=== Todays Toon ===
Democrats vote to self destruct.=== Bible Quote ===
“[The Armor of God] Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.”- Ephesians 6:10-11=== Headlines ===
Researchers say that some cities are as prone to cyber crime as others are to robbery and muggings — so where does your area rank?Health Care's New Battlefield
Health care fight moves from Congress to the courts as lawmakers, attorneys line up to challenge historic billCourt Out of Tune on 'Ave Maria' Case?
Supreme Court won't take up appeal of students blocked from performing 'Ave Maria' despite criticism from Alito
Perth plunged into chaos as wild storms rip through the city with a ferocity not seen in decadesRoadway Rambo destined to kill
JOYRIDER who killed family in car crash had faced court at least once a year since turning 18.
Westpac double dips on your credit card
BANK making $18 million a day in profit but still has the gall to slug customers with extra fees.
Hundreds of train drivers out of control
THOSE suspended for running red lights, taking drugs and drinking may still be driving trains.
Price of stealing a married man? $10m
JILTED woman successfully sues her unfaithful husband's lover for wrecking her marriage.
Fashion police pull over: You're too soft
OUT go the silly hats as force looks to give its officers a harder edge with new unform.
Police may take action over Sarah Monahan's Hey Dad! abuse claims
POLICE are considering launching an investigation into allegations of child molestation on the set of an '80s Australian sitcom. Former child actor Sarah Monahan said last night she wanted the alleged perpetrator working on the Hey Dad! set to be jailed and "burn in hell". Monahan, who was just six when she filmed the pilot, told A Current Affair she had not been the only victim, and years of abuse had sent her almost to the brink. "I remember at school they actually demanded that I have a psychiatrist," she said. "In art class I could draw perfect penises. And they were like, there's something wrong with this person that she could draw stuff like that at that age. "I think I was at that point where I was probably suicidal." She said she knew her molester was a "dirty old man" but said she had been pressured to stay quiet, even years after quitting the show.Dad fled, leaving family behind
MEET a low candidate for worst father of the year. He crashed a stolen car after a police chase and left his wife and 11-year-old son in the hands of police.
You can't stay if you're gay, says B&B
CHRISTIAN owner of British guesthouse says it was "against her convictions" to allow homosexual couple to share a bed.
Teachers too embarrassed to teach sex ed
TEACHERS are avoiding sex education because they're uncomfortable and under-prepared, prompting experts to call for better training at the university level. This follows a review of international guidelines on sex education by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, sparked by a backlash over recommendations that children as young as five were ready to learn about masturbation. The word "masturbation" has now been removed from the guidelines and children aged five to eight are being told "it is natural to explore parts of one's own body, including private parts". University and health experts agree sex education is important for primary school children as they become curious about their bodies. However, many teachers "feared backlash" from schools and parents or were not prepared to teach it.
Hundreds of Sri Lankan asylum seekers dump their ID
HUNDREDS of Sri Lankan asylum seekers are dumping their IDs before they reach Christmas Island, raising major security concerns for authorities as they try to weed out former guerilla fighters. Another unauthorised boat was intercepted yesterday, but the Herald Sun has also learned that nearly 3000 Australian-bound asylum seekers have been blocked by Indonesia in the past year, saving the Rudd Government further boat people embarrassment.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Jeb Bush sits down with Neil!It's the fmr. Florida governor on all things health care & what he says Americans need to know now!
Health Care CoverageWhich media outlets are celebrating "Obamacare"? Bernie Goldberg weighs in!
===
Guest: Sarah Palin
Citizens, lobbyists, even lawmakers spoke out against the health care bill! So, why didn't our government listen?
===
Is the Health Care Bill Illegal?
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on why his state is suing the federal government!
We did it! Last week, we had our first major success in the movement to hold Burma's Generals accountable for their crimes against humanity. Now we must capitalize on the momentum! The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, released a groundbreaking report to the UN Human Rights Council calling for a Commission of Inquiry into Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes in Burma, after nearly a year of being bombarded by our demands. This is the first time an acting UN official has called for such strong action. The ball is rolling now and we must ensure that it does not slow down!
This week, the UN Human Rights Council will discuss whether or not to support Mr.Quintana's recommendations for a Commission of Inquiry. As a member of the Human Rights Council, the United States, needs to be a strong voice supporting Mr. Quintana's recommendations.
Without the backing of the United States, the Special Rapporteur's call will go ignored! Tell President Obama that the U.S. must support a UN Commission of Inquiry into the regime's war crimes and crimes against humanity. Do not let this opportunity pass by! Click here to take action today!Here is a link to the Special Rapporteur's report.
Let's make sure this happens!
Michael Haack
Campaigns Coordinator
U.S. Campaign for Burma
=== Comments ===
Obamacare Close to Becoming RealityBy Bill O'Reilly
The tipping point came when the president promised to sign an executive order saying that no federal funding will be used for abortion activity. That swayed some pro-life Democrats to his cause.
But there is no question that most Americans do not want Obamacare passed into law. All the polls say that. In fact, the average poll number from Real Clear Politics is 49 percent opposing, 40 percent supporting.
So while the president will get his cornerstone legislation, he is paying a high price in the process.
The problems with Obamacare are three-fold.
No 1: the cost. Few believe the numbers the Democrats are throwing out. Health care reform will likely lead to more debt.
No 2: the specter of socialism. About 60 percent of uninsured Americans will be getting government assistance for their health care, so the entitlement society grows.
No 3: the unintended consequences. Will there be enough doctors to care for everybody? Will health care be rationed? Will medical decisions be determined in Washington?
All of those things could very well happen.
On the plus side, there will be more protection for you as far as the health insurance companies are concerned. They will not be able to throw you off the rolls or deny coverage if you are ill.
Those are positive things, but they come at a cost.
===
The Biggest Abuse of Power and Arrogance Washington Has Ever Seen
By Andrea Tantaros
The "change we can believe in" from President Obama and the Democrats has resulted in a health care bill that is virtually unbelievable. Welcome to the divided states of America.
In President Obama’s first State of the Union address, only mere months ago, he pledged to focus on jobs and stressed that it would be priority number one. After last night’s contested, contentious and downright partisan vote on health care, one that took rule manipulation and arm-twisting to achieve, it is clear that perversion and power lust are paramount to all else.
It is the biggest abuse of power and demonstration of arrogance ever shown by Washington, and it surely is the most gigantic and life-altering legislative move of my generation. In short, its impact can’t be underestimated.
America, after a year long battle, we've learned a lot.
We now know all about the secret deals: the Cornhusker Kickback, The Gator Aid and the Louisiana Purchase that use taxpayer money that our country doesn’t have to bribe lawmakers for their votes.
We know that this bill will not maintain quality. What is likely to happen for the average person is that the government will exert pressure to keep premiums lower and the industry will respond by offering standardized, shoddy and non-innovative products.
We know that people will now be fighting political battles to get a CAT scan or a cancer drug. Those who are ill won’t get the care they need because of some insurance company rule (that was ultimately determined by the government).
Shortly before the vote on Sunday evening, Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic so-called “feminists” called being a woman a “pre-existing condition”and argued that this bill will solve these injustices. Waiting for breast cancer screenings until age 50 is now in our the future. This bill is a nightmare for women and a nightmare for a sick person.
We know the premise that this will reduce the deficit is a hoax. The Congressional Budget Office does its analysis in a vacuum. It needs to complete its score based on assumption. Democrats can write anything into a bill and the CBO must do the tally. Even if the left writes into a bill that the revenues from a piece of legislation that will bring down the debt are coming from a pot of gold, guarded by a magic unicorn at the end of a rainbow in 2017, the CBO must score it. All of the “assumptions” that are written into this bill as almost as unlikely as that magic pot of gold (like the tax on Cadillac insurance plans in 2017).
We know, too, that once you go down the slippery slope of offering government subsidies, it’s almost impossible to climb back up. The penalty for not having insurance under the bill is far less than the cost of insurance, meaning that the people who will obtain insurance are the people who participate in the welfare portion of the new program and get these subsidies. Average Americans will be paying for all these new welfare recipients with income we don't have because of the lack of jobs we so desperately need.
Even worse, others will wait until they are sick to get insurance. You and I will be paying for the freeloaders who break their legs, sign up for insurance upon arrival to the hospital and then throw their membership out with their crutches. This is a growing issue in Massachusetts where Romneycare is failing. Democrats didn’t have the political guts to make the penalty for failure to obtain insurance high enough. Because of that cowardly move we all will pay.
We know that the most disgraceful premise of this bill uses the U.S. tax code to legislate a liberal value. Forcing people to buy insurance is unprecedented. Our government has taxed us for what we buy (i.e.: tobacco) but they have never taxed us on what we don’t buy. It’s akin to telling us what kind of car to purchase or where to buy groceries! It will open the door to whole host of mandates beyond health insurance. It didn’t work in the Soviet Union and it won’t work here.
We know that under President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid the title of “United” States of America no longer applies. Though candidate Obama ran on a promise to change the way Washington worked, President Obama has only exacerbated it.
The change we can believe in has resulted in something that is virtually unbelievable. We know that there is now one thing left to do: since Speaker Pelosi couldn’t drain the swamp as she pledged to, the American people will have to do it for her.
Andrea Tantaros is a conservative commentator and FoxNews.com contributor. Follow her on Twitter @andreatantaros.
===
IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT RACE
Tim Blair
Paranoid Paul Krugman is hearing things again:
Here’s what Newt Gingrich – the Republican former speaker of the House and a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader – had to say: if Democrats pass health reform, “they will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation …Not Gingrich, that’s for sure. Krugman got it wrong, which won’t stop his Washington Post-sourced corruption of Gingrich’s quote becoming holy gospel among certain types. Further from William L. Anderson: “The 2008 Nobel laureate in economics has declared that questioning this legislation through the lens of the simple laws of economics is an act of racism.” - Good find Tim, but my assertion is more poignant. Obama and Herbert Hoover have many similarities. Hoover was still the better man, but like Obama, Hoover wasn’t elected to anything before becoming president. He was a naive man who did things that worked in a physical sense, as Taft would have approved, but who walked into a big mess and the Republicans are still paying the price today.
Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality?
You may wonder why the Black vote does not go to the republicans, who opposed slavery and who championed equal rights, while the Dems insisted that Slavery was a necessary evil, and then institutionalized racism. (read on at the Weasel) - ed.
===
OUR PLANET IS DOOMED II
Tim Blair
We already know that climate change will lead to the horror of butterflies hatching slightly earlier than they did in 1945. And now:
A rose may stop smelling like a rose.Meanwhile, Australian cities confront the major possibility of running out of water daily. Which solves the rose problem; we simply won’t grow any.
This is the concern of environmentalists as flowers are losing their scent due to climate change …
===
COUNT CONTINUËS
Tim Blair
Umlauted South Australian Labor MP Chloë Fox – the candidate who dares not speak her party’s name – may yet lose her previously safe non-party-mentioned seat following postal votes. Keep track of things here.
UPDATE. An umlaut or a diaeresis? Beats me.
===
THEN AGAIN, IT COULD BE GENUINE
Tim Blair
A spam comment arrives, apparently from the Department of Cognitive Dissonance:
Hiya! Dis web-site iz da greatest, and I have bin searching for dis web-site for a very long time ‘n I’m sooo blessed I finally got here. I am 25 years of age and finishing my masters at Oxford.
===
Even Rudd’s good plans are in trouble
Andrew Bolt
Uh oh. Another Rudd plan - and one I wanted to work - seems headed for disaster:
INTERNET giant Google says Australia’s mandatory ISP filter is both unworkable and unwanted by parents.
===
Two more in one day
Andrew Bolt
On and on they come, defying one Rudd press release after another:
The Federal Government said two boats carrying asylum seekers were intercepted in Australian waters this morning.Again that lying word “intercepted”.
One boat carrying 19 people and three crew was intercepted west of Ashmore Islands. About 90 minutes later another boat with 55 passengers and two crew was found north of Adele Island.
UPDATE
The Opposition is right:
In 2010 an average of 500 people have been arriving illegally in 10 boats per month. This is the highest rate of arrivals on record...(No link to the press release.)
Compare:
Those bills are swelling, with the boats now coming faster than they did even in John Howard’s worst year - 1999, when 87 of the vessels brought 3721 people. ...
Rudd could break even Howard’s record for the most boat people to arrive in one year - 5516 on 43 boats in 2001, the year of the Tampa, when Howard got tough and cut the boats to a trickle.
===
The worms disagree
Andrew Bolt
Why is Channel 9’s worm so much more enthusiastic about Kevin Rudd than Channel 7’s? Take Rudd’s closing statement in today’s debate (which I’d say Rudd actually won). The worm on 9 went literally off the scale in support. On 7 it was moderately positive.
Why did Rudd win? He does have a plan, the Opposition naturally is critical - and is thus not a worm-feeder. Second, Rudd still excudes the air of a doctor, articulate and detail-focussed, and Abbott’s reasonable counter that Rudd can promise well but delivers badly, still does not resonate. Third, Rudd is the populist, and warms feed on that manure. Try to remind someone that grand plans come with bills, and you’re a party-pooper in Wormsville.
Plus, of course, Abbott suffers from the hand nature has dealt him - that he seems ever youthful, and almost boyish, even at 52. Serious, intelligent and thoughtful though he is, gravitas eludes him.
UPDATE
Alan RM Jones points out that worms are historically Labor voters:
KERRY O’BRIEN: So, the worm has had its say - scoring an overwhelming victory in last night’s election debate to Labor leader Mark Latham.
===
Attention BBC: which of our cities is almost dry?
Andrew Bolt
A word to the BBC’s Sydney reporter Nick Bryant. Mate, Australians now have the Internet and can read and check the bizarre reports you file back home, like this one:
Australia is in the grip of “the Big Dry”, one of the worst droughts in a century.Here’s the rain anomalies for this summer, showing above average rainfall for most of the country:
Major cities confront the major possibility of running out of water daily, and some are building desalination plants that draw from the sea.
And here are the current storage levels on these cities that “confront the major possibility of running out of water daily”:Sydney: 59%
Melbourne: 34.3% with desalination plant to come online next year.
Brisbane: 97.7%
Perth: 39.6% with desalination plant online.
Adelaide: 62% plus water piped from the Murray.
Your correction should be a beauty. Claiming you simply consulted Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery is no excuse.
(Thanks to reader Brother Lee Love.)
===
From the netherworld of our society
Andrew Bolt
In Queensland:
TWO alleged police attackers continued kicking and punching an unconscious officer even after his partner pulled a gun on them, the Innisfail Magistrate’s Court heard yesterday.In Tasmania:
Police prosecutor Kieren Self said Constable Chris Shanco drew his firearm while his colleague Constable Karl Ah Shay was being bashed at Innisfail on Saturday, only to be goaded by one of the attackers who asked him “Are you going to shoot us?”....
He said the two attackers “thought it was funny’’ and only ran from the scene when witnesses intervened. The court heard Constable Ah Shay is in Cairns Base Hospital with “numerous fractures to the jaw, a fracture to the cheekbone and head’’.
A TASMANIAN man has admitted prostituting a 12-year-old girl at his home and sharing the proceeds with the girl’s mother.(No comments. Court cases are involved.)
The Mercury reports the man, 51, acted as the girl’s pimp last year while she had sex with more than 100 men at in Glenorchy. The man pleaded guilty yesterday to the horrific crimes, which left his victim with potentially devastating sexually transmitted diseases…
Crown prosecutor Daryl Coates said the horrific prostitution business began last July after the girl’s mother complained to the man, a close friend, of having no money…
The Supreme Court in Hobart heard the girl’s mother took most of the money, the man took a smaller cut and the girl used her own share to buy drugs for herself, her mother and the man…
Defence lawyer Kim Baumeler said the man now understood he had been committing an offence...
===
Google scraps Chinese censorship
Andrew Bolt
You have to admire this company:
GOOGLE has stopped censoring its search and news results in China and began redirecting visitors to Google’s Chinese-language service hosted in Hong Kong, making good on a threat in its high-profile standoff over censorship with Chinese officials.
===
Sowing and reaping
Andrew Bolt
A tale of exhausted institutions ... like marriage and the law:THE driver who killed a couple and their baby in an horrific crash in Canberra was a serial car thief on bail in the ACT and NSW …More on the culture that breeds such dysfunction and tragedy:
Justin Charles Williams’.... criminal record goes back to 2002, when he just 15, and records 37 convictions mostly for offences such as stealing cars, driving unlicensed and possessing fake numberplates. He also had convictions for theft, burglary and possessing stolen property.
Williams was also facing a charge of stealing a car and leading police on a chase through south Canberra in September 2008 - police called off the pursuit because he mounted a bike path in the suburb of Kambah in the stolen Holden....Williams was arrested and twice refused bail in the ACT Magistrates Court before being released on remand on several conditions, including that he not drive a vehicle.
But just seven months after his release, he was behind the wheel of another stolen car that crashed in Queanbeyan, leaving him in a coma for three weeks and facing charges over the theft of a Nissan 300ZX....
Williams, a father-of-three, was due to appear in courts next month, in Queanbeyan and in Canberra, to continue his attempts to be declared mentally unfit to plead because of brain injuries that he sustained in the crash last year.... In the interview with the psychiatrist Dr Graham George, conducted on March 4, Williams stated that he had had a troubled childhood. His parents had separated when he was four and he had been physically abused by his mother’s new husband.
Williams said that he had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, was illiterate and had been expelled or suspended from school ‘’too many times to remember,’’ mostly for threatening school staff and other students.
Since turning 18, Williams had faced court at least once a year on charges ranging from car theft, to multiple counts of disqualified driving, driving while suspended and unlicensed driving.
He repeatedly breached good behaviour bonds and had served two short stints in jail and he was on bail at the ACT Supreme Court at when he crashed at the weekend.
His Facebook page revealed what he thought of the law and the rules of the road. He had joined groups such as I hate cops, another making fun of undercover police and DUDE! We almost died!! Yea, but it was fun though which carries photos of car wrecks.
Another was “Legg it”, a group designed “For all of those who have done something they know they shouldn’t . . . your last choice is to LEGG IT!!"…
Williams last year broke off a five-year de facto relationship with the mother of his four-year-old daughter and sons, three and six months old.
How many more signs of a seriously troubled culture do you need?His girlfriend of less than two months, Skye Webbe, 18, ... was pulled from the wreckage and was yesterday in an induced coma in Canberra Hospital.UPDATE
Skye’s parents Debbie and Shayne have hit out at the police [Video interview here.].
“I’m devastated. I want the police to pay for what has happened,” Debbie, 44, said… “It’s terrible. People have really got to get the message out there that police have got to stop this....”
She blamed “young coppers” for pursuing the car, and said they were “totally” at fault, although she acknowledged “Justin may have a little bit to do with it”.
While Justin had “done wrong” by stealing a car, it was a ”petty little crime”… ”Justin’s not a bad kid. He’s just got a bit mixed up in the criminal world."…
And she said the police should be charged.
Reader Evie:
How come he has facebook if he’s illiterate?UPDATE 2
If a plea to mitigate your crime is that your parents divorced, what does this say about parents who divorce?
UPDATE 3
Reader Eskimo asks about the tributes left for the driver - or his (adult) victims, who both had convictions themselves for various offences, including drug-related ones:
What do you notice about this photo of the memorial at the crash scene?
UPDATE 4The victims were friends of the man who killed them:
Brody and his parents, Scott Oppelaar and Sam Ford, died instantly on Saturday night when a car being driven by Justin Williams crashed into them....UPDATE 5
Sam and Mr Oppelaar had been together for more than two years. Mr Oppelaar had five other children, while Sam is survived by three other boys aged between four and 13.
Even as it emerged he had been stealing cars since he was eight and was ‘’addicted’’ to the thrill of taking a car, Williams’s family defended him yesterday.UPDATE 6
‘’He’s not a career criminal. He was my best friend. He was a son, he was a brother, he was a father,’’ (sister) Tania-Lee said. ‘’He was always trying to make people laugh. He had the biggest heart.’’
Williams, 23, was the fourth-oldest of 10 children…
This man “with the biggest heart” left this message on the “F… the Police” facebook site two weeks ago, under the picture above:HOPE THE LIL DOGS ARE DEAD(Warning: foul language at the above link. Thanks to reader Jed.)
===
But they’ll take your nail file
Andrew Bolt
But at least he didn’t have any shampoo or scissors in his bags:
A MENTALLY ill Qantas pilot was allowed to continue flying passenger jets for nearly three years despite repeatedly complaining of his urges to crash the planes he was flying.
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Don’t mention the coal
Andrew Bolt
Terry McCrann:
ENERGY Minister Martin Ferguson wrote a very good but also very puzzling commentary in our sister paper, The Australian, yesterday.
The very good bit was his robust statement of the very obvious, but also usually the ‘don’t-mention-the-war’, point that we will have to increase our electricity supply by nearly 50 per cent in the next 20 years to meet demand.
The very puzzling bit was that he didn’t get around to detailing how we would generate all that extra power....
The only possible serious base-load power is coal. If we choose to build it. Yet Ferguson danced like a master around the invisible but very real elephant in this living room.... The word ‘coal’ never managed to appear.
===
Defamations can’t be punished this hard without us all paying
Andrew Bolt
That’s an obscene amount of punishment for mere words, even those as false, damaging and hurtful as the jury has ruled:
A SUPREME Court jury has awarded $630,000 to barrister Dyson Hore-Lacy, SC, after finding he was defamed in a book suggesting he helped a friend concoct a defence for killing his wife…I accept that what the notoriously hotheaded Cleary wrote was damaging and untrue, yet very few people would have heard or heeded him. .And also damaging is the effect such payouts have on free speech and, in this case, the health of a business whose business is the publication of ideas.
Mr Hore-Lacy sued [Phil] Cleary and his publisher, Allen & Unwin, over Mr Cleary’s 2005 book Getting Away with Murder, about James Ramage’s killing of his wife, Julie, in their Balwyn home after she told him their marriage was over. The book sold 3400 copies and earned Mr Cleary $20,000.
Thank heavens future payouts are capped, but if you needed more evidence that free speech is not defended here quite as it should be....
PS
When Hore-Lacy tries to convince even my own sister-in-law that I’m really South African, apparently implying that I’m as racist as the South African stereotype, should I take his lead and sue, or just brush it off as the normal hurly-burly in a society that should treasure debate?
===
Rattled Rudd bets on out-debating Abbott
Andrew Bolt
Is Kevin Rudd panicking about Tony Abbott’s rise? Has that panic driven him to again miscalculated by deciding to debate him today on health?
Last week Rudd thought Abbott was such a goose that he’d flounder if Question Time was suddenly postponed and he was forced instead to speak on health policy for 15 minutes.
He thought wrong. Instead, Abbott went to town on Rudd and his record.
But on the same day Rudd made what could be an even bigger blunder. Normally a Prime Minister would not give an Opposition Leader the platform on and status of a public debate, but...:
Soon after 2.40pm last Thursday, word spread among Labor insiders: Kevin Rudd had just gone rogue.
By 2.50pm, a text message was flitting between the phones of political junkies and party insiders: “Debate! WTF?” The polite translation of this street slang, offered by one campaign veteran, gives an insight into their initial response to the Prime Minister’s surprise move: “What the hell is he thinking?"…
(Rudd) announced that not only would he debate Abbott three times - something not done since 1993 - but that the first of those encounters would be held this week, rather than within the campaign proper…
Only a trusted few in Rudd’s inner circle have since confessed they were aware their leader was considering the idea. Facing a public agenda crowded with issues created or exploited by Abbott - paid parental leave, climate change, the troubled insulation program - Rudd was desperate for a game-changer....As Team Rudd and Team Abbott prepare for the clash today at the National Press Club, opinion remains sharply divided in Labor ranks and beyond about whether the Prime Minister’s tactic was flair or folly.
===
Boo to Rudd
Andrew Bolt
Footy fans are natural booers, yet once again Kevin Rudd won’t be pleased that he now gets the full symphony:
The Prime Minister last night attended the Canberra Raiders NRL game against the Brisbane Broncos in Canberra but was booed when an image of him in the grandstand was shown on the ground’s scoreboard television screen.
===
CSIRO “forgets” we were once drier
Andrew Bolt
JoNova points out yet another trick the CSIRO pulled last week in its deceitful pamphet to whip up warmist panic.
It published this Bureau of Meteorology graphic to show how our more populated areas have got much drier since 1960, thanks to (it claims) man-made warming:
So why did the CSIRO choose to show only the rainfaill changes from 1960, when the BoM’s records go back many decades earlier?Answer: perhaps befcause if it showed the rainfall changes from, say, 1900, you’d see that most of Australia has got wetter over the century:
And then you might not panic.===
Stern Hu Impugned By Unfair Process
Andrew Bolt
Given the state of Chinese justice, I do not know whether this is an admission or a necessary negotiating position. But I suspect I was right to warn against jumping wholeheartedly to Stern Hu’s defence:
AUSTRALIAN mining executive Stern Hu admitted to receiving bribes of up to 6 million yuan ($960,000) during a sensational opening day of the trial of four Rio Tinto executives in China yesterday.Or for what purpose.
Hu and two of his colleagues, Liu Caikui and Ge Minqiang, conceded their roles in accepting the bribes, and face jail terms of five to 15 years....
It remains unclear where the bribes came from...
But don’t forget that so much of this is pure politics:
The Australian has learned that China set up a temporary group of its most powerful ministries several months ago to hold regular discussions about the case of the four Rio executives, despite insisting last week that the trial not be politicised. It is understood that a group of senior officials from the ministries has been meeting regularly to discuss charges against the men and the sentences they may receive.
As previously reported in The Australian, several Chinese lawyers have made it clear that the Communist Party, which sits above China’s legal system, and not judges will decide on the outcome of the trial.
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Smart Meter only to a green
Andrew Bolt
Why is it that green programs in particular tend to have costs explode, out of any proportion to their benefit:
THE state government has temporarily pulled the plug on Victoria’s $2 billion smart energy meter program.Yeah, like free insulation, green loans, free solar hot water systems, solar power, the emissions trading sysem....
Energy Minister Peter Batchelor last night announced an indefinite moratorium on the rollout of the new technology to every home across the state - because of concerns pensioners and the poor would be hardest hit by higher electricity prices…
The plan to install smart meters in all 2.5 million Victorian homes and small businesses over the next four years, and introduce a new time-of-use pricing regime, has been beset by controversy.
The government argues the new technology, which can read a household’s energy use every 30 minutes, will enable people to monitor their use in peak periods and turn on high-energy appliances such as dishwashers during off-peak times.
But charity groups estimate the meters, dubbed ‘’dumb meters’’ by the state opposition and already installed in more than 10,000 homes in Melbourne, could increase a household’s annual electricity bill by more than $250 a year.
Victorian Auditor-General Des Pearson savaged the scheme in a report to Parliament late last year, saying installation costs had blown out from an original estimate of $800 million to more than $2 billion. ‘’There has been insufficient analysis to fully understand potential perverse outcomes, risks and unintended consequences for consumers,’’ he said…
Mr Batchelor ... defended smart meters, saying they would help Victorians tackle climate change.
(Thanks to reader Scarlet Pumpernickel.)
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Ice won’t melt
Andrew Bolt
The US National Snow and Ice Data Center in 2007 warns the Arctic ice could vanish:
The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice—ice that formed last autumn and winter. I’d say it’s even-odds whether the North Pole melts out [this year].The US National Snow and Ice Data Center in 2010 concedes the Arctic ice has grown:
A report from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado finds that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007.(Thanks to reader John.)
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