this time at a newsagency in Sydney's south-west.
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P-plater dies in car's first drive
A P-plate driver taking his newly restored car for its first drive has been killed after losing control on Sydney's northern beaches.
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Attention seeker praised in Middle East
A reporter who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush was being held for questioning by the Iraqi prime minister's guards, an Iraqi official said Monday, as Arabs across the Middle East hailed the incident as a proper send-off to the unpopular Bush.

Muntadar al-Zeidi was being interrogated over whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference Sunday in Baghdad and was being tested for alcohol and drugs, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Al-Zeidi's colleagues said the journalist was kidnapped last year by Shiite militias and released after his TV station, Al-Baghdadia, intervened.

The Shiite journalist, who is in his late 20s, was being held at the headquarters of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the official. His shoes were being held as evidence, he added.

Al-Baghdadia repeatedly aired pleas to release al-Zeidi on Monday, while showing footage of explosions and playing background music that denounced the US in Iraq.
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Police retract apology to forest crazies
Andrew Bolt
Protesters offended to be thought lawbreakers:

POLICE have been forced to apologise for mounting an anti-terrorism exercise in which a forest campaigner hijacked an aircraft and threatened to crash it into a pulp mill in Tasmania…
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In Kirby’s footsteps
Andrew Bolt
Is Labor stacking the High Court like Rob Hulls stacked Victoria’s?

Justice (Virginia) Bell, 57, replaces Michael Kirby to become Australia’s 48th High Court judge…

Professor George Williams said ... her interest in social justice was appropriate, “given that she’s replacing Justice Michael Kirby”.
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Cool beach
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd wants us to slash our emissions to set an inspiring example to the world. I doubt Dubai will care:

Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days. The beach will be next to the the new Palazzo Versace hotel which is being built in Dubai where summer temperatures average 40C and can reach 50C.
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Iraq is safer
Andrew Bolt
Strategy Page on the drugs war in Mexico:


This month, about 26 people a day are dying from criminal and terrorist violence a day in Iraq. That’s a bit lower than the death toll in northern Mexico, which on a bad day (like last November 3rd) saw 58 people killed.
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And welcome to you
Andrew Bolt
As the VCE results are handed out:

WHEN Shaheen Hasmat and his family arrived in Australia from Afghanistan as refugees five years ago, the year 8 student knew only a few words in English, like yes and no…

But yesterday, Shaheen was the dux of Reservoir District Secondary College, with a near-perfect tertiary score, or ENTER, of 99.8 and the promise of a scholarship to study medicine at Monash University.
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Results won’t be denied
Andrew Bolt
Susie O’Brien says adults would never tolerate a system so evil that it fails people for not performing well:

If VCE was applied to grown-ups it would be abolished in no time - who’d want years of our hard work reflected in just one set of numbers on a bit of paper?

Meanwhile a grown-up gets failed after years of hard work are reflected in just one set of numbers on a bit of paper:
FAIRFAX Media has announced the resignation of chief executive David Kirk after more than three years… Mr Kirk has faced pressure over the media group’s flagging share price, which last week fell below the Herald’s cover price of $1.30.