Headlines Sunday 31st May 2009

Woodward Plots to Capture Obama White House in Next Book
Beltway insiders say the White House appears to be taking pains to avoid leaks to the Washington Post icon, who is working on a new book about the administration

Corbys want Rudd to deliver on promise
SCHAPELLE Corby and her family say Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a deal to help them.

Health Care Ad Battle
Major campaign backed by one of the men behind 'Swift Boat' attacks could put a dent in Obama's health reforms

British Space Scientist Killed as Hot-Air Balloons Collide in Turkey
A leading British space scientist was killed Friday, and nine other tourists injured, when two hot-air balloons collided over the mountains of eastern Turkey.

Bollywood star threatens Aussie snub
AMITABH Bachchan may reject an honorary doctorate from an Australian university in protest against Indian student attacks.

N Korea warned, US troops at the ready
The United States is warning it will take action against North Korea if there is any threat to itself or its Asian allies.

Vic doctors low on medical supplies
There are now fears doctors at the epicentre of the swine flu outbreak in Melbourne are running out of vital supplies.

Uighurs welcome, says Amnesty
Amnesty International has called for the Rudd Government to accept the Guantanamo detainees and end human rights violations

Cruise ship clear of flu, for the moment
Pacific Dawn to arrive in Sydney, no passengers tested positive to swine flu.

Gitmo Detainees: Opposition says 'No'
The Federal Opposition says it wants more answers from the United States as to why Australia has been asked to accept former Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
=== Comments ===
Language of diplomacy eludes our PM
Piers Akerman
ONE of candidate Kevin Rudd’s big selling points - other than that he was not John Howard - was his experience as a diplomat. - It sounds weird to say it, but none of the world leaders seem to want to be Rudd’s bitch. Mr Howard never required one to effectively prosecute his agenda, but Rudd seems really desirous of one. Yet Rudd is spurned. Not the girl at Scores. Not his wife, who maintains her own business. Swan seems to be content with accepting the spit jobs of announcing bad news .. with Gillard, but both keep their distance, leaving the popular ideas to Rudd. Rudd is looking really panicky these days, since his election. Firstly, Rudd felt the Australian budget inadequate and thought there was a need to hike up interest rates. Then Rudd declared that the world was going to end, and so interest rates didn’t need to be so high. Europeans don’t like Rudd, nor Asians. Once can find no reasons why indigenous peoples should support Rudd either .. until the recent decision to ignore the decision to stop Mr Howard’s intervention. Maybe we really need a bill of rights ,, make Rudd leave RIGHT now - ed.
===
TRICKY OLD SUN
Tim Blair
Let down by wayward computer modeling, an international panel of experts changes its solar activity predictions:
The latest forecast revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007. At that time, a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models gave different answers, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.

“It turns out that none of our models were totally correct,” says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA’s lead representative on the panel. “The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way.”
I blame solar warming.
===
GET BACK
Tim Blair
A positive development in an area of England familiar with Islamic protest:
The Muslim community turned on extremists in their midst yesterday, telling them they were ‘sick and tired’ of their behaviour …

Passing traffic ground to a halt as the large group of moderates confronted about a dozen extremists.

As the radical Muslims began to set up their stall, they were surrounded by a crowd shouting ‘we don’t want you here’ and ‘move on, move on’.
Interesting reaction from the extremists:
Angry words were exchanged and scuffles broke out between members of both groups, with the extremists shouting ‘Shame on you’ and ‘Get back to your synagogue’.
Isn’t that some form of hate crime in modern Britain? Or is it a hate crime to suggest that hating Jews is a hate crime? You never know with British law. Happily, an unlikely group has taken over from Brit cops:
Farasat Latif, of the Islamic Centre in Luton, which was firebombed after the protest against the soldiers, said moderate members of his community took action because police had failed to move the group on.
===
THANKS REFERRED
Tim Blair
Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to the US, tells ex-Prez Bush “the world owes you a debt of gratitude” for massive anti-AIDS drug programs in Africa. Bush’s response:
“To whom much is given, much is required. Don’t thank me, thank the taxpayers of the United States of America.”
Politicians who know from whom the money comes; there aren’t enough of them.
===
WE ARE POWERFUL
Tim Blair
Warmenists cool their heels in a West Virginia prison:
Environmental group Mountain Justice says six people arrested on trespassing charges during a coal mining protest are still jailed.

The group said Sunday the six have been unable to raise $2,000 cash apiece to make bail.
Seeing as these stupid hippies were only doing his bidding, why didn’t Al Gore wire them some cash? Instead, five of the trespassers were rescued by mysterious powerful forces:
The money was raised by hundreds of people chipping in. A little adds up to a lot! We are powerful!
They raised enough money to buy a Lada. Power! Also, they stopped the warmening:
Cool air will continue to stream into New England and New York on Sunday, which will cause more showers and thunderstorms to form. Also, an unseasonable chill in the air will be felt. Expect some SNOWFLAKES to mix in across the higher elevations of the Adirondack, Green and White Mountains on the last day of MAY!!!
===
MEDIA MYOPIA
Tim Blair
Reason‘s Cathy Young:
To some on the left, any mention of Islamic extremism is a bigoted right-wing scare tactic. On his blog, Nation magazine columnist Robert Dreyfuss dismisses the New York terror plot as “bogus” and asserts that every alleged plot by Muslim terrorists on U.S. soil after the World Trade Center attack has been “nonsense” cooked up by the FBI: “Since 9/11 not a single American has even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim, as far as I can tell.” (Tell that to the victims of Mohammed Taheri-azar, who plowed a Jeep into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina in 2006 and later told authorities that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.")
Noting that “anti-Muslim hysteria on the right is no myth, either,” Young nevertheless concludes:
Leaving aside debates about whether there is something in the Muslim religion that inherently and uniquely lends itself to a violent, extremist interpretation, the reality is that an extremist and violent strain is present in modern-day Islam to a far greater extent than in other major religions …

To ignore or downplay these alarming facts is myopic. If the mainstream media continue to do so out of misguided sensitivity, it will only undermine their credibility when it comes to battling real bigotry.
It’s plenty undermined already.
===
FUNNIER THAN THE SHOW
Tim Blair
An Australian version of jumped the shark:
Instead of referring to the waning days of American sit-com Happy Days and the episode where Fonzie jumped a shark, only to see the show sink further and further into irrelevance and low ratings, it refers to the opening episode of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC’s) 2009 return of comedy show “The Chaser,” where the “edgy” comedians go to the Vatican City to abuse nuns and fly a blimp with foul anti-Catholic slogans past the Pope in the Vatican.

Marked the beginning of the end for the ABC’s “The Chaser.”
And an example of the new phrase in use:
“Jeez, I used to think they were so edgy and funny, but now they’ve just flown the Vatican.”
===
FEAR THE OBAMONSTER
Tim Blair
If Barack Obama’s presidency were a foetus, it would barely be out of the first trimester. Unhinged leftist Ted Rall calls for a termination:
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss …

Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.
Last year, Rall wanted George W. Bush arrested. His suggestions do tend towards the drastic. Rall’s dismayed ideological brethren at Democratic Underground respond.
===
BAD BUSINESSMAN
Tim Blair
Age headline:
Ex-CEO avoids jail for child porn
Age story:
A former ACTU research officer and ALP policy committee president who pleaded guilty to possessing and accessing more than 4000 images and videos of child pornography has avoided an immediate jail sentence.
Stephen de Rozairo turns out to have been the chief executive of a western suburbs-based youth training organisation. A previous Age headline is more accurate.
===
THEME UNDETECTED
Tim Blair
Following confusion in Adelaide, further ad trouble in Pennsylvania.

UPDATE. “It could have been worse,” writes Glenn Reynolds. “It could have said “Snipers Wanted.”

UPDATE II. In other Obama news, the US government is so big that entire agencies remain unknown to the President.
===
PHELPS FUELLED
Tim Blair
The Daily Telegraph‘s James Phelps is currently in Tasmania, covering motor racing. Yesterday he pulled into a service station to refuel his rental car. Getting out, Phelps saw someone fiddling with the filler lid.

“What are you doing?” asked James, imagining the fellow was some kind of Tasmaniac petrol bandit.

“I work here,” came the reply.

This is the first time that Phelps – who has been driving for 15 years – has encountered a service station with actual service. Almost entirely unknown on the mainland, they live on in Tasmania. Even there they are under threat, according to the attendant; of all the stations in Launceston, only a “dozen or so” still have filler staff.
===
KOWLEDGE
Tim Blair
A comment from Crikey editor Jonathan Green:
It’s just, you kow, who wants to take credit. So gauche.
Meanwhile, here’s Crikey crank Guy “Sydney harba” Rundle – who doesn’t know that rugby and rugby league are different codes – in a recent subscriber-only piece:
I could be wrong. But let’s face it; compared to Greg [Sheridan] and Planet [Janet Albrechtsen], who have been ever-reliably wrong for the last five years, I’m usually right.
From the same item:
Yesterday, Barack Obama gained some much-needed kudos from the left by putting up Sonia Sotomayer as a nominee for the Supreme Court … Sotomayer hits three targets … Sotomayer is on record … Sotomayer’s remarks … there’s no guarantee that Sotomayer … Sotomayer is a middle of the road judge …
Her name is Sotomayor.
===
A sugar rush never cost this much
Andrew Bolt
I am no economic guru, yet in February could write this:

We actually have time, after all, to spend those billions on productive investments such as rail, airports, internet, ports and tax cuts, rather than the quick-quick sugar rush of pink batts, public housing, free cash handouts and school halls.

Which is a view an economic tsar now echoes:

World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned policy makers that fiscal-stimulus plans are insufficient to turn around the “real economy” and rising joblessness threatens to set off political unrest across the globe. “While the stimulus has given an impulse, it’s like a sugar high unless you eventually get the credit system working,” Zoellick said...

Question: what collective madness inspired the Rudd Government and Treasury to embark on a wild free-cash spendathon, to the applause then of so many economists and commentators? Should we add that madness to these from our past?
===
Sotomayor’s sin
Andrew Bolt

Charles Krauthammer on the real case against ”wise Latina” Sonia Sotomayor - and for confirming Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court:

Obama and Sotomayor draw on the “richness of her experiences” and concern for judicial results to favor one American story, one disadvantaged background, over another. The refutation lies in the very oath Sotomayor must take when she ascends to the Supreme Court: “I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich. . . . So help me God.”

When the hearings begin, Republicans should call Frank Ricci as their first witness. Democrats want justice rooted in empathy? Let Ricci tell his story, and let the American people judge whether his promotion should have been denied because of his skin color in a procedure Sotomayor joined in calling “facially race-neutral.”

Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds—consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama—that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party.

Elections have consequences. Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: a judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less “advantaged.”
===
Rudd was once a conservative - and Schapelle supporter
Andrew Bolt
Jailed drug trafficker Schapelle Corby and her sister Mercedes believed in Kevin Rudd’s pre-election spin, too:

“I am very disappointed because I believed while Mr Kevin Rudd was in Opposition he was caring and compassionate to Schapelle’s plight and all correspondence to both myself and supporters alike was answered,” Mercedes Corby said.

“But now he is in a position of power and has the ability to do something, we can’t even get a reply to a letter.”

Ms Corby said when her sister was convicted of drug trafficking, Mr Rudd put out press releases and wrote letters to the family and supporters calling on the then Government to help her.
===
No scalpel could cure them
Andrew Bolt
Former patients of Monash Medical Centre’s Gender Dysphoria Clinic say they should never have been given gender reassignment surgery, and they aren’t the only ones to doubt that mutilating a body is the way to heal a troubled mind:

A review of more than 100 studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham found there was no evidence that surgery was effective and in many cases patients were left more distressed. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore - which had one of the pioneer gender clinics - no longer performs sex-change surgery due to such concerns. A recent British review found suicide rates of up to 18 per cent post-surgery.

Doctors from London’s Portman Clinic say they see many patients who feel trapped in “no-man’s land” after surgery.

Given these doubts, how doubly wrong does this appear:

The Family Court has treated the troubled mind of a 17-year-old girl by letting her cut off her breasts.

UPDATE

Was the 17-year-old a patient of this clinic?

AUSTRALIA’S only sex-change clinic has been temporarily shut down and its controversial director forced to quit amid growing claims that patients with psychiatric problems have been wrongly diagnosed as transsexuals and encouraged to have radical gender reassignment surgery.
===
Pinching Sydney’s women
Andrew Bolt

When the mayor of Mt Isa tried this last year, he was denounced as a redneck. But on second thoughts, says Tourism Victoria…

STEALING the most eligible women in NSW is the aim of an underground campaign funded by the Victorian Government. Tourism Victoria’s bold new message is that single Sydney females should head south if they want to meet men with style and substance.

The viral online campaign, titled Melbourne Match, features videos of actors playing four Sydney stereotypes “auditioning” for dates with women. There’s a surfie who hoots and toots about wanting a long-term relationship over winter, a muscle-bound big mouth still living with his mum, an effeminate fashion worker who likes being “out” and a corporate stiff obsessed with status symbols…

Campaign publicist Belinda Aucott said the idea was a light-hearted play on the perceived “man recession” in Sydney.

“There is definitely an inference, especially across the viral campaign, that there tends to be a higher gay population here in Sydney and that the men here can tend to be a little bit more focused on business and finance,” Ms Aucott said.

I’m not sure I actually approve of two of these ads, and I wonder what Tourism Victoria boss Greg Hywood would have said of them were he still the editor of the very righteous Age:

===
How much more punishment can 46% take?
Andrew Bolt
The Liberals should be amazed by this poll from NSW:

Preferred premier: Barry O’Farrell 50%, Nathan Rees 33%

Labor’s experiment with its new kid-on-the-block premier has been a disaster with Nathan Rees failing to win support and stop the party falling into oblivion… Just one-third of voters rank Mr Rees above Mr O’Farrell in the preferred premier category, with half favouring Mr O’Farrell… The Opposition is still in a comfortable election-winning position, with the poll showing it would claim victory 54-46 on a two-party preferred basis.

I mean, nearly half the NSW electorate would like more of Labor?
===
Slapping dad and his works
Andrew Bolt
Leftist Nicholas Kristoff has a test to divide the Left and conservatives:

Would you be willing to slap your father in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit?

He might be onto something.
===
Calling time on Laurie, Michelle and Paul
Andrew Bolt
A former senior staffer to a former Liberal Prime Minister and two Premiers (who wishes to stay anonymous) says time is up for the old guard in the parliamentary press gallery:

The real political succession story in Canberra is not who will succeed Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd or Bob Brown. The real story is who will succeed Laurie Oakes, Michelle Grattan, Paul Bongiorno and some of the other senior political journalists.

Some of these guys have been around for more than thirty years. They happily brand politicians who stay that long as out of touch and past their prime, but they don’t apply the same measures to themselves.

Back in the seventies and eighties, political journalism was the top of the tree. To be lead political reporter for a major newspaper or a television channel was to be a superstar. Not any more. Now it’s the lifestyle reporters who command the largest audiences and highest salaries. Even gardening programs are considered more interesting.

Could this be because our political reporters have somehow failed to maintain the interest of their audiences?

Working in the parliamentary press gallery has never been like working in the real world, but sometimes it seems many of those who do are more out of touch than the MPs they report on. And when did they last get a scoop?
===
No longer their own school
Andrew Bolt
In Britain, a church is forbidden the right to uphold the teachings even in its own schools:

Lawyers have told the Roman Catholic Church that it cannot sack a Catholic headmaster who has entered a civil partnership with a male teacher.

And a headmaster feels no shame in enjoying the privileges of employment at the school of a church whose teaching he openly rejects.
===
Obama attacks his own judicial pick
Andrew Bolt
Now even Barack Obama is repudiating the “wise Latino” boast of his Latino pick for the Supreme Court:

President Barack Obama on Friday personally sought to deflect criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who finds herself under intensifying scrutiny for saying in 2001 that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge. “I’m sure she would have restated it,” Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that.

Really? Then let us hear it from her. But in the meantime let us hear from Obama how he came to pick someone with such racist views - and such a bizarre notion of how ethnicity determines views of the law. And to remind of which notion that is:

She said in 2001: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” The remark was in the context her saying that “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."…

She also said, for example: “Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.”

“My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas in which I am unfamiliar,” she said. “I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”
===
10 Reasons Why We Are Losing Role Models
By Bill Shuler
As Brooke Shields laments not having lost her virginity earlier, and Mel Gibson admits to fathering a child with a woman other than his wife, a question begs to be asked…What happened to role models? There was a day when being a public personality carried with it a certain standard of conduct. But of late, the bar of behavior seems to have been set quite low.

The following could be 10 reasons why we are losing role models:

1. Honorable people are sometimes demonized for taking a stand for morality and values in the public arena.

2. High profile scandals in sports, politics and religion have jaded us.

3. Fewer dads are present in the home.

4. For so many of us, success in our culture has been defined as fame, fortune and power.

5. Image often trumps character.

6. Indulgence replaces sacrifice.

7. Self-discipline is a less-practiced art.

8. Self-seeking is an over-practiced art.

9. Some find “Family values” to be a political code word rather than an ideal to be embraced.

10. Good people with deep convictions remain silent.

Being beautiful, uninhibited or rich has become a cheap substitute for courage, decency and selflessness. Before the American role model becomes an endangered species, we must challenge the notion that by meeting low standards we are attaining success. A new generation is looking, not for perfection, but for honesty and authenticity in its leaders. The future of America depends on those who will have the courage to live by example and call a new generation to achieve lives of moral excellence and noble service.