=== Todays Toon ===
Victor Albert George Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey GCB, GCMG, PC, DL, JP (20 March 1845 – 31 May 1915), was a British banker, Conservative politician and colonial administrator. He served as Governor of New South Wales between 1891 and 1893.=== Bible Quote ===
“Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?" declares the LORD. "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the LORD.”- Jeremiah 23:24=== Headlines ===
Shocking photograph of 11-month-old boy apparently smoking cannabis triggers investigation by child protection officers after young mother posted it on the internetLalich out, predicts poll
LABOR Party polling has predicted Cabramatta State Labor MP Nick Lalich will lose his seat at next year’s state election. The poll, published in a weekend newspaper, revealed Mr Lalich as one of 31 Labor MPs who would be ousted when NSW goes to the ballot in March. The poll predicted the Liberals would win Cabramatta, a seat that has always been held by the Labor Party. The Liberals have already put forward former ABC journalist Dai Le as a candidate, although she is yet to be officially preselected.Gulf Dealing With New Oil Spill Fear — Hurricane
Workers struggling to cap the leaking oil well are watching and worrying as the first Atlantic hurricane of what experts fear will be a very severe season may be brewing in the Gulf of Mexico.Pedophiles Find a Home on Wikipedia
Popular online encyclopedia has become home base for a loose worldwide network of pedophiles engaging in campaign to spin it in their favor
Petraeus Ready to Loosen War 'Rules'?
Source close to Gen. Petraeus says he wants to make it easier for U.S. troops to engage in combat with the enemy — but the general's spokesman says nothing's decided
'Sanctuary' Supporter Gets Key ICE Role
White House taps outspoken critic of immigration enforcement on the local level as new director for ICE's state and local coordination
Venus Is Hellish, But May Once Have Been Habitable
Venus, currently one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system, may once have had an ample supply of water – possibly even oceans – and been a potentially habitable place when it was young, a new study suggests. The finding comes from the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Venus Express satellite currently orbiting our neighboring planet. The probe is providing new evidence that Venus and Earth aren't as dissimilar as they seem. Earth and Venus are wildly different today. Earth is teeming with life at clement temperatures, while Venus is hellish, its surface hotter than the inside of a kitchen oven. But the two planets share some striking similarities. They are nearly identical in size and makeup, for example. "The basic composition of Venus and Earth is very similar," said Håkan Svedhem, ESA project scientist for Venus Express.Get ready for August election
OPINION poll suggests Julia Gillard will take Labor to an election.
Leadership challenge was poll-driven: Julia Irwin
Fowler MP Julia Irwin has expressed her "disappointment" with yesterday's leadership challenge, despite "respect and admiration" for new PM Julia Gillard. Ms Irwin said she didn't agree with the leadership challenge and the resignation of former prime minister Kevin Rudd because "the time was not right". "I felt we were putting a knife into the back of a Labor PM in his first term. "They [Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard] were elected as a team by the people. "My concern is that this challenge was poll-driven so does that mean that the same thing will happen to her when she slumps in the polls?"The children's book that undid Rudd
KEVIN Rudd was supposed to call double-dissolution election in January. Instead he wrote a book.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith willing to give way to Kevin Rudd
FOREIGN Minister Stephen Smith says he would be willing to accept a prime ministerial decision to let dumped leader Kevin Rudd take the foreign affairs portfolio. - neither could be worse than the other - ed.Hair care tycoon jailed for child abuse
ANTON Starling must serve ten years in prison for sexually assaulting his step-daughter.
Bungle sees fairy penguins burn to death
THIRTEEN birds trapped in pest plant burn-off after National Parks officers failed to call RSPCA.
Gibson files restraining order against ex
ACTOR reportedly unhappy about the access he has to their seven-month-old daughter Lucia.
Congo jungle gives up plane crash dead
BY the time the first body was retrieved from the jungle in Congo, the effort had become an international extravaganza.
Opinion poll upset for Labor in Victoria
THE Liberal-National Coalition has squeezed ahead of Victoria's Labor Government in a new poll. The latest Morgan telephone poll - done before Julia Gillard took over as Prime Minister - shows unhappy regional voters have pushed primary support for the State Government to its lowest level in eight years. But in an increasingly presidential-style campaign, Premier John Brumby's approval rating is starting to rebound after a rocky few months earlier in the year. Female voters in particular prefer Mr Brumby to Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu. However, voters are increasingly unhappy with service delivery under Labor, especially in transport and health, after its almost 11 years in government. And the important country voters who so famously swept the last Liberal premier, Jeff Kennett, from power in 1999 are turning away from Labor.
=== Journalists Corner ===
'The O'Reilly Factor'Will our latest war plan lead to victory in Afghanistan? Dana Perino scores our strategy! Plus, a White House curse? Glenn Beck on a mystery at the Oval Office!
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The Cost of Freedom: A Middle Class Tax Hike?
A middle class tax hike - could it become a reality? We expose what's really on the Dems' to-do list and what they aren't telling you. Plus, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie reveals his plan for tackling unions, and how it could mean cash for you.
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The Kagan Hearings
Fox News Channel will have special coverage of Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings. Watch our coverage!
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On Fox News Insider
Vote Now: Do You Think Al Gore Cheated?Source: Petraeus to Change Rules of Engagement
Stossel: More Guns, Less Crime?
=== Comments ===
President Obama on the DescentBY BILL O'REILLY
As we reported Wednesday night, this week is the low point for the Obama administration. And on Thursday a new Wall Street Journal poll confirms what we said.
For the first time in that poll, more Americans think President Obama is doing a bad job than a good job: 48 percent disapprove, 45 percent say he's doing OK. But the really bad news for the president is that 62 percent of Americans feel the country is heading in the wrong direction, and that is the highest number since before the presidential election of 2008.
"Talking Points" believes it is the chaos factor that is damaging the Obama administration. Once again, the economy, shaky; the oil spill, chaos; the Afghan war, not going well; and the border situation is so bad, the state of Arizona is now defying the federal government.
Add it all up and you are in the chaos zone.
No president can survive there. Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were all done in by the perception they could not control the country. That is where President Obama is right now, but he has a very powerful ally: the American media.
After the president fired Gen. McChrystal, NewsBusters.org put together this montage of press reaction:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sounds like a pretty brilliant decision, really.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is nothing less than a stunning development, Brian, and quite frankly, at a quick glance, almost brilliant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Politically, in this town, it's going to be seen as a brilliant choice by the president.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A very brilliant move to tap Gen. Petraeus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he took swift and decisive action. I think that's how it's going to be read.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
So I guess firing McChrystal was a brilliant move. And by the way, we could have played that montage for another 30 seconds with different reporters echoing the same theme.
Like life, politics is not fair. President Obama did not cause the oil spill. He did not encourage Gen. McChrystal to make indiscreet comments. He inherited a very bad economy, but has not been able to turn it around.
For a guy like the president, who is ultra-confident, this must be a very frustrating time. His policies simply are not working, and if the war in Afghanistan and the economy get worse, he will go the way of Jimmy Carter.
Fair-minded Americans bear no malice towards Mr. Obama. Just as President Bush was treated unfairly at times, so has President Obama.
But the truth is America is now in the chaos zone, and next November is coming up fast.
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Remembering Korea: The Forgotten War
By Rabbi Brad Hirschfield
Sixty years ago today, North Korean soldiers crossed the 38th Parallel and began the Korean War – what has come to be called America’s Forgotten War. Oddly, by naming it the Forgotten War, it began to be remembered, and that raises the larger questions of why we forget or remember events in our lives and in our history.
Do we forget because it’s too painful to recall? Perhaps it’s because the forgotten events simply have no meaningful place in our lives. After all, nothing is simply remembered for its own sake. With nothing to attach to in our ongoing lives, nothing can be remembered.
On the other hand, we are always free to create pegs in our current lives upon which to hang memories that we hope to preserve. But that just begs the question of why we feel compelled to create those pegs.
Ultimately memory is not simply a fact or reality; it is something to be created and pursued. And in many ways, so is forgetting, which brings me back to Korea. Why is it that a conflict that dragged on (why, by the way, do conflicts always “drag on”?) and ultimately cost 2 million lives, including the lives of 54,000 U.S. military personnel, went largely ignored and mostly forgotten for so many years? And why now are we returning to try and recall it with everything from national memorials to TV shows and books about “America’s Forgotten War”?
Could it be that with fewer and fewer World War II veterans around, we need new faces to fill out the picture of our nation’s past? Is it that the squeakiest wheel really does get the grease? Could it be that poised between the heroic victors of WWII and the angry voices about Vietnam ─ the quiet soldiers who fought an ambiguous conflict with an ambiguous ending, at a time when ambiguity was discouraged even more harshly than today ─ neither they nor we knew how to remember what happened?
Not only is memory an action, it is something we construct. We make choices not only about whether to remember, but the “what” and “how” of that which we recall. In fact, until we address the issues of what and how, it’s almost impossible to decide whether to recall something. So if we could not figure out in which conceptual box to place the war and its veterans, it was probably impossible to remember them.
Perhaps then there is a valuable lesson in remembering the Forgotten War. Perhaps the lesson is one that extends far beyond that historical event and into our own lives. Perhaps it’s about deciding to recall the little things, the quiet things, simply because they matter to us.
We should remember Korea neither because it was a marvelous victory over oppression, nor because in remembering we redress the challenges of a war that deeply divided our nation. We should remember Korea because of the human beings who fought and died there, whose lives were forever changed there.
In learning to remember the Korean War, we teach ourselves that people matter most and that the events of their lives should be recalled because we care about the people who lived them. It may have taken more than half a century to figure that out, but if that is the enduring lesson of learning to remember Korea, we will have much of which to be proud.
Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, and is the President of Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership
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RED DAWN
Tim Blair
Massive early support for the new PM:
Julia Gillard will take Labor to victory in an early election with a stunning return to fortune for the Federal Government.Labor types are talking up an August election:
That’s the prediction of the first exclusive opinion poll taken in the aftermath of Kevin Rudd’s dismissal, with the Gillard effect pushing Labor back into poll position almost overnight.
“There will be some settling in, a deal on the mining tax, and then I think we will be going [to an election],” one senior NSW MP said.To make insulation, probably. According to the Galaxy poll, Labor’s primary vote is up from 37 per cent to 41 per cent. The Coalition is down one point to 42 per cent, leaving it four per cent down overall after preferences. Another poll records an even greater Labor boost:
“And we would expect to go in August. We have started pulping our Kevin campaign posters.”
A Herald/Nielsen poll conducted after the political execution of Kevin Rudd shows the voters who abandoned Labor in recent months have swarmed back and Ms Gillard has a thumping 21-percentage-point lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister …A third poll has Labor now in front by 54 per cent to 46 per cent in two-party-preferred terms. Yet some on the left will be feeling left out:
Labor [has] a two-party-preferred lead of 55 per cent to 45, an 8-point swing to the government in three weeks. If the swing were repeated uniformly on election day, Labor would pick up another 11 seats.
Support for the Greens, which had benefited from the disenchantment with the government, plunged from 15 per cent to 8.Expect Bob Brown to withdraw his demand for equal debating time with the main parties. Interestingly, voters have abandoned the Greens for Labor despite Gillard being less green than Kevin Rudd. They’re a shallow bunch. Now watch as these numbers again grind back towards 50-50 over coming weeks …
UPDATE. A Labor win is currently paying between $1.40 and $1.45. The Liberals, $2.72 to $3.25. A slight tightening since polls had Labor behind.
UPDATE II. Pravda‘s view:
Australia’s New Ptime Minister To Face Severe Unfeminine Problems(Via Dan F.)
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RATSTOCKED
Tim Blair
Use a certain phrase involving rats, lose your job. It’s a trend. Meanwhile, Reason reports: “Paul Krugman Now Laughingstock On Two Continents.” Instapundit replies: “Only two?” Indeed – there’s at least one more.
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O’Brien furious: how dare Abbott succeed?
Andrew Bolt
Has Kerry O’Brien ever done an interview so marred by his political allegiances? As far as I can tell, the only reason he had on Tony Abbott was to try to make him pay for forcing Labor in desperation to change leaders. Indeed, we heard O’Brien speak for just as long as his guest - and angrilly.
But I thought this time Abbott was stronger than he often is with O’Brien, more assertive and standing more on his dignity. Even so, I’d have gone in even more strongly and called out O’Brien much sooner and more explicitly. Here was his best exchange:
KERRY O’BRIEN: But you did say that. So you’re confirming that you did say those words: “Victory is within our grasp. We are within reach of a famous victory.”The interview was immediately followed by a John Clarke and Brian Dawe skit attacking the obvious person after such a bloody week of turmoil in the Government. That’s right - attacking Abbott.
TONY ABBOTT: There is no doubt we must have been within reach of a famous victory, otherwise the Labor Party would not have dumped their leader in a fit of panic about its prospects.
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Brumby’s rule threatened
Andrew Bolt
It will be tight in the Victorian election:
The latest Morgan telephone poll - done before Julia Gillard took over as Prime Minister - shows unhappy regional voters have pushed primary support for the State Government to its lowest level in eight years.(Thanks to reader CA.)
But in an increasingly presidential-style campaign, Premier John Brumby’s approval rating is starting to rebound after a rocky few months earlier in the year…
On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition’s support is at 50.5 per cent; Labor’s is at 49.5 per cent.
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Rudd follows daughter’s script, and, worse, Hatcher follows Rudd’s
Andrew Bolt
Rudd follows his daughter’s script:
HIS lip quivered. His wife’s grip spurred him on.Peter Hartcher follows Rudd’s script, to the detriment of both. (I mean, what idiot would actually publicise the fact that he felt so insecure that he checked his MPs for a signs of a plot?)
“I am proud,” he says, going on to list the things of which he’s proud, including “health, tax and education”.
He thanks his family, and makes a lame joke. Journalists laugh. Finally, he says: “God bless.”
Those words could have been written about Kevin Rudd on Thursday. In fact, they were written many months ago, by one Jessica Rudd, daughter of the ousted prime minister.
Ms Rudd’s new novel, Campaign Ruby, is not due out until August, but the degree to which she predicted the events of the past few days is spooky…
Ms Rudd writes about an incumbent prime minister rolled by his deputy - a woman - who becomes the nation’s first female prime minister. As happened with her dad, the execution is a “swift and seamless move"…
Of his successor, the book says: “This is an historic day. She will be Australia’s first female prime minister . . . few people expected this day would come quite so quickly, if at all. Everyone is stunned.”
Peter Hartcher in The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday:
WHEN Kevin Rudd talked confidently on Monday about the strength of Labor support for his leadership it was not based solely on bravado, he has been discreetly checking that his party is still behind him. The Herald has learnt from a number of MPs that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Alister Jordan has been talking privately to almost half the caucus. While some caucus members are edgy about their electoral prospects, Mr Jordan’s exercise evidently discovered no defectors from the Rudd camp.Mark Latham in The Australian Financial Review yesterday:
A DEFINING feature of Rudd’s prime ministership was his constant briefing of Hartcher on the behind-the-scenes processes behind big decisions, invariably to glorify his own contribution. As one caucus wag told me earlier this year, “Kevin doesn’t change his underpants these days without telling Hartcher about it.” It would have been obvious to his colleagues (Gillard in particular) that the Herald’s story came from the PM’s office, a stunning valedictory to Rudd’s misreading of his colleagues and his ineptitude as a caucus tactician.Peter Hartcher sticks by his man yesterday:
RUDD’s polling support had taken a brutal hit but two polls this week put his government in a winning position. Rudd was entirely electable, and no clear case was made against him by anyone in Labor. So why the change? The truth is that some mid-level operatives in the Right faction wanted Rudd to take a harder line on asylum-seekers, to dump the emissions trading scheme and to back off on the mining tax. These were the people who decided to launch the challenge against Rudd. And when Gillard took their gift, her remarks to the media appeared to deliver what the Right wanted: a harder line on asylum-seekers, a more protracted approach to climate change and backing off the mining tax.===
Being gentle is just another sign of our racism
Andrew Bolt
The problem isn’t their violence but our intolerence:
RUGBY league referees should take compulsory culture lessons to learn how to deal with Polynesian and Lebanese footy players.(Thanks to reader Sandi.)
Pacific islanders have been blamed by some refs for an increase in junior footy violence. But Sydney Samoan Council representative Richard David, a former Western Suburbs district player, said caucasian referees did not know how to handle other cultural groups…
Mr David said it was difficult for some islanders to control their emotions: “The Polynesian instinct is very different to a European’s. Our nature is not to speak and talk through our feelings, it’s about the physical emotion and sometimes that can manifest in different ways.”
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Great allies in the war against jihadists
Andrew Bolt
Our partners in fighting Islamist terrorists aren’t against all jihadists:
Patrialis Akbar, Indonesia’s justice minister, is responsible for administering the government’s policy of “deradicalising” members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group that has long been engaged in an armed conflict with the government.(Thanks to reader Geoffrey.)
But in an interview with Al Jazeera to discuss the re-educating programme, Patrialis Akbar said he would encourage and even fund the same fighters to carry out “bomb attacks in Israel instead”.
However, later in the discussion he toned down his words and said that he does not encourage violence.
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Rudd killed by the policies pushed on him by his assassins
Andrew Bolt
Patricia Karvelas has had the best account so far of the plotting that brought down Kevin Rudd. What she also reveals is that the new leadership duo of Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan are the very people who pushed on him the policies that finally destroyed him in the polls:
He gave a sombre speech (to Caucus in conceding), which was both “statesmanlike” but also dug the knife into Gillard and Swan - essentially blaming them for the RSPT and the abandonment of an ETS.So if you are angry about the dumping of the emissions trading system or the imposition of a “super profits” tax, it isn’t Rudd you should want punished, but the two people who have deposed him.
UPDATE
But Labor’s change of face is rewarded, according to an admittedly small poll of just 1000:
A Herald/Nielsen poll conducted after the political execution of Kevin Rudd shows the voters who abandoned Labor in recent months have swarmed back and Ms Gillard has a thumping 21-percentage-point lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister.Galaxy also has Labor ahead, but by not quite as much:
In findings that would tempt Ms Gillard to call an election sooner rather than later, Labor’s primary vote rose 14 points to 47 per cent since the last poll three weeks ago. Support for the Coalition slipped by 1 point to 42 per cent.
This gave Labor a two-party-preferred lead of 55 per cent to 45, an 8-point swing to the government in three weeks.
The exclusive Galaxy opinion survey commissioned by The Daily Telegraph revealed Labor’s primary vote surged from 37 per cent to 41 per cent, lifting it back into a winnable position as voters sent a loud and clear message that Mr Rudd had been the problem…If these quick polls are mirrored in a couple of big ones, and the miners can be squared away, Gillard will hare off to Yarralumla.
More people said they would rather have a beer with Ms Gillard than Mr Abbott, and 52 per cent said he was not someone they liked much. Just 24 per cent thought the same about Ms Gillard.
However, voters recorded strong disapproval at the brutality of the coup, with only 45 per cent saying it had been a good decision…
The two-party preferred vote had Labor at 52 per cent and the Coalition at 48 per cent. In the 2007 election, Labor won with 52.7 per cent as the Coalition gained 47.3 per cent.
UPDATE 2
This is the picture of the moment Rudd sealed his doom, according to Dennis Shanahan. Not nine months ago, Rudd seemed impregnable:On the weekend of September 30-October 1 Mr Rudd was preferred prime minister over Malcolm Turnbull by 67 per cent to 18 per cent, Labor’s primary vote was 46 per cent to the Coalition’s 35 per cent, the two-party result was Labor 58 per cent to 42 per cent and satisfaction with Mr Rudd was 67 per cent to 24 per cent dissatisfaction.He was urged to run to an early election after taking a quick Christmas break:
The second part of the plan was to start campaigning in late January and then, before parliament was due to resume sitting on February 2, call a double-dissolution election for March based on the Senate’s rejection of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the first week of December. All Mr Rudd needed to do was return from holidays and pull the trigger.Instead:
Labor MPs were stunned when, instead, Mr Rudd’s first public duty in mid-January was to launch a children’s book he’d co-authored with Play School actor Rhys Muldoon… Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle was to encourage literacy, raise funds for charity and encourage care for pets…True, Rudd could well have won an election then, although I think it would have been much closer than many suggest, given how scepticism was suddenly rising about a great green tax that had just been snubbed by the rest of the world. But then there were so many miscalulations that brough Rudd undone over the months to come. What the book really shows is how greedy Rudd was for attention, and how desperate to be doing a million trivial things instead the few critical ones well. And now:
The opportunity for the Rudd Government to go the polls - while unambiguously in front and with Mr Rudd as Prime Minister - was lost. Since then, Rudd’s support within the federal parliamentary Labor Party and with public plunged.
This episode, according to senior Labor figures, is the genesis of this week’s unprecedented and spectacular removal of Mr Rudd as Labor leader
UPDATE 3What’s this guarantee now worth in the Labor Party?
Queensland’s deputy premier says there’s no chance of his boss Anna Bligh being rolled, and that he’d sooner take a blow for her than stab her in the back.(Thanks to readers CA and Mum of 5.)
The premier has insisted she will not suffer the same fate as former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who stood aside for his deputy Julia Gillard on Thursday after losing the support of his party.
UPDATE 4
Reader Scott doesn’t trust that Nielsen poll claiming a 55-45 lead for Gillard’s Government:
The headline 2PP figures of ALP 55 - 45 Coalition are really misleading.Victoria was the state where Rudd was doing well, too. It will do Gillard little good to be popular in Victoria if she can’t win votes in NSW and Queensland in particular.
If you take a look at the Nielsen tables it’s almost all exclusively from Victoria where all of a sudden the ALP is getting 67% 2pp in this poll.The coalition is leading in WA, SA/NT, QLD and the result is close in NSW.
I would consider this to be a rogue poll due to the ‘The PM is a Victorian!’ novelty factor.
UPDATE 5
Different Prime Minister, but same policy - and the same person to blame for it:
THE federal government’s trouble-plagued schools stimulus program has been dealt another embarrassing blow, with the revelation that not one of the science and language centres promised for 70 Victorian state schools will be delivered on time…(Thanks to reader CA.)
And despite the primary purpose of the program being to stimulate the economy, construction has not started at almost a third of the Victorian secondary schools eligible for a science or language centre.
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