=== Todays Toon ===
Still no government, although the ALP are unbackable, the independents apparently aren't. A leftoid, Wilie, has his eat with some 11000 primary votes when his opponent got 23000 and the Liberals got 15000 .. and now he holds the nation to ransom.=== Bible Quote ===
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”- Galatians 3:28=== Headlines ===
5 YEARS AFTER: Obama Vows to Assist City 'Until Job Is Done'
The president applauds New Orleans as a 'symbol of resilience' while speaking to an audience at Xavier University on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking the Gulf Coast.Six Dead in Shooting at Arizona Home
Police say gunman — who was later found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound — kills the mother of his two children and four others in shooting at Arizona home
Support Pours In for Devastated Pakistan
Nearly $1 billion in cash and relief supplies pledged to help Pakistan recover from the worst floods in the country's history
Feds Investigate Fire at Tenn. Mosque Site
Spokesman for federal arson investigators says they are looking into a fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a proposed Islamic center in suburban Nashville
Breaking News
Oakeshott questions 'smear campaign'INDEPENDENT MP Rob Oakeshott has questioned Coalition tactics after receiving a "Rambo-style" phone call from a senior Liberal.
First gene link to common migraine
GENE detectives say they have found the first inherited link to common types of migraine.
Skinheads attack concertgoers
SCORES of bare-chested skinheads have attacked a crowd of about 3000 people at a rock concert, beating them with clubs.
Warning about sexual disorders company
CONSUMERS are being warned to exercise caution when dealing with a firm selling treatment programs for sexual disorders.
Driver of crashed school van charged
POLICE have charged the driver of a van that was hit by a train, killing 10 school children.
Climber's body found after 21 years
THE body of an American mountain climber has been discovered in the Rocky Mountains 21 years after he disappeared.
Two service stations held up overnight
POLICE are investigating two armed robberies at Melbourne service stations.
Kiesha's biological father to meet police
THE natural father of missing six-year-old Kiesha Abrahams will reportedly meet police today in connection with her disappearance.
Trapped miners move to drier spot
THE 33 trapped miners are moving camp to a drier, cooler site deeper inside the San Jose gold and copper shaft.
Obama hails New Orleans' 'resilience'
US President Barack Obama, marking the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, pledges support for rebuilding.
NSW/ACT
Dawn brings rude surpriseDOZENS of planes are flouting the airport curfew, landing before 6am and infuriating locals.
Hillsong church to fight for $38m site
HILLSONG Church has applied to build a $38m estate in Sydney's east after locals rejected them.
Council haunted by $20m blaze
LIVERPOOL Council meets in an alleged haunted old power station tonight after its $20m blaze.
Women have number for Della's job
STATE Labor is expected to select a female expert to replace John Della Bosca.
University centre goes up in smoke
MORE than 100 firefighters battled to contain a blaze on the University of NSW campus.
Cops search Belanglo after bones found
POLICE will begin searching the Belanglo State Forest today after discovering skeletal bones.
New Year booze bans on the table
NEW Years Eve could turn dry as councils consider new booze bans.
Queensland
Jack-knifed truck stuckA JACK-knifed truck at the intersection of Progress and Boundary Roads has thrown traffic into chaos at Wacol in Ipswich.
Missing man guilty of armed robbery
A man who went missing on the fourth day of his court trial has been found guilty of armed robbery - even though he remains on the run.
Knife bandit flees on bicycle
POLICE are hunting a bicycle bandit who held up a supermarket armed with a knife.
Accused bandit misses the bus
BRISBANE man accused of robbing bank in Kingaroy arrested while waiting for bus out of town. "He probably missed a couple," say police.
Syringe used in store hold-up
POLICE are on the hunt for a man after he held up a video store with a blood-filled syringe at Birkdale.
Queensland the fraud capital
QUEENSLAND has become Australia's fraud capital, with 19 major cases so far this year, as thieves target the wealth of the state's cashed-up retirees.
Young road deaths under lens
A YOUNG filmmaker wants to expose the poor road safety attitudes of her peers, in the hope of preventing more teens from being killed in car accidents.
Red tape delays bush doctors
AN inquest into the death of a little girl has highlighted an ongoing severe doctor shortage in the bush which has been exacerbated by registration delays.
Accident delays Watson kill case
ALABAMA'S Attorney-General, caring for his son after an accident, is yet to give assurances to the State Government in his bid to extradite Gabe Watson.
Stores decking the halls already
CHRISTMAS is four months away but department stores have already begun rolling out their Yuletide displays – to the disgust of consumers.
Victoria
Man trapped after car crashUPDATE 7am: EMERGENCY crews have freed a man trapped when his car struck a power pole outside Bendigo early this morning.
Help crack a cold case
VICTORIA'S worst serial killer is likely to die a free man if police are not presented with vital new information.
Ruby's shining for us all
ALL eyes will be on Ruby Rose and what's she wearing during Melbourne's most fashionable seven days.
Government cut EastLink cameras
THE State Government wrongly interfered in the EastLink speed camera strategy, says Victoria's former top traffic cop.
Mine's a story of making history
SWOOPING into enemy territory dropping mines in a hail of gunfire, Stan Guilfoyle and his mates helped win the Battle for Australia.
Taxpayers slugged for renos
TAXPAYERS have forked out almost half a million dollars to do up a kitchen and refurbish five ceilings in the Victorian Governor's home.
50,000 unruly pupils suspended
TEACHERS want help dealing with unruly pupils as figures show more than 50,000 have been suspended in the past three years.
Northern Territory
Nothing newSouth Australia
Pay rise win for Burnside CouncilBURNSIDE councillors will be handed a 10 per cent pay rise after the elections, despite an ongoing government investigation into claims of misconduct.
Adelaide's plans up in the air
A LACK of builders qualified to build structures more than three storeys high threatens plans to cope with a growing population, industry says.
Loaded gun found on Marion Rd
A LOADED revolver has been found dumped on the Marion Rd footpath.
Man arrested after pursuit
A POLICE evader's getaway attempt has resulted in his arrest.
Female diver dies off Whyalla
A WOMAN has died while diving off the coast near Whyalla on Eyre Peninsula.
New tram service 'free forever'
TRAM travel between Adelaide's Entertainment Centre and the city will always be free, the South Australian government says.
Student's $27,000 fines waived
A LAW student has racked up more than $34,000 in fines for 160 traffic infringements over the past five years.
Western Australia
Kenyans dominate City to Surf marathonKENYAN Chelimo Luka Kipkemboi has won the 2010 Perth Rebel Sports City to Surf for Activ marathon in a thrilling finish from compatriot Lilan Kennedy Kiproo.
Tasmania
Nothing new===Comments ===
LINE CROSSED
Tim Blair
Take another look at Pakistani gambling scammer Mazhar Majeed arranging cricket bets before the Lord’s Test. Note again how he specifies that Mohammad Amir will overstep on the first delivery of the third over, and that Mohammad Asif will do the same for the sixth delivery of the tenth over:
This might be the least subtle fix in gambling history. The contentious no-balls from Amir and Asif were the first they’d delivered during the innings. Scroll further through the match report and you’ll find that Amir didn’t overstep again until the 19th over – and that Asif didn’t overstep again until the 22nd. In fact, Amir’s 19th over foot-fault was the third ordered by Majeed. The precision of these bowlers is telling. But nobody within the team is talking, for obvious reasons:
Scotland Yard detectives have confiscated the mobile phones of three of the Pakistan cricket team’s leading players as part of an investigation into one of the biggest betting scandals in the sport’s history …Pakistan tour manager Yawar Saeed digs in, unlike his team’s crumble-prone batsmen:
“As far as the allegations are concerned, I would still call them allegations.Maybe 24 hours isn’t long enough. But similar allegations have been around for at least seven years:
“It’s not really for me within 24 hours to pass a judgment on whether they are true or not.”
Former test batsman Basit Ali said he blamed the authorities for middlemen and bookmakers continuing to soil cricket.No, wait. Make that ten years:
“Rashid Latif (former Pakistan captain) had in 2003 in a letter warned the ICC to beware of this new trend of spot fixing in international cricket. No one took it seriously and this is the result,” Ali said.
A former judge who reported on match-fixing allegations in Pakistani cricket ten years ago said Sunday the current scandal had broken out because his recommendations were not put into practice.Hey, why not crank things back by more than thirty years:
Allegations go as far back as 1979-1980 when Pakistan were accused of throwing matches on their tour of India.It’s almost as though there’s some kind of pattern. An ex-Australian captain’s view:
Pakistani players were also accused of throwing their semi-final against Australia in the 1987 World Cup.
Ian Chappell, who has been actively raising money for Pakistan flood relief, said he knew corruption was rife throughout cricket and slammed the International Cricket Council.The ICC heard none of it:
Chappell said he had suspicions about the Sydney Test, and concluded that Pakistan was either “the worst cricket team” or “the best at match-fixing”. Players involved in the Indian Premier League tell of extraordinary events during games.
The ‘spot-fixing’ scandal that has rocked Pakistan cricket has shocked former ICC President Ehsan Mani, who is baffled how a bookie managed to get in touch with the players despite restrictions imposed by the anti-corruption unit.Er … nothing? Osman Samiuddin pursued events more closely. Among reactions: Allan Lamb wants life bans; Nathan Hauritz is shocked; and Imran Khan – who dismissed earlier match-fixing allegations as the product of racism – thinks the problem is isolated:
“This latest scandal has come as a total shock to me. It is so bad for the image of cricket which we are trying to globalise,” Mani told ‘Geo Super’ channel.
“How this happened is beyond me, what was the Pakistan team management or the ICC anti-corruption unit doing?” he added.
Speaking to ITV News in Islamabad, Khan said: “Why should Pakistan cricket suffer if some players have indulged in a crime? Why should Pakistani supporters suffer because of that?”Easy answer, Imran. Because the players are cheats. No-ball ballboy Mohammad Amir scored zero in what should be his final Test innings:
Amir walks off head bowed to a silent Lord’s crowd. He started this match on top of the world and ends in utter disarray.Amir next tasted his future:
England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke provided the coldest of receptions for Amir as the young paceman collected the Pakistan player of the series award.“Player of the series” is a good call. But not for the right reasons.
===
NOT AS MUCH AS EATING THEM
Tim Blair
An important question from the wife of a former Prime Minister:
Does looking at a giant vase full of daffodils in the sunlight make you happy too?
===
ALWAYS KEEP GOING
Tim Blair
Motorist and popular entertainer 50 Cent considers traffic issues:
• Man old people shouldn’t be able to drive man. This old man cut me off and shit I know he didn’t mean it but damnThere’s a lesson in that for all of us.
• I pulled next to him to scream on him but he looked a hundred years old so I just kept going. I aint say nothing
===
ONLY CHARLES MAY CHANGE
Tim Blair
Charles Johnson used to approve of people changing their minds, since he’s a changeling himself. But now he’s changed his mind.
UPDATE. “The transcript linked by Charles does not support the headline.”
UPDATE II. Johnson deploys his famous photographic skills:
Here we go again with the claims that there were eleventy gazillion people at the Beck rally.Wrong. The photograph is genuine. Further analysis of that shot and others taken from similar angles here. Having implicitly admitted that the crowd appears “eleventy gazillion” strong, Johnson turns to a trusted source for a far lower estimate. That source? Former Johnson target CBS.
Check out this overhead photo posted at a wingnut blog.
This looks like a photo of a different rally to me …
A lot has changed since 2004. Charles Johnson now believes CBS rather than his own eyes.
UPDATE III. Charles offers a nuance defence, including this line: “Blair’s outraged today that I don’t believe there were eleventy gazillion people …” Actually, Johnson did believe that the site photograph represented gazillions. That’s why he thought the image was of another rally. Keep on nuancing, pal.
===
Greens either communists or fools. But I repeat myself
Andrew Bolt
As ringing endorsements go, this one makes a clunking sound:
A FEDERAL Labor-Greens coalition would hold together, says a former Labor state MP who sat as a Green for three years.UPDATE
But, says Kris Hanna, who was an MP and member of the Labor Left in South Australia, unrealistic expectations from rank-and-file Greens could threaten the arrangement.
He resigned in 2003 after a disagreement over changes to compensation laws and joined the Greens, but then left his new party after failing to win Greens preselection for the upper house.
Mr Hanna admits he “failed to do his research” about the Greens.
He describes the party as ”a small communist core and a great mass of politically naive people.
“The communists, even though they didn’t have the numbers in any significant sense, were masters of disruption,” Mr Hanna said.
But he contrasts the “absolutist” position of much of the Greens’ rank and file with the “increasingly pragmatic and hard-nosed” parliamentary representatives.
Speaking about the hard Left of the Greens:
GREENS senator-elect Lee Rhiannon has insisted she will support leader Bob Brown’s pragmatic approach to politics. And, she says, she has no leadership ambitions.Only those under Stalin? Not those committed under Lenin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev?
The former NSW upper house MP brushed aside suggestions her past membership of the Socialist Party means she will want to steer the Greens towards a more radical agenda…
Ms Rhiannon has been labelled a “watermelon”: green on the outside, red on the inside… But she strongly rejects terms such as “Stalinist” and other “Cold War warrior language” to describe her politics…
”I am not a communist, and I and Greens members condemn the crimes committed under Stalin.”
===
Big Nanny declares: bad teeth are worse than poor beggars
Andrew Bolt
Big Nanny would rather the needy went without your donations than that you eat lollies:
THEY’VE been a staple of hospital waiting rooms and reception desks for decades, but charity fundraiser chocolates, mints and lollies will be banned from all SA Health buildings under a crackdown on “unhealthy” food.
===
How many Afghan civilians must die to make Wilkie feel better?
Andrew Bolt
Whom to trust? Andrew Wilkie, the new MP from Tasmania, so far from trouble:
Look yes I did support the invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001, that was warranted… I don’t know the solution from here, if we stay people will die. If we go people will die, but I do know that ultimately peace will only come to Afghanistan when foreign troops are out and I think they should be out as soon as possible. And that will allow that country to find its natural political level.Or Sakena Yacoobi from Afghanistan:
PULLING Western troops out of Afghanistan will condemn mothers and children to suffer, a leading Afghan women’s advocate has warned.Perhaps Wilkie could explain what he means by Afghanistan’s “natural political level” and how that’s likely to be found. In terms of women and children killed, for example.
Sakena Yacoobi said yesterday that foreign soldiers - including from Australia - were needed for at least another five years in a conflict where extremists deliberately poison the drinking water at schools to scare away children.
‘’The women of Afghanistan completely depend on the NATO allies,’’ Dr Yacoobi told The Age in Melbourne yesterday. ‘’At this moment, I think it would be unfair for the people of Afghanistan - especially for the women and children, who have been suffering for 20 and 30 years - to just leave them and walk out. As soon as allied soldiers walk out and leave Afghanistan, the first blood shed will be women and children.’’
UPDATE
Wilkie has now issued Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard with his 22 demands - the price of his vote. They comprise:
- 18 demands to spend more (more on Tasmania, more on all forms of pensions and more on the independents)All spend, no earn, and a nod to identity politics.
- not one demand to cut spending or lift productivity.
- two demands to choke industries that raise revenue for government (stop a planned pulp mill, restrict betting on pokies)
- one demand for more protection for whistleblowers
- one demand for a conscience vote for same sex marriage
The independents do not represent a new paradigm of governance but a new paradigm of irresponsibility.
===
A subtraction lesson
Andrew Bolt
Queensland parents donate:
PARENTS have donated more than $15 million to state school coffers in voluntary contributions towards funding classroom resources and elective subjects.Queensland teachers claim:
WorkCover Queensland handed out more than $10 million in the past five years for various school incidents, which also included slipping on a banana peel, having a dizzy-spell while carrying a lunch box and staring at the sun for too long on a brisk walk.(Thanks to readers John and Bonnie.)
===
Which crowd takes more responsibility - and for the planet, too?
Andrew Bolt
The mall in Washington after 300,000 evil conservatives gather in a plot to “restore honor”:
The mall in Washington after 300,000 enlightened Lefitsts gather to celebrate the election of president promising to clean up the planet:
Via Michelle Malkin, who marvels at how desperate the media is to portray the giant Beck/Palin rally as racist, even when it was endorsed and addressed by Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King:
Strangely, the same media that’s suggesting the whiteness of the Beck crowd is a sign of racism shows not the slightest concern at an even more pronounced racial stamp of the simultaneous rally of race-baiter Al Sharpton:
(Thanks to reader Spencer.)===
One of these pandas is doing a good job
Andrew Bolt
Or maybe listening to all that green yammering is more than even a panda could bear. So that when some punter won’t even say cheese....
===
That pain you feel is another green promise no one costed
Andrew Bolt
Noticed your power bills going up already? Wait until these uncosted government green schemes really kick in:
THE chief executive of one of the country’s biggest energy retailers has warned that power prices are set to increase dramatically.No kidding. And the difference all this makes to the climate is...?
Origin Energy boss Grant King said that complying with the mandatory renewable energy target (RET) and network spending would put upward pressure on energy prices.
“That’s not of our making, or anybody other than policymakers,” Mr King told The Australian…
His comments follow both federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson and his opposition counterpart Ian Macfarlane warning in separate interviews with this newspaper that power prices were likely to double in the next five to seven years…
Wind farms would cost between $100 and $125 per megawatt hour, compared with $30 to $40 per MWh for coal. Moreover, the intermittent nature of wind means that it would need to be backed up with big-ticket investment in gas turbine power plants.
Mr King said he suspected that policymakers “didn’t truly know the cost” of policies that had been introduced.
===
When the drummer doesn’t turn up…
Andrew Bolt
(Thanks to reader Jeff of FNQ.)
===
The Left is racist, too
Andrew Bolt
In fact, some of the most vicious slurs I’ve seen levelled at Ken Wyatt have come from the Left:
INDIGENOUS Australians must take matters into their own hands if they want to see more Aborigines in Parliament, according to the first Aborigine to win a seat in the House of Representatives.
Ken Wyatt claimed victory in the marginal West Australian seat of Hasluck yesterday, amid revelations he was subjected to racist taunts during the election campaign…
He said they had come from both white and Aboriginal people, some accusing him of selling out his cultural heritage by joining the Liberal Party.
===
Migrants aren’t just victims
Andrew Bolt
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination demands only the data which may confirm its suspicion that migrants to Australia are victims of crime, not pepetrators:
23. The Committee is concerned by information related to the personal security of international students, and in particular, the series of racially motivated assaults of Indian students, including one death, in the state of Victoria. It regrets the failure by the Government and police (both at a state and federal level) to address the racial motivation of these acts, as well as the lack of available national data on the prevalence of migrants as victims of crime (arts. 2, 4, and 5).In fact, many of the attacks on Indians here are perpetrated by thugs from other immigrant communities, which have among the highest imprisonment rates in the country. Example:
The Committee recommends that the State party further intensify its efforts to combat racially motivated violence, including by requiring law enforcement authorities to collect data on the nationality and ethnicity of victims of such crimes and ensuring that judges, prosecutors and the police consistently apply existing legal provisions which consider the motive of ethnic, racial or religious hatred or enmity an aggravating circumstance. It recommends that the State party provide updated statistical data on the number and nature of reported hate crimes, prosecutions, convictions and sentences imposed on perpetrators, disaggregated by age, gender and national or ethnic origin of victims.
A gang of racist youths nearly killed a man during an armed rampage in an Indian grocery store in Melbourne’s west for the “sheer thrill” of the attack, a judge said today… Judge Jenkins said ... it was “particularly shameful” that the Somali immigrant had vented his rage on international students and other young immigrants.And, on cue:
For the businessman and gym junkie Hakan Ayik, 32, .... was a main target of one of the most significant investigations into organised crime in this country. Code-named Hoffman, it has spent two years inquiring into a drug dealing network whose tentacles reach throughout Australia, in the NSW Police and prison system, on the nation’s docks, and overseas…
It reveals with unprecedented clarity the extent of the threat from organised crime in Australia and highlights the difficulty authorities face in fighting a new breed of borderless criminals…
Perhaps the most telling clip is one that pictures him travelling to Hong Kong with Daux Ngukuru, the sergeant-at-arms of Sydney’s notorious Comanchero outlaw bikie gang.
Ayik has also posted a photograph of himself on this trip with Mark Ho, a Chinese gangster linked to the triads. Ho served a prison stint in Australia in 2001 for heroin trafficking before moving back to China…
By mid-2008, the ACC was wrapping up a three-year operation that had uncovered at least 300 million narco-dollars being moved overseas, mainly by Vietnamese and Chinese drug syndicates, via four money remitting agencies in Sydney and Melbourne.
===
Pakistan shamed again
Andrew Bolt
A few Pakistani cricketers may well face jail for what’s just gone down at the Lord’s Test.
And the alleged match-fixer, filmed promising exactly when in the Lord’s Test two no balls would be bowled by Pakistan’s opening bowlers, boasted that the 2nd Test in Pakistan’s last tour of Australia was fixed, too, as long suspected:
An alleged match-rigger has also boasted to the newspaper about the second Test between Australia and Pakistan in Sydney in January, when Ricky Ponting’s men pulled off a remarkable come-from-behind victory after trailing by 206 runs on the first innings.It’s only a claim, of course, but Pakistan’s surrender in Sydney was sure remarkable:
The International Cricket Council anti-corruption unit and the Pakistan Cricket Board investigated the performance of the Pakistan side in the Sydney Test, but nothing was proved.
However Mazhar Majeed told the News of the World a betting syndicate had made $1.3 million from the Test.
“Let me tell you the last Test we did,” he told the newspaper. “It was the second Test against Australia in Sydney. Australia had two more wickets left. They had a lead of ten runs, yeah. And Pakistan had all their wickets remaining.
“The odds for Pakistan to lose that match, for Australia to win that match, were I think 40-1. We let them get up to 150 then everyone lost their wickets. That one we made 1.3 (million dollars). But that’s what I mean, you can get up to a million. Tests is where the biggest money is because those situations arise.”
UPDATE
It’s somehow made more explicable:
Majeed said many players were desperate to take part in match fixing. “You’ll find there’s only a few players who are genuine and who are actually here for the love of the game. A lot of them are just looking for money, women and food.”The shame of cheating is, of course, merely a cultural construct, stronger in some cultures than in others.
UPDATE 2
Malcolm Conn:
Any Australian player in the Test and one-day team is on at least $1 million a year, rising to about $2m, leaving no incentive for corruption.UPDATE 3
Dean Jones believes Pakistani players are on about $35,000, making them obvious targets.
The game is ruined for everyone, as you could tell from the sombre award ceremony after the Lord’s Test - a ceremony attended by only one Pakistan player, who at just 18 may have played his last game:
Such was the ill feeling that England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke provided the coldest of receptions for Amir as the young paceman collected the Pakistan player of the series award.Sir Ian Botham reviews the Lord’s Test, in which England handed Pakistan its worst Test defeat, thanks to what seemed a brilliant world-record stand for the eighth wicket after a terrible collapse:
“All that,” he said with a wave in the direction of the last action of a Test match which for the previous three days had seemed so brilliant and tumultuous, “is meaningless. It is destroyed”.UPDATE 4
As I said, the shame of cheating is a cultural construct, stronger in some cultures than in others:
In similar research, Waugh, Godfrey, Evans, and Craig (1995) compared Australian student’s attitudes toward cheating to the attitudes of students from other countries. They concluded that Australian students are less tolerant of cheating because of a “cultural emphasis on fair play combined with personal achievement” .In contrast, government colleges in Pakistan are deeply corrupt, according to this report in Pakistan’s Daily Star last week:
A keen observer can see that government institutions are nothing more than hubs of corruption, and that officials appointed at important posts are supervising this corruption. These government examination officials are allegedly responsible for distributing fake result cards and degrees among parliamentarians and we can see the results of this in today’s government.UPDATE 5
These corruption ‘mafias’ exist in government departments and education boards and the tragedy is that the government never deals with the issue, since parliamentarians from the ruling party are themselves among the fake degree holders.
I suspect the inquiry into the alleged fixer, Mazhar Majeed, will stop at cricket:
Mazhar is a 35-year-old property tycoon, who also owns Croydon Athletic Football Club.The club announces its reaction:
Croydon Athletic Football Club were both devastated and appalled to hear of the alledged match-fixing of international cricket matches by its owner Mazhar Majeed.UPDATE 6
Via Tim Blair, who traces the history of alleged corruption in Pakistani cricket, comes this reminder of how Imran Khan once dismissed claims of match fixing as evidence of western racism:
Memo to Imran: the reason why Pakistani teams are accused of match fixing and “white” teams are not is simple. The Pakistani ones cheat.
But whenever I hear Imran moralising like this, I’m reminded of the time I interviewed this newly devout Muslim at his Lahore home during Ramadan. From upstairs came the call from then wife Jemima, “Imran, lunch is ready!”:
Imran shot me what seemed a shamefaced look, and called back: “Don’t you know I am fasting?”
Oh, and there was a rat in the room. A real one, I mean.
===
Who framed Alby Schultz?
Andrew Bolt
The front-page leak, damaging to the Liberals:
TONY Abbott has pleaded for calm after a Liberal MP threatened the independents who will decide the next government, accusing them of holding the nation to ransom.But wait a minute. Here’s Windsor himself, pooh-poohing the story:
In an outburst that will undermine Tony Abbott’s chances of forming a stable government, Liberal Alby Schultz unleashed on the rural independents.
Mr Schultz rang two of the independents, telling them to pull their heads in and support the Coalition. The call to Tony Windsor was so threatening that Mr Abbott had to apologise to the Tamworth-based MP.
Alby is a mate of mine. And I think we all know that Alby gets a bit on his bike occasionally.How did this story get beaten up like this?
He’s been ringing me through the week, wishing me well actually and hoping I’m okay and concerned for my welfare.
But he did make one call that he suggested we should get back to the polls and get on with it. But I’m getting advice from a lot of people. So I take Alby’s advice in the spirit in which it was meant.
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