=== Todays Toons ===
Sir William MacGregor GCMG, CB, PC, (20 October 1846 – 3 July 1919)[1] was a Lieutenant-Governor of British New Guinea, Governor of Newfoundland and Governor of Queensland.
=== Bible Quote ===
“Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.”- Proverbs 19:20-21=== Headlines ===
Lawmakers Struggle to Stem Foreclosure Fiasco
Congressional lawmakers scramble to come up with quick fix to the foreclosure fiasco that has threatened the economic recovery and thrown a monkey wrench into their re-election campaigns.GOP Leaders Rip Obama for 'Lie'
Top Republican strategists slam president, Democratic Party over the claim that GOP groups and the Chamber of Commerce use foreign contributions to boost their candidates in midterm elections
New York Not Budging On MOVE Act Ballots
Despite extended deadline, — and the fact that Election Day is 23 days away — some of the 320,000 military servicemen and women from the Empire State have not received absentee ballots, a clear violation of Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act
Tense Hours Ahead for 33 Chilean Miners
A smooth-walled path to daylight awaits trapped miners as they enter tense final hours of a two-month odyssey christened in the terror of collapsing rock deep under a Chilean mountain
Breaking News
Eight teens charged over stolen car chaseTHE driver of a car full of teenagers has been remanded after exceeding the speed limit by more than 50km/h in a stolen vehicle.
Miners argue over first to come up
ENGINEERS have rushed to reinforce a shaft through which to hoist 33 men trapped over two months down a mine in Chile.
Passenger's face hurt as ferry hits sea wall
A FERRY will be met by water police and NSW ambulance workers at Circular Quay after it crashed into a sea wall on Sydney Harbour.
Exploding echidna was dead already
A MAN who detonated a dead echidna at the weekend with fireworks has been fined $1000.
Stabbed coach 'thought it was a prank'
FORMER All Blacks coach John Mitchell has been stabbed at his apartment after mistaking an intruder for his practical-joking flatmate.
NSW/ACT
Woman sexually assaulted in train carparkA COMPUTER image of a man has been released after a woman reported being sexually assaulted in a car park in Sydney's west.
Brekkie's a bridge to your heart
IF RAIN on your wedding day brings good luck, then these newlyweds have it in bucket loads.
Why care when you can share
HUNDREDS of parking spaces in Sydney will be made "car-share only".
Parra switches on to total wireless
PARRAMATTA will become Australia's first digital city, with free wireless internet and apps telling you where to park.
True plea on justice for victims
VICTIMS of crime must now be told of any plea bargain deals before the cases go to court.
Man critical after brawl on dance floor
A MAN is fighting for life after a brawl erupted on a hotel dance floor in Sydney's west.
Chalking up a new techno approach
THE days of a teacher writing on a dusty blackboard are now history as kids as young as five are using iPods.
They smelled smoke and ran for their lives
TWELVE people were lucky to survive an inferno that engulfed a church in one of three fires across NSW within 24 hours.
Deadly delusions led to boy's stab death
A FATHER claimed "voices made me kill my son" after he allegedly stabbed his 12-year-old child to death as the boy slept.
Volunteers flee church inferno
FIRE engulfed a Central Coast church as parishioners prepared equipment for a children's service.
Queensland
Big wet: Updates all dayRESCUES, transport chaos and power cuts after a night of record-breaking rain across the southeast which has continued this morning.
Rain causes train, bus chaos
THE wet weather is playing havoc with public transport with a range of bus services and some trains being held up by flooding.
Prepare for death, pleads doctor
A QUEENSLAND Health doctor has written an impassioned letter urging people with incurable diseases to face their mortality.
Shooters fire up over toy guns
GUN owners have unleashed their anger over changes to the Weapons Act, bombarding the State Government with almost 1200 submissions.
$9b plan to divert NQ water
A SYDNEY man has devised a $9 billion plan to shift water from the Burdekin and other rivers in north Queensland to parched inland areas.
Stolen zoo monkey found dead
ZOO keepers hold grave concerns for a heavily-pregnant monkey missing from Alma Park Zoo after her male partner was found dead.
Coast braces for gales, floods
METEOROLOGISTS are warning of damaging wind gusts and flash flooding with falls of 100mm in coastal areas, following landslides on the Sunshine Coast.
Firies put out Mt Isa grass fire
A GRASS fire at Mt Isa spread about 800sq m before it was extinguished by fire fighters on Sunday afternoon.
Pony dies in trail bike accident
A SHETLAND pony has died after being hit by a trail bike on Sunday afternoon.
Govt denies abortion law flaw
THE Queensland Government has denied any flaw in Queensland's criminal code which only offers legal protection for surgical abortions.
Victoria
More cops probed over emailsFIFTEEN more police officers are set to face hearings this week over racist and pornographic emails.
Motorcyclist dies after hitting tree
UPDATE 7.55am: A MOTORCYCLIST has died after hitting a fallen tree in the state's south-east this morning.
Train services back on track
UPDATE 8.50am: RAIL services have returned to normal after delays of up to 20 minutes this morning.
We won't abuse power, says top cop
POLICE have bowed to pressure to make their policy on telephone record checks more accountable after a storm of criticism.
Government silent over school bullying
THE State Government has been accused of trying to cover up bullying incidents in schools.
State election is going to be tight
PUBLIC transport and crime are the Coalition's two strongest policy areas, most recent polling reveals.
Safety the top priority - Minister for Police
MY No. 1 priority as the Minister for Police will be delivering the 1966 additional frontline police our Government has promised.
Fire trucks gather dust
NEW life-saving fire trucks worth millions of dollars are gathering dust in sheds because of a health-and-safety dispute.
Aussie 'yoyo-ologist' dreams of fame
JIMMY Johnson never got to meet that crocodile fella, Steve Irwin but for a time he hoped to also become a sensation in the US.
Bump, then rabbit hunter shot dead
UPDATE 10.10am: A HUNTER is dead after a mate's shotgun accidentally discharged as he travelled in the back of a ute.
Northern Territory
Kids trash home of one-legged womanCHILDREN broke into the home of a one-legged woman, damaged her scooter, trashed the home and garden and set a fuel tin on fire.
I'll finally prove a dingo took my baby
FATHER of Azaria Chamberlain is confident new inquest will put an end to three decades of misery.
South Australia
Where there's smoke, there's fireworksPOLICE have found cannabis and illegal fireworks at an Andrews Farm house.
Beware of kids and bikes, say police
WARM spring weather is driving people back to their bikes as children also hit the road for the new school term, police warn.
Park burn-off to shield against disaster
A BURN-OFF in Belair National Park today will affect nearly 12ha of bushland.
Police chase follows car fire
POLICE chased the driver of a stolen car last night after a car fire at Fairview Park.
Some people just never learn
AN L-plater and her supervising driver who both blew over and a man who's licence expired decades ago were among dozens caught in a weekend police blitz.
Inquiry into stillborn baby investigations
ATTORNEY-GENERAL John Rau will consider an inquiry into whether the state coroner should be able to investigate the births of stillborn babies.
Big hero dashes home for Little Heroes
IF sporting heroes are judged by what they do out of the arena more than what they do in it, Anna Meares is one of our greatest.
20,000 weddings and a barrage opening
A FISHY match-making scheme has saved a species as thousands of female Congolli rush to meet males they have been separated from for the past four years.
Small classes 'a must' for unis
SMALLER university tutorial class sizes are "a necessity" to increase student participation and maintain high learning standards.
David Hunt dies
FORMER South Australian Police Commissioner David Hunt AO QPM died yesterday.
Western Australia
Arrivals push centre past limitTHE arrival of four asylum boats in 48 hours has pushed numbers in the Christmas Island detention centre to an apparent record.
Rare moth hits marina project
A MOTH could cause headaches for the developers of the Mangles Bay Marina project at Cape Peron after an endangered insect was found on the site.
Another death on WA's deadliest highway
COLLIE'S deadly Coalfields Highway has claimed another life - the second in just three days - with a woman passenger dying yesterday after a car hit a tree.
Pair survive terror home invasion
TWO people have suffered a terrifying ordeal in their Clarkson home after six men smashed their way inside, gave them a beating and then set about wrecking the property.
Police lock down backyard death scene
MAJOR crime detectives are combing a Mandurah property for clues after the body of an elderly woman was found in the back yard.
Tasmania
Nothing new=== Comments ===
Children may die, but Franny must have her blueberriesAndrew Bolt
The founder of 10:10, the green group whose propaganda film shows children being blown up for doubting man-made warming, is better at demanding sacrifices of others than she is at demanding them of herself:
Anthony Watts explains to Franny in small words the horrific global warming consequences of indulging a guilty lust for out-of-season blueberries. In 10:10’s world, an explosion would follow.UPDATE
Readers graeme, Rick and CB say Franny actually broke that resolution not to fly to the US to promote her movie, which preaches against, er, flying:
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The Left is now more dangerous than the Right
Andrew Bolt
What is it with the Left and violence? Indeed, with all forms of collectivism - not least Islam - and violence?With European governments paring back the social safety net, and businesses blamed for creating a crisis, left-wing terrorism in Europe is on the march, according to a new report from EuroPol (the European Police Office).For all the media paranoia about Right-wing violence, it’s the Left that’s most likely to hurt you. But the prize for violence is still held by Islamist and separatist terrorists - although Spain’s ETA should count as both separatist and Leftist.
Spain, Greece and Italy reported a total of 40 attacks by left-wing and anarchist groups for 2009. This constitutes an increase of 43 % compared to 2008; the number of attacks more than doubled since 2007.
(Thanks to reader Owen.)
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Gillard bares her convictions
Andrew Bolt
Praise Prime Minister Julia Gillard for one aspect of her trip to Afghanistan. She didn’t sell out her secular, feminist principles:
Unlike, say, the Danish foreign minister on her own visit to Kabul:
Daniel Pipes notes other female politicians of the West who seem only to ready to don the hijab.(Thanks to reader Immanuel.)
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Rather a robot than me behind the wheel
Andrew Bolt
Can’t wait for this one - a self-driving car like the one Google is working on:
With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation. The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light.UPDATE
Autonomous cars are years from mass production, but technologists who have long dreamed of them believe that they can transform society as profoundly as the Internet has.
Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue.
Top Gear test drives:
(Thanks to reader PaulW.)
===
Where’s that peace that Obama got the Nobel for promising?
Andrew Bolt
A year after Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for simply making the right noises in his first two weeks as president....
One year after the Nobel prize jury made its controversial decision to award President Obama the prize for world peace, a larger jury is still waiting for the president to live up to those lofty expectations.===
Even some of Obama’s allies—like former Nobel laureates Al Gore and Jimmy Carter—declined to assess his performance in fulfilling what the peace prize citation said was his “vision” of world harmony.
The one year anniversary of Obama’s prize comes as fighting is escalating in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq continues to smolder and Obama struggles to keep fledgling Middle East peace talks from collapsing. Drones are firing missiles in unprecedened numbers and confrontations with Iran and North Korea are hotter than ever.
Why is the ABC using your money to run a rival far-Left Crikey?
Andrew Bolt
I agree completely with Crikey publisher Eric Beecher’s argument, even if it suffers from a failure to acknowledge that Crikey has been just as great a refuge of the uncivilised Left as is the ABC’s The Drum:
CRIKEY publisher Eric Beecher has attacked the ABC’s for branching into online commentary in competition with websites such as his own...Ah, another point of difference here. It’s not merely a “perception” that the ABC is of the Left. It’s the defining characteristic that helps to explain why the ABC hired Beecher’s former Crikey editor to do for The Drum what he once did for Beecher.
Mr Beecher ... criticised the ABC’s opinion site The Drum as “seriously and dangerously” compromising the ABC’s editorial integrity by running “wacky” personal opinions that were “mainly from the Left"… Mr Beecher said while he expected competition from commercial rivals such as The Punch (published by News Limited, which owns The Australian), it was “bewildering” when it came from the national broadcaster and the government should intervene if it failed to curtail itself…
“As a huge supporter of the ABC, I have been somewhat shocked at (the ABC’s) decision to create a website (The Drum) that sits so blatantly in the territory of sites like Crikey and The Punch,” Mr Beecher said.
“Operating in the commercial space, we expect vigorous competition from other commercial publishers. But to see the ABC tanks roll up on our lawn was bewildering.”
Earlier this month, The Drum editor Jonathan Green—a former editor of Crikey—pulled an opinion piece by author Marieke Hardy in which she hoped Liberal MP Christopher Pyne would be “attacked by a large and libidinous dog”.
“The Drum seriously and dangerously compromises the ABC’s editorial integrity,” Mr Beecher told Media.
“It is full of personal opinions, mainly from the Left and often wacky, which is something that sits uncomfortably with the notion of a rigorously independent publicly funded national broadcaster.
“In doing this, it unnecessarily but almost provocatively reinforces the fairly widespread perceptions of where the ABC and its journalists sit in the political spectrum...”
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Bolt finds more reasons to spruike the ALP, no matter how appalling they are - ed.
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Taxing ourselves out of business
Andrew Bolt
Dumb tax, says Howard:
TOP-LEVEL strategic, business and energy leaders from around the world are amazed that Australia would be “so very foolish” to damage its healthy economy and attraction as an investment destination with a new mining tax, according to former prime minister John Howard.===
Freshly returned from an extended international tour where he mixed with the elites of several countries, Mr Howard said the word doing the rounds in Singapore, Washington and Kazakhstan was not, as expressed by Treasurer Wayne Swan, that the investor community had no concerns about the tax…
”There was amazement that a country which had been so successful would be so very foolish as to fiddle around with a resources super-profits tax,” Mr Howard told The Australian yesterday.
While not naming names, Mr Howard said Kazakh energy magnates, a Canadian representative to a world petroleum body and some delegates from Britain had expressed surprise that Australia would introduce a tax “which would potentially damage our competitiveness”.
I guess that leaves Shorten?
Andrew Bolt
Wayne Swan says he’s given up his dream of being Prime Minister:
Mr Swan, 56, said yesterday he had no ambition for the top job, despite now being Ms Gillard’s most obvious successor.===
“No I don’t, and I’ve been asked this on many occasions,” Mr Swan told The Australian in Washington. ”I don’t have that ambition.”
Did he ever harbour ambitions of becoming prime minister?
“Probably a long time ago, but not now...”
King Ken doesn’t quite rule yet
Andrew Bolt
Terry McCrann calls out Ken Henry:
KEN Henry has finally jumped the shark. With apologies to Procol Harum, the Treasury Secretary who was at first just arrogantly beyond the pale has gone completely so.===
The Treasury Red Book, released a fortnight ago in slightly annotated form, documents a public servant and a department with an extraordinary sense of their own wisdom and primacy…
In the Red Book, Treasury collectively arrogated to itself the right to instruct the government on what policies it had to implement.
This was most graphically illustrated by climate change. “The sooner an emissions trading scheme can be implemented, the better. Too much time has already been wasted,” Treasury thundered.
Well, apart from wondering what this has to do with Treasury, or its necessary advice to a new government on the state of play in the economy, Henry needs to be reminded that the reason we don’t have an ETS is that parliament rejected it.
Now of course Henry knows better than the parliament. But for the moment, such matters as an ETS are first in the decision of political government—not the public service—and are then in the gift of the parliament.
Yes, Ken, it might lead to “too much time being wasted”. But that’s the price to be paid for this quaint relic we have called parliamentary democracy.
Cantwell gets it said and Coalition’s tanks go nowhere
Andrew Bolt
I think Tony Abbott has learned one thing from his trip to Afghanistan - that the Opposition’s call for more tanks there is a no-go. Hard to argue against this:
Australia’s head of Middle Eastern operations, Major-General John Cantwell..., who himself has a tank background, said: “Does anyone really think I would for one minute place the lives of our soldiers at greater risk than it needs to be over a matter of policy?Er, OK. End of that discussion.
“Give me a break. These are soldiers. I’ve shed tears for these guys.
“I’ve stood beside the broken and ruined bodies of far too many soldiers this year.
“If I thought I needed to do more to keep those guys alive and send them home to their families, I’d damn well do it, and I wouldn’t stop shouting until I got a good answer. But I don’t feel the need to do that.
“We don’t need more tanks. We don’t need any tanks. It’s the wrong place. I’m a tank guy and I’m telling you, we don’t need tanks.”
Now, how about more mortars, artillery and planes?
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Abbott: Gillard guilty of “bastardry”
Andrew Bolt
Abbott is right - this was indeed an act of bastardry:
TONY Abbott has accused Julia Gillard of “low bastardry” in disclosing that he had declined her offer to travel to Afghanistan together to visit Australian troops.Abbott concedes that the excuse he gave for not going with Gillard was stupid:
At the end of a full-day visit to the forces at the coalition base in Tarin Kowt on Saturday, Mr Abbott said he personally told the Prime Minister weeks earlier that he planned to visit separately.
“So Gillard’s office were briefing [reporters] last Monday that I’d somehow dudded the troops by not visiting,” Mr Abbott said at the weekend.
”I regard it as an act of low bastardry given what Gillard knew based on the conversation I’d had with her personally,” he said.
“My thinking was, once it became apparent what was going on, when it comes to Machiavellian bastardry, she’s up there with the best of them.”
Defending himself last week against the insinuation that he had been uninterested in visiting the troops, Mr Abbott produced the infamous defence that he was worried about jet lag.A reporter defends Gillard:
But after his visit, Mr Abbott explained: “Of course I’m not supposed to say when I’m going, but I had to offer some sort of excuse. It was a lame one, but it was the best I could do at the time.”
Politicians’ visits to war zones are kept secret until after the event to protect their safety and the safety of the air crew and others travelling with them. “It was a bad choice of words, no doubt about that, I said it the following morning, but the truth is the last thing I ever would have thought was Gillard would try to make an issue of this, given that she knew, all along, that I was going to Afghanistan because I had discussed it personally with her.”
However, the reporter who broke the story of Ms Gillard’s offer to Mr Abbott said that the disclosure did not come from the Prime Minister or her office.I find it hard to believe that Gillard’s offer to Abbott wasn’t leaked by someone acting on her behalf. Even if it wasn’t, Gillard nevertheless seized the opportunity to mock Abbott for not going to Afghanistan when she actually knew he was on his way.
“I did not learn about it from the government,” The Sydney Morning Herald’s Phillip Coorey said yesterday
If you think Abbott is now overreacting, know that he was very slow to conclude that Gillard’s foul attempt to turn his advice to his daughters into an attack on his alleged Catholic misogyny and paternalism was deliberate and malevolent:
TONY Abbott’s advice to young women about not giving away their virginity lightly would confirm ‘’the worst fears of Australian women’’ about him, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says…And now the question is whether Julia Gillard lied or deliberately misled when she said this on October 5, one week ago:
Ms Gillard said: ‘’Australian women don’t want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott. ‘’Australian women want to make their own choices, and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott.’’
Ms Gillard said ...she was not aware herself that he had a solo visit to Afghanistan, already locked in. ”Your suggestion that he had a fixed date to go (to Afghanistan) when I issued the invitation to him is not correct,” she told reporters in Brussels.But Abbott now reveals:
TONY Abbott says he told Julia Gillard at a meeting on September 22 that he had booked a visit to the Australian troops in Afghanistan…===
The Australian command in Afghanistan confirmed it had known about Mr Abbott’s visit for more than two weeks. The head of Australia’s Middle Eastern operations, Major General John Cantwell, said he had delayed taking leave to show Mr Abbott around Tarin Kowt.
Mr Abbott said Ms Gillard might not have known an exact date, but she knew of his plans.
I’d want someone with more brains in charge of my safety
Andrew Bolt
Hard to know what disqualifies them most from their position, but I’m actually leaning to sheer stupidity over racism:
ONE police officer has quit and another is facing serious disciplinary action over a racist email that is causing friction between Australia and India… The email shows footage of a man being electrocuted and suggests this could be a way to ‘’fix Melbourne’s Indian student problem’’.
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Andrew Bolt
Huey Long had many faults, but an inability to communicate was not one of them. On the glorious contrary:
His life inspired an absolutely terrific novel, too, and a pretty good film adaptation of it (the first of two):
Great newsreel of his life and death:
- Huey Long had many faults, and it is interesting to see how he participated in the electoral process which resulted in the Democrats benefiting from African American patronage today.
From the civil war in the US, and Abraham Lincoln, the Republicans of the US were recipients of African American support. However, a flood in the mid 20’s in Louisiana from a cyclone resulted in substantial need. Herbert Hoover was an engineer who had fed Germans at the end of WW1 and was highly respected, so her was appointed by the Republican President of the day to bring aid to the south. He was effective, but there was a snafu when the local Democrats and Ku Klux Klan exploited the aid and the African Americans, sometimes at gunpoint. There was a huge potential for outcry, but Hoover maintained a lid on it with the help of the African American leaders who didn’t want the Republican rising star tainted by the actions of the Democrats.
Hoover was not a politician, but he ran for President. The Republicans, probably without Hoover’s knowledge, stripped African American Republicans of leadership in the South so as to secure the white vote from the Democrats, and Hoover had the largest election win of US Presidential history. However the African American leadership felt betrayed, and have supported the Democrats ever since.
The Democrats have never done anything to deserve the support given them by African Americans, however, except to have leaders capable of exploiting to advantage deprivations they were instrumental in causing .. and which Huey Long was party. - ed.
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