This is the last headline to be youtubed. Replacing the feature will be a weekly youtube roundup of opinion.
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Obama Fires Top Commander in Afghanistan for no reason
Defense Secretary Gates announces Afghan command shift saying, 'It's time for new leadership and fresh eyes'
Pensioners, new mums to win in 'horror budget,' Single parents to be badly treated
Tonight's Federal Budget is expected to reveal a deficit of $58 billion and cuts to middle class welfare, but pensioners and parents are set to benefit.
Sharks group sex left woman 'suicidal'
A woman at the centre of a group sex scandal with the Cronulla Sharks NRL club says she would kill those who were involved.
Govt to push through alcopops laws
The federal government's hoping to push its alcopops tax increase through parliament today.
US soldier kills comrades in rampage
A US soldier is suspected of opening fire on his comrades at the largest American base in Iraq on Monday, killing five soldiers.
Teen tries to rob old man with fake gun
A teenager will face court today accused of robbing an elderly man in Sydney’s northern beaches, with a fake handgun.
Drivers abused over scrapped Syd bus services
Sydney’s Hillsbus services scrapped in a new timetable may have to be re-introduced, because of the peak hour mayhem it's caused.
NSW could extend first home-owners grant
The NSW government is yet to decide whether it extends its $3,000 first-home owners grant after......
400 parents fined for truanting kids
More than 400 parents have been prosecuted since the introduction of tough new truancy regulations....
'Peter Parrot' slammed for logging order
There are calls for Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett to visit the town of Deniliquin and......
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Rudd sows seeds of a desperate future
Piers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan have done a fine job softening up the public to receive the grim news in today’s Budget. - Putting aside the fact that Rudd may have gotten to be leader through hiding corrupt conduct and courting the corrupt Chinese government, Rudd has never shown a capacity for work. He works hard, but is self interest really work? Obama is a similar mould. Yet what each have done in office is an affirmation of their accusers who say they aren’t up for it. And their deputies are no better, The electorates were misinformed during the election campaigns thanks to the powerful media lobby for leftists, but they were also informed. I recall two devout ALP supporters saying, when hearing criticism of then candidate Rudd, “So what? We know they are bad money managers.” We got what we voted for .. several times. In NSW we have had ALP government since ‘95 and it was only kept in place by the media consistently blaming a Liberal federal government every time the state one fell in a screaming heap. The truth is that Carr was a worse premier than Iemma, and Iemma was worse than Rees .. and Rees is not competent. The ALP can replace Rudd with Gillard and she will have endorsed each of Rudd’s bad decisions. As Tim would say .. “Party on.” - ed.
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ONE MORE THING …
Tim Blair
“In the year 4,000 A.D., when Pluto is hollowed out and millions of people are living inside, the name of Venetia Burney may be the only thing that Great Britain is remembered for.” - in 4000 AD when Mars has three moon, what is the bet the third one will be named 'Rudd.' After all, Phebos and Deimos are Greek for 'fear' and 'terror' - ed.
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NUCLEAR SUMMER
Tim Blair
Concern about the future in Pakistan (currently facing more immediate problems):
If the phenomenon of global warming is allowed to continue at the current rate, the human race is likely to be wiped out in about two centuries by disaster if not earlier by a nuclear war, Professor Syed Amir Ahmed Kazmi, former Director General, Pakistan Meteorological Services told The News.
Global warming better get a move on. It hasn’t killed anybody yet.
In addition, Dr Jamil Kazmi, a Professor at the Department of Geography, told The News that, “the Kyoto Treaty of 1977, now ratified by more than 150 countries (except USA, number one producer of the greenhouse gas), proposed the replacement of existing energy sources all over the world with wind, solar, tidal, hydro and geothermal energies as well as bio fuels. But the problem lies with developed countries who want other countries to follow these proposals while they continue to flout the Kyoto Treaty.”
Which was drawn up in 1997. Some chronology problems here.
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ONLY THE RICH SHALL SEE
Tim Blair
Bring on the dullness:
“In the U.S., 78 percent of the public is completely unaware that traditional light bulbs will be phased out in 2012,” said Charles F. Jerabek, president and chief executive of Osram Sylvania, a unit of Siemens. By law, bulbs must be 30 percent more efficient than current incandescent versions beginning that year.
That means tomb-toned CFLs for all ... although LEDs may be an option. Here’s a bright example:
This lamp from Nexxus Lighting uses less than 8 watts and is said to be as bright as a 75-watt incandescent bulb. Price: $100
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UNFRIENDED
Tim Blair
A note from Alex Whisson, convener of Friends of Palestine in Western Australia:
Dear Mr Blair,
I am the convener of Friends of Palestine WA, the organisation responsible for the protest outside South Perth IGA which was referred to in the offending video by Brendon O’Connell you posted on your blog site.
Let me take this opportunity to tell you plainly and simply: Friends of Palestine WA is totally and utterly opposed to any and all forms of racism. We take a very dim view indeed of anyone voicing anti-Semitic views who purports to be either speaking or writing on our behalf. Any member of our executive committee found to be doing so will be summarily expelled from our ranks. Any individual found to be doing so will be barred from participating in our activities. That is why the individual in question, Brendon O’Connell, was immediately removed from our mailing list after we had the opportunity to view his video and hear the despicable opinions expressed therein.
Given members of Friends of Palestine WA are shown and identified in the video in question, we feel it is incumbent on you to point out to your readers that we as an organisation cannot be held responsible for the racist views expressed by a rogue individual who unfortunately happened to attend one of our protests.
Furthermore, we feel it is incumbent on you to make it known to your readers that we are unequivocally opposed to the vile racist views expressed by Mr O’Connell in his execrable video.
Yours sincerely
Alex Whisson
Convener
Friends of Palestine WA
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MISS BEAUTIFUL MORALS
Tim Blair
“Unlike conventional pageants, looks will not play a part in the competition.” Well, obviously. But will Perez Hilton be allowed to ask contestants about gay marriage?
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DON’T QUOTE HER
Tim Blair
Caught a little radio last night. A Sydney DJ (it was a music station) chatting with someone about the government and such. Didn’t hear the interviewee’s name, but she was clearly some kind of politically-alert type, chatting about the possibility of a double dissolution election.
Then the DJ asked (I’m paraphrasing, but this is close): “What is a double dissolution?”
Perhaps his interviewee misunderstood, because she kept talking about the possibilities and such. So he repeated the question, framing it along these lines: “I always hear about double dissolutions, but no journalist ever explains to dopes like me just what a double dissolution is.”
This wasn’t a sting. The DJ seemed genuinely curious. His interviewee hesitated slightly, then tentatively launched into her definition.
It began with: “Don’t quote me.”
Uh-oh.
Thereafter followed an awkward few seconds during which the interviewee struggled through scenarios involving “hostile Senates” and so on. At no point, or at least no point that I heard, did the interviewee simply say that it’s the dissolution of both houses of Parliament and the calling of an election for all members and senators. Judging from this interview, she didn’t know.
The interviewee’s name came up in a subsequent back-announce. It was Sophie Black, deputy editor of Crikey.
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Whose side is the US press on?
Andrew Bolt
The White House correspondents’ association dinner is traditionally where the media gets to mock the president. Check out Stephen Colbert’s mirthless kicking of George Bush, for instance. But under Barack Obama, it’s where the media gets to mock the president’s critics - and in the most vicious ways they can devise. Here’s Wanda Sykes:
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Rudd saves fewer jobs for more
Andrew Bolt
Was it worth it, even if you believe it?
TODAY’S federal budget will forecast a record deficit of $58 billion for next financial year while also claiming that the Government’s stimulus packages will save 200,000 people from losing their jobs.
With the two stimulus packages worth a combined $52 billion, the average cost of each job saved will be $260,000.
Note that the two “stimulus” packages alone account for almost the entire deficit next financial year.
UPDATE
Here’s reason to think these guys are just guessing about the jobs they “created” - and wildly:
Last November, Rudd said that $10.4 billion would “help to create up to 75,000 additional jobs over the coming year"…
Also in November, Rudd unveiled another rescue: “Today the governments of Australia . . . have agreed on a $15.1 billion package to create 133,000 jobs to stimulate the economy.”
In December came another $4.7 billion “nation-building program”, which Rudd claimed “will boost the level of GDP and help create up to 32,000 Australian jobs”.
And in February came Rudd’s $42 billion “stimulus” package:
Treasury estimates that today’s Nation Building and Jobs Plan will support up to 90,000 jobs in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
That’s a total of 330,000 jobs that Rudd claimed his various stimulus packages would create. Now he’s claiming he’ll save 200,000 jobs. What happened to the other 130,000 jobs we paid for?
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Paying mothers to leave their children
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government no sooner promises 18 weeks of paid maternity leave than the next ambit claims are lodged. Here’s Left-wing lawyer Liberty Sanger:
(Rudd’s) benefits pale in significance to some in Europe. In Sweden all working parents are entitled to 16 months’ paid leave for each child, the cost being shared between employer and state, while Bulgaria is even more generous, providing mothers with 45 days’ 100 per cent paid sick leave before the due date, two years’ paid leave, and one additional year of unpaid leave. The employer is obliged to restore the mother to the same position on return to work, and pregnant women and single mothers cannot be fired. Other countries, such as Lithuania, are even more generous.
But here’s what I don’t understand. Why is Rudd promising this weekly mother’s wage to the working wives of millionaries, but not to the stay-at-home wives of factory workers? Why are stay-at-home mothers, who tend to provide the best care for their children, denied the full help Rudd is giving to two-income families, who after 18 weeks plan to pop their baby into care?
This is not just unfair, but lousy social engineering.
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Breeding the jobless
Andrew Bolt
Michael Stutchbury warns that Australia still has proportionally more children growing up in jobless families than any other developed economy bar Hungary:
In the mid-1990s, a startling one in six Australian children lived in families where no one held a job.
By last year, this had been ground down to one in eight children, thanks to a strong economy, a less-regulated industrial relations system, lower taxes and a modest toughening of welfare rules that began under the Keating government during the previous recession… And now even the modest inroads into genuine disadvantage since the mid-’90s are threatened by the job shake-out, the reregulation of the labour market and pressure to ease welfare rules.
(A) Centre for Independent Studies paper by Jessica Brown ... found that the parents of these children, particularly single parents, had opted out of the labour market and hence out of the jobless numbers to instead be supported by welfare.
Concern that the welfare system discourages work has engaged a new consensus on the issue that includes Treasury secretary Ken Henry… His critique is strongly influenced by Indian economist and Nobel prizewinner Amartya Sen, who argues that the role of policy is to foster people’s “capabilities” to live meaningful lives… As Henry argues, the classical liberal focus on rights and the subsequent utilitarian concentration on income distribution can actually entrench, rather than alleviate, social disadvantage.
And Stutchbury notes:
While the idea that the welfare state makes work unrewarding is not new, unsophisticated voices were the first to scream it out.
Last week’s 20th anniversary Media Watch episode proudly reprised the ABC’s show’s censure of commercial television for pillorying the Paxton family kids for appearing comfortable with life on the dole in preference to getting out of bed, getting a haircut and getting a job in the mid-’90s. It again slammed the interview ambush of a youngish mother said to have had five children with five different fathers.
Yet, for all its sleaze and foot-in-the-door rudeness, the raw truths of tabloid journalism historically have reflected a mix of real-world common sense and politically incorrect prejudice of its working-class and aspirational audience.
In this case, its instincts have been right, however alien to left-progressive sensibilities. The welfare state has hurt, not helped, the poor.
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World Vision: blowing cash on a pagan cult
Andrew Bolt
I’ve been a donor to World Vision for more than a decade. I’ve helped to publicise its work and urged you to support it, praising above all its commitment to giving the poor the direct help they need.
That’s now over. When my current sponsorships end, I will not renew. I will not donate a dollar more than I’ve already promised. An organisation I once admired for pragmatism has now fallen for the giddiest ideology of all. Under Tim Costello, so ignorant and alarmist that he blames global warming even for tsunamis, donors’ money is now being wasted on a great sham. A once-Christian organisation is now switching its focus from saving people to saving Nature, as it follows a neo-pagan gospel.
The latest evidence? From World Vision’s jobs page:
Strategic Technical Advisor (Carbon and Poverty Reduction Facility - Asia Pacific)
This exciting and newly created role based in the Asia Pacific provides technical assistance in the design and implementation of carbon and poverty reduction projects and programmatic responses, helping position World Vision Australia as the pre-eminent development NGO in climate change.
And:
Campaigns Leader - Climate Change
We are seeking an experienced Campaign Leader for our Policy & Programs Group to work on effecting change within our region.
And:
Project Manager
This role has been created to provide multi-disciplinary support through business analysis, research, proposal development, project design and management, stakeholder engagement and communications, particularly around climate change related to Carbon and Poverty Reduction Projects.
Reader Daniel is furious:
World Vision through very expensive advertising campaigns educate and look after children in deprived circumstances in the third world. What are they doing joining the very crowded world of those preaching global warming?
That leaves me needing a new charity. I’m starting already to switch my support to Very Special Kids. Could anyone also recommend a charity that gives meaningful help to the poor overseas?
UPDATE
A number of readers say they’re cancelling their sponsorships immediately. That’s not something I’m doing. I’ve made implied promises to children that I intend to keep. The issue is what I do with my money once those sponsorships lapse. I hope no one makes children suffer for the ideological giddiness of Tim Costello.
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Scepticism is on the menu
Andrew Bolt
Times restaurant critic AA Gill reviews Fino, in London:
The great dichotomy of our times, given that everybody knows we all agree that climate, wet fish, bin bag, hot, cold, sperm count, salty, seal puppy, environmental yadda yadda is the globe’s greatest concern, and now that even Jeremy Clarkson separates his rubbish and force-feeds the caviar scraps to his organic chickens — oh yes he does — is how come, now everyone’s on side for planet-saving, nobody wants to vote for the saviours? Why is the green movement unable to make any appreciable dent in a western democracy? Nobody likes politicians, but apparently we like green politicians even less. We don’t like eco-spokesmen; we don’t want to vote for them, listen to them, have dinner with them, sleep with them or use them as domestic servants…
The truth is, environmentalists are just not attractive. They’re not winning, engaging, amusing or empathetic. They are ranty, repetitive, patronising, demanding, deaf, weirdly bonkers and smelly… But that’s not their real impediment. The real killer thing is the schadenfreude: the naked, transparent, hand-rubbing glee with which they pass on every shame, sadness and terror. No disaster is too appalling or imminent that the green movement can’t caper and keen with a messianic glee.
Take George Monbiot… Green campaigners are a larger part of the problem than jumbo jets and cow farts, and if your children drown or die of thirst or skin cancer, well, you can just blame George Monbiot for being so crawlingly unattractive.
Seems like scepticism is at last on the menu. As for Fino:
It’s a beige, lukewarm restaurant with missionary-position nibbles that don’t quite disgust, but don’t excite or satisfy, either… Go if you want. I don’t care.
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That’s $2600 for each of us, plus interest
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government now leaks the key figure of its Budget:
THE Government has deliberately leaked the budget deficit as part of its media management strategy, the Opposition has charged.
Channel Seven claimed tonight the deficit is projected to be $58 billion. This would be a turnaround of $80 billion on the $22 billion surplus for 2008-09 forecast in the budget last year.
The spinning of this Government has been extraordinary. I can’t remember so much of a Budget deliberately being leaked, and in this case to get all the bad news out of the way, treated piece-meal and kind of speculative, so that some shiny toy to be revealed tomorrow looks like the real and the new.
But, bottom line, the deficit to be confirmed tomorrow is huge, and $23 billion of it was squandered in the free cash handouts alone. Then there’s the $4.9 billion for pink batts… So much money gone in ways that leave us no better able to repay what’s coming. No spin can hide that.
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Plimer’s biter bit
Andrew Bolt
The denunciations by global warming believers of Professor Ian Plimer’s best-seller Heaven and Earth are growing increasingly shrill, but no better informed. The latest, by Michael Ashley, professor of astrophysics, in The Australian is typically abusive (sheer spite is a hallmark of the breed) - and its arguments get pulled apart by Australian Climate Madness. Please read.
For me, as a non-scientist, the most persuasive case for scepticism is the fact that scientists of the warming faith write articles as trashy as this to justify their belief.
UPDATE
Reader A., who wants to stay anonymous, adds:
I am a retired academic (PhD in Chemistry from the University of Adelaide ca 19xx). I am in the process of reading Plimer’s book…
I was greatly incensed when I read this review… The reviewer, despite all his vitriol, has in my opinion failed to respond to Plimer’s most fundamental question - where is the proof that an increase in the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide produce an increase in atmospheric temperature?
In this context, the reviewer’s states:
‘All of Plimer’s arguments have been addressed ad nauseam by patient climate scientists on websites or in the literature’
If this specific question ( Does an increase in the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide produce an increase in atmospheric temperature? ) has been properly answered in the literature the relevant references should be provided by the reviewer - they are not.
Elsewhere the reviewer attacks Plimer for not providing attribution for the reproduction of the ‘hockey stick’ graph - that graph appears on page 89 of the book. The reference to the original paper is provided as a footnote on the previous page.
Two other salient points of Plimer’s are also ignored by the reviewer. He fails to take up the criticism of the IPCC’s methods and performance and the way that governments and others have believed all of the IPCC output to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. In addition the reviewer completely misses the point regarding referees. He suggests that Plimer should have published this material in a refereed journal but misses the point made in the book that getting ‘unfashionable’ new ideas published often involves the difficulty of
coping with referees who are the authors of the prevailing ideas which are being challenged. Having material which challenges the idea of Global Warning published in a relevant refereed journal would be almost impossible - your points recently about the publishers who wouldn’t touch Plimer’s book illustrate the problem…
By the way, if you look at Michael Ashley’s publications, you will find that he is (I think) the first author of only one paper since 1997 - his publication list appears on a separate page.
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No way these stations could measure warming
Andrew Bolt
Meteorologist Anthony Watts has done what the professionals didn’t and checked the reliability of the US weather stations that reported global warming last century. His conclusions are devastating to global warming believers - not least because the US stations are reputedly among the most reliable in the world:
The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now, no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the measurement environment of those stations.
During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found.
We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.
In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source. In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.
It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher.
The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable.
Two points. Anthony tells me that Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has undertaken far more stringent quality control of its own stations. Second, satellite observations since 1979 do confirm a warming trend until around 1998, but a marked cooling since at least 2002.
But read Anthony’s full report here - an awesome testimony to the commitment to evidence and truth from volunteers that should shame the professional alarmists which relied on these stations for their warming scare.
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Museum of culture warfare
Andrew Bolt
The Australian Museum of Democracy at Old Parliament House was opened by Bob Hawke and includes information about all Australian prime ministers, with a quote from each.
The curators don’t seem to have gone out of their way to flatter John Howard with his, and somehow managed to pick one which gives conservative USA a kicking:
Kevin Rudd, however, gets the full fanfare:
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ABC welcomes 19th lot of “passengers”
Andrew Bolt
This makes 19 boats since Kevin Rudd softened our laws last September:
The Royal Australian Navy has intercepted a boat off the Northern Territory coast, approximately 23 nautical miles north of the Tiwi Islands. Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus says it appears to have 31 passengers and three crew on board.
“Passengers”? I think the ABC is covering someone’s backside.
And soon?
Officials and aid workers in Pakistan were today facing a fresh influx of people fleeing fighting between government forces and Taliban militants in the Swat valley… The government is preparing for up to 500,000 internal refugees, the largest displacement crisis in Pakistan’s history.
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Swine rules: Kill the Jewish pigs
Andrew Bolt
The old hatred grows even crazier:
A new fatwa published in Egypt determines that the source of all the existing pigs in the world is Jews, who were cursed by Allah. The new edict was issued by Sheikh Ali Osman from the Egyptian Waqf ministry.
Due to their Jewish roots, Sheikh Osman says, it is permissible to slaughter all the pigs [to allegedly counter swine flu]. The religious scholar was quoted as saying by a Jordanian newspaper that he personally believes the source of the pigs is Jews and thus the consumption of pork meat is banned in Islam.
He added that a person who consumes swine flesh is considered as one who consumed another “impure person.” Sheikh Osman said his fatwa is being supported by the heads of al Azhar, but they fear to publicly confirm it.
And it’s back in places you’d hope had vowed “never again”:
A hotel in Tyrol, Austria that said it does not accept Jewish guests has caused shock in the local media and tourism industry, the daily Tiroler Tageszeitung reported on Sunday.
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How Would Obama Be Covered If He Were a Republican?
By Patrick Dorinson
Every day we learn more and more about the personal life of President Obama. The mainstream media seems obsessed with giving us every little detail of his day. About the only thing they haven’t covered yet are his personal grooming habits. What kind of toothpaste does he use? Does he shave with an electric shaver or shaving cream and a disposable razor?
And before all you Obamaphiles get your blood pressure up too much and rush to your keyboards to defend the president, this is not about him. He is not the one making these “news” judgments. In fact, I’ll bet pretty soon, if he hasn’t already, he will long for the privacy his old life afforded.
No, this is about the mainstream media television producers and newspaper editors who seem to think we need to know all this stuff. They seem to want to continue the role they perfected in the campaign as press agents for President Obama, his administration and its policies.
Last week there were two events that demonstrated the overkill:
First, two weeks ago, on a Saturday night, he took his lovely wife Michelle to dinner at a fancy Georgetown Restaurant: Citronelle. They had a few martinis and the president had a “72-hour aged steak” and one French fry. They left a 20% tip.
When I woke up the next morning, there was a picture on news Web sites of him and Michelle walking around the grounds of the White House. The report I saw made a point of saying that they were “holding hands.” Is this something unique to married couples? Ronald and Nancy Reagan were the most loving couple you would ever see and I don’t remember seeing so many stories early in his administration about their close relationship.
We did, however, get stories about Nancy Reagan replacing the old White House china. And they did not portray her in a flattering light.
Then last Tuesday for their weekly lunch, the president and his comic relief sidekick Vice President Biden went to Ray’s Hell Burgers in Arlington, Virginia. Their visit was carried live on some cable channels. — They were also treating the press pool to lunch, some reporters took the president up on his offer of a free lunch others did not.
The visit to Ray’s sparked controversy right away because there were conflicting reports of exactly what the president had ordered. Did he have cheddar cheese on his burger? Others swear he ordered a mushroom burger. The issue has yet to be resolved.
All this over-the-top, goo-goo eyed “reporting” and I use the term advisedly, is getting ridiculous. But mercifully, the stories are only one day stories with a short shelf life.
But what would the media be saying if President Obama was a Republican?
Here’s how the MSM might cover them:
President Caught Drinking in Georgetown
President Obama secretly sneaked out of the White House with a woman presumably his wife but not confirmed and was later spotted knocking back two martinis in a darkened corner of the Citronelle restaurant. Some patrons who were there said he was also seen smoking a cigarette. The White House would not confirm or deny he went to dinner.
Addiction experts are concerned that the president, who admitted to past recreational drug use and is a closet smoker, might be falling back to old habits under the strain of the job.
Obama Eats Beef Twice in Four Days
A coalition of environmentalists, vegetarians, animal rights and anti-meat activists are outraged that President Obama has eaten beef twice in less than four days.
On Saturday night the President had a steak in a Washington-area restaurant and on Tuesday he had a hamburger at Ray’s Hell Burger in nearby Arlington. “We have spent years educating people about the dangers of meat consumption to both humans and cattle”, said Butterflys-are-Free Johnson, spokesperson for the group, “And in one week he has undone all this work. We are very angry.”
Environmentalists are also concerned about methane gas, which is a greenhouse gas that cows produce from their flatulence. In a written statement the Coalition for a Beef-Free America flatly stated, “The quicker we get people to stop eating beef the better it will be for the environment”.
Today on “Today”
On NBC’s TODAY show, medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, said she thought the president was setting a horrible example for America’s children. “Childhood obesity is a huge problem in our country today. By his actions, President Obama is telling America’s children, ‘do as I say not as I do’. This will set back our efforts to get children to eat healthy for decades”.
Democrats Demand White House Menus
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she has written a letter to the White House demanding that it turn over all menus and transcripts of meals that President Obama has had since he took office. She is particularly interested in what the president has for breakfast and if he is eating eggs from free range chickens or factory farmed chickens. “Who will speak for the chickens?” she said, “Sadly they have no voice and we want them to know Democrats stand with them’’.
The more the mainstream media fawningly and breathlessly covers these trivial matters like the whole water dog business and what the president had for dinner, the more they expose their cheerleading bias. The celebrity gossip approach of their coverage of this president is not good for the country especially during these perilous times.
So put away your pom poms MSM. Get serious and start doing your job—just like you would if President Obama was a Republican.
===
President Obama, Winston Churchill and Torture
By Bill O'Reilly
President Obama has made his position clear to the world. The United States will no longer use enhanced interrogation methods when questioning high-value captured terrorists. In fact, only Army Field Manual rules will apply, and they are essentially no rough stuff at all, in any form.
In his press conference last week, the president justified his new interrogation orders by pointing to Winston Churchill:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Churchill said we don't torture. When the entire British — all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat, and then the reason was that Churchill understood you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what's best in the people. It corrodes the character of a country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Well, "The Factor" was on the air just a few minutes after the president spoke, and I said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: Just one problem with that answer, Mr. President, with all due respect here. I'm not trying to nitpick. The British government uses very, very rough techniques on captured terrorists. Ask the IRA. And the SAS is an extremely feared force all over the world. Now, I don't want to Monday morning quarterback, but maybe Britain was not the best example there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Since then, "The Factor" has been investigating Winston Churchill's position on waging war and interrogating the enemy. Aided by Boston University History Professor Cathal Nolan, we have found out the following:
• Churchill wanted to use poison gas on the Germans in violation of the Geneva Convention but was stopped by the British War Cabinet.
• The Royal Air Force killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of civilians by targeting non-military sites.
• And the British operated a number of interrogation centers during and after World War II, including one called the London Cage, where German prisoners were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with death.
Another center in Bad Nenndorf, on German soil, was almost like a concentration camp. British government documents detail terrible torture inflicted on Germans.
The point is that in every war brutal things are done. Some are flat out wrong. Some are necessary to win.
President Obama was wrong about Winston Churchill. Mr. Churchill was a true hero. His strong leadership helped save his country from Hitler, but he did brutal things, as FDR did, as Harry Truman did. So enough with the platitudes, Mr. President. Let's understand what we are dealing with here.
Right now, the Taliban are murdering civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda continues its worldwide terror jihad, with America as the No. 1 target. It is not against American values to protect ourselves, and the president should have the power to order tough interrogation techniques, including the non-lethal waterboarding, if lives are at risk. But the president alone should make that call. That would not corrode our values. It is a rational policy that understands the brutal nature of the war we are waging.
By the way, Winston Churchill would approve.
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