Tutu much impressed by Marrickville’s anti-Israel pose
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (09:17 pm)
YOU have to worry when a comedian has more moral sense than an archbishop. But that is the conclusion to draw from the news that South Africa’s celebrated cleric Desmond Tutu has written a letter congratulating Marrickville Council’s attempted Israel boycott.
“I want to pay my respects to you and your fellow Councillors in Marrickville for taking a stand to isolate the Israeli state,” wrote the 79-year-old Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, to Marrickville’s Greens mayor Fiona Byrne.
You’d think Tutu might find more pressing humanitarian concerns in the Middle East to write letters about than continuing to demonise the only democracy in the region.
For instance, he could have penned a stiff letter to the Syrian government condemning the torture murder by its security forces of a cherubic-faced 13-year-old boy, Hamza al-Khatib.
This was the point made by comedian Austen Tayshus, aka Sandy Gutman, on the ABC’s Q&A program this week, after Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon revealed the glorious existence of the Tutu letter.
“Why aren’t you obsessed with Syria?” Gutman asked Rhiannon.
“In fact, why don’t you send a flotilla to Syria? Because Syria has now murdered 1100 people of its own citizens.”
We could ask the same question of Tutu. Where is his advocacy on behalf of a little boy whose broken body was delivered back to his parents covered with cigarette burns, bullet holes and a hole where his penis used to be?
The one democracy in the Middle East where little Arab boys are safest is the one place Tutu is trying to destroy.
Give that man a Sydney Peace Prize. Oh, wait, we already did.
A cruel irony to kill off $700m industry
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (07:12 pm)
IF you can bring yourself to watch Sarah Ferguson’s Four Corners report about the Indonesian slaughterhouses where Australian cattle are so cruelly treated, then you will feel sick to the stomach.
FALSE ALARMISTS
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 09, 11 (06:10 am)
It’s a mini-Climategate. The great Death Threat Horror of 2011 is now revealed to be a mess of fabrications and exaggerations based on out-of-date communications. Oh yeah!
Initial reports claimed that threatening emails had forced climate scientists at the Australian National University toremove their names from staff directories and office doors, relocate to more secure buildings, decline meetings unless accompanied by guards, install upgraded home security systems and switch to unlisted phone numbers.
Curiously, however, the Australian Federal Police said “it has not been contacted by the university.” Well, they were busy with all the new security. Things get overlooked.
Then came former Courier-Mail climate activist Graham Readfearn’s publication of eight recent “death threats” – his term – allegedly sent by sceptics to members of the climate panic community. According to Readfearn, all of the “threats” had been emailed since January this year.
Really, Graham?
Here are extracts from three of the eight emails published by Readfearn, followed by extracts from three emails published 16 months ago in a column by Clive Hamilton:
• “There will be a day of facing the music for the [clipped] type frauds … [clipped] you are a f**king fool!”
• “If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you.”
• “F**k off mate, stop the personal attacks. Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT.”
And now the Hamilton collection, from February 2010:
• “There will be a day of facing the music for the Pitman type frauds ... Pitman you are a f**king fool!”
• “If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you.”
• “F**k off mate, stop the personal attacks. Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT.”
So, contrary to Readfearn, these emails have been kicking around since at least early last year (detection credit to commenter Joe V. at Joanne Nova’s). And it gets worse for our trembly friends, because it turns out that the emails aren’t even the main problem. The serious threats – both of them – date back to the Howard era, as Andrew Carswell reports:
Claims prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU’s climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago.
Neither was officially reported to ACT Police or Australian Federal Police, despite such crimes carrying a 10-year prison sentence.
As for the gigantic new security now in place at the university:
The Daily Telegraph has discovered the nine scientists and staff in question were merely given keyless swipe cards – routine security measures taken last year.
Some old, already-exposed emails. A five-year-old letter. And an argument at a faculty wine-and-cheese night. That’s the extent of the threats facing Australian climate scientists. Must these people exaggerate everything?
CLASS ACTION AHEAD
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 09, 11 (04:16 am)
Reader and Ellis claimant Anthony Leach asks:
Anyone else get a letter from that pathetic loser Bob Ellis today in relation to Tim Blair’s Free Bob Dollars?
Ellis, who’d previously promised a $2.04 windfall to everybody who was outraged by his weak columns, isn’t paying up.
SOMEONE MAY HAVE BEEN DRINKING
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 09, 11 (04:14 am)
This text message arrived unbidden at 8.24pm on Tuesday night, sent by a prominent Sydney journalist:
Is hall and oates gay
391 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S ALENE COMPOSTA TAX
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 09, 11 (04:07 am)
The great lady of Seddon still pursues justice, despite her tragic electric oven suicide:
Cooked cranium, cat-nibbled portions and all, Alene Composta has risen from the grave to fight for the carbon dioxide tax.
Fight on, Alene! The Feral Drumming Orchestra of Tasmania is with you!
OLD BOILER THROWN OUT
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 09, 11 (03:37 am)
Julia Gillard feels the heat:
Taxpayers have had to splash out on a $66,000 replacement hot water system at the Prime Minister’s home in Canberra – and it’s not even solar.
Julia Gillard, who is campaigning for a carbon tax, was “surprised” when told of the cost of upgrading the 1970s rooftop unit at The Lodge, with the work ticked off by bureaucrats before she moved in.
Another debacle she can blame on Kevin Rudd. Seriously, though: $66,000 for a hot water system? Shop around, Julia.
NBN brings wealth
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (11:28 am)
The National Broadband Network has helped lift the incomes of many Australians already:
THE cost of staff for the National Broadband Network has reached $132 million a year against revenue of only $3 million this year.
Executives are on big salaries - 34 NBN Co staff are on between $300,000 and $400,000 a year, putting some of them ahead of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Advice for the sceptical politician
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (11:26 am)
Notes for politicians: how to answer questions on global warming without seeming a denialist or a sell-out.
(Thanks to reader Mark.)
Farrelly demands the censorship that should scare her
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (10:37 am)
I’ve never called for the censoring of Elizabeth Farrelly, even when this Sydney Morning Herald journalist peddles utterly baseless scares such as this:
I’ve never demanded she be silenced, even when she writes bigoted drivel like this:
Christianity, one of the world’s most violent and progressivist religions, is usually seen as justifying human dominance; the world created for our use, and all that.
I’ve never asked that she be stripped of her right to speak, even when she licenses race-based hatreds, like this:
But personally, I’m mystified that any Aboriginal person harbours anything but the most violent of hatreds towards whites.
I’ve never suggested the authorities take away her licence to opine, even when she praises dictatorships like this:
Whether non-democracies such as China will negotiate the rapids of the coming century more adroitly remains to be seen. Certainly, freed from any need to pander to the 80/80 rule, they have at least one freedom Western-style democracies do not have – the freedom to act decisively.
I haven’t even asked for Farrelly to be sacked for fostering the most arrogant class-envy like this:
Which is to say, we’ve built a society where education and wealth have become so estranged thatthose who can afford beachfronts or architects, and especially both at once, are unlikely to have anything much in the way of tastebuds.
Nor do I demand Farrelly be driven out of town for sheer silliness or religious extremism like this:
What a shame, then, that Farrelly cannot extend the same tolerance that protects her to those with whom she she disagrees:
Take Alan Jones. Though it pains me to say it, he is forcing me to change my mind. Not on climate change, or cycling, or the right to public protest, all of which he opposes, but on censorship…
You don’t have to look far to see what happens without logic’s civilising structures; it’s the cultural equivalent of those Indonesian abattoirs. Yet this is where shock jocks are coming from and where, if they had their way, they would take us, forcing me to wonder whether censorship mightn’t be reasonable after all.
I’ll say it again: the Left is the natural home of the closet totalitarian.
(Thanks to reader Bruce.)
King Cole
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (10:26 am)
Reader elsie marks a birthday:
American composer Cole Porter born June 9th, 1891, wrote so many of the 20th century’s hit songs that it is quite difficult to choose one. However here is Ella Fitzgerald singing a great version of Night and Day:
This ban seems too wide to be productive
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (08:49 am)
JAKARTA has sought an urgent assurance from Canberra that its cattle ban does not breach international trade laws, as it considers relaxing its health rules and replacing Australian cattle with imports from India and South America.
A day after Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig declared a six-month ban on Australian exports to Indonesia, ... Mr Bayu also warned that the Australian ban could represent discrimination against his nation and could be raised with the World Trade Organisation....
Industry body LiveCorp estimates the live export industry props up about 11,000 jobs across related industries such as transport, stevedoring, quarantine services and feed lot management. The live export trade across all markets generates about $1 billion in revenue and another $830 million in earnings for the wider economy....
Asked what would happen to the 700 indigenous employees working on 82 cattle stations across the nation’s north, including 54 in the Northern Territory, (the Prime Minister) conceded the decision created difficulties for the industry....
In Jakarta yesterday, Mr Bayu said his country had previously refused to export cattle from nations such as India to preserve its status as a foot and mouth disease-free nation.
UPDATE
Alan Oxley says our ban robs Indonesia’s poor of food:
The government’s decision to ban exports will increase the price of meat, a staple for Indonesia’s poor, by more than one third…
Australian cattle account for more than a third of the meat consumed in Indonesia, a country in which nearly 40 million people live below the poverty line. Surely it is more inhumane to use the leverage of inducing food shortages among the poor than to see animals mistreated.
UPDATE
So dire is this Government that even Michelle Grattan has had enough:
THE government is now in a dreadful mess on the cattle issue - caught between angry exporters and the animal welfare activists calling for a complete ban on the live animal export trade. It will be seen as another example of the government being unable to do anything properly.
Kevin won’t help Julia
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (06:59 am)
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd won’t help Julia Gillard resolve her worst foreign policy problem:
THE Papua New Guinea half of the Gillard solution to the wave of asylum-seekers is slipping away as Canberra awaits the resolution of political machinations in our nearest neighbour.
The sacking on Tuesday of PNG foreign minister Don Polye, a strong supporter of reopening the Manus Island processing centre, has set back the asylum-seeker discussions…
Since Canberra first raised the proposal, senior PNG politicians and officials have said it would receive higher priority if a leading member of the Gillard cabinet were to fly to Port Moresby for negotiations, rather than parliamentary secretary for the Pacific Richard Marles.
Greg Sheridan says Gillard is trashing our reputation overseas with her bungling, while Rudd does anything but help her:
Kevin Rudd runs his foreign policy effectively, professionally and with conspicuous elan. He led on Libya; he has led on calls to refer Syria’s brutal dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to the International Criminal Court; he is proposing an agenda of consequence for the forthcoming East Asia Summit; and his speeches on China are among the most substantial on the international stage.
It is just that his foreign policy has nothing at all to do with the Prime Minister. Rudd has kept his distance from Gillard’s ludicrous misadventures in regional mismanagement. His attitude seems to be that this is a mess entirely of his successor’s own making and she can dig her own way out of it.
Reith returns
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (06:51 am)
The Liberals are lucky to have two quality candidates. Lucky, that is, provided the contest stays classy:
The Australian understands Mr Reith will challenge Alan Stockdale for the party presidency at a meeting of the party’s federal council in Canberra in a fortnight.
Even those “death threats” are a beat up
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (06:05 am)
It turns out the climate scientists’ cries of alarm are wildly exaggerated - whether it’s over the planet or the ”death threats” they allegedly receive:
CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU’s climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago…
The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.
The university denied it was creating a ruse, maintaining the initial report, in the Fairfax-owned Canberra Times last week, failed to indicate when the threats were made.
Reports also suggested the threats had forced the ANU to lock away its climate change scientists and policy advisers in a high-security complex. The Daily Telegraph has discovered the nine scientists and staff in question were merely given keyless swipe cards - routine security measures taken last year.
Odd. If the worst “death threat” was received five or six years ago, why did the ANU give our keyless swipe cards only last year? Is it because it because there was no connection between the “cause” and the “effect”?
What a shameless beat-up. There’s a powerful metaphor here.
UPDATE
Here’s how Fairfax reported these “death threats” last week:
Australia’s leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats.
The Australian National University has confirmed it moved several high-profile climate scientists, economists and policy researchers into more secure buildings, following explicit threats to their personal safety....
More than 30 researchers across Australia ranging from ecologists and environmental policy experts to meteorologists and atmospheric physicists told The Canberra Times they are receiving a stream of abusive emails threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members…
Australia’s new chief scientist, former ANU vice-chancellor Professor Ian Chubb has condemned these email threats as ‘’an outrageous attack’’ on open and public debate…
Federal Climate Change Minster Greg Combet said harassment of scientists or other researchers was unacceptable....
“People whipping up anxiety over a carbon price should temper their language and engage in rational debate rather than irrational scare mongering,’’ Mr Combet said.
Australian Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said the emails were ‘’an orchestrated, extremist anti-science campaign attempting to threaten and intimidate people into silence.’’
I sense an agenda here, don’t you?
Now, if a few abusive emails from years ago can be beaten up like this, can you trust the people responsible not to beat up, say, a natural fluctuation in the climate?
UPDATE
Tim Blair uncovers more exaggeration of “death threats” - which turn out to be recycled material from long ago, first exploited in a column by Professor Clive Hamilton, and now repackaged as “new”.
(Thanks to reader Steve.)
Progressive enough for you? 60 per cent pay just 10 per cent
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (12:18 am)
The Taxation Office notes that just three in 100 Australians pay a third of all income tax:
Below we show the proportion of all net tax paid when we ranked our 100 people by their taxable incomes.
People with the top three taxable incomes paid 31% of all net tax.
The next six paid 18% of all net tax.
The next 31 paid 41% of all net tax.
The next 35 paid 10% of all net tax.
The last 25 didn’t pay any tax.
(Thanks to reader Pete from Brisbane. UPDATE: Typo fixed.)
M also stands for mendacious
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (12:06 am)
The Attorney-General’s refusal to be frank makes his comments incomprehensible. After all, why would a terrorist attack by an Australian citizen born right here threaten multiculturalism:
A TERRORIST attack in Australia would significantly damage the country’s vibrant multicultural community, federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland says.
While the threat of terrorism was small, an attack would be extremely damaging to community harmony, Mr McClelland said today…
“Since 2000, there have been four major terrorist plots disrupted in Australia,” he said.
In that time, 23 people had been convicted on charges relating to terrorism plots and 38 had been charged.
So those are the only relevant figures? If so, I cannot possibly understand why multiculturalism is therefore under threat.
Gutless.
(Thanks to reader Burchell.)
The gloat may cost
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, June 09, 11 (12:01 am)
Federal MP Craig Thomson this week read an article in the Fairfax press gloating that he’d dropped a defamation action against it over articles alleging grossly improper behaviour as a union official.
Uh oh. This email to his Labor colleagues followed::
From: Thomson, Craig (MP)
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 12:39 PM
To: Thomson, Craig (MP)
Subject: Fairfax v ThomsonDear Colleagues
I am writing to you as you may have seen reports in the Fairfax press regarding my defamation action. The article was totally inaccurate and wrong. The facts are as follows:
1. I took defamation action against the Health Services Union and separate action against Fairfax;
2. The HSU settled on a confidential basis with me some six months ago. Whilst it was a confidential settlement it was one that I was very happy with and as a consequence withdrew my legal action;
3. Over a month ago I reached a confidential agreement with Fairfax. This was reported in the press and the agreement filed in court as a settlement of my matters and again the legal matters where withdrawn. As with the HSU settlement I was very happy with the outcome.
4. An AEC investigation cleared me of the allegations raised by Fairfax regarding electoral spending
5. I have always strenuously denied the allegations made against me and I continue to do so.
It is clear that Fairfax have both defamed me again and breached and misrepresented a confidential deed that settled the matter between me and Fairfax. I have now been referred this matter again to my lawyers.
I thank you for your continued support in this matter and hope this corrects the grossly inaccurate and misleading reporting in the Fairfax media.
Yours faithfully
Craig Thomson
No comments for legal reasons.
(Via Andrew Landeryou, who has firm views on which side justice lies.)
Gillard is no Whitlam. Not even a Fraser or, gasp, a Rudd
Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (03:57 pm)
BBC correspondent Nick Bryant on the shrinking of Julia Gillard:
The country’s politics have devolved into a cringe-worthy spectacle that’s increasingly a national distraction and embarrassment.
Facile sloganeering, acrid debate and infantile behavior from lawmakers have brought the Australian parliament into disrepute… As for Question Time in the House of Representatives, observers could be forgiven for thinking they had walked into the recreational yard at a youth correctional facility. The British conservative blogger Iain Dale, who recently arrived in Canberra after admitting to a sneaking regard for its adversarial politics, came away horrified. “An absolutely shameful, horrific spectacle,” he described it.Nearly a year after becoming prime minister, Julia Gillard has not done much to improve the country’s political standing, and is increasingly seen as being central to the problem. Since the early 1970s Australia has had a string of front-rank, globally recognized prime ministers: Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard and Kevin Rudd.
Ms. Gillard has failed to reach that standard.
(Thanks to reader Cathy.)
Global temperature - May update
Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (02:22 pm)
May’s temperature slightly up, but the running average is falling.
Seeming to work on a seeming solution to a seeming problem
Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (02:16 pm)
Martin Feil describes an extraordinary bureaucracy that’s run out of work:
The Australian government’s Department of Climate Change is very large and top heavy.
There are four deputy secretaries and 13 first assistant secretaries on its organisation chart including a first assistant secretary (Barry Sterland) responsible for an Emissions Trading Division. Many much larger and older government departments can’t match that management structure.
Much of its purpose and its many of its functions have been mothballed by the government’s reversal on climate change and the insulation debacle. There is also a major organisation unit responsible for the Home Insulation Program headed by Bernadette Welch, a first assistant secretary.
The department granted a number of companies many millions of dollars for projects that may never proceed to finality. It has a structure that explicitly includes interaction with and oversight of an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) when such a scheme may never exist…
It would be pathetic to simply leave in place the government infrastructure (both federal and state) that was premised on the mistaken assumption that an emissions trading system was a fait accompli. Some billions of dollars have already been spent on jumping the gun.
Seeming to work on a seeming solution to a seeming problem
Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (02:16 pm)
Martin Feil describes an extraordinary bureaucracy that’s run out of work:
The Australian government’s Department of Climate Change is very large and top heavy.
There are four deputy secretaries and 13 first assistant secretaries on its organisation chart including a first assistant secretary (Barry Sterland) responsible for an Emissions Trading Division. Many much larger and older government departments can’t match that management structure.
Much of its purpose and its many of its functions have been mothballed by the government’s reversal on climate change and the insulation debacle. There is also a major organisation unit responsible for the Home Insulation Program headed by Bernadette Welch, a first assistant secretary.
The department granted a number of companies many millions of dollars for projects that may never proceed to finality. It has a structure that explicitly includes interaction with and oversight of an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) when such a scheme may never exist…
It would be pathetic to simply leave in place the government infrastructure (both federal and state) that was premised on the mistaken assumption that an emissions trading system was a fait accompli. Some billions of dollars have already been spent on jumping the gun.
If Romney can match Obama, then step up a great Republican candidate… please
Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (01:54 pm)
Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama? Imagine if the Republicans could field a candidate of distinction…
The public opinion boost President Obama received after the killing of Osama bin Laden has dissipated, and Americans’ disapproval of how he is handling the nation’s economy and the deficit has reached new highs, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll…New Post-ABC numbers show Obama leading five of six potential Republican presidential rivals tested in the poll. But he is in a dead heat with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who formally announced his 2012 candidacy last week, making jobs and the economy the central issues in his campaign.
If the warmists think they’ve suffered abuse, check out my inbox
Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, June 08, 11 (11:04 am)
Tim Blair is right - if this is the worst of the abuse and “death threats” that has Canberra climate scientists moved to ”more secure buildings” then they are remarkably sensitive.
More confirmation that these are panic merchants, I guess.
Yes, the abuse is obscene and deplorable (UPDATE: and also ancient, recycled material), but you can find precisely the same thing sent to me every week by warmists or published on their blogs - and without sceptics screaming for protection.
Warming alarmist Tim Lambert blames Blair for ”inciting people to make such threats”. But in the responses to just a single Lambert post (warning, bad language):
David Daniel Ball likes a link.
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