=== Todays Toon ===
James Gillray's Charon's Boat.—or—the Ghosts of "all the Talents" taking their last voyage (1807) caricatured the ministry's breakup. Lord Howick rows and St. Vincent steers.
William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland PC (14 April 1738 – 30 October 1809) was a British Whig and Tory statesman, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Prime Minister. He was known before 1762 by the courtesy title Marquess of Titchfield. He held a title of every degree of British nobility - that of Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron. He was also great-great-great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II through her mother's side.=== Bible Quote ===
“For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”- Romans 1:20=== Headlines ===
Would-be terrorists looking to skirt the keen noses of bomb-sniffing dogs can simply buy a cheap, odor-destroying machine available at any hunting store.Poll: Obama Approval Up — But Stop Bush-Bashing
President's approval rating rises slightly after record lows, but most believe he should lay off his predecessor
Snubbed Preacher Still Prays for Army
Franklin Graham says he regrets Army's decision to rescind prayer service invitation but still supports troops
Volcano Erupts — Some Flee, Some Ski
Daring writer heads to Iceland and finds out — first hand — how well skiing and active volcanoes go together
Some of the 383 recently unearthed bronze coins, said by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities to be inscribed with the hybrid Greek-Egyptian god Amun-Zeus on one side, with an eagle and the words Ptolemy and king in Greek on the other side, dating back to King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C. Descendants of one of Alexander the Great's generals, the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt for some 300 years, fusing Greek and ancient Egyptian cultures.
Storm "won't walk away from the challenge" of rebuilding trust as scandal leaves the NRL's future in Melbourne in doubt.Former CEO 'behind the scam'
STORM'S Brian Waldron accused of masterminding the biggest scam in rugby league history.
$1 billion taxpayers' money up in smoke
HUGE bill to clean up insulation scheme, which wasted 2 per cent of $42 billion stimulus package.
Flying kangaroo finally home from UK
QANTAS passengers to set foot on Australian soil this morning after series of lengthy delays.
Teen sailor faces stormy finish near home
JESSICA Watson on a collision course with three storms as she nears finish line of world voyage.
Shot farmer gets first complete new face
A MAN has received the first full face transplant, replacing everything but eyes and tongue.
SMS booze alert for local footy players
TAXPAYERS to fork out $180,000 for text messages telling suburban footy players to drink sensibly.
Smacking causes aggression, study shows
SMACKING disobedient three-year-olds can turn them into bullies even before school, with research suggesting corporal punishment makes kids aggressive.
Three dead, 70 injured in Bangkok attacks
SERIES of grenade attacks rocks city's business district as protestors try to overthrow government.
Belgium in chaos as PM quits over burqa
THE collapse of the Belgian coalition government has prevented the country's parliament from voting in Europe's first ban on wearing the Islamic burqa in public. Prime Minister Yves Leterme offered to quit after the coalition broke down, throwing the country's political institutions into turmoil.
Rudd breaks election pledge to build 260 new childcare centres
THE Rudd Government yesterday dumped its election promise to build 260 new childcare centres at schools and community hubs and end the daily nightmare of the "double drop-off". Minister for Child Care Kate Ellis blamed the Government's policy backflip on the changes to the childcare market in the wake of the ABC Learning Centres collapse.
Fadi Ibrahim bail bid rejected
FADI Ibrahim will have to leave a good friend's wedding before the speeches after a court rejected his bid to have his night curfew lifted.=== Journalists Corner ===
Border Wars! Arizona says it's under siege from Mexican drug dealers & illegals! So, where's the help from the administration?
Target: Wall StreetObama wants to lay down the law, but could partisan politics create rules that would kill jobs?
===
An Unwarranted Attack?
Franklin Graham's under fire for his views on Islam, but is that fair? The "Culture Warriors" debate!
===
The Tip Of The Iceberg?
"Climategate" heats up again with shocking new details & allegations of "faulty" research. Hannity gets the cold hard facts.
=== Comments ===
Rudd’s GST raid for health a sickening conPiers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd may have been telling the truth when he described the new health funding agreement as historic, but he probably didn’t mean historic fraud. No greater deceit has been played upon the Australian public - Rudd can take credit for perpetrating the biggest lie in the nation’s political history. - I note the mainstream media were again willing dupes to a three card trick. Absurdly, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland supported Rudd’s dotty plan from the get go. NSW, WA and Vic held out. It is interesting to note Tassie and SA’s stance given the recently rorted elections. NSW held out to a programmed time, to allow Kennealy to back out with grace in the face of a coming election. Vic never was independent, but held out the facade of an ALP wrestling with their conscience. In some ways, they were hoping WA would join with them and fold with them. This is an enormous pork barrel that the ALP will lick clean. There will be no benefit to sick people or patrons.
I think it diminishes the scale of the problem to say that “Rudd lies” or “Rudd is a socialist.” In fact the spending is indicative of something else.. Rudd is not in control and those in control are likely corrupt. The case of the disappearing billions has never been effectively addressed by mainstream media. Kudos to your columns, Julie and Piers, but there needs to be more from the mainstream press on this. In fact those billions are disappearing in ways that are accountable .. but not worthwhile. At least a substantial amount goes on press advocacy. - ed.
Luke replied- Sorry, I appended a comment I made on Facebook to Julie Bishop for her excellent article.
Have you not noticed The Media is controlled by Rich Left loonies why would they allow Proper reporting to take place
I am not surprised Luke, but recognizing the realities. The left have held a torch for the Whigs, with great success, since the early days of Prime Ministers in UK, then called GB. In the US, Whigs were conservatives because they didn’t believe in the ‘divine right of kings’ but in GB they were lefties for the same reason. They were so beloved by the press that Tories were not able to get office unless they also called themselves things like ‘independent whigs.’ More insanely, GB Kings supported the whigs .. - ed.
Sam replied- Good question Sam. Now, a similar question is why did he lose an election? It wasn’t because of anything he said or did. It wasn’t because of anything Rudd said or did. All the evidence points to the press having been able to successfully distort public perception. - ed.
God you people are deluded. If “The Media is controlled by Rich Left loonies”, how the hell did John Howard hold onto power for so long?
===
Jon Stewart vs. Fox News, Part 87
By Bill O'Reilly
As you may know, Jon Stewart, who hosts "The Daily Show" on the Comedy channel, has emerged as the devoted critic of Fox News. And this is no small matter in the liberal media.
"The Daily Show's" a key component of left-wing television because Mr. Stewart is a smart guy who has big-time credibility with younger Americans. What he says is cool; it's hip. He is in the know. So Jon's a big time player in the current media war we're seeing in America.
Now as "Talking Points" has said before, I like Stewart. He's the second most talented guy on cable TV. But there is no question that Jon Stewart's a committed liberal. He lives in Tribeca for crying out loud.
Although to be fair, he has mocked far-left loons on occasion. But I think I noticed a tear in his eye when he did it.
Apparently Stewart's main beef with FNC that we are hypocritical, that we slant the news to make the Obama administration look bad, and we generalize all day long about the American left. Enter Bernie Goldberg, a frequent Stewart target. Bernie says the comedian himself is the one embracing hypocrisy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERNIE GOLDBERG, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Clearly you want to be a social commentator, more than just a comedian. And if you want to be a good one, you better find some guts. How about those black columnists who play the race card and generalize about Tea Party people being racists? Why don't you go after them by name, and do it with the same passion and gusto that you use when you're going after Fox people?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Well, after hearing that, Mr. Stewart devoted 11 minutes of his show last night to mocking Bernie, me and Fox News in general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": Look, I'm sorry I told you to go (EXPLETIVE) yourself last week and that other time like six months ago I told to you go (EXPLETIVE) yourself. I know that I criticize you and Fox News a lot, but only because you're truly a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization.
Oh, wait, you know what? No, that's the wrong approach. That's the wrong approach. That's not — I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to be confrontational. I'm going to take a minute to talk directly to Bernie Goldberg. Baby, I don't want to fight, baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Sure he does. Sure he wants to fight. A brawl with FNC gives Stewart and his 600 writers great material, just like it gives me, the sole writer on "The Factor," great material.
But there are two serious points here. First, why are there no conservative comedians with their own TV programs? The success of the Fox News Channel shows there's a huge audience for non-liberal presentations. And second, I'm now convinced that Jon Stewart likes us. He really likes us. Sally Field told me that.
And it makes sense. A guy like Jon would be bored out of his mind watching CNN or NBC News. He'd bang his head against the wall listening to that predictable stuff.
But here, here, we have all kinds of views, all kinds of debates, and we're not boring. That's why Jon Stewart loves us, and, yes, needs us, especially Bernie Goldberg.
===
EARTH ENHANCED
Tim Blair
Jim Treacher improves the planet:
For years, you’ve watched helplessly as your neighbors try to erase their eco-sins with something called “carbon offsets” – the modern-day indulgences that rich liberals buy to make themselves feel better about taking NetJets to Sundance every January, or living in an 11,000-square-foot house with nine bathrooms. They may be burning more fossil fuels in a year than Malawi, but by purchasing a certificate that says someone planted ferns on their behalf in the Amazon Basin, these confirmed despoilers of the environment can claim to be “carbon-neutral.” And they do claim it, self-righteously and at every opportunity. It’s infuriating, yet there’s nothing you can do about it.Because now – with Treacher’s Carbon Offset-Offset Program – each time your neighbour buys a carbon offset, you simply offset it:
Until now.
UPDATE. How are environmentalists celebrating Earth Day?
• I will remember that dirt is much more important than we think and look at it as a friend.And the winner:
• I reduced the electricity usage in general life.
• i won’t have shower today.
• I am sleeping outside in a tent tonight for earth day!
• I will not wash my clothes this week to save water.
• Wrote a blog post on how to green your pet!
• stop banging so many girls(Via Possum Hunter)
===
BIG KEV ENSMALLENED
Tim Blair
Laurie Oakes reports:
Two months ago the Prime Minister made a big fellow of himself when he met insulation installers on the lawns of Parliament House.Promise broken. Do click to observe Kevin Rudd’s historic meeting with the installers, and Oakes’s perfect response to Greg Combet’s claim that the insulation scheme wasn’t an expensive shambles. The clean-up bill for this insanity is expected to hit one billion dollars.
He told them the home insulation scheme suspended because of rip-offs, shonky work and safety concerns following four deaths, would resume in slightly different form by June.
UPDATE. Rudd runs away.
===
MELBOURNE SCORN
Tim Blair
UPDATE. Comment of the season, from Big Jim: “Storm fans will now need to track the official NRL league status against the hypothetical points earned by the Storm for the rest of the season. They can do it by keeping two sets of books.”
Let’s see where we’re at with the Melbourne Storm’s status as a bunch of cap-cheating, premiership-shedding, points-discarding NRL pariahs. Dean Ritchie:
The revelations brought to an end Melbourne’s amazing dynasty and left the club covered in dishonour and shame. No team in 102 years of rugby league has ever been stripped of a competition title.
===
BLEEPS ADDED
Tim Blair
Puritanical Presbyterians cause concern at Comedy Central:
An episode of “South Park” that continued a story line involving the Prophet Muhammad was shown Wednesday night on Comedy Central with audio bleeps and image blocks reading “CENSORED” after a Muslim group warned the show’s creators that they could face violence for depicting that holy Islamic prophet.Except that they didn’t. Holy Mo the Unseeable, paws be upon him, was safely hidden inside a bear suit:
So now you get threatened if you don’t show images of Muhammad. These pesky Presbies keep changing the rules! The solution is bleeps:
On Thursday morning, a spokesman for Comedy Central confirmed that the network had added more bleeps to the episode than were in the cut delivered by South Park Studios, and that it was not giving permission for the episode to run on the studio’s Web site.Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper has had enough of this crap:
UPDATE. Further from Instapundit and Ann Althouse.
UPDATE II. A statement from Matt Stone and Trey Parker:
In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.UPDATE III. Iowahawk reports:
The programming staff and Standards and Practices department of cable TV’s Comedy Central have been named winners of the Al-Fatwahadeen Revolutionary Martyrs Anti-Defamation League’s 2010 Anti-Blasphemy Courage Award.
“All too often, infidels in the media industry are cowards when it comes to obeying Islamic law,” said League spokesmartyr Khalid Al-Mustapha.
“By selectively censoring the blasphemers of South Park, these Comedy Central executives have displayed the steadfast conviction to stand up, courageously raise their voices, and beg not to have their heads chopped off. I am delighted to announce that in recognition of their courage, we will kill them last. Unless they are Jews.”
===
BLOWN AWAY
Tim Blair
The NYT’s Charles Blow serves. Alfonzo Rachel returns:
Game, set, match … Alfonzo.
(Via Hot Air and Instapundit)
===
Strike three: why is Rudd so easy to rip off?
Andrew Bolt
The free insulation fiasco. The colossal Building the Education Revolution Rip-off. And now yet another Rudd program is crippled by rorting and waste, forcing Climate Change Minister Penny Wong (remenber her?) to order another audit:
TAXPAYERS are facing a hefty audit bill after revelations today that assessors filed reports for homes they had not inspected under the $175 million Green Loans program.
The $4.28m audit investigation will also target assessors who may have claimed payment for properties that don’t exist or are not privately owned.
===
Dear Lindsay: don’t trash your good name in defending him
Andrew Bolt
The slip:
On Sunrise (Kevin Rudd) was asked: “Where’s the incentive for people that choose to work harder and have a second job, as they’re penalised more tax? Why isn’t it charged at the same as the first rate job or at a lower rate?”The truth:
Mr Rudd responded by saying: “On the question of the tax system, though, let’s just go to how it’s structured. What we have is what we call a tax-free threshold. I think, from memory, it’s about $12,000 or $15,000. That means for that first $12,000 or $15,000 that you earn you’re not taxed.”
The tax-free threshold, as pointed out by the Opposition, is only half the amount suggested by Mr Rudd at $6000.The spin:
FINANCE Minister Lindsay Tanner has tried to explain away Kevin Rudd’s apparent gaffe that the tax-free threshold was “about $12,000 or $15,000”, by saying he was referring to something else… He told The Australian Online that Mr Rudd was really referring to the Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) which allows people on lower incomes a higher tax-free threshold.The hypocrisy:
Mr Tanner in the past has been unrelenting in his attacks on former Opposition finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce for his slips of the tongue and on the difference between millions and billions.
===
South Park gives in to Islamist crazy
Andrew Bolt
How sad they gave in, and encouraged such vile people:
Comedy Central bleeped out all references to the Prophet Muhammad in Wednesday night’s episode of the animated show “South Park.”Consider that awareness raised - about the barbarity of an al Amrikee and his ideology.
The episode was a continuation of last week’s episode which depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. A radical Muslim website threatened the show’s creators following that episode…
In addition to bleeping the words “Prophet Muhammad,” the show also covered the character with a large block labeled “Censored.”
A radical Islamic website had warned the creators of “South Park” that they could face violent retribution for their depiction of Prophet Muhammad.
RevolutionMuslim.com posted the warning following the 200th episode of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “South Park,” which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit. The web posting also included a graphic photo of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after making a documentary on violence against Muslim women.
“We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” the posting reads…
Abu Talhah al Amrikee, the author of the post, told Foxnews.com he wrote the entry to “raise awareness.” ...
“It’s not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome,” al Amrikee said…
(Thanks to many readers.)
UPDATE
Several readers point out that I’m unfair to the South Park creators, noting that Matt and Trey have issued this statement:
In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.
===
Rudd doesn’t scare them, either
Andrew Bolt
Yet another:
A boat carrying nine suspected asylum seekers and three crew has been intercepted near Ashmore Reef.UPDATE
An migration agent’s advertisement in the Gulf News, read by members of the United Arab Emirates’ huge workforce of Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans, advertises the most attractive things about Australia for potential immigrants and “refugees”:
(Thanks to readers Anthony, Bert and Lee.)===
Land rights trampled by activists
Andrew Bolt
Farcical and divisive:An ordinary house auction in Sydney’s south took an unexpected turn when a group of indigenous Australians protested that the property is a sacred heritage site, forcing the auction to be postponed.More on the sabotage of the auction here.
Former Balmain, Gold Coast and South Sydney rugby league star Wes Patten was among the protesters of the Gadigal people, according to The Daily Telepgraph.
Mr Patten reportedly lodged a caveat on the Sans Souci property a day before the auction, claiming an ‘equitable interest’ in the land because of it potentially containing Aboriginal artefacts… [That’s Patten above, with the “Aboriginal artefacts”.]
The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC) has since thrown its support behind the group’s claims, according to the daily.
The area of contention appears to be at the rear of the property under a lemon tree, where the MLAMC’c chief executive Paul Morris reportedly said it has found “a number of older shells and other possible remnants of sharpened rocks which could be spear tips”....
According to Mr Imisides, the property was worth over $700,000. He said it attracted just two bids of $150,000 and $200,000 (after the intervention), with the first from Mr Patten’s group, calling the bids “ridiculous”.
A Current Affair nails the stupidity of these mainchancers by checking with the previous tenant and discovering the shells are from his family trips to the beach and the stones from his barbecues. (The video is sure worth seeing.)
But the auction was wrecked and people are out of pocket. Someone needs to pay. And this new racism needs to end.
(Thanks to reader Jon.)
===
Forty years of Earth Day, and Armageddon no closer
Andrew Bolt
I Hate The Media says there are some good reasons not to believe the gloomy predictions you heard yesterday on Earth Day.
Just check the predictions made on Earth Day 1970:
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”And, indeed, from the Earth Day site, the same old doomsday message:
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever....(Thanks to reader Andrew.)
UPDATE
Meanwhile musician Ben Lee and WWF combine to produce perhaps the most pointless and far-fetched global warming commercial yet. Apparently we should worry about astronaut chimps returning to earth decades from now to find now humans to take off their space suits. Or something like that. Oh, and shouldn’t a group formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund know that a chimpanzee is not a monkey?:
===
MTR gives a Landeryou-hoo
Andrew Bolt
The dangerously entertaining Andrew Landeryou is now on air:
Melbourne Talk Radio launched this week and someone there thought it would be a good idea to invite your humble correspondent and the Sunday Herald Sun’s brilliant James Campbell to contribute every week to the Glenn Ridge Sunday show broadcast on MTR1377AM from midday for two hours… So Glenn Ridge, James Campbell and I will be reviewing the news, issues and events of the week in a rollicking two hours of friendly discussion and argument.Glenn had better get his trigger finger ready to hit the red button, but the show should be a cracker.
UPDATE
Here’s what Steve Price and I did on MTR this morning: disposing of Ray Martin’s objections to the flag, before taking on free batts, a cowardly PM, a bit of global warming and more.
===
Fleeing or importing?
Andrew Bolt
Glad to help refugees who are fleeing violence, but less glad to help those who bring it with them:
Five men are being questioned by police after a Sudanese student was stabbed to death and another man left in a critical condition following a mass brawl in Mirrabooka (Perth) last night…
Police spokesman Sam Dinnison said up to 20 people were involved in the fight. Police are not saying whether race was a factor in the brawl, but they are speaking to representatives from the local Afghan and Sudanese communities.
===
Rudd decides failure is not his responsibility
Andrew Bolt
Even the ABC’s AM puts in the boot:
PM handballs bad news announcements to juniorsAM remembers Rudd’s claim two months ago:
As far as responsibility for any government program I as Prime Minister of the country am responsible for the good news and the bad news.But now, notes AM:
But he’s been conspicuous by his absence in bad news announcements since.So why did Rudd not front for the press conference yesterday to announce that his insulation program, which he’d once trumpeted personally, was now dead? Here’s Rudd’s explanation for sending out junior Minister Greg Combet instead:
He is actually the Minister responsible.(Thanks to reader Nonna.)
UPDATE
The ABC’s 7.30 Report is just as scathing about Rudd’s spin:
KERRY O’BRIEN, PRESENTER: But first, an ignominious end for the Government’s disastrous home insulation scheme.UPDATE 2
The Prime Minister - who announced the plan amidst great fanfare last year - was nowhere to be seen as it was scrapped today, instead allowing junior minister Greg Combet to bear the bad news....
CHRIS UHLMANN: Today the program was axed… This is bad news for the Government but it came, fortuitously, on a very good day. One of the biggest news stories in Australian sporting history broke around it, ensuring it would be buried in bulletins and tomorrow’s papers.
And then the Minister for Sport and Early Childhood Education put out a prosaic press statement of her own, announcing the release of two child care reports.
Buried in that is this sentence: “the Government has decided not to proceed with additional centres to the 38 centres already in train”.
That clearly breaks this pledge.
KEVIN RUDD: We want to assist in the overall supply of childcare places by providing funding to construct an additional 260 childcare centres across the country.
But the Rugby League story ensures the disappearing childcare centres will disappear.
LOUISE YAXLEY, ABC RADIO: There have been questions raised about the timing of this today and the fact that it’s such a big story and that it coincides with some bad news announcements from the government, including on your side with the child care announcements. So you have said that you didn’t know. Could you just clarify the timing on that for me?
KATE ELLIS, MINISTER EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, CHILD CARE AND YOUTH: I can certainly assure that the media release which I issued today around our childcare announcements and the policy framework going forward was put out before I had had any contact with the NRL or anyone else in regards to this particular story.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Kate Ellis’ press release on this was designed to hide the story. No one made it to the press conference because no one really knew what she was going to be talking about so there are no pictures of what she had to say.
No doubt someone thinks that this is good media management. That would be a mistake.
Read Ellis’s long press statement and see how deeply she tried to bury the news. Note also that just five of 38 child care centres she’s now promising have been built in the past two and a half years.
(Thanks to reader Pira.)
UPDATE 3
The Herald Sun online poll result:
Did the PM shirk his responsibilities yesterday as promises were broken?
Yes 94.3% (2134 votes)
No 5.7% (129 votes)
Total votes: 2263
===
Labour third
Andrew Bolt
If the vote looks like the opinion polls, British politics will be drastically realigned:
All but one of the major opinion polls over the past week have put the Lib Dems either ahead of or level-pegging with Labour, while a handful have even had them in first place ahead of the Tories.I’m not sure from this that a switch to the Lib Dems would leave us all better off:
Their debates seem more fun:
===
IPCC wrong. 20 million Bangaladeshis saved
Andrew Bolt
It’s one of the IPCC most popular scare-claims:
Seas ‘threaten 20m in Bangladesh’And 20 million drowning Bangaldeshis was an underestimation, according to Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth:
Bangladesh: 20 million at risk from climate change
Rising seas threaten 20 million in Bangladesh
Worse still, Calcutta, and to the east Bangladesh, the area covered includes 50 million people. Think of the impact of a couple of hundred thousand refugees when they are displaced by an environmental event and then imagine the impact of a 100 million or more.But a new study by Bangladeshi scientists accuses the IPCC of alarmism, saying the deposit of sediment will counter much of the effects of any rising seas:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), already under fire for errors in the 2007 report, had said a one-metre (three-foot) rise in sea levels would flood 17 percent of Bangladesh and create 20 million refugees by 2050.,,,(Thanks to reader Baa Humbug.)
But IPCC’s prediction did not take into account the one billion tonnes of sediment carried by Himalayan rivers into Bangladesh every year, which are crucial in countering rises in sea levels, the study funded by the Asian Development Bank said.
“Sediments have been shaping Bangladesh’s coast for thousands of years,” said Maminul Haque Sarker, director of the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), who led research for the study.,,,
Even if sea levels rise a maximum one metre in line with the IPCC’s 2007 predictions, the new study indicates most of Bangladesh’s coastline will remain intact, said Sarker.
UPDATE
Anothony Watts reports some Earth Day news:As of today, JAXA shows that we have more ice than any time on this date for the past 8 years of Aqua satellite measurement for this AMSRE dataset. Yes, it isn’t much, but if this were September, and the sea ice minimum was down by this much compared to all other years, you can bet your sweet bippy we’d see it screamed in news headlines worldwide.
===
Love is not enough
Andrew Bolt
MICHAEL Douglas has just given the performance of his life, but not in any film you’ll ever see.Pity, since this Oscar winner summed up our hollowed times far better than he did in even his “greed is good” role in Wall Street.
He was starring this time in a New York court, where he pleaded for mercy for his 31-year-old son Cameron, a drug addict caught trafficking almost $20,000 of crystal methamphetamine.
In this tragedy, Douglas was cast, by both choice and his sins, as the parent who’d once thought that merely to love his child, or sort of, was enough.
He played the modern I’ll-be-there-for-you father who, along with his then flighty wife, Diandra Douglas, “forgot” that the harder and maybe greater half of a parent’s duty was not to love but to care.
He played the man of fashion who’d devoted prime-time attention to saving the abstract world, rather than his sobbing son, winning applause for his seeming heart that was loud enough to drown any doubts at its sham.
And, in a final twist to match that of Fatal Attraction, he played the guilt-lite parent who still shirked his responsibility for the tragedy that followed.
Said Federal Court judge Richard Berman, as politely as he could in reviewing Douglas’s performance, he’d been a “distant”, “problematic” and “immature” parent, and it wasn’t clear either he or Diandra had changed much for the better.
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Sad, that asking students to line up is so revolutionary
Andrew Bolt
I remember the revolution of give-up and slob-up that swept through schools when I was a student. Slowly, slowly we’re clawing back a little of what we so foolishly threw away:
A MELBOURNE high school is checking the length of girls’ skirts under a policy to restore discipline and traditional values to the classroom. Students at Bentleigh Secondary College must also line up in an orderly fashion before class, sign good behaviour contracts in senior years and risk failing subjects for chronic absences.Not surprisingly, enrolments are up. The parents who want this for their children know what they missed out on themselves.
The national flag is flown proudly at the front entrance, full assemblies have returned and the school has erected new signs trumpeting its motto, “Being the best you can be”.
School principal Karen Wade said a back-to-basics policy was needed after a building program disrupted students for several years.
“The latest research shows that you need an orderly environment before you can improve learning outcomes,” she said.
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Rudd sends out the janitors to clear his mess
Andrew Bolt
NO wonder Kevin Rudd is now so rattled that he shouts at editors at restaurants.
Take yesterday. First, the Prime Minister announced his free insulation scheme was such a disaster that he’d scrapped his promise to revive it once it’s fixed.
Sorry, correction - Rudd sent out junior minister Greg Combet to do that.
Rudd’s role is to announce grand schemes, like this week’s hospitals deal.
It’s more expendable ministers who must later go out to say whoops!.
That’s why he yesterday sent another junior minister, Kate Ellis, to announce the death of the promise to end “the double drop-off” for parents by building 260 childcare centres on school grounds.
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The real insulation was Rudd’s spin
Andrew Bolt
Dennis Shanahan remembers Kevin Rudd’s spin in February - how the Prime Minister, in his shirt sleeves and with notebook out, showed the cameras he was personally fixing his suspended free insulation scheme. You know, the one he yesterday scrapped:
Amid the carnage of the collapse of the $2.45 billion home roofing insulation scheme the Prime Minister single-handedly salvaged a positive image from a protest of angry displaced insulation workers outside Parliament House.(Thanks to reader CA.)
With his shirt sleeves rolled up and a small notebook in hand, Rudd went to the workers as a man of the people while the political furore over the debacle of the roofing insulation subsidy scheme raged inside the House of Representatives. Without an obvious minder or an organised bevy of television cameras and reporters, Rudd went straight to the concerned workers, small-company owners and their families, and put their fears at rest.
Declaring that he “got it” about the government suspending the insulation program that directly affected their jobs, business and livelihoods, he also said the reason he was there was to work out a transition from the suspension of the old scheme to the start of the new one to make sure they were properly looked after.
After meeting the concerned people outside parliament, Rudd went into question time and said: “One of the other key concerns raised with me by the owners of the companies whom I met earlier today in front of Parliament House was the continuation of the Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme in the future.” Then he told parliament and some workers in the public gallery: ”The government has indicated that we would have it up and running by June 1, in the case of certain firms it may be possible to do so earlier.”
Saying how important it was to “hear from them first-hand their experiences”, Rudd undertook, in shirt sleeves and in a suit, to restart the home insulation scheme by June 1.... Pretty straightforward, a clear-cut image of providing help and an expectation of a longer-term revival of a government subsidy plan to boost an industry brought to its knees.
UPDATE
Video of Rudd’s stunt here. Two months on, Laurie Oakes is scathing.
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Check out these scavengers, too
Andrew Bolt
I hope police ask the bookies for the names:
A bookmaker’s tip-off that a couple of astute punters had placed $40 bets on Melbourne to take out the NRL wooden spoon ultimately ignited the biggest story in rugby league history.And honoring such bets seems more than the main-chancers deserve:
Early on Thursday morning, leading bookmaker Sportingbet shut down its wooden spoon market after fielding several bets at 250-1, with three punters standing to win $10,000 each.
“We took three bets to win $10,000 and another to win $8000 for the Storm to win the wooden spoon all within 10 minutes of each other this morning,” said Sportingbet Australia spokesman Bill Richmond.
“You don’t take a series of bets like that unless someone knows something.”
Both they and Centrebet will refund all bets placed on Melbourne to win the premiership while TABSportsbet will honour all bets placed on the Storm finishing last.
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