=== Todays Toon ===
Sir William Thomas Denison, KCB (3 May 1804 – 19 January 1871) was Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1847 to 1855, Governor of New South Wales from 20 January 1855 to 22 January 1861, and Governor of Madras from 1861 to 1866.=== Bible Quote ===
“Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds — his name is the LORD— and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”- Psalm 68:4-5=== Headlines ===
Afghan Military Members AWOL From U.S. Air Force Base
Nationwide alert issued for 17 Afghan troops who were receiving pilot and English lessons in the U.S. before going AWOL from Texas Air Force base -- with badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations.Clinton Says Gov't Will Sue Over Arizona Law
Though the Justice Department says it's still reviewing Arizona's immigration law, secretary of state is confident feds will sue
'Shakedown' Comment Gets Rep in Hot Water
GOP Rep. Barton accuses White House of $20B 'shakedown' of BP -- and gets heat from own party
Radical Islamist Group Returns to Chicago
A radical Islamist group critics say has links to Al Qaeda will host its second annual U.S. recruiting event
A magistrate jails a man for 30 days after he blows bubble gum in court, prompting police to say: "If there were more magistrates like this, the city would be a safer place."DJs boss quits over scandal
DAVID Jones CEO quits after admitting "unbecoming behaviour" towards a female staffer.
Dentist-dodging soldiers not up to war
THOUSANDS of Aussie soldiers could not be sent to war because of fitness concerns and bad teeth.
Australia named, shamed in slavery report
WOMEN are being forced into slavery after voluntarily migrating to Australia intending to work legally.
Conroy lampooned over spams and scams
ELECTRONICS company takes the p*** out of Communications Minister's television news gaffe.
Ever wanted to experience the wonders behind the walls of Hogwarts? Harry flies in to open a new attraction inspired by the J.K. Rowling seriesNicole Richie's aide in Today show tanty
NICOLE Richie's publicist causes chaos with off-camera meltdown on the set of the Today show.
Cyber bullying is every school's responsibility
SCHOOLS would no longer be able to wash their hands of cyber bullying on websites like MySpace and Facebook outside of school hours and away from school under new laws proposed by a NSW coroner. Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson yesterday called for the move in his findings into the death of 14-year-old Alex Wildman, who took his own life after years of bullying. The Year 9 student had been challenged to a fight in the grounds of Kadina High School on the day his body was found in the garage of his home in Goonellabah, near Lismore, on July 25, 2008. The fight was the culmination of months of torment by bullies who took advantage of his nature and reluctance to fight back, court heard. In his damning assessment of the circumstances before Alex's death, Mr MacPherson said the school's anti-bullying policies failed him.Biggest rewrite of health 'in disarray'
DEVIL'S in the detail for major shake-up of hospital system.
ALP's 'dirty tricks' in Penrith
LABOR accuses the Liberal candidate for Penrith of a secret preference deal with the Australian Democrats candidate. - ridiculous, the ALP have a special deal with minor parties and independents due to a skew popular press. There is nothing wrong with the Democrats recognizing what a bad lot the ALP are. - ed.
Shooting of mentally ill man justified, inquest hears
POLICE acted "appropriately and reasonably" when they shot a mentally ill man dead as he came at them with a knife, a coronial inquest heard yesterday. But the inquest also heard one officer involved in the incident had less than a day's training on how to deal with people with a mental illness.
Courts go softer on drug-drivers
DRUG drivers' cases are being dismissed in court as magistrates consider mandatory sentences too harsh. The NSW Law Society is backing lawyers who say sentencing laws introduced in 2006 need to be changed. The random drug testing laws have a mandatory six-month licence suspension for drivers found with cannabis, amphetamine or ecstasy in their saliva, when tested by police using a simple swab-like device. Magistrates can cut a sentence to three months but still find the time outweighs the crime, lawyers said. Instead, they grant a section 10, which means the driver is found guilty but no conviction or suspension is recorded. "It is timely that the community be consulted on a sliding scale of penalties," NSW Law Society president Mary Macken said. Lawyers claimed the key issue was drivers facing suspension after being picked up by a random drug test on a Monday morning, for example, after having the drug on Saturday night.
Jayant Patel's defence rests on consent
TWO terminally ill cancer patients allegedly killed by surgeon Jayant Patel consented to the risky operations because it was their only hope for a cure, a court has heard. In a day that began with accusations from prosecutors that Dr Patel had a "toxic ego" and made "astonishingly bad" decisions, the surgeon's defence counsel spoke to the Queensland Supreme Court jury and argued that the issue of consent was a "huge factor" in the trial, The Australian reports. Dr Patel, 60, has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of three of his patients - James Phillips, Mervyn Morris and Gerry Kemps - and not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm to Ian Vowles, during his time as director of surgery at the Bundaberg Hospital between 2003 and 2005.=== Journalists Corner ===
'Your World'Rudy Giuliani speaks out! The former mayor talks tough on President Obama's oil spill strategy.
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'The O'Reilly Factor'
Now boys may be joining their pint-sized female counterparts by competing in beauty pageants. The Culture Warriors investigate!
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'Hannity'
From raising awareness to raising money, when it comes to hot-button issues, how much does Hollywood really impact our lives? It's a Frank Luntz special.
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Protester Interrupts Tony Hayward's Opening Statements!
Watch the Video Here
=== Comments ===
Rudd caught in a devious rat trap of his own designPiers Akerman
INVITATIONS to meet Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinpeng in Canberra this weekend were telephoned just yesterday to leading Australian business figures with China-related interests. - Rudd claims to be mentally ill, incapable of sustained thoughtful action. I think the joke is on the voters who put him there. He also came up with something I think he doesn't claim to be a joke. He said he had kept 90% of his 2007 election promises. His report card he wrote for himself reminded me of something I saw as a beginning teacher, and during my youth. A teacher saying, when a class was in riotous celebration of independence from authority, that 90% of the class were doing the right thing, but 10% were disrupting it for all. Clearly an attempt to assuage the majority behaving abysmally who weren't going to be punished, into accepting a few who would be disciplined. But I just note that Rudd lies on his own report cards. - ed.
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The Far Left Turns on Obama
By Bill O'Reilly
The far left turns on Barack Obama. That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo". Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer makes an interesting observation. He says that conservatives in general have cut President Obama more slack on the oil slick than liberals. And that seems to be true. Fair-minded people understand the president is not directly responsible for the catastrophe. And although he may have been slow in reacting, he's not doing anything bad on purpose. But the far left is scorching Mr. Obama, especially NBC News, which has been the leading cheerleader for the president over the past two years. But why? Why are committed left wingers giving the president such a hard time?
Let's let far left zealot Cynthia Tucker, who works for "The Atlanta Journal Constitution" answer that question for us. Writing about the president's speech last night, she says, "He didn't use the moment to assert a resolute sense of command, nor did he use it to call on Americans to make the sacrifices that will be necessary to make the transition from petroleum to cleaner fuels." Aha! Big clue. It's not really about the oil spill. It's about fossil fuels and global warming. That's what's driving the far left angst.
Many committed liberals are furious the president okayed more oil drilling earlier this year. And they're also hopping mad that cap and trade legislation has stalled. They expected their guy, Barack Obama, to be a global warming warrior. And he has not been. So the oil disaster in the Gulf has ignited global warming resentments towards Mr. Obama. Many Americans simply don't understand how deeply the far left feels the warming pain.
On the moderate left, there's concern the president simply doesn't know what he's doing in the cleanup. Yesterday, "The New York Times" printed a front page story that says "Cleanup Efforts Are a Fiasco." But last night, President Obama said his strategies are effective. So there's a divide. And some moderate liberals are becoming disenchanted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE COURIC: I think that, basically, the effort just has not been very well coordinated. I think -- in my opinion and I usually don't give my opinion, but I think BP has been given too much authority in this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
"Talking Points" believes Ms. Couric's assessment is essentially correct. There is chaos in the cleanup. And the president relied far too heavily on BP in the beginning of the crisis.
On balance, the speech last night really didn't do the president much good. The Rasmussen daily tracking poll today has the president's approval rating at just 42 percent among likely voters. Not good.
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Major Mistruths From Obama's Energy Address
By Brian Johnson
In his Tuesday address to the nation, President Obama used the Gulf of Mexico tragedy to twist the facts, bend the truth, and attempt to capitalize on a national disaster to push job-killing energy tax legislation. Here are six mistruths presented by the president.
Mr. Obama started by saying, “We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got…we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.”
However, the president has not taken the first and easiest step to allow other countries to assist in the clean-up efforts by waving the Jones Act. Based on the 1920 Merchant Marine Act all goods shipped between U.S. ports must be transported in U.S.-built, U.S.-owned and U.S. -manned ships – yet another gift to Big Labor. President George W. Bush waived the Jones Act to allow assistance from foreign countries during the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita almost immediately.
President Obama is preventing European companies from Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian firms with such advanced environmental technology to further his political gain.
He continued by saying, “I have issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs.” Apparently, the potential loss of 120,000 jobs and as many as 46,200 supporting jobs becoming idled by the moratorium, during the worst recession our country has experienced, is just a mere “difficulty” for the men and women whom these rigs employ. Glad to see the president has his priorities in line.
Most Americans can agree that, “Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be here in America,” as the president said.
Yet he must have forgotten that 80 percent of the first $1 billion spent on grants to wind energy companies in the Recovery Act went to foreign firms and jobs to build turbines overseas. In the second round of government grants, 79 percent of the $2.1 billion in grants went to companies based overseas; of this money, $2.9 billion went to wind facilities.
The old factories that are reopening to produce wind turbines and the “small businesses [that] are making solar panels” the president mentioned are not market-created jobs. They are jobs artificially created by injecting taxpayer dollars into a certain sector stimulating artificial supply with no market demand.
For example, in Florida, the DeSoto Solar Center was supposed to be the “largest solar power plant in the United States,” according to President Obama. The center received $150 million from the Recovery Act. After using 400 construction workers to build the site, the Solar Center now employs only two people. These jobs are simply not sustainable.
It seems positive that the president claimed, “People are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows…” However, the President is referring to a program in the stimulus called “weatherization,” which many argue is the most failed attempt to artificially create jobs in the market where they wouldn’t typically exist. With $5 billion appropriated for this project, less than 10,000 homes have been weatherized nationwide out of 593,000. Only $522 million -- less than 10 percent of the money available -- has been spent on weatherization.
The Inspector General found the jobs impact “has not materialized” and the Government Accountability Office found the application of costly Davis-Bacon wage requirements equates to over $57,000 per home nationwide. How this helps the economy is yet to be proven.
Obama ended his speech by referencing the House passed cap-and-trade bill saying, “Now, there are costs associated with this transition. And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to.”
The real effects the president refers to are not something our economy can afford. If his vision is passed into law, gasoline prices will rise 58 percent (or $1.38), natural gas prices will rise 55 percent, heating oil prices will rise 56 percent, electricity prices will rise 90 percent and a family of four can expect their per-year energy costs to rise by $1,241.
Can American really “afford not to” endure these costs? I think not.
Rather than using this tragedy for political gain, the president should support an “all of the above” energy approach that incorporates a diverse variety of energy sources without mandates, subsidies, or taxes that artificially skew the market in favor of one form of energy over another.
That is a national energy vision America can believe in.
Brian Johnson is federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform.
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WARNING SHOT
Tim Blair
The return of Alabama’s excellent Dale Peterson, now escalating his campaign against yard-sign banditry:
(Via Nicole, who answers the ad’s closing question: “Why, yes. Yes, I do.")
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NOT HIS FAULT
Tim Blair
Comedienne and brain authority Janeane Garofalo despairs at Obama’s presidency, which is apparently run by people other than Obama:
I don’t know who’s giving him the worst advice in the world. I don’t know, I don’t know why this presidency has been as disappointing as it has been. I really feel like he’s being advised terribly.She used to be so nice. You know, before the craziness.
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WE CANNOT LOSE
Tim Blair
Australia assembles a handy team for this summer’s Ashes campaign:
(Via Mumbrella)
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McINNES McOUT
Tim Blair
An executive exits:
Department store chain David Jones chief executive Mark McInnes has resigned after a female staff member made allegations about inappropriate behaviour towards her.In other retail developments, David Jones has a new line of t-shirts.
The termination of Mr McInnes’s contract as CEO and board member would be effective immediately, David Jones said in a statement.
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WABBIT WEMOVED
Tim Blair
Europe silences Al-Aqsa TV, home of everybody’s favourite death bunny:
With the sound turned down, one children’s show on Al-Aqsa Television looks like a new take on Bugs Bunny, but Assoud the rabbit is far less benign than his carrot-chomping colleague.When they talk about a “population explosion” in Gaza, they’re not referring to demographics. Europe will now be denied these charming scenes:
Last year the show’s Islamist producers in Gaza killed him off on the set as the victim of an Israeli bombing …
Stories like this – with their messages of martyrdom and death – are commonplace on Al-Aqsa Television, which is owned by Hamas.
They are made attractive to children with the use of characters like Assoud or Farfour, a Mickey Mouse lookalike, who also died when Israeli soldiers apparently beat him to death.
In another show last year, several children watch a video re-enactment of the real life death of their mother in a suicide bombing.
The French broadcasting regulator, CSA, is banning Al-Aqsa TV in Europe … Al-Aqsa Television says the CSA ban will cost it 70 per cent of its viewers, but it will continue broadcasting in Africa and the Middle East.There are plenty of domestic alternatives, too, as the ABC reports: “Even without Al-Aqsa Television, Hamas has a raft of other media outlets; including two radio stations, two newspapers, a magazine and an active film industry.” No supply shortages there …
(Via Tim S.)
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DIPPER DROPPED
Tim Blair
Robert DiPierdomenico, idiot, continues the recent run of racist outrages by Australians sports figures:
The AFL has confirmed Robert DiPierdomenico has been dropped as an Auskick ambassador after saying a fellow Brownlow medallist was “not too bad for an abo” at a footy function.Dipper joins Andrew Johns and Mal Brown in the hall of shame.
AFL chief Andrew Demetriou confirmed this morning that DiPierdomenico, better known as Dipper, had spoken to him and acknowledged making the comment.
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RUDDICUS
Tim Blair
Aiming to entertain, a Prime Ministerial speech wanders into weirdville:
I can deal with all creatures great and small, ugly and less so: carpet snakes, black snakes, brown snakes, big snakes, small snakes, spiders, cockroaches, the rest, leeches, but there’s one thing I cannot stand.Whatevs, Kev. Andrew Bolt rounds up reaction to Rudd’s musophobic musings. Election-wise, Ratman might be inclined to drag things out:
It’s rats. They give me the positive heebie jeebies. Anyone here like rats? I rest my case.
I’ve been diagnosed as musophobic [fearful of mice and rats] which in extreme cases like mine has some severe symptoms.
These symptoms are as follows: prolixity, insomnia and profanity. That’s what musophobia gives you.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has given another indication that he will not be calling an early election …
“We have an election due by whatever it is, March or April next year, and we only have three-year terms,” he said.
If he takes things all to way to March/April, a Federal election will collide with the removal of the NSW government. Interesting strategy.
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FRAPPACINO DIPLOMACY
Tim Blair
Obama-level seriousness from State Department staffers Alec J. Ross and Jared Cohen, currently conducting a cake-n-coffee probe in Syria:
For example, according to Ross, on Tuesday Cohen challenged the Syrian Minister of Telecom to a cake-eating contest and called it “Creative Diplomacy.” Match that, Tehran! Ross and Cohen both tweeted about their trip to the Tonino Lamborghini Caffe Lounge in Damascus, but while Ross was “amused” by the place, Cohen wants his 300,000-plus tweeps to know that “I’m not kidding when I say I just had the greatest frappacino ever at Kalamoun University north of Damascus.” Good to know!Further from Jennifer Rubin, who predicts twin terminations: “These two staffers are likely headed for the woodshed or the unemployment line, but they frankly did us a service by pulling back the curtain on the policy that Obama fancies and that his minions, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, among others, faithfully execute.”
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Ratting on rattled Rudd, who rattles on.
Andrew Bolt
The Canberra Press Gallery’s Mid-Winter Ball was supposed to be off-the-record. But since The Age’s Katherine Murphy didn’t care about such conventions, we now know what a fool Rudd made of himself:
The tensions and undercurrents were present in a speech from the Prime Minister that aimed for humour and self deprecation but sounded strained and over-worked. (’’This time last year I had a ute, now I’m uteless.’’ Geddit.)Asked about this threat during a torrid interview on the 7.30 Report report last night, Rudd hedged, stalled and protested he should not have been quoted, before laughing it off as a joke with a toe-curling cardboard grin.
Rudd’s speech was a high concept outing designed to refute David Marr’s recent argument that he is driven by anger - but perversely, it only served to reinforce Marr’s contention. It limped towards the finish in a discordant mash-up of thinly veiled sarcasm, implied threats and jokes at other people’s expense and a rather inconclusive seminar on rat f#*%ery.
In response to ubiquitous complaints that Cabinet gets no say in decision making, Rudd quipped the Government was not a one man show. ‘’I believe in sharing blame around.’’
The genuine show stopper though was saved up for the resources industry, a longtime mid-winter ball sponsor. The Minerals Council of Australia and their guests sat at the front of the room. The miners were informed by Rudd: ‘’Can I say guys, we’ve got a long memory.’’ It can be assumed they know he’s the Prime Minister, that Prime Ministers are very powerful, and can deliver significant retribution if warranted. Possibly they didn’t need it spelled-out in such naked terms, but there you have it.
Here’s free advice for his handlers, given what happened next. Rudd’s attempts not an answer questions by asking his own, or talking about something else entirely, does not now work with an even moderately informed audience. Viewers know what was asked, and feel insulted by a politician who thinks them so dumb that they won’t realise he didn’t answer. Check, for instance, the frantic non-answer to the questions about Rudd’s failure to consult Cabinet colleagues, or about whether Penny Wong had been consulted about the dumping of her emissions trading scheme.
Ditto with dumbing down the delivery by using strained colloquialisms such as “bub” when pitching to the mums.
UPDATE
Tony Wright has more on Rudd’s odd speech:
‘’A few people have asked me,’’ he began, ‘’what I think about David Marr’s analysis that I am singularly motivated by anger. I’ve told them to get stuffed. Each and every one of them. I am not motivated by anger, I am motivated by incandescent rage.’’An astonished Piers Akerman has the bizarre transcript, which shows that Wright was being kind.
So far, perhaps, so good. A little self-deprecation never hurts in public life.
But Rudd soon settled deep into a complicated routine about what he called his views on the mating habits of rodents: that is, he ploughed on, the things that rats do in a non-family values sort of way.
He claimed to have been diagnosed as musophobic - one with a deep fear of rats. And while delivering a briefing to journalists in Copenhagen, why, a big brown rat and its mate had appeared and right there on the floor, had ‘’decided to go for it, so to speak’’.
‘’Distracted by the spectacle, I made an observation mid-sentence, profane as it was, thanks to the crippling, crippling symptoms of musophobia, but it was an observation nonetheless in which I drew upon long-standing Anglo-Saxon roots to describe the act.’’
In the hands of a natural comic, this could have been the makings of splendid stand-up. Rudd’s speech, unfortunately, followed the appearance of two genuine comedians, H.G. Nelson and Rampaging Roy Slaven, and they had already wrung much hilarity from the very same subject.
Rudd’s advisers bravely offered guffaws, urging the audience to join in. Sadly, much of the crowd found itself inspecting the floor and the ceiling.
Rudd sounded like an angry soul desperately trying to overcompensate.
UPDATE 2
Rudd protests at having his Midwinter ball words quoted back at him:
Last time I heard it was supposed to be sort of off the record.But reader Victoria 3220 remembers that it was at the very same off-the-record ball last year that Rudd’s own staff took - and distributed - a damaging picture of then Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull giving private advice on the Godwin Grech debacle to one of Rudd’s staff:
Malcolm Turnbull confronts the PM’s economic adviser Andrew Charlton at the Midwinter Ball. The photo was taken by one of Mr Rudd’s staff===
Battle lines are drawn
Andrew Bolt
Gathering in Sydney: Muslims who seem to believe our society is at war with them, and in conflict with their faith. Muslims whose goal is an Islamic Caliphate.
If that’s their view, can they complain if non-Muslims feel the importation of more people with their hostile and separatist views is reckless, if not outright dangerous? After all, as even the Rudd Government itself concedes:
A number of Australians are known to subscribe to this (jihadist) message, some of whom might be prepared to engage in violence. Many of these individuals were born in Australia and they come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds… The scale of the problem will continue to depend on factors such as the size and make-up of local Muslim populations...Yes, I know the many of these donkeys of Hizb ut Tahrir are just young, inadequate men with all the absolute certainty of book-smart, life-stupid youth, but much damage can be done by such fools before they grow wise. And, of course, some never do…
Hizb ut Tahrir is not yet banned here as it is elsewhere, but perhaps it should be, given its endorsement of the killing of apostates, the defence of terrorists killing Australian soldiers and the whipping up of sectarian hatred in the defence of convicted local terrorists.
(Thanks to reader Susan.)
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Downer on the least popular man in Parliament
Andrew Bolt
Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Kevin Rudd, the strange and deeply insecure man he once told me was “not worthy” to be Prime Minister:
Members of the Federal Parliament all know each other; not necessarily well, but at least a little. Over the past 20 years, few, if any, MPs have been less popular than Kevin Rudd. All politicians are at the very least a trifle vain. They like to be the centre of attention, to be in the media, to be ‘consulted’. There is barely an exception. All of them think they are a bit better than they really are. Nearly all of them are ambitious, many furiously so. But on all of those counts, no one in recorded Australian political history has ever exceeded Kevin Rudd…(Thanks to reader Malcolm.)
What MPs didn’t like about Rudd, the backbencher, and Rudd, the shadow minister, was his conceit and vanity.
On 9 September 2004, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up the Australian embassy in Jakarta… I told my staff we ought to go immediately to Jakarta… Indirectly, I let Rudd know he was invited. I drove to my office to prepare for my departure. There was a message to call Rudd. He was furious. The f***ing VIP plane wasn’t going via Brisbane to pick him up. It f***ing had to. He ordered me to change its f***ing flight schedule.
I explained ...(that) to travel via Brisbane would add hours to the journey. Instead, we would pay for a commercial flight for him.... A fusillade of abuse, much of it with sexual references, ensued…
The point is clear: people at the embassy had died, we needed to get the Indonesians onto the case to establish who the culprits were, we had to show support to the embassy staff ... But for the member for Griffith it was about one thing: himself…
Rudd wants fame. He wants to be on TV every night. He wants to be recognised everywhere he goes. He wants to be the centre of attention… Something happened (in his childhood) made him determined one day to be famous… But like all people who seek fame for themselves at the expense of others, his fame will eat him up…
I sat with a Labor luminary having a late-night drink in June 2008. He turned to me and said: ‘Mate, one day the Australian public will grow to hate Kevin Rudd as much as I do.’ That day has arrived.
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Another unlicenced mouth runs off the road
Andrew Bolt
It’s said the men are friends, suggesting the offence is disasteful language rather than a racist heart:THE AFL has confirmed Robert DiPierdomenico (left) has been dropped as an Auskick ambassador after saying a fellow Brownlow medallist was ”not too bad for an abo” at a footy function…
Mr Demetriou, speaking on Radio 3AW, said DiPierdomenico was remorseful after making the comment about fellow Brownlow medallist Gavin Wanganeen at a Hahndorf Football Club function in South Australia last week.
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Where the Liberals will win
Andrew Bolt
Michael Kroger may be a Liberal power-broker, but he’s also an excellent analyst of politics. His prediction on MTR is that the Liberals will win:
There’s two seats in Victoria I think the coalition will win. There’s probably five in Queensland. There’s at least two, probably four, in Western Australia. Stephen Smith will probably lose his seat. He’s on six and a bit per cent. Gary Gray will probably lose his seat. He’s in Brand, he’ll lose his seat. He’s on six and a bit per cent.And Kevin Rudd is one bad poll from being replaced:
I would think that if it’s a very bad poll then the dam will have to break. You can’t just keep supporting a leader who’s taking these people to very dark electoral places and pretend nothing’s happening. If the Newspoll is as bad as last week, he’s probably got a month.UPDATE
But Kevin Donnelly warns that Julia Gillard’s past suggests she won’t be much of an improvement as Prime Minister.
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No business like funny business at David Jones
Andrew Bolt
Inappropriate flirting doesn’t come much more expensive:DAVID Jones boss Mark McInnes shocked the company and the market today by quitting in the wake of a sexual harassment complaint from a 25-year-old female staff member…
In a statement, Mr McInnes said: “At two recent company functions I behaved in a manner unbecoming of the high standard expected of a chief executive officer to a female staff member.
“As a result of this conduct I have offered my resignation to the David Jones board and we have agreed on the mutual termination of my employment with the company, effective immediately...”
David Jones chairman Bob Savage slashed Mr McInnes’s payout by at least $4 million…
Some said the alleged offence “wasn’t even a kiss”...
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Yes, no, now, later
Andrew Bolt
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hints the election may be late:Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has given another indication that he will not be calling an early election… ”We have an election due by whatever it is, March or April next year, and we only have three-year terms,” he said.Health Minister Nicola Roxon this morning responds on ABC 774 that she’d like it early:
I would like to see it soon.Earlier this week we had another internal squabble over timing, this time of a deal with miners:
Months? Kevin Rudd on the Seven Network’s Sunrise, June 11:(No link to the Roxon quote.)I THINK we’ve got weeks and probably months of consultation yet with the major mining companies.A few weeks? Labor MP Gary Gray, ABC radio’s AM, yesterday:IF it’s not resolved, I think what’s more important than the difficulty it would create for politicians, and it would create a lot of difficulty for us, but the greater difficulty if the matter isn’t resolved for months and months is the uncertainty it would create for the mining sector. The mining sector’s incredibly important, not just as an employer and a generator of wealth but also as a national symbol of how our economy works. Its efficiency and the cleverness behind our mining sector all get damaged by the uncertainty that is created not just by the debate [about] the tax but also by the response of some in the mining sector and some who mischievously have positioned this debate. I think that’s created some difficulty for the sector and so certainty in the next few weeks would be a good idea.By August? Gray on ABC radio yesterday:I DON’T think it has to be done this week or next week, but certainly we wouldn’t want to have the current degree of debate and uncertainty in play in August.Urgently? Labor senator Mark Bishop in The Age yesterday:IT needs to be addressed urgently and resolved. Only then will the government be able to punch through.ASAP. Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner on AM yesterday:SABRA Lane: The Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia, Gary Gray, says this debate must be resolved by August to end the uncertainty for all concerned. Is he right?
Tanner: We’d like to get it resolved as quickly as possible but we’re not going to set an artificial deadline.
UPDATE
Rowing back:
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has moved to quash talk the election could become a waiting game…
“The Prime Minister has made clear on several occasions, as recently as last week, that the election will be held this year,” a spokesman said.
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Suddenly sensitive
Andrew Bolt
A magistrate says this is fine if it’s done to police:
A university student was yesterday cleared of an offensive language charge after a local court magistrate ruled the word “prick” was part of the every-day vernacular.A magistrate says this is jail if it’s done to him:
Waverley Local Court magistrate Robbie Williams made his comments during a hearing for science student Henry Grech, 22, who was charged following a heated argument with Senior Constable Adam Royds at Bondi Junction train station last year.
A TOUGH Melbourne magistrate threw an apprentice painter behind bars for blowing a bubble in his court.I prefer the second verdict. But I do ask whether magistrates shouldn’t protect the police with the zeal that they protect their own dignity. As I said about the “prick” case:
You see, magistrates and judges are actually sensitive about how they themselves are to be addressed.
It’s “yes, your worship” and “No, your honour” with them. Stand when they enter the courtroom, and sit when they command. Show respect.
Try a “Yes, you prick” in court and you’ll find that this magnificent tolerance for the abuse of policemen most certainly does not extend to abuse of the man in the horsehair wig.
Which is rather the opposite of what is needed, you’d think.
After all, no judge or magistrate needs to assert himself in any physical confrontation with some lout in the street or the railway station, whether it’s a fare dodger or a thug…
But who suffers most from our increasingly contemptuous youth, so ready to give a gobful to authority? The man on the bench or the sucker on the beat? Police will tell you what rabble they must now deal with, and how they struggle to command the respect that has been stripped from them by courts, lousy parents, and the barbarians behind the new up-yours entertainment.
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The boring end of the world
Andrew Bolt
WE humans are about to be wiped out in a few decades. The grandchildren of many of us will not live to old age.
Hear it from Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University and the man who helped eradicate smallpox.
“Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years,” he told The Australian this week.
“It’s an irreversible situation.” Blame global warming.
But here’s the odd thing. Just three paragraphs into this report announcing the - Oh My God! - end of the world, the reporter and Fenner were off talking about rabbits, Fenner’s writing habits, his bookshelves, his student days, his war service and the weight of the book he wrote on smallpox - 3.5kg, actually.
Oh, and did he ever tell how he used to study skulls with Norman Tindale?
Now, you’d think when a reporter had just been told that thousands of years of human history were about to come to a screaming halt - with their own loved ones among the dead - that rabbits and recollections of Norm would be the last thing they’d want to discuss.
Back up a bit, they’d cry. Run that by me again: you mean, all human life on this planet is going to be exterminated? My grandchildren are doomed?
But, no. So used are we to sandwich-board doom-mongering from global warmists that we hurry them on to cheerier topics, like tales of old Norm and his skulls.
It’s not that Fenner is a joke. He may now be 95, but he’s a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Society. And his views on the end of the world, however boring, were still deemed serious enough to publish in The Australian’s prestigious Higher Education supplement.
This curious disconnect between prediction and reception happens relatively often now. Four years ago another warmist, Prof James Lovelock, creator of the influential Gaia theory of an interconnected Earth, was every bit as apocalyptic as Fenner.
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Our deadly culture of unreason
Andrew Bolt
PETER Dingle had a choice when his wife, Pen, finally learned she had rectal cancer.
Would the professor push her to have the operation that would most probably cure her?
Or would he keep pushing the mad faith in alternative medicine that has since made him, as he modestly advertises, a “renowned author, juggler, media personality and Murdoch University academic”?
Ah. Tough choice.
You see, Dingle, an “environmental toxicologist” at this Perth university’s school of Health and Environment, has spent the past 20 years getting rich and kinda famous by demonising the very kind of medicine that could spare a woman like Pen from what a surgeon told a Perth coroner this week was “one of the most painful diseases you could possibly get”.
Indeed, even last month, after all that he - or rather, his wife (below) - had gone through, Dingle was still spruiking his wares that have made him a minor celebrity in this new age of unreason.
“Perhaps the most dreaded of all diseases is cancer,” he wrote in his newsletter.“There is no miracle cure for cancer, nor will there ever be ... Only a few minor cancers are treated effectively with modern techniques yet we still keep doing it.”
In fact, he’s protested, “modern medicine cannot be given credit for increasing life expectancy at birth”.
Yes, I think you suspect already how this story plays out, and how ugly it gets.
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Old news, though: Turnbull family joins the Rudd Government
Andrew Bolt
How stupid of her to accept such a compromising position:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced Malcolm Turnbull’s wife, Lucy, will help lead a government advisory panel on capital city infrastructure.(Thanks to reader moi.)
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And this is Rudd’s greatest success
Andrew Bolt
Let’s check up on Kevin Rudd’s great reform of the health system. Or as he put it two months ago:
WE have agreed to the biggest reforms to the health system since the introduction of Medicare. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very, very big reform of the health and hospital system of Australia.Here’s Health Minister Nicola Roxon on The World Today yesterday:
THIS is an enormously complex implementation strategy. We’ve negotiated a large amount of that detail but as we go through this process I think you would expect, if there are any problems, that we will make changes that ensure that these are effective reforms in the health system. Now I don’t have a crystal ball to know which of those might prove to be more significant sticking points than others. It will be an implementation process that goes for, you know, three or four years.Hmm. Doesn’t sound good. In fact:
KEVIN Rudd’s $50 billion hospitals reform plan faces further changes and is unlikely to be debated in parliament before the federal election, sparking opposition claims that the biggest rewrite of the national health system since Medicare is in disarray.Amd where’s that deal for the West? What happened to that threat to withhold money if WA didn’t sign?
WESTERN Australia may still get $350 million in new federal health funding, even if the Barnett government refuses to sign up to the Prime Minister’s hospital reform package.The Rudd government originally insisted its failure to strike a deal with Western Australia would mean the state missing out on $350m in health funding over four years , but today appeared to be softening its hardline stance.
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Building a community of bureaucrats
Andrew Bolt
It’s Victorian Premier John Brumby’s mini-BER scam:
Figures from the Auditor-General show that of the $10 million fund set up by the government four years ago to improve life in rural towns, only $5.1 million in grants has been given out so far, while a further $2.6 million has been funnelled into ‘’administrative and operating costs’’.(Thanks to reader CA.)
The fund - known as the Community Building Initiative - was designed to run between 2006 and 2010 in a bid to strengthen rural towns, particular those experiencing growth, population decline or disadvantage. Under the scheme, the Department of Planning and Community Development provides grants to dozens of regional towns for small projects that will benefit their communities, such as park upgrades, new bike tracks or tourism brochures…
A spokeswoman for Community Development Minister Lily D’Ambrosio ... said most of the administrative costs - or about $1.5 million worth - went on wages… The operating budget - about $1.4 million - went towards planning workshops as well as smaller projects such as installing AFL goal posts at sports ovals or lights in recreational parks.
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Sex before the sick
Andrew Bolt
The NSW Government has run out of money to treat all the sick:
The number of elective surgeries performed in NSW fell by 2052 in 2007-08 and by another 194 cases in 2008-09, when only 199,384 operations were performed...The median waiting time for elective surgery in NSW was 39 days, well above the national average of 34 days.But it does have enough money for this:
TAXPAYERS are funding workshops for men on how to use gay saunas and sex clubs.(Thanks to reader CA.)
The four-week programs organised by the Aids Council of NSW, which are displayed on their website, teach men how to “cruise” a sex club and “reject unwanted advances”. They also visit a sex club as part of one course…
Last year the NSW Health Department gave more than $8 million in grants to ACON, which promotes itself as Australia’s largest community-based gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) health and HIV/AIDS organisation.
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Positive evidence of more Rudd Government spin
Andrew Bolt
What was that claim by frontbencher Anthony Albanese again?
WE’RE relying upon our positive agenda.Ah, yes. The Rudd Government would go positive. Sell us its glittering achievements, As Albanese went on:
We’re not relying upon the fact that Tony Abbott is a huge risk to our economy, that he’s a huge risk to national security. Tony Abbott . . . what he stands for . . . is an extreme position on industrial relations, he’s a climate change sceptic who thinks climate change is crap . . . on a range of social issues he’s completely out of touch with the . . . public. Our job, Leigh, is to return to the substance. Because Tony Abbott represents a throwback. Tony Abbott represents the most extreme ideological leader the Liberal Party has had. He is John Howard without the pragmatism.And, true to form, Labor delivers ... exactly what it didn’t promise. Here’s the “positive” smear sheet it’s mailed out now to voters:
Positively another broken promise.(Thanks to reader Chris Fawkes.)
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