Headlines Friday 14th August 2009

Missing backpacker's body found
The parents of a missing German backpacker have been told by police it is believed the body found on a West Australian beach is their son's

Hardmen too soft to save Rees
POWERFUL Labor insiders say Nathan Rees is "hopelessly exposed" because his two biggest supporters are struggling to retain their own influence.

Superannuation top-up plan mooted to rip off struggling workers
RETIREES with small superannuation nest eggs could receive a topped-up pension under a plan being examined by a panel considering changes to the tax system. - Under the plan, a retiree might give $100k to the government and get a $5k a year extra. Such people rarely live long enough to make it worthwhile. - ed.

Dad warned cops before kids were killed
The father whose three children were murdered in their home had warned police about the disturbing behaviour of his daughter's ex-boyfriend a month earlier.

Church bails sex grooming charged priest
The Catholic Church has provided $25,000 bail to have a priest charged with grooming a child for sex released from custody.

Worker ripped-off at $1.26 an hour
A ripped off worker who was paid just $1.26 an hour has won more tha $115,000 after suing his abusive boss.

Senate rejects emissions trading scheme
The Senate has voted down the government's emissions trading legislation sending it into parliamentary limbo for at least three months.

Baby died of eczma as Dad refused help
A homeopath's attitude to the illness of his second child showed he had "learnt his lesson" from the tragic death of his eczema-suffering first born, a judge has been told.

Man 'tried to hide dead wife in wall'
A Queensland man has been arrested after he was found trying to hide his wife's body in the wall of a house.

Burqini' meets with French resistance
The Australian creator of the 'burqini' says she is not suprised at a French woman wearing the full-length swimsuit being refused entry to a public pool, saying the French have a fear of the unknown.

Magda Szubanski in big demand at Ten for Biggest Loser

THE super slimmer Magda Szubanski looks set to achieve another big boost in what has already been a hugely successful year, with rumours she could be the new host of Biggest Loser.

Cheeky squirrel crashes holiday snap
Photobombing has reached new heights after a couple's holiday snap was crashed by a cheeky ground......

Justice for workers sacked over sandwich
Two Geelong council workers have been given their jobs back after being fired for accepting a steak......

Brit Millionaire MP caught whinging about pay
A millionaire politician has been forced into an embarrassing apology after being caught on video...... - apparently the press couldn't find anything else to complain about the conservative party - ed.
=== Journalists Corner ===
What do Americans really want in a plan? Shocking answers at our own town hall!
Frank Luntz takes the pulse of the people!
===
Guest: Tom Ridge
Pennsylvanians demand answers! So, why is Sen. Arlen Specter turning a deaf ear? Tom Ridge speaks out!
===
The Fate of the Plan
Is Obama's plan on life support? We have the prognosis!
===
Healthcare Under the Knife!
As the public tears the plan apart, what has Americans so alarmed? Shocking answers from Karl Rove!
=== Comments ===
GLOBAL KILMING
Tim Blair
It’s the greatest global warming movie never seen:
A former professor concocts a brutal experiment in order to get the word out on the effects of global warming. By trapping six people in an urban Turkish bathhouse, he vows to overheat his hostages unless his global-warming hypothesis is published on the front page of his local paper.
Starring Val Kilmer as the professor. Apparently The Chaos Experiment opened in just two cinemas before hitting the “use these as drink coasters” bins at DVD outlets. A small plot flaw, evident even before seeing the film: the deranged academic had to threaten people before his warming theories were published?

UPDATE. It is clearly a masterpiece:

We might have to arrange a screening.

UPDATE II. This Chaos debacle is the second recent film starring Kilmer as a bold global warming visionary. First came The Thaw:
Val Kilmer plays Dr. David Kruipen, a world-renowned expert in climate change. Dr. Kruipen and his students discover the thawing carcass of a woolly mammoth, but alas, their joy suddenly turns to fear. The thawing carcass releases a terrible parasite upon the research group, and begins picking off the team one by one.

It’s scheduled for DVD release in October.
===
LES PAUL
Tim Blair
Les Paul, maker of beautiful guitars, has died at 94.
===
BEYOND CHALLENGE OR QUESTION
Tim Blair
Walter Starck on the friendly folk who contacted Vancouver Sun writer Jonathan Manthorpe following publication of an item expressing some agreement with Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth (currently ranked #699 at Amazon, by the way):
Manthorpe reported that he had received around 100 e-mails about his Plimer piece. About two-thirds were from ordinary people who agreed with Plimer. Another healthy portion was from scientists who agreed with Plimer’s overall contention about natural variabilities in climate on which humans have little or no influence. However, they disputed various specific claims and details made by him.

Manthorpe also noted that, “… the disturbing letters were from the scientist believers in man-man global warming.”

He then went on to say, “I have met a lot of unpleasant people in the course of my life, but I have never seen such a torrent of nasty, arrogant and downright stupid abuse as has been aimed at me this week by people who aggressively sign themselves ‘PhD’ as though it were a mark of divine right that is beyond challenge or question.”
We need a new set of source words for that particular abbreviation.
===
FRISCO FLAME FIASCO
Tim Blair
A note from reader Don K.:
While visiting San Francisco with my family, the local news had a story about car fires. Knowing you’re a fan, I meant to send this sooner.

Most Obama voters should regard this as a good sign; we’re becoming more European all the time.
Yes, but progress is slow. Only 12 cars were torched over a whole week. That’s just one night’s work for fully-trained restive youth.
===
Astonishing. And then gone
Andrew Bolt

===
One division too far
Andrew Bolt
It really is time to insist on more tolerance of other people’s customs - and no, I don’t mean more tolerance from Fitzpatrick at all:

A Labour minister has reacted with fury after he and his wife were ordered into separate rooms at a Muslim wedding.

Jim Fitzpatrick stormed out of the London Muslim Centre after being told that strict Islamic rules meant his wife Sheila would have to move into another room.

The minister for food and farming, who was attending a constituent’s wedding at the centre, claimed the segregation of men and women at such events was affecting ‘social cohesion’.
===
Rudd’s hair
Andrew Bolt
Michael Smith‘s editorial on 4BC yesterday seemed to go down very well:

Here’s a way to understand Mr Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Imagine 1 kilometre of atmosphere that we want to rid of human carbon pollution. We’ll have a walk along it.

The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.

The next 210 metres are Oxygen.

That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. 20 metres to go.

The next 10 metres are water vapour. 10 metres left.

9 metres are argon. Just 1 more metre.

A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.

The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.

A bit over one foot.

97% of that is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural.

Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. About half an inch. Just over a centimetre.

That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.

And of those 12 millimetres Australia puts in .18 of a millimetre.

Less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a kilometre.
===
Poison Ivy then joined the Greens
Andrew Bolt

Who knew that Batman and Robin was actually a scathing social satire? If we were to reshoot this scene today, who would play Posion Ivy aka Pamela Isley? Penny Wong? Or ... Christine Milne?

PAMELA: I have here a proposal showing how Wayne Enterprises can immediately cease all actions that toxify our environment.

Bruce takes the proposal, scans it. Pam’s eyes shine despotic.

PAMELA: Forget the stars. Look here, at the Earth, our mother, our womb. She deserves our loyalty and protection. And yet you spoil her lands, poison her oceans, blacken her skies. You’re killing her.

BRUCE: Your intentions are noble, but no diesel fuel for heat. No coolants to preserve food. Millions would die of cold and hunger alone.

PAMELA: Acceptable losses in a battle to save the planet.

BRUCE: People come first, Dr. Isley.

Pam turns to the Press. Begins to soapbox.

PAMELA: Mammals. So smug in your towers of stone and glass. A day of reckoning is coming. The same plants and flowers that saw you crawl blind from the primordial soup will reclaim this planet. Earth will be a garden again. Somehow, some way, I will bring your man-made civilization to its knees and there will be no one to protect you.

Pam’s tirade is so extreme, folks around her LAUGH.

Not laughing now:

===
Symbol crashes
Andrew Bolt

Rasmussen says no, he can’t:

Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That’s the lowest level of total approval yet recorded.
===
On pimping Sandilands
Andrew Bolt
SURE, I could simply blame Kyle Sandilands for destroying our culture the way he himself was destroyed.

But no vandal like Sandilands can stay on air without an oh-so-cultured man such as Austereo chief Peter Harvie to pimp him.

And Harvie, unlike Sandilands, has not one excuse for the harm he’s doing - and will now keep doing, having yesterday announced his boy will be back on Melbourne’s Fox on Tuesday.

Harvie is an old Brighton Grammar boy with a kerchief peeking just-so from the breast-pocket of his expensive suits.

He’d claim to be cultured, too, being on the Art Exhibitions Australia board and now, thanks to Arts Minister Peter Garrett, on the council of the Australian National Maritime Museum.

He’d even swear he was concerned, truly, for the mental and moral well-being of our youth.

Isn’t he a director of the Mazda Foundation, handing out grants to “address community needs”, and not least the needs of “children from deprived backgrounds”? So you’d think him a serious and moral man.

But - let’s get to the point - Harvie is also executive chairman of Austereo, which owns Sydney’s 2DayFM and Fox FM, and that makes him the boss of Kyle Sandilands.
===
Green urgers play political football
Andrew Bolt
HOW did we let the AFL turn a day at the football into a session at a Labor re-education camp?

Turning the indigenous round into a tribute to the non-existent “stolen generation” was bad enough.

Here was the AFL not just worthily fighting racism, but now siding with Labor’s agenda, from a “sorry” to the whole divisive “reconciliation” agenda.

But this weekend’s “green round” is out of bounds on the full. Just how much more political can the Labor-leaning AFL Commission get?

This promotion of the great global warming scare is held in the very week the Rudd Government put its emissions trading scheme to a hostile Senate.

AFL boss Andrew Demetriou even got Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to launch the round from Parliament House, with Carlton hero Chris Judd.

That didn’t just thrill Rudd. It must also have pleased the AFL’s commissioners, none of whom has ties to the Liberals but several of whom are from the Labor or union movement.

Count them.
===
The O'Reilly Factor
Talking Points
NBC News once again rises up to help President Obama