Headlines Monday 9th February 2009

Includes bushfire tribute in youtube reading.
'Mass murder': Rudd hits out at bushfire arsonists
After the worst bushfires in Australia's history, an emotional Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has declared any person found to have deliberately started any of the fires is guilty of "mass murder".
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Queen 'shocked and saddened' by bushfires
The Queen has expressed her shock and sadness about Victoria's deadly bushfires, sending her condolences to the families of the victims.
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HELL ON EARTH: Vic bushfires claim 108 lives, 750 homes
The death toll from the Victorian bushfires has reached 108 and authorities warn the number of fatalities is likely to rise even further.
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Police tampered with Lapthorne evidence, says father
Croatian police have removed frames of camera footage that may hold clues to the mysterious death of Australian backpacker Britt Lapthorne, her father says.
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Arson suspected in Victorian bushfires
Teen charged with starting bushfire
Tributes for newsman Naylor and his wife
Search resumes for three missing
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National disaster fund needed now
At a time when fires and floods have brought tragedy to thousands of Australians, Alan Jones argues we must have an ongoing national disaster fund.
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FIRE LATEST
Tim Blair
The Victorian bushfire death toll now stands at ...:
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NEWS TO ALL OF US
Tim Blair
Were you aware that President Obama installed a “superstar-laden lineup”?
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GREEN FIGHTS
Tim Blair
Green Fight I: Domey dancer Peter Garrett vs Australia Institute gimpspeak leftoids. Garrett:
As part of our plan to stimulate the economy and support Australian jobs, the Government is going to roll out Australia’s largest insulation program, putting insulation in about 2.7 million Australian homes, immediately providing a boost to the industry and, importantly, helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 50 tonnes of carbon pollution by 2020. That’s like taking 1million cars off the road.
The Australia Institute responds:
The Government’s initiative to fund insulation for more than 2 million homes will not reduce Australia’s carbon emissions.
Green Fight II: Envirocrank Clive Hamilton vs dam level predictorologist Tim Flannery. Hamilton:
Flannery has been flip-flopping on solutions to climate change since The Weather Makers appeared in December 2005 …

Flannery has moved seamlessly from one technological enthusiasm to the next. In 2006 he lent his support to the development of nuclear power in Australia. “Only nuclear power can save us”, he declared, playing straight into the hands of Prime Minister Howard who was happy to quote Flannery in support of his nuclear push that formed part of his climate denial strategy.

But after criticism in 2007 Flannery changed his mind, giving a “resounding ‘no’” to nuclear power in Australia. No explanation seems to have been offered for the reversal.
Flannery’s responds with renewed nuke enthusiasm:
Scientist Tim Flannery has accused Australia of taking an immoral position by exporting polluting coal to India but refusing to sell it uranium to help it establish a cleaner power-generation industry.
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Package helps Rudd, if not the nation
Andrew Bolt
Henry Ergas says there are five reasons why Kevin Rudd is wrong to plunge Australia $35 billion in the red to fight off a recession:

First, it is far from clear activist fiscal policy will be effective…

Second, even if discretionary fiscal policy were effective, the proposed package appears to be too much, too soon… Were the economic outlook to worsen, what room for manoeuvre would be left? ...

Third, even if the package did create jobs, many of these would merely be displaced from more productive activities…

Fourth, when governments spend money on projects whose costs exceed their benefits, they make us poorer. The future tax burden associated with deficit spending is then all the more painful…

Finally, the package lacks a credible strategy for returning to budget balance.
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Catastrophe
Andrew Bolt
At least 108 people are now dead in our most deadly fires in recorded history.

At least 650 homes have been razed and 3733 people have registered with the Red Cross after evacuating their properties.
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New Guinea gloats
Andrew Bolt
Sydney University academic Kirk Huffman recommends we learn economics from New Guinea:

(T)he financial meltdown is not spreading to every economy. Some indigenous cultures are still chugging along quite happily… They are often in control over the valuation of their economic systems and not beholden to unstable faraway lands.

On our doorstep is the Melanesian archipelago, stretching from New Guinea down through the Solomons and Vanuatu to New Caledonia…

The instabilities in the world financial system force us also to rethink what we mean by development, progress - and even education… Perhaps the modern world needs to listen seriously to kindly meant advice from our brothers and sisters in traditional societies, and also stop trying to change them to become like us....

After (my) talk (at Vanuatu), one of the chiefs, an old and dear friend, came up to me and we shared cigarettes and bananas outside. He said: “We are very, very sorry to hear about all of the problems the white man is having now and our heart goes out to them. Some of us have tried to warn them before. When you go back overseas, you can tell them that if they want to learn how to live a good [sustainable] life, they can come and stay with us and we will be glad to teach them.”
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No yen now for big spending
Andrew Bolt
So how did big government stimulus packages work in Japan?

Between 1992 and 1995, Japan tried six spending programs totaling 65.5 trillion yen and cut income tax rates during 1994. In January 1998, Japan temporarily cut taxes again by 2 trillion yen. Then, in April of that year, the government unveiled a fiscal stimulus package worth more than 16.7 trillion yen, almost half of which was for public works. Again, in November 1998, another fiscal stimulus package worth 23.9 trillion yen was announced. A year later (November 1999), yet another fiscal stimulus package of 18 trillion yen was tried. Finally, in October 2000, Japan announced yet another fiscal stimulus package of 11 trillion yen. Overall during the 1990s, Japan tried 10 fiscal stimulus packages totaling more than 100 trillion yen…

Yet from 1991 to 2006 Japan’s economy grew slower than that of any of the other 16 countries listed in the US Statistical Abstract for comparison - even slower than Italy’s.

UPDATE

A good line from Malcolm Turnbull:

Imagine if 60 years ago, Ben Chifley and Bob Menzies had sent everyone a cheque for £50 instead of building the Snowy Mountains scheme.
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Media a bit hot
Andrew Bolt
Surely the same can’t be said to be true here:

Fifty-four percent (54%) of U.S. voters say the news media make global warming appear worse than it really is. Only 21% say the media present an accurate picture, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
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The stimulus package for these times
Andrew Bolt
Here is some free advice to Kevin Rudd that will be good for him and good for the country.

That $42 billion package of yours? That buys us pink batts, public housing and a lot of other stuff that doesn’t actually make us more productive? That hands out billions in free cash for people to spend on toys, pokies and electronics?

That package that the Liberals (rightly) say is too much for too little, and which they threaten to block?

Prime Minister, announce that you’ve had a change of mind, forced on you by this terrible tragedy in Victoria, and the flood devastation in Queensland.

You will now spend $1 billion of your package on rebuilding in Queensland. You will spend $2 billion more on restoring the devasted towns on Victoria. There will be $1 billion on fire research and protection. Another $1 billion on air-conditioners for the pensioners whose lives were at risk in the heat wave. There will be $2 billion for a new dam in Victoria to not just secure water supplies for a growing population, or even climate change, but from a fire in existing catchment areas that could endanger water quality. You will invest another $2 billion on schemes to bring water from the flood-prone north to the south, if feasible. Another another $5 billion for helping state power networks operate in high temperatures.

I’m sure there’s plenty more of the popular like you could add, such as communication systems so police and emergency workers can identify and contact the vulnerable in a crisis. More firefighting equipment.

Then announce a cut of, say, $10 billion to the rest of your package, to answer criticism that it’s far too much on a one-shot gamble.

Believe me, you couldn’t do better. Let’s get that aid rolling to people who really need it, right now.
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Preaching over the dead
Andrew Bolt
At least 36 Victorians die in bushfires, and Bob Brown sees on opportunity to preach politics:

Greens leader Bob Brown says bushfires like the ones raging across Victoria and New South Wales this weekend will be more frequent if climate change continues…

“Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 per cent, 50 per cent more,” he told Sky News.

“It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”

It’s not just this or that fact which makes these comments grossly inapppropriate.