=== Todays Toon ===
Captain James Cook FRS RN (7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728 – 14 February 1779) was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.=== Bible Quote ===
“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”- Proverbs 15:1=== Headlines ===
BP CEO says it will know within the next 24 hours if the latest attempt to cap well works as marine life in the Gulf Coast waits for someone to 'plug the damn hole.'Juvenile Justice Minister Graham West quits in another blow for Premier Kristina Keneally
STATE Juvenile Justice Minister Graham West has quit, citing frustration with "partisan politics'' as part of the reason for his departure. The 36-year-old Member for Campbelltown, in Sydney's southwest, made the announcement in Parliament today. He will not recontest his seat at the 2011 election. Mr West told Parliament he was resigning so that he could work with communities in a non-partisan way. "As I have got more involved in juvenile justice I have seen the many young people who have so much more to offer society, when given the right support,'' he said. "The voices of these young people and their communities are seldom heard - it is we who must be that voice. "It is a fight that must leave behind partisan politics. "For that reason I announce that I am returning my commission as a minister for the crown and will not be recontesting the election.Obama, Ariz. Gov Face Off
Gov. Brewer says she got few results from meeting with president, including any details about where 1,200 troops will be deployed along border
Holloway Suspect Arrested in Chile
Joran van der Sloot, prime suspect in Natalee Holloway case and now a Peruvian murder, is caught
Say It Ain't So — 'The Call' Stands
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig won't reverse call that cost pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game
Every family has a favourite child, but what happens when that honour is chosen by the public? What's it like when your sibling's star burns brighter than yours?Miners tell of tough times ahead
THE super-profits resource tax "is buggerising with people's lives".
Disaster zone declared for coastal towns
LENNOX Head, Ballina and Byron qualify for aid in tornado's wake.
Colleague shot, dragged behind truck
BLACK man's death being investigated as a possible hate crime after a dramatic arrest.
Man charged for Facebook tribute hack
"YOU are not anonymous online," police warn after man charged for defacing schoolboy tribute page.
MasterChef ratings go through the roof
IF you thought MasterChef couldn't get bigger, think again, it's rating higher than last year's series.
'It's not open season on abusive husbands'
ACQUITTAL of woman who killed partner after enduring 20 years of abuse should not encourage vigilantes, warns lawyer.
No end to growing Sydney Metro bill
THE State Government has spent $93 million compensating five construction companies contracted to build the cancelled Sydney Metro. That brings the total wasted on the failed train line to $404 million - and the bill for NSW taxpayers is set to rise. Compensation to many property owners is yet to be paid, with the cost expected to reach $500 million. The Government announced the latest costs last night after refusing to release an independent report by Deloitte which contained information about compensating companies that tendered for the project. A spokesman for Transport Minister John Robertson said the information in the report was "commercially sensitive". Opponents accused the Government of failing to comply with a direction from the Upper House to release the report by 5.30pm yesterday.
We waterboarded 9/11 mastermind - Bush
FORMER US President admits he would "do it again" as he breaks his silence on the War on Terror.
=== Comments ===
Martyrs on holiday - a nice cruise in the MedPiers Akerman
SPARE me the pathetic preaching of the pro-Palestinian “peace activists” and their Western propagandists. It is now obvious that the goal of a number of those stupid enough to attempt to breach the Israeli blockade was martyrdom not the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. - While one likes to believe the rule of law would apply in modern nations, Obama has shown again that civilian law is not capable of dealing with acts or terror. What price does one put on acts of terror? How may it be compensated?
The reason why we have these ‘defense’ forces is to defend ourselves .. the very name being a carry over of a UN conceit.
While I was doing some voluntary ESL work the other day, a Turkish lady said “Isn’t it a tragedy? The news ..” I put it to her that the tragedy would have been if the convoy had succeeded. That the Israeli special forces had taken great pains not to hurt people, but to show their commitment to defend Israel from those who kill Israelis and Palestinians. That the organization supporting the cruise was a known terrorist (Al Quaeda infected) collection point. I think it important to point out these terrorists also kill Palestinians and Muslims because they seem to feel it is ok to kill Israelis. I also said that the australian journo had been one who opposed the US in Iraq, thus supporting Saddam .. I think that is the case, but am not certain (I don’t read the SMH and haven’t since I left High School and stopped supporting ALP).
Labeling it entrapment may be correct in law, but Obama and Rudd came across as willing participants. Obama allowing the US to field a junior diplomat in the security council (still more senior than Rudd ever was) and abstain from voting on censure of Israel for its peaceful work with terrorists. Rudd meanwhile deplored the violence without pointing out it was the terrorists, not the Israelis who had been the provocateurs. - ed
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The Wall of Ruddspeak
by Julie Bishop
George Orwell's novel 1984 depicts a futuristic totalitarian regime characterised by wars, oppression and public mind control.In the fictitious superstate of Oceania, the ruling Party attempts to control not only the speech and actions but also the thoughts of its citizens by changing facts and rewriting history to fit Party propaganda and destroying any dissenter from the Party line.
The latest episode of spin-doctoring by the Rudd government with its $38 million advertising campaign to correct, as a matter of "national emergency" the "misinformation" in the public debate over the super tax on mining profits, could be a chapter straight from 1984.(much more at the link) - PJ O'Rourke apparently suggested the idea of pre obituaries to boost the circulation of papers by writing articles about people you wish were dead and a short explanation of why. I don't wish death on Rudd, I would like to write his political obituary as I think he is abysmal in public service and an example of what is wrong in modern democracy. - ed.
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President Obama Goes on the Attack Against Oil Companies
By Bill O'Reilly
Faced with a growing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as falling poll numbers, the president played offense on Wednesday.
In a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Mr. Obama threatened not only BP but all the oil companies with higher taxes:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The time has come once and for all for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future. It means rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And not only that. The president has announced a criminal investigation into the British Petroleum corporation.
There is no question Mr. Obama is angry. He is watching his entire administration totter because of a situation no one can control.
If you don't like Obama, it's karma. If you do like him, it's very bad luck.
But as we all know, the best defense is a good offense, so the president is also hammering his opposition, the Republican Party:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Now, some of you may have noticed that we have been building this foundation without much help from our friends in the other party. From our efforts to rescue the economy, to health insurance reform, to financial reform, most have sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And those shouts are being heard, as Mr. Obama's job approval ratings are mostly below 50 percent.
Mr. Obama presently finds himself in a difficult place. He went against public opinion on health care. He's at odds with most Americans on illegal immigration and the Arizona law. His stance on Israel is against the majority, and he is getting slicked big time by the oil spill.
So let's take them one by one.
Obamacare is now law and the president doesn't care what you think about it. He's convinced he is right, end of discussion.
On illegal immigration, the president is at great risk. His view of controlling the border and mainstreaming illegal aliens is not nearly tough enough for the majority of Americans. Mr. Obama will get hurt on this issue.
The polls say 63 percent of Americans support Israel in its struggle with the Palestinians. The perception is Mr. Obama does not support Israel. Jewish-Americans comprise just two percent of the voting public. But it's hard to see how this issue will help the president.
Finally, the oil slick. Here Mr. Obama has simply run into incredible bad luck. If he could stop the leak, he would. But with all the power America has, nobody can stop the leak. Yes, he can bluster against BP and on Wednesday he did. But so what? Bluster won't stop this catastrophe, nor will higher taxes on the oil companies, which will simply sell more crude to China and India.
The president better watch his step here. Remember those gas lines under Jimmy Carter? Just saying.
As we said, the president was angry Wednesday. He knows where he is.
===
EMERGENCY POWERS
Tim Blair
It’s day eight of our national emergency. How is everybody holding up, by the way? The emergency, still in force, was brought about by the government’s desperate need to run an advertising campaign about taxes on mining:
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says people want a campaign.But only in ads. Given a chance to provide the information in Parliament, the government chose silence:
“I believe the community is hungry for information and we will be providing that information,” she said.
The Rudd Government yesterday gagged debate on the suspension of $586 million worth of mining development work in Queensland six times – twice to defeat motions to bring the issue on for discussion and four times to shut up members wanting to argue the point.The emergency continues.
Then the Speaker threw out Queensland Independent Bob Katter, who represents a district affected by one of the projects in question.
It’s never an attractive look when ministers close down debate.
===
FIRST, TRADE YOUR FOOD FOR BOLD TAGS
Tim Blair
Just what they need:
Two Australians are being sent to Bangladesh to teach slum dwellers how to blog.
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INFORMATION UNCOVERED, SOON TO BE COVERED AGAIN
Tim Blair
Allison Kaplan Sommer on the fauxtilla:
The emerging reality on the ground in Israel regarding the nature of the Gaza flotilla, and the story being told around the world, are so utterly different that they could be taking place on two separate planets. As the days pass in Israel and more information is uncovered, the popular international narrative of brutal Israeli soldiers casually slaughtering tens of innocent peace activists bearing humanitarian aid drifts further and further from reality.Seems so. It doesn’t look like it was much to do with aid. This fauxtilla case is following the usual three-step pattern for alleged Israeli outrages:
Details unfolded Wednesday regarding the background of those who attacked the commando squad, which was stunned by the violent ferocity of the presumed “humanitarians” aboard the Mavi Marmara. The most revealing source of information has been, interestingly, the Turkish media, which reported that the casualties of the clash had openly aspired to martyrdom. Being killed by an Israeli soldier was apparently the goal of the exercise.
1. Initial reporting slams Israel.
2. Facts emerge calling into doubt many initial claims.
3. Ignore step two.
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NORTH COAST TWISTER
Tim Blair
“Grab your hat and gardening gloves and head to the top of Lennox Point headland on Friday, June 4,” urged Wednesday’s Ballina Shire Advocate, “to do your bit for the environment.” The environment had other ideas:
Lennox Head is now a natural disaster zone. Twelve houses destroyed, 30 severely damaged. Thankfully, no loss of life. An evacuation centre was established yesterday at the town’s Bowling and Sports Club, which might be the place to drop off any donations if you’re in the area.(Via Tabitha N., about one hour away from the twister zone)
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Rudd builds, state closes
Andrew Bolt
More amazing waste from Kevin Rudd’s Building the Education Revolution.
First, there’s this story:
THE communities of four Far Northern schools threatened with closure are determined to fight to keep their classrooms open.And then we see what Rudd’s BER has just spent on those very same schools now facing closure:
The State Government has earmarked Bellenden Ker State School, Daintree State School, Moresby State School and Palmerston East State School for possible closures by the end of next year because of low student numbers.
Bellenden Ker State School… New Library $250,000(Thanks to reader Nonna.)
Daintree State School… New Library $250,000
Moresby State School… Resource Centre $250,000
Palmerston East State School via Innisfail… Resource Centre $250,000
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Watts worth hearing
Andrew Bolt
If you’re interested in the debate over man-made warming, you won’t want to miss this - especially since the lectures star Anthony Watts, of the highly influential Watts Up With That blog:
Watts Up with the Climate?For tour dates and details, go here, where you’ll also find biographies of the other speakers.
Anthony Watts, David Archibald and David Stockwell are touring Australia 12 June – 1 July 2010…
Aformer television meteorologist who spent 25 years on the air, Anthony Watts operates a weather technology business and runs one of the most popular science blogs on the internet, wattsupwiththat.com. He will present advance results on his surface stations project to photographically survey every one of the 1221 USHCN weather stations in the USA used as a “high quality network” that has fallen into neglect.
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Duck too lame to fly
Andrew Bolt
I predicted on Monday that Barack Obama is in too much oily strife to dare come on a holiday to see Kevin Rudd and give him a pre-election boost.
Rudd now fears that’s the case, too:
KEVIN Rudd will call President Obama over the weekend to finalise whether the US President will visit Australia this month as scheduled.UPDATE
The trip appears to be in jeopardy with Mr Rudd unable to confirm today whether the President would be arriving as planned given the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s off again:
US president Barack Obama has postponed his trip to Australia and New Zealand, the White House has confirmed.
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Rudd down a mineshaft
Andrew Bolt
I don’t think the Rudd Government’s tax - or even the government itself - is going to survive this backlash:Australia’s resource super profits tax (RSPT) should be redesigned or abandoned, according to Future Fund chairman David Murray...And:
“Investors are becoming a little bit concerned whether governments will become more desperate and impose things that might...that they might not otherwise have done,” he said.
“For Australia to do this now is not good timing.”
ANZ Banking Corporation Ltd chief executive Mike Smith says the federal government’s proposed resources super profit tax (RSPT) risks sending international investment away from Australia as investors review their assessment of sovereign risk...And:
ANGLO-SWISS miner Xstrata has shelved spending on two Queensland projects expected to cost a combined $6.6 billion and employ 3250 workers, claiming the Rudd government’s proposed mining tax threatens the survival of all of its North Queensland operations, acquired in the 2004 takeover of MIM Holdings.And:Cl
oncurry Mayor Andrew Daniels says 60 contractors in his town have lost their jobs with Xstrata’s announcement…And:
Mount Isa chamber of commerce president Brett Peterson says there could be more pain to come.
“I don’t think this will be the last we see of this and the impact is going to be greater and greater for these businesses,” he said.
BHP Billiton is considering tripling the capacity of a revived Indonesian coking coal project that could overtake Queensland projects if the Rudd government’s planned resource super-profits tax goes ahead, Citi analysts say.And:
ONE of the world’s biggest resource fund managers has sold down a quarter of his BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto holdings because of Kevin Rudd’s proposed 40 per cent tax on mining profits, which he described as a “wake up call"…Anna Bligh turns on Rudd - and his disastrous decision to effectively embezzle $38 million of your money to run Labor ads defending his plan:
“I’m sorry to say we’ve reduced our Australian exposure,” (JPMorgan Chase’s Ian) Mr Henderson told Bloomberg. “It’s been a wake-up call, frankly. I had not thought that the changes in Australia would be quite as drastic as they are proposed to be.”
...the Queensland Premier stopped short of opposing the mining tax but called on Mr Rudd to urgently negotiate with miners to rework the details of the plan.And gagging Bob Katter’s attempt to debate the Xstrata decision will hurt Rudd in Queensland:
“Fighting about a tax system may all be very well in the political sphere, but for those people who got job termination notices today this is no longer a war of words, this is causing real pain to Queensland families,” Ms Bligh said.
“I would urge both the Federal Government and the mining companies to get around the table, to put down the baseball bats, to stop the advertising and get on with solving it.”
THE Rudd Government yesterday gagged debate on the suspension of $586 million worth of mining development work in Queensland six times - twice to defeat motions to bring the issue on for discussion and four times to shut up members wanting to argue the point.Tim Blair is curious: the Rudd Government says it is so urgent to get out its message on its mining tax that it must spend $38 million of your money on advertising. Yet given the chance to get out its message for free in Parliament, it shuts down the debate.
Then the Speaker threw out Queensland Independent Bob Katter, who represents a district affected by one of the projects in question.It’s never an attractive look when ministers close down debate.
When it is to argue about mooted losses of 3250 jobs and the shelving of $6.6 billion of potential mining projects, it’s particularly ugly.
(Thanks to Rudderless of Canterbury and other readers.)
UPDATE
Reader Anthony:
When Rudd said he would stop the boats, he didn’t say he meant bulk-ore carriers.UPDATE 2
Kevin Rudd ducked the Mining Council of Australia’s big dinner in Canberra on Wednesday, but five ministers, two parliamentary secretaries and 11 Labor backbenchers did not. I suspect that among them you could build a nucleus of an Anyone But Rudd faction - or at least a lobby group to dump his tax. Check the Labor invitees for yourself:
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More to Tuvalu than the alarmists claimed
Andrew Bolt
HOW embarrassing. Global warming worriers have gone from warning Tuvalu will drown to wishing it damn well had.But look at it now. Not drowning, but waving. And, er ... growing too?
You remember Tuvalu, of course, even if you’ve never figured quite where it was.
For years this glittering string of atolls has been shoved in your face as the poster islands of the global warming faith - this Eden we were killing with our Western sin.
How often we were told it could be the first Pacific nation to be swallowed by the rising seas caused by our evil gases.
In fact, warned Al Gore in his An Inconvenient Truth, so dire was this danger that “the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand”.
Of course, this claim was as phony as so many Gore made in a film that was honoured with an Oscar, endorsed as accurate by the CSIRO and shown with reverence in every school in the country.
As a British judge later ruled, there was no evidence of climate refugees from the Pacific having to be evacuated to New Zealand or anywhere else to escape rising seas.
But truth has counted for dangerously little in this debate, and warmists told one Tuvaluan tale after another of an endangered Polynesian paradise that grew steadily more mythical.
I don’t just mean that the scare was exploded to preposterous proportions, as in this newspaper report just last year: “More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change, Oxfam has warned.”
I mean also that warmists felt entitled to invent complete fantasies for the cause.
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A dowdy president - with cloth tongue and messiah complex
Andrew Bolt
You’ll never guess who’s just written this about the man who was so desperately unqualified to be president:
Just as President Clinton once protested to reporters that he was still “relevant,” President Obama had to protest to reporters last week that he has feelings.Lose this woman and you’ve lost what you should, as a Democrat, be taking to the bank.
He seemed to tune out a bit after the exhausting battle over health care, with the air of someone who says to himself: “Oh, man, that was a heavy lift. I’m taking a break.”
He’s spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery.
Republican senators who had a contentious lunch with the president last week described him as whiny, thin-skinned and in over his head, and there was extreme Democratic angst at the White House’s dilatory and deferential attitude on the spill.
Even more than with the greedy financiers and arrogant carmakers, it was important to offend and slap back the deceptive malefactors at BP.
Obama and top aides who believe in his divinity make a mistake to dismiss complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise. He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his own inability to encapsulate Americans’ feelings.
(Thanks to reader Baden.)
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Biden says what needed saying; McGeough does some rearranging
Andrew Bolt
US vice president Joe Biden reveals he can indeed say the right thing - and when it matters most. He’s backed Israel over its storming of the Mav Marmara when weaker leaders around the world - Kevin Rudd included - rushed to condemn:
I think Israel has an absolute right to deal with its security interest. I put all this back on two things: one, Hamas, and, two, Israel’s need to be more generous relative to the Palestinian people who are in trouble in Gaza....(Thanks to reader Tasman.)
[The Israelis have] said, ‘Here you go. You’re in the Mediterranean. This ship—if you divert slightly north you can unload it and we’ll get the stuff into Gaza.’ So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza? Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight—3,000 rockets on my people,’
UPDATE
Sydney Morning Herald reporter Paul McGeough was on the “humanitarian” convoy which tried to breach the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.
How comically hard does he (typically) try to smooth over the inconvenient evidence of video footage showing passengers beating and stabbing the IDF commandos?
Try this:
On hearing the machines, activists on the upper decks rushed to the top level of the ship - grabbing the commandos even before they landed, disarming them; beating them until, according to some who were present, leaders demanded the Israelis not be harmed; but in one case, one of the Israelis was hurled from one deck of the ship to the next.Check for yourself if there’s any sign of protest leaders saving Israelis from harm:
Notice that McGeough ignores completely this evidence of a stabbing:
And notice further than despite have been on the flotilla he is either naively unaware of the Islamist background of the key organisers and their links with terror groups - or is unwilling to tell his readers.
This is how a major newspaper does not report the news so much as rearrange it for a desired effect.
UPDATE 2
No wonder, given the above. Reporters are furious that their own footage is being shown in Israel’s defence, and call for it to stop:
Israel’s army has been using confiscated videos to justify its deadly raid against a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, and the Foreign Press Association wants it to stop. The organization, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, says the military seized video and equipment from dozens of reporters on board the main ship. The FPA demanded Thursday that the military stop using the captured material without permission and identify the source of the video already released.If my videos above were McGeough’s to show or conceal, how much would we have seen?
UPDATE 3
Just a declaration of interest:
THE release of journalist Paul McGeough after he was caught up in this week’s Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla was a relief to his Palestinian-American girlfriend yesterday…(Thanks to reader Sammer.)
Over the past two decades, McGeough has carved out expertise as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and written books on the troubled region, including his latest, Kill Khalid, about the bungled 1997 assassination attempt on Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal. It was at the Washington book launch of Kill Khalid in March last year that McGeough met Ms Itraish, a peace activist with strong opinions about the need to create a Palestinian state…
By day, Ms Itraish works as a director at the Virginia-based headquarters of mortgage market company Freddie Mac… Born in the West Bank, Ms Itraish, 49, migrated to the US with her parents at the age of three and, like them, became an American citizen… Brought up a Muslim, she no longer follows the faith but reads extensively about religion.
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“Declared” is a better word
Andrew Bolt
The reporter keeps using the word “admitted” as if what Jacobs has rightly done were shameful:
Water Minister Graham Jacobs has admitted asking his departmental staff to change the term “climate change” in correspondence from him to reflect his views that dwindling rainfall was because of a naturally drying climate.(Thanks to reader Lin and others.)
Dr Jacobs last night admitted during a parliamentary Budget estimates hearing there had been times when he had asked his staff to change documents to reflect his views on the “drying climate”.
UPDATE
What drying, asks Warwick Hughes.
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