=== Todays Toon ===
General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (1772 – 2 April 1858) was a British colonial Governor and Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831.=== Bible Quote ===
“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”- Luke 11:13=== Headlines ===
Fearing for his life in Peru, confessed killer Joran van der Sloot says he'll give location of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway's remains if he's transferred to jail in Aruba.BP Deploys New Sensors
The company responds to mounting pressure to better track the amount of oil gushing into the sea
Search for Flood Victims Narrows
Death toll from Arkansas flash flood reaches 19 while searchers hunt for one more missing person
Kyrgyz Rebels Leave Violent Trail
More than 75,000 Uzbeks flee ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan in the country's worst violence in 20 years
Skeleton Found in Wyoming Could Be Prehistoric, Coroner Says
RIVERTON, Wyo. (AP) -- The Fremont County Coroner's Office is sending skeletal remains thought to be of prehistoric origin to the University of Wyoming anthropology department for examination. A maintenance worker found the bones while digging along a trail at the Central Wyoming College field station in Sinks Canyon near Lander.
Thousands left devastated by Australia's humiliating defeat to Germany as Tim Cahill sent offHonours bestowed on Roy and HG
FUNNY men Roy and HG make the Queen's Birthday Honours List for service to entertainment.
Rush to sell as property market cools
RECORD number of homes set to go under the hammer in one state as clearance rates plummet.
Nervous MPs feel Rudd can't change
SENIOR Labor figures delay calls for Kevin Rudd to go but admit he has a tough week ahead.'We can't afford Abby's rescue costs'
SAILING body refused to sponsor teen's solo record bid as family admit they can't pay rescue costs - ridiculous. We can't afford Rudd, but we can afford the rescue of this young woman - ed.
Probe landing 'to reveal universe secrets'
SPACE probe carrying dust samples from asteroid lands in the South Australian outback.
Parents 'not told' of predator grab attacks
A SUSPECTED paedophile made three attempts to grab children from elite Sydney private schools before police notified parents. Police were called after the first attempted abduction outside Scots College at Bellevue Hill on Tuesday morning. They made the attack public at 4.30pm on Wednesday. During that time the predator struck again at neighbouring Cranbrook School between 2.20 and 3.15pm on Wednesday, prompting police patrols around the schools and at bus stops.Cameras to make $20,000 a day
THE first batch of RTA safety cameras will see bad drivers pay more than $20,000 a day in fines.
Desperate CityRail offers free trips
THE State Government is so desperate to get people to use its ailing rail system that it is giving away $320,000 worth of train tickets. The off-peak return tickets were delivered in a letterbox drop to residents of Parramatta and surrounding suburbs at the weekend. The glossy flyer inside the envelope reads: "We'd like you to experience first hand the advantages of travelling off peak with CityRail. "Please use this return MyTrain ticket any weekday after 9am or any time on the weekend before July 15. "Whether you're going to the movies, catching a concert or simply doing a bit of shopping, let CityRail off-peak take you there for free!" - if you look at the picture long enough it will look exactly like all the other trains on the network not moving anywhere - ed.Sydney's dismal report card for housing affordability, congestion and infrastructure
THE NSW Government's failure to deliver on infrastructure has placed Sydney at the bottom of the performance list among Australia's capital cities. An independent report commissioned by the Property Council of Australia has found Sydney significantly lags behind its counterparts in planning, infrastructure, housing affordability and congestion. Poor ratings could mean Sydney fails to qualify for the Federal Government's infrastructure funding in 2012. The report was compiled by auditors KPMG to determine how well Australian capital cities were performing against criteria set out by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). It also examined indicators such as housing affordability, congestion and meeting budget requirements. When it came to meeting the COAG criteria Sydney ranked 6th, beaten by Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.'Drownings' in attempt to reach Australia
UP to 12 asylum seekers have drowned last week after their small fishing boat capsized during stormy weather, survivors say.
=== Comments ===
THEY’RE ON AUTO-DESTRUCT
Tim Blair
The SMH’s Phil Coorey exposes an alleged Rudd Club:
A well-sourced rumour last week had it that a small group of prominent Labor warhorses in NSW so disliked Kevin Rudd they had formed a lunch club. On being contacted by the Herald, a couple of supposed key members denied any such club existed.With one consonant change, Frank Zappa’s 30-year-old Mudd Club is suddenly apposite:
But one suggested it was a good idea and worth consideration. ‘’He’s going to lose the election,’’ he said of Rudd. ‘’He’s just ruined the hopes of a generation. When he’s done and dusted, it will all come out.’’
Hey, they’re really dancin’Work the wall some more, Laboreenies. In serious pain.
They’re on auto-destruct
On the floor
On the pipe
Bouncin’ off-a the wall
Hey, the people here are really
Tearin’ it up
On the side
In the back
By the front of the stage
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Ask our competitors why Rudd makes them smile
Andrew Bolt
When our competitors gloat, that’s all you need to know how disastrously Kevin Rudd has bungled:
The Chilean mining industry stands to benefit from the stir the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax is causing among miners in Australia, said Chile’s Mining Minister, Laurence Golborne…Yes, a Latin American nation is boasting that it represents less of a sovereign risk to investors than does Rudd’s Australia.
“The situation in Australia is a tremendous opportunity for Chile if we can offer the mining sector stability and tranquility. Let them know that our tax schemes are stable over time,” Golborne told reporters at the Ministry on Friday.
Nor is that the only competitor thinking Rudd’s tax will drive business from us to them. Take Canada:
AUSTRALIA’S proposed new tax on its resources industry could be a huge competitive advantage for Canada, according to that country’s finance minister, Jim Flaherty… Like Australia, Canada has a very large and active resource industry… Mr Flaherty noted that Canada had been reducing its corporate tax rate, and corporations in most of Canada would face a combined 25 per cent tax rate by 2012.And:
Conservative Canadian MP Brad Trost ... wants Canada to cash in on the adverse reaction by mining companies…And in South Africa, Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, predicts a bonanza as investors flee a country made unstable by Rudd:
BRAD TROST: ... Canada as is Australia is a major mining player and I think we see an opportunity to have some money come north. .. The dollars are going to move. People are scared because their profits are going to go in taxes so they should come to Canada - a low taxed, mining friendly jurisdiction.
South Africa is really the beneficiary, along with Canada and Brazil, of the punitive taxes that have been introduced by Australia. Australia seems to have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to mining taxes.China should should also clean up:
There has been a howl of protest with this new super profit tax, which takes 40% of the profits away from the mining industry. Now, people are sharpening their pencils and saying should we mine and go ahead with our project in Australia or maybe we can go ahead with the one in South Africa or elsewhere because of the different situation…
We always used to say that Africa has got a bad mining code and a lot of the people don’t want to put their money there, but now we are seeing Australia in a situation were people are saying there is sovereign risk. They used to apply that only to South Africa.
CHINESE investors seeking resource security could emerge as major beneficiaries of the Rudd government’s resource super-profits tax, according to the president of the Australia China Business Council in Western Australia. Mr Calder said the lower returns on offer to investors under the proposed tax would deter foreign and local investment, but the reduced profitability may be acceptable to Chinese investors with downstream processing operations. Under the new tax regime, China would also face less competition for projects from rival sources of capital.Rudd is trashing our name overseas, and trashing our economy at home.
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How dare Wilders not surrender freedom to Islam
Andrew Bolt
The New York Times brands Dutch political leader Geert Wilders an ‘extremist” and “populist” who causes trouble for “mainstream” politicians with his “unsavoury policies”. It then calls on a Dutch academic to help explain how bad this “outspoken critic of Islam” really is:
Dick Houtman, a professor of political sociology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said that Mr. Wilders had built on Mr. Fortuyn’s legacy, successfully avoiding the overtly racist language of far-right politicians in other countries by highlighting issues like freedom of speech, female equality and gay rights. ”That serves to exclude Muslims from the Dutch political consensus,” he said.Are these guys listening to themselves? If “highlighting issues like freedom of speech, female equality and gay rights” does indeed “exclude Muslims from the Dutch political consensus”, then who is the real problem here? Which side of the debate does indeed have “unsavoury policies”?
This siding with the threat rather than the threatened is already sick enough, But note also that Wilders’ forerunner, gay academic Pim Fortuyn, was murdered by a green activist upset by his warnings of the threat to freedom posed by Islam, and that Wilders himself is now under 24-hour guard merely for speaking his mind.
Michael Finch sums up:
Apparently to be part of the postmodern Western “political consensus”, too be inclusive of Muslims, we need to be against freedom of speech, gay rights and female equality?(Thanks to reader Gordon.)
Houtman, aware of it or not, has made a brilliant, if obvious, observation. In order for many Muslim immigrants to feel culturally and politically included in the West, most clearly in Holland, they need to exist in an environment that is not open to the pluralistic, open and free West of the Enlightenment of the past 300 years.
So when a Western politician like Wilders openly embraces the values of liberty, he is called an extremist, hate monger and radical with ties to neo Nazis. The elite class, currently in Washington and throughout the halls of Western academia and the media, feel it more important to be inclusive of Muslims then holding true to the values that created the most open and free society the world has ever seen. And to oppose this new orthodoxy makes one a criminal, as the Left hopes to make of Wilders.
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How Gillard beats Abbott
Andrew Bolt
Glenn Milne says Tony Abbott would struggle against Julia Gillard:
Our best guide to how an election would be fought between Gillard and Abbott is their face-off each Friday on the Today Show. Gillard has it all over Abbott. The reasons are twofold: her femininity and the psychological ascendancy this gives her.
Cornered, Gillard can do what no male politician could get way with, throw back a comely head and laugh throatily as Abbott sits across the table like a junk-yard dog straining on a leash. The black malevolence of forced restraint is palpable. Abbott is smart enough to know he cannot go all out and destroy Gillard, even if he were capable of it....The Opposition Leader would look like a macho bully who can’t contain himself because Gillard gets under his skin. To destroy her would also be to destroy himself. The fact that she looks to be enjoying herself only adds to the combustibility of Abbott’s mood.
It’s not helped by the fact that he quite fancies her, too...
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
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Rudd’s “4000” scientists turn to just “dozens”
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd tells yet another lie to justify his global warming policies:
And the most recent IPCC scientific conclusion in 2007 was that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and the “increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” This is the conclusion of 4,000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world...Mick Hulme, Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia and an IPCC’s co-ordinating Lead Author, corrects the record:
Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.Just a few dozen scientists, not Rudd’s “4000”. The man is utterly shameless.
But this raises the question: how easy is it for such a small group to become slaves of group think - or, indeed, to become intoxicated with their enormous and flattering influence on geo-politics?
In 2006, Professor Edward Wegman raised this very fear in his report, commissioned by the United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee to examine the IPCC’s discredited “hockey stick”, devised by Michael Mann, which purported to show unprecedented warming last century:
One of the interesting questions associated with the ‚"hockey stick controversy’ are the relationships among the authors and consequently how confident one can be in the peer review process. In particular, if there is a tight relationship among the authors and there are not a large number of individuals engaged in a particular topic area, then one may suspect that the peer review process does not fully vet papers before they are published…Note those names again: Michael Mann, Scott Rutherford, Phil Jones, Tim Osborn, Keith Briffa, Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes are all climate scientists implicates in the Climategate scandal.
However, it is immediately clear that the Mann, Rutherford, Jones, Osborn, Briffa, Bradley and Hughes form a clique, each interacting with all of the others. A clique is a fully connected subgraph, meaning everyone in the clique interacts with every one else in the clique....
Michael Mann is a co-author with every one of the other 42 [in his clique]. The black squares on the diagonal [fig. 5.2] indicate that the investigators work closely within their group, but not so extensively outside of their group.
And Rudd not only fell for it, but lied for it.
(Thanks to reader Neville.)
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Lynching Pell works
Andrew Bolt
If true, this would reward a disgraceful lynching of a good man:
CARDINAL George Pell, whose promotion to a top Vatican job was expected this month, has been dropped from consideration because of former abuse allegations against him, according to informed sources in Rome.How dodgy and agenda-driven was that complaint against Pell? Here’s what I found out eight years ago:
Cardinal Pell stood down as Archbishop of Sydney in 2002 after he was accused of abusing a teenager at a church camp in the 1960s, but an independent investigation by a retired non-Catholic judge cleared him.
Vatican watchers now say important officials have worked to undermine Cardinal Pell as the next head of the Congregation of Bishops, partly from concerns over negative publicity about the abuse allegations and partly for internal political reasons, including the desire for an Italian to take the job.
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$23,000 for 17 pot plants and turf the size of your kitchen
Andrew Bolt
More astonishing waste from the most wasteful program in Australian political history - one run by Julia Gillard:
MORE schools are blowing the whistle on the wastage, shoddy construction and rorting of the Rudd government’s $16.2 billion Building the Education Revolution program.Just more anecdotes from a car crash of a policy that is wasting anything up to $5 billion.
The schools have complained about overcharging -- including $23,044 in “landscaping fees” for 17 pot plants and four square metres of turf -- and substandard construction, in submissions to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the BER.
Mary Brooksbank School, which caters for disabled students in Sydney, was given a $592,000 special purpose room with a door “not constructed to disability standards”.
Two covered learning areas were built at a cost of $235,000 without safety reinforcements, so their roofs had to removed for repairs…
Building costs at 10 schools have blown out by identical amounts totalling $4.5 million after the price of modular libraries soared from $850,000 to $1.3m.
UPDATE
Reader Once Was a Global Warming Alarmist adds:
My wife is a horticulturalist.We have just re-landscaped our own garden.Turf costs $11 per square metre (the upper limit for very high quality buffalo or couch)
Pot plants - even assuming high quality pots and mature plants, I can’t imagine these being more than $50 each, so let’s assume $850.
So, a total cost of $900, including the turf.
Every day I am bombarded with messages from State and Federal government telling me to drive slower, drink less, waste less, consume responsibility, contribute to asylum seekers, to pay my taxes responsibly… only for our governments to piss it all up as if there was a never-ending pot of money?
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Rudd’s shame: more people lured to their deaths
Andrew Bolt
Yet more asylum seekers lured to their deaths, so where are the activists who should be demanding an end to Kevin Rudd’s lethally irresponsible policies?
UP to 12 asylum-seekers are believed to have drowned last week after a failed attempt to reach Australia from Indonesia, including at least two Sri Lankans from the Merak boat intercepted last year at Kevin Rudd’s requestThis would make at least 170 asylum people feared dead since Rudd relaxed our boat people laws in 2008 and triggered a resumption in people smuggling.
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Hamilton deplores what he recommends
Andrew Bolt
Professor Clive Hamilton is outraged that rich miners are arguing for a change in a policy they believe will hurt them and the country:
So where is the public outrage at this unprecedented assertion of rapaciousness and the attempts by plutocrats to destroy Australian democracy?To argue is to destroy democracy? I thought it was the essence of democracy.
And give the miners credit. None have argued anything like this:
(T)he implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.Good heavens. That’s this same champion of democracy, suggesting a suspension of it.
It seems some policies indeed are so serious that democracy must be destroyed to change them. But only when Hamilton approves.
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Rudd’s fall
Andrew Bolt
It is astonishing that not three years after his election victory, and six months after cockily considering a double dissolution election to bury the Liberals, that Rudd should have fallen so far as this:
SENIOR Labor figures have rallied behind Kevin Rudd’s leadership, rejecting demands he be sacked over his planned 40 per cent super-profits mining tax but conceding he faces one of his toughest weeks in politics.Peter van Onselen:
If Julia Gillard decided to challenge, she would win a ballot hands down…UPDATE
Next week opens with another Newspoll and its findings - Labor’s primary vote as well as the Prime Minister’s personal ratings - will determine whether passive concern about Rudd’s performance turns into active lobbying for Gillard to take over. So far, the powerbrokers are unmoved, but they will closely watch Newspoll before re-evaluating their positions…
How Rudd conducts himself this week is crucial to his future. Does he find a way through the mining tax impasse? He said it could take months but as far as many backbenchers and some ministers are concerned, he has a week.
The Age finds comfort where it can:
Today there will be some welcome news for the government with a coalition of lobby groups to support the tax.At last! That third-part endorsement Labor badly needs. So who are these dispassionate voices who may tip the balance?
The Australian Council of Social Service, the ACTU, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Consumers’ Federation will say mining tax reform is essential to improve fairness and efficiency in the tax system and strengthen the economy.Oh.
They said it was time the voices of ordinary Australians were heard in a debate dominated so far by ‘’powerful vested mining interests’’.
So representing “ordinary Australians” is a radicalised green group, Big Unions and the gimme-cash ACOSS, all staunchly of the big-spending Left. No vested interest, much?
UPDATE 2
Phillip Coorey:
A well-sourced rumour last week had it that a small group of prominent Labor warhorses in NSW so disliked Kevin Rudd they had formed a lunch club. On being contacted by the Herald, a couple of supposed key members denied any such club existed.
But one suggested it was a good idea and worth consideration. ‘’He’s going to lose the election,’’ he said of Rudd. ‘’He’s just ruined the hopes of a generation. When he’s done and dusted, it will all come out.’’
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Saudis show Israel the way to Iran
Andrew Bolt
The Times claims:
Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities…(Thanks to reader zbcustom.)
In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.
To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated.
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Rather Liberia than Rudd’s regime
Andrew Bolt
We’re losing out to Liberia?
BHP Billiton has resisted the temptation to call a $US3 billion ($A3.52 billion) investment deal in Liberia a pointed response to the Rudd government’s proposed resources tax.(Thanks to reader CA.)
BHP chairman Jac Nasser has told shareholders in a ‘’fireside chat’’ hosted on the group’s website that should the tax proceed as planned, Australia will lose investment to countries with more attractive tax rates.
BHP hopes to re-establish Liberia, in west Africa, as a major supplier of iron ore to European markets.
Mr Nasser said the proposed resources tax was ‘’inconsistent with Australia’s hard-earned reputation as a stable place to invest’’.
BHP’s reluctance to use its push into Liberia as a cause celebre in the resource tax debate reflects the risks of investing in west Africa....
BHP’s chief executive ferrous and coal Marcus Randolph said ... BHP would look to accelerate development of its Liberian interests.
“The government of Liberia has demonstrated that it is open for business. With the completion of our mineral development agreement, we intend to expedite development of these resources,” he said.
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Unhealthy blowout again
Andrew Bolt
What is it with this Government and infrastructure? The “fast trains” blowout, the Federation Square blowout, the desalination plrant blowout, the Myki ticket system blowout and now this:
VICTORIAN hospitals have slammed the state government’s trouble-plagued $323 million health technology system - dismissing its benefits as limited and accusing the government of putting hospitals at ‘’serious risk’’.(Thanks to reader CA.)
A series of documents from the networks that run hospitals across Victoria reveal a litany of problems and dissatisfaction with the HealthSmart system, which is running four years late and $35 million over budget…
HealthSmart aims to co-ordinate the different computer systems running in hospitals and bring in new programs such as electronic prescriptions to reduce medical errors… HealthSmart was launched in 2003. But seven years into the project, health networks have reported that the financial ‘’positives and negatives … will be largely unknown until the project is more advanced’’.
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