=== Todays Toon ===
Lord Augustus William Frederick Spencer Loftus, GCB, PC (4 October 1817 – 7 March 1904, Surrey) was the 4th son of John Loftus, 2nd Marquess of Ely. He married Emma Maria Greville, after whom the town of Emmaville, New South Wales was named in 1882.He served in numerous diplomatic posts, including as British minister in Prussia and Austria in the 1850s and 60s, and later as Governor of New South Wales (4 August 1879 – 10 November 1885).
=== Bible Quote ===
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”- Psalm 91:1=== Headlines ===
Three of Australia's most experienced soldiers are killed heading to a Taliban raid as the Government says our troops will stay putGOP: Interior Department 'Extorting' Millions From Border Patrol
Republicans claim the Interior Department is 'extorting' millions of under-the-radar dollars from the Border Patrol meant to cover environmental damage stemming from their everyday duties along border.Court Rules: Americans Can't Aid Terror
Supreme Court upholds federal law prohibiting American citizens from providing 'material support' to terror groups
BP Boss Sidelined Over Oil Spill Handling
Tony Hayward's duties passed off over his comments as BP seeks to control fallout from oil disaster
Water Worries on U.S.-Mexico Border
Lawmakers fear stepped up drug cartel activity could present serious security threats to southern Texas' water supply
3.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil Expands Human Family Tree
WASHINGTON -- Scientists may have found the great, great, great, etc., grandfather of the famous fossil Lucy. A new partial skeleton of an early hominid known as Australopithecus afarensis was discovered in a mud flat of the Afar region of Ethiopia. Dated about 3.6 million years ago, the find is about 400,000 years older than the famous Lucy, which was among the earliest upright walking hominids, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The bones indicate this ancestor also walked upright, but was considerably larger than Lucy, who stood about 3.5 feet tall.Because of his size -- more than 5 feet tall -- the new specimen has been named "Kadanuumuu," which means "big man" in the Afar language.
Missing plane found, no survivors
DESTROYED plane carrying six Australian mining executives has been found with no survivors.
Hunt for teen 'could end in shootout'
TEEN who brandished shotgun in Melbourne's sports precinct was released from jail 12 weeks ago
Danger for Rudd as key seat losses loom
SUPPORT for Labor plummets in seats the party won three years ago as voters turn on PM. - it is really disturbing, given Rudd's track record compared with Mr Abbott's that ALP are still close to winning an election held now. - ed.Serbia rests stars for Socceroos clash
COACH Radomir Antic needs his players carrying yellow cards for more vital games.
Online hate campaign rocks MasterChef
CONTESTANT Joanne Zalm has become the target of a Facebook smear campaign.
Milne rape charge 'dropped due to threat'
RAPE charge against Saints star Stephen Milne collapsed amid threats from inside Victoria Police, former detective claims.
We're sorry they died, kids say
CHILDREN shocked by the plane crash that missed their school have written sympathy cards.
BER work payment stopped
NSW Education Minister Verity Firth has stopped payments to a major Building the Education Revolution contractor because of alleged shoddy work and overcharging. Managing contractor Laing O'Rourke has been ordered to rectify serious defects on one school project including faulty drainage work, poorly installed cupboards and joinery, inadequate carpeting and damage to concrete footpaths. Tottenham Central School in the state's west refused to sign off on its $600,000 Education Revolution canteen, claiming it was smaller than a one-car garage and unusable. Ms Firth said yesterday she was "extremely disappointed" in some aspects of the [Tottenham] report. "Demolition work costing $23,000 was never undertaken and I am not satisfied with the explanation from the managing contractor on why $47,000 in preliminary work was charged," she said. - too late and not enough - ed.
MPs call for tougher cyber police patrols
HI-TECH cyber cops armed with investigative powers should roam cyberspace, hunting internet villains, a parliamentary report recommends. The year-long federal study has finally delivered its report on internet crime, recommending an "Office of Online Security" led by a cyber security co-ordinator. The cyber cops would target the new breed of big-time cyber fraudsters - people who until now have tended to stay one step ahead of authorities and remain undetected. In its report - Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tracking the Problem of Cyber-Crime - the committee warns that the sophistication and reach of cyber crime is now a major problem. It had evolved from the nuisance value of teenage hackers to criminals operating on an "industrial scale", responsible for a multi-billion-dollar drain on legitimate business.
BP now accused of lying about Gulf spill
ENERGY giant accused of hiding full scale of the disaster after internal document reveals spill was five times bigger than first thought. - and in later developments Obama knew of the issues before they became a tragedy, as BP had informed him - ed.
British man Delroy Grant denies 'Night Stalker' sex attacks
A BRITISH man denies being the 'Night Stalker' sex attacker who broke into the homes of his elderly victims before subjecting them to horrific ordeals. Former cab driver Delroy Grant, 52, pleaded not guilty to a series of alleged offenses between 1992 and 2009. Appearing in custody at London's Old Bailey court, he denied three rapes, one attempted rape, seven indecent assaults, 16 burglaries and two attempted burglaries, involving 18 victims. Grant, a full-time caretaker for his estranged wife who has multiple sclerosis, was arrested by police in the early hours of November 15 last year. He was interviewed by detectives hunting the burglar and gerontophile dubbed the 'Night Stalker,' who is believed to have struck in numerous locations across southern London. The attacker typically forced his way into the homes of retirees, often disabling phone and electricity lines, before carrying out the assaults, police said.
=== Journalists Corner ===
'The O'Reilly Factor'Battling BP! Congress slammed the oil giant - but did they cross a line? Goldberg's got a surprising answer!
===
'Hannity'
"Bye, bye Biden" in 2012? Dick Morris reveals who Obama's running mate could be if Biden gets the ax.
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'On the Record'
Handling the oil spill! Has Obama said and done enough? Greta weighs in
=== Comments ===
Resign... or Change, Mr. PresidentBy Kevin McCullough
While defending his own policies President Obama has routinely been rude and sarcastic to his predecessor, George W. Bush. Yet Obama appears to be making the resident of the previous White House look like a genius compared to his own serious missteps in office.
Case in point – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's performance and the communication of priorities on the issue of oil rig safety in the Gulf of Mexico.
It seems incomprehensible that the president and other members of the administration still have jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13 that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor.
In fact, according to documents in the administration's possession, BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days in early February.
Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig's fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, "They damn near blew up the rig."
It's also now being reported that BP was asking for the administration's help on this matter long before the deadly accident and the now gushing well of tar.(more at the link)
===
THEY VOTE
Tim Blair
US columnist Bruce Bialosky visits Australia, and finds reason to doubt the worth of compulsory voting:
It is hard for me believe that the Aussies do not have plenty of their own space cadets or people happily living in their own little world or people who just don’t like the system. We saw tons of them walking down Brunswick Street in Melbourne.
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HOSTAGES AGAINST SAUSAGES
Tim Blair
A few decades ago, French health authorities took steps to reduce their country’s gloriously excessive wine intake. Ads appeared on the Paris Metro advising drinkers to show a little restraint.
The suggested limit? One litre of wine per day.
They do take their wine very seriously in France, which is why there was considerable opposition even last year to another anti-wine campaign, this time pointing out – in a gentle enough way – the health risks associated with alcohol.
Naturally, everybody resented this. Representing wine producers, Xavier de Volontat declared: “The extremists must not be allowed to take consumers hostage.”
And then France simply went on making wine (some five million litres per year) and drinking like, well, Frenchmen. Until last week, when a method was finally discovered by which a culture could be constrained. As Reuters reported:
“A giant ‘sausage and wine’ party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday.”
The extremists, you might say, have taken consumers hostage. Except that, in the view of Reuters – a view remarkably common throughout the frightened, trembling West – the extremists are those French citizens who’d planned to drink French wine and eat French sausages in France. It’s insensitive and provocative, is what it is.
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THEY HAD COME FROM BEIJING
Tim Blair
Instead of genuine North Korean fans, the World Cup features cheap Chinese imitations:
Perhaps it was their identical red outfits or how their applause was directed by a “conductor” that suggested the North Koreans in the Ellis Park stadium in South Africa were no ordinary fans.According to a Brazilian fan: “I spoke with them. They had come from Beijing and knew nothing about football or the World Cup.” Judging by North Korea’s latest performance, neither do the players. Chinese confusion is also evident in California:
But today, the truth behind the “supporters” emerged when it was revealed that one group of North Koreans – none of whom knew each other in advance – had been hand-picked by Kim Jong-il’s government, while another party were actually Chinese, “volunteered” to back their Communist cousins.
Some 500 anti-Israel protestors arrived at the Oakland, California port early Sunday morning, hoping to block an Israeli ship from unloading its cargo. However, the ship did not arrive, and the crowd prevented workers from unloading a Chinese ship instead.(Via Matthew L.)
UPDATE. “A 7-0 win to Portugal?” emails Dan F. “Well, under those Canadian rules …”
UPDATE II. Zombie has more on the Californian dockside debacle.
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BOGUS AFFAIR
Tim Blair
A Current Affair tonight ran a piece on office meltdowns, featuring this clip:
According to ACA’s voiceover, this was a genuine incident in a Russian workplace.
Not so. It’s a two-year-old fake intended to promote a film. Other fakes also appeared in the report, which was something of a … meltdown.
UPDATE. Video is now available. ACA’s transcript for the fake footage:
Here it is, at its worst. It only takes a tiny trigger. In this case a man drops papers all over the place and this Russian worker goes berserk. As he grabs the fire axe from the wall, a colleague captures the panic on his mobile phone camera.No. Wrong. Fake.
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Tax initiative
Andrew Bolt
Why don’t we just deport all entrepreneurs, risk-takers and investors instead and rid ourselves of these bloodsuckers:
A super-profits tax should be rolled out for all companies in Australia as a long-term reform.(Thanks to reader David,)
Treasury secretary Ken Henry says the tax would be similar to the model proposed for mining groups.
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What’s $5 billion between friends?
Andrew Bolt
Let it not be said that the ABC’s Australian Story, in its 30-minute profile last night of Julia Gillard didn’t also include some critical comments among all the glowingly positive.
Here, for instance, is the entire discussion of her performace as Education Minister, in which role she has supervised the most rorted government scheme in Australian history, losing up to $5 billion:
GRAHAM RICHARDSON, POLITICAL JOURNALIST: The only criticism that you’re going to get of Gillard, and this is what she has to watch, is this education revolution and all the school buildings. There’s a lot of money that’s gone up the spout that shouldn’t have gone up the spout.(Thanks to reader Rick.)
(Excerpt from ABC News, June 2010)
PROTESTOR: This is borrowed money that our children and grandchildren will be paying back in years to come.
REPORTER: Trouble is emerging everywhere.
PROTESTOR: Minister Gillard has a lot to answer for. There should be checks and balances.
===
How Rudd just wasted another $11 billion
Andrew Bolt
Terry McCrann warns that more of your billions have been flushed down a Telstra duct:
THE surge in the Telstra share price and a caller to Melbourne Talkback Radio yesterday neatly captured the reality of the Government’s continuing National Broadband Network multi-billion dollar disaster.
The caller made the point that we had managed to increase the speed at which we accessed the internet by something like 400 times - from the old 56 kbps dial-up to 20 mbps available on ADSL down the old Telstra copper network, at very little cost.
Now we - or rather Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy and the man who used to be the last competent minister in this government, Lindsay Tanner - are embarked on spending upwards of $40 billion, to increase our access speed all of five times. From that 20 mbps to 100 mbps.
Indeed, spending upwards of $40 billion to perhaps not even increase the speed at all, in much of Melbourne! Because Telstra can already deliver speeds up to 100 mbps to much of Melbourne down its HFC (Foxtel) cable.
Even more bizarrely, the Government demanded that Telstra shut down this cable as part of Sunday’s deal.
Go figure. Telstra can already deliver 100 mbps in Melbourne. It could extend that to much of Sydney and Melbourne at very little cost. The Government says: no way....
Despite the negative comments, the old copper network provides a perfectly acceptable broadband base. Crucially, with Telstra’s upgradeable HFC cable in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. That could be upgraded and built out at a fraction of the cost of the NBN…
Yet they’re committing to spending $40 billion and almost certainly more - of our, not their money - betting that fixed broadband will easily fend off mobile broadband.
On the obviously very astute assumption that mobile broadband technology can’t possibly develop over - I dunno, the next 10, going on 50 years - to deliver faster speeds.
Or that people really don’t want mobile things like iPhones and iPads. After all it didn’t happen with mobile phones. They were just a passing fad.
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Sour ad reflects the mood in the marginals
Andrew Bolt
Entirely negative and not particularly clever. All that’s interesting about the Liberal Party’s latest ad is that it’s based on party polling on what voters are now likely to think.
Newspoll’s marginal seats polling suggests the Rudd Government is indeed headed for defeat:
SUPPORT for Labor has crashed so far in marginal seats in Queensland and western Sydney that the government would lose an election now.Note that these results are disastrous for the Rudd Government despite Newspoll assuming that 80 per cent of Greens preferences will return to Labor, as they did at the last election:
Seats Labor won in 2007 in regional Queensland and outer Sydney, which effectively delivered its victory, are showing swings against the ALP of between 6 per cent and 12 per cent and voters have turned against the Prime Minister.
But when Nielsen two weeks asked voters directly who they’d preference, we learned that many Greens voters this time could not preference Labor as they did in 2007:If preferences were allocated as they fell at the last election, the Coalition would be ahead on a two-party-preferred basis by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Based on how voters told the poll they would allocate preferences, the Coalition is ahead by 53 per cent to 47 per cent.In the NSW state byelection in Penrith, many Greens voters decided to preference no one at all, which for Labor must count as a vote wasted:
Updated results show the proportion of those who voted for independent and minor party candidates but chose not to preference either major party was 61.7 per cent, compared with 54.6 per cent at the 2007 state election. A senior Greens source told The Australian the rate of “exhausted” ballots among Greens voters alone in Penrith was likely to be above 65 per cent.(NSW has optional preferential voting.)
Tim Colebatch sums up:
A Newspoll yesterday implied that voters could be already turning back to Labor, which led by 52 to 48 in two-party terms. But that lead was due entirely to Newspoll’s incorrect assumption that the 25 per cent of Australians now supporting the Greens or minor parties will distribute their preferences in the same way as the 15 per cent who voted that way in 2007.That’s without calculating just where the votes are. Right now, it seems the swing against Rudd is worst in the marginal seats he most needs to hold.
The Age/Nielsen poll instead asks those supporting smaller parties which major party they prefer. In its last poll, a third of Greens preferences were going to the Liberals (up from a fifth in 2007), as were half of those from minor parties and independents. Replace Newspoll’s wrong assumption with Nielsen’s data, and its bottom line should read 50-50.
UPDATE
Niki Savva says the polls - and Labor’s threats - will encourage the miners to keep attacking:
ANYONE out there who thinks Kevin Rudd was joking when he directed one line to the miners in his excruciating speech at the Press Gallery Midwinter Ball is kidding themselves.And wondered who was behind the miners’ great ads?
It was only 10 words: “Can I say, guys, we’ve got a very long memory.” It was enough. Message sent and received…
It fits the pattern. A few weeks ago, the Minister for Infrastructure, Anthony Albanese, was overheard telling people the government would win the fight against the miners, would win the election, and would remember who had sided with the government and who had sided with the opposition. Especially those who had allowed themselves to be filmed in Tony Abbott’s office....
The government’s approach will either force the miners to buckle, frightened that a Labor victory will invite retribution, or it will make them fight harder to make sure Labor doesn’t get the chance.
If you have even a fraction of their billions, bet on the latter.
Running the advertising campaign for the Minerals Council is Neil Lawrence, architect of the Kevin 07 campaign.UPDATE 2
The Tasmanian Liberals have a much funnier ad.
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We might actually deserve all those red cards
Andrew Bolt
I think it’s time we stopped feeling sorry for ourselves and spotted the pattern:
Under the headline ‘’Australia’s red mist’’, FIFA officials yesterday pointed out the ‘’unwelcome’’ fact that in the last four World Cup matches played by the Socceroos, no fewer than six players have been sent off.The Socceroos come from a country in which the top three winter football codes are all highly physical. I suspect this culture has seeped into the Socceroos’ style, too, or at least into our judgement of the alleged “unfairness” of all these red cards.
Two Australians have been sent off in the present campaign: Tim Cahill for foul play in the 0-4 defeat by Germany, and Harry Kewell, more controversially, for hand ball in the 1-1 draw with Ghana.
At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Brett Emerton was sent off after receiving two yellow cards in the 2-2 draw with Croatia, who had two players, Dario Simic and Josip Simunic, red carded.
And Italy’s Marco Materazzi was given his marching orders in the ‘’round of 16’’ match, which Australia lost by an equally contentious last-minute penalty conceded by Lucas Neill.
Coincidence? Bad luck? Bad refereeing? Or a reflection of how the Socceroos - and the teams they encounter - play the game?
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And he’s probably Jack the Ripper, too
Andrew Bolt
Mark McInnes, now holed up in Thailand, is learning what it’s like to be the burley in a media feeding frenzy:
DISGRACED former David Jones chief Mark McInnes has broken his silence to deny a new accusation of inappropriate behaviour with a young woman.McInnes protests:
Mr McInnes ‘’categorically denied’’ the new claims about an event alleged to have occurred at the David Jones marquee at the Royal Randwick races in Sydney in 2004…
Neither the board nor the executive senior management reported knowledge of matters raised in an email, sent by a person calling herself Lisa Brumby who accused the retailer of a ‘’cover-up’’, she said.
‘’We have checked our records and there is no record of any such complaint being made,’’ a David Jones spokeswoman said.
The retailer noted: ‘’From a factual perspective, we note that Ms Brumby was not a David Jones employee and that David Jones did not host any spring carnival marquees or events in spring 2004.’’
Contrary to various reports, I did not fly out of Australia in first class. I have not gone to the French Riviera and have no plans to attend a wedding in Portofino. These myths join the various others that currently abound.
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Why was he free?
Andrew Bolt
David Paul Paul Rowntree appeared in court just last November, charged yet again with theft and arson:
Rowntree was ... sentenced to three years in a Youth Justice Centre.Three years. Yet just six months later we read:
THE teenager who brandished a shotgun in Melbourne’s sports precinct after a wild freeway car chase had been released from a youth jail just 12 weeks ago.How many chances was he given?
...(O)n Monday night the teenager was still on the run…
In March Rowntree, once described as a devious and out-of-control serial offender, was released from a stretch in juvenile detention for burning down a house he’d burgled, in order to destroy his fingerprints. The arson was committed one month after his release from custody for other crimes.
Rowntree has convictions for arson, criminal damage, handling stolen goods, car theft, burglary and theft… Supt Rod Wilson described Rowntree, who has racked up 69 criminal offences, as “extremely dangerous”.
At Rowntree’s most recent court appearance in Geelong in November, Judge John Nixon described him as a devious and out-of-control serial offender. The court was told Rowntree had 69 offences to his name.Glad we’re providing the right entertainment for him:
“You have 50 priors, 29 with conviction and 21 where the charges against you were found proved but dealt with without conviction,” the judge said.
Underbelly and The Sopranos are among his favourite TV shows ...But let it not be said that Rowntree doesn’t feel sympathy for victims of thieves such as him. Well, sympathy for one victim:
Rowntree did telephone Channel 7… He said he was upset at having recently broken up with her, and the theft of his motorcycle.
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Talking their way to defeat
Andrew Bolt
If you were a Taliban commander, you might conclude from this debate that victory would soon be yours:
WAR-WEARY American public and congress were dismayed yesterday by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates’s rejection of suggestions that US forces would move out of Afghanistan in large numbers in July next year under a deadline set by President Barack Obama.When the main Coalition force in Afghanistan is debating a pull-out next year, why would anyone else increase their forces now? And why, in turn, would Afghans align themselves with forces that will soon be gone, leaving them exposed?
“That absolutely has not been decided,” Mr Gates said…
Mr Gates’s comments came as Mr Obama’s chief of staff said the plan to begin bringing forces home in July next year still holds.
“Everybody knows there’s a firm date,” Rahm Emanuel said…
Mr Emanuel made the comments despite reservations among top generals that a fixed date encourages the Taliban-led insurgency and undermines US leverage with Afghan leaders…
The US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has said that even though a key campaign in Kandahar was taking longer than expected, it would be clear by December whether the surge and his counter-insurgency strategy were working…
Diane Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said yesterday that 40 per cent of the country was controlled or contested by the Taliban, and the conflict was “metastasising”, with insurgent groups joining forces and sharing money.
Much of this relies hangs on confidence in the commander in chief. Bush, one knew, was not for turning. But Obama?
UPDATE
Pakistan is to the Taliban what China was to the Viet Minh:
The (London School of Economics) report alleges that the Pakistani military intelligence services, the Inter Services Intelligence, is deeply involved with the Afghan Taliban and even has representatives on the Taliban governing council.UPDATE 2
The problem is that Afghanistan is too poor and - it seems - too unmotivated to defend its own freedoms:
Time magazine reports that NATO trainers say 90 percent of Afghan enlisted recruits cannot read a rifle instruction manual, ANA officers routinely steal enlistees’ salaries, soldiers “sell off their own American-supplied boots, blankets and guns at the bazaar — sometimes to the Taliban,” and “recruits tend to go AWOL after their first leave, while one-quarter of those who stay in service are blitzed on hashish or heroin,” according to an (Afghan National Army) survey.
Time says keeping the ANA functioning costs $6 billion a year. The Afghan government’s tax revenues are $1 billion a year.
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