- David Daniel Ball released. But I am glad that life goes on. A friend who had been raised in an abusive environment passed the other week after a long bout with cancer. Despite all the hurt in her life, she died singing god's praises. Vite E Bella.13 hours ago ·
i had lived amongst that when i was in syd doing uni. They were my neighbours & i know of 1 regular victim. We lived in the villawood bronx. At the time, i did not know she was a victim, she described me every single detail & seemed to enjoy the benefits, she got a new car, phones, money & drugs out of it. All she had to do was 'bend over so they could do her leb style'. that could have been me, i was just the wrong colour.2 hours ago · · 1 perso
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David Daniel Ball Well, some girls enjoy sex. But I don't think that many enjoy being gang raped. I don't think this particular victim enjoyed being threatened with a gun, defecated on and urinated on. It wasn't fun and she might have expected that they would kill her at the end. I think there is a difference here between the street cred of some and the deliberate violence of others.
WEDDING BELLS
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:42 am)
Her marriage to the Greens isn’t working out, so why not give the hairdresser a shot:
Julia Gillard’s partner, Tim Mathieson, wants to marry the Prime Minister.
Mathieson, 54, who has been married before and has three children, is yet to discuss his plan with the PM.
But the “First Bloke” insists when the time is right he will take the lead and pop the question.
“I’d like to ask her,” he said.
“We’re just happy with the way we are, but I would hope if I did ask her that of course she would say ‘yes’. Absolutely.”
Perhaps Tim will re-grow his famous moustache for the occasion, which according to a Fairfax source may come sooner rather than later:
“It was going to happen just before she became prime minister but it was put off because of that,” the source told Fairfax media, who speculate that Ms Gillard and her beau could walk down the aisle in the first weekend of June.
The vows could be an issue.
SUNDAY ANDREW
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:34 am)
The Bolt Report. Channel Ten. 10am and again at 4.30pm. Today’s guests: former federal Liberal treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW Labor treasurer Michael Costa.
FAIR POVERTY
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:33 am)
If you’re ever offered anything described as “fair trade”, the correct response is to immediately dash it to the ground. By so doing, you might liberate poor farmers:
That fair-trade cup of coffee we savour may not only fail to ease the lot of poor farmers, it may actually help to impoverish them, according to a study out recently from Germany’s University of Hohenheim.
The study, which followed hundreds of Nicaraguan coffee farmers over a decade, concluded that farmers producing for the fair-trade market “are more often found below the absolute poverty line than conventional producers.”
They’re shackled by the chains of dull-witted international concern. Seek out free trade.
(Via R. Black)
416 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S WA SHAKEDOWN TAX
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:29 am)
Western Australia’s reward for all that mining revenue:
New Synergy boss Trevor James is warning WA householders to brace for more financial pain, tipping Julia Gillard’s carbon tax will up their annual power bill by about $200.
With electricity prices expected to go up again in this week’s State Budget by about 5 per cent, Mr James said Synergy expected the Prime Minister’s carbon tax to increase power prices even more.
James also has this advice for householders:
“When they buy a product, understand it before buying it. That is the first step.
“The second step is operating it. Make sure you can afford the ongoing operating costs of appliances.”
The same is true of governments.
SOME LIKE IT WARM
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:11 am)
Greenlanders shun coldness:
Few places on Earth have seen starker changes in weather than this icebound island straddling the Arctic Circle. With that in mind, America’s top diplomat arrived here this week intent on calling attention to the perils of climate change.
The problem was that Greenlanders aren’t exactly complaining.
In fact, as Secretary of State of Hillary Rodham Clinton toured snow-covered fjords on Thursday, there were awkward reminders of Greenland’s embrace of the rise in temperatures that began two decades ago. Rather than questioning global warming, many of this island’s 60,000 inhabitants seem to be racing to cash in.
If anyone can restore ice to Greenland, it’s Hillary. She once got into an elevator I was in during a Democrat convention. Temperature dropped ten degrees.
FACE THE MUSIC
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 15, 11 (05:22 am)
In Florida, a 64-year-old female art teacher takes action against a disrespectful student:
According to a Hernando County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, 64-year-old Sandra Hadsock was arrested Wednesday after taking two or three swings at a student in the hallway. The student received a minor injury on his lip.
Joe Vitalo, president of the Hernando Classroom Teachers Association says Hadsock maintains she acted in self-defense. Vitalo says the incident was captured by a cell phone camera.
As a former disrespectful student who entirely deserved every punch I got – and many more I avoided – let me say: way to go, Mrs Hadsock.
PRIVATE BIN
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 14, 11 (04:58 pm)
A discordant note from the New York Times:
The enormous cache of computer files taken from Osama bin Laden’s compound contained aconsiderable quantity of pornographic videos, American officials said on Friday, adding a discordant note to the public image of the Islamist militant who long denounced the West for its lax sexual mores.
Osama’s bin wankin’. The Taliban tugman probably feasted upon delicious forbidden infidel food, too. Speaking of which, the 2011 International World Championship Barbecue Cooking Championship in Memphis was threatened by massive Mississippi flooding:
But nearly 250 cooking teams turned out anyway with names such as “Pigs Gone Wild,” “Notorious P.I.G,” “The People’s Republic of Swina,” and “Not Ready for Swine Time Porkers.”
This grand event has been held every year for decades, and always attracts a discerning crowd.
UPDATE. Roger Simon: Release the porn!
UPDATE II. Not for the first time, me and Col Allan are on the same wavelength.
Thailand also wants to send us refugees
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:33 am)
Not surprised Thailand wants a deal like this, to ship out its own refugees:
Thai Foreign Minister, Kasit Piroyma, ...made the comments at a joint press conference with Australian Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd…
“The agreement between Australia and Malaysia on this particular model based on a five to one ratio, is something that the rest of us would be interested to look at and to study and look at the possibility of future operations.”
If it’s cold, it’s just weather
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 15, 11 (06:02 am)
If it had been the hottest instead, they’d have called it global warming:
Parts of Victoria, including Shepparton, Orbost, Bairnsdale, Portland, Warrnambool, Moorabin, Scoresby, Frankston and Cranbourne have shivered through their coldest start to May on record.
Mathieson tells us what he hasn’t yet discussed with Julia
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 15, 11 (05:58 am)
And I hope they will be happy:
JULIA Gillard’s partner, Tim Mathieson, wants to marry the Prime Minister.
Mathieson, 54, who has been married before and has three children, is yet to discuss his plan with the PM.
But the “First Bloke” insists when the time is right he will take the lead and pop the question.
“I’d like to ask her,” he said.
“We’re just happy with the way we are, but I would hope if I did ask her that of course she would say ‘yes’. Absolutely.”
So far it’s not working
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, May 14, 11 (01:53 pm)
So the first 32 haven’t been scared off - which leaves just 768 to deter before the Malaysia boat swap deal is exhausted:
The vessel was intercepted just off Scott Reef, north of Broome, the government said on Saturday.
On board were 32 people, believed to be from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and one crew member.
Intercepted boats normally would be taken to Christmas Island for refugee-claim processing.
But, the latest boat would be dealt with under the new arrangements, said Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.
So why does a “saving” cost us more?
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, May 14, 11 (09:42 am)
Ross Gittins prides himself on being an economics commentator. So he should be ashamed to repeat the Gillard Government’s lie that a tax rise in its Budget is a “saving”:
It’s also true that, though Wayne Swan - or more likely, Penny Wong - achieved savings worth $22 billion over four years (with two-thirds of the savings coming from spending cuts and the remainder from the temporary flood levy and cuts in ‘’tax expenditures’’ or concessions), these have been offset by new spending programs worth about $17 billion over four years.
Then there’s this bizarre counter in a column in which Gittins seems overall to be rowing back a bit from his initial eager endorsement of the Budget that admits to a $49.4 billion deficit:
It’s true, however, that the speed with which the budget is expected to return to surplus is owed also to the return of the resources boom. So one critic has written that ‘’the inadequacy of Wayne Swan’s fourth budget has left Australia highly vulnerable to the gathering risks in the global economy, punting everything on our China luck continuing to hold’’.It’s true that, should China fall in a hole, our return to budget surplus would be greatly delayed. But can you spot the weakness in that argument? If our boom evaporated, the need to get back to surplus ASAP would also evaporate.
Can you spot the weakness in that argument? If our boom evaporated, the need to have a surplus ASAP - as in today- would be absolutely critical in providing us with the money we’d need for another round of stimulus spending or simply to get by.
UPDATE
Terry McCrann says this is just another Labor Government - high taxing and big spending:
The spending toughness aspect is easily dismissed. By Appendix B in Swan’s own Budget Overview. The $22bn to be cut over four years to 2014-15 follows a line detailing $19bn of planned spending....The best guide to the revenue side is the 2008 budget, Swan’s first…
It shows that revenue has taken a big hit from the rosy expectations of pre-GFC 2008. Now revenue is expected to be only $342bn against 2008’s forecast of $367bn.
And spending is now forecast to be $362bn, much higher than the 2008 projection.
Simply put, the reason we are heading for a $23bn deficit next year rather than the 2008 projection of a $19bn surplus is half revenue shortfall and half spending blowout....
The true story of what has happened is that the Rudd-Gillard governments presided over a massive two-year increase in spending not seen since the Whitlam years in the mid-1970s.
Yes, much of that was deliberate Keynesian pump priming (during the GFC). But crucially, and dammingly, it wasn’t withdrawn when the crisis and necessity passed.
Over the two years 2008-09 and 2009-10, real spending leapt more than 17 per cent. Incredibly, it rose a further 0.7 per cent in 2010-11. It will rise again in the coming year and is finally forecast to ease all of 0.1 per cent in 2012-13—there’s that fiscal manana again.
The fiscal frugality that Swan trumpets, the greatest fiscal consolidation in a lifetime, will leave spending in 2014-15 a staggering 23 per cent higher in real terms than the level he inherited from Costello.
UPDATE 2
It’s flopped:
As the Prime Minister yesterday hit the road trying to sell her Government’s first Budget to the people, a Galaxy poll shows barely one in four voters believe the package will be good for Australia’s economy.
The result was better under Kevin Rudd’s leadership last year, when 43 per cent of voters considered his Government’s 2010 Budget good for the economy. Now, only 28 per cent have backed the Wayne Swan Budget that focused on a welfare overhaul and getting Australians back to work.
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