=== Todays Toon ===
Thank you for those who gave so much that we may enjoy peace. - ed.=== Bible Quote ===
“God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’”- Job 37:5-6=== Headlines ===
Case Closed on Mystery 'Missile' Off California Coast?
When video surfaced of a mysterious vapor trail, many suspected it was a missile — but one blogger says he has proof that this was no missile, but rather a daily occurrence.Obama Debt Panel Wants Tough Cuts
Proposal by the bipartisan deficit commission suggests curbing Social Security and putting mortgage deduction on the cutting table
U.S. Dodges Bullet With Mail Bomb
British authorities say a mail bomb intercepted last month from Yemen could have exploded over the East Coast of the U.S.
Amazon Under Fire Over Pedophile Guide
Consumers are calling for a boycott of the online retail giant after it was found Amazon is selling an e-book entitled 'The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure'
US shares close higher after jobs data
WALL Street trade today closed with small gains, paring early losses.
'New evidence' found in search for Zahra
POLICE investigating the likely murder of Australian 10-year-old Zahra Baker say they may have found a new piece of evidence.
Cracks found in Discovery fuel tank
NASA engineers were considering possible repairs today after discovering two cracks in the fuel tank of the shuttle Discovery.
VicRoads won't observe Remembrance Day
VICROADS has come under fire after confirming it will not observe a minute's silence for Remembrance Day for fear of offending people.
Honeymoon killer released from jail
HONEYMOON killer Gabe Watson has been released from a jail west of Brisbane.
Honeymoon killer Watson leaves jail
HONEYMOON killer Gabe Watson has just been released from prison in Brisbane. First pics
Shots fired into home in drive-by
POLICE are investigating after shots were fired into a home in Sydney's south west early this morning.
Pre-pay taxi fares to curb crime
PASSENGERS will be asked to pay taxi fares up-front from early next year in a trial to stop passengers running off without paying.
Ironman death inquiry for Coroner
THE findings of an independent inquiry into the death of teenage Sydney ironman Saxon Bird have been sent to the coroner.
Breakthrough in IVF screening
COUPLES having trouble conceiving have new hope with a breakthrough in IVF technology that can select healthy sperm.
Inside-out billion-dollar tower
THIS is the first glimpse the controversial building - Barangaroo's "inside-out" high rise.
Joe Tripodi falls on his sword
JOE Tripodi will quit politics today, bringing to an end the career of a most controversial former minister.
A family's love lost in ashes
THE King family were incinerated in a fire that engulfed their Wagga Wagga home. Veteran firefighters said the scene was "horrific".
'Obsessed with McGurk's death'
WHEN Michael McGurk crossed him, developer Ron Medich allegedly wanted him gone.
They say it's not a cash grab ...
A SNEAKY highway patrol marked vehicle on one of Sydney's busiest roads has handed out more than 160 traffic fines to motorists.
Watson leaves jail for detention
HONEYMOON killer Gabe Watson has just been released from prison and driven away in the back of a car with a blanket over his head.
Rock wall falls on man at uni
A ROCK wall has fallen on a man at the University of Queensland, leaving him with head injuries.
Picture: The biggest dope ever?
WHAT a dope. A man who claimed he'd never grown cannabis before was caught out when police found a damning picture on his camera.
Justice for mentally ill in courts
A LANDMARK ruling means hundreds of Queenslanders have been wrongly jailed as magistrates could not to take into account disabilities or mental illness.
Wild Rivers push runs dry
TONY Abbott left the Gulf country yesterday after being savaged in his pitch to the Aboriginal heartland of Queensland's Wild Rivers.
Noosa heads for the Hillsong
MEGA-church Hillsong has confirmed that the tourist mecca of Noosa will be home to its first Queensland congregation outside Brisbane.
'Make girls' school heads female'
DAYS after Ipswich Girls' Grammar announced its first male headmaster, a female principal has said girls' schools need a strong female role model.
Take on Can Do? Yes he will
THE frontrunner to gain preselection as Labor's candidate to topple Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has confirmed he is in the running for the job.
Gas inflates Australia's standing
QUEENSLAND's emerging liquefied natural gas industry will help Australia overtake Norway as the third-largest gas producer among advanced nations by 2035.
Coast warned to brace for wild weather
GOLD Coast residents are being warned to brace themselves for a repeat of violent weather patterns last seen there in the 1960s and '70s.
Funeral burnout cars seized
TWO vehicles were impounded after a Warrnambool funeral when some mourners started doing burnouts.
Screams after morning stabbings
TWO men are fighting for their lives in hospital and a third is in police custody after a stabbing this morning.
Bar accused of sinking the sippers
A TRENDY Melbourne bar has been accused of asking a group of 30 people to leave because they weren't drinking enough alcohol.
Get ready for a wet weekend
TORRENTIAL rain is set to lash Victoria again with thunderstorms and falls of up to 100mm forecast as the state's wet spring continues.
Fight to make Pies pay hotel rent
COLLINGWOOD Football Club has been accused of trying to wriggle out of a lease for the once-booming Beach Hotel.
Ambulances lying idle with no staff
EMERGENCY ambulances have been left abandoned at stations for hundreds of shifts this year despite growing response delays.
Bigamist dobbed in by mum
A CHINESE immigrant's mother flew to Melbourne to tell her son's new wife he was already married, a court has heard.
A lesson about life for us all
THERE were plenty of famous faces on hand to help launch a book about their little mate Tyler Fishlock last night.
Cats free to very good homes
CATS like to be free spirits, and for 100 stray moggies, their wish has come true.
Tiger Masters ghost of longest year
TIGER Woods didn't think twice about returning to Melbourne and the scene of the crime that triggered a scandal and ended his marriage.
Nothing new
Pageant aiming to sing for a record
ADELAIDE will be filled with the sound of Christmas carols as the Credit Union Christmas Pageant attempts a Guinness world record this Saturday.
Show laced with hanky panky
WHERE it goes, nobody knows - but Feast Festival star Ursula Martinez's handkerchief has become an internet sensation.
Italian city's mayor is yet to meet Rann
FOUR years after Mike Rann opened his links to Italy's south, the mayor of Puglia's biggest city says he is still waiting to meet the Premier.
Time to thank our heroes
DAVID Bomford will feel more than just pride today when Australia stops to remember the heroic efforts of its fallen soldiers.
Detention centre previously rejected
FORMER Defence housing at Inverbrackie in the Adelaide Hills had been previously rejected for use as an asylum seeker detention centre.
Bionomics enters takeover play
ADELAIDE drug development company Bionomics has been put into takeover play by its biggest shareholder.
Man arrested over hit -run
A NORTH Haven man has been arrested for an alleged hit-run crash which left a motorcyclist fighting for his life.
Man 'set Sammie on fire'
A WEST Croydon man accused of dousing a dog in petrol before setting him alight will stand trial next year, a court had heard.
Victim' 'lives in constant fear'
A FORMER military seaman says he was horribly injured and stripped of self-confidence by a "savage and unprovoked" bashing in a fast-food restaurant.
Night of fear as bandits strike
WEAPONS ranging from a gun to a block of wood have been used in Adelaide robberies overnight.
Eruption delays Qantas, Jetstar flights
HUNDREDS of Qantas and Jetstar passengers are facing delays after services between Australia and Indonesia were disrupted by ash spewing from Mount Merapi
Barnett warns party over leaks
WA Premier Colin Barnett has sent a warning to his party room after details of a Liberal Party meeting were apparently leaked to the opposition.
Shark Bay council 'failed community'
A DAMNING inquiry into the Shire of Shark Bay has found the council had a reckless disregard for the community and made decisions against the public interest.
Teacher tackles knife-wielding boy
A 16-YEAR-OLD Geraldton boy had a flick knife clenched in his fist when he was tackled to the ground by teachers trying to break up a fight, police say.
Police seek school abduction witness
POLICE want to speak with a man who is believed to have intervened in the attempted abduction of a seven-year-old girl from outside a Banksia Grove school.
Rain hits Perth, South-West
A MASSIVE band of showers is delivering widespread rain to the South-West, Mandurah and metropolitan area.
Home invaders terrorise family
POLICE are hunting two balaclava-clad bandits after a Coogee family was left traumatised by a violent home invasion this morning.
Man seriously injured in city lane
A 36-YEAR-OLD Balga man is recovering in hospital after being found badly injured in a Perth laneway.
Collision grounds navy sub
ONE of the navy's Collins-class submarines has been damaged in a collision with a tug while leaving the HMAS Stirling naval base on Garden Island.
Threatened woylies get new life
IN a bid to boost the species’ survival, the first three of up to 40 critically-endangered woylies were last night released in the state’s South-West.
Tasmania to ban plastic shopping bags
TASMANIA looks set to become the second state to ban plastic bags after a motion passed through the state's lower house.
=== Journalists Corner ===
VIDEO: Pelosi Plans Party for "Productive" CongressPelosi says America "voted for jobs" in last week's election and touts a "productive" Congress. Should she be celebrating the accomplishments of the 111th Congress?
===
12 in 2012: Newt Gingrich
Could the former Speaker of the House make his way to the White House? Bret Baier sits down with Newt Gingrich on what his plans are for 2012.
===
Body Language Breakdown of Obama's 'Daily Show' Interview
No joke! What Obama's body language revealed during his Daily Show sit-down!
Plus, navigating the future! We look at where America's headed post-election! Dick Morris, Dennis Miller and Karl Rove respond!
===
Pervez Musharraf Goes 'On the Record'
The former Pakistani president reacts to the region's role in the war on terror and it's current standing with the U.S. - Greta gets answers.
On Fox News Insider
VIDEO: London Students Breach Conservative Party's London HQHappy Birthday to the U.S. Marine Corps!
VIDEO: Highlights From George W. Bush's Interview with Hannity
Glenn Received a Gift From George Soros...
=== Comments ===
President Bush and TortureBY BILL O'REILLY
This week, President Bush is making the media rounds talking about his new book and explaining some of his controversial decisions while in office. I will interview the president later this week.
But Monday night NBC's Matt Lauer got first crack at him. Mr. Lauer is a good interrogator, but he is a liberal guy and his q and a about waterboarding was very interesting. Watch Mr. Lauer's facial expressions:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT LAUER, CO-HOST, "TODAY" SHOW: Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I'm not a lawyer. And -- but you got to trust the judgment of people around you, and I do. We used this technique on three people.
LAUER: Yes.
BUSH: Captured a lot of people and used it on three. We gained valuable information to protect the country, and it was the right thing to do, as far as I'm concerned.
LAUER: Would it be OK for a foreign country to waterboard an American citizen?
BUSH: All I ask is that people read the book. They can reach the same conclusion if they had made the same decision I made or not.
LAUER: So you'd make the same decision again today?
BUSH: Yes, I would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now from the jump, "Talking Points" has said that in a time of war -- and that's what we're in against Muslim jihadists -- you have to do things you would not ordinarily do. For example, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.
So to waterboard three high-ranking terror suspects in order to get information that likely saved thousands of lives seems to be logical and responsible, unless you live in a theoretical world where feeling noble is the ultimate objective.
That's where some on the American left live -- in the world of theory -- and they have condemned Mr. Bush, making waterboarding and alleged torture a major deal:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: George W. Bush was lying when he said we don't torture. This is not a matter of subjective opinion.
Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime that we are now committing ourselves.
ROSIE O'DONNELL, RADIO SHOW HOST/COMEDIAN: The American government is allowing torture. It comes from the president all the way down.
SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEV.: Anyone that is waterboarded will admit to anything because you basically keep killing that person.
JESSE VENTURA, FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Ironically, President Obama has not suspended coerced interrogation of terrorists. He just orders it done by non-Americans overseas. That should tell us something.
The danger from the jihadists continues to be enormous and some of these people have to be broken.
Again, I don't understand the moral dilemma here. Self-defense is self-defense. Legally you can kill someone who is threatening you, but we can't dunk three terror guys in water?
Mr. Bush makes a persuasive case, pointing out that those who opposed his policies are entitled to their opinions, but they are dead wrong because by using waterboarding, some of us were most certainly kept alive.
===
In Britain, Shock and Awe at the Election Wave
By Theodore Bromund
The British follow our politics far more closely than we follow theirs. That’s because what the U.S. does matters to everyone. Still, reading British coverage of American elections occasionally reminds me of the old joke that our two countries are divided by a common language.
But no one in Britain is denying the scale of the Republican victory. The left-wing Guardian is in the dumps, finding only what one columnist described as “straws of comfort” in the Democrats’ narrow majority in the Senate, which he describes as “more a legislative block than a legislative engine.”
A common theme in British coverage is that it was the Tea Party that won the election, and the Tea Party that lost it. It won, obviously, by taking the House, as well as electing Marco Rubio in Florida and new Republican governors in big states such as Pennsylvania. It lost, the claim goes, because Republicans failed to take Delaware, Nevada and West Virginia -- supposedly theirs for the having.
This bifurcation makes no sense. Either way, without the Tea Party’s energy, the Republicans would have taken very little. In fact, absent the Tea Party, the GOP’s position in the U.S. would have been much like the Conservative Party’s in Britain. The Tories got a bounce in the last election, but it was as much a rejection of Labour as it was a vote for conservatism. That’s why David Cameron now leads a coalition government.
Much of the British media’s analysis of the Tea Party usually starts and ends with the word “angry.” Left unexamined is whether there is anything to be angry about. The big question is whether British politics will mirror America’s. Could a Tea Party take off in Britain?
The British left, of course, hopes not, and British conservatives, by and large, fear the left might be correct. What they are less sure of is why. The answer – if the skeptics are right – is simple: the U.S. is an exceptional country, founded on the belief in the rule of the people. That means its politics are periodically rocked – as they were by the Jacksonians in the 1820s, the Republicans in the 1850s, and by the Goldwater conservatives in the 1960s – by popular movements that draw inspiration from those founding ideas.
But even to a country as generally well-disposed to the U.S. as Britain is, those ideas, and the way they move the American people, can be a little mysterious. That’s why there is a touch of baffled conservative envy. In Britain, the Conservative Party took 13 years to bounce back from its devastating defeat in 1997. In the U.S., conservatives got off the mat in 24 months.
That’s no reason for American conservatives to crow, but it is a reason for them to give thanks. After all, if it hadn’t been for Great Britain, and 1776, there wouldn’t have been a Tea Party.
Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation .
===
Now It's Obama Who Is 'Bitter' and Clinging to Something
By Dan Hill
Look at President Obama’s face during his White House press conference following last week’s post-midterm election debacle, and what do you see? You may not be a facial coding expert like I am, but anybody can recognize –and maybe even be shocked by—the degree to which Barack Obama has gone from the ebullient campaigner of 2008 to a very bitter, frustrated man. The pressed lips and especially the bulge beneath the lower lip betray anger, disgust and sadness, with the last of those emotions accentuated by the narrow, lowered eyes that also reveal disappointment.How, beyond the ghastly specter of partisan sniping and gridlock over pressing national issues, did it come to this point? Why has the president’s originally attractive cool confidence begun to strike many (especially independent) voters as aloof arrogance worth rejecting instead?
To answer that question, let me back up to the two most decisive impressions I got of Barack Obama during the Democratic debates of 2008. Both came in Philadelphia, with the first on October 30, 2007, when Hillary Clinton was caught by the late Tim Russert in a lie about whether she truly wanted to seek the release of Bill Clinton’s presidential papers, as a way to validate her White House experience. When Russert held up a copy of a letter from the Clintons asking for the papers withheld until 2013, first John Edwards pounced, and then by degrees Barack Obama weighed in.
In Obama’s case, he did so with all the bumbling earnestness of his very best impersonation of Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Seizing on Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty and linking it to George W. Bush’s secrecy, Obama established himself as the authentic alternative and I immediately changed my odds of Obama upstaging her for the Democratic nomination to no better than 2-to-1 in favor of Hillary.
The final Democratic debate of 2008 also took place in Philadelphia, on April 16. By then Obama was the front-runner, but under siege, having just made a huge, revealing goof. At a private fundraiser in San Francisco days earlier, he’d infamously said:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone for twenty five years and nothing’s replaced them. So it’s not surprising then that [people there] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
During that debate, Obama tilted his head back (literally looking down his nose at people), faintly curled his upper lip in a sign of disgust and at times even averted his eyes from the viewing audience, as if to say: “I can’t stand the stench in the trench.” Watching that night, I said to myself: a couple of more debate performances like this one, and the White House will never be yours.
Now flash-forward to the recent mid-term elections, and Obama’s take on things. In the run-up to the mid-terms, Obama spoke at an event in New York City about how people’s thinking gets muddled by fear. In dismissing the emotional dynamics of voters caught up in economic distress, let alone a very reasonable, profound concern that the country isn’t headed in the right direction, Obama struck me as confirming the fact that the “bitter” comment he made in San Francisco wasn’t a one-time blooper.
For all his talent and ability to pin his campaign to emotions, i.e., hope, this isn’t a president who is as emotionally literate—and empathetic—as he is an intellectual prone to elitism. But don’t just take my word on it. As the retiring Democratic governor of Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, recently said, “There doesn’t seem to be anybody in the White House who’s got an idea what it’s like to lie awake at night worried about money and worried about things slipping away. They’re all intellectually smart. They’ve got their numbers. But they don’t feel any of it, and I think people sense that” (emphasis added).
President Obama can try to view the midterm slaughter of Democratic candidates as less of a referendum on him and his vaunted communication skills than on the 9.6% national unemployment rate. But just as Hillary Clinton was caught in a big lie by Tim Russert, if Obama’s not more honest with himself in private, then he’s guilty of the reality that in life the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves in order to protect our self-image, energy level, and ability to project ourselves as a winner capable of attracting allies.
The bigger truth is that, ironically enough for a former, caring, grassroots community organizer, Obama thinks his feelings more than he feels them. He can feel free to take the high road in life, but frankly the vast majority of us—and really all of us—live on the low road where our emotions, not reason, drive our decisions and behavior, including how we vote on Election Day.
The president had better find some way to get viscerally in touch with voters, and quickly, because in 2012 he won’t be able to campaign on hope. Instead, he’s got to convince voters through results and the ability to, in so many words, indicate that he “feels their pain.”
It’s been said that courage is the absence of self-deception. It’s now time for the audacity of hope to give way to finding the heartfelt courage and fortitude that both America at large and this president in particular will need to be successful in the years ahead.
Dan Hill is the author of "Face Time," a look at the emotional dynamics of the 2008 presidential race, and the president of the market research consultancy, Sensory Logic.
===
Nancy Pelosi is like Winston Churchill. Or maybe not
Andrew Bolt
===
Amnesty whips up some cash for a former trainee terrorist
Andrew Bolt
David Hicks no longer needs the help or promotion of Amnesty International, even if he ever deserved it. He is now free, after all.
Now he’s merely a convicted supporter of terrorism who trained with al Qaeda, fought with Laska e Toiba, praised jihad and railed against Jews.
So why on earth is Amnesty now helping this clown to make money from his crimes by flogging his whitewashing memoirs as a Christmas gift?
(Thanks to reader Michael.)
===
Boat people win, lawyers celebrate, taxpayers mourn
Andrew Bolt
The Gillard Government’s boat people disaster just got bigger. The nearly 6000 people it now has in detention since Labor weakened our boat people laws in 2008 have just been granted access to our courts by the High Court.
UPDATE:
No, that may not be quite right, it seems:
THE High Court has ruled that two Sri Lankan asylum-seekers were denied procedural fairness under the Migration Act, in a judgment which could have implications for offshore processing.Some background to this morning’s decision:
The two Tamil asylum-seekers, M61 and M69, were refused refugee status and have since been detained while they challenged the legality of Australia’s offshore processing regime.
The unanimous High Court judgment ruled the asylum-seekers were denied procedural fairness in the review of the assessment of their claims.
The High Court said the processing agency which determined that Australia did not have protection obligations to M61 and M69 made an error in failing to treat the Migration Act “as no more than guides to decision-making”.
The High Court found that the asylum-seekers’ forced detention had a direct impact on their rights.
But the full bench of the High Court did not uphold the asylum-seekers’ broader challenge to the validity of section 46A of the Migration Act, which could have resulted in thousands of asylum-seeker determinations being thrown into jeopardy.
Two Sri Lankan Tamils are challenging the Government’s decision to refuse them asylum.A Fijian asylum seeker has already shown us what we may be up for now, with his own court history detailed in a Federal Magistrates Court judgment which went against him once more:
The men wanted Immigration Minister Chris Bowen to personally review their case.
But they were told he had no duty to do so because they were being held offshore on Christmas Island.
The men’s lawyers are claiming the Federal Government’s processing procedures on Christmas Island are unlawful and unconstitutional.
They say if the High Court finds in their favour then all failed asylum seekers could be given the right to appeal in Australian courts.
03.06.2000 Applicant arrived in AustraliaUPDATE
DIMIA
06.06.2000 Application for protection visa lodged
23.08.2000 Delegate’s decision
RRT
31.08.2000 Application for review lodged
27.04.2001 RRT hearing
08.06.2001 RRT decision handed down
High Court of Australia – S1494 of 2003
17.08.2001 Applicant joined Lie class action seeking order nisi (S89/1999)
25.11.2002 Order of Gaudron J remitting matter to FCA
Federal Court of Australia – N1785 of 2003
20.02.2004 Order of Emmett J refusing order nisi
Federal Magistrates Court – SZ2900 of 2004
22.09.2004 Application lodged
08.08.2005 Leave granted by Nicholls FM to file notice of discontinuance
Federal Court of Australia – NSD295 of 2007
01.03.2007 Application for an extension of time to file notice of appeal lodged
11.05.2007 Order of Spender J dismissing application
RRT
12.06.2007 Application for further review of delegate’s decision lodged
03.07.2007 RRT decision – no jurisdiction
Federal Magistrates Court – SYG2387 of 2007
02.08.2007 Application for judicial review
24.10.2007 Orders of Barnes FM dismissing application
Federal Court of Australia – NSD2257 of 2007
15.11.2007 Application for leave to appeal filed
15.11.2007 Affidavit of applicant filed
06.03.2008 Orders of Reeves J dismissing application for leave to appeal
DIAC
04.09.2009 Application for Child (Residence) (Class BT) visa
18.11.2009 Delegate’s decision
MRT
15.12.2009 Application for review
24.05.2010 MRT hearing
28.05.2010 MRT decision dated
Federal Magistrates Court – SYG1459 of 2010
01.07.2010 Application for judicial review lodged
01.07.2010 Affidavit of first applicant filed
Reader Malcolm Davies explains:
In fairness it should be pointed out that the decision concerns s 46A which was inserted by the Howard Government in 2001.UPDATE 2
The decision is to the effect that the Minister is not compelled to grant a visa,but once he delegates the power procedural fairness must apply. Accordingly the Minister is within his rights to make a decision that he will refuse all applications where the applicant arrives by an irregular vessel.
In fact, the Gillard Government cannot rule out the possibility that nearly 6000 people in detention now have access to our courts to delay any deportation. In fact, it’s already conceding that processing claims will probably now take longer, which can only mean that detention centres will come under even more strain:
REFUGEE claims may now take longer but a landmark High Court ruling does not mean offshore processing of asylum-seekers is invalid, the government says.===
However Immigration Minister Chris Bowen today admitted today’s judgment had “significant ramifications” and needed to be worked through methodically.
The full bench of the High Court unanimously rejected the federal government’s attempt to keep asylum-seekers on Christmas Island outside the protection of Australian law… The ruling questions the legality of the system under which asylum-seekers who arrive by boat and are detained offshore are denied access to Australian courts, and treated differently to those who arrive on the mainland…
Mr Bowen said he had sought advice on the ruling’s implications for both offshore processing and regional processing, including Labor’s proposed centre in East Timor.
“The preliminary advice to me is that there is not a significant implication for regional processing, but of course I will be seeking further advice,” he told reporters.
But Mr Bowen foreshadowed longer waits in detention for asylum-seekers requesting reviews of their refugee claims.
“It’s a judgment which has the potential to elongate the amount of time it takes to process refugee claims, that’s what I mean by significant ramifications,” Mr Bowen said.
Cut off by the rest of the warmist world
Andrew Bolt
Sir Simon Rattle, the very fine chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, is a global warmist.
Naturally, he’s also a hypocrite - flying when he knows he shouldn’t, and demanding sacrifices that will fall much harder on others, in this case Australians:
When he brings the Berlin Philharmonic to Australia this month it will not only be their first trip to this continent but also the farthest he has ever flown.... Lufthansa will provide the orchestra with its own 747 for the journey.Consider for a moment the implications of what’s he’s advocated and predicted. If we do indeed become so “carbon capped” that Rattle and his orchestra will be unable to fly to Australia, then an Australian conductor and orchestra will be likewise unable to fly to Europe. Not just them, either, we’ll be trapped on this far-off continent.
”I’m sure within my lifetime we won’t be able to tour such distances. We’ll probably be carbon-capped,” says Rattle. “And I really hope we will. Constant air flight will have to die out. But for those of us who really believe that music is different in every part of the world and that music should be live, it’s something else. We need to hear Australian orchestras and they need to hear German orchestras....”
===
Judges are not of a caste but of the people
Andrew Bolt
It is a warning, and just shouting it down will not avert the future Abbott suggests. Rather the reverse:
CHANGES to the legal system, including the election of judges, are “almost inevitable” if courts continue to give light sentences, Tony Abbott has said.===
The Opposition leader made the comments during a community forum in Brisbane last night when the subject of crime and punishment came up.
“I never want lightly to change our existing systems, but I’ve got to say if we don’t get a better sense of the punishment fitting the crime, this is almost inevitable,” he said.
“If judges don’t treat this kind of thing appropriately, sooner or later, we will do something that we’ve never done in this country. We will elect judges. And we will elect judges that will better reflect want we think is our sense of anger at this kind of thing.”
VicRoads: Sorry we’re here and fought for our freedoms
Andrew Bolt
No wonder so many children of migrants here don’t consider themselves Australian. How keen we are to apologise not just for our traditions and history, but for our mere presence.
Witness the latest craven madness:
VICROADS has come under fire after confirming it will not observe a minute’s silence for Remembrance Day for fear of offending people. The Victorian Government agency told 3AW radio it has not observed the tradition for a number of years as it is “conscious of possible different cultural issues and don’t wish to cause offence to anyone”.But on the other hand:
The traditional Indigenous owners of the land should be acknowledged at the start of VicRoads meetings with Indigenous stakeholder groups, or in meetings that involve the discussion of Indigenous issues.What a terrible message VicRoads’ bosses are sending. They are suggesting that their multicultural staff includes migrants who’d be offended if we honored in a traditional way those who lost their lives in this nation’s service. They are suggesting theese staff are also so intolerant that they cannot have others honor those dead in their presence.
This means either that we are importing people who actually should not be here, being at war with some of our most fundamental traditions and signs of unity. Or perhaps VicRoads is falsely assuming most migrants are such xenophobes and bigots, and is giving good people a bad name.
On MTR 1377 this morning, Roads Minister Tim Pallas told me this decision was stupid and he’d overruled it.
UPDATE
Pallas suggested to me that VicRoads did not want to offend an anti-war faction in the staff, but claimed not to know whether VicRoads was really trying to placate multiculturalists. That’s certainly suggested by VicRoads’ statement:
The Victorian Government agency told 3AW radio it has not observed the tradition for a number of years as it is ”conscious of possible different cultural issues and don’t wish to cause offence to anyone”.“Cultural issues” doesn’t sound to me like VicRoads’ wayof describing problems with anti-war activists. No, I think the problem is what Pallas didn’t want to discuss.
What some of the coverage - especially on the ABC - is missing is the crux of the issue: It’s not so much that VicRoads did not want to observe Remembrance Day, but the reasons it gave for it. We may excuse indifference to the day “for cultural reasons”, but not hostility to it.
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
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Yet another fraud of a “green power” scheme. And $1 billion gone
Andrew Bolt
Yet another Labor scheme to save the planet spends far too much on simply seeming good, but achieving little:
MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found.But what’s a mere $1 billion of waste between green friends?
The review of the now scrapped federal government solar rebate scheme, conducted by ANU researchers Andrew Macintosh and Deb Wilkinson, also found the rebates did little to generate a solar manufacturing industry in Australia, instead sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars offshore.
Mr Macintosh, deputy head of ANU’s Centre for Climate Law and Policy, told The Age yesterday the rebate had been ‘’beautiful politics, terrible policy’’…
All solar panel systems installed under the program combined reduced Australia’s emissions by just 0.015 per cent, and cost up to $301 per tonne of carbon saved - hundreds more than the cost of emissions reductions with a carbon price.
As for that Greens yammer about “green jobs”, only the Chinese are grateful:
While the rebate benefited the domestic solar industry by up to $780 million, it did little to develop a value-adding manufacturing industry in Australia. Instead solar panels imports, mainly from China, rose from $17 million to $295 million between 2002 and 2009Now count the duds, all justified in the name of “saving the planet”:
- the green loans fiasco
- the free insulation debacle
- the “cash for clunkers” dud
- the NSW solar rebate blowout
- the solar hot water rebate rorting
- the Copenhagen circus
- the wind power that vanishes with the wind
- the desalination disasters
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Tear down the new racial divides
Andrew Bolt
I’m not sure that former Labor minister Gary Johns realises that saying this is now legally dangerous:
Already we see the complaint from fair-skinned Aborigines that they are being refused jobs reserved for Aborigines. Those, who because of their looks could never have suffered prejudice, are denied the assistance specifically meant for those who may have suffered prejudice. Identity politics should not be used for people who suffer no prejudice greater than any other.But Johns’ arguments are important if we are to tackle Aboriginal dysfunction and fight the new racism:
To make up for this failure of separatism, the Aboriginal lobby, led as it is by wholly integrated Aborigines of mixed descent, is desperate to have every Australian recognise their culture.(No comments allowed for legal reasons.)
The trouble is, Aboriginal culture, in any sense in which the original inhabitants practised it, is long gone. Elements of the original that remain, such as polygamy and underage sex, are illegal or, in the case of sorcery, re-emerging around places such as Yuendumu and Groote Island, is just plain evil.
The fact is, with Aboriginal intermarriage rates at more than 70 per cent and most Aborigines living in the cities and regions and fast integrating, the question of identity is looking very thin. Much more important, Aboriginal identity and culture is a matter for those who claim its ownership, it should not be force-fed to the rest of the nation. If children are to be taught Aboriginal culture, I want for them the full unexpurgated version, not the pretty commemoration of recent invention that one can pick up on the bookshelf at the ABC shop or a university politics department.
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The closing of the Australian mind
Andrew Bolt
Professor Bob Carter:
Many Australian parents have been surprised to learn (Al) Gore’s (An Inconvenient Truth) “will be incorporated in the [new] national [English] curriculum ), as part of a bid to teach students on environmental sustainability across all subjects"…===
Australian schools are being transformed from institutions that impart a rigorous education into social reform factories that manufacture right-thinking (which is to say, left-thinking) young clones ready to be admitted into the chattering classes…
Two other biases in the public debate about global warming have occurred recently. The first was the launching of the website Power Shift 2009, which describes itself as “Australia’s first national youth climate summit. It’s the moment where [sic] our fast-growing youth movement for a safe climate future [whatever that might be] comes together”.
In reality, this is simply another website aimed at indoctrinating children regarding global warming, and while it’s not surprising to see Greenpeace and GetUp are involved, it is disappointing to see the involvement of persons with the mana of Ian Thorpe.
The second recent bias has been the broadcast on ABC Radio National of the George Munster Award Forum from the Sydney University of Technology. Here, a panel of “Australia’s top journalists” examined the proposition: “Telling both sides of the story is a basic rule of journalism, but should it apply to reporting climate change?”
Stellar contributions made by the journalists involved included the notions that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, that 97 per cent of all climate scientists agree that dangerous human-caused global warming is happening, and that there is no real debate about climate change. Independent scientists who question these specious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change orthodoxies - for the good reason that they are untrue - were referred to as denialists, fruitcakes, clowns and fools who had “invaded the ABC”. Giving them airtime was said to “attack the essence of journalism"…
This farrago of nonsense was described by one US scientist who listened as “probably the most horrifying and disturbing Big Ideas-Small Minds discussion by journalists I have ever heard”. Book-burning parties for Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth or my own Climate: the Counter Consensus can’t be far away, and if the persons involved in the forum were Australia’s top environmental journalists, then God help us all.
Australia is rightly vigilant about preventing child abuse and guarding the freedom of the press. Why, then, are we so willing to tolerate the abuse of educational indoctrination of our children and the deliberate limitation on the scope of the media discussions they will be exposed to as adults?
Bolt endorses Brumby over Bailleau
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Ladies, be reassured. Saudi Arabia will guard your rights
Andrew Bolt
The United Nations is not completely crazy. Just half:
IRAN failed in an election overnight to secure a seat on the executive board of the new UN super agency to improve women’s rights after fierce lobbying by western nations and rights groups.===
Saudi Arabia, whose candidacy was also criticised, secured an automatic seat.
Iran was beaten to an Asian regional seat by East Timor, a late entrant to the contest, in a vote at the UN General Assembly.
Iran had originally been guaranteed a seat because the Asia region had only put forward 10 candidates for 10 seats.
Diplomats said East Timor later put itself forward as a spoiler as controversy mounted over Iran’s rights record, particularly toward women.
Wilkommen, Fraulein Gillard
Andrew Bolt
South Korea’s souvenir sellers welcome the Prime Minister of Austria to the G20 summit.===
What is it with the Left and violence?
Andrew Bolt
The latest example, from Britain:
A huge demonstration against tuition fees by tens of thousands of students and lecturers descended into violence today when a group of protesters smashed their way into the headquarters of the Conservative party.(Thanks to readers Mark and YankeeBravo.)
A number of police officers were injured after they came under attack from youths, some wearing scarves to hide their faces, amid scenes of chaos…
One policewoman with a bloody wound to her head was led away from the side of the building by two colleagues. A stick was thrown at her as she went.
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But when Michelle reaches out…
Andrew Bolt
The headline:
Barack Obama reaches out to IslamThe speech in Indonesia:
Before I came here, I visited Istiqlal mosque—a place of worship that was still under construction when I lived in Jakarta. And I admired its soaring minaret and its imposing dome and welcoming space. But its name and history also speak to what makes Indonesia great. Istiqlal means independence, and its construction was in part a testament to the nation’s struggle for freedom. Moreover, this house of worship for many thousands of Muslims was designed by a Christian architect. (Applause.)Indonesia’s Information Minister responds to this reaching out to demonstrate Indonesia’s inclusive philosophy:
Such is Indonesia’s spirit. Such is the message of Indonesia’s inclusive philosophy, Pancasila.
A CONSERVATIVE Muslim government minister admits he shook hands with First Lady Michelle Obama in welcoming her to Indonesia but says it wasn’t his choice…The YouTube clip makes a liar of him:
”I tried to prevent (being touched) with my hands but Mrs Michelle held her hands too far toward me (so) we touched,’’ Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring told tens of thousands of followers on Twitter… His denial was in a response to tweets from Indonesians who noted the handshake and questioned his long-standing claims that, as a good Muslim, he restricts his contact with women.
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