Headlines Sunday 26th April 2009

Another refugee boat intercepted
Another boatload of asylum seekers has been intercepted off Australia's northwest coast. - testimony to Rudd's failed policy - ed.

Smith pays tribute to NZ comrades, Turks
On Anzac Day Australians not only remember lives lost in war but national traits of fairness, humour and mateship, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said. - don't forget aussies, mate - ed.

Economic activity 'to pick up this year'
World finance officials say they expect the global economic crisis to begin to unwind by year-end, citing encouraging early signs of recovery. - sadly the ALP will have gone a long way to bankrupting us before and indebting us after. - ed.

Man stabbed in Coogee all-in pub brawl
A man's been stabbed and a security guard has broken bones in his face after an all-in brawl in Coogee.

Rival bikies set for crisis meeting
The outlaw motorcycle gangs of NSW will put aside their rivalries this afternoon to form a new Bikers’ Council to improve their public perception.

Man shot dead at Sydney 21st party
Police are searching for the killer of a man who was gunned down at a 21st birthday party in Sydney's west.

Mel Gibson's Russian lover pregnant
It's been revealed that Mel Gibson's wife finally sued for divorce after hearing his Russian lover say she's pregnant.

North Korea announces fuel rod reprocess
North Korea has started reprocessing spent fuel rods from a pilot nuclear power plant, the North's foreign ministry says. - testimony to Obama's failed foreign policy - ed.

Rudd 'too slow' in response to swine-flu
The federal government has been too slow in responding to the swine-flu outbreak in Mexico and the......

Australia 'dragged into recession': Swan
Australia will be dragged into recession by the downturn in the global economy but is doing better than other developed nations, Treasurer Wayne Swan says. - because it had been well managed under the libs - ed.
=== ===
Rudd tangled up in inconvenient truths
Piers Akerman
CONFRONTED with alarming truths that inconveniently conflicted with its version of events, the Rudd government has been blowing smoke like Stromboli. - The Rudd governmennt doesn’t want the conservative policies because they campaigned against them. They didn’t have their own policy in opposition, and so they have this problem in government where they have shelved an effective policy in favor of a stop gap smoke screen. It isn’t that Rudd wants to look dumb, he is desperate to not appear conservative. His focus groups have told him how to appear, and that is what we see. So when inconvenient people show on Australia’s doorstep, Rudd loses his head and wants to damn people smugglers for eternity .. even though they seem to be working to his policy. Or when Rudd is told a result he doesn’t want to hear, he bites off the head of the messenger. Or when service isn’t to his standard, he attacks disgracefully.
I got my stimulus payment the other day. It was $4.85 less than the legal bill I must pay to access my own superannuation, of which I have lost $70k for Rudd’s policy. At the end of the day I’m only 30% likely to get it, and not have to sell up my unit. - ed.
===
OPINIONS BEAT INFORMATION
Tim Blair
Al Gore is asked a yes or no question. His reply runs for nearly 90 words. Meanwhile, fellow warmenist Robert Manne surrenders all to authority:
In regard to the science of climate change, as Clive Hamilton has put it, the only decision citizens have to make is not what to believe but who.
This seems contrary to the teachings of Holy Science.
===
GET OFF MY LAWN
Tim Blair
The ABC asks:
In its annual Budget, the UK has raised the highest income tax level to 50%. Should Australia do the same?
ABC readers say: yes!
===
Just a quick note from Rudd
Andrew Bolt
For those who believe in these sorts of things:

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is an intelligent and resourceful leader but when things go wrong, he lacks the willpower to salvage the situation, an analysis of his handwriting has found…

Mike Posford, from Mid-Coast Graphology and a member of the Australian Institute of Graphologists, said: “The expanding left margin could give an insight into his inner feelings when things don’t work out in that he may lose enthusiasm for a while.

“This is also highlighted by the short ‘t-bar’ which suggests that his willpower is of short duration.”

Yet while I’m sceptical about the methodolgy, the conclusions seem surprisingly sound.
===
What’s your interest in this, Mr Gore?
Andrew Bolt
At last green tycoon Al Gore gets asked the question so often asked of much poorer sceptics rather than the rich carpetbaggers of global warming. But of course it’s not asked by a journalist, heaven forbid. Yet wouldn’t you think people should know Gore is a partner in a company that has invested $1 billion of clients’ money in 40 companies set to benefit from the global warming policies he’s urging on the US?

Some background on how Gore has grown rich on climate alarmism here.

UPDATE

The introduction of facts to a debate fed by hype comes like a splash of cold water. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich explains to the same committee why Gore is wrong in claiming the world is running out of traditional sources of energy and wrong on global warming:

Gingrich does what no senior politician dare do in Australia - discuss the facts on global warming and demand a debate.
===
Let’s pray it’s really just a junket
Andrew Bolt

For once I hope the excuse for this jaunt is false:

QUEENSLAND’S top judge and four colleagues are taking their partners on a three-week China educational tour at a cost of about $100,000 to taxpayers.

The Courier-Mail has learnt Chief Justice Paul de Jersey will head the 10-person delegation next month that will include Supreme Court judges Peter Dutney, Henry Fryberg and Debra Mullins and Court of Appeal judge John Muir…

The Queensland judges will learn about the use of advanced IT in Chinese courts, about the operation of two of the most advanced judicial training colleges in the world, and how Chinese courts deal with problems Queensland also has.

Dear God, let these judges spend their time shopping rather than learn from this authoritarian regime “how Chinese courts deal with problems Queensland also has”.

Question: do you think the judges know how stupid, even sinister, their plans sound? Just in case they really are unbelievably naive here’s a recent New York Times piece on Chinese justice.

Of course, it might just be that they are as tyrant-friendly as our Human Rights Commission president, which case we’re in deep trouble.

UPDATE

Readers have asked for the source for the picture.
===
Fifteenth boat now coincidentally arrives
Andrew Bolt
No, no, no - the fact that this is the fifteenth boat to have tried to reach Australia since Kevin Rudd softened the laws on illegal immigrants last September is a pure coincidence, according to nine our of 10 Canberra journalists:

ANOTHER boatload of asylum seekers has been intercepted off Australia’s northwest coast. The asylum seekers vessel was intercepted 90 nautical miles from Ashmore Island, with two crew and 54 passengers on board… It is the eighth boat of asylum seekers to approach Australian waters this year.

And if asylum seekers say Rudd has lured them, it’s just proof that… that… that John Howard was cruel.
===
Testing, testing, three, two, ….
Andrew Bolt
Now it’s North Korea’s turn to check whether nice young Barack Obama has any fight:

North Korea said it has started reprocessing spent fuel rods to make weapons-grade plutonium, in an apparent response to a UN decision to punish it for a controversial rocket launch.

The UN, of course, would have already been written off as a broken reed.
===
Plimer unbloodied and certainly unbowed
Andrew Bolt
Warming alarmist Charlie Veron goes toe to toe on ABC Breakfast with Ian Plimer, author of the instant best seller Heaven and Earth, which exposes the global warming hysteria.

Oh dear. Veron scores a knockout with his first effort - on himself. I believe the term is “beclowned”.

Note the typical methods that warming alarmists have misused so successfully for too long - playing the man, resorting to abuse and appealing to authority. Not addressing the facts.

UPDATE

The Australian Science Media Centre, laughably claiming to be a source of “independent” and ”evidence-based” information, rushes out five “experts” to pooh-pooh Plimer’s book. Not one seems embarrassed by the fact that they haven’t actually read a page of what they dismiss.

Check the board of this outfit and you’ll soon see why the ASMC is nothing like it claims to be. Tim ”Alarmist of the Year” Flannery? Robyn ”100 metres” Williams? Mike “no to nuclear” Rann?

UPDATE 2

Climate catastrophist Robert Manne’s preference for myth over evidence may be judged by the fact that he claims up to 25,000 children were stolen from their parents just because they were Aboriginal, without being able to name even 10. Now he turns on Plimer for daring to dig up evidence undermining Manne’s latest moral cause.

In his diatribe against Plimer today, the typically abusive Manne does not tackle a single piece of Plimer’s evidence. Not one. Instead, he damns Plimer for once having spent “considerable energy trying to prove that Noah’s Ark was a myth’’.

Gosh, if Plimer doesn’t believe there was an historical Noah’s ark, we should therefore conclude he’s a ... Hmm. I can’t finish that sentence in a way that denigrates Plimer, Robert. Could you please help?

UPDATE 3

Answer: Manne is too busy right at the moment to help, having - again - unleashed his famous civility on a magazine with devastating effect:

The editor of The Monthly, Sally Warhaft, left after what have been described as “personality differences” with the editorial board of the journal, led by social commentator Robert Manne… “Robert Manne is someone who likes to be chief guru and the undisputed figure of authority. But Sally was becoming the dominant figure associated with The Monthly,” one source said.

UPDATE 4

The ABC can’t help ringing that leper’s bell over Plimer, once again suggesting he may be corrupt. This time it’s Stateline in Adelaide:

IAN HENSCHKE: We’ve heard people talk like this before and the green groups say, “Well, they’re paid for by mining companies and coal lobbies and various other groups.” Are you being paid by anyone to say this?

Has the ABC ever asked that question of the far-better rewarded Al Gore, Tim Flannery or David Suzuki?

Plimer’s restrained answer (no, in short) does him great credit.
===
Beazley confuses questions with answers
Andrew Bolt
Former Labor leader Kim Beazley denies the Rudd Government is keeping back information on the explosion that killed five boat people:

Well, the information is there. An explosion occurred on SIEV 36. Fuel had been dispersed around the boat and it burned. The fuel may or may not have been deliberately leaked. The explosion may or may not have been an accident. Those on board may or may not have arrived in Indonesia before the Howard government fell. They may or may not have been aware of changes in Australian law. They may or may not have been aware the navy would convey them to Christmas Island. They may have organised the trip themselves or it may have been organised by smugglers.

I hope that settles all your questions.

(One further point: Does Beazley realise that the Rudd Government did not reveal even the alternatives he describes as “information”?)
===
Gore demands obedience
Andrew Bolt
Why do calls for “bi-partisanship” always require people to agree with the speaker?

Former Vice President Al Gore, the leading American voice on climate change, urged lawmakers Friday to overcome partisan differences...

“Partisan differences” could easily be overcome, Al, if you suddenly announced you’d checked the science and realised the world wasn’t warming in a way consistent with theories that man’s gases are causing the planet to cook. Debate would all but end overnight. Bi-partisanship achieved.
===
Teach up, not down #2
Andrew Bolt
Chris Sarra, head of the Indigenous Education Leadership, at his inspirational best:

I am not as angry as I used to be. I still get frustrated, yet I remain passionate about my profession. For me, reflecting on my experiences as an Aboriginal student reminds me of one of the most fundamental tenets for making a difference.

This is personal for me. I do the work that I do because I don’t want to see indigenous children sold short or selling themselves short because nobody believed in their greatness and their tremendous human capacity…

A teacher who backs off when a child says, “You’re just picking on me because I’m black”; the teacher who doesn’t set homework for children because they don’t think it will get done; the learning-support teacher who runs Aboriginal children through the tests so they can stick a label on them as soon as possible without questioning the teaching-learning context; the principal who never has a hard conversation with a family about why a child is missing every Thursday and Friday; any educator who subscribes to the notion that cutting welfare payments is the best way to get children to school: all collude with a restricted belief and perception about indigenous students and what they can be.

Please read it all.
===
Time to Start Demanding Change
By Glenn Beck
Here's the one thing that would solve most of our government's problems: We must stop hoping for change and start demanding it. We must police ourselves. We must act honorably and honestly, because the government certainly isn't going to do it for us.

Let's start here: When you have a baby, depending on where you live, the state health department takes some of the newborn's blood from their foot and sends it off to a state and private lab where they screen it.

Even though it's the largest genetic testing effort in the country, with about 4 million babies tested each year, a lot of parents don't even realize it's happening and it's difficult to impossible to opt out.

Most think it's OK, because they're just trying to make sure there are no diseases, but besides the silent agreement, there are supposed to be sunsets built in. For example, they're supposed to destroy the blood samples after they're done. In most states, they can keep it from anywhere from 6 weeks to around 3 years.

But in Minnesota, they've decided they're not destroying the blood at all — ever.

In doing so, they've been arbitrarily violating a privacy bill, which apparently has become painfully outdated since it passed way back in 2006 (remember those crazy days?).

When some moms went to court and judges sided with them, the government decided to play keep away. They kicked it around the system for a while, hoping a court would allow them to go around the law.

After that didn't work, the government realized that you don't have to fit a square peg in a round hole when you make the holes: They just created a new bill that lets them do what they want.

Angry parents say they had no chance to even debate it, since they were given all of 16 minutes of notice by e-mail before the hearing. Now Governor Tim Pawlenty may be about to sign it.

I knew that the state was becoming a nanny, but I didn't know it was trying to be the mom and dad as well.

These representatives who are supposed to — I don't know, represent us — seem to be siding with themselves instead of the rights of the people.

Our founders, like Thomas Jefferson, promised us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (The original phrase was life, liberty and property.) If they can take your baby's DNA, they can take yours as well.

But Thomas Jefferson knew something else: "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

Our government does not fear us, because they believe that they have all the power. You're small, what do you have? All you have is your voice and they're counting on the fact that you won't use it. And in the past, they've been right about many of us.

But fortunately, people aren't sitting around on their marshmallow couches, eating Doritos all day anymore. They're finding outlets like the tea parties and The 9/12 Project. They're finding their voices again.

We all have a decision to make: We're either going to be told what to do, what to say and how to act in every situation, dictated by whoever's in power or we have to take responsibility and start policing those who dare to call themselves representatives and maybe eventually they'll start representing.
===
Miss California Continues to Grab Headlines
By Bret Baier
Consolation Prize

After coming in second Sunday in the Miss USA pageant, Miss California Carrie Prejean continues to grab headlines. Prejean answered a question on gay marriage by saying, "I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman."

That response has caused a firestorm of criticism from the left but has also brought the young woman support from across the country.

The Alabama House of Representatives approved a resolution supporting Prejean for speaking out against gay marriage. Also, San Francisco Mayor and prominent gay-rights advocate Gavin Newsom is defending Prejean's right to an opinion. He said in an interview with NBC, "I want to challenge her on her point of view, but she spoke her conscience, I think she's being a little unfairly maligned."

Though her position puts her at odds with many in her state, and the liberal blogs that have been bashing her, Prejean's position is strikingly familiar to the Obama administration's position on the issue and to what candidate Obama said on the campaign trail on August 16, 2008: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman."

Blame Canada

For the second time this week, an American politician has suggested that 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. across the Canadian border. Fair and balanced, this morning Senator John McCain was interviewed on "FOX and Friends" and said, "Some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada, as you know."

It didn't take long for the Canadian Embassy to issue a response. Referencing Canadian Ambassador Michael Wilson's comments Tuesday: "Unfortunately, misconceptions arise on something as fundamental as where the 9/11 terrorists came from... No 9/11 terrorists came from Canada."

As we told you Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also alleged that the attackers crossed the Canadian border, and later said she'd made a mistake.

Let's Make a Deal

And finally, as we've reported, times are tough in the auto industry. So tough, some are trying to make a sale all the way to the very end. An obituary printed in the Arizona Republic on Thursday reads: "Chuck Dimmick, born December 29th, 1958 in Riverside, California, passed away suddenly on April 18, 2009 while attending a NASCAR race to watch his favorite driver, Jeff Gordon... Chuck was the Director of Marketing for the Lund Cadillac Group. We are sur* he would still want all to know that .9 percent financing is still available on all New 2008 Hummer H2s." The obituary goes on to give the memorial times and location.