Staff Sgt. Olaf Schmid — known as 'Oz' — was a 'legend' at one of the most dangerous jobs in Afghanistan: bomb disposal, risking his life more than 60 times to defuse Taliban IEDs — then losing it on his final mission.
Della polls for premier position
JOHN Della Bosca has spent more than $20,000 from his own pocket to commission private polling as part of a revived campaign to challenge Nathan Rees. - He still hasn't responded to his role in the death of hamidur Rahman. - ed.
Despair over daughter's grisly death
THE mother of Raechel Betts hears gruesome allegations of how daughter was dismembered.
Day for Great Expectations?
ELECTION HQ: GOP looks for gains in hotly contested New Jersey and Virginia gov races and in hard-fought New York congressional battle, as Dems hope late Obama push is enough to declare Election Day victories
Joe Declares 'No Deal'
Lieberman denies report he struck a secret agreement with Reid to end debate on health care reform bill
Too Soon to Reserve Ocean View?
Thirty-five mile crack in Ethiopian desert likely to become new ocean or sea — in a million years, or so
Leak plugged, questions remain
A BLAZING rig has finally been plugged after spilling oil for 10 weeks into the Timor Sea.
Jetstar 'blackout' link to Air France crash
JETSTAR plane may have suffered the same malfunction that brought down Atlantic flight.
Mum to sue for second-degree sunburn
A MUM is planning legal action after her toddler was burnt after day in the sun at childcare centre.
Is that habit irritating you? Join the queue
STARING, chewing gum and listening to loud music are some of the habits that annoy Aussies.
Kate Winslet wins $45,000 damages payout
ACTRESS accepts damages over newspaper's claim she lied about her diet and exercise regime.
Australia, NZ eye further Fiji sanctions
FIJIAN leader warned nation risks further isolation after ordering top diplomats out within 24 hours. - Rudd's abysmal foreign policy means that such nations trample the rights of others, as well as their own. - ed.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Spend Election Day With Fox News
=== Comments ===
Criticizing President Obama
By Bill O'Reilly
There are basically two camps when it comes to not liking Barack Obama.
The first group is made up of conservatives who basically see the president as a far-left guy who's bent on changing America forever. One of the leaders of this group is radio commentator Rush Limbaugh:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK RADIO HOST: I'm really, really worried. We've never seen this kind of radical leadership at such a high level of power in the country. I believe that the economy is under siege. It's being destroyed. Anybody with any economic literacy would not do one thing this administration has done to try to revitalize the private sector. They're destroying it, and I have to think that it may be on purpose because this is just outrageous what is happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
My question is: Why would President Obama want to destroy the economy when that would damage him? He'd never be re-elected.
However, there is no question that millions of Americans think Mr. Obama harbors ill will for traditional America, that he wants to break down our entire system. This is a passionate belief on the right.
The other camp of critics are more select in their disenchantment. For example, millions of Americans think that Obamacare is a disaster. And it's hard to argue with that.
The latest proposal put forth by Nancy Pelosi runs 2,000 pages long. It is impossible to figure out the consequences of Mrs. Pelosi's vision.
But here's a hint: The Congressional Budget Office now says only two percent of Americans under 65 years old would participate in government-run health care, even though that program would cost more than a trillion dollars.
"Talking Points" now opposes Obamacare. I gave it a fair shot, but it is far too chaotic. The government should step back, rethink and try again next year.
Any politician voting for a 2,000-page mishmash of ill-defined mandates is misguided to say the least. America can do better than this. So criticism of President Obama on health care is certainly justified and it is not an ideological play.
Likewise on Afghanistan, where the president seems to be confused on how to wage that war. "Talking Points" is waiting patiently for Mr. Obama to define the situation, but it has taken an extremely long time for him to make up his mind.
Legitimate criticism of the commander in chief is necessary in a vibrant democracy. Ideological criticisms really don't solve any problems.
So "Talking Points" will continue to evaluate President Obama on a case-by-case basis, using facts instead of emotion to analyze his actions.
By the way, I don't think the president wants to purposely destroy the economy.
===
SPHERE EXPANDS
Tim Blair
Sweet, sweet misery from George Monbiot:
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.We’ve gone supernova! According to George, this is all happening because of old people.
===
CHANGE
Tim Blair
A no to O:
Virginia voters elected Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell their commonwealth’s next governor Tuesday, handing the state back to the GOP after eight years of Democratic rule …
Elizabeth Dechent, voting in the Richmond, Va., suburb of Henrico County, saw mounting discontent at President Barack Obama.Virginia voted for Obama in 2008, the first time the state had backed a Democrat since LBJ 44 years prior.
“I think there are a lot of questions about whether [the country] is going in the right direction,” she said, declining to say whom she voted for. “Obama’s slogan last year was change, but I think it’s changed a little too much and needs to change back the other way a bit.”
White House officials Tuesday said the results – whether positive or negative for the Democrats – shouldn’t be laid at the president’s feet …For a start, they’d have to move all the garlands of roses.
===
SHARIA CLAW
Tim Blair
Four Presbyterians enter a cave. Two leave.
===
FACTS ABANDONED
Tim Blair
So much for science:
Al’s Gore’s much-anticipated sequel to An Inconvenent Truth is published today, with an admission that facts alone will not persuade Americans to act on global warming and that appealing to their spiritual side is the way forward.This is from the Guardian, which explains both the misspelling of “inconvenient” and the dumb assumption that Gore has been trading in facts even up to this point. It also explains the claim that this book is “much anticipated”.
In his latest book, Holy Moly It’s the Rapture! The Rapture, People! I Can See Poley Bears Huggin’ in Heaven, Yes I Truly Can! [actual title: Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis – ed], the man who won a Nobel prize in 2007 for his touring slideshow on disappearing polar ice and other consequences of climate change, concludes: “Simply laying out the facts won’t work.”Correction: laying out your “facts” hasn’t worked. Those of us in the – what’s the phrase? – “reality-based community” are quite happy to argue science and data and such.
“I’ve done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It’s probably my favourite version, but I don’t use it very often because it can come off as proselytizing,” Gore tells Newsweek.You, Al? You, of all people, coming off as “proselytizing”?
Since 2007, the former vice-president has been calling experts together from fields ranging from agriculture to neuroscience to discuss possible solutions to climate change. The book draws on 30 such “solutions summits”, as well as Gore’s countless telephone conversations with scientists at America’s best institutions.Some of them will soon be eligible for supervised home visits.
According to the book’s press release, “Among the most unique approaches Gore takes in the book is showing readers how our own minds can be an impediment to change.”Our own minds are the enemy! Don’t free the minds – imprison them!
Since 2007, the former vice-president has been calling experts together to discuss possible solutions to climate change. He has also held countless telephone conversations with scientists at America’s best institutions.Haven’t we already seen this? Oh, I forgot … Guardian. Or maybe global warming is causing random paragraph duplication. Next, something that – if true – should be front-page news:
Gore explored new studies - published only last week - that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide – while the focus of the politics of climate change – produces around 40% of the actual warming.?Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions.So CO2 accounts for less than half of the warming that isn’t happening anyway. Yes, this could complicate things. It could complicate things a great deal.
“Over the years I have been among those who focused most of all on CO2, and I think that’s still justified,” he told the magazine. “But a comprehensive plan to solve the climate crisis has to widen the focus to encompass strategies for all” of the greenhouse culprits identified in the Nasa study.The encompassing strategy to deal with soot should be interesting. Big Soot won’t stand idly by and let Gore get away with it, of course. I say this as someone who is obviously in the pay of Big Soot.
On Saturday, he told the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, he was “almost certain” Obama would attend the [Hopenchangen] negotiations.Well, Gore’s call on CO2 was accurate enough. Maybe if enough interfaith prayer is involved, Obama will materialise for the climate talks.
UPDATE. Poor little science gets another shove:
The head of the group leading the fight against climate change has accused countries of pushing science aside in favour of self-serving ‘’political myopia’’ ahead of the vital Copenhagen summit.Come on, science. Fight back!
UPDATE II. Science responds:
A Peruvian scientist has called on his country to help slow the melting of Andean glaciers by daubing white paint on the rock and earth left behind by receding ice so they will absorb less heat …Way to go, science.
[Eduardo] Gold says the paint that would be used is environmentally friendly and made from a base of lime, without chemical components.
It could be made by local residents and could create some 15,000 jobs over five years, he added.
===
GHOST WHO FLOATS
Tim Blair
Unusually-named SMH journalist Ben Cubby Environment reports:
More than a billion ‘’phantom’’ plastic bags are floating around Australia …UPDATE. Reader Rothman emails:
Ben Cubby Environment has also written the profile of Tim Flannery in the 50 Years in the South Pacific anniversary issue of TIME this week.
They picked one person to represent each decade, and Flannery is the main profile and therefore most significant person of 1999-2009.
Benny C.’s piece is moronic, but does contain this helpful line: “If the world wants an idea of how global warming will change how we in the West live in the future, Australia’s a good place to look.”
In that case, as one who migrated to this lovely land, I reckon the West’s future is pretty bright.
===
LET THEM DRIVE HYBRIDS
Tim Blair
Way to hurt the poor, Mr President:
[Used car dealer Jeff] Kantor said the Cash for Clunkers program is having unintended consequences.Why does Obama hate recycling?
“They didn’t think about the auto repair shop that needs an engine for one of its customers, or low-income families that might need an engine,” Kantor said. “One million engines are being crushed that were perfectly good.”
Fred Kelley, owner of Fred’s Garage in Candia, said it is difficult to find used motors now. If one is found, the cost is much higher.
Kelley said he had a customer with a 1999 Ford pick-up that needed a motor.
“About a year ago, I could have bought that same motor for four or five hundred bucks. That same motor if you can find one … is running 1,200 to 1,500 bucks because there are none out there,” Kelley said.
===
SEA RISE SWAMPS LONDON
Tim Blair
Quote of the week from former Deputy Mayor of London Jenny Jones, who dismisses Metropolitan Police Authority advice to leave lights on as a burglary deterrent:
“The Met simply does not get Climate change, and neither does the Mayor of London. They need a basic education in these issues before we all drown in our beds.She declines to warn of electrocution risk, what with all that water sloshing around.
“I would encourage people not to leave their lights on, and rather to invest in proper insulation and lock systems.”
UPDATE. Let the drowning continue:
Late last month, activists gathered at Sydney Opera House to listen to Sydney mayor Clover Moore announce that “the time for talk is past”.These people are completely insane.
“Already we know that this building, our Opera House, for decades a symbol of optimism and the human spirit, is under threat from global warming,” she says.
UPDATE II. The perfect complement to light-free British homes:
Cops based near Oxford in the UK have revealed that they are unable to to use flashing blue lights on their new electric car — in case it drains too much power from the battery.
===
STYLE SECTION ERUPTS
Tim Blair
The WaPo becomes the WaPOW! as editor and writer duke it out:
Details are sketchy, but numerous witnesses report that veteran feature editor Henry Allen punched out feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday. The fracas took place in sight of Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli’s office. Brauchli rushed to separate the two.Further rock-em sock-em reporting here. I blame the divisive policies of Barack Obama.
It should be noted that Allen is nearly seventy, but he served in the Marines in Vietnam. He also won a Pulitzer prize in 2000 for criticism. Both apparently came into play when Allen jumped Roig-Franzia.
===
Rudd celebrates the victory he opposed
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd in 2007 was against the surge strategy that General David Petraeus devised for Iraq:
We believe the strategy being pursued by and supported by Mr Howard is heading in the wrong direction. That’s why we have argued consistently against that surge strategy...Kevin Rudd in 2009 rewards General David Petraeus for devising a strategy so brilliantly successful:
THE Federal Government will today award US general David Petraeus the Order of Australia for his service against terrorism as coalition commander in Iraq, where he oversaw the surge strategy that brought major fighting to a close…Yet another example of Rudd having preferred spin to substance.
The citation says ... ‘’Under General Petraeus’ guidance the coalition gained tactical momentum that led directly to strengthened reconciliation efforts and a renewed focus on political reform resulting in a reduction in violence, lessening casualties and a decrease in security incidents....”.
===
Indonesia sets Rudd a deadline
Andrew Bolt
This could get a whole lot uglier for Kevin Rudd, and very soon:
INDONESIA has warned “there is a limit” to its patience over the Oceanic Viking asylum-seeker impasse.Looks like Rudd got it wrong yet again, given he told Parliament:
The 78 Tamil asylum-seekers are still refusing to leave the Australian customs ship moored off the Indonesian island of Bintan for the past 10 days.
Australian officials are working to persuade the asylum-seekers - rescued from Indonesia’s search and rescue zone - to voluntarily leave the ship and enter detention in Tanjung Pinang, Bintan’s main town.
But an Indonesian deadline means the Oceanic Viking may be forced to leave on Friday, unless Indonesia grants a second extension.
Indonesia has an abundance of patience in handling these matters.Um, no, it hasn’t. So the likelihood is growing stronger that Rudd will be forced to take the Tamils to Christmas Island. And more boats will then most certainly come, with their passengers using the same tactics as did these - and as did the Tamils who this week drowned at sea.
===
Why does Rudd rush in where Obama fears to tread?
Andrew Bolt
Why is Kevin Rudd so desperate to have Parliament pass his colossal emissions trading tax before next month’s Copenhagen meeting when even Barack Obama has given up on that mug’s game?
International negotiators lost one of the key elements to a successful deal on global warming today after Democratic leaders in the US Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010. In the latest obstacle on the road to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month, Senate leaders ordered a five-week pause to review the costs of the legislation. In a move to stem the Republican protest, and quieten Democrat critics, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said he would ask the Environmental Protection Agency to spend five weeks reviewing the potential costs of the bill.Warminst extremist George Monbiot is in despair:
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease.Stuart Blackman in The Scientist wouldn’t be surprised:
Scientists have a strong incentive to make bold predictions — namely, to obtain funding, influence, and high-profile publications. But unfulfilled predictions can be a blow for patients, policy makers, and for the reputation of science itself.UPDATE
Monbiot thinks elders are dumb and selfish:
The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it’s caused by humans, or that it’s a serious problem. This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?Hmm. But Monbiot once thought elders were wise and nurturing. Example:
There are some obvious answers: they won’t be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason… When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for self-esteem.
Growth and desiccation in the savannahs are so rapid that the herders must start moving before the rain falls. While all the elders can read the clouds or smell the moisture in the wind, the Samburu say that only Ledumen can truly divine the intentions of God.And another:
During the long dry seasons in the far north west of Kenya, the people of the Turkwel River keep themselves alive by feeding their goats on the pods of the acacia trees growing on its banks. Every clump of trees is controlled by a committee of elders, who decide who should be allowed to use them and for how long.What could explain the difference? Is it that Monbiot prefers his elders to be poor, superstititious and dangerously vulnerable to the weather? If so, his green program will sure smarten them up.
===
Stereotype reinforced
Andrew Bolt
What is it with the Left and violence?
POLICE in England are questioning a student after he hurled a work boot at the head of former Prime Minister John Howard during a speech at the prestigious Cambridge University.Once again, such in-your-face tactics only alienate the public:
The male student, believed to be Australian, threw the boot after verbally abusing Mr Howard, branding him a racist and a disgrace, from the moment the former leader entered the room.
The 300 other students in the audience didn’t join in and started booing the heckler.The cheapskate’s exit was undignified:
Organisers refused requests to return the boot.
===
Obama feels less hope, as voters change
Andrew Bolt
O dear:
Barack Obama suffered a major setback tonight when the Republicans secured a much-sought victory in the first elections since he won the White House a year ago. The Republicans won the governorship in Virginia, one of the most high-profile of hundreds of elections held across the US today. It ends a trend of Democratic wins across the US since 2005.More bad news for the president:
In New Jersey, early indications showed the contest between Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine and his Republican challenger Chris Christie too close to call, US media reported after polls closed.Nothing to do with Obama, say many. But that isn’t how it will play out…
UPDATE
Both states lost by the Democrats:
Republicans rolled to victory in Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races on Tuesday in a sharp blow to Democrats ...But in New York state:
Democrats won a special election in New York state’s northernmost congressional district Tuesday, a setback for national conservatives who heavily promoted a third candidate in what became an intense debate over the direction of the Republican party.
===
Blow up the harmless Christians instead
Andrew Bolt
The message is that the most savage faiths will win Hollywood’s respect. Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day, and The Day After Tomorrow, said he’s had second thoughts about his latest film:
For his latest disaster movie, 2012, the 53-year-old director had wanted to demolish the Kaaba, the iconic cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca …Seems his opposition isn’t actually to organised religions generally, but just to the one that most guarantees his safety and freedom to speak.
“But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. We have to all, in the western world, think about this. You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa… So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out.”
But Emmerich acolytes need not fear that the film-maker is pulling his punches on 2012… – in order to highlight his opposition to organised religion, the director decided to use CGI to destroy the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro instead. For good measure, he also blew up the Sistine chapel and St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, plus, on a secular note, the White House (again).
Coward. Vandal. And the Guardian journalist who wrote that last paragraph is little better.
===
Ethic cleansing
Andrew Bolt
I doubt that this weakening of a cultural identity - and a moral influence - is smart social engineering:
Italian schools have been told to remove crucifixes from their classroom walls. The instruction comes from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.Nor do I think such decisions are best made by foreigners. Organic change in something so intimate is preferable to one imposed.
A case was brought by Italian national, Soile Lautsi, who complained that there were crucifixes in every classroom at her children’s school in northern Italy. Lautsi said their presence was against her right to give her children a secular education…
The European Court said the crucifixes might be disturbing for children from other religions or atheists. It also awarded Lautsi 5,000 euros in damages.
UPDATE
Professor Greg Craven, vice chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, on the rise of anti-Catholic bigotry:
In an average week of atheistic bigotry in the Melbourne media, we can expect to learn that Catholics endorse child molestation, hate all other religions, would re-introduce the crusades and the auto de fe at the slightest opportunity, despise women, wish to persecute homosexuals, greedily divert public moneys for their own religious purposes, subvert public health care, brainwash children, and are masterminding the spread of the cane toad across northern Australia.UPDATE 2
Applied to the average totalitarian dictatorship, this charge sheet would be over the top. Ascribed to virtually any ethnic minority, it rightly would result at least in public revulsion and quite possibly in criminal charges. But applied to Christians, it seems to be accepted as just another modern blood sport, like the vilification of refugees and the elimination of the private life of the families of public figures.
At the bottom, of course, lies hate. I am not quite clear why our modern crop of atheists hates Christians, as opposed to ignoring or even politely dismissing them, but they very clearly do. There is nothing clever, witty or funny about hate.
Imposing Catholicism on students bad, imposing green fervor on your colleagues good:
An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs…(Yes, I’ve also blogged on this below.)
The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel…
(Tim) Nicholson, 42, from Oxford, told a previous hearing that his… beliefs led to frequent clashes with Grainger’s other managers, while he said that Rupert Dickinson, the firm’s chief executive, treated his concerns with “contempt”.
But does this cut both ways? Can sceptics now sue their government for imposing on them policies based their religiously green faith? Can I sue News Ltd for hanging in my workplace not a crucifix but a poster exhorting me to fight climate change?
UPDATE 3
Reader Derek is preparing his claim:
I applied over a month ago for one of the many hundreds of positions recently advertised by the New Federal Department of Climate Change. After enquiring about the progress of my application, I was verbally informed that my application was unsuccessful and I would be contacted shortly.
I am qualified in Environmental Health Science, Public Health, and am also a Radiation Safety Officer with 20 years experience therefore thought I was worthy.
I was told by an officer that my application indicated that I did not have sufficient personal “belief” that climate change and global warning was happening. I apparently indicated that if global warming was occurring, I was open to other explanations other than man made.
It is my opinion that Religion is based on beliefs, and therefore this climate change “movement” is that of a religious cult.
===
The bills rise as the value falls
Andrew Bolt
Grand plans and sloppy delivery:
WAYNE Swan’s efforts to trim the stimulus package and cut government spending have been swamped by an $18.5 billion blowout in existing programs and the cost of the federal interest bill…There still isn’t enough discussion about how little we got in exchange for this enormous flood of money. Pink batts? School halls? Gone-tomorrow cash handouts? Never has so much been owed by so many for so little.
A range of programs face higher costs, including almost $1 billion on the home insulation program, $1.2bn on the schools building program, $1.1bn in higher private health insurance rebate costs and $1.4bn in increased Medicare costs from higher than forecast spending on general practitioners’ consultations. Together, these cost blowouts add up to $13.5bn over four years.
UPDATE
Terry McCrann warns that Rudd could be worse than Whitlam:
FOR more than 30 years the Whitlam government has been the—unsurpassable—benchmark for bad government in Australia.... Now, however, Kevin Rudd seems embarked on challenging that benchmark…UPDATE 2
So what’s the basis of my call? The fiscal stimulus—or to give it its official Swan title, stimulus—is actually part of my case against the Rudd government, but it’s more the “filling” between the two truly totemic failures. The $43billion National Broadband Network and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme....
Here we have a government prepared to spend $43bn on the 21st century national infrastructure project without having embarked on the most basic cost-benefit assessment. And without having the slightest idea of what the most basic metrics could be or would have to be to make any sense of it. The very uncertainty of the figure is most damning of all.
Or perhaps the failure to ask even the most basic question of all—is there any need for it?....
What arguably takes Rudd beyond being merely Whitlam Mark II is the CPRS—a direct and all-pervasive attack on the very foundation, not just of our national prosperity, but our very existence… Rudd wants to be the only developed country to go to Copenhagen with a mandatory carbon dioxide scheme. A sort of collective insanity seems to have engulfed the government. A seemingly trance-like desire to embrace national suicide.
Speaking of which:
THE productivity benefits of high-speed internet access may be a myth, says a New Zealand study that undermines part of the Federal Government’s justification for the $43 billion national broadband network. The study found that while there were economic benefits in having ADSL rather than dial-up, there was little extra value in faster forms such as fibre-optic cable.
===
Cate not embarrassed any more
Andrew Bolt
This is nice:
AMERICAN reviewers have been lunging for superlatives to describe Cate Blanchett’s performance in the Sydney Theatre Company production of A Streetcar Named Desire in Washington.But Blanchett taking a US play to the US is also surprising, given her kick at John Howard before the last election:
CATE Blanchett wants the winner of next month’s federal election to free Australia from its “embarrassing” relationship with the US…Well, a little hypocrisy is not that surprising with our each-way Cate
”We’re so in America’s back pocket it’s embarrassing. We have to claim our individualism, but also reconnect to the world in a better way. We’ve really isolated ourselves from Asia. I think that’s politically and culturally very foolish.”
UPDATE
Cate just can’t get out of that back-pocket. Here’s the latest news of her next project - an American play about an American murder:
A PLAY based on the shocking death of a Florida toddler, which will star Cate Blanchett and be staged only in Australia, has provoked outrage in the US.... The murder of two-year-old Caylee Anthony, whose rotting remains were found stuck together with duct tape, has been dramatised by award-winning director Steven Soderbergh...This is embarrassing.
===
Lured to their deaths?
Andrew Bolt
The patrol vessel Oceanic Viking picked up 78 Sri Lankans who’d sabotaged their own ship, and now refuse to get off ours. Was that message received by the latest boat to come - which also sent out an SOS but then sank, drowning at least 12 on board?
And government sources yesterday voiced suspicions the boat may have been scuttled, citing the rapid pace at which it sank.The signals we send are critical, and can have lethal consequences. Our “compassion” can kill - and I fear it does.
UPDATE
Professor Michael Roberts on fake refugees and the atrocity-mongering of the Left:
AS a dual Australian Sri Lankan national, what has struck me (is) ... the inability of Australians to put Tamil migration in its historical context and instead to uncritically accept tales of Tamil persecution and even genocide that are patently untrue....Roberts, not surprisingly, is particularly scathing of the reckless and ill-informed claims of Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
(In Sri Lanka’s capital) the Tamil population as a whole rose from 11.2 per cent in 1981 to 12.2 per cent in 2001… This is because migration to foreign lands has been exceeded by internal movements from the northern and eastern parts of the island, to escape the conflict and in search of better economic opportunities…
(I)n a fair proportion of cases, the desire to migrate is inspired by a concern for the educational prospects of their children and the monetary support provided by kinfolk who are already in some Western country. The migration of Tamils from the Jaffna Peninsula and Batticaloa regions to Colombo in the recent past, therefore, is often a first stage in a projected step outwards.
This second step, of outmigration, calls for patience. Not all can meet the strict criteria laid down in Australia for skilled migrants or family reunion. Some, therefore, seek the illegal pathway provided by people smugglers…
It appears recently a few families elected to fly to Malaysia where they boarded the Jaya Lestari. This was a costly exercise. It also required passports and visas. It is unlikely that any of the Tamils (numbers uncertain) who slipped out of the internally displaced persons camps by, say, July could have secured the necessary papers in two months, unless they had connections with the LTTE or criminals engaged in forgery. In view of all the above, my conjecture is that Brindha, the tearful nine-year-old filmed by the ABC pleading for asylum, and her family did not spend time “in the jungle” as they claimed and were not fleeing the IDP camps, but are much more likely to be from the Tamil communities of Jaffna or Colombo. This is not to say they should be refused admission to Australia as migrants, simply that they are unlikely to be refugees.
UPDATE 2
Reader Scott is curious about Kevin Rudd’s excuse for the increasing numbers of boats:
Rudd paints a bleak picture of Sri Lanka and the horrible violence and political unrest throughout the nation…
Now if Sri Lanka is a bad as Rudd and Gillard make it out to be then one would safely assume that Sri Lanka would be on the government’s ‘No Go’ list where the government advise against ALL travel. See here. Strangely it isn’t!
It is however listed as a place where the government ‘advise you to reconsider your need to travel‘. On that illustrious list are the following nations: Algeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Zimbabwe…
I don’t recall seeing massive influxes of new arrivals (asylum seekers) from these countries. Indeed the travel advisories only pertain to northern Sri Lanka where the government and the Tamil’s were fighting… If these people wanted to escape the ‘violence’ then why not move to the south of Sri Lanka.
===
Will Rudd pay the UN $7 billion?
Andrew Bolt
NEXT month Kevin Rudd flies to Copenhagen to help seal a United Nations deal to cut the world’s emissions - and to make Australia hand over part of its wealth
So keen is the Prime Minister to get this new global-warming treaty signed that he’s been appointed a “friend of the chairman” to tie up loose ends.
So here’s the question: is Rudd really going to approve a draft treaty that could force Australia to hand over an astonishing $7 billion a year to a new and unelected global authority?
Yes, that’s $7 billion, or about $330 from every man, woman and child. Every year. To be passed on to countries such as China and Bangladesh, and the sticky-fingered in-between.
And a second question, perhaps even more important: is Rudd really going to approve a draft treaty which also gives that unelected authority the power to fine us billions of dollars more if it doesn’t like our green policies?
It is incredible that these questions have not been debated by either the Rudd Government or the Opposition, whose hapless leader, Malcolm Turnbull, on Monday admitted he did not even have a copy of this treaty. Australia’s wealth and sovereign rights may soon be signed away, so why hasn’t the public at least been informed?
In case you think what I’m saying is just too incredible - too far-fetched - to be true, let me quote this draft treaty.
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Gore clears carbon dioxide of most blame
Andrew Bolt
This is big. Al Gore is now saying carbon dioxide isn’t actually to blame for most of the warming we saw until 2001:
Gore explored new studies - published only last week - that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide – while the focus of the politics of climate change – produces around 40% of the actual warming. Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions.Which suggests not only that was Gore wrong to claim the science was “settled”, but that the hugely expensive schemes to “stop” warming by slashing carbon dixoide emissions will be less than half as effective as claimed.
Tim Blair isn’t surprised that Gore now says he’s switching from appealing to facts to appealing to faith. Well, actually, Tim is surprised, since facts actually have never been Gore’s thing.
UPDATE
Meanwhile, the Victorian Government privately admits that green energy and “clean coal” technology may be just snake oil:
VICTORIA will rely on fossil fuel for energy for decades, with leaked documents revealing the Brumby Government is set to take a multibillion-dollar gamble on ‘’clean coal’’....How the public has been conned.
While the state will continue to depend on coal-fired power, confidential cabinet documents acknowledge the clean coal strategy may not work.
‘’A key question for Commonwealth and state governments is whether to consider long-term contingency options to deal with the risk that clean coal proves to be more costly and limited an option than currently believed,’’ one document says.
UPDATE 3
Gore’s appeals to faith, not reason, should work now that a British court has (rightly) ruled that global warming is a kind of religion.
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Gore scares up a fortune
Andrew Bolt
Move over Big Oil. Big Green could soon make Al Gore the world’s first global warming billionaire, as he profits from the panic he helped to create.
UPDATE
Gore’s response:
Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.Steve Milloy puts Gore’s horse before his luxury cart:
Or is it that he’s putting his mouth where his money is?Here’s the question: how much does Gore stand to lose if he concedes the planet isn’t actually warming as it should if our gases are to blame?
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Stand firm - and for something
Andrew Bolt
A lesson here to the Liberals and to the Palin haters, too.
Here’s the story. There’s a by-election for a House seat in upstate New York, and the Republican machine chooses Dede Scozzafava, a kind of Turnbull-like politician who could just as easily have stood for the Democrats.
The grassroots Republicans get upset that their party has lurched to the Left, me-tooing what it should be fighting. Sarah Palin gets upset, too, and decides to endorse instead the candidate who most clearly stands for her party’s values - Doug Hoffmann, who is actually the candidate for the tiny Conservative Party:
She also cited former president Ronald Reagan’s belief that “blurring the lines” was not the way to re-build the Republican party and added: “The Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race.”Well, well, well. The polls quickly discovered that voters don’t much like wishy-washy, but do rather fancy a fighter. Scozzafava dropped to an unwinnable third position, behind the Democrat candidate and Hoiffmann, the surprise leader.
Scozzafava then proved Palin and her critics absolutely correct. Days after declaring “I will be a Republican until the day I die”, she decides to quit the race and back the Democrat instead.
The polls are tight, but Hoffmann still has a handy lead. The Liberals should read a profound lesson in this.
PS
And another lesson is to return even more fire when attacked on strong ground, and not to miserably retreat like this:
Federal Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott has sought to clarify comments he made about the sinking of a boat off north-western Australia in which he blamed the Prime Minister for the disaster.And this:
Malcolm Turnbull has been accused of lacking morality and courage for failing to repudiate renegade Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey over a suggestion that terrorists were among asylum seekers heading for Australia…What would Paul Keating have done, if he were Turnbull or Abbott? What Bob Hawke?
While he did not criticise Mr Tuckey, Mr Turnbull later rejected the assertion that terrorists could be posing as asylum seekers.
“I reject any person, any statement, which suggests that asylum seekers are, or are likely to be, terrorists. Full stop,” he told parliament.
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