THE NSW Opposition has vowed to force an early state election with a vote of no-confidence in the Labor Government.
New mother left to bleed to death
A woman who died after giving birth in a Sydney hospital was left unattended for two hours and given high doses of morphine, an inquest has heard. - meanwhile the Health Minister of the time was probably busy but available for interviews. - ed.
'Poor decisions' sink Della Bosca
John Della Bosca says "poor personal decisions" led him into an illicit affair which has crushed his hopes of becoming NSW Premier. - headlines can't seem to match the corruption for what it is -ed.
Lover's fury at Della Bosca
JOHN Della Bosca's lover says she was a fool to fall for him and speaks out about why she exposed the affair.
Teen charged over deadly robbery
A 16-year-old has been charged and will face court tomorrow over an armed robbery at Canley Heights in which his co-accused was shot dead by police.
Parents used daughter as sex toy
A husband and wife who used their daughter as a sex toy have lost their bid to appeal against their lengthy jail terms
How slanted is the media? Survey gets it wrong
Newspapers are left wing, television is right wing, and the media as a whole tends to favour the coalition. And surprisingly, according to researchers from the Australian National University, the ABC Television news is the most pro-coalition of them all. - The survey result is simply wrong. The instrument of measurement has been poorly applied. The ABC in Victoria have employees that delight to point out that they have a conservative working for them in WA. They know his name. Out of 50 000 employees, one is known to be conservative and their name is known even in the East Coast. Yet many left wing employees are part of the ABC and some are known, some aren't. There isn't a single name attached to the description 'conservative.' Similarly, journalist Duffy is occasionally described as conservative. He votes green. - ed.
Hopes $20 packs will stub out smoking
A major health report is calling for the price of cigarettes to be lifted to $20 a packet in a bid to make Australians healthier.
Stannies priest faces more sex charges
66-year-old former St Stanislaus school chaplain Brian Spillane will walk free despite the fact the court heard students were forced into group sex as part of numerous child sex allegations against Spillane and others.
School students 'hypnotised for sex'
STUDENTS at a prestigious Catholic boys school were hypnotised into having sex with teachers, a court has heard.
Toddler kicking man escapes jail again
An appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) against the suspended sentence given to a......
Phone video could explain Jai's death
Police appealing for anyone with video footage of the incident that led to Jai Morcom's death to come forward.
Karate kick killer jailed again
A 26-year-old convicted killer has been jailed a second time over a martial arts-style assault similar to one that killed his first victim seven years ago.
Miss Universe Australia needs a makeover
MODELLING insiders are organising a takeover of the Miss Universe Australia competition, campaigning for an end to dodgy venues and a wider approach to choosing contestants.
Man stayed in room as flatmates died
A student who has denied murdering his two flatmates was acutely embarrassed at not coming out of......
Five trapped after refusing to flee fire
Firefighters say it is too dangerous to rescue five people trapped by wildfires in Los Angeles......
RTA manager's driving scam
THE son of a top bureaucrat known as Premier Nathan Rees's right-hand woman has admitted his role in a driver's licence scam in court. Find out what he did.
Missing MP apologises to loved ones
Victorian government minister Tim Holding has thanked his rescuers after spending two nights lost in freezing conditions and snow on Mt Feathertop in the Victorian alps. - the fools belief in global warming almost killed him. - ed.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Hannity
Taking fire for blasting the CIA probe and she won't back down!
Liz Cheney sounds off on America's safety and why the investigation puts us all at risk!
===
The Art of Persuasion!
Is the administration pushing its political agenda by using influential artists to sell its plans?
===
The Dugard Case!
Could cops be sued for dropping the ball on the case? Bill investigates!
===
"Buycott?"
Whole Foods fans turn the traditional boycott on its head! What impact will it have on free speech?
===
What Do You Think?
Did Attorney General Eric Holder act independently in deciding to investigate the CIA's interrogation of detainees? Or with consultation and/or specific agreement with the President? Or with a "nod and a wink" from the President? I doubt we will ever know but that is the "behind the scenes"
===
LIVE From Jerusalem!
What will it take for the Middle East to come together? Bret Bair sits down for an EXCLUSIVE interview with Israeli President Shimon Peres!
===
Hannity and Tom Ridge Face Off
He's been critical of former President Bush over policy, terrorism & raising the alert level! Catch Tom Ridge's showdown with Sean!
===
"Tea Party Express"!
Outraged taxpayers hit the road... but is Uncle Sam even listening? Griff Jenkins is on the scene!
=== Comments ===
PM’s abuse apology ignores rape scandal
Piers Akerman
THE hypocrisy of the Rudd Government’s announcement that it would apologise to Australians robbed of their innocence in state and church institutions is beyond breathtaking.
Annie replied to DD Ball
However it exposes a failure of the press corp to faithfully execute their function.But are they failing or are they part of the rot?
DDB, when was the last time you heard a journalist (with the exception of Piers, Andrew Bolt and occasionally, Kerry O’Brien) asking Rudd difficult questions?
An interesting article in the Business Spectator today by Robert Gottliebsen where he writes about online newspapers, the decline of journalistic talent and the potential for Australian democracy to be permanently altered.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Fear-for-the-free-press-pd20090901-VFTR6?OpenDocument&src=kgb
Rudd is obsessed with media monitoring, costing Australia $6.25 million between two departments.
There seem to be few Australians who can see or admit to the damage Rudd is doing to Australia and while our journalists aren’t reporting it, how does the average Aussie know the truth behind the lies and spin? There is little of substance in the evening news, current affairs programs lean steadfastly to the left and newspapers carry headlines about football stars’ indiscretions with the economy buried at the back. Thank goodness for old school journalists (sorry Piers) who aren’t afraid to tell it like it is.
DD Ball replied
Annie, good points. I think that the press have been left biased since before the Battle of Trafalgar. I read a biography of Nelson in which I was amused to to find that he was a conservative but ran as a Whig so he might have an effective say in parliament. Also, Nelson spoke about conservation of trees to the parliament .. so as to maintain the English’s ability to field a navy ..
I don’t think O’Brien has ever asked Rudd a hard question. If he has, then I am sure it was asked in advance with prepared notes for Rudd to answer. Kerrie asks hard questions of conservatives, not ALP or Greens.
I accept that conservatism is a broad church, and I value Bolt’s contributions, but often don’t agree. I think he is still too close to the ALP, too protective of the ALP and too dismissive of good conservatives.
I never read the article, but I have an auntie who dislikes Piers because she felt he denigrated my uncle unfairly when he was President of the registered clubs of Australia.
---
However, I don’t feel that what we are seeing from the press corp in this matter is bias, but incompetence. The issues being covered, and being avoided is not about obfuscation but outright barracking.
===
ENVIRONMENTALISTS LOSING IT
Tim Blair
The World Wildlife Fund adopts PETA-style shock tactics.
UPDATE. In other wildlife developments:
Frozen koalas may be thrown at rally cars
UPDATE II. A statement from the World Wildlife Fund, which in fact rejected the proposed ad:
WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication. It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency seeking our business in Brazil. The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from websites where it is being currently featured. We strongly condemn the messages and the images portrayed in this ad. On behalf of WWF, here in the US and around the world, we can promise you this ad does not in any way reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people of our organization.
Good.
===
LOTSA BOSCA
Tim Blair
John Della Bosca’s 26-year-old-ex-lover (there’s a line nobody thought they’d be reading this century) tells her side of the story. And as for her former fella Della:
Mr Della Bosca confirmed he would serve out his term in the upper house, which runs to 2015.
By which time someone half his age will be nearly 30. Della Bosca’s young friend turns out to live in Newtown, by the way, and met him at an art gallery. Two bigger warning signs you could not imagine.
UPDATE. Simon Benson:
The Labor caucus is in shock. As one MP quipped, “The IQ of the Cabinet has just been halved.”
NSW is in real trouble now. Oh, wait …
UPDATE II. Former Premier Bob Carr defends Della.
UPDATE III. A Canadian politician hits trouble beyond Della-level:
As the high-profile attorney general for Ontario, Michael Bryant had championed severe and controversial traffic safety laws. On Tuesday, he was charged with criminal negligence causing death and with dangerous driving causing death in an unusually violent episode of road rage involving a bicyclist.
They can be irritating, but killing them might be taking things a little too far. Which seems to be this guy’s standard political method:
Among his targets were street-racing motorists. In 2007 he gave the police the power to seize and destroy cars modified for racing even if no charges were lodged against their owners.
After describing such cars as being as dangerous as explosives, he said, “We will crush your car, we will crush the parts.”
Crush for clunkers.
UPDATE. Nine News just ran footage of Belinda Neal’s electoral office ... which is next to a dry cleaner featuring the ad slogan, “Drop Your Pants Here”.
===
SUN DOWN
Tim Blair
Solar panels cost a fortune but deliver only a minimal reward. Yet people keep buying them – and they keep being disappointed:
Homeowners are fuming after spending tens of thousands of dollars on solar panels only to find their power bills have stayed the same or only marginally dropped …
One customer said he had estimated it would take 190 years to recoup the cost of the installation, when he was promised it would take 13 years in a worst-case scenario.
Energy Ombudsman Barry Adams said there had been a rise in complaints from people unhappy with their savings.
He said it appeared some companies had “over-exaggerated” the savings.
Over-exaggeration? In matters concerning the environment? Unheard of!
UPDATE. Detonating bulbs not good enough for you? Then try an eco-friendly exploding fridge.
===
CASH – TONS OF IT – FOR CLUNKERS
Tim Blair
Old cars that somehow escaped Obama’s vehicular homicide are now leading a financial revival:
Someone who bought a rare Bugatti, Jaguar or Ferrari in top condition would have done better during the downturn than an investor in almost any other asset, industry observers say, including stocks, fine art or even gold …
While turnover at top classic car auctions has fallen since before the financial crisis, auction houses are still reporting brisk business, and setting records.
Among them:
The 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe driven to victory by Bob Bondurant in Reims sold in Monterey for a record $7.25m, the highest price ever paid for an American car at a public auction.
There are but a few of those Cobras still with us, including one formerly owned by Phil Spector, who coincidentally describes his current living arrangements as being like a “snake pit”.
UPDATE. Speaking of “clunk”, Michelle Obama needs a bigger jet.
===
NOBODY EXPECTS THE U.S. CONGRESS
Tim Blair
The swift becomes the slow:
Less than three weeks after he was elected president, Barack Obama pledged swift action on climate change. “Delay is no longer an option,” he said.
Obama may not have reckoned on the U.S. Congress.
Not that it matters much. He’ll be fine with it. Climate change is an election prayer. As an issue, it has no use during actual terms of office.
===
WE AXED YO ASS NICELY TO LEAVE BEFO’
Tim Blair
A fascinating discussion on media boundaries, conducted in Jackson, Mississippi:
Discussion participant Janice Singleton subsequently earned a 52-month jail sentence and a $243,000 restitution bill.
===
LOAF PANEL
Tim Blair
Life in England:
Power cuts are frequent, and everyone lives off rations of National Meat Loaf.
Meat Loaf has been nationalised? This is what happens when you don’t have Sarah Palin around to run a Facebook campaign.
===
Is the CIA Interrogation Probe Hurting Morale?
This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," August 31, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET!
LAURA INGRAHAM, GUEST HOST: Continuing now with our lead story tonight. Even some Democrats say they aren't happy with the way the attorney general is handling the CIA investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN D - CALIF.: Candidly, I wish that the attorney general had waited. Every day, something kind of dribbles out into the public arena. Very often, it has mistakes. Very often, it's half a story. And I think we need to get the whole story together and tell it in an appropriate way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Meanwhile, a valid liberal Helen Thomas grilled Robert Gibbs today over what's going to happen to detainees.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HELEN THOMAS: Detainees in that sense other places?
GIBBS: Detainees are not sent to other places to be tortured. That's the policy of this country.
THOMAS: To be interrogated?
GIBBS: Well, some may go to other countries to face charges that they have in those countries. But they're not shipped in the dark of night to be tortured.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: With us now, Dr. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit and the author of the great book "Marching Towards Hell: America and Islam after Iraq."
Dr. Scheuer, I just want your take on where we are right now with what the attorney general says he's going to do order ordering this full- fledged investigation, what the president has said in the past about moving forward, not backward, and now this?
MICHAEL SCHEUER, PH.D., FORMER CIA ANALYST: I think what they've done is two things. The administration clearly has declared war, not only on the CIA, but their entire intelligence community. And it's going to have a freezing effect, an effect where people work to the letter of their instructions and no more.
The second thing they've done is probably more damaging. And that is inform al Qaeda and its allies not only of all the things that are in our arsenal of to do -- to do to them if we get them, but also the fact that we're not going to do it anymore. And for better or worse, the CIA has been al Qaeda's most damaging enemy since 1996. And what the president has done is what his party has always done, kind of unilateral disarmament. This is reminiscent of the Cold War when they wanted to get rid of our nuclear weapons, thinking that that would encourage the Soviets to do so.
INGRAHAM: And isn't it also going right to the heart of this idea that the left has never liked the CIA? I mean the CIA represents all things that is bad about the united States of America. Is it not? I mean, this is a long-running left-wing dispute with the way things are done in Washington.
SCHEUER: Sure it is. I've always said that if the country survives my generation, we're going to be in very good shape, because most of the people I grew up with share Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder's attitude of hatred toward the Central Intelligence Agency. And that's what we're seeing here. We're seeing the 60's adolescents kind of work out their hatreds now that they have power.
INGRAHAM: I love this. You're doing the psychological profile.
(LAUGHTER)
You are a doctor after all. Can't we just make him a medical doctor?
Now Holder says that he has no choice but to proceed with this investigation because the ethics office at the Justice Department, you know, came forward with this information.
First of all, I don't think that is necessarily the case.
Number two, when the president himself reassured the CIA early this year that, you know, targets weren't on their backs, you know, keep up the morale, you know, we're in your corner, we're going to move forward, not backward, this has to have been signed off. Would it not have been by the president himself?
SCHEUER: If it's not, we have a minor official -- cabinet official running the United States government. Of course, the president signed off on this. This is just politics. And it's not only on their side of the aisle. Both parties are playing politics on this issue.
INGRAHAM: Now Juan Williams in a previous segment, he and I got into it about whether in fact we learned some really valuable things after the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. We should remind people how many people were waterboarded in this entire process?
SCHEUER: Less than half a dozen, I think.
INGRAHAM: Yeah, so just a handful of people were waterboarded.
SCHEUER: Yes.
INGRAHAM: He was waterboarded many, many times. He provided information, according to the most recent reports in "The Washington Post" and other places, that was extremely useful. A lot of it was bloviation. But a lot of it went to the ideology, operational structure, and even some agents of al Qaeda were named by him over the course of many months.
SCHEUER: Yes. Once you get them talking, if you can engage them on Islamic history and their place in it, they often say more than you think they're going to say, or they think they're going to say.
So Khalid Sheik Mohammed and many of them have been not only manipulated in terms of interrogation techniques, but in terms of conversation and debate. And that's what the recent reporting is showing. They're leading us into how al Qaeda thinks and how it's allies think.
INGRAHAM: He was an effective resister before the waterboarding.
SCHEUER: Yes.
INGRAHAM: And again, you can never know if other techniques also would have worked with him. But you can make an educated guess that this was the most hardened of the terrorists we were interrogating. And he wasn't the garden variety, you know, stooge for al Qaeda. He was charge of planning. He was a mastermind. And it was outline on the line for him.
SCHEUER: And people, Laura, never talk about the fact that al Qaeda guys are trained to resist interrogation.
INGRAHAM: Yeah, their manual that we found in ... where was it?
SCHEUER: Right.
INGRAHAM: The British found manual ...
SCHEUER: They believe they can die in the battlefield and go to Allah.
INGRAHAM: Right.
SCHEUER: Or can die in our prisons. And they're very good and trained at resistance.
INGRAHAM: Now before we let you know, the interagency task force that has been now tasked by the special committee of the Obama administration to come up with these new, you know, interrogation methods, does this give you much confidence? It's obviously taken away from CIA. And there are a variety of officials that are going to be involved now.
SCHEUER: No, it doesn't. What it does is is, you know, I ran the program. I founded the program over in (INAUDIBLE). And we were the most oversaw -- overseen organization in the government. There was a lot of examination. This is now in the White House. No one examines the White House but the White House.
INGRAHAM: No one seems to know. It's like who's on first? I mean, we don't know who is in charge.
SCHEUER: This is great accretion of power to the president.
INGRAHAM: Right. So you can argue that the executive branch is getting more powerful and the intelligence agency is obviously being sapped of their power.
SCHEUER: Absolutely. The intelligence committees are not going to come into the White House, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Dr. Scheuer, great to see you as always.
SCHEUER: Thank you.
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