=== Todays Toon ===
His ministry described as uneventful, but he was a typical empire building Whig who paved roads with the blood of others. The painting is a US revolution by a name sake.
Henry Pelham (25 September 1694 – 6 March 1754) was a British Whig statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743 until his death in 1754. He was the younger brother of the politician the Duke of Newcastle who succeeded him as Prime Minister.=== Bible Quote ===
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”- 1 John 3:16=== Headlines ===
Radical Muslim cleric tied to Fort Hood shooting suspect is added to a target list that would allow U.S. operatives to capture or kill him for his role with Al QaedaPoison Gas Hampers Rescue
West Virginia governor says it may be tomorrow before drilling reaches site of blast that killed 25 miners
Climate-Data Scandal Far From Over
Global-warming alarmists breathed sigh of relief when top scientist exonerated, but they may have jumped the gun
Obama Court Pick's 117 Secrets
GOP rips Goodwin Liu for failing to disclose more than 100 speeches, writings and backgrounders
The Boy Democrats Gave to Cuba Communists
Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.
In a bid to recapture a flagging youth market, Scrabble maker Mattel has caved in and decided to allow proper nouns, otherwise known as "names". Picture: Andrew BanksTop cop chose dinner over deaths
POLICE chief admits she went out for dinner with friends after told people likely to die in bushfires.
Tots leap from cradle to catwalk, US-style
A MELBOURNE beauty pageant will see tiny tots model swimwear and be judged on their posture.
Taxpayers face $1.5m bill to tempt Tiger
WOMEN'S groups are outraged at attempts to lure disgraced golfer Tiger Woods back to Melbourne.
Man finds neighbour is long-lost brother
TWO men adopted out as kids learn they've been living across the street from each other.
Mags wage war as Newton pops question
ACCIDENT-prone Underbelly actor Matthew Newton is to wed his Transformers star girlfriend.
Captain more worried about food than oil
STRANDED ship's captain "can't see any oil", concerned Aussie rescue teams will eat crew's food.
On a voyage to tragedy
THE images are grainy, moments suspended in time. Within an hour, five of these young lives had been extinguished, a sixth was on borrowed time.
British PM announces UK election
BRITAIN to go to polls on May 6, with PM Gordon Brown facing a tough battle to retain power.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Will the president have the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks prosecuted in civilian court?Shocking new details on Obama's controversial decision!
He's Called Radical & Divisive ...So, why is this priest getting a lifetime achievement award from Chicago's archdiocese? Dennis Miller reacts!
===
The Tea Party Impact!
How is the grassroots group shifting midterm momentum? Newt Gingrich & Rudy Giuliani weigh in!
===
Unseat the Senator?
Meet two Republicans who say they can remove Sen. Reid. Danny Tarkanian and Sue Lowden lay out their strategy.
=== Comments ===
The Tea Party and Media CorruptionBy Bill O'Reilly
Ever since the Tea Party protests began last summer, the left-wing media in America has been attacking the movement.
At first, Tea Party folks were labeled stupid, too dumb to understand complicated issues. Then, as the protests grew, some in the media actually began calling Tea Party people dirty names, trying to diminish the movement with vile innuendo. Finally, the media turned to ideology, saying that many Tea Party people are racist and far-right cranks.
Now comes a new Gallup poll that says 43 percent of Tea Party supporters in the USA are independents, eight percent are Democrats and 49 percent are Republicans. When you add 43 and eight, you get 51 percent. That means the majority of Tea Party supporters in America are not Republicans.
Also, Gallup says that 55 percent of those supporting the Tea Party are in the higher income brackets, an interesting stat.
Nevertheless, liberal media people and politicians continue their vicious attacks on the Tea Party:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEVE COHEN, D-TENN.: The Tea Party people are kind of like without robes and hoods. They have really shown a very hardcore, angry side of America that is against any type of diversity. And we saw opposition to African-Americans, hostility toward gays, hostility to anybody who wasn't just, you know, a clone of George Wallace's fan club. And I'm afraid they've taken over the Republican Party."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Again, with 51 percent of Tea Party supporters non-Republican according to Gallup, Congressman Cohen is either misinformed, a pinhead, or both.
You may have seen me and Bernie Goldberg discuss media corruption — not bias, outright corruption — last week on "The Factor," and the Tea Party media situation is the best example of that.
From the jump, the Tea Party protesters never had a chance. As soon as they objected to President Obama's big government vision, the left-wing media moved in. And as you know, liberals dominate the national media in this country, so the loon label was quickly applied to the Tea Party people. And some Americans are buying it, but not as many as you might think.
Gallup says that right now 28 percent of Americans support the Tea Party, 26 percent oppose it, and 38 percent do not support or oppose, which means there is a persuasion option here.
And that's why the left-wing media is so biased against the Tea Party. They fear more Americans will sign on.
But it's not the media's job to engineer political thinking in this country, and that's what is happening in some quarters. If you oppose the Obama administration, you must be demeaned and neutralized. That is corruption, and there's no doubt it is in play.
===
THEY KNOW WHERE WE LIVE
Tim Blair
Greenpeace declares war:
If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fuelling spurious debates around false solutions and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this: We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.This was written by a “genuinely peaceful” Greenpeace communications director, who also declares: “It’s time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and scepticism.”
UPDATE. Meet Gene Hashmi, the Greenpeace tough guy who’s fixing to take us down:
Sadly, mean Gene is unavailable for further comments:According to Mr. Hashmi’s Twitter page, he currently doesn’t have Internet access because he’s at a beach resort in Thailand.UPDATE II. A previous statement endorsed by mean green Gene:
“The politicians have failed. Now it’s up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It’s not working. We need an army of climate outlaws.”Enjoy that Thai beach resort, Mr Outlaw Man.
===
STATE PLATED
Tim Blair
Victoria’s Patrick Atherton emails:
Several months ago, I fabricated a number plate for my mountain bike rack, and decided to enhance the authenticity with a state ID slogan. This was the first thing that came to mind ...
I am happy that it is now a retrospective tribute to our new political hero, Mark Webber.===
Hulls excuses the little lady
Andrew Bolt
Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls is author of the state’s more draconian anti-discrimination laws. So you’d expect him not to peddle such a sexist and patronising excuse for not letting a Labor staffer appear before a parliamentary inquiry:
Mr Hulls says it is against parliamentary convention for ministerial advisers to appear at committee hearings. Yesterday he again said that no staffers would front the inquiry.Pardon? Isn’t a woman to be treated as the equal of a man?
‘’It’s not going to happen,’’ Mr Hulls said. ‘’What we have is an all-male committee wanting to drag a young female worker before a committee for nothing more than grubby political purposes. They want to bully this woman.’’
(Thanks to reader Andrew.)
===
Artist must pay for dentist
Andrew Bolt
Reader and artist John Pasquarelli writes:To fund my dental implant treatment I need to liquidate some paintings urgently - in conjunction with Tin Shed Arts - Jacquiline/Marianne - I am holding a studio clearance sale which will last six weeks - ANY REASONABLE OFFER will be considered - you may get a pleasant surprise! - details of size etc will be supplied on request and Tin Shed will handle packing and freight which of course is a separate charge -John’s paintings here.
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State on fire. Nixon knocks off
Andrew Bolt
It has taken an awfully long time for people to question the astonishing performance of Christine Nixon, who has been an undeservedly protected species:
CHRISTINE Nixon went home at 6pm on Black Saturday and then went out for dinner with friends after she was told of the likelihood of deaths in the bushfires.What’s more, she’d left with a critical task undone:
Her exit from the control centre was about five minutes after she was briefed about the possibility of loss of life from what became the worst bushfires in the state’s history.
The former Victoria Police chief was questioned at the bushfires Royal Commission in her first appearance since the disaster, which claimed 173 lives on February 7 last year.
Asked who was in charge after she went home, Ms Nixon admitted it was still her job.
“I wasn’t in the premises, but I was still clearly in charge,” she said.
Ms Nixon told the commission she had a meal and monitored radio, websites and took calls and text messages as the disaster unfolded.
But last night she clarified her movements to the Herald Sun saying she went home and then to a North Melbourne bistro for dinner with her husband and two friends and returned home later.
CHRISTINE Nixon and other senior police failed in their responsibility to oversee warnings on Black Saturday, the former chief commissioner told the Bushfires Royal Commission yesterday.She went home at 6pm? On the day that the state was on fire? On the day 173 Victorians were killed?
‘’There should have been a follow-up and I should have done it,’’ she said, acknowledging that police did not check that fire-agency warnings were adequate…
Under questioning by Rachel Doyle, SC, for the commission, Ms Nixon said she left emergency headquarters at 6pm and had not asked senior police if they had checked warnings, a responsibility emergency protocols gave to Victoria Police.
What did she expect other police to do that lethal day? Follow her example and knock off?
I suspect Nixon may also need to “clarify” her story to the royal commission.
UPDATE
UPDATE 2If Nixon hadn’t moved on soon after the fires, she’d have faced the sack today. As it is, her right to head the Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority must be questioned.
UPDATE 3
Nixon claims on ABC radio (under the gentlest questioning by Waleed Aly - “is this a beatup?") denies she misled the royal commission by failing to say she’d gone out to dinner.
UPDATE 4
Fran Bailey, retiring MP for the area worst hit by the fires, says she’s shocked Nixon left her post and says she should quit from the Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority:
How anyone in her position could leave her post ... I just think that’s appalling.Bailey adds that Nixon is also a poor and uncommunicative leader of the authority, which has mushroomed into a 100-strong city-based bureaucracy and should be wound up, too.
===
How our “best and brightest” were conned
Andrew Bolt
April. The month our 1000 “best and brightest” should remember with shame.
It was two years ago that these 1000 - glorying at being hailed as our finest minds - gathered in Canberra to show just what fools they really were.
You’ll laugh, but most really did think Kevin Rudd had summoned them to his 2020 Ideas Summit to help him design “a strong successful future for our country”.
They really did think that they would produce a report, stuffed with brilliance, that would guide their new Prime Minister through the next decade.
Many were even so arrogant as to believe they really did deserve to map our fate, despite being unelected, unrepresentative and, as it turned out, utterly unknowing - these hand-picked stooges of the most shameless spinner of our political history.
“We do represent the entire community,” burbled Sam Mostyn, a former Labor apparatchik now inserted in a dozen taxpayer-financed boards.
World Vision chief Tim Costello was so flattered by his own invitation that he even mistook Rudd’s hand-picked clique for a real Parliament: “Rather than certain groups, powerful groups, setting the agenda, the direction, it’s actually throwing it over to us.”
Oh, you “best and brightest”. You court toadies, main-chancers, string-pullers, scavengers, dupes and wheeler dealers. Look around you now, two years later and point.
Point out which of your ideas ever saw the light of day. Point out a single one that’s been adopted, to the country’s great good.===
The slickers are worse than the slick
Andrew Bolt
EVER since it slammed into the Great Barrier Reef, the Shen Neng 1 has oozed a great slick of hype.What a gift it’s been for green propagandists.
Not only has the Chinese carrier leaked up to four tonnes of oil since the weekend, but it carries coal, another symbol of wicked human development. And so we’re now deafened by the usual fearmongering.
The Shen Neng is a “ticking environmental time bomb”, howled green group WWF, claiming that not just the ship’s fuel but even its load of coal “could get into the ecosystem”.
“Oil slicks and the like have devastating effects,” wailed the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Activists “fear for the Great Barrier Reef”, moaned the BBC.
Politicians stoked the scare. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced he’d fly over the spill to, er, well, to seem like he’s doing something about it.
And inevitably this puddle of oil from the Shen Neng was likened to the ocean that leaked from the infamous Exxon Valdez, which greens in 1989 turned into a poster villain after it leaked not four tonnes but 38,000 off the Alaskan coast.
“Environmental medical specialist” Andrew Jeremijenko, for instance, told the ABC: “We’ve seen in the Exxon Valdez that there have been long-ranging effects and we shouldn’t be allowing these things to happen.”
Ah, yes, that’s the same Jeremijenko who last year used the same hype when the Pacific Adventurer leaked 270 tonnes of oil into Moreton Bay. He then claimed this “catastrophe” would produce “the same effects” here as the Exxon Valdez had in Alaska.
Time to draw a calming breath.
===
Rudd’s latest five-minute policy
Andrew Bolt
Paul Kelly is still far too unquestioning of the faith in big immigration, but still knows a flake when he sees one:
KEVIN Rudd’s sparse announcement that Tony Burke will become the first population minister is a blatant election-year political fix that hopefully will deliver a substantive policy result next term.
Burke is being asked by the Prime Minister “to develop Australia’s first comprehensive population strategy”. There are no terms of reference, just a couple of generalised and vague paragraphs from Rudd issued on Easter Saturday that would have taken five minutes to knock up…
It typifies the political-driven improvisation that seems embedded in the Rudd government’s character. It is another example of catch-up after Rudd’s misreading of voter concern following his declaration last October that, “I believe in a big Australia” of 35 million.
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Rights shock: poor crook is called a crook
Andrew Bolt
Janet Albrechtsen nails it:
A FUNNY thing happened in the nation’s capital recently. ACT Supreme Court judge Richard Refshauge ordered the release of Gim Em Moh, a convicted criminal, after finding that the sentencing magistrate had failed to treat Moh with the “inherent dignity” he deserved as a human being under the ACT Human Rights Act.Beware Kevin Rudd’s plan for a human rights charter.
Moh pleaded guilty to using fake credit cards and a fake driver’s licence to buy electronic goods. In sentencing Moh, a Malaysian national, to six months’ jail, magistrate Grant Lalor said that Moh “was turned loose to burgle the stores of Canberra with false credit cards” and “turned loose to rape and pillage the stores of Canberra”.
Refshauge ordered Moh’s release, claiming that sentencing obligations had not been met, and chastised the magistrate for his “exaggerated and extreme language”. The judge said “anyone deprived of liberty must be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person”. What was Lalor thinking when he said a fraudster and thief had behaved like a fraudster and thief? Moh must have fallen about laughing as he left Canberra not so much a convicted criminal as a victim of a human rights breach.
However, the real joke is on Refshauge. By treating colourful language as a breach of Moh’s rights, the judge has unwittingly delivered a useful sermon, not on the inherent dignity of human beings but on the inherent folly of a human rights act.
Refshauge has demonstrated the irresistible seduction that happens when judges are given the chance to impose their personal preferences using a list of ambiguously worded “human rights”.
===
Brown goes to the polls
Andrew Bolt
How did the Conservatives let this become a contest again?
GORDON Brown last night called a general election for May 6 amid conflicting opinion polls that suggest the result could range from a Conservative majority to a minority Labour administration.
The wildly divergent surveys led leading pollster Peter Kellner to say that “the contest remains wide open”, despite the 13-year-old Labour government being saddled by the worst recession in decades.
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Boat people say Rudd opened the gates
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd has stimulated one business at least:
THE people-smuggling trade through Jakarta has become such big business that spotter’s fees of up to $540 a person are being offered for getting asylum-seekers on to boats headed for Australia…Ask Afghani asylum seeker Maryam Mohammadi, now in Indonesia:
The flow of refugees making the perilous crossing to Christmas Island from points on Java’s southern coastline is also being accelerated by the fact successful arrivals are immediately telephoning friends and relatives remaining in Jakarta and nearby, urging that they follow “while the gates are still open”, one asylum-seeker told The Australian.
There is widespread acknowledgement among the asylum-seeker community that the trip to Australia is now as easy as it was in 2001 - the previous numerical high point in the flow.
Maryam said it was common knowledge, among the thousands of people considering making the trip at any given time, that ”it has not been this easy to reach Australia since 2001”.
“People say that Australia would be a very fast trip, and that Australia accepts refugees,” she explained.
“At first, when people were coming in 2001, it was something like this also. But after that it stopped, and nobody says that going to Australia is easy. But after nine years, it is that way again.”
The family decided at the end of last year to leave Malaysia, where they were designated refugees more than five years ago but had yet to be made any offer of resettlement.
===
Never has so much been spent on so little for so few
Andrew Bolt
Never mind Kevin Rudd’s typical hypocrisy - giving cash to what he claimed in Opposition was an “extremist cult”. Ask yet again about the monstrous waste in spending so much on so little for so few:
A TINY school campus in Bendigo run by the controversial Exclusive Brethren religious sect is receiving $1.2 million in federal funding to upgrade its library, despite having just 11 primary students last year.How can voters forgive such mis-spending?
Documents also show that the Exclusive Brethren-run Glenvale School’s Swan Hill campus - which has just 16 primary students - received $800,000 for a hall under the schools building program.
Critics claim this allocation of funds provides a stark example of the poor targeting of taxpayer money under the so-called Building the Education Revolution program, which has been dogged by allegations of rorting and mismanagement…
A government document posted on the Australian Parliament website yesterday, in response to a question from the Greens, said Glenvale School’s Bendigo campus was receiving $1.2 million for a library refurbishment, to be completed by April 30....
But Exclusive Brethren spokesman John Anderson ... disputed that $1.2 million was being spent solely at Bendigo.
‘’The $1.2 million funding for library facilities will be spent at several Glenvale School campuses in Victoria, which are attended by about 600 students,’’ Mr Anderson said in a statement.
===
A defeated army retreats to Australia
Andrew Bolt
Defence analyst Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe says we’re luring in fake “refugees” from Sri Lanka:
AS arrivals of Sri Lankans in Australia claiming asylum continue, there is ample evidence to suggest the situation in Sri Lanka is very different from that portrayed by refugee advocates. Indeed, there is strong evidence that since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009 Sri Lanka has moved towards stability and inter-ethnic reconciliation, rather than widespread or institutionalised persecution of its Tamil population.So Australia is being used by some as a retreat for soldiers of a defeated terrorist army. I don’t think that’s smart. In fact, it’s alarming that the Prime Minister is in such denial over this threat.
Sri Lanka’s steady return to post-conflict normalcy has been widely reported internationally. Key benchmarks include:- The restitution of freedom of movement for all internally displaced persons.So, why does Australia see a growing number of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers? It appears that Australia’s relative proximity as the closest Western country, high living standards and perceptions of sympathetic treatment have been a significant pull factor in attracting them…
- The resettlement of 193,607 IDPs throughout northern Sri Lanka (leaving only 76,205 IDPs yet to be resettled).
- The rehabilitation and gradual release from custody of nearly 2000 former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam combatants, co-ordinated with the International Migration Organisation and funded by the West…
- And, most significantly, the restoration of democracy through the re-emergence of Tamil political parties previously suppressed by the LTTE and their free participation in presidential elections…
There are other reasons why so many Tamil asylum-seekers come to Australia instead of joining efforts to rebuild Sri Lankan society or obtaining asylum in Tamil Nadu. Some appear to be LTTE fighters seeking to evade legitimate detention in Sri Lanka, and have deliberately avoided India, where there is a high probability of arrest and detention, as the LTTE is a proscribed terrorist organisation. Australia, unlike the US, Canada and the European Union, has not proscribed the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, which is likely to constitute a significant pull factor for LTTE fighters keen to seek asylum.
===
We cannot have them rootless in their own land
Andrew Bolt
This matters because few things wake a man to his responsibilities better than do marriage - and a mortgage:
RUNAWAY population growth will end the dream for many young Australians of ever owning their own home, says federal Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson.
Mr Thomson has defied his party by saying Australia’s population should be capped at 26 million, disagreeing with his government’s projection of 36 million by 2050.
Representing the inner Melbourne electorate of Wills, which is made up of 30 per cent immigrants, Mr Thomson believes Australia’s annual intake of migrants should be cut to 70,000.
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