=== Todays Toon ===
John de Vere Loder, 2nd Baron Wakehurst KG, KCMG (5 February 1895 – 30 October 1970) was a British Colonial administrator and politician. After serving in the army, the Foreign Office, and as a Conservative MP in the House of Commons, Wakehurst was appointed as the last British Governor of New South Wales, which he held from 1937 to 1946. Upon returning to Britain he was appointed Governor of Northern Ireland from 1952 to 1964. He was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1962 and died in 1970
=== Bible Quote ===
“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”- Philippians 3:14=== Headlines ===
Judge Blocks Portions of Ariz. Illegal Immigration Law
Federal judge grants partial injunction on the Grand Canyon State's immigration law, blocking some of the legislation's most controversial components.DOJ Accused of Ignoring Military Voters
Justice Dept. stalled on new law aimed at protecting the right of American soldiers to vote, according to two ex-DOJ attorneys who say states are being encouraged to bypass Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act
Religious Freedom on Campus Dealt a Blow
FOX NEWS RADIO: Court ruling that upheld student's expulsion over homosexuality views could resonate with public colleges across the U.S.
SEC to Deny Freedom Of Info Requests
EXCLUSIVE: In little-noticed provision of new financial overhaul, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with requests for information from the public, Fox Business News reports
Breaking News
Leak speculation dogs LaborPRIME Minister Julia Gillard will be campaigning in her adopted home town of Melbourne on Thursday as speculation about a leak continues to dog Labor's re-election efforts.
Organiser blamed for deadly Love Parade
GERMAN authorities have accused the organiser of last weekend's Love Parade techno festival of major security breaches which may have led to the crush that killed 21 people and injured more than 500.
Man spends $220K to park on own drive
HOME owner defends right to park truck in own driveway in two-year battle with housing body.
Parents held after eight dead babies found
FRENCH police detained a couple after the bodies of eight newborn babies were found in their house and garden in a northern village.
Nazi charged with death camp murders
GERMAN prosecutors have charged a 90-year-old former Nazi death camp guard with helping to murder 430,000 Jews in World War II.
Kenyan gets 14 years for sex with donkey
A KENYAN court has sentenced a 30-year-old man to 14 years in jail for having sex with a donkey.
Murder suspect TV host dies in Brazil
A BRAZILIAN television presenter accused of ordering murders to boost his crime show's ratings has died of an infection in hospital.
Boy wins $10,000 over chips theft claim
A FIVE-year-old Irish boy who was wrongly accused of stealing a bag of chips won €7,500 ($10,700) damages for defamation of character.
Hubby 'spent' Brittany Murphy's money
NEW allegations emerged that the husband of dead Clueless star Brittany Murphy had been emptying out the actress' bank accounts before his own untimely death, People magazine reported.
Britain's oldest Twitter user dies aged 104
BRITAIN'S oldest Twitter user Ivy Bean, who regularly updated her 56,000 followers, died today aged 104
NSW/ACT
Boy from the bush went badNATHAN Brodbeck has been revealed as the gunman shot dead trying to hold up a cash security van on Sydney's Northern Beaches.
Verity Firth feeling the heat
VERITY Firth's job is at stake after Kristina Keneally carpeted her for committing $400m for replacing school heaters without approval.
Juggling life and a world title
HE'S 15 and glows crimson when asked about female fans. But in the world of competitive juggling, Cody Harrington is a god.
Shrine's vandal still a puzzler
NEW photos of a man wanted over the senseless desecration of a war memorial at Rhodes have been released by police.
Procedure correct in bus explosion
THE driver of a Sydney bus who saw smoke coming from the vehicle was told by his company to continue "at a slow pace".
Fifty trips to the Moon every year
SYDNEY Buses are running empty buses 19.4 million kilometres a year - equal to 50 trips to the Moon, new figures have revealed.
Is this the best job in the world?
BROTHERS Rick and Scott Hayward love beer so much they could make it all day - in fact, they do. Is your job better than this?
Killed RSL armed robber named
THE man shot dead by a security guard in an attempted robbery in Sydney has been named.
Will ruled invalid after son's help
A WILL made after a dying man was taken from a nursing home by unfavoured son ruled invalid.
Crane hits house, woman in shock
A CRANE attached to a 35 tonne truck has damaged a house, leaving a woman in shock in Sydney today.
Queensland
Cop sniffs out drug haulA POLICE officer with a keen sense of smell uncovered a $150,000 stash of cannabis in a Queensland woman's car during a routine traffic stop.
Funeral ends in fight
A MASSIVE brawl erupted at a funeral wake south of Brisbane overnight which ended in police having to use pepper spray as they made up to 10 arrests.
Driver charged after crash
A 21-YEAR-OLD car driver is to front court charged with knocking a schoolboy off his bicycle in a hit and run incident in Bundaberg.
Police hunt attackers
POLICE are searching for two men who seriously assaulted an 18-year-old man and beat him unconscious in a Goodna carpark.
Secret Airport Link setup
PREMIER Anna Bligh helped create a private company to oversee the $5.6 billion Airport Link project knowing that it would be less accountable.
Mum tells of stab anger
THE mum of a teen stabbed last week has called for changes to the justice system after learning the alleged offender had been just released from custody.
Hospitals ignore fat food warning
HOSPITALS are still stocking vending machines and fundraising boxes full of fatty foods with many facilities ignoring a strategy to phase out treats.
Teen stabbing trial adjourned
A BRISBANE committal hearing for a 14-year-old boy charged with stabbing murder of another boy at a Brisbane private school earlier this year has been adjourned until next week.
Jessica Watson's rival to set sail
DUTCH judges have given the green light for a teenage girl's bid to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo.
Hunt for cat torturer
RSPCA Queensland has appealed for information after a female cat was tortured on Swallow Avenue at Paradise Point, on the Gold Coast, on Tuesday.
Victoria
Good Samaritans go after robberA DUO of selfless good Samaritans have foiled an armed robber in a West Melbourne service station.
Parents fear bloodbath
PARENTS fear a junior finals rematch will end in a bloodbath after a coach was suspended for threatening an umpire.
Ninjas reclaim streets
URBAN ninja mums are urging frightened women to take back the streets, feeding a revival of the ancient Japanese art of fighting.
Is Gazza a goner?
SOME Geelong fans have resigned themselves to life without Gary Ablett. Others hold out hope he will stick with the Cats.
I'm a goat and I vote
RAY Dyer goes nowhere without his two goats and cattle dog, Boss.
Fielding launch angers principal
FAMILY First senator Steve Fielding has been accused of using a Melbourne school as a political football.
$2m threat for x-rated air traffic
EMAILED porn and years of alleged sex harassment has sparked a $2 million claim by two female air traffic controllers.
Cheers as cops talk down man on roof
UPDATE 2.25pm: ONLOOKERS cheered as man talked down from rooftop after CBD streets blocked for more than two hours.
Car crush bid to thwart hoons
UPDATE 1.09pm: A CAR has been crushed in Dandenong today as a demonstration of tough new anti-hoon laws.
Humphrey B Bear ... uses F-word
A FORMER Humphrey B Bear was not such a funny old fellow when he assaulted a vice-principal in front of shocked students and parents.
Northern Territory
Nothing NewSouth Australia
Copper miners have struck goldA HUGE copper deposit discovered on the Yorke Peninsula is will lead to a jobs boom for the Ardrossan region, an exploration company predicts.
'State Bank' disaster looms - Master Builders
MASTER Builders South Australia fears pay blowouts on major projects could lead the state to a situation reminiscent of the State Bank disaster.
Two men arrested for rape
TWO southern suburbs men have been arrested for the alleged rape of two women.
Community infrastructure 'top issue'
COMMUNITY infrastructure requirements have been flagged as the top issue facing local government in the next 10 years.
Papps fined $100 for attacking wife
DRUNK, rejected and "crazed", Ron Papps smothered his wife with a pillow and then chased her down, vowing to "get" her like he had "wanted to do for a while".
Baby killer 'deserves to die in prison'
THE former husband of convicted baby killer Sarah Michelle Peters says she should not be paroled in December and she should die in prison for killing their daughter.
GST cut may gut state's AAA rating
A FURTHER $40 million cut in the state's share of GST revenue will put extra pressure on the State Budget, forcing even deeper spending cuts over the next four years.
Citrus restaurant closes its doors
HUTT St breakfast haunt Citrus has closed its doors for the last time.
Brolly up - here comes the rain
DAYS of wet weather are just hours away. Watch the clouds roll in our radar and check out the first entries in our Cold Snaps photo competition.
I'll be back... at some stage
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard says she "would love to get back to my home town" but is making no commitments to more SA visits.
Western Australia
Drunk hit-and-run driver jailedA DRUNKEN man who ploughed into a woman without stopping has been jailed for three years.
Ram raid Range Rover found
POLICE have found a Range Rover believed to have been used in a ram raid on a southern suburbs shopping centre earlier this month.
People smuggling witnesses 'unreliable'
DEFENCE lawyers for accused people smuggler Hadi Ahmadi have told a Perth jury to question the reliability of key witnesses before delivering a verdict.
Pluto workers face $43m in fines
MORE than 1500 workers who went on strike at Woodside’s Pluto gas project have been urged to settle rather than risk being fined more than $40 million.
Four charged in Perth drug raids
FOUR men have been charged following police raids that netted 172 grams of heroin in two Perth suburbs yesterday.
Endeavour sets compass for Perth
THE Endeavour is returning to WA, and the port where it was built, as part of a circumnavigation of Australia.
WA facing aged care crisis
MORE than half of WA's aged care providers are running at a loss and many are on the verge of collapse, Aged and Community Services of Western Australia says.
East Perth's $1billion gateway
THE eastern gateway into the city is a step closer to becoming a mixed residential and commercial area with calls today for developers to step forward.
Gays call for marriage equality
WA’s gay and lesbian community has lashed out at the Federal Government over its opposition to gay marriage.
Bricks, handgun used in robbery
POLICE are hunting a pair of violent bandits who robbed two men at gunpoint in Osborne Park early this morning.
Tasmania
98-year-old battles blaze with water potTHE quick actions of a firefighter saved the life of a woman who was staunchly battling a blaze in her kitchen with a pot of water.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Senator John McCain Weighs InChallenging Arizona! As the Feds continue their fight against the state's immigration law, how much is the case costing you?
===
Don't Miss Gov. Jan Brewer Tonight!
Tick Tock ... Tick Tock .. Arizona's immigration law is on the clock! Will it take effect on schedule? Governor Jan Brewer talks time tables on Hannity! Plus, Arizona PD preps for the worst! Greta looks at how law enforcement is stepping it up.
===
On Fox News Insider
Obama Heads to the Jersey ShoreUPDATE: Arlington National Cemetery Scandal
The Gulf Oil Spill: 100 Days of Disaster
=== Comments ===
Bill O'Reilly Stops by 'Jay Leno' THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FROM "THE O'REILLY FACTOR," JULY 27, 2010. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LAURA INGRAHAM, GUEST HOST: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight: The No Spin Zone invades L.A. Not only am I hosting "The Factor" from L.A. this week, but Bill O'Reilly himself showed up on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno last night. Here now some of the highlights of his chat with Jay.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": You were spotted at, was it Yankee Stadium with your entourage?
BILL O'REILLY: Yes.
LENO: We have a picture. Show that picture. I'll tell you why this -- I'll tell you why this fascinates me.
O'REILLY: Yes.
LENO: Who do you have more in common with: Geraldo or Glenn Beck?
O'REILLY: Neither.
LENO: Neither?
O'REILLY: No. They paid me a lot of money to go with them to the game.
LENO: OK. So you don't actually hang with them.
O'REILLY: No.
LENO: You don't hang with them.
O'REILLY: This is like a corporate date. You know, you get those? They pay you a lot of money, you go to the game with them.
LENO: It looks like Tony Hayward is out now or he's out…
O'REILLY: This pinhead, unbelievable. He's the head of BP, right? So he screws up everything and then says, "When am I going to get my life back?" I would have just jammed him in the hole right then. Then -- then, it gets worse. Then they pull him out, the Brits pull him out of BP, send him back to London. And where is he the next day? On his yacht.
LENO: A yacht race.
O'REILLY: On his yacht.
LENO: So who would you like to have as a guest on your show you have not been able to get? Maybe I can help you. I can make a phone call.
O'REILLY: Would you, Jay? You're such a kind man.
LENO: Who are you trying to get?
O'REILLY: Lady Gaga.
LENO: Lady Gaga. What is her position on Afghanistan? Have you heard?
O'REILLY: I don't know.
LENO: Why?
O'REILLY: But she is an unbelievable marketer. I mean, here's somebody -- and she has some catchy tunes. I mean, but she's basically Madonna lite.
LENO: Catchy tunes?
O'REILLY: Catchy tunes. You know what I mean?
LENO: You sound like a dad. You sound like a dad.
O'REILLY: I'm an old guy. Man, that's far out. She's pretty groovy. All right.
LENO: Now you're really an old guy.
O'REILLY: She's -- that's me. Not pretending. No Botox. She's an unbelievable marketer. She's basically Madonna lite, all right? She's almost the same kind of thing. Couple of catchy tunes, couple of shock things thrown in.
LENO: Yes.
O'REILLY: But she -- she's got to be very intelligent underneath the Lady Gaga-ness.
LENO: Let me ask you about Lindsay Lohan. Does she deserve jail time?
O'REILLY: Look, this is a woman who's on a Marilyn Monroe tract. Monroe died at 36. And she's from Long Island where I'm from. Very talented actress.
LENO: Oh, yes. (more at the link)
===
ROADRUNNER
Tim Blair
Just a kiwi on a treadmill:
The little guy is recovering from broken legs – quite an issue when you’re flightless. A new career awaits.
===
ENEMY WITHIN
Tim Blair
“The simple fact that some within the ALP camp are dedicated to bringing down the government is astonishing in itself,” writes the Age‘s Shaun Carney. “Australian politics has rarely, if ever, seen anything like it.” It’s a party divided:
There is at least one well-connected person on the Labor side who is tailoring information designed to destroy Gillard and then farming it out to selected journalists. The truth is that the government has no effective way of combating this.Amusingly, ABC TV just accompanied an item on Labor’s leaks with file footage of Kevin Rudd – who wasn’t named during the report.
The next piece of information, or disinformation, could come at any time. When it does, the PM will be obliged to pull her campaign to a stop and then disavow the accusation.
UPDATE. “Someone, perhaps he’s from Queensland, is out to punish Julia Gillard.” Whoever could it be?
UPDATE II. Gillard is more animated when fighting her own party than when fighting the Opposition.
UPDATE III. An excellent idea from Arthur Sinodinos:
If Labor is re-elected the Greens will dictate much of the parliamentary agenda. Abbott should debate Bob Brown to put his policies in the spotlight. The Coalition cannot afford to win the election only to be frustrated daily in the Senate. Can Julia Gillard resist participating in such a debate?UPDATE IV:
Julia Gillard has threatened her ministers with the sack if they leak from cabinet as her government reels from a series of damaging disclosures …===
“If there’s anyone in my government if re-elected that does not respect the confidentiality of cabinet, then they will no longer be a minister,” she said in Melbourne this morning.
Man-made warming of Australia detected
Andrew Bolt
JoNova notes a little overheating at the Bureau of Meteorology:
The BOM claim their adjustments are random and neutral. Yet when Ken looked at the raw data from Australia’s 100 high quality rural sites, the adjustments increased the trend in the raw data by 40% — from a 0.6°C rise over 100 years, to 0.85°C over 100 years.===
In an email to Ken, Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction, National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology, made a clear claim that the adjustments had no real effect:“On the issue of adjustments you find that these have a near zero impact on the all Australian temperature because these tend to be equally positive and negative across the network (as would be expected given they are adjustments for random station changes).”Perhaps there are good reasons for all these corrections. But if Ken’s analysis is right, the adjustments themselves account for a third of the reported warming trend in Australia.
Another boat arrives as Gillard’s plan sinks
Andrew Bolt
The 81st for the year, and third of the campaign:
A SUSPECTED asylum seeker boat carrying 85 people and found in distress off Christmas Island has been rescued by Australian authorities.Which can only add to the squeeze for accommodation:
A SECRET Federal Government plan to transform a barracks and an army club named after a Victoria Cross winner into a processing centre for boat people has been slammed by relatives and Diggers.So how is Julia Gillard’s “solution” - a new processing centre in East Timor - getting on, now that the East Timorese Parliament has opposed it?
The Government is believed to have been working for months on a plan to transfer several large buildings at the Broadmeadows Defence Barracks to the Department of Immigration so they can house asylum seekers.
The Government says the plan has been scrapped. But on Tuesday about 100 regular soldiers and army reservists at Broadmeadows were briefed by Lt-Col Laureen Grimes.
“We were told to prepare for the worst by our commanding officer,” a reserve soldier said.
THREE weeks after Julia Gillard announced a plan to send asylum seekers to East Timor, the government in Dili says it is still waiting for details.Sounds like a dead duck. So why not talk to Nauru’s foreign minister, who has flown here specifically to offer us the use of his island’s detention centre, which we actualy paid for:
”So far we have not received any concrete proposal from the Australian government,” East Timor’s Foreign Minister, Zacarias Albano da Costa, told the Herald yesterday.
Mr da Costa said no negotiations or meetings were scheduled. “It is up to Australia … we are hearing about this mostly through the Australian media."…
Mr da Costa confirmed that Australian officials who travelled to Dili a few days after Ms Gillard’s announcement only flagged her government’s preference to build the centre in East Timor and provided no details. The officials did not meet any government minister or the President, Jose Ramos-Horta, who was overseas.
The only contact Ms Gillard has had with East Timor’s leaders to discuss the plan was one telephone call to Dr Ramos-Horta, who holds a largely ceremonial position.
Foreign Minister Kieren Keke, briefly visiting Brisbane this morning, dismissed claims by Prime Minister Julia Gillard the Nauru Government was too fractured to make a decision on a revival of the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution.
Mr Keke said there was bi-partisan support for the centre across Nauru’s political spectrum and even if there was disagreement, the constitution allowed the president to enter into an agreement with Australia to open the centre immediately.
``There are no constitutional barriers, it could be done today, it could have been done three weeks ago,’’ he said.
I asked Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor on MTR 1377 today why the Government has not put a concrete plan to East Timor, or even bothered to speak to Nauru’s Foreign Minister this week. He failed repeatedly to answer the question.
Meanwhile, Greg Sheridan says Gillard, unlike Abbott, will not stop the boats, even if East Timor ever agreed to her plan:
Gillard’s proposal for a regional processing centre in East Timor is entirely different from Abbott’s proposal for Nauru. Her insistence that the centre has to be located in a country which is a signatory to the 1951 convention is nonsensical. Most of the refugee camps from which Australia took Indochinese refugees in the 1970s and 80s were located in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, which were not signatories to the convention…
Moreover, any centre established in East Timor would become a plaything in East Timorese domestic politics, and inevitably a point of leverage for any East Timorese government in its relationship with Australia.
But most significantly, as this column has previously pointed out, it would be positive magnet of enormous power, attracting boatpeople from far away. In the joint press conference between Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and Australia’s Stephen Smith, it was clear the Indonesians have absolutely no enthusiasm for this crazy idea at all.
===
The campaign explained
Andrew Bolt
(Thanks to reader Colin.)
===
Swan calls Rudd an honourable man
Andrew Bolt
Shakespeare would have known exactly what Treasurer Wayne Swan meant by his praise of the leaking, smirking Kevin Rudd:
Mr Rudd released a statement today denying he was the source of a story alleging Ms Gillard spoke out in cabinet against parental leave and a pension increase when she was deputy prime minister.UPDATE
Asked if Mr Rudd was an honourable person in the affair, Mr Swan, who is now deputy prime minister, endorsed his fellow Queensland colleague.
”I do believe that he’s an honourable person,’’ he told ABC Television today.
Gillard and knives then:
Three weeks ago, Julia Gillard knifed Kevin Rudd ...Gillard and knives now:
WEAPONS such as knuckledusters, flick knives and stun guns would become much harder to import under a re-elected Gillard government....(Thanks to reader Clay.)
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor told the Herald Sun it would help make streets safer. “It will mean fewer fatalities and injuries by knives and other weapons,” he said.
===
Robb cashes in
Andrew Bolt
Strong performance by Andrew Robb on Lateline last night. Mind you, Chris Bowen didn’t have much to work with.
This line was good:
ANDREW ROBB: Tony, I thought, contrary to what Chris is saying - I found there was absolutely no credibility in what the Prime Minister had to say today (about the Cabinet leaks). She said - and I’ve got the quote here, if I could - she said, “I looked at the pension increase and the paid paternal leave scheme from every angle. I held them up to the light. I examined every possibility. I asked every question because I wanted to satisfy myself that they were affordable - affordable today and affordable tomorrow.”Or as I put it yesterday, the “cash for clunkers” is just pink batts on wheels.
How does that stack up with a Prime Minister who, over the last three years, has had responsible for programs such as the school halls program. Where did she hold those programs up to a light?
She has wasted $6 billion plus - $6,000 million plus this Prime Minister has wasted. And what about the program announced even on Saturday? This cash for clunkers. You know, it’s a nonsense scheme.. This will go like the green loans. I’m just telling you, this is not credible.
One thing is becoming increasingly likely, reading again between the lines: the Coalition is desperately trying to find ways to get rid of the embarrassing levy imposed on big business to pay for Tony Abbott’s absurdly generous parental leave scheme. It does not want to go into this election as a party proposing a new tax, Stand by for an announcement.
(Thanks to reader Student and others.)
===
Worst government in Australia
Andrew Bolt
What a very strange ggvernment has NSW - dysfunctional even in deciding what to do about heaters that endanger students:
THE Education Minister, Verity Firth, has been hung out to dry over an embarrassing backdown by the Premier, Kristina Keneally, one day after the minister committed the government to replacing 55,000 unflued gas heaters in schools.
The Herald was told Ms Firth was ordered into the Premier’s office yesterday and reprimanded. It is understood a furious Ms Keneally was critical of Ms Firth for not following proper procedure in announcing without the approval of cabinet a plan that is expected to cost between $170 million and $440 million…
On Tuesday the minister said the government would replace the heaters after the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research found the toxic fumes they emitted caused ‘’increased respiratory symptoms’’ in students.
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