Headlines Saturday 2nd May 2009

Poor poetry begins bikie protest ride
There has been a bizarre start to a mass bikie "freedom ride" through the Adelaide Hills, with the Rebels national president reciting protest poetry to the media.

Chaser team arrested over Vatican stunt
ABC TV's satirical comedy team The Chaser has found itself in hot water again after allegedly flying a blimp into protected airspace above the Vatican.

Mother eaten alive by maggots: court
A Melbourne woman allowed her mother to be eaten alive by maggots and left her dying on a floor surrounded by her own waste, a court has heard.

Witness puts weapon in bikie boss' hands
A witness saw Comanchero bikie gang boss Mahmoud 'Mick' Hawi bashing the victim of the Sydney Airport brawl with a metal pole, a court has been told.

Tamil protest causes CBD traffic chaos
There is traffic chaos in Sydney's CBD tonight as Tamil Tiger supporters demand the Australian government support a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

Police seize armour, battering ram and weapons
A man has been arrested in broad daylight at a city cafe, following the seizure of a cache of weapons including an AK-47 and a "tommy gun" at Kogarah in Sydney's south.

Would-be royal assassin dies
The man who drove his car into a crowd of parade spectators and killed five in an attempt to attack......

Taxi drivers slashed in repeat robberies
Bandits armed with knives have robbed and slashed two taxi drivers across the face within an hour......

NSW facing $2 billion budget black hole
The New South Wales budget has suffered a massive blow, with government revenue taking a battering......

Mexican epidemic 'not so aggressive'
The swine flu epidemic in Mexico is "not so aggressive" as initially feared, the government said as it gave a new confirmed toll of 15 dead and 328 people infected.
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BELINDA FLEW
Tim Blair
This just in from a man who may or may not have once edited this newspaper, who insists on being known only as “El Guapo”:
The Belinda Neal Spanish Travellers’ Phrase Book – available now in all good librerías and aeropuertos. Phrases include:

1 Me gusta mucho México

2 No sabes quién soy?

3 Favor de traerme más tacos, por favor, si no cierro tu restaurante

4 Ojalá que tu niño se convierte en diablo!

5 He puesto imágenes tuyos en el congelador

6 No mames arbitro eso no es fuera de lugar

7 He perdido mi pasaporte/maleta/dignidad

8 Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas

Translations
1 I like Mexico very much
2 Don’t you know who I am?
3 Bring me some more tacos please or I will have your restaurant shut down
4 I hope your child turns into a demon
5 I have placed images of you in my freezer compartment
6 Bullshit ref there’s no way that’s offside
7 I have lost my passport/suitcase/dignity
8 My hovercraft is full of eels
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Arctic ice reappears, but where’s Wilkinson?
Andrew Bolt
Marian Wilkinson, August 4, 2008:
If you want to see climate change happening before your eyes, scientists will tell you, go to the ends of the earth… Tonight, “Four Corners” goes to the Arctic to investigate whether the great sea ice melt will be a tipping point for rapid climate change… (T)he great sea ice is disappearing faster than all predictions.

And before your very eyes, the Arctic ice reappears:

Will Four Corners report the rise in Arctic ice the way it reported the fall?

UPDATE

Christopher Pearson on the troubles facing John Quiggin and Robert Manne as they try to shut down debate on global warming. There’s a gracious tribute to this blog, as well.

Thanks also to Watts Up With That, a sceptical site deservedly booming in popularity - and influence.

UPDATE 2

A paper in Geomorphology from the University of Athens can’t find that accelerated sea rise we’re told would be caused by man:
No signs of accelerated sea-level rise in recent years are detectable from the available data for the Central Aegean region. The estimate of sea-level rise in the Aegean Sea for 2100 AD, on the basis of the Attico–Cycladic curve and presuming that the present trend will persist, is approximately 9 cm, which is significantly lower than the 49 cm, predicted by the IPCC (2001).

UPDATE 3

ABC’s Lateline still hasn’t put up the transcript of its interview with global warming sceptic Ian Plimer on April 27. But Lateline has put up the transcript of the introduction to that interview, in which three warming believers attack Plimer.

Robert Manne would approve.
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Rudd: All bang, but no bucks
Andrew Bolt
I’d rather have a Ferarri, of course. And I’d rather have this kind of weaponry, too:

The Royal Australian Navy has emerged as the biggest winner from the new defence blueprint, to be launched in Sydney today by the Prime Minister… (T)he new white paper, titled Force 2030, will double the number of submarines to 12 and replace the Anzac-class frigates with eight larger ships equipped with helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and sophisticated anti-submarine sonars.

The RAAF will get about 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters… The army’s regular infantry forces will evolve into 10 battalion-sized “battlegroups” and will get a new fleet of 1000 protected vehicles.. The RAN will also get about 20 “offshore combatant vessels” of up to 2000 tonnes...The permanent defence force will grow to about 58,000 personnel from its current size of 53,000.

Fabulous. John Howard wants a buildup, too, so who could complain, even if the focus on naval forces seems remarkably old-fashioned?

Except there’s just this tiny question - the same I’d ask if my wife promised me that Ferarri. How are we going to pay for it all? Here’s Paul Dibb, a pro-Labor former Defence Department deputy secretary:

But missing from this otherwise soundly argued white paper is the matter of money. In a 140-page document, scarcely 1 1/2 pages are allocated to financial matters. And what we get there are some nice commitments to 3 per cent real growth annually in the defence budget to 2018, and thereafter a promise (as if any government can deliver on this) of 2.2 per cent growth out to 2030. Nowhere do we get any estimates of the cost of acquiring and maintaining this ambitious new force structure… And although we get a brand-new inflation-proof price index for defence of 2.5 per cent a year over the next 20 years, all the data shows that the real cost increases for submarines and fighter aircraft have historically been closer to 4 per cent per annum.

This leak to The Australian doesn’t so much answer the money question as underscore it:

The Defence Department, with a current annual budget of $22billion, has been charged with the massive task of finding up to $20 billion in savings and efficiency gains over the next decade to pay for more than $100 billion worth of hi-tech equipment.

The last time I did the sums, saving $20 billion (how?) to pay for $100 billion of stuff still left you $80 billion short.

Has someone pointed out to the Prime Minister that - thanks in part to his useless $23 billion in “stimulus” cash handouts, and another $80 billion in new spending - his wallet is actually now filled with IOUs?

(T)he Budget deficit could be as high as $50-$80 billion, compared to the $22 billion surplus promised in the Budget last May.
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Age applauds a change it imagines
Andrew Bolt
Here’s how John Howard justified military support for the US:

The government strongly believes that the decision it has taken is right, it is legal, it is directed towards the protection of the Australian national interest and I ask the Australian community to support it.

Here’s how Kevin Rudd’s new white paper on defence would justify military support for the US:

The Government recognises that Australia can and should play its part in assisting the US in dealing global and regional security challenges, and we have a demonstrated capacity and willingness to do so. However, we must never put ourselves in a position where the price of our own security is a requirement to put Australian troops at risk in distant theatres of war where we have no direct interests at stake.

Little difference in expressed sentiment, and little practical difference to date in reality. John Howard sent troops to Iraq, after considering a request from the US. Kevin Rudd now sends more troops to Afghanistan, after considering a request from the US.

How does The Age editor spin Rudd’s new policy?

a radical shift is announced… ...The white paper does, however, bury the assumptions that underpinned Australian defence policy during the Howard era. For this Government, Australia has its own strategic interests, and although they do not preclude co-operation with the US or participation in multilateral ventures authorised by the United Nations, it is those national interests that should determine what kind of defence forces Australia has, and how they should be deployed. In other words, the role of deputy sheriff has been vacated.

Then again, the editor has form in detecting differences between old leaders and new that are not actually there.
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Feeding pensioners to the mice
Andrew Bolt
Australians are more likely to be eaten by mice than to die of swine flu. And that’s an indictment - yet another - of the way Queensland maintains its hospitals and nursing homes.
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Panic spread
Andrew Bolt
No kidding:

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says there are signs of unnecessary panic across Australia over swine flu.

She’s right, you know. Those signs of panic include this:
Queensland Health’s Dr Jeannette Young has urged people to stockpile food to reduce the number of times they have to go to the shops in case there is an outbreak.

And this:

There may be no stopping swine flu from entering Australia, the Federal Government warned today...

And this:

The Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, announced last night the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, had consented to new powers allowing health officials to detain and disinfect people suspected of having the swine flu.

And this:
KEVIN Rudd yesterday urged all Australians to wash their hands regularly, as thermal-imaging cameras were installed at international airports to scan travellers for possible symptoms of swine flu.

And this:
KEVIN Rudd has vowed to commit whatever resources are needed to fight the swine flu menace...

And this:

KEVIN Rudd described swine flu as an ”evolving threat” today...

And this:

THERE aren’t enough anti-viral drugs to combat a potential global swine flu pandemic, with local stocks sufficient to cover just over one third of the population, a drug company executive says.

And this:

The World Health Organisation has warned that ”all of humanity is under threat” from a potential swine flu pandemic and called for “global solidarity”...

And this:

The federal government has been too slow in responding to the swine-flu outbreak in Mexico and the United States, which has the potential to spiral into a pandemic, the Greens say.

Confirmed cases of swine flu in Australia so far: zero. Confirmed deaths from swine flu around the world so far: 16. Number of people who die each year from flu: between 250,000 and 500,000.

Here’s the deal: if the politicians, health officials and drug companies stop spreading panic, the public will stop feeling it.

UPDATE

Yet another official spreading fear:

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Manne overboard
Andrew Bolt
Gerard Henderson is surprised that Australia’s official Most Influential Public Intellectual has so often and so manically sought to stifle debate.

Henderson traces the no-argument history of Robert Manne, whose intolerance of dissent has now landed him in yet another nasty brawl, this time at The Monthly - or, as it is to be renamed, The Manne. Interestingly, Henderson manages to identify more Manne hypocrisies than Manne can “stolen” children.
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Howard blasts Rudd’s spending
Andrew Bolt
John Howard says Kevin Rudd is spending too much, and on giveaways that will not work. Singling out Australia, as well as Britain, he tells NRO television:

I worry about any government which goes too heavily into debt… They are spending too much… You are putting a burden on future generations...I’m unconvinced that a lot of this fiscal stimulus is going to add to economic activity.

And spending on cash giveaways - $23 billion worth, in Rudd’s case - is dumb:

I, for example, have real reservations about just sending cheques through the mail to each and everyone.

To start with, if I got a cheque from the government at the present time and I had a lot of debt, I wouldn’t spend it. I’d use it to pay down the debt. And that’s what we were taught by our parents. I mean, so much of what is being exhorted to people at the moment by governments all around the word is counter intuitive. When things are difficult, you conserve, you don’t go out and splash.

Howard’s alternative is what I’ve long argued here - some deficit spending, but smaller; more investment in infrastructure that makes us more productive; and deregulation. Payroll tax, anti-employment regulation, “stupid unfair dismissal laws” - “they’re the sort of things you should get rid of’’, Howard says.

UPDATE

Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker may be one of Barack Obama’s economic advisors, but he worries about calls for more regulation and moves to even more “stimulus” spending:
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Why are these politicians siding with Pratt?
Andrew Bolt
Elisabeth Sexton is spot on:

When I read that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, had made a deathbed visit to Dick Pratt, I felt a surge of sympathy.

My thoughts turned to Chris Bowen, Graeme Samuel, Peter Heerey and Donnell Ryan. These men, and many who work with them, are entrusted to protect us from the pernicious economic effects of price-fixing.

Bowen is the federal minister for competition policy and consumer affairs. Samuel heads the federal regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The former Justice Heerey was the Federal Court judge who in November 2007 declared that Pratt was “knowingly concerned” in his company Visy’s arrangement with its competitor Amcor to fix the prices of cardboard boxes in contravention of the Trade Practices Act. Justice Ryan is the Federal Court judge who has been presiding over the now-discontinued charge of perjury against Pratt over the Amcor cartel.

All four are fair game for complaints by Pratt’s family and friends. By all means let’s have an open debate about how well they are doing their jobs. But whether political leaders should be joining in, either implicitly by giving Pratt conspicuous support or explicitly by openly criticising their decisions, is another matter.

Her list of politicians who have backed Pratt is worryingly long. Would he have had this political support had he not been so rich?

Support the rule of law, not the rule of mates.
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Which MP dares launch this book in Victoria?
Andrew Bolt
A politician makes a stand:

Queensland Nationals Senator Ron Boswell today announced that in the interests of a balanced debate on Climate Change he would launching the Brisbane release of ”Heaven + Earth – Global Warming: The Missing Science” by controversial author Professor Ian Plimer…

“As far as I’m concerned the debate on Climate Change should be balanced with all viewpoints being heard. I have found that for every scientist who believes there is man-made climate change, there is one that doesn’t.”..

“In the last fortnight I have heard evidence, presented to the Senate Inquiry into Climate Policy, from miners, energy providers, farmers, meat processors, steel companies, paper manufacturers and the cement industry and all of them agree that the current ETS will cost jobs and lots of them.”

The Brisbane media launch will take place at 12noon on 19 May 2009, at the Pineapple Hotel, Function Room 2nd Floor, 706 Main Street, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.

Book via this link. And other politicians would do well to note that the earth does not swallow Boswell whole, and that they, too, may dare speak up in defence of debate, reason and science.
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Holding’s case goes to water
Andrew Bolt
LET’S ask our Minister for No Water, Tim Holding, a question that will puzzle every one with a water bill.

Why are we being asked to pay more, when we’re being made to use less?

Let’s even put numbers on it. Why is the Essential Services Commission saying we must pay 60 per cent more for water when the Government’s bans have forced us to use 30 per cent less?

There was a simple explanation, I thought last week. This Government has so bungled water supplies that not only is Melbourne close to running out.

In its mad panic to avoid running dry, and its even madder green hatred for damming rivers, the Government is now scrambling to build a $3.1 billion desalination plant rather than a $1.4 billion dam that would give us three times the water at half the price.

Even sillier, this “green” desalination plant will actually run on scads of electricity - of which we’re also short.

And know also this: even with this desalination plant, and these bills, the Government still can’t promise to lift its water bans over the next five years. Not with a million more Melburnians expected in 20 years, all needing water.

So how to defend this incompetence and colossal waste of your billions? Holding on this page on Tuesday gave it his best shot. Let’s see if his argument holds more water than our fast-draining dams, now at record lows.

First, Holding said it was “wrong” to claim “we aren’t building a new dam because the Government is captured by a green agenda”.
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Rudd sacks the people he promised to employ
Andrew Bolt
First Kevin “Doing Something” Rudd hands out $23 billion of free cash in two handouts to “create jobs”. Then, having actually lost jobs and run out of money, he sacks people:

ONE in 10 jobs is expected to be slashed from the Immigration Department in this month’s federal budget. Despite the recent surge in boat arrivals, about 700 jobs will be cut from the department, which has 7000 staff in 100 locations in Australia and worldwide.

We’re in great hands.

UPDATE

Former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa:

KEVIN Rudd’s belated acknowledgment that the Australian economy is in recession means his preferred political strategy - using the national credit card in the hope of avoiding the symbolically important technical recession, before he can credibly call a federal election - is in tatters.

UPDATE 2

A song for our times:


UPDATE 3

Rudd’s economic policy explained in a handy ad:

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NASA Backs Off From Permanent Moon Base - Obama has CHANGED policy
That permanent moon base NASA's been talking about for years? Looks like it might not happen.

Acting NASA Administrator Christopher Scolese quietly admitted so on Capitol Hill Wednesday as he testified before a meeting of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

Responding to questions about whether the Obama administration's proposed NASA budget for 2010 would put the space agency on track for construction of a permanent base, Scolese wouldn't commit.

"Do we mean a colony on the moon? That's clearly very expensive," he stated. "It will probably be less than an outpost on the moon, but where it fits between sorties — single trips to the moon to various parts — and an outpost is really going to be dependent on the studies that we're going to be doing."

The permanent moon base was the centerpiece of NASA planning following former President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration speech in 2004, though Bush never specifically called for one.

But NASA, spurred on by then-Administrator Michael Griffin, incorporated a permanent base as part of its grand strategy to get humans back to the moon by 2020.
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Is Obama Delaying the Recovery?
By Peter Ferrara
By now, the current recession is officially the longest since World War II. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the recession as starting some time during December 2007. The longest recession since World War II was 16 months, with the average being 10 months. By today, the current recession has clearly lasted more than 16 months.

Those sobering facts raise the question, are President Obama’s economic policies promoting recovery, or delaying it? Why is this the longest recession since World War II? That is a period of almost 65 years! Would other economic policies better promote economic growth?

These questions are pertinent now not only because of the calendar, but because the logic behind Obamanomics is dubious at best. Based on the stimulus package and Obama’s budget, he is essentially arguing that the way to promote economic growth is through higher welfare spending, massively increased federal spending, and record deficits and debt. Obama defended precisely this approach before an enclave of Congressional Democrats earlier this year, laughingly asking, “What do you think a stimulus is?”

But will such policies really advance economic growth? Borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy through the stimulus package to put a trillion dollars of federal spending back in does not add anything to the economy on net. Most importantly, it does nothing to change the basic incentives that govern the economy. Indeed, nothing anywhere in Obama’s entire economic package increases incentives for economic growth.

Reducing tax rates provides such incentives because it allows producers to keep a higher percentage of what they produce. If a tax rate is reduced from 50% to 25%, what they taxpayer keeps out of his own production rises by one third from 50% to 75%. That provides increased incentives for saving, investment, starting new businesses, expanding businesses, creating jobs, entrepreneurship, and work. This is what Reagan did in comprehensive fashion, producing a 25 year economic boom.

Even Obama’s tax cut for 95% of Americans is not pro-growth. It is just a $400 per worker tax credit, less than $8 per week, which is economically the same as sending each worker a $400 check. Going forward you still face the exact same economic incentives as before. And borrowing $400 from someone else to give you $400 does not add anything to the economy on net.

Moreover, Obama has proposed a massive new tax through his cap-and-trade anti-global warming plan, imposing probably close to $2 trillion in increased costs on the U.S. economy. Consumers will pay for this through increased costs for electricity, gasoline, home heating oil, food, and any product that uses energy. That will more than offset Obama’s $400 tax credit, resulting in an effective net tax increase for 100% of Americans. This added burden will ultimately chase remaining manufacturing out of the country.

Ending next year, Obama’s tax rate increases will become effective. Top individual income tax rates will increase 20%, tax rates on capital gains and dividends will each rise 33%, and the death tax rate will be permanently restored at 45%. These prospective tax rate increases will soon start depressing the economy, because incentives will be worsened.

Newt Gingrich has proposed a far more promising, 12 point, alternative economic recovery plan that should receive more attention. Gingrich recognizes that America suffers from the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, close to 40% counting federal and state levies. The EU has reduced their average corporate tax rate from 38% to 24%. Germany and Canada have reduced their corporate tax rate to 19%, with Canada’s going to 15%. India and China have lower corporate tax rates as well. This leaves American companies at an enormous competitive disadvantage.

Gingrich would lower the 35% federal corporate tax rate to the 12.5% rate adopted by Ireland 20 years ago, which raised that long poor country from the second lowest per capita income in the EU to the second highest. Our own Treasury Dept. calculates that Ireland raises more corporate tax revenue as a percent of GDP with this 12.5% rate than we do with our 35% federal rate.

Gingrich would also reduce the 25% income tax rate paid by middle class families to 15%, which would create an effective 15% flat tax for 90% of Americans. He would abolish the capital gains tax, which involves double taxation of savings and investment, reduce spending to balance the budget, as he led Congress to do in the 1990s, and open production of more oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and alternative energy sources, providing a reliable, low cost energy supply to power the American economy. This is a prescription for another economic boom.

Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation.
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How Dumb Are We Americans?
By Bill O'Reilly
A new Rasmussen poll on President Obama is somewhat startling and worth analyzing because Rasmussen is very accurate.

According to the data, 34 percent of Americans strongly approve of the president's job performance, while 32 percent strongly disapprove. So that's why the debate over Barack Obama is so raucous. He may be a popular guy, but the country remains divided on the job deal.

Also, 73 percent of Americans now expect government spending to rise. That's up from 54 percent last November.

But get this: Just 69 percent say Barack Obama is a political liberal. What? Where are the other 31 percent? Oh, they think he's a moderate or something.

Are you telling me that a third of the country doesn't know the president is a liberal guy? Can that be possible? Sadly, the answer is yes.

The president presents himself as a moderate, a man who believes in tradition and a free market place. But that is not who the president really is, and his voting record, his appointments and his vision for the country prove it.

President Obama really believes the federal government has an obligation to insure a certain quality of life for everyday Americans. He really believes he can convince the world to help us fight evil people by using logic and reason. He really believes that evil people should not be compelled to divulge information, even in life-death situations. He really believes that wealthy Americans owe a large chunk of their prosperity to other folks not as prosperous. And he really believes social engineering, not self-reliance, should be the theme of government.

Those are all liberal tenets, but apparently 31 percent of Americans do not know this.

Now, there is nothing wrong with having a liberal belief system. But the president's job is to solve problems and keep us safe, and herein lies the problem.

The best example I can give you is national security, your personal safety. By reversing the Bush anti-terror policies, Mr. Obama has tied the hands of American counter-intelligence agents. No longer are they on the offensive. Some experienced agents have quit; others are phoning it in.

According to Stratfor, the USA is reverting back to the failed counter-intel policies before we were hit on 9/11. The enemy well understands the shift in American policy and is stepping up terror activity in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, while at the same time Iran and North Korea continue to give the world the middle finger.

So presidential rhetoric aside, the unintended consequences of the president's first 100 days have dramatically altered the terror battlefield. No question.

The president is a sincere man. I believe that. But I do not believe he truly understands evil, and his liberal policies will have a very hard time containing it. Wait and see.