Three defendants in Iran's mass trial of opposition figures accused of fueling the country's postelection unrest have been sentenced to death, an Iranian news agency reported Saturday.Two of them were convicted of membership in a monarchist group seeking to topple Iran's Islamic Republic and restore a monarchy, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported, quoting judiciary official Zahed Bashiri Rad.The third defendant was convicted of having ties to a terrorist group for his alleged links to the People's Mujahedeen, an armed opposition group, ISNA quoted Rad as saying.The three are the first defendants to be sentenced to death since the trial began in August.
Ten dead as militants attack army HQ
MILITANTS who tried to storm Pakistan's army headquarters have taken 10 to 15 hostages after a firefight that left six soldiers and four attackers dead, officials say.
Nursing home butts out disabled man's smokes
A TOBACCO-addicted patient and his nursing home are at odds over regulations that stop staff helping him to smoke. - ALP are in government, and pc policy rules. - ed
Della Bosca affair saves wife's career
ONCE at risk of being removed from Federal seat, Belinda Neal has won public sympathy vote. - feminists are the new door mats - ed.
Is missing toddler another Maddie?
THE parents of missing UK girl Madeleine McCann have expressed their sympathy for the family of missing toddler.
Nobel committee head Thorbjoern Jagland defends Barack Obama peace prize
THE head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee has defended its controversial decision to give the award to US President Barack Obama, saying his work so far justifies the honour."He could have also had it too late," Thorbjoern Jagland said. "Can someone tell me who did more than him this year? It is difficult to name a winner of the peace prize who is more in line with Alfred Nobel's will." - showing Jagland just doesn't get it. The most deserving may arguably have been the previous President Bush - ed.
Opposition urges Nobel chief's resignation
THE leader of Norway's main opposition has called for the resignation of the Nobel Committee's chairman, one day after US President Barack Obama was awarded the peace prize.Siv Jensen, head of the far-right Progress Party, said that committee head Thorbjoern Jagland should step down because his new job as secretary general of the Council of Europe compromises his independence. "It would be politically intelligent for Jagland, after having studied the situation, to announce his resignation to avoid" trying to do two jobs at once, Mr Jensen told daily paper Bergens Tidende.
Is Obama Another Carter?
President Obama should have passed on the Nobel Peace Prize. Among other reasons, such as not being especially deserving, accepting this accolade will now merge him even more forcefully in Americans' minds with Jimmy Carter, who was awarded the same honor in 2002. That is a fate that Obama should avoid at all costs.
Peace Prize Winner Obama's No Champion of Human Rights
To cap its blindness and deafness to human rights -- the Obama White House has stiffed the Dalai Lama. This year, Barack Obama hit a home run to start the political season as the first African-American elevated to the Oval Office -- a feat surpassing even the national impact of Jackie Robinson breaking major league baseball's color barrier in 1947. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee may not agree, but it's safe to say that Obama's rookie season -- so far at least -- has not been as good as Jackie's. Conventional political scorecards on Obama's presidency show a mix of hits and errors on the make or break issues of the economy, health care, the Mideast including unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While most of the media is focused on Chicago's unsuccessful 2016 Olympics bid, the Administration's bigger failure may be the decision not to welcome his Holiness the Dalai Lama this week before Obama's upcoming face-to-face with China's President. After nine months in office-- and despite hopes he may eventually deliver on the promise of the Peace Prize -- it's time to ask our president to go to bat for global human rights.
Tragic last words of champion skipper in yacht race death
THE last words of veteran ocean racer Andrew Short were something his crew had never heard him utter before: "Help! Help!'' Mr Short yelled them after huge waves smashed his 80-foot yacht in the pitch-black night. - the situation was tragic, not the words. - ed.
Banks set own interest rate hikes
THE Big Four banks claim they will be forced to lift interest rates beyond official RBA cash rate.
The Secret followers die in sweat lodge
THE Secret author faces criminal charges after deaths in packed spiritual cleansing sweat lodge.
Hey Hey's 'Jacksons' hire crisis PR firm
THE men behind the faces at the centre of the Hey Hey It's Saturday race furore in hiding.
Bounty of beer on the head of Fevola
POLICE officers are competing for a carton of beer to be the first to arrest the Lions' prized recruit.
Rudd has beach sleepover with billionaire
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd stayed with billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes at his lavish mansion in Broome last weekend. - this would not normally be newsworthy, except this may be Rudd making policy decisions, meeting with known felons or any of many other things he should not be doing. - ed.
=== Comments ===
Why I’m with Hamas and the Taliban
Piers Akerman
WHEN it comes to awarding US President Barack Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize, I’m with the Taliban! - Obama's No Bell Piece Prize John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called “pullets”, and ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the eggs (for you city folks).
The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn’t perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.
The farmer’s favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch’s bell hadn’t rung at all! John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John’s amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so It couldn’t ring. He would sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result…The judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.
Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making: Who else but a Politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention?
--- ---- ---
Even so, I don’t agree with Hamas or the Taliban. I agree with Obama who admits he doesn’t deserve the award, but still accepts it. I think he should share it with the IPCC. They could write fantasy together.
I see Rudd holding his hands up and pleading. I think he feels he should share in the award too. - ed
===
MOVE THINGS ALONG
Tim Blair
I’m no great fan of Bill O’Reilly, but his views on Fox News’s rise – the channel, not given much hope when it was launched, now celebrates its thirteenth year – are instructive:
Fox News is not boring! This, I believe, is the biggest reason for our success. Like us or not, we move things along. We have lively people on the air. We take chances and do things differently. In primetime especially, Americans do not want dull programming. Many news programs simply recite the day’s events. That will not cut it anymore. You have to give viewers something unique and entertaining. FNC does.Something there for anyone working in media, no matter your politics.
===
ANOTHER ADVOCATE
Tim Blair
The New York Times reports:
When he took the post of culture minister of France last June, Frédéric Mitterrand probably did not think that a four-year-old tell-all book could come back to haunt him.Mitterrand probably meant to write that he’d merely advocated for the repeal of age of consent laws.
But this week his admission in a 2005 autobiography that he paid for sex with “boys” in Thailand became the subject of a campaign to oust him …
UPDATE. Zombie has some advice for Kevin Jennings, Barack Obama’s safe schools guy, who was inspired by a notorious consent-law repeal advocate.
===
NORWAY BRINGS THE FUNNY
Tim Blair
Even Time is now running Obama jokes. More than once, too. If they keep this up, they’ll supply almost-entertaining reading for those awaiting medical treatment in August 2014.
===
Save the planet! Never mind that you lie
Andrew Bolt
More sad evidence, I’m afraid, that the green faith attracts those less committed to honesty. Andrew Norton reports:
While it’s not direct evidence, I thought a recent survey by Essential Research on qualities people seek in a partner by political affiliation was interesting. Out of 13 possible qualities respondents were asked to select the three they saw as most important…What’s the surprise? Of course hypocrites are attracted to a faith of which the most important religious ceremonies involve denouncing others while sinning oneself.
With differences in order and rating, the Coalition, Labor and Green supporters all seek the same top five qualities: honesty and integrity, kind and considerate, sense of humour, similar interests, and caring friend.
The most surprising difference between them is that Greens (66%) are much less likely than Coalition (81%) or Labor (79%) supporters to put ‘honesty and integrity’ in their top three. The most sanctimonious group in public life is the most forgiving of moral failure in private life.
===
Frequently-flying hypocrites
Andrew Bolt
Qantas answers an investor’s query about its passengers’ commitment to saving the world from global warming:
CO2 emissions from burning Jet Fuel: 12,608,518 tonnes (Financial Year 2007 - 2008)
Voluntary Offsets paid for by customers: 66,000 tonnes (Sep 2007 - Sep 2008)
Adds reader Scott:
Yet polls indicate ~67% of people want action on climate change???
UPDATE
Boy On a Bike suggests Qantas is not so much saving the world, but scaring extra dollars out of its gullible customers:
According to the Chicago Climate Exchange, carbon offsets are currently selling for 10c per tonne. I used the carbon offset calculator at the Qantas website and it calculated that my upcoming holiday will generate 1.452 tonnes of CO2. Qantas want to charge me $13.80 for this. However, that would cost me US$0.14 if I bought offsets from the CCX. A further question might be why Qantas is charging 100 times the going rate for carbon offsets.
===
No
Andrew Bolt
Can we finally discuss this like adults?” I asked on the blog this morning, after even the BBC conceded the world had not actually warmed in years.
Not two hours later on Insiders, David Marr gave me the answer. Watch the video (click button on right) for his rebuttal of this evidence:
===
The Age demands a bill to silence Hey Hey
Andrew Bolt
Why does Australia need a bill of rights? Why, thunders The Age in today’s lead editorial, with a bill of rights we could stamp out this:
THE week that saw Hey, Hey it’s Saturday return to television screens with a publicity-seeking skit of rare tastelessness also saw a federal advisory committee recommend that Australia adopt a bill of rights. These two events, about as far apart on the spectrum of seriousness as can be imagined, are linked - however distantly. Despite its mostly successful implementation of multiculturalism over the past three decades, a latent streak of racism remains in the Australian community. The blacked faces on television prove it and pander to it; the proponents of a bill of rights hope the measure they support will help stamp it out - along with other forms of discrimination and unfairness.Note The Age’s sensational misreading of the performers’ intentions, and its grotesque and defamatory accusation that the dancing doctors are racists who “pander to” racists.
But note also something even more troubling: that The Age sees in a bill of rights, now being considered by the Rudd Government, a weapon to use even against dumb but well-meaning skits by amateurs on television. A weapon to punish or otherwise silence even a group of medicos just having a dance in a tribute to the Jackson Five.
The Age has here demonstrated not the benefits of a bill of rights, but the grave threat to your liberties it represents.
UPDATE
Barrie Cassidy on Insiders today wondered where the outrage was two years ago when The Chaser did this - and on the ABC:
Did The Age demand then, too, that we needed new laws to drive such wickedness from our screens?
===
Not evil, just evasive
Andrew Bolt
Professor Stephen Schneider is the global warming alarmist and Al Gore advisor who famously said scientists were bound “in effect” to tell the truth, however…
..."on the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings” who wanted to “capture the public’s imagination” on this awful climate change.The problem with that approach is, however, that someone one day may - quite reasonably - ask you to explain some of your past alarmist positions, including the once you took before this fashionable warming hype - when you argued that the world was actually cooling.
“So,” admitted Schneider, ”we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”
But as the talented makers of the documentary Not Evil, Just Wrong - The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria have found, Schneider gets so touchy about being held to account that he’ll even call in the lawyers rather than let a filmmaker screen an interview he’s freely given (see clip above).
The documentary will have its Melbourne premiere next Sunday. The details:
7pm, Sunday 18th October at the Sun Theatre
8 Ballarat St, Yarraville, Melbourne
For further information, email noteviljustwrong@climatesceptics.com.au or call 08 8725 9561.
===
One day some won’t be caught in time
Andrew Bolt
News to puncture a growing complacency:
Fears that al-Qaeda is planning an attack on the nuclear industry in Europe were renewed yesterday after French secret agents arrested a physicist working at an atomic research centre.
The 32-year-old man, who was detained with his brother, 25, is suspected of providing a list of terrorist targets to North African Islamic radicals. He worked for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, according to French police sources.
Agents were said to have intercepted messages in which the physicist, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, had suggested targets in France.
He is believed to have been in contact with members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an Algerian-based terror organisation that joined Osama bin Laden’s network in 2007.
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