=== Todays Toon ===
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. He was the grandfather of Bertrand Russell, the mathematician, philosopher and political campaigner. - and atheist - ed.=== Bible Quote ===
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”- 1 John 5:14-15=== Headlines ===
Frontline jobs spin 'exploits the dead'
THE State Government has been caught using the replacement of departed public servants-including a man who died- as a spin exercise to make it look like it is boosting frontline services. The Government admitted that an announcement claiming that it is "bolstering frontline services" in its new Industry and Investment Department is in fact just a belated filling of vacant positions. This includes the position of a regional agronomist who died. He is yet to be replaced. The Public Service Association accused the Government of appalling exploitation. "To try to spin a person's death to the department's advantage is probably the most disgraceful act I've ever seen from a government and they ought to be ashamed of themselves," PSA assistant secretary Shane O'Brien said. Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan's office confirmed that the position was simply being filled after the man had died.
Authorities sift through evidence, including alarm clocks found in the vehicle used in failed bombing, in an attempt to find out who was behind incident.
Investigators working to identify those responsible for potentially powerful bomb attack as Pakistani Taliban reportedly claim responsibility.Obama Pledges 'Relentless' Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup
President visits Louisiana, calls oil spill 'massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster'
Clinton: Immigration Law Invites Profiling
In toughest comments by Obama cabinet member, Hillary Clinton condemns Arizona's immigration law as flawed
Rubio Slams Crist for Party Swap
Florida GOP Senate candidate says Crist will change his opinions based on what is politically convenient for him
Kim Jong Il Crosses Border Into China
North Korean leader's visit could mean North Korea's return to dormant China-hosted international disarmament talks on its nuclear weapons program.
Merger Creates World's Largest Airline
Directors at Continental and United airlines reportedly approved a stock-swap deal to combine them into one
Karvan's naughty words and wardrobe malfunction shocks the LogiesHousing market tipped to implode
AUSTRALIAN house prices are 50 per cent above fair value, warns the man who predicted the GFC. AUSTRALIAN house prices will not implode because our market is different to overseas markets and their rules don't apply here, a local economist says.Rudd 'running scared' from real tax reform
CRITICS say Kevin Rudd is scared of fixing the tax system - find out here what it all means for you.
Thorpe training for Olympics comeback
AUSTRALIA's greatest Olympian has gold fever as he contemplates return for the 2012 Games.
Rudd 'running scared' from real tax reform
CRITICS say Kevin Rudd is scared of fixing the tax system - find out here what it all means for you.
Failed bomb may be 'South Park' revenge
SOUTH Park Prophet Mohammed episode may have been motive for failed Times Square bomb attack.
Beautiful strangers 'bad for your health'
MEN who spend just five minutes trying to attract a hot woman can "damage their heart from stress".
Net closing on emergency nurse's murderer
THERE is evidence that at least one person who clashed with Michelle Beets may have had a motive.
Frontline jobs spin 'exploits the dead'
THE State Government has been caught using the replacement of departed public servants as a spin exercise to look like it is boosting frontline services.
BP 'must pay bill for disastrous oil spill'
BP is "responsible" for the oil spill threatening US shores and must pay for the clean up, Obama says.
Teacher had 'intense fantasies' about boy
A HIGH school teacher has been accused of sending "disturbing" letters to a 16-year-old student.
Time travel possible 'in ultra-fast ships'
FAMED astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes time travel will save humans from themselves.
Wal-Mart staffer in David v Goliath battle
WORLD'S largest retailer faces billions in back pay if a disgruntled female worker wins her case.
=== Comments ===
Another Labor promise dies - Henry Tax ReviewPiers Akerman
THE Rudd Government’s tax reform package is at least consistent with its overall performance - it represents another broken promise. A huge one. - The Henry Review was an opportunity squandered. We could have produced a fair, better reform which allowed all Australians to build wealth. Instead, thanks to the puppet Rudd, we have a wealth redistribution agenda which will do little but leverage cash flow for the ALP and their mates. There is nothing here for the working family. There is nothing here for the sick or destitute. There is nothing here for the unemployed. However, the ALP are still rejecting much of the useless material as they are accepting some of the useless material. It must be a disappointment for their supporters.
This style of corruption is why I feel compelled to run for the NSW senate in 2011. It isn’t limited to the federal government. But in the case of the state government they have done something particularly ugly.- ed
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Tough Anti-Bullying Law
Massachusetts State Sen. Robert O'Leary on success of legislation - O'Reilly Factor
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We're Engaged In a Terror War -- And New York Is the Prime Target
By Walid Phares
Once again, we’re talking about another “terror act” taking place on U.S. soil.
New York’s Governor David Patterson labeled Saturday night’s foiled car bomb attack in Times Square an “act of terror.” Janet Napolitano, our secretary of Homeland Security is treating it as “potential act of terror.” Fair enough. If the three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components found in the back of the Nissan Pathfinder, had they exploded would have –in the words of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly “caused a significant ball of fire.” New York’s Mayor Bloomberg said the explosion could have caused “huge damage on a block of Broadway theaters and restaurants teeming with tourists.” In short, federal and local officials understand clearly that the SUV-bomb was aimed at killing a large group of New Yorkers and visitors, causing severe damage to the area and a shock to the public (who would be traumatized by the sight of such pictures), had, God forbid, the “act of terror” been successful.
Bravo to the watchful citizen who alerted authorities: he emerges as the hero in this counter- terrorism act. And also a high-five to the men and women of New York law enforcement who rushed to secure the area and disable the device. In that sense it was a success story for New York, one of the cities targeted most by terrorists in the Western world.
What follow will be intense investigations and many questions on two tracks: Technical inquiries and identity reconstruction. On the one hand officials will have to figure out why didn’t the bomb explode and how was it assembled and where? This line of investigation will tell us more about the capacity of terrorists to copycat this attempt, to move material of the same sort across city limits, or worse, build such a weapon inside Manhattan or any other U.S. city. There’s no doubt that the findings will be sobering. The capacity of potential terrorists to build urban-laden bombs, move them through cities, and choose their strategic targets easily would mean that such “acts of terror” can be repeated and launched again in the same city or in other locations across the nation. If the perpetrators did it in New York City, they could do it anywhere.
On the other hand authorities will have to determine the identity of the terrorists. And we’re not just talking about any social security or other identification numbers belonging to the terrorist(s) but their affiliation, their motives and their organization. The public has already received several confusing messages in the past year and a half regarding government’s quick reactions to previous terror attempts. In the most recent cases of the deadly attack at Ft. Hood and the unsuccessful Christmas Day “underwear bombing” attempt, administration officials rushed to call these acts “isolated extremists” only to discover there was more to the attacks in terms of links to a greater circle of terror. That’s why it is important to be cautious and move from evidence to evidence. "Amateurish" or not, as Bloomberg described the attempted terrorist attack, it was designed to have devastating effects. It was indeed an “act of terror.” Now comes the next part. We’ll need to know more about the minds behind it Saturday night’s fatal plan. Was it designed by a domestic extremist(s), homegrown jihadist(s) or was internationally coordinated? These are the questions as we search for answers in the days ahead.
In any of these scenarios, we’re talking about another “terror act” taking place on U.S. soil, it’s about the fifteenth since the beginning of 2009. By empirical methods multiple terror acts are a “terror war” waged against this country – and New York City is its prime target.
Dr. Walid Phares is a terror expert and Fox News contributor.
===
HE HAS HIS REASONS
Tim Blair
Whenever people complain about Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes being smug, condescending, or arrogant, I always tell them: “Well, maybe you would be smug, too, if you’d won a Victoria Cross and the Tour de France in the same year. And maybe you would be a little condescending if you’d devised an inexpensive water purification method with life-saving applications throughout the Third World and also a failsafe courtroom gambit to defeat all speeding charges. And maybe you would be arrogant as well if you’d knocked out Evander Holyfield in a street fight and secured a world-first interview with the Hidden Imam.”
Mind you, I’m not aware that Holmes has actually done any of these things, but he must have come terribly close. Otherwise he’s just some English bloke hosting a dull 15-minute TV show, in which case acting so very superior just makes no sense at all.
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CHILD UNCHEESED
Tim Blair
Rod Liddle on the case of the stolen sandwich:
A toddler at a playgroup near Manchester had the cheese sandwich from his lunchbox confiscated by deranged teachers because it did not accord with their “healthy eating guidelines”. The child, Jack Ormisher, was offered fruit, nuts, seeds etc by the teachers as compensation.
If he was older he might have had the wherewithal to shout back at them: “Do I look like a bloody chaffinch, you self-important, doctrinaire, Stalinist harridans?” But he didn’t, because he was only two years old, so he just cried his eyes out instead. What can we do about these people?
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CROSSIE VICTORIOUS
Tim Blair
We have a winner in this year’s Nenana Ice Classic. In other reader news, Vermont’s Dan F. emails:
Well, that sure was one almighty bender by Gaia last Tuesday – two feet of heavy wet snow. It pulled down trees and lines and what-not all over the place. The morning was a complete utility wipe-out; even the mobile phone network was out for most of the day. Here in the bullseye, we went 16 hours without electricity – and we were relatively lucky.Dan’s house during the approaching McKibben Effect:
In any case, with the morning being a throwback to the 19th century, I was crumbling up some sheets from a local free rag to start a fire in the woodstove when I noticed something: ”Bill McKibben to speak at Johnson State College.” Good grief. The Gore Effect now has its very own Typhoid Mary.
===Has Kevin Rudd’s spin finally worn out the tread?
Andrew Bolt
Here’s how Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan madly hyped a reform that ended with the most pathetic whimper - one giant new tax and a rise in the super guarantee.
Rudd, address to the 2008 Ideas Summit:
We also need to modernise our tax, welfare and retirement income systems to recognise rather than penalise hard work, and to enable Australian families to get by and get ahead. That is why today the Government has announced a comprehensive review of Australia’s tax system… The review will examine and make recommendations to create a tax structure that will position Australia to deal with the demographic, social, economic and environmental challenges of the 21st century. The review will consider whether Australia’s tax system contains appropriate incentives for:Swan, speech to the Institute of Company Directors, 2008:· workforce participation and skill formation;
· individuals to save and provide for their future, including access to affordable housing;
· investment and the promotion of efficient resource allocation to enhance productivity and international competitiveness; and
· reducing tax system complexity and compliance costs.
In building the best possible platform for future economic growth the Budget also set in train the most far reaching review of our taxation system in at least the last 50 years. This review will address the adequacy of social welfare payments, including the age pension, so we get it right for older Australians who have helped build this nation…And the response, after that build up? Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
The review will be ambitious. Unlike reviews of the past, this will be from the ground up. Rather than carving out one piece of the tax system at a time, it will examine all aspects and consider how each relates to each other… The objective will be to deliver an integrated tax system, taking into account international trends for lower marginal rates of tax applied across a broader base.
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How representative are they of the Aborigines who need our help?
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government has cemented the rise of the professional Aborigine - one who looks very different to the Aborigines you imagine your taxes helping:The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, launched in Sydney yesterday, is the first indigenous representative body since 2005, when the Howard government abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission amid corruption scandals.That’s Kerry Arabena and Sam Jeffries, co-chairs of this fundamentally racist body, above. Their CVs say it all.
The Rudd government has bankrolled the new group, pledging $29.2 million…
The group will represent Aboriginal interests in government, business and international forums… But while its agenda is bold, it is still unclear what the new body will fight for and campaign on.
Sam Jeffries, one of the inaugural full-time co-chairpeople of the body, told The Australian yesterday the group was still without a political agenda or “mandate” but would not be afraid to vigorously pursue the Rudd government, despite receiving federal funding… Mr Jeffries and Kerry Arabena are the inaugural full-time co-chairpeople ...
Indigenous spokesman Wesley Aird, who worked on billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s campaign for 50,000 Aboriginal jobs, said the new body was too bureaucratic and lacked a political identity.
“This looks like it will spend all of its money on administration and we’ve seen that in the past with ATSIC,” he said.
UPDATE
Nicolas Rothwell:
GRANDIOSE in name, modest in function, bizarre in its bureaucratic architecture, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples raises more questions than it answers about the indigenous future…UPDATE 2
The national executive’s members are all members of a distinct Aboriginal class: bureaucrats and prominent local advocates deeply engaged in the endless round of consultations and policy discussions that provide the heartbeat for the Aboriginal industry…
The profound crisis rocking the Aboriginal world today may be centred in the small, far-flung communities in the Top End and centre, but there is no room on the new executive for traditional leaders from that realm.
Arabena explains to an Aboriginal interviewer that she’s indigenous, too, and deplores the “militarised occupation of the Northern Territory” by the Howard Government - an invasion otherwise known as an intervention to save Aboriginal children from rampant neglect and child abuse.
===
Rudd must sack Henry
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government must sack Treasury secretary Ken Henry, chief author of a tax report it’s decided is almost completely useless:Despite promising the most far-reaching review since World War II, the Rudd Government has embraced a mere handful (the Coalition says three) of the 138 concrete recommendations.In fact, Rudd thinks Henry is so clueless that his biggest “reform” announced yesterday is precisely one Henry recommended against:
(The Government will) go to the election trumpeting an increase in the compulsory super contribution to 12 per cent for all. Never mind that the review panel specifically rejected this, for sound policy reasons.So the Government has ticked off just three of its chief economics guru’s 138 recommended changes for a “root and branch” reform, and has endosed exactly what he opposed. That is as comprehensive a vote of no confidence in Ken Henry that you could possibly get.
Clearly, Kevin Rudd thinks his Treasury secretary’s judgement is catastrophically bad. Ergo: Henry must be sacked.
If Rudd does not sack Henry, it is an admission that the Government is recklessly and cowardly refusing to do what it knows it must, and is instead doing what it knows is wrong.
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The tax that will kill what it hopes to harvest
Andrew Bolt
Mitchell Hooke, the Minerals Council of Australia chief, explains why Kevin Rudd’s new tax grab from mining companies is mad:
First, the government argues that the existing arrangements - six different state and territory-based royalty regimes - are unwieldy and inefficient.
But will the new tax streamline these arrangements?
Actually, no. The states will still operate their own schemes (with Canberra rebating these imposts back to companies from its new super tax back)…
Second, the government claims the new super tax will ensure the community gets a fair share of the dividend from mining expansion. Citigroup analysts wrote last week that Australian royalties and taxes are already some of the highest in the world. And this new super tax will make us the undisputed world champion on mining taxes.
Of course, the government claims that it missed out on $35 billion in revenue over the last decade. The facts tell a different story, but don’t take my word for it. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote last year that the mining boom had boosted commonwealth revenues by $334bn since 2004-5.... (T)he mining sector accounts for almost 18 per cent of corporate tax revenues, despite accounting for about 8 per cent of the economy…
Third, the government has decided for the mining industry alone any profit higher than a 6 per cent return (the long-term government bond rate) is a super profit which will attract the new 40 per cent super tax. How will that promote investment in inherently risky mining projects?…
The government argues that in defiance of economic logic, a new multi-billion dollar annual mining tax will actually increase mining output and therefore increase tax collections, which can then fund other commitments and promises.
But the more likely outcome - projects deferred, lower growth, and a new enthusiasm for off-shore investment - will mean revenue gains from the new tax could be much, much lower than the government anticipates. Locking in future spending on a gamble on future commodity prices is an interesting approach.
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Jones feels not so unusually hot, after all
Andrew Bolt
Now even Climategate’s Phil Jones, of the infamous Climatic Research Unit, concedes this warm period isn’t so unprecedented after all. CO2 Science reports on his latest joint paper:
In the words of the seven scientists, “temperatures during the warmest intervals of the Medieval Warm Period,” which they defined as occurring some 900 to 1300 years ago, “were as warm as or slightly warmer than present day Greenland temperatures.”(Thanks to reader Baa Humbug.)
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Rudd taxed for yet more empty promises
Andrew Bolt
About the only thing to come out of Kevin Rudd’s farcical Ideas Summit two years ago was a review to overhaul our tax system. As Rudd explained in response to the wish list of his 1000 “best and brightest”:
Some of these are ideas that the Government acted upon immediately, such as the Review of the Australian Tax System launched in May 2008… The Government agrees with the need to review taxation issues and is undertaking a comprehensive review of Australia’s tax system to position Australia to deal with the demographic, social, economic and environmental challenges of the 21st century.But not a commentator in the country would say Rudd’s response yesterday to the Henry review comes within a bull’s roar of his grand talk back then.
Terry McCrann:
(Ken) Henry and his four colleagues delivered Prime Minister Rudd and Treasurer Swan the most comprehensive and integrated tax reform package in our history and the duo spent five months working out how to dump it in the trash can.Paul Kelly:
Henry delivered 138 specific recommendations. The only one that was really picked up was the resources rent tax… And no prizes for guessing why. The now-dubbed “resource super profits tax” is both obvious and won’t scare the horses ...
The RRT is obvious, because it (seemingly) can raise big bucks… Except that’s exactly what Argentina did 100 years ago - target the wealth-generators… Except when you do that they tend to stop generating wealth....
The “nothingness” then extends into everything else. Because if you don’t reform the base, you can’t pick up on all the other taxes that Henry wanted to sweep away or at least simplify.
Henry was true, up to a point, to what he identified right at the start of the process. That more than 90 per cent of all the revenue raised at all levels of government - federal, state and local - came from just 10 taxes, while it took a bewildering array of 115 other taxes to raise the remaining 10 per cent.
So I suggested, and Henry has broadly endorsed, that reform would start by increasing each of the top 10 by 10 per cent and wiping away the 115.
THE nation is now engulfed in a new election year struggle over a new tax—the immediate upshot of the anti-climactic Henry review decisions. Farewell ETS, but welcome to the 40 per cent Resource Super Profits Tax…Stephen Long:
Most of the vaunted Henry review has been put on ice. In its highly selective response, Labor has avoided losers, averted sweeping changes to the income tax system, shown an election-year caution but engaged in two critical long-run reform battles: a tax re-distribution from the resources sector to the rest of the economy, and lifting the superannuation contribution rate from 9 per cent to 12 per cent…
Wayne Swan calls this profits tax “a world-class reform” to spread the benefits, combat the two-speed economy and deliver “a fair return from our natural resources wealth”.
The irony is that the new tax, estimated to raise $9 billion by 2013-14, is one of the few of the 138 recommendations in the Henry review actually taken up by the Rudd government…
It is significant that Henry committee member and Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said the result “falls short of bold or sweeping long-term tax reform”
The hollow men have got to this. The Government is introducing significant changes but, in key areas, it has squibbed it… The Government has run a mile from changes that would make the tax system both fairer and more efficient…George Megalogenis:
Take superannuation… It’s taxed at a flat rate of 15 per cent. So it favours high income earners over low and middle income earners… The review’s answer: Treat superannuation payments as income and tax them at the employee’s marginal tax rate, minus a flat rate offset.
It’s a solution that would make the tax system fairer and increase the pool of retirement savings but the Government’s rejected it… Give people on lower incomes a handout to offset their tax, but don’t close down the tax haven for the well-off, and go to the election trumpeting an increase in the compulsory super contribution to 12 per cent for all.
Never mind that the review panel specifically rejected this, for sound policy reasons. It points out that for lower income workers, with less bargaining power, the increase in retirement savings paid by the employer will likely be offset by lower wages during their working lives.
This isn’t tax reform by any stretch of the imagination…Peter Hartcher:
The Henry tax review thought it had a better idea to make super more equitable by simplifying the tax on individuals and lowering the burden on the funds. But Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan decided to boost the superannuation guarantee instead, a path Treasury thought unnecessary… The 12 per cent target won’t be achieved for nine years.
What are Rudd and Swan planning? They aren’t waiting for (mining industry) windfalls to waste them haphazardly - they’re making a pre-emptive strike on them, intending to give them away in a planned way. And the plan is? To get themselves re-elected, while selling a barely plausible economic cover story....Jacob Saulwick:
The proposed tax on super-profits will yield a minimum of $9 billion a year in taxes from 2013-14 onwards… The government pointed out that this is pretty much how Norway taxes its oil industry…
If they were serious, they would use the extra revenue to pay down the government’s debt, which stands at about $90 billion. That would put the country in an unassailably strong position. Or they would invest the resources windfall in a future fund. This is exactly what Norway does with the super-profits of its oil sector, building a big fund against the day the oil runs out.
‘’You should take some of that and give it back to Australians as shares in a corporation or a fund with its assets held offshore in foreign currencies,’’ says Warwick McKibbin, a leading economist and member of the Reserve Bank board....
Instead, Rudd and Swan are (raising) a new tax to give benefits to the swing voters that Rudd most fears losing to Tony Abbott.
In 971 pages, the Henry tax review proposes taking a knife to the numerous distortions and special interest lurks that bedevil the tax system. And, in 19 bullet points on the back of a press release, the Rudd government rejects many of the most interesting proposals.And note that the delays Rudd has built in to the implementation of his changes means a big spending boost just before the election after this one, with the nasties to come just after:
The spurned items straddle some of the most controversial aspects of the review. Ken Henry and co, for instance, proposed a 40 per cent discount on all income from savings - including investment properties, negative gearing deductions, capital gains, shares and savings accounts. The recommendation would have made bank savings more attractive, but property investment less so
===Germans must pay for Greek loafers and cheats
Andrew Bolt
The Greek crisis exposes hard truths which the cultural elite have refused to discuss, yet which could destroy not just the European Union, but challenge multiculturalism within each EU nation, too.
First, the background.
The European Union is now forced to bail out Greece, a near-bankrupt EU member, with a massive $170 billion bailout.
This means voters of hard-working, rort-resisting, tax-paying and prudent cultures like Germany will wonder why they must subisides cultures which breed the nepotism, welfarism, tax-dodging and manana economics that has led directly to the Greek collapse.
Examples from Greece’s extraordinary record of waste:
Tens of thousands of unmarried or divorced daughters of civil servants collect their dead parents’ pensions, weighing on a social security system experts say will collapse in 15 years unless it is overhauled....Then there’s the Greek contempt for paying taxes:
While the law protects civil servants from dismissal, it allows them to retire with a pension in their 40s.
Greek pension spending is expected to rise by 12 percent of gross domestic product by 2050, according to EU Commission data. That compares with an EU average of less than 3 percent of GDP…
Labour unions foiled government attempts to sell debt-ridden Olympic Airways for decades, costing Greek taxpayers millions while employees enjoyed generous benefits—their family members could fly around the world for free… Olympic was sold in 2008, but only after the state lavishly compensated or re-hired about 4,600 employees…
The state owns 74 companies, mainly utilities and transport firms, many of which are overstaffed and loss-making, the OECD says…
Hundreds of state-appointed committees employ staff though it is not clear what they all do. Greece has a committee to manage Lake Kopais, which dried out in the 1930s…
But nearly 80 percent of Defence Ministry spending goes on administrative costs and payments of army staff.
Prime Minister George Papandreou ... says that Greek workers and companies have skirted tax worth 31 billion euros, more than 10 percent of gross domestic product.Lubos Motl says when the EU now rescues Greeks from many of the consequences of such cultural practices, it must prepare to pay for yet more:
Greece’s revenue from income tax was 4.7 percent of GDP in 2007, compared with an EU average of 8 percent… The government is seeking to tap more revenue from a society in which 95 percent of taxpayers declare annual income of less than 30,000 euros…
“What distinguishes Greece from the rest of the pack is the extent of tax evasion,” said Michael Massourakis, chief economist at Athens-based Alpha Bank, the country’s third biggest-lender
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