Sir David Low (1891 – 1963)
=== Bible Quote ===
“[Love] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”- 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
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Bomb squad investigates Enfield car blast
A CAR bomb is suspected to have caused an explosion in Adelaide this morning which has killed two people, one of whom was a known drug dealer. AdelaideNow reports the late-model gold Commodore sedan blew up in Truscott Rd, Enfield, at 5.20am, waking nearby residents who had their windows blown out. The vehicle was hired yesterday by a 30-year-old northern suburbs man who had a criminal record for drug offences. Holden Hill police chief Superintendent Barry Lewis said the man was known to police. "The man ... has a history of drug convictions," he said.
Mid-Atlantic poised to have its snowiest winter on record, with up to three feet of accumulated snow in some parts
U.S. to Iran: Time's Up
White House targets four companies linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards force over alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction
Snow Shuts Down D.C.
Deeming it too dangerous to plow, Washington and surrounding governments halt snow removal
'Yellow Line' Has Asians Seeing Red
Asian-Americans, Atlanta officials debate renaming train route that travels into heart of city's Asian community
Shock drop in unemployment rate
THE Aussie economy continues to surprise the experts with 52,700 jobs created in January. - yet more evidence that Rudd lied about the economy when he went on his spending spree. - ed.
Rebuilt DNA Could Lead to Cloned Neanderthals
As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine. In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person. The work is possible today thanks to vast increases in computing power over the past few years. 454's Thomas Jarvie told the magazine, "Six years ago if you wanted to sequence E. coli... it would have taken one or maybe two million dollars, and it would have taken a year and 150 people. Nowadays, one person can do it in two days."
Australian Farmers Told to Dynamite Rabbits
Australian farmers are being urged by authorities to use poison gas and even ammonium nitrate explosive to blow up rabbits, as biological controls fail, The Adelaide Advertiser reported in its Thursday edition. A warning issued to farmers by the South Australian Environment Department urges them to "overcome the rabbit's tremendous breeding potential" by traditional means such as bulldozers, poison baits, fumigation, dogs and even explosives. "Explosives are an alternative for follow up control . . . accreditation and training is mandatory," the information bulletin issued by the Arid Lands Natural Resources Management Board (ALNRMB) states.
An Aboriginal leader reckons the meat from feral camels could be provided as food for the nation's crocodile farms.
Tug of war as shark latches on
A MAN was left with shark teeth in his leg after fighting the attacker off in shallow water this morning.
'Car bomb' victim was drug dealer
TWO killed in blast that blows out residents' windows and leaves debris strewn for 50 metres.
'Baby machine' gets contraceptive implant
A WOMAN who has seen all 14 of her children taken into care will take a break from pregnancy.
Teenager sucked through intake pipe
TEEN hailed "luckiest person alive" by emergency crews after surviving terrifying river ordeal.
Secret formula for true love revealed
THIS quirky formula may be the algebraic equation for love
Iran world's biggest jailer of journalists
IRAN became the world's biggest jailer of reporters in 2009, media watchdog IPI said in its annual report. The International Press Institute singled out Iran, as it prepared to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution, as having "some of the world's most repressive policies towards the media". "In 2009, Iran became the leading jailer of journalists in the world, imprisoning over 100 reporters and bloggers in the aftermath of the disputed elections," the report said. "At year's end, dozens of journalists were still being held in Iran's prisons," it added. IPI also accused Tehran of censorship - shutting down publications and the internet and expelling foreign journalists - as well as "unfair trials and torture", especially following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June.
More hot water for troubled Belinda Neal
LABOR will investigate allegations that could derail Belinda Neal's besieged pre-selection bid.
Drunk 15-year-old girl crashes car
A 15-YEAR-OLD girl who had been drinking has allegedly crashed a stolen car into two other parked cars this morning at Dapto.
Soldier held for murder, 'lingerie crimes'
A BASE commander, who acted as pilot for the UK Royals, confessed to a series of sexually motivated murders and break-ins.
Hillsong graffiti attackers caught on film
DO YOU know these teenage boys who police believe can shed light on a break-in and graffiti attack at the Hillsong Church last month.
Turnbull crosses floor, joins Labor on ETS
VIDEO: Turnbull to cross floor on ETS
LABOR has at least one extra vote as its legislation setting up an emissions trading scheme began to move through Parliament's Lower House today. Former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has crossed the floor to support the Government's package of bills. The deposed Liberal leader has been the only Opposition MP to speak in favour of the legislation during a lengthy debate. The legislation faces defeat in the Senate where Labor lacks the numbers to win approval without the support of seven non-government senators.
=== Journalists Corner ===
In a highly contested fight for Florida's U.S. Senate seat...
This conservative candidate is taking aim at Obama's fiscal agenda.
Now, Marco Rubio reveals his strategy for success in the Sunshine State!
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Sexy Snow Angels!
From sultry skiers to steamy snowboarders, the winter Olympians heat up the pages of Sports Illustrated!
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Guest: Michelle Malkin
What in the labor nominee's past sparked a shutdown in the Senate? Michelle Malkin explains!
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Obama's Health Care Summit!
It's the critical meeting to revive the ailing plan ... but will it lead to real reform? Newt Gingrich weighs in!
=== Comments ===
Punished for doing the right thing for old age
Piers Akerman
BEFORE the last election, Kevin Rudd promised he would not change superannuation laws. - Piers, it gets worse than what you describe. I’ll use myself as an example. In 2003 I was offered by a government regulated authority a disability pension and immediate retirement. This is because I am overweight (approx 200kg) and my workplace supervisor had made up some stories for their own reasons. I was being harassed at work. I’d been promised the harassment would stop, so I declined the offer or pension and went back to work with the label of ‘disability with no special provision’ to my name. I didn’t know then that I was witness to the cover up of Hamidur Rahman’s death, and so I thought the harassment would end with the retirement of one of my abusers. The harassment escalated and by 2007 I could not guarantee the safety of my students as I was being targeted for further harassment and it was clear they were being hurt too. So I brought my matter before the Minister, and when I was ignored, I resigned to speak to the press as I had promised I would. I did not know that the press did not have to report on the issue. I had understood that the most I would have to wait to access my super would be six months, if the very worst came to pass. I refused the offer of being pensioned off because I didn’t want the smear to prevent me from speaking with an authentic voice.
Thirty two months later I have had an application to access my super for more than a year on medical grounds and the super company is delaying making a decision, as they may do for another two years. I have been illegally (and unofficially) black listed from work. I find some odd jobs, but cannot command enough to pay my mortgage.
So now I must claim from super to pay my mortgage before my place is sold from under me. I have enough in super to pay out the loan and do what I need to retrain (get a doctorate at uni). But I won’t be allowed to access enough to pay out the mortgage, I can only access enough to pay out the overdue amount. I will be in a worse boat following because after, I still can’t pay my bills and can only access super once every ten months.
If I make it through those ten months, I can apply for my super under economic hardship rules. However, if I do that, I lose the contributions my employer made to the super, and I will only be allowed to access half the remainder, at most, with the balance going to another super account. The result being that my super account which stands at $204k will lose $73k which I will never have access to again (although I earned it by sacrificing other things to acquire it when I first began work) and I might get as much as $63k towards my issue, leaving me with my mortgage of a further $110k and needs like furniture and clothing and maintenance work for plumbing etc. I might still be able to retrain, but it is substantially more desperate. I can still try to run for legislative council in 2011, which I don’t want to do but feel I must because I want to break the Hamidur story to the public. But if there was one honest politician in the ALP in NSW or the federal government all this could be avoided. I have not found one.
If I could involve the ICAC, Ombudsman’s office or coroner I could prove my case with the paper work I have. But they don’t feel the urge to look. - ed.
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The Angry American
By Bill O'Reilly
A new Rasmussen poll is simply astounding. The survey says 75 percent of American voters are angry at the federal government. Forty-five percent say they're very angry. Only 19 percent say they are fine with the feds.
Both Republicans and Democrats expressed frustration in the poll, and 60 percent of the voters agree with the statement that neither Republican or Democrat leaders have a good understanding of the country's problems.
So what is the "why" behind this?
On his Web site, Scott Rasmussen says most Americans believe the political system in Washington is broken. OK, but that's a general statement. Here's what "Talking Points" believes is going on.
On the right, there is tremendous disenchantment with President Obama. Conservatives and many independents feel the president is far too liberal, spends far too much money and is way too lenient on captured terrorists.
Also, Americans in general are apprehensive about the economy, and all the federal spending has not improved the situation very much.
Now, on the left, the health care fiasco is galling. Many liberals are furious that President Obama's signature issue remains in chaos. Also, some liberals do not like the Afghan war or Mr. Obama's aggressive posture towards Al Qaeda. For example, the ACLU is appalled by all the drone missile attacks.
In the middle, Americans remain skeptical that Congress and the president can solve health care, the huge debt and the economy in general.
So simply put, most Americans are nervous about the state of the union.
Now, the Obama administration understands that, as articulated by the first lady:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: Rightfully so, people are frustrated, right? But one of the things that Barack Obama said and continues to say is change ain't easy, and it doesn't happen overnight. And it certainly doesn't happen in a year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Well, that's a fair point. President Obama inherited many problems. It'll take time to sort them out. However, the president has not shown great leadership ability thus far. Most polls say Americans have little confidence in him.
So going forward, the president must impose financial discipline or the Democrats will lose everything. That is priority No. 1. If Mr. Obama continues to run up debt, his administration will fail.
On the health care front, the president still has not convinced most Americans his vision is to their benefit. Can he turn that around? I doubt it.
As far as terrorism is concerned, the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed-New York City debacle has hurt Mr. Obama big time. Can he turn that around? No. Even if he changes the venue and/or fires Attorney General Holder, the damage has been done.
But it is not all over for the president. If the economy improves, if fiscal responsibility is restored, and if he gets a big win on the terror front some place, the anger will most likely subside. But those are big ifs.
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MANN CHANGES CLIMATE
Tim Blair
Professor of Warmenology Michael Mann – the “hockey stick” guy – was scheduled to give a talk today about climate change.
But it’s been cancelled due to snow.
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POWER OF PREJUDICE
Tim Blair
A sceptic writes:
Bolt and Blair were right all along. The whole AGW enterprise was a political movement, and was rotten to the core.And a warmy replies:
Perhaps, but if so they were so thru prejudice and not observation.
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HEATER GARRETT
Tim Blair
Further to Peter Garrett’s Midnight Foil roofing debacle:
Taxpayers will spend up to $50 million on home safety inspections after federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett bowed to industry and political pressure to deal with potentially deadly faults in his $2.45 billion program.This is how Garrett aimed to help Australians save money. How can he sleep while their roofs are burning? (By the way, 16 men were killed during construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge between 1924 and 1932. The insulation scheme – a mere household insulation scheme – has seen worker deaths occurring at double that rate.)
Fending off calls for his resignation, Mr Garrett ordered 37,000 safety audits of homes with foil insulation over fears sloppy installers had caused roofs to become electrified.
The serious safety concerns to householders follow the deaths of four installers during the rollout of the insulation program. The opposition used the latest in a series of bungled environmental programs to launch an all-out attack on Mr Garrett’s fitness to be a minister, including claims he was warned of problems with the scheme last March and did not act.
UPDATE. Garrett is talking to media, but he isn’t saying much to anyone else:
Asked what he would say to their families, Mr Garrett said: “Any death, in any instance, under any Government program is a matter of great tragedy for the families involved and a matter which I feel very deeply.”And, again, that early warning:
But the mother of a Gold Coast man electrocuted near Cairns last week said she still had not heard from anyone regarding her son’s death.
Wendy Sweeney, whose son, Mitchell, was 22 when he died at a property at Millaa Millaa, said she had been kept in the dark over the investigations into his death.
“Nobody has contacted us at all,” she said.
The National Electrical and Communications Association wrote to the minister last March to warn there were “inherent dangers” with foil insulation.UPDATE II. More from a soon-to-be-ex-minister:
When asked if he felt any personal responsibility for the deaths that have occurred, Garrett said: “My responsibility is to make sure that we have a program that delivers insulation into people’s homes safely.Kind of like Garrett observed that warning last March. It sounds as though this hero of the people is blaming the workers.
“We have set up a program that does that so long as those people who participate in the program observe the guidelines of the program properly.”
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THE TICKETS ARE NOW DIAMONDS
Tim Blair
Great ad:
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MIDNIGHT FOIL
Tim Blair
Kevin Rudd’s shopping website was abandoned last year, and now a rushed government greening program (administered by Peter Garrett) ends in death and disarray:
Thousands of Queensland homeowners may have to fork out at least $200 to ensure their potentially “live” homes won’t kill them after taking part in the Rudd Government’s ceiling insulation scheme.Foil insulation, improperly or hastily installed, can lead to electrocution. Many are believed vulnerable:
Environment Minister Peter Garrett yesterday suspended the use of foil insulation under the Government’s $2.45 billion rebate program.
It comes after the deaths of three young Queensland installers who were working on the program.
To date 37,000 houses have been installed with foil batts under the $1200 rebate scheme. Master Electricians Australia said 460 households could have live ceilings.And the government’s response:
The government has said it will audit one in 10 of the homes with foil insulation …Generous of them. Hey, let’s take out a loan:
The government’s Green Loans scheme will be subjected to an external audit after months of allegations of mismanagement and favourable treatment.Maybe not. So, this mob can’t insulate homes, can’t run a grocery website and can’t deliver loans, yet still insists that it can adjust the planet’s temperature. Intriguing. How’s that hydrogen-powered interspecies time-travel perpetual motion experiment working out, Kevin? Any progress there?
UPDATE. Not much luck with boaties, either.
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If the science was less shonky, Jonathan, I’d have nothing to say
Andrew Bolt
Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes, a warmist activist, is cross that sceptics are winning. Or is that “sceptic” singular?
So it’s no coincidence that the most compelling public arguments for the reality of global warming have been made by people who aren’t themselves climate scientists: people like former US vice-president Al Gore, or mammal palaeontologist Tim Flannery, or ‘public intellectuals’ like Robert Manne.Gee, just one against that great horde and I’m still winning? You’d think if I were so wrong and so fact-challenged that I’d have been shot down years ago.
But Al Gore is a long way away, and Flannery’s been pretty quiet of late.
NGOs like Greenpeace and WWF have plenty of passion, but they’ve produced no public advocate who’s really broken through. Perhaps the Australia Institute’s Clive Hamilton has come nearest, but he’s hardly a household name outside the chatterati.
Our left-wing columnists, like Phillip Adams and Mike Carlton, have no pretensions to detailed knowledge of the science. Our environmental and science journalists largely stick to news reporting and avoid advocacy.
What we don’t have in Australia - have never had - is someone like The Guardian’s George Monbiot: a journalist with the same access to the mainstream as Andrew Bolt, who has made it his or her business to be as thoroughly on top of climate change science, and who’s willing to mix it with the sceptics at any and every opportunity.
But Holmes’ theory is nevertheless that sceptics are just getting too much of a say in the media now, given the alleged weakness of their scientific evidence. He blames timid scientists for not speaking up, and green journalists for not being better informed - or better placed to get access to the mass media.
But here’s a few things that don’t gell with that theory:
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Too much crime, too few police. Does that make sense?
Andrew Bolt
I don’t agree with Greg Sheridan’s suggestion that racism is behind many of the bashings of Indians in Victoria, but he’s right to point out this failure of simple policing - and of political leadership:
Victoria has by far the lowest number of police per capita of any Australian state.Well, no, actually. Too few police do indeed encourage or embolden the violent, but what created so many more misfits in the first place?
According to a Productivity Commission report, Victoria in 2002-03 had 212 police per 100,000 population. By 2008-09 this had actually fallen to 206. That is at a time when violent crime in Victoria has soared…
Even NSW in 2008-09 had 237 police per 100,000 people, much more than Victoria, while SA had a positively luxurious 303 police per 100,000 population. Victoria is the only state to have gone backwards in per capita police in this decade.
And there’s your explanation for the violence.
But given the crime, where indeed are the police?
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Sunrise finds no shine from Rudd
Andrew Bolt
Sunrise’s attempt to help its little mate has sent its viewers to sleep:
JOE Hockey has rebuffed the Seven Network’s attempts to lift interest in Kevin Rudd’s early Friday morning television appearances on Sunrise by refusing to join his old political partner on a spot that launched them as national political celebrities seven years ago.Hockey is right. If Sunrise wants a debate format, let it pitch Rudd against his real opponent, Tony Abbott. But would Rudd dare, when he’s too timid to appear even on Insiders more than once in two years?
The opposition Treasury spokesman, who’s been derided and attacked in the past week after a television appearance dressed as Tinker Bell, has decided to let the Prime Minister “stew in his own boring juices”....
Many MPs believe the format for the Sunrise appearance with Mr Rudd answering detailed questions about pensions or allowances, or not being able to answer the questions, is dull. But, because of the detailed answers being sought, Mr Rudd has had to regularly resort to taking the questions on notice and responding the following week or referring the callers to the relevant minister
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IPCC in the hands of greens? Get away with you
Andrew Bolt
Even The Age now reports it:
LEADING scientists have stepped up calls for a major overhaul of the United Nation’s climate panel following a string of criticisms of its Nobel peace prize-winning 2007 report…UPDATE
by 2035.
Many subsequent criticism have focused on the panel’s use of ‘’grey literature’’ - work that has not been peer reviewed by other scientists including student thesis, reports by green groups and magazine articles - in parts of its 3000-page report.
Writing in respected journal Nature, contributing author Eduardo Zorita ... called for (the IPCC) to be made stronger and independent so that it drew only on established peer-reviewed literature and highlighted gaps in the published science. Opposing views would be included.
Dr Zorita, from the GKSS Research Centre in Germany, said the IPCC’s use of government-nominated academic volunteers working under unmanageable deadlines had put it ‘’at the mercy of pressure from advocates‘’
Michael Mann, who developed his discredited ”hockey stick” to claim the world had never been warmer, has had to cancel his latest speech on global warming. Too much snow.
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Too many love-sick firefighters
Andrew Bolt
The excuses you get for the inexcusable from a far-Left union official:
A REMARKABLE 103 city firefighters were absent on sick or other leave on Black Saturday - more than double what the bushfire royal commission was told.These are truly astonishing numbers. Marshall should be ashamed of himself to offer such risible excuses for a shirking of duty that could endanger lives.
A Herald Sun investigation found 44 Metropolitan Fire Brigade officers were absent from day shift and 59 from night shift on February 7, 2009, with 87 away the next day and night. A week later MFB firefighters were bitten by the love bug, with 62 - one in five - absent on Valentine’s Day night shift…
United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall said any suggestion MFB firefighters shirked their responsibilities on Black Saturday were abhorrent and wrong.
He said the large number of Valentine’s Day absentees might be related to a high level of family breakdowns among emergency workers.
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Kevin’s from Queensland and here to help
Andrew Bolt
it’s not just the beds but the houses that are now burning, too…
Throwing away $2.45 billion on free insulation was always a colossal waste of cash, done in a panic with barely a thought about whether this was smart ... or safe:
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner denied it would have been better to roll out the program slowly.Result? Houses hot-wire and set alight, and people killed. To be specific:
”I don’t think it’s right to say we should have sat back ... dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s because we were in a crisis situation,’’ he told Sky News.
Four undertrained installers are dead, two electrocuted by incorrectly installing foil insulationIt’s not just a farce but a scandal:
At least 21 About 1000 homes left with potentially deadly electrical faults
Dozens of NSW houses set alight by faultily installed insulation.
TAXPAYERS will spend up to $50 million on home safety inspections after federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett bowed to industry and political pressure to deal with potentially deadly faults in his $2.45 billion program.Nor is that the only free-cash program to blow up in Garrett’s face:
Fending off calls for his resignation, Mr Garrett ordered 37,000 safety audits of homes with foil insulation over fears sloppy installers had caused roofs to become electrified.
The serious safety concerns to householders follow the deaths of four installers during the rollout of the insulation program. The opposition used the latest in a series of bungled environmental programs to launch an all-out attack on Mr Garrett’s fitness to be a minister, including claims he was warned of problems with the scheme last March and did not act.
Mr Garrett’s decision came yesterday as he continued to battle major problems with the government’s Green Loans program and a potential $850m cost blowout in its household solar power scheme.By deliberately not crossing T’s and dotting I’s, this government blew your billions, torched your houses, made death traps of others and lured four men to their deaths.
That in a simple scheme just to put insulation in roofs. Now they plan a great new tax to re-engineer our whole economy.
Should be a doddle for these clowns.
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Rudd deceives student on IPCC
Andrew Bolt
Grilled by a sceptical student, Kevin Rudd defends the scandal-ridden IPCC as just a bunch of serious climate scientists:
The first thing I’d say is the IPCC - International Panel on Climate Change - scientists has 4000 essentially humourless scientists in white coats who go around and measure things and have been doing so for about 20 years. They reached a conclusion about, first of all, climate change happening and, second, the high likelihood, defined as 90 per cent plus, of it being caused by human activity sometime agoEr, not so, says even the warmist Guardian:
Perhaps unknown to many people, the process is started and finished not by scientists but by political officials, who steer the way the information is presented in so-called summary for policymakers [SPM] chapters.Not so, agrees Anton Imeson, a former IPCC lead author from the Netherlands:
The IPCC should have never allowed itself to be branded as a scientific organisation. It provides a review of published scientific papers but none of this is much controlled by independent scientists.And Rudd’s 4000 claim is wrong, too, says John McLean:
The evidence shows that the claim of “4000 scientific experts supported the IPCC’s claims” is dishonest in almost every word. There were not 4000 people, but just under 2900; they were not all scientists; and it seems that they were not all experts. There is only evidence that about 60 people explicitly supported the claim, although that might not mean much given the vested interests and lack of impartiality of many authors and reviewers.(Thanks to reader Steve.)
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All so matey - and well-rewarded
Andrew Bolt
If these guys weren’t rewarding each other with your money, you might laugh:
ANNA Bligh’s former chief adviser, Mike Kaiser, lobbied the Prime Minister’s office to locate the NBN headquarters in Brisbane only months before he was given a plum $450,000 a year job with the national broadband network late last year without a formal selection process.UPDATE
Excellent question from Christian Kerr:
STEPHEN Conroy has one big question about the National Broadband Network’s $450,000-a-year government relations man and former Labor MP Mike Kaiser that he hasn’t answered.(Thanks to reader CA.)
Why does a 100 per cent government-owned entity such as the NBN need a government relations person in the first place?
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Our immigration policy is a Ponzi scheme: Labor MP
Andrew Bolt
He’s right, of course:
A federal Labor MP has likened migration to a pyramid scheme.Or ask: at what stage do we give up this fix and look for another? When we hit a population of 50 million? 100 million? Exactly what is our target population?
Using the analogy of a fraudulent business practice, Melbourne backbencher Kelvin Thomson challenged the idea of bringing in more migrants to support Australia’s ageing population.
“The more migrants we bring in, the more older people we will have to look after further down the road,” he told the ACT branch of Sustainable Population Australia on Wednesday night.
“If the idea is that we will bring in still more migrants to look after them, this is just a giant pyramid scheme - sooner or later it’s going to collapse.
“It’s a fraud.”
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Obama kills the laughs
Andrew Bolt
Suddenly it’s not so funny any more:
Back in May, POLITICO analyzed the press briefings and found that the instances of laughter — as indicated by “(Laughter)” being noted in the official transcript — occurred more than 10 times per day during press secretary Robert Gibbs’s briefings.This trend could be described like this:
But the laughter has been reduced by half in recent months: In the first six months of the Obama administration, briefings produced an average of 179 laughs per month. Over the past six months, the average has dropped down to 89.
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Amnesty supports jihadist over his victims
Andrew Bolt
I knew Amnesty International had become rancid beyond rescue when it listed John Howard alongside Robert Mugabe in its catalogue of monstrous leaders. But it’s got even worse:
A SENIOR official at Amnesty International has accused the charity of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terror suspects above those of their victims.David Aaronovitch said heads have already rolled - well, one, and that of the whistleblower:
Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty’s international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former British inmate at Guantanamo Bay, “fundamentally damages” the organisation’s reputation. In an email sent to Amnesty’s top bosses, she suggests the charity has mistakenly allied itself with Begg and his “jihadi” group, Cageprisoners, out of fear of being branded racist and Islamophobic.
Sahgal describes Begg as “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban”. He has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual mentor of the Christmas Day Detroit plane bomber.
Amnesty’s work with Cageprisoners took it to Downing Street last month to demand the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Begg has also embarked on a European tour, hosted by Amnesty, urging countries to offer safe haven to Guantanamo detainees. This is despite concerns about former inmates returning to terrorism.
Sahgal, who has researched religious fundamentalism for 20 years, has decided to go public because she feels Amnesty has ignored her warnings for the past two years about the involvement of Begg in the charity’s Counter Terror With Justice campaign…
Begg, 42, from Birmingham, was held at Guantanamo for three years until 2005 under suspicion of links to Al-Qaeda, which he denies. Prior to his arrest, Begg lived with his family in Kabul and praised the Taliban in his memoirs as “better than anything Afghanistan has had in 20 years”. After his release Begg became the figurehead for Cageprisoners, which describes itself as “a human rights organisation that exists solely to raise awareness of the plight of prisoners ... held as part of the War On Terror”.
Among the Muslim inmates it highlights are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Abu Hamza, the hook-handed cleric facing extradition from Britain to America on terror charges, and Abu Qatada, a preacher described as Osama Bin Laden’s “European ambassador"…
Anne Fitzgerald, policy director of Amnesty’s international secretariat, said the charity had formed a relationship with Begg because he was a “compelling speaker” on detention. She said he had been paid expenses for his attendance at its events.
Yesterday, probably inevitably, Sahgal was suspended from her job.He’s amazed by Amnesty’s gullibility, if that’s what its support for terrorists causes actually is:
According to Begg, his organisation exists to represent (Muslim) prisoners who, in his words, have neither been charged nor been sent to trial. But the Cageprisoners website demands solidarity for several jihadis who have been both tried and convicted, and for several more who are at large. One wonders whether Amnesty has perused the full list, which includes Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani- American currently on trial for shooting US soldiers. Also there are Abu Hamza, Sajid Badat, who confessed to being part of the plot to blow up an aircraft with a shoe-bomb, and was sentenced to 13 years in 2005, and Andrew Rowe, the convert also given 13 years for acts preparatory to terrorism.(Thanks to reader captain peri.)
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The Governor has played politics for too long already
Andrew Bolt
How political has Victoria’s Governor become? Here’s David de Kretser launching a manifesto by David Spratt demanding the economy be put on a war footing to fight global warming.
Towards the end, he notes and apparently endorses, this manifesto’s suggestion that what’s held us to “slow progress” in tackling global warming is “democratic systems of government, with elections...” (The tape cuts out at this point.) The clear inference is that our system of government leaves us dangerously exposed to what de Kretser claims is the “greatest problem confronting mankind” and a “state of emergency”. What are you then led to conclude about democracy - this system of government of ours that de Kretser has actually sworn (and been paid) to uphold?
The fact is that de Kretser’s naked politicking and radical green preaching has caused concern for at least a year. I repeat what I said yesterday: the Governor, meant to be a bipartisan and politically neutral figure. If he insists on playing politics, especially out among the radical Left, he must resign.
UPDATE
Yesterday I wrote that the Climate Emergency Network that’s helping to run the protest at which de Kretser will speak on Sunday had among its members Socialist Alliance, Resistance, Solidarity, Greenpeace, Socialist Alternative and Rising Tide.
An apparent CEN spokesman wrote to the Herald Sun denying any of these groups were CEN members, And yesterday afternoon CEN removed from its web site a page which actually listed every one of those organisations.as “CEN member groups”. The cache is here.
I suspect there will be an effort to deny that de Kretser’s event on Sunday will have any links to Marxist groups, and that there will similar airbrushing of the records.
But Resistance and the Socialist Alliance have also been active with Climate Emergency Queensland, and Socialist Alliance joined the Climate Emergency Network in a joint endorsement of a Climate Emergency protest in Melbourne in 2008.
Moreover, David Spratt, whose book CEN was formed to support and which de Kretser launched (above), was once spokesman of the Victorian Peace Movement, which campaigned against the Iraq war, and, llike the CEN, held ”convergences”.
The Victorian Peace Movement, too, had a long list of affliliates which once more gave cover to the far-Left radicals in the ranks, such as Socialist Alliance, Resistance, the Socialist Party, Victorian Greens, the Democratic Socialist Party, the Committee for Workers Against Imperialism and socialist fronts like the Refugee Action Collective.
A friend of Spratt notes he has been a long-time activist connected to Trades Hall, the Socialist Left and more recently the Greens. He was a member of the hard-line Pledge faction of Labor’s Left and editor of its newspaper.
Now his work is championed by the Governor, the Queen’s representative in Victoria.
UPDATE 2
David Spratt now bills himself as a “businessman” and adopts a suit and tie. But reader Geoff remembers a very different Spratt, whose career as an activist splendidly illustrates the fact the global warming is just the latest Trojan Horse of the far-Left - a horse now towed into the grounds of Government House:
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Levy felled by Botulism
Andrew Bolt
Never underestimate the stupidity of the clever:
When France’s most dashing philosopher took aim at Immanuel Kant in his latest book, calling him “raving mad” and a “fake”, his observations were greeted with the usual adulation. To support his attack, Bernard-Henri Lévy — a showman-penseur known simply by his initials, BHL — cited the little-known 20th-century thinker Jean-Baptiste Botul.
There was one problem: Botul was invented by a journalist in 1999 as an elaborate joke, and BHL has become the laughing stock of the Left Bank.
There were clues. One supposed work by Botul — from which BHL quoted — was entitled The Sex Life of Immanuel Kant. The philosopher’s school is known as Botulism and subscribes to his theory of “La Metaphysique du Mou” — the Metaphysics of the Flabby.
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