=== Todays Toon ===
This Political Cartoon by Hy Rosen, dated November 10th 1985, shows President Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975).Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s. He began a career as an actor, first in films and later television, appearing in 52 movie productions and gaining enough success to become a household name. Though largely a B film actor, two of his most notable roles are in Knute Rockne, All American and Kings Row. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election in 1980.
=== Bible Quote ===
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”- Isaiah 53:5-6=== Headlines ===
Flooding on a scale rarely seen in New England has forced hundreds of residents from their homes as forecasters warn worst is yet to come.Drilling, Baby, Not Enough?
Environmentalists and the GOP believe Obama's offshore drilling plan makes little headway to energy independence
'Gay is Good' Appointee Irks the Right
Social conservatives worry Obama's labor pick will strip religious rights from schools and businesses
Border State of Denial?
Pleas for help go unmet in Washington as border states beef up police forces to patrol for illegal aliens
Chechen Rebel Leader Says He Ordered Moscow Bombings
The Chechen leader of the Islamist "Emirate of the Caucasus" Doku Umarov, (aka Dokka Abu Usman) has claimed responsibility for this week's Moscow metro bombings that killed 39, The Kavkav Centre, a Chechen internet site, said Wednesday.
Despite having officers monitoring him this week, the Australian Federal Police have since lost Dragan Vasiljkovic (inset), who is accused of war crimes in Croatia.'Online predator hunted teen girls'
A MAN is accused of stalking and raping teenage girls that he met on social networking websites.
New Qantas drama as jet's tyres explode
FLAMES shot out from under a Qantas A380 when its tyres burst as it landed in Sydney last night.
Teen was stabbed 'many dozens' of times
MURDERED Mudgee teenager's life ended in frenzied stabbing at hands of stranger, cops say.
Aussie animal at the mercy of Americans
THOUSANDS of sugar gliders kept as pets in the US are being fed soft drinks, ham and hotdogs.
Storm over weathergirl Sarah's shaggy 'do
CHANNEL 7 news boss Peter Meakin tells glamour weathergirl Sarah Groen to grow her hair back.
Markson 'was driving the car'
NEW claims have emerged that Lara Bingle's celebrity agent Max Markson was behind the wheel when his company's car was caught speeding, not his employees.
Country school cans $600,000 canteen
A COUNTRY school community is refusing to sign off on its $600,000 education revolution canteen, claiming it is smaller than a single-car garage and unusable. Parents are incensed that the canteen, built with Federal Government funding, is so under-sized that two people working inside it will not be able to pass each other safely. The Parents and Citizens' Committee at Tottenham Central School in the Central West said its original canteen was twice the size, with large serving and preparation areas. The committee wants education bosses to explain how airconditioning, toilets and more space could not have been provided for $600,000. President Rick Bennett said yesterday that a sports complex being built in the town for $415,000 included showers, toilets, stainless steel benches, ceiling fans, a meeting room, undercover barbecue and a veranda.
=== Journalists Corner ===
They are ordinary Americans who have led extraordinary lives!Sarah Palin profiles these real Americans who have given back, given all and have never given up.
Guest: Ben QuayleDan's son runs for the House! Then, defusing Iran - how will Obama deal with this nuclear threat?
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Franken Gets Fresh!
What sparked his outburst with an internet blogger? Plus, Dennis Miller on the rise of nanny states!
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Guest: Tom Corbett
PA's attorney general takes on the governor of his own state over the health care bill.
=== Comments ===
Long ride to nowhere for ALP benevolencePiers Akerman
NEXT Wednesday, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will ease himself back onto his bicycle for the 13th annual Melbourne-to-Sydney charity ride. There is no doubt he will pedal into a headwind of criticism from the Labor Party, just as when he swam, cycled and ran a full 42km marathon in a charity fundraising iron man event last weekend. - Roxon bragged before the 'debate' that Rudd was not going to release the details of ALP's health policy, but just a few flagship items, but they would highlight the fact that Mr Abbott was not going to release opposition details. And the press accepted this as status quo, and ran with it. So that legitimate questions about government health policy remain unknown. But much has been made about Mr Abbott's popularity based on his release of opposition health policy detail.
I get it that it is about politics, but it doesn't have to appear corrupt. Media people don't have to appear as if they are ALP campaigners. Yet, ridiculously, Channel 9 on April Fools Day decided to have a news item about Mr Abbott having media analysts school him on how to behave before the cameras .. I guess it had to be Mr Abbott as it is well known that without such support Rudd would never have anything to say. - ed.
===
Hating America
By Bill O'Reilly
When you do violent things, you hate your country. It doesn't matter why you do them. Violence in itself is destructive to society. And there's all kinds of violence: physical, mental and emotional.
The FBI has smashed a whacked-out militia group in Michigan, arresting nine people. Apparently these loons were plotting to kill a police officer and then bomb the funeral in the hope of touching off an uprising against the government.
Crazy? Off the chart. We congratulate the FBI for arresting these people, assuming of course the charges are proved.
In another insane situation, the Westboro Baptist Church, which hates gay people and believes God is punishing America, won a victory in court. These disturbed souls from Westboro disrupt military funerals, so Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania, the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, sued the church for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. Mr. Snyder won in the beginning and then lost on appeal, and incredibly, the court has ordered him to pay more than $16,000 in court costs to the Westboro people.
That is an outrage, and I will pay Mr. Snyder's obligation. I am not going to let this injustice stand.
It's obvious those cranks at Westboro were intentionally trying to hurt Mr. Snyder and his family. It's obvious they were disturbing the peace. They should have been arrested, but our system is so screwed up that loons are allowed to run wild.
Mr. Snyder is fighting a good fight, and he is taking his case to the Supreme Court. We are behind him 100 percent.
There is far too much hatred in America. That's obvious. It comes from both sides. The Michigan militia and the Westboro Baptist Church are far-right nuts, but there are just as many far-left idiots doing vile things.
Thirty-eight-year-old Norman Leboon has been charged with threatening to kill Republican Congressman Eric Cantor. Apparently Leboon wants to kill Cantor and his family and is now being held without bail. It looks like this guy is simply nuts. Ideology might not be in play.
However, a brick was thrown through the window of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on Monday. Obviously that's political.
The point is that the situation in America is reaching critical mass. There is far too much hatred in the air.
The press is obviously pumping up inappropriate things that happen on the right and pretty much ignoring hateful things on the left. Bernie Goldberg and I established that on Monday.
But every member of the media should condemn all hate speech and violent activity. It is simply un-American.
===
Senators Demand Explanation of NASA's Flawed Climate Data
By Jeremy A. Kaplan
Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.) have written a letter to NASA chief Charles Bolden demanding answers to questions surrounding newly uncovered irregularities in the space agency's climate data.
Maps from NASA's GISS reveal temperatures where no data exist, thanks to mathematical extrapolation of data.
Not everyone is sipping the global warming Kool-Aid.Concerns about the validity of NASA's climate research are being raised following revelations that the space agency admitted its data was less accurate than other weather trackers'. Disturbed by these reports, as well as the growing Climate-gate scandal that has left global-warming theorists reeling, Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.) have written a letter to space agency chief Charles Bolden demanding answers.
"The American people deserve to learn the truth about the data," Barrasso told FoxNews.com, stressing the risks of basing public policy on science that remains largely undecided.
FoxNews.com has obtained an advance copy of the letter -- the third that Barrasso, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Vitter, ranking member of the Committee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, have written in the months following the Climate-gate scandal.
Writing that "American data is partially derived from the corrupted data set that has been criticized as too political and unscientific as a result of the Climate-gate scandal," the senators have invited Bolden to testify before the Senate on the credibility of NASA's data.
When contacted for comment, NASA had still not received the letter, but a spokesman for the space agency was awaiting to the Senators' comments. "NASA has not received the letter," NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said. "We look forward to working with the senators to respond to their concerns."
Read Senator Barrasso's letter to NASA
The letter, expressing concern with NASA's newly revealed use of data from the East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit, cites interviews with CRU's chief Phil Jones and programmer Ian "Harry" Harris, both of whom denigrated the quality of the CRU data. "No uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found. This whole project is SUCH A MESS," Harris reportedly commented.
Barrasso and Vitter also refer to a Feb 27 study by former NASA physicist Edward Long, who was involved in the development of several upper atmospheric research satellites. Long claimed that NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) had been progressively modifying data, "lowering temperature values for far-back dates and raising those in the more recent past."
"We shouldn't make decisions affecting millions of American jobs when the data isn't credible," Barrasso told FoxNews.com.
He said he's particularly concerned with planned changes to public policy regarding carbon credits and so called "cap and trade" legislation, rules that are based on the assumption that man is at least partly responsible for global warming.
"If the president is successful in passing what I call a 'cap and tax' bill, which is something that's already passed the House last year, I think all Americans will see their electricity rates go sky high," he told FoxNews.com.
"When the administration is trying to make an endangerment finding on carbon dioxide, I think it's reckless to make such huge decisions affecting American jobs and the American economy based on data that may not be reliable, and seems to be contaminated."
"I don't think the facts bear out, at this point," he said. "You wonder if it's more about politics than it is about science."
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Another boat load turns up - undetected and undeterred
Andrew Bolt
A shambles of a policy, and a farcical defence of our borders:
A BOATLOAD of asylum-seekers has arrived at Christmas Island undetected, the second vessel to do so this week.How good would our navy be at stopping boats that don’t actually want to be detected? Say, Chinese naval ones?
The boat was intercepted last night about one kilometre from the island. It is understood there are more than 80 people on board.
On Monday, a boat of asylum-seekers sailed into Flying Fish Cove and phoned the Australian Federal Police office on Christmas Island to request a pick-up…
It is the 101st boat since the Rudd government came to power.
UPDATE
How does Kevin Rudd plan to stop the boats, and how many people has he now lured to their deaths, above the 53 I’ve counted?
Naval intelligence sources told the Herald Sun that Colombo encouraged Tamils to risk the dangerous voyage. Some Tamil boats have disappeared, though no one knows how many might have perished.UPDATE 2
How did Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it when she was in Opposition?
Another boat on the way, another policy failure.
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Little faith in this priest
Andrew Bolt
Another of those Anglican priests, trashing the faith they’re paid to maintain:A controversial church billboard in Auckland, which depicted Mary and Joseph in bed together, has been ruled not offensive by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).Bizarre. Who are these Anglicans who day-dream about sex with Mary?
The ASA received a number of complaints late last year from people concerned the St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican Church billboard alluded to sexual activity between Jesus’ parents, the NZPA reported.
The sign read, “Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow.”
Well, here’s the self-promoting vicar responsible - in the photo he puts up of himself on his church website:
Here’s his description of the kind of Christianity he follows:Progressives are more interested in spirituality than right belief or proper worship.It’s one of those no-sweat faiths, where you can just radiate your superior morality without being obliged to actually do anything, or, it seems, even to believe in anything in particular except a few political slogans:
If you come to St Matthew’s…(Er, not a commitment simply to God?)
don’t expect to find a prayer group
don’t expect to find a Bible study group
don’t expect a women’s fellowship,
or a men’s one either
don’t expect to find a Sunday School…
At St Matthew’s
you won’t to be expected to go on a duty roster,
or be part of a fundraising campaign,
or join a working bee....
Don’t expect to be expected at Church either…
At St Matthew’s
you can expect to find interesting people;
people who have a commitment to social justice and radical theology
And here’s the vicar’s latest effort in preaching his faith through laughing at the greatest sacrifice of its founder, and the most profound moment in the entire history of Christianity:
===ABC gives poor Aborigines a break
Andrew Bolt
Reader Sian, hoping to get an ABC internship, was excited by the first half of this ABC announcement:
Many people would love the opportunity to be introduced to the ABC, and we have created an introduction for you via our ABC National Indigenous Internship Program.Ah, well. Sian misses out, but a few lucky Aborigines will get an opportunity that people of their colour are rarely offered.
In fact, let’s now meet some of the ABC’s officially “Indigenous Staff”, including lucky beneficiaries of the ABC’s policy to give employment preference to Aborigines, or employment to Aborigines in Aboriginal shows:
UPDATESeveral readers observe that at least the fourth person pictured is demonstrably Aboriginal. In fact, here’s his tangled genealogy, as released by the ABC itself:
Daniel is from the Minjungbal clan of the Bundjalung nation...Through his mother, he is a descendant of the Kullilli people of south-western Queensland… His paternal ancestors came from Vanuatu… Among his other ancestors are an English merchant seaman who married above his rank into the family of the paramount chief of Fiji and, an intrepid West Indian who jumped ship in Australia in the late nineteenth century – disappearing from official notice by marrying into the Aboriginal community.(Post modified to remove implication that all the above received indigenous internships.)
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Rudd disses Alabama
Andrew Bolt
It’s not particularly smart or prime ministerial to be trading offensive stereotypes with a comic:
AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has hit back at a jibe by US actor/comedian Robin Williams that Australians are just “English rednecks”. ...He’s a professional diplomat, you know.
“The Australians are basically English rednecks...,’’ [Williams] said....
Mr Rudd said: “First of all, I think Robin Williams should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck.”
UPDATE
Reader Alan RM Jones:
Judging by the growing international coverage, Rudd’s poorly judged remarks only amplified Williams’ silly joke. So now it appears to be a contest between Alabama and Australia as to which is most redneck and whose remark was most offensive. Good thing our PM is a professional diplomat.:(Thanks also to readers John and Michael.)The Telegraph (UK)
Fox News (US)
Daily Mail (UK)
Sky News (UK)
BBC (UK)
USA Today
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Climate change, happening before your eyes
Andrew Bolt
Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts:Barring an about face by nature or adjustments, it appears that for the first time since 2001, Arctic Sea ice will hit the “normal” line as defined by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) for this time of year.Could the ABC please send alarmist Marian Wilkinson back up to the Arctic to file an update on this report of 2008:
Turns out Wilkinson may have been right:
If you want to see climate change happening before your eyes, scientists will tell you: “Go to the end of the earth”, and that’s why we’re here, in the Arctic Circle.
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Manne named
Andrew Bolt
“Stolen generations” propagandist Professor Robert Manne is taken apart by Keith Windschuttle. This really should finish forever Manne’s reputation as a scholar in this field.
Windschuttle’s article may explain not just Manne’s inability to name even 10 of the 25,000 children he claims were stolen just to destroy their “Aboriginality”, to “help keep white Australia pure”, but Manne’s strange silence recently:
In 2004, Manne announced he was writing a book on Aboriginal child removal policies in Australia during the twentieth century. Six years later, it has still not appeared.I wonder whether Manne now realises that he went far, far beyond the evidence to find a cause that would do for his reputation what the Holocaust did for his beloved Hanna Arendt. And now he can neither prove nor recant.
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More terrible than enfant
Andrew Bolt
Michael Shmith is an extremely genial person. But Barrie Kosky - the wildly overrated cultural graffitist - has pushed even Shmith too far.
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MFB ends discrimination
Andrew Bolt
Some of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade’s irrational affirmative action plans which we discussed last week are being axed:
THE Metropolitan Fire Brigade has shelved its attempt to bypass equal opportunity laws amid intense criticism of its plan to give preference to multicultural and indigenous people in pre-employment training.
Last night, MFB chief executive Ken Latta said the decision to withdraw its application to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal was due to an ‘’extraordinary reaction’’ to its plans, and ‘’misconceptions’’ about what it was trying to do....
The MFB was seeking an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act so it could give preference to indigenous and under-represented cultural and linguistic groups in pre-employment training…
(The decision) comes after criticism from women firefighters at a separate plan to boost the number of women in the workforce.
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Chinese justice a farce, but journalists will defend it
Andrew Bolt
Again more evidence to suggest it’s possible that Stern Hu is indeed guilty, and that China is justified in jailing him:
STERN Hu brought two bribes of 1 million yuan and $US300,000 from private Chinese steel mills back to his Shanghai home and put the money in the family safe, his wife, Zhu Xiaoli, told police in evidence presented at the trial of the Australian Rio Tinto executive, now jailed for 10 years.Mind you, with China’s justice system such a joke, who can be sure of anything? - of course it may have been routine practice in China which the authorities are abusing for their own ends. Just as the AWB scandal while the UN was engulfed - ed.
A 70-page written verdict from the court, a copy of which has been obtained by The Australian, raises questions about the extent of corruption in Rio’s Shanghai office.
===
Another conflict imported
Andrew Bolt
How sweet that the boats are bringing in more playmates for boys who want to play soldiers:POLICE seized dramatic footage and images of gun-wielding Melbourne-based terrorist cell supporters who allegedly took money from Victorians under the guise of raising cash for humanitarian aid.But at least they won’t lack for friends right here:
Victorian Tamil Tiger terrorist cell supporter Aruran Vinayagamoorthy is pictured proudly wearing a Tamil Tiger uniform and brandishing an automatic military assault rifle.
It is just one of many images seized by police during raids on the suburban Melbourne homes of courier Vinayagamoorthy, Tamil community newspaper editor Sivarajah Yathavan and Sydney accountant Arumugan Rajeevan.
Crown Prosecutor Mark Dean, SC, said the men formed the leadership group of the Australian arm of the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers and Supreme Court judge Paul Coghlan said he accepted they did.
A SENIOR member of the Australian Tamil community says former Tamil Tiger fighters are definitely among the influx of boatpeople to arrive on our shores.Of course, it’s just a few hotheads here that give the rest a bad name and blah blah. In Sydney:
Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations secretary Victor Rajakulendran said the high proportion of young men on the boats, coupled with the risks faced by the Tigers in Sri Lanka, made it certain some arrivals were members of the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
A LARGE brawl broke out in Sydney’s west last night between Tamils protesting against the war in Sri Lanka and supporters of the Government’s offensive.Again in Sydney:
Several people were arrested after a punch was thrown at a police officer during the brawl involving more than 50 people, and a man was bashed by four others after he took a small Tamil flag from a car and snapped its pole in half, police said.
In Melbourne:
A group of around 50 Sinhala expatriates, some of them allegedly inebriated, attacked a car-rally demonstration The attack is said to have taken place while the cars in the rally were waiting for signal on Exhibition Street. The attackers were reportedly returning from a parallel demonstration by them that took place 2 km away from the junction.Read the rest of the thread at that last link to see just what kind of hatreds exist between members of the two communities.
A car of the Tamil rally carrying flag and banner strayed close to the demonstration of the Sinhalese.
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Madden gasses on
Andrew Bolt
To boast how he’s cutting emissions, Planning Minister Justin Madden and his Labor mates spend $55,000 blowing out more:
MORE than $55,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent on a State Government tour of the US led by embattled Planning Minister Justin Madden.(Thanks to reader CA.)
It cost $36,295 to send Mr Madden and an unnamed ministerial staff member on a nine-day tour of four US cities to spruik Victoria’s sustainable building credentials… The Brumby Government’s Cabinet secretary Tony Lupton took part in part of the tour during his 10-day US trip, spending almost $20,000.
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Rudd hands over another $500 million for rorts
Andrew Bolt
That’s your taxes, folks, all gone down the drain thanks to rush-rush-Rudd:
THE federal government’s $16.2 billion education building stimulus package could have delivered thousands more school buildings had it not been for inflated costs including a series of secret fees paid to major construction companies.And what does this translate to on the ground?
The Australian can reveal managing contractors in NSW have been charging fees of between 12.5 and 16.5 per cent on projects - about 3 1/2 times amounts suggested by the federal government - adding as much as $500 million to the cost of the Building the Education Revolution rollout in NSW.
Managing contractors are further entitled to charge 5 per cent in “contingency fees”, a 1.3 per cent fee for reporting to government and unspecified “design and price risk” fees.
A senior contracting source familiar with the fee arrangements, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Australian one of the seven major contractors in NSW, the Reed Group, had levied 20.93 per cent in fees on work done. “I was amazed to see such high fees,” the source said. “I have not seen anything like this previously...”
A spokesman for NSW Education Minister Verity Firth yesterday confirmed the 20.93 per cent figure, saying it included “site supervision, profit margin and incentive payments”.
Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard has repeatedly insisted project costs for managing contractors were capped at 4 per cent.
Covered outdoor learning areas, spanning 30m by 25m, typically cost between $170,000 and $250,000, including full installation, according to builders.UPDATE
NSW government figures show more than 40 COLAs under the BER have been costed at more than $800,000 in NSW alone.
Ray Hadley:
No one is calling for the BER to be shelved, but what most reasonable people want is simply this: if there is $16.2bn to spend we want value for our money. The way it’s being handled at the moment means we end up spending $16.2bn and we get infrastructure worth about $7bn and no one in government seems to know where the other $9-odd billion is going.UPDATE 2
Around the country, school communities are seeing how their taxes were squandered:
A COUNTRY school community is refusing to sign off on its $600,000 education revolution canteen, claiming it is smaller than a single-car garage and unusable.Here’s the well-padded costing. And I do mean well-padded:
Parents are incensed that the canteen, built with Federal Government funding, is so under-sized that two people working inside it will not be able to pass each other safely.
The Parents and Citizens’ Committee at Tottenham Central School in the Central West said its original canteen was twice the size, with large serving and preparation areas. The committee wants education bosses to explain how airconditioning, toilets and more space could not have been provided for $600,000.
Funding for the canteen included a $4675.79 ‘’managing contractor’s incentive fee’’, an $18,001.80 project management cost, $114,162.48 for design documentation, field data and site management and $80,000 for preliminaries.(Thanks to readers CA and JayTee.)
===
Rushed, incomplete, sympathetic yet admittedly appalled
Andrew Bolt
So how conclusive is the British parliamentary report which yesterday dismissed Climategate as a scandal about nothing? Some clues:
Phil Willis, the committee’s chairman, said of the e-mails that “there’s no denying that some of them were pretty appalling.” But the committee found no evidence of anything beyond ”a blunt refusal to share data,” adding that the idea that Jones was part of a conspiracy to hide evidence that weakened the case for global warming was clearly wrong…
The committee expressed sympathy with [Climate Research Unit head Phil] Jones, whom Willis said had been made a scapegoat for larger problems within the climate science community… But the lawmakers did criticize the way Jones and his colleagues handled freedom of information requests, saying scientists could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by aggressively publishing all their data instead of worrying about how to stonewall their critics.
Lawmakers stressed that their report—which was written after only a single day of oral testimony—did not cover all the issues…
Willis said the lawmakers had been in a rush to publish something before Britain’s next national election, which is widely expected in just over a month’s time.
“Clearly we would have liked to spend more time of this,” he said, before adding jokingly: “We had to get something out before we were sent packing.”
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