=== Todays Toon ===
Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1st Baronet, GCH, GCB FRS, FRSE (23 July 1773 – 27 January 1860) was a British soldier, colonial Governor and astronomer.=== Bible Quote ===
“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”- Colossians 3:13=== Headlines ===
Attorney General Eric Holder announces that the FBI is investigating whether excessive force was used in the killing of Mexican teen by U.S. border agent.White House Under Fire for Changes to Drilling Report
Seven experts who advised president on offshore drilling safety after oil rig explosion are accusing administration of misrepresenting their views on drilling moratorium
Surprise Election a Criminal Matter?
Rep. Clyburn calls on feds to investigate how unemployed veteran won South Carolina Democratic Senate primary
Search On for Calif. Girl Missing at Sea
Rescuers search for teen who is trying to sail solo around world after communication was lost in Indian OceanWorld Cup host bid abandoned
AUSTRALIA pulls out of the race to stage the 2018 World Cup, saying it will aim for 2022 instead.
Cabinet cracking on mining super tax
LABOR forced into damage control after Trade Minister undermines PM's handling of miners.
Crime victims outraged at Kristina Keneally's plan for criminals to serve sentences at home
A PLAN to to slash the rising costs of running NSW prisons by allowing offenders sentenced to less than two years has drawn fire from victims, but advocates say it is a responsible approach. Under the proposal every criminal sentenced in the Local Court to two years or less in jail, except for sex offenders, will be eligible to serve their sentences at home. The cost to the the Government is $46 a day for home supervision instead of $194 a day to keep them in jail. Victims groups say they are outraged at Premier Kristina Keneally's proposed solution to the high cost of keeping prisoners in overcrowded jails reported The Daily Telegraph. "It doesn't make any sense, it takes the punishment aspect of the sentence away," victims advocate Peter Rolfe said. "It is appalling. - I have no problems with the concept. I don't think it is being introduced the right way. I think Keneally should bring this policy before the electorate in election, not spring it on them before an election when the previous election promises have been to be tougher on crime. - edAustralia's most expensive divorce
WIFE demanded $278,000 a month, plus $3.3m Swiss chalet, for her and her "little prince".
Banks pocket $5bn from customers
HOMEOWNERS switching loans to take advantage of low rates making banks a fortune.
Woman living real life Groundhog Day
CRASH victim thinks it is 1994 every morning because her memory constantly resets itself.
Man with two-year-old in car blows .235
MAN charged with driving at almost five times the legal blood-alcohol limit had his toddler with him.
Murder charge over CBD fight
MAN, 24, charged with murder after brutal CBD brawl which left one person dead.
Governor Marie Bashir sought legal advice on sacking NSW Government
NSW Governor Marie Bashir sought legal advice as to whether it was in her power to sack the Labor Government shortly after Kristina Keneally replaced Nathan Rees. The advice was sought from the Solicitor-General in December after The Daily Telegraph began a petition calling on Ms Bashir to sack the Government. It's understood Ms Bashir was also receiving letters and being approached by people imploring her to do it. Ms Bashir said she was told the only way she could do it was if there was a successful no-confidence motion in the Government and she said the public would have their say at the election.
Sex with daughter consensual, says Brazil father accused of holding her captive
A MAN accused of imprisoning his daughter for 12 years and fathering her seven children says their relationship was consensual. The comment comes as a second daughter told authorities she was abused by her father and bore him a son.
Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara convicted of Srebrenica genocide
SURVIVORS of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre say the life sentences handed down by the UN court against two Bosnian Serbs found guilty of genocide were crucial for Bosnia's future. The Hague-based UN court sentenced Bosnian Serb officers Vujadin Popovic, 53, and Ljubisa Beara, 70 to life imprisonment. The judges ruled that the men played a leading role in the massacre committed by Bosnian Serb forces in the final stages of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. They said: "The scale and nature of the murder operation, with the staggering number of killings, the systematic and organised manner in which it was carried out, the targeting and relentless pursuit of the victims, and the plain intention - apparent from the evidence - to eliminate every Bosnian Muslim male who was captured or surrendered proves beyond reasonable doubt that this was genocide.=== Comments ===
Fat cats in bed with their Labor paymastersPiers Akerman
LABOR’S political fear-mongers, state and federal, routinely launch unimaginative scare campaigns about cuts to the public service whenever elections loom.
public sector jobs, two sides to this little scheme.- Good points, Grumpy. Piers both understates and overstates the issue for front line staff. The issue for front line staff is overstated because many are honestly working to fulfill the demands made on them by their tasks, but they don't have the right resources to do it and are cut down for trying too hard or being too independent. But it is also understated because many front line staff are merely time serving and apparently feel that they are being pragmatic.
front line staff are working their little arses off trying to stem the flow of a society falling apart.
The other side is the higher echelon of bureaucrats who see their jobs as a means to an end, a chance to get their snout in the trough.
Piers, you say,
“The NSW public sector employs a higher proportion of professionals than the private sector. “These groups have historically had higher wages growth than other occupations.
I think at this point we must differentiate between the front line staff and those who rort the system.
There is a major difference, I have pointed out to you (in private) the corruption about how staff are employed, how people in higher positions get their jobs.
The liebore party does not “buy” the moral standards of most of the front line staff. The front line staff also do not systematically support the unions.
Many of the most professional staff have left out of disgust.
Considering the garbage that is going to come on this blog about public servants I think it is important we differentiate between front line staff and bureaucrats.
grumpy of casino
The issue of Hamidur Rahman expresses itself here too. Those who were apparently responsible for the death of the schoolboy were 'just doing their job' and continued to do so in covering up the death after. Senior bureaucrats had a different agenda. It should be really disturbing that the mid level bureaucracy has apparently been politicized by the ALP so that appointments are apparently (and illegally) made without expectation of investigation by anti corruption watchdogs. - ed
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Obama, Race and oil spill
By Bill O'Reilly
Once again, the media has outdone itself.
A few days ago, President Obama was getting pounded for being too placid, too cool about the huge oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Then the president went on the "Today" show proclaiming that he is doing everything he can, talking to all kinds of people:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Almost immediately after that, the "kick butt" comment was kicked back at Mr. Obama in a racial context.
Far-left Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart wrote: "African-American men are taught at very young ages (or learn the hard way) to keep our emotions in check, to not lose our cool, lest we be perceived as dangerous or menacing."
Can you believe this? In the space of 48 hours, Mr. Obama has gone from apathetic to menacing because he's a black guy. Amazing.
Political writer Mark Halperin also framed the issue with race:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK HALPERIN, TIME MAGAZINE: Matt Drudge takes the Matt Lauer quote and he casts it as "Obama Goes Street," and includes this photo of an angry-looking Barack Obama. I think it's all pretty clear to all of us what's going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Well, it's not clear to me.
Apparently this whole thing has to do with a Matt Drudge headline, as Mark Halperin said, that says "Obama Goes Street." Also, the slang "street" is sometimes used in African-American precincts.
But again, this is just dumb. It's obvious the president is feeling the heat from the oil spill. His poll numbers are cratering. Sixty-nine percent of the public thinks he's doing a bad job on it according to a new ABC News poll.
So he decides to be a tougher guy, and now we have a racial thing.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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Gaza, Guantanamo and the Media Battlefield
By J.D. Gordon
Israel’s high seas drama in halting the “humanitarian aid” flotilla of ships bound for Gaza last week drew worldwide condemnation -- criticism that bears striking resemblance to the international uproar against U.S. detention operations at Guantanamo.
Both Israel and the U.S. have been under siege from a widespread propaganda campaign waged by a union of international leftists and anti-Western figures in the Islamic world for decades. From the loose alliance of European communist and Palestinian terrorist groups in the 1970s, to the holocaust denials of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reprehensible comments last week by then-White House press corps dean Helen Thomas, the information war has been pervasive.
Like the U.S. a decade ago, Israel does not seem to grasp the enormity of the battle of ideas being fought against it, particularly in European and Muslim countries. Often one-sided press reports (e.g.: U.K.-based Reuters which conveniently cropped out a large knife in a photo taken of flotilla activists standing above a bloodied Israeli soldier lying on the ship’s deck), harsh rhetoric from political and religious leaders, incendiary entertainment programs, frequently violent demonstrations culminating in U.S.-Israeli flag burnings, all have synergistic effects in creating such a negative image.
Such propaganda has helped to spur terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic radicals to include hostage taking, bombings and aircraft hijackings -- from Tehran to Munich, Beirut to London, Bali to Entebbe, and Tel Aviv to New York. While speaking out for human rights, some organizations cynically support terrorists bent on mass killing of civilians.
Israel and the U.S. have responded to physical attacks by exercising their right of self-defense. In their efforts to protect security at all costs however, they have at times not done enough to win the battle of ideas to accompany success in combat. (more at the link)
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SINKING FEELING
Tim Blair
The ABC’s Fran Kelly on Labor’s mood following recent polls:
At least one senior MP told me the Government was going to lose, and other political advisers and strategists privately concurred. “The core of the whole show is complete chaos,” said one. “I think the Government’s actually beaten itself,” said another.According to Kelly, Labor-held seats that are now vulnerable include Hasluck and Swan in WA, Dawson, Flynn, Leichhardt, Longman, Herbert and Dickson in Queensland, Bass and Denison in Tasmania, plus Robertson, Dobell and Macquarie in NSW. Also: “Giant-killer Maxine McKew will struggle to hold Bennelong." In contrast to the government, Australian-based mining companies are trending up on Wall Street:
Not all were quite so pessimistic but there was basic agreement on one point, the idea of an Abbott-led Coalition government was no longer preposterous, in fact it’s the idea of a convincing Labor victory at the next election that now looks fanciful.
Rio’s stock was trading at $47.56, up 6.3%. BHP was at $64.99, up 5.6%.Kevin Rudd has moved on to the important subject of yaks.
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FAKE BUT GREEN
Tim Blair
The BBC reports:
There are many “green fakers” who only pretend to be eco-friendly, claims a psychologist who has been studying what is revealed by body language.Gestures such as this, for example. Speaking of gestures:
Geoff Beattie, based at the University of Manchester, has published research showing how people’s green opinions can be contradicted by their gestures.
People “may care a good deal less” than the views they express, he says.
While words can be controlled, he says “gestures are difficult, if not impossible, to edit”.
Developing countries were today shocked by new UN data showing that rich nations will be able to increase their carbon emissions by up to 8% if they take advantage of a series of major loopholes in their pledges.(Via Benny Peiser)
Instead of reducing emissions by a minimum of 30-40% by 2020 and holding temperatures to a rise of 2C – as many campaigners hoped the Copenhagen climate summit in December would achieve – many rich countries would not need to make any domestic cuts to stay within the legal limits of a new global climate deal being negotiated at resumed UN talks in Bonn this week.
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HAMASEXUAL
Tim Blair
Tel Aviv gays are banned from a Madrid parade because their city hasn’t condemned the fauxtilla – leading to this response:
“I ... don’t recall Madrid’s gay organisations condemning any of the Palestinian terrorist attacks on cafes or buses,” Eytan Schwartz, a spokesman for the city told Spain’s El Mundo newspaper.Good call.
“Don’t they know that Islamist fundamentalists don’t just want to finish off Israel, but that they also believe homosexuals should ‘cure themselves’ or die?”
“It is shameful that they should join with pro-Palestinian and fundamentalist groups which are not exactly tolerant with homosexuality,” he said.
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SHINE ON
Tim Blair
As usual, this site’s readers are ahead of the curve. Now catching on in NYC, “exposed-filament bulbs, energy-guzzling reproductions of Thomas Alva Edison’s first light bulb”:
Despite the escalating push to go green and switch to compact fluorescents — or perhaps because of it — their antique glow has spread like a power surge.Also, they are less likely to set diners on fire, which is always nice.
Whether in hip hangouts tapping into the popular Victorian industrial look or elegant rooms seeking to warm up their atmosphere, the bulb has become a staple for restaurant designers, in part because it emulates candlelight and flatters both dinner and diner.
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Free Gaza!
Andrew Bolt
(Thanks to reader Rachel.)
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Watts up for a tour of Australia
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s Counterpoint interview US meteorologist and blogger Anthony Watts about his extraordinary private project to check the siting of US weather stations which are claimed to record a warming trend:
Anthony Watts: The project summary is basically this; the majority of stations are out of compliance with the Weather Service’s own siting rules, and while the compliance itself is clear and no-one denies that, the question then becomes how has that affected the temperature record. Dr Pielke, his research group and myself are now in the process of finishing a paper for submission to a peer reviewed scientific journal that illustrates what we found in the way that siting difference has affected the US temperature record. And I can say with certainty that our findings show that there are differences in siting that cause a difference in temperatures, not only from a high and low type measurement but also from a trend measurement and a trend calculation.Watts and several other prominent sceptics are on a speaking tour of Australia this month from June 12. Go here for detaills of where and when they’ll be speaking, and how to book. Watts will be speaking at Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Noosa, Emerald, Hobart, Adelaide, Mt Gambier, Hamilton, Ballarat, Narrogin, Perth, Canberra, Wagga Wagga and Coffs Harbour.
So we believe that the United States temperature record is biased by this problem, and that the problem also extends worldwide…
Michael Duffy: In which direction does the bias lie? Are you suggesting that the temperature has not got as hot as the American official historical record suggests?
Anthony Watts: That’s correct. It’s an interesting situation. The early arguments against this project said that all of these different biases are going to cancel themselves out and there would be cool biases as well as warm biases, but we discovered that that wasn’t the case. The vast majority of them are warm biases…
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Crean criticises Rudd strategy; Rudd buckles
Andrew Bolt
The issue isn’t just the tax, but the political handling of it. And on that score...:
LABOR was forced into damage control yesterday after Trade Minister Simon Crean undermined Kevin Rudd’s handling of the proposed mining tax by explicitly criticising government consultations with resource companies.UPDATE
In the first public sign of disunity within the Rudd cabinet over the resource super-profits tax, Mr Crean said late on Wednesday the government should have consulted business before announcing its scheme and was now acting to “fix” its error…
By mid-afternoon, government sources said Mr Crean would release a statement clarifying his comments. But when that statement came Mr Crean did not recant his criticism of the lack of early consultation before the RSPT was announced on May 2.
Terry McCrann says the Government is about to buckle:
THE Rudd Government will announce major changes to its proposed resources super profits tax today or tomorrow.But McCrann says don’t expect a deal soon:
The changes will go some way to meeting the general objections of the mining industry.
They are specifically aimed at helping coal seam gas projects in the key battlefield state of Queensland, where the coming federal election will be won or lost…
The core change will be to make the proposed tax more like the existing Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.
The Government is going to dump the 40 per cent underwriting of losses and lift the threshold profit rate at which the tax kicks in from the long-term bond rate of around 6 per cent to something above 10 per cent.
Crucially, it is going to put coal seam gas projects into the PRRT - theoretically allowing them to compete not only with normal natural gas, but with oil and gas tax regimes internationally. And it is going to take quarries and gravel out of the tax, to meet fears the tax would force up the price of building and so actually feed into the cost of ordinary houses.
These changes ... do not address some of the biggest worries of resource groups… BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers said a mining version of the PRRT would be “only slightly less flawed” than the original proposal.UPDATE 2
Small Business Minister Craig Emerson in a round table debate with business representatives and a CFMEU boss on Sky News yesterday showed what a mistake it was for Rudd to have virtually frozen him (and other Ministers) out of consultations before announcing the tax. Emerson helped the Hawke Government on its petroleum resources tax model, and could have had a lot useful to contribute in designing this “super profits” tax on mining. Last night he was persuasive on the case for more taxation, and quick to concede (in as far as he is licenced) flaws in the tax’s design. It was almost as if a deal could have been struck there and then.
Once again, an example of the central problem of Rudd’s method of government - that manic need for control, that smart-arsery and that refusal to consult or let rip the talent in his team.
But for all the optimism of a looming deal:
Mr Rudd met yesterday with mining magnate Andrew Forrest and spent 80 minutes discussing the tax and its impact. After the meeting, Mr Forrest said:”...To be very clear, the Prime Minister and I have nothing to discuss, nor anything to negotiate, while this tax stands because it will be debilitating to the mining industry and the negative impacts will be felt by the whole economy.”UPDATE 3
The much more reticent Marius Kloppers nevertheless seems just as adamant:
BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers said the company was still looking for ‘’true consultation’’ on the key issues, which were retrospectivity leading to sovereign risk and the false notion that ‘’one size fits all’’ - a uniform tax rate across commodities.Which means the Government may be weakening, but the miners still aren’t buying - and other business leaders remain critical:
A private meeting between Mr Rudd and mining magnate Andrew Forrest also seemed to lower the temperature slightly - although another prominent billionaire, retailer Gerry Harvey, joined the chorus of criticism of the government.The now open contempt for Rudd from Harvey and other business leaders is remarkable.
Mr Harvey, a supporter of the new tax, said the government was acting like ‘’bloody amateurs’’ in selling the tax to the public, who had begun to believe Mr Rudd was a ‘’fake’’.
UPDATE 4
Hey, why not a “super profits” tax for these guys, too?
PENALTY charges imposed on consumers in the depths of the financial crisis contributed to a record $12.7 billion fees bonanza enjoyed by Australia’s banks in the last financial year.UPDATE 5
Meanwhile, Rudd’s tax and other follies kill more jobs:
The mining tax, carbon reduction legislation and electricity prices have led to the scrapping of billions of dollars worth of aluminium smelter upgrades in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.(Thanks to reader Terry.)
The ABC has been told Norwegian company Hydro has shelved its $4 billion Kurri Kurri smelter upgrade, while plans for Tomago Aluminium’s proposed $600 million potline have also been scrapped. Escalating electricity prices are the biggest concern along with the mining tax, carbon reduction legislation and renewable energy targets.
The projects could have created up to 20,000 new jobs.
Hunter Business Chamber CEO Peter Shinnick says it is disastrous.
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Pitiful Australia
Andrew Bolt
The US West Coast Climate Equity group of warmist activists is motivated by the horrific suffering in Australia:
Only an empathic sense for the suffering of people in Pakistan, Nigeria, China and Australia, to name just a few countries already being severely affected by climate change, will motivate us to take the strong and immediate action needed.These people are crazy.
(Thanks to reader Craig.)
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Surely justice should not be this slow and terrible
Andrew Bolt
SBS tells of justice done in a way that punished the innocent - and terribly:
Every Family’s Nightmare raises questions about systemic, procedural and cultural flaws in Australia’s criminal justice system by investigating the case of Perth schoolboy Patrick Waring.The full video here. A summary of the lies that robbed Patrick of a year of freedom here.
Patrick was jailed for a year while his family battled to prove his innocence. From the time he was accused of raping a teenage girl on 30 March 2006, the Western Australian police were convinced Patrick Waring was guilty. His family knew they were wrong. Over the next year, the Waring family assembled an international team of experts to help defend their son, exposing deep flaws in the police investigation and the use of forensic science in the case.
An international award winning documentary, Every Family’s Nightmare uses observational footage, re-enactments and interviews with key participants to document the Warings‘ ordeal from the time the allegations were made to the outcome of the trial. But while Patrick is eventually acquitted, his life will never be the same. The fight to clear his name and regain his freedom has cost his family everything and Patrick has lost a year of his childhood while in jail
(Thanks to reade Megan.)
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We’d need a whole paper devoted to just graffiti
Andrew Bolt
A single instance of graffiti is huge news in Singapore - and it’s a barbarian from Europe who, not surprisingly, is to blame:AN MRT train parked in a depot was hit with garish graffiti in what amounted to a serious security breach in a restricted area here.(Thanks to reader Peter.)
The vandal apparently sneaked into the sprawling depot at Changi, despite an array of barriers, including fences topped with barbed wire.
Once inside, he spray-painted elaborate graffiti on one side of a train, across one carriage. The Straits Times understands that the vandal, a 33-year-old Swiss national, cut through the fence of the depot along Xilin Avenue, in what is believed to be the first such case of vandalism here.
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The Left now fixates on Palin’s breasts
Andrew Bolt
TigerHawk is once more astonished at the hypocrisy of sheer meanness of the Palin haters:Sarah Palin’s breasts are suddenly the objects of great interest on the left, not because of their obvious appeal, but as an opportunity to accuse her of having enhanced them with implants. This controversy follows an earlier obsession with Sarah Palin’s medical care, the election-year spat over whether she is indeed the mother of her son Trig or (alternatively) was reckless in flying back to Alaska to give birth to him.TigerHawk points out two things to these boobs of the Left.
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Rudd dumps our toughest gatekeepers
Andrew Bolt
THE fix is in. The Rudd Government has purged the refugee bureaucrats most likely to knock back applications from asylum seekers.
And it’s replaced many with activists more likely to let them in.
The political payoff for the Government? This should help empty the embarrassingly full detention centres a bit faster.
The statistics tell the story.
Last week the Refugee Review Tribunal announced which of its 43 members applying for reappointment would be kept, and which sacked.
An unusually high number - 18 - were shown the door, including a former Labor MP, Noel Pullen.
Furious RRT insiders have checked the case records of these 43 to see how they handled appeals by asylum seekers wanting a review of Immigration Department decisions to turn them down and send them home.
The 25 RRT members who were reappointed last week have, over the past three years, rejected appeals by asylum seekers in 62 per cent of cases.
In contrast, the 18 RRT members who were sacked rejected 78 per cent of appeals. What’s more, the toughest four RRT members were all sacked.
Here are some of the people who will replace them.
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Flannery can’t take the heat
Andrew Bolt
HMM. So how has Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery got away with it for so long?
Answer: because he seems nice.
Oh, and because journalists just won’t hold our leading global warming spruiker to account for his litany of dud predictions, exaggerations, falsehoods and bizarre conflicts of interest.
Click here to have your say at Andrew’s blog
But on Wednesday - and give him credit - he wandered into our studio at MTR 1377 for some reason best known to himself.
Was it a false confidence, born of years of near unquestioned adulation?
Was it that being named Australian of the Year in 2007 made him feel above any pesky but-but-butting from the few media sceptics?
Or was it - as the following transcript suggests - that Flannery, now head of the Rudd Government’s Coast and Climate Change Council, has an eerie ability to forget inconvenient truths about his past finger-wagging?
Whatever. What we do know is that our chat this week was the first time I can recall that Flannery, the highly influential author of The Weather Makers and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has been confronted at length.
Read on, to see how even this giant of warming alarmism dealt with it. You may well then wonder if the great warming scare of the past decade would ever have taken off had more journalists fact-checked the wilder claims and predictions of not just Flannery, but other professional scaremongers such as Al Gore, David Suzuki, Peter Garrett, Rob Gell and Bob Brown.
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Another $45 million blown on Rudd’s ego
Andrew Bolt
I wasn’t the only one to warn at the time that Kevin Rudd’s grandiosity would just waste more millions:
The federal government will spend $45.6 million on a bid to bring the soccer World Cup to Australia in 2018...Small problem: two years on, Asian countries aren’t rallying around Rudd’s Australia:
“Today’s announcement sends a clear message to the football world that Australia is serious about hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a joint statement with Sports Minister Kate Ellis and Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson.
Australia remains in the bidding to host the 2018 World Cup despite the Asian confederation declaring the event should go to Europe… Asian Football Confederation president Mohammad bin Hammam, speaking at an AFC meeting Tuesday, officially threw his organization’s support behind Europe — somewhat unusual with one of its members still in the running.So 2018 is gone:
Australia has pulled out of the race to stage the 2018 World Cup and will instead target the 2022 tournament.But now our chances of winning the 2022 rights are as good as dead, too, coming down to a battle essentially between the US and Qatar, with Australia nowhere:
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a man well versed in playing politics, has given his strongest indication yet that $43 million could have gone up in smoke on Australia’s World Cup bid.Note that Asian Football Confederation president Mohammad bin Hammam, who just dumped Australia to back Europe for 2018, is from Qatar. I think he’s expecting a quid pro quo for 2022, and he sure doesn’t mean European support for Australia.
Just four months after backing a European nation to get the 2018 finals, Blatter is throwing his support behind Qatar to become the first Arab country to host a World Cup in 2022.
Blatter told a news conference in Doha at the weekend that he was impressed by Qatar’s rapid rise as a major sporting destination in the region and that the gas-rich country had dramatically improved its infrastructure.
“The Arab world deserves the World Cup and Qatar has a good chance to become the first country from the region to host it,” Blatter told reporters.
Once again, Rudd has done our dough.
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Iran gets the message - and the missiles
Andrew Bolt
Gee, these are really tough new sanctions on Iran, the fascist state now working on a nuclear weapon:
Russia said Thursday that the new UN sanctions do not forbid the delivery of S-300 air-defense missiles to Iran.(Thanks to reader D man.)
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Wilders triumphs
Andrew Bolt
Holland - long seen as a liberal, pot-smoking hippie hang-out - seems keen to defend the culture that’s made it so free, to judge from this week’s election:
With 88 per cent of the votes counted, published partial results showed the Liberals with 31 and Labour on 30.(Thanks to reader D Man.)
But the real victory went to Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), which demands an end to immigration from Muslim countries and a ban on new mosques. The PVV took its number of seats from nine in the last parliament to 24, and could hope to enter a coalition government…
“The impossible has happened,” Wilders told a televised party gathering. “We are the biggest winner today. The Netherlands chose more security, less crime, less immigration and less Islam.” ...
Mr Balkenende conceded defeat for his Christian Democrats when voters turned against the party, nearly halving its seats from 41 to 21.
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Off their trolley
Andrew Bolt
Erskineville, where only the strong and single can do the weekly shopping:
Shoppers at a new Sydney supermarket will have to cart their groceries around the store without the help of trolleys because of a council decision.(Thanks to reader Watty.)
The Sydney City Council has banned shopping trolleys at a small supermarket in Erskineville Road in the city’s west… Labor councillor Dr Meredith Burgmann says the decision was based on maintaining traffic levels in the area.
“Councillors believed that if you had a trolley for the actual shopping, the fact that you couldn’t take it out of the shop was not going to stop people from doing a very big shop and then needing a car to go home.”
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Obama sinks, and takes a great company with him
Andrew Bolt
The more they look at Barack Obama, the less they see… Remind you of anyone?Meanwhile, Obama’s politically-driven bashing of BP (again, see any parallel with some nasher of fat-cat miners?) is not just helping to kill a giant company, but is wiping billions off the savings of Britons:
(London) Mayor Boris Johnson demanded an end to “anti-British rhetoric, buck-passing and name-calling” after days of scathing criticism directed at BP by the President and other US politicians.Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney sees a pattern of behaviour from the most Left-wing president in modern times:
Former Conservative Party chairman Lord Tebbit branded Mr Obama’s conduct “despicable"…
(Johnson) spoke as the US onslaught against the firm became a “matter of national concern” — especially given its importance to British pensions, which lost much of their value today as BP shares plunged to a 13-year low.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today whether he thought the Prime Minister should intervene, Mr Johnson said: “Well I do think there is something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America. Yes I suppose that’s right. ..
“When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP and its share price, and the vital importance of BP, then I do think it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great UK company is being continually beaten up on the international airwaves...”
BP’s shares fell by 12 per cent at one point today on the London market, after hitting their lowest level since 1997 in New York trading overnight, amid intensifying political attacks in the US. Their price dropped to 345p in early London trading before recovering to 370p — still down five per cent.
Has it come to this again? The president is meeting with his oil spill experts, he crudely tells us, so that he knows “whose ass to kick.” We have become accustomed to his management style — target a scapegoat, assign blame and go on the attack. To win health care legislation, he vilified insurance executives; to escape bankruptcy law for General Motors, he demonized senior lenders; to take the focus from the excesses of government, he castigated business meetings in Las Vegas; and to deflect responsibility for the deepening and lengthening downturn, he blames Wall Street and George W. Bush. But what may make good politics does not make good leadership. And when a crisis is upon us, America wants a leader, not a politician
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Sentenced to a sleep-in at home
Andrew Bolt
NSW is now too cash-poor - or incompetent - to jail convicted thugs:
A GET-out-of-jail free card will be given to 750 violent and dishonest criminals under a State Government plan to let them serve prison sentences in the comfort of their homes…I’m not sure what is growing faster - the contempt the lawless have for authority, or the contempt the lawful have for the NSW Government. Here the two trends are linked.
Every criminal sentenced in the Local Court, except for sex offenders, will be eligible to serve their sentences at home, costing the Government $46 a day instead of $194 a day to keep them in jail.
The Government made the amazing claim that it was still a “prison sentence”, just administered differently. But it admitted some of the state’s jails were 100 inmates over capacity and there were only 300 empty cells left.
Criminals who committed offences including drug related crimes, riot and affray, assault, fraud, vandalism and break and enter would be eligible for home detention.
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Better gay than Jewish
Andrew Bolt
Gays protesting against discrimination ban Israelis:
A delegation of gay residents of Tel Aviv has been banned from joining a gay pride march in Madrid because authorities in the Israeli city have not condemned the recent attack on the Gaza flotilla.The stupidity gets worse. The gay organisers ban Israel, about the only place in the Middle East where they could flaunt their sexuality, but not the Muslim countries which would hang them.
“After what has happened, and as human rights campaigners, it seemed barbaric to us to have them taking part,” explained Antonio Poveda, of Spain’s Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transexuals and Bisexuals...
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