Anniversary of the bombing of Darwin in WW2 .. bigger than Pearl Harbour, four days after the fall of Singapore.
===
Backburning continues as horror heat conditions loom again
Firefighters in Victoria are working to consolidate control lines around five major blazes, under the threat of a return to hot, windy conditions....
===
Police charge second man over Harbour boat crash
Police have charged a second man over a boat crash on Sydney Harbour which killed six people....
===
Two face court over Australian's seven-hour rape ordeal
Two men accused of raping and attempting to murder an Australian woman during a seven-hour ordeal in Scotland faced court on Wednesday....
===
'Obama chimp' cartoon sparks outrage in the US
A cartoon allegedly linking Barack Obama to a chimpanzee has triggered a waved of criticism in the US....
===
Benaud confirms: I'll call stumps in 2010
The voice of cricket Richie Benaud has confirmed he will hand up the microphone next year after almost 50 years in the commentary box....
===
Some may miss $900 hand out: ATO
The Australian Tax Office says some qualifying taxpayers may be in danger of missing out on the Federal Government's $900 cash hand-out....
===
Kings of Leon frontman sells house to escape fans
Kings of Leon rocker Caleb Followill is selling his house because he keeps getting scary fan mail....
===
Chopper goes down in sea, all rescued
All 18 people on board a helicopter that went down near an oil field in the North Sea have been rescued, officials say.
===
Sydney woman fights back after bag-snatch stabbing
Teenager to be charged over west Sydney stabbing
Second Knox teacher on child sex charges
Virgin job cuts 'just the beginning' of airline plunge: expert
=== ===
Water, water everywhere...
There's water falling all over this country but barely a drop is being harvested. And it's a national disgrace, according to Alan Jones.
===
SMH finally catches up on stimulus concerns
It's nice the Sydney Morning Herald is finally recognising the dangers of Rudd's stimulus package, but they should have been awake earlier, according to Alan Jones.
===
When will Labor learn to hit the right target?
Piers Akerman
THE Rudd Government’s misguided policies make the fabled gang that couldn’t shoot straight look like marksmen. - Putting aside my own agenda, I know first hand what Piers writes about and it is true. A major problem with education is that a substantial number of teaching staff willingly accept the second rate logic which underpins ALP ideology.
As an example, a class of mainly Vietnamese/Cambodian year 10 students are lectured by a social science teacher on their upcoming external tests. The relief teacher sits mutely as the school teacher tells the kids that Whitlam gave rights denied by the conservatives. Whitlam gave the vote to Aborigines. The peace movement was right to oppose the Vietnam war. Keating was a great economic reformer etc etc. Thing is, the school performed abysmally in those tests, except in mathematics .. not the subject being lectured on.
Another school, nearby, held a special sorry day ceremony in which the song ‘treaty’ was played in place of the national anthem. A bus driver reported seeing a student showing a knife to his mates and the bus driver was cautioned for his trouble. The school is still in a sorry state, even though it made badges for the special day.
Textbooks write about global warming as a fact, not a theory, and provide statements suggesting opposition is unacceptable. Science textbooks oppose Nuclear energy. Textbooks for social science refer to European invasion and stolen generations and provide examples of people who weren’t stolen or invaded calling it evidence.
When Rudd was running in year 7, and it was said inflation and interest rates would rise under an ALP government, the high achieving student (now studying to be a lawyer) exclaimed “But that is a lie. We studied that at school. Interest rates and inflation do not rise under ALP.”
I know how to teach these students so that they achieve well by their standards. It means they go to class, prepared to learn. Disruptive students need to be effectively managed. The teachers of these classes need to be supported in their teaching, not in their dissemination of ALP support material. - ed.
===
PRO CHOICE
Tim Blair
The SMH’s Elizabeth Farrelly is critical of risk-taking rural types:
To inhabit the bush, especially as climate change takes hold, is to make yourself fuel.
So they should live elsewhere; make different “lifestyle choices”. Farrelly is dismissive of tactics ("Cut the trees! Burn the undergrowth!") that would reduce the risk of living in the country, preferring that people simply live elsewhere, contrary to their preferences.
Yet more than 6700 people died of AIDS in Australia from the beginning of the epidemic until mid-2007 – a far greater number than were killed in bushfires during the same period. Imagine if Farrelly had written in 1989 that those at risk of AIDS should stop being gay ("To inhabit the bath houses, especially as AIDS takes hold, is to make yourself HIV positive"). Instead, sensibly, medical and social solutions were sought ("Kill the virus! Use the condoms!") in order to preserve human freedom and human lives.
Where people choose to live outside of cities, surely the same approach should be taken. Remove the problems that threaten their lives, rather than removing the people. But in NSW, we’re still worried about trees:
A decision to cancel almost half the burn-offs planned for NSW bushfire zones has put thousands of lives and properties in danger.
Frustrated volunteer firefighters yesterday lashed out at bureaucrats and greenies for preventing them from protecting communities.
In one outrageous case, a woman was told by the State Government her fire escape route would remain an overgrown mess because it was a corridor for native flora and fauna.
More than 2100 hazard reduction operations planned by the Rural Fire Service were abandoned last year, the organisation’s annual report reveals.
Every abandoned hazard reduction operation exposes more people to the risk of becoming “fuel”, as Farrelly puts it. The hell with that. Burn the trees and let Australians live.
===
===
IMAGE RUINED
Tim Blair
Various reader responses in the UK Times to the recent beheading of a Muslim woman by her “caring face of Islam” husband:
A lamentable tragedy, but one in which the perpetrator cannot be judged by mortals; perhaps one motivated by adherence to an ancient more. This is an anomaly, not in any way reflective of a rich, beautiful culture and a religion whose majority seek peace. May the two families transcend the horror
sharon, niagara falls14303, usa
It is shocking and beyond comprehension. Let us pray for their children, other family members and bridges TV staff, who deserve a lot of support. Also, please do not use this tragic event to malign a religion or an entire culture of decent and law abiding people. Black sheeps are everywhere
MAK, Texas
highly unfortunate, and very tragic - but it’s not like white people never do this kind of thing, is it? one crazed individual doesn’t necessarily typify an entire religion.
Milla, London, UK
And one response from deep left field:
This has destroyed my positive stereotypes about Americans.
Abdul, Tikir, Egyt
===
LOVE FROM A DISTANCE
Tim Blair
Age TV reviewer Marieke Hardy:
Are we so blinded by a thirst for information that we can’t love and support our fellow citizens from a respectful distance?
Marieke’s love and support of her fellow citizens is touching, although conditional. If they’re wearing an Australian flag, for example, she wishes they would “go and die”.
===
MAFIA ON POLYURETHANE
Tim Blair
An interview with Achewood creator Chris Onstad yields surprising information:
The skateboard-producing industry is totally mobbed up … it’s really shady.
The whole thing is good, aside from an ill-advised interviewer clothing choice.
===
FEAR HIM
Tim Blair
In the New York Times, Clyde Haberman charts a community’s desperate struggle:
Satirists have struggled with the ascension of Barack Obama for a while now. Clearly, some white comedians are pulling their punches out of fear of being accused of racial insensitivity …
They were frightened of Bush. They remain frightened now. Leftist comedians are nature’s rabbits.
Race aside, many comics feel that any new president deserves to be cut some slack. As an added inhibitor, some have said, this president is simply not his predecessor.
“He’s difficult to satirize,” Mr. Boyd said.
The Japanese seem to have found an angle.
(Via Tom Elia, who asks: “After all, how does one satirize a Chicago Democrat who ran for office as a reformer? It’s simply impossible!")
===
X-TREAM WEATH-R
Tim Blair
“Global warming” always sounded lame. “Climate change” is stupid. “Climate crisis” was never going to catch on. So the Australian Conservation Foundation is going with a new phrase for the Poochy generation:
The Australian Conservation Foundation sends its sincere condolences to all who have been adversely affected by recent devastating extreme weather across our country …
Sadly, the extreme weather events have not been confined to Victoria … Many native animals and birds, as well as livestock and pets have suffered during these extreme weather events too.
If you have been directly affected by the extreme weather events of the past week and would like to share your experience with ACF, please contact us at: bushfire@acfonline.org.au
Feel free to contact them if you’ve also experienced “rad rain”, “chillaxin’ cold”, or “awesome arson”.
===
CARBON SINKS
Tim Blair
The Times‘ Carl Mortished notices that carbon is now less than €9 above its actual value:
In July, a tonne of carbon sold for €35, but today it fetches less than €9. Too bad, thinks the finance director, dump them anyway. If the politicians are still quacking about the climate in two years’ time, we will buy them back, if we still have a business.
Via Benny Peiser. And in other shrinking number developments:
It’s now official: the casualty counts you heard for the Palestinians during the recent war in Gaza were wild fabrications put out by the Hamas terrorist organization and its allies, and eagerly accepted and circulated by Western media.
Disgraceful. If you can’t trust Hamas, who can you trust?
===
NICE CAREER, THAT
Tim Blair
Richie Benaud, Australia’s greatest cricket commentator (and one of its greatest players), will retire after the 2010 domestic season. Usually a soothing sonic presence, Benaud could be absolutely scathing when the moment demanded:
===
HE’LL NEVER FORGET THAT SPECIAL PEN
Tim Blair
It’s sad that Labor holy warrior Bob Ellis’s house burned down … even though it happened 16 years ago. The recent deaths of more than 200 people in Victorian fires now inspire renewed musings about himself from unmelted Ellis:
We understood how Kosovan refugees felt, or Holocaust survivors, or Afghan boat people fished out of the sea with no trinket of the past, no photograph or heirloom to link them to who they were.
Laying it on a little thick there, aren’t you, pal? (As commenter Eliot Ramsey writes: “Your property was probably insured, your bank account was intact and [you] continued to live in the country of your birth, fully connected with your social and professional networks. And you spoke the language. Otherwise, yeah. You were just like a Holocaust survivor.") Then there’s the tragedy of Bob’s special pen:
No pen, my special pen, the pen I wrote all my books with … the pen, the adored pen I wrote all my books with, and the pen was still safe in the car …
I’m not sure if Victorian fire survivor Peter Driscoll had a special pen, but if he did, it’s most likely destroyed along with everything else he owned. Still, he seems to be coping better than Ellis, although Driscoll only lost his house a few days ago. Here’s one line from him – a summary of his feelings in the fire’s wake – I didn’t include in that earlier piece:
It’s a bit of a nuisance.
===
UNNATURAL ROCKS
Tim Blair
In case you were wondering about the extent of green madness in Victoria’s councils:
The Daicos family, at Wollert, were twice fined $567 in January after refusing to comply with council demands, arguing fire safety overrode council’s green regulations.
The Daicos family collected rocks from their fields and assembled them in piles several years ago after an approach from the CFA.
But Steve Daicos said the council’s planning department told him “a pile of rocks is not in its natural state” and therefore breached new green-wedge planning codes.
Time to get rid of this, then. The unnatural rocks were moved due to fire concerns:
Local CFA safety officer David Allen said property owners were routinely asked to make sure fields were clear of large rocks so fire tankers could gain access in case of a bushfire.
City of Whittlesea spokesman Jim Linton admitted several farmers were fined after they refused to remove piles of rocks.
These people are insane.
===
Secularism brought to book
Andrew Bolt
Not respect, but paranoia is now the mark of sensitive Britain:
Librarians are being told to move the Bible to the top shelf to avoid giving offence to followers of Islam…
The guidance was published by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, a quango answering to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham. It said Muslims in Leicester had moved copies of the Koran to the top shelves of libraries, in keeping with the belief that the Koran is the all-important word of God.
The report said the city’s librarians consulted the Federation of Muslim Organisations and were advised that all religious texts should be kept on the top shelf.
‘This meant that no offence is caused, as the scriptures of all the major faiths are given respect in this way, but none is higher than any other,’ the guidance added.
Critics said such a move implied religious works should be treated as objects of veneration rather than as books to be read.
The move actually implies that the readers of some of these books are to be feared.
UPDATE
This must be tackled - starting with schools - if we’re to encourage integration, and not a resentful victimhood:
In the 19 to 24-year-old bracket the unemployment rate of Muslim Australians is 18 per cent, compared to 9 per cent of non-Muslims. And it just gets worse from there. The older Muslim Australians become the more likely they are to be unemployed than non-Muslims. By age 65 it is four times more likely.
===
Green faith, black forests
Andrew Bolt
It’s not just Victoria that has been left dangerously unprepared for fire due to green madness:
A DECISION to cancel almost half the burn-offs planned for NSW bushfire zones has put thousands of lives and properties in danger.
Frustrated volunteer firefighters yesterday lashed out at bureaucrats and greenies for preventing them from protecting communities. In one outrageous case, a woman was told by the State Government her fire escape route would remain an overgrown mess because it was a corridor for native flora and fauna.
More than 2100 hazard reduction operations planned by the Rural Fire Service were abandoned last year, the organisation’s annual report reveals.
===
Ridout speakout
Andrew Bolt
The great love affair with Kevin Rudd that so neutred Helen Ridout as an advocate for business may be over:
A KEY business adviser to the Rudd Government has turned its back on proposed workplace laws, saying Labor has no election mandate for many sweeping changes that would boost union power and put jobs at risk as the economy deteriorates.
The Australian Industry Group yesterday spoke out against Labor’s Fair Work Bill, identifying seven areas it argues are unworkable and should be dumped. AIGroup chief executive Heather Ridout said all seven—including compulsory arbitration for low-paid industries, increased union access to worksites and obligations on employers to deal with unions—were not released prior to the election.
Now, Heather, about that emissions trading system that will beggar some of your members…
===
Howard fires warning shot at Rudd
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd should be grateful that John Howard is - so far - so gentle with him:
JOHN Howard has accused Kevin Rudd of ”stretching the facts” of the global financial crisis in an unsustainable economic argument to score “a base political point”.
In his first response to the Prime Minister’s extended attack on extreme capitalism, Wall Street greed, neo-liberals, free marketeers and the Howard years, Mr Howard says the global crisis is not the result of a neo-liberal failure. “Our current predicament is not the result of some malign economic philosophy having held total sway for the past 30 years,” the former Liberal prime minister says in a speech to be delivered in Melbourne tonight.
“...Nothing, however, will be achieved by stretching the facts to serve an unsustainable economic proposition, designed to score a base political point."…
“In the past 30 years, the freer functioning of markets inherently involved in the globalisation process has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Competitive capitalism has been integral to this historic development. So far from failing, it has succeeded,” he says…
“It is not plausible for the Rudd Government to argue on the one hand that Australia has entered the financial crisis in better shape than just about any other nation, and yet declare my government guilty of the extreme neo-liberalism which has allegedly brought about the crisis.
“Both positions cannot be right.”
When Howard finally unleashes on Rudd’s economic management - no doubt at a time when it’s clearer to voters it’s failed - the effect will be severe on Rudd’s reputation.
===
Cowards voted for Obama
Andrew Bolt
I’m not sure this is the best way for the Obama Administration to spread good will among men:
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” said (Eric) Holder, nation’s first black attorney general.
===
One out, all out
Andrew Bolt
It would be a scandal if the WTA gave in:
THE lucrative Dubai tournament may be struck from the women’s tennis calendar after the United Arab Emirates refused a visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer.
===
Hamas needs reinforcements, after all
Andrew Bolt
Two British surgeons writing in Lancet’s Global Health Journal have a novel idea. Why don’t we hire soldiers to fight Israel?
The people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. If the International Community is serious about preventing such a large scale of deaths and injuries in the future, it will have to develop a some sort of defense force for Gaza.
===
Beware. Ethical Man discovered
Andrew Bolt
The BBC unleashes its Ethical Man, a reporter now leading the kind of life recommended by global warming activists - who decline to actually live it themselves.
After a year he takes stock. His wife is upset, his car gone, his children fed up, his holidays boring, his diet dull - and if he ever has to smell another hippy’s dung… But at least he can boast he’s cut his emissions by ... what? The look on his wife’s face is gold.
Meanwhile, in other BBC news:
Icy winds heading for the UK will also make temperatures feel “sub zero” as the coldest winter in 13 years continues.
===
It’s stimulating, having Rudd’s ear
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government turns out to have given its most generous stimulus packages to its mates and advisors:
Labor had increasingly relied on hired experts from the private sector and universities to shape its policy agenda, especially in the areas of health, broadband, economic regulation, climate change, water and education, the analysis found. The Opposition’s new finance spokeswoman, Helen Coonan, said the $553 million awarded to consultants was extraordinary.
UPDATE
Less stimulating, though, was that $10.4 billion package last December:
Australian retail sales grew by a smaller than expected pace in the final quarter of 2008 as many households chose to save rather than spend their federal government handouts, economists say.
Australian retail sales in volume terms rose 0.8 per cent in the December quarter, seasonally adjusted, to $53.503 billion, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show. Economists had forecast a seasonally adjusted rise of 1.1 per cent in the December quarter. The data also showed the cafe, restaurant and takeaway food, and soft clothing sectors had lost sales.
Now Rudd is spending another $42 billion on what didn’t work much last time.
===
You must pay so they may pray
Andrew Bolt
It sounds such an easy way to fight global warming:
ALICE Springs’s largest hotel is set to erect the biggest solar panel installation in Australia, which will provide between 40 and 80per cent of the hotel’s power requirements.
But wait, how easy is that really?:
The Crowne Plaza, overlooking the MacDonnell Ranges, has joined in the Alice Solar City project and will erect a $3 million photovoltaic installation on its roof as part of a push by the central Australian town to reduce its carbon footprint.
What? It costs $3 million? Who’s mad enough to spend so much for so little?
Alice Springs—Australia’s sunniest city—is one of seven cities selected for funding under the federal Government’s $94million Solar Cities program. The town is aiming to reduce its overall carbon footprint by 5 per cent each year… The Alice Solar City project is being led by the Alice Springs town council and also includes consortium members, the Northern Territory Government, Northern Territory Power and Water Corporation, Tangentyere Council, Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce, the Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre and the Arid Lands Environment Centre.
What a gravy train. Your cash, their conceit.
(Thanks to reader Colin.)
PS Did you know solar power actually creates more greenhouse gases than does nuclear?
===
Age reader confused
Andrew Bolt
From the letters page of today’s Age:
WHAT is the difference between an arsonist and a person who refuses to limit greenhouse gas emissions?
(Thanks to reader James. No link.)
UPDATE
Answers are flooding in. From Eccles:
Well, one can see the results of their actions, while the other one cannot.
From Daniel:
One lights fires, the other fights liars.
Keep them coming. Puzzled Age readers need your help.
===
Zoo Britannia
Andrew Bolt
It’s not the 13-year-old father who should be damned. Judith Woods goes after a feral pack of modern British parents:
What began as a deeply unfortunate, cautionary account of woefully ill-advised adolescent fumbling between Alfie, then 12, and his 15-year-old girlfriend, Chantelle Steadman, has deepened into an extraordinarily dysfunctional quagmire of children taking paternity tests, parents sanctioning underage sleepovers in the same room, and family breakdown, all of it played out on Channel 4 and in the red-top newspapers – for a fee.
Anyone doubting that Britain is broken need only to open yesterday’s papers to see Alfie’s dad, Dennis – father of nine, or possibly 10 children by various mothers – wearing a bizarre devil mask and brandishing a placard bearing the legend “No Comment Ring Max”, a reference to PR guru Max Clifford, who has been drafted in by the parents apparently to maximise the earning potential of their children. Or exploit them, as it is also known…
Neighbours of “the couple” in Eastbourne report that children barely into their teens routinely have sex behind the hedges in gardens, which raises the question of why the police aren’t hosing them down with water cannon and frog-marching them home? Meanwhile, indoors, Chantelle and Alfie shared a room, with her parents’ blessing, when he stayed at her house - he even kept a spare uniform there, so frequent were his visits, although her parents say they had no idea the two were having sex.
And for all Alfie’s enthusiasm for parenthood, two other boys, aged 14 and 16, have entered the fray, kissing, telling and claiming paternity of Maisie. It could be said that in this age of feckless fathers, their putting their hands up is to be saluted. Then again, the spur appears to have the prospect of tabloid payouts… One tabloid alleges that at the time of her daughter’s conception, when she was 14, (Chantelle) was sleeping with no fewer than eight teenage boys on the estate. Chantelle’s family insist she was a virgin until she and Alfie had sex… Chantelle, one of five children, whose parents are both unemployed, says she was on the pill, but had forgotten to take it.
In such circumstances, it’s hard not to be judgmental – not so much of Alfie and Chantelle, but of the adults who surround them, and those who have seized on their misfortune to market rather than protect them.
===
Jobs for bureaucrats, anyway
Andrew Bolt
As might have been predicted once the Government got involved:
MINING magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has complained to Kevin Rudd that his plan to get 50,000 Aborigines into jobs is being jeopardised by federal government bureaucrats who are creating roadblocks and not sticking to their end of the deal.
In a letter obtained by The Australian, Mr Forrest, the Fortescue Metals Group chief executive, tells the Prime Minister the Australian Employment Covenant, which aims to break the welfare cycle by providing 50,000 jobs for Aborigines, is at risk unless he steps in to force bureaucrats to kick-start the scheme.
I very much admire Forrest’s passion and aim, but I fear this will not be the worst blow to his plan. He will also have to face both a lack of jobs and a lack of job-ready, such that the Rudd Government is importing fruitpickers from the South Pacific rather than the north of Australia. But all power to him.
===
Della tells ambos: It's over, get on with your lives
Health Minister John Della Bosca has told ambulance officers to "get on with their lives" after the rescue wing was disbanded.
Ambulance officers are meeting today after being forced to abandon their strike action, brought on by the rescue board's decision on Tuesday.
Mr Della Bosca has told 2GB's Ray Hadley he did everything possible to get the board to change it's mind, but says the umpire has had the final say.
"I made sure I represented those paramedics to the best of my ability but an independent umpire makes the call," he said.
"This is a civilised country, I'm a mature adult, so are the paramedics, we have to get on with our lives."
No comments:
Post a Comment