Headlines Tuesday 1st December 2009

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First Day of Summer in Sydney
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Tony Abbott is Liberal leader

TONY Abbott rolls Malcolm Turnbull, then reneges on the climate deal with the Government.

'Sex crime claim hushed up by school'
A 20-year cover up allowed a man to keep teaching after an alleged sex assault, court hears - this headline matches the experience of a Campbelltown based public school teacher - ed.


As Maurice Clemmons remains on the run in Washington state, questions are swirling as to how and why the suspect in the execution of four police officers — an ex-con who faced more than 100 years behind bars — was allowed to live free.

Climate Change Scientists Admit Dumping Data

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit CRU was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

Labor rebels risk the boot over a Rees ambush

SENIOR Labor figures are believed to have discussed expelling John Della Bosca and Ian Macdonald from the party if the anti-Rees campaign continues.

'Cocaine' death in doctor's luxury home
POLICE are investigating the death of a young woman, believed to be a prostitute, in a prominent doctor's upmarket apartment.

Generals Get Their Orders
Top military and diplomatic officials get marching orders from Obama ahead of a planned speech where he's expected to outline Afghan war strategy

Whose Job are We Spending to Save?
Many House Dems, facing elections and tough voters, back another round of jobs spending — but what's it bought, so far?

U.N. Green With Power Envy?
As Copenhagen climate change conference nears, reports reveal U.N.'s obsession with being world's primary environmental rules-maker


Bad news fellas but women are happier and more satisfied with their lives than you are - that's the latest theory in how much pleasure the sexes get out of each day. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Rocker hauled off stage for Nazi anthem
PETE Doherty has caused outrage for singing the Nazi anthem at a music festival.

Australians need better sex education
THE number of Australians newly diagnosed with HIV is about 40 per cent higher than it was four years ago, a report shows.
=== Journalists Corner ===

The President's Afghanistan Address!
From troop levels to our timetable for victory, Obama maps out his strategy for success!
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Happy Holiday Hiring!
We're 'On the Job Hunt' -- Inside the ten companies bringing employment cheer.
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Bill's Back!
Sex offenders, horrible judges and left-wing media watch out! The holiday's over and America's beat cop is back!
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Selling His Strategy!
Will America buy the president's new plan for the war in Afghanistan or will a holiday hold up cripple the vote on Capitol Hill?
=== Comments ===
Challenge will leave Turnbull’s head in the sand
Piers Akerman
AS one who supported Malcolm Turnbull’s bid to oust Peter King in the electorate of Wentworth, and his subsequent deposing of former Opposition leader Brendan Nelson, I admit an error in judgment. - I too made those calls. I think my judgement was fine for the time, and I back my judgement now to tear down Mr Turnbull from the leadership for the same reasons I supported him. He was cognizant of current events, but now he seems totally out of touch. - ed.
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Anger simmers in paradise lost - Life on Christmas Island
Piers Akerman
THE fictional Dr Moreau conducted his bizarre research with men and animals safe from prying eyes on a tropical hide-away. Kevin Rudd conducts his experiments behind secure barbed wire fences on the Australian territory of Christmas Island.
Just 360km from Java but 2600km from Perth, this beautiful islet is now the site of a human laboratory in which the Rudd Labor Government is running a huge social engineering exercise under the guise of the nation’s immigration policy. - Most journalists only find one point to examine, partly because government policy is near the mark, or massaged to appear to be. Instead, Piers, you have found many many good points, and shown how the corrupt government of Rudd has woven them together. I want more migrants to come to Australia, but not this way. Clearly Rudd needed more space when he got rid of those protections from the government of Mr Howard. Maybe Rudd could employ the space provided in those public school halls left empty by the Education Revolution. - ed.
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FREEDOM LOVED
Tim Blair
Good news from Central America:

Today’s elections in Honduras was a huge victory for democracy and a huge embarrassment for the former leftist President Manuel Zelaya and the Obama White House.?Despite calls from Zelaya urging supporters to boycott and protest the vote, the freedom-loving Hondurans turned out in record numbers.

The elections included an event familiar to Australians:
There was a rupture in the Liberal Party …
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HUCKABYE
Tim Blair
A former Republican governor is now unlikely to run for the White House in 2012.
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COALITION OF THE SPILLING
Tim Blair
Following a week during which the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader joined hands to declare economic war on their own country, three candidates – Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott – are expected this morning to seek leadership of the Liberal Party. Turnbull is almost certainly gone:

Malcolm Turnbull will offer himself as Australia’s first political martyr to the cause of climate change … Turnbull will go to his political death defending Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme.

He must be ever so proud. Yesterday, Mal Gore was still trying to reshape the party into something his Labor-inclined friends would admire:

“If it is going to be a relevant, credible political organisation, it has to be a progressive political movement.”

Expect similar lines from Turnbull in future Financial Review columns. So, this is where we’re at:

Abbott is the only pure anti-ETS candidate the Liberals have this morning and Turnbull is the only purely pro-ETS candidate. It’s Joe, not Malcolm, who’s in the middle.

That’s the essential formguide.
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ROTTEN TO THE CORE
Tim Blair
Second thoughts on Warmergate from Clive Crook:

In my previous post on Climategate I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take that back.

The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues, this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC process. It is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David Henderson called the environmental policy milieu. It goes to the core of that process ...

Can I read these emails and feel that the scientists involved deserve to be trusted? No, I cannot.

Read on.
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Let the peasants walk
Andrew Bolt
A hairshirt lecture from above - as in 35,000 feet above, in business class:

Hotel guests should have their electricity monitored; hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying; and iced water in restaurants should be curtailed, the world’s leading climate scientist has told the Observer.

Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warned that western society must undergo a radical value shift if the worst effects of climate change were to be avoided. A new value system of “sustainable consumption” was now urgently required, he said.

Of course, this new asecetic lifestyle cannot possibly be imposed on a man as grand as Pachauri, with such crucial work to do to save us from the gases he belches out the back of his jet:

I recently examined a UN document entitled ”Details of Outreach Activities carried out by Chairman IPCC, Dr. R. K. Pachauri Jan ‘07 July ‘08?

Dr Rajendra Pachauri flew at least 443,243 miles on IPCC business in this 19 month period. This business included honorary degree ceremonies, a book launch and a Brookings Institute dinner, the latter involving a flight of 3500 miles.

Add to his business flights this example of “sustainable consumption”:

So strong is his love for cricket that his colleagues recall the time the Nobel winner took a break during a seminar in New York and flew in to Delhi over the weekend to attend a practice session for a match before flying back. Again, he flew in for a day, just to play that match.
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The bad war was better for us
Andrew Bolt
The “bad” war was less deadly than the “good” one for America’s allies.

More British soldiers have now died in the fighting in Afghanistan than in Iraq. America’s other coalition partners, including Australia, have also had more soldiers die in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

Coalition fatalities in Afghanistan are this year likely to reach nearly double last year’s record high toll.

In contrast, total coalition fatalities in Iraq are likely to be half last year’s record low tolll.

Oddly, the media coverage of the fighting in Afghanistan has been nowhere near as apocalyptic as the coverage was of the fighting in Iraq. It’s almost like the journalists in Iraq had, you know, an agenda.
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The ABC is told about Climategate
Andrew Bolt
Professor Aynsley Kellow, an Australian IPCC expert reviewer, tells the ABC’s Counterpoint just what a scandal Climategate really is, even if other ABC program refuse to cover it.
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Just say sorry for your wind
Andrew Bolt
Terry McCrann says there’s a cheaper and more fashionable way to do exactly what Kevin Rudd’s great green tax on everything will do to global emmissions:

Simple, a National Apology on Climate Change. Same effect on global emissions as an ETS, but with zero cost.
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Rudd is a denier
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd’s latest lie:

...further delay on climate change equals denial on climate change.

Yes, another disgraceful Rudd lie, unless he’s calling Barack Obama a denier:

Barack Obama acknowledged today that time has run out to secure a binding climate deal at Copenhagen and began moving towards a two-stage process that would delay a legal pact until next year at the earliest.

And unless he’s calling himself a denier, too:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the Government’s emissions trading scheme is being delayed until 2011.

How can anyone believe a single word this liar says?
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WORKED FOR HIM
Tim Blair
In 1935, John Curtin won the Labor Party leadership by one vote over Frank Forde.
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The Age declares war
Andrew Bolt
The Age can’t call Kevin Rudd a liar even after he tells the most shameless of his lies in three years of deceit. But it’s waited just four hour before calling Tony Abbott a liar for what is an arguable claim:

Well that didn’t take long: a few minutes into his first news conference Tony Abbott made his first big lie as Liberal Party leader, only to be called on it less than three hours later by no less an authority than the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Reader Brendan adds:

This paper has descended to a joke.

Yes.