FORMER New South Wales Young Australian of the Year, Iktimal Hage-Ali, has won a claim for damages after a judge found she was arrested and detained unlawfully by police on suspicion of supplying cocaine. - and so the NSW government maintains an appearance of corruption which no one will investigate. She seems like a well connected druggie. - ed.
New York Eagle Scout Suspended From School for 20 Days for Keeping Pocketknife in Car
A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days — for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car. Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.
O'Farrell Exposes Senior Public Servant Lies
OPPOSITION Leader Barry O'Farrell hasn't ruled out sacking the head of NSW's Planning Department if the Coalition wins Government in 2011, amid claims Sam Haddad misled Parliament
Labor policies 'inhumane'
LABOR'S border protection policies are more inhumane than the Howard Government's, former foreign minister Alexander Downer says.
McGurk murder: hunt on for men in suits
MEN in suits were seen strolling away from the home of businessmen Michael McGurk minutes after he was shot dead.
Baby in DOCS care 'horrifically' injured in NSW
A BABY girl has brain injury and suffered two broken legs since being put in the care of relatives after DOCS took her from a loving foster family.
Health Bill Battles Loom
Reform passes key hurdle, but Reid, Pelosi face clashes on both sides as they bring bills to full House, Senate
Hadron Collider scientist terrorism charge
A SCIENTIST working on one of the world's biggest nuclear projects faces terrorism charges
Spider prankster behind McDonald's hoax
AUSTRALIAN hoaxer reveals he is behind fake memo outlining a secret plan to rip off customers.
Suicide watch planned for social sites
POPULAR sites could be scanned for posts such as "depressed", "don't want to live".
Johnie the crocodile is surburban family's pet
WHEN Johnie the croc wants walkies, her owner makes it snappy. Johnie - a female - rules the roost at the Lowing home. Her favourite time of the day is meal time
Who'll win in the next boom?
REPORT tips house prices will rise by up to 20 per cent in three years. See how your city ranks.
Asylum-seekers threaten to blow up boat
AFTER a month in the jungle and 13 days at sea, asylum-seekers say it's Australia or nothing.
Woman snubs 'dream job' helper role
THE woman chosen for a free trip to be the "best job" winner's mate can no longer be contacted.
Boyzone star 'died of natural causes'
AUTOPSY rules Stephen Gately died due to excess fluid in his lungs, raising more questions.
Pepsi 'sorry' for sexy iPhone app
PEPSI has apologised for an iPhone app that shares men's "brag lists" - but is still selling it.
Pets not a threat for Asthma
THE belief that rising rates of childhood asthma are linked to pets or the modern obsession with hygiene has been debunked by a major study.
What went wrong in toddler search?
NEW Zealand police defend their search for missing toddler Aisling Symes after her body was found in an already searched drain.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Obama's Health Care Plan
How will he pay for a plan loaded with hidden fees? And could broken promises and a middle class tax hike be far behind?
===
'Factor' Investigation!
Oakland, California pays a suspected burglar more than one million dollars after he's shot by cops! Our legal team investigates.
===
Exclusive: Author Jerome Corsi
His best selling books scorched the Democratic party - Now, his latest uncovers how their policies are threatening our freedoms.
=== Comments ===
Another White House Attack on Fox News
By Bill O'Reilly
Sunday on CNN, White House communications director Anita Dunn said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANITA DUNN, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it's not ideological, but what I think is fair to say about Fox, and certainly the way we view it, is that it's really more a wing of the Republican Party. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest stories and biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Which, of course, turned out to be a huge story, thanks to Fox News. But let's analyze Ms. Dunn's beef step by step.
First of all, there is no question that Fox News is tougher on the Obama administration than the other TV news operations, because we actually have some conservative commentators on this network. Because Mr. Obama is a liberal, the right-wing guys don't like his policies, so there's that.
However, our hard news people don't do commentary. Reporters like Major Garrett, Carl Cameron and Mike Emanuel simply tell you what's going on. Anchorman Shephard Smith rarely puts the White House in a negative light. People like Greta, Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Martha MacCallum all give the White House a fair shot every single day.
That leaves "The Factor." Judging from my mail, we have been fair to President Obama. Conservative viewers hammer me and liberal viewers hammer me. If I have been unfair to the president, I challenge you to demonstrate that.
By the way, the Associated Press said Monday that I have been a strong administration critic. The guy who wrote that, David Bauder, is a dishonest reporter and has been for years. We challenge Bauder to come on this program and back up his statement. He won't.
My interview with Barack Obama in September 2008 was the toughest one the president has ever done, but even the White House acknowledges it was a fair deal. And it actually helped Barack Obama, as millions of people all over the world saw him accept and answer tough questions.
A few weeks ago, "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace said that the White House is the biggest bunch of whiners he's ever seen. I don't know about that. The Clinton people certainly whined a lot.
Finally, Ms. Dunn is seeing the world through the prism of the other media, like NBC News and CNN. By all accounts, those networks favored Barack Obama over John McCain, and NBC actually promoted the president's candidacy and continues to give him excellent coverage.
So by that measure, Fox News is indeed troublesome to the White House. But our hard news coverage is fair and balanced. Again, if somebody doesn't believe that, let's see the evidence because bloviating walks.
===
LIBERATION IGNORED
Tim Blair
Matt Welch: “The defeat of communism 20 years ago was the most liberating moment in history. So why don’t we talk about it more?” Yes. Today’s column touches on this, via Ronald Reagan and the Cold War.
===
THEY WANT TO BELIEVE
Tim Blair
Various media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC and FoxSports.com, have attributed fabricated racist quotes to Rush Limbaugh:
More on this from Ace and NewsBusters. Bizarrely, nobody running these career-killing “quotes” seems to question why they weren’t of previous interest. As Limbaugh himself notes:
If I had said what they say I said, I would be gone.Good point. Go to Ed Driscoll for the origin of these bogus Rushisms. Naturally, the crazy left is refusing to budge:
There will be no retraction. The quote is disputed, but it has not been proven false. - not as false as the claims of the left to sensibility - ed.
===
WARMING UNCOOL
Tim Blair
“It has finally happened,” writes Marc Morano. “We have reached the ‘tipping point.’ 2009 can now be officially declared the year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears.” The great tipping continues at the Daily Mail, which previously ran poley bear propaganda:
They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.A perfect symbol of the hype and dishonesty of global warming, yes.
===
TOWER OF POWER
Tim Blair
“This is what Malcolm Turnbull made me do,” emails reader Tez, the latest to reveal his contraband globe stash. “It’s 191 individual bulbs in this one.”
Tez suggests a contest among readers for the largest illicit globe stockpile, but I think one is already underway.
===
ONLY 426,729 EASY DAILY PAYMENTS
Tim Blair
Global warming previously morphed into climate change … and now it’s become dangerous climate change, despite no warming happening at all since 1998. I’m really beginning to regret installing that Warm-Stopper 3000 Total House-Icer.
UPDATE. Australians are beginning to shun warmenism, and now we’re joined by the British:
Great Britain has been the world’s biggest booster of man-made climate change since the 1980s, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided climate change would be a convenient club with which to beat back the coal unions while promoting nuclear power …One of the great mysteries: why would Britons have feared warmer weather in the first place? It’s not as though they avoid flying to Florida every chance they get.
No country, in fact, has more earnestly turned climate change dreams into deliverables: Climate change taxes have been proudly imbedded in energy rates, climate change education has permeated the British school system, climate change theories have been presented as undeniable truths by the British media.
But now, the country is for turning. Polls show that the public no longer buys the decades of unrelenting warnings of catastrophe, both official and unofficial, that it has grown up with. According to a surprising survey released Friday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, most Britons do not fear harm from climate change.
===
OVERHEARD IN THE OFFICE
Tim Blair
An editor: “Plagiarism has no place in this industry.”
A journalist: “Can I use that line?” - :Grin: - ed.
===
MO W. DO
Tim Blair
Maureen Dowd imagines George W. Bush’s reaction to a recent Norwegian prize-giving:
He’s going to have to look over and see that big medallion hanging up there in the Oval, mocking him as an empty suit, a pretty boy beloved by the Blame-America-First crowd, whenever he has to send more troops to Afghanistan, or the Taliban act up, or Iran fires up for nukes.Sounds about right, although it scans more like jabbermouth Dowd than concise W. My take here.
===
SING ALONG WITH MEAT
Tim Blair
===
Save the planet! Urinate in your car
Andrew Bolt
The Age reports:
The car that uses urine to save the planet…
The Mazda CX-7 uses a special man-made liquid similar to human urine to reduce emissions
===
Warming emperor suddenly naked
Andrew Bolt
The ice is indeed cracking - under the feet of warming alarmism in Britain.
First it was the BBC that at last dared to wonder:
What happened to global warming?…Now the Daily Mail asks the same question:
For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise…
Whatever happened to global warming? How freezing temperatures are starting to shatter climate change theorySome of the Mail’s figures are wrong (about the NASA record), but the bigger picture is that the news cycle is finally turning. Once journalists start courting sceptical scientists with even a fraction of the energy that the courted the believers, they’ll be surprised to find how many they find.
And more scientists will dare to be found, too. This is the like the moment in the Emperor’s New Clothes, in which the boy calls out: “But he’s naked.”
===
Packer actually wins again
Andrew Bolt
You’ve seen the Paul Barry book, the ABC Four Corner’s tie-in and all the gloating reports, and so have heard that James Packer is a sad loser, almost destroyed by the $2 billion he dropped on dumb investments in Las Vegas.
Terry McCrann now reads a more authoritative account of Packer’s career since his father died, and reaches a very different conclusion:
THERE is one simple all-encompassing measure of James Packer’s performance since he assumed absolute responsibility for - he already had control of - the family fortune, when ‘Big Kerry’ died on Boxing Day just under four years ago.===
It is also the single most important measure: How have he and his fellow shareholders done?
When the market closed for Christmas back then, the share price of the Packers’ then PBL company was $16.61.... Well those shareholders now have a package of value adding to around $17.80 per old PBL share....
Now in isolation an extra $1.20 over four years mightn’t sound much. But it came through a little event called the Global Financial Crisis. In that context, what’s called the ‘Total Shareholder Return’ or TSR delivered to investors in the Packer empire of plus 5.8 per cent per year over the four years is very impressive.
They’re no cheats if they’re Australians
Andrew Bolt
If true, “our” team were cheats. But will we react as we would if the cheats were, say, Americans, instead?
A BOAT designer has blown the whistle on a ‘’lie’’ that allowed Australia to seize glory in the 1983 America’s Cup: the claim that Ben Lexcen invented the winged keel that helped propel Alan Bond’s yacht Australia II to victory.UPDATE
The Dutch naval architect who worked with Lexcen, Peter van Oossanen, has confirmed what the Americans alleged but could not prove 26 years ago. The true designers of the keel, with its critical winglets, were him, his Dutch team and Dutch aerodynamicist Joop Slooff.
Lexcen, he said had played only a minor role, contributing perhaps 5 or 10 per cent. There was an argument that Australia II should have been disqualified because the rules said competing yachts had to be designed by residents or citizens of the country they represented.
The Dutch prototype:
===
Save the planet! Beggar Indians - and Victorians
Andrew Bolt
Victoria, fighting an economic downturn that’s cost us jobs, is close to landing a $1.5 billion export deal. But such are the green times that the state’s broadsheet newspaper announces the news like this:
Brumby’s dirty secret: coal for export.Better that Indians were left in the dark.
VICTORIA’S massive brown coal reserves look set to be opened up to export for the first time - prompting claims the state is putting commercial opportunity ahead of its responsibility to curb greenhouse gas emissions
UPDATE
The first caller to Jon Faine’s electric-powered ABC radio show likens coal to asbestos.
UPDATE 2
Dominic Lawson says politicians aren’t interested in cheap, technical ways to cool the planet that don’t involve changing the way we live. Their game is not to cool the planet, but redeem humanity.
===
President Diddums
Andrew Bolt
Glass jaw:
THE White House has gone on the offensive against its critics in the press, singling out Fox News and going so far as to accuse the Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp-owned network of waging a ‘’war against Barack Obama’’.Did John Howard ever complain like this about The Age? The ABC? Did George Bush complain (and with justification) that the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC and the rest were waging a “war” against him?
Some dignity, please.
UPDATE
The White House now faces war on another front - this time with The Onion, which reports:
Obama To Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging WildfireUPDATE 2
10.12.09
White House officials are confident the President will be able to convince the wildfire to stop incinerating large swaths of land and American homes
So how’s Obama’s talk of disarming the world going? Well, remember how he dumped promises to allies Poland and the Czech Republic to station missile defences on their soil, in the hope that mollified Russia would in exchange reward him by getting tougher with Iran? Here’s Russia’s latest response:
Threatening Iran with more sanctions would be counterproductive, Russia’s foreign minister declared Tuesday, resisting efforts by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to win agreement for tougher measures if Iran fails to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.===
The boats are back
Andrew Bolt
Yet another already?
The navy has intercepted another boatload of suspected asylum seekers off Australia’s north-west coastline. Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said the boat was carrying about 56 passengers including two young children and two crew.That’s another 360 people in seven boats in just three weeks. The full list of arrivals here. Already this is the fourth biggest yearly intake of boat people since 1976.
It was intercepted on Monday afternoon north-west of Ashmore Reef.
We’ve now had 1648 illegal boat people land this year - or 10 times the number last year - at an estimated cost of $65 million. At least 25 have died trying to get here. As I said just yesterday, every new boat now becomes an issue for this Government, which controversially softened the laws against boat people last year.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull attacks:
What we have to do now is recognise that (Rudd’s) policies have failed and have a thorough independent inquiry to assess what can be done to protect our borders once again...===
All talk, no power
Andrew Bolt
If clean-coal technology is really the green answer to our warming ways, why knock back laws to bring it in from 2020?
AUSTRALIA has rejected an approach by the British Government to promise not to build any new coal-fired power plants without ‘’significant’’ carbon capture and storage technology.So if we can’t get clean-coal generators to replace our gassy coal-fired stations, that leaves just nuclear:
The British High Commission has been lobbying the Rudd Government for several months to make the commitment, but is understood to have been rebuffed in recent weeks by the Prime Minister’s office… A spokesman for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declined to comment on whether Australia had rejected the coal-fired electricity pledge.
At the 2007 Bali climate conference, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, said: ‘’I have never seen a credible scenario for reducing emissions that did not include nuclear energy.”But Kevin Rudd has banned nuclear power stations, so that leaves us with ... what green power?
===
Add swine flu to the list
Andrew Bolt
OUR flu season is now over and the proof is in. Remember the terrifying new swine flu that would kill us by the thousands?
Even tens of thousands?
Remember the swine flu that had the World Health Organisation declaring in April that “all humanity is under threat”?
Remember how Health Minister Nicola Roxon claimed this flu could, untreated, kill 6000 Australians this flu season and put 80,000 in hospital?
Remember how a member of the Government’s influenza advisory group, Prof Raina MacIntyre, predicted a toll even worse?
“If you look at deaths that are directly related to influenza and also to pneumonia, which is the most common complication of influenza,” she said, “we could be looking at anything in the ball park of 10,000 deaths, 10,000 to 20,000 deaths.”
Oh, how we loved that dirty talk. Scare us some more, someone. Please!
And scared we were. Cruise ships were quarantined, sick families locked up, incoming passengers checked for temperatures, schools closed - until we got tired and bored, at least.
Well, pigs to all that. Add swine flu now to a notorious list of other great scare campaigns: bird flu, SARS, acid rain, the Y2K bug, Chernobyl, genetically modified food, impending famines ... Oh, and global warming.
Yesterday the Department of Health and Ageing slipped out a brief update of the latest swine flu statistics. Number of Australians treated in hospital for swine flu: no, not 80,000 but 4830.
Number of people who have died with confirmed pandemic swine flu: no, not 20,000 but 185.
===
Water everywhere, so where’s the dam?
Andrew Bolt
OI, you! Yes, you under the umbrella. Splash over here and check out Melbourne Water’s website.
Look at its latest excuse for not building the dam that would have spared Melbourne its insane - and insanely expensive - water restrictions.
“Why aren’t we building another dam?” it burbles, shamed at last into defending its Labor masters’ failure to build what we needed years ago.
“Unfortunately, we cannot rely on this kind of rainfall like we used to.”
We can’t? Stick your head outside, sunshine. See those clouds?
We’ve had a monster September for rain over our catchments - falls 60 per cent above average - and now check the latest forecast. More rain and showers for days.
No water for a new dam? Watch the last excuse for the Government’s mismanagement of our water supplies being washed away. Good god, the water now flowing to waste in the sea, thanks to that bungling.
Check this time the flood warnings for the Yarra. Which government failed to put in bigger pumps that could have grabbed another 30 billion litres of this to fill our Sugarloaf Reservoir - or enough water to supply Melbourne for at least three weeks?
===
Don’t poison people to save the planet
Andrew Bolt
Shops will be banned from next month from selling incandescent lights globes, so why isn’t the Rudd Government now running an ad campaign warning consumers of the dangers of switching to low-energy compact fluorescent lamps instead?
Surely it doesn’t want to save the planet by poisoning people?
Tens of thousands of Australians will next month be forced to buy these new greenhouse-friendly CFLs without the Government warning them that, unlike normal light bulbs, they contain mercury and are dangerous when broken. What’s more, they shouldn’t just be thrown out with the rubbish.
How many consumers know this?
How many of them have looked up the Environment Department’s website to find what its bureaucrats falsely describe as the “simple and straightforward” precautions to take against poisoning should one of these lamps smash:
- Open nearby windows and doors to allow the room to ventilate for 15 minutes before cleaning up the broken lamp. Do not leave on any air conditioning or heating equipment which could recirculate mercury vapours back into the room.“Simple and straightforward”? Peter Garrett’s department not only deceives you about global warming, but about the ease of this useful “fix”.
- Do not use a vacuum cleaner or broom on hard surfaces because this can spread the contents of the lamp and contaminate the cleaner. Instead scoop up broken material (e.g. using stiff paper or cardboard), if possible into a glass container which can be sealed with a metal lid.
- Use disposable rubber gloves rather than bare hands.
- Use a disposable brush to carefully sweep up the pieces.
- Use sticky tape and/or a damp cloth to wipe up any remaining glass fragments and/or powders.
- On carpets or fabrics, carefully remove as much glass and/or powdered material using a scoop and sticky tape; if vacuuming of the surface is needed to remove residual material, ensure that the vacuum bag is discarded or the canister is wiped thoroughly clean.
- Dispose of cleanup equipment (i.e. gloves, brush, damp paper) and sealed containers containing pieces of the broken lamp in your outside rubbish bin - never in your recycling bin.
- While not all of the recommended cleanup and disposal equipment described above may be available (particularly a suitably sealed glass container), it is important to emphasise that the transfer of the broken CFL and clean-up materials to an outside rubbish bin (preferably sealed) as soon as possible is the most effective way of reducing potential contamination of the indoor environment.
Surely this is safety information the Rudd Government should be publicising widely, on radio and television, before next month’s switch. Is the fact that there’s been no such campaign, at least to date, because the Government is scared of a consumer backlash? Already people are rushing stores to stock up on the soon-to-be-banned incandescents.
And where is the publicity campaign to warn householders that the millions of CFLs they’ll soon be buying cannot all be thrown into the bin when they’ve stopped working?
Again, here is the official procedure, as recommended by the Rudd Government - but not widely advertised:
At present, CFLs can generally be disposed of in regular garbage bins - where the garbage goes to landfill. You should check with your local authority, responsible for garbage collection, as to its advice on disposal of CFLs as different local authorities may have different arrangements. For example, some garbage is sent to waste processors and this may change the arrangements for disposal. Should you choose to dispose of your CFLs this way then it’s best to wrap them in newspaper to prevent them from breaking.How smart is it to force Australians to use an inferior product so apparently dangerous, and so difficult to dispose of when broken? How responsible is it not to mount a campaign to warn them how to protect themselves?
You should not place CFLs in your kerbside recycling collection because they can break during transport and contaminate recyclable items.
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