Australia's universal health care could end within five years
Australia's free health care system could come to end in just a few years, leaving sick people to pay massive medical bills.
Searchers find 5km path of wreckage, confirming Air France flight AF447 crashed
A five kilometre path of wreckage has been found in the Atlantic, confirming the missing Air France jet has crashed into the ocean carrying 228 people.
More sensitivity needed to deal with Indian student attacks: Crean
Australia needs to to do more to address the sensitivity surrounding a spate of violent attacks on Indian students living in Melbourne, acting Foreign Minister Simon Crean says. - it is really sad for all those ALP supporters to see how badly the ALP supports the strugglers. Crean once promised a symphony, but now we only get to hear sour notes. - ed.
Cocaine goes on sale in Australia
Shipments of Cocaine have begun arriving in Australia, and can be bought in stores throughout western Sydney. - thank you Rudd. - ed.
Rates: Cuts an option down the track
In an attempt to make clear that it still has a bias to ease interest rates further, if need be, the RBA has linked the possible cuts to a further decline in inflation in coming months.
Mel Gibson blasts gossiping churchgoers
Mel Gibson allegedly went on a “crazed rant” at his church in California, blasting fellow worshippers for gossiping about his private life.
=== Journalist Corner ===
VP Cheney on Gay Marriage
To set the record straight....at the National Press Club lunch (and as I recall) VP Cheney did NOT say he was in favor of gay marriage but rather opposed to a federal statute authorizing it. He went on to say at the lunch that he thought the question of gay marriage a matter for the states to decide. This is why I went one step further in our interview with the former VP that happened right after the lunch and asked his view on gay marriage (not on who should or should not pass laws about it). [...]
=== Comments ===
LIBRAWL
Tim Blair
Pushing and shoving among federal Liberals. The Daily Telegraph reports:
Witnesses say that if the conflict had become any more heated, an AFL match may have broken out.
===
POWERED BY BRITISH SUNSHINE
Tim Blair
Green comedian Marcus Brigstocke takes viewers on a tour of his English ecopad:
But what’s that, at the 2.49 mark – just after Marcus has finished bragging about his bicycle? Why, it’s a fat-arse mobile home parked directly outside the sacred Brigstocke ecohut. Seems the device is owned by Marcus, who defends it as “eco-friendly”. Well, it would be. According to this report, Brigstocke’s behemoth is “solar-powered”.
===
FAST TRACKED
Tim Blair
Barack Obama’s new motor munchkin was born in the same year that a Corvette first paced the Indy 500:
It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.
Like, fixin’ GM for Obama, you know? How hard can it be?
But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry.
Deese isn’t entirely without automotive experience:
“I slept in the parking lot of the G. M. plant in Lordstown, Ohio,” he recalled.
Further on the Deese lad, who is basically a standard campaign hack. Who now just happens to be in charge of restructuring a vast sector of US industry.
===
AN EMAIL ARRIVES
Tim Blair
David DeGraw:
We will be featuring/linking to your work on a daily basis. Our goal is to highlight and drive traffic to the best reporting available from a progressive view point.
You can check out our (revolutionary!) new system here.
We just launched it, so let me know if you have any ideas on how we can better collaborate.
Tim: I’m a conservative.
David: [silence]
===
SERIOUS QUESTIONS
Tim Blair
First New Scientist refers to “climate change doom-mongers”, and now the BBC hosts a site that questions the science:
The Global Humanitarian Forum, headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, released a 103-page report (’Anatomy of a Silent Crisis’) estimating that ‘every year climate change leaves over 300,000 people dead, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses of US $125 billion’ …
The report contains so many extrapolations derived from guesswork based on estimates inferred from unsuitable data sets that you have to ask some serious questions about the methodology.
That second paragraph could serve as a useful overall summary of global warming theory. So many extrapolations …
UPDATE. The BBC only changes at the margins. A recent BBC drama involved a Muslim being beheaded by a fundamentalist Christian.
===
Cool heads and hot claims
Andrew Bolt
Dr Willem de Lange, a senior lecturer in Waikatohe University’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explains why he’s a sceptic:
In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second Assessment Report was released, and I was listed as one of approximately 3000 “scientists” who agreed that there was a discernable human influence on climate.
I was an invited reviewer for a chapter dealing with the economic impact of sea level rise on small island nations… I was not asked if I supported the view expressed in my name, and my understanding at the time was that no evidence of a discernable human influence on global climate existed.
The chapter I reviewed dealt primarily with the economic consequences of an assumed sea level rise of 1 m causing extensive inundation… I disagreed with the initial assumptions, particularly the assumed sea level rise in the stated time period.
Further, there was good evidence at the time that sea level rise would not necessarily result in flooding of small island nations… Subsequent research has demonstrated that coral atolls and associated islands are likely to increase in elevation as sea level rises. Hence, the assumptions were invalid, and I was convinced that IPCC projections were unrealistic and exaggerated the problem…
What has sea level actually done so far this century? There have been large regional variations, but the global rate has slowed and is currently negative, consistent with measured ocean cooling. Claims to the contrary are exaggerations and not realistic…
Trying to stop or control climate change is akin to stopping ocean tides.... As the latest IPCC report notes, there is no convincing evidence of the impact of CO2 (or any other human influence on climate) at a continental scale…
So, I am a climate realist because the available evidence indicates that climate change is predominantly, if not entirely, natural. It occurs mostly in response to variations in solar heating of the oceans, and the consequences this has for the rest of the Earth’s climate system. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis runaway catastrophic climate change due to human activities.
Contrast that to the CSIRO’s most recent alarmism:
The number of extreme fire days in Victoria will skyrocket by up to 230 per cent in the next 40 years, prompting calls for a catastrophic level of alert, a climate change report warns.
The Victorian government’s green paper on climate change, launched on Wednesday, also warns of job losses and a hefty increase in the cost of living. The report predicts average temperatures to rise by more than three per cent on 1990 levels by 2070…
It also warned of infrastructure in coastal areas becoming inundated by rising sea levels and of a tourism downturn at the state’s ski resorts because of soaring temperatures.
Seems the CSIRO is sticking to its scares despite bumming out in scare-claims on vanishing snow and empty dams.
===
How many millions will world eco-cops fine us?
Andrew Bolt
This will cost, as I warned at the time:
AUSTRALIA is on track to breach the Kyoto protocol by emitting too much greenhouse pollution. Under the landmark international climate pact, Australia is allowed to increase its emissions by 8 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012....
The Government’s National Greenhouse Gas Accounts, released this week, show Australia emitted 553 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2008. That’s short of the Kyoto cap, which is 559 million tonnes, but emissions have been rising by 1.5 per cent a year…
(Climate Institute chief executive John) Connor said if Australia exceeded its Kyoto cap, it would have to start buying carbon permits from other countries, or pay a premium penalty.
===
China saves us - and Rudd
Andrew Bolt
Great news for the Rudd Government, if rather misleading for those still to lose their jobs:
AUSTRALIA has avoided a technical recession as the economy grew 0.4 per cent in the March quarter.
So does this vindicate Rudd’s spending of many billions of borrowed dollars on free cash handouts and unproduction infrastructure?
Many economists swapped their forecasts to say we’d avoid a technical recession - defined as two quarters in a row of negative economic growth - after yesterday’s current account figures showed exports are holding up better-than-expected.
To be specific:
Australia’s economic slowdown so far appears mild compared with other developed economies but any jubilation is set to be brief as Australia’s quarter of growth hinged almost entirely on a positive shift in the country’s trade accounts, offsetting a massive slump in business investment and profits, with a terms of trade plunge set to weigh heavily on the economy through 2009.
And:
China’s demand for iron ore and agricultural commodities gave Australia the world’s best export performance in the first three months of the year. Trade has made its biggest contribution to Australia’s growth since June 1961 and may lift the March-quarter GDP into positive territory.
Our fate remains most in the hands of China and the US. The money we waste remains the money we waste. But I doubt that argument will be easily won for the moment.
===
At last! ABC attacks warming alarmism, kinda
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s AM program at last discusses global warming alarmism:
NATHAN FABIAN: ... the messages that I read in the papers and that you read in the papers are definitely more alarmist…
PETER RYAN: But when it comes to what politicians are being told, would it be fair to say that there have been some alarmist comments?… Do you think that any outsider listening to comments made at a committee hearing or to politicians should take them with a grain of salt?
NATHAN FABIAN: ... I think it’s important to try and keep some of the comments in perspective which have been alarmist I would say.
PETER RYAN: Do you see all that as part of the spin and lobbying cycle?
NATHAN FABIAN: ...What I would say is that investors, we listen to these messages very hard, we expect clarity...
Sound promising? Then guess what they are in fact discussing:
1. The alarmism of global warming preachers who claim we’re heating the world to hell and civilisation could be wiped out.
2. The claims by companies that forcing them to pay more for power and their gassy reductions will cost jobs.
===
Brown down
Andrew Bolt
Gordon Brown’s government is in a shambles:
Gordon Brown is facing a major Cabinet crisis after the resignation of three of his senior ministers threw the Government into disarray on the eve of critical local and European elections.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, dealt the most serious blow to the Prime Minister’s authority. It emerged that she will step down from the Cabinet when Mr Brown reshuffles his team after what Labour fears will be its worst performance at the polls for a generation.
She had been under pressure for weeks over expenses claims made by her husband on her behalf, including for two pornographic films. However, the public disclosure of her departure before tomorrow’s elections threw Mr Brown’s reshuffle off course…
On a tumultuous and chaotic day at Downing Street, it was also announced that Beverley Hughes would move aside from her job as Children’s Minister and not stand at the next election and that Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office Minister and key ally of Mr Brown, would leave the Government.
With speculation intensifying that Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, will become the most high-profile victim of the reshuffle, and that David Miliband might also be replaced as Foreign Secretary, it raised the prospect that the three great offices of state could change hands.
As for Darling:
BRITISH treasurer Alistair Darling was under mounting pressure to quit last night after it was revealed he claimed parliamentary expenses for a flat that he let to tenants while claiming living allowances for his grace-and-favour home in Downing Street.
===
At 31, it all seems so easy
Andrew Bolt
So who does President Barack Obama call upon to rewrite the rules of capitalism and remake General Motors? Here’s that boy:
Despite having no formal business education, no business experience and no auto industry experience, 31-year-old Brian Deese is now in charge of dismantling General Motors.
UPDATE
Michael Moore, friend of the now unemployed working man, is overjoyed at capitalism’s fall:
As I sit here in GM’s birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town… So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company’s body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with—dare I say it—joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.
But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company!
So what does Moore want Obama to do with the car company they now own?
(T)he President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices… The things we call “cars” may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature…
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.... For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries)… Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy.
And before you know it, those 21,000 unemployed car workers could be 40,000! 100,000! Imagine Moore’s joy then.
===
Beware Kim Il Obama
Andrew Bolt
Deakin University’s Professor Mirko Bagaric, a part-time member of the Refugee Review Tribunal, sees little difference between a nuclear-armed North Korea and the US:
Henceforth every US criticism of the North Korea or Iranian nuclear programme should be met with the inquiry, “but what are you doing about your nuclear arsenal”? This is the best chance the world has to rein in the tyrant that is America.
In an exquisite touch, this line appears in the very same article:
But what is tragically dispiriting is the black hole that has engulfed the intellectual rigour and wiped the memories of Western politicians and social commentators when it comes to their judgment on international affairs.
===
Fixing bad by calling it good
Andrew Bolt
If you can’t beat them, excuse them. Barack Obama tries a new way to “solve” the looming menace of Iran’s nuclear program:
President Barack Obama reiterated that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it takes steps to prove its aspirations are peaceful.
You’ve got to hand it to Obama, he sure has a way with words.
===
Diplomats dispute Rudd’s claim for credit
Andrew Bolt
Five Australians have now spent nine months in Papua under arrest on in home detention after landing in a light plane at Merauke without all the permission they turn out to have needed.
This makes some people wonder why these five people get less attention from Kevin Rudd than, say, a woman who gets drunk, abusive and - it is claimed - lightfingered in Thailand:
Friends and family of the five have questioned why the Australian Government’s role in the recent release of a woman accused a stealing a bar mat, in Thailand, seemed far more effective than diplomatic efforts to help the Merauke Five.
But the Department of Foreign Affairs dismisses the link.
“Comparisons have been made in the media between this case and the recent case of Mrs Annice Smoel on Thailand,” the Department of Foreign Affairs stated.
“It is important to understand that the Government did not interfere in the Thai legal process in Mrs Smoel’s case. Rather, she and her Thai lawyer resolved the matter with the Thai police and the Thai court.”
Fair enough, I guess. But hang on! Is the Department calling Rudd a liar? Didn’t Rudd make out that the freeing of Smoel was in fact largely his own work?
Mr Rudd said the Department of Foreign Affairs did a lot of work behind the scenes to secure her release.
“Helping the family, helping the individual, and negotiating quietly with the Thai authorities to make sure that this can be dealt with,” Mr Rudd said.
“And they’ve done a very good job, and I congratulate them.
“And I would say to the family concerned, that we’re pleased that the little ones have that anxiety removed.”
===
Don’t believe us; we’re not racist
Andrew Bolt
IF we weren’t so scared of seeming racist, we wouldn’t now seem so, er, racist that even India is giving us lectures.
Amazing, that. India, which perfected the caste system and is plagued by Hindu-Muslim bloodfests, is telling us we’re too prejudiced?
But we have only our own stupidity and grovelling self-hatred to blame.
After all, which nation has spent so much apologetic cash and sweat to persuade the world we are vomiting with racism, and which has been, on the other hand, too militantly anti-racist to point out who is actually bashing many of these Indian students?
There’s no doubt that Indians here - not least the 90,000 students - have something to worry about, especially in Victoria. In this one state alone, and in just one year, an astonishing 1447 people of Indian origin were punched, kicked, raped or robbed.
That fact alone should worry us most in this affair that has now led to two angry demonstrations by Indians in Melbourne, hysterical coverage in the Indian press, official protests from the Indian Government and the burning in India of effigies of Kevin Rudd.
It’s the sheer level of violence, not the motives driving some thug to kick in a student’s teeth, that should shame and alarm us. After all, it’s no less terrifying to be kicked in the head by a saint.
===
Allison’s vile defamation
Andrew Bolt
LYN Allison led the Australian Democrats to oblivion at the last election.
Now she seems keen to lead the rest of us to defeat, by calling for our most senior soldier to have served in Iraq to be put on trial for war crimes.
On Monday, Allison co-authored, with former adviser Tim Wright, an article in The Age that no terrorist could have written better had he’d wanted recruits.
“We cannot seriously ignore the horrors committed by Coalition forces in Iraq,” she wrote, although The Age in preaching on Iraq mentions little else.
“Those who committed egregious crimes during the conflict must be brought to justice,” she went on. “The assault on Fallujah in late 2004 provides some of the most horrific examples of war crimes ...
“Some 30,000 to 50,000 civilians remained in Fallujah throughout the coalition’s three-week-long bombardment. They were denied food, water and electricity ...
“When scenes of devastation at the local hospital hit the world’s media, soldiers stormed the building and ordered patients to lie on the floor before tying their hands behind their backs. Major-General Jim Molan, a decorated Australian war hero, was in charge of the operation.”
I wonder if Allison could be sued for suggesting Molan is therefore a war criminal - “directly responsible for committing certain crimes” or being part of “a joint criminal enterprise ... of which war crimes were a foreseeable consequence”. But for the crucial context Allison so disgracefully ignores, start with Molan’s fine book Running the War in Iraq.
===
Curing conservatives with rape
Andrew Bolt
Conservative women in politics - even on the margins of politics - must often endure abuse so vile that you wonder what evil inspires their critics.
Sarah Palin, for instance, was widely demonised as a book-banning, trailer-trash moron whose baby was actually the son of her allegedly sluttish daughter. And an MTV awards host could publicly fantasise of sexually assaulting her.
Miss California Carrie Prejean was publicly ridiculed on national TV as a “bitch” with fake boobs - hurr-hurr-hurr - who should be stripped of her title because she dared to hold a position against gay marriage (that was actually word-for-word that of Barack Obama).
But liberal Playboy now tops them all by listing the 10 conservative women its writer would like to ... rape?
Yesterday, Playboy posted, and then removed, an “article” titled “So Right It’s Wrong - Ten Conservative Women We Hate To Love” by Guy Cimbalo. The premise was explicit. The author took ten conservative women and grotesquely elaborated on why he wanted to “hate f***” them. Yes. Hate.... Although Politico would have you think otherwise, the posting was a virtual rape fantasy. Even celebrity gossip blog Jezebel could identify the misogynist tone which somehow escaped the notice of pretty much the whole left side of the blogosphere, other than Tommy Christopher. When a writer at Playboy feels comfortable writing something this vile, something the left was happy to let stand, Politico pointed to as a lightly humorous romp, and AOL deemed so uncontroversial they yanked Tommy Christopher’s story, is that not a climate of hate?
===
Joel’s latest present may end his presence
Andrew Bolt
This could be interesting - even career ending if the gift was from you-know-Liu:
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has admitted he failed to declare $450 worth of hotel accommodation, the second such oversight in just over two months.
UPDATE
Close, but no exploding cigar:
THE Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, admitted to Parliament last night he had failed to declare a night in a hotel room worth $450, paid for by a health fund run by his brother.
===
Is the Obama Administration More Concerned About Radical Anti-Abortionists Than Radical Islamists?
FATHER JONATHAN MORRIS
This week we have witnessed two apparently similar drive-by killings by enraged activists. Suspect Scott Roeder has been charged with killing late-term abortion provider George Tiller as he served as an usher in his church. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad is charged with shooting and killing an army recruitment officer (and wounding another) as the victim stood outside his office. Both cowardly suspects fled the scene. Both men are now in police custody. Both were motivated by what they considered their religious convictions.
===
The Murder of Dr. George Tiller
By Bill O'Reilly
Anarchy and vigilantism will assure the collapse of any society. Once the rule of law breaks down a country is finished.
Thus, quick-thinking Americans should condemn the murder of late-term abortionist Tiller even though the man terminated thousands of pregnancies; what he did is within Kansas law.
The accused killer, 51-year-old Scott Roeder may have had ties to the Freemen organization, a far-right group which rejects government authority. Roeder is likely to be charged with first degree murder. He has a previous weapons charge conviction.
The 67-year-old Tiller had performed abortions for more than 35 years. The Washington Times estimates he destroyed about 60,000 fetuses — sixty thousand. According to the AP, Tiller performed more than 250 late term abortions in 2003 alone. His income was estimated to be more than $1 million a year.
Right now 36 states restrict late term abortions and there are only three clinics that perform them in the entire country. Medical consensus is that late term abortions are rarely necessary because technology can now pinpoint major pregnancy problems much earlier than 21 weeks. Thus, very few American doctors will perform the operation.
None of that seemed to matter to Tiller — nicknamed "The Baby Killer" by pro-life groups — who stated, "He was helping women."
Now, when I heard about Tiller's murder I knew pro-abortion zealots and FOX News haters would attempt to blame us for the crime and that is exactly what has happened. Writing in the New York Daily News, reporter Helen Kennedy was very, very sympathetic to Tiller and called my reporting on him rants. Now Kennedy has lied about us before so her spin comes as no surprise.
Arianna Huffington immediately let her fanatics loose. Mary Mapes, Dan Rather's former producer who was fired from CBS over a false story on President Bush, wrote on the Huffington Post: "I felt just sick when I saw the bulletin about the murder of Dr. George Tiller. I can already envision the backpedaling and rationalizing that we'll hear from longtime Tiller critic, Bill O'Reilly."
No backpedaling here, madam. Unlike you I report honesty. Every single thing we said about Tiller was true and my analysis was based on those facts. The far-left lunacy continued with Daily Kos editor, Marcos Moulitsas: "Who'll be the next target of O'Reilly's and Beck's ire to get gunned down by a domestic conservative terrorist?"
As the Catholic League pointed out Monday, the hateful Kos is bashing me right above an ad for an upcoming interview with Bill Ayers. Perfect.
Finally, far-left Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks wrote: "The murder accomplices included everyone who has ever called Tiller's late term abortion clinic a murder mill, whoever called Tiller 'Tiller the Killer.'"
Now it is clear that the far left is exploiting the death of the doctor. Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller. That and hating FOX News is the real agenda here.
Finally, if these people were so compassionate, so very compassionate, so concerned for the rights and welfare of others, maybe they might have written something — one thing — about the 60,000 fetuses who will never become American citizens. Or am I wrong?
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