Headlines Wednesday 27th January 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

A great leader of her time, and some time after. again a comic got it wrong.
=== Bible Quote ===
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”- James 4:10
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Kevin Rudd's nephew in Ku Klux Klan anti-racism protest

"Australia funds the genocidal Sri Lankan regime and then rejects the refugees who flee. In this country you could not get away with doing that against whites. So, they're the basic reasons we're having the protest today," he added.

Police have asked Kevin Rudd's nephew to move on from the entrance of Melbourne Park, after he and a friend attempted to stage an anti-racism protest.


While police investigate whether cyber bullying was to blame for Phoebe Prince's suicide, disparaging remarks are posted on Facebook page created in her memory.

Dems' Battle Plan: Hit Early
Campaigns are urged to divide and conquer GOP, as Republicans counter Dems are still out of touch

Hoyer: No Easy Path on Health Care
House's No. 2 Dem says party is looking at ways to pass reform, doubts Obama will lay out plan during speech

'Pimp' Who Targeted ACORN Arrested
Filmmaker known for exposes accused of phone scheme at senator's office; U.S. attorney's son also nabbed

Ex-soldier faces death sentence

EX-DIGGER faces execution for killing Afghan colleague, then faking a Taliban convoy attack.

Jetstar passengers stranded in Thailand
ANGRY travellers booked on a Thailand-Sydney flight stuck on resort island since Monday.

Missing millionaire spotted buying hot pie
SHOPOWNERS say they served Herman Rockefeller just days after his mystery disappearance.

Premier dodges 'ex-lover' at art opening
MIKE Rann fails to show for an art gallery opening where his alleged ex-lover was also present.

Anti-terror cops swoop on 'Dork Hunters'
KIDS' TV hosts held under terror laws after police catch them wielding 'spangly blue hairdryers'.

Organised crime targets unis
AUSTRALIA'S $16 billion foreign education sector has been infiltrated by organised crime.

Millions spent on doomed Metro
WITHOUT a single sod being turned, $270 million has already been spent on a metro rail project the State Government is on the verge of scrapping.
=== Journalists Corner ===

As the president speaks out on the country's key issues, watch our special State of the Union coverage.
Then, the GOP lays out their response and only Fox covers it all -- fair and balanced!
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Outlining Obama's Agenda!
Newt Gingrich, Monica Crowley & Alan Colmes preview the State of the Union!
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A Hannity Report
We reveal the State of the Union talking points the White House doesn't want America to hear!
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Guest: Sen. Orrin Hatch
Is the health care bill unconstitutional? The senator speaks out on this hot button issue!

=== Comments ===
Cull time servers from list of heroes
Piers Akerman
SCANNING the names of the great and the good, the time servers and publicity seekers who received Australia Day Honours, it is difficult not to suggest the lists be pruned to recognise only those who performed feats above and beyond what all should aspire to achieve. - police don’t have to be anonymous. The things we do to our own soldiers is abysmal. In some ways, we despise those who sacrifice the most for us. I made a tribute for police with my doco on Nicola Cotton and I meant it to apply to Australian police too. In some ways, the police service has succumbed to the call for senseless secular values. It was illuminating to watch Clooney’s lauded Syriana recently and hear how in Hollywood the call for the secular is made by Hollywood conservatives, when the truth is such calls are made by people from the Democrat party, or the ALP. - ed.

Tim replied
Well it took all of 12 hours for our new Australian of the Year to come out and hit us with some crappy left wing junk.

Apparently asylum seekers get depressed when we lock em up. Frankly Patrick I don’t give a stuff - They should of packed some prozac and a self help book before they decided to paddle here.

What about my depression Paddy??? Every time I look at the TV another hundred illegal Q jumping economic migrants are sullying our shores.

By your ‘logic’ we should be letting out every depressed murderer in Long Bay.

If you really cared about depressed economic illegals why not go OS and tell them not to come here? Preventative medicine saves money and lives....well that’s what my Doc tells me when I have to look the other way and couch.
Hopeless replied
Tim, if I am not mistaken you comment quite regularly on Piers blog. Your comments display many of the traits of a sociopath. I suggest you seek treatment.

Hopeless, I like migrants and want there to be more of them. Bu t I share Tim’s frustration with the outrageous parade of stupidity which has it that people who are desperate and are lucky enough to not get killed should somehow be pampered. There is nothing wrong with detention for illegal migrants so long as they are lawfully processed. I have met some refugees and I am aware of how long term depression is difficult in mental health terms, but that is a result of bad policy and should not be used as an excuse to remove good policy. - ed
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Ten signs that the warming scare is collapsing
Andrew Bolt

ONCE global warming was the “great moral challenge of our generation”. Or so claimed the Prime Minister.
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A culture that drove five to their deaths
Andrew Bolt

IT’S said the Mill Park five died in an “accident”. But all I’ve seen since says they were killed by a culture.
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Rudd faces his own Massachusetts
Andrew Bolt
Janet Albrechtsen:

Barack Obama’s overreach on health care has plenty in common with Kevin Rudd’s dogged pursuit of an emissions trading scheme. (click on link for more)
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Now the IPCC sexed up the Amazonian danger, too
Andrew Bolt

First it was the bogus claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. Then it was the false claim of rising damage costs allegedly caused by global warming, the myth of the vanishing water supplies and the largely unsupported assertion that African agriculture.faced decimation.

Now yet another scare claim in the IPCC’s 2007 report collapses on closer inspection.
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LAY A HAND ON HIS SHOULDER
Tim Blair
By day, he’s a mild-mannered Guardian halfwit. But by night – and possibly also by day, depending on whether or not a column is due, or if he’s out of milk and needs to visit the shops – George Monbiot becomes Super Justice Vigilante Man, apprehender of the bad:

As I found when I tried to apprehend John Bolton, one of the architects of the war in George Bush’s government, at the Hay festival in 2008, and as Peter Tatchell found when he tried to detain Robert Mugabe, nothing focuses attention on these issues more than an attempted citizen’s arrest.

So much public attention was focused on Monbiot’s attempted Bolton arrest that he had to throw that link in there. Just in case you, like me, had never previously heard of it. Now Monbiot is determined to capture an even larger foe: Tony Blair himself! And he wants junior Monsketeers to join his quest:

Today I am launching a website – http://www.arrestblair.org – whose purpose is to raise money as a reward for people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of the former prime minister.

George isn’t sparing any expense:

I have put up the first £100, and I encourage you to match it. Anyone meeting the rules I’ve laid down will be entitled to one quarter of the total pot: the bounties will remain available until Blair faces a court of law. The higher the reward, the greater the number of people who are likely to try.

THAT’S CAPITALISM THAT’S CAPITALISM THAT IS YOU MONSTER! Ahem. Before anybody joins George’s bounty brigade, he has some advice for would-be Tony trappers:

The method we recommend is calmly to approach Mr Blair and in a gentle fashion to lay a hand on his shoulder or elbow, in such a way that he cannot have any cause to complain of being hurt or trapped by you, and announce loudly, “Mr Blair, this is a citizens’ arrest for a crime against peace, namely your decision to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq. I am inviting you to accompany me to a police station to answer the charge.”

If you’re really lucky, Mr Blair will hear perhaps four words of that before certain security protocols are enacted.

If any police officers are accompanying Mr Blair, you should explain the charge to them, and encourage them to support you by arresting him.

This is difficult to do when your head is being converted into a pink mist.

You are advised not to put yourself at risk of charges of assault or false imprisonment. In other words, do not cling onto Blair or attempt to drag him anywhere.

Just as well he added that. Because, frankly, I could do with some extra money and the first thought I had was to cling onto and drag former British Prime Ministers. Yep, the old cling-and-drag. That’s how Rockefeller got started.

You are unlikely to get much further than that.

Let’s not be negative. You’ll never arrest Tony Blair with that sort of attitude. There’s more on this at Harry’s Place – “George Monbiot is putting his supporters’ money where his mouth is” – but I think we should move beyond the immediate issue of Monbiot’s roving justice squads (you shall know them by the hand on your shoulder) and on to the more entertaining possibilities of pursuing George. Perhaps we should establish a Fighting Photographic Fund to shoot George, paparazzi-style, as he goes about his fascinating daily activities. When is bin night at the Monbiot estate?
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'Bold Fresh' Tour Begins
By Bill O'Reilly
On Saturday night in Long Island, New York, Westbury to be exact, the "bold" Glenn Beck and the "fresh" Bill O'Reilly took the stage in front of a sold-out house. Judging from crowd reaction, everybody had a good time, including the "Bold Fresh" guys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY: I remember Peter Jennings. I used to work for ABC News. And Peter says you have to lose that edge, and I go, you know, Peter, I don't think so. And now I'm making like twice as much money that Peter made. So — but he was a good guy. Peter was a good guy. He is a little effete, but he was a good guy. He goes, why don't you wear those little pocket hankies? I said, Peter, I don't know one human being that wears a pocket hanky; only you, all right. If I go to Page Lane with a pocket hanky, I will get beat up. They will hit me, Peter. I'll have swelling.

GLENN BECK: I swear we have — we've got to turn this thing on.

O'REILLY: Wait a minute. You have a woman cheering the bag. Did you hear that woman? The woman cheered the bag. You ought to give that to her.

BECK: Are you getting sick, too?

O'REILLY: Whoever cheered the bag, would you like it? It's kind of like Elvis with the scarf, Beck with the bag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

We are not encouraging press coverage of the tour because both Beck and I know that in a two-hour presentation, the liberal media will pull two or three lines out of context to try to hurt us. That's what the liberal press does.

And so we were not surprised when Newsday, a very left-wing paper totally distorted the tour. Instead of reporting what actually happened, writer Dave Marcus made it into a Republican-Democrat story saying that Beck and I were shilling for the GOP.

The Newsday writer quoted two guys who are paid by the Democratic Party but did not use one quote, not one from any of the 3,000 people in attendance. Basically Newsday put forth that Beck and O'Reilly are out there trying to get votes for the Republicans and run down the Democrats.

Now, if you watch "The Factor" and/or the "Glenn Beck" program, you know that both of us have been very critical of the Republican Party. I'm a registered independent. Beck is unaffiliated with any party. And while Beck does not like President Obama's policies at all, I'm not an Obama basher.

In fact, that disturbed some in the crowd on Saturday night. I believe the president could be a very effective leader if he would just drop the liberal orthodoxy that is obviously creating chaos across the country.

I also believe the Republican Party is basically rudderless right now and needs to get a coherent message that would give us Americans hope for a better future. The GOP badly needs to unite around a central theme. Right now the party is split between hard-right conservatives and moderates.

But that has nothing to do with the 'Bold Fresh' Tour. Beck and I launched this deal so we could talk to you in person and it is selling out everywhere. That really annoys operations like Newsday.