She makes demands of us all, but she is worth serving. Lady liberty disappointed with Lincoln, once, long ago.
=== Bible Quote ===
“Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.”- Psalm 97:10
===
Fatalities and multiple injuries reported after massive explosion at Connecticut power plant that was under construction.
Huge explosion at power plant
UP to 50 people are feared dead and at least 20 injured in a blast at an energy plant in the US
Brennan: Christmas Bomb Suspect Not Political Issue
Obama's top counterterrorism adviser slams politicians for using national security issues 'as a political football'
Sarah in 2012? Palin Says She's 'Willing'
Former Alaska governor says she'd put her credentials up against Obama's any day
Iran Detains 7 Tied to U.S.-Funded Radio
Seven accused of training outside Iran in sabotage, disturbing public order and spreading anti-gov't rumors
'Climate-Gate' Scientist Contemplated Suicide
The scientist at the center of the "climate-gate" e-mail scandal has revealed that he was so traumatized by the global backlash against him that he contemplated suicide. Professor Phil Jones said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times that he had thought about killing himself "several times." He acknowledged similarities to Dr. David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a BBC report that alleged the government had "sexed up" evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq. In e-mails that were hacked into and seized upon by global-warming sceptics before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Jones appeared to call upon his colleagues to destroy scientific data rather than release it to people intent on discrediting their work monitoring climate change. Jones, 57, said he was unprepared for the scandal. “I am just a scientist. I have no training in PR or dealing with crises.” - it would have been easier for him if he hadn't lied in his science, or smeared others - ed.
Asian crime syndicates are abandoning historic triad gang structures and using ordinary Australians for one-off operations in the multi-billion dollar drug trade.
Two dead, 20 rescued from floods
A WOMAN and a youth have died and 20 others rescued from heavy flooding in central Queensland.
Mining magnate eyes rich list top spot
CLIVE Palmer may become Australia's richest man after his $69 billion coal deal with China.
Google leaps barrier with translator phone
GOOGLE'S making the first phone able to translate foreign languages almost instantly.
Good friends over fitness or finances
RELATIONSHIPS come first for most Australians over money, health, fitness or career success.
Many Australian homes unwary death traps
HUNDREDS of homes that have been fitted with foil insulation under the Rudd government's stimulus program have been turned into potential death traps because installers have laid the insulation over live wires or used metal fasteners, causing it to become electrified.
Teenager's death posted on Facebook first
WHEN Angela and Maryanne Vourlis woke up yesterday, their 20th birthday, they logged on to Facebook expecting to read well wishes and greetings from friends. Horrifically, the twins were confronted with the devastating news their brother Bobby, 17, had been killed in a triple-fatal accident. He and two friends died when the car they were in crashed in heavy rain in Sydney's west early yesterday.
Half naked women protest election
SEVERAL young topless women barged into a Ukrainian polling station, rowdily protesting before a candidate cast his ballot.
Ten die on drifting Gulf migrant boat
AT least 10 migrants died and 30 were missing when the boat smuggling them from Somalia to Yemen suffered an engine failure in the Gulf of Aden, officials said today. Seventy people, mostly Ethiopians, were rescued when the coastguard in the northern breakaway state of Somaliland's Sanag region spotted the boat drifting toward shore. "The rescued passengers told us that the boat was carrying around 110 migrants when it left," Said Ige Mohamed, the head of immigration for Sanag province, told AFP by phone. "Unfortunately, 10 were confirmed dead and 30 others are still missing in the sea," he said. Mohamed explained that the migrants presumably spent several days huddled inside the small boat with nothing to eat or drink and apparently jumped into the water upon seeing the coast. - Rudd causes this - ed.
Israel arrests Australian activist in raid
AN Australian woman is one of two foreign activists arrested by Israel's military in a pre-dawn raid in the occupied West Bank. Soldiers raided an apartment in the town of Ramallah about 3am on Sunday (1200 AEDT) and arrested the two activists, Bridgette Chappell of Australia and Ariadna Jove Marti of Spain, according to the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The soldiers also confiscated cameras, a computer, pro-Palestinian banners and ISM registration forms, according to Ryan Olander, a US activist who was at the home at the time of the raid.
Prehistoric human bones found in Asian cave
MALAYSIAN researchers believe they have discovered a new set of prehistoric human bones in a cave near the largest man-make lake in south east Asia, newspapers reported today. The skeletal remains are of a youth who died 8,000 to 11,000 years ago, the Sunday Star quoted Nik Hasan Shuhaimi, deputy director of the Institute of the Malay World and Civilisation of the National University of Malaysia, as saying.
Murder of drug dealer about money, police allege
DRUG dealer with links to an outlaw motorcycle gang is believed to have been killed over a fight about money. Neighbours of the 42-year-old Glenmore Park man rang police about 10.15pm on Saturday after hearing several gunshots fired inside the home on Sheoak Place. Three men wearing balaclavas were seen leaving the house shortly after the gunshots, leaving the resident to die. The man's name has not been released but he was known to police as a drug trafficker for an outlaw motorcycle gang. Police believe he was involved in a dispute over money.
=== Comments ===
America Is a Great Power, What's Wrong With That?
By Bradley Blakeman
In 2009 President Obama began his term in office by apologizing to the world for past-perceived U.S. transgressions of arrogance and heavy-handedness.
The president appeared to believe that if he just changed the tone he could unilaterally disarm our enemies and win back our allies.
The fact is, since Obama took office, the world is a much more dangerous place and America has been benefited from his weak of leadership and resolve.
Let’s look at the state of the world with Obama in charge:
- North Korea: The Obama administration has had NO effect on North Korea’s continued march toward maintaining and increasing their nuclear arms threat to the region and the world;
- Venezuela: Obama has become the new “Satan” according to Chavez. Our president had NO effect on better relations with a leader he criticized George Bush for isolating;
- China: Obama treats the PRC with kid gloves. Why? Because he’s afraid to offend the largest of America’s creditors. As a result China has not been helpful with North Korea, environmental responsibility or trade equality;
- The Middle East: No progress has been attempted or made with regard to real efforts to engage the parties on a lasting and sustained peace;
- Europe: The president spent a lot of time shuttling back and forth to Europe in his first year. But he came away with next to nothing to show for it. From apologizing, to pandering, picking up an undeserved medal and lobbying for the Olympics, (an effort that was doomed before he even took off from Washington), the president has come up empty handed;
- Russia: Obama surrendered our national security interests in Europe when he knuckled into Russia’s demand for America not to place missile defense systems in former USSR satellites with nothing in return to show for it.
The United States of America has nothing to apologize for. Why is this administration so embarrassed by America’s greatness?
===
AUSTRALIA WINS
Tim Blair
This rocks:
An Australian firm has signed a $60bn deal to supply coal to Chinese power stations.We need an Australian Tim Montana to commemorate our new mega-mine in song. Even better, the mine – six mines, in fact – will apparently require the construction of a new dam, a new power grid, 500km of railway line and a 570km water pipeline. That means jobs, people. Tens of thousands of wonderful, life-enhancing, car-buying, family-building jobs. Naturally, greenoids are bawling:
Clive Palmer, chairman of the company, Resourcehouse, said it was Australia’s “biggest ever export contract”.
Under the deal, the firm will build a new mining complex to give China Power International Development 30m tonnes of coal a year for 20 years.
A $69 billion coal deal announced by mining magnate Clive Palmer and Premier Anna Bligh is “another nail in the coffin of our climate”, says Friends of the Earth Brisbane.Sucked in, losers. But no word yet from Kevin Rudd; he’s likely still consoling little Gracie, who at the moment probably feels let down. We now live in a time when massive job creation is regarded by the Prime Minister as a political liability.
===
AC/DT
Tim Blair
The sound online is way skritchy, but you can still get a sense of how great were The DTs – our house band at The Daily Telegraph – during the office Christmas party:
My role: roadie. From each according to his abilities, etc.
UPDATE. Some background on our performers. On bass is Justin Lees, now working with ex-Fox international editor Scott Norvell on big globey projects; rhythm guitarist Herbie owns Billie, this site’s official dog; that’s former editor Campbell Reid on bagpipes; sensational singer Tim Ireland owes me at least 20 cartons of cigarettes; when I was ill in 2008, soloist Drew Gibson delivered a turbo Porsche for life-saving road therapy; guitarist, Walkley winner and Saturday editor Michael Beach amped up the claps; Sydney Confidential editrix Annette Sharp is under-represented here, but earlier performed an immaculate version of Warren Zevon’s Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me; and ex-Saints drummer Iain Sheddon was stolen from The Australian.
===
SCEPTICISM SETTLED
Tim Blair
As soon as something accurate turns up in the IPCC’s Nobel-winning 2007 report, I’ll be sure to let you know. Meanwhile:
This paper has discovered a series of new flaws in it including:This is the report, remember, upon which Kevin Rudd bases his religious beliefs ("I stand by what the International Panel of Climate Change Scientists have had to say").
• The publication of inaccurate data on the potential of wave power to produce electricity around the world, which was wrongly attributed to the website of a commercial wave-energy company.
• Claims based on information in press releases and newsletters.
• New examples of statements based on student dissertations, two of which were unpublished.
• More claims which were based on reports produced by environmental pressure groups …
And on Friday, it emerged that the IPCC’s panel had wrongly reported that more than half of the Netherlands was below sea level because it had failed to check information supplied by a Dutch government agency.
===
KENNEDY CURSE
Tim Blair
David Freddoso, writing in 2009:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.And now: “Almost 27 inches (69cm) of snow fell in Philadelphia on Saturday, while Washington DC was hit with one of the worst blizzards in its history.”
===
NO WONDER HE QUIT
Tim Blair
Graham Readfearn, formerly of the Courier-Mail, struggles bitterly through a debate with adults. For someone who claims to have all the science on his side, he does a remarkable job of avoiding it. Two slices of Readfearnian wisdom:
The essential thing to note here is that by doing nothing we continue to do nothing.Can’t fault him there. And:
The scientists have been talking about climate change for about 40 years and so far the free market has been allowed to flourish and carry on regardless.Why, the nerve of that free market. It’s as though it thinks it’s free or something.
===
SHE MOCKS THE ONE
Tim Blair
Nice line from Sarah Palin, speaking in Nashville:
“How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for you?” she asked at one point.
Instapundit has a post-speech roundup, video and pictures.
===
FRENCH FRED
Tim Blair
Fred Nile was ridiculed in 2002 for suggesting a ban on Muslim dress due to such garments offering easy means of concealing weapons:
“His comments are plainly ludicrous,” said Dr Jonas.But it keeps happening:
Two burqa-wearing bank robbers have held up a post office near Paris, using a handgun concealed beneath an Islamic-style full veil, court officials said …
France is seeking to restrict use of the head-to-toe Islamic veil on the grounds it is incompatible with French values, after a parliament report called for a ban in schools, hospitals, government offices and public transport.
===
COMPOST INFRACTION
Tim Blair
A warmenist wonderland:
===
Have green bans killed the dream of a green North?
Andrew Bolt
Has green faith destroyed a marvellous chance to grow Australia?
NORTHERN Australia will never become an important food bowl to replace the drought-stricken Murray-Darling, despite massive irrigation plans and a billion litres of rain a year, a Rudd government taskforce has concluded. The expert panel, comprising the Northern Australian Land and Water Taskforce, will today release a landmark report into economic opportunities for the northern parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia that places new and strict limits on the region’s potential for agricultural production.On the face of it, it seems strange that the hot and often wet north is ruled out for intensive agriculture, when other nations at the same latitude seem to be able to manage it.
But suspicion grows that what’s really holding back agriculture in the far North is not the dry season, but green philosophy - especially that advanced by the warmist CSIRO - when I read this:
Referring to a water study by the CSIRO, the taskforce concludes the growth of agricultural production in the north will be limited, despite rainfall of up to 2m a year in some areas. By 2030, there will be less water available in the north than there was in 2000, the taskforce predicts.So already the task force is accepting the global warming predictions of the CSIRO, relying on regional models which studies have found worthless.
But it gets worse:
Though the north receives about a billion litres of rain a year, equivalent to eight-and-a-half times the annual runoff in the Murray-Darling Basin or 2000 times the capacity of Sydney Harbour, about 20 per cent of it enters the rivers and streams and about 15 per cent recharges groundwater resources. The remaining 65 per cent enters the soil and is absorbed by plants.Easy fixed. So build a dam, right? But no:
“Despite these huge volumes of water, the north can be described as being water-limited,” the report states. The taskforce says this paradox arises because there is almost no rain for the remaining six months.
The CSIRO water study, presented to the taskforce last year, found there was not enough water to irrigate large swaths of land in the north without doing major damage to the rivers and the surrounding environment. The report rules out more dams on environmental grounds...Rivers before people. We’ve been there before, down in water-restricted Melbourne. Queenslanders, too.
The CSIRO also says dams in that area will be hard to build - but where there’s no will there’s always no way.
===
Let’s all show our tolerance by sneering at Micks
Andrew Bolt
One of our waning sources of moral authority trawls for popularity by siding against a needed other. And the bizarre thing is that endorsing the mockery of Catholics is actually hailed by the Chief Commissioner as gesture of tolerance:
POLICE Chief Commissioner Simon Overland received a rousing reception at yesterday’s gay pride march. Hundreds of supporters cheered and wolf whistled as Mr Overland, joined by members of Victoria Police, marched down Fitzroy St, St Kilda.
“Never in my life have I experienced the sort of reception and the sort of welcome that we got walking down the street to Catani Gardens today, it was just unbelievable,” Mr Overland said…
”It’s a message to the broader community about tolerance and inclusivity,” he said
===
Christmas present: go straight to Australia instead
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd’s boat people policy is collapsing, with Christmas Island now so full that the allegedly “vulnerable” are being moved to the mainland:
A GROUP of asylum seekers has been moved to Melbourne without visas as Christmas Island nears breaking point.
And 94 asylum seekers and crew picked up off Ashmore Reef last Thursday are being held aboard a navy ship until at least Wednesday, while authorities try to free up beds.
As another unauthorised boat was intercepted yesterday, authorities confirmed 20 “vulnerable” asylum seekers were removed from Christmas Island on Friday.
Eight went to the Melbourne Immigration Transit Centre at Broadmeadows and the remaining 12 to Brisbane. They included five unaccompanied minors and five family groups.
“No determination has been made on their cases as yet,” an Immigration Department spokesman said. “They’ve been chosen for transfer because they are vulnerable people.”
===
Rudd slipping, ETS plummetting
Andrew Bolt
Tony Abbott will be cautiously pleased, although aware he’s still behind:
TONY Abbott’s ascension to leadership has boosted the Coalition vote, and backing for the government’s emissions trading scheme has taken a knock, in an Age/Nielsen poll showing people are confused on the climate change alternatives.===
Labor has fallen by 2 points on a two-party basis, but retains a solid 54-46 per cent lead, while support for its trading scheme is down by 10 points since late November.
Blair appalled as well
Andrew Bolt
Another Insiders’ conservative protests - give us back our chair:
Sharp-eyed viewers will have noticed yesterday that News Limited’s million-hits-a-week conservative blogger Andrew Bolt has lost his chair. Now, before anyone screams bias, we don’t mean he’s been kicked off: no, Bolt was on air but, rather than being seated to the far right of the screen, as is customary, he had to sit on the left. Was this a joke, or political correctness gone mad? Well, it is the ABC. Less than an hour after the show went to air, Bolt took to his blog, saying the show’s host, the indomitable Barrie Cassidy, told him the change was deemed necessary to “avoid seeming to label the panel’s conservative commentators” by making them sit to the right. Trouble is, they liked it there. Bolt’s News Limited colleague Tim Blair explains the seating had become an in-joke among the conservatives, invariably made to sit there. “We call it the naughty corner,” Blair says. “And it’s not to the right. It’s to the far right.” Bolt told his audience sitting on the left felt wrong to him, adding: “I want my chair back!” Blair does, too. “I was comfortable there,” he said. “Also, on behalf of my fellow troglodytes, may I say: we don’t like change.”
===
The IPCC scandals: yet another coverup
Andrew Bolt
Can the IPCC’s 2007 stink any higher?
The Meteorological Office is blocking public scrutiny of the central role played by its top climate scientist in a highly controversial report by the beleaguered United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.They falsely claim it’s never been hotter - but won’t let you check their reasoning why. They demand we change the entire way we run the economy - but refuse to divulge how they came to that conclusion.
Professor John Mitchell, the Met Office’s Director of Climate Science, shared responsibility for the most worrying headline in the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning IPCC report – that the Earth is now hotter than at any time in the past 1,300 years.
And he approved the inclusion in the report of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, showing centuries of level or declining temperatures until a steep 20th Century rise.
By the time the 2007 report was being written, the graph had been heavily criticised by climate sceptics who had shown it minimised the ‘medieval warm period’ around 1000AD, when the Vikings established farming settlements in Greenland… Early drafts of the report were fiercely contested by official IPCC reviewers, who cited other scientific papers stating that the 1,300-year claim and the graph were inaccurate.
But the final version, approved by Prof Mitchell, the relevant chapter’s review editor, swept aside these concerns.
Now, the Met Office is refusing to disclose Prof Mitchell’s working papers and correspondence with his IPCC colleagues in response to requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The block has been endorsed in writing by Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth – whose department has responsibility for the Met Office.
And this is the document on which Kevin Rudd relies most for his great green tax on everything.
===
Journalist versus the sceptics. Listen if you have no pity
Andrew Bolt
The global warming debate in Brisbane between Lord Monckton and Professor Ian Plimer on the one hand and warmists Professor Barry Brook and green journalist Graham Readfearn on the other can now be heard here.
I’m not surprised Readfearn has not commented on his blog about the debate or his extraordinary contribution to it, so rich in abuse and so utterly devoid of argument. Nor am I surprised that he’s since quit the Courier Mail.
This is another proof of the maxim that journalists sound most authoritative when they are protected from debate. Take David Marr, who sounded like the Prophet Elijah when allowed to preach unchallenged at Media Watch, but is surprisingly ineffectual in debate on the panel on Insiders. That Readfearn could have dared to write for the Courier Mail for so long as its expert on global warming seems farcical when he’s put on a stage with people who actually know a little of the subject themselves.
How many other journalists pontificating on global warming would be equally embarrased in such circumstances?
And here’s another thing that doesn’t surprise me, having heard this debate. It’s no wonder barely a single Australian warmist scientist dared to debate Monckton on his tour here, or that warmist publications such as The Age preferred to counter his arguments by mocking his looks.
(To be fair, here is my own debate on the issue, with a pre-prepped climate scientist in the audience and greens on the panel. I’m only sorry I had no chance to make an answer half as long as the questions put to me.)
===
150 to run a non-existent scheme on a non-existent problem
Andrew Bolt
If this is how many people Kevin Rudd needs to run nothing, how many thousands will it take to run his colossal emissions trading scheme when it actually exists?
The Rudd Government set up an authority to run its emissions trading system more than seven months ago, before Parliament had a chance to consider the scheme. More than 150 public servants now work in the growing organisation, whose role is to ‘’implement and administer’’ a scheme the Senate has twice rejected and which might never exist.(Thanks to reader John.)
===
At the home of a prominent warmist
Andrew Bolt
Somewhere behind this wall of snow outside the White House windows is Barack Obama, working on his plan to stop the planet from getting so warm.
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