=== Todays Toon ===
Vice-Admiral John Hunter, RN (29 August 1737 – 13 March 1821) was a British naval officer, explorer, naturalist and colonial administrator who succeeded Arthur Phillip as the second governor of New South Wales, Australia from 1795 to 1800=== Bible Quote ===
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”- 1 Thessalonians 5:11=== Headlines ===
BP's latest strategy has successfully collected 252,000 gallons of crude, but it's only a fraction of the oil that is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.New Standoff at Sea
Amid mounting international pressure, Israel enforces naval blockade by seizing Gaza-bound ship
Heated Remarks Saving Incumbents?
As anti-D.C. wave puts lawmakers' jobs in jeopardy, two are considered shoo-ins
New Search for Stacy Peterson's Body
Possible break in high-profile missing woman case leads police to private hunting grounds in Illinois
Australian Sam Stosur fell at the final hurdle of grand slam as Italian underdog Francesca Schiavone grabbed a 6-4 7-6 win'I'll post bail,' says lover of HIV acrobat
GIRLFRIEND of HIV-positive circus performer suspected of infecting up to 12 women stands by man.
Dining al-desko is the new working lunch
ONE in four Australian workers now eat lunch at their desk, with one in six skipping lunch regularly.
Rings break the rule of 'men-gagement'
No longer is a proposal all about the bride-to-be's rock with more men getting their own symbol.
'I'm high on life,' says clean cut Newton
NEW X-Factor judge says rehab has forced him reassess his life - and start thinking of others.
Premier 'breached' whistleblower laws
PREMIER Kristina Keneally is under investigation by the NSW Ombudsman over alleged breaches of the State's whistleblower laws. The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the watchdog has begun an inquiry into claims Ms Keneally and her office compiled a "dirt file" on a whistleblower who exposed corruption by Penrith MP Karyn Paluzzano. - Keneally should reexamine the case of Hamidur Rahman while she can - ed.Laughable police physicals 'way too easy'
THE NSW Police Force has been criticised for watering down fitness tests for new recruits.
UK police probed tax affairs of gunman
British taxi driver who shot dead 12 people dead during rampage was being investigated over his tax affairs, police say.
=== Comments ===
A tax on miners, attacks on us allPiers Akerman
AUSTRALIANS are losing their livelihoods and Australia is losing its reputation as a safe investment because of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s vicious and personal attacks on the mining industry. - The tax is ridiculous and unworkable, but the theory of it, the idea of it, is already taking billions from the economy. To blame Rudd is to ignore those responsible, because Rudd is not capable of coming up with this on his own. It may well be that the ALP will take Rudd into the next election so they can knife him after and claim renewal. Or they may knife him before the election and claim renewal. But it was never Rudd to begin with. Gillard is an ideas person, but she isn’t responsible for this either. They knew this would be unpopular, but they are doing this for many reasons, all suggesting they have to. They want to claim to the electorate they can make hard decisions, and not just make decisions look hard. They want a cash flow to pay for election promises they won’t deliver. They want to be able to promise more they can deliver so as to hold any future conservative government to a higher standard, ala Keating. The big worry, for me, is that they can still be elected government again based on polling. They have been abysmal, but it will take more than a few journalists like Akerman and Blair (or the social conservative Bolt) to show the average joe that ALP government is not working. - ed.
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There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second. - Logan Pearsall Smith Maria: any thoughts on this one people? - Logan had translated from a Greek saying. It has roots in a story written of by Herodotus in The Histories. I think it isn't that hard to experience joy, but some like to make it hard to justify their own austerity. Joy should not be confused with mere satisfaction. I rarely get what I want, yet I have had much joy. - ed.
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VERIFIED FIVE TIMES
Tim Blair
Nilknarf – whose previous Palestinian protest visit exposed local Nazi sympathies – attends another Melbourne rally, and this time captures the return of the Islamic peace Mercedes:
To the left, you’ll also note an epic compassionate head-tilt. Read Nilk’s post all the way to the end for extra giggles. She’s a terrific reporter and a great resource, but SMH aqua hyena enthusiast Paul McGeough has resources of his own:Paul Mcgeough never publishes anything until he has it verified at least 5 times as I discovered when I helped him with an important story in 2005.Yes, it’s that Marilyn Shepherd, widely known for her balanced views on Israel and such. Presumably the “important story” Shepherd helped McGeough with involved the Bakhtiyari kids. Before scrolling down to the Shepherd comment, let’s learn something about McGeough’s opinion of Hamas:
I have both of his first two books and have ordered the third one due out next week.
I read his work in Australia no matter what he reports on because he is the best in our business.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd on Wed 18 Feb 2009 at 11:52 AM
People keep repeating that Hamas’s charter is opposed to the existence of Israel. Yes it is, but Hamas has not stood by its charter for the best part of the last ten years. Hamas has recognized the Oslo peace process, which it said it would oppose. It has taken part in democratic elections, which it has won. It has de facto recognized the two-state solution by seeking to be elected as the government of the Palestinian Authority. It has not struck outside historic Palestine; it never has. So to dismiss it as a terrorist group that has to be stamped out misses entirely the point of its position in Palestinian society …I don’t. Meanwhile, we have more evidence from the fauxtilla:
Rather than describe Hamas as a terrorist group, I would say they’re a group that uses terror as a weapon and I think there’s a significant difference there.
The IDF released on Friday an audio reproduction of the moments before Monday’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.We haven’t.
In it, the soldiers can be heard warning the flotilla that its vessels are nearing an area under naval blockade. They are answered by calls of “Go back to Auschwitz” and “Don’t forget 9/11 guys”.
(Via Professor Bunyip)
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CAFE TYRANNY
Tim Blair
Welcome to Sydney restaurant Wafu, where diners are on trial:
An Australian restaurateur fed up with the waste left by diners has ordered her customers to eat everything on their plates for the sake of the earth or pay a penalty and not return.This joint is just around the corner. I might drop in during the week. Via reader Sandi, who emails:
Chef Yukako Ichikawa has introduced a 30 percent discount for diners who eat all the food they have ordered at Wafu, her 30-seat restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, that describes itself as “guilty free Japanese cuisine.”
“To contribute toward creating a sustainable future we request a little more of our guests than most other restaurants,” she says in a list of her restaurant’s policies that is pinned on the door to the eatery.
This list includes finishing all dishes ordered which are organic and free of gluten, dairy, sugar and eggs and the chef and her staff tell people who don’t clear their plates to choose another restaurant next time.
“Finishing your meal requires that everything is eaten except lemon slices, gari (sushi ginger) and wasabi,” says the menu.
“Please also note that vegetables and salad on the side are NOT decorations; they are part of the meal too.”
On standing to leave a little Korean restaurant in Perth last week I witnessed a man wearing a pushbike helmet enter and follow a waitress to the kitchen door. She had just cleared a table of an empty plate and a half-full plate. He launched into a lecture on “wasted resources” and proceeded to scoop up with his bare hands the contents of the half-full plate, carrying them back outside to dump them in the saddlebag of his pushbike. He then re-entered the restaurant to use the men’s room. I asked the waitress to clear away my half-full plate before he came out. No way was he going to (literally) get his hands on my leavings.They’re on a loonar mission. Christopher Monckton enjoys tormenting them.
The green loons are getting loonier by the day.
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RACE CARD
Tim Blair
A graduation card available for three years is now removed from stores.
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AAARK
Tim Blair
Certain native birds are conforming to a dreadful alcoholic stereotype:
Hundreds of seemingly drunk parrots are falling out of trees and the sky in a northern Australian town, mystifying veterinary surgeons who are struggling to care for them.Brightly-coloured drinky birds usually don’t emerge in Australia until spring. It must be something to do with the warmening. In related avian developments, a reader asks:
The brightly coloured lorikeets are showing classic signs of drunkenness by losing all coordination and passing out, and then cowering in cages as they recover from their “hangovers”.
“They definitely seem like they’re drunk,” said Lisa Hansen, a veterinary surgeon at the Ark Animal Hospital in Palmerston, near Darwin.
“They fall out of trees ... and they’re not so coordinated as they would normally be. They go to jump and they miss the next perch.”
I want a fat kookaburra. Where do I get one?Well, Caroline O., it’s easy! First you build your kookaburra feeding platform, then you surround it with a wire fence. Eventually – after several weeks of dedicated overfeeding – the kookaburra will be too fat to fly away, at which point you simply remove the fence and allow the lardy bird to waddle into your life forever.
(Via perched and pure Paco)
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ANYTHING BUT KEVIN
Tim Blair
He’s already lost gallery owners, and now Kevin Rudd has lost Singo:
Advertising veteran John Singleton is willing to sell just about anything – except Kevin Rudd.Too easy. A bigger challenge: ads for NSW premier Kristina Keneally, whose Labor government is now just in it for the money:
Mr Singleton, whose campaigns helped win elections for former Labor Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, says he hates the Prime Minister’s “mad” proposed mining super profits tax.
He hates it so much he would even be willing to make advertisements for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott …
The latest scandal has also started an ugly internal power struggle, with backbenchers keen to get their hands on a ministerial pay packet and pension before Labor faces electoral annihilation.Everyone’s had a shot at a ministry. Since the last election in 2007, there have been 169 ministerial changes and three Premiers. Caligula with clown shoes …
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DEEP SINKER
Tim Blair
“Only recently lauded as the most popular prime minister in Australia’s history,” reports the Times, “Mr Rudd is now watching his support base collapse with all the drama and speed of a Guatemala sink hole.” The incredible sinking Kevin, already down in Western Australia, is now vulnerable in Queensland:
A backlash against Labor’s super mining tax in Kevin Rudd’s home state could make him a one-term prime minister.This won’t calm the famous Rudd temper. Is he angry or frightened? Beats me; having met the bloke only once, I’d go with weird.
A Galaxy Poll – conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail – warns that, if an election were held today, Mr Rudd would lose in his own backyard.
On the crucial two-party preferred vote, the poll has Labor in Queensland on 48 per cent to the Coalition’s 52 per cent.
UPDATE. Rudd doesn’t care to meet his own cabinet ministers, either:
Backbenchers complain he is harder to get a meeting with than the Pope and cabinet ministers including Stephen Conroy are forced to get on planes with him just to have some time to tell him the tendering process for the national broadband network has failed.Poor Peter Garrett is also kept out of the loop:
Environment minister Peter Garrett has made the extraordinary admission that he was first made aware of the government’s decision to jettison the emissions trading scheme when it was revealed in the Sydney Morning Herald in April …He should quit. This is just humiliating.
When questioned about his exclusion from the decision making process, Mr Garrett appeared visibly frustrated …
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More boats, and Rudd sacks the gatekeepers
Andrew Bolt
Rudd’s border protection policies are leaking worse than ever:
A boat carrying 39 suspected asylum seekers was intercepted northwest of Ashmore Islands on Saturday morning.Oops - a fourth boat in 48 hours:
It comes after a boat with 54 asylum seekers was stopped on Thursday night, just 25 hours after a vessel with 28 people was intercepted in the same area.
In the afternoon, a Customs boat responded to calls for help from another vessel that had engine problems north of Scott Reef. It is believed there were 46 passengers and three crew onboard the second ship.What on earth made these people think Rudd was soft? Well, perhaps one clue is the sacking last week of many of the tougher members of the Refugee Review Tribunal, which now has on its selection panel the president of the Refugee Council of Australia.
Former RRT member Peter Katsambanis describes what has happened:
In his press release, the Minister makes no mention at all that 21 members were not reappointed. Now 2 or 3 of the 21 did not reapply as they were retiring but the rest were dumped. 46 members were up for reappointment - 25 were reappointed and 21 were not. This includes a number of very senior, very experienced members who have worked on the Tribunals for over 10 years.I’ve looked up just a few of the new appointments to the RRT, and think Katsambanis is not exaggerating at all:
Why gut the Tribunal in this way of you are not looking for a softer, more facilitative approach? The sacked members were highly competent individuals who did their jobs well without fear or favour. If it really was a merit-based selection process the only reason you would sack over 40% of the members due for appointment is because of lack of competence. If these people were incompetent then our federal courts would be full of appeals that would succeed. They are not.
No matter how the government dresses this up, it is simply another element of its softer approach on asylum seekers. The people smugglers will be celebrating all over south east Asia.
Charlie Powles - Solicitor for RILC (Refugee and Immigration Law Centre) in MelbourneI’m sure these new people will decide each case on the facts - as did those they replace. Yet it seems beyond doubt to me that the message has gone out to be quicker to let in asylum seekers. I’ve already interviewed several serving and former RRT members who say they are in no doubt of this, and work in a “culture of fear”. And that was before this latest news of the appointment of new RRT members who have been previously worked to break down the doors for their clients.
Anthony Krohn - Melbourne barrister who proclaims that he has appeared for hundreds of asylum seekers in Australia and who used to work for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service.
Clyde Cosentino - director of the Brisbane Catholic Archdiocese’s Centre for Multicultural Pastoral Care
Vanessa Moss - Solicitor for SCALES Community Legal Centre (Southern Communities Advocacy Legal Education Service), one of the leading refugee advocacy groups in WA.
Rowena Irish - solicitor for the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre Inc in Sydney
Something stinks.
(Thanks to reader Pira.)
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The L in AFL must mean “Labor”
Andrew Bolt
AFL boss Andrew Demetriou once again treats the AFL as a stage to impose his green ideology - and to excuse a state government for failing to ensure water supplies for a booming city. This from the AFL’s media department:THE AUSTRALIAN Football League has this week launched a new online training module called Green Clubs for community football clubs and the broader Australian football industry.It’s extraordinary that the AFL can allow itself be hijacked like this by Labor, and use its power to indoctrinate children.
One of the biggest challenges facing Australian football is the impact of climate change on community football grounds.
Green Clubs aims to educate clubs about ways they can reduce their impact on the environment, while ensuring the sustainability of sporting grounds… The Green Clubs module is one component of a partnership established last year with the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.
In addition to the introduction of the module, an interactive climate change awareness program for families and children involved in junior football programs has also been developed.
To coincide with World Environment Day, NAB AFL Auskick half time participants at this weekend’s Carlton versus Melbourne ‘Green Game’ will be given Enviroweek information packs and will kick through recycling bins instead of goal posts…
Speaking at the Carlton Football Club today, the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, Senator Penny Wong, commended the AFL and Carlton Football Club for helping to raise awareness of climate change amongst football clubs and their fans.
“We know Australians want to do their fair share in tackling climate change, and now the AFL is helping Australians to do that while they are at the football,” Senator Wong said.
UPDATE
Geelong resident Bernie Slattery is even more outraged about another intervention by the finger-waggers: more than 100 sporting clubs around Geelong are the target of a VicHealth campaign against beer and fast-food.
(Thanks to reader Observer from Wodonga.)
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Hello, human rights lobby? Hello?
Andrew Bolt
Imagine the international outrage:
A Jeruslem court has upheld a ruling to strip Israeli men married to Palestinian women of their citizenship in a case that has highlighted national sentiment towards Palestine.But you know that’s false, of course. What’s true is this:
A CAIRO court has upheld a ruling to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women of their citizenship in a case that has highlighted national sentiment towards Israel.Now witness the silence.
Meanwhile the deligitimisation and vilification of Israel (mixed with a variety of Holocaust denial) continues.
Here’s Greta Berlin, an organiser of the Free Gaza flotilla:
The people of Gaza are in an actual concentration camp. They can’t come in or go out despite having the same rights we all have...We will also be placed in a concentration camp, unfortunately, if we are detained.Here’s Pakistan’s Daily Times:
Gaza is one big concentration camp and the Israelis have ironically taken on the mirror image of their erstwhile Nazi oppressors.
Here’s Muzaffar Iqbal of Canada’s Centre for Islam and Science:
The Gaza Strip is more than a strip of land: it is a concentration camp that displays to the world the absolute control and power of a rogue state, a blot on humanity’s conscience (if there is any left), a reminder of the impotence of all the collective military and diplomatic power of world’s 1.5 billion Muslims...Now let’s see what this “concentration camp” looks like, as described in Palestine Today, a Gaza newspaper:
UPDATERightWingDeathBogan visits the Melbourne pro-flotilla demonstration.
(Thanks to readers Sabreman24 and Encyclopedia Brown.)
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Tanner is persuaded to spend big on one seat. His own
Andrew Bolt
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner is lucky that the bucks start with him:
LABOR is raining money on Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner’s seat of Melbourne in a desperate bid to fight off the Greens at the federal election.Pure coincidence, of course.
A Sunday Herald Sun investigation of stimulus spending has found the head of the Rudd Government’s Razor Gang will receive more cash for schools, housing, and nation building projects in his seat than any other MP in the state.
(Thanks to reader CA.)
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Grubby, and she still hasn't looked at Hamidur Rahman's case
Andrew Bolt
This is ludicrous. Utterly unrealistic. It means a Government cannot defend itself in real time against damaging allegations from someone with possibly an axe to grind:
PREMIER Kristina Keneally is under investigation by the NSW Ombudsman for alleged breaches of the State’s whistleblower laws.ICAC should be very careful not to do anything which adds to the impression that its true effect is to kill politicians’ careers through the mere airing of accusations.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the watchdog has begun an inquiry into claims Ms Keneally and her office compiled a “dirt file” on a whistleblower who exposed corruption by Penrith MP Karyn Paluzzano…
Tim Horan, Ms Paluzzano’s former campaign manager, told the corruption watchdog (the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption) that he believed his boss had been rorting her entitlements by falsifying the pay records of her staff…
Ms Keneally issued a statement: “I understand that the person who made these claims to ICAC is the subject of an independent investigation by the NSW Parliament."…
A month later, Ms Paluzzano resigned from Parliament after admitting to misusing public funds and lying to ICAC when formally interviewed about the allegations....
The Ombudsman’s Office is examining whether Ms Keneally’s office sought to undermine Mr Horan through the media.
It is also examining whether her office was in possession of a dirt file on Mr Horan. Under the State’s Protected Disclosures Act, it is illegal to persecute whistleblowers.
UPDATE
The NSW Labor Government must surely have set some record here:
Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell led the attack, urging Ms Keneally to call a poll and end the farce that has seen 215 Labor ministerial appointments in five years.(Thanks to reader CA.)
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Brumby’s water woes: spending too much on too little
Andrew Bolt
The Brumby Government demonstrates the Rudd principle - that any “free” giveaway ends in massive waste. And in this case we are talking about a scheme that’s a fraud to start with:
STEVEN Baker was going about his day when a bloke turned up at his Girgarre farm, in northern Victoria. The man, a government contractor, was there to install a new connection to the irrigation channel, under the Brumby government’s $2 billion modernisation project that is reshaping swathes of regional Victoria.That’s the waste. And here’s a hint about the fraud:
That day, Mr Baker received two new water meters, courtesy of the Victorian taxpayer. They are impressive pieces of technology, worlds away from the leaky wheels they are replacing. Remote-controlled, they have solar panels and high-tech sensors that communicate with the water authority’s head office. And, at about $25,000 each, they don’t come cheap.
“Don’t worry, the government is paying for it,” Mr Baker says the man told him. But he is worried, and not just because he knows his water bills will rise to cover the costs of maintaining the meters. His main concern is that the meters are a total waste of money because he doesn’t irrigate; he makes do with a water tank and a groundwater pump…
A Sunday Age investigation has unveiled examples of new meters — many costing about $50,000 each — being installed on farms that are winding down, have sold their water rights, or are being run by absentee landholders.
Under the first stage of the project, the more efficient use of water will see 75 billion litres flow down the north-south pipeline to supply Melbourne. Another 75 billion will go to boosting rivers and wetlands. Farmers will also pick up an extra 75 billion litres, although they are, controversially, set to lose billions of litres when the new, more accurate, meters go in…The Brumby Government says more accurate measurement of releases to farmers will save water. But it doesn’t, really. The old Dethridge wheels allowed farmers a little extra free water to allow for inaccurate measurement, so they wouldn’t be paying for water they didn’t get. But that extra water was still used to help grow their crops, and in many cases will still be needed.
The modernisation system works like this: the new infrastructure and gates make the irrigation network less leaky, and as all structures can be operated remotely from Goulburn-Murray Water’s head office in Tatura, it will be more efficient to run. The meters have sensors and transmitters that constantly send information about water levels to the water authority so that levels can be kept stable. When a farmer wants water, they order it online and the exact volume is released by an operator sitting in an office.
The new system doesn’t so much save water as increase charges, including the charge for maintenance:
The old Dethridge Wheels - designed 100 years ago by the Victorian engineer John Stewart Dethridge — cost about $100 a year to maintain. The new systems, with their expensive software licence fee and computerised components, are expected to cost up to $900 a year to maintain.Here’s Topher again to explain the Government’s odd strategy to take water from farmers with nearly none:
And here he is explaining, inter alia, the water wheel con:
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Garrett registers a small protest
Andrew Bolt
Peter Garrett won’t let Kevin Rudd trash his reputation any further:
ENVIRONMENT minister Peter Garrett has admitted he was not consulted about the government’s decision to ditch its proposed emissions trading scheme and that he knew nothing about it until he read it in the newspapers.It’s absolutely amazing that an Enviornment Minister is not consulted about the shelving of the biggest environmental policy of our times. Garrett’s anger should be as great as his humiliation.
Mr Garrett said the decision was taken by Kevin Rudd’s inner Cabinet as part of the budget process and he had taken no part in the discussions. He said it was disappointing that the decision had been leaked and revealed that the first he knew about it was when he read a story in a newspaper report on April 27.
“That was an announcement and a decision that was leaked and I found out about it when it was leaked,” Mr Garrett told Sky News’ Saturday Agenda.
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Robb and the case for change
Andrew Bolt
The Opposition is very lucky to have finance spokesman Andrew Robb back and healthy. He has given it a much-needed gravitas, not least in the economic field in which it has been weak. His recovery from deperession also came just in time for him to make a crucial intervention in the party room that helped to prompt the revolt which overturned the party’s past disastrous endorsement of Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme.He is also fast establishing himself as not a rival to Tony Abbott but an option one day....
Here’s a measure of him - a speech he gave last week to the Sydney Insitute in which he simply, compellingly and earnestly describes the economic lunacy of this Government and makes the case for change:
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