Saturday, June 11, 2011

News items and comments

KEVIN’S NOT NORMAL

Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 11 (07:16 am)

The New York Times observes Kevin Rudd’s one-year sackiversary:

One year ago this month, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, his eyes brimming with tears and his poll numbers in the dirt, stood on the steps of Parliament and announced his resignation. No Australian prime minister had ever been ousted by his party during his first term in office — an Icarus-like fall from grace for a man who had, just months earlier, held the highest-ever approval rating for a sitting Australian head of government.

The NYT piece doesn’t mention in any great detail the role of Rudd’s Copenhagen carbonhoping in his downfall. In fact, the paper suggests that Rudd now thrives because of his environmental far-sightedness:

Rudd, who is now foreign minister, is consistently polling as the most popular political leader in the country. His signature legislation — an emissions trading program to tackle climate change — is at the top of the government’s agenda, and his smiling visage and distinctive mop of gray hair are ubiquitous in the news media.

His “signature legislation” (or its latest model) is taking Labor down. No wonder Rudd is smiling.

During a wide-ranging interview last week in his offices in Parliament, Mr. Rudd dodged and parriedattempts to draw him out on whether he intended to pursue the leadership role again. While he insisted that he was not actively seeking a return to the premiership, he repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility in the future.

An anonymous Rudd mate – aren’t they all? – supports the ex-PM:

“It would kill you and I and my dogs, what he went through, but Kevin’s not normal,” said a Labor insider and close friend of Mr. Rudd’s who requested anonymity in order to speak openly.

An intriguing Kevin office fact:

Above his desk hangs a monograph of four Chinese characters drawn in calligraphy. Their Australian translation: “Don’t mess with me,” Mr. Rudd said with a laugh, though he used a saltier epithet than “mess.”

Didn’t stop Julia, whose speaking style is described by the NYT as “wooden”. Readers are invited to pick the exact form of timber that most conforms with the Prime Minister’s, er, timbre. Final cringe-making word from Rudd:

“I’m still on the stage of politics, I’m not in some Brechtian sense self observing. To sustain the analogy, we are the dramatis personae. We are in it, we are not the audience.”

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WRITE LOCALLY, THINK GLOBALLY

Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 11 (06:34 am)

Richard Glover, now aware that his little Sydney column is on the internet, says sorry:

The thing about tattoos was not meant to be taken as a serious suggestion. For those who took it as such, my apologies.

Australian leftists often pose as international sophisticates, yet behave provincially. Glover evidently had no idea that his column – published online – would somehow reach the US, where a great many survivors of WWII concentration camps and their descendents might find his tattoo joke offensive. Imagine the response from Glover and his kind if, say, Sarah Palin ever attempted a similar gag …

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389 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S DESPONDENCY AND FRUSTRATION TAX

Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 11 (06:07 am)

Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie despairs over Julia Gillard’s communication skills and Labor’s selling of the carbon tax:

While endorsing the Prime Minister’s proposed carbon tax, Mr Beattie has also described himself as despondent and frustrated about Labor’s political position, but noted that it has two years until the next election to improve its political sales effort.

Two years ago, Labor in NSW held out similar hopes for 2011. Miners continue to be a carbon conundrum:

One of Australia’s largest unions has threatened a blue-collar revolt should the nation’s dirtiest coalmines fail to receive the same level of assistance as they were promised under the original emissions trading scheme.

With industry compensation still being thrashed out behind closed doors, the national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Tony Maher, said he is worried coalminers will be dudded to appease the Greens.

Maher’s views on the Greens are worth extracting:

• “They want to single out mine workers as some sort of trophy hunt.”

• “The Greens are in la-la land.”

• “The government’s been really silent about coal. The Greens have been silent; they have been poisoned by prejudice.”

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VALUE ADDED

Tim Blair – Friday, June 10, 11 (01:29 pm)

Person with no university degrees:

Violence is popular.

Person with two university degrees:

It can hardly be denied that violence has a peculiarly vicarious allure in the modern mass media environment, regardless of whether we are talking ratings, book sales, ticket sales, clicks, or good old-fashioned circulation.

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THE F STANDS FOR FRIDAY

Tim Blair – Friday, June 10, 11 (01:13 pm)

This week’s open thread is brought to you by the election of John F. Kennedy:

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390 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S SILLY/VALID TAX

Tim Blair – Friday, June 10, 11 (12:26 pm)

Greg Combet gets things half right during an interview with the ABC’s 7.30:

LEIGH SALES: But I just wonder, minister, if people - I just wonder if people are sitting around their dinner tables tonight going, “Oh, sweetheart, oh my goodness, we’re falling behind Germany. Guess we’d better get behind this carbon price.”

GREG COMBET: I think that’s rather silly, actually. I mean, I think it’s valid ...

Either way, Tony Windsor is convinced: “I think the answer is yes, the rest of the world is moving in a direction.”

CARBON UPDATE. It’s been debunked, but Crikey clings to the myth that threatened ANU scientists were moved to a secret location.

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DECLINE HIDDEN

Tim Blair – Friday, June 10, 11 (12:24 pm)

A Greens poll goes the wrong way and is replaced with a cat.

UPDATE. Cats. This lady really loves cats.

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George Selgin expands even further our knowledge of banking (and of history and of economics).

Man, the June 2011 issue of The Freeman is loaded with good stuff. But I want here to single out Bob Higgs’s deeply profound analysis – “James Buchananian,” I would say – of how economic theory often sets itself up to be used (and misused) to unleash mischief. Here’s a central selection:

Had economic theorists [in the 1960s] rested content with using the microeconomics of the Neoclassical Synthesis strictly as a conceptual device employed in abstract reasoning, it might have done little damage. However, as I have already suggested, this type of theory cried out for application—which, in practice, was nearly always misapplication. The idealized conditions required for theoretical general-equilibrium efficiency could not possibly obtain in the real world; yet the economists readily endorsed government measures aimed at coercively pounding the real world into conformity with these impossible theoretical conditions.

Closely examined, such efforts represented a form of madness. As the great economist James Buchanan has observed, the economists’ obsession with general equilibrium gives rise to “the most sophisticated fallacy in [neoclassical] economic theory, the notion that because certain relationships hold in equilibrium the forced interferences designed to implement these relationships will, in fact, be desirable.”

Speaking of “Buchananian” political economy, one of Jim’s premier students from Jim’s time at the University of Virginia, Dick Wagner (one of my colleagues at GMU Econ), explores in this paper the complexity of political fiscal-decision-making in democratic societies.

Jonah Goldberg takes on the dangerous and fact-challenged notions that motivate Thomas Friedman’s recent – and indescribably awful – New York Times column entitled “The Earth is Full.” If time allows, I plan my own response to Friedman’s historically uninformed and economically idiotic fear-mongering. Where O where is today’s Julian Simon?!

John Stossel raises awarness of the need for a cure for the cancer of government regulation.

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Here’s a letter to Politico:

You report that [any-decent-person-in-his-shoes-would-be-disgraced U.S. Rep. Anthony] “Weiner has also complained to friends that he wasn’t sure how he would make a living if he were to leave Congress and its $174,000 annual salary. ‘He’s worried about money and how to pay his bills,’ said a Democratic insider. ‘He’s very concerned about that’” (“Weiner shows no signs of quitting,” June 9).

Overlook the fact that, by admitting this reason for clinging to political office, any professions that Mr. Weiner has made in the past or will make in the future about his ‘devotion to public service,’ his ‘love of country,’ or his ‘loyalty to the Democratic party’ should be seen as the self-serving lies that they are.

Instead, ask this simple question: why should Americans trust Mr. Weiner with substantial power to decide how to annually spend $3.8 trillion dollars of other people’s money if he, a 46-year-old college graduate who’s earned a six-figure salary for each of at least the past 12 years, has neither saved enough to pay his bills should he be unemployed for a while nor developed any skills that would allow him to earn a decent living in the private sector?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

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Yet another detention centre needed

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (09:42 am)

The Gillard Government clearly isn’t counting on being able to stop the boats or send back the boat people:

AUSTRALIA’S newest immigration detention centre could open near Brisbane within months as the Federal Government negotiates to take over the Borallon jail…

The state-owned, 492-bed facility on the outskirts of Ipswich has been managed and operated since January 2008 by Serco Australia, which also runs the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre near Weipa…

Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen said yesterday: “No decision has been made with respect to a new IDC in Queensland.”

(Thanks to readers Jim, John and Bonnie.)

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Organic farming is deadlier than Fukushima

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (09:40 am)

Poo food kills:

Vegetable sprouts grown on an organic farm in northwestern Germany caused the E. coli outbreak that’s sickened nearly 3,000 people and killed 29, according to the head of the nation’s national disease control center.

While no tests of vegetable sprouts from the farm in Lower Saxony came back positive for the E. coli strain responsible for the outbreak, an investigation into the pattern of the outbreak yielded enough evidence to put the finger of blame on the farm, Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, said...

Rich Fisher:

One German organic farm has killed twice as many people as the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Gulf Oil spill combined.

crickets.

Hello? Environmental groups? Journalists? Hello?

UPDATE

The death toll is now 33,

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Many Indonesian abattoirs don’t deserve this ban

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (09:25 am)

Professor Aris Junaidi:

WHEN I saw the story A Bloody Business on ABC1’s Four Corners, I felt the same way as most viewers: shocked at the cruelty of the handlers and the general treatment of the cattle displayed. It was clearly unacceptable and violated any standards of decent treatment of animals.

As a trained veterinarian I have had extensive experience involving many aspects of the treatment of animals in Indonesia.

I have seen many abattoirs first-hand and believe that, as shocking and appalling as the footage in the Four Corners expose was, it is in no way representative of the conditions in most abattoirs in Indonesia.

Thus, as commendable as efforts by reporter Sarah Ferguson and Animals Australia’s Lyn White have been in bringing to light this mistreatment of some of the cattle exported to Indonesia, the implication that all Indonesian abattoirs are the same is incorrect, and the blanket ban that has come in the wake of this program is thus uncalled for.

UPDATE

Many Australian stations don’t deserve it, either:

THE chief executive of Australia’s largest cattle producer says an urgent resumption of live exports to Indonesia is needed to prevent the ‘’implosion’’ of remote communities in the Northern Territory reliant on cattle farming.

David Farley, the head of Australia Agricultural Company (AAco), said the ban had potentially ‘’psychologically devastating’’ effects on isolated communities who relied on the cattle trade as their predominant source of income, but were now left ‘’trying to work out what to do next’’…

‘’There are family operations, there are indigenous operations, there are townships and communities that are totally reliant on this business.

‘’We’re talking about people in communities in remote isolated areas … who have one cash flow once a year.’’

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Productivity Commission confirms we’ve been fed one falsehood after another

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (08:52 am)

The Gillard Government is waving around so many reports on global warming poiicies, telling is to trust them. Buthow can we trust reports which disagree so violently on the basic facts?

The (Productivity Commission) report contradicts the previous week’s final Garnaut review, which argued Australia was left behind by much of the world on climate change action. The Productivity Commission found that measured by emission-reduction resources as a portion of GDP Germany is in front, followed by Britain, with Australia, China and the US in the “mid-range”. When measured as an average implicit abatement subsidy Australia was estimated at $44 a tonne of carbon dioxide, with America at $43 and China $35 respectively…

Indeed, the PC goes further and brands as invalid the 2010 analysis by the firm, Vivid Economics, as commissioned by the Climate Institute and used by minister Greg Combet earlier this year when he argued the effective price in parts of China was $14 a tonne compared with $1.68 a tonne in Australia. The commission says “no” to such analysis and it can be expected to be quietly forgotten by Labor.

Some “experts” seem to trying to fool us.

And that’s not even allowing for the fact that governments are selling us schemes that they should know are actually useless:

(The Productivity Commission report) estimates that for Australia in 2010 the combined impact of the Renewable Energy Target and solar PV subsidies equated to $149 million-$194m, with windfall gains going to homes that took up the option. The implicit abatement subsidy in relation to solar PV was in the astounding range of $431 to $1043 a tonne of carbon dioxide…

The PC proceeds to the incredible conclusion that because state and territory feed-in tariffs overlapped completely with the RET in 2010, “they did not lead to any additional abatement” and “could have actually led to higher emissions than if there had been no feed-in-tariff schemes”.

The whole debate - from the science to the politics to the policy - is riddled with falsehoods, false assumptions, dodgy statistics, exaggeration and utterly useless gestures.

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Beattie despairs over Gillard’s bad language

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (08:46 am)

Labor really must get over the fantasy that smoother words can sell poison:


FORMER Queensland premier Peter Beattie has questioned Julia Gillard’s communication skills, warning that she is losing the rhetorical war on climate change and urging her government to work harder to explain its policies. ..

“In a sense, like a lot of fanatical Labor people, I am sort of despondent that they are not explaining and selling it (the carbon dioxide tax) better,” said Mr Beattie.

“Frankly, they’ve really got to do better at the job than they have been. I find it frustrating that they are on the right path and they’ve got time on their side but they just haven’t got the rhetoric right and they haven’t got the detail right.”

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Syria free to massacre like Libya hasn’t

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (08:26 am)

Bloodier and more tyrannical than the Libyan regime, now the target of a UN-backed war:

SYRIA’S army yesterday launched a raid on ‘’armed gangs’’ in the flashpoint town of Jisr al-Shughur, where authorities say 120 police and troops were massacred this week.

‘’Army units have started their mission to control Jisr al-Shughur and neighbouring villages and arrest the armed gangs,’’ state television said, adding that the raid had been launched ‘’at the request of residents’’.

One witness said that ‘’military forces bombarded the villages around Jisr al-Shughur in their advance upon the town’’…

Rights activists said almost all of the 50,000 inhabitants of Jisr al-Shughur had fled - some to neighbouring Turkey - since tanks and troops began earlier this week to converge on the north-western town.

The Syrian regime blames “armed gangs” for the killing of the 120 police, but locals say many were killed by the regime itself:

Some residents said Syrian police had turned their guns on one another and that soldiers shed their uniforms rather than obey orders to fire on protesters.

A 21-year-old Syrian policeman, who identified himself as Ahmed Gavi, told a Turkish newspaper that he saw five officers killed on the spot when they refused orders to shoot unarmed protesters. He said he escaped across the border with 60 other officers.

Gavi said so many officers died because a firefight broke out among the more than 200 policemen ordered to carry out an operation against the protesters. His account could not be independently verified, but other refugees have given similar descriptions.

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If a carbon tax is more efficient, then scrap everything else

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (08:21 am)

Samuel J, who actually favors adaptation to abatement, makes the political choices brilliantly clear:

The Government has been pushing the Productivity Commission report on Emissions Reduction Policies and Carbon Prices in Key Economies as evidence that its carbon tax and ETS should be supported.

Well, yes, perhaps – if the 230 policy measures identified in Australia were simultaneously removed.

The PC found an implicit abatement subsidy of $44 a tonne of CO2.

So if the Government proposed a carbon tax of $44 a tonne and the removal of the 230 other measures that would be a sensible way forward.

But instead it is offering to keep the 230 measures and add a carbon tax.

In these circumstances, the Coalition’s direct action plan is probably superior.

UPDATE

And if you needed a louder warning:

HOUSEHOLD electricity bills are set to skyrocket up to 30 per cent by mid-2013, with the Gillard government’s renewable energy scheme responsible for 11 per cent of that increase, a report by the government’s chief energy adviser has found.

The costs of the Renewable Energy Target - which provides generous subsidies for rooftop solar schemes and large-scale projects such as wind farms - will explode by 360 per cent over the three years to June 30, 2013, as power companies try to meet the target of sourcing 20 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020…

The report by the Australian Energy Market Commission was released after a meeting of energy and resources ministers in Perth, who vowed to hold special meetings to “consider energy security implications arising from the introduction of a carbon price”.

The document will add further weight to this week’s warnings by the Productivity Commission that the renewable energy incentives being demanded by the Greens are pushing up costs for little environmental gain.

While the commission and big businesses are urging that subsidies for renewable energy be scrapped with the introduction of a carbon price, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson yesterday stared down the demand. He said the government’s approach to clean energy in Australia was through setting a price on carbon and the renewable energy target.

And by how much will all these billions cut the world’s temperature?

UPDATE

But try telling the warmists who will impose the carbon dioxide tax to let go of their pet subsidies:

KEY independent MP Tony Windsor says the Productivity Commission has convinced him that a carbon tax is the cheapest way to cut Australia’s greenhouse gases. But he has yet to back away from his support for costly ethanol handouts.

Greens deputy leader Christine Milne likewise welcomed this week’s Productivity Commission report for undercutting “the ridiculous notion that Australia might be moving ahead of the world in putting a price on pollution”.

But she also rejected its finding that direct support for clean “sunrise industries” is a costlier way to deliver Australia’s promised emissions cuts.

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Save the planet! Exterminate the camels

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (08:02 am)

image

WITH the planet threatening to turn into a ball of fire, it’s a relief to find the Gillard Government may have a solution: Kill the camels.

Yes, shoot the buggers. From a car, from a helicopter. Exterminate.

As you know, we have herds of camels roaming the outback, but only now have they been revealed as a menace to the planet.

In a proposal the Department of Climate Change has released for consultation, the Northwest Carbon company notes these cud-chewers burp clouds of methane.

“Methane is a potent greenhouse gas,” it warns.

These camel burps are baking the planet. And so, under this proposal, we must shoot the camels to save ourselves.

It’s plans like this that make me wonder who the planet is actually being saved for. Certainly not for the camel.

But has anyone calculated whether the gain is worth the camels’ pain?

So I looked in this detailed proposal to discover by how much the world’s temperature would fall if we wiped out our camels.

Strangely, that figure is missing. Indeed, it’s always missing.

The Government never tells you by how much its global warming schemes—even its $11 billion a year carbon dioxide tax—will cut the expected temperature.

Is it embarrassment that stops it from saying? After all, the real answer is virtually zero.

Or is it just a symptom of a mass delusion, in which no one stops to ask why are we doing all this. Let me give you an example from a Senate estimates committee hearing early this month.

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Labor’s border blunders undermine its immigration policy

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (07:59 am)

There’s a link between weak border controls and support for immigration:

THE second major riot on Christmas Island in less than three months has sparked another promise of a detention centre review. A guard suffered a leg injury when poles and concrete were used as weapons to attack authorities during a violent uprising that began on Thursday night.

Police used capsicum spray and bean-bag bullets to quash the unrest involving 80 to 100 asylum seekers.

And in the same story:

More than half of all Australians want immigration cut, up from 40 per cent in 2007, the Australian Election Study shows.

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Where’s Kevin?

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (07:55 am)

image

WHERE’S Kevin? Where’s the Foreign Minister when his leader has two foreign crises on her hands?

Normally the punishment for desertion in battle is death, politically speaking.

But Kevin Rudd is so untouchable in this shambolic government that he can desert his post without Prime Minister Julia Gillard daring to whisper even a word of criticism.

Watch him now, skylarking on his own off in Hungary, Finland, Stockholm Sweden, Abu Dhabi, New York and London—anywhere but where he’s needed right now.

You see, Gillard is drowning in two foreign policy disasters entirely of her own making.

One is her overreaction to the barbaric slaughter of Australian cattle in Indonesia. Rather than simply ban the cruellest abattoirs, Gillard has frozen all live exports of our cattle to Indonesia, where our beef supplies a third of the entire market.

Indonesia is naturally offended. It has hinted at retaliation. It has talked of needing to become independent of our beef imports, which would kill a trade worth more than $300 million a year to us.

Clearly Indonesia needed to be consulted, placated, talked around. And who better to do that than our Foreign Minister?

Meanwhile, Gillard has also made a pig’s breakfast of her boat people policy.

First, she drafted the softening in 2008 of our border laws, thus luring nearly 7000 boat people into our detention centres and some 200 more to their deaths at sea.

Her “fixes” since have been ludicrous. Last year she promised to build a detention centre in East Timor, which was news to the offended East Timorese.

Last month she announced a deal with Malaysia - 800 of our boat people for 4000 of their refugees - before it had even been signed. Indeed, it’s still not signed.

She also vowed to send every new boat person from that date overseas, clearly banking on Papua New Guinea agreeing to reopen a detention centre on Manus Island.

But the PNG Government is now in disarray, with its Prime Minister off sick and its Foreign Minister sacked. Forget Manus Island for now.

So looking like fools, the Government desperately needs someone to sweet-talk PNG into action and Malaysia into signing. Again. who better to do that than our Foreign Minister?

Calling Kevin Rudd. Kevin? Where are you, mate? Hello?

Actually, with Rudd needed most in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Indonesia, let’s check where he’s been this past month.

A month ago today, he was in Bangkok, for a stopover on his way to Helsinki and Stockholm. Then he was in Oslo, before flying back via Guangzhou, where he gave a speech.

Two weeks later he was off again, this time to Hungary, Abu Dhabi, Washington and London.

You may think he had pressing business in our national interest in those places. And you’d be wrong.

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Here’s more of that snow the CSIRO’s warmists didn’t expect

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (07:49 am)

In May 2008, the CSIRO’s warmists warned of vanishing snow:

Scientists say Australian skiers should prepare for shorter ski seasons because of global warming…CSIRO climate change expert Dr Penny Whetton says Australia’s mountain snow cover could be reduced by up to 54 per cent by 2020.

In August 2008, skiers were snowed in:

CARS buried at Falls Creek and Mt Buller, others abandoned on the Kosciuszko Rd and Alpine Way, massive snow drifts up high at Perisher and Thredbo, blizzard conditions, snowfall accumulations in excess of 40cm. As the big dump continues Friday, skiers are looking up at the scoreboard - with a 2m season well within our sights....Clearly, July 2008 has delivered the best consistent skiing conditions since the great 2004 season - and there is potential for a cold and snowy peak month of August.

And now, in June 2011, the snow has only got better:

Every major resort is opening lifts for the start of the ski season and this is set to be the biggest opening weekend in more than a decade.

Is there something wrong with the CSIRO’s models?

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Glover claims innocence: I was just telling a Holocaust joke

Andrew Bolt – Saturday, June 11, 11 (07:36 am)

ABC presenter Richard Glover’s one regret about making a joke about tattooing sceptics as the Nazis tattooed Jews is that some readers didn’t realise he was just joking about the Holocaust thing:

The thing about tattoos was not meant to be taken as a serious suggestion. For those who took it as such, my apologies.

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Will Malaysia take these off our hands?

Andrew Bolt – Friday, June 10, 11 (01:58 pm)

Lured in by Labor’s soft policies, detainees show why they should now be sent home:

DETAINEES armed with makeshift weapons have pelted police and guards with projectiles during a fresh outbreak of violence at the Christmas Island detention centre, police say.

The Australian Federal Police said they were forced to use “chemical munitions” and bean bag bullets to quell the overnight protest involving about 100 detainees, some of whom armed themselves with metal poles and broken concrete.

Are these the detainees Malaysia will be taking off our hands? Or is Malaysia looking on and saying, well, on second thoughts....

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Will Angela Merkel remove all organic farms from Germany too?
blogs.news.com.au
Andrew writes for Melbourne's Herald Sun, Sydney's Daily Telegraph and Adelaide's Advertiser. He runs Australia's most-read political blog, is on MTR 1377 mornings. He’ll host Channel 10’s The Bolt Report each Sunday at 10am
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A politician who listens
cabravaledigitalculturalmuseum.blogspot.com
Andrew Baijan Rohan MP (born in Iraq), an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Smithfield for the Liberal Party of Australia since 2011.[1]
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Rudd criticized Israel and seemed to praise Syria in December ..
HELICOPTERS fired on a crowd of pro-democracy protesters in Syria, in a crackdown that killed 22 people nationwide.
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They are people and deserve better
AUSTRALIA'S newest immigration detention centre could open near Brisbane within months as the Federal Government negotiates to take over the Borallon jail.
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She was protected, but never a policy maker. Just like Jason Clare
THE polls suggest Labor's gamble on Julia Gillard hasn't worked. Mark Kenny assesses her first year.

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The redness is overstated
A BLOOD-RED moon will rouse astronomers and fellow stargazers from their beds early on Thursday, as the moon passes through the Earth's shadow.
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I don't need to see the footage. I believe it is compelling testimony that suggests the woman had motive to kill her child when she was bored and wanted fun.
A HILTON woman, whose three-year-old son was found dead inside a washing machine with a cat in September last year, has been fined $3000 for mistreating a cat.
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ALP's abysmal maintenance of schools has placed the lives of children at risk
PARENTS fear their children's lives are at risk because their high school is falling down around them.

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Such things cost. I used to offer lunch chess and games for free. But schools didn't like me.
PUBLIC schools in wealthy suburbs are acting like de facto private schools, charging about $1500 a year per child in annual fees.
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Corruption. Man caught
CASH-STRAPPED crime fighter Mark Standen accepted a Christmas gift of $47,500 from an informant, but says he doesn't believe it compromised their relationship.
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I hope the appeal is listed as aggravating the original charge.
A PERTH doctor has announced his intention to appeal after been found guilty of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old patient while examining her at Royal Perth Hospital.
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Like much of modern art, it is an indictment on humanity
A MELBOURNE-based company is selling baby and children's clothes featuring pictures of evil monsters such as Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Ivan Milat, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
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Every responsible action made by another world leader makes Gillard look bad
INDONESIAN President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono today ordered an investigation of abattoirs as he sought to ensure meat supplies after Australia suspended live cattle exports due to animal cruelty conce...
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Government doesn't know how to spend $50 billion deficit .. But they won't give it back to taxpayers
AFTER they cried poor and won hefty rebates during the global financial crisis, the federal government is set to reward profitable television networks - by giving them even more money.
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More saliently most believe Nixon is lying
POLICE have spoken to teenager Kim Duthie about her statement on sex, drugs and Ricky Nixon as the investigation into his conduct continues.
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They know how to take our money.
FORMER planning minister Tony Kelly has gifted his ALP colleague Steve Whan hundreds of thousands of dollars by giving up his seat a fortnight before Mr Whan's generous pension entitlement was to run ...
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A man of action in need of action?
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police boss Tony Negus took his secretary on a taxpayer-funded business-class trip to Singapore and India last year on official police business.
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ALP compassion has trapped them with a highly infectious individual that the Greens wanted among children in the community.
CHRISTMAS Island detention centre security is on red alert after refugees used weapons to attack guards when their applications were rejected.
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He has it too easy. He needs to be busier
HE is one of Australia's most notorious prisoners but being in a maximum security jail cell did not stop Bassam Hamzy masterminding a shooting and two kidnappings on a smuggled mobile phone, it has be...
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The cover up makes it worse. How many others will now be infected?
THE Immigration Department has launched a review of medical checks on refugees after leprosy was found at Villawood detention centre.
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The government seems to want to force the obvious. As computers become ubiquitous they make an expensive failed program to give computers to kids. Here they fail to anticipate better cars
THE cloud of deadly car-related smog enveloping Sydney might soon be lifted, with new pollution rules set to be introduced to target vehicle emissions.
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I want her to be President.
www.foxnews.com
Sarah Palin is the reason why candidate Sarah Palin’s numbers are low. The American people have seen her, they’ve heard her, and they’ve formed their opinions about her. Let’s just say they’re not impressed.
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I asked my wife what she used hers for. She said it was ancient history
www.foxnews.com
It's been called a war weapon, a candlestick, a child's toy, a weather gauge, an astronomical instrument, and a religious symbol -- just to name a few. But what IS this mystery object? Can you do what the world's archaeologists can't? Can you explain this -- thing?
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The problem isn't NATO. The problem is Obama fails to present a coherent policy on anything.
www.foxnews.com
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says America's military alliance with Europe, which has been the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades, faces a dim, if not dismal future.
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Ridiculous with the current exchange rate for US dollars.
www.news.com.au
AUSTRALIAN travel and tour companies are out to bust the myth that overseas holidays are cheaper, bombarding the market with deals to entice people to holiday at home instead.
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Sorry 'Ranga
www.news.com.au
FAST food pizza chain Dominos is forced to apologise to schoolboy after calling him the "Ginger Kid".

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Mr Rohan is not my state member. My state member is Guy Zangari. However Mr Rohan is the only member of government to have taken the time to hear my issue which dates back to when Bob Carr first became Premier. I applaud the good work Mr Rohan is doing and I support him. Thanks to Mr Rohan, and people like him, NSW can rest assured that corruption in the state is ending. The result will be prosperity.
fairfield-advance.whereilive.com.au
FRONTLINE public servants confronted Smithfield State Liberal MP Andrew Rohan at his office last week urging him to vote against a bill that would give the State Government unprecedented powers to slash wages and conditions.
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OPI puts hand up to being booted with Overland
www.news.com.au
VICTORIAN Deputy Premier Peter Ryan's key adviser on policing has been accused of misconduct and forced out of the service.
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Soon?
www.news.com.au
TRAVELLERS may soon be speeding between Australian landmarks at up to 400km/h if a company's bullet train design takes off.
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Faulkner is wrong. The problem is not the number if ideals but the type of ideals they hold.
www.news.com.au
JOHN Faulkner's anguished assessment of the Labor Party has reopened the wounds of Kevin Rudd's removal as Prime Minister.
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Transparency and rule of law don't seem to matter too much to Obama.
www.foxnews.com
The Medicare trust fund situation also shows how politically the Obama White House views virtually every major public policy issue. Mr. Obama apparently wants to keep Medicare as an issue to beat up Republicans in the 2012 campaign, protect congressional Democrats from tough votes in the months befo
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Not really a change. Obama still won't address questions of his past.
www.foxnews.com
Forget Anthony Weiner and the coverage of his Twitter sex scandal. The big news is the coming battle. Prepare now ready for an all-out war among media on the left and the right as the 2012 presidential campaign heats up.
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one can learn from spiders .. but I am not the one.
www.foxnews.com
Like eight-legged scuba divers, some spiders can breathe underwater using an air bubble as an oxygen tank of sorts. Now, scientists have figured out some of the fascinating details of this arachnid diving bell, including that it can give the spiders more than a day's worth of air.
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Obama has no reason to be in the gun selling business. It won't make up for his deficit from spending.
www.foxnews.com
Officials at the Department of Justice are in 'panic mode', according to multiple sources, as word spreads that testimony next week will paint a bleak and humiliating picture of 'Operation Fast and Furious', the botched undercover operation that left a trail of blood from Mexico to Washington DC. Th
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Maybe if Obama shared his plan with congress they would back it. That assumes he has one.
www.foxnews.com
The Obama administration is struggling to keep Congress on board as it appeals for patience in Libya, with lawmakers in both chambers moving to check the president's war powers as the cost of the operation rises.
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You owe it to them to see their faces .. http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=1craYSkjNcU Few people know about CJ Dennis. They don't teach about him in Australian Schools anymore. Their sacrifice should not be unnoticed. There should be anger when it is clear that ALP policy is killing our troops.

Risk Rarius Please distribute guys. I spent the last two days figuring how to do this video on my iPad, and at the end of the day, they must be remembered by all Australians which is what I want, and what they deserve

David Daniel Ball also this plea ..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16EpanER7KQ

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