DAHANEH, Afghanistan — Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines backed by Harrier jets stormed into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan before dawn Wednesday and exchanged heavy fire with insurgents, killing at least seven.
Team reaches plane crash site
RECOVERING the bodies of nine Australians killed near Kokoda will be difficult, authorities say.
11 Comancheros to be charged with murder
11 Comancheros are expected to face murder charges over the brutal airport brawl which killed 29-year-old Hells Angel Anthony Zervas
Man charged with mutilating Sydney woman
The man charged with the murder of a woman whose remains have been found in the NSW southern highlands has been formally refused bail.
Federal politicians rorting millions
FEDERAL politicians are rorting millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded entitlements.
Inglis will be back despite 'hysteria'
Melbourne Storm boss Brian Waldron insists Greg Inglis still has a future in rugby league, but can't guarantee when the NRL superstar will return. - He'll be back .. when women can play ARL. - ed.
Fears for Ausssies on PNG plane
A charter plane with nine Australians heading to the Kokoda Track is missing having failed to reach its destination in Papua New Guinea.
Top 100 Irish Australians named
A LIST of the top 100 Irish Australians is heavy in prime ministers, state premiers, sports stars, artists and the odd bushranger.
John F. Kennedy's sister dies aged 88
EUNICE Kennedy Shriver was the founder of the Special Olympics and member of one of the greatest US family dynasties.
Raped girl 'killed over family honour'
A MAN has been charged with murder after his raped teenage niece was allegedly shot dead to "cleanse" her family's honour.
Motorists in fear of road rage
MOTORISTS fear road rage attacks more than ever despite admitting they give "the finger" - believing it's justified.
Former Nazi officer jailed for life
A GERMAN court has jailed a 90-year-old ex-army commander for life for ordering a massacre of civilians in an Italian village in 1944 in one of Germany's last major Nazi war crimes trials.
Captain blamed for Sydney disaster
A mistake by the captain of HMAS Sydney is being identified as a major cause for its sinking and the loss of all 645 sailors on board. - the Sydney was greatly exposed by political decisions made by the then ALP govt. These decisions have been ignored in coming to the report's conclusions. -ed.
CCTV shows suits swipe $80m in gems
Police have revealed how two smartly dressed men strolled into a high end British jewellery store and managed to escape with almost $80 million in gems.
Daughter urged to bash disabled teen
A MOTHER who posted footage of her daughter's 30 minute attack on MySpace has pleaded guilty.
Copycat fears block student suicide story
"REAL risk" of more students committing suicide at Geelong school if 60 Minutes story aired.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Can you figure this out?
Every night on ON THE RECORD at 10 pm I complain that the Healthcare Reform Bill 3200 is incomprehensible. If the lawmakers (and even Congressman Conyers has admitted it is incomprehensible) can't understand what they are voting on (and yes, that is a problem), how can anyone expect it to be implemented correctly? Who is the world [...]
===
Pelosi slams protesters as "un-American"!
But will scare tactics shut down the debates or just fire up concerned citizens?
===
Another $700 Billion?
Unemployment's down but some Dems want a second stimulus! Why all the spending? Neil breaks it down!
===
Remembering An Angel
Farrah Fawcett's best friend Alana Stewart speaks out in a primetime exclusive. Don't miss it!
===
Guest: Paul Rodriguez
He has the shocking details of the government project that eliminated 30,000 jobs!
=== Comments ===
INDONESIA’S TOP SCHOOLS
Tim Blair
Samples from the fellow’s few unperforated areas prove him to be other than Indonesia’s most wanted:
Fingerprint analysis has confirmed that a man killed by Indonesian police at the weekend was not fugitive terror suspect Noordin Mohammed Top.
Rather than Top, Indonesia’s Densus 88 took down a unique local phenomenon – a terrorist florist. Top will be stopped another day. But from where do Top and his junior Topettes (such as 18-year-old mass murderer Dani Dwi Permana) emerge in the first place? The Jakarta Post asks some experts:
Terrorism’s roots, they say, lie within the country’s Islamic boarding schools.
And how many of these terror-breeding fundo-pods might there be?
Indonesia has as many as 45,000 Islamic boarding schools …
The scale of the problem becomes clear. It’s broad-based rather than Top-down, you could say.
===
BILL ON THE HILL
Tim Blair
Freelance playground inspector and photographer of naked children Bill Henson plans a return next month to public life. Given last year’s controversy, however, could he perhaps have chosen a venue other than Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain?
===
THE RESTIVE YEARS
Tim Blair
Islamic Sydney journalist Kuranda Seyit reviews Irfan Yusuf’s book about Irfan Yusuf (scroll down to page 16):
Yusuf himself admits that he has always been a moderate and yet he flirts with the idea of becoming a mujahideen. In some ways every young Muslim has that pass though his mind, I know I did and many others do because they see Muslims being killed everyday on their TV screens. However, I found it as unconvincing as the photo of Yusuf on the front cover.
So every young Muslim considers life in the blast lane? Interesting. Still, good call on that cover design.
===
IT’S MUCH LIKE POST-RACIAL ZIMBABWE
Tim Blair
Jim Treacher nails the mood in post-racial America: “Another code phrase for the n-word: ‘I disagree with you.’ Whoa, why don’t you just burn a cross on my lawn, cracker?”
UPDATE. Dr Alice in comments: “Treacher is rocking the house. I have come to think Twitter was invented specifically for him.”
===
WERRIBEE WARMED
Tim Blair
CSIRO researcher Kathleen McInnes warns of a hometown meltdown:
She said parts of Melbourne and low-lying areas along the Victorian coast – including land on which the Werribee sewage treatment plant is situated – would be vulnerable to the consequences of global warming and a rise in sea levels.
===
LEGACY MEDIA
Tim Blair
Clinton-era Environmental Protection Agency boss Carol M. Browner, writing seven years ago in the New York Times:
For more than 20 years, the ‘’polluter pays’’ principle has been a cornerstone of environmental policy. Not only has the principle made possible the cleanup of hundreds of the worst toxic waste dumps across the country, it also caused private industry to better manage its pollution and waste.
Well, some private industry, perhaps. Yesterday’s news from Boston:
As the number of bidders for the Boston Globe reportedly grows, questions have surfaced about the value of the paper’s property.
The Globe’s headquarters has been assessed at $47 million and its Billerica printing plant is assessed at $17 million.
But documents filed at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds indicate that the land at the Globe’s 135 Morrissey Boulevard headquarters is contaminated.
As a result, any future owner of the site who plans to use the property for something other than producing a newspaper may be saddled with hefty cleanup costs.
The Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times Co.
===
CARBON TO THE RESCUE
Tim Blair
Reader Vince describes a greenist encounter:
In a recent online chat session someone asked me why I keep saying carbon dioxide is not a pollutant or a poison.
One of the replies I got was “If it’s not a poison, then explain how the BLOB was killed by it”.
Good point. We must maintain the highest possible carbon levels in order to guard against deadly space goo:
IMPORTANT SCIENCE UPDATE. Reader PeterF57 claims that it was cold, rather than carbon, what done in the Blob. Given recent reverse-warming trends, this means we’re all safe – especially cold-causing Al Gore, although witness statements ("it was huge and shapeless and ate everything!") might lead to him being hauled in following any Blob-related killings.
===
Be rational, ladies
Andrew Bolt
As I’ve said before, women tend to be more superstitious:
A survey conducted for the Australia Institute found women are doing more to tackle climate change, and plan to do more in the future, than men.
===
Shock finding: Australians side with the Diggers
Andrew Bolt
The Red Cross is shocked by survey findings which reveal that Australians are on the side of Australia when we’re at war:
Helen Durham, the Red Cross’ international law advisor said Australians seemed to “cut and paste the laws to suit the situation”.
“People seem to be saying that it’s okay to do bad stuff to others,” Dr Durham said. “...Australians seem to have strong case for ‘us versus them’ when it comes to the laws of war.”
What brought on this gasp of horror?
More than a third of people surveyed said it was acceptable to torture a captured enemy soldier of war to obtain military information and 26 per cent said it was okay to attack civilians who had given food and shelter to enemies.
I’m not sure that these opinions, given the realities of war, are really so surprising, even if I may disagree with them in many circumstances. It reflects an awareness that in war it’s often a question of kill-or-be-killed, with mercy reserved for when we can afford it:
However, 60 per cent said they would save the life of an enemy who killed a person near to them in a battle and the same number said captured soldiers never deserved to die.
So gallantry is not dead.
UPDATE
When you read the question actually asked for the Red Cross survey, you won’t be at all surprised so many people said “yes” to “torture”:
Do you think that torture of captured enemy soldiers or fighters should, or should not be allowed, in certain cases to obtain important military information?
“Torture” is undefined. “Certain cases” suggests many restrictions. “To obtain important military information” suggests circumstances such as the saving of Australian soldiers’ lives.
Given that, I’m surprised the Red Cross is surprised by the results. And critical of them.
===
The pain is just the start
Andrew Bolt
Very slowly, global warming alarmist Ross Gittins is working out that Kevin Rudd will have to ramp up prices a lot, lot more than he’s admitted to cut emissions by what he’s promised:
Trouble is, studies show the demand for electricity isn’t particularly responsive to changes in price. As the Australia Institute tells us in a soon-to-be-published report, a 10 per cent increase in the price of electricity is expected to reduce household demand for it by only 3.5 per cent. This implies that prices may need to rise a long way to bring about the desired reduction in electricity use.
And all this to make cuts that won’t actually change world temperatures by a flicker. One day, probably too late, Gittins will finally see the madness in paying so much for nothing.
UPDATE
Apologies for the Rudd-like punctuation and typos in version one of this. Someone was at the door, and I pressed send before checking.
UPDATE 2
Global warming believer Paul Kelly also seems on a very, very slow journey to a nasty collision between his grand paper plans and reality. Wait until the day that some of the shining-eyed paragraphs in the body of Kelly’s column today finally catches up with the last.
Kelly’s dream:
It is true that Australia by 2030 will be responsible for only 1.1 per cent of global emissions. Action by Australia alone makes no difference to the global problem, no difference to the Great Barrier Reef, no difference to saving the world… But this is no argument for inaction. It is, rather, an argument for a global response. Remember that climate change action will cost Australia big time. It will bleed the budget when Rudd is pledged to getting it back to surplus. How can this cost be minimised? The answer is easy: it lies in a global agreement.
Kelly’s looming reality:
Herein is the beauty and tragedy of this issue: a genuine, as distinct from confected, global agreement seems remote.
(Puzzled: explain the word “beauty” in the above paragraph.)
What Kelly is actually saying is that Rudd really is going to savage the economy for no gain whatsoever. So shouldn’t Kelly be actually damning him from his foolishness, rather than cheering him on?
Isn’t this actually proof that Kelly has it precisely the wrong way around, when he claims it’s the opponents of Rudd’s mad plans, not global warming alarmists such as Penny Wong and Peter Garrett, who are “ideological’’, putting “ideological dogmatism” and “ideological purity” above realism - and above the national interest?
UPDATE 3
So who on Lateline was there for balance?
Greg Combet, the Minister assisting the Minister for Climate Change, and Greg Hunt, the Opposition’s environment spokesman join Lateline to discuss the emissions trading scheme.
Three against zero is no debate at all. I mean, try to guess - without peeking - which of the three made the following statements:
What we’re proposing is an emissions trading scheme…
...we have an absolutely clear 20 per cent renewable energy target…
... we want real renewable energy legislation. We want a 20 per cent target. We want to pass this legislation…
Let’s...create renewable energy jobs - solar, geothermal, wave and tidal - and let’s give the solar sector a future.
...give the CPRS a chance at passing ...
===
Dear Thief…
Andrew Bolt
The United Nations congratulates Ahmadinejad for stealing an election:
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has congratulated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his disputed re-election in June that sparked weeks of massive protest, his office said today.
Magnificent, how the UN fights for the human rights of even a murderous, thieving fascist. Or especially of.
===
Charm won’t win the Liberals media pals
Andrew Bolt
Gerard Henderson has excellent advice for people who sure need it:
Most journalists prefer Labor or the Greens to the Liberals. It makes sense (for the Liberals) to craft a media strategy out of this reality, and to get out its message over the heads of the journalists. This is not an easy task, nor is it impossible…
You get the impression some senior Liberals want the media to love them… Turnbull and his colleagues should accept that large sections of the media will never love them and adopt a strategy that takes this into account.
For an example of a journalist who must simply be treated as unremittingly hostile to the Liberals, take Kerry O’Brien. For an example of how a leader should shove it right back at a smartarse, observe Bob Hawke:
UPDATE
Extraordinary. O’Brien not only treats Turnbull as the enemy (and not for the first time), but abuses him for not meekly taking it during Monday’s interview:
But word has it that O’Brien was none too impressed, with Turnbull giving as good as he was getting. After the interview wound up, it is understood that O’Brien let Turnbull know exactly what he thought about his performance, saying he didn’t like his attitude. Turnbull, renowned for not taking a backward step, gave it back and then exited the ABC studios clearly fuming.
UPDATE 2
Kerry O’Brien last night gave Climate Change Minister Penny Wong a hard time, too, several times interrupting her ... before, er, letting her go on to answer her question. And then there were tough questions like this, in case you thought O’Brien was biased:
If that’s the case, how do you justify playing politics with one of the most important policy issues that we’ve seen in our lifetime?
“Why aren’t you trying even harder to save the planet?” is not actually the line of questioning to reassure those who think O’Brien is a taxpayer-funded warrior of the Left.
===
Could be anyone
Andrew Bolt
More of those “youths” who could be Presbyterians, Scouts or even the Faith That Dare Not Be Named:
Youths have rioted for a second night in a Paris suburb, protesting about the death of a teenager who had been chased by police.
===
Truth in advertising
Andrew Bolt
Posters of German chancellor Angela Merkel, alongside fellow Christian Democratic Union colleague Vera Lengsfeld, have been put up ahead of next month’s election:
Below is the slogan: ‘We have more to offer.’
===
You’ll pay for this panic
Andrew Bolt
WE’VE seen mass hysteria before, but we weren’t then mad enough to make it government policy.
Four years ago, Melbourne airport was closed when staff caught a bad case of panic from each other, imagining that they, too, had got a whiff of some toxic gas that no investigator could find and no passing passenger could smell.
Forty-seven people were whisked to hospital to be treated for vague illnesses no doctor could detect, in a farce psychologists later blamed in part on our new paranoia over pollution.
But that’s nothing when compared with today’s galloping paranoia over invisible gases, which threatens to shut not just one airport, but entire industries and power stations.
This is the mass hysteria over global warming - a hysteria caught by millions of Australians who can no more explain why they’re sure the world is heating to hell than they can explain why it’s now cooling instead.
All this would be frightening enough—another sign of our retreat from reason—but what makes it worse is that this hysteria is not being fought by governments, but hyped, in the grossest dereliction of duty I’ve seen from our politicians in my lifetime.
Tomorrow marks what may turn out to be the peak of this madness, when the Rudd Government—for purely political motives—will demand the Senate pass its colossal scheme to slash carbon dioxide emissions by making us pay more for things that need coal-fired power or other gassy energy to make or move it.
What a giant con. Even the title of this multi-billion-dollar plan, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, is a lie.
===
Jones supports the other war
Andrew Bolt
Lateline’s Tony Jones apparently supports the war against Saddam Hussein, but not the war that worked:
The 41st president blundered by not invading Iraq in 1991, argues ABC Lateline presenter Tony Jones in an interview with Dr Richard Haas on Tuesday night:
IT seems to me, though, that you’re a little soft on the first President Bush. And I guess the argument made against him is that he ended the war much too soon and left the Iraqi people at the mercy of someone who he himself had described as a merciless dictator.
And the 43rd president blundered by invading Iraq in 2003, Jones says in the same interview:
ONE of the striking things is how quickly they struck upon Iraq as the way to get revenge for 9/11, even blaming Saddam Hussein, or trying to, for the attacks, which clearly was not the case, nor was it based on any real intelligence.
Leading Richard Haas to respond:
YOUR reading of history is a bit selective.
That’s not all that’s selective.
===
Better left unsaid
Andrew Bolt
FOR years we’ve done something right about suicides, and it shows.
We haven’t made heroes of those who kill themselves, and newspapers avoid giving the dead even publicity.
We no longer stigmatise the suicidal, having more pity, but if we do err it’s in this - by sometimes forgiving too much those who left behind partners and children devastated not just by their loss, but by an unearned guilt.
How cruel those dead can be.
And here’s another way we risk erring - by giving in, as Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes now threatens to do, to the desire to give the dead more publicity than is safe for the living.
Thank heavens Jeff Kennett’s beyondblue depression initiative has asked the Supreme Court to stop it, arguing that 60 Minutes risks encouraging what it wants to prevent.
===
Don’t give Kyle any ideas
Andrew Bolt
Brazilian police say the host of a TV crime show is under investigation for possibly ordering killings to boost his show’s popularity.
===
A great
Andrew Bolt
Had a thrill at a charity lunch I was at with the 3AW team last Friday, being introduced to Judith Durham. A lovely woman with one of the loveliest voices. I told her how clearly I still remember as a boy in Darwin hearing that voice drift through the louvres from the ABC radio in the house next door,
===
Details, details and other hidden costs
Andrew Bolt
Why does it take a question from an Opposition MP to elicit information so basic and pertinent to the consumers who are about to be walloped by Kevin Rudd’s useless scheme to cut emissions?
Answering a question from Nationals’ Leader Warren Truss in Parliament today, the Prime Minister admitted that the price of milk and other food products would go up, but he clearly did not know by how much.
Isn’t Rudd just demanding an interview of this disastrous kind?
===
Secretary in state
Andrew Bolt
Hillary Clinton in full charm mode in Africa, winning friends for America. Seems she went off half-cocked after being asked by a Congolese student about the views of “Mr Clinton”:
“Wait, you want to know what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state - I am,” Clinton said angrily...The young man who posed the question approached Clinton later and said he was trying to ask about “President Obama” and not Bill Clinton, according to ABC News, but the damage was done.
Hmm. Was it the rigors of an 11-day African trip that got to her? Or was it that damn husband of hers, crashing her African jaunt:
But former President Clinton bigfooted her off the front pages last week with his surprise trip to North Korea to bring back two jailed female U.S. journalists. It started to look like there was a foreign policy Team of Rivals, both named Clinton, in the Obama administration, and the one called Hillary is getting ticked off.
===
FOX News Explodes While Liberal Media Burns
By Bill O'Reilly
Last Thursday was a huge victory for FOX News. "The Factor" at 8:00 p.m. beat CNN by 380 percent, MSNBC by 247 percent and Headline News by 299 percent. Total "Factor" audience for 8 and 11 was 5.4 million folks, more viewers than the "CBS Evening News" averaged last month.
Beck, Smith, Greta, and "The Factor" all won their time slots easily. In fact, last Thursday, those programs beat all four competitors combined.
So why is this happening? Well, a major reason is the health care debate. While the other network news broadcasts downplay the dissent and promote the government takeover of the health care industry, FOX News highlights the intense debate. When we cover the town hall meetings, we don't describe the protesters as loons. We don't denigrate people who disagree with President Obama. That's the big difference between FOX News and all the others.
Now, some liberals will say we intentionally glorify the protesters. That doesn't happen here. We've said there's no doubt some of the dissent is organized by people who dislike President Obama. That's a fact, and we've reported it.
"The Factor" also gives voice to both sides, something you will never get on NBC News. So, fair-minded Americans know our reporting is honest, while much of the other TV news media is simply in the tank for the president.
Now you'd think that liberal Americans would flock to hear their side propped up, but that's clearly not happening. For libs, conservatives and independents alike, there's really no choice. They have to watch us if they want to know what's going on. And they are in record numbers.
"Talking Points" is not gloating, just reporting. But the massive viewership to FOX News is a watershed moment in media history. There is no question anymore that FOX News is now the most powerful voice in the news media, despite unrelenting attacks from almost all other press organizations.
The American people are not stupid. They know the health care deal is extremely important. They know the country is running up debt that could destroy the U.S. dollar. They know the president has not been able to explain why the health care plan is good for the country.
Most of the other media ignore those things. We do not. FOX News is designed to be provocative, truthful and look out for the regular folks. That's why our ratings are so dominant.
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