=== Todays Toon ===
George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby, GCB, GCMG, PC (23 July 1819 – 3 April 1890), styled Viscount Normanby between 1831 and 1838 and Earl of Mulgrave between 1838 and 1863, was a British Liberal politician and colonial governor.
=== Bible Quote ===
“This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.”- Romans 13:6=== Headlines ===
Pelosi Ends the Speculation: 'I Am Running for Dem Leader'
Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces she will run for minority leader after resurgent Republicans win control of the House in Tuesday's midterm elections.Al Qaeda Takes Blame in Mail Bomb Plot
Al Qaeda in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the mail bomb plot on cargo planes — which failed when authorities found bombs packed in ink cartridges headed for the U.S.
Olbermann Suspended for Campaign Giving
MSNBC announces it has suspended prime-time host Keith Olbermann indefinitely and without pay for making political contributions to the campaigns of three Democratic candidates
Tea Party Activists Plan for 2012
After more than 30 victories by Tea Party candidates in midterms, activists must decide whether to keep working within the Republican Party or create their own
Several injured after truck falls on train
A CEMENT mixer fell off a bridge and landed on a passing passenger train in Surrey, southeast England, overnight, seriously injuring two people, British Transport Police (BTP) said.
Children among 12 killed in village attack
UNIDENTIFIED attackers armed with knives killed 12 people, including three children and a newborn, who had gathered for a celebration at a home in a Russian village, authorities said.
Rodriguez, Diaz call it quits - report
YANKEES star Alex Rodriguez and Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz have called it quits after seven months of dating, Life & Style magazine reported today.
Indonesian volcano kills 77 in latest eruption
INDONESIA'S Mount Merapi volcano killed 77 people overnight in its biggest eruption in over a century, incinerating homes, grounding flights and driving thousands into shelters.
Italian PM mocked over prostitution move
ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has admitted to paying for sex in the past, said overnight his government plans to criminalise street prostitution, bringing mockery from the opposition.
Male teacher crisis off the agenda
CHILDREN face going through school without ever having a male teacher because of falling numbers of men in primary schools.
No one is safe from speed squad
THE extent of the sneaky tricks some cops use to catch motorists has been revealed after a highly decorated officer was booked.
Jumping through old hoops to get fit
THE classic hula hoop is making a comeback as Sydneysiders rush to relive their childhoods in the name of fitness.
Iemma's hospital challenge
FORMER premier Morris Iemma has been appointed one of 15 chairpersons to oversee the new Local Health Networks.
Pubs are breaking credit law
THE Coogee Bay Hotel and five other venues have been caught illegally allowing gamblers to withdraw cash from credit cards.
MPs free pass on police searches
STATE MPs want police surprise "raid" tactics used on "regular people" dropped. They'd much prefer it done by appointment.
Bargains as house prices fall
HOUSE prices have fallen for the first time in 18 months, while auction clearances also dropped to the lowest levels this year.
Tzvetkoff tells FBI of lost millions
DANIEL Tzvetkoff has rolled over and admitted to US authorities he has $50 million buried in the company accounts of a Las Vegas payday lender.
Rate nerves threaten property spike
THE traditional end-of-year property spike could be flattened by nervousness over interest rates.
Billion-dollar plans to ease snarls
THE multimillion-dollar options to fix one of Brisbane's worst congestion bottlenecks, destined to become a peak-hour car park within a decade, have been revealed.
Big wet leads to rat rampage
BRISBANE is a boom town for rats. Ideal wet, spring conditions have resulted in large numbers of the rodents moving into our homes and gardens.
$3735-a-minute pokies splurge
QUEENSLANDERS blew $3735 a minute on the pokies in the first three months of the financial year, with gamblers trying to "win their way out" of trouble.
Single-sex classes work: experts
EDUCATION experts say the trend of single-sex classrooms for young students is gaining momentum and works.
Two women stabbed after crash
TWO women were stabbed in an altercation and an elderly man was nearly run over in an incident at a home west of Brisbane.
Wyatt upset over Monaghan tweet
AUSTRALIA'S youngest federal MP says someone is deliberately trying to destroy his reputation through the online social media site, Twitter.
Cops on clunker crackdown
DEFECTIVE vehicles and illegal number plates will be the target of a police operation Operation Check-it 2010 starting from tomorrow.
Net operator face huge spam fine
A BRISBANE internet operator faces the prospect of a hefty fine after he was found guilty of breaching the Spam Act.
Gang widow Williams' baby scare
ROBERTA Williams has had a baby scare more than halfway through her pregnancy after going into premature labour.
Dog could have saved Tyler's life
A POLICE dog squad officer believes his german shepherd could have made a difference in the fatal shooting of Tyler Cassidy.
Veteran told to stop selling poppies
WORLD War II veteran Joan Johnstone had been selling Remembrance Day poppies for more than 20 years.
Bringing Brumby back down to earth
JOHN Brumby's a bit edgy. And with an election in three weeks, it's understandable that he's got plenty of things on his mind.
Heightened security for Hillary
MELBOURNE will be under major security as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flies in ahead of crucial government talks.
Hit-run victim's image released
POLICE have appealed for public help as they try to identify a young man run over twice and left to die on a Melbourne road yesterday.
Dupas 'pantomime' at Supreme Court
A DISGRACED lawyer dramatically demonstrated to a jury today how he says Peter Dupas re-enacted the murder of Mersina Halvagis.
Labor running scared, not us - Libs
THE Liberals have today said it's Labor that is in a state of panic about the upcoming election.
Thug who bashed student avoids jail
A MAN who carried out one of the race related attacks that caused outrage in Melbourne and India has been spared a jail term today.
Nothing new
Heritage Matters: Water cash just a drop in the well
THE State Government decision to put money into Salisbury's plan to turn stormwater into drinking water is long overdue.
Cashing in on rivers of potential
DEMANDS for an overhaul of the Murray-Darling system have been strengthened by a study that shows saving the Coorong would deliver a $4.3 billion windfall.
Funding crisis in family support
SPENDING on family support services in South Australia is just one-fifth of the national average, meaning children are being "rescued, not helped".
Annesley College merger lifeline
THE financial state of Annesley College will be at the centre of merger negotiations between the school and neighbour Pulteney Grammar.
Cityscape's '60s time warp
ADELAIDE'S changing design will put a modern twist on the 1960s idea of a neighbourhood, when you knew your neighbours and walked to a corner store.
Whistleblower tells of Puglia research link
RESEARCHERS at Flinders University were told to "find a link" with universities in Puglia to improve their chances of funding, a whistleblower says.
No jail unless officials share cell
A SENIOR judge says he will not jail an 11-year-old joyrider "unless someone from Families SA shares a cell with him".
Jobs rush a cut above
THE party season is driving demand for casual workers in industries such as hairdressing, which is experiencing a rush from clients in the lead up to Christmas.
Stop wasting our time
THEY are the unrepentant serial litigants who have clogged up the state's courts with more than 100 legal actions between them.
More private schools fearing closure
PRIVATE schools are at risk of following in the ill-fated footsteps of embattled Annesley College, an independent school expert warns.
Arrests, fury at detention meet
TEMPERS flared in Northam last night after hundreds of angry residents were locked out of a public meeting on a planned detention centre.
Mandurah puppy killer cops life pet ban
A MANDURAH woman has been banned from ever owning pets after admitting throwing a six-week-old puppy against a wall in a fit of anger.
RAC demands action on killer highway
The RAC is demanding an immediate reduction in the speed limit on a horror stretch of the Coalfields Highway, after yet another death on the road.
Lawyer caught out on CCC tapes
A PERTH lawyer has admitted to the CCC he advised a man about transferring property out of his name to avoid its seizure under proceeds of crime laws.
Police hunt syringe bandit
POLICE are hunting a women who raided the cash register at a Shenton Park supermarket and threatened staff with a blood-filled syringe when they tried to stop her.
Rail sex-attack suspect in court
AN accused rapist who is alleged to have targeted Perth northern suburbs train users has appeared in court to face numerous sex offences.
WA's Australians of the Year
A SKIN cancer survivor, a charitable musician, an Aboriginal educator and a hockey coach are among the finalists in WA's Australian of the Year Awards 2011.
Second Swan River oxygenation plant
WORK has started on a second oxygenation plant for the Swan River.
Wet Christmas on the cards
THE Christmas and New Year period is expected to be wetter than normal this year because of the La Nina weather phenomenon, forecasters predict.
Child prostitute looked 19 - former MP
A FORMER Tasmanian MP charged with having sex with a 12-year-old prostitute had reasonable grounds to believe she was an adult, a Hobart court has been told.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Pelosi Announces Run: "Our Work Is Far From Finished..."Earlier today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter to her colleagues that she will run for House minority leader in the 112th Congress.
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12 in 2012: Gov. Haley Barbour
The race for 2012! We profile 12 possible GOP frontrunners. Tonight in part 2, will a Haley Barbour White House help get the nation's House back in order?
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Getting People Back to Work!
They got the job done on election night, now we reveal the Tea Party strategy to get America back to work. Plus, our economic diagnosis: why Obamacare will kill any hope of financial recovery! Then, how the latest government bailout will DRIVE taxpayers crazy.
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The Right, All Along - The Rise, Fall and Future of Conservatism
It started as a simple idea that changed the political landscape. Fox News Reporting presents a groundbreaking six-part documentary series on the rise, fall, and future of the conservative movement.
On Fox News Insider
Get to Know Fox News Meteorologist Maria Molina!President George W. Bush Tells Oprah He Won't Wade Back Into Political Swamp
Behind-the-Scenes: Bret Baier's Interview with John Boehner
The Drama Behind Obama's 10-Day Trip
This weekend, Burma will hold its sham election. The elections have already been marred by fraud, voter disenfranchisement, and outright vote stealing by Burma's military regime.In Magwe division, government officials threatened villagers with forced relocation unless they vote for the regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDA). Over 3,400 ethnic minority villages will not be allowed to vote, disenfranchising approximately 1.5 million ethnic minorities. Most importantly, this sham election will usher in a constitution where the most powerful person remains the Commander in Chief of the military.
The Burmese regime is hoping this election gives them legitimacy in the international community. The U.S. must stand against these elections and pressure its global allies to stand with us. Email President Obama today calling on him to come out strongly against these elections.
In the lead up to the election, USCB supporters held more than 50 events at universities and communities around the country educating Americans about how the election will exacerbate problems in Burma. In Kachin state, northern region of the country, ethnic leaders fear attacks by the Burmese Army after the coming elections.
Burma's leading democratic groups including the National League for Democracy, the 88 Student Generation, the All Burma Monks Alliance, and ethnic representatives, have come out against this election. Political prisoners are barred from running for office, excluding Aung San Suu Kyi from the ballot. In addition, campaigning is highly restricted and dominated by the military-backed party. Many high-ranking military members recently covered their military uniforms with civilian clothing in order to run in the election.
Critically, this election will bring into power a constitution drafted behind closed doors by the regime cronies. The constitution allows the Commander in Chief to dissolve the parliament at any given time. In other words, the military will still call the shots, post election. To make sure they remain in power, 25% of the parliamentary seats are reserved for the current military members, making it impossible to amend the constitution (which requires over 75% of votes). A former UN Special Rapporteur to Burma recently emphasized that this election is not a step towards democracy but rather a step towards "military consolidation."
Be the voice for the people of Burma. Ask President Obama to denounce the results of Burma's 2010 sham election and to demand a tripartite dialogue between the democratic forces, the ethnic representatives, and the military regime - critical for national reconciliation.
Stand with us as we stand with the people of Burma today. Thank you for your continued support. We will keep you posted as events unfold in Burma in the coming weeks.
In solidarity,
The USCB Staff
=== Comments ===
Why Is Everyone Still Missing the Real Story of the Fort Hood Massacre?By Mike Baker
"It was a year ago today that 12 soldiers and one civilian [alledgedly] died in a shooting rampage carried out by U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan on the Ft Hood military base in Texas."
I was reading through media coverage over the past couple days on the anniversary plans and all the various recaps of that sad and violent day when it occurred to me that the unifying thread among all the various stories was the apparent inability to directly address the Muslim angle.
While not a scientific survey, I must've gone through 8 newspaper articles and half a dozen write-ups from television online websites and none could bring themselves to refer to Hasan as an American-born Muslim, nor could they mention his contact with Yemeni radical cleric and Al Qaeda synchophant/recruiter Anwar Al-Awlaki.
There were no references to Hasan's increasing disaffection with America and certainly nothing noting he kicked off his shooting rampage by shouting "Allah Akbar."
Wait. That's not entirely true. The magazine Esquire ran a lengthy piece on the Ft. Hood shooting anniverary in which the author did mention that Husan allegedly shouted "Allah Akbar" at the outset of his killing spree. Here's the relevant portion from the article; (note to reader...you might want a stiff drink before reading the following):
".....But the real story at Ft. Hood was never terrorism. Yes, Hasan shouted Allah Akbar before he shot 13 people to death and wounded 32 more one year ago this Friday. That's a terrorist sort of thing to say. But for a lonely, socially maladjusted outcast, righteousness and piety can be a comfortable cloak under which to hide. Of course, one needn't be a hardened jihadi to commit an act of terror. Being duped, misguided or just pathetic can be reason enough -- and Hasan was all those, as well as scared stupid by his impending deployment to Afghanistan. But whether or not Hasan was an Al-Awlaki puppet, the story of Ft. Hood was Ft. Hood itself -- all war, all the time..."
Seriously. The real story was never terrorism. What a load of crap.
For the better part of a year since the shooting, you'd be hard pressed to find an occasion when the current administration, the Defense Department or the majority of the media made any reference to the role that Hasan's religion and radicalization over a period of time influenced his actions.
The prefered storyline omits the role of radical Islam in the tragedy and focuses on standard aspects of a rampage...trying to equate Hasan with any other mad gunmen such as the Beltway snipers or the Columbine shooters.
Hasan did what he allegedly did because he became a radicalized Muslim with an increasing hatred of America and a willingness to follow the violent rantings of Al-Awlaki to his death. Thirteen people died one year ago because terrorism was the story.
Mike Baker served for more than 15 years as a covert field operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, specializing in counterterrorism, counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations around the globe. Since leaving government service, he has been a principal in building and running several companies in the private intelligence, security and risk management sector and has recently returned to Diligence LLC, a company he cofounded in 2000, as President. He appears frequently in the media as an expert on counterterrorism, intelligence and homeland security. Baker is also a partner in Classified Trash, a film and television production company. Baker serves as a script consultant, writer and technical adviser within the entertainment industry, lending his expertise to such programs as the BBC's popular spy series "Spooks," as well as major motion pictures.
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Don't Insult the Voters- Listen to Them
By Phil Kerpen
The Obama administration and its Democratic allies started making the excuses months ago, when they first started to see the electoral tsunami headed their way. It is typical of the arrogance of the central planner that our president seems to genuinely believe that the strong majority of Americans -- who have now clearly demonstrated their opposition to his policies -- are suffering from what Friedrich Engels called false consciousness. His condescending view is that Americans who disagree with him must not understand what’s best for them. He needs to get over it, now, because if he fails to listen to the American people and chart a more fiscally responsible course, the country is headed for an economic disaster and he is headed for a political one.
At a recent Democratic fundraiser in Boston, Obama made the false consciousness argument this way: “And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.”
Obama has blamed groups like mine for his party’s troubles. We are, apparently, the bourgeoisie misleading the working class in his false consciousness theory of the 2010 election. He attacked us by name at least 18 times this year, most recently in Rhode Island, where he said: “We are getting snowed under by unsupervised spending, undisclosed spending through these front groups that so many of you have read about: ‘Americans for Prosperity’ and ‘Moms for Motherhood’-- that last one I made up.”
But his joke about our name ignores that prosperity depends on economic freedom, as I previously explained here on FOXNews.com.
The American people understand this, and they made it crystal clear in the election. They weren’t misled. They weren’t deceived. They weren’t “snowed under” by advertising. The idea that somehow the election was bought is insulting to voters and a sad excuse for continuing to ignore the strong majority of American who are demanding fiscal responsibility. An excuse to ignore our fiscal problems and condemn us to slow growth that will inhibit Americans achieving all of our hopes and dreams.
President Obama was still making excuses in his post-election press conference. He deflected questions about the implications of the election for his far-left policy agenda, and insisted that the election had nothing to do with precisely the central policy issues voters rejected: health care, stimulus spending, and cap-and-trade energy taxes.
Obama claimed, without evidence: “we’d be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years.” Then he went on to argue for, astonishingly, even more stimulus spending.
Nobody is more in denial than Speaker-un-elect Nancy Pelosi, who recently claimed “Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where - because they won't disclose it - is pouring in.”
Going great? In Pelosi’s delusion, the 2009 summer of discontent never happened. The American people, in her mind, weren’t outraged that she ignored them to jam ObamaCare through using procedural trickery to sidestep the Massachusetts election. Pelosi is willfully blind to that fact the American people have been in open revolt against out-of-control spending for the better part of two years. She is even actively campaigning to retain her post as House Democratic Leader. Talk about a false consciousness.
In reality, all sides were well-funded in the major policy debates running up to this election and in the election itself. Supporters of big government lavishly funded their advocacy groups (as has become the norm) while, for the first time, supporters of limited government (including our 85,000 donors) stepped up and came close to matching them. The Democratic committees outraised Republican committees about $560 million to $497 million, while Republican candidates narrowly outraised Democrats $503 million to $465 million. In House races, the New York Times reported that Democrats and left-leaning groups outspent Republicans and right-leaning groups on television advertising $142 million to $119 million.
This cycle included well-funded parties, candidates, and groups across the political spectrum that had every opportunity to get their messages out. Every voter had an ample opportunity to hear all of the arguments and make up his or her own mind. The result was clear. Now is the time to stop making excuses and start delivering fiscal responsibility.
Mr. Kerpen is a vice president at Americans for Prosperity.
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The new racism: even the Left now chokes on its fruits
Andrew Bolt
The Left-wing Prospect magazine - or of the most thoughtful and genuinely challenging I know - has in its October edition published several pieces attacking the new racism of the Left, that has in fact caused more division, oppression and injustice than it ever hoped to heal. Some excerpts:
Munira Mirza, advisor to London’s mayor on arts and culture:
The following articles are by people who want to change the way in which racism and diversity are discussed in Britain and question the assumptions of some “official anti-racism.” None of them is white and therefore cannot be easily dismissed as ignorant, naive, or unwittingly prejudiced. They write about the effect of anti-racist policies in education, psychiatry and the arts. It is because they care about equality and our common humanity that they wish to challenge some of the assumptions in policymaking today.Tony Sewell, head of the charity Generating Genius:
The authors make some common points. Race is no longer the significant disadvantage it is often portrayed to be. In a range of areas—educational attainment, career progression, rates of criminality, social mobility—class and socio-economic background are more important. Indeed, a number of ethnic groups in Britain, particularly Indians and Chinese, perform better than average in many areas…
The writers also point out that while old prejudices have faded, new paternalistic stereotypes are growing. To engage minority students, particularly if they are disruptive and struggling with the mainstream curriculum, teachers are encouraged to focus on “their culture” or “their history.” Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.
Perhaps most importantly, we are afraid to discuss race in an honest way, even with our colleagues and friends. The famous Ali G phrase, “Is it cos I is black?” is funny precisely because it hits a nerve. Many of us have seen an innocent remark misinterpreted as racist. Being falsely accused of racism is, at best, unpleasant and at worst, can destroy a career. Meanwhile, some people from ethnic minorities are left unsure whether an opportunity or promotion has been given to them on the basis of merit or box ticking, and can face the quiet resentment of colleagues…
In this new approach, no one and everyone is guilty of racism. Any unequal outcome is assumed to be the result of prejudice…
Does this heightened awareness of racism help to stamp it out? Quite the opposite. It creates a climate of suspicion and anxiety. Suddenly your colleague is a potential victim of your unwitting racism. A minor slight can be seen as an offence…
The victims are often ethnic minorities themselves....Over the past two decades the emphasis on disadvantage among different groups seems to have entrenched differences and feelings of victimisation. And criticism of “victim politics” is shot down by those who claim it will encourage extremists such as the BNP. Arguably the opposite is true. The BNP has not merely gained support in the era of multicultural policies, it has gained support because of them.
African-Caribbean boys are still at the bottom of the league table for GCSEs. They start school at roughly the same level as other pupils, but during the course of their education fall further and further behind their peers, including white working-class and Bangladeshi boys…Swaran Singh, professor of social and community psychiatry at Warwick University:
What we now see in schools is children undermined by poor parenting, peer-group pressure and an inability to be responsible for their own behaviour. They are not subjects of institutional racism. They have failed their GCSEs because they did not do the homework, did not pay attention and were disrespectful to their teachers. Instead of challenging our children, we have given them the discourse of the victim—a sense that the world is against them and they cannot succeed.
Gillborn and Abbott imply that white teachers have low expectations of black boys and this is partly why they underachieve. I have never been convinced by this. I believe black underachievement is due to the low expectations of school leaders, who do not want to be seen as racist and who position black boys as victims.
And consider this initiative, introduced by the previous Labour government. “Reach” takes 20 “great black role models” around the country to inspire black boys to success. This is desperate and patronising. Why can’t black boys be inspired by anyone around them who is positive, including white teachers?..
Young black boys are constantly on edge, feeling that the world is against them but unable to find the real source of their trouble. We have a generation who have all the language and discourse of the race relations industry but no devil to fight.
Yet in clinical practice psychiatrists bend over backwards to be sensitive to the cultural needs of their patients—sometimes to the detriment of those patients. As a psychiatrist who has worked in the NHS for nearly 20 years, I have come across several cases where clinicians have subordinated their judgement to concerns about culture and race. I remember a severely unwell Nigerian woman whose delusions and hallucinations about witchcraft were accepted by her doctors as a cultural norm. I treated a Sikh woman who had become sexually and financially reckless in the early stages of manic depression. Her husband’s attempts to get help were dismissed as the cultural response of an Asian male unable to deal with female independence. Only after she was detained under the Mental Health Act did she get the proper help. But by the time she had recovered her marriage was over, her children were in care and her business was ruined…Sonya Dyer, artist and writer:
In 2006, I co-wrote a paper in the British Medical Journal emphasising that there were valid explanations other than racism for ethnic differences in mental health. Erroneous allegations drive a wedge of mistrust between ethnic minority patients and mental health services, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby patients seek help only in a crisis, disengage from services prematurely and have repeated admissions with poor outcomes. One reason why ethnic minority patients are disproportionately detained is that they or their families are initially reluctant to accept treatment. But then a serious incident occurs, and doctors are required to use forcible means.
Our BMJ article was denounced by black mental health groups. In a public meeting I was called a “lone and eccentric voice” with whom no one agreed. This was partly correct. Very few people had dared to agree with me publicly, for to challenge any accusation of racism is to be seen as displaying racist tendencies. But in private, many colleagues sent emails of support.
One of my concerns about schemes like Decibel and Inspire has been their impact on black arts professionals. Having been told that the sector is “institutionally racist,” some feel the only way in is through diversity placements. They can end up in effect confined to a ghetto—moving from diversity job to diversity job, part of a narrow network divorced from real decision-making and power…And this is a topic that in Australia the Left tries to stifle with laws against free speech on the grounds that it may given “offence”.
In 2009, ACE extended the Inspire programme by introducing an educational qualification for participants, despite widespread misgivings in the sector. The result is the ACE-funded Inspire MA at the Royal College of Art—a vocational masters degree at one of the best schools for curatorial education in the world, just for brown people. How on earth did we get to the stage where ethnically exclusive tertiary education is seen as a good thing?
The announcement of this scheme was met with horror by many of my peers. Not only is it racist (can you imagine a degree just for white people?), it is also a diminished version of the RCA’s standard curatorial MA. Inspire MA students are expected to focus only on art shown in publicly funded British galleries, there are no international placements, and students are based in national museums and galleries, returning to London intermittently for the “educational” element. They do less academic work, and more vocational training. Why are ethnic minorities expected to be less ambitious, less intellectual and less outward-looking than others?
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Readers in revolt against warmist magazine
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, November 06, 10 (03:20 pm)
I doubt that Scientific American expected these results from its survey of readers after all its alarmist preaching:
(Thanks to half a dozen laughing readers,)===
Gillard flounders, and gallery now notices
Andrew Bolt
The consensus is fast growing that, as I’ve argued for some time, Julia Gillard is simply out of her depth.
Paul Kelly:
THE Gillard government, deft at tactics, is losing its policy authority in the nation and facing a relentless haemorrhage in political support with repeated exposures of its inability to shape events or outcomes.Ross Fitzgerald:
Labor is in serious difficulty, a fact more apparent the greater the distance from Canberra. The government looks out of its depth, weak and devoid of strategic purpose. So overwhelming are these early signs they demand an urgent rethink of Labor’s policy and messages.
In June Julia Gillard explained Kevin Rudd’s removal by saying the government had “lost its way”, but Labor’s risk is that of changing jockeys but failing to get back on track. If this perception takes hold, the government will be finished.
Successful leaders must champion issues in which they believe even though initially they are often unpopular.Peter van Onselen:
Herein lies Gillard’s problem.
There does not appear to be any conviction that she is not prepared to walk away from, no promise that she is not prepared to break, no commitment that she is not prepared to compromise to cling to power.
It is not evident that there is any issue on which she would be prepared to stake her leadership… Gillard lacks the political courage to attempt any big reform. Her recent speeches claiming to be a reformer leading a reforming government are the hollow stuff we have come to expect of the school of juvenile spin doctors populating the ranks of Labor advisers.
Julia Gillard admitted when she took over the leadership that the government had lost its way. Initially we were led to believe she was talking only about the salesmanship of its agenda. In time it became clear that even the agenda was lost.Much is at stake here. For one, I challenge you to read Jennifer Hewett and Mitchell Bingemann’s account of the decision-making behind the Government’s $43 billion national broadband network without feeling a chill of fear that taxpayers may well lose billions of dollars.
Fast forward and Labor did manage to win the election, albeit as a minority government in a hung parliament. But concerns over what the party stands for, threats from a populist opposition and a lack of ideological direction all persist…
A break in political hostilities during the summer will give Gillard time to turn her attention to what she must do to become an effective Prime Minister. She has been elevated to the job earlier than she thought she would be and it shows. She clearly hasn’t nailed down yet what she wants her government’s legacy to be.
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Born here, but not Australian
Andrew Bolt
Multiculturalism and high immigration is succeeding in dividing us into a nation of tribes, and all that the mulculturalists can now say is “don’t panic”:
ABDUL SKAF loves the beach, camping and the Canterbury Bulldogs, and he wants to be a police officer...But like many young people from immigrant backgrounds he finds it hard to call himself Australian…===
“If someone asks me my nationality, I’m Lebanese,” he said…
A study of 339 young people aged 14 to 17 who live in Sydney’s west and south-west suburbs found only one-third of them called themselves Australian even though two-thirds were born here.
Instead they identified themselves by their ethnic background as Tongan, Chinese, Lebanese, and so on, and 16 of the indigenous young people identified themselves as Koori or Aboriginal.
Less than half of them also felt ‘’Australian’’ all the time and one-fifth did not feel ‘’Australian’’ at all.
Jock Collins, a professor of economics at the University of Technology, Sydney, who presented findings from the study at a conference in Europe, said the unwillingness of these “cosmopolitan” youth to identify as Australian should not be seen as a problem…
Australian-born Laryn Zabakly, 17, said: “When other people ask my nationality, I tell them the full thing - Syrian-Jordanian-Armenian. But when my parents tell me I’m Arabic, I tell them ‘Nup, I’m Australian.’’..’
For Cansu Sevinc, 14, who came from Turkey when she was five, there is no hesitation: “Turkish,” she said. “I’m proud to be a Turk."…
Yet none have close friends from Anglo backgrounds.
When they move out of familiar territory they sometimes feel uneasy. “I’m more comfortable here than in, say, North Sydney,” Laryn said. Cansu said she might feel more Australian if people from “outside suburbs were more open and friendly”.
Cut spending, Wayne
Andrew Bolt
The deficit ballooning, the spending not slowing, inflation rising, the rising dollar cutting government revenues. No wonder faith in the Gillard Government’s promise of a return to Budget surplus in three years is faltering, and demands are growing for the pruning shears to be taken out at last:
Future Fund chairman David Murray, backed the arguments of the major banks and said the federal government could help to reduce pressure by cutting its budget deficit.===
“The deficit should be eliminated as soon as possible to reduce its draw on the debt markets,” Mr Murray said.
“This would create more space for the markets to fund the banks and, through them, the most productive parts of the economy...”
The rising Australian dollar has stripped $10 billion from the government’s budget revenue, forcing Labor to find fresh savings to rescue its pledge to return to surplus in 2012-13.
No, Rudd’s real mistake wasn’t to retreat from Moscow
Andrew Bolt
It really is time to nail this fraudulent yet popular analysis before Labor does even more damage to itself - and us:(Mark) Arbib, together with Karl Bitar, is held responsible for urging Rudd to make the fatal mistake of his prime ministership. This was Rudd’s decision to abandon the fight for an emissions trading system.Peter Hartcher is far from alone in peddling this wishful thinking. Here’s the same flawed theory from Labor frontbencher Greg Combet
That one decision fractured Rudd’s personal approval ratings, savaged Labor’s share of the vote, demolished Rudd’s credibility, and sent half a million disenchanted voters into the waiting arms of Bob Brown and his Greens party. This decision destroyed Rudd.
We must acknowledge that Labor lost votes to the Left at the federal election. It is clear that some of this vote-switching was caused by the deferral of the CPRS. This has brought into focus the tension between policy principles and pragmatic politics.Even John Howard makes the error:
I think the real watershed moment was when Mr Rudd decided to put off the ETS. It was a huge political mistake for him.How many more examples of the scores I could give do you want? Here’s Professor Rodney Tiffen:
The government has been roundly and justly condemned for its lack of political courage and principle over its backdown on the emissions scheme.Fact: what killed Rudd was not his backing off his disastrous ETS, but promising something politically undeliverable in the first place. The ETS would have been a colossal nightmare, riddled with rorts and bleeding money as the government sought to bribe one sector after another into stifling their screams. And how stupid would we have seemed as voters realised we were inflicting all this pain on ourselves when the rest of the world had calculated their own costs and made crystal clear they had no intention of following our nutty example. Just this week, for instance:
President Barack Obama confirmed on Thursday, following the Democratic Party’s mid-term election drubbing, that the US administration’s cap-and-trade bill for carbon was dead… Speaking after the mid-term results, Mr Obama said: “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.”Fear of the voter backlash is precisely why Julia Gillard herself demanded Rudd drop his ETS scheme - before then assassinating Rudd for having thus been exposed as a charlatan.
So here’s the analogy: to say Rudd’s mistake was to have dropped the ETS is like saying Napoleon’s was to have retreated from Moscow. In fact, neither should have got themselves in that fix anyway.
But here’s the measure of Gillard’s even greater incompetence. Having accepted the ETS was a disastrous that had to be ditched, one of her first acts as Prime Minister has been promise to some “price on carbon” after all.
Which puts Gillard halfway to Moscow already.
(Illustration by The Australian’s Eric Lobbecke.)
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