Administration officials and top Democrats on Capitol Hill are suggesting that President Obama's top commander in Afghanistan stepped "outside the chain of command" when he made a public plea last week for more troops.
Aussie duo design fold-up thongs for nights on the town
A BAD night out on the town has inspired two mates to revolutionise the Aussie thong. Former lawyer Ben Lipschitz, 25 stumbled on the idea for a pair of fold-up thongs on a night out a year ago when his girlfriend at the time was left sore and tired after a night in stilettos
Premier broke up my marriage - ex claims
SA PREMIER Mike Rann had "a clandestine relationship" with my wife, estranged husband claims.
Little girls the new sex objects
PRESCHOOLERS turning themselves into sexualised "mini-adults" by wearing bras, nail polish and lipstick need psychological help in increasing numbers.
'Authorities left Ebony to starve'
A WORK-experience student was assigned to the case of a girl being starved to death.
Plan for ex-PM to run the league
Mr Howard has been in secret talks with officials to become the NRL's most powerful figure.
Paedophile wins payout for plastic surgery
CHILD sex offender wins $93,000 compensation after suffering injuries from an assault in prison.
Smoke signals sent to youth via the net
CIGARETTE makers are using legal loopholes to get products
on social networking sites.
Jeans junkies hold onto pairs for 40 years
EVEN though you know you may never fit into them again, jeans lovers love to hoard their denim.
Safran show sure to rile up ABC viewers
SHOCK comedian John Safran simulates sex acts to an image of US President Barack Obama.
Killer mother or innocent victim?
THE actions of this mother will now be scrutinised at a coronial inquest after her two little girls died from rare infections possibly caused by dirty water.
Petition demands four-wheel drive ban
THOUSANDS are calling for a ban on four-wheel drives in school zones and shopping areas.
Captain Cook's logs helping climate experts
Logbooks from Cook's ship Discovery, William Bligh's Bounty and Charles Darwin's HMS Beagle held at Britain's National Archives are among those being digitised to allow climate experts to trace changing weather patterns.Research team leader Dennis Wheeler, a climatologist from the University of Sunderland, said the explorers' meticulous records on wind force and weather were "astonishingly good'' and often better than modern logbooks.
Cancer dangers shut solariums in South Australia
ONE in three South Australian solariums is being forced out of business as we turn our backs on tanning, research has found.
Teachers Call for Fewer School Days
As Obama pushes for more hours in school, some of his staunchest supporters are seeking four-day weeks
ACORN On the Defense
CEO Bertha Lewis attacks new allegations of $5M embezzlement, blaming two ex-'disgruntled' workers
=== Journalists Corner ===
Because I Can ... That Is Why
I have received many e-mails about our now regular/branded segments of me going to Capitol Hill to speak to Senators and Representatives in person and then you seeing the interviews ON THE RECORD at 10 pm a short time later. Many of you have written me telling me you like it -- it takes [...]
===
Michael Moore's new film has audiences raving and Wall Street fuming.
But what's he really saying about capitalism and free enterprise?
Hannity goes toe-to-toe with Michael Moore!
===
California's New Governor?
This former Ebay CEO wants to get the Golden State back in the black - Meg Whitman reveals her campaign strategy!
===
Off Scot-Free?
"Is it legal" examines efforts to get Mel Gibson's DUI expunged!
===
Dems vs. Dems
Democrats continue to battle each other over health care - What's pulling the party apart & will all the "friendly fire" kill their own bill?
=== Comments ===
President Obama vs. the Military
By Bill O'Reilly
A British newspaper is reporting that President Obama is angry with Afghan Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal for the blunt comments he delivered about the war in London. The Telegraph says Gen. McChrystal was ordered to meet the president in Copenhagen and told to tone it down.
The White House denies any friction at the meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes, and says the story is bogus.
The military is playing it close:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST, "FACE THE NATION": Did the president feel that the general was trying to bring pressure on him in public, and did he tell him not to do that?
GEN. JIM JONES: I wasn't at that meeting, and this is a one-on-one meeting between the two of them, and I haven't really talked to the president about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now it really doesn't matter whether President Obama is annoyed with Gen. McChrystal. What's important is that the president wage the Afghan war effectively.
The far-left MoveOn outfit is telling its supporters to contact the White House and tell the president to devise an exit strategy. Some on the right feel the fight is futile as well, so there is pressure on Mr. Obama.
But the longer General McChrystal's request for more troops goes unanswered, the more doubt there will be about the president's vision as commander in chief. After all, he has no experience fighting a war, and equivocation always translates into a weak profile.
That being said, it is smart for the president to make a decision that will help the U.S. military in a very complicated theater. But time is growing short. Mr. Obama needs to make a call soon.
"Talking Points" believes the NATO investment in Afghanistan is worthwhile and would send the additional 40,000 troops with a timetable for increased stability. If the situation doesn't improve by next spring, then plan B should be imposed.
What is plan B? I have no idea.
Any pullback from Afghanistan would be spun as a victory for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. That doesn't mean we stay there if the chaos cannot be contained, but it does mean that all measures should be taken before we change tactics.
McChrystal looks like a guy who knows what he's doing. The president looks like a guy who is unsure. I'll go with the general on this one.
===
Howard urges Obama: more troops for Afghanistan
Andrew Bolt
John Howard wants Barack Obama to quit faffing around and increase troops to Afghanistan, as his most senior general in the country recommends. We should, too. Or else.
Howard’s undoubted leadership qualities - so desperately missed now by the Liberals, as well as the country - may not go entirely to waste:
FORMER prime minister John Howard has been approached by senior rugby league officials to lead the game into a new era.
I suspect they want Howard to lead another invasion into hostile territory, like Victoria.
===
The city that aims low
Andrew Bolt
SO I’ve just flown back from marvelling at the Coliseum in Rome, Schoenbrun Palace in Vienna and the Duomo in Milan with its hundreds of extravagant spires, each topped with a statue.
The taxi from the airport is now taking me past Melbourne’s latest laughable attempt to build a landmark of its own - this time the Southern Star observation wheel.
Ah, yes, the wheel. That $100 million fairground ride.
From the start it seemed dogged by this city’s cringing fear of splendour - its pathological inability to dream big. Its failure to build memorably, the way Paris built its Eiffel Tower, New York its Empire State Building, London its Houses of Parliament and Sydney its Opera House.
The Southern Star was actually designed to be stunted - to fall 15m short of the height of London’s famous Eye - and was set precisely on the least scenic side of the city.
Worse, it looked over previous missed opportunities to build something worth travelling miles to see.
On one side lay the Docklands, meant to be a grand new precinct in which the city met the sea, so you could sail almost into your lounge, or at least the lobby of some restaurant.
But what did we get there instead? Crammed towers, huddled around wind-whipped docks still forlornly looking for a purpose and a crowd.
Then on the other side of the wheel we had a factory-fingered horizon cut off by the Bolte Bridge, a bland span of road with none of the grandeur of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge or San Francisco’s Golden Gate.
No, from the wheel you see not Melbourne at its best, but most defeated. So as we zipped past I turned to glare and ... good God, it’s gone.
===
Not so hot, after all
Andrew Bolt
THIS mad global warming scare could at last be over. And all thanks to just 10 trees in Siberia.
Unreported in any newspaper here - and how typical that is - is a startling challenge to the central claim underpinning this greatest scare of our lifetime.
That claim is that not for 1000 years and more has it been this hot - and, of course, it’s all man’s fault.
So unprecedented is this heat said to be, and so dangerous, that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says it threatens to destroy the ancient Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu.
Never mind that the world has cooled, not warmed, these past eight years. Never mind that the predictions of doom by professional alarmists such as Al Gore have also gone bung. Total hurricane energy has fallen, not risen. Sea ice has increased, not decreased. Arctic ice has grown these past two years, not shrunk.
In the face of all this counter-evidence, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong responds that even so: “What we do know is that 11 of the hottest years in history have been in the last 12 (years).”
But Wong’s never-hotter claim is based on the “hockey stick” developed by a tight group of about 50 climate scientists, mostly in Britain and the United States.
===
No land for the poor
Andrew Bolt
Who knew? The Victorian Government announces people would actually be happier if they were squashed in more:
MELBURNIANS will have to live in smaller houses on smaller blocks as authorities try to stop the spread of McMansions and improve the city’s transport networks.
Developers will be required to fit 15 homes to a hectare in our fastest-growing suburbs…
The tough new planning guidelines aim to create vibrant communities and local employment rather than empty, sprawling suburbs. The guidelines will be launched by Planning Minister Justin Madden...
Two things, though, are curious. First, if people were indeed better off being crammed into smaller houses, why would the Government need to try to stop so many from buying bigger places instead? Second, if Madden truly thinks big houses are bad, and should be discouraged, why does he not apply this advice to his living arrangements:
Madden has just applied for a permit to build an extension on his two-storey home so he can roam over five bedrooms, a study and a family room.
Has this vast country really run so short of land for the poor? And, if so, isn’t the best solution not to squish Australians into ever-smaller boxes, but to limit our runaway immigration intake?
===
I’ve seen whole rooms of big-shots do this, too
Andrew Bolt
Can’t share the outrage, I’m afraid:
THE ABC is facing another barrage of public anger over a new TV show in which shock comedian John Safran simulates sex acts to an image of US President Barack Obama…
The Australian Family Association described the show as “filth”. Spokesman John Morrissey said it would be the lowest point in Australia’s television history…
Safran masturbates to the image of President Obama in a Palestinian sperm bank.
Big deal. We’ve seen already TV images of men having pleasurable emissions at the mere sight of Obama - and where was the outrage then?:
UPDATE
CNN would run Safran through the mincer, too. The Messiah must not be mocked.
===
But first deduct for expenses
Andrew Bolt
I’m not entirely opposed to making prisons accountable for injuries to prisoners, if the prisons are directly responsible:
A PAEDOPHILE has won more than $93,000 compensation to pay for plastic surgery, psychological counselling and legal bills after suffering injuries from an assault in prison.
Anthony Douglas Walters, convicted of several child sex offences, sued the State Government for pain and suffering, medical expenses and continuing counselling after being attacked.
But if we’re to insist on making prisons financially accountable even for harm done to pedophiles, I’d want the pedophiles made equally accountable for the harm they’;ve done to others. In this case, for instance, did the state try to deduct from the payout suitable compensation for Walters’ victims? Or, indeed, a suitable share for his ex-wife?:
He was most concerned his estranged wife may find out about his compo payday: “I don’t want her finding out because she’s going to go me for it. You would make me a target for my wife.”
===
Messiah complex shared
Andrew Bolt
The New Republic’s editor says Barack Obama’s speech on behalf of Chicago’s (disastrous) bid for the Olympics is just more proof that the President is a ”clinical narcissist” - a claim which has Time magazine’s Joe Klein hissing that he smells a Jew Zionist:
(Martin Peretz) is indulging in standard Likudnik name calling--Israel good, Iran eeeee-vil--and indulging in the neoconservative efforts to create a Straw Messiah.
Wild. But in so much mainstream media commentary of the humiliating failure of Obama and wife Michelle to convince the International Olympic Committee - which rated Chicago last among the competing cities - I’ve seen no word of just how truly awful the Obamas were. In fact, when you listen to their speeches you realise there may actually be two clinical narcissists in the family. Both Obamas seemed to be begging the IOC to give the Olympics to Chicago because the Obamas wished it and would be helped in their mission to redeem not just the sinful US but the world.
Too harsh? Then listen to their utterly self-absorbed me-me-wonderful-me pitches:
===
Too clueless to catch a bus
Andrew Bolt
As excuses go, this one is so bizarre that I’m not surprised the magistrate gave it a prize:
WA cricketer Luke Pomersbach, who went on drunken rampage in which he crashed his car and hit a police officer, was today granted an extraordinary driver’s licence.Did not know how to use public transport? You wonder how a bloke that clueless knows enough to drive a car.
Pomersbach, 25, who also plays in the Indian Premier League, had his licence suspended for six months after admitting to drinking before getting behind the wheel of a Toyota Prado at 8.30pm on August 9 and crashing twice in City Beach as he drove home to Scarborough. He assaulted one of the officers who tried to arrest him after the accidents…
But today in the Perth Magistrates Court he was granted a new licence which allows him to driver four days a week, between the times of 8am and 8pm, so he could play cricket and train for his WACA side Gosnells.
The court heard Pomersbach did not know how to use public transport, had not been on a bus since high school and he was fearful of the reaction by the public because of the media exposure of his last court appearance.
===
Bolt sense he can knife Liberals further ..
Joe Hockey wouldn’t admit this unless he felt time was up for Malcolm Turnbull - or nearly. And it wouldn’t be true unless Turnbull was indeed finished:
JOE Hockey has confirmed he’s been sounded out about taking over the leadership from Malcolm Turnbull.
The shadow Treasurer has said today he remains loyal to the leader, amid speculation Mr Hockey may accept the post if Mr Turnbull stepped down but would not contest the leadership. Asked if he had been sounded out, Mr Hockey said today: “I am not going to lie and pretend something hasn’t happened.”
--- UPDATE ---
Liberals even more hopeless than polls say
Andrew Bolt
Poll watcher Andrew Catsaris says Labor’s lead over the Liberals is actually much, much bigger than the polls suggest. The real figure is more like 73 per cent to 27 - of the swinging voters up for grabs:
--- UPDATE ---
The threat is not weak Turnbull but strong Rudd
Andrew Bolt
You’d think it was the Liberals - not Labor - who were in power and needing this intense scrutiny of their latest mad plan. Here are just some of today’s headlnes:
Turnbull can talk ETS but not vote
Senator warns Malcolm Turnbull to hold fire on carbon deal
Malcolm makes spectacle of himself
Leader risks hollow victory
Rudd’s future assured by Coalition
Turnbull’s crisis talks on climate
Turnbull plans his one shot in the lock-up
Turnbull calls for talks after poll pummelling
Senior Libs urge support for Turnbull
Turnbull soldiers on amid a battery of friendly fire
Attention: what threatens Australian jobs and wealth most is not the Opposition’s indecision but the Government’s firm plan. Shoud Labor’s plan for a colossal tax on emissions - a tax that won’t actually cool the planet by a jot - not be the focus of every journalist’s keenest attention instead?
Former Treasurer Peter Costello rightly says it would be mad to finalise any emissions trading scheme before December, when the world decides (or, more likely won’t) at Copenhagen what should collectively be done:
If the big countries (including developing countries) don’t agree to reduce emissions then nothing Australia does will have the slightest impact on global emissions. The only thing affected will be Australian jobs (which will go overseas) and prices (which will go up).
That’s why it’s plain silly to say Australia must finalise the design of its scheme before the negotiations in Copenhagen. The shape of our scheme will not affect what happens there. Copenhagen will determine the shape of our scheme.
So what on earth is Kevin Rudd thinking by demanding Australia sets the futile lead? Still, Costello’s message will actually dismay the hapless Malcolm Turnbull most, of course.
What an opportunity Turnbull has lost by insisting that emissions trading is to be agreed to, and not fought tooth and nail as a fake solution to a fake problem that will impose a tax on everything and drive Australians out of work.
UPDATE
John Roskam:
Apparently the reason why Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull need to agree on an emissions trading scheme in the next few weeks is because business wants “certainty”. According to the Prime Minister, “business certainty” is so important that parliament should vote on the ETS legislation before we know what (if any) global agreement is reached at the Copenhagen climate change conference in December…
Do CEOs really want the certainty of bad policy in preference to the uncertainty of good policy?
“Certainity” is also exactly what business will not get. No one can tell from year to year - or election to election - just what level of emissions the Federal Government will permit, and thus what price permits will be - or, indeed, what compensation or concessions can be squeezed out of taxpayers. Just check what “certainty” Europe’s business leaders have had with their own (more limited) emissions trading scheme:
Rudd’s “certainty” argument is a fraud.
--- ---
It is telling that when he comments on a Premier's apparent dalliance with a married woman for which he was beaten, the ALP Premier gets defended by Bolt saying that not enough is known to judge.
===
THIRTEEN SECONDS OF SILENCE
Tim Blair
Readers yesterday warned that British university students were dangerously unaware of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (a prominent local elf). Thanks to the efforts of several correspondents, video evidence of this gross ignorance has now been secured. Joe Hildebrand reports:
The incident is the latest in a series of difficulties Mr Rudd has had with being recognised overseas. Last year he was left standing alone among a group of NATO leaders, prompting him to throw a salute to then-president George Bush.Luckily, our PM isn’t the type to bear grudges. All of this is destined for his (or his wife’s) forgettery.
Mr Rudd was also the recipient of gushing praise from former US president Bill Clinton, who then went on to refer to him as “Prime Minister Rude”.
===
CIRCUIT AND CLIMATE TOGETHER AS ONE
Tim Blair
Can’t we all just get along? Is Australia now so broken into tiny, warring cliques that broad agreement – even on the most general, inoffensive subjects – is impossible? Do we have no common ground at all?
I’m not talking only about the federal Liberals or state Labor. At every possible level we’re going at each other like Balkan bobcats. Last week a furious brawl erupted between Magda Szubanski and cyclists, for heaven’s sake.
Next it might be upholsterers versus Kate Ellis. Then Collette Dinnigan against asthmatics.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The first step is to realise how deep are our shared beliefs. Divisions exist, certainly, but they are shallow. Please allow me to demonstrate.
This weekend regional NSW hosts two major events that, while appearing to be in violent opposition, in fact reveal exactly the sort of profound points of commonality that bond us so very closely and powerfully as a nation.
===
JOY IN MY HEAD
Tim Blair
As usual, animation predicts the future:
A rise of at least two meters in the world’s sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday.All hail Rahmstorf, riser of the seas. (By the way, didn’t Barack Obama promise to slow all of this sea-rising kookiness?) Anyway, the mood is more joyous over in Seattle:
“The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute and a widely recognized sea level expert.
“There is no way I can see to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions.”
With an ovation from his peers, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on Friday announced the 1,000th city had signed his climate-protection agreement, a pledge to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in line with Kyoto Protocol standards …They call it joy now? Look out for that joyload of seawater heading in from the west, Mayor. It’s unstoppable.
“I have nothing but joy in my head,” he said.
===
AMERICA’S FUNNIEST
Tim Blair
Some of us have been hot for Treacher since way back during the Puce era.
===
THERE SHALL BE NO LAUGHTER
Tim Blair
You’ll recall all the times CNN fact-checked comedy pieces aimed at George W. Bush. Now they’re doing the same to items – or item, rather, since there’s only been the one – mocking Barack Obama:
Quiz champion Wolf Blitzer leads the charge. Next, CNN will expose apostates at the NYT.
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