Headlines Thursday 25th March 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Federal Role in Highway Safety
Cartoon from Public Safety (March 1954) coverage
of the 1954 White House Conference on Highway Safety
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.

=== Bible Quote ===

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”- Romans 6:23

=== Headlines ===

Hitchhiker convicted of killing Montana man in 1951 found running wedding chapel in Arizona — 38 years after he skipped out on parole and vanished into thin air.

'Vote-a-Rama' Begins
Senate Republicans make last-ditch effort to derail health care legislation by forcing Dems to vote on 'fixes'

School Abortion
The mother of a 15-year old Seattle girl is furious because her daughter had an abortion with some assistance from the nurses at her school and she was never informed. She only found out after the fact when her daughter had an unrelated health problem and finally revealed she had terminated a pregnancy

Dems in Danger Over Health Care?
FBI looks into threats directed at lawmakers and their families since the House voted on health care reform

Outrage Over School-Assisted Abortion
Seattle mother claims teen daughter received abortion with assistance from nurses at school

White House Keeps Public in the Dark About Obama-Netanyahu Meeting
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to provide details of Tuesday night's secretive meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the administration was "comfortable" with the encounter being held away from the gaze of the press.

GM's EN-V, the Car of the Future
It's not quite as foldable as the space vehicle that cartoon figure George Jetson pops into his briefcase as he bops into the office. But the EN-V concept car, GM's "automobile solution" for the future, just might fit into an apartment foyer.

Hey Dad! co-star Ben Oxenbould says he witnessed Robert Hughes inappropriately touch his on-screen daughter, Sarah Monahan, but was told to keep quiet by producers.

Jobs boost in our biggest deal
THE country's largest trade deal to "provide enormous wealth and employment for decades".

Australia's richest number is 2027
THE nation’s wealthiest and poorest suburbs have been revealed in latest tax stats

Life ban call for dodgy school teachers
A FIVE-YEAR ban on teachers convicted of child sex offences is not enough, Opposition says.

Tourism Australia's caged roo shame
KANGAROO forced to spend hours in tiny pen on LA street - all in the name of selling Australia.

Miners buckle up to ride 'Shag Bus'
WHEELS are in motion to service miners with cash to burn and "one thing on their mind".

Judge blasts 'inadequate' porn sentence
JUDGE throws out "manifestly inadequate" suspended sentence and jails man for three years for massive stash of child porn.

It's time to roll out the barrel
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell has vowed to "make NSW No. 1 again" but his five-point plan and election slogan are nothing new. Can he do it in 2011?

Teacher jabbed children with syringe
NURSERY teacher sentenced to three years in jail for stabbing more than 60 children with an empty syringe to keep them in line.

=== Journalists Corner ===

The Minnesota governor speaks out!
Does the state of Minnesota back Tim Pawlenty's decision to go against Obama's bill?
Stiff Competition for Stupak?
One republican's strategy to win out over the current congressman. How is he using the health care bill as the key to his campaign?
===
Popularity Problem?
With support for the speaker at only 11%, we ask "what's going on?" It's a 'Factor' special report!
===
Health Care Reconciliation
Will the bill see major changes in the Senate and get bounced back to the House?

=== Comments ===

A team’s strategy of hitting the fans
Piers Akerman
IF you thought there was something smelly about the so-called health debate, you would be entirely correct. It was nothing more than a re-run of the strategy adopted by Queensland Labor’s Goss government in 1995, a strategy formulated by the two most senior public servants in premier Wayne Goss’s inner-circle, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan, in concert with Mike Kaiser, the then ALP state secretary. - Spot on Piers and Tim. It becomes very hard to criticize Rudd (or the ALP) and get the comments reported. I believe a few ALP Government Ministers suppressed a story about the death of schoolboy Hamidur Rahman, partly by smearing the whistle blower. However, a local paper (Fairfield Advance, a news.com paper) did responsibly report on the issue, burying it in the bottom of a report on a local political advocate who had worked on the issue, Joseph Adams (Australian Business Party).
The article appeared on Jan 14th 2009, and so, because of the lack of follow up on the issue, I contacted media watch .. who have done nothing. It is a serious allegation and Media watch have a duty to investigate .. but it is a very low priority for them. Maybe if it had been the Libs who had done something wrong. - ed.
===
Joy and Bitterness Over Obamacare
By Bill O'Reilly
As the nation watched the president sign health care reform into law Tuesday, a new CNN poll says that the majority of Americans now disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance: 51 percent say he's not doing a good job.

When you consider that the president's approval rating was 76 percent just 13 months ago, that is a stunning reversal of fortune.

Nevertheless, Democrats celebrated Tuesday, some actually gloating. Vice President Biden was especially effusive:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Everybody knows the story. Starting with Teddy Roosevelt, they tried. They were real bold leaders, but, Mr. President, they fell short. You have turned, Mr. President, the right of every American to have access in the decent health care into reality for the first time in American history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

And a few moments later, the vice president echoed Dick Cheney, actually saying the F-word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama. This is a big (EXPLETIVE) deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

As for the loyal opposition, well, they're seething. And that's not good.

Charges that some anti-Obamacare people shouted racial insults at Democratic congressman are now being played big by the far left, who want to brand all Americans who oppose Barack Obama's agenda as being racist.

Truth is there are nuts in every crowd, but one loon can do damage. Republicans and Tea Party people would be wise to keep their dissent on the high road.

Right now most Americans aren't happy with the Democrats and the president, but that could change fast if unsavory tactics are used in protesting the Obama administration. If Americans believe there is an irrational hatred in the air, no matter what the issue, they will turn against the haters.

Ironically, that's why the far left can't gain respect in the country, because that movement is dominated by hateful people. Right now Nancy Pelosi's approval rating is just 11 percent and Harry Reid's eight percent, according to a CBS poll. Can you believe these numbers? It's obvious the liberal leadership in America is being rejected.

So there is no need for hysteria on the right. If Republicans want to defeat the Obama administration, their best strategy is to use facts, not provocative rhetoric.

As far as the Democrats are concerned, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid should wise up and understand the country has had quite enough of quasi-socialism. If the far-left element of the Democratic Party continues its agenda, the Democrats might completely collapse.

So in both parties, there is danger in the air.
===
The Top 5 Disasters In the Democrats' Reconciliation Bill
By Phil Kerpen
Don't be fooled. The bill before the Senate today does not clean up or complete the new health care law
The Reconciliation Act of 2010 is a disastrous, anti-growth tax hike bill. If this were any other year, it would be by far the year's worst piece of legislation. This bill is once-a-decade bad, but unfortunately overshadowed by the all-time bad affront to personal freedom and fiscal sanity the president signed into law yesterday.

First and worst, the bill hikes the investment tax on capital gains and dividends. That’s the most anti-growth tax hike possible. The Reconciliation Act creates a new 3.8 percent Medicare tax on single filers over $200,000 and married filers over $250,000. The rich? Not quite. This slams business owners and makes it harder for them to raise capital for needed equipment purchases, expansion, and job creation. And there is no inflation indexing, so it will directly hit more and more taxpayers over time.

Investment taxes are especially inappropriate as a “pay-for”; that’s because every capital gains hike has actually lowered revenues due to the economic damage and behavioral changes it caused.

Second, the reconciliation bill makes the business assault of the new health care law much worse. It raises the penalty on employers from $750 per uncovered employee to $2,000.

Third, the bill takes over the private aspects of the student loan industry, putting tens of thousands out of work in the private sector while building up a big new student loan bureaucracy. And this is supposed to happen by next semester, so you can expect lots of headaches for students in the short term as well the long-term costs of bigger government.

Fourth, the "fix" to the Cadillac tax actually makes it worse. Under current law the exemption amount is indexed to CPI plus 1 percent. That’s is already not a high enough inflation bar to keep up with medical costs. The reconciliation bill delays the start of the tax by five years, from 2013 to 2018, but it cuts the inflation adjustment to plain CPI. The lower inflation adjustment means this tax will hit more people faster.

Finally, the Nebraska "fix" (the only one of the infamous and corrupt deals Obama signed into law yesterday that’s actually revisited in the reconciliation) is now a much worse deal for taxpayers. Nebraska no longer gets special treatment, but the new Medicaid funding formula puts federal taxpayers on the hook for 90 percent of the cost of expansion for all states, with special funding increases for 17 states and the District of Columbia. This is welfare reform in reverse; we should be building on the AFDC block-grant model of state control and innovation that worked so well in the 1990s, not federalizing Medicaid.

The bottom line: the bill does not clean up or complete the new health care law. It should be judged on its own extremely dubious merits and the Senate should vote no.

Mr. Kerpen is vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity. He can be reached on Twitter, Facebook, and through www.PhilKerpen.com.
===
CARBONED
Tim Blair
It’s a revolution:

The French have announced cancellation of their version of cap-and-trade. They say it will hurt their competitiveness. Vive la France.

Moments of crisis concentrate the mind wonderfully, or at least they should. In France, as public-sector workers mount a nationwide strike and fallout continues from the ruling party’s heavy defeat in regional elections, Prime Minister Francois Fillon has indicated that his government will abandon plans to introduce a domestic carbon tax.

As with Malcolm Turnbull’s removal from the Liberal leadership, credit goes to eco-sceptics:

Mr Sarkozy’s own environment minister, Chantal Jouanno, hit out at the government on Tuesday. “I am in despair over this step back, in despair that eco-scepticism has defeated it,” she said.

Another win is observed in London.

UPDATE. In other energy developments, the UK is suffering a wind shortage:

The first detailed study of onshore wind farms has found that 20 of the sites produce less than 20 per cent of their maximum output with some producing less than 10 per cent.

Blyth Harbour in Northumberland is thought to be the least efficient wind farm producing just 7.9 per cent of its maximum capacity while Chelker reservoir in North Yorkshire operates at 8.7 per cent of its capacity.

On the plus side, however, they do mulch birds.
===
GREAT FRIGHT NORTH
Tim Blair
Ann Coulter visits a nation in fear:

Since arriving in Canada I’ve been accused of thought crimes, threatened with criminal prosecution for speeches I hadn’t yet given, and denounced on the floor of the Parliament (which was nice because that one was on my “bucket list").

Posters advertising my speech have been officially banned, while posters denouncing me are plastered all over the University of Ottawa campus. Elected officials have been prohibited from attending my speeches. Also, the local clothing stores are fresh out of brown shirts.

Students at the university apparently met for seven and a half hours to compose a series of anti-Coulter resolutions.
===
MOIST METROPOLIS
Tim Blair
A BBC report from the pre-rational warmenist era:

The Australian of the year 2007, environmentalist Tim Flannery, once predicted that Perth in Western Australia could become the world’s first ghost metropolis, its population forced to abandon the city due to lack of water.

Several years have since gone by. Let’s see how Perth’s lack of water is working out:

Plenty of water there. It seems attracted to a university library for some reason.

Now the water is looking inside the library. Maybe it wants to read one of Flannery’s books.

The water achieves after-hours access! It’s a flood of knowledge.

(Via Garth Godsman)

UPDATE. Climate change to the rescue:

In an unusual example of the effects of global climate change, rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal have helped resolve a troublesome territorial dispute between two of the world’s most populated countries, a leading Indian oceanographer says.

(Via zbcustom)
===
BARGAIN
Tim Blair
Apparently it costs $23,518.74 to not publish Germaine Greer. Value! Less so in the case of Bob Ellis, however, who hauls in more than $4000 per month from NSW taxpayers for “general editorial work” done of behalf of the current NSW government.

The next NSW election will be held in March 2011. It would be sad to see Bob lose his pie money.

UPDATE. $5736 per run for Damien Martyn in the IPL.
===
The Sydney Morning Fables
Andrew Bolt
Caroline Overington notes:

WE understand The Sydney Morning Herald doesn’t have much going for it these days, but one thing it does have is political editor Peter Hartcher.

Hartcher, 46, is a winner of the Gold Walkley, the author of three serious books, a former White House correspondent - in short, he sprinkles gravitas across the pages. So, what did the Herald do to him yesterday? They took his column on the health debate - important analysis, by a serious thinker - and bumped it down the page to make way for a column by one Rhys Muldoon. He used to be on PlaySchool....

Sydney’s oldest broadsheet ...considered Muldoon’s thoughts on health policy more important than anything by its own political analysts or journalists. Perhaps it’s who you know: Muldoon counts Kevin Rudd among his friends. They co-wrote Jasper + Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle and launched it together on Australia Day.

The Australian compares their efforts and some purely accidental parallels:

Rhys Muldoon (in) yesterday’s SMH:

In Bram Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm, the worm itself is a large snake-like creature that dwells in a large pit. Woe to anyone who falls in that pit. Tony Abbott just did.

Wikipedia:

THE White Worm is a large snake-like creature that dwells in the hole or pit in Arabella’s house located in Diana’s Grove. The White Worm has green glowing eyes and feeds on whatever is thrown to it in the pit.

Peter Hartcher in the SMH yesterday:

IN the Aesop’s fable where the north wind challenges the sun to a test of strength, the wind uses all its bluster to rip the cloak from a passing traveller. But the traveller only pulls his cloak more tightly around him and the wind gives up. When the sun takes its turn, it shines warmly and the traveller removes his cloak. In yesterday’s health debate, Tony Abbott was the north wind.

Wikipedia:

THE North Wind and the Sun is a fable attributed to Aesop. The story concerns a competition between the North Wind and the Sun to decide who was the stronger of the two. The challenge was set to make a passing traveller remove his cloak. However hard the North Wind blew at the traveller, the traveller only wrapped his cloak tighter, but when it was the Sun’s turn, and the Sun shone, the traveller was overcome with heat and had to take his cloak off.
===
Save the planet! Cancel the trains and make worm farms instead
Andrew Bolt
V/Line’s job is to run country trains and buses in Victoria. But now it’s taking on the business to preach the green gospel and give the most inane planet-saving advice:

Earth Hour is this Saturday.

At 8.30pm people in Australia and around the world will turn off their lights for one hour, sending a powerful global message: it is possible to take action on climate change.

At V/Line, we will be encouraging staff to turn off non-essential lighting in stations, offices and depots for Earth Hour…

This year, the message is ‘Earth Hour Every Hour’ and people are being asked not only to turn off their lights but take a moment to make an Earth Hour resolution for the environment. It can be just one thing to help reduce your impact on the planet and help us move to a more sustainable future.

For example you could make one of the following resolutions:…

I will try a meat-free day once a week
I will start a worm farm this year

I will walk or ride my bike to the shops instead of driving this year.

Walk and ride a bike instead? So I guess V/Line has actually been doing a lot of planet-saving of its own:

V/Line cancelled 139, or 2.45 per cent, of its February trains ...
===
China has Rudd on a string
Andrew Bolt
Greg Sheridan is rightly alarmed:

Evidence that the Chinese intimidation [of the Rudd Government] has worked is sadly mounting up. As this newspaper revealed last Saturday, the government made a secret commitment to the Chinese that neither Kevin Rudd nor Julia Gillard would see the Dalai Lama on his visit to Australia last December. This was a change in policy, as Rudd had seen the Dalai Lama in opposition and said he would be happy to see him in government.

Similarly, I have learned that the government has pretty much decided that no Australian minister will visit Taiwan during the Rudd government’s the first term. This is a big change of policy and a big act of appeasement of Beijing…

Taiwan represents every single political value Australia admires: democracy, a free press, a pluralist society, respect for human rights, equal rights for women and a productive and economically successful society that provides for the wellbeing of its own people.

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says the Rudd government has not made a formal undertaking to Beijing that no minister will visit Taiwan during the first term of the Rudd government. But no Rudd minister has visited Taiwan so far and the spokesperson confirms that there is no plan for a visit.

This will be the first time at least since the Hawke government that a whole parliamentary cycle has gone by without such a visit.

A shameful record.
===
The change proves they lost their hot heads
Andrew Bolt
Slowly, slowly, some are being shamed into sense:

The Science Museum is revising the contents of its new climate science gallery to reflect the wave of scepticism that has engulfed the issue in recent months.

The decision by the 100-year-old London museum reveals how deeply scientific institutions have been shaken by the public’s reaction to revelations of malpractice by climate scientists.

The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.

Even the title of the £4 million gallery has been changed to reflect the museum’s more circumspect approach. The museum had intended to call it the Climate Change Gallery, but has decided to change this to Climate Science Gallery to avoid being accused of presuming that emissions would change the temperature.

(Thanks to reader A.)
===
Earth Hour: the homage to North Korea
Andrew Bolt
Terry McCrann on the farce of Saturday’s turn-off-the-lights Earth Hour:

Earth Hour is the rest of the planet paying homage to North Korea, endorsing its state of grace with Gaia.

The land where the lights are permanently out, as the famous satellite photograph shows of the stunning difference between the northern and southern ends of the Korean peninsula....

Nothing better captures the utter inanity of the cult of global warming and its characterisation of carbon dioxide as an even greater Satan than George W. Bush’s America than Earth Hour. Insufferably smarmy, quite pointless, contradictory, utterly inchoate.

Although I have to concede a certain bizarre honesty in the way the concept projects - a tacit admission that the anti-CO2 crusade actually does seek to literally turn off the lights.... Earth Hour seems to project that looking - literally - like North Korea is not only a good thing but where the aggressive campaign against CO2 will end up.

No, no, no, comes back the response. In the post-carbon future, alternative energy will provide all the light we want.

So if we can, if we supposedly will, look like today’s South Korea in that glorious future, why not celebrate turning on the lights?

Yet when a Liberal Senator’s site suggests just that, see The Age gasp in horror.

Economist Professor Ross McKitrick, one of the “hockeystick” debunkers:

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it is nothing more than an hour devoted to anti-humanism.

There’s no link to his piece, so, with his permission, here it is:
===
Arctic mammals boom, but don’t dare thank warming
Andrew Bolt
Global warming only causes the bad stuff:

CONTRARY to popular belief, Arctic animals have done rather well over recent decades. The first analysis of a 40-year database of Arctic species reveals that populations grew by 16 per cent on average between 1970 and 2004.

The Arctic Species Trend Index covers 35 per cent of all Arctic vertebrate species. The analysis, led by Louise McRae at the Zoological Society of London, shows several mammals have benefited from hunting bans. Populations of bowhead whales, for instance, have risen by about 3 per cent per year for 30 years.

But the trend masks worrying recent declines. Warmer waters in the Bering Strait boosted the Bering Sea pollock between 1970 and 2003 by increasing plankton growth, but numbers have since declined. The dark-bellied brent goose has also declined, after an initial recovery of numbers. The team says the recent declines could be linked to climate change.

(Thanks to reader John.)
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Trust Rudd to pay $900,000 for that thing on the truck
Andrew Bolt
More Ruddy waste - scandalous in scope:

A SMALL primary school in eastern NSW could have been effectively rebuilt for almost $200,000 less than the cost of one prefabricated double demountable classroom under the Rudd government’s schools building program.

When the community at the Nashdale Public School, near Orange, 250km west of Sydney, learned that it had qualified for the federal stimulus funding in March last year, a steering committee was set up and a local builder charged with providing costings and concept drawings to overhaul the school’s ageing facilities.

That builder, Bruce Hackett, estimated it would cost $740,000 to substantially replace the existing school with two large brick buildings - one a 25m x 12m block consisting of three classrooms and a library; the other a 15m x 12m administration centre including a staff room, principal’s office, sick bay, interview room and toilets. Mr Hackett’s written quote, obtained by The Australian, includes disabled facilities and ramps, verandas, reverse-cycle airconditioning and floor coverings, but not furniture. The school planned to retain a demountable classroom and the old library building, erected in 1888.

However, Nashdale’s P&C president June Coleman [pictured above with the demountable] said the school was told by officials from the NSW Department of Education and Training that it could not “self-manage” the project and proceed with Mr Hackett’s quote as it did not have 10 per cent of the allocated budget of $900,000 already set aside in a trust account.

As a result, the school was forced to proceed with the managing contractor, Laing O’Rourke, and a cookie cutter building design. Under those new plans the school could afford only one modular double classroom, costed at $907,000.

“It beggars belief,” Mrs Coleman said. “We’re a small school, just 60-odd children, as if we have $90,000 sitting idle in a bank account. And now, look at what we’re getting.

“There is so much more that could have been done for this money to benefit our kids. It’s scandalous.”

This is just one example among scores. (UPDATE: Here’s just a few others.) Now here’s Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s spin:

JULIA Gillard says she is open to tightening the guidelines of her $16 billion schools building program but has passionately defended its role in sparing Australia from a devastating recession…

“It was right economically. It was right for the education revolution and for the future for Australian kids we’re trying to create.”

UPDATE

That big-charging builder favored by the Government, Laing O’Rourke, has interesting connections to NSW Labor:

Josh Murray worked [as chief of staff] for Mr Iemma as premier and was chief of staff to John Watkins as transport minister. It is understood he met the former head of the Sydney Metro Authority, Les Wielinga, several times to discuss a bid by his employer, the construction company Laing O’Rourke.

(Thanks to reader Mark.)
===
Anything But Conservative
Andrew Bolt
Has Q&A stopped trying to even appear balanced? I mean, two Labor heavies, one Green and a Liberal newcomer, along with a spin consultant, and a far Left host to manage the outcome?

Is the ABC now in complete revolt against the gentle warning of its chairman not to succomb to group think, and to instead foster debate?
===
Rudd too weak on boat people even for the UN
Andrew Bolt
When even the UN tells Rudd his weakness lures boat people, you know Rudd sure is weak:

UN High Commissioner for Refugees representatives met in Colombo last month to discuss the effect of the decision to strike a deal with 78 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers rescued from a floundering vessel last October and taken to Indonesia by the Australian Customs boat Oceanic Viking.

The government agreed to rapidly resettle all those on board deemed to be refugees, following a month-long standoff during which the asylum-seekers refused to leave the boat....

A high-ranking official aware of the February UNHCR meeting told The Australian yesterday the organisation had reviewed the decision in light of concerns over possible pull factors that might encourage further unregulated migration to Australia…

“(It was decided) it was a bad practice. There are Sri Lankan refugees who have been sitting in Indonesia for some time.

“When you’re faced with an emergency and have people demanding resettlement, the (UNHCR’s) position is you should not give in to that because it does give an incentive for people to try this irregular movement.”

(Thanks to readers CA and Steve.)
===
Klimate Sutra
Andrew Bolt
Climate alarmist Jill Serjeant will sure turn down the temperature in the bedroom with Eco-Sex, her new “but what abourt the planet?” guide to proper bonking:

I think green sex is having its moment right now. I think it is the next big thing in green. People are realizing that their every day, most intimate habits, are deeply connected to this horrible crisis we are in.

Not tonight, dear, the planet has a headache.

(Thanks to reader Baa Humbug.)
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Making heroes of our ferals
Andrew Bolt

Talking about feral culture being mainstreamed....

HAVING conquered the big screen with their super successful self-titled documentary, the Bra Boys are now on the cusp of consolidating an offer for a reality-TV series.

Word on the beach is the show will be a “fly-on-the-wall” look at the lives of the notorious Maroubra siblings, and may even see pin-up of the surfing gang Koby Abberton return to school.

Shame, shame on any TV station that makes heroes of these people. Here’s what you’ll once more licence:

SENIOR police have warned the growing band of A-list celebrities aligning themselves with the Maroubra surfers Bra Boys gang that their new mates have strong links to organised crime.

Last week’s premiere [in 2007] of the film Bra Boys, made by brothers Sunny and Koby Abberton, attracted Oscar winners, footballers, soap stars, and fashion designers.

Even Ian Thorpe posed on the red carpet.

Many of these celebrities joined gang members who loudly cheered during the film’s numerous depictions of the Bra Boys assaulting the police along with non-locals trying to surf at Maroubra.

More on these lowlife:

When Waverley police and a beach gang dubbed the Bra Boys decided to hold functions on the same night at Coogee RSL Club, it became the ultimate Christmas bash.

At least 30 officers are now “walking wounded” after a running brawl erupted between the gang and off-duty police just before 1am on Saturday… Commander Adams’s statement said only six off-duty officers were taken to Prince of Wales Hospital with cuts, bruises and facial injuries. However, one is still in hospital with a broken leg, and one officer said: “There are about 30 hurt. You should see them at the station. Even the women copped it....”

And:

Allegations of violence, drug deals and organised crime followed them as they surfed their way to fame and wealth. In 2003, (Bra Boy leader) Jai Abberton, now 32, shot a fellow gang member, Tony Hines, in the back of the head, then dumped his body over a cliff. He spent nearly two years in jail, but was released after convincing a jury that he acted in self-defence, certain that Hines was about to rape his girlfriend and then murder them both.

I fully endorse this judge’s view:

A JUDGE has delivered a scathing attack on media coverage of the Melbourne gangland war while continuing her ban on the planned Today Tonight broadcast titled “Crime Mums”.

Justice Betty King said late yesterday that the interview between Barbara Williams and Judith Moran was no more than another example of glorifying those in the gangland war…

Justice King also urged media organisations to examine closely the glorification of males in the families as “celebrities”.

(Thanks to reader Bob.)
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A real test for a conservative student
Andrew Bolt
Each time I sit these practice multiple-question tests of the NSW HSC course in Australian History, Civics and Citizenship I end up voting Labor. Why?

(Thanks to reader John. UPDATE: Link fixed.)