Ms Keneally was being grilled over Labor lobbyist Graham Richardson's role in planning approvals when she denounced Liberal MP Brad Hazzard. "Brad Hazzard thought it was appropriate to wink at me when he moved that ridiculous question," Ms Keneally said. She then then took a swipe at Liberal MP Greg Pearce, who asked her during the recent parliamentary inquiry prompted by the Michael McGurk affair if she was one of "Joe's girls", in reference to Finance Minister Joe Tripodi. "He went to the same school of manners as Mr Pearce," she said. Mr Hazard told Parliament: "There's no way I would wink at that Minister on anything." - it is merely a distraction to obscure the fact she has done nothing worthwhile. - ed.
Authorities say 27-year-old Massachusetts man conspired with two others on terror plot but were thwarted when they were unable to get into terror camps for training and failed to get access to automatic weapons.
Residents welcome convicted paedophile
DENNIS Ferguson vows to make a suburb his home again after being offered accommodation by three separate residents.
'Hate mail sent to war widows'
FAMILIES of Aussie soldiers who died in Afghanistan allegedly targeted in tirade by "cleric".
Boy, 11, one of our worst juvenile crims
HE uses aliases, has learned criminal techniques from others and authorities can't control him.
Bosses accused of ban on eating, drinking
UNION claims coffee and food banned at company desks in a bid to protect new carpet.
Explosion in email is driving Australians to despair
AN explosion in email messaging is driving workers and managers to despair as computer systems struggle to cope with the onslaught.
Want a baby? Then give up white wine
STUDY finds even low levels of alcohol consumption can increase the risk of miscarriage.
Giant seagull fails to ruffle newsreader
STUDIO cameramen forced to muffle their laughter as seagull appears behind newsreader.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Health Care Scare!
As Obama's "dream" plan inches closer, is your worst nightmare becoming a reality?
Sean digs deeper into "government health care" horror stories and exposes the truth about the president's reform!
===
Guest: Senator Tom Carper
He wouldn't read legislation leading up to the Baucus bill and he wasn't the only one -- So will Congress really pass a plan without reading the bill?
===
The Hoax Investigation
The balloon plot burst! Now, Dennis Miller reacts to the alleged scheme full of hot air!
===
Choice? Quality? Cost?
What will really be in the final bill that lawmakers try to push through? And how could it affect your family's care?
=== Comments ===
Cynical U-turn hands medievalists victory
Piers Akerman
AUSTRALIA is about to slip away from the Afghanistan conflict. Despite Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s support for the Afghan war, as against his opposition to George Bush and John Howard’s Iraq war, Defence Minister John Faulkner wants Australian troops out as soon as possible. - While I do not dispute an arrogant Clinton allowed the 9/11 incident to occur, I dispute the suggestion the ALP have a policy at all. They have no problem killing civilians or their own troops to satisfy their agenda of populism and pork barrels. At no stage can I find anything that suggests that Rudd, or Bill, understood the ramifications of what they said .. or cared.
Rudd is like Zelig, he says whatever is convenient at the time. It was convenient for Rudd to agree with Mr Howard on economic and security policy at the time. There is no evidence he ever believed it. But as with the economy, Rudd is nothing like Mr Howard with security. Predictably, troops have died under Rudd prosecuting a half baked agenda with no real goal in mind except to keep the public busy watching distractions. The tragedy is just as Mr Howard left a thriving economy, he left the world stage with a real likelihood of success in Afghanistan. Rudd will humble all. - ed.
===
Is the Military Fed Up With President Obama?
By Bill O'Reilly
The liberal New York Times reports Tuesday that elements in the U.S. military are becoming disenchanted with President Obama because he is taking so long to make a decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan.
"Talking Points" believes that is true, that the military is not happy right now with the commander in chief. My opinion is based on Defense Secretary Gates, who has now publicly stated that Barack Obama must make a decision on Afghan troop deployment.
That is a bold move by Gates. He is putting his job on the line. Like Gen. McChrystal, Secretary Gates is basically putting pressure on President Obama.
For his part, the president continues to say he needs clarity from the Afghan government before he commits more American forces. And so on Tuesday, the Afghan leader Karzai says he will allow an election runoff.
But let's be honest here: The Afghan government is corrupt all day long and that's not going to change anytime soon.
The USA and NATO are fighting to destroy terrorism, to deprive the Taliban and Al Qaeda of sanctuaries. We are not fighting for the Afghan government.
The best case scenario is for the Afghan army to become a force against the terrorists. It could happen, but it won't unless more security is provided by the USA. That's why Gen. McChrystal wants the additional troops.
In the end I believe President Obama will send the soldiers and Marines, but his hesitation is teeing off the military. It's also helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Those people will fight if they believe they can outlast America, and all this dithering around has to give them encouragement.
One final thought: If President Obama sincerely believes that the Afghan government is so corrupt and the theater is so out of control that it's impossible to win the fight, then he should say that and get out. I'll support that. President Bush took a huge gamble by surging in Iraq. It worked, but it may not work in Afghanistan.
But one way or the other, the president needs to act now.
===
PALIN BY COMPARISON
Tim Blair
A new trend in publishing: imitation books by unoriginal leftists.
===
GLOBAL BRAWLING
Tim Blair
Even when unprovoked by wicked denialists, the global warming community still can’t get along. The New York Times reports:
With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it now appears that there is little chance that international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December will produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming.And the Financial Times:
Discussions aimed at breaking the deadlock over climate change talks ended without a firm offer of finance from rich to poor countries yesterday.C’mon, warmies. Show us the way.
===
BEAT THE BAN
Tim Blair
South Australia’s Response Electrical responds to consumer demand:
Anyone looking for incandescent globes can contact us at Response Electrical. We still have quite a bit of stock available in all wattages (25W, 40W, 60W, 75W & 100W).Go global. Buy local.
As the sale of these globes will be banned as of November 1st, we have just started a radio advertising campaign to clear our stock. If you would like to purchase some, call our office on 08 8380 9550 during business hours (we have EFT and EFTPOS facilities available) or visit our eBay store and get them there.
We post or courier all over Australia with very reasonable rates.
Cheers,
Response Electrical
===
Save the planet! Eat your dog
Andrew Bolt
Startled dogs and their owners wish to know: Exactly who are global warmers saving the planet for?
The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.
Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.
===
And yet another again, just hours later
Andrew Bolt
Almost daily now:
A BOATLOAD of Sri Lankan asylum seekers came within 13km of Christmas Island in an old boat overnight before being spotted by an RAAF plane and delivered to the island’s detention facilities at first light.Working beautifully, Rudd’s policies. So what does the Prime Minister say now?
The 32 men, the 35th vessel to be intercepted his year, are believed to have skippered themselves all the way from Sri Lanka aboard a wooden boat. They were intercepted by HMAS Armidale at about 6.30am AEST (2.30am local time) and led to Flyish Fish Cove.
He demanded Mr Turnbull withdraw his support for Mr Tuckey’s preselection ahead of the next election.Oh. The answer to all these boats, it seems, is to throw Liberals out of their own party.
===
Tell the voters nothing
Andrew Bolt
What won’t the Rudd Government trust the public with the facts? We saw it with the Ashmore Reef explosion, and again now:
FOREIGN Minister Stephen Smith has confirmed the boat carrying 78 asylum seekers intercepted by the Australian Navy in Indonesian waters was unfit for further travel, but refused to speculate on reports the boat was deliberately sabotaged.The best way to stop people from leaping to conclusions is to not deny them the evidence. Otherwise another conclusion they’ll leap to is that this Government cannot be trusted to tell the truth about boat people.
Mr Smith warned people should “not leap to conclusions” about how the vessel was disabled...
===
Let them howl
Andrew Bolt
Leave John Safran alone. He’s genuinely trying to explore serious issues in Race Relations, and the offence he causes some in no way outweighs the benefit of having prejudices exposed and questioned. Wish the ABC had stuck up for him more forcefully. A trailer:
===
I blame the spokesmen most
Andrew Bolt
Do Catholics have lousy spokesmen, or is their case too hopeless to sell?
I have just witnessed a rout – tonight’s Intelligence Squared debate. It considered the motion “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry, opposing the motion, comprehensively trounced Archbishop Onaiyekan (of Abuja, Nigeria) and Ann Widdecombe, who spoke for it. The archbishop in particular was hopeless.Still, the Catholics clearly persuade some of their greater goodness - or at least clearer sense of purpose:
“The voting gives a good idea of how it went. Before the debate, for the motion: 678. Against: 1102. Don’t know: 346. This is how it changed after the debate. For: 268. Against: 1876. Don’t know: 34. In other words, after hearing the speakers, the number of people in the audience who opposed the motion increased by 774. My friend Simon, who’s a season ticket holder, said it was the most decisive swing against a motion that he could remember.
As many as 1,000 priests could quit the Church of England and thousands more may leave churches in America and Australia under bold proposals to welcome Anglicans to Rome. Entire parishes and even dioceses could be tempted to defect after Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to offer a legal structure to Anglicans joining the Roman Catholic Church…
Under the plan, the Pope will issue an apostolic constitution, a form of papal decree, that will lead to the creation of “personal ordinariates” for Anglicans who convert to Rome.
These will provide a legal framework to allow Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving distinctive elements of their Anglican identity, such as liturgy. Clergy will have to be retrained and re-ordained, since Rome regards Anglican orders as “absolutely null and utterly void”, but they will be granted their own seminaries to train future priests for the new ordinariate
===
How Human Rights Watch betrayed its founders - and freedom
Andrew Bolt
Robert L. Bernstein warns of the hijacking of yet another human rights organisation, which now is blind to the difference between democratic Israel and its anti-democratic foes:
AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.Please read on.
At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform. That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West…
Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies. Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.
===
The facts behind the Maldives stunt
Andrew Bolt
Nils-Axel Morner, one of the world’s greatest authorities on sea levels, writes in dismay to Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, who last week held a meeting of his Cabinet underwater to hype the risks he says his country faces from global warming.
Mr. President,UPDATE
You have recently held an undersea Cabinet meeting to raise awareness of the idea that global sea level is rising and hence threatens to drown the Maldives. This proposition is not founded in observational facts and true scientific judgments…
Your people ought not to have to suffer a constant claim that there is no future for them on their own islands. This terrible message is deeply inappropriate, since it is founded not upon reality but upon an imported concept, which lacks scientific justification and is thus untenable. There is simply no rational basis for it.
Let me summarize a few facts.
(1) In the last 2000 years, sea level has oscillated with 5 peaks reaching 0.6 to 1.2 m above the present sea level.
(2) From 1790 to 1970 sea level was about 20 cm higher than today
(3) In the 1970s, sea level fell by about 20 cm to its present level
(4) Sea level has remained stable for the last 30 years, implying that there are no traces of any alarming on-going sea level rise.
(5) Therefore, we are able to free the Maldives (and the rest of low-lying coasts and island around the globe) from the condemnation of becoming flooded in the near future.
When I was president for the INQUA commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, we spent much effort on the question of present-to-future sea level changes. After intensive field studies, deliberation within the commission and discussions at five international meetings, we agreed on a “best estimate” for possible sea level changes by the year 2100. Our figure was +10 cm ±10 cm. This figure was later revised at +5 cm ±15cm (as given in Fig. 1). Such changes would imply small to negligible effects.
Such a small rise would pose no threat for the Maldives. Rather, it would be a natural return to the conditions existing from 1790 to 1970; i.e. to the position before the sea level fall in the 1970s.
So, Mr. President, when you ignore available observational facts, refuse a normal democratic dialogue, and continue to menace your people with the imaginary threat of a disastrous flooding already in progress, I think you are doing a serious mistake.
From Senator Barnaby Joyce:
In Senate Economics Estimates today, Senator Joyce asked the CSIRO the million dollar question, or should that be the hundred billion dollar question, ”Will the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme change the temperature of the globe?”
The answer confirmed my worst fears in that I could not get the answer “Yes”.
===
Unspinning Rudd’s Indonesian solution
Andrew Bolt
Here’s how the Rudd Government sold its “Indonesian solution” - the deal Kevin Rudd struck on Tuesday night to get Indonesia to take 78 boat people rescued by the Australian navy:
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s spokesman cited the sick child as a factor in the “humanitarian” decision, The Australian reports.The same lines were repeated yesterday by the Immigration Minister:
“President Yudhoyono has advised for humanitarian reasons and safety-at-sea reasons the Oceanic Viking will come to the port of Merak where the 78 on board will be put in temporary accommodation until international agencies have had the opportunity to process them,” Mr Smith told ABC TV last night.
”We had a young girl on board who was unwell. That’s a very good humanitarian result.”
Senator Evans says the deal was struck based on the welfare of a sick child. “The child is receiving attention on the ship and so that treatment is occurring, but yes the agreement was based on concern for the child, a humanitarian agreement if you like, to disembark the passengers in Indonesia,” he said.So how dare we suggest this was just a huge face-saving backflip from the Rudd Government - a revival in part of the Howard Government’s “Pacific Solution” - backed with payments to Indonesia. Think of the poor little girl.
We’ll, let’s indeed think of her. She was rescued by Australia on Sunday, and could have been taken to Darwin by Tuesday. Instead, she was kept with the other 77 asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking while Kevin Rudd begged Indonesia to take them.
On Tuesday night Indonesia agreed with this spin about the sick girl needing treatment (treatment she presumably couldn’t get on board). Well, how fast has she since been rushed to shore?
But yesterday a crisis meeting between Indonesian immigration, foreign ministry and navy officials failed to resolve the impasse, with Foreign Ministry official Andri Hadi emerging to admit he had “no idea” where the Oceanic Viking was. Mr Hadi was unable to confirm when the Customs boat was expected to arrive, then refused to answer questions about the medical needs of the child previously cited as the key reason for the humanitarian imperative behind the decision. He said Indonesia was taking the 78 Sri Lankans simply because “their boat is unseaworthy”.The Rudd Government says the boat is expected now to dock in Indonesia this afternoon - two days after the “humanitarian” deal, and four days after the rescue.
Oh, and what caused the boat people to need rescuing in the first place - and what lesson will smugglers draw from all this?
A BOAT carrying 78 asylum-seekers whose case was personally taken up by Kevin Rudd with the Indonesian President was rescued by the Australian navy only after those on board deliberately sabotaged it.UPDATE
Reader Alan RM Jones wants to know why, in explaining exactly why this boat needed rescuing, that Foreign Minister Stephen Smith failed to mention it had been sabotaged. Check the transcript yourself, and ask if Smith deceived by omission.
===
How World Vision exploits the poor … of understanding
Andrew Bolt
Reader Colin of Bateman encounters astonishing push-polling by World Vision that both misinforms the gullible, and denies the sceptical the chance to put the truth - that the climate indeed changes, but man has little to do with it, and the change may not be worth the pain of trying to “stop”.
(And note that World Vision is meant to alleviate poverty, not preach global warming):
Someone on facebook said we should take this survey at http://www.worldvision.com.au/worldvoice.aspx to register our voice regarding Climate Change.!But read on...
Of course I was sceptical, but I thought I’d do it anyway and register what they probably don’t want to hear… Here’s question one:
1. Which of the following best reflects your opinion on climate change? (select one)
Climate change is definitely taking place
Climate change is probably taking place
Climate change is not taking place
I thought about my answer for a while and thought, “What an absurd way to start.”
Anyway, I clicked on number three to see what would happen, even though I know climate changes all the time, but I smelled a rat and… voi la! I was taken straight out of the survey box and shown a picture of the author of the survey with a message of thanks for taking the survey. One question. Ha!…
(S)o I went back on line and had to register with another email to get through.... This survey is sooooo skewed and sooooo full of assumptions. Very disappointing from World Vis. It wasn’t til Q12 and Q13 that I got to say what I really wanted to say. Then Q14 put me right in a corner so I tried to go on without answering, but it wouldn’t let me, so I went for the least… d’oh! Hate that. ITS RIDICULOUS
===
Boatloads of stimulus … and in Rudd’s defence
Andrew Bolt
Perhaps Kevin Rudd’s spinners could sell his get-softer policy on boat people as a stimulus package:
THE harbourmaster who famously warned the Tampa to stay away has good reason to welcome asylum-seekers back to Christmas Island in big numbers.UPDATE
The tiny island is again awash with government money, and Don O’Donnell sees opportunities for local business to recoup the losses they incurred after the Howard government “stopped the boats"…
“The Howard government policy was so successful it stopped the boats - stopped it in its tracks. Collectively we (local businesses) lost $22 million,” he said....
“What it will do is bring a sustained period of economic prosperity to the island, and I think it will also hasten the commonwealth’s capital works program here.”
Greg Sheridan confesses:
Let me confess my own sins. When the Howard government introduced the Pacific solution, I was virulently opposed to it. I thought it was inhumane and wouldn’t work. In fact, it did work. It also became clear to me the vast majority of people intercepted were not refugees but illegal immigrants.He notes one way the “refugee” processing is skewed against those most culturally compatible:
Since the Rudd government came to office, only 10 asylum-seekers who have got to Australian jurisdiction have been returned to their homeland. They were 10 Sri Lankan Catholics. Yet the majority of boatpeople will be Afghans, some Iraqis and other Muslims. On the whole, their countries won’t easily take these people back. Administrative convenience means that most such people will become permanent residents. Last week The Australian reported allegations that two Iraqi members of the Shia Mahdi Army, who had been involved in kidnapping and torture, came to Australia as illegal immigrants and got permanent residence. It is not paranoia to be worried about such cases.And this praise for Rudd:
If the Rudd Government does not get on top of the illegal immigration problem, the nearly 2000 who have come in little over a year will become many more thousands. This would be a disaster for Australia.The question isn’t whether Rudd is right to be tough now. It is whether he was reckless to have first weakened, and whether spin again overruled good policy.
Rudd is absolutely right to take a tough line against illegal immigration. Those who criticise him for doing so and saying so, such as the normally sound Labor MP Michael Danby, or those who cannot bring themselves to embrace the Prime Minister’s language, such as Foreign Minister Stephen Smith in a remarkably evasive and feeble performance on Lateline, merely show how much better, shrewder and braver than the Labor Party Rudd is.
There is a reason this government is so dominated by its PM.
===
No, not fleeing genocide or anything like
Andrew Bolt
So much of the coverage of the Sril Lankan boat people seems to accept, more or less, that they are indeed fleeing from ”genocide” or something almost as deadly.
But here’s some very recent reports that suggest conditions for some of those caught up in the now-ended war are indeed unpleasant, given these people are still in temporary camps, yet far from as lethal as is too often claimed by propagandists. It also suggests that the best future collectively for the 250,000 Tamils involved - and for their country - is not the granting of refugee status but resettlement in their own homes, with closer watch over human rights abuses by elements of the Sri Lankan army
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