Headlines Thursday 8th April 2010

=== Todays Toon ===

The Kit-Kat Club. 'The Kit-Cat Club Done From the Original Paintings of Sr Godfrey Kneller by Mr. Faber. 1735'
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, KG, PC (21 July 1693 – 17 November 1768) was a British Whig statesman, whose official life extended throughout the Whig supremacy of the 18th century. He is commonly known as the Duke of Newcastle.
A protege of Sir Robert Walpole, he served under him for more than twenty years until 1742. He held power with his brother, Henry Pelham (the Prime Minister of Great Britain), until 1754. He had at this point served as a Secretary of State continuously for thirty years - dominating British foreign policy.

=== Bible Quote ===

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”- Galatians 2:20

=== Headlines ===

Law enforcement officials in Missouri conduct an intensive new search for Kara Kopetsky, a 17-year-old girl who vanished nearly three years ago.

Citations on Day of Blast
West Virginia mine where 25 people died was cited for violating federal safety measures on day of explosion

Virginia Gov Sings Dixie Mea Culpa
Gov. Bob McDonnell says he made 'major omission' by not noting slavery in declaring April Confederate History Month

Dad: Textbook Flaunts Anti-Bible Bias
Tennessee father says son's biology book describes creationism as a 'biblical myth' and should be banned

Newfound Asteroid to Buzz Earth Thursday
A newly discovered asteroid will zip close by Earth Thursday, but poses no threat of crashing into our planet even though it is passing within the orbit of the moon.

Martina Navratilova, one of the best female tennis players of all time, has revealed she is battling breast cancer

Go bush, new Australians told
MIGRANTS might have to agree to live and work in remote areas, new population minister says.

Tiger Woods 'slept with young neighbour'
ON the eve of Tiger Woods' comeback, report emerges of one-night stand with neighbour.

Rich are getting richer than ever
GAP between rich and the rest becoming ever wider.

Raped girl digs herself out of own grave
A MAN is accused of raping then burying a young girl alive, thinking he had strangled her to death.

Top cop 'sorry' for bushfire dinner party
CHRISTINE Nixon apologises for dining out at a restaurant during the Black Saturday inferno.

Security guard charged over cash theft
A SYDNEY security guard has been charged over the theft of thousands of dollars from cash vans he was supposed to be protecting.

Cop killer free to stay in Australia
ONE of the men jailed for the killing of Senior Constable Glenn McEnally will be allowed to remain in Australia when he is released.

Starving to slow death in hospital - family claims grandad ignored
A WOMAN spent an agonising week watching her father waste away in one of Sydney's top hospitals because there was no one rostered on that could insert a feeding tube.

Tasmania's Greens throw lifeline to Labor
THE Tasmanian Greens have pledged support for the Bartlett Labor government to remain in power in Tasmania.

=== Journalists Corner ===

Guest: Gov. Haley Barbour
His fight to sue Obama over health care! So, what's his strategy as he attempts to take the administration to federal court? The plaintiff explains!
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The Health Care Impact!
Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin break down what it means for YOU
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"Suit" Up!
Local lawmakers take the health care plan to court! Can they really win and what would it mean for other states?

=== Comments ===

Censorship hides behind the great Conroy firewall
Piers Akerman
BIZARRE but true, Australia and China are allied in their determination to censor internet content. In totalitarian China, the plan is known as Green Dam. In Australia it should be called “freedom-be-damned”. - I don't choose to view porn and I am not worried about the filter in that regard. I object to what the filter will be used for and that is to suppress legitimate opposition to ALP government. Whistleblowers who highlight corruption can be silenced with no appeal. That is a direct consequence of the filter. What may also happen is that the filter may not be an effective filter against porn. - ed.
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President Obama, War Criminal?
By Bill O'Reilly
Once again, the far left in America is demanding an effective anti-terror program — missiles fired at the bad guys from drones — be stopped.

Notre Dame professor Mary Ellen O'Connell is leading the charge in academia, saying the drone program violates international law and that it is unlawful killing. Former Sen. Fritz Hollings says the drone action creates more terrorists than it kills, a preposterous statement. And, of course, the ACLU is suing to make public who is ordering the attacks and other information about them.

All of this, of course, helps Al Qaeda and the Taliban, enemies of the USA.

By all accounts, the drone program has been the most effective anti-terror strategy we have and has badly damaged the Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. In fact, President Obama has dramatically increased drone attacks. There are about two a week now.

But the far left does not want the USA to defeat terrorism. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen calls the action revenge and wants the drone program stopped immediately. Mr. Cohen wants all the terrorists arrested.

What the far left has not done is call the president a war criminal, which it certainly did in the case of President Bush. No, even though Barack Obama — to his credit — is the power behind the missile attacks, the far left pulls its punches when the president's name comes up.

But all Americans should know that there are major quislings in this country, people who believe the USA is the evil force and the terrorists are just responding to that.

There is no better example of far-left nuttiness than this campaign against the drone attacks.
===
SHOE MAN SUBDUED
Tim Blair
A possible bombing attempt in the US:

A man has been detained after he tried to set fire to his shoes on a US flight, reports say.

The man was subdued on United flight 663 from Washington Reagan airport to Denver, ABC news reported.

While the presence of explosives has not been confirmed, reports are referring to the incident as a “shoe bomb attempt”.

An ABC report identified the suspect as a Qatari diplomat stationed at the country’s Washington embassy.

Presbyterianism, anyone?

UPDATE. The fellow has been identified as longtime diplomat Mohammaed al Modadi: “Officials insisted Wednesday night it was still too early to tell whether the incident was an attempted act of terrorism or a giant misunderstanding.”

UPDATE II: “The U.S. Northern Command says two F-16 jets were scrambled from a Colorado air base to intercept a plane headed into Denver’s airport Wednesday night.”

UPDATE III. He might not be a terrorist, but he could be Qatar’s greatest idiot:
A Qatari diplomat has caused a mid-air panic after a reported attempt to smoke and crack a joke on a US flight.

Initial reports suggested Mohammed al Modadi, a diplomat from the Qatar embassy in Washington, had attempted to light a “shoe bomb”, quoting federal law enforcement officials.

However, CNN is reporting claims that Mr al Modadi was attempting to smoke close to a bathroom at the back of the plane and may have made a “joke” about a terror attack.

ABC News reports the man allegedly told air marshals, “I’m lighting my shoes on fire.”
===
FAITH ABSOLVED
Tim Blair
A reported change in terrorism focus:

President Barack Obama’s advisers will remove religious terms such as “Islamic extremism” from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.

It’s the terrorism of no appearance! By comparison, even the timid Rudd government is still prepared to acknowledge reality:

The main source of international terrorism and the primary terrorist threat to Australia and Australian interests is from a global violent jihadist movement – extremists who follow a distorted and militant interpretation of Islam that espouses violence as the answer to perceived grievances. This extremist movement comprises al-Qa’ida, groups allied or associated with it, and others inspired by a similar worldview.

(Via KP)

UPDATE. Non-Islamic antics streamed. (Via Habib)
===
COLOUR OF MONEY
Tim Blair
In Spain, Anna Nicholas discovers the prohibitive expense of green living:

Recently when I was chatting with some expats in a nearby village, one of them, a green economist, rounded on me furiously. Why hadn’t I converted to solar? Did I not realise that I was single-handedly destroying the planet? In some indignation I questioned her about her own use of solar. A pause. Actually she didn’t use it at all because, she explained, solar panels were forbidden in her village, and besides her property was far too small to accommodate them. I asked her if she could lend me about €20,000. “Are you insane?” she yelped. “Who has money like that lying about?”

Exactly. So for now, we’re sticking to mains electricity. Good and green intentions will just have to wait.

No such delays in New South Wales, where Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme – and state Labor blundering – will mean insane green-style costs for normal electricity. Perhaps what we need here is convict power, just like in the good old days.

(Via Sandi)
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NARRATIVE CHALLENGED
Tim Blair
Palestinian kid not killed by evil Israelis. Media organisations – well, some of them – backtrack.
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RISE UP AND PUNCH
Tim Blair
The best Harlem justice story since Charles Augusto Jr. took four bandits down last August:

East Harlem pizza deliveryman Assami Semde fought off two would-be slice muggers while making a delivery to an apartment building last Friday. Semde, a 6’4” native of Burkina Faso, pretended to put the pizzas down on the ground and then rose up and punched one of the gun-toting assailants, pushing him against an elevator.

One mugger was later arrested. Online pizza experts – an impressively alert crowd – subsequently discovered a cinematic prelude to Semde’s counter-attack.
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DESERT CAT
Tim Blair
“Now this just ain’t right,” reports Noah Joseph. Further background here.

UPDATE. Links keep failing. Try here. And from the same site, further Mexican Mercedes madness.
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Tasmania gets what it deserves
Andrew Bolt
Ten Labor and five Greens, against 10 Liberals. The Governor made the right call:

LABOR leader David Bartlett is Tasmania’s premier again after Governor Peter Underwood called on the incumbent party to form government.

Mr Underwood ordered Mr Bartlett to recall parliament and test his support as premier on the floor of the assembly.
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Save the planet! Just pay more
Andrew Bolt
A great green tax to save the planet .. or just fill the coffers:

…After already being hit with a 20 per cent price rise last year, NSW residents will on July 1 pay the first instalment of what will be a more than 64 per cent rise over the next three years.

The increases will add hundreds of dollars to the average three-monthly bill, money many families simply cannot afford.

The tribunal’s reasons for the jump in prices include the need to replace or upgrade the state’s electricity assets.

Yet a third of the rise is to cover the Federal Government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme - a scheme still to pass Parliament.

(Thanks to reader Michael.)
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And especially no babies
Andrew Bolt
Ten rules for having green sex.

(Thanks to reader Neville.)
===
Who let them in? Why are they still here?
Andrew Bolt
Exactly what havoc may an immigrant family wreak before we can expell them all? And who let them in?

THE Federal Government is seeking urgent legal advice following a court ruling in favour of a man trying to avoid deportation after serving time for the manslaughter of a Sydney police officer.

Motekiai Taufahema is serving 11 years with a non-parole period of seven years after being convicted over the death of highway patrol officer Senior Constable Glenn McEnally in March 2002.

In the Federal Court today, the Immigration Department lost an appeal against a November ruling by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which set aside an earlier departmental decision to cancel Taufahema’s visa…

Sen Const McEnally, 26, was shot at Hillsdale in Sydney’s east after pursuing four men in a stolen car driven by Taufahema, then 25.

The car crashed and shots were fired through the windscreen of Sen Const McEnally’s vehicle. Taufahema and his brother John, who was also in the stolen car together with two other men, were initially convicted of murder, but their convictions were overturned and they both pleaded guilty to manslaughter…

Another man, Sione Penisini, is serving 36 years for the murder of the officer while a fourth, Meli Lagi, is serving 10 years for firearms offences.

Why this reluctance to throw out a man who helped to kill a policeman - a man with a long criminal record?

ONE of the men jailed for manslaughter over the death of Senior Constable Glenn McEnallay has escaped deportation to Tonga even though he has spent more than half of his 21 years in Australia in prison.

The best interests of Motekiai Taufahema’s seven-year-old daughter, born after he was jailed, tipped the balance in his favour when he appealed against the cancellation of his visa…

Although Motekiai Taufahema, 33, had spent 12 of 21 years here behind bars, the deputy president of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Robin Handley, found his daughter ‘’loves her father and misses him’’ and would be devastated if he were deported…

Sione Taufahema’s deportation adds to a turbulent few years for the Taufahema family. Two of his siblings, Honora and Filisione, are also in jail. Another, 18-year-old Tavita, was shot dead by police in September during an armed hold-up at the Canley Heights Hotel. Last year 16-year-old Chris Emmerson was shot dead by a visitor at the family’s Yennora home.

If Taufahema really cared about his daughter, he’d make sure he spent more time at home than in jail.

More on him and his violent clan here and here:

A TEENAGER shot dead by police at the Canley Heights Hotel early yesterday morning was the younger brother of two men convicted over the shooting of Senior Constable Glenn McEnally six years ago.

Tavita Taufahema, 18, was shot by a detective as he and a 16-year-old alleged accomplice held a man hostage after robbing patrons at the hotel...
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Immigrant debate shows we need more Gs and Os
Andrew Bolt
From Lateline last night:

JULIA GILLARD: Well, Tony, I think the debate we’re having at the moment is one that the Prime Minister has asked Tony Burke to lead on behalf of the Government… It’s a debate where we’re gonna take some time… We’re gonna take the sensible, measured approach…

TONY JONES: OK… The Lowy Institute has prepared a survey on this subject that’s gonna be released tomorrow. It says 69 per cent of those surveyed think 36 million is just too big. How are you gonna deal with those public perception?

JULIA GILLARD: ... we’ve gotta unpack the debate a little bit more carefully than just putting a number in front of people.

And I note too that the Opposition, indeed on this show last night, Tony, the Opposition spokesperson, Scott Morrison, lumped in all the short stay visa holders and refused to rule in or rule out cuts of those. Well, that’s really - you know, he’d gotta answer some questions or Tony Abbott’s gotta answer them for him...
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Don’t call the terrorists by their name
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama seems to think that if he refuses to mention why they fight, terrorists will forget:

President Barack Obama’s advisers plan to remove terms such as “Islamic radicalism” from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.

The change would be a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. It currently states, “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”

This strategy is going to cause grief for the US State Department, which will have to ask many of the world’s worst terrorist groups to find less explicitly Islamist names if they want to be included on its list:

Current List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations

1. Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)
2. Abu Sayyaf Group
3. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade
4. Al-Shabaab
5. Ansar al-Islam
6. Armed Islamic Group (GIA)
7. Asbat al-Ansar
8. Aum Shinrikyo
9. Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA)
10. Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA)
11. Continuity Irish Republican Army
12. Gama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group)
13. HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement)
14. Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B)
15. Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM)
16. Hizballah (Party of God)
17. Islamic Jihad Group
18. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
19. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) (Army of Mohammed)
20. Jemaah Islamiya organization (JI)
21. al-Jihad (Egyptian Islamic Jihad)
22. Kahane Chai (Kach)
23. Kongra-Gel (KGK, formerly Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, KADEK)

Tim Blair rightly praises the Rudd Government for being more frank.
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Another tourist fights for life in possible race-related attack
Andrew Bolt
For legal reasons,we cannot mention the several earlier cases. But yet another tourist is seriously injured in another attack by what seems to be an ethnic-based gang:

FOUR teenage boys were charged late last night over an alleged bashing that left a tourist fighting for his life.

Scotsman Mark Willis, 25, underwent emergency neurosurgery in St George Hospital late yesterday.

He was allegedly assaulted as he and his girlfriend Jane McLean, who is also in her 20s, got off a bus in Sydney’s south in the early hours of yesterday morning....

The arrested teenagers range in age from 13 to 15.

(No comments, to save ourselves the risk of publishing subjudice comments.)
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The daily boat
Andrew Bolt
Not just more, but bigger:

ANOTHER boatload of asylum seekers was intercepted tonight, putting further pressure on the Christmas Island detention facility.

The latest boat - the 37th to arrive this year - was picked up by authorities off the north coast of Western Australia.

It was carrying 99 passengers and four crew.

So which of Kevin Rudd’s policies to stop the flood of boats is working?
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Family fights are the worst
Andrew Bolt
I’ve seen no evidence for the adjective “softly spoken”, and am even less inclined to believe it now:

MANY are frustrated with the result of the Tasmanian election, but none more so than the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, the normally mild-mannered, softly spoken refugee-hugger Paul Howes, who yesterday posted on his Twitter page: ”Tas Greens = Scum”.

But I admit that while such abuse is over-the-top, Howes is right about this:

I mean, 70 per cent of Tasmania has voted left of centre and they’ve ended up with a conservative government. I’m so angry.

The outcome seems crazy to me, too. And undemocratic.
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What’s our target population, Minister? 100 million?
Andrew Bolt
It’s the kind of absolutist argument so favored by the Left and children. Burke seems to be suggesting that if you can’t stop it dead, why limit it at all?

AUSTRALIA’S first Minister for Population, Tony Burke, says it is impossible to cap the nation’s population growth.

Less than a week into his job, and facing calls for big cuts in migration, Mr Burke has told The Age that Australia’s population would continue to expand even if the federal government ended all migration.

The question isn’t whether we stop growing, but whether we’re insane to import so many people that our total gropwth is now an unsustainable 450,000 a year.

Why don’t journalists ask Burke to nominate the population his Government has in mind for this country by 2020 or 2050? After all, they’re keen enough to tell you their targets for emissions for those dates - so why not their targets for the emitters?

UPDATE

The public does what the Rudd Government won’t:

MORE than two-thirds of Australians are opposed to the population ballooning to 36 million by 2050, as predicted in the government’s Intergenerational Report… Forty-three per cent chose 30 million; 23 per cent chose 40 million, and 6 per cent chose 50 million people or more.

UPDATE 2

When my parents and their generation came out, they were obedient enough to honour such undertakings. Good luck in these more out-for-myself times:

MIGRANTS could be told where they can live and work under an idea floated by new Population Minister Tony Burke. Mr Burke said it was “not in the national interest” when people came to remote areas to meet a skills shortage, but then moved to the big cities where infrastructure and jobs were under pressure.

Someone’s offering false hope.

UPDATE 3

But Greg Sheridan says another 15 million Australians by 2050 will be barely enough to save ourselves:

You don’t need to construct enemies to know that Australia at 40 million, young and strong, is infinitely more likely from a national security point of view to retain control of its destiny than an Australia of 25 million, old and weakening, or even declining. Even now our population is radically too small in national security terms.
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Who’s Right?
Andrew Bolt
Our first fight, and we’re not even on air yet:

THE breakfast host and program director of Melbourne radio MTR 1377, Steve Price, hopes the new station will be “in your face, controversial, opinionated”.

The relaunched 3MP promises to be that if Price and one of his contributors, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt, are unable to agree on whether the station would be right-wing.

“The most successful talk stations do occupy the right-of-centre opinion on politics in particular but life in general,” Price said yesterday. “I don’t know that there’s a successful left-wing radio station in the country."…

Bolt protested. “I’m not right-wing, and I think you’re wrong to suggest this will be a right-wing station. I think conservative is more the go.”

We’ll settle this when we start broadcasting on April 19.

UPDATE

Oops. Seems I picked a couple of fights at the launch:

Steve Vizard, who will host the 10am-1pm slot, begged to differ, pointing out that among his regular contributors will be Guy Rundle. ”‘That’s a terrible mistake,’’ piped up Bolt from the other end of the table. Steve Price looked aghast, too; later, Vizard revealed that was the first his program director had heard of the plan.
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They knew they were wasting your money
Andrew Bolt
Billions gone, right under their noses:

THE NSW government was aware last year that major contractors were exploiting the $16.2 billion schools stimulus program by substantially overquoting on projects..

Internal government documents, tabled under the NSW upper house parliamentary inquiry into the scheme, show The Reed Group, which is separately charging fees of up to 21 per cent on all work done, was also overquoting for a range of materials and services.

NSW government quantity surveyor Lachlan Figtree repeatedly contacted The Reed Group in July and August last year to express concern over project cost blowouts, and demand explanations for some of the costings.

The correspondence between the NSW government and The Reed Group seems to contradict the repeated claim by the state Labor government that instances of overquoting by building contractors under the BER scheme were isolated.

Gillard is blamed:

THE top official overseeing the $16.2 billion schools stimulus program in South Australia has blamed cost blowouts in NSW, Queensland and Victoria on the Rudd government’s “lack of interest” in how states rolled out the program.

Co-ordinator-General Rod Hook, appointed by the Rann government 15 months ago to deliver South Australia’s $1.37bn slice of Building the Education Revolution projects, said the other states had ... appointed unnecessary middlemen to deliver BER projects and mired the program in controversy over cost blowouts, price gouging and wastage....

The federal Education Minister Julia Gillard should be accountable for not showing greater leadership and promoting better co-ordination, co-operation and consultation between the states, he said.
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VicHealth: a report so good they had Rudd’s team launch it twice
Andrew Bolt
How many times does VicHealth intend to give the Rudd Government the same report to launch - and the same platform on which to preach in this election year?

April 7, 2010

Changing Cultures Changing Attitudes A National Survey on Community Attitudes To Violence against Women 2009 was launched in Melbourne today by the Hon Tanya Plibersek, MP, Federal Minister for the Status of Women.

November 25, 2009

In conjunction with the Prime Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, the Minister for the Status of Women, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP has released the National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey 2009. This survey was conducted by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth), in partnership with the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Social Research Centre, on behalf of the Australian Government.

(Thanks to reader EZ.)