Headlines Saturday 15th August 2009

Rudd eyes rich homes for tax grab

THE Rudd Government may slap a wealth tax on the country's most expensive family homes.

Drug raid hits Hawkins fashion shoot ship
A NAVY ship that hosted a fashion shoot with Jennifer Hawkins is caught up in a drug scandal.

ail after sex toy rape 'lesson'
MAN jailed after pouring beer on his ex-girlfriend and raping her with a sex toy to "teach her to keep her doors locked".

Tyson 'in denial' over daughter's death
HEARTBROKEN heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson says he's become part of "an exclusive club no one wants to join".

Award-winning art, but is it Aboriginal?
THERE'S not a dot or watercolour in sight in this year's $40,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award winner.

More women claim stripped for jail cells
MORE women have claimed they have been stripped naked by male police officers and put in padded cells.

Manson follower Fromme out of jail
THE Charles Manson fan who tried to kill US president Gerald Ford in 1975, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, is free.

Missing cargo ship Arctic Sea spotted
A RUSSIAN-CREWED cargo ship that vanished two weeks ago has been spotted off the Cape Verde islands, after indications emerged that the vessel had been attacked twice.

Cancer drug kills tumour-creating cells
A CANCER drug that destroys the deadly cells which give birth to tumours has been developed by scientists. It has already worked against breast cancer and offers hope to those with cancer of the prostate, skin or bowel. The drug selectively kills cancer stem cells which help tumours grow and spread the disease through the body.

Seven women shot dead in sauna
SEVEN women have been shot dead in a sauna in the republic of Dagestan, in Russia's north Caucasus region. Growing lawlessness and Islamist violence in Dagestan, Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia are undermining the Kremlin's control of its southern flank. The attacks are the latest in a sharp upswing in violence against civilians across the region, where a local minister was shot dead in his office earlier this week.

Beer-drinking Phelps cited over crash
Police have cited US swim star Michael Phelps for driving with an expired driving licence and say the Beijing Olympic hero admitted drinking a beer about 75 minutes before a car crash yesterday.

Arrests after rival bikies fly to Sydney
Police arrested two alleged bikie gang members on outstanding interstate warrants after rivals from three outlaw gangs flew into Sydney Airport on Friday.

Euthanasia may become reality: Nitschke
Euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke says legalising euthanasia could be one step closer in Australia after a paralysed man was awarded the right to choose to starve himself.

US woman walks around mall while on fire
Officials in Miami say a woman set herself on fire and then walked around a mall while her body......
=== Journalists Corner ===
Farrah's Best Friend!
Alana Stewart on what got them through the tough times.
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Health Care Emergency!
As Democrats try to revive public support, is it too little, too late? Mike Huckabee reveals what has Dems concerned!
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The Pulse of the People
What do Americans really want? Shocking answers at our own town hall!
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A Small Business Special!
They're the backbone of the American economy, but all that could change! Are small businesses being threatened by the government?
=== Comments ===
DEATH PANEL DEAD
Tim Blair
The WSJ’s James Taranto:
The first we heard about Sarah Palin’s “death panels” comment was in a conversation last Friday with an acquaintance who was appalled by it. Our interlocutor is not a Democratic partisan but a high-minded centrist who deplores extremist rhetoric whatever the source. We don’t even know if he has a position on ObamaCare. From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far.

A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate.
Not bad. Imagine what Palin might do if she were armed with more than just Facebook.

UPDATE. Democrats continue to cave.

UPDATE II. Now they’re getting trembly on cap and trade.

UPDATE III. Another authentic moment from the President’s unscripted town hall meetings.

UPDATE IV. ”Palin wins ‘death panel’ battle … people listened and acted, from the U.S. Senate to President Barack Obama.”
===
CARBON ROD
Tim Blair
It’s sad what’s happened to Rod Quantock. He used to be funny. Then – around the time Jeff Kennett was elected – everything turned apocalyptic.
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POWER LUNCH
Tim Blair
MissRed meets Paco:
a real gentleman as well as a dapper fellow, who really does wear a fedora. the conversation was fun and we went to a great restaurant that actually served me a rare (i saw it move) hamburger.
I have got to get back to DC.
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WAS HE WEARING JOKER MAKEUP?
Tim Blair
Post-racial America:
An African-American man has pleaded guilty after being accused of impersonating a white supremacist in a fictitious Facebook account to make death threats against an African-American university student.
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DEFEAT THE HEAT
Tim Blair
Outdoor heaters. You know outdoor heaters, right? Gas-fired deals to keep people warm when they’re outdoors in the global cold? Like beer fridges before them, these helpful devices now wear the mark of shame:
Sustainable Living Tasmania executive officer Margaret Steadman said yesterday the proliferation of the heaters was concerning.

She said the heaters were extremely energy inefficient and needlessly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
If they’re inefficient, design a better one. Surely solar power can heat, say, a little area outside a restaurant. Luckily, governments aren’t standing idly by:
This year the European Parliament has moved to ban outdoor heaters, including smaller patio heaters for personal use, as part of a move towards reducing carbon emissions.
And locally:
In Australia, the Federal Government commissioned a report in April to investigate how much energy outdoor heaters consume and whether action is required. The report is expected to be completed in November.
In just seven months? What’s the rush? More from Margaret Steadman, Tasmania’s first lady of sustainability:
Ms Steadman said people needed to emerge from the mindset that their personal comfort was more important than the health of the world.
Now we’re talking. Considering how old is the earth, and how expensive it is to keep the ancient orb healthy, maybe it’s time to arrange a death guidance conversation.
“You can’t heat the outdoors,” Ms Steadman said.
So recent temperature records demonstrate.
Ms Steadman said Sustainable Living Tasmania was helping to organise the screening of a movie on the topic, called The Age of Stupid.
But of course.
===
STANDING UP, STANDING DOWN
Tim Blair
Following earlier reports of terror indoctrination within Indonesia’s 45,000 Islamic boarding schools, some schools are fighting back:
Thousands of students and leaders from around 500 Islamic boarding schools gathered at the State House in Cirebon on Wednesday night to declare their war on terror.

Nahdlatul Ulama figure Maman Imanulhaq Faqih said the move was aimed at fighting any attempt to misuse the schools as a ground to groom terrorists and countering radical teachings of hard-line Muslim groups.

“Religious teachings have been exploited to justify use of violence, including bombing, and there are a few boarding schools that accommodate such wrongdoings. Our movement is part of efforts to eradicate terrorism.”
Good. And good to see the recognition of fundamentalist menace in these places:
Sunan Gunung Jati State Islamic Institute scholar Nuruzzaman said … a few hard-line boarding schools were located in Majalengka and Indramayu.

“They are a minority, but we need to closely watch them,” he said.
Via Fidens. Meanwhile, in the UK:
Labour slammed the brakes on its war against violent extremism yesterday - amid fears it had upset Muslim voters.

Millions spent preventing Asian kids becoming terrorists will now be used to tackle right-wing racists in WHITE areas.
They need some Indonesian steel.
===
IT’S NOT A DEATH PANEL. IT’S A DEATH GUIDANCE CONVERSATION
Tim Blair
According to the New York Times:
The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.
From nowhere, you say? But as Mickey Kaus, the WSJ and many others have noted, Obama gave an interview three months ago – to the New York Times, as it happens – in which he appeared to suggest a kind of “panel” that might decide “which patients were worthy of living”:
THE PRESIDENT: I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

NYT: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.
Health care conversations are now continuing elsewhere. They include use of the thrilling new term ”evil-mongers”.

UPDATE. Associated Press:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin refused to retreat from her debunked claim that a proposed health care overhaul would create “death panels,” as the growing furor over end-of-life consultations forced a key group of senators to abandon the idea in their bill.
“Disputed”, maybe, but debunked?

UPDATE II. Jake Tapper, earlier:
I don’t know if you think it’s unfair to say, but it occurs to me that if the president finds himself at a town hall meeting telling the American people that he does not want to set up a panel to kill their grandparents that perhaps, at some point, the president has lost control of the message.
As KP says in comments:
You gotta love Palin: Private citizen takes on President (And cronies!)

On Facebook.

And wins.
===
Wasn’t Palin the dumb one?
Andrew Bolt
Tim Blair awards the fight to Sarah Palin. Her attack on those “death panels”, at first decried by the usual media suspects, have caused Barack Obama to backpedal, while complaining about the ”ruckus” in town hall meetings now going feral, and not least thanks to the strong-arm tactics of Obama’s beefy supporters.
===
If only Fraser had judged Pol Pot this harshly
Andrew Bolt
The next time former prime minister Malcolm Fraser prates about the lack of morality in our politics, like this…
The test of any civilised society is the respect that society shows for the wellbeing of individual citizens.... The moral argument against torture is overwhelming. The fact that today’s bans and prohibitions are too much honoured in the breach is not an argument to legalise any aspect or purpose of torture. It is an argument to apply the ban more fiercely, to let the outrage of ordinary people condemn those that practise it or preach it.

... let us remember when his own concern for “the wellbeing of individual citizens” was not enough to make him voice his own “outrage” as Prime Minister against “those that practise (torture)” against even Australians:

FORMER foreign minister Andrew Peacock’s resignation from the Fraser government in 1981 was triggered by the revelation that Australian sailors Ronald Dean and David Scott had been tortured to death by the Khmer Rouge.

Already angry he had been forced by Malcolm Fraser to recognise the Khmer Rouge regime, Mr Peacock’s anger boiled over on a flight to New Delhi when he showed the prime minister a report of an investigation he had commissioned after the fall of Pol Pot in 1979....

“I was so angry about that. Our primary duty was to our own bloody citizens and when these bastards treated them the way they did and we had the increasing evidence about the behaviour of Pol Pot—all I wanted to do was withdraw the recognition that had been granted to them as the deepest form of protest,” Mr Peacock said in Sydney yesterday…

Hawke government minister Lionel Bowen accused Mr Fraser of kowtowing to Beijing, Pol Pot’s chief sponsor, in order to ensure harmonious relations between China and Australia.
===
Peter van Oscillate
Andrew Bolt
I do wonder why academic and commentator Peter van Onselen is billed as a conservative, when too often he seems to genuflect to the Left and kick to the Right. Now he’s demanding tribal loyalty from a free-thinking individual who demands the Liberals follow evidence, noit faith, in deciding policy:

Mad, bad or just plain sad, (Wilson) Tuckey won’t stop his attacks against his leader as long as Turnbull pushes for some version of an ETS. And the Liberal Party has neither the mechanisms nor the guts to remove Tuckey from the parliamentary Liberal line-up.

UPDATE

Did van Onselen ever write:

Mad, bad or just plain sad, Petro Georgiou won’t stop his attacks against his leader… And the Liberal Party has neither the mechanisms nor the guts to remove Georgiou from the parliamentary Liberal line-up.

Just asking. As someone who in 2005 criticised moves to dump Georgiou as punishment for criticising John Howard.
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But it’s Gervais, so I shall see
Andrew Bolt

We Ricky Gervais fans deserve this little taste. But, to be honest, from this glimpse of his next movie it does seem his old routine, superimposed on a Liar, Liar scenario. Still, I’ll be there.
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Only believers need apply
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government warns job applicants in an ad for staff in today’s Australian:

Think career, think climate change.

Or: think scepticism, go work somewhere else. Another case of religious discrimination for Rob Hulls to prosecute.
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He really believes it
Andrew Bolt

Take the word of this expert:

If we continue to fiddle at the emissions fringe optimists predict only two billion people will left by the end of the century, down from a peak of nine billion in 2050. That’s 7,000,000,000 people gone in 50 years!

If you don’t want to be one of them then it’s time to take climate sides! And if you don’t know what side to be on you owe it to yourself to see Bugger the polar bears, this is serious - arguably the most important show in what’s left of human history

How many polar bears had to die for Rod Quantock to once more preach doom? Or is his suit just made from processed barrels of planet-wrecking oil?

UPDATE

What Quantock doesn’t realise is that cutting the world’s population by billions isn’t the danger of global warming, but the green cure. Or put it this way, if he really thinks cutting our numbers by billions is terrible, he should be freaking not about global warming, but about the mad greens around him, such as Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson:

We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion.

Or he might freak about Dr John Reid, a guest on the ABC show of Robyn “100 metres” Williams:

Dr John Reid, a former Swinburne University academic, gave a lecture on ABC radio recommending we ”put something in the water, a virus that would be specific to the human reproductive system, and would make a substantial proportion of the population infertile”.
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Now to pay for all that spending
Andrew Bolt
The good news is that the recession is not a bad as so many people screamed. The US is still in deep trouble, but France and Germany are now out of recession, and China is surging on.

But now for the consequent bad news:

THE Reserve Bank believes the downturn will not be much worse than the 2001 dip and is eager to start raising interest rates from levels designed for an economic emergency back to more normal rates.

The bank has not yet decided when to start raising the official cash rate from its 40-year low of 3 per cent, but governor Glenn Stevens said yesterday that financial markets, which expect a rate rise by the end of the year, had good reason to expect Australia would be one of the first nations to move…

Mr Stevens declined to nominate a figure for “normal”, but said the long-term average over almost two decades of low inflation was between 5 per cent and 6per cent.

The tip is for a 2 per cent rise by next year. Strugglers lured by the first-home-owners grants to buy into the market are at risk, and we will now regret Kevin Rudd’s decision to spend so many billions on so little to “save” us - billions it will now cost much more to repay. No wonder he’s short of cash:

THE Rudd government is considering slapping a wealth tax on the country’s most expensive family homes.
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20 per cent crazy by 2020
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd makes a concession - to madness:

KEVIN RUDD has pulled his threat of an early election on climate change and will next week seek to appease green groups and investors by allowing legislation for the increased use of renewable energy through the Senate.

In an attempt to persuade the Liberals to pass its emissions trading scheme, the Government linked the supporting legislation to another bill which mandates that 20 per cent of electricity by 2020 be generated from renewable sources.

No one opposes this renewable energy target bill.

Unbelievable. No one in Parliament opposes setting an utterly unrealistic target for using an incredibly expensive form of energy.
===
NBC News Once Again Helps President Obama
By Bill O'Reilly
As everybody knows, NBC News, owned by the General Electric company, has been extremely favorable to Barack Obama ever since he launched his presidential campaign.

Now the president is in trouble. All the polls show Americans turning against his health care vision.

In fact, in Pennsylvania, a new Rasmussen poll says Sen. Arlen Specter, a supporter of ObamaCare, is now losing to his Republican challenger by 12 points. Just a few weeks ago Specter was up by 11 points. That is a stunning turn around.

So there's no question the health care chaos is hurting the Democratic Party and President Obama. To the rescue, NBC News, which is now using its power to attack the health care protestors:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: I think some of the people are upset because we have a black president.

ED SCHULTZ, MSNBC: It's an uprising. Angry old white folks are storming into town halls all across America, spewing lies about health care reform. Let me set the record straight early on. These folks, I think, they're dumber than Joe the Plumber.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Robert Gibbs may be right. We're all focusing on sort of the craziness that's taking place at these town halls, and some of these politicians that are playing to the bases that are showing up to town halls when you're not getting a representative sample of actual people in the middle who show up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now there is something very disturbing about a major corporation, GE, allowing its news division to brand regular Americans as racist and fascist because they oppose a public policy. In fact, I have never seen this happen before in my 35 years of journalism.

I mean, think about it. Folks are using their Constitutional rights to protest a health care policy they believe will harm them and the country, and a powerful corporation, GE, which just received more than a billion dollars in low-cost government loans — that's taxpayer money — demonizes the very people that provided them the cash. Is that unbelievable?

And the folks are noticing.

So far in August, the MSNBC network, the most radical left arm of NBC News, is down 24 percent in total audience, while FOX News is up 21 percent. At 8 p.m., "The Factor" is up 56 percent in the key 25 to 54 demo; MSNBC down 15 percent.

And it's not just NBC News going after the health care protestors. CBS News reported this last night:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those fighting the health care bill contend the outrage is not organized.

MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY: It's a million or so independent individual voices exercising their right to free speech.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yet Web sites such as Recess Rally, which is planning a nationwide health care bill protest, lists Freedom Works as part of its coalition. That's an organization headed by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey, whose lobbying firm works for the health care industry. Yet the other side is organizing, too. Attendees at this pro-reform event yesterday in Los Angeles were recruited by a local social service agency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seems like the Republicans have all these talking points that have been delivered through Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Totally absurd. I've never received a Republican talking point in my life. CBS should not have used a dishonest soundbite.

So the battle lines have been drawn, as the nation is deeply involved in the most intense political debate in years. President Obama has the power of his office and most of the media squarely behind him. The folks have… the folks. We'll see who prevails.