Made for the coming ANZAC Day celebrations. I have nothing but respect for soldiers. I think things are worth fighting for. I don't like war, but sometimes we gotta.
"And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" is a song, written by Eric Bogle in 1972, describing the futility, gruesome reality and the destruction of war, while criticising those who seek to glorify it.
===
Terror bomber Raymond Luc Levasseur, who served 18 years in federal prison, allowed to speak at the University of Massachusetts — because the university says it must fulfill its commitment to 'academic freedom.'
Female banker sues over strip club visits
A BANKER says her former boss forced her to watch lap dances and took escorts to meetings.
Murder family's tragic secret
A MURDERED father and daughter hid a family secret that may have claimed their lives.
Schoolboy charged with selling heroin
AN 18-year-old Melbourne student will front court today charged with trafficking heroin and ecstasy at his secondary school.
Bloody clue could lead to killer
A BLOOD-stained piece of rough-sawn timber is believed to be the weapon used to murder teenager Lee Ellen Stace, an inquest into her October 1997 death has heard.
Scientists in China create an articifial snowstorm by seeding clouds with chemicals , but weather experts warn "no one can tell how much weather manipulation will change the sky
Dam it's not on, Garrett tells Bligh
PETER Garrett says no to a $1.8bn dam, that Premier Anna Bligh called "absolutely critical''.
Shoplifting lures jobless middle class
WHITE-collar professionals, who have lost their jobs or had their hours cut, have emerged as a new breed of criminal.
Foreign cabbies 'all look the same' - MP
AN MP has criticised foreign taxi drivers, accusing them of illegally sharing licences because they "all look the same".
Vatican calls in astronomers, physicists and biologists to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.
Get ready to pay per tourist spot view
TOURISTS may soon be forced to pay to visit some attractions, including the Blue Mountains.
Young dropout wins $9.13m jackpot
A 21-YEAR-OLD college dropout and a tree lopper have topped a poker tournament, earning almost $15 million between them.
Kevin Rudd bound for India
KEVIN Rudd is on his way to India for his first visit to the subcontinent since becoming prime minister.
Doctors let sick baby die after dispute
A SERIOUSLY ill baby boy at the centre of a court battle between his parents in Britain will be allowed to die.
No Last Words for D.C. Sniper
John Allen Muhammad, who killed 10 and terrorized a region in 2002, is executed by lethal injection in Virginia
Military ID Earns Soldier Street Cred
Four men who mugged reservist at gunpoint return his belongings, thank him for service after finding Army ID
=== Journalists Corner ===
Fox News is "On the Job Hunt"!
Where the jobs are moving, what industries are growing, and how you can capitalize —
We're on the hunt getting you the facts that will get you back in business!
===
Tragedy or Terrorism?
We examine the latest evidence in the Fort Hood massacre. Ann Coulter and Dennis Miller respond!
===
Guest: Frank Luntz
How can Republicans use health care reform to win big in the 2010 elections? Pollster Frank Luntz has answers.
===
Guest: Karl Rove
Republicans say they want to stop the health care reform STAT, but how will they get enough votes to block the bill? Karl breaks down the GOP strategy.
=== Comments ===
The Truth About Major Nidal Malik Hasan
By Bill O'Reilly
Once again, ABC News is out front on the Fort Hood massacre story. Correspondent Brian Ross is reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Hasan was attempting to contact associates of Al Qaeda.
If true, that's huge. Why would the Army allow any soldier to serve under those circumstances?
But it may not be the Army's fault. It's not clear if the CIA shared that information about Hasan. What is clear is that the situation is becoming intense.
The Washington Post is reporting that Hasan attended a mosque in Virginia where the imam is a radical anti-American guy. The cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, is also suspected of having contact with two of the 9/11 terrorists. So you can see the Fort Hood massacre story is becoming more than a random killing.
But we must be careful here. There are thousands of patriotic Muslim Americans, some of who are serving in the military:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. GEORGE CASEY, ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here. And it's not just about Muslims. We have a very diverse Army.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
But it is about Muslims. What Gen. Casey is saying is that we cannot demonize all Muslims, and that's what President Obama said last week as well:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We don't know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
"Talking Points" does not disagree with the president, but now aggressive action must be taken to find out what was known about Hasan and who knew it. This guy just didn't snap. He was indoctrinated into Muslim fanaticism, and people knew it.
Political correctness can get people killed. I believe that's part of the Fort Hood massacre story. Hasan was a weird guy. He said inappropriate things. He did inappropriate things. Yet he continued to serve as a major in the Army largely because, I believe, he is a Muslim.
By the way, Hasan is awake and able to talk. He remains in stable condition at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
===
STOP THIS CRAZY THING
Tim Blair
It’s Barnaby’s big list! Sign the sane Senator’s anti-ETS petition here.
===
TREES CAUSE TROUBLE
Tim Blair
An innocent man caught in a forest of confusion:
===
LUVVIES WIN
Tim Blair
Great news for subsidised cultural gatekeepers, bad news for everyone else:
Australians will continue to pay more for books after the Rudd government scrapped controversial plans to allow cheaper imports for big chains.
===
FACTS EMERGE
Tim Blair
”Ft. Hood Killer Had Access to Fox, Talk Radio, Right-Wing Blogs … Devout churchgoer evangelized conservative views … NASCAR may have been involved.” Iowahawk uncovers the truth behind Major Nidal Hasan’s murderous rampage.
UPDATE. They hear what they want to hear. In an early report on the shootings, the Washington Post quoted Col. Terry Lee, who had worked alongside Hasan:
Lee told Fox News … when [Hasan] talked about fighting “the aggressor,” he said that his fellow soldiers “should stand up and help the armed forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan,” Lee said.Hasan said no such thing. Here’s the Fox interview with Lee from which the Post manufactured that quote:
“[Hasan] said precisely that maybe the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor, and at first, you know, we thought he was talking about how Muslims should stand up and help the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. But apparently that wasn’t the case, because there was other times that he would make comments to other individuals about how we shouldn’t be in the war in the first place.”That’s nothing, however, compared to CNN’s more recent twisting of the truth.
===
Dissent crushed
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama’s EPA censors employees in just the way - and for just the reason - that Kevin Rudd’s CSIRO censored a scientist:
The Environmental Protection Agency has directed two of its lawyers to makes changes to a YouTube video they posted that is critical of the Obama administration’s climate change policy… Ms. Williams and Mr. Zabel say cap and trade, in which the government sets a limit on gases that contribute to global warming and then lets companies trade permits to meet it, can be easily gamed by industry and fail to reduce the emissions linked to global warming.
===
Warm hearts
Andrew Bolt
It’s not self-interest that demands we pay billions to “stop” global warming:
Countries that are being asked to contribute billions of dollars a year as part of a climate treaty to be signed at Copenhagen next month are least at risk from climate change, according to a new study.UPDATE
The study, released to Asian Correspondent by international risk consultancy firm, Maplecroft, shows that out of 166 nations, the United States (152nd), United Kingdom (156th), Australia (157th), New Zealand (162nd), Canada (163rd) and Japan (164th) are among the 15 countries expected to be least affected by climate change. Listed in 166th place is Norway. Maplecroft rates the risk for all of these nations as low.
Barnaby Joyce’s petition against the Copenhagen treaty seems to be going well.
===
Scores may be settled with Rudd
Andrew Bolt
How interesting. Kevin Rudd two years ago claimed he remembered nothing about his drunken night at a New York strip club (above), where he was accused of touching the girls (for which rumor no evidence exists).
The man who took him there, New York Post editor in chief Col Allan, has refused to say much about that night other than that Rudd acted like a gentleman. But now a court case in New York may shed more light on what went on:
The New York Post editor fired after speaking out against a cartoon depicting the author of the president’s stimulus package as a dead chimpanzee has sued the paper. And as part of her complaint, Sandra Guzman levels some remarkable, embarrassing, and potentially damaging allegations.UPDATE 1
Guzman has filed a complaint against News Corporation, the New York Post and the paper’s editor in chief Col Allan in the Southern District Court of New York, alleging harassment as well as “unlawful employment practices and retaliation.”
As part of the 38-page complaint, Guzman paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering....
Guzman’s complaint goes on: ... [W]hile serving as the top editor at the Post, Defendant Allan took two Australian political leaders to the strip club Scores in Manhattan...”
What Rudd said then:
Not withstanding the fact that I had had too much to drink, I have no recollection (nor does Mr Snowdon) of any incident occurring at the nightclub—or of being asked to leave. It is our recollection that we left within about an hour.And:
We’d had a bit to drink, that’s true, but I have absolutely no recollection of any inappropriate behaviour.What Guzman’s admittedly hyperbolic writ now claims:
Defendant Allan took two Australian political leaders to the strip club Scores in Manhattan, where they watched strippers perform, reportedly had too much to drink, and were ejected from the club by its bouncers.Why ejected? And does this now refresh Rudd’s memory?
UPDATE 2
What the club owner said at the time:
KEVIN Rudd was rowdy and “snotty” when he visited a New York strip joint but didn’t touch any dancers, the club’s owner said yesterday…UPDATE 3
“I’m the owner of the club and I’m there, and I’m telling you: this guy did not touch a girl, and he was not thrown out, and he acted like a gentleman,” Mr Osher said.
Geoff Elliott and Peter van Onselen:
THE fact that the Prime Minister swears a lot has become common knowledge after various news reports such as his outburst towards a RAAF flight attendant. But the pattern of behaviour is nothing new to many in the media who have known Kevin Rudd over the years.And can ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann long hold his job, given the Rudd Government’s intolerance of dissent - and the ABC’s culture?
And that’s the side of the Prime Minister so at odds with his image in the public… But ask journalists, editors and media executives who have known Rudd for years and a different picture emerges. Behind the scenes, the Prime Minister is known to yell and curse at editors for stories that run contrary to his tightly controlled agenda.
There is a view that he [Rudd] has the face and a bearing of a parson, and the heart and soul of a dictator. He has cowed his party, his caucus, his cabinet and the bureaucracy. He holds all the prizes, and anyone who wants to advance must pay homage to him. He bludgeons alternative opinions to death.Note that for the third time I recall that a piece asking press gallery heavies for their opinions of Rudd that Uhlmann is about the only one with the courage to put his name on the answer.
===
So what’s Rudd’s excuse for cutting emissions now?
Andrew Bolt
The emissions we’re told are threatening the globe seem not to be the problem that Kevin Rudd and Al Gore claim, after all. From the University of Bristol:
New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.Green World Trust noticed the same thing - increasing emissions actually being absorbed.
This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.
The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.
The strength of the new study, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, is that it rests solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice, and does not rely on computations with complex climate models.
Add to that the fact that the globe hasn’t warmed for eight years.... So why is Rudd pushing ahead with his colossal new tax on emissions?
===
Even when an old communist loses, he wins
Andrew Bolt
America’s NBC shows how - if you really try - you can report the aniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall without mentioning nasty Ronald Reagan once. Extra points for mentioning Hillary Clinton twice:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Britain’s Observer pays tribute to the real “hero” in the collapse of communism:
But the star guest will be Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet premier under whose leadership the Cold War in eastern and central Europe was brought to an end. If a sense of his importance to the events of 1989 is required, it was supplied last week by Timothy Garton Ash, the British historian, who described Gorbachev’s “breathtaking renunciation of the use of force” while Soviet leader as “a luminous example of the importance of the individual in history”.Like the suggestion that Gorbachev’s leadership and “luminous example” of the importance of “the individual” created freedom in the slave states of the Soviet Union?
In fact, Gorbachev was simply trying to keep the tyranny alive.
But let’s help these revisionists out with some footage of one of the most symbolic moments in the fight against Soviet tyranny:
===
The courts Hulls wanted
Andrew Bolt
Attorney General Rob Hulls has stacked the courts with Leftists and civil libertarians, so this may not now be a surprise:
VICTORIA’S senior prosecutor has accused the state’s judges of lenient sentencing, particularly in drug cases.
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Why do greens make city-living worse?
Andrew Bolt
Both these things cannot happen, or not without a lot of people getting bruised:
MELBOURNE’S urban-growth boundary will not be moved again ‘’in my lifetime’’, state Planning Minister Justin Madden has predicted.And:
As the Government prepares to introduce legislation within weeks for the controversial addition of 41,000 hectares to the urban area, Mr Madden has told The Age that further outward expansion should not be necessary for decades to come.
A State Government report predicts that by 2036, Victoria will grow by 2.3 million people, with 1.8 million extra people in metropolitan Melbourne ...Madden’s green blinkers is precisely the kind of thing that has left Melbourne already critically short of water, having added a million inhabitants in the 26 years since it last dared to build a dam.
===
The Bible of the bitter Left
Andrew Bolt
Here’s how The Age in April hailed the “depoliticised” appointment to the ABC board of veteran Howard-hater, warmist and Rudd-fest activist Julianne Schultz:
A FORMER head of the Sydney Opera House and the editor of Griffith Review will today be announced as the first new ABC board members since the Rudd Government promised to depoliticise the appointment process. The appointment of Michael Lynch, currently chief executive of London arts hub the Southbank Centre, and journalist and publisher Julianne Schultz follows a five-month vetting process that considered more than 330 applications.Here’s how The Age today hails the purging from the board of conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen:
THE ABC board will lose one of its most strident right-wing voices when the conservative commentator Janet Albrechtsen steps down as a director in February.This appear in an edition of The Age which betrays just how much it’s drifted to the infantilised Left.
Examples from just today? Well, here’s today’s cartoon, by Leunig, which suggests that the Sri Lankans and Afghans behind this latest surge of boat people are actually fleeing US “shock and awe” bombings in Iraq in 2003.
Here is a headline describing the warming sceptics in the Liberal party who disagree with Malcolm Turnbull:
Turnbull grapples with vipers withinHere is Michelle Grattan’s description of Senator Nick Minchin after he rightly noted that many warmists (of which Grattan is one, actually) are driven more by faith than belief:
Minchin is an ideologue...Here is the lone opinion page article to mark Armistice Day today:
It is an odd coincidence of history that the 11th day of the 11th month is a day of several anniversaries of great significance for Australian identity… But an anniversary that has been forgotten is one that has even more relevance for understanding the ironies of Australian identity.Eleven years before the hanging of Ned Kelly and 140 years ago this year, the Victorian colonial government passed an act ‘’To Provide for the Protection and Management of the Aboriginal Natives of Victoria’’, more commonly known as the Aborigines Protection Act 1869… It was this act that created the conditions for Aboriginal containment and assimilation, and its legal platform enabled policies that led to the stolen generations and stolen wages.(Here is the finding of the Aboriginal-led Stolen Generations Taskforce which investigated whether this claim was actually true - a finding The Age and these writers ignore: (In Victoria) there was no formal policy for removing children. )
Here’s the headline (altered for the website) over the column of The Age’s signature columnist:
Faced with the opinions of morons pretending to be people, where do you start?
===
Me, in an international conspiracy?
Andrew Bolt
I HAD no idea I was a corrupt, reckless, arrogant, deceitful, dangerous and gutless conspirator who’d rather put my children in danger than help the Prime Minister stop global warming.
But so Kevin Rudd has told the nation, naming me as one of just four Australians who’ve joined a global cabal plotting to stop him from saving you.
Never have I heard such a mad speech from a prime minister as the one Rudd gave on Friday at the Lowy Institute, when he exposed an alleged “legion of climate change sceptics” who were “active across the world” and had “tentacles” deep in the Opposition.
These “deniers”, now a “major force”, “simply do not care” that “the clock is ticking for the planet” since “the vested interests at work are simply too great”.
So “well resourced” were we “political cowards” that we were “prepared to destroy our children’s future”.
And four times Rudd singled out the four villains at the heart of this plot, as in: “Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew and Janet - stop gambling with our future.”
From the left, that’s Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull (actually a climate change dupe), Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, me and Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen.
Has any past prime minister singled out just four people - two mere journalists - as part of a conspiracy to hurt the Australian way of life?
It is grotesque, a misuse of Rudd’s authority. But it also shows how fatally weak is Rudd’s reason - or at least his reason for wanting to hit us with a colossal tax on our emissions that will shut power stations, throw thousands out of work and yet do nothing to lower the world’s temperatures.
===
Rudd’s hot money
Andrew Bolt
Shovelling out free money is guaranteed to attract shysters:
A SYDNEY electrician has saved 35 home owners from certain house fires after insulation installers placed batts over electrical boxes, downlights and hammered nails into wires.===
Mark Jensen, from Penrith, said sloppy work by tradesmen registered with the Federal Government’s $2.45 billion rebate scheme had the potential to cause deaths.
Hiding the why of the Fort Hood jihad
Andrew Bolt
THE first thing a journalist - I mean a real journalist - would do is tell you what actually happened.
Like this: an American officer shot dead 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas on Friday.
Then the second thing a journalist - a real one - would do is to try to explain why. You know, to help you make sense of this, and to help stop such a terrible thing from happening again.
So this real journalist would be keen to pass on to you these following clues.
The Fort Hood killer, army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim. He shouted “God is great” in Arabic as he opened fire.
What’s more, fellow doctors and students had complained about his fiery preaching of Islam and “anti-American propaganda”. He’d praised the killing in June of another US soldier by a Muslim American.
Colonel Terry Lee also recalled Hasan telling him: “Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor.” And these were all facts known to journalists within hours.
Soon came collaborative details: Hasan had attended a radical mosque, and at the same time as did two September 11 terrorists. He’d given away copies of the Koran on the morning of the shootings.
He’d also described himself as “Palestinian” on a mosque’s register, despite having been born in Virginia. He’d said Muslims should mount suicide attacks in Times Square, and two years ago told fellow student Dr Val Finnell that the “war on terror” was actually a “war against Islam”. He’d been disciplined for preaching Islam at his patients.
Now it’s even reported that investigators suspected months ago that Hasan tried to contact al-Qaida.
Are you getting a picture here? Or do you need me to scream “Allahu Akbar” in your ear, too?
But whether or not you find these details conclusive in establishing a motive - in answering that why? - here’s the astonishing thing: most of our Left-leaning media outlets resisted even reporting them.
===
Sailing forever with its human cargo
Andrew Bolt
The Oceanic Viking turns into the Flying Dutchman:
NEW Zealand has rejected an approach from the Rudd Government to resettle some of the 78 asylum seekers refusing to leave an Australian customs boat moored off Indonesia.So, next destination:
THE Rudd government is exploring plans to sail the Customs vessel Oceanic Viking to a detention centre in The Philippines as hopes fade for a deal.Hey, what happened to the sick little girl who was said to be the reason three weeks ago for shipping these Sri Lankans to Indonesia? Is she still with us? Or was that just another lie?
Meanwhile, Kevin Rudd will spend anything to stop the embarrassment:
THE Australian government came to Sri Lanka this week bearing gifts in the hope of winning co-operation in its bid to reduce asylum-seeker numbers.And Sri Lanka tells the Rudd Government what Rudd saiid was ”disgusting” when hinted at by Wilson Tuckey:
One was material: $11 million towards de-mining the former northern conflict zone and resettling about 250,000 civilians still held behind razor wire in internally displaced people (IDP) camps.
The other was less tangible: rhetoric that pandered to the Sri Lankan view that most asylum-seekers are Tamil Tigers seeking to reinvigorate the separatist struggle from distant shores.
Both bore the whiff of appeasement.
At a press conference on Monday, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama explicitly linked the Tamil Tigers with people-smuggling: “Sri Lanka’s stand has always remained, that people-smuggling has been part of terrorist activities - it has previously been associated with LTTE activities.”
===
Even the IPCC admits the science isn’t settled
Andrew Bolt
India challenges an Al Gore deception - and forces even the IPCC into a partial retreat:
For the first time, the Indian government has challenged western research that says global warming has hastened the melting of Himalayan glaciers. On Monday, environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh released a paper saying there was no evidence of such a link.
V.K. Raina, a former deputy director general of the Geological Survey of India, wrote the paper, Himalayan Glaciers.
“The health of Himalayan glaciers is poor,” Ramesh said. “But according to the paper, the doomsday prediction of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore is also not correct...” ...
The government’s view goes against the IPCC’s claims that most Himalayan glaciers will vanish by 2035.
“Our prediction [in 2007] was based on government data, and a peer review was done by all countries before our report was released,” IPCC chief R.K. Pachauri said.
“I disagree that there’s no evidence of impact of global warming, but agree there’s a need to do more research on Himalayan glaciers.”..
“Nothing abnormal is happening to Indian glaciers,” said Raina. “They’re retreating because of negative mass balance. There’s no evidence of climate change.”
Mass balance is primarily determined by annual snow precipitation. Raina could not give reasons for the decrease in snowfall in the Himalayas. “It is for the weather departments to tell,” he said.
===
Don’t mention the Muslim
Andrew Bolt
The fear of seeming racist has proved deadly:
The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid “adverse events,” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims. . . . In late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Muslim countries, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.And no one dared to fire him.
“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said in the presentation.
“It was really strange,” said one staff member who attended the presentation and requested anonymity because of the investigation of Hasan. “The senior doctors looked really upset” at the end. These medical presentations occurred each Wednesday afternoon, and other students had lectured on new medications and treatment of specific mental illnesses. . . . The last bullet point on that page reads simply: “We love death more then (sic) you love life!”
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