Sunday, December 13, 2009

Headlines Sunday 13th December 2009

Ancient Tablets Decoded; Shed Light on Assyrian Empire

Meticulous ancient notetakers have given archaeologists a glimpse of what life was like 3,000 years ago in the Assyrian Empire, which controlled much of the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.

A last gasp to fix this messed up state
LABOR'S leadership crisis is bringing NSW to a grinding halt as significant development projects sit on the shelf and Premier Kristina Keneally struggles.

Australia may foot climate bill

AUSTRALIA faces a hefty payout to help countries like China and India cope with climate change.


The trend in many southern and western states, is attributed in large part to a push by the NRA which has ramped up its efforts at the state level to chip away at gun restrictions.

Toddler sees cops arrest drug dealer dad
A THREE-year-old girl watched as her father was forced to the ground and handcuffed by police.

Iran's Nuclear Power Play
Iran warms up to U.N. nuclear fuel proposal while still vowing to aggressively pursue nuclear technology

GOP Filibuster Blocked
Senate Democrats defeat Republican filibuster in $1.1T spending bill, setting the stage for Sunday vote

Gillette to Shave Tiger's Ads
Razor giant says it will limit the golf great's role in its marketing while he takes time to repair personal life

Sarah Palin Makes Surprise Appearance on 'Tonight Show'
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Sarah Palin made a surprise appearance on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" on Friday -- and turned the tables on actor William Shatner.

Whites caused Aboriginal drinking - Dingo
ERNIE Dingo hits out at "white people" who lecture Aborigines about alcohol consumption.

Australia's first saint just days away
THE Blessed Mary MacKillop is almost certain to be named the nation's first saint within days.

Emergency calls reveal casino chaos
PARAMEDICS called to one casino everyday to deal with stabbings, overdoses and sexual assaults.
=== Comments ===
Copenhagen: A climate of manipulation
Piers Akerman
NATIONAL leaders will this week launch the greatest slush fund the world has ever seen - and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be adding your money to the pile. - I would have no problem with giving the UN the .7% growth they ask for if I felt they would spend it properly, but they have a historical record of failing to be able to account for their work. The UN’s failures can be seen in the failures of Korea, Uganda, Rwanda, Cambodia, Palestine, Lebanon, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Burma, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, South Africa, South America and more. The UN failed Iraqis with their oil for food scandal. They failed Lebanese when they criticized Israel for the work of terrorists. Let the UN point to something worthwhile that they do that doesn’t involve embezzling and corruption and then maybe they can consider imposing their world order. - ed.
===
COPENHATIN’
Tim Blair
Something’s rioting in Denmark:
More than 600 people have been arrested at a demonstration against climate change in Copenhagen today.
Against climate change? Doesn’t seem so, unless windows are agents of warming:
What started as a peaceful demonstration calling for action on climate change, descended into rioting as hundreds of masked youths threw bricks and smashed windows in the Danish capital.
It’s an ursine uprising:
Some activists dressed as polar bears and panda bears to highlight the environmental impact of climate change, while others carried inflatable snowmen and barriers saying “Act Now!”.
And the cops did, 600 times.
===
CLIMATE JUSTICE CAKE
Tim Blair
Turn up the volume on this day 36 post from Climate Justice Fast! activist Starvin’ Marvin, because in the background it sounds as though people are enjoying a Climate Justice Feast! – or at least some Climate Justice Coffee and Cake!:

===
ZERO TO 28
Tim Blair
October 10:
People are at risk of house fires due to dodgy ceiling insulation installed under a $2.7 billion federal government program, the opposition says.

But the government says not a single fire has been caused by the program.
November 30:
Mr Garrett denied all 57 insulation fires identified by the fire brigade – the majority caused by batts on downlights – were related to the scheme, claiming only 28 were linked.
===
ABU ABOOMED
Tim Blair
Unmanned drones – and I’m not talking about those Code Pink ladies – have reportedly killed senior al Qaeda figure Abu Yahya al-Libi. A few more hits like this and Obama might eventually earn that Nobel of his.
===
Who most needs icing?
Andrew Bolt

Reader Craig in Alaska is so cold that he needs to keep busy, and he’d like your advice:
I’m attaching a photo of myself, Sarah (Palin), Piper, Todd, and our 8 ‘tall 5 ton shivering Al Gore ice statue. Was taken here in Fairbanks last (severe cold) winter.

We would like to do another statue, and would like your readers to decide what we should have sculpted. Must be related to Gore or Global warming.

We will donate (in the winners name) heating oil for the town of Tetlin, Alaska, where the temperature last winter hit -80F.
I’ve left this thread open for suggestions.
===
This reckless spending must stop
Andrew Bolt
Exactly how much of our money is Kevin Rudd shipping off to the United Nations, to pass on as a bribe to countries such as China?

Answer? He won’t tell you:
AUSTRALIA faces having to make a hefty payout to help developing countries such as China and India cope with climate change in order to clinch a deal in Copenhagen. ..

“There are a range of figures flying around,” Senator Wong said. “(British Prime Minister) Gordon Brown has proposed a $100 billion mix of public and private money. We have not indicated a figure but we have indicated we’re prepared to do our fair share.”
Same story two weeks ago at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where Rudd also promised away our cash for support for his global warming plans:
The Commonwealth plan for the so-called “Fast Start” fund calls for developed countries in the 53-nation group to spend $10 billion a year until at least 2012.
And again Rudd wouldn’t come clean on what he’d given away:
He decline(d) to put a figure on the funding, saying it was still to be determined.
And, wait, there’s more:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has previously backed a separate $US10 billion climate fund in talks with US President Barack Obama and Mr Brown.
How many billions of your money will be sent overseas by Kevin Rudd in his crazed crusade to “stop” a warming that seems to have stopped already?
===
Add Healthwatch to the junkheap
Andrew Bolt
Glenn Milne notes that it’s now six months past the deadline Kevin Rudd set for taking over the public hospitals if the states didn’t agree to his reforms. Rudd loves the applause for his grand statements, but loses interest in delivery at the echo of the last clap.

Mind you, this is yet another Rudd promise that’s better broken.
===
Your cash, down a green hole in the ground
Andrew Bolt
Tim Flannery on his new green dream of geothermal power:
There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century. They are not being fully exploited yet but the technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward.
How straightforward? Judge by what’s happened to the Flannery investment in that very area of South Australia:
GEODYNAMICS has provided an update on the safety situation after an well explosion on 24 April 2009 at its Habanero 3 well site at its Innamincka Joint Venture project in South Australia.
And then:
An investigation into the explosion has found that chemicals in the well reacted with steel amid fluctuating temperatures to cause damage to the well’s casing… Brisbane-based Geodynamics has had to plug the well and two others with concrete. It said the implications for future well design and material selection are “complex”.
Odd that Flannery didn’t mention any of these woes - or his investment - when spruiking the technology on Lateline.

And now even more news of this “straightforward” technology:
The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned… The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy…

The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source…

Geothermal enthusiasts asserted that drilling miles into hard rock, as required by the technique, could be done quickly and economically with small improvements in existing methods, Professor Schrag said. “What we’ve discovered is that it’s harder to make those improvements than some people believed,” he added.

In fact, AltaRock immediately ran into snags with its drilling, repeatedly snapping off bits in shallow formations called caprock..
Yet green spruikers such as Flannery managed to lure certain dupes into investing millions in this dream:
Geodynamics won a A$90 million grant from Australia’s Renewable Energy Demonstration Program
(Thanks to reader Smirking Liberal.)
===
They were supposed to cut emissions instead
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd’s mad plan to hand out free pink batts, to be installed by any cowboy you like, has sure stimulated the NSW fire brigade. Even Environment Peter Garrett admits to his green plan having started at least 28 house fires in NSW alone.

For a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions, billowing smoke is not an ideal result. Nor are the three dead.
===
Greenshirts: by their tactics you will know them
Andrew Bolt

It’s not just the fervent self-righteousness but the trampling of the rights of others to even speak that makes the ”greenshirts” analogy so accurate - and a warning we must heed.

And, no, greens are not Nazis, but the surrender to the totalitarian instinct is terribly familiar.

So is the violence:
More than 600 people have been arrested at a demonstration against climate change in Copenhagen today. What started as a peaceful demonstration calling for action on climate change, descended into rioting as hundreds of masked youths threw bricks and smashed windows in the Danish capital.
Bertrand Russell would not have been surprised:
Much of what passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
Nor H.L.Mencken:
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
UPDATE

Some, of course, can’t resist the lure of paramilitary black:

===
Conservatives: your job is not yet done
Andrew Bolt
Peter Coleman takes heart from the Liberals’ grassroots revolt against the emissions trading scheme that was backed by their then leader. If only it had happened sooner:

In Australia the conservative public has left it to the politicians to create the guiding ideas, something very few of them are good at… (R)emember the war is too important to be left to the generals.
===
TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE
Tim Blair
Awesome protest action in Wisconsin:
About 40 Racine youths braved the cold weather Saturday night in an effort to raise awareness about climate change …

The students held candles and posters, and waved to passing cars.
Maybe they were trying to warn them:
Some Wisconsin communities that have installed high efficiency traffic lights are discovering the energy-saving bulbs are a hazard in a snow storm.

City officials say the LED lights use less electricity and don’t give off enough heat to melt ice or snow. So when the snow falls and the wind blows, the traffic lights are obscured.

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