Headlines Monday 5th October 2009

Obama works hard to appease dictator

TEHRAN, Iran — The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday there is a "shifting of gears" in Iran's confrontation with the West to more cooperation and transparency and he announced that international inspectors would visit Tehran's newly revealed uranium enrichment site on Oct. 25.

Greek PM quits after electoral defeat
OUTGOING Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has said he is stepping down as Conservative party leader after a resonating electoral defeat at the hands of the opposition Socialists. - the appalling riots will not stop just because socialists are in power, but they may be better funded. - ed.

Melbourne Storm withstand Parramatta Eels in NRL grand final at ANZ Stadium

Melbourne Storm have won their second NRL premiership in three seasons, defeating Parramatta 23-16 in the grand final at ANZ Stadium on Sunday.

Child death report to shame nation
"THIS should not be happening in Australia. We are a wealthy country. We can afford to fix this." - ALP have worked hard to make this a problem. - ed.

Hope turns to fear in quake disaster zone
RESCUERS give up search for survivors and spray villages to prevent disease from corpses.

Suburb sees 34 shootings in two years
GUN violence is so out of control in one Australian city, there are three shootings a week. - gun violence seems linked with ALP government. - ed.

Australian dies after hour on Kokoda Track
A 55-year-old man is the second Australian to die within a week while attempting the Kokoda trek.

Shark's kids couldn't stand Evert
TENSION between Greg Norman's children and Chris Evert contributed to the demise of world sport's glamour couple.

Rann 'friends with his attacker's wife'
MIKE Rann had a long-standing friendship with the ex-wife of the man charged with bashing him.

Taliban return to power 'unlikely'
WHITE House national security adviser James Jones says a return to power in Afghanistan by the Taliban is unlikely. - Obama is working hard to CHANGE that. -ed.

Berlusconi inspects Sicily landslide
SILVIO Berlusconi visits landslide survivors in Sicily, as bulldozers find another body in the mud.
=== Comments ===
HU’S YOUR DADDY
Tim Blair
The New York Times – recently busted for deleting embarrassing Barack Obama quotes – also removed these lines (describing Chinese President Hu Jintao) from an item on Beijing’s big commie parade:

“There was moment when Hu broke into a nearly human-like expression, when he saw the girls in the miniskirts.” said Mr. Barmé, of Sydney. But his overall assessment of the parade? “Incredibly dull.”

The quote survives at Sweetness & Light and many Chinese blogs, but is now missing from the original Times piece – which does, however, record that Hu’s troop review was conducted from “the open sunroof of a Chinese-made 12-cylinder Red Flag limousine”. The Red Flag is what you end up with after six decades of communism: a munted, hypersized version of an Austin 1100 with an idiot sticking out the top.
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HOT GEAR
Tim Blair
“I like a hot sauce,” writes Jeremy Clarkson. But he’s never previously encountered a sauce the likes of Insanity Private Reserve:
The pain started out mildly, but I knew from past experience that this would build to a delightful fiery sensation. I was even looking forward to it. But the moment soon passed. In a matter of seconds I was in agony. After maybe a minute I was frightened that I might die. After five I was frightened that I might not.

The searing fire had surged throughout my head. My eyes were streaming. Molten lava was flooding out of my nose. My mouth was a shattered ruin. Even my hair hurt …

Even now, the following morning, I feel weak, shell-shocked, like I may die at any moment. And all I’d ingested was a drop.
Long-time readers have been over this territory before.
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SCIENCE SETTLED
Tim Blair
More climate alarmism from Time magazine:

As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually …

Warmer? Hotter? Burnier?

… cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

Welcome to the scientific consensus of 1974, when looming cold menaced Iceland and chased valuable armadillos out of Indiana:

Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.

Note how precisely the language is repeated in modern warmy talk, right down to an ominous “tipping point”:

Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth’s surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.

Can’t disagree with this, however, from University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare:

Warns Hare: “I don’t believe that the world’s present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row.”

Three 1972s in a row? Bring on the mass suicides.
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CAPITALISM FAILS
Tim Blair
Capitalism the movie, that is:
The biggest disappointment of the weekend is Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story (Overture). After a $57K per theatre average on 4 screens last weekend, the picture broke to a wider 962 locations with terrible results. The “documentary” only sold an estimated $1.3M in tickets to start the weekend, and it will finish at about $3.9M for a PTA of less than $4,000.
Maybe they should’ve got a poor person to make it.
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WHY CONSERVATIVES PREFER SMALL GOVERNMENT
Tim Blair
True of dogs and also of people: “The more control an animal has over its world, the better its quality of life.”
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SPAMMIN’ FOR ROMAN
Tim Blair
“Here’s the rule,” advises Jim Treacher. “Never. F***. With Patterico.” Indeed not. In other Roman Polanski developments – for he is the fellow at issue – Hollywood types used to oppose blacklists. Now they’re signing them voluntarily. Mark Steyn has more on Hollywood’s “moral compass”.
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IT’S A WIN/WIN
Tim Blair
Australian Democrat activist Kathryn Crosby suggests a way out for embattled Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull:
I’d be happy with Turnbull as a Democrat.
So would I. So too would many readers. If he moves quickly, Turnbull could star at one of this month’s Big Australian Democrats Get Togethers (to be held at various small venues, including a boat and a Tasmanian mini-golf course). Meanwhile, his current party is working on a “middle way” to prolong Turnbull’s leadership.
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TIME BENDERS
Tim Blair
The US President, according to his own account, was conceived four years after he was born. He is married to a woman who – again, according to her own account – sat on her father’s lap as a 20-year-old child to watch Olympic events.

Imagine the stress upon the time/space continuum when these two get together with Australia’s Prime Minister, who was raised in Queensland by his wife’s mother in Adelaide and observed events in Brisbane that took place weeks later in Perth. Can history survive this torment? Is it sustainable?