=== Todays Toon ===
Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, GCMG, PC (11 August 1852 - 2 December 1928), the second Governor-General of Australia, was born at Chapel House, Twickenham, in Surrey, England. Named after his father's late friend Arthur Hallam, he was the elder son of Alfred Tennyson, the most popular and prominent poet of late Victorian England. Hallam was educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Cambridge, but his career aspirations ended when his parents' age and ill-health obliged him to leave Cambridge to become their personal secretary. The idea of going into politics was also abandoned.
=== Bible Quote ===
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”- 1 Corinthians 6:19-20=== Headlines ===
WikiLeaks Prepares to Release Rest of Afghan War Documents
WikiLeaks spokesman says the organization will release the rest of its trove of secret Afghan war documents as the Pentagon warns such a move would be more damaging than the intial leak of some 76,000 files.Serial Killer Suspect Answers Cops' Page
Suspect in string of stabbings that left 5 dead in 3 states is captured after authorities at an Atlanta airport page him over an intercom
Quayle Draws Scrutiny In Congressional Bid
Son of former Vice President Dan Quayle draws attention lately for all the wrong reasons as he runs in Arizona for Congress
Judge Paves Way for Gay Marriages in Calif.
Federal judge who struck down gay marriage ban rules it should remain at least until next week, giving opponents time to appeal
Breaking News
Hundreds gather to honour KennanABOUT 700 people have gathered to attend a state memorial service for former Victorian deputy premier and leading lawyer Jim Kennan.
$2 million art heist in Sydney
PAINTINGS worth up to $2 million have been stolen from a home in Sydney's east.
No love on share market today
THE share market opened marginally lower today, following a weak lead from Wall Street overnight.
Swastika scratched into man's bum
WOMAN jailed over an attack in which a man was kicked unconscious and had a swastika scratched into his buttocks with a screwdriver.
Police officer charged with assault
A COP has been charged with assaulting an 18-year-old man he allegedly found committing an offence at the officer's home.
Prawns used in assault on man
A MAN was slammed in the face with a block of prawns when he caught an intruder going through his fridge.
Dicker new head of bushfire authority
EX-footy president Ian Dicker has been appointed the new head of the Victorian Bushfires Reconstruction and Recovery Authority.
Telstra to sell SouFun in IPO
TELSTRA says it's struck a deal to offload its stake in a Chinese property website for around 63 per cent more than it paid for it.
Woman thief gets 21 years' house arrest
AN office manager who admitted stealing from her employer has been sentenced to 21 years of house arrest.
Civilians to man speed cameras
POLICE will leave speed camera vans to civilian operators and go back to pounding the beat under a new proposal.
NSW/ACT
Firth fails on heater fix fundingSTUDENTS who start Year 3 in 2011 could graduate before poisonous gas heaters in their classrooms are replaced.
Electric plan sparks locals' fury
A GROUP of locals have vowed to win the fight to stop a $53 million electrical substation being built in the middle of sensitive bushland.
Family album of the urban eagle
NIGHTMARE neighbours, squabbles and endless shopping runs - the secret life of Sydney sea eagles is being exposed via video.
Accused's throat-slitting rehearsal
THE man accused of slitting the throat of nurse Michelle Beets "rehearsed the murder".
Evicted after 58 years in hospital
WHEN he was admitted to Gulgong Hospital with a gunshot wound in 1952, Hamen Vile was still a teenager. He's been there 58 years.
That boy's wide smile says it all
WHILE boys his age can't wait to get on a skateboard, Juriel Amora can't help but smile every day he doesn'tt have to use his board.
MP offers 'stress' excuse over DUI
DRINK-driving MP Cherie Burton has once again changed her story about her recent DUI incident.
Spirits surge on Friday the 13th
FOR psychic Debbie Malone, connecting with "the other side" on a Black Friday brings the best - and worst - of the spirit world.
Gruesome dreaming led to corpse
AN Aboriginal elder told how a dream about Kiesha Abrahams led her to find a woman's body.
Judge warns on Keli's 'lies'
THE judge in the trial of Keli Lane says "lies" told by her can't be considered evidence of her guilt.
Queensland
Death car accused skips courtA SUNSHINE Coast teenager charged with dangerous driving following an accident that killed two friends has failed to appear in court.
Motorist wins speed camera case
MOTORIST 2 v speed cops 1 – that was the score after one of Australia's longest running traffic ticket disputes was settled in Brisbane.
Beached barge to be towed to port
Authorities hope to tow a desalination plant barge, which was blown onto a Gold Coast beach earlier this week, to be towed into port today.
Judges disagree on rape sentence
SOME of the state's top judges have disagreed on whether a 13-year jail sentence was excessive for a man who raped his three-year-old nephew.
Mum's murder charge dropped
A MOTHER has pleaded guilty to child cruelty after prosecutors dropped a murder charge over the bashing death of her two-year-old son.
Vampire wannabes try not to suck
Despite bright sunshine on the Gold Coast, scores of vampires have emerged from their coffins and are swarming on the tourist strip.
Roadside bashing costs bikie $16k
A MEMBER of Australia's largest bikie gang has been ordered to pay $16,500 in compensation after a revenge attack more than three years ago.
One dead after fiery crash
ONE person is dead following a fiery crash between a 4WD and a semi-trailer on the Bruce Highway near Carmila in central Queensland.
Tree crashes through windscreen
A TRUCKIE has had a lucky escape from injury after a tree fell through the windscreen of his rig at Cunningham's Gap.
$500,000 to keep dad alive
IT'S the money or his life. Tradesman Brad Gibson needs to find $500,000 a year to pay for drugs that will allow him to see his three children grow up.
Victoria
Chaouk patriarch 'shot dead'UPDATE 11.36am: A MAN in his 60s, believed to be Macchour Chaouk, has been shot dead in Brooklyn.
Beware the coming swarmageddon
THE biggest locust plague since 1973 is expected to start within days - sparking a military-style fightback.
Police call for shooting witnesses
POLICE will set up an information caravan today in the hope witnesses to a fatal shooting will come forward.
High roller busted in drug ring: police
UPDATE 6.40am: TWELVE people will face court this morning over their alleged involvement in a $3 million heroin trafficking ring.
Serial hoon 'just defies logic'
A SERIAL hoon has pleaded to be spared jail, on the day Victoria recorded its 200th road death for the year.
Yes, we can rebuild you, Bill
HE never thought he would walk again, let alone stand up to have a beer. But revolutionary treatment has this 50-year-old on the move.
Sisters do it for best mum
LEAH, Sarah and Claire Bensted reckon they have the best mum in the world.
Mum stunned over racy ad response
A MOTHER who complained about a racy shopfront ad with the slogan "sex sells" was laughed at and given parenting advice by the company.
Sparkle back at David Jones
DAVID Jones unveiled the renovation at its Bourke St emporium, taking the department store war to a new level.
Public toilet perverts put on notice
PERVERTS who spy on people in public toilets would be subject to criminal charges under a proposed beefing up of surveillance laws.
Northern Territory
Prawns used in assault on manA MAN was slammed in the face with a block of prawns when he caught an intruder going through his fridge.
Firebomb accused 'threatens' lawyer
MAN who allegedly attacked Darwin insurance office also calls Supreme Court judge a slut.
South Australia
Man burned in industrial accidentA MAN has been burned by steam in an industrial accident at Port Wakefield.
Black Friday - do you believe?
IT'S Friday the 13th - Black Friday - a day of trepidation for people who live in fear of black cats, ladders and opening umbrellas inside.
Uniforms bring uniformity to workplace
WEARING uniforms is an overlooked key to achieving equality in the workplace, experts say.
Woman bashes woman, steals car
A WOMAN allegedly robbed a service station before bashing a female passenger to steal a car - which she then drove into another car parked at traffic lights.
Razor gang's $1.1m fee for cuts
A STATE Government razor gang, charged with slashing millions of dollars from the Budget, will spend $1.1 million on public servants to help them find the cuts.
Overhaul for Adelaide Oval
THE Government will adopt a more hands-on approach to controlling the Adelaide Oval redevelopment.
Service station robbery
A MAN and a woman have held up a service station at Parafield Gardens.
Accused death racers face court
TWO alleged street racers accused of causing the death of teenage footballer Corey Siemers appeared in court for the first time today.
Gang war stabbing caught on film
A NEW Boys gang member who was stabbed in Hindley St is refusing to identify his assailant - prompting police to release security images.
Port centre truck ban denied
THE State Government has ruled out introducing a heavy vehicle load limit in the Port Adelaide town centre, despite trader and council pleas.
Western Australia
Ship blunder 'put lives at risk'A SHIPPING mishap at the Gorgon project at Barrow Island put lives at risk after an accommodation vessel was holed but contined to sail to Dampier.
Hills, eastern suburbs wake to fog
EARLY morning commuters in the eastern suburbs awoke to a blanket of thick fog which cut visibility on the roads.
Senior cop on assault charge
A 20-YEAR senior police officer has been charged with assault after allegedly punching an 18-year-old man in the face while off duty.
67 glass attacks in WA clubs
THERE have been 67 glass attacks in WA clubs this year - but banning glasses won't stop the horrific assaults, says Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan.
Bushfire report to blame faulty pole
A REPORT expected to blame a rotten power pole for the 2009 Toodyay bushfire could trigger dozens of compensation claims against Western Power.
Worker bashed for 'cheap booze'
A MAN assaulted with a brick during a bungled bottle shop robbery says he cannot fathom how his attackers inflicted such shocking injuries for just ``two cheap bottles of booze''.
Lamont defends tourism strategy
THE Chair of Tourism WA Kate Lamont has hit back at criticism she’s taken her eye off ball and has let the state down.
Teen, 17, dies in South West crash
POLICE are seeking witnesses to a crash involving four teenagers in the South West which claimed the life of a 17-year-old youth yesterday afternoon.
Drenched city braces for storm
A STRONG cold front has dumped 30mm of rain on the city and residents are warned of worsening conditions and squally thunderstorms late today.
Police investigate arson attack
POLICE are investigating a suspected arson attack after a man awoke to find a front window of his home smashed and a room on fire.
Tasmania
Nothing new=== Journalists Corner ===
Ed Koch is on the Warpath!In his campaign to weed out state officials, he claims they are enemies of reform. So, who's on his list? The former NY mayor speaks out.
===
Guest: Dana Perino
As the president's poll numbers continue to drop, why can't Team Obama stop the downward spiral? Greta gets answers from Dana Perino.
===
On Fox News Insider
What Could the 2012 Winning Ticket Look Like?Do Dems or Reps Have Extreme Agendas in Congress?
Rifqa Bary Turns 18: Will She Go Back to her Family?
=== Comments ===
Miner player reveals truth in spadesPiers Akerman
MINING billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is the accidental politician. - It is the economy, and the ALP are not responsible economic managers. But the spinners seem to be winning this war, not the truth. With the release of a few unbelievable polls, it seems as if the more the divided ALP subdivides, the more popular they become. Examples of economic incompetence seem to show ALP supporters that they can rely on the ALP to say anything at all to maintain power, and this is comforting to them because what drives them seems to be hate and bile.
But the reality is ALP supporters are hurting. Their foe, the one they hate, has responsible policy that would assure them widespread prosperity without promising panacea, and the ones they embrace are crumbling. Even the audience handpicked to be undecided after all the abysmal ALP performances are picking Mr Abbott, but the polls don’t reflect that.
In my campaign in Blaxland I face the sorts of things one might expect. I would like to at least hold my opponent to a good standard, but they won’t address their constituents .. they just take them for granted. They have spent money on their seat, but nothing says what they have done or stand for.
I got one paper to run an article on me as a candidate (the rest might publish theirs next week) among other candidates. I point out that I am running to raise the issue of Hamidur Rahman. I call the reporter to ask if they would run an article on the actual issue, to explain to the public what it is about. Journalist hangs up on me twice. I leave a message with the senior editor asking to talk. No reply a fortnight on.
I am printing some flyers and posters, which isn’t easy as I have been unemployed for three years and have no money. I stopped paying bills for a month so as to raise the money to enter the contest. It will cost me $1k in printing and I have no idea how I’ll pay it. They get delivered on Tuesday, so I can walk around until the election.
A UK based net site promises unbiased journalism to let me break my stories. I write an article and am blocked from the site, labeled a self promoter. I explain my position and write a suggested article and am banned again. This time the article is deleted so I can’t even have a copy of what took me a morning and afternoon to write (I know, I should have backed up, but online storage is safe .. right?)
And so Gillard gets away with what she has done over the Hamidur Rahman issue. Is it so hard to report the news? Gillard’s ALP are economic vandals. They did not save the economy from recession, they stripped it during the GFC and filed it under pork barrels. Australia will be collectively much poorer for this administration, and for the abysmal press which has supported them. - ed.
===
America, If We Want Peace, We Must Prepare for War...Now
By James P. Pinkerton
A new conservative group, the Coalition for Peace Through Strength, is reviving the stern wisdom of the ancients: If you want peace, prepare for war.
More recently, that same wisdom guided Ronald Reagan, who, as president in the 1980s, ordered a major defense buildup, as part of an overall strategy for subduing the Soviet Union. As commander in chief, Reagan prepared for war so well, in fact, that he won a great victory over the Soviets without firing a shot.
We need that sort of vision today, and while the Gipper himself is gone, we are seeing the same wisdom in the work of some old Reagan hands. But first, a little history.
In the mid-70s, two well-meaning presidents, Republican Gerald Ford and then Democrat Jimmy Carter, were both optimistic that the Cold War with the Soviet Union could be managed into something like permanent co-existence.
As Carter said in a 1977 commencement speech at Notre Dame University, “We are now free of that inordinate fear of communism.” And so he set about preparing for peace, while the Soviets not only prepared for war, but made war--in Angola, in Ethiopia, and, most notably, in Afghanistan, which the Red Army invaded in 1979.
The result of this Soviet aggression was a political revolt in America. If Carter couldn’t deal with the Russians--and with new threats, such as Iran--Americans would find someone who could: Reagan.
The 40th President didn’t fear communism--he hated communism. He had seen it up close in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, when, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he dealt with communist-front labor unions.
All through the Cold War, Reagan was a consistent advocate of “peace through strength,” supporting presidents of both parties who were willing to stand strong.
When he reached the White House in 1981, Reagan didn’t hesitate to describe the Soviet Union for what it was: “the focus of evil in the modern world.” He zeroed in on those who claimed to see moral equivalence between the free world and the Soviet bloc, jibing at “the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”
That was Reagan--calling ‘em as he saw ‘em. But of course, he did much more than that. Behind the scenes, he was working closely with fellow anti-communists around the world, from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Pope John Paul II to a shipyard worker in Gdansk, Poland, by the name of Lech Walesa.
The result of this peace through strength policy can be summed up in one word: victory. In 1987, Reagan spoke in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, standing in the shadow of Soviet concrete and barbed wire, declaring, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And two years later, that’s what happened. Two years after that, the Soviet Union itself collapsed.
Peace through strength works. It requires patience and fortitude, but peace is better than war, and strength is better than weakness.
Today, one of the great leaders of the Reagan-era, Edwin Meese III, who loyally served Reagan for more than two decades--in California as a gubernatorial aide, then in Washington as White House Counsellor and as Attorney General--is now spearheading an effort to revive those powerful Reaganite words: “peace through strength.”
Meese is the lead signatory on the Peace Through Strength Platform, along with many others, including such Reagan defense officials as Frank Gaffney, of the Center for Security Policy, and Elaine Donnelly, of the Center for Military Readiness. Even more encouragingly, a growing number of incumbent politicians and political candidates, too, have signed on to the Peace Through Strength Platform.
Here’s the 10-point manifesto:
1. Renewed adherence to the national security philosophy of President Ronald Reagan: “Peace Through Strength.”American security is most reliably assured by having military forces that are fully trained, equipped and ready to deter or defeat the nation’s adversaries.
2. A robust defense posture including: A safe, reliable effective nuclear deterrent, which requires its modernization and testing; the deployment of comprehensive defenses against missile attack; and national protection against unconventional forms of warfare – including biological, electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) and cyber attacks.
3. Preservation of U.S. sovereignty against international treaties, judicial rulings and other measures that would have the effect of supplanting or otherwise diminishing the U.S. Constitution and the representative, accountable form of government it guarantees.
4. A nation free of Shariah, the brutally repressive and anti-Constitutional totalitarian program that governs in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Islamic states and that terrorists are fighting to impose worldwide.
5. Protection from unlawful enemy combatants. Enemies who refuse to wear uniforms, use civilians as shields and employ terrorism as weapons are not entitled to U.S. constitutional rights or trials in our civilian courts. Those captured overseas should be incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, which should remain open, or in other prisons outside the United States.
6. Energy security, realized by exploiting to the fullest the natural resources and technologies available in this country. We Americans must reduce our dependence for energy upon – and transfers of national wealth to – enemies of this country.
7. Borders secure against penetration by terrorists, narco-traffickers or others seeking to enter the United States illegally. Aliens who have violated immigration laws should not be rewarded with the privileges of citizenship.
8. High standards that protect the military culture essential to the All-Volunteer Force. The Pentagon should implement sound priorities, policies and laws that strengthen recruiting, retention, and readiness.
9. A foreign policy that supports our allies and opposes our adversaries. It should be clearly preferable to be a friend of the United States, not its enemy.
10. Judicial and educational institutions that uphold the constitutional responsibility of elected officials to make policy for our military and convey to future generations accurate portrayals of American history, including the necessity of defending freedom.
That’s an expansive agenda, covering much more than ships and missiles, important as military hardware might be. And while the Platform is a strong rebuke to President Obama--whose Carter-ish administration acts as if it agrees only vaguely, at best, with these ten points--the document could raise hackles on the right, too.
Border security, for example, is not welcomed by every libertarian. Similarly, energy independence is also controversial in some free-market circles, because the goal of energy independence presupposes government activism to achieve that end.
However, it seems clear that if America is at war, then we must take prudent steps to defend ourselves: We need to police the frontier of our homeland, and we should pull back from funding our enemies through oil and gas imports.
Moreover, the Peace Through Strength Platform is also notable for its omissions: The document makes no mention of the “liberty century” that President George W. Bush declared in his 2005 inaugural address, when the 43rd president emphasized the importance of internationalizing freedom and democracy.
Similarly, the words “Islam is peace,” spoken by Bush just days after 9/11, do not appear. Instead, the document focuses on Muslim extremism and jihadism, labeling such “isms,” quite rightly, as a mortal threat to America and its allies.
The critical issue facing America is not whether we can make friends with Muslims and bring them around to our democratic values; the issue, instead, is the survival of freedom for Americans and for their allies. One is reminded of the motto of the U.S. Army: “This we’ll defend.”
And that’s what the Peace Through Strength Platform does: It calls for the energetic and comprehensive defense of America, which Ronald Reagan described as “the last best hope for mankind.” That should be a cause to rally all Americans--although we will need an election or two before we get back on the right track.
James P. Pinkerton is a writer, Fox News contributor and the editor/founder of SeriousMedicineStrategy.
===
HISTORY BOBBED
Tim Blair
An impressive triple play from paranoid Bob Ellis:
Rupert Murdoch loves to cheat. He does it all the time. It’s meat and drink to him. And as with Bigotgate, and as with election night in the US in 2001, when his commentator John Ellis, George Bush’s cousin, called it for Bush while a million Florida votes were still to come in, he changes the course of world history sometimes with his intricate, skilful cheating of public events …It’s Bob who’s changing history. To review:
Let us be sure at least of that.
• Election night was in 2000, not 2001.
• The mistaken early call made while votes were still in play was for Al Gore, not George Bush.
• John Ellis called Florida for Bush at 2.16am, after all polls had closed.
Who edits this rubbish? Oh, right.
UPDATE. In other failure developments:
You’ll love this one. A single phone call was enough to uncover the most hilarious fail we’ve encountered this year. We’re still laughing so much we can barely type the words, but here goes …
Why didn’t The Age make the finals of the PANPA Newspaper of the Year awards?
Are you ready for this? Hold on. Brace yourself.
They. Forgot. To. Enter.
===
RUDDIED WATERS
Tim Blair
Mixed messages from the ex-PM, who high-fived the coal industry on a visit to Gladstone, Queensland:
Mr Rudd’s main aim for his visit was to join a barbecue lunch with Gladstone Ports Corporation RG Tanna Coal terminal workers …Whose industry Rudd would’ve shut down if he actually believed in the climate horror he always talks about. Rudd has also returned to his previous views on population:
Mr Rudd said Gladstone was important to Australia with its forecast economic and population growth.He’s a Big Australia supporter again. Meanwhile, another former Labor leader who only ran in one election confronts Tony Abbott:
At a press conference where reporters were quizzing Mr Abbott on a Labor promise to fund 80 per cent of a new passenger rail link between Parramatta and Epping, Mr Latham again intervened.Quality brush-off from Abbott:
Labelling the 14-kilometre link the ‘‘Maxine McKew memorial rail line’’, the former Labor leader asked about the likelihood of a new rail for Sydney’s south-west, where he lives.
‘‘Well Mark, it’s good to see that you’re still concerned,’’ Mr Abbott said.
===
SALARY CAP
Tim Blair
Just who is the ABC staffer being wooed by the Daily Telegraph? A possible clue …
===
IF YOU THINK YOU THINK
Tim Blair
Just like the real thing, even fake Greens ads are pretentious and condescending:
UPDATE. Greens rage:
Leaked internal emails have revealed bitter divisions within the Greens over its controversial preferences deal with Labor.Bitar, one of Labor’s Rudd assassins, just keeps on giving. As Simon Benson reported on Monday:
The Age has obtained dozens of emails by senior Greens that also reveal the party has an ‘’attack response group’’ based in leader Bob Brown’s office, which has canvassed using legal threats to ‘’frighten off’’ critics.
The emails, from July 18 to August 2, lay bare the party’s divisions after a secret backroom preferences deal with Labor’s campaign director Karl Bitar became public at the start of the campaign.
When former NSW Labor Party boss Karl Bitar was made national secretary of the ALP in October 2008, Frank Sartor sent him a pithy text message.Back to the Age:
“Congratulations on the new job, now that you have f ... ked up NSW, you can go and f ... k up the country,” it read.
Senator Brown’s media adviser, Erin Farley, wrote in an email on July 19: ‘’Our research shows that preferences are an extremely damaging issue for us to talk about. Talking about preferences makes voters think a vote for the Greens is not meaningful, that it is being stolen from them and put somewhere they didn’t decide, and that politics is about backroom deals they are not part of.’’What happened to thinking?
She list ‘’talking points’’ for candidates. Victorian Greens media officer Tom Maclachlan passed them on to candidates with a note saying: ‘’The media is talking preferences again - learn the lines below.’’
===
WE ARE DOOMED, ETC
Tim Blair
Alex Carlton – lovable gal, but possibly prone to exaggeration – cranks up the terror:
It gives me no pleasure to say this. But cataclysmic climate change is going to happen, with all its promised attendant devastation, and neither you nor I nor anyone in power is going to do anything about it …Or we might wonder instead at how mansions already at sea level can “plunge”. If they began hiking inland, however …
Lethal floods in Pakistan haven’t swayed us. Drought in Africa hasn’t swayed us. The worst heatwave in Russia in a thousand years hasn’t swayed us. Even our own murderous Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 haven’t knocked any sense into our heads. Perhaps if Sydney’s waterfront mansions plunge into the harbour, taking property prices with them, we might demand action.
UPDATE. Jill Singer, a sort of Melbourne-based Alex the Elder, plays a similar tune:
Pakistan is suffering its worst floods on record … In China, more than 700 people are confirmed dead and a further 1000 are missing after floods there triggered landslides … In North Korea, too, lives, homes, railways, bridges, roads and farmland are being swept away in the torrents … Meanwhile in Russia, unbearably high temperatures are doubling the country’s death rate and sparking hundreds of deadly wildfires ...For what? Floods, landslides, heat waves or wildfires? Or all at once?
You can dismiss these tragedies, if you like, or you can ask yourself if there are any lessons to be learned.
Come summer, it could be our turn …
(Via Matt in comments)
===
That’s some spending boom. But where’s the income?
Andrew Bolt
Reader and financial adviser Michael:Neither political party in Australia is addressing the fact that the economy is currently not moving into budgetary balance. The Labor party says it will balance the budget by 2014, the Liberals say a year earlier. This doesn’t include the $43 Billion capital expenditure for the NBN rollout. The election campaign focuses on spending handouts, not cutbacks. Blind freddie can see that World growth, at best, will be tepid over the next year. But if one party can promise a balanced budget, it is only politically correct that the other party can as well.
This week the US 10 year bond rate fell to 2.68%. Yesterday, the Australian 10 year bond was heading toward 5%, not seen since early last year. Remember that the cash rate is 4.5%. That is a flattening of the yield curve, and a predictor of a slowing economy. Even the moribund US economy has a steeper yield curve, with their cash rate 0 to .25%. The banking results this week highlight the caution in asset growth, and if anything, we will get an independent rate rise from the banks.
A revenue constrained economy, and promised expenditure increases, point to a continued budget deficit of $50 Billion plus.
===
Abbott at Rooty Hill
Andrew Bolt
The moment - right at the beginning - when Tony Abbott won the Battle of Rooty Hill.
(Thanks to reader Steve.)
===
If you’re reading this, you’re to blame, too
Andrew Bolt
Newspapers are being eaten alive by the Internet and the plethora of other infotainment sources. But The Age is doing it a lot, lot tougher than others, losing not only readers but the Saturday advertising that sponsors the losses of the other days:Fairfax has been particularly hurt by the migration of jobs, employment and auto classifieds dollars to websites such as Seek.Mind you, The Age is not helping itself by being so narrowly tribal, reading at times like a Bible of the Left, or, worse, as a Das Kapital of the green movement.
Ten more years like the last 10 and the Age will be finished, and may well take the better Sydney Morning Herald with it. Although I believe The Age has been a drag on our political culture and a voice for mediocrity, it would nevertheless be sad to see it go. Already the warning bells are ringing:
An analyst for a big Australian-based investment bank says Fairfax Media Ltd—which is New Zealand’s biggest newspaper publisher—could boost its earnings by ditching the print editions of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age.
===
Who let him in?
Andrew Bolt
It’s lovely to see migrants making their grateful contibution to their new home. What a shame his Australian story ended this way for Macchour Chaouk:MACCHOUR Chaouk, 65, has been shot dead outside his family’s home in Brooklyn...(No comments for legal reasons.)
Macchour and his two sons, Walid, 36, and Omar, were arrested at the same house during a series of raids in July, in which police seized guns, ammunition and blank passports.
Macchour and Walid were released but Omar was charged with weapons, drugs and fraud offences.
The Chaouk family has allegedly been embroiled in a feud with a rival Lebanese family from Melbourne’s north, the Haddaras.
Their home was raided after a drive-by shooting in June in nearby Altona, in which Sam Haddara, 18, was shot in the face while sitting in a car. Sam is a cousin of Mohamed Haddara, who was killed a year earlier in a drive-by shooting, and there have been a series of alleged tit-for-tat violent incidents between the families…
The home was also the scene of the shooting death of Mohamed Chaouk, 31, who was killed by police during a dawn raid in 2005.
Born in Tripoli, Macchour Chaouk migrated from Lebanon in 1969, working at a tyre factory in Sydney’s west. He returned to Lebanon to marry Fatma, and then the couple settled in Brooklyn, in Melbourne’s west, in 1974…
In 1975, Macchour Chaouk was charged with his first offence - assault with a weapon after he beat another man with metal bars at a factory.
In 1983 he was convicted of trafficking heroin, and two years later was charged with assaulting police.
And his crimes were not just restricted to Victoria. In 1984 he was charged with assault and burglary by NSW police.
In 1985 he was incapacitated by two motor accidents, and has not worked since… He was charged with recklessly causing serious injury after beating a man over an allegedly stolen bike in 1991…
In 2000, Chaouk was sentenced to five years in prison for trafficking in heroin.
This year, a coroner investigating the 2005 police shooting death of Mohamed Chaouk said the family had a “violent and unpredictable nature’’.
===
Goodbye
Andrew Bolt
This is one way to screen out unlawful immigrants we’d rather not have:
SEVERAL asylum seekers have been injured during two incidents at a Darwin detention centre, the Department of Immigration says.
A spokesman for the Department said today two small groups of asylum seekers had fought among themselves early on Wednesday morning at the Darwin Immigration Centre.
Several people received minor injuries and were either treated at the centre or were taken to the nearby hospital and released shortly after, the spokesman said.
===
Spend, spend, spend is Swan’s way
Andrew Bolt
If you don’t want to spend billions we don’t have on junk we don’t need, then you’re just out of touch with these mad times:
WAYNE Swan has accused local councils of being out of touch with the needs of small business by pushing for a slowdown in infrastructure stimulus spending.
But Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey has argued the push by councils to modify the $550 million community infrastructure scheme underlined as dubious government claims that its spending had prevented recession.
The Australian reported this morning that councils had sought a slowdown in the scheme, arguing there was no longer an urgent need for economic stimulus.
Australian Local Government Association president Geoff Lake said the “specific urgency around getting money out the door quickly has abated to some extent”.
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How were those 490 boat people deterred?
Andrew Bolt
A curious story, if true:
Canadian officials have prepared hospital beds and jail cells hours ahead of the expected arrival of a cargo ship thought to be carrying hundreds of Tamil refugees fleeing Sri Lanka.A ship carrying up to 500 asylum seekers, landing in Australia right in the middle of an election campaign? I couldn’t blame Labor from trying everything and anything to “deter” it, too. I wonder what was done, if anything?
Between 200 and 500 refugees, including women and children, are believed to be aboard the MV Sun Sea, a cargo ship flying a Thai flag…
Media reports originating in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said the ship headed for Canada after being deterred from Australia, and several other ships full of refugees are on their way.
UPDATE
A report a month ago:
A PEOPLE-SMUGGLING vessel carrying up to 300 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, and organised by remnants of the Tamil Tigers, could be on its way to Australia.UPDATE 2
Prominent counter-terrorism expert and author Rohan Gunaratna said the venture was being organised by the same Tiger faction responsible for transporting 76 Tamils to Canada on the Ocean Lady last year.
He said the boat, called the MV Sun Sea, was believed to be moored somewhere off the Thai-Vietnamese coast.
Gunaratna now:
Counter-terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said the boat’s organisers had decided they would get a friendlier reception in Canada than Australia. “They see that Australia is tougher than Canada, but certainly these two venues are rated by the (Tigers) as the two softest countries,” Professor Gunaratna told The Australian.UPDATE 3
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the navy vessel HMCS Winnipeg “attempted to hail the Sun Sea several times and, after establishing communications, the vessel declared that it had refugees on board”.
The Thai-flagged ship’s skipper said that some 490 refugees were on board, but Canadian authorities are unsure of their identities, Mr Toews said.
Some of the people on the ship are “suspected human smugglers and terrorists”, Mr Toews said.
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Jon Stewart: the race card is maxed out
Andrew Bolt
Race Card Is Maxed Out
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| ||||
You can’t keep charging it up to racism without the deposit of credulity running out.
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A costume to make ours look good
Andrew Bolt
Power Line is sounder on politics than on fashion:
We can add, I guess, that Miss USA’s “national costume” is nowhere near as weird as Australia’s.I wouldn’t say ours is great, but thank heavens for the comparison…
===Judge protects public
Andrew Bolt
Judge Folino added that having a man named Boomer the Dog could cause “confusion in the marketplace”, and possibly put “the public welfare at risk”.
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Dick Smith’s blondes are no way to warn against breeding
Andrew Bolt
DICK Smith this week picked the damnedest way to tell us not to multiply or be too greedy.The entrepreneur, explorer and green enthusiast called a press conference in Sydney to declare Australians had to cut down on population and sinful consumerism.
And to illustrate his message he paraded five big-breasted blondes in tight T-shirts around a suitcase of cash he said he’d give to the person who’d help him most in his anti-growth crusade.
Give that man a prize himself - for the most mixed message of the year.
Er, Dick, isn’t chasing broads and bucks exactly the kind of thing likely to give us the babies and bigger houses you say threaten us with “doom”, that word printed in big capitals on the shirts stretched over your bimbos’ breasts?
Aren’t you pandering to exactly the lusts that drive what you decry as “our constant addiction to growth”?
But Smith wins his booby prize from a very crowded field, because our population “crisis” -a big election issue for the first time in decades - has produced a crowded field of pundits, pollies and hucksters who don’t say what they mean, or don’t mean what they say, or who sell troubles as cures, or cures as troubles.
Give us all a prize, in fact, as the biggest buyers of snake oil in this country’s history, just as ready to believe we’re about to eat ourselves out of house and home as we are to believe that the only path to riches is to import more people every year, until outer Melbourne stretches to Uluru.
Smith is just one of the most florid examples of this breed, being a former electronics retailer grown mega-rich by feeding the very consumerism he now claims will destroy us.
Being so rich meant he could offer the ABC enough cash to convince it to make Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle, an infomercial laced with Smith’s green ideology that our supposedly non-commercial and impartial broadcaster screened last night.
According to Smith, and the Greens, Australia’s high immigration is a menace, threatening to choke our hospitals, stuff our cities, devastate our nature and leave us without even enough water and food.
Greens leader Bob Brown has even demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the nation’s “carrying capacity”, as if we were like the cattle on an overstocked station, about to eat the last blade of grass by a broken water pump.
Sadly, this scare-mongering has now been picked up by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who is sane enough to know better, but desperate enough to say what sounds sweet to her budding Greens allies.
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Blinded by the sun
Andrew Bolt
THE beauty about solar power stations is that you just have to promise them. Never mind that you won’t deliver. After all, the new green faith is about seeming, not doing, right?
I again mention this truth because the Brumby Government now promises to make Victoria the “solar capital” of Australia.
Premier John Brumby says he wants to build up to 10 big new solar plants so we can get greenhouse-friendly power.
In fact, the Herald Sun said, he “set a target of 5 per cent of the state’s electricity coming from large solar plants within 10 years”. Which is untrue.
And, as Brumby declared, those five to 10 new plants included “an existing proposal to build a station outside Mildura by 2015”. Which is a warning.
First to that target. As readers may know, the sun does not shine at night. It also doesn’t shine much on cloudy days. So the 5 per cent target is actually for the plant’s capacity in perfect conditions, and not actual delivery.
In fact, the Government hopes by 2020 to have solar power stations that could produce 5 per cent of our electricity in endless sun, but which will supply perhaps just a quarter of that.
But will it manage even this?
The only big solar plant close to being built is that one near Mildura. So keen has the Government been to seem green that it promised this project’s private owners $50 million to get it up, and prime minister John Howard, desperate in his last days to seem funky, threw in $75 million.
This for a plant that would produce only enough wildly overpriced power at peak times for 45,000 homes, but no factories, and would still need conventional power stations humming on line for when the sun didn’t shine.
Yet still the project collapsed last year, throwing 100 people out of work.
In February, with $150 million of investors’ money gone, including up to $3 million of the government handouts, its carcass was sold to Silex Systems for just $20 million.
More cautious, Silex said it had “the aim of commencing commercial project activities in 2011”, which “could then lead to the construction of a . . . pilot facility”, which was “potentially a precursor” to the power station Brumby now counts among the ones he’s promising by 2020.
And that is the most likely of the lot. Provided the governments still stump up the $135 million they’ve promised.
I wouldn’t be counting on that project just yet, or another nine like it.
Indeed, this week we learned another government-backed solar project had flared out, this one in Queensland.
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Welfare for tech heads
Andrew Bolt
Telco analyst Grahame Lynch is amazed by the carpetbaggers who won’t do a stroke of work to justify the $43 billion in corporate welfare that Labor’s broadband scheme will lavish on them :
Given the immense economic and career opportunities that the government is providing for many vendors, contractors and carriers in the sector, I find it astonishing that not one of them has mustered the modest resources required to prepare a credible cost-benefit analysis that attempts to measure the claimed externalities for the NBN in areas such as telecommuting, e-learning and telemedicine that are bandied about ad nauseam.
In an opinion piece carried by The Age this week, fibre academic and NBN expert panellist Rod Tucker, who is as much as anyone the father of the NBN policy, wrote: “A recent report commissioned by the city of Seattle found that a fibre access network would produce indirect benefits of more than $1bn a year. Scaled to a country the size of Australia, these benefits would amount to more than $5bn per annum. The $43bn price tag on the broadband network is starting to look like a bargain.”
Why is the world’s largest and most expensive broadband network proposal being justified by recourse to the findings of a report defending a modest infrastructure build for what is only the 23rd biggest city in the US? As I say, Conroy has strategic reasons for not submitting his policy to the test of the dismal science, but the telecommunications industry does not. It is a disgrace that the many economic beneficiaries of Labor’s NBN policy believe they should have a bipartisan entitlement to tens of billions of dollars of gifted resources without resourcing credible analysis to back their arguments.
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Iran back to the stoning age
Andrew Bolt
A once civilised country reverts to this:
THE Iranian woman whose sentence to death by stoning sparked an international outcry is feared to be facing imminent execution, after she was put on a state-run TV program where she confessed to adultery and involvement in a murder.Speaking shakily in her native Azeri language, which could be heard through a voice-over, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, told an interviewer on Wednesday that she was an accomplice to the murder of her husband and that she had an extramarital relationship with her husband’s cousin.
Her lawyer told The Guardian that his client, a mother of two, was tortured for two days before the interview was recorded in Tabriz prison, where she has been held for four years.
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Deceit, threats and lawyers. Another day at the Greens office
Andrew Bolt
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of closet totalitarians:
LEAKED internal emails have revealed bitter divisions within the Greens over its controversial preferences deal with Labor.
The Age has obtained dozens of emails by senior Greens that also reveal the party has an ‘’attack response group’’ based in leader Bob Brown’s office, which has canvassed using legal threats to ‘’frighten off’’ critics…
The Greens candidate for the marginal outer Melbourne electorate of McEwen, Steve Meacher, was livid after being told by a party campaign co-ordinator that his seat was one of 54 included in the deal…
Two days later, in an email written after a meeting of the attack response group on July 23, Emma Bull from Senator Brown’s office requested each state branch check local contacts ‘’for lawyers who may be willing to give pro bono advice if injunctions are required at any point’’ and for ‘’contact details for solicitors who are willing to write ‘cease and desist’ letters to frighten off people (will work only with smaller groups, not with the other major parties)’’.
Mr Meacher said the preferences deal had ‘’made a liar’’ of national campaign co-ordinator Ebony Bennett, who had said in an email: ‘’In the Greens, our local branches make preference decisions..”
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How long must they last to pay this off?
Andrew Bolt
A stupid eyesore in Hobart to start with, and a waste of money. Now worse on both fronts:HUMAN error has been blamed for the failure of two wind turbines on top of the Marine Board Building yesterday… Mr Rockefeller said the damage to the turbines was significant and it would cost about $100,000 to get them back to full working order.(Thanks to reader Nick.)
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Abbott class, Latham crass
Andrew Bolt
A dignified response to Mark Latham’s gatecrashing. Some of the veterans are less gracious, though.
UPDATE
A devastating critique of Latham’s performance from body language expert Michael Kelly, who notes Latham was more finger-wagging aggressive to Gillard than to Abbott:
He still went in hard to begin with… But when Abbott fronted up to him he wasn’t so aggressive, and his voice shook a little bit too. There was a quaver there. Abbott kind of intimidated Latham a little bit I think. It’s typical bully behaviour, really. A lot of these guys are weak underneath—they’re all upfront…(Thanks to reader Nonna.)
Reading into it, maybe because Gillard is a woman, Latham thinks he can have that bravado… But with a guy standing up to him, he was much more wary.
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Even just to wait can’t hurt
Andrew Bolt
IT executive Sean Kaye looks at the cost, the technology, the consumer and the crowd trying their hand at yet another big government scheme and asks:
Do we even need a fibre National Broadband Network?A must-read.
(Thanks to reader Dave.)
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