Media Don't See It, but their unreasoning support of the leftist democrats is hurting all who live in the USA. Obama promised much, but gave no detail, and now none can say how he failed, although it is clear that he failed. === Bible Quote ===
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”- John 3:16
===
Public Hospitals in Australia's biggest city are turning away pregnant women because their wards are full.
Bligh and Labor face annihilation in next election
QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh says she's a "fighter"' and won't lose her nerve over a bad opinion poll. A Galaxy Poll in The Sunday Mail shows Ms Bligh and her Labor Government face annihilation in the next state election, with support for Ms Bligh dropping to an all-time low. The leader of the opposition Liberal National Party, John-Paul Langbroek, has for the first time overtaken Ms Bligh as preferred premier, 42 per cent to 37 per cent. Only 28 per cent of people polled were satisfied with how Ms Bligh was doing her job, down from 32 per cent in the last Galaxy poll in November. The poll of 800 people last week also showed if an election were held today, Labor would be defeated 41 to 59 per cent on a two party-preferred basis - ending its 12-year reign. Voter dissatisfaction has been growing over the Bligh government's controversial asset sell-off and allegations of corruption and cronyism.
Two huge waves sweep away spectators at Northern California surfing contest causing significant injuries, including broken legs and hands.
Bombs, booby traps slow advance of U.S., Afghan forces as they push to take Taliban stronghold
Executive Power Play?
Obama poised to defy resurgent GOP, stalled legislative agenda, may use executive powers to push key initiatives
Ala. Suspect Also Tied to 1986 Killing
Professor accused of campus shooting spree reportedly killed brother by accident over 20 years ago
Saudis Rock Out — Despite the Risk
Saudi Arabia's underground rock scene thriving, even as the country's religious police arrest band members
Press out to spoil conservative Berlusconi's agenda
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi landed in hot water again after joking that Italy's doors were only open to attractive immigrants, The Sun reported Saturday. The gaffe-prone politician, 73, held immigration talks Friday with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha. Berisha looked uncomfortable as Berlusconi joked at a press conference, "We will only accept pretty girls from Albania." - no mention by the gaff prone press of the good work done by the Italian PM, or of the failure of the leftist government that preceded him. - ed.
Refusing to buy into a Bridget Jones-style desperation to settle for Mr Average, new statistics show that Australian single women are choosing to live it up on their own.
Minister in billionaire ski scandal
MINISTER goes skiing with a TV station owner before announcing $250 million gift to TV networks.
Sex creep's green light to work with kids
A SEX offender who stalked young girls has been cleared to do voluntary work with children.
Aussie coach witnesses Olympic death
AUSSIE luge coach witnesses fatal luge crash leading to calls for the event to be canned.
Fire brigade accused of 'sick' sex abuse
VICTIMS inside a firehouse were stripped, penetrated and branded with a red-hot coat-hanger.
Celebrity builder targeted by gangsters
AUSSIE larrikin Scott Cam is being used by gangs to lure people to hand over their bank details.
Prime Minister 'ignored safety plea'
FATHER of a man electrocuted because of unsafe ceiling insulation pleaded to Kevin Rudd to intervene.
Nine dead in restaurant bomb blast
A BOMB has ripped through a restaurant popular with tourists in the western Indian city of Pune
Teen who skewered Rudd
HE is cranky, breaks election promises and has no idea what's going on in schools - that's the verdict of the Australian teenager who skewered Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on national television. Angela Samuels, 18, was one of 200 teenagers invited onto the ABC's Q&A show to ask the Prime Minister questions in a friendly session at Old Parliament House last Monday. But when the student from Canberra grilled Mr Rudd about his promise to deliver a laptop to every child and to take over state hospitals he nearly lost his temper.
=== Comments ===
The Truth About Valentine's Day
By John Tantillo
Let’s face it, a lot of men and women don’t like Valentine’s Day.
Well, it doesn’t have to be this way.
First, I want to take on some myths about Valentine’s Day. It’s simply not true that Valentine’s Day is some kind of artificial corporate concoction invented by Hallmark to help plump the mid-winter bottom line with chocolate, flower and card sales. A little bit of research reveals that Valentine’s Day is a holiday that has existed since Roman Times and was “Christianized” by the early church.
What we do know is that long before the big card and flower companies came on the scene, people were giving their sweethearts tokens of their affection on February 14th. And one interesting piece of trivia: the first mass-produced cards weren’t the product of a big company, but of a Massachusetts’s woman, Esther Howland, who liked a handmade English Valentine card she received so much that she began manufacturing them (that was in 1847).
Bottom line, you simply can’t create demand for a service, a product or a holiday – Valentine’s Day was and is something that most people want to celebrate.
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Winds of change blow on Kevin Rudd
Piers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is becoming increasingly rattled, say his Labor colleagues, who point to his uncharacteristic attempts to be nice to MPs during the past two meetings of the parliamentary Caucus as evidence of his shaken confidence.
- Don’t shout too loud about Rudd’s failings or we will get Julia who appears sometimes so programmed to repeat and repeat the Labor line that she appears to have forgotten whether she ever had her own independent opinion!- Gillard has comprehensively and broadly failed too. There is none in the ALP who is capable of appearing to be able to lead a competent government. - ed
Labor has been spun into a vortex, by advisors who seem to have little life experience, and is looking a little shocked that we have not all followed them down the hole!
Linda
Well it has been painfully obvious for many, that the product known as Kevin 07 is indeed very unpalatable and an experiment gone terribly wrong.- Proud aussie, to zoom in on one thing, like Climate gate, is to miss a substantial amount. Broadly speaking, Rudd is a failure. Rudd cannot point to a single instance where he has not failed. He made no promises in coming to office beyond sweeping statements and now he cannot point to any promise he made which he can definitively show he succeeded. Even those areas he might boast are arguable, or laughable. As with NSW ALP politics, where the best advice one might have is for the ALP office holders to resign and Get a Job, Rudd is left opining that the love of his life has left him. - ed.
Kevin Rudd, who professed to be just like John Howard, in order to worm his way into the top job, is actually the total opposite of John Howard, and what is worse, Kevin Rudd is absolutely unfit to lead this Nation, as are all of his nasty team.
For Kevin Rudd to begin pretending to be nice, at this late stage, just isn’t going to do it for him. It may have worked with some prior to the last Fed Election, but it will not work a second time. Once bitten, twice shy!
May I encourage you all to visit Jim Ball’s website, there is a lot of important reading contained therein. If you do not have the time to soak up all of the knowledge and info there, scroll down to-
Climategate spreads like an ozone hole
Another well thought out, totally accurate and important piece Piers, THANK YOU
proud aussie of queensland
- I am surprised Labor MP’s would speak with you Piers. Is this true what they have (allegedly) leaked this to you or is it a case of bending the truth a little?- Toastmaster, I was speaking to one of your friends (Canberra based) recently and he didn’t like Rudd at all. He isn’t important in the scheme of things, he is a dumb ALP animal, but he can see the contempt the ALP have for Rudd. An important discussion that has not yet occurred is what will happen within the ALP when the Rudd is dumped. The ridiculous excesses of power which corrupted the office of Governor General and has lead to a situation where possible charges of espionage and murder may be laid at the doorstep of Australia from Timor (cf Alfredo Reinado) won’t end with Rudd’s dismissal. The entire ALP front bench is tainted or complicit. The failure to dismiss Garret is probably related to the fact that Garret was ordered by Rudd to make his mistakes causing death. There is no one worth supporting in the ALP. The closest to a clean skin is Jason Clare, who has bought the Rudd line and may well be tainted over his failure to address the Hamidur Rahman issue. - ed.
More broadly speaking, there does not appear to be anything to be worried about. Rudd continues to be well ahead in the polls, the Coalition, by contrast - continue to languish and Australians have never been better off due to Swans decisive leadership as he steered us out of the global financial crisis left to us by the now discredited Howard government.
Piers, you need to wake up and smell the roses. Australia is the best country in the world and this is largely due to the can do attitude of everyday Australians and the excellent management of the economy, social policy, health and education by Labor.
Toastmaster
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SNOW JUSTICE, SNOW PEACE
Tim Blair
Canadian snow trash rise up against the tyranny of figure skating and curling:
More than a dozen police officers blockaded Georgia Street and temporarily closed traffic on the Lions Gate bridge to deal with a series of violent anti-Olympic protests that have seen demonstrators break windows and vandalize cars and businesses as they made their way through downtown Vancouver …Imagine how much more violent they’ll be when the ice hockey begins.
Police spokeswoman Jana McGuinness, said the protesters threw objects at police, spray painted cars and transit buses and intimidated pedestrians as they proceeded down Georgia street past Granville.
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ONE NATION UNDER GORE
Tim Blair
Ten years since he ran for President, Al Gore claims the entire US:
A University of Oklahoma student is taking an extra interest in this week’s snow storms in the south and northeast and is working to document the events in a very unique way.Gore is on the move! Obviously he’s beaten that airport problem.
Patrick Marsh said it’s likely by the end of the week snow will be on the ground in all 50 states.
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GAMERS GAMED
Tim Blair
Scary news for gamers:
People who download the latest TV shows, films and games are at risk of prosecution as major distributors use new forensic technology to target individuals who illegally file-share on the internet.With amounts like that being awarded, it makes financial sense for distributors to seek individual cases. Poor James Burt seems to have been a test case, and a sad case besides:
The technology claimed its first scalp last week when Queenslander James Burt, 24, was ordered by the Federal Court to pay $1.5 million in damages for copying and uploading a Nintendo game.
Burt, 24, a part-time freight worker who still lives at home with his parents in Sinnamon Park, will be forced to pay Nintendo $1.5 million after an out-of-court settlement was struck to compensate the company for a claimed loss of sales revenue …And he’s only 24. Things get really desperate when you’re over 30.
His father, Richard, said in a phone interview that his son was far from a commercial pirate.
He said his son was a fanatical gamer who owned every console released since he was a teenager and worked part-time at a freight handling company.
“As a parent I can tell you that he’s a very quiet lad, he’s a fanatical computer game player - to his detriment,” he said.
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CELEBRITY INTERLUDE
Tim Blair
On the phone a few minutes ago with a mate who is dining at Beppi’s when conversation – to that point about politics and such – took an unexpected turn:
Mate: “Do you know of the singer Rihanna?”
Me: “Er … yes. Yes, I do.”
Mate: “Is she in Sydney at the moment?”
Me: “Yes, she is."
Mate: “She just walked in.”
Me: “ … “
Mate: “You should see this. My God.”
Me: “What is she wearing?"
Mate: “White.”
I think he’s going to try to talk with her. And why not? They do have a shared interest in cars.
===
But not even the ABC can stop the facts from destroying this myth
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s Radio National holds a very belated debate with its typically scrupulous concern for balance:
The national apology: the second anniversaryOnly now, more than a decade after the issue went mainstream, will the ABC even debate the truth of the “stolen generations” myth. Even then, it starts by advertising Windschuttle as a “revisionist”. And it loads the panel on Awaye! against him, four to one - or five to one, when you include the finger-wagging “moderator”.
The history wars were largely fought over our heads by politically-opposed intellectuals, but what’s been the collateral damage? To mark the second anniversary of the national apology, we bring together a panel including two members of the stolen generations, the historian Peter Read and the revisionist Keith Windschuttle, who says the apology was a hollow public relations exercise designed to appease white audiences. His key argument is that Aboriginal children were removed on the same grounds as non-Aboriginal children - because they were orphaned, neglected or abused. He also disputes the number of children who were forcibly removed.
GuestsBrian Butler - stolen generations campaigner
Dr Gordon Briscoe - historian and academic
Helen Moran - co-chairwoman of the National Sorry Day Committee
Professor Peter Read - historian
Keith Windschuttle - historian
The ABC also advertises Helen Moran as a member of the “stolen generations” - that is, as someone stolen from her parents just for being Aboriginal, and not because they needed rescuing from neglect. Nowhere in this program was this claim tested.
Yet the ABC two years ago made perfectly clear that Moran was not stolen just for being Aboriginal, bit seems in fact to have been removed after being found neglected and even abandoned by her parents, who were taken to court:
Helen Moran was born to a white mother and an Aboriginal father and was taken from her family at just 18 months of age…Not stolen. Saved. And we can say that even of the co-chairwoman of the National Sorry Day Committee.
HELEN MORAN: Mum and Dad had heard that the welfare was going to come and take the children.
TRISHA MORAN: And next minute we were bundled into two cars and I can remember trying to get out of the police car and screaming and getting into trouble. We had to sit down and be quiet and we saw this dear old lady standing at the gate with tears waving to us and next minute we were just driven away.
HELEN MORAN: We were separated from everybody, the children, and we were taken into a room in the back of the court and my grandmother and my aunts were made to sit outside and my mother and father were taken into the courtroom for the proceedings. And when they came out they informed the family that we were going to be taken away…
MERLE SMITH, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: They asked me if I would consider twins, a boy and a girl and I said yes, I would… And they brought in these two little ones and the little girl flew into my arms and said, “Mummy, mummy, I love you.” It just about broke me up.
(REPORTER): What did the welfare tell you about their family background?
MERLE SMITH: Very little. They never mentioned Aboriginality or anything. Just that the grandmother loved them but couldn’t look after them and the reason they were in child care was their mother couldn’t cope.
HELEN MORAN: We were told different stories so we were told that we were fairly poor, that we were living in bad conditions, we were told that they weren’t looking after us properly. We were told that Dad abandoned us all and Mum was left with six children. We were told that we were abandoned by both of them. So, you know, it was different stories at different times.
UPDATE
The three people presented by Awaye! as victims of the “stolen generations” are all highly articulate and literate, and employed. One is an academic and an author, who went to an Adelaide school and is now living in Bateman’s Bay. Thousands of Aboriginal children should be so lucky to be such “victims”.
In fact, the academic, Briscoe, slurs his former teachers as “misfits” and “pedophiles” whose crime was to “Christianise” him. He concedes in passing that his mother let him go to the Adelaide school on an “understanding” he would get a better education there than in Darwin. (The school offered the same kind of help to Charles Perkins, after an application from his mother in Alice Springs, giving him the education he used to become the first Aboriginal to head a government department.)
Stolen? Briscoe? It’s a crime against the language, and a despicable vilification of people who helped Briscoe to a life denied to so many desperate Aboriginal children who would laugh to think him in greater need of our tears.
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What’s the difference with your lecture, Julia?
Andrew Bolt
What Tony Abbott said last month:
Asked what advice he would give his three daughters on sex before marriage, he told the (Women’s) Weekly: ‘’I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question … it is the greatest gift you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly.’’What Julia Gillard said then:
Australian women don’t want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott. Australian women want to make their own choices, and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott.What Julia Gillard says today:
HEAVILY tattooed young women are making a big mistake, according to Julia Gillard…
Ms Gillard said of tattooed women: “I don’t like it as an image.
“I worry for them, how they’re going to feel about it in the future.”
On the recent debate over naked, supposedly unretouched photographs of model Jennifer Hawkins, Ms Gillard said… “‘How good is it to think that women need to have their photos taken all the time with next to no clothes on?’ Could we start there?”
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Say you’re putting together a team of presenters…
Andrew Bolt
What if some bloke with derring do and cash decided that what this joint badly needed was a kind of Fox News Australia - whether on TV or radio.
Problem is, of course, where in this debate-starved land would you find the on-air talent to pull it off? It’s not easy, you know, doing what a Bill O"Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck do, and it’s rare to find brilliantly well-informed conservatives who can express themselves so thoughtfully yet pungently as a Charles Krauthammer.
But say you’re a local executive charged with putting exactly that kind of team together. Who would you pick?
(You can’t nominate me, or it will look like I’m just pleading for a job or some loving. And feel free to suggest undoubted talents, whether on radio or TV, who have not yet got the recognition they deserve.)
UPDATE
What a fascinating list you are suggesting in comments below.
Among the more predictable choices: Alan Jones, of course, and Terry McCrann, Jason Morrison, Michael Smith, Gerard Henderson, Greg Carey, Miranda Devine, John-Michael Howson, Janet Albrechtsen and Tim Blair.
Among the ones many of you might not have thought of, but on reflection...: Karl Stefanovic, Alexander Downer, Tom Elliott, Caroline Overington, Peter Costello and Tom Switzer. Chris Uhlmann for gravitas.
Among the ones I haven’t heard, and perhaps need to be brought in from the cold of distant places and time slots: Paul Murray and Jim Ball.
Among the ones from Left field, so to speak: Mark Latham (yes!), Michael Costa and Niki Savva.
Among the ones to lighten things up or unleash the beast behind the laughing mask: Sam Newman and Sam Kekovich.
Rising Star nominees: those students from Q&A.
Keep them coming.
UPDATE 2
Fascinating additions to the list include John Safran, Clive James and Noel Pearson. Others great suggestions: John Roskam, Barry Cohen, the ABC’s Macca and Greg Sheridan.
Reader Brendan reminds us:
You need representation from the left - if you dont have it, you are at risk of doing what the ABC does...and you don’t want to be tarred with that brush. You don’t want to be Bizarro ABC - there’s no point. Treat the viewers with respect and people from both sides will watch - just like your blog.
UPDATE 3
More: Barrie Cassidy, academic David Burchill, Jack the Insider, 3AW’s Ross and John, Lord Monckton.
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Victoria’s great crime cover-up
Andrew Bolt
The violence in Victoria, not the alleged racism of the thugs, is the real scandal:
(Opposition Leader Ted) Baillieu released statistics, based on police data, showing the number of assaults has jumped 70 per cent since Labor came to power in late 1999, with the number of serious assaults growing at a vastly faster rate.But there are related scandals to this explosion of violence. First, this:
Seeking to make today’s byelection in the western suburbs seat of Altona a referendum on Labor’s record on law and order, Mr Baillieu said:* Assaults by strangers across Victoria had increased from 1522 in 1999-2000 to 5616 in 2008-09 - up 269 per cent.
* Assaults by ‘’gangs’’ of four or more offenders were up from 161 in 1999-2000 to 361 last year, an increase of 124 per cent.
* Serious injuries resulting from assaults had gone up from 1308 to 3114 over the same period, an increase of 138 per cent.
Victoria has by far the lowest number of police per capita of any Australian stateBut there’s also two other very suspect aspects to this defence of the astonishing rise in the crime statistics:
(T)he state government’s thesis is largely that police have dramatically improved their reporting, rendering data from 1999-2000 incomparable to now.For a start, what is the point of collecting crime statistics that are so useless that you cannot even use them to measure what we most want to know - whether crime rates are rising? How useless are they that even huge rises in bashings and gang attacks over just a decade are dismissed as meaningless, given the flaws in the data collection? It feels as if the truth is being deliberately kept hidden.
Take the data about the relationship between assault victim and offender, such as spouse or stranger. In 1999, police recorded that relationship in just over 25 per cent of assault cases; now they report the relationship in 80 per cent, the government says.
The rise in groups assaults, it argues, is due to more police catching more offenders.
After examining the opposition data, Victoria Police found the statistics do not accurately reflect or failed to account for key factors, such as population growth and better records.
‘’Due to changes in data collection it is very difficult to compare statistics from today to 10 years ago, specifically relating to the [Liberal] statistics quoted,’’ the police said.
Second, adding to that impression, note the willingness of the police to step in as fact-checkers of Opposition policies on behalf of their Labor masters. What makes this so very dubious is that the former chief commissioner, Christine Nixon, intervened in the last federal election to reject Liberal claims that the crime rate of Sudanese and Somali refugees here were worrinngly high:
Those Sudanese refugees are actually under-represented in the crime statistics.We now know from police statistics that Nixon’s claim was completely false, and the Sudanese were overrepresented in crime statistics by a factor of four.
And I think the new police leadership is also covering up:
Last June, (Chief Commissioner Simon) Overland said crimes such as robbery and assault against persons of Indian origin in 2007-08 had soared from 1082 to 1447. They rose further in 2008-09, but not by as much, to 1525 attacks. In a published interview, Mr Overland admitted that Victoria Police grouped all people of “south Asian appearance” into one statistical category, even though they might not necessarily be Indians. He refused to release the full raft of police data on the issue because it was “subjective and open to interpretation”.There is a coverup of the true crime picture in Victoria. Police themselves have at times acknowledged the growing violence, but refuse to give us the statistics to properly measure and analyse why it is that we feel so much more in danger on our streets and public transport.
And what we get now is this shameful measure of the failure of this Government to keep us safe:
LAST week, when Amandeep and his brother went to their local pizza shop in St Albans for a takeaway, at about 9pm on Friday, they were confronted by a group of young men carrying bottles of beer and swearing… Fearing the group was lying in wait for them, the brothers took their pizza and ran across the road to the safety of a well-lit 7-Eleven. Hearts racing, they watched through the window as the drunks moved to a new hiding spot behind a bush.UPDATE
‘’I told my brother we can’t go home, so I called the police,’’ Amandeep says. ‘’[When they arrived] they told me: ‘Why did you buy pizza at 9 o’clock, because it’s not safe to come out at night?’’’
A hint in that last anecdote from Amandeep of one more factor in these bashings that the police command will not discuss:
The inebriated men were shouting in a language the brothers didn’t understand because it was not English.
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It’s Conroy’s boss who actually was Stokes’ guest
Andrew Bolt
Sounds as ugly as the handout itself:
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy and the billionaire boss of the Seven Network, Kerry Stokes, went skiing together in Vail, Colorado - a month before the Senator handed a $250 million gift to the television industry…That said, this meeting isn’t the smoking gun to prove the Rudd Government is just too chummy with Stokes, the recipient of its astonishing largesse, paid for by your taxes:
The meeting came a month before the Victorian-based Senator Conroy cut licence fees paid by Seven, Ten and Nine for the next two years, depriving the Government of about $250 million in revenue.
The decision was controversial because Senator Conroy said it was to protect Australian content - but it included no binding requirement for the networks to spend the money on Australian content.
“Last month I visited Colorado on a personal holiday, which was fully paid for by me, including all airfares from Australia to Colorado,” Senator Conroy said.This, actually, is far more questionable, and involves the spendthrift who would have signed off - or even initiated - the handout:
“On one day during this trip I visited Mr Stokes and returned to my accommodation that evening.”
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd stayed with billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes at his lavish mansion in Broome last weekend.(Declaration: Conroy is a friend.)
Mr Rudd and his wife Therese Rein spent the night of October 2 at the Channel Seven owner’s Cable Beach compound as part of a three-day trip to Western Australia…
Mr Rudd flew to Perth the following day for a Channel Seven charity telethon, where he donated $1.5million on behalf of the federal Government ...
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Meet the student who pressed the PM
Andrew Bolt
Meet the student who asked a tougher question of Kevin Rudd than did Left-spruiking Paul Bongiorno this morning on Meet The Press:
HE is cranky, breaks election promises and has no idea what’s going on in schools - that’s the verdict of the Australian teenager who skewered Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on national television.UPDATE
Angela Samuels, 18, was one of 200 teenagers invited onto the ABC’s Q&A show to ask the Prime Minister questions in a friendly session at Old Parliament House last Monday.
But when the student from Canberra grilled Mr Rudd about his promise to deliver a laptop to every child and to take over state hospitals he nearly lost his temper.
Clearly rattled, Mr Rudd answered the perfectly legitimate questions like an annoyed schoolteacher, pointing his finger and disputing her claims.
“Well, you’re shaking your head. Can I just say that is a fact, and if you ring up principals around the country it’s happening,” he said on air.
The Australian National University student has since been backed by principals around the nation, saying they had not been given the laptops that were promised.
“I was just shaking my head because I wasn’t happy with what was happening,” she said.
“I’m in contact with schools. I know what he’s saying isn’t the truth. It’s annoying that he stands in front of cameras and says things that aren’t true.”
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Samuels said she was surprised by the Prime Minister’s level of aggression towards her and that he risked losing support from the generation that voted him in.
Oops. Bongiorno has just played a clip from a viewer asking Rudd about one of his “broken promises”, as if everyone knows he’s a promise breaker, and then skewering him on his promise to lower homelessness, only to have it go up.
Does this count as a tough question from Bongiorno, or is it one more sign that the average viewer is tougher on Rudd than the average gallery journalist?
UPDATE 2
Is that a humbler Rudd this morning, trying harder to sound a straight-talker rather than a spinner? It seems to me he’s had some coaching on changing his presentation style. Or maybe he’s nervous at subjecting himself to questioning on television, even if he’s among friends and not on Insiders.
UPDATE 3
Barrie Cassidy, the Insiders host, seems a little snippy this morning about Rudd’s kidglove treatment from Bongiorno, the clearly grateful recipient of the Prime Minister’s condescension to appear on any show that isn’t Insiders:
“Strangely enough,” Cassidy noted at the top of today’s show, Rudd was not asked about this front-page story today:
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy and the billionaire boss of the Seven Network, Kerry Stokes, went skiing together in Vail, Colorado - a month before the Senator handed a $250 million gift to the television industry.
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49 out of 50: the near-perfect chill
Andrew Bolt
If snow will just fall on Hawaii, the US will score a perfect 50:
The idea of 50 states with snow is so strange that the federal office that collects weather statistics doesn’t keep track of that number and can’t say whether it has ever happened. The office can’t even say whether 49 out of 50 has ever taken place before.
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Stereotype reinforced to the watching world
Andrew Bolt
Dutch television news this morning shows shots of fans at the winter Olympics in Vancouver. Some are bare-chested in the snow, happily bawling their nationality, which is also stencilled on their bodies. They’re giving the thumbs up.
Which country would you guess they’re from?
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So crazy that it just might work
Andrew Bolt
Interesting experiment in the annals of the history of warfare - to try, after nine years, to once more use your superior forces to attack:
Some 15,000 US, Nato and Afghan forces launched a long awaited offensive against the Taliban’s biggest remaining stronghold in Afghanistan late on Friday night.But what would Napoleon have thought of this rashness?
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They want Bligh overboard
Andrew Bolt
Voters were tricked by the last rush to the polls, and I doubt they’ll be taken in again:
ANNA Bligh’s Government faces annihilation at the next election, with the Premier’s approval rating slipping behind the Opposition Leader’s for the first time.
The assets sale, axing the fuel subsidy, allegations of corruption and cronyism, and a raft of empty promises and stalled commitments have alienated the public…
... on the crucial two-party-preferred basis, the LNP has turned a 49-51 election-day defeat around and leads 59-41.
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Latest Melbourne bashing: Premier mugged in Altona
Andrew Bolt
Ted Baillieu will feel chuffed, and Labor will feel suddenly nervous:
OPPOSITION Leader Ted Baillieu appears to have scored a double-digit swing against Premier John Brumby in the Altona by-election.
But the Brumby Government was headed towards its first victory of the election year with former Victorian Labor president Jill Hennessy set to win.
With more than 46 percent of the vote counted, polling showed a 10 to 11 percent swing against the Government in one of its safest seats.
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And how many have explained their error?
Andrew Bolt
The Spectator does some accounting:
Here is a sample of media comment on the Liberals and the ETS late last year:Ah, the collective wisdom of the Canberra press gallery. Is there anything so, so, so .... What’s the word I’m looking for?
Laurie Oakes, the Daily Telegraph: ‘Unless [Malcolm] Turnbull can bring the climate change dissidents to heel, the Liberals will face humiliation at the polls.’
Paul Kelly, the ABC1’s Insiders: ‘I mean frankly if [the Liberals] oppose [Turnbull’s amendments to the ETS], that would be signing their own political death warrant.’
Michelle Grattan, the Age: ‘It is in the Liberal party’s interests to vote for the ETS and get the climate change issue as much off the election agenda as possible.’
Peter Hartcher, the Sydney Morning Herald: Opposition to the ETS ‘will give the Rudd government a potential trigger for a double dissolution election. This would be devastating for the Coalition… The party faces electoral oblivion.’
The Weekend Australian’s front page: (28 November): ‘The Coalition faces an electoral wipeout [of at least 20 of its metropolitan seats] at next year’s federal election if the rebels led by Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin succeed in blocking the government’s climate change legislation.’
Bear all this in mind when you hear the same columnists now arguing that opposition to Mr Rudd’s ETS is good politics. The government is ‘very worried’, it’s in a ‘mess’ and on the ‘defensive’ over its ETS (Oakes). Abbott has ‘stolen the march’ and ‘Labor’s policy is in trouble’ (Kelly). For Labor’s marginal seat holders, ‘the ETS is becoming something of a nightmare’ (Grattan). This week’s AC Nielsen poll ‘vindicates the politics of the Coalition’s decision to argue with Rudd rather than agree with him’ (Hartcher).
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