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Father 'suicidal' after daughter's bridge death
Four-year-old Darcey Iris Freeman died after her father allegedly took her out of the family car and threw her 58 metres off Melbourne's West Gate bridge in front of her two brothers.
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Rees denies deal to promote Robertson
New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees denies he made a deal with John Robertson, to help him get onto the front bench.
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Ouch! Light pole foils inmates' escape
It was less than a Great Escape as two New Zealand prisoners handcuffed together fled a courthouse, only to find themselves wrapped around a light pole.
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Which state has Australia's deadliest hospitals?
Doctors in one state have made more than a quarter of Australia's hospital bungles - and it's not New South Wales.
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Police pursuit ends in fiery crash
A police officer has been taken to hospital and an entire apartment building evacuated after a fiery end to a police chase in Sydney's West.
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Judge refuses Obama's call to suspend Guantanamo trial
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday rejected President Barack Obama's request to suspend the trial of a Saudi accused in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the Pentagon said.
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Aussie tourism jobs in the firing line
ATM bandits hit Drummoyne
Discharged hospital patient dies next day
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Woolworths' win is your loss
With supermarket giant Woolworths somehow posting an 8.8% increase in sales during an unprecedented economic crisis, it is clear that you, the consumer, are losing out, writes Alan Jones.
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Tax cuts, not panic, the solution to economic crisis
With economists and governments all too willing to spread doom and gloom, Australians could do well to ignore them and realise that things will recover, writes Alan Jones.
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SCIENCE SCREAMING
Tim Blair
Power duo Al Gore and John Kerry take their global warming show to snowbound Washington, DC:
“The Science is screaming at us,” said Kerry, who, like Gore is a former Democratic Presidential candidate. Kerry also has his own tome on the threat of global warming.
“To the naysayers and the deniers out there, let me make it clear the little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis that we face,” Kerry said.
Note that “Science” is now a proper noun. Like “Jesus”.
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CHANGE!
Tim Blair
American comedians struggle to find anything funny about Barack Obama. So – just as with the automotive industry – a market gap opens for the innovative Japanese:
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Importing tension
Andrew Bolt
It seems our urban chic-sters aren’t so comfortable with muliticulturalism, after all:
THE trendy inner-city suburbs of Sydney are full of gloomy and miserable people - and they have been that way since before the economic turmoil began....
The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index report, compiled by Bob Cummins, professor of psychology at Deakin University, shows ... the combination of high density living, high numbers of young people, and high rates of immigrants in a community can be a recipe for disaffection. “When people don’t know the people living around them, it gives rise to bad thoughts,” Professor Cummins said. “They don’t feel as safe...”
The survey also shows lower rates of wellbeing in communities where more than 40 per cent of residents were born overseas. This finding was likely to reflect the anxiety about “strangers” felt by the Australian-born in the area who were more likely to be interviewed for the survey, Professor Cummins said, rather than the feelings of the immigrants.
I suspect that in some areas of Australia multiculturalism and immigration have been pushed close to their limits, and that no amount of earnest fingerwagging will stop tensions rising.
Interesting that suburbs with big green votes tend also to be unhappier than non-green ones.
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Behar actually tells a joke
Andrew Bolt
Larry King interviews Joy Behar, comedian and panellist on The View:
KING: OK, is this administration going to be hard for the comics to have fun with?
BEHAR: Yes. And all I can say is thank you for Joe Biden, because he is going to always give us some laughs. He’ll say something crazy and out there, and it will be fun. And Sarah Palin, you know, we can always rely on her to come back and give us some material. But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they’re really — they’re kind of really perfect, aren’t they?
Bill O’Reilly had already pinned her, even though her body language alone screamed plenty.
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How the media sticks to its story
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama trying to walk through a window isn’t news, because he’s a genius.
George Bush trying to walk through a locked door is huge news, because he’s, you know, a moron.
Same story when clever Obama merely repeats what dumb Bush said already.
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Models monstered
Andrew Bolt
Professor J. Scott Armstrong, co-founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, says there are eight reasons not to trust the IPCC models that forecast runaway warming.
They are:
1. No scientific forecasts of the changes in the Earth’s climate.
2. Improper peer review process.
3. Complexity and uncertainty of climate render expert opinions invalid for forecasting.
4. Forecasts are needed for the effects of climate change.
5. Forecasts are needed of the costs and benefits of alternative actions that might be taken to combat climate change.
6. To justify using a climate forecasting model, one would need to test it against a relevant naïve model.
7. The climate system is stable.
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
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So endangered that they’re everywhere
Andrew Bolt
Sometimes a green will stretch exactly the wrong trurth:
AUSTRALIAN Greens Leader Bob Brown and environment groups have called for a halt to logging in Victoria’s East Gippsland area after the discovery of several endangered species....
Environment East Gippsland spokeswoman Jill Redwood said the Orbost spiny crayfish, endangered sooty and powerful owls and a large population of greater gliders were discovered at the weekend.
”The place is literally teeming with endangered species,’’ Ms Redwood said.
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Gore mocked
Andrew Bolt
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank watches New-New Testament prophet Al Gore deliver his latest apocalyptic sermon to the US Senate:
The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.
What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth—and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”
Milbank is astonished no one in the room is laughing at this guy:
Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority”—and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.
So from where comes this awe for Gore?:
The Goracle’s powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people.
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Melbourne is wrecked, and full
Andrew Bolt
EXCUSE me if I sound cross. Didn’t get much sleep, after the power to my home and air-conditioner - was cut three times.
Oops. Make that now four.
And last night I counted all the plants I lost because the Government can’t get me enough water, either.
Thirteen so far, actually, plus the two lawns. Not to mention the grass of the park down the end of our street.
No power, little water and the radio just now was warning that dozens more trains were being cancelled, too.
So, yes, I’m tired and cranky. But aren’t you also angry - enraged - that our great city has been brought so low by such mammoth incompetence?
Fact is, Victoria is now paying the price for being too green, blind and thick to build basic stuff for a population we let grow far too fast.
Melburnians in particular this week suffered for it.
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Rudd splashing cash we’ll need later
Andrew Bolt
KEVIN RUDD is planning another stimulus package to stop the economy from tipping into a hole.
Hand out another few billion, build more public housing, cut taxes a bit, and the cash will keep the tills kerchinging and factories whirring.
That’s the theory, but here’s the reality. All the Prime Minister’s spending so far - not least last month’s $8 billion of handouts - has failed.
In fact, Rudd has already blown almost our entire surplus on “rescue” plans, without managing to stop the economy from braking hard.
So is he merely squandering billions that we’ll need later? After all, it’s now clear this slowdown—or recession—may last as long as three years. Westpac this week predicted a 0.7 per cent contraction this year, with sluggish growth in 2010.
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Costa withdraws credit from Ruddbank
Andrew Bolt
Michael Costa, the former Labor NSW Treasurer, smells a rat in “Ruddbank”:
In proposing the $4 billion scheme, Kevin Rudd has confirmed his inability to provide reasoned and financially responsible responses to the present economic problems.
The partnership, according to the information provided on the ALP federal website, has been established by the Rudd Government “to help support Australian jobs”. The fund “will support the commercial property assets of viable Australian businesses, which without financing, would be forced to retrench thousands of employees”. ...
Rudd’s justification for these special measures is weak and lacks credibility. In promoting his initiative he has pointed to jobs.... (W)hy are commercial construction jobs more worthy of government support than other jobs? The Government provides no direct explanation. But interestingly, it provides a clue. The federal ALP website, claims that “many of the 150,000 workers employed in the commercial property sector are tradespeople such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters”.
Maybe it’s a coincidence but these also tend to be highly unionised sectors represented by politically significant ALP-affiliated unions....
The other justification Rudd points to is ... that half of the $285billion in syndicated loans to Australian businesses was made by foreign banks and that $75 billion of these loans are set to fall due over the next two years. Again, this might be true but so what? The Government needs to provide evidence that these loans will not be rolled over or, alternatively, new sources of funding won’t be available.
Rudd also needs to talk to Wayne Swan, who told 2GB’s Alan Jones in an interview on January 19 that while the Government was keeping an eye on the situation with domestic and foreign banks, at this stage there was no problem. He also claimed: “No, the banks are not, at this stage, having problems accessing what’s called term finance, internationally. Many of the banks, just prior to Christmas, were very successful in their fundraising activities overseas.”
Something dramatic must have happened between January 19 and 24, when the partnership announcement was made.
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But if it had been Israelis…
Andrew Bolt
Here’s a small story Reuters has just put out, but which has not yet been picked up by the mainstream media, according to this Google News search. But imagine the headlines if this news item named not Hamas...:
A Palestinian man has accused Islamist Hamas militants in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticising them.
... but Israel, like this:
A Palestinian man has accused Israeli troops in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticising them.
Still, give the MSM time. Let’s see what they make of it, and so many reports like it. Our is holding Israel to higher standards in fact yet another case of holding Israel and Hamas to double standards?
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Baz Luhrmann now writes for AFP
Andrew Bolt
It’s time AFP got a new Sydney correspondent before their patronising ignorance does more damage to our reputation overseas:
The former British penal colony, which has become a sought-after destination for its laid-back sun-and-surf lifestyle, was until 1973 ruled by a “White Australia” policy restricting immigration to Westerners.
Reads like a piece by someone who got their history from Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.
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Wong wrong to pick that cherry
Andrew Bolt
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is very nice in person, so Im guessing she’s not really trying to trick people or be deceitful:
The scorching weather across southern Australia proved the accuracy of warnings by climate change scientists, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says....
“All of this is consistent with climate change and all of this is consistent with what scientists told us would happen.”
But there’s something sneaky about this, nevertheless. The heat in Melbourne and Adelaide breaks no records - not like the cold these past weeks in the United States. So why seize on them as “proof” of anything?
The more important fact is that the temperature of the world has in fact fallen since 2002, which contradicts climate models that predicted warming as we pumped out ever more carbon dioxide. That’s the inconvenient truth Wong repeatedly fails to address, as I found when I asked her about this myself.
All this recent heat has proved is the accuracy of forecasts that Melbourne in summer can be damn hot. And?
UPDATE
Reader Charles wonders why Wong thinks a hot day in Victoria is proof of global warming, when in fact most of Australia on the day before she spoke had temperatures below average.
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Ten Things You Can Do To Save The Planet
by Iowahawk
A Go-Green Guide for the Hollywood Community
More than ten years after the Kyoto accords, our planet continues to careen helplessly toward certain environmental destruction. The skies are choked with pollutants. Adorable helpless polar bears plunge through thinning ice caps. Ben Affleck still can’t find a decent comeback project.
The signs are ominous, but it’s not too late to do something. As a member of the entertainment community, you are uniquely qualified to save our planet from coming climate disaster. But it will take more than raising awareness — it will take action. Have your personal assistant add these 10 to-dos to your Blackberry, and let’s get the Earth on the road to recovery!
1. Reduce Water Consumption. One single dripping faucet or flushed bidet may not seem to be much of an environmental threat, but those numbers really add up when you’re hosting an NRDC fundraiser for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. When possible, encourage guests to pee in the pool, and remind them that “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.” Unless you’re serving asparagus canapes.
2. “Green Begins At Home.” Whether you live in East Hampton or Topanga Canyon, there are dozens of little things you can do around your compound to reduce your carbon footprint. For instance, tell your groundskeeping crew to plant a tree. Save your leftover foie gras to grow your own homemade organic Botox. Turn off your energy wasting security cameras between 1 AM and 7 AM. If you own a vanity cattle ranch in Montana, email the trail boss and tell him/her to add Beano to your herd’s feed to reduce ozone-depleting methane emissions.
3. Upgrade To a New Gulfstream G550. Next time you take off for Cannes or Sundance or that big Environmental Defense Fund gala, stop and think how much fuel that clunky old G450 is using. Not only does the new G550 have real burled walnut and 10.8% better fuel efficiency, it has smoother ride — meaning 20% fewer annoying turbulence-related Cristal and cocaine spills. And with a maximum cruising speed of Mach 0.885 you’ll never be late for the red carpet at the Palm d’Or!
4. Crush a Third World Economic Development Movement. One of the most pressing threats facing our environment is rising income in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A generation ago these proud little dark people were happily frolicking in the rain forest, foraging for organic foods amid the wonders of nature. Today, corrupted by wealth, they are demanding environmentally hazardous consumer goods like cars and air conditioning and malaria medicine. You can do your part to stop this dangerous consumerism trend by supporting environmentally progressive leaders like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe, and their programs for sustainable low-impact ecolabor camps.
5. Don’t Reproduce. Many people are shocked when they learn that fewer than 25% of the Screen Actors Guild have been spayed or neutered. Sure, babies make great fashion accessories and it’s fun to give them awesome names, like Kumquat Wildebeest Paltrow and Toploader Enchilada Cage. But these miniature humans will eventually grow up and begin ravenously eating up the Earth’s depleted reserves of aux pairs and psychotherapists.
6. Use Alternative Fuel Motorcades. Let’s face it: whether you are on an international press junket or going to an awards banquet, limousine motorcades are a way of life. But this doesn’t mean you can’t make your red carpet entrance in an eco-friendly way. When possible, tell your publicity team to request a electric, hybrid, or E-85 stretch limo for you and your entourage. Later, when you are vomiting outside the Viper Club, encourage the paparazzi to share the photos to conserve high-energy-use camera flash pods.
7. Avoid Over-Packaged Products. Just look at all the wasteful packaging that goes into your DVDs and CDs: bulky plastic jewel cases, annoying and unnecessary anti-theft devices, price stickers. To reduce the use of petrochemicals, encourage your fans to download copies of your latest album or movie straight from the internet — for free! When they realize it sucks even worse than the reviews on BitTorrent, they can simply erase it from their hard drive instead of sending it to the landfill.
8. Go On a Random Killing Spree. The scientific debate is over: our current environmental mess is caused by an oversupply of human beings, and it’s high time we address these two-legged eco problems head on. Next time you’re on your way to a location shoot, do a little location shooting of your own - Biggie/Tupac style. Have the driver lower the tinted windows and pop a few caps on behalf of Mother Earth. Not only will you be doing the environment a good turn, it will earn you valuable youth market “street cred.”
9. Destroy The Entertainment Industry. Science shows that no single sector of the economy exemplifies America’s obscene energy waste more than show business. Witness the untold megatons of carbon released into the atmosphere every year by the production and consumption of entertainment, with no objective benefit to society. It all adds up to one gigantic, mindless, Earth-raping waste of time, and will take the commitment of progressive industry leaders like you to stop it. Before greenlighting any new project, make sure it contains at least 85% organic recycled preachy self-indulgence. By ridding your products of their dangerous popular appeal, you can keep the public where they belong — at home, with the TV off, playing eco-friendly board games like ‘Scrabble’ and ‘Mystery Date.’
10. Commit Suicide. As an eco-aware, planetary resource parasite, you will eventually want to kill yourself to spare the environment any further damage that your personal existence has already caused. However, it is important that you plan your suicide carefully as not to disturb the ecosystem’s delicate balance. Self immolation, while poignant, can release up to 50 kg of airborne fluorocarbons. Why not try the the hot new Malibu trend, ritual Japanese sepukku? it’s exotic, elegant, and your intact corpse will make a great compost pile addition!
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