Glassing attack costs an eye
A man will lose his right eye after being glassed in the face in southern NSW, police say.
Chardonnay Kev's booze blowout
KEVIN Rudd has filled his liquor cabinets with $23k worth of of taxpayer-funded wine and bubbly.
Flood relief in sights
Relief may be in sight for residents in the flood-ravaged north coast as floodwaters begin to subside but some remain cut-off
Iceland's first taste of swine flu
Health authorities in Iceland say they've confirmed the country's first case of swine flu.
Man exposes himself to young girl
A man has exposed himself to a young girl after luring her and a friend into his car in the NSW Hunter Valley, prompting a stranger danger warning from police.
Seagull beaten and broken
A Kansas man accused of beating a seagull that tried to eat his wife's ice cream is appealing a $US275 ($A353) fine stemming from the incident in California.
25 people connected to boy in quarantine
Home quarantine and antiviral drugs have been ordered for 25 people identified to have had contact with a 15-year-old boy diagnosed as Australia's latest case of swine flu.
=== Comments ===
Rebate cut hurts the weak
Piers Akerman
THE capacity of the uncaring Rudd Labor government to hurt the weakest and most vulnerable Australians is epitomised by its decision to slash Medicare reimbursement for cataract surgery from November from $623.70 to $311.85, or by about 50 per cent. - There is a scene at the start of Saving Private Ryan in which a wounded soldier who has lost an arm dazedly looks around and picks it up. The scene is made more horrific with the knowledge that there was no microsurgery back then, that limb was lost .. and probably the soldier was dying.
My grandmother was well into her nineties. She was still a competitive outdoor bowls player in her early nineties. However, in her mid 90’s, she had routine eye laser work and was blinded in one eye. The procedure was modified so that she might have had safe surgery on the other eye, but she wouldn’t risk that. And so she gave up all that she loved, playing bowls, cards and talking with people. She died soon after, at the age of 98 or 99 (we don’t know, she didn’t know when she was born).
It is not merely Eritrea which is in need of affordable eye care. Young people have things they like. Old people have needs. Today a war is being waged in which the most vulnerable pay the highest cost.
it was fascinating the other day hearing Alan Jones interview Gillard. Gillard said “Some times debt comes at the end of a recovery and strangles the recovery. We have the debt early so we will have cleared it before it can strangle the recovery.” Apparently Gillard believes in the debt fairy who visits the ALP children and clears the debt they made after it reaches some magic level. To quote Rudd, the debt is temporary .. no doubt meaning that Rudd can make a much more substantial figure. - ed.
===
CHK CHK CHECKED
Tim Blair
WHOA! Although there was a shooting in Kings Cross last weekend, Clare Werbeloff wasn’t a witness:
“We’ve spoken to her, but she’s not a witness to the shooting,” a senior Kings Cross officer said.
“She’s told police that she didn’t actually see it” …
Ms Werbeloff’s newly hired agent, Adam Abrams, confirmed, “She was not a witness. She saw the camera, ran over to it and told this story.”
And what a detailed story it was, told within minutes of the shooting. Creative Clare – shown below carrying an honest skateboard – obviously had a source for certain elements of her account.
Further on our former witness:
Ms Werbeloff has been forced to admit her “eyewitness” account was bogus.
As she prepared to tell all on Nine’s A Current Affair, detectives told The Sun-Herald last night Ms Werbeloff’s account of the shooting of Justin Kallu, 27, the so-called “skinny wog”, was made up.
“We have interviewed her and she has not witnessed the shooting,” said acting Kings Cross Police crime manager, Detective Inspector Matt McQueen. ”She has admitted to making it all up and has not witnessed the shooting.”
After the phenomenon went global, Ms Werbeloff joined forces with a publicist, who would not respond to questions from The Sun-Herald yesterday …
Inspector McQueen would not say what motivated Ms Werbeloff to go on camera and claim to be a witness.
Her friend “Swanny” – who, you’ll recall, also “witnessed” the shooting – might be able to help here.
===
Grand dame too grand even for Rudd
Andrew Bolt
I don’t dispute that places such as Yarralumla and Admirality House need upkeep and that a Governor General shouldn’t fly economy - and all that means money. But a few things in this comb-through of Quentin Bryce’s expenses are interesting:
A new car cost $47,000, $30,000 was spent on a set of new Honours booklets, $16,000 for staff recruitment fees and $14,000 to re-paint a gate at Admiralty House.
How does painting a gate cost $14,000? This, though, is more serious:
A spokeswoman for the Governor-General also confirmed Ms Bryce originally wanted to take two aircraft on her recent diplomatic trip to Africa for security and logistical reasons. But that was scaled back to one after “consultations” with the Prime Minister’s office. Her official entourage of six was also cut by two. Ms Bryce was also accompanied by a federal police officer, a Defence officer and medical support “presence,” the spokeswoman said, without specifying numbers.
Seems that Bryce had very big plans to publicise her extraordinary jaunt to Africa as Rudd’s envoy - rather than as our Governor General - given that the second plane was needed largely for the media she expected to accompany her. Seems also that Rudd, once the heat went on over the foolishness of Bryce’s mission and the impropriety of her involvement, panicked, and cut Bryce’s grand plans to ribbons. And trimmed her conceit, too.
Then there’s this defence by a Bryce aide:
She has not at any time requested the building or purchase of any wardrobes. The Australiana Fund was, however, requested by the previous Office to commission a wardrobe, bedhead and bedside tables to highlight Australian craftsmanship.
Who was Bryce planning to impress by choosing bedroom furniture to “highlight Australian craftsmanship”? A nation would like to know.
===
Rudd harpoons his whale envoy
Andrew Bolt
Who ever thought this wasn’t more of Rudd’s spin, anyway?
THE Rudd government has quietly moved to axe its Special Envoy on Whaling after announcing the job with much fanfare before the last election. The May Budget signals the end of the envoy, with no additional funding for the office or for the Government’s plans to challenge to Japanese whaling in the International Court of Justice.
UPDATE
It’s bad enough that the Government is spending nearly $4 billion of your money to give free pink batts to people who refused to use their own cash to insulate their homes. Now you must pay for the spinning on this, too:
THE Rudd Government is set to embark on a $50 million advertising campaign to promote its controversial plan to provide free ceiling insulation and other stimulus measures following the budget.
===
Fighting for air - and light
Andrew Bolt
The dominant arts aesthetic in the West’s salons has shifted over the past century from ”the best that has been thought and said” to the transgressive - the art of shock. Or shlock.
The problem with shock art is that it is a race to the bottom. And, of course, it tends to destroy the standards of social interaction which humanise us, and makes us fit for society. So shock art must ultimately be rejected before it destroys us. Has the moment now come to the Cannes Film Festival, and with a film whose very title - Anti-Christ - suggests the front of the final battle?
Lars von Trier’s film was declared ”the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world” by an Ecumenical Jury which every year hands out a prize to a Cannes film that celebrates spiritual values.
This year it went to Ken Loach’s “Looking for Eric,” but the jury was so shocked by Von Trier’s film—which closes with a shot of a clitoris being sliced off with rusty scissors—that it felt the need to award a special “anti-prize.” ...
Critics gasped, jeered and hooted—and at least four people fainted—during a preview of the movie, one of 20 films competing for the Palme d’Or top award to be handed out Sunday.
===
They still bleed
Andrew Bolt
You expect - not always correctly, it’s clear - that someone who can fight his way to the political top doesn’t let criticism hurt him personally:
Former President Roh Moo-hyun, embroiled in a penetrating corruption investigation, leaped to his death Saturday — a shocking end for a man whose rags-to-riches rise took him from rural poverty to Seoul’s presidential Blue House. He was 62…
Life had become unbearable and “too many people are suffering because of me,” Roh wrote in a note found on his computer, police said.
===
Gaia needs your hospital bed
Andrew Bolt
Hospitals should do more to treat not people, but the planet:
HOSPITALS and their emergency vehicles, which are major polluters, must join the fight against climate change, the World Health Organisation said.
Yes, that’s the same WHO also beating up the swine flu panic.
===
Is your job safer now Workchoices is gone?
Andrew Bolt
ACTU president Sharan Burrow claims workers are less likely to be cruelly sacked since John Howard’s wicked Workchoices laws were introduced:
Getting rid of the elements of WorkChoices that prevented people from bargaining collectively, that allowed the employer to have all of the power, that ripped out the power of the independent umpire that took away people’s rights to act against unfair dismissal - those things are gone…
to come from Work Choices to the new laws is a huge step forward
About 546,400 Australians were out of work when Workchoices was brought in in March 2006.
Under Howard and his new Workchoices laws, many more Australians were hired, not fired - and the number out of work fell by more than 157,000.
But since Rudd took over, many more Australians have been fired, not hired - and the number of those sacked or otherwise left without work rose by more than 142,000.
Yes, the financial crisis is responsible for the vast majority of those lost jobs. But the moral is that your job is safest not when bosses are controlled, but when bosses make money. And reregulating the workplace, of course, makes it harder for bosses to stay profitable - and thus to hire.
No comments:
Post a Comment