British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reportedly discussed details on conditions for the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi nearly six weeks ago.
ALP have Cops censoring violence to make us feel safe
POLICE are censoring images of violent crimes and playing down murders to make the public feel safe on the streets.
O'Farrell slams Rees over Aussie flag
Barry O'Farrell has shot down suggestions by NSW Premier Nathan Rees that the Australian flag should be 'freshened up'.
Tebbutt denies NSW leadership plot
NSW Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt has denied speculation she is plotting an all-female leadership spill with planning minister Kristina Keneally. - there is no evidence that the ALP provides leadership. - ed
Desperate ALP keen to smear Mr Turnbull as being one of them.
Senior Labor figures are claiming Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull investigated the possibility of joining the Labor party after the 1999 republic referendum defeat. - What does it say about the ALP when someone of the talent of Mr Turnbull is considered by them for parliament but turned away by their power brokers who also considered him, with the words "Go away and come back when you have thirty years of union experience." Clearly the ALP considered Mr Turnbull because he had taken the Republican view in debate. However, Mr Turnbull was clearly still a conservative. Apparently conservatives are not welcome in the ALP and anyone without union experience is not welcome. - ed.
Terrified bikie lied about shooting
An outlaw bikie was so scared of reprisals he lied to police that he had been shot elsewhere rather than by fellow members inside the Gold Coast Rebels clubhouse, a court has been told.
Amid the chaos, Rees is on holiday
PREMIER Nathan Rees has taken a snap holiday in the middle of the leadership crisis, leaving the running of the state to the woman tipped to take his job in a spill.
Schapelle Corby ‘insane’ in prison
A psychiatrist has diagnosed Schapelle Corby “clinically insane” after spending a week with the former beauty therapy student and drug cannabis smuggler.
Australia should go nuclear: Nationals
Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says Australia needs to seriously rethink its ban on nuclear power. - There is no sign of division with the Liberals on this. The conservative parties are united, despite the press assertions otherwise. - ed.
Mum 'poisoned children to hurt husband'
A woman may have wanted revenge for her husband's infidelity when she killed their two young children using rat poison, a Sydney court has been told.
Second man charged over Savage murder
A second man has been charged over the murder of Sydney teenager Peter Savage, 14 years ago....
Fat posties mean slow snail mail
A new draft policy, fat posties would be required to lose weight to speed up the delivery of mail.
Bushfire warning system trial in WA
800 households will take part in an emergency warning system to alert residents to bushfires...
Children mauled in separate dog attacks
A toddler and a five-year-old girl have been mauled in two separate attacks in Victoria....
Deal no sweetener for sugar workers
Bundaberg sugar workers will intensify strike action as they bunker down to protect leave......
Canberra bans fireworks
The tradition of buying fireworks in Canberra has come to an end after the ACT placed a ban on......
Taxpayers lose battle with net scammers
THE Australian Tax Office has reported a massive increase in cyber security attacks on taxpayers' personal details.
Sixty minutes pulls suicide segment
Depression awareness group beyondblue has won a court bid to stop the Nine Network screening a......
=== Comments ===
THE POWER OF JEFFS
Tim Blair
Pub owner Eric Notley took impressive action during Victoria’s deadly summer bushfires, commandeering a bulldozer to build protective firebreaks around his town:
“The place is saved,” he said.
“The dozer was sitting there, so it had to be used for something so it was used.
“So to me, [I did] something for the community and it should be right.”
But sustainability bureaucrats were not amused:
A Victorian man who borrowed a bulldozer to help create a firebreak during the bushfires could be charged over the incident.
Victoria’s Department of Sustainability and Environment owns the bulldozer … A DSE spokesman says the matter will be investigated.
Commenter and friend JeffS was one of many here who supported Eric’s excellent dozer initiative. Eric recently dropped by to provide JeffS and all of us with a very welcome update:
thanks jeff,
its been 6 months but the memorys are still fresh. there has been no reward but no fine i guess the dse heard your comments
thanks eric
They should give Eric the bulldozer. He clearly knows what to do with it.
===
MEERKAT FORCES
Tim Blair
David Thompson asks: “Do Latvians, Poles and Slovaks really pronounce ‘market’ as ‘meerkat’? Romanians too, and Ukrainians, and Russians? This is news, at least to me.”
===
NEWS BRIEFLETS
Tim Blair
• A helpful archivist rounds up cobwebbed Cindy Sheehan posts, lest she fade too quickly from prominence.
• Another reason to oppose wind turbines: they cause bats to explode. Which, depending on your opinion of bats, could also be a reason to support wind turbines. It might be the only interesting thing they do.
• This is why we have so many immigrants from New Zealand. They come here so they can beat their children.
• A politician is accused of misusing public money. Unusually, this politician seems to have no party affiliation at all.
• Jim Treacher rewrites a Beatles tune to suit the Obama era.
• Behold, the blobfish.
===
What kind of question was that?
Andrew Bolt
Did they nobble Australia’s Rachael Finch at Miss Universe pageant with a Carrie Prejean-type question?
Finch’s odds shortened dramatically in the days before the event, making her one of the favourites and she lived up to the hype, looking stunning in the swimsuit and evening gown rounds and earning a place in the final five. The Miss Universe title came down to the final question…
“Tonight you were judged on how you looked in a bathing suit,” Valeria Mazza, the judge selected to probe Finch with a question, asked.
“In some countries women aren’t allowed to wear a swimsuit. How does that make you feel?”
Er, which countries ban swim suits? And at that Finch must have started to sweat…
===
Safer not to speak at all
Andrew Bolt
Actually, I’d ban the word “advice”, since it offensively implies that the recipient is dumb enough to need it:
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has advised staff to replace the phrase “black day” with “miserable day”, according to documents released under freedom of information rules.
The National Gallery in London believes that the phrase “gentleman’s agreement” is potentially offensive to women and suggests that staff should replace it with “unwritten agreement” or “an agreement based on trust” instead. The term “right-hand man” is also considered taboo by the gallery, with “second in command” being deemed more suitable.
Advice issued by the South West Regional Development Agency states: “Terms such as ‘black sheep of the family’, ‘black looks’ and ‘black mark’ have no direct link to skin colour but potentially serve to reinforce a negative view of all things black. Equally, certain terms imply a negative image of ‘black’ by reinforcing the positive aspects of white.
UPDATE
Reader Alan RM Jones timidly hopes “white feather” will now be banned, too.
===
The missing organ was a brain
Andrew Bolt
When did blood-libels of the Jews need proof anyway?
A SWEDISH newspaper admitted overnight it did not have proof for an earlier story alleging Israeli soldiers had trafficked the organs of Palestinians, which sparked a diplomatic row with Israel. In an editorial headlined “The week the world went crazy’’, Aftonbladet chief editor Jan Helin wrote that the first article on the case published last Monday “lacked’’ proof of any organ theft.
Beyond disgraceful.
===
Why did those Labor heavies reject Turnbull?
Andrew Bolt
That makes five Labor people who publicly say Malcolm Turnbull approached them for help to become a Labor MP:
New South Wales Health Minister John Della Bosca, who served as Labor’s NSW general secretary in the 1990s, says Mr Turnbull was referred to him by another party figure.
“I do recall a conversation where he called me and approached me,’’ Mr Della Bosca told ABC Radio today. Asked about what Mr Turnbull’s approach was about, Mr Della Bosca said: “A seat’’.
David Burchell can’t quite see what the fuss is about.
(P)robably a good half of the cabinet and shadow cabinet might each have found themselves sitting on the opposite sides of the chamber if only their life stories had spun out a little differently.
But most work out much earlier what they actually stand for, of course. And they take greater care to join a party that stands for it, too. - disgracefully, Bolt still misses the point. Mr Turnbull did not approach the ALP to join, but was approached by the ALP. Mr Turnbull rejected the ALP, but in ascertaining the precise dimensions of the offer, got the ALP 'leaders' to admit they only employ union heavies. The sad fact is that the ALP at the time were considering restructuring and a figure like Mr Turnbull might have been a good opportunity for them. But the failure of the Hawke/Keating revue to profoundly effect change has lead to the current circumstance where a dead ALP has office but nothing in policy terms to offer. - ed.
===
Dangerously stupid, dishonest and naive
Andrew Bolt
In how many ways has Gordon Brown revealed he is not fit to govern?
Gordon Brown faced fresh questions tonight after it emerged that he discussed with Colonel Gaddafi detailed conditions for the Lockerbie bomber’s return nearly six weeks ago, while senior Labour figures warned of an economic backlash from angry Americans “costing our country dear”.
Downing Street released the text of a cordial letter sent to the Libyan leader on the day that Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was released, asking that the event be kept low key because a “high-profile” ceremony would distress his victims and their families.
But critically the letter also refers to a meeting between the two leaders six weeks earlier at the G8 summit in Italy, adding that “when we met [there] I stressed that, should the Scottish executive decide that Megrahi can return to Libya, this should be a purely private family occasion” rather than a public celebration.
Previously officials have said that the two men’s conversation in Italy at the beginning of July was brief and that, while the Lockerbie case was raised, Brown merely stressed the matter was one for the Scottish government to decide.
However, the new letter, addressed to “Dear Muammar” and signed off by wishing him a happy Ramadan, suggests that the decision was well enough advanced and Brown well enough briefed to set terms for a homecoming – albeit unsuccessfully. A jubilant Libyan crowd, some waving Scottish flags, greeted Megrahi at the airport. - in many ways Rudd resembles Brown. - ed.
===
But his wit and word-ways could not be destroyed
Andrew Bolt
“The quirky thing about depression is that when you are finally cleared of the clinic you wander in a drugged manner into the city where every single person you encounter is completely and utterly insane.”
Barry Dickins, artist, playwright and author, describes beautifully and honestly in Unparalleled Sorrow his terrifying plunge into depression and his inch-by-inch recovery, after nine shock treatments and six months in care. Now he’s not so much depressed as furious at what was done to cure him, and sad that his marriage is over.
He’s searching again for the joys in the now, and in the bits of the yesterdays that his treatment still lets him remember.
I was a neighbour of Barry’s and ran some of his columns as opinion editor at the Herald. I don’t recall him ever writing as beautifully as this.
===
At least he’s consistent
Andrew Bolt
Reader Vaetus examines the punditry record of academic Peter van Onselen, the “conservative” commentator:
Rudd cannot win seats in Queensland
(4 December 2006, Sydney Morning Herald)
“The conventional wisdom among Rudd’s backers is that he has a better chance of wresting back seats from the Coalition in Queensland. Labor holds only six of 28 House of Representatives seats in Queensland. The problem with this theory is that much of the Queensland Labor Party organisation doesn’t support Rudd ...
If Rudd can’t persuade large sections of his party in his home state to support him, what makes him think he will be able to persuade the wider Queensland community?
However, Labor’s most important state at the next election won’t be Queensland. It will be Western Australia, (Kim) Beazley’s home state. At the 2004 election, Mark Latham lost two seats there (Hasluck and Stirling) and almost lost two more (Swan and Cowan).”
In fact: Rudd achieved a swing of more than 8% in Queensland and picked up 15 additional seats. WA was the only State where Labor lost a seat to the Coalition.
Rudd weak against Howard
(4 December 2006, Sydney Morning Herald)
“Rudd’s track record in prosecuting the case against the Government over AWB indicates he may not have the political skills to defeat Howard at an election.”
In fact: Got that one badly wrong
McKew not likely to win Bennelong
(1 March 2007, Online Opinion)
“High-profile candidates cause a media storm and McKew has certainly done that. However, once the storm dies down and the numbers are crunched in Bennelong, she is unlikely to win the seat.”
In fact: Wrong again
Interest rates won’t rise in the campaign
(Errington & van Onselen, 17 January 2007, Online Opinion)
“The election-year economy is unlikely to provide any upset with a happy medium likely between sluggish growth and the rapid clip that would force another interest rate rise. The new Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, is unlikely to become the first occupant of his position to raise rates in the run-up to a federal election.”
In fact: Stevens raised interest rates during the campaign
Rudd can’t connect to “average” voters
(6 December 2006, Online Opinion)
“Rudd’s greatest weakness could be his style. His bookish looks reflect his significant intelligence, but he has to appeal to the average voter. His working-class background does not come across in his media performances.”
In fact: Rudd gained most votes among working class voters
Howard can turn around bad polls
(9 November 2007, Lateline)
“So assuming Newspoll is anywhere near accurate, there is a lot to be said for a good result for the Coalition next week in terms of believing they can do something in the last two weeks that mirrors 1993 in reverse.”
In fact:Wrong
Labor will scrape home in WA
(2 September 2008, Latelline)
“But the Labor Party are favourites and I suspect they’ll probably scrape home by less than a handful of seats.”
In fact: Labor lost
Labor will probably lose Queensland
(19 March 2009, The Australian)
“Internal Labor polling has the Liberal National Party on course for an upset victory in Saturday’s Queensland election. The Australian understands the track polling - the nightly results of small sample sizes spread across key electorates - has revealed swings of as much as 8 to 10 per cent in electorates held by 6 to 8 per cent.
...
Labor’s decision to go to the polls early followed a similar early election in Western Australia last year. Voters there greeted the early election with some cynicism and Alan Carpenter’s Labor government lost by the narrowest of margins. The internal Labor polling in Queensland indicates a similar result may be in the offing.”
In fact: Labor won comfortably
Turnbull will probably lose the Wentworth preselection
(Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen, 21 October 2003, Sydney Morning Herald)
“Now that the opportunity to sign up new members for the Wentworth Liberal Party preselection has come and gone, many are asking how the little-known Peter King appears to have outdone the high-profile Malcolm Turnbull in the Wentworth membership drive. As the sitting member, King has the enormous advantage of being able to trawl the Liberal Party’s electoral database, Feedback, for the details of voters in his seat likely to be sympathetic to him.”
In fact: Turnbull ousted King
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