Would Turnbull take Australia into deficit?
Australia still doesn't know if the Coalition would take the economy into deficit, after Malcolm Turnbull refused to nominate a debt figure in his budget reply speech. - Turnbull presented some great ideas in his budget reply which the government will find uncomfortable for ideological reasons. Why does the government hate private health? - ed.
Bud Tingwell dies, aged 86
Beloved Australia actor Bud Tingwell has died in Melbourne this morning, at the age of 86.
Dud turnout at Matthew Johns protest
A protest in support of ousted Footy Show panellist Matthew Johns has fizzled, with only one family turning up at Channel Nine’s Willoughby studios, despite hundreds pledging to be there.
Man who bashed female cop may be stalker
There are fears a man responsible for the bashing of a female police officer at Darlinghurst, in Sydney’s inner suburbs may have stalked other women.
Philip Clark winds up 2GB evenings
Long-time 2GB host Philip Clark presented his final evening program last night, following the announcement that his on-air role would be shifted.
Gould sheds tear for Johns on Footy Show
Rugby league commentator Phil Gould shed a tear on last night's episode of The Footy Show, as the Matthew Johns sex scandal takes its toll on the football community.
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Mugged by cooling temperatures
Andrew Bolt
Lucia’s Blackboard says the cooling climate does contradict the predictions of the IPCC alarmists, but not by as much as Christopher Monckton claims.
Hers is a needed reminder that in standing against serial exaggerators it is important not to exaggerate oneself. But this is also a good excuse to plug Lucia’s terrific line of presents for sceptics, like her famous mug:
Warming predictions are in red, and real world temperatures in blue and green. Hit the link for other gift ideas.
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Yes does not mean yes
Andrew Bolt
MATTHEW Johns is out of a job because yes no longer means yes, after all.
Seven years ago the rugby league star had group sex with a 19-year-old fan, along with at least four of his Cronulla teammates.
But even though the woman said yes, Johns - as most of us now insist - should have said no.
He’s learned that consent does not trump morality, whatever he’s been told by fashionable ethicists.
That’s why he’s been dumped by Channel 9 and Melbourne Storm, and that’s also why one of those ethicists - the National Rugby League’s own gender adviser - should be sacked, too.
I’m talking about Prof Catharine Lumby, a post-modernist of the University of NSW and author of grants-backed studies such as Why Feminists Need Porn, who was quoted this week saying the Johns case was a “wake-up call” to other men.
In fact, the case should be a woop-woop-woop wake-up to Lumby, who for years seems to have told NRL players there’s nothing wrong with precisely what has now cost Johns his job.
Hear it from Lumby herself, in an interview she gave in 2004, when the NRL first took her on as its gender adviser.
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We pay for Rudd’s ambitions
Andrew Bolt
FOR a year I’ve warned that Kevin Rudd isn’t satisfied just being Prime Minister of Australia.
He wants something much bigger, I’ve said with increasing certainty.
He wants to rule the world. To be . . . secretary-general of the United Nations.
Nothing better explains some of his oddest behaviour. Or would answer the cravings of his ego.
When I first wrote this on my blog and suggested it on 3AW and ABC TV, I got few takers.
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Which to trust: Pelosi or the CIA?
Andrew Bolt
Nancy Pelosi raises the stakes by accusing the CIA of lying to her:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in the method’s use.
“To the contrary ... we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used,” she told reporters, referring to a formal CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.
Big call. If she’s proved wrong, she’ll be a joke. Or is she a joke already?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her eyes wide, her hands gesticulating wildly, on Thursday laid out a third version of what she knew and when she knew it on the Bush administration’s interrogation policies…
With her own second-in-command now demanding more answers, the California Democrat, her voice barely audible at times, read a rambling statement at her weekly press briefing about her prior knowledge of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) employed by under President Bush, asserting that she was not told in a September 2002 briefing that the U.S. government used waterboarding.
Minutes later, though, she acknowledged for the first time that her top security adviser was part of a February 2003 briefing in which he learned that American interrogators were in fact waterboarding suspected terrorists.
“My statement is clear, and let me read it again. Let me read it again. I’m sorry. I have to find the page,” said a flustered Mrs. Pelosi, shuffling through papers, her hands quivering a bit, as she sought to stick to her prepared text.
“When — when — when my staff person — I’m sorry, the page is out of order — five months later, my staff person told me that there had been a briefing — informing that there had been a briefing and that a letter had been sent. I was not briefed on what was in that briefing; I was just informed that the briefing had taken place,” she said.
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Rudd wobbles firmly
Andrew Bolt
Former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa is moving from concern to contempt:
KEVIN Rudd was a fiscal conservative, then a neo-interventionist, now he’s an instrumental rationalist, but for how long? ... It would be easy to accuse the Prime Minister of falling victim to the dangerous strategy of trying to be too clever by half, attempting to cover every base and appease every potential critic… A simpler, and possibly more generous, explanation is that Rudd is incapable of fundamental logical consistency.
The most remarkable thing to me, though, is how Rudd excudes such absolute conviction at each metamorphosis, and betrays not the slightest sign that he’s even aware that his position today is not the one held yesterday. This certainty helps to explain his extraordinary popularity. If he wavered for an instant, he’d be gone.
UPDATE
Former Labor leader Mark Latham:
John Howard was no slouch when it came to buying votes with budget handouts, but the Rudd Government has taken this profligacy to a new level. The only justification for age-pension increases and further tax cuts is electoral, aimed at opinion-poll ratings ahead of prudent fiscal policy. Twelve months ago on budget night, the Government forecast combined surpluses of $79.2 billion in the four financial years to 2011-12. Since then, the net impact of its policy decisions has been to erode the commonwealth’s fiscal position by $97.2 billion over four years. We have not seen economic recklessness like this since Frank Crean’s budgets in 1973 and 1974.
Many commentators regard the federal Opposition as leaderless and hopeless. The budget on Tuesday, however, marks a turning point in the political cycle. Wayne Swan has given the Liberals a sword to use against Labor for the next decade or more: the way in which overspending and public-sector debt place upward pressure on interest rates. In Peter Costello’s hands it would cut the Gordian knot of Australian politics and, over time, pare back the Prime Minister’s popularity.
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Reality Czech on emissions
Andrew Bolt
Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, explains how his country managed to slash greenhouse gases:
The old, outmoded heavy industries that were the pride of our communist regime were shut down - practically overnight - because they could not survive the opening of the economy. The result was a dramatic decline in CO2 emissions.
The secret behind the cut in emissions was economic decline. As the economies of the Czech Republic and other central and eastern European countries were rebuilt and began to grow again, emissions have naturally started to increase. It should be clear to everyone that there is a very strong correlation between economic growth and energy use.
So I am amazed to see people going along with the fashionable political argument that policies such as cap-and-trade, government mandates, and subsidies for renewable energy can actually benefit an economy… This is a fantasy. Cap-and-trade can only work by raising energy prices. Consumers who are forced to pay higher prices for energy will have less money to spend on other things.
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Time they realised they’re now the adults
Andrew Bolt
Hillary Clinton - and even President Obama - had better get used to the idea that they’re now in charge of war they must win. And playing the old blame-America tune isn’t the way to win it, says Ralph Peters:
This week, Taliban terrorists publicly beheaded three civilians in Afghanistan’s Farah province, then herded women and children into compounds from which they fought government forces and US advisers.
With a vicious ground battle under way, the Talibs knew attack aircraft would appear. According to military sources, they set up the target. And, just in case, they slaughtered those women and children with grenades before any aircraft appeared. The entire massacre was a planned media event.
And who gets blamed? Not the Taliban. Before the smoke cleared, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was apologizing. (Apologizing is one thing this administration does with real enthusiasm.)
Our SecState played right into the Taliban’s hands. It was instinctive on her part. Clinton and her new Cabinet peers know that our military’s evil. No need to say a single word about the Taliban’s atrocity.
A few hours later, President Obama stepped up to his mike and read a prewritten statement about his meeting with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s bookie-in-chief, President Asif Ali Zardari.
Bill O’Reilly above has the same story.
At least there’s some merciful sign that Obama does now get it, and has decided to do what he so recklessly criticised when done by George Bush:
President Barack Obama is attempting to block the release of up to 2,000 photographs of alleged abuse at American prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just weeks after announcing he would make the images public, administration officials said the president had told his legal advisers that releasing the photos would endanger troops.
The change of heart came after representations by senior military commanders and Robert Gates, the defence secretary. The decision is an embarrassing climb down for Mr Obama, who had previously decided to allow the pictures to be released in a bid to bury the issue for good.
That Obama ever thought releasing the pictures of this beat-up controversy was a good idea is a worrying measure of how little he’s thought about America’s security.
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If Johns is sacked, why not Lumby?
Andrew Bolt
Yes, Matthew Johns should be dumped from Channel Nine for having had group sex with a young woman, even though it appears she agreed to it - or seemed to - at the time.
But shouldn’t the National Rugby League, which has apologised to the woman, likewise sack its gender advisor, professor Catharine Lumby, who in 2004 said there was nothing wrong in consensual group sex involving a pack of football players:
PETA DONALD: There have been stories of a culture of group sex in Rugby League. What do you think of group sex? Do you think it’s okay if it’s consensual?
CATHERINE LUMBY: Speaking as an academic, I think that there’s no problem with any behaviour which is consensual in sexual terms.
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