=== Todays Toon ===
VENGEANCE IS MINE SAITH THE LATHAM!Revenge is sweet! well it would certainly appear so in the case of previously deposed ALP leader Mark Latham. It's no secret that Latham has a huge disdain for the Australian Labor and his 2005 book "the Latham Diaries",which slams his former colleagues and party was no doubt a masterpiece of vengeful sour grapes. - ZEG
=== Bible Quote ===
“If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”- Romans 14:8=== Headlines ===
New Battle Lines Drawn in Ground Zero Mosque Debate
President Obama's seemingly conflicting responses over the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero draw more criticism to the White House, politicians on both sides of the aisle suggest, as the remark raises the prospect of another sticky election issue for lawmakers in November.Tea Partiers Rally Along Border
Conservative activists are rallying along a remote stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border to support the state's immigration law
'Craigslist Killer' Suspect Kills Self
Philip Markoff, the man accused of killing a masseuse and robbing a prostitute he met on Craigslist, was found dead in a Boston jail, officials say
'Bodies Everywhere' in Off-Road Race Horror
A vehicle plows into a crowd at a popular off-road race in the Southern California desert, killing eight people and leaving 12 seriously injured, authorities say
Breaking News
Zsa Zsa calls in priest for last ritesZSA Zsa Gabor, in hospital with complications from a broken hip, called a priest to her room today for final rites.
Accused 'Craigslist Killer' dies in cell
"CRAIGSLIST Killer" Philip Markoff, the medical student accused of killing one woman and robbing another, is dead.
Dollar lower on US, Italian data
THE dollar opened lower today after poor US and Italian economic data weakened investor sentiment for risk.
Teens arrested in stabbing murder inquiry
TWO teenagers were arrested today on suspicion of murdering a man stabbed to death.
Axe use in road rage attack
A 22-YEAR-OLD man's car has been damaged by an axe in a frightening road rage incident when he stopped at traffic lights.
Man found dead in his unit
HOMICIDE squad detectives are investigating the death of a man in Melbourne’s east.
Student's replica gun scares public
TEEN in a film-making project charged with public nuisance after people think his replica semi-automatic firearm was for real.
Apple employee 'sold secrets to supplier'
AN Apple employee has been charged with selling secrets to Asian suppliers of the tech giant in exchange for at least one million dollars in kickbacks, a newspaper reports.
Veterans mark Allies' victory over Japan
BRITISH war veterans mark 65th anniversary of VJ Day at solemn ceremony attended by Prince Charles and David Cameron.
Charges dropped in fatal US shooting
PROSECUTOR says the evidence doesn't back up murder charges against a parolee accused of opening fire outside a restaurant.
NSW/ACT
Pay the rates or lose your homeFAMILIES are having homes or land seized by councils because they owe $220 in rates.
Don't fence kids out
THEY are prison-like fences meant to keep out vandals and not stop students from playing.
Inspired by courage of sick Lleyton
HE IS the tiny five-year-old who inspired Wests Tigers to the NRL finals for the first time in five years.
Men sell their sole
WE expect women to be martyrs to their shoes, but now it seems men are becoming fashion victims too.
Man dies, cyclist trapped, man loses arm
A MAN was killed and several injured
in a three-car crash during a horror day on roads.Queensland
Wooing tourists on a wing and a prayerA Ramadan evening lounge where Muslims can meet after a day's fasting will open in a Gold Coast hotel in a bid to woo visitors from the Middle East.
AFL teen suffered 'hard bump'
A TEENAGE AFL footballer charged after an on-field incident that left a rival player with serious injuries was involved in a "hard bump", a court has been told.
Ex-cop admits to bashing tourists
Rogue ex-cop Benjamin Thomas Price has pleaded guilty to bashing three tourists while on duty in the Whitsunday mecca of Airlie Beach.
Pensioner guilty of sex worker murder
AN invalid pensioner today pleaded guilty to the murder of a Korean sex worker on the Gold Coast four years ago.
Migaloo spotted near Cairns
RARE, professionally-shot footage of Migaloo at play in Cairns waters will be a boon for the tourism industry and help protect the famous white whale.
Car stolen during violent attack
TWO young women, both aged 21, have been robbed of their car in a violent mugging at a southside Brisbane train station around 9pm on Sunday night.
Store attendant threatened with knife
POLICE are looking for two men who robbed a convenience store and threatened staff with a knife in Rockhampton
Student's replica gun scares public
A TEEN involved in a film-making project has been charged with public nuisance after a number of people thought his replica semi-automatic firearm was for real.
Parents opt for traditional names
THERE was one Amadeus and a Cristiano but overall, Queensland parents stuck with traditional names for their offspring last year.
Sweet treats raise funds for RSPCA
ADAM Pitcher and his dalmatian Kenny were amongst thousands of Queenslanders who made the most of the first signs of Spring over the weekend.
Victoria
Man bashed in home break-inA MAN has been rushed to hospital after he was assaulted during an aggravated burglary this morning.
Boy beats odds
EXCLUSIVE: A SERIOUSLY ill toddler whose parents went to court to lift a hospital's effective death sentence is now defying the odds.
17 heroes honoured
THEY'VE rescued people from burning buildings, saved the public from armed criminals and averted disaster.
Real state of consistency
THE real estate market is showing remarkable consistency and will not change until well into spring, a real estate expert says.
Killer pays tribute to patriarch
CBD killer and Hells Angel bikie Christopher Wayne Hudson has paid tribute to slain crime figure Macchour Chaouk.
Metro goes off the rails
METRO has a new idea to improve its train service: buses.
Women's jail tests a full-body scanner
A NEW full-body scanner to detect drugs or weapons inside body cavities will be tested in Victoria's only maximum-security women's prison.
Mum in assassin's sights
THE wife of slain crime figure Macchour Chaouk would have died with her husband if their young grandson had not been in the line of fire.
Northern Territory
Nothing newSouth Australia
Mini crime spree at ProspectA GROUP of shops in Prospect has been broken into.
Hills road dangerous after fuel leak
A TRUCK'S diesel leak has left an Adelaide Hills road dangerously slippery this morning, police say.
15yo 'with gun' in robbery attempt
A TEENAGE boy has been arrested for trying to rob a fast-food outlet with what appeared to be a firearm.
Family fights to save pet
ESKY the dingo dog is standing at death's door.
Cashed up cult empire
THE empire of controversial Agape Ministries Church spans two states, eight properties, fleet of 13 vehicles, and funds in 10 separate accounts, a court heard.
CBD left out in the cold
THE State Government ignored central Adelaide in its rush to develop higher-density suburbs, property experts say.
Bushfire complacency fears
FIREFIGHTERS have warned the state to begin immediate preparations for the bushfire season amid fears complacency will cost lives.
Foley backs Ploubidis
DEPUTY Premier Kevin Foley has given a personal reference to dumped South Australian Jockey Club chief Steven Ploubidis for another thoroughbred racing job.
Climate change rally heats up
POLICE have been called in to break up a scuffle between protesters at a climate change rally in Adelaide.
Gang shooting terrifies residents
KLEMZIG residents are living in fear after a house owned by a New Boys gang member was peppered with up to six bullets in a drive-by shooting.
Western Australia
Man charged over girlfriend's deathTHE boyfriend of a 26-year-old woman found dead in a Beechboro unit yesterday has been charged with causing her grievous bodily harm.
Hundreds demand action on gutted pub
GUILDFORD was turned into a sea of green on Saturday as more than 1000 people rallied to urge the owners of the fire-ravaged Guildford Hotel to protect it from
Tasmania
Suspect arrested after men shotA 19-YEAR-OLD man has been arrested in relation to a shooting in which three men were injured at Rokeby last night
=== Comments ===
Arizona Congressional Candidate Ben Quayle Defends Controversial Obama AdTHIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FROM "THE O'REILLY FACTOR," AUGUST 12, 2010. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUAN WILLIAMS, GUEST HOST: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight: Arizona is the newest epicenter of political controversy and a new political ad calling President Obama the worst president ever is only adding more fuel to the fire. Ben Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is running for a congressional seat in Phoenix. And with the Republican primary just days away, he released this ad:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN QUAYLE, ARIZONA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Barack Obama is the worst president in history. In my generation, we'll inherit a weakened country, drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in D.C. What's happened to America? I love Arizona. I was raised right. Somebody has to go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place. My name is Ben Quayle, and I approve this message.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Joining us now from Phoenix, Ben Quayle. Ben, I watched this ad and I thought to myself, goodness gracious, the worst president ever? I've seen some pretty unpopular presidents in my time, but the worst ever? Are you just using some kind of Obama bashing to get elected?
BEN QUAYLE, ARIZONA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: No, Juan, I mean, this statement, you know, I have thought long and hard about it. I wasn't happy to make it. I want our leaders to lead our country to greatness, but President Obama and his misguided policies and ideology have really fundamentally changed our country in the wrong way, more so than any president in our history. And I believe that what he is doing right now is going to have very detrimental effects on future generations, and especially my generation, that he's destroying the American dream right now. So that's why I made this ad.
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, Ben, you said tax cartels, I'm sorry, drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in Washington. But I remember Republican administrations that had lots of deficit spending. So why bring in drug lords and equate them to people who are running Washington these days?
QUAYLE: Well, here in Arizona, we're at the forefront of this administration's attacks. We have drug cartels that are stepping up their violence just south of the border. And they are actually targeting some of our law enforcement officers, and they're running their drugs in and out of Arizona without any help from the federal government. And what we're going to see from a business standpoint, economic standpoint, are the tax cartels from Washington, D.C., that are going to hit us again. And we don't know which is the more clear and present danger, but we'll find out soon enough. But Arizona is the one who's at the front lines of this administration's attacks.
WILLIAMS: Well, Ben, what I'm getting at is is it fair to say that you're simply pandering to the worst instincts of the far right to get elected in Arizona? You're saying, you know what? It was sordid -- I'm using your language here -- sordid for the U.S. government to file a suit against the new Arizona immigration law. You're saying if you don't see cuts in entitlements spending in the country, you want to freeze or maybe even reduce the pay of people in the executive branch and the Congress to punish them. So I mean, I'm thinking to myself, oh really, reduce entitlements? What is that going to do to people on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid?
QUAYLE: Well, actually, the way to do that with entitlement reform is to actually being able to have the reforms, not affecting those who are in or near retirement today. But it will have changes to those who are outside of that window. We need to do those reforms because otherwise, it's going to absolutely bankrupt our country. I mean, unfunded liabilities are between $60 and $100 trillion, depending on what estimate you use. So we have to have those entitlement reforms, because if they -- we don't get them, especially quickly before the bulk of the baby boom generation starts hitting those numbers, all of that spending is going to crowd out everything else. And President Obama has actually increased our entitlement burden going forward with the health care reform package, and that's what I'm talking about…
WILLIAMS: All right.
QUAYLE: …is his policies have been -- are going to be detrimental to the future of the United States.
WILLIAMS: Well, Ben, let me just say now, you are in the midst of a controversy of your own over this "Dirty" Scottsdale website. Initially you said you had nothing to do with it. Now you're saying yes, in fact, you did post some comments to it. And the man who started it says you helped to create it. So what's going on here, because this is kind of a raunchy website? It could damage your campaign if this gets out that you were involved as a conservative Republican. What are you telling people?
QUAYLE: Yes, well, the website that is pushing this smear campaign against me is despicable and an obnoxious website. I have never had any affiliation with that website. This is a smear campaign done by one of my opponents here in Arizona. Now, I have done a comment on a blog that doesn't exist anymore, and so that's what we were talking about here. It's a smear campaign against me.
WILLIAMS: But you didn't introduce the founder to lawyers and you didn't post comments about the hottest chicks in Arizona and all that?
QUAYLE: I did do a referral for a lawyer, but I don't think that that makes me any sort of a creator. And it doesn't. I had nothing to do with the creation of any website.
WILLIAMS: Ben Quayle, thanks for coming on and stepping up to the plate. We appreciate it.
QUAYLE: Thanks, Juan.
Content and Programming Copyright 2010 Fox News Network, Inc. Copyright 2010 Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
===
TIMING
Tim Blair
In Brisbane: “Julia Gillard has conjured the spirit of US President Barack Obama to urge Australians to vote Labor at next weekend’s poll.”
In the US: “Obama hits new low in Gallup’s daily tracking poll.”
UPDATE. Gillard on Ten News: “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” But her preference pal says otherwise: “We will have that, I will have that as the first item on the list when I meet the next Prime Minister after this election.” (Incidentally, why is Gillard rejecting a carbon tax before her Boganhagen Committee has even had a chance to propose it?)
UPDATE II. Paul Bongiorno claimed tonight that Gillard’s 45-minute launch speech was delivered “without notes.” Bongiorno appears to have been tricked:
By the time everyone was seated in the cramped, low-ceilinged venue, the rumour was that she would be unsupported even by written notes, and this seemingly was confirmed by La Gillardine’s ascent, empty-handed, to the stage.Fake Julia.
As it happens, a written version of her speech awaited her at the lectern, but the suggestion of spontaneity had by that stage already been successfully contrived, and much was made afterward of Ms Gillard’s skill in speaking off-the-cuff.
===
ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Tim Blair
The Daily Telegraph‘s People’s Forum last week demonstrated that the Australian public has a great many questions about the 2010 federal election. Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott even answered some of them.
Yet questions still remain. As the campaign enters its final week, here is your must-read guide to the outstanding matters that will decide who becomes our next Prime Minister:
Q: Why is broadband suddenly such a big issue?
A: Because it is vitally important that we get information as quickly as possible. Not in one second, not in half a second, but in just a nanosecond or even faster. That’s why the Labor government will spend $43 billion on the speediest broadband system ever conceived. Unless we have immediate knowledge of everything, the Australian economy is doomed.
Q: When will Julia Gillard name the members of her next cabinet? She hasn’t told us who will take over from John Faulkner as Defence Minister, or who will be the new Finance Minister after Lindsay Tanner, or what role Kevin Rudd may play.
A: Give it time. What’s the rush?
===
FIXIELAND
Tim Blair
Along with smoking, cycling is becoming one of Australia’s most regulated activities:
After thick-rimmed glasses, a ‘’fixie’’ bike is the hipster’s ultimate accessory. With sleek lines, retro colours, no gears and often no brakes, they are the vehicle of choice for inner Melbourne’s funky ‘’Fitzroyal’’ set.Funkily enough, my first bike was a “fixie”. I was eight. Ahead of the curve, me. While brakeless bikes boom, walkers against warming wane:
But now the feds are trying to cramp their style. Australia’s consumer watchdog is threatening bike shops with fines of more than $1 million for selling brakeless fixed-wheel bikes.
More than 40,000 turned up in 2006, but just 10,000 people participated in the Walk Against Warming, an annual march through (Sydney) to protest against government inaction on climate change.Things were even worse in Melbourne:
Hundreds of people turned out …Perhaps they were frightened of being hit by speeding hipsters.
UPDATE:
Almost 20 years after Australia became the first country to make it illegal to ride a bike without a helmet, two Sydney University researchers say the law does not work and we would be better off without it.
===
LEVEL THOSE HEADS
Tim Blair
A recent book blames income inequality for murder, obesity, teenage pregnancy, depression and reduced life expectancy. Naturally, the authors are expert compassionate head-tilters. The name of their book? The Spirit Level.
(Via Carlos d’Abrera)
UPDATE. Peter Saunders reviews the tilty study. (Thanks to Greg Lindsay)
===
DIAL TONE
Tim Blair
How did Kevin Rudd plan to deal with the pre-Australian seafaring community? Why, he’d “turn ‘em back”. He didn’t, of course, and now Tony Abbott has kicked things up a notch:
Australia’s border patrol forces would have a hotline to Tony Abbott under a Coalition Government to ask him if they’re allowed to turn the boats back.Boatphone! Meanwhile, Real Julia – not to be confused with Real Madrid – remains poll-driven:
As another boatload of illegal immigrants arrived on the weekend – the 152nd since Labor won office – Mr Abbott explained how his pledge to turn back the boats would work.
“In the end it would be a prime ministerial decision,” Mr Abbott said.
“It would be the Government’s call based on advice of the commander on the spot.”
Mr Abbott said the phonecall from sea would come to him - on the boatphone - and it would be his choice whether or not to turn a boat back if it was safe to do so.
Julia Gillard decided to build the $2.6 billion Epping to Parramatta rail line just two days before she announced it, after previously planning to announce just a $30 million study, a secret document reveals …Current polling has Gillard back in front, so don’t be banking on that (much-delayed) train line. Voting is already underway in the UK, where the Libs have an early advantage:
The decision to go ahead with the project came after polling over the weekend of August 7-8 that had Tony Abbott ahead on a two-party preferred basis.
The Sun-Herald questioned 100 voters on Thursday and Friday as they left Australia House in the Strand, London. The result was Liberals 45 per cent, Labor 39 per cent and Greens 16 per cent.Oddly, the piece seems more impressed by those running second and third. Looking ahead to a likely Labor win, Paul Daley previews possible post-election pugilism:
Might not the narrowest win for Labor, resulting in a barely governable lower house majority and a bolshie Senate, give rise to internal recriminations and more bloodletting?But before the bloodletting comes the fundraising.
You bet.
===
WAR EXPOSED
Tim Blair
Martin Flanagan applauds Wikileaks creep Julian Assange for finally revealing the “true nature of the war”:
This week, a number of human rights organisations called on Julian Assange to protect Afghans named in the avalanche of US Army intelligence on the Afghanistan war leaked to WikiLeaks. The Taliban execute people who give information to the Americans. There is no denying there are huge ethical questions in relation to what Assange and WikiLeaks have done. But Assange is correct when he says the leaks have revealed the true nature of the war.It’s true. Until Assange, all of us thought that war was something involving marshmallows and Snuggies. But people get killed? Who knew? Speaking of people getting killed, Reporters Without Borders is among those opposed to Assange:
The leaks provide a detailed picture of what is happening, including the civilian casualties. None of us can plead ignorance any more.
International press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders said in an open letter on Thursday that it “regrets the incredible irresponsibility” shown by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in posting the Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010.More from David Manuta:
It is the identification of those on the ground in Afghanistan (who are helping us) that is troubling to me. Al-Qaida and the Taliban have been boosted in ways unimaginable.Lately Assange has only met his hairdresser. Further on that open letter from Erik Hayden.
Due to this clear and present danger to others, a federal grand jury ought to seek an indictment of Assange and his peers for treason. The rest of the world needs to observe that “freedom of speech” is not synonymous with the “freedom to deliberately endanger the lives of others” …
A commitment to bring Assange to justice is appropriate. He will meet whatever outcome fate has for him.
UPDATE. Don Surber asks:
Where are the Taliban papers?While the Washington Post‘s Michael W. Savage writes:
Where are the documented war atrocities of the Taliban?
Hell, where are the pre-war atrocities of the Taliban?
For antiwar campaigners from Seattle to Iceland, a new name has become a byword for anti-establishment heroism: Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning.
Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst, is suspected of leaking thousands of classified documents about the Afghanistan war to the Web site WikiLeaks.
===
MECCA TIME
Tim Blair
High hopes for a large clock:
Muslims around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world’s largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Islam’s holiest city of Mecca.Good luck with that. It sounds like a tasteful timepiece:
Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock, which will loom over Mecca’s Grand Mosque from what is expected to be the world’s second tallest building, will establish Mecca as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich median.
More than six times larger in diameter than London’s famed Big Ben, the clock faces, with the Arabic words “In the Name of Allah” in huge lettering underneath and will be lit with two million LED lights.It’s the Subaru WRX of clocks! Many are curious about the mechanism:
Some 21,000 white and green coloured lights, fitted at the top of the clock, will flash to as far as 30 kilometres to signal Islam’s mandatory five-times daily prayers.
On special Muslim occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 kilometres up into the sky.
“Everyone is interested to see the clock, despite the lack of sufficient information about it, and its mechanism,” said Mecca resident Hani al-Wajeeh.To show off? How immodest. That clock should be fitted with a burqa.
“We in Mecca hope to be the world’s central time zone, and not just have a clock to look at, to show off,” he said.
===
Not so great a challenge, after all
Andrew Bolt
Number of words that Kevin Rudd devoted in his 2007 campaign launch speech to tackling global warming, the ”great moral, environmental and economic challenge of our age”:
237
Number of words that Julia Gillard devoted in her 2010 campaign launch speech to tackling global warming, ”a profound challenge for all of us”:
12
===
Yes, we will rip off Hillary ripping off Obama
Andrew Bolt
It didn’t work any better when Hillary Clinton first tried it, so why did Julia Gillard think this obama knock-off was worth reprising at her launch?
(Thanks to Jason Morrison.)
===
We understand
Andrew Bolt
Queensland public works minister Robert Schwarten was rushed to hospital after suffering breathlessness and collapsing twice last night…
”I went to watch Kevin Rudd on TV as a matter of fact and I came over with some allergic reaction...”
===
Obama stumbles over a mosque on his way down
Andrew Bolt
Frank Newport traces the long, slow decline of Barack Obama.And I doubt this decline will halt any time soon, after Obama appeared to endorse the 13-storey mosque and Islamic cultural centre that’s planned for a site just two blocks from where Islamist terrorists brought down the World Trade Centre, killing 3000 people:
In a passionate defense of religious freedom, President Barack Obama on Friday waded into a bitter controversy by defending the right of Muslims to build a mosque just blocks from Ground Zero.But the backlash prompted a backpeddle from a president already on the back foot:
“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said.
“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.”
President Barack Obama on Saturday sought to defuse the controversy over his remarks on plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero, insisting that he wasn’t endorsing the specific project but making a general plea for religious tolerance toward all. ...This reverse-ferret leaves some Leftists cheerleaders at the end of a long plank after taking Obama to have said what he now denies:
”I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” Obama continued. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding.”
A few quick thoughts about Obama’s forceful speech yesterday expressing strong support for Cordoba House, which will go down as one of the finest moments of his presidency.Meanwhile Claudia Rosett wonders at the whereabouts of the imam behind the mosque, whose website is being cleansed of awkward details.
Obama didn’t just stand up for the legal right of the group to build the Islamic center. He voiced powerful support for their moral right to do so as well, casting it as central to American identity. This is a critical point, and it goes to the the essence of why his speech was so commendable.
(Via Instapundit.)
===
How innumerate is Gillard?
Andrew Bolt
Julia Gillard on her campaign speech once more trotted out her latest forumla for pooh-poohing Labor’s debt:
… our debt position as a nation is like someone earning $100,000 a year having a $6,000 loan.Doesn’t sound like much, right? But financial advisor Julian says Gillard’s analogy is false:
On Channel 9 today, in regards to debt, Julia Gillard said that Australias position on debt was like a person earning $100,000 borrowing $6,000 (she is referring to our government debt as 6% of GDP).Is Gillard innumerate, or just deceptive?
She is incorrect. The GDP of Australia is not run by the government or controlled by the government. The level of debt should be measured against government revenue - not GDP. Government revenue is approx $280 billion. Only 4% of GDP is attributed to the Government - the rest is the Private Sector.
So how is Private Sector debt going? Not sure but our net foreign debt is $1 trillion so things aren’t as rosey as Julia pretends.
UPDATE
Paul Syvret recalculates:
Australia’s GDP, which is around $1.3 trillion, is the sum of all the wealth we create. It is not the receipts, or ``income’’, the Government receives, which this year is forecast at about $320 billion.
So, in pure budgetary terms, our net debt figure would be closer to having a $65,000 debt on a $320,000 income.
===
Here comes a green tax on your electricity
Andrew Bolt
Is this the price Labor will pay for Greens cooperation in the Senate? From 5AA’s interview with Greens leader Bob Brown today:
Byner: Are you in favour of a carbon tax?
Brown: We will have that, I will have that as the first item on the list when I meet the next Prime Minister after this election.
===
ABC hands its on-line sites to Labor’s friends
Andrew Bolt
Gavin Atkins monitors the fourth week of election coverage at the ABC’s on-line sites, and finds the Left once more holding a taxpayer-funded party:
After three consecutive weeks of left-leaning commentary, this week the ABC appeared to completely abandon any pretence that it is providing balanced commentary at its opinion sites The Drum and Unleashed.Atkins notes the most bizarre example of the pro-Gillard fawning:
Overall, Julia Gillard was criticised 73 times but praised 93 times, while Tony Abbott was criticised 128 times and praised 20 times. In other words, Gillard was praised more often than she was criticised, but Abbott received praise only once for every six times he was criticised.
This week, ABC online opinion editor Jonathan Green did not provide a single item where a conservative substantially criticised Julia Gillard or praised Tony Abbott, but published at least 17 where Gillard was primarily praised or Abbott substantially criticised.
“St Thomas Aquinas, the great propounder of the Summa, is referred to in James Joyce’s Ulysses as someone “with whom no word is impossible” and Julia Gillard’s surpassing skill in weaving the political wind and creating an image of herself as a leader is precisely to radiate this kind of all-encompassing calm. As someone who can listen and abide the articulation of all sorts of different viewpoints and arguments and smile on the contradictions without succumbing to partisanship or, indeed, giving an inch.”As for Abbott, any vilification was fit to publish by the ABC:
“Tony Abbott is mad. Madder than Mark Latham at a mad convention…”Once again I wonder why ABC staff are not being made to abide by the ABC charter, especially in the context of a close election. As chairman Maurice Newman has reminded them, to zero observable effect, their taxpayer funding imposes a special duty on the ABC to be politically impartial:
“Abbott’s Brisbane campaign launch… pinned him back in his place as a member of a reviled, rejected and bilious bunch of crocks.” and
“His policy-lite campaign is being exposed for the shallow con job we always knew it was.”
(We are) required by our charter to walk both sides of the street and be balanced and all those good things. That is really the contract we have and it’s important that we fulfil that obligation.For links to the quotes and to Atkins’ three previous surveys, go to his full analysis here.
===
The Labor launch
Andrew Bolt
Julia Gillard will be speaking without a teleprompter or fully written speech, says Sky News. It’s an attempt to unleash the “real Julia”.
Mind you, John Howard did the same without the media gasping in admiration. (Gillard’s speech here.)
UPDATE
Sky is going with two Labor mouthpieces on its panel to just one Liberal, Graham Morris. One of the two, a former Kevin Rudd staffer, claims Rudd got a “warm” welcome from the launch audience. Host David Speers is taken aback, noting the applause was actually brief.
UPDATE 2
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh gets over the problem of such comparative measurements by asking the launch audience to applaud both the former Prime Ministers present, Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd, at the same time.
UPDATE 3
Is Wayne Swan trying to set a record for punchlines delivered without applause? It started from his very opening line.
UPDATE 4
One of the two former Prime Ministers gets to introduce Julia Gillard. Oddly enough, he urges Australians to “check the form” of the contestants when deciding their vote. This is exactly what Julia “Moving Forward” Gillard has asked us not to do.
Hawke goes on to say what a great government he led. There’s a bit passion - but also a bit of rambling at times.
He claims Labor created “half a million new jobs” by its stimulus package.
But Gillard claims less than half that, and Reserve Bank member Warwick McKibbin says even that’s a wild exaggeration.
Hawke also tells an outright falsehood by claiming the Liberal Party would have “done nothing” in response to the downturn. The Liberals actually supported the first stimulus package.
Hawke is hurrying, promising to wrap up “quickly”. This is not going all that well.
UPDATE 5
Gillard acknowledges Kevin Rudd, a “man of great achievements”. Applause.
“I want to speak from my heart.” Power of hard work, importance of hard work, transformative power of education. What you heard in her first speech as Prime Minister. Including a “move forward”. Learned the values from her parents, and so on.
A run through all the Labor promises and an attack on Tony Abbott being some sort of cutting monster.
UPDATE 6
Announces changes to Medicare funding so rural people can claim for consultations over the Internet. There’s $392 million for online health initiatives. This is in part about making Tony Abbott seem a troglodyte on broadband.
UPDATE 7
Another lie - the claim that Abbott wants to put “a tax on groceries”.
UPDATE 8
Erk. False note alert! Gillard claims she is “too humble” to compare herself to Barack Obama. Why?
But then she rips off his toe-curling “Yes, we can” slogan to go through a riff on “yes, we will”. Yuk.
UPDATE 9
Dull, and at times Gillard reverted to the patronising sing-song for morons voice that fell so flat at Rooty Hill. She avoided Abbott’s mistake, however, and added a new policy - money for online medicine - for a talking point, and one that helps her to justify the likely white elephant of her $43 billion broadband plan while painting Abbott as a techno-dunce. Some of the gullible may well have thought her convincing on justifying the waste of her stimulus spending by claiming “some mistakes were made” but half a million jobs were created, and unemployment would have been a greater waste.
Health and education were hammered, feeding to the traditional strengths of Labor and Gillard, but there was virtual silence on foreign affairs, agriculture, industry and industrial relations (other than another Abbott scare.) We had plenty about spending but little about earning.
All in all, it was better than Abbott’s speech politically, although the applause seemed strangely muted. I’m not sure Gillard has bonded with the Labor faithful as Hawke did. Or maybe that utterly crass “yes, we will” stunned the crowd.
But Gillard’s speech was depressing if you believe in accountability for mismanagement and doubt the wisdom of governments betting billions on a technological gamble.
Now the interesting absences. There was virtually nothing on global warming and nothing at all on the emissions trading system that Labor so fervently promised at the last election. In three years the “greatest moral challenge of our time” has become the merest footnote in a campaign launch. Also absent from the speech were the two most meretricious promises of this campaign - the 150-strong “citizens assembly” on climate change and the $400 million “cash for clunkers”.
But let’s “move forward”. Don’t hold Labor accountable for its past blunders and over-promising. Just believe its promises now.
UPDATE 10
Sky News wraps up, again using two Labor spinners to one Liberal. Why?
UPDATE 11
Reader Graeme wonders about Gillard’s online medicine:
On e-health. I am relatively healthy, and visit the doctor infrequently. However, every time that I visit the doctor, typically he will do one or more of the following:I believe these consulations will actually be done from local doctor’s surgeries. But my question is: will specialists be able to get medical indemnity insurance for consulations done over the Internet?
a) measure my blood pressure
b) take my temperature
c) use a stethoscope to hear if there is any congestion on my lungs
d) check out my throat
With the exception of looking down my throat (still difficult to achieve with a webcam fixed in the monitor), I would need additional equipment to measure temperature, blood pressure, congestion, etc.
Do patients need to purchase this equipment or will the government issue it to everyone?
UPDATE 12
Abbott says Gillard is promising the kind of thing that already exists:
“We already have under the existing Medicare health system remote consultations, so much of what she [Prime Minister, Julia Gillard] talked about today in fact already exists,” he said. “I’m very happy to see increased use of technology in the delivery of health services
“But I simply make the point that we are much more likely to get affordable and deliverable broadband services from a competitive market than we are from a Government monopoly.”
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How Gillard spent $2 billion overnight to save a seat
Andrew Bolt
What a disgracefully reckless and craven way to spend taxpayers’ billions:
JULIA Gillard decided to build the $2.6 billion Epping to Parramatta rail line just two days before she announced it, after previously planning to announce just a $30 million study, a secret document reveals.This exactly mirrors the worst of Rudd, who decided to commit $43 billion to a national broadband network without even a cost-benefit analysis:
The decision was also made despite no studies being done on projected patronage numbers or the need for the project since 2003.
Similarly, the NBN was a decision made between Communications Minster Stephen Conroy and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd flying between Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane in a VIP jet.
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Latham flops
Andrew Bolt
I’ve defended Mark Latham’s right to work as a reporter, but I cannot defend the tosh he put to air for 60 Minutes last night.
What a lightwight effort. Just one bitter rant from an angry man about how politics has gone downhill since he quit as Labor’s leader. (Concidence? Not in his mind, I’m sure.)
Latham says politics is all about stunts now, neatly forgetting his own stunt of promoting as a serious national policy the reading of bedtime stories to children and the slashing of super to politicians conveniently coming after him, thus making politics even more of a financial sacrifice for the talented.
There was zero acknowledgement, let alone discussion, of the very serious policy differences between the two parties. Labor, for instance, is promising to help save the planet by putting a price on carbon, which will have a profound effect on the economy, and are spending a colossal $43 billion on broadband. More to Labor’s credit, it’s also promising interesting education reforms.. The Liberals are backing the most generous parental leave scheme yet proposed by a political party and are trying to hold to account the most astonishingly wasteful and bungling government seen since before Whitlam. None of this was mentioned.
Latham scores only two sit-down interviews with politicians, both whom he rewards by representing them as perhaps the best two exemplars of conviction politics - the Greens’ Bob Brown and One Nation’s Pauline Hanson. Nowhere does he examine what disasters their economic cargo-cultism would land this country if ever we were so stupid as to vote either into power. Newver mind the policies, feel the passion.
But then, to make himself look not only a fool but a hypocrite, Latham belittles Tony Abbott for having strong convictions himself, mocking them inaccurately and unfairly as a belief in only the Monarchy, Catholicism and Work Choices.
No thought at all went into this. Just bitterness and bile, summed up by his appeal to Australians to cast invalid votes in protest.. And to think that just six years ago, Julia Gillard swore that this man should be our Prime Minister.
But, then, three years ago she thought Kevin Rudd would be fantastic, so what does this say about her judgment?
UPDATE
Education Minister Simon Crean, unbelievably, still maintains the faith in Latham on Sky News:
I think he could have been a good Prime Minister.(No link.)
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Journalist twitters invent an anti-Abbott joke
Andrew Bolt
Want a lesson on how the media can twist a perfectly sane proposal from Tony Abbott into an invitation to ridicule?
Here, first, is what Herald Sun political reporter Phillip Hudson wrote after an interview with the Opposition Leader:
TONY Abbott says that as prime minister he would personally decide whether to turn back asylum-seeker boats...Reader Matthew explains what happened next:
“In the end, it would be a prime ministerial decision,” he told the Herald Sun.
“It would be the government’s call, based on the advice of the naval commander on the spot.”
Mr Abbott said the phone call from sea would come to him, and it would be his call whether to turn a boat back, if it was safe to do so.
#boatphone went crazy on twitter a bit before 11pm aest… after about 90mins of every journo in the country trying to appear clever on twitter by making jokes about it, they quietly withdrew when phillip hudson’s piece went online at the hun and the daily tele about midnight, showing no mention of any such thing.The Twitter page of the ABC’s Crabb shows the joke becoming the story, despite Hudson’s attempts to defend the facts:
Interestingly though, at about 12.40am, the daily tele piece suddenly had the twitter initiated term ‘boatphone’ inserted into the article, complete with a new headline including, ‘holy smoke asylum seekers, its boatman...’ - another circulated ‘joke’ on twitter. see here… http://is.gd/eiLW0
While i personally have issues with such a policy, my concern for now is how easily/readily a story is manipulated to cater for the ramblings of twitter users.
Phillip Hudson tweeted the following at 12.17am; no “special boatphone” mentioned in my story. Perhaps people should read it first… Yet about 20mins later, the daily tele (or even hudson perhaps) had inserted the #boatphone reference, changed the headline and added a pic on the mainpage of abbott as a superhero ‘boatman.’anyway,
I just find myself a bit uneasy about the whole thing. annabel crabb, samantha maiden etc all piled in to the issue before the story was released, which caused a twitter meltdown, then suddenly the story is changed to reflect something other than was in the original.
News breaking in newsltd tabloids: Abbott says he will have a special phone with which to turn back boats via navyHere’s the Twitter page of The Australian’s Samantha Maiden:
about 7 hours ago via TweetDeck
last tweet was not a joke by the way. Oh my stars.
about 7 hours ago via TweetDeck .
Here is the daily tele version: to the boat mobiles!tiny.cc/9jxkt
about 5 hours ago via TweetDeck .
RT @PhillipMHudson: Abbott never mentioned a special boatphone. Accurate version of my story is on Herald Sun website. http://tiny.cc/r5y8g
about 5 hours ago via TweetDeck
Jen_Bennett @annabelcrabb A Boat Phone? Will there also be a special spotlight that beams the silhouette of a pair of speedos into the night sky?And, indeed, the facts were changed to suit the Twitter joke. Here is the Daily Telegraph rewrite:
about 8 hours ago via web in reply to annabelcrabb
mpbowers @annabelcrabb gives a whole new meaning to phoney Tony
about 7 hours ago via web in reply to annabelcrabb
domknight The only way Abbott’s #Boatphone could be more ridiculous is if it was answered by a Citizen’s Assembly.
about 7 hours ago via web
sabinewolff Can we please get #boatphone trending? I feel it’s important that it does.
about 7 hours ago via Tweetie for Mac
Holy asylum seekers! Tony Abbott to take charge of boat people hotlineAAP grabs the invented hotline with both hands:
TONY Abbott will personally make any decision to turn around boats carrying asylum seekers if he becomes prime minister…
Mr Abbott said the phonecall from sea would come to him - on the boatphone - and it would be his choice whether or not to turn a boat back if it was safe to do so.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he will personally decide whether to turn around boats carrying asylum seekers if the coalition wins the election.No, Abbott has not pledged to set up any such hotline. Pure invention, and by journalists who are the first to protest they are in the truth business.
Mr Abbott has pledged to set up a hotline for Australia’s border patrol forces so they could call him to ask if they’re allowed to turn the boats back, News Ltd reported on Monday.
UPDATE
I’m told that Maiden, for one, was re-tweeting comments on the Daily Telegraph ”hotline" angle already inserted in its country edition, rather than making presumptions on Hudson’s report.
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Heat goes out of warming
Andrew Bolt
If people really did believe the end of the world, was nigh you’d think more would do something about it:
MORE than 40,000 turned up in 2006, but just 10,000 people participated in the Walk Against Warming, an annual march through (Sydney) to protest against government inaction on climate change.In Brisbane, warmists show all the creativity with the facts that is the hallmark of warming alarmism:
Pepe Clarke, the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, had hoped to build on the 15,000 who marched during the Copenhagen Summit last year, but the rally shrank yet again.
Actor Jack Thompson, who demanded action on climate change for the sake of future generations, estimated that 3000 people took part in today’s event, but organisers said the figure was more like 8000.By why stop even at 8000 when you can round up?:
A Walk Against Warming event in Brisbane attracted between 8000 and 10,000 people, organisers said.Organisers badly needed to pump up the figures to 10,000 to avoid nasty comparisons with last year:
Organisers say as many as 10,000 people attended the march in Brisbane.This fudging of evidence matches the dishonesty of the Walk organisers last year when 40,000 were claimed to have protested in Melbourne. But the Melbourne turnout this year was so pitiful that even Walk Againt Warming gave up trying to pump up the stats:
Hundreds of people turned out ...Meanwhile, in Melbourne the return of the rains exposes the hyperbole of a warmist state government which swore global warming was drying out our dams:
MELBOURNE’S water storages are having their best winter run-off since 1995, swelling above 38 per cent full and adding more than 220 billion litres to last year’s historically low levels.
More good news is expected in coming weeks, with big inflows expected from the winter/spring filling season.
But this exceptional year for Melbourne’s water-storage levels comes at an awkward time for the state government, with its $750 million water pipeline to northern Victoria completed and the $3.5 billion desalination plant expected to be ready by next year.
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Gillard still leads
Andrew Bolt
Newspoll has Labor in a winning position:
The Gillard government still holds a narrow lead in national polling - 52 to 48 per cent on two-party-preferred terms - enough to scrape home on Saturday.UPDATE
Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Our Prime Minister is a liar. A serial liar. Brazen.
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Assange defends his betrayal to the Taliban of the “traitorous”
Andrew Bolt
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange isn’t sure whether he cares if Afghans helping the Coalition to defeat the Taliban are killed as a result of his leaks, since they may be ”genuinely traitorous”.Apparently Assange cannot conceive of an Afghans legitimately preferring democracy to theocracy, the rule of law to the rule of tyrants, and the emancipation of women to their imprisonment in burqas and nose-slitting for the disobedient. He cannot seem to forgive them for wanting Coalition help to protect what gains they’ve made from those who’d kill and enslave them. The patronising, supercilious racist git.
Meanwhile, he gets his wish. The Taliban are checking the documents he’s put up on the web, looking for people to kill.
He himself, though, is hiding his identity and whereabouts to escape dangers like being yelled at in the street, followed by a persistent journalist or arrested by police for breaking the law.
Add self-centred, selfish and self-important to the list of adjectives.
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