Sunday, January 17, 2010

Headlines Sunday 17th January 2010

=== Today's Toon ===

In many ways that prison is a bit like Obama's policy on any issue. Spend big but pretend it isn't there.
=== Bible Quote ===
Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."
1 Corinthians xv. 33.
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U.S. sending more food, water and relief supplies, but it's not clear when that and other aid will reach all those pushed to edge by earthquake.


LABOR'S decision to install Kristina Keneally has paid off with her first major poll revealing voters prefer her as the better premier, although they still don't rate the party. - It still hasn't come out that she is incompetent and has failed to address important issues. She has failed on the issue of the dead school boy Hamidur Rahman, partly because her ideologically opposed ALP mates, like former Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt and current Education CEO Coutts Trotter have covered it up, probably at Kenneally's request. - ed.


Tourists sign wavers for their life, injury and property to go on a sell out tour of Los Angeles skid row, gang homes and notorious prisons

Will Charm Offensive Work?
President's campaigning didn't help Dems in last year's gubernatorial races — will Mass. Senate race be different?

Amish Exempt From Health Mandate
While most in U.S. need proof of insurance to avoid fine under health reform, at least one group won't have to worry

Unlikely Suspect in Ohio Car Shootings
Paul Hausmann, 65, does not fit the profile of a criminal — but is the prime suspect in string of random shootings

'Haiti quake death toll 200,000'
THE earthquake in Haiti is the "worst disaster ever" confronted in the United Nations memory

Popular weight-loss tablet can kill
DOCTORS have been ordered to stop prescribing Australia's most popular weight-loss drug.

Five young men dead after car hits tree
FIVE men are dead and a woman is in a serious condition after their a car hit a tree at high speed.

Avatar director Down Under for next film
OSCAR-WINNING director James Cameron is heading to Australia to oversee his next film project.

Lily Allen insults waiting Aussie fans
POP star Lily Allen arrived in Australia with little more to offer fans than a rude hand gesture

'Ten Australians killed in India'
THE family of an Australian man found dead in India say a growing number of foreign tourists are being murdered there.

City's air quality on the nose
AIR pollution in Sydney dramatically worsened last year with one in 10 days officially failing air quality standards and 37 days with "poor air quality"

Church votes against first female bishop
THE Scottish Episcopal Church voted against electing Britain's first female bishop, favouring "a more experienced" man.
=== Comments ===
Let's Lead Haiti to a PERMANENT Recovery
By Liz Peek
The U.S. should use this terrible tragedy in Haiti to finally engage with this impoverished nation, to help rebuild not only its buildings but its institutions.

In 2007, Venezuela leader Hugo Chavez made a triumphant appearance before adoring crowds in Haiti. After landing at the airport, his convoy took hours to get to the National Palace, with jubilant well-wishers blocking his way. He brought tidings of joy to the Haitian people- a promise to bind his country together with Haiti and Cuba in a South American love knot. Fidel Castro participated in the jamboree by telephone, and was also represented by his Vice President, Esteban Lazo.

Chavez pledged support to the people of Haiti free from the strings attached by “countries from the north” and decried the U.S. as “the cruelest empire – the most cynical, criminal murderous which has ever existed.”

The good news for Haitians today is that the murderous empire in question is moving heaven and earth to provide $100 million in aid, 5,000 troops, an aircraft carrier that can create drinking water, and mountains of food and medicines to its tragic earthquake victims. And that’s not even including the tens of millions of dollars being raised privately. Venezuela, not to be outdone, sent 50 doctors and other workers, and has promised 25 more, in addition to some food and supplies. They also guarantee continued doses of political unreality.

In that they are joined by Cuba. Fidel Castro, never at a loss for words, responded by the tragic events in Haiti by encouraging his countrymen to “think about why Haiti is so poor. Why its people depend almost 50% of family remittances that are received from abroad.” Castro, not surprisingly, has the answer. “Haiti is a net product of colonialism and imperialism…”

Germany-based Transparency International has a different answer. In 2006 that organization named Haiti the most corrupt on earth; the director drew a direct line between poverty and corruption saying “Corruption traps millions in poverty.” The heinous 29-year rule of “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son plunged what had been a tourist mecca into grinding poverty, leading Haiti to become the poorest nation in the Americas. Today some seventy percent of Haitians live on less than $2 per day, and approximately half the population is unemployed.
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In case PM forgets, buck stops with him
Piers Akerman
THROUGHOUT 2008 and 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd devoted much of his time to warning the public of the dire consequences that would follow a failure to accept his government’s global warming legislation. - Spot on Piers. Rudd is a policy free zone. We never did get to find out what his 5 point plan was to improve the economy. Maybe it was to spend everything he never earned, but it is scary to think what he will be promising to spend coming into this coming election. I pointed out to some friends in 2007 that Rudd was a classic tax and spend ALP man, and a friend, who was also high school captain and just having finished her HSC before embarking in Business Law said “That isn’t true. We studied that at school. It is a myth to say that the ALP tax and spend big.”
Rudd even said he was an economic conservative like Mr Howard was supposed to be, but Rudd claimed Mr Howard had been spending too much. Rudd pointed to things like the first home owners scheme and the baby bonus to show where he felt Mr Howard had spent big. The truth is, those had been good policy and effective. Yet how effective has Rudd’s school spending been? When a school will spend a million dollars to build a classroom private contractors could bill for tens of thousands of dollars .. but Rudd needs to spend quick. Or the computers that some school children are getting which are not yet worthwhile within the classroom because the classrooms don’t yet have the infrastructure to support them.
Rudd has failed on a very personal level too. He has failed as a human being, increasing apparent corruption and profligate spending while poor people are suffering and the most desperate are dying. - ed.

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SEA STUPID
Tim Blair
Why do they have to tilt their goddamn heads?
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GLOBAL GLOVING
Tim Blair
Danny Glover’s Haitian earthquake madness unites Jonah Goldberg, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Jim Angle, James Delingpole, Greg Gutfield, Brent Baker and Glenn Reynolds with … the Huffington Post and Perez Hilton! Glover truly is a force for global togetherness, although not in any way he intended.

The only resister is Charles Johnson (now deep into the third phase of his Charlie Gordon cycle) who claims that Glover’s mention of a response – “when we did what we did at the climate summit, in Copenhagen, this is the response” – refers not to the earthquake in Haiti, but to “the international relief effort”.

UPDATE. Jim Angle:

And Bill O’Reilly interviews Marc Lamont Hill:

Says Glover, in the replayed clip: “There’s all this hell because of global warming, there’s all this hell because of climate change …” Hill’s explanation:
I think what he was trying to express is a failure of leadership in the global community towards the Third World … what he was saying is that leadership dropped the ball in Copenhagen and this is an example of what happens when leadership drops the ball. I don’t think he was saying that Copenhagen caused this. If he was, it’s completely crazy.
Evidence suggests the latter.

UPDATE II. A YouTuber claims: “I don’t believe that Danny Glover meant this at all.” Also, at 1:16 and 1:46, our YouTubey friend offers a convincing imitation of a certain South Park character, mmmkay?

UPDATE III. Be amazed as Johnson mentions someone else’s 180-degree turn.
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WHAT THE KIDS ARE SAYING
Tim Blair
Threw it. Descriptive of an extremely impressive protest, sometimes in response to parental rule. An example from niece Lauren: “Mum tried to make us share a room in this crappy hotel during the holidays, but [sister] Amy totally threw it and mum had to find us somewhere else to stay.”
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WHERE IS SEA SHEPHERD WHEN YOU NEED THEM?
Tim Blair
Tons of trouble in Sweden:
A floor collapsed beneath a group of about 20 members of Weight Watchers as they gathered to compare how many pounds they had shed over Christmas.

Members of the weight-loss club were lining up to compare readings on the scales when they heard a bang as the floor came away from the walls of their meeting room in Växjö in southern Sweden.
Impressively, the group continued their bulk assessment in a nearby corridor. Then everybody sat down.

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