=== Todays Toon ===
Lord Palmerston Addressing the House of Commons During the Debates on the Treaty of France in February 1860, as painted by John Phillip (1863).
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, more popularly known simply as Lord Palmerston KG, GCB, PC (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Popularly nicknamed "Pam", he was in government office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865, beginning his parliamentary career as a Tory and concluding it as a Liberal.He is best remembered for his direction of British foreign policy through a period when the United Kingdom was at the height of its power, serving terms as both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. Some of his aggressive actions, now sometimes termed liberal interventionist, were greatly controversial at the time, and remain so today.
He was the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to die in office.
=== Bible Quote ===
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18=== Headlines ===
Russia forced to release Somali pirates captured by its naval forces Thursday in the Gulf of Aden because of 'imperfections in international law.'Official: 'Fat Fingers' Not Behind Wall Street Chaos
Top Obama administration official says trader typo did not trigger Dow's largest intra-day point loss on record
Wikipedia Purges Porn From Websites
Site's parent company begins nixing images after FoxNews.com's reporting on the explicit content
Principal Sorry for No-Flag Decision
California principal apologized for forbidding U.S. flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo, superintendent says
History Mystery: Lost U.S. Colony Found at Last?
An English mayor is seeking to solve one of the biggest mysteries in American history: what happened to the settlers who were part of the so-called Lost Colony, Britain's The Guardian reported Friday. Andy Powell, mayor of Bideford, on England's southwestern coast, is convinced the English settlers who mysteriously disappeared from modern-day North Carolina's Roanoke Island joined the local Native American tribe, an assertion he says can be verified with DNA evidence in both America and Britain.5,000-Year-Old Skeletons Found in Moroccan Cave
Archaeologists in Morocco uncovered an ancient burial ground in a cave east of the capital Rabat, digging up human skeletons dating back 5,000 years, they told AFP Friday. It is the first time that human skeletons dating from the end of the Neolithic period to the Bronze Age have been discovered in Morocco, said Youssef Bokbot, leader of the team carrying out the digs. "Seven skeletons and four graves will allow us to identify very precisely the funeral rites of the Beaker culture, a first," Bokbot said of the discovery in a cave near Khemisset, 50 miles from Rabat. "The copper objects that we found confirmed humanity's evolution, the passage from stone to metal, a real transformation," the archaeologist added.
Nine years ago, British backpacker Peter Falconio was murdered in the Australian Outback and police won't give up the search for his gravesiteBudget spending targets radicals
MILLIONS will be spent trying to halt the spread of radical Islam as part of the Federal Budget.
PM's office advised of batts death risk
GOVERNMENT was warned the risk of workers dying from its insulation scheme was extreme.
Why our mums are worth an extra $60,000
WORKING mums are worth an extra $60,000 on top their salaries if housework is taken into account
Rates and home values to fall - experts
PROPERTY prices and interest rates might not rise much more this year, experts have predicted.
I just want to get drunk - Ian Dickson
AUSTRALIAN Idol judge Ian "Dicko" Dickson is struggling with his battle against the booze.
Ex-partner suspect in missing millionaire
CRAIG Puddy's former business partner has been arrested, a day after his burnt-out car was found.
Brown and Cameron in new fight to govern
LABOUR and the Conservatives are wooing the Lib Dems after the first hung parliament since 1974.
Upset at sentence for porn bagman
SHE was the world's most sought after child porn victim, a Russian girl - with links to Sydney. For more than 10 years the little girl known worldwide as Sandra eluded authorities as she was exploited on the internet by a network of paedophiles who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to view her images online. The case was finally cracked by Australian Federal Police after a 15-month investigation. They were stunned to learn the bagman for the international network was living near Penrith. Yesterday, Paul Randal Dennison, 47, of Emu Heights, was jailed for three years and four months after pleading guilty to two counts of using a carriage service to make child pornography available, possessing child pornography and two counts of using a carriage service to access child pornography. Dennison also pleaded guilty to dealing in the proceeds of crime after almost $700,000 from around the world passed through his Westpac account. Also found on his computer were the controversial images of naked children shot by Sydney artist Bill Henson, for which he was not charged. The leniency of the penalty stunned many at the sentencing.
Lying MP to keep $1.9m pension
AN MP who lied to a corruption inquiry will almost certainly keep her retirement benefits.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Fox News Celebrates Mother's DayWATCH VIDEO: Your favorite faces introduce you to their mothers and share some of the lessons they've learned.
WATCH VIDEO: When the cameras turn off, these Fox News moms aren't through with work!
Guest: Glenn BeckIt's go TIME! Beck squares off with the TIME magazine writer who called him seditious.
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Guest: Karl Rove
A new Republican strategy! It's an all out advertising, fundraising and media blitz for D.C. dominance! So, who's behind this massive political power play?
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The Crisis In Greece
Financial turmoil causing riots in the streets! Why a new report says it could happen here!
=== Comments ===
Immigration issues divide AmericansBill O'Reilly
'm angry. Angry because craven politicians and dishonest media are creating an atmosphere where good Americans are being pitted against one another.
Wednesday night in Phoenix, a candlelight vigil was held to protest the tough crackdown in Arizona on illegal aliens. About 5,000 people showed up, a low turnout for such a controversial issue.
Nevertheless, feelings about illegal immigration are running high.
A new Investor's Business Daily poll shows 60 percent of Americans support the new Arizona law which allows state and local police to investigate a person's citizenship if another police matter is in play. Just 30 percent oppose the law.
But you'd never know that if you follow the media, most of which is portraying the Arizona law as a racist situation passed to harm law-abiding Hispanics.
Here's President Obama on it:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We can't turn law-abiding American citizens and law-abiding immigrants into subjects of suspicion and abuse. We can't divide the American people that way. That's not the answer. That's not who we are as the United States of America, and that's why I have instructed my administration to closely monitor the new law in Arizona.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
With all due respect, Mr. President, instead of monitoring, you should be building. You, President Clinton and President Bush have all failed to secure the Mexican border.
Let me repeat that: Those three presidents have failed to secure the border.
There's no reason on earth that the most powerful country in the world cannot control its Southern border. The feds can do it. They simply won't do it, largely for political reasons.
So the state of Arizona, faced with an overwhelming crime problem, social chaos and a bankrupt treasury, had to do something. So they passed the new law. And now anybody who supports that law is being branded racist in the far-left precincts. If that doesn't make you angry, nothing will.
Hispanic-Americans are not at fault. Indeed some of them support tough measures to get illegal immigration under control.
As "Talking Points" has stated, if one group is singled out, that group is not going to be happy. We understand. But all Americans should support what's best for the country, and a porous border is not good for the country.
It's really a simple issue. We can't have millions of people walking in here unaccountable. The federal government is obligated to help Arizona and every other state.
It's way beyond time for all fair-minded Americans to rally together and solve this immigration mess.
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4 Scary Ways Terror and Immigration Are Tied Together
By Peter Huessy
Our own immigration system is so riddled with holes that terrorists can drive into our country in an explosive laden truck just like the Times Square bomb suspect did.
We can only hope that the Times Square near-bombing will focus our attention on the conventional wisdom surrounding from the left surrounding immigration reform. First there's the belief that no attempt at reform can succeed without a generous amnesty. Then, there's the belief that immigration "coyotes" and other scam artists do not associate with terrorists. And finally, there's the misguided belief that our relatively open border with Mexico, and thus by default the rest of the world, is no big deal, and can be resolved through the simple act of issuing more work visas.
In my own conversations with experts on immigration, the drug cartels and terrorism, it has always been an article of faith that while drug cartels certainly use illegal immigration as a conduit for smuggling drugs, terrorists are not welcome among the coyotes that smuggle migrants and vice versa. But that is changing.
In the laptop captured from a top FARC commander, evidence was found of links between Chavez and Russia (from where weapons and explosives would come and be transferred) and Hezbollah and drug syndicates (where FARC would help Hezbollah blow up pipelines carrying Mexican oil for America).
I'm not concerned about the links between terrorism and immigration because it's the issue of the day. And it's not because Arizona has passed legislation that enables local and state law enforcement to actually “enforce” a 1940 federal statute dealing with whether legal residents but not citizens of the U.S. have to carry “papers” (they do). Nor am I focused on it because the Senate is, once again, considering bringing up "compressive immigration reform."
No, the events that have made me even more concerned about immigration are four-fold.
1. Dozens of bomb plotters in attacks on the United States have used the immigration system to marry women here in America and thus gain citizenship faster and with less scrutiny than they otherwise would. This includes the bombing suspect arrested for attempting to blow up people in New York City and Times Square, a point made eloquently and most recently by Michelle Malkin.
2. In 2008, I testified before the Maryland State Assembly that driver licenses should not be given to those illegally in America. Remember Muhammad Atta had a driver’s license and when stopped in North Carolina for a traffic violation, the local police officer could not access immigration records to determine that Atta was here on an expired visa.
After testifying, I remained outside the hearing room and listened to a local Montgomery County representative to the Annapolis Assembly being interviewed by Mexican television about the oppressive nature of such a law as forbidding those illegally in the U.S. from getting driver licenses. She told a Mexican television reporter that there was really no such thing as an illegal immigrant: “They are all here simply waiting to adjust their status."
3. Then there is the news that Syria, probably via Iran and North Korea, has transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based terrorist subsidiary of Iran. Remember, Scud missiles used to be what we thought about when thinking about missile threats from Saddam’s Iraq and Kim’s North Korea. It appears everyone has graduated—Kim to long range rockets and Hezbollah to Scuds!
4. Finally, there's the likelihood that Iran will get a nuclear weapon and transfer it to a specially created and trained terror group to smuggle it into the United States. Open borders make that an easier job. Scam marriages do too.
So, here we are congratulating ourselves for capturing the Times Square suspect when our own immigration system is so riddled with holes that terrorists can drive right across our borders in an explosive laden truck and with a driver’s license secured in any number of states blind to current threats. And we congratulate ourselves when our supposed potential peace partners, with whom were are so eager to engage, are either sending rockets to terrorists or building nuclear bombs destined for an American city.
Why then are Washington elites hell-bent on approving amnesty provisions as a part of what is known as “compressive immigration reform?" What part of “terror-sponsoring state,” “terrorist,” “open borders” and “bomb” do they not understand? And what do we make of the common complaint that we only wish to secure our borders and make our immigration system synonymous with “common sense” because we are a racist country inhospitable to ethnic groups other than “Anglos?" God, has anyone who claims this actually walked around any American city recently? Amnesty is objectionable because the person who gets to decide whether or not 16 million estimated illegal immigrants get to stay in this country are the illegal immigrants themselves!! They are, of course, “just adjusting their status."
Speaking of the millions of people already here illegally, David Broder quoted the late Senator Kennedy as being dumbfounded about why people could not understand why the illegal immigrants already here in the USA had to stay here. The assumption: we cannot send them home or they will not go home. And so if they wish to stay here in America, well, they get to stay here. And if jihadists intent on blowing us all to kingdom come, want to come here from rural Pakistan and marry an American citizen—well aren’t we all in favor of multiculturalism? (Parenthetically, what skills are we adding to the American workforce by such an immigration policy?)
Immigration policy is now, by default, no longer a question of whom we as Americans desire to accept into our country. It has become a question of who wants to come to America whether we like it or not. And that is why so many citizens of this country are supportive of the Arizona law and against the amnesty provisions of past immigration reform laws. We want our sovereignty back. We want to decide who gets to be future Americans—because we value American citizenship and believe it should not simply be given away, either through amnesty, sham marriages or some wacky notion of multiculturalism. And we care who comes in and out of our country. Especially if they are armed. Armed with a bomb. Or a nuclear weapon. Feeling safe?
Peter Huessy is Senior Defense Consultant at the National Defense University Foundation.
===
Swan’s dead dream
Andrew Bolt
Wayne Swan’s pitch befor the last election turns out to be a devastating indictment of his Government’s performance since. There’s a call to “secure our prosperity beyond the mining boom”, a vow to deliver “urgent” and “decisive” action on devastating climate change, a promise of spending restraint and no increased taxes, a criticism of eight interest rate rises, an assurance of action on high petrol prices and a boast of a new “education revolution” to add to our skills (rather than our stock of overpriced school halls).
Listen and weep for dead dreams.
UPDATE
Tom Dusevic discovers plenty of buyer’s remorse among voters.
(Thanks to readers CA and JX.) .
===
Never mind that Nixon was unskilled
Andrew Bolt
Christine Nixon was Victoria’s coordinator of emergency services for disasters such as Black Saturday.
Small problem: the Government knew she had no real skills for that critical job:
CHRISTINE Nixon did not have the skills necessary to direct emergency management on Black Saturday but should not have left for dinner, Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron said yesterday.You see, Nixon was made Chief Commissioner of police and coordinator of emergency services not because of any particular ability to perform those roles, but because she symbolised a cultural change - a more feminised kind of policing. a leader of our times.
Fronting the Bushfires Royal Commission for the first time, Mr Cameron said Ms Nixon’s leaving was the wrong thing to do, but it would not have changed the outcome.
‘’It was unwise of her to go home, but she’s said - and I also have to agree - that if she stayed I don’t think it would have made any difference because she didn’t have the skills that other people have around emergency management,’’ Mr Cameron said.
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Call it Gore Disorder
Andrew Bolt
Global warming preachers are driving people mad with fear:
The Royal Australian and New Zealand Collage of Psychiatrists’ Congress at SkyCity Convention Centre in Auckland brings together mental health experts in a diverse range of areas; from children and adolescents to old age, mental health across the lifespan will be discussed. Here are some highlights from this morning’s program.(Thanks to reader cyncial1.)Global warming fears seen in obsessive compulsive disorder patients
A recent study has found that global warming has impacted the nature of symptoms experienced by obsessive compulsive disorder patients. Climate change related obsessions and/or compulsions were identified in 28% of patients presenting with obsessive compulsive disorder. Their obsessions included leaving taps on and wasting water, leaving lights on and wasting electricity, pets dying of thirst, leaving the stove on and wasting gas as well as obsessions that global warming had contributed to house floors cracking, pipes leaking, roof problems and white ants eating the house. Compulsions in response to these obsessions included the checking of taps, light switches, pet water bowls and house structures. “Media coverage about the possible catastrophic consequences to our planet concerning global warming is extensive and potentially anxiety provoking. We found that many obsessive compulsive disorder patients were concerned about reducing their global footprint,” said study author Dr Mairwen Jones.
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Rudd’s officials knew his insulation could kill
Andrew Bolt
What did the Prime Minister know and when did he know it?
OFFICIALS in Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett’s departments assessed the risk of death or injury under the government’s insulation program to be “extreme” three times in the three months before the first of four young workers was killed…
The risk assessments were made on July 31, September 17 and October 1, and concluded that unsafe or incorrectly installed ceiling batts could lead to “fire/damage, injury or death”.
The assessments were prepared by the Project Control Group set up to oversee the program, which included officials from the Department of Environment, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and other agencies, including Medicare and the Australian Taxation Office…
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said he did not see the risk assessments prepared by the Project Control Group.
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Will Rudd’s great new tax raise no money?
Andrew Bolt
Ivor Ries of EL & C Baillieu Stockbroking describes the folly of Kevin Rudd’s great $9 billion “super profits” tax:
The Resources Super Profits Tax will generate no new revenue for five years, and has stopped new projects dead.Read on to see how it all (doesn’t) work. (You’ll need to take out a trial subscription.)
There are 270 major resource projects in Australia undergoing feasibility studies and financing with a total capital value of $320 billion. These projects would have employed somewhere around about 120,000 people during the construction phase.
The Resources Super Profits Tax has stopped them dead in their tracks. All of those projects are now frozen. There are probably about 20,000 engineers working on these projects and by the end of the month half of them will be unemployed.
Over the past few days I’ve been struggling to come up with a couple of phrases that sum up the new Resource Super Profits Tax and after considering a great many options – most of them unprintable – I’ve settled on two: “sheer arrogance” and “vast stupidity"…
This tax will generate no new revenue (until 2015) because the forecasts in the RSPT document failed to take into account all the projects that are going to be put on ice as a result. The government’s forecast of an additional $9 billion in revenue from 2013-14 is rubbish and I bet there’s not a single Treasury official who will stand behind that number today.
UPDATE
Macquarie Private Wealth Premium Research warns its subscribers:
The truly scary aspect of this is the lack of understanding from Rudd and Swann towards equity risk premiums. The equity risk premium is the extra return an investor is paid in return for taking equity risk. The new tax is slated to apply if a business earns more than a 6% return (equal to the rate paid on “risk free” government bonds). Effectively they are saying we should not bother investing in industry that offers a better return than government bonds or they will double tax you.UPDATE 2
Our strategist asked Treasurer Swann a question yesterday on this issue and asked why the tax kicked in when returns exceeded the bond rate rather than the bond rate + an equity risk premium of say 5% (otherwise known as a companies cost of capital). Swann did not understand the question no matter how it was re-phrased - in other words the treasurer of Australia does not know what the cost of capital is for Australian companies. This is economics 101!…
Capital will continue to flow from Australia until either Labor loses the election or this tax is dropped. This is the greatest sovereign event Australia has faced since 1974 when Gough Whitlam was ousted.
I will continue to direct my clients funds towards the US until we see clarity in this situation.
Part of the miners’ anger is over some typical Rudd deceits:
The world’s biggest miner, BHP Billiton, ... is believed to be preparing a campaign to marshal its 600,000 Australian shareholders, including big superannuation funds, to fight the proposed changes.UPDATE 3
The industry believes the government has attempted to manipulate public opinion through misrepresentation of the industry’s tax burden.
The government says miners pay only $9bn in royalties despite generating $80bn or more in profits over the past decade.
But that number does not include income tax. The industry says its total tax burden was $22bn last year and it has paid $80bn in taxes and royalties in the past decade.
Peter Costello joined the debate, saying the charts prepared by Treasury were wrong.
“The graphs were bodgied up,” the former treasurer said.
Paul Kelly sums up the conflict:
Rudd Labor has misjudged and didn’t expect retaliation of this intensity or the campaign it now confronts…UPDATE 4
The government looked unconvincing as Rudd and Swan struggled to explain how the new tax would work. After meeting protesting mining chiefs in Perth, Rudd kept saying the 40 per cent rate was “about right”. The industry has several core complaints: the rate is too high and damages Australia’s competitiveness; the tax applies to current projects and has a retrospective impact on current investment; the definition of super profits is too low and under-estimates capital costs over the life of the project; the tax does not replace state royalties but involves instead a rebate for them; and the complex design that involves government as a silent equity partner to 40 per cent of every resources project via a new tax allowance that also means government bears a share of the risk.
Mining chief Clive Palmer explains how the tax will strangle his industry, costing Australia jobs and wealth.
UPDATE 5
Terry McCrann:
On the one hand, the cries of outrage from the resources industry are nauseating. The super profits being made by BHP Billiton and Rio and the rest are pure windfall, courtesy of China.UPDATE 6
This is not to deny their skills, their entrepreneurship, and the very real financial risks taken by the companies and their shareholders. All of which deserve, indeed require, a discounted rate of return at least double that of the long-term bond rate, seemingly Rudd’s witless marker for a “super profit”.
But they were getting that, and had been prepared to make their original investments in the Pilbara and in the coalfields, at much lower commodity prices. And then along came China....
On the other hand, it would pay the Prime Minister to look at a speech delivered by Reserve Bank deputy governor Ric Battellino in February… There’s one simple message: every boom is followed by a bust—an immediate bust…
(It’s assumed) that China will sustain a never ending commodity boom. Even without looking at the specific tensions and challenges in that country today and the unlikelihood that the Chinese are somehow “smarter” than all the previous economic super-masters before them, the Japanese, the Germans, indeed the Americans, I suggest that is unlikely.
Yet we now have a prime minister assuming it will be so and seeking to pocket the proceeds before they’ve been, well, dug up.
Reader Ray:
Rudd raises the tax on cigarettes and claims that it will give people more incentive to quit. Yet somehow raising tax on mining profits wont have the same effect on the mining industry.UPDATE 7
Anna Bligh isn’t with Rudd’s program yet:
QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh has become the second state leader to question the proposed federal resources tax, declaring she will raise her concerns with the Prime Minister.My own tip: Watch Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, under pressure from Rudd to back what he seems to think is not smart.
While Western Australia’s Liberal Premier Colin Barnett has condemned the proposed tax, the Queensland Labor leader said she wanted to ensure there was clarity on ‘’questions like what is a ‘super’ profit, and how we protect new industries like LNG’’.
This follows oil and gas producer Santos saying the company is considering the tax’s impact on its liquid natural gas (LNG) project at Gladstone.
(Thanks to readers Kent, John and Andrew.)
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Just one in three now believe
Andrew Bolt
The incredible shrinking issue of the end of the planet:
Two out of three Australians are not convinced climate change is man-made, and even those who do believe it is aren’t prepared to pay much to fix it, a new poll shows.Astonishing change in climate,
A Galaxy Poll, commissioned by the conservative Institute of Public Affairs, found 35 per cent of respondents blamed humans for global warming.
Fully 26 per cent believed it was just part of a natural cycle, while 38 per cent remained uncertain.
Thirty-five per cent said they would not be prepared to pay anything to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.
Of those who believed climate change to be man-made, 27 per cent said they would be prepared to pay only $100 or less a year in increased tax and utility costs.
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