MOURNERS at a memorial service for the five family members murdered in their home have heard a haunting message from the family's sole surviving member.
Rudd's initial intervention failure still hurting
HUNDREDS of thousands of investors remain unable to access about $25 billion of their savings, which are fully or partially frozen in funds that were locked down at the height of the global financial crisis last year.
Terror mastermind 'arrested'
THE man behind several deadly bombings in Jakarta may have been arrested in a shootout.
Holden's secret $200m taxpayer lifeline
TAXPAYERS have footed the bill for car maker Holden's secret Federal Government leg-up.
Around $25bn still locked in frozen funds
THOUSANDS of investors are unable to access savings frozen in the height of the financial crisis.
Aust woman waited for 'new daughter'
An Australian woman who has been implicated in the case of missing toddler Madeleine McCann was waiting for her 'new daughter' according to a witness.
Sam the Koala to be preserved like Phar Lap at Melbourne Museum
BUSHFIRE legend Sam the koala will be preserved and displayed in the Melbourne Museum as a symbol of February's devastating fires.
Wife's ashes stolen from grieving husband
MAN says he's had his late wife taken from him twice after her ashes were stolen from him.
Top soccer team scores $240,000 bar bill
SOCCER team spends up big on preseason binge, including $800 cocktails and $20,000 tip for staff.
Rabid Leftwing Media Campaign continues against Italian Chief
ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has insisted he doesn't have to apologise to anyone, not even his family, in his latest response to the scandals surrounding his association with young women.
Jarkata bomber shot dead say Indo police
Indonesian police sources say one of two men killed in a central Java shoot-out with police is......
MacKillop sainthood almost certain: Pell
Australia's highest ranking catholic Cardinal George Pell has urged the Pope to make Mary MacKillop the country's first saint.
Rebel car hoons taunt police online
HOON car club pledges to take to the streets in a show of defiance against police, urging drivers to perform dangerous stunts.
One truly awful night of evil
THE policewoman whose own father murdered her mother and two young children sobbed with grief as a packed court heard the horror that was her life. - I read some mealy mouthed excuses regarding the death of the victim's brother and the Dad's state of mind. However, even such as those offer no insight into the killings. Sometimes it seems as if there is very little distance between the normal and the deranged. - ed.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Summer of Evil:
The Manson Murders
A brutal killing spree orchestrated by a sick & twisted mastermind!
40 years later -- FOX News sheds new light on the case with exclusive interviews and untold accounts!
===
LIVE at the Freedom Concert!
As thousands rock out in support of our troops, Sean takes you behind-the-scenes! Plus, Oliver North & Carrie Prejean join us!
===
Sotomayor Sworn In!
As she takes her place as a Supreme Court justice, Chris Wallace takes you inside the historic event!
===
Healthcare Special
We take your questions & get you answers from the experts! Mike gets to the heart of the plan.
=== Comments ===
SEAWATER SUCKED
Tim Blair
Global warming is doing a pretty good job lately of solving itself, but scientists want to kick things up a notch:
Ships with giant funnels which travel the world’s seas creating more clouds to deflect the sun’s rays could help cut global warming, say scientists.
The “cloud ships” are favoured among a series of schemes aimed at altering the climate which have been weighed up by a leading think-tank.
The project, which is being worked on by rival US and UK scientists, would see 1,900 wind-powered ships ply the oceans sucking up seawater and spraying minuscule droplets of it out through tall funnels to create large white clouds.
And they’ll only cost $9 billion. Perhaps these funnel things will feature in next week’s Parliamentary climate frenzy.
===
TOP STORY
Tim Blair
Sweet news from Indonesia:
Noordin Mohammed Top, the terrorist responsible for a string of fatal bomb blasts in Indonesia over the last seven years is reported to have been arrested by Indonesian authorities …
Forty-year-old Top, one of the most wanted men in Asia, is believed to have been the mastermind behind a string of deadly bombings, including the 2002 Bali bombing, the 2003 JW Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta, the 2004 Jakarta Australian embassy bombing, the 2005 Bali bombings and more recently the bombings of the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels on July 17.
Enjoy your weekend, Toppy.
UPDATE. Reports of Top’s capture are yet to be confirmed.
UPDATE II. Hope grows that Top has indeed been captured.
UPDATE III. Top topped?
Police sources say one of two men killed in a central Java shoot-out with police is Indonesia’s most wanted terrorist, Noordin Mohammed Top.
UPDATE IV. In other religious conflict news:
Accused terrorist Wissam Mahmoud Fattal was one of a group of men investigated over a brutal assault on the son of Australia’s highest-ranked Islamic cleric.
The mufti’s son was attacked allegedly because his views were too moderate.
===
Your money being spent on we don’t know what
Andrew Bolt
I defy anyone to explain - without a Google search - what this “third sector” is and why we now need a “compact” with it. All that this ad from last week’s papers tells me is that the Rudd Government is spending more of our money on something it can’t even explain.
UPDATE
Second question: Which “sector” are we in, and when will the Rudd Government offer us a compact, too?
===
Not discriminatory enough
Andrew Bolt
Since it’s a Labor MP that says it, the media outrage will be limited:
THE fight against home-grown terrorists can be aided by slashing Australia’s annual migrant intake and a sharp reduction in the issuing of temporary work visas, according to Labor Party federal MP Kelvin Thomson.
Mr Thomson wants the number of migrants granted a visa to be reduced back to the levels of the mid-1990s to allow for more vetting of applicants to make sure that people with links to fundamentalist groups are identified and a thorough investigation of whether they pose a risk is undertaken.
Thomson may be said to be brave, but not brave enough. As even this latest alleged plot demonstrates, you may screen migrants all you like for fundamentalist tendencies, but how can you screen their toddlers or unborn children - the generation that tends to be more radical than the generation you brought in?
So Thomson’s “solution” is in fact too much like a search for a phantom, even presuming you could so thoroughly check the backgrounds of refugees from an area too dangerous and anarchic for any official to go comb through records:
Given time, it would be possible to get to the bottom of the background of applicants from Somalia and elsewhere to work out whether they have an association with fundamentalist groups and make a rational assessment of whether they pose a risk.
UPDATE
The Rudd Government says it will indeed take action, but isn’t sure against who, precisely:
The Federal Government is considering ways to counter radicalism among young people in Australia… (Attorney General Robert McClelland) told ABC Radio’s AM program the aim is to stop young people joining terrorist organisations.
But which young people does it have in mind? Baptists, perhaps? Farmers’ children? The Scouts? Somehow this ABC report never gets around to specifying which young people are particularly prone to becoming radicals or even terrorists.
I’d blame the ABC alone, but in his AM interview, McClelland gave only a single hint which group he might mean, letting slip the word “mosques”.
===
Three films short
Andrew Bolt
A list of the top 10 most historically inaccurate films sounds good - until you realise it doesn’t include Rabbit Proof Fence, An Inconvenient Truth or Australia.
===
Turnbull seen on Q and A
Andrew Bolt
An impressive performance from Malcolm Turnbull on Q&A this week - and less so from Julia Gillard, whose politicking received a poor response. See for yourself.
But perhaps the rising star of the show was the thoughtful Young Liberal Mitchell Grady.
(Another token Muslim of the non-fundamentalist - and pamphlet Leftist - kind is showcased yet again by Tony Jones. But why no token Buddhist in all the show’s many episodes? Answer: no need.)
===
No, Chief Commissioner, the problem is not us
Andrew Bolt
Chief Commissioner Simon Overland makes a worthy plea for tolerance after the arrest of four Somalis and one Lebanese Australia for allegedly plotting terrorism:
We must exercise restraint and understand that while these are very serious charges they are in no way reflective of the broader Somali or Islamic community. They are not terrorists. They do not support terrorism. They are peaceful communities, who have integrated well and deserve our respect and understanding.
“Integrated well” is a white lie, but forgiveable, given that Overland is the head of Victoria Police, not the Immigration Minister, and is rightly keen to ensure that young Muslim men are not treated with such hostility that they naturally arc up.
But Overland overreaches, playing into the hands of extremists by turning responsibility for Muslim extremism from Muslim communities to non-Muslim Australians:
Islam is not the problem. Social isolation and disengagement stemming, from among other things, racism and negative stereotyping, is the real problem.
If young Muslim men want to kill us, it’s our fault. We must ask: what evil have we done to provoke such anger?
You can see why apologists for Muslim fundamentalists may say this, but it’s dangerous for the Chief Commissioner to repeat it, and thus absolve Muslim communities of any responsibility for the radicals in their ranks - even in the pulpits of the mosques. Remember, we have more Buddhists than Muslims in this country, and Australia’s racism isn’t so bad that we’ve turned them into potential terrorists, too.
Indeed, Overland’s plea for sympathy and understand of Muslims in Australia (and, again, I think that’s a worthy thing in principle) actually reads as a warning against too much more Muslim immigration - at least until radical new Islamist theologies of hate have exhausted themselves:
Disengaged, vulnerable, marginalised people are more likely to develop the type of views that can lead to involvement in all forms of crime and antisocial behaviour, not just acts of terrorism. And vulnerable young people, who may feel a loss of their own identity or culture, are often targeted and cultivated by influential people. In a way, what we are seeing with terrorism is the extreme of this.
Bringing into Australia thousands of unskilled and unschooled people from very tribal and war-torn societies, and following a rejectionist faith, is indeed likely to create “disengaged, vulnerable, marginalised people” who “feel a loss of their own identity or culture”. And as Overland rightly warns, these are indeed people “more likely to develop the type of views that can lead to involvement in all forms of crime and antisocial behaviour” and even in “terrorism”.
Of course, one possible answer may be for us all to be much, much nicer and hope that will fix things. But I rather doubt that’s a strategy, however noble, that is connected to the real world. Yes, let’s try to be nicer, but in the meantime let’s also make sure that those we bring here are likely to be nicer, too.
===
No wonder some Muslims won’t speak out
Andrew Bolt
One of the men arrested in Melbourne this week over an alleged terrorist plot has been investigated before over the alleged terrorising of a cleric’s son:
ACCUSED terrorist Wissam Mahmoud Fattal was one of a group of men investigated over a brutal assault on the son of Australia’s highest-ranked Islamic cleric.
The mufti’s son was attacked allegedly because his views were too moderate. The street bashing, during Ramadan last year, was investigated by police but no charges were laid…
Mr Imam is the son of Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam, Australia’s Islamic mufti and the leader of the Preston mosque. Mr Imam, who is chief executive of the Islamic Council of Victoria, has declined to talk about the attack.
That silence, and Imam’s failure to identify his attacker, is a pity. Still, it’s surprising that the Islamic Council has long been keen to play down the problem of radicals in its community, when its own leaders are getting bashed.
(Note: There is no evidence that Fattal was behind the bashing, and he must also be presumed innocent of this week’s terrorism charges.)
UPDATE
Fattal in action. Inaction at the end, actually, but even so, I’m wondering how The Age’s Paul Millar can spot the following distinction:
Fattal won five professional light-heavyweight fights and lost one in Australia. The Lebanese migrant also won a gold medal for kickboxing at the 1998 Arab Championships held in Amman, Jordan.
But out of the ring the accused man has a reputation for volatility.
UPDATE 2
Andrew Rule notes a potential problem with the prosecution case:
It seems that the crew of labourers and taxi drivers (and one kickboxer) alleged to be wannabe terrorists had not obtained any weapons - let alone the murderous firepower of semi-automatic assault rifles and pistols used in Mumbai in November.
Not that such weapons aren’t worryingly easy to get, Rule adds.
===
China reaches for our throat
Andrew Bolt
As China grows stronger, expect our values to be even further challenged - and surrendered:
THE Chinese Government has threatened to end Melbourne’s 29-year sister-city relationship with the city of Tianjin if Lord Mayor Robert Doyle does not intervene to stop the screening of a film about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer at the Town Hall today.
Mr Doyle has rejected the Chinese demands - as well as intense pressure from his own councillors to stop the screening of the controversial film.
So which councillors argued we surrender to China our right to free speech?
===
Slowly, slowly winning
Andrew Bolt
A sad day for terrorists in Indonesia:
ASIA’S most wanted terrorist Noordin Mohammed Top has been arrested, according to reports.
Indonesian police have not confirmed the arrest, but they have reported an armed standoff with gunmen in a suspected hideout of Top, the alleged mastermind of terror attacks that resulted in about 100 Australian deaths. Shooting erupted after crack counter-terrorism police surrounded a house in rural Central Java as part of investigations into last month’s twin suicide bombings on hotels in the capital Jakarta, he said.
And in Pakistan:
Pakistan’s Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who led a violent campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the Pakistani government, has been killed in a US missile strike, a militant commander and aide to Mehsud said on Friday… Mehsud has al-Qaeda connections and has been suspected in the killing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
===
Stop rescuing us before we drown
Andrew Bolt
Michael Stutchbury hopes the Rudd Government will now stop spending so fast:
RESERVE Bank governor Glenn Stevens has sent a warning to Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan. The Australian economy will recover from the global crisis faster than any of us thought. The Reserve Bank will lead the world in reversing the over-sized interest rate cuts of late last year and early this year.
That means the Rudd government’s huge budget stimulus—one of the biggest in the world—also needs to be wound back more aggressively than planned.
Otherwise, monetary policy will have to bear more of the load and interest rates will have to be hiked higher than needed… And that means the likely election next year will be dominated by rising interest rates and budget pain, beginning at the latest with the May budget.
I doubt that the pain in the next Budget, if there is no early election, will be allowed to be so great as to endanger Kevin Rudd’s re-election, even if the Liberals were capable of exploiting it.
UPDATE
Here’s another Rudd rescue that we need rescuing from:
HUNDREDS of thousands of investors remain unable to access about $25billion of their savings, which are fully or partially frozen in funds that were locked down at the height of the global financial crisis last year…
The crisis prompted calls yesterday for the Rudd government to either put an end to its guarantee on bank deposits—which triggered the lockdown last year—or to intervene in the industry in order to create liquidity. More than 30 mortgage and property funds were frozen in October last year after the announcement of the federal government’s bank deposit guarantee prompted a stampede of investors seeking to withdraw their money and shift it to bank deposits which were protected.
===
Health Care Protests
By Bill O'Reilly
As you may know, there is a great debate going on over health care. It is very intense, and some Democratic politicians have been harshly treated in town hall meetings. You may have seen the video, but here's another look:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to open it up to the free markets. You need to get the government the hell out of our way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going to give free health care to all illegal aliens. They're going to give us classes on euthanasia. And I'm about 65 years old. I'm ready to start.
GROUP: Just say no. Just say no. Just say no. Just say no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you waiting…
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't have sophisticated language. I recognize a liar when I see one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're supposed to do what we want, not what you want!
GROUP: Read the bill! Read the bill!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the people in Congress and the Senate, are they going to be willing to be on the same plan they're asking us to be on?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now, the White House believes many of the protesters are organized right-wing zealots, and there is some evidence to back that up. For example, a Web site called Americans for Prosperity actually instructs people on how to disrupt the health care meetings. How much reach that Web site has is impossible to ascertain.
But here's the hypocrisy. During the Vietnam Era, protests against the war were almost always organized by the far left. There was an entire industry devoted to undermine that war. Millions of dollars were spent doing it, yet the press had little problem with the anti-war movement.
And just a few years ago, the Minutemen were shouted down at Columbia University. Speakers like Ann Coulter have been assaulted by left-wing kooks throwing pies at her. The radical-left Code Pink shows up all over the place in organized protest. The list goes on forever.
"Talking Points" does not justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior. I don't like insulting rhetoric at town hall meetings. People should be able to state their case without personal attacks, and I suggest all Americans bring some civility to the debate. However, organized protest is not un-American, and the left is now getting a big taste of its own medicine.
Again, it is impossible to know what emotions are spontaneous and what are contrived, but if you want to know the truth about heath care, polling tells the tale. Most Americans now believe President Obama's health care vision is not good for them, and all the spin in the world will not disprove that fact.
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