=== Todays Toon ===
Wilson uses tariff, currency and anti-trust laws to prime the pump and get the economy working in a 1913 political cartoon
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the Republican Party vote, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912. - typical Democrat, got given a peace prize for no reason and expanded civil rights abuses - ed.
=== Bible Quote ===
“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”- Colossians 3:12=== Headlines ===
Move over, Scott Brown, you're not the only politician with an 'Idol' connection. Joe DioGuardi, former congressman and father of 'American Idol' judge Kara DioGuardi, takes on Dem Kirsten Gillibrand for N.Y. Senate seat.
War Over 'The Vote'
GOP tries to block Pelosi from using legislative trick that would pass health bill without an actual vote
Uncle Sam Says No 466,872 Times
As Obama administration touts new transparency, report finds 17 government agencies refused to release information nearly a half a million times in one year
National Broadband Plan: A 25X Faster Web
U.S. regulators released a blueprint for upgrading Internet access for all Americans, with Internet speeds up to 25 times the current average, expanded coverage and more airwaves for mobile services. - a business plan shows that the US can have broadband for its population for $15 billion over 10 years, but Rudd wants to spend over $43 billion on a bad network option for Aus -ed.
CCTV camera catches dramatic footage of a heavily pregnant woman dressed in only her pyjamas chasing after a burglar.
P-plater blew 19 times legal limit
SERIAL offender Joanne Grosse was so over the limit she could hardly speak or move, court told.
Crackdown on rip-off credit card fees
THE days of being slugged up to $7.70 for the "luxury" of using a credit card could soon be over.
Stranded passengers had to ration chips
FOUR Pringles and half a cup of water each as flight turns into 16-hour ordeal for passengers.
Battle over Ben Cousins' tell-all memoir
AFL player clashes with publisher and author over a book charting his drug use and gangland links.
Phone books 'used to make batts'
DODGY Chinese-made batts and shredded Yellow Pages may be lining thousands of roofs.
Frank Garzaniti awarded $5 million of contracts to business he owned, inquiry hears
A FORMER NSW Housing Department officer failed to disclose a conflict of interest in more than $5 million worth of department contracts he was responsible for allocating, a corruption inquiry has heard. Frank Garzaniti is being investigated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) after he awarded department contracts to companies in which he and a friend, Frank Santomingo, had interests. Between 2003 and 2005, Greenfield Development, a company run by Mr Santomingo, was paid more than $2 million by the department for casual lawn and maintenance work. This same company paid around $275,000 to accounts controlled by Mr Garzaniti and subcontracted more than a million dollars worth of work to a company named G & F, owned by Mr Garzaniti and Mr Santomingo. When asked during the inquiry today if he knew what a conflict of interest was, Mr Santomingo replied: "I don't really".
Bus driver faces three charges over grooming a girl, 13, by emails, SMS and on social network for indecent act
A BUS driver will be appearing in court today charged with grooming a 13-year-old girl over the internet for an act of indecency. NSW Police said in a statement it will allege the 45-year-old man groomed the child over a period of approximately 18 months via emails, SMS texts and an internet social networking site. The girl’s parents became concerned as she received gifts being delivered to her home address and school.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Stopping the health care bill!
So what does the GOP have to do to make it DOA?
Can They Pull It Off?What D.C. insiders are saying about the dems' chances of passing the health care bill!
===
Coeds Gone Mad!
You won't believe what's making liberal college kids fight back! Charles Krauthammer has the facts.
===
LIVE From D.C.!
Getting answers and real insight as the health care debate comes to a head!
=== Comments ===
Counting the Votes for ObamacareBy Bill O'Reilly
On Sunday, presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We'll have the votes when the House votes, I think within the next week. And I think whoever sits here this time next week, you all will be talking about health care reform not as a presidential proposal, but as something that will soon be the law of the land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
But is that true? Certainly Mr. Gibbs thinks so, but others disagree.
The Hill newspaper says the vote now is 212 for, 219 against. But the publication also says things are fluid, votes may change.
The Fox News Channel puts the tally at 211 for, 220 against. Again, FNC is reporting that votes could sway, as deals are being offered.
The problem right now for President Obama is that some Democrats object to federal dollars paying for abortions. Congressman Bart Stupak from Michigan told the National Review: "[The arguments] are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic Party. If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America?"
So in addition to the expense of Obamacare, estimated to be in the trillions, we now have taxpayer money linked up with the termination of a fetus, obviously an explosive issue.
To be fair, President Obama says no federal money will be used to fund abortions, but obviously some Democrats are not buying that. So you can see the vote is still too close to call.
But the folks have apparently made their decision.
A new Rasmussen poll of likely voters says 53 percent now oppose Obamacare, while 43 percent support it. The rest don't know. And that popular sentiment may sabotage Obamacare in the end.
This is one dramatic cliffhanger, but no matter what happens, it looks like the president will lose. If Obamacare goes down, he's embarrassed. If it passes, many voters will be angry, and the November election is less than eight months away.
After much reflection, "Talking Points" would not vote for Obamacare, mainly because the country cannot afford it. Also, increased competition and strict federal oversight on insurance companies might be able to control health care costs without the huge government intrusion.
In addition, it is grossly unfair to require American taxpayers to fund abortion if they believe it is wrong. If the Democrats would strip the abortion issue out of the bill, Obamacare would likely pass.
All this week, "The Factor" will keep you apprised of this very tense and important situation, and we will do so in a fair and balanced way.
===
Obama Fans Flames In Israel
By Jonathan Schanzer
If the president was looking for a way to jump start peace, he chose poorly.
After a diplomatic crisis last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been working to bring calm to the region, while U.S. President Barack Obama inexplicably appears to be trying to escalate tensions. Obama, a novice in Middle East diplomacy, may soon learn that fabricating controversy is not a good idea. Not in the Middle East.
In the weeks leading up to this crisis, the winds of war had already been blowing. Calls for a new "intifada" (uprising) were heard across the fractured Palestinian political landscape. Such threats from the suicide bombing and rocket-launching Hamas organization are commonplace, but even the feckless Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas began issuing his own threats of "a religious war." The predicate: Israeli announcements in late February to make several Jewish shrines in the West Bank protected heritage sites.
With the region on full tilt, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden came to the Middle East with a message from Obama: The administration sought to initiate a new round of indirect peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Then came the crisis. Israel announced plans for a housing project in East Jerusalem – a move that sparked considerable anger among the Palestinians, who overwhelmingly seek to usurp Jerusalem from Israel and make it their own.
Rather than issue a quiet rebuke, the Obama administration saw an opportunity to put Israel on the defensive. Israeli apologies were not enough. The plan was clearly to extract concessions from Israel in future peace talks.
Longing for a rift in the staunch alliance that has existed between Israel and the United States since Israel's inception in 1948, the Palestinians marveled at one that appeared to be playing out on the world stage.
U.S. officials hammered Israel for embarrassing Biden and for jeopardizing efforts to restart peace talks with Palestinians. But once was not enough. The administration continues to condemn Israel in harsh language. David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser, recently heaped additional scorn on Israel, calling its announcement "destructive" and "an affront."
The Palestinians took their cue from the White House. They reacted with outrage, too. Only, the Palestinians street rarely expresses outrage in the form of harsh diplomatic language.
Egged on by the administration's admonishments, several prominent Palestinian leaders called upon Arabs living in Israel to march upon Jerusalem to "protect it from the Jews," leading to heightened tensions in the holy city over the weekend. Yesterday, youths wrapped in Palestinian flags and checkered headscarfs came out in force to burn tires and throw rocks at Israeli soldiers. Ten Palestinians and one Israeli were reported injured.
Today, Al-Jazeera reports that Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem after Hamas called for a "day of rage." At least 15 rock-throwing Palestinians were arrested. Israeli officials are bracing for more violence ahead.
It's too soon to know if a new round of violence is officially underway. But if it is, Obama will have himself to blame. If the president was looking for a way to jumpstart peace, he chose poorly. Drawing out this diplomatic crisis has only fanned the flames of hatred on the Palestinian street.
Jonathan Schanzer is the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of "Hamas vs Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine” (Palgrave 2008).
===
NATIONAL FEARCASTER
Tim Blair
The ABC’s Liz Jackson grills Tony Abbott:
LIZ JACKSON: Do you worry about global warming?Won’t somebody please think of the children? Liz’s boss reckons that Jackson and her fellow child-thinkers are positively parliamentary:
TONY ABBOTT: I worry about all sorts of things.
LIZ JACKSON: But specifically do you worry about global warming for your children?
ABC managing director Mark Scott compared the role of the broadcaster to the role of MPs.So it is … apart from the small matter of ABC personnel not being elected. Meanwhile, former ABC board member Janet Albrechtsen reflects on a culture of fear:
“Those who are elected to parliament operate under the trust and support of the Australian people, and so it is with the ABC,” he told MPs at the reception.
An ABC reporter once introduced herself to me at a gathering by whispering in my ear that she was secretly a conservative. Why whisper it?
===
MICROCLIMATEER
Tim Blair
Now recovered from last year’s hunger strike for Gaia, Paul Connor these days represents the powerful Inner Northwest Climate Change Community ("a community initiative where locals living in Kensington, Flemington and North Melbourne are coming together to act on climate change"):
===
SCIENCE UNSTUDIED
Tim Blair
A quick Q & A with climatologist Judith Curry:
Q: Are you saying that the scientific community, through the IPCC, is asking the world to restructure its entire mode of producing and consuming energy and yet hasn’t done a scientific uncertainty analysis?(Via Tim Worstall)
A: Yes.
UPDATE. The science is settled.
===
REPS CHECKED
Tim Blair
According to a Microsoft study, 70 per cent of HR professionals have turned down a job candidate based on their online reputation:
The top three reasons cited for rejecting a candidate were concerns about lifestyle, inappropriate comments, and unsuitable photos and videos.So that’s why the Inner Northwest Climate Change Community never got back to me.
(Via Instapundit)
===
DROUGHT CONTINUES
Tim Blair
Barrowloads of longing in the Northern Territory:
Gye Gardner, 43, of Woodroffe, Palmerston, said it wasn’t a matter of finding the right place but finding the right girl.Oh my. In south-east Queensland, however, they’re loving the natural environment to death.
“I haven’t had sex for so long I would do it in a wheelbarrow on the side of the road if that’s what the girl wanted,” he said.
The truck driver said where the act of romance would take place would “depend on the girl”, but he wasn’t much into sex in public.
“I did it once at a Jimmy Barnes concert in the car park beside a bus - but everyone was watching the concert so it wasn’t really public.”
===
CODE OF SILENCE
Tim Blair
October 27, 2007:
Labor has pledged to break “the code of silence” it says has developed under the Howard Government, promising to extensively overhaul the freedom of information laws.March 15, 2010:
As accountability shapes as an issue in this election, Labor said its changes would foster open government and relate to journalist privilege, whistleblower protection and privacy laws ...
Mr Rudd and Senator Ludwig said the Howard Government had shrunk away from the light of public scrutiny and transparency by abusing the current law and called for a more open system.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has refused to bow to Opposition demands to release correspondence he received from Environment Minister Peter Garrett last year about the failed home insulation program.The election is over but the code remains. Likewise, the war might be over – but all the mines are still there.
(Via CL)
===
FEAR OF NEUTRAL
Tim Blair
Unable to stop his runaway Toyota Prius – hey, just drag your foot along the ground – owner James Sikes declined advice to simply lob the thing into neutral:
“I thought about” shifting into neutral, Sikes said at a televised press conference the day after the incident. But “I had never played with this kind of a transmission, especially when you’re driving, and I was actually afraid to do that.”Idiot. In happier automotive news, a Bullitt-replica Mustang nears completion in Australia:
Check the odometer on this big-block baby:
UPDATE. Exclusive video of Mr Sikes’s ordeal.
UPDATE II. Maureen Shelley misses a chance to blame unintended acceleration.
===
PUPPY MONEY
Tim Blair
Andrew Orlowski reports:
The UK advertising industry has bravely decided it can continue to accept millions of pounds from the state to create alarming climate advertisements, despite inaccuracies and a storm of complaints from parents.An improved version of that drowning puppy ad, containing actual real facts, may be found here. Readers are invited to submit their own climate catastrophe-enhanced children’s verses.
The principled decision, from the admen’s self-regulatory body the ASA, follows 939 complaints about the UK energy ministry DECC’s “Drowning Dog” prime time TV and cinema ad (aka “Bedtime Story"), which cost £6m, and four related posters …
Complaints against two of the four poster advertisements were upheld, because similar predictions of increased extreme weather events “should have been phrased more tentatively”. (The TV ad contained the necessary weasel words.)
A poster ad titled “Rub a dub dub three men in a tub, a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change” and another titled “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. There was none, as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought” (really) were felt to be insufficiently tentative.
(Via Garth Godsman)
===
Save the planet! Sack people
Andrew Bolt
Sydney’s mad Lord Mayor thought a new bicycle path down busy Bourke Road would be perfect to fight global warming. And never mind the workers:
Lord Mayor Clover Moore is making no apologies to the workers who have been laid off or the businesses being forced to the wall by her push to create a greener city…Notice how Moore is blind to the contradiction between her two aims? And guess which one she went for?
“To ensure the economic viability of the city and address global warming, we cannot afford to wait...”
Online reader Michael Tessaro worked on Bourke Rd for 37 years but was told by his boss last week that the company would close by the end of the month because the business was no longer able to operate out of the premises. “The cycleway has made it impossible for us to park, customers to park and trucks to unload goods,” he said.(Thanks to reader Wayne.)
George Mannetis, 58, had worked at Trackmaster factory outlet on Bourke Rd for 13 years but the business was forced to close last Friday with six employees being laid off…
A businessman in the area, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had had to close his business recently, which employed more than 45 people. “I spoke to Clover on the phone and told her my situation but she just hung up on me,” he said.
===
We’re gambling you’ll listen
Andrew Bolt
Currie Communications think this might just work:
(W)ithin months, a new talkback radio station called Melbourne Talk Radio MRT1377 will launch, a joint venture between Macquarie and Pacific Star Network. It will compete directly against 3AW and ABC774.You’ll soon hear, and we’ll need a year or two to see.
Hosts and contributors will include Steve Vizard, Steve Price, Ray Hadley, Sam Newman and Andrew Bolt. It’s a controversial line-up…
To compete against the reputable talkback shock-jocks Jon Faine (ABC774) and Neil Mitchell (3AW) is a risky challenge. Both have loyal audiences and years of experience.... However, the partners of the new MRT1377 station believe that there is room for two commercial talk stations and the ABC in both Sydney and Melbourne. If the strong and healthy radio ratings are a guide, the gamble might just pay off.
===
How did that cooling get massaged away?
Andrew Bolt
Danish engineer Frank Lansner is curious. Before global warming was fashionable, it was agreed the world has cooled dramatically in the 1940s and 1950s. Here’s how National Geographic in 1976 presented northern hemisphere. temperatures (or go here):
Now that warming is fashionable, that cooling has been “adjusted” into something much less significant, making the warming over the century seem more dramatic:
Lansner:
The original 1976 temperatures from National geographic for 1935-75 shows almost 0,5 degrees Celsius decline. This is why scientists world wide became worried about a coming ice age.JoNova has more:
In 2008 according to CRU (and thus to some extend GHCN) the temperature decline 1935-75 has been reduced to approximately 0,15 degrees Celsius. The decline appears reduced approximately 0,34K
So approximately 70% of the decline in temperatures after 1935-40 has been removed, it seems....
In other words, the need to examine the correctness of the massive corrections to temperature data simply cannot be exaggerated. But most of the global warming movement documentation is built on huge corrections in temperature that are not peer reviewed. Not even made public. So the claim that global warming movement documentation is peer reviewed is to some degree nonsense as long as the crucial underlying basic data are not for the world to see.
If temperature sets across the northern hemisphere were really showing that 1940 was as hot as 2000, that makes it hard to argue that the global warming that occurred from 1975 to 2000 was almost solely due to carbon, since it wasn’t unusual (at least not for half the globe), and didn’t correlate at all with our carbon emissions, the vast majority of which occurred after 1945.MEANWHILE, Dr Roy Spencer uses a new technique to compare the warming measured by rural stations in the US to that measured by urbanising ones, and says adjustments for the urban heat island effect don’t seem to be enough:
The US records show that the 1930’s were as hot as the 1990’s. And the divergence problem in tree rings is well known. Many tree rings showed a decline after 1960 that didn’t “concur” with the surface records. Perhaps these tree rings agree with the surface records as recorded at the time, rather than as adjusted post hoc? Perhaps the decline in the tree rings that Phil Jones worked to hide was not so much a divergence from reality, but instead was slightly more real than the surface-UHI-cherry-picked-and-poorly-sited records?
This is a very significant result. It suggests the possibility that there has been essentially no warming in the U.S. since the 1970s.(Thanks to reader Gregory.)
===
Atheists hold their own happy-clappy mass
Andrew Bolt
The always fair Barney Zwartz sums up the Global Atheists Conference he covered:
(Atheists) are gaining in confidence, which is no bad thing — but, as a couple of brave speakers observed, they would be much more persuasive if a touch less strident, a touch less dogmatic, a touch humble…
It was superfluous for speaker after speaker to point out that believers are deluded fantasists who believe in a magic friend who does magic tricks, because for almost everyone at the conference that was an article of faith already.
Many there would be horrified at how similar it was to evangelical meetings I have covered, down to the bouffant-haired televangelist prototype in Atheist Alliance International president Stuart Bechman, who was master of ceremonies. Every jibe brought a burst of applause — all that was missing was the “hallelujahs”.
===
l Qaeda defied by the man in the fluoro jacket
Andrew Bolt
Jeremy Clarkson can count to Buckley’s:
WHILE walking through Sydney late at night recently, I encountered a weedy-looking man in a high-visibility jacket standing on the foreshore underneath the Harbour Bridge.Read on.
He’s there, I’m told, to ensure that Johnny Terrorist cannot blow this symbol of Australian pride into the water. So let us examine his chances of success.
===
Instant tradition
Andrew Bolt
I guess the invented tradition is better than the sweat-rubbing, but that still doesn’t make it authentic:
ENTERTAINER Ernie Dingo and prominent Perth Aboriginal performer and writer Richard Walley have emerged as the modern-day creators of the controversial “welcome to country” ceremony, after visiting troupes of Pacific dancers forced their hand during a visit to Western Australia in the mid-1970s…(Thanks to reader Marcus.)
Dingo said it had been a custom for Aboriginal people to “get the sweat from under their arms and rub down the side of your shoulders so any spirits around can smell the perspiration or the odour of the local, and say, he’s right, leave him alone”.
That custom moved into mainstream culture in 1976 when the Middar Aboriginal Theatre, whose founders included Dingo and Dr Walley, was performing at a tourism event in Perth. They said visiting dancers from New Zealand and the Cook Islands refused to perform unless they were officially welcomed, as they believed it would be culturally wrong…
Dr Walley, also a musician… (said): “… So I did. I did a welcome.”
Dr Walley believes it was the first time anything similar had been done. The practice was then adopted in the Northern Territory after the Australian Tourism Commission asked one of Dr Walley’s dancing partners to perform the welcome in Alice Springs in the mid-1980s.
===
How about some Media Watching, Jonathan?
Andrew Bolt
Former ABC board member Janet Albrechtsen is dismayed that ABC chairman Maurice Newman should be attacked by his own staff for suggesting they resist groupthink:
Those who quickly denounced Newman for editorial interference, people such as (Jonathan) Holmes, Greens senator Christine Milne and the erroneously named Friends of the ABC, have presumably not read section 8 of the ABC Act, which imposes a personal legal duty on directors to “ensure that the gathering and presentation by the corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial”....
As (Media Watch) host, (Holmes) is fond of quoting various sections and sub-sections of codes and legislation back at media outlets, especially radio talkback hosts who have failed to comply. Yet Holmes has disregarded the ABC’s own charter when it comes to matters of impartiality and balance…
(A) media watchdog doing its job might have asked whether it was best reporting practice for a prominent ABC radio host to decide that Climategate was not worth discussing because he decided it was of no significance. Or was it good, balanced journalism for an ABC television news bulletin to cover the launch of the MySchools website with five critics (three unions and two principals) and two lone Labor government voices (Kristina Keneally and Julia Gillard) in favour? ...
There are other simple tests that one could ask when judging balance and impartiality.
Is it a sign of balanced journalism that factual errors in news reports about, say, the environment or the Middle East tend to skew one way: pro-green, anti-Israeli? Why was Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth not subjected to the same intense dissection as the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle? Would the ABC’s Drum website run a five-part series by a single climate change sceptic? If not, why not? Clive Hamilton is no scientist, yet he was given that privilege a few weeks ago. And was it balance when an ABC reporter asked Newman on Wednesday whether he was ”a climate change denier”?…
Anyone who writes about balance at the ABC mentions (political editor Chris) Uhlmann as a standout from the rest of the crowd. It should not be like this at the public broadcaster. There should be plenty of Uhlmanns and others, too, with different perspectives. I know of only one. An ABC reporter once introduced herself to me at a gathering by whispering in my ear that she was secretly a conservative. Why whisper it? The ABC should be a proudly diverse set of people, like the country it serves.
===
Costello groans: it’s Rudd’s big bureacracy
Andrew Bolt
Peter Costello:
IT’S hard to decide whose idea was worse. First was Kevin Rudd, who announced he wants 30 per cent of the states’ GST so he can “fix” the hospital system. Then there was Tony Abbott, who announced he wants to increase company tax to “fix” parental leave…
During the election campaign, Rudd promised he would fix the hospital system or, if he couldn’t, he would take it over. It turns out he will do neither. Anyone familiar with politics knew from the moment he made his pledge that that would be the outcome…
When I introduced the GST, revenue was allocated to the states to be spent as they determined. The idea was that competent states that delivered good services - such as good hospitals - would be voted back and incompetent ones voted out. Under Rudd’s plan, they will lose control over 30 per cent of their revenue, which will be administered by a new tier of bureaucracy. If the states agree, they may as well give up the lot. Why trust them with the balance?
===
Police chief too fast to apologise
Andrew Bolt
Shouldn’t the Chief Commissioner at least read a report by a heavily politicised group before accepting its conclusion that his force contains racists?
VICTORIA Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland is embroiled in another race row after admitting that there are bigots on his force…The irony is that as an organisation, the police have actually been soft on African offenders, not hard, dropping charges, covering up the ethnicity of offenders and deceiving the public about crime rates in Somali and Sudanese communities.
The damning allegations were made to The Australian as Mr Overland responded to a report claiming routine over-policing, physical assault and verbal abuse by police against African youths in three Melbourne municipalities.
The full report is expected to be publicly released today and is yet to be seen by Mr Overland, who endured a difficult first year as Victoria’s top cop…
The report into police dealings with the African community, compiled by researchers on behalf of Victoria’s Legal Services Board, is based on a series of anonymous interviews with 30 young Africans, eight community workers and two police in Greater Dandenong, Flemington and Braybrook - three areas with high numbers of African-born residents…
“I have to acknowledge that, like the broader community, we all undoubtedly have some people who have racist attitudes,” Mr Overland said.
“That is not OK. It is particularly not OK if they act on those racist attitudes in a work context and where I find evidence of that, those people can expect to be dealt with very decisively.”
How unwise it is to now feed the perception that the reason police arrest so many African youths is that the force is racist, rather than that these youths are more likely to be involved in crime.
===
How to stop the boats with kindness
Andrew Bolt
PROMISES, promises. Before the last election, Kevin Rudd said he had a plan to stop boats of “asylum seekers” from getting here.
“You’d turn ‘em back.”
Oooh, tough talk.
So how many of last year’s 61 boats - or the 24 that have reached us this year already - has the Prime Minister turned around?
Um, not one, actually. Yes, he did once ship a few boat people to Indonesia on our Oceanic Viking, but even then he soon took them back.
Result? The boats this year are now arriving at a rate faster than anything we’ve seen in decades.
You see, in July 2008, election safely won, Rudd changed his tone. No more Mr Tough Guy, he decided.
He’d instead undo the strict laws the Howard government had set in place to stem the flood of boat people - laws that had cut the number of boats to just 18 in all the previous six years.
My red dot on the Department of Immigration graph above marks the day that the Rudd Government announced it was going soft.
Rudd had already scrapped the temporary protection visas, which allowed us to send back boat people once their countries were again safe. He’d also abolished the “Pacific Solution”, under which boat people were sent to Nauru and Manus Island with no guarantee they’d be let into Australia.
And on July 29, 2008 - that red dot day - he told the world the era of wicked John Howard was truly over.
There would now be no more automatic detention of boat people. Children and adults cleared of security risk would be set free while the Government worked out if they really were refugees.
And rather than make boat people prove they were no threat, the Government would have to prove they actually were to keep them in detention.
Look at the Government’s own graph. In indisputable numbers it tells yet another insulation-style story of fine talk resulting in disaster.
===
No faith in their hatred
Andrew Bolt
THE Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend worked a miracle on me.
I’ve never felt more like believing in God. Especially the Christian one.
My near conversion occurred because the convention’s speakers managed to confirm my worst fear.
No, it’s not that God may actually exist, and be cross that I doubted. It’s that if the Christian God really is dead, then there’s not much to stop people here from being barbarians.
I’d have hoped that the Atheists Convention’s speakers would have reassured me not just by fine words but finer example that a godless society will nevertheless be a good one.
But what did they show me instead? First there was the world’s most famous atheist, former Oxford don and Selfish Gene author Richard Dawkins (above), who smeared Joseph Ratzinger as the “Pope Nazi” and mocked Family First Senator Steve Fielding as dumber than an “earthworm”. The insult to the Pope is truly vile. As a 14-year-old, Ratzinger was conscripted by the Nazi regime into the Hitler Youth, then compulsory for all German boys.
Yet Dawkins was far from the only speaker to unleash the hatred he claimed Christianity inspired.
===
I need no welcome to my own land
Andrew Bolt
TONY, you’re wrong. These new ceremonies to acknowledge traditional owners aren’t wrong because they’re tokenist.
They’re wrong because they’re divisive. Even racist.
And that’s especially true of the related “Welcome to Country”.
Oh, I understand why Opposition Leader Tony Abbott did not dare say as much this week when he called for fewer of these pre-speech rituals, in which white speakers tell white audiences they acknowledge the traditional owners of the land they’re on.
Prominent Aborigines such as former Labor president Warren Mundine may agree with him, but for a certain class of the Left, Abbott may as well have spat on Saint Al Gore for what little he did say, which was this:
“Sometimes it’s appropriate to do those things, but ... in many contexts, it seems like out-of-place tokenism.”
Actually, in almost every context they are out of place.
===
Rudd phones for a friend
Andrew Bolt
Simon Benson says the strain is showing:
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd called a snap meeting of his factional bosses on Monday night to try to overcome growing tension in the Labor caucus over his leadership and treatment of MPs.(Thanks to reader CA.)
The meeting in his parliamentary office was assembled with only a few minutes’ notice and followed a week of reports about Mr Rudd’s behaviour, tensions within the party over his leadership and talk of Julia Gillard.
It was the first time Mr Rudd had formally met with the party’s factional convenors since late last year, when he threw them out and allegedly told Victorian Right Senator David Feeney to “get f***ed” when he dared to raise the issue of parliamentary entitlements…
His change of heart on Monday night was being interpreted yesterday as an attempt to get back in favour with his MPs, many of whom have grown tired of his dismissive manner…
“His power base is Newspoll, and it’s no surprise that he is seeking to make amends now he has had a dip in the polls,” said a senior MP. “He very much looked like he was in need of a friend.”
UPDATE
No wonder:
Peter van Onselen:
FOR only the second time in nearly 2 1/2 years, Kevin Rudd’s net satisfaction rating as Prime Minister is lower than that of the opposition leader - the first being Malcolm Turnbull’s very first poll as leader…The key problem is this: that Rudd’s greatest weapon has been not his delivery but his spin. But when voters stop listening or believing, what does Rudd have left?
What must be worrying Rudd’s colleagues is that while he only narrowly trails Abbott on the net satisfaction rating, Abbott’s rating isn’t especially high. The Opposition Leader started low and has stayed there, albeit with marginal movement north (+5 to +9). Labor always thought Abbott would struggle with a lack of popularity. It had hoped the Prime Minister wouldn’t join him in the struggle-street zone so quickly. That Rudd has is a testament to Abbott’s ability to point out his flaws, cutting through with voters who had already started to question the Prime Minister’s ability to deliver on his promises.
Simply put, Rudd is on the verge of becoming a drag on the Labor vote and with that his authority is diminishing.
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Just a humble, unbiased climate group
Andrew Bolt
ABC News Watch adds the telling detail the ABC forgot in reporting a study claiming the Liberals’ plan to cut carbon dioixide emissions was a dud:
The study was by ClimateWorks Australia. The report failed to mention that ClimateWorks Australia board members (there are only 6) include:
John Thwaites: former Labor Deputy Premier of Victoria and ALP member,This information is easily obtained from the Climateworks web site.
Mark Dreyfus: a serving member of the current Labor Government,
Sam Mostyn: Former staffer to Labor PM Paul Keating
Also of note is that ClimateWorks executive director Anna Sarbek is a former Ministerial Advisor to John Thwaites…
Is there anyone at ClimateWorks not affiliated with the ALP?
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