=== Todays Toon ===
John Adrian Louis Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow KT, GCMG, GCVO, PC (25 September 1860 – 29 February 1908), known as Viscount Aithrie before 1873 and as The 7th Earl of Hopetoun between 1873 and 1902, was the first Governor-General of Australia.
=== Bible Quote ===
“For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.”- Psalm 149:4=== Headlines ===
Activists Say Tea Party Imposters Infiltrating Elections
As the midterm elections near, allegations are surfacing across the country that Dems are exploiting conservatives' faith in the Tea Party by putting up bogus candidates in November and that those 'imposter' candidates would split the GOP vote.Group: Medical Team Not Spreading Religion
Christian aid organization says Taliban's claims that murdered medical team was talking about religion is false, that all the aid workers were doing was bringing toothbrushes and eyeglasses to isolated villages
GOP Open to Ending Birthright Citizenship
House Minority Leader John Boehner is open to talks on changing the U.S. Constitution — or at least the way it's interpreted — so that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are not automatically citizens
Inmates Believed Hiding in Yellowstone
Federal authorities say two men who escaped from an Arizona prison and a woman thought to have helped them are believed to be in the area around Yellowstone National Park
Breaking News
JB Hi-Fi posts record full-year profitELECTRONICS retailer JB Hi-Fi has reported a strong 26 per cent increase in full-year profit.
Tropical depression Colin dissipates
TROPICAL depression Colin weakened today, but warnings still stand of strong winds and rain.
Eagle strike in jet's engine halts flight
AN eagle was sucked into an Alaska Airlines jet's engine as the aircraft was taking off today, causing the flight to be aborted.
Abbott plays down latest election poll
TONY Abbott plays down latest opinion polls showing Labor clawing its way back to a narrow lead over the Coalition.
Missing hikers found after chilly night
FOUR hikers who went missing in bushland in NSW yesterday have been found safe and well, police say.
Dollar higher after weak US jobs data
THE dollar opened slightly higher today after the release of disappointing unemployment data in the US.
Aussie abandons English Channel swim
AUSTRALIAN marathon swimmer ditches world record attempt at a triple crossing of the English Channel due to "atrocious conditions".
Servo smoker sets himself on fire
A MAN set himself on fire after lighting a cigarette while sitting in the car holding a full can of petrol.
Breakthrough in hope for meningitis vaccine
DOCTORS discovered a possible breakthrough in finding a vaccine for the deadliest strain of meningitis.
Russian man dies at sauna contest
A MAN collapses with severe burns in the final stage of an event that required contestants to sit in a 110C room.
NSW/ACT
Hero saves life as four dieA NEIGHBOUR'S heroic efforts helped save a war veteran in a fatal house fire after a girl lost her life.
Tree chop fines amid fire threat
THE bushfire danger in the Blue Mountains is "frightening" but the local council is fining locals for dead tree lopping.
Six week old kids chill out with yoga
YOU have to crawl before you can walk, but that isn't stopping a new generation of tiny yoga fans from striking a pose.
Squarepants to the Surf
THERE were serious athletes, blokes in budgie smugglers and even a giant Spongebob Squarepants for the City To Surf.
Fix these problems for Sydney
THESE are the projects western Sydney voters are crying out for their governments to deliver.
Queensland
Five-car crash blocks MotorwayTRAFFIC nightmare for Brisbane-bound commuters on the Pacific Motorway after five-vehicle crash blocks two inbound lanes.
Rush's parents head to Bali
THE parents of convicted Bali Nine drug smuggler Scott Rush are heading to Indonesia, ahead of next week's appeal against his death sentence.
Bus wipes out cop car door
A POLICE car had it's rear door taken clean off by a Brisbane City Council bus which drove past during the arrest of a man on Brisbane's northside.
Cops find 'hard object' in man's pants
POLICE pull over speeding Mercedes while searching for armed robbers surprised to find "hard object" in passenger's underpants - a loaded gun.
Staff tied up, held at gunpoint
THREE staff members have been tied up at gunpoint in a terrifying hold up at a Gold Coast hotel.
'Rip-off' hits rural rents
IT'S being described as the great rent rip-off sweeping through country Queensland. The State Government has hiked the price of renting idle and leftover land.
Fashion festival's $5m spinoff
THIS week's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival is likely to generate a $5 million increase in retails sales in Brisbane, according to organisers.
Sister city for Brisbane, Ipswich
LORD Mayor Campbell Newman and Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale are set to sign a "world-first" three-city sister city agreement with Hyderabad in India.
Surgery wait times slashed
WAITING times for elective surgery in Queensland have been slashed, with the number of patients languishing for more than 12 months falling by 98 per cent.
NAPLAN cheat report under wraps
DESPITE at least one case of cheating in NAPLAN tests being confirmed, the State Government is refusing to reveal the findings of its investigations.
Victoria
Fears for missing Werribee teenPOLICE are searching for a 14-year-old girl who has been missing for more than a month.
Petrol station smoker catches fire
A MAN set himself on fire after lighting a cigarette at an Ocean Grove petrol station yesterday.
Man threatened with hammer for cash
A MASKED bandit produced a hammer during an early morning armed robbery at a service station in Melbourne's west.
Boy, 5, sees father attacked
A MAN was assaulted after he yelled at a driver for nearly hitting his five-year-old in a car park in Melbourne's inner east.
Man dies in tragic home bus fire
A MAN has died after the bus he and two others were living in caught fire in Gippsland early this morning.
Police unit to profile hoons
INTELLIGENT criminal profiling will be used to identify the dangerous drivers most likely to kill on the road, in a million-dollar initiative.
Bashing case appeal
THE father of a man attacked in a brutal city bashing has welcomed a decision to appeal the sentences of the men convicted of the incident.
Fire-ravaged residents worn out
MARYSVILLE residents have voted with their feet, staying away from a bushfires community consultation meeting in droves.
Sex with student after drink binge
A FEMALE teacher who had sex with a student after a night of drinking has been deregistered.
Student designs clearly have legs
THIS eye-popping evening dress made its runway debut as part of the Open Day fashion parades at RMIT's Brunswick campus.
Northern Territory
Nothing newSouth Australia
Families saved from morning firesA DISABLED boy woke his mother as their northern suburbs home went up in flames this morning - while a mother saved her family from another fire at Monarto.
Couple shot in morning attack
A GUNMAN is on the loose after shooting a woman in the head and a man in the leg in the inner-western suburbs.
Surfing thrill in icy chills
WHILE everyone else is wrapping up warm and huddling around heaters, Goolwa surfer Alice Gilbert and her friends are revelling in their winter wonderland.
Oval upgrade blowout claim
TAXPAYERS could fork out a further $20 million to bankroll the remainder of the upgrade of Adelaide Oval's western grandstand, the Opposition warns.
Joyce accepts debate ... kinda
COALITION water spokesman Barnaby Joyce says he will participate in a head-to-head debate on the state of the Murray, but only once its water policy is released.
Thieves target SA hot water services
HOT water services and copper wiring were hot property for thieves last year.
Public transport falls behind schedule
THE State Government is struggling to meet public transport patronage targets set in the state Strategic Plan.
We're the greenest state
SOUTH Australia last year had the greenest power of the mainland states analysed in the Climate Group's latest electricity report.
Ingle Farm girl missing
FRIENDS of a missing 14-year-old Ingle Farm girl have set up a Facebook group to help find her.
Man gives in to police
A MAN has agreed to assist police with their inquiries into a shooting earlier today after at first refusing to talk.
Western Australia
Truck used in Scarborough ram raidA TRUCK was used to smash into an electrical appliance store during an overnight ram raid in Scarborough.
South Africans dominate dry Avon Descent
SOUTH African kayaker Hank McGregor did what few could in this year's Avon Descent - cross the finish line.
Dead humpback to create whale of a stink
A BEACHED humpback whale which died overnight near a Kimberley tourist hotspot will have its presence felt - and probably smelt - for weeks to come.
Tasmania
Nothing new=== Comments ===
Anne Rice Quits Christianity -- 10 Thoughts On Jesus and the ChurchBy Rev. Bill Shuler
The blogosphere has been abuzz since Anne Rice, a novelist known for writing about vampires sent a “shot across the bow” of the Christian Church after declaring that she was quitting Christianity.
In a posting on her Facebook page, she said, “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or being a part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
Miss Rice’s words should not be quickly dismissed. She is not alone in her views and trends show that people have stepped away from established religion in increasing number. Scandals within the church and political agendas that have been placed on par with church doctrine are partially to blame.
Another factor pertains to those within the church who identify more with religion than with the true Jesus. The Pharisees were very religious but they rejected Jesus and his methods.
One’s reaction to the words of Anne Rice is a litmus test as to whether one responds in condemnation or Christian love. Miss Rice is, after all, pointing out the disparity that can be found between Jesus and his followers.
The following are 10 thoughts pertaining to Jesus and the Church:
1. Jesus saved his harshest criticism for the Pharisees who elevated rules and tradition but failed to recognize God when he stood before them.
2. Jesus modeled the proper balance of forgiveness and righteousness when he said to the woman caught in adultery, “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”
3. Jesus came from a lineage that was dysfunctional and included prostitutes. He loved and identified with those who were judged by others and through loving them redeemed them.
4. Jesus chose women to be in his inner-circle and shocked his disciples by going against the cultural mores of the day and conversing with the woman at the well.
5. Jesus called Judas “friend” at the very moment Judas was betraying him with a kiss exemplifying his love for the most hated man in Christianity.
6. Jesus called Peter to put away his sword and then healed the wounds that Peter caused when Peter attacked a servant of the high priest. With this one act he showed that it is better to heal and win the heart than to harm.
7. Jesus was neither a Democrat nor a Republican and clearly delineated between politics and faith when he said “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” Romans 13:1.
8. Jesus would not allow his followers to exclude Peter from being recognized as a disciple even after Peter had betrayed Jesus. He told the first witnesses of his resurrection to go tell his disciples “and Peter also” lest they exclude Peter because of his actions.
9. Jesus placed science and the gathering of knowledge about nature in context with God’s design and authorship. Matthew 6:28-30.
10. Jesus called the church, “my church” showing that it is not an idea of man but of God. Matthew 16:18.
At its core, Anne Rice’s statement is a challenge to the modern church to look and act more like Jesus. Her message is muddled in political tones and her conclusion is regrettable but the church would be amiss in dismissing the essence of her words.
The church has been most Christ like when modeling forgiveness rather than hostility and when elevating love over judgment. Biblical standards of morality should not be compromised but it should be remembered that if one’s salvation is based on achieving righteousness outside of God’s love and forgiveness we are ALL lost.
So is quitting Christianity the answer?
Is it right to embrace Jesus but reject the church?
The scriptures state that we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some but to encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:25).
In other words, instead of running away we are to lift the dialogue. We are to emulate the leader of the church – Jesus Christ.
There are believers in churches across the globe that do this with excellence. Hospitals, orphanages and schools are the results of their efforts. When they come on the scene families are healed, children adopted, prisons visited and the elderly loved. They are the true ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I began this article by describing Anne Rice’s words as a “shot across the bow” of the church. In olden days ships would lob a cannon ball over another ship in order to elicit a response that would identify the ship in question as being hostile or friendly.
The Church's response to the Anne Rices of the world will speak volumes about the effectiveness of the Church in fulfilling its mission.
Rev. Bill Shuler is pastor of Capital Life Church in Arlington, Virginia. For more visit, CapitalLife.org. - it is revealing to see what she embraces instead of the church. - ed.
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Trash Drudge, Bash Rush and Get a Career Boost?
By John Lott
The case of Mr. David Weigel, a reporter who was hired by The Washington Post to blog about conservatives and who resigned from his job on June 25, exposed the inner workings of journalism in America.
But what has been most telling about the case since then hasn't just been Weigel's actions or the revelations of other journalists on "Journolist," -- which is described by The Post as "an off-the-record listserv for several hundred independent to left-leaning commentators and journalists that was founded in 2007" -- but how other journalists have reacted to the news.
Although it has long been well-known that journalists overwhelmingly have liberal leanings, they have typically claimed that it doesn't affect their reporting. But the boost given Weigel’s career by the revelations that he advocated shaping news coverage to help President Obama pass his legislative agenda was extremely surprising.
How Weigel advocated that news be tilted to help Obama ought to be have been the main story in the scandal. But, of course, that has not been the take coming from journalists. Instead, they portrayed Weigel's foul language and attacks on Newt Gingrich, Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, and “PaulTards” (a derogatory term for Ron Paul’s libertarian supporters) as simply a personality quirk. Thus, Ross Douthat at The New York Times dismissed the scandal as just "some off-color vents about his beat." Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post and CNN said that Weigel's "vituperative language against Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives had embarrassed the [Washington Post] that hired him three months earlier to cover the right."
Despite the criticism, his fellow journalists agreed on one thing, that Weigel was a great or an extraordinary reporter. Politico referred to "the enthusiastic endorsements of his reporting skills after he left The Post last."
And all this has helped his journalism career. Politico ran this headline: "Losing a job to get ahead.After leaving The Washington Post, Weigel was immediately signed on as a contributor for MSNBC. Just last week he was officially hired back by The Washington Post to write for Slate.com. Two weekends ago Politico listed him first on its short list of five "media stars."
But what all of these media outlets ignore is that Weigel not only held strong political views, he crossed the line to actively plot with other reporters on how to best mold news coverage.
Thus, after Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat in Massachusetts, Weigel expressed worries that the victory could derail Obamacare and recommended that other journalists emphasize in their stories that Mr. Brown's opponent State Attorney General Martha Coakley was a horrible candidate. He argued that doing this would diminish the significance of Mr. Brown's surprise victory. “I think pointing out Coakley’s awfulness is vital, because it’s 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats,” Weigel told the other journalists. This went beyond offering friendly advice and was something that Weigel considered "vital . . . because . . . it is doing more damage to the Democrats."
In another attempt to shape the news, Weigel worried that Sarah Palin's discussion of "death panels" was making it difficult to pass Obamacare. Americans were rightly fearful of Obamacare rationing the medical care Americans can receive.
President Obama's recess appointment of rationing advocate, Dr. Donald Berwick, to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services certainly exacerbated these fears, with his expressed admiration for the British system and the need for rationing care.
So what was Weigel's advice on how to handle this? Rather than debate the facts, he wanted reporters to ignore the story: "as long as the top liberal-leaning news site talks about [death panels] every single hour of every day, I’m sure that [poll] number [for the health care legislation] will go down.”Weigel emphasized the point in his typical way: "Let's move the f*** on already."
In an e-mail exchange with Weigel, I asked him about these biases, but he attributes the phrase "vital . . . because . . . it is doing more damage to the Democrats" to his being "overheated as I argue my case." No response to his advice for journalists to stop discussing the "death panels," though he did make the general comment: "On J-List, I didn't really think I was influencing the way liberals would write or what they would say on TV." His defense is thus either he didn't mean what he said or that what he said didn't matter anyway because no one was really paying attention.
He says that "I'm angry at myself for the cruel things I said about people," but it hasn't stopped him from lashing out at others, including me in his tweets after I asked him these questions. Yet, at the same time he was attacking me to those who follow his tweets he was privately writing me that he was contrite for those same previous attacks: "I take you on your word that you had a legitimate issue and I failed to fully answer it, so I apologize if that was the case."
It is no wonder that liberal reporters love David Weigel. But one would hope that they wouldn't want to make their praise public for a journalist who so explicitly talked about tilting the news to influence getting legislation passed. Possibly other journalists just want to forgive him for his transgressions but to forgive him, they must first acknowledge what he did that was wrong. The career boost that Weigel has received tells us a lot about the current state of journalism.
John R. Lott, Jr. is a FoxNews.com contributor. He is an economist and author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
===
EVERY TREE IS SACRED
Tim Blair
Removing dead wood leads to court appearances. It’s like being fined for voting against Labor.
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NICE QUOTES
Tim Blair
Just two more highlights from ABC darling Marieke Hardy, currently receiving some literary criticism:
• Tony Abbott finds the burqa ‘confronting’. OH YEAH? I FIND YOUR F**KING FACE CONFRONTING, DOUCHEBAG.Readers may also recall Hardy’s views on young people and the flag.
• Tony Abbott said no, and I thought he meant it. But he didn’t, so I just went ahead and sexually assaulted him.
UPDATE. What is it with Melbourne and toxic leftoid munchkins? Here’s little Daniel Burt:
Call it maturity, but I have officially lost the desire to hate f**k Julie Bishop.
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NOTHING BUT POLICY
Tim Blair
Policies are important. Why isn’t anybody talking about policies?
You might have run across that theme once or twice in the last week if you follow Australia’s left-wing online community. Every bit as ego-driven and factional as real-world lefties, pinko onliners are a valuable resource for students of howling illogic and eye-watering hypocrisy. They provide helpful instruction into the basic leftoid mind.
Lately they’ve decided that election coverage has drifted towards trivia rather than substance. Enough of these Rudd/Gillard/Latham distractions, they cry. We want deep and exhaustive policy analysis!
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ABC literary critic expresses herself on Abbott
Andrew Bolt
Marieke Hardy, the only 34-year-old Australian woman still in pigtails, is hired by the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club as an expert in literary culture.That alone tells us so much about the parallel decline of both our branch of that culture and the ABC itself. Here, for instance, is Hardy’s tweet on the Opposition Leader at his campaign launch:
“The most conservative instinct of all - the instinct to have a family’. Tony Abbott, I hope your cock drops off and falls down a plughole.This now passes for sophisticated discourse among our fashionably educated barbarians. And so do these readers comments on her blog which Hardy to this day has refused to remove, despite being repeatedly reminded she should do so (the deletion of expletives is mine):
Lawrie said…
You mean you were within 5 metres of [then Opposition Leader Brendan] Nelson and you didn’t glass the c..t?
You dropped the ball Fits…
Margi said…
I agree with Lawrie. You should have “glassed the c..t” Nelson. You should have taken a piece of glass and torn his face to shreds, only leaving trails of bloody skin dripping from his ugly face and then you should have glassed his ass and balls so much, you castrate him so he could never procreate with his wife. Furthermore, glass the c..t wife and their children, while you’re at it, because they don’t deserve to procreate and have any children themselves, those blood-sucking Liberal c..ts!
More highlights from the career of an ABC arbiter of cultural standards:Here’s excerpts from her published speech (to the Sydney Writers Festival):Know that this is the CV that helped get Hardy chosen as one of our “1000 best and brightest” to join Kevin Rudd’s 2020 ideas summit, where she helped top draw up a proposed arts agenda for Labor’s Australia.
``Hello. I f...ing hate speaking in public . . . I am currently working with Ewan Burnett on [Last Man Standing] . . . and when I asked him what I should say today he suggested I read one of my old spoken-word pieces about my parents sticking pepper grinders up each other’s a...s...."…
On her website, she notes how The Age attacked the editor of the student newspaper Farrago, Miranda Airey-Branson, 20, whose social sin is to vote Liberal.
``Is there some slutty sweary ladybird on-line who is an out and proud Liberal,’’ Hardy jeers, before describing how she would sexually abuse Airey-Branson, whom she calls an ``ugly ignorant c...’’… ``Then I’m going to p… on her.’’
Elsewhere she wishes she’d told the Liberals’ Bronwyn Bishop to die, and asks readers what to do with Treasurer Peter Costello’s home number, which she’s found.
UPDATE
More contributions to our political debate from the ABC’s expert in literary culture:
• Tony Abbott finds the burqa ‘confronting’. OH YEAH? I FIND YOUR F**KING FACE CONFRONTING, DOUCHEBAG.
• Tony Abbott said no, and I thought he meant it. But he didn’t, so I just went ahead and sexually assaulted him.
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Students stay at home; teachers may as well have
Andrew Bolt
State school students in Victoria were told to stay home today so teachers could be trained on a new computer system:
VICTORIAN state school students will get the day off on Monday week while their teachers enter a brave new cyber world. Teachers will be trained on Ultranet - an $80 million system that provides online learning for students and information such as test results for parents.Small hitch. When the teachers bowled up to their studentless-schools, they received an email telling them they’d be without the computer system, too:
The Ultranet network is experiencing technical difficulties and is currently unavailable. Technicians are working to resolve the issues with the Ultranet as soon as possible.A teacher emails:
Additionally, performance in Collaborative Learning, Design and Community spaces is currently inconsistent. You are advised to use the Home and eXpress spaces within the Ultranet until further notice.
Well, here we all are one a PD day for every state school and every teacher in the state. We are supposed to be learning about the Ultranet. Wouldn’t you think they would realise the sort of volume of users they will experience under those circumstances? Apparently not! What is worse is that, when it is used properly, all the teachers will be on it every school day and then add to that the students who are also supposed to use it at the same time.UPDATE
This is a ridiculous situation caused by a politician making a decision that suited the electorate. That is, that all schools will have all their PD days on the same day state wide.
So here I am, e-mailing you instead of doing PD about the Ultranet. I wonder what all the other teachers are doing????
I would also like to add that I am supposed to be a trained lead user. On the training day, we couldn’t get internet access at the regional computer centre until 10:15.
A great way to remind voters just months before the state election of all your similar disasters:
Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon said every single IT project touched by the Brumby Government had turned to fiasco.
”Ultranet is joining Myki, HealthSmart and the LEAP data base as projects that are over time, over budget and just don’t work,” he said.
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ABC beats Labor’s Drum
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s new web sites are still barracking from the Left in week three of the campaign. Gavid Atkinn checks the evidence of the continued bias and concludes:
Julia Gillard was more heavily criticised by Jonathan Green’s contributors to ABC online’s opinion sites, The Drum and Unleashed this week - but it was not nearly enough to prevent the third consecutive week of pronounced bias towards the Left and Julia Gillard during the election campaign.Once again, ABC staff are making ABC chairman Maurice Newman seem utterly ineffectual, defying his polite suggestion that they heed their special responsibility to be balanced, given that they worked for a taxpayer-funded organisation:
We identified 69 statements critical of Gillard or her campaign and 22 that were positive – meaning there were 3 negative statements to every 1 positive for Gillard.
However, Tony Abbott was criticised 65 times, but received only 8 positive remarks, meaning negative comment ran against him by 8 to 1
Most of Gillard’s critical statements came from the Left and those critical of her campaign – in particular, the “real Julia” gaffe, not of her policies. There was only one piece where she was substantially criticised from the right – an article with 10 critical mentions by Young Liberal, James Paterson.
However, ABC online’s contributors were once again gushing in her praise, telling us that Gillard has “an easy personal warmth”, and is “shrewd, tough and intelligent and with a modest manner”. Another commenter found that the insulation scheme, which caused four deaths and wasted billions of dollars “actually achieved some very successful outcomes in terms of retro-fitting Australian homes”.
The praise for Abbott was once again mostly grudging, and buried amongst otherwise negative sentiment. For example, Bob Ellis said “he has what Australian men and women quite like (as they do in Hawkie, Warnie and Kylie): flawed humanity,” but then goes on to say, “He believes that Muslims will burn for a billion years in Hell and is keen to give them a preview,” and “He left his pregnant girlfriend at the altar and is likely to treat his country no better.”
(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
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Labor Minister: We want your jobs to save our seats from the Greens
Andrew Bolt
Get used to more secret job-killing deals between Labor and Greens after the election, when the Greens will have sole balance of power in the Senate. The ABC’s Landline reports on the latest of them:
ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: But first to politics and the sheer power of Green preferences. From 1st July the red gum forests on the Murray River flood plain were proclaimed as a national park by the NSW Government. Conservationists are hailing it as a triumph but border communities accuse Labor of selling out local timber jobs in a back room deal with the Greens.(Thanks to reader Mark.)
TIM LEE, REPORTING: In the vast red gum forests of southern NSW emotions are running high.
CHRIS CRUMP, SAW MILLER MATHOURA NSW: I know there’s families at home there now, people like us, I know that are sitting there crying at night wondering, wondering what they’re going to do. I mean, you know, and this is a Labor Government supposed to be looking after Labor working class people. How does that make any sense, you know? Yeah, but yeah, sorry…
TIM LEE: Early last month the NSW Parliament passed legislation which made most of these forests national parks… The new national parks won’t be logged, shutting these locals out of the forest. Within weeks their saws will fall silent and regional jobs, perhaps as many as 500, directly and indirectly, will be gone… And they are quick to blame it, rightly or wrongly, on political conspiracies.
RUSSELL DOUGLAS, SAW MILLER: To see an industry go down the gurgler for the sake of Green preference votes in Sydney, people that have been able to campaign and change the whole lives of so many communities along the Murray…
TIM LEE: Such a claim might be readily dismissed a the customary complaint of timber workers although many here allege to have heard it in person from Frank Sartor the NSW Minister for Climate change and the environment. This is the Goulburn saw mill in Deniliquin in southern NSW and it was here in January that a meeting of timber workers that Minister Sartor made a most extraordinary and brazen comments about the real reasons behind the closure of these red gum forests. Or so it’s alleged.
CHRIS CRUMP: He said I’m going to give you people a lesson in politics, the Greens hold 15 per cent of the votes, we need those votes to stay in power. They also want or need a national park and they want it in red gum.
DAVID JOSS: And he said the Greens have 15 per cent of the vote and I remember that figure because it’s a figure that we’d dispute down this way, and he said, “We’re going to need their preferences if we’re to survive the next election and they want a significant national park in red gum.”
TIM LEE: Of the 30 or so saw Millers at the meeting about half say they clearly heard the Minister. Most say they will sign a statutory declaration to back their claim. Did you overhear him say this was not about protecting the forests it was about politics? Did you hear that?
RAY HALL, TIMBER CUTTER: Yeah.
TIM LEE: What were his words?
RAY HALL: He more or less said they needed a couple of seats in the Sydney suburbs that they want to hold and gain. The Green seats…
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Bishop stares down a gnome. And, no, not Rudd
Andrew Bolt
I’m late to this, but Julie Bishop needs to be congratulated for doing herself a favour.
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Hitchens on the mad hero of Phillip Adams
Andrew Bolt
How much more inspiration can our Leftists here take from the great Chavez, now channeling the thoughts of a skeleton he’s helped to exhume?Two years ago a collective of our snowfield socialists - including the ABC’s Phillip Adams, propagandist John Pilger, the Greens’ Kerry Nettle and Kevin Rudd’s nephew Van Thanh Rudd - begged Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez to come teach Australians a lesson:Since then this “source of inspiration and ideas” been teaching our closet totalitarians lots of lessons, such as how to shoot students, close down critical TV stations, stop inflation by arresting 50 butchers, arrest political opponents , create an energy crisis and foster corruption.Every country has its own traditions and culture and has to find its own solutions, but what Venezuela has been able to achieve in so little time will be a source of inspiration and ideas for many in Australia.
Now Christopher Hitchens warns that Chavez is “close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap”. The latest evidence:
In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela’s capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simon Bolivar, leader of Latin America’s rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830.Hitchens says he saw for himself this madness of Chavez when visiting him with actor Sean Penn:
According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart—even as Chavez tweeted the proceedings for his audience—and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chavez government’s seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chavez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolivar’s constituent parts. He went on: “I had some doubts, but after seeing his remains, my heart said, ‘Yes, it is me.’ Father, is that you, or who are you? The answer: ‘It is me, but I awaken every hundred years when the people awaken’.”
As if “channeling” this none-too-subtle identification of Chavez with the national hero, Venezuelan television was compelled to run images of Bolivar, followed by footage of the remains, and then pictures of the boss. The national anthem provided the soundtrack. Not since North Korean media declared Kim Jong-il to be the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung has there been such a blatant attempt to create a necrocracy, or perhaps mausolocracy, in which a living claimant assumes the fleshly mantle of the departed.
Bolivar is the theme of which he never tires. His early uniformed movement of mutineers—which failed to bring off a military coup in 1992—was named for Bolivar. Turning belatedly but successfully to electoral politics, he called his followers the Bolivarian Movement. Since he became President, the country’s official name has been the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (Chavez must sometimes wish that he had been born in Bolivia in the first place.) At Cabinet meetings, he has been known to leave an empty chair, in case the shade of Bolivar might choose to attend the otherwise rather Chavez-dominated proceedings.That’s Phillip Adams’ “inspiration” speaking. The hero of an ABC lion.
It did not take long for this hero-obsession to disclose itself in bizarre forms. One evening, as we were jetting through the skies, Brinkley mildly asked whether Chavez’ large purchases of Russian warships might not be interpreted by Washington as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The boss’ response was impressively immediate. He did not know for sure, he said, but he very much hoped so. “The United States was born with an imperialist impulse. There has been a long confrontation between Monroe and Bolivar. It is necessary that the Monroe Doctrine be broken.”
As his tirade against evil America mounted, Penn broke in to say that surely Chavez would be happy to see the arrest of Osama Bin Laden.
I was hugely impressed by the way that the boss scorned this overture. He essentially doubted the existence of al-Qaida, let alone reports of its attacks on the enemy to the north. “I don’t know anything about Osama Bin Laden that doesn’t come to me through the filter of the West and its propaganda.”
To this, Penn replied that surely Bin Laden had provided quite a number of his very own broadcasts and videos. I was again impressed by the way that Chavez rejected this proffered lucid-interval lifeline. All of this so-called evidence, too, was a mere product of imperialist television. After all, “there is film of the Americans landing on the moon,” he scoffed. “Does that mean the moon shot really happened? In the film, the Yanqui flag is flying straight out. So, is there wind on the moon?”
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Pick a number, any number
Andrew Bolt
It’s been a stimulus to creative maths:
Julia Gillard on ABC1’s Insiders program yesterday:
IF I had to make a choice again between supporting Australian jobs, keeping 200,000 in the workforce, keeping them in their homes and their families from being shattered by the kind of devastation that comes with unemployment, I’d make that decision again.
The PM last Thursday in Townsville:
PEOPLE know we made the right judgement calls to support jobs. Yes, not everything went according to plan, but we supported jobs, and look at the contrast with countries overseas: six million jobs lost in the United States, 450,000 jobs created here.
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Ours is a job that should be open to all
Andrew Bolt
Laurie Oakes on Mark Latham, now reporting on the election for 60 Minutes:
He’s not a journalist; he’s still full of bile and settling old scores. I don’t really think it does 60 Minutes or the network much of a favour really to have him posing as a journalist.First of all, every journalist is just posing as one. The day the job becomes a closed shop is the day the media announces its reporting is homogenised, censored, licensed and pre-packaged.
Secondly, the scandal isn’’t that Nine hired Latham as a journalist, but that Labor hired Latham as leader.
Thirdly, it’s odd that hiring Lathan is bad, despite being completely upfront about his agenda, but hiring whatever-it-takes Labor figure Graham Richardson was good, despite him keeping his own agenda half-hidden.
There’s the whiff of the media club about this.
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That’s at least $100 taken from each Australian and just wasted
Andrew Bolt
The level of waste is scandalous:
ALMOST $2 billion has been wasted under the schools stimulus program in the eastern states.(Thanks to reader CA and Spin Baby, Spin.)
Public schools were forced to vastly overpay for buildings compared with non-government schools.
The revelation has led to calls for broader investigations into the long-term problems of state governments overpaying for school buildings, beyond the Building the Education Revolution program.Data published by the BER taskforce shows public schools in the three biggest states are paying on average between 26 per cent and a massive 54 per cent more for school buildings than Catholic schools in each state.
UPDATE
Professor John Wanna examines the figures, and thinks the waste could be more like $300 per man, woman and child:
As a nation, Australia will eventually outlay upwards of $16 billion of funding to get maybe as little as $10bn worth of projects on a value-for-money basis.
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Mental experts in stats spat
Andrew Bolt
I must admit that 750,000 young Australians needing professional mental care seems to a layman a very improbable figure:
LEADING mental health reform figures, including Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry, are misleading the public with dodgy statistics that suit their causes, a prominent psychiatrist says.
Adelaide University Associate Professor Jon Jureidini claimed yesterday that Professor McGorry and National Advisory Council on Mental Health former chairman John Mendoza had exaggerated or misrepresented mental healthcare statistics during the reform debate…
Associate Professor Jureidini said Professor McGorry ...had falsely claimed that 750,000 young Australians were ‘’locked out’’ of care they ‘’desperately’’ needed.
‘’He’s taken the biggest possible figure you can come up with for people who might have any level of distress or unhappiness, which of course needs to be taken seriously and responded to, but he’s assuming they all require … a mental health intervention,’’ said Associate Professor Jureidini, who specialises in child psychiatry…
He also accused Associate Professor Mendoza of incorrectly asserting that more than a third of suicides in Australia involved people inappropriately discharged from hospitals. He said a more accurate figure was about 1 per cent…
Professor McGorry and Associate Professor Mendoza said yesterday that they had not misled anyone about the need for mental health services and always used sound data, often from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
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They’re in the White House and you’re not
Andrew Bolt
They really do seem to be a couple which feels entitled:As the economy endures high unemployment and a jittery stock market, President Obama has preached sacrifice and fiscal discipline. But the pictures coming out of a sunsplashed Spanish resort this week may be sending a different message…Meanwhile, back home:
Every First Family takes vacations. The criticism aimed at Michelle Obama is that she chose to visit a foreign country rather than remain in the U.S. and support its fragile economy.
Just last month, the first lady flew to the Florida panhandle, a tourist draw hit hard by the oil spill crisis, and delivered the message that for parents “looking for things to do with their kids this summer ... this is a wonderful place to visit.”
The opulence of the European trip also has drawn scrutiny. The president has urged frugality in lean economic times. He once cautioned that families saving money for college shouldn’t “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas.”
Michelle Obama is staying at the Hotel Villa Padierna, a Ritz-Carlton resort in the mountains outside Marbella. The resort boasts two golf courses, a posh spa with Turkish baths, views of the Mediterranean Sea and a high-end restaurant specializing in avant-garde fare. Room rates start at $400 and rise to $6,500 for a two-bedroom villa with a private pool and 24-hour butler service…
While her friends arrived in Spain on their own, Michelle Obama flew in on a type of aircraft that is also used by Vice President Biden. It costs the government $11,555 an hour to operate the plane, according to the Air Force.
He’s been president for 80 weeks. And during more than half of those weeks, mostly on weekends, President Obama has gone golfing. In fact, he’s hit the links so many times—43—that the press is comparing him to the last presidential hyper-golfer, Dwight Eisenhower.Two months ago:
Then there was the plane for the dog.
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