Saturday, February 09, 2013

Sat 9th Feb Todays News


This person used to be the Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd has revealed he leaked hundreds of pages of documents relating to his complaints over the federal police investigation Operation Mesco into who leaked his expletive-laden video.
In a bizarre development, Mr Rudd has confirmed he lodged a freedom of information request into his own correspondence with the Federal Police, before leaking hundreds of pages of correspondence relating to ‘Operation Mesco” this week to the media. 
These days, Kevin can’t even trust himself.
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Jefferson Davis

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Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances


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FEELINGS UNDERSTOOD

Tim Blair – Saturday, February 09, 2013 (5:55pm)

“When a crazed shooter’s ideology is explicitly and demonstrably left-wing,” notes Noah Rothman, “the media displays admirable restraint about linking a gunman’s politics to their acts of violence.”
Forget mere restraint. At the New York Times, coverage of Christopher Dorner’s killing spree is downright respectful
The accusations by the suspect — however disjointed and unhinged — have struck a chord. They are a reminder, many black leaders said, that some problems remain and, no less significant, that memories of abuses and mistreatment remain strong in many parts of this city …
In posts on Facebook and in interviews, some black residents offered at least a partial endorsement of the sentiments expressed by the suspect, Christopher J. Dorner, in a manifesto posted on his Facebook page, even as they made it clear that they did not condone the violence he is accused of. 
Not mentioned in the Times piece, nor by many of Dorner’s admirers: one of his victims was a 28-year-old woman named Monica Quan. Some hero. LAPD chief Charlie Beck seems stunned: 
“You’re talking about a homicide suspect who has committed atrocious crimes,” he said. “If you want to give any attribution to his ramblings on the Internet, go right ahead. But I do not.” 
It’s even worse on Twitter, where slaughtering a young woman grants you hero status. Just take alook at some of these absolute idiots. And here’s one more: 
Dear Christopher Dorner,
I understand your feelings of hurt and pain. 
The author? Jesse Jackson.

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BLUDGING IS COOL

Tim Blair – Saturday, February 09, 2013 (3:57pm)

Even Guardian greenists are beginning to notice climate change exaggeration. Meanwhile, here’s a brilliant plan to combat warming: 
Want to save the planet? Stop going to work.
That’s the conclusion of a report from Washington think-tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research this week. The report makes the claim that even a 0.5 per cent annual reduction in the length of the average workweek could be enough to cut between eight and 22 per cent of every degree of global warming that’s expected between now and 2100 …
The group advocates a global move toward a European model of shorter work weeks and more vacations. 
That’s some model, chaps. One small problem: Americans already struggle to get to work … because of snow.

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CUT IT OUT

Tim Blair – Saturday, February 09, 2013 (3:33pm)

His name is Mullet and he’s been jailed until 2028 for hairstyle crimes.

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DOWN WITH THE SPINNING JENNY

Tim Blair – Saturday, February 09, 2013 (3:31pm)

From 2006, one of Viz magazine’s finest jokes
Hang on mates. It’ll take you ages to destroy that by hand. My Knacking Elspeth will do the work of ten Luddites in half the time. 
Also from Vizwallpaper.

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People still take the Treasurer seriously?

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(9:44am)

The bungling is one thing. The lying and deceit is another:
Dennis Shanahan:

Hope for a 2012-13 budget surplus, promised for three years as part of good economic management to create jobs and restore confidence, is gone. The $2 billion funding - down from original estimates of $10.6bn - for “spreading the benefits of the boom” through the Schoolkids’ Bonus, family payments, carbon tax compensation, company tax cuts and superannuation rises is also gone.
In the past eight weeks, Wayne Swan has been forced to abandon his political fictions and face the economic reality that has been long apparent…

There are legitimate reasons for the government not being able to get the budget back in to surplus, but there are no excuses for the inflated, misleading and overcooked political promises and the flawed implementation of the mining profits tax during the biggest resources boom in Australia’s history.
The MRRT has scored a remarkable double. It has introduced a very unwelcome element of sovereign risk to investment in the Australian resources industry, but has raised virtually no revenue.
UPDATE
Mind you, how can anyone take the Prime Minister seriously now, either? 

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Farrelly sees in fugitive Assange a “prisoner”

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(9:21am)

An awed Elizabeth Farrelly, Sydney Morning Herald columnist, meets Julian Assange in what she apparently takes to be a jail:
I’m astonished a major newspaper could publish such utter tripe - a Barbara Cartland kind of political panting, and almost every bit as fictional.
What a load of tosh.  Assange jumped bail and walked into the embassy of Ecuador in London.  No one has imprisoned him – except himself.  MWD’s sympathies lie with the members of the metropolitan police who have to watch over this bail-jumper in both cold and heat. 
Farrelly is airily dismissive of the rape allegations and legal proceedings from which Assange is actually fleeing, and makes no mention at all of the rights to justice of the two Swedish women who claim to be Assange’s victims:
As to ‘’facing the music’’, everything hinges on the genuineness of the case and the probability of a fair trial.
Instead she indulges Assange’s group smear of Sweden, once actually hailed by the Left as a moral exemplar to the world for its Big State welfarism: 
Assange points out that Sweden’s is a culture of profound conformism; a population half the size of Australia’s with a language spoken (and a culture therefore scrutinised) by no one else on earth. A country that, unlike say Germany, ‘’never denazified’’ after World War II. Never pushed the reset button.
Jemima Khan once stood bail for Assange and long defended him. But she now sees what Farrelly resolutely won’t - that Assange faces no more danger in Sweden of being extradited than he does in Britain, and that the two Swedish women have rights that should also be considered. Khan says has had second thoughts about Assange - which I doubt have anything to do with Sweden not being “denazified”: 

In an interview with ABC News, Assange said that Swedish prosecutors were withholding evidence which suggested that he had been “set up"… . The two women at the centre of the rape allegations against Assange were subsequently named and defamed on the internet, threatened with rape and pictured with bullseyes on their faces.

It may well be that the serious allegations of sexual assault and rape are not substantiated in court, but I have come to the conclusion that these are all matters for Swedish due process and that Assange is undermining both himself and his own transparency agenda – as well as doing the US department of justice a favour – by making his refusal to answer questions in Sweden into a human rights issue. There have been three rounds
in the UK courts and the UK courts have upheld the European Arrest Warrant in his name three times. The women in question have human rights, too, and need resolution. Assange’s noble cause and his wish to avoid a US court does not trump their right to be heard in a Swedish court.
I cannot believe SMH readers are so childish, so indifferent to allegations of rape, so prone to hero worship and so disdainful of evidence and nuance that they deserve what Farrelly offers.

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Labor smashing Greens in WA. Meanwhile, the Barnett Government ….

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(8:00am)

Normally a jump that big would suggest you’re romping it in:


THE West Australian opposition has started the election campaign with a five-percentage-point boost in its primary vote...
But we are talking Labor: 
While Labor has made inroads on primary support, most of it has come at the expense of the Greens and “others”, leaving the Liberal-Nationals government with a commanding lead on preferences, 57 per cent to 43 per cent.

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Your life, your freedoms, your responsibility

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(7:15am)

Brilliant. Inspiring - from his life story to his passionate defence of free speech:


Move over President Obama. Conservatives are not talking so much about the president’s address at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, but rather remarks from Dr. Benjamin Carson, a black pediatric neurosurgeon with Johns Hopkins Hospital who took over the stage for 25 riveting minutes.

Mr. Carson spoke of his disdain for political correctness, calling it a “dangerous” and “horrible thing” that has led to such ridiculous fears as wishing people Merry Christmas, according to The Blaze.

He also talked about the moral decay of American, and cautioned of a Rome-like fate, and — in front of Mr. Obama, who sat just feet from the podium — confronted the issue of America’s debt and current fiscal policy.
(Thanks to reader ant.) 

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Rudd tries to charm the colleagues he offended

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(7:05am)

Rudd demonstrates his new humility to those who once saw none of it:
ALP insiders yesterday said Mr Rudd had held discussions with a number of MPs loyal to Ms Gillard, including several from Queensland, in recent days in a bid to “rebuild relationships”.

“He isn’t asking for their support, he is discussing policy but there is little doubt among them that he is testing the waters,” a senior ALP source said.

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When they can excuse rewriting the truth even in Lincoln…

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(6:09am)

I have been deeply suspicious of films based on “true stories” or purporting to show history. It’s why I’m apprehensive about Lincoln.
First, few film-makers can resist improving on history or giving it a preferred twist. Second, many firm-goers, especially the young, seem to treat such films as their eye-witness insight into events of which they otherwise know little.
Indeed, wildly skewed filmed accounts of the past are too often shown as history to classrooms of impressionable children, and what those children see is retained more vividly than anything they’ve learned by reading.  The visual drives out the archival.
Nothing illustrates these dangers more than Rabbit-Proof Fence, which dramatically “improved” on its source material and added purely imagined scenes to promote the “stolen generations” myth. Virtually every key scene was radically different from the truth.
Compare what you are shown in this trailer for the film, for instance, with the facts drawn from the sources on which it is based:

THE FILM shows a policeman chasing the girls in his car and ripping them from Molly’s screaming mother.
According to [director Phillip] Noyce, this scene ``tells the whole story’’ of his film.

THE FACT, writes Pilkington, is that the officer rode up on horseback to tell Molly’s stepfather he’d take the girls, and ``the old man nodded’’. The officer put Molly and Gracie on a horse, gave them the reins and asked them to follow him. The next day he picked up Daisy and two sick women at another camp. There was no chase, no struggle.
Yet the film opens with the words: “This is a true story.” And so it was sold to literally hundreds of thousands of school children by their own teachers.
I am not saying Lincoln rewrites history so wilfully or recasts it so brazenly in an ideological cause. Too many Americans know that history too well - and revere President Lincoln too greatly - to allow such hijacking.
Yet history was indeed rewritten in Lincoln. And the excuse given by the scriptwriter shows not just how lightly this can be done even when the events are so well known to many.
His excuse also shows how readily rewriters can dress up their fictions as “historical”. They want the licence of fiction but the authority of history: 
Lincoln is still a movie. And that means liberties were taken with the story, something screenwriter Tony Kushner is now explaining in the wake of accusations that the film is not historically accurate.

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., wrote a letter to [director Steven] Spielberg earlier this week noting that a key part of Lincoln is wrong. The film shows two of three lawmakers from his state voting against the 13th Amendment, prohibiting slavery in the U.S. “I could not believe my eyes and ears!” he wrote, because, he says, according to the Congressional Record, all four representatives from Connecticut voted in favor of the amendment…
Now, Lincoln screenwriter Kushner has penned his own letter of response, ... acknowledging that Courtney “is correct,” but defending and explaining the reasoning behind the film.
Kushner acknowledges, “We changed two of the delegation’s votes, and we made up new names for the men casting those votes, so as not to ascribe any actions to actual persons who didn’t perform them. In the movie, the voting is also organized by state, which is not the practice in the House. “

He goes on to say the alterations were made “to clarify to the audience the historical reality that the Thirteenth Amendment passed by a very narrow margin that wasn’t determined until the end of the vote. The closeness of that vote and the means by which it came about was the story we wanted to tell. In making changes to the voting sequence, we adhered to time-honored and completely legitimate standards for the creation of historical drama, which is what Lincoln is…

“Here’s my rule: Ask yourself, “Did this thing happen?” If the answer is yes, then it’s historical. Then ask, “Did this thing happen precisely this way?” If the answer is yes, then it’s history; if the answer is no, not precisely this way, then it’s historical drama.”
Which means, of course, such films should start instead with the words “This is not a true story. Facts have been changed. Whole scenes have been imagined.”
Many books fictionalising history already do this, adding disclaimers much like this:
This is a work of fiction set in a background of history. Public personages both living and dead may appear in the story under their right names. Scenes and dialogue involving them with fictitious characters are of course invented. Any other usage of real people’s names is coincidental. Any resemblance of the imaginary characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
It’s called truth in advertising. 

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One more alarmist retracts

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(12:04am)

 Global warming - dud predictions
2004: Warmist scientist Peter Cox says global warming will destroy Amazonian rainforests: 
DR PETER COX (Hadley Centre, Met Office): ...  If we don’t do anything by about twenty thirty we could have a global warming of exceeding two degrees… 2040 it could be four degrees warmer, the climate change could have led to big drying particularly in the Amazon Basin, that would make the forest unsustainable, we’d expect the forest to catch fire probably, turn into savannah and maybe ultimately even desert if it gets really really dry as our model suggests.
2013:  Warmist scientist Peter Cox says global warming will help Amazonian rainforests: 
The Amazon rainforest is less vulnerable to die off because of global warming than widely believed because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide also acts as an airborne fertilizer, a study showed on Wednesday.

“I am no longer so worried about a catastrophic die-back due to CO2-induced climate change,” Professor Peter Cox of the University of Exeter in England told Reuters of the study he led in the journal Nature. “In that sense it’s good news."…

“CO2 fertilization will beat the negative effect of climate change so that forests will continue to accumulate carbon throughout the 21st century,” Cox said of the findings with other British-based researchers.
(Thanks to reader John and others.)

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Emerson’s response to the truth should embarrass him, alarm you

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(12:02am)

 Global warming - general
What should a senior minister of the Gillard Government do when he learns he is wrong about global warming?
How should a minister who helped impose the carbon tax react to proof he was wrong to claim there’s been no pause in warming since 1997, and world was instead warming fast?
How should he respond upon finding instead that none of the measurements used even by the IPCC detect any warming trend that is “statistically significant”?
Here’s what I would expect.
I would expect Trade Minister Craig Emerson to apologise for being so badly informed.
I would expect him to revise his thinking about about the nature and speed of any warming, and the warming influence of our emissions.
I would expect him to explain why, in the light of the facts I’ve now drawn to his attention, he thinks trying to “stop” global warming with a carbon tax and billions in subsidies still makes economic sense. Or to admit it does not, after all.
These are the kinds of things a serious man, a responsible politician, would do when presented with facts contradicting a critical assumption behind an important public policy.
image
As you can see, that’s not an argument. That is the lamest abuse - below even sandpit level.  No child, even in primary school, would dare serve up such a response in their homework.
It is true that, unlike Dr Emerson, I have no academic qualification. But it is also true that on this matter he is wrong and I am right.
Here’s what’s troubling. If someone with no academic qualifications can prove that a minister with a doctorate - and in a government advised by top scientists - is wrong about the very basic facts about global warming, what does it say about the Gillard Government and its warming policies?
I think Emerson is now obliged to answer this simple question:  am I right, after all, to say there’s been no statistically significant warming since 1997?
If so, could he answer this: when the facts change, does he change his opinions?
UPDATE
Reader tdf corrects me:
No, Dr Karl does not have a doctorate. He has qualfied as a medical doctor. Karl completed a MB, B.S after a science B.Sc(Hons), some further broad study and a change to medical science. Dr. Emerson has a doctorate in Economics. On matters of science he has no qualifications. 

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Treasurer, your pamphlet lied. Why?

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(12:02am)

 Politics - deceits and stuff ups
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The question for Treasurer Wayne Swan is actually simpler: why did you lie about the surplus? But credit to the dogged journalist yesterday who asked questions the dishonest Treasurer refused to answer:
JOURNALIST:

The Opposition raised the issue about pamphlets, taxpayer pamphlets released in the ten Labor electorates which said we delivered a surplus on time as promised. This is before your comments later in the year that the surplus wasn’t being delivered. Can you tell us why these pamphlets [as pictured above] said you delivered a surplus on time and as promised when it is only as had been forecast?
TREASURER:
That’s right, that is what we had forecast. At the end of last year, I stood up and said it was unlikely that that forecast was unlikely that that forecast was would be achieved because there have been a substantial change in the revenue outlook caused by global volatility
JOURNALIST:
You put out a pamphlet saying we have delivered a surplus. That is a huge difference.
TREASURER:
We have put in place a fiscal consolidation which is ongoing and that has been a key part in very significant interest rate cuts delivered by the Reserve Bank because our strict fiscal discipline has given them the capacity to adjust rates downwards but forecasts are adjusted. Twice a year, we first of all bring down a budget, then we bring out a mid-year budget update. Because of what occurred in the second part of last year, after the update, I provided further guidance of what had happened with revenue.
JOURNALIST:
It says “We delivered a surplus” and you hadn’t.
TREASURER:

We had forecast a surplus, put in place a fiscal consolidation to achieve that surplus. Only somebody who would stick their head in the sand would ignore changes in the global economy. The facts have changed, so responsible Governments have to change their settings to protect growth and jobs.
The transcript does end abruptly, so it may well be that the word “lie” was used.
I hope so.
UPDATE
(Thanks to reader Stu.)
The video shows what the transcript omits - further questions hurled at the Treasurer as he flees the lectern. I can’t quite make out what’s said. Is “lie” used?
UPDATE
Labor should pay out of its own pocket the cost of mailing out deliberate and flagrant lies:

[Ten Labor] MPs had mailed out electoral pamphlets from Wayne Swan stating that: “We have delivered a surplus, on time, as promised."…
Mr Swan - whose office yesterday refused to answer questions about who paid for the pamphlets, when or how many were sent out and whether they would issue a correction to voters - said last year he had “forecast” a surplus but changed economic conditions meant the government could not deliver it…

ALP national secretary George Wright yesterday confirmed the pamphlets were printed using taxpayer funds.

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But don’t mention Dorner’s heroes

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY092013(12:01am)

image
The ABC couldn’t resist linking conservatives to a Norwegian mass-murderer by quoting from the madman’s manifesto:

Accused Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik praised four Australian conservative leaders - including former prime minister John Howard - in his 1,500-page manifesto.
The Sydney Morning Herald ran AAP copy also listing the conservatives praised in the Breivik manifesto:
A manifesto by Anders Breivik has been dismissed as “deluded rantings” by former Treasurer Peter Costello, who is named in it along with former prime minister John Howard.

Cardinal George Pell, historian Keith Windschuttle and former Liberal MP Ross Cameron are also mentioned in the 1500-page diatribe by the self-confessed mass murderer.
The Conversation published articles making the same gleeful link: 
The trial of Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik for the murder of 77 people has a special significance for journalists in Australia, and not just because Breivik summoned the names of John Howard, Peter Costello, George Pell and Keith Windschuttle in the manifesto he wrote before the slayings.
Not a coincidence, insisted ranter Mike Carlton. That manifesto was not the mere ravings of a lunatic but an insight into the spectrum of conservative thought: 
It was studded with quotations from heroes of the political right including - astoundingly - our very own John Howard, Peter Costello, Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Marxist-turned-High Tory academic, Keith Windschuttle. Breivik had done his reading.

His words and actions were a seamless, linear progression of right-wing rage and loathing. At one end, you start with the anger and paranoia fomented by rightist politicians, demagogues and commentators for their own cynical political ends, the bigotry and racism that is daily grist to the talkback radio mill.
At the other end is a clear-eyed fanatic with tonnes of fertiliser, automatic weapons and an ubermensch mission to save the world. The dots join up.
image
Dorner, too, has written a manifesto. It, too, names names: 
You [critics] disrespect the office of the POTUS/Presidency and Commander in Chief. You call him Kenyan, mongroid, halfrican, muslim, and FBHO when in essence you are to address him as simply, President.... You call his wife a Wookie. Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama…

Mr. Vice President, do your due diligence when formulating a concise and permanent national AWB plan. Future generations of Americans depend on your plan and advisement to the president. I’ve always been a fan of yours and consider you one of the few genuine and charismatic politicians…
Hillary Clinton. You’ll make one hell of a president in 2016. Much like your husband, Bill, you will be one of the greatest… Look after Bill. He was always my favorite President…

Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite’s lead. I hold many of you in the same regard as Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. 
But this time there’s no “aha!”. No slavering cry that “the dots join up”. The opposite, in fact: report after report fails to even note the names Dorner praises.
This time the ABC ignores the names named in the killer’s manifesto and focuses instead on what many on the Left would assume are traits of the Right:
In a manifesto posted online on Monday, Dorner warned about “terminating” Mr Quan and called lesbians and Asians “high-value” targets. 
The Age runs AFP copy which likewise fails to mention Dorner’s list of favorite Leftists, also citing only those bits that might lead readers to insist he must be a nasty Right-winger:
He also singled out lesbians and Asians as targets.
America’s ABC doesn’t mention Dorner’s heroes either. Nor does CBS

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Shut up, Evans tells the MPs he abandons to their fate

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY082013(7:55pm)

Just before abandoning the Labor ship, bound the rocks, Chris Evans tells the galley slaves to keep rowing and stop moaning:
LABOR’S outgoing Senate leader Chris Evans has urged his colleagues to “shut up’’ about leadership issues, saying it will destroy the party…

Shut up, just shut up ... I don’t think it’s in the interests of the Labor Party,’’ Senator Evans told ABC 24’s Capital Hill program.

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For all that pain, Swan’s pathetic gain

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY082013(7:34pm)

Wayne Swan finally slips out the bad news on Friday, blaming only a slump in prices and not the lousy design of a tax whose revenues have already been allocated to handouts:
That’s a tax meant to have raised $1 billion in that first half-year and $2 billion in the full year.
That’s a tax the Government recklessly spent on handouts and bribes before it was even raised, as Swan announced last year - along with his now-broken promise

increase family payments by $1.8 billion, with around 1.1 million families receiving an increase of at least $300 per year and around 690,000 families with two or more children receiving $600 per year from 1 July 2013.
create a new Supplementary Allowance worth $1.1 billion to assist Australians who are hardest hit by the increases in the cost of living — the unemployed, students, and parents with young children — by providing a yearly allowance of $210 for singles and $350 for couples, paid in two instalments, with the first payment to commence on March 2013.
introduce loss carry–back to support once profitable businesses to return to profit by providing a tax benefit of up to $300,000 per year. 
So to summarise: in designing this tax, Swan poisoned relations with miners, hit investor confidence, sparked a damaging anti-government ad campaign from the mining industry, killed Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership, and dabbled in class war. And after all that he’s come up with just $126 million - a fraction of the massive locked-in welfare spending and handouts he promised the tax would pay for.
It’s astonishing that anyone still takes this man - this Government - seriously.

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To celebrate the return of the sun we're discounting SKYWALK online by 25%, including the weekend. Hurry! http://bit.ly/HoYpeS
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MEDIA DANCE TO McTERNAN'S DISHONEST TUNES - Larry Pickering

The story of the day was Abbott’s “failure” to address the turning of boats around with Indonesia’s President Bambang Yudhoyono Susilo.

This was incorrect but yet another opportunity for Gillard’s discredited recruit McTernan to text every Caucus member with what to say to media. Caucus, including Gillard, obediently obliged.

Media simply responded to what was another of the many blatant McTernan beatups.

“Abbott is a gutless coward” sounds good, it makes a good headline, assists Gillard, and will get traction on a slow-news day. The trouble is it’s plain wrong. But so what! We don’t want to have to regurgitate that boring story about Gillard’s 26,000 boat arrivals and another conservative 5,000 drownings.

Abbott did indeed discuss turning boats back with BYS and shadow Immigration Minister Morrison discussed procedural matters in detail with his Indonesian counterpart. Anyway, how Abbott approaches his Indonesian connection and his determination to turn boats around is his bloody business.

Abbott will certainly turn the boats around "where it is safe to do so" and will certainly reintroduce TPVs and he doesn’t need the permission of BYS or the concurrence of Labor.

This is another false McTernan anti-Abbott diversion from the real story: Gillard’s total and dangerous loss of our border security.

Thousands of unknowns continue to flood unchallenged to our shores. Twice the number since Gillard deflected responsibility to her panel of ‘three wise men’.

To suggest we need to go cap in hand to Indonesia and their protected millionaire people-smugglers to request permission to turn their own damned boats around is laughable.

Indonesia’s own corrupt military is doing very well out of the people-smuggling business. Is a corrupt Indonesian government likely to agree to forgo a lucrative scam that Howard took from them? I mean they now enjoy a brilliant cash-flow business that is costing we Aussie taxpayers billions.

Gillard’s solution is to chuck untold amounts of unaccounted for cash at them. Incredibly, she still promotes a ridiculous, illegal Malaysian solution. Malaysia’s endemic corruption makes Indonesia’s criminality look like a case of shoplifting. A word out of place in Malaysia is met with a bullet in the back of the head.

But, back to this bacterial infection, McTernan. He is certainly having an impact on what we traditionally considered political decency. Our almost insolvent lazy Left wing Press is enchanted with him.

You will have noticed Labor’s recent skilful adeptness at avoiding answering questions. That’s a UK disease we had not contracted until McTernan brought it here with him.

You will also have noticed another tactic when answering anything: “Let me answer that in two ways.” “I want to say two things here.” “Firstly let me say this....” That’s no more than a cunning ploy to prevent the interviewee’s statement being cut.

The trouble with McTernan-style politics is it drags the Left to far-Left and the Right to far-Right. The middle ground becomes a non-debating void. White hot anger replaces rapprochement in a destructive downward spiral media will not save us from.

Unfortunately Gillard’s embrace of the gutter tactics of McTernan will last as long as Gillard lasts.

When she goes, so too goes McTernan and we can perhaps return to the political morality we once enjoyed.

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Our fast "food" display is now 2 years old. The word food is questionable, since the bread-like and meat-like substances have not molded or spoiled in any way. Bugs won't even bother with it. Please think twice about giving this to your kids. You have a choice, but they don't. We truly are what we eat.
Source: LiveWell Wellness Centers.
A stunt .. the decaying things have been removed .. -ed
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A SUMMARY OF SERIOUS STUPIDITY

(1) Admission that political advisers to the government have botched decisions resulting in a cost something in the order of $20 billion.

(2) Boat refugees that have chosen to skip Nauru and go home again given $3000 each by the government as “compensation”.

(3) The pursuit of a temporary seat for Oz on the UN Security Council has, to date, cost a reported $40 million.

(4) 1000 new cotton/rice farms have been permitted to open in the Eastern States during the last 12 months.

(5) A revenue shortfall tipped this year of $25 billion whilst the country’s borrowings exceeds $240 billion and continues to rise.

(6) Gillard announces a $6.5 billion School Education Funding plan but is unable to say how it will be funded

(7) Dental care plan for children announced by Plibersek at a cost of $2 billion but she can’t say how it will be funded either.

(8) The price of “spin doctors” presently employed by the Federal Labor Government now costing $150 million a year

(9) Each public service employee was given a bonus of $1000 to “head off industrial unrest” at a total cost of $33 million.

(10) $320 million was promised by Gillard at the Pacific Forum Conference to help increase the number of female politicians in the Pacific.

(11) The Treasurer suggested planning to further tax the nation’s $1.4 trillion superannuation funds in an attempt to balance his 2013 budget.

(12) Australian Funding for Indonesia – 2012/13 - $578.4 million.

(13) National Broadband Network way behind schedule and blown out by another $1 billion - total cost of the project - $43 billion Expert opinion is that this cable system will be outdated long before it is finished being replaced by wireless broadband.

(14) Failed Pink Batts Insulation Scheme – Cost $3.45 billion plus $424 million extra to repair the mess left by Minister Garret’s inefficiency.

(15) An audit has revealed that the $540 million government scheme to boost literacy and numeracy in schools has totally failed.

(16) An enquiry has revealed that the $16.2 billion “Building the Education Revolution”(BER) programme (administered personally by Gillard) has totally failed. A number of schools destined for closure & demolition in the near future had new buildings erected during the scheme.

(17) A headline from Adelaide ’s “The Advertiser” in 2009…“OUR FUTURE MARKED BY RISING RIVERS OF RED INK”

(18) The cost of recording the first round of Carbon Tax commercials was $350,000 followed by $340,000 for the second round. That’s $690,000 before buying any airtime. Estimates also heard that the Government is planning another round of advertising to sell the Carbon Tax Labor promised not to introduce. And in anticipation of that, the creative advertising agency involved has had its contract increased by 50% to $3 million.

(19) A planned National Disability Insurance Scheme … $10 billion – promised but unfunded.

(20) Planned Child Care Subsidies …. $1.4 billion – promised but unfunded.

(21) The Immigration Department revealed that about $2 million has been spent flying 260 asylum seekers from Christmas Island to Nauru – averaging more than $7,600 per asylum seeker

(22) Nineteen lawyers worked on the Government’s defence of the Slipper/Ashby case at a cost of $780,000 to date.

(23) A portrait of Peter Slipper in his “Speaker’s Robes” destined to hang in the halls of Parliament has been commissioned at a cost of $30,000.

(24) Bureaucratic Excesses: The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry spent $21,000 on a single dinner. The Department of Industry spent $75,000 on just five coffee machines.

(25) Fair Work Australia has so far spent more than $1.8 million on external legal and accounting advice for its investigation into the rorting of Health Services Union funds.

(26) $79,700 was spent building three fake kitchens for the Government’s Carbon Tax advertising campaigns. Using real kitchens would have cost $5,000 a day.

(27) More than 10,000 asylum seekers arrived by boat so far this year – five times as many as Wayne Swan estimated when framing his Budget. The budget estimate of $1.1 billion was based on an average of 450 arrivals per month but actual arrivals are running at 5 times more on an average of 2,400 per month.

(28) While departmental officials refused to be drawn on the cost of the Budget blow-out we do know that in 2011/12 every boat that arrived cost taxpayers $12.8 million, or more than $172,700 for every person on board.

(29) The present Social Security and Welfare Budget for 12 months is, in round figures, $131 Billion. Assuming that there are 3 million Australians eligible for this that equates to $43,885 per person per annum. The current age pension is $15,132 per person per annum so the question remains – where does the other $28,753 go? Surely not administration?

Meanwhile Gillard has vehemently stated her opposition to pension increases for non-Labor voting pensioners. (”Sieg Heil Comrade mate?”)

(30) Gillard announced a white paper – “The Asian Century” - where Asian languages will be taught in all Australian schools for us to “better communicate with our Asian neighbours”. The cost will be $6 billion which is, again, unfunded whilst an implementation strategy has yet to be formed. Fact: As there are many Asian languages and dialects most Asian business transactions are presently conducted in English.

(31) Gillard announces her “Plan to Save the Murray”. Quote: “We can deliver the extra water by investing $1.8 billion in infrastructure, water efficiency and fixing constraints like raising low bridges so more water can flow.”Unquote.

Raising bridges so more water can flow ???? Can somebody tell the fool that bridges, no matter how high or low, do not normally restrict water flow?)

(32) Water Fact 1: Gillard has “found” 450 billion litres of water at a cost of $1.8 billion to “Save the Murray”.

Water Fact 2: Cubby Station is licensed to take 460 megalitres a year from the river. 460 megalitres = 460 billion litres so, by closing Cubby Station the problem is solved & $1.8 billion is saved. Where do we send our account?

(33) Further Fabulous Failures:

(a) Grocery Watch

(b) Fuel Watch.

(c) $1 billion Cash for Clunkers failure.

(d) 450 GP Super Clinics promised …. Only 3 delivered.

(e) $2.1 billion promise of a “Laptop for every child”.

(f) $275 million “Green Loans” debacle.

(g) $534 million Solar Panel Rebate suddenly withdrawn.

(h) Promise to build 222 Child Care centres – abandoned.

(34) $38.5 million spent for a pro-mining tax advertising campaign.

(35) The gross Australian Federal Debt as at August 31st 2012

was A$244,325,881,000. ($244.3 billion) and continues to grow

at $100 million a day.(That’s two hundred & forty four billion, three hundred & twenty five million, eight hundred & eighty one thousand dollars!)

(36) A random quote from “The Punch”. Headline quote: “Gillard & Swan are Failures, Not Leaders.” Quote from the text: “Mr Swan has undermined Australia’s international standings and jeopardised our economy. He should have been sent to the back bench, not made Treasurer & Deputy Prime Minister.” unquote.

(37) And we won’t even mention the 3 or 4 year “protection” given to Craig Thomson by Gillard …..Thomson being the Health Services Union man who, by his statement, “had his credit card stolen” by “someone unknown” to “pay for prostitutes” and then “put back in his wallet again” …… several times in fact!!

AND FINALLY, AN OBSERVATION! Her behaviour demonstrates that she knows that she is going to get tossed out at the next election so is making as many “promises” as possible to throw back at Abbott from the opposition benches. You can hear the dorsal nosed whine now, “If you hadn’t dismissed us from government you would have had a Child Care subsidy scheme now (or a Dental Plan or a School Education Funding plan etc.etc.etc. whine,whine,snivel,snivel” …..

That’s if the unions don’t do a “Rudd” on her too!

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God brags about you, even when you feel ashamed of yourself. - Jarrid Wilson
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4 TMN
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Various plants of the Solar System, if they were as close to Earth as the Moon (excluding all other factors).

In this order: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
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/\„,,,,,,/\
(=ˆ⌣ˆ=) ♥ Just in time for Valentines Day a "Hissing" Booth ...oops I mean Kissing Booth. 
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Andy buckles up for another night on the set of Pandorian!
www.facebook.com/PandorianFilm
 
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this is the revenue gained from mining tax
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Because Jesus suffered for our sakes, we can have His peace and His anointing to rise above every trouble we are facing today! Check out today's devotional. Be sure to click "like" to help spread the word! Thanks, all!http://bit.ly/WlyFo5
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We need more honest people like Chloe Valdary!

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/pro-israel-christian-college-student-chloe-valdary-speaks-the-truth

She is a pro-Israel Christian College Student and she speaks the truth about Israel out loud on her campus!

Thank you Chloe (https://www.facebook.com/chloe.valdary?fref=ts)!

What an unbelievable person! You must hear what she has to say. We are humbled to know that we are lucky enough to have such friends on college campuses. We need more Chloe Valdary's!!!

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/pro-israel-christian-college-student-chloe-valdary-speaks-the-truth

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Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for February 8th. Enjoy!

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