Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Headlines Tuesday 28th September 2010
=== Todays Toon ===
To preserve our democracy and way of life we must dump the ALP from office. - ed.=== Bible Quote ===
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”- Matthew 6:33=== Headlines ===
Congress' Solution: Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights
After a two-year session marked by epic fights over government spending and health care regulation, Congress is spending its final days doing the legislative equivalent of watching movies before school lets out for summer recess.Military Poll: Diplomacy Just As Important
New poll shows nearly 90 percent of active and retired military officers say diplomacy and development are at least partly helpful to achieve U.S. national security objectives as opposed to just a strong military presence - Diplomacy is important and glaringly that is where Obama has failed - ed
Chrysler Workers Fired for Drinking on Break
Thirteen plant workers at the Chrysler Jefferson North Assembly plant in Detroit have lost their jobs after a TV station caught some of them drinking during their lunch break
U.S. Silent on Iran Nuke Cyber Attack
Pentagon refuses to comment on whether U.S. used the Stuxnet Worm to invade Iran's nuclear facilities amid widespread accusations that the West coordinated cyber attack
Breaking News
Branson sorry for Virgin bluesRICHARD Branson has apologised for a "terrible 24 hours" after some Virgin Blue customers spent a second night stranded following the weekend's check-in chaos.
Titanic actress Gloria Stuart dies at 100
ACTRESS Gloria Stuart, who went from a 1930s leading lady to playing the elderly but still luminous Rose Calvert in Titanic – and who was the oldest actress ever nominated for an Academy Award, has died at age 100.
Thirteen drown in US Navy rescue feat
At least 13 people on board a skiff in the Gulf of Aden drowned today when the USS Winston S. Churchill attempted to come to their assistance.
Paris Hilton wins 'that's hot' lawsuit
HALLMARK Greeting Cards has settled a lawsuit with celebrity socialite Paris Hilton after she sued the company for releasing a card using her trademarked catchphrase “that’s hot."
NSW/ACT
Rich bounty as prayers answeredWHEN Sarah Graham went down on her knees to pray for rain, her image resonated around the nation, highlighting the farmers' plight.
Tragic parents and child reunited
AT the front of the church there was a small white coffin and it was far too small. Family says goodbye to baby Lucy Schollbach.
Fancy a future in new toy testing?
FORGET focus groups, surveys and scientific studies - to gauge a toy's appeal just put it in the hands of a child. A very simple theory.
Tickets as rare as Roosters teeth
THE Ticketek website was hit hard as football fanatics swamped the site for Grand Final tickets.
Final arguments before jury retires
IN his barrister's words, sex-charged accused Brett Stewart had been the star of a "bad movie".
DJs case leads to paranoia head
DAVID Jones publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk has a psychiatric condition because of the media frenzy in her sexual harassment case.
A hint of warmth for Sydney's spring
IT may have taken its time to get here but Sydney revelled in spring's offerings. Some suburbs were just shy of hitting 30C.
Queensland
Bikini girls in 'horse' raceGOLD Coast Turf Club will lock bikini-clad women in barrier stalls and run them down the straight, to mirror a horse race.
Coronation Hotel robbed at knifepoint
A HOTEL on Brisbane Street in West Ipswich was robbed at knifepoint by two men just before noon on Monday.
Gas explorers close in on Brisbane
THE massive coal seam gas industry is knocking on the door of southeast Queensland with exploration now only 50km from Brisbane.
Unpredictable Langbroek under attack
LIBERAL National Party backbencher David Gibson has taken another swipe at John-Paul Langbroek, insisting he is an everyday man masquerading as a political leader.
Bashed puppies part of sick trend
THE shocking discovery by young schoolgirls of seven puppies found bashed to death on a roadside in Townsville is the latest in a spate of animals being killed and dumped in public places.
Police vow to reclaim Coolangatta
POLICE have vowed to take back the streets of Coolangatta, the Gold Coast seaside suburb with a battered reputation after a wave of late-night violence.
Reckless moment costs teen his life
AN uncharacteristic moment of recklessness has cost a Brisbane teenager his life and devastated his family.
Gold Coast street has no name
THEY might live in the heart of the Gold Coast but dozens of residents have been battling red tape in an effort to get a name for their street.
Mansions bought for no reason
TAXPAYERS are set to lose out as more than $25m worth of prime Sunshine Coast land is sold off after no longer being needed for a transport corridor.
Sica 'told friend of victims' pleas'
ACCUSED triple murderer Max Sica asked a friend if she knew how hard it was to kill someone when they pleaded "please don't", a court heard.
Victoria
Ugly war of dirty wordsWAR has broken out between Eddie McGuire and Derryn Hinch over allegations the Magpies' boss sledged his own players.
Coffee price hike hits our city
THE cost of a cup of coffee has risen faster in Melbourne than other Australian capital cities in the past year.
Breast best in infection fight
BREASTFEEDING reduces the severity and frequency of common infections in babies, research reveals.
Replay stops home sales
REAL estate agents are rescheduling auctions to help home owners avoid a grand final flop.
Rating fun toys is child's play
PARENTS have been spared a Christmas toy price rise thanks to the soaring Australian dollar.
Ain't seen nothin' yet
PROMOTER Michael Gudinski will on Tuesday announce the last-minute entertainment for "Grand Final Take Two''.
Food prices set to jump
FOOD prices will soar up to 45 per cent over the next decade as staples become more scarce, experts warn.
Deadly punch acquittal
AN amateur footballer was acquitted of manslaughter over the death of the teammate he punched during grand final celebrations.
Please explain, Sir Richard
IRATE passengers are demanding Virgin Blue founder Sir Richard Branson appear in person to explain a computer glitch.
Dead after a 3-hour wait
A MAN who died after waiting more than three hours for an ambulance pleaded for help nine times before paramedics arrived.
Northern Territory
Nothing newSouth Australia
Mayors gain power by defaultFOURTEEN mayors and five entire councils will be handed power without facing the people at the state's looming council elections.
Sitting days challenge
PARLIAMENT will be asked to set a minimum number of sitting days as part of a plan to ensure accountability and openness.
'No jobs cut' letters released
PUBLIC sector unions have stepped up their attack on the Government, releasing three more letters from ministers promising no job cuts.
Bikies safe as Parks Centre axed
PREMIER Mike Rann said he would "bulldoze" bikie fortresses. Instead, he is knocking down a community centre across the road from one.
South Australia's most wanted
SOUTH Australia's most wanted criminals are a motley crew of suspected drug dealers, murderers, armed robbers and villains.
Is the Murray plan being watered down?
THE key plan for the future of the River Murray is still being tinkered with, just days before its scheduled release, prompting fears it could be watered down.
Hit-run probe 'cronyism'
THE BOARD investigating hit-run lawyer Eugene McGee will not release its findings publicly, prompting the widow of his victim to accuse it of "cowardice".
Gloves are off as political trust collapses
IT is going to be ugly but it will be beautiful in its ugliness, Independent MP Rob Oakeshott famously predicted some weeks back.
More motorists opt for striking numbers
PERSONALISED number plates have never been so popular.
Neglect mum 'emotionally numb'
A MOTHER has told a court she starved her children, but had been emotionally numb to her actions.
Western Australia
Serious injuries after Bunbury bar assaultA MAN has been charged after a serious assault at a Bunbury bar that left another man with facial injuries, broken ribs and concussion.
Four die on roads, witnesses sought
THREE men and an elderly woman have died on WA roads over the Queen's Birthday long weekend and police are seeking witnesses to another crash.
WA racks up hours, nation takes a break
WEST Aussies are a hard working bunch compared to the rest of the country, as full-time workers spend less time at their jobs now than a decade ago.
Tasmania
Nothing new=== Journalists Corner ===
Guests: Rush Limbaugh and Sarah PalinThe Tea Party impact: is the grassroots movement signaling a changing of the guard in D.C.? Former Governor Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh have expert insight.
===
Spending Spree on the Hill?
Billions in new spending ... right before the election? Neil gets answers on how the latest move to get more money will impact key players on Capitol Hill.
===
All New 'Factor' Investigation
Bill's tracking down the 9/11 truther who was involved with the imam of the NYC mosque! Go inside with a 'Factor' investigation. Plus, are certain broadcasters too big for their britches? Bernie gives his take on whether some have become too powerful.
===
On Fox News Insider:
VIDEO: Martha's Studio Interview with... a Wild Wolf?!Dierks Bentley on the Return of the Grand Ole Opry!
Did New Black Panther Members Dine with Ahmadinejad?
=== Comments ===
Black Panther Polling Place Story ExplodesBY BILL O'REILLY
Back in January 2009, three Black Panthers were charged with violating the Voting Rights Act. That civil action stemmed from two Panthers standing in front of a Philadelphia polling place during the presidential election, one of them holding a club.
There is no doubt the Panthers committed the act, and they didn't even bother showing up in court to fight the charges.
Nevertheless, in May 2009 the Obama administration moved to dismiss criminal action against the Panthers, and that has caused a national outcry.
On Friday, testifying in front of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, Christopher Coates, the former chief of the Justice Department's voting section, flat-out accused the Obama administration of ignoring the law:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER COATES, FORMER CHIEF OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S VOTING SECTION: We had eyewitness testimony. We had videotape that there were two people standing in uniform in front of a polling place. One of them had a weapon. They were hurling racial slurs. 11B of the Voting Rights Act prohibits attempts to intimidate or coerce or threaten.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Mr. Coats' testimony was devastating. Not only did he indict Attorney General Eric Holder for failing to uphold the law, he accused members of the Justice Department of racism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: I believe that present management in both the division and the section are opposed to the race-neutral enforcement of section 5 and continue to enforce those provisions in a racially selective manner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Mr. Coats' comments echo those of J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney who worked in the civil rights department. A few months ago, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed Mr. Adams:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGYN KELLY, HOST, "AMERICA LIVE": Do you believe that the DOJ has a policy now of not pursuing cases if the defendant is black and the victim is white?
J. CHRISTIAN DAVIS, FORMER JUSTICE DEPT. ATTORNEY: Well, particularly in voting, in voting, that will be the case over the next few years. There's no doubt about it.
KELLY: Is the Department of Justice corrupt?
ADAMS: Well, I think the decision to dismiss this case was corrupt. I don't think the department or the fine people who work there are corrupt. But in this particular instance, to abandon law-abiding citizens and abet wrongdoers constitutes corruption.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
So there seems little doubt that Attorney General Holder did not uphold the law, which is his sworn duty. Whether there is racism in his department is a matter of debate, but certainly the accusation is troubling.
As for Mr. Coats, he is not some right-wing guy. He actually worked for the Voting Rights Project of the ACLU, and in 1991 he received the Thurgood Marshall Decade Award from the Georgia NAACP. So this is not a man with an ideological axe to grind.
The entire case is troubling, but it's also stupid. Those Black Panthers should have been prosecuted, there's no doubt about it. Everyone knows that if a Klan guy was outside a polling place with a club shouting racial invective, he would have been prosecuted.
So you can draw your own conclusions here, but there is no question that this story is a major embarrassment for the Justice Department and the Obama administration.
===
WE’RE REALLY RESILIENT
Tim Blair
Warmenist Tim Flannery, prior to Copenhagen:
This round of negotiations is likely to be our last chance as a species to deal with the problem. I can’t say I’m optimistic ...He can now. The former panic merchant has changed his mind. In fact, he seems absolutely buoyant at humankind’s prospects. Here’s Flannery on yesterday’s Sunrise, jabbering with fellow warmster-turned-optimist David Koch:
Flannery: After the Copenhagen meeting, I guess myself and a few other people sat back and thought, gee, are we actually going to make it or not? And there was a bit of a mood of depression hanging over everyone and I thought, you know, the only way to understand this is to take a bit of a longer view.Makes you wonder what all the fuss was about. Congratulations to Flannery, by the way, on his discovery of human adaptation. A Nobel awaits.
So that’s why I brought in evolution and how the process that created us – what’s it created, a monster or something that can live within the planet’s constraints. And, you know, I must say I came away from that exercise feeling a lot more optimistic … you’ve got to take a longer view.
Koch: Yeah, coz you’ve looked at history and you’ve found that we change all the time. We’re actually, and the earth, nature, ourselves, we’re really resilient.
Flannery: That’s right.
UPDATE. The return of global cooling.
===
SOLDIERS CHARGED
Tim Blair
Three Australian soldiers – two of them reservists – face criminal charges following civilian deaths in Afghanistan last year. The Daily Telegraph responds.
===
BOSSY SCIENCE
Tim Blair
Do this, don’t do that, sit up straight, be quiet, that lawn won’t mow itself … younger readers may detect a parental note in modern science. Older readers may be reminded of the reasons for that first divorce:
(Via the great Liz)===
BANANAS, BOOKS AND BEER. AND ALSO FISH
Tim Blair
A righteous bounty is delivered to roadside scavengers:
• “Drivers may have gone bananas Friday morning after a truck carrying 43,000 pounds of the fruit rolled over on a major Brighton-area freeway ramp during the morning commute.”
• “Andrew Marr’s latest book is, literally, stopping traffic. Boxes containing 15 British tons worth of the journalist’s history volume The Making of Modern Britain have been strewn across a busy English road after an accident.”
• “Sunday turned out to be a perfect holiday for Bacchus lovers here, as a truck loaded with over 400 boxes of beer overturned near the Ambala-Rajpura bridge today.”
• “Hundreds of live fish were let off the hook at approximately 6:17 p.m. when the truck transporting them lost control and overturned past exit 17 southbound on Interstate 95.”
UPDATE. Less amusing transport news.
===
RULES CHANGED
Tim Blair
A leftist collective demands total disclosure:
It’d be good practice for major media organisations … to be upfront about just who the authors are.Furthermore:
Writers should openly declare their present interests as they relate to any particular published piece.Of course they should. We can’t have people “writing disingenuous political attacks on their opponents without being required to clearly identify themselves.” (Note: in the complained-about cases linked above, the authors actually are identified, but not in sufficient detail to satisfy our leftist friends.) So you’d imagine that this crew would be pleased when an anonymous author – who occasionally writes for a major media organisation – is unmasked:
Media can reveal that high-profile blogger Grog’s Gamut is actually Greg Jericho, a public servant who spends his days working in the film section of the former Department of Environment, Heritage, Water and the Arts.The reaction from those who’d earlier called for writers to “clearly identify themselves”? For some reason, they ain’t happy. Scoring extra hypocrisy points, the collective member who penned that response declines to use his real name.
The identity of Mr Jericho, who shot to prominence after making some sharp observations about media coverage of the 2010 election and subsequently has written for the ABC’s The Drum website, has triggered much speculation in recent weeks ...
===
Why is Gillard now pushing what she told Rudd was poison?
Andrew Bolt
Terry McCrann is mystified by Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s decision to consider imposing the carbon tax she ruled out just six weeks ago, when there was an election to win:
Why did she earlier lead the push in the Gang of Four to dump the Government’s ETS - the move which destroyed Kevin Rudd’s credibility and ultimately sealed his fate?UPDATE
Presumably because she thought it would cost votes and possibly government. Yet now, at the first opportunity after the election, she’s grabbed what she thought was the hottest of hot potatoes!...
No, Julia’s experience could mirror that of the Canadian government that tried a similar slick trick to her - promising in the election campaign no GST and then slipping it in after winning the election.
At the next election, it was reduced to two seats. Yes, two seats. And Julia is supposed to be the smart one.
No kidding, Sherlock:
KEY independent Tony Windsor has expressed concern about the impact of a carbon price on the cost of food.Wait until it dawns on Windsor that a carbon dioxide tax will also send power bills through the roof.
UPDATE 2
Reader Stephen wonders just how high an Australian carbon tax would have to be to actually force people to slash their emissions, when the overseas data is so discouraging:How effective are taxes (and similar schemes) at significantly and meaningfully reducing emissions? As the stated goal is to save the planet from the “dangerous” levels of CO2, the actual levels need to be reduced substantially. This is especially the case where other countries are increasing their emissions and will continue to do so.Dates obtained for carbon tax implementation here. Data set for emissions here.
Some interesting data:
Both Sweden and Finland implemented carbon taxes in the 90s, how effective have they been at reducing CO2 levels? Almost meaningless up to 2006.
By 2006, Finland had grown its emissions by 2.5 metric tons per capita, since implementing a tax. Sweden on the other hand had reduced its emissions by 0.8 tons per capita, since implementing a tax. According to the “science”, I’m assuming this is inadequate.
Over this same period, Australia grew its emission by 0.8 tons per capita. Between these two countries and our own, there is no meaningful difference in emissions with or without a tax. The question then becomes: how painful does the tax need to be for it to actually be meaningful (from a believer’s perspective)?
UPDATE 3
The Greens MP for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, boasts on Twitter that the Greens forced Julia Gillard yesterday to set up her rigged committee to work out how to tax emissions:
Because Melb went Green on Aug 21, we could negotiate a committee to put a price on pollution. Today the c’ee was set up. Well done, Melb.The Government really is a Greens-Labor coalition.
about 16 hours ago via TweetDeck
Retweeted by 28 people
AdamBandt
UPDATE 4
Meanwhile, the rest of the world keeps refusing to do what Gillard says we must - and that includes even Barack Obama’s US:
President Barack Obama’s dream of passing a big bill to battle global warming is likely dead for the rest of his term, according to a leading Democrat and long time backer of climate legislation.(Thanks to readers Deb and Alan RM Jones.)
“I don’t see a comprehensive bill going anywhere in the next two years,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman told the Reuters Washington Summit on Wednesday.
Bingaman’s comments are the most frank to date from a Democratic senator on legislation that Obama has said was key to giving the United States a lead role in global efforts to fight climate change.
===
Wooing the Greens: Labor’s $20 million game of let’s-pretend
Andrew Bolt
Labor at the last election campaign - when it was desperate for Greens preferences -abruptly dropped its opposition to a high-speed rail network linking our biggest cities:
AUSTRALIA’S east coast could eventually be linked by a high-speed rail network if Labor wins the next federal election.But now we learn that Labor is spending $20 million to find out exactly what it had already been told:
A Gillard government would carry out a feasibility study into the project later this year, Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.
The $20 million study would look at whether a high-speed rail link on Australia’s east coast would be financially viable, and identify potential train routes and station stops…
The announcement comes as the Australian Greens, who have been lobbying for such a study to be undertaken, look set to win the balance of power in the Senate after the August 21 poll.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard rejected any assertion there had been a deal with the Greens on light rail.
A high-speed rail network linking Australia’s major cities isn’t viable because they are too far apart or don’t have the population to justify the cost, departmental documents show.Which means Labor is spending another $20 million just to pretend to examine a dud scheme proposed by the Greens. Good God, how we are taken for fools..
Labor announced during the August election campaign that, if re-elected, it would initiate a $20 million feasibility study for a high-speed rail network linking Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, with a particular focus on the Sydney-Newcastle leg.
But a document obtained under a freedom of information (FOI) request showed Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese was told in March the plan was not viable.
===
All the balance that the ABC can tolerate
Andrew Bolt
Add the Left-wing host of Q&A and the balance last night works out to five of the Left and one conservative:
Stephen Conroy - Minister for CommunicationsIs there a single show on ABC TV that would ever have an imbalance that works the other way?
Sophie Mirabella - Shadow Minister for Innovation
Rob Oakeshott - Independent MP
Fiona Patten - President of the Australian Sex Party
Mungo MacCallum - political commentator
(Thanks to reader Marcus.)
===
Save the planet! Don’t breed little Lachlan Kents
Andrew Bolt
Melbourne writer Lachlan Kent tells Age readers how he’s helping to save the planet:
TWO years ago, aged 27, I committed to a radical lifestyle choice. Having become a stepfather some six years earlier, and with my wife’s blessing, I had a vasectomy…No little Kents will be around to see if their dad’s sacrifice was worth it, but I suspect Kent will have more immediate regrets:
I don’t want my own biological children when there are already so many to go around.... Just as the notion of ‘’man versus man’’ dominated the 20th century, it has become increasingly obvious to me that ‘’man versus nature’’ is the issue of our time… The prospect of an unsustainable world of 9 billion people by about 2050 scares me to the core. The 6 billion we already have seems like way too many.
My conviction behind the decision to have a vasectomy is therefore both private and political.
However, not wanting to appear a fanatic, I rarely speak of my anxiety about overpopulation with friends or family...No, he just tells a few hundred thousand anonymous Age readers instead.
===
Denounced anonymously
Andrew Bolt
A man must go to trial without knowing the identity of those who accuse him?THE David Jones publicist at the centre of a $37 million sexual harassment lawsuit had developed a psychological disorder, and did not want other women involved in the case to be put at risk of harm, the Federal Court heard yesterday.Is Kafka writing this script?
Kristy Fraser-Kirk, 27, is suing the retailer, its board and former chief executive Mark McInnes in the record claim, alleging Mr McInnes made unwanted sexual advances towards her.
The claims are being vigorously defended.
Other women make allegations against Mr McInnes in Ms Fraser-Kirk’s amended statement of claim. Justice Geoffrey Flick yesterday heard arguments over whether their identities should be disclosed to Mr McInnes and David Jones.
(No comments for legal reasons.)
===
It’s a contest, not a collective
Andrew Bolt
Niki Savva has had enough of this new paradigm:
Parliament’s first act should be to outlaw group hugs.And she’s had enough of this nonsense that Tony Abbott’s duty is help Labor govern:
Abbott’s job as Opposition Leader is not to prop up a weak or fragile government, or to make its life easy. It is not in his interests and it is certainly not in the national interest…(Thanks to reader Paul C.)
She got it right at her first question time as Prime Minister, in June, when she shook hands with Abbott and declared “game on”.
That was when she had 87 Labor MPs sitting behind her. Now that she only has 72, she wants a cosy-up. Forget it. No amount of tut-tutting or name-calling will change it.
===
The deaths are troubling, and so is the court martial
Andrew Bolt
The first instinct is to defend them and to deplore these charges:
THREE special forces soldiers will face an unprecedented court martial over the deaths of six people in Afghanistan, including five children…Yet there do indeed seem to be questions we need to resolve. Five children are dead, after all, and this war will not be won of Afghans believe we do not take such tragedies seriously or do not do our best to avoid them. And here’s some of what needs to be checked out:
The Director of Military Prosecutions, Brigadier Lyn McDade, said the men, who were serving with the Special Operations Task Group, would face a range of charges, including manslaughter, dangerous conduct, failing to comply with a lawful general order and prejudicial conduct…
Law firm Kennedys, representing two of the commandos, yesterday issued a statement in which the two soldiers expressed their deep regret about the deaths but said they were were “deeply disappointed” at the decision to proceed to court martial…
“Words will never adequately express our regret that women and children were killed and injured during the incident on 12 February, 2009.
“These were people we were risking our lives to protect.”
The casualties were caused by the “callous and reckless act of an insurgent” who fired at the soldiers from within a room he knew contained women and children, the soldiers’ statement said. The soldiers claim the building they were targeting was occupied by armed Taliban and that gunfire had been directed from inside the building at the SOTG.
But the policeman father of one of the child victims said the soldiers should be spared punishment. Abdul Qayam said the raid was a case of mistaken identity and the commandos had believed the house belonged to an insurgent commander.But these are matters that should have been fully investigated before charges were laid. A court martial should only come after the military is reasonably certain of such facts.
He said he wanted the informer who provided the false information handed over to him, rather than have the Australian soldiers facing charges…
The only witness of the raid, identified as an armed Taliban insurgent, is dead.
A court martial will attempt to clarify whether he was an insurgent and not a farmer defending his family. The military tribunal will determine whether undue force was used and whether the SOTG troops attacked the right target.
After all, charge a soldier too soon and you’ll make soldiers too scared to shoot.
===
Er, I’m not sure this is what we meant by protecting our borders
Andrew Bolt
The Gillard Government can’t stop the boats, but at least it’s tough on protecting us from a five-year-old adopted girl:A VICTORIAN family has been torn apart after Australian immigration officials in London ruled their five-year-old adopted daughter was an unacceptable immigration threat.UPDATE
Helen Coates and Stuart Kruse, both Australian citizens, were banned from bringing Isimbi, adopted from Rwanda, back into the country.
David Burchell goes to town on the kiddult compassion-mongers of the Gruen Transfer who liken every boat person to a Jew fleeing the Nazis:
One of the saddest features of this vexed and interminable debate is that for a decade not a year has gone by without some new group of clever young things discovering the plight of asylum-seekers, all by themselves, and proceeding to instruct the population on the matter. First they advise the citizenry to abandon all restraints on people arriving on our shores by boat. Then, noting the swelling numbers of miserable folks on boats, they declare that our facilities for processing them are overcrowded and need to be shut down. Soon enough - since only small minds cavil over nice distinctions between administrative categories - they declare that every person arriving should be presumed to be a bona fide refugee and treated as such, even at the cost of trimming the regular immigration program.
Finally, their best efforts to persuade others of this chain of logic having failed, they conclude that the rest of the population is nothing but a bunch of unfeeling, ignorant fools, worthy only of being subjected to a barrage of pithy slogans, lurid images and emotive logic-chopping: all the predictable armoury of the ad agent on a pro bono mission. Yet it’s precisely out of this phony emotiveness that internees at Villawood are being encouraged into patterns of behaviour - operatic distress, half-meant threats, stigmata-like rituals of self-harm carried out in media-worthy ways - that gratify only the already converted while arousing revulsion and suspicion in everybody else. Meanwhile, long-term advocates of refugees across the globe are drowned out in a sea of self-parading nonsense talk that combines the chutzpah of a 30-second TV ad with the self-righteousness of a sermon.
There are many thousands of people across the globe who live in constant fear of physical harm, retribution and even death. By the same token, there are many millions whose night thoughts are chiefly devoted to finding a more promising homeland for their children. The interests of the former group are hardly served by treating both groups as if they were the same people. This is not compassion but a mission of self-discovery turned into the political program of a social caste. Once again a complex debate is in the process of being dragged down into the depths of histrionic self-indulgence and self-display. .
Outside of this (Inside of that)
The Friends of Mr. Cairo is the second collaboration of Jon Anderson and Vangelis as Jon & Vangelis.
There are two editions of this album, with different sleeves. Both versions were released in 1981 within a few weeks of each other. The second edition includes the single "I'll Find My Way Home", which stayed for 14 weeks in the Swiss charts and peaked at #1 on March 7, 1982. "State of Independence" was later a hit single for Donna Summer, and a decade later for Moodswings with Chrissie Hynde on vocal. Anderson also later re-recorded that song on his solo album Change We Must, released in 1994.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Headlines Monday 27th September 2010
=== Todays Toon ===
Colonel Samuel Wensley Blackall (1 May 1809 – 2 January 1871) was an Irish soldier and politician, who was the second Governor of Queensland from 1868 until he died in office in 1871.
=== Bible Quote ===
“For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”- Hebrews 10:30-31=== Headlines ===
Clock Strikes Midnight on Israeli Settlement Slowdown
Israel's 10-month settlement construction slowdown expires as Jewish settlers are preparing to resume their building, possibly endangering newly resumed peace talks.Computer Worm Attacks Iran Nuke Site
Complex computer worm capable of seizing control of industrial plants affects the personal computers of staff working at Iran's first nuclear power station weeks before the facility is to go online
Georgia Pastor Vows to Fight Sex Allegations
Addressing thousands at a Georgia megachurch, Bishop Eddie Long says he feels 'like David against Goliath' after four men filed lawsuits against the famed pastor, claiming he sexually abused them
Rubio: Pundits Miss Point of Tea Party
Florida Senate hopeful Marco Rubio says labeling candidates as 'Tea Party' members is the only way political scorekeepers can figure out how to understand the growing popularity of the conservative movement
Breaking News
Carbon committee offer to CoalitionTHE Government is hoping Coalition MPs will have a change of mind and join a new committee that aims to pave the way for a price on carbon emissions.
Netanyahu urges Abbas to continue talks
ISRAELI PM Benjamin Netanyahu has called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to continue peace talks, minutes after the settlement freeze expired.
Dollar dazzles as it breaks through US96c
THE surging dollar broke through the 96 US cent barrier this morning to reach a two-year high.
Skydiver dies after midair tangle
A SKYDIVER with more than 7000 jumps under her belt has died after she and another skydiver became entangled during a parachuting competition.
NSW/ACT
Three die in road crashesTHREE people lost their lives in separate accidents - two involved power poles - on the state's roads.
Nipping dog fear in the bud
DOGS will go into NSW classrooms in the Government's bold bid to cut rising attacks on kids.
Musicals outselling the music
BUSINESS is booming in the performing arts with record numbers of tickets sold.
Be paid just to go shopping
IT'S every girl's dream job - being paid to talk about their year-long shopping spree.
More work but less time in the office
WE MAY be working harder but new research shows NSW workers spend less time in the office.
Bandits' slim pickings in Sydney
FOR a paltry few thousand dollars, heavily armed thieves are terrorising pubs in a robbery spree across Sydney.
Mother and baby have whale of a time
OH BABY, that was close. This juvenile humpback and his mum are the first seen going back down the coast.
Queensland
State sued over highway blackspotTHE State Government is being sued for failing to fix a notorious blackspot on the New England Highway near Toowoomba.
Skydiver dies after midair tangle
A SKYDIVER with more than 7000 jumps under her belt has died after she and another skydiver became entangled during a parachuting competition.
Teen dies doing 'donuts' in ute
A 17-year-old youth from Murarrie has died after the utility he was travelling in rolled, trapping him underneath.
Man arrested after fatal stabbing
A BITTER dispute between friends is believed to be behind the fatal stabbing of a man in an upmarket street of Camp Hill on Brisbane's southside.
Man leaves women to face armed bandits
TWO men have tried to hold up a hotel at Darra in Brisbane's west with a machete and baseball bat, and failed.
Police storm shed to end siege
A SEVEN-hour siege in Cairns has been resolved after police stormed an industrial shed in the city's north about 12.30am today.
Rush back in court to plead for life
AUSTRALIAN Scott Rush is due back in an Indonesian court today with prosecutors set to respond to evidence submitted in his defence earlier this month.
Langbroek in damage control
OPPOSITION Leader John-Paul Langbroek has again declared he will lead the party to the next election despite another embarrassing gaffe by his office.
Police raid Eight Mile drug lab
FOUR people were charged after a suspected drug lab at Eight Mile Plains in Brisbane’s south was raided by police.
Driver rolls 4WD on Gateway
THE driver of a 4WD has escaped serious injury after he rolled into oncoming traffic on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall on Sunday afternoon.
Victoria
Boy punched, stabbed in attackTHUGS who stabbed a 13-year old boy returned to bash him with a baseball bat while he lay unconscious.
Despair, then joy fills little heart
HIS face crumpled, his composure collapsed and his hands tried to wipe away the tears when the siren sounded on a grand final draw.
Cash to flow for Final
PUB owners, hoteliers and television executives are set to benefit from the multi-million-dollar Grand Final bonanza.
Pie tragic to miss Grand Final
COMEDIAN and Collingwood tragic Pete Helliar is a recognisable face of the plight facing many footy fans.
Girl trio represent Victoria
VICTORIA has three chances of winning Channel 10's Junior MasterChef - and they're all girls.
Rookie's whim pays off
ROOKIE gambler Aaron Henwood credits an inexplicable "whim" for his $25,000 Grand Final windfall.
Mental toughness the key
A HISTORY lesson could prove a key training drill for Collingwood and St Kilda this week.
Leak scandal cops 'should be thanked'
POLICE who leaked information of clear public interest should be commended, not criticised, a crime victims advocate said.
Software failure causes chaos
THOUSANDS of football fans were thrown into further chaos after a Virgin Blue software failure forced dozens of flights to be cancelled.
Gen Y takes lead on working less
VICTORIANS are generally spending less time in the office than they did a decade ago and Generation Y is leading the trend.
Northern Territory
Nothing newSouth Australia
Police 'feel betrayed by cuts'POLICE feel "betrayed" by State Government cuts to their long service leave entitlements, the Opposition says.
Driver bashed in carjacking
FOUR men walked onto the road to force the driver of a car to stop before bashing him and stealing his vehicle at Elizabeth North last night.
Pair found inside burnt factory
POLICE dogs sniffed out two men allegedly hiding in a burned-out factory at Wingfield this morning.
Vintage thrills in Bay to Birdwood
FROM bright red MGs to big black Dodge D11s and vintage Harley Davidsons, more than 1700 fine vehicles took part in the annual Bay to Birdwood run.
Our pet shop care factor
THE Law Society and animal welfare groups say pet shops should be given the power to reject customers who would not be able to care for an animal.
Grand Final repeat a cash bonus
COLLINGWOOD and St Kilda's Grand Final warriors are fighting for a slice of profits from Saturday's historic replay.
We are working less at the office
SOUTH Australians spend less time working in the office than they did 10 years ago, research suggests, challenging the notion that we are at work more than ever.
Good chance of legalising euthanasia
A FRESH bid to legalise voluntary euthanasia in South Australia has a "very good chance" of passing through the Upper House, an assessment of the numbers reveals.
Top local bands in pub showcase
ADELAIDE pubs can expect a healthy dose of local music next month as 28 South Australian bands take to the stage for the third annual Coopers Alive festival.
Bands of strength a trendy expense
POWER Balance bands - wristbands that promise to boost performance - are nothing more than a pricey placebo, consumer advocate CHOICE says
Western Australia
Five rescued after boat sinksFIVE shipwrecked fishermen were rescued overnight after an emergency beacon was activated off Dongara, 362km north of Perth.
Wondrous art find for rangers
INDIGENOUS rangers from the remote Kimberley community of Kalumburu have discovered what are thought to be four significant ancient rock art sites.
Double fatal on South West Hwy
A 16-year-old passenger and 23-year-old driver of a ute died after trying to overtake another vehicle and crashing into a tree near Bridgetown last night.
Prem baby in heart surgery mercy flight
A PREMATURE baby has been flown from Perth to Brisbane for life-saving heart surgery.
Tasmania
Nothing new=== Comments ===
YAY!!!
Tim Blair
Forget the great moral challenge of climate change – Kevni and Therese have just bought a resource-chomping new house:
Former Lodge resident Therese Rein on Friday revealed via Twitter that she and her husband Kevin Rudd had found a new home in Canberra.With their latest properties alone, the Rudds and Al Gore now have a total of ten bedrooms and twelve bathrooms. Add their other houses and the bathroom footprint is looking gigantorious. What happened to the terrible drought made more severe by global warming?
“Yay!!! Kevin and I have found a house with a garden in Canberra and move in mid October,” she announced …
The new Rudd residence – they still own a house in Brisbane – is a near-new $2.2 million two-storey mansion.
The house has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a double carport and in the words of marketing agent Peter Blackshaw it has been “designed for modern living”.
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EQUALITY TIME
Tim Blair
Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University and failed Greens political candidate, recently spoke at an event called Happiness and Wellbeing at Work.
I know. You’d rather be organ-harvested than attend. But Clive did indeed bring the happiness, mainly through his hilarious bewilderment at certain modern societal attitudes. Maybe it’s something to do with being an academic, but Hamilton often gives the impression that he’s looking at 2010 from way back in 1970.
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HUGS
Tim Blair
Remember when poley bears were going to eat us for causing global warming? Well, Nissan has got those fat suckers fooled:
Poleys are too stupid to realise that Nissan also produces these, which presumably would provoke a slightly different ursine response.
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BOLT BACK
Tim Blair
Andrew Bolt is back, which will please the seething leftoid commenters who’ve wandered over here during Andrew’s “Richmond holiday” (generally known as “September"). For others, football continues. Ahead of next Saturday’s grand final replay, some interesting stats:
Collingwood’s grand final record now reads 14 wins, 25 losses and two draws, while St Kilda have one win, five losses and a draw.By those numbers, Collingwood loses 60 per cent of its grand finals. St Kilda loses 71 per cent. There’s no such thing as a loss when it comes to a second grand final, however.
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THE NOODLE GAMBIT NEVER FAILS
Tim Blair
Sushi Das doles out the harshness, but is beaten down:
‘’You are a human being,’’ I recently told my four-year-old. ‘’That means when you’re eating your dinner, your food should either be in your mouth or out of your mouth. It should never be half in your mouth and half hanging out. Because that’s how animals eat.’’
Her retort was deadpan: ‘’What about noodles?’’
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STOMPING TIME
Tim Blair
Excellent campaigning advice from Dale Peterson:
(Via Nicole, who emails: “This makes me want to punch a hippie on the way to the polls. While riding a stallion and whistling Yankee Doodle.")
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PLEASE PLAY NICE
Tim Blair
The arrogance of Labor MPs was something to behold back when their government was popular. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – who’d previously distinguished himself as opposition leader by turning his back on John Howard during Question Time – would bait then-Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull in parliament with a stream of hostile comments: “Just resign, Malcolm. Just resign.” Notably, he did this while staring at notes in front of him and avoiding Turnbull’s gaze. And Anthony Albanese, who has about him the air of a man making up for a lifetime of perceived injustices, was perhaps Labor’s most aggressive QT performer.
Things have changed since Labor lost a stack of seats and was reduced to governing only via the support of independents. Now Labor would like everybody to be helpful and friendly:
Labor has accused Tony Abbott of intimidating a Liberal MP out of standing for the deputy speaker’s position, leaving the Gillard government with a one-seat buffer to govern …This is the same Labor party that kneecapped its own Prime Minister and intimidated Stephen Smith out of the foreign ministry. And who is leading these claims of intimidation? Why, none other than Anthony Albanese, the gentle little muppet.
A senior Labor source said: “We’ll be checking on Tuesday to see whether Alex Somlyay still has his kneecaps.”
UPDATE. Where is the niceness for new Lodge resident Julia Gillard?
Paul Keating turned up to tell John Howard about bin collection night and other domestic details in 1996 and Howard in turn welcomed Kevin Rudd to the place in 2007.
No such guided tour was available to Gillard, in part because of relations with the previous tenant.
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Gillard’s rigs her warming “consensus”
Andrew Bolt
The fix is in, and shame on any commentator who falls for this childish spin:
THE Australian Greens have secured a deputy chair position on a new parliamentary climate change committee, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced.Note already that the committee skips what should be the start of any discussion. As in: is a carbon price actually worth the pain? Will cutting our emissions actually achieve anything? Is a rise in global temperatures actually good for us? Isn’t it suicidal to slash our tiny emissions before the rest of the world - and especially the biggest emitters - agree to do likewise?
The committee will receive independent advice from four experts - Ross Garnaut, Will Steffen, Rod Sims and Patricia Faulkner.
Ms Gillard will chair the committee while Climate Change Minister Greg Combet and Greens climate spokeswomen Christine Milne will serve as co-deputy chairs.
Ms Gillard said the committee would start from the position that a carbon price was required to reduce pollution and encourage investment in low-emission technologies.
So right away this committee is fundamentally rigged to dodge debate and produce the “right” result. What’s sold by Gillard as an exercise to achieve “community consensus” is a con - this is the consensus you reach simply by excluding everyone who doesn’t agree with you. In fact, Gillard today made that explicit:
“Parliamentary members of the committee will be drawn from those who are committed to tackling climate change and who acknowledge that effectively reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price,” Ms Gillard said.This is why the Coalition will not be taking up of the offer of two seats on the committee, which will be stacked instead by ideologues, including Greens leader Bob Brown:
There will also be two Greens and representation from the independent MPs. Independent Tony Windsor already has indicated his willingness to be a member of the committee.Another con. On the committee’s agenda will be the carbon “levy” - actually tax - that Gillard repeatedly ruled out before the election, when there were nervous voters to fool:
The committee will consider mechanisms for introducing a carbon price, including a broad-based emissions trading scheme, carbon levy, or a hybrid of both.Contrast that to this solemn promise of just six weeks ago:
There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.
A carbon tax is actually a demand of the Greens, which now seems in charge of Labor’s global warming agenda. After all, Ross Garnaut had already done an extensive report for the then Rudd Government on exactly these questions, among others, and settled on an emissions trading scheme. Holding yet another inquiry just buys Labor more time for further delay, but also offers the Greens a prize - the hope of getting something even tougher and more damaging to our economy. Note that this committee aims to produce a “consensus” among its members (two of them Greens) that will actually form the Government policy.
But let’s get to the remaining deceit here. The four “independent experts” appointed by Gillard to advise the committee include people who are either not expert (in global warming policies, at least) or not independent.
Take Patricia Faulkner, who has no expertise in global warming policies at all and seems to have been chosen instead for her Leftism, social activism and bureaucratic skills - all the hallmarks of a classic apparatchik:
Patricia Faulkner has had an extensive career covering both the public and private sectors. She is currently the chair of the Australian Social Inclusion Board and the Chair of Jesuit Social Services. Jesuit Social Services is a small welfare based organisation that looks after people at the margins of society. She is also a Chair and Member of a range of health care and government advisory services boards, including the Federal Government Health and Hospitals Infrastructure Fund; and, the Council of Australian Governments Reform Council. She has spent 10 of the last 20 years as a partner with KPMG leading both their health and social policy sectors.Then there’s the alarmist Will Steffen, who is indeed a climate scientist, but not one independent of this Government;
Professor Will Steffen is Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, and is also Science Adviser to the federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.Add Treasurer Wayne Swan to the committee, and the Government’s global warming policy is being decided (so far) by three Labor ministers, two Greens and an independent who knows little about global warming but is sure we must Do Something. And the six of them will be guided by four experts who turn out to be an alarmist scientist, a welfare activist, a big business representative and an alarmist economist.
Be scared.
This committee is little better than a propaganda outfit, designed to sell a “solution” already agreed upon in the broad - and which in detail may break one of Gilllard’s most solemn election promises. The “community consensus” it pretends to be developing is no more than a fix and a fraud.
UPDATE
Need more evidence of deceit and broken promises?
Julia Gillard, September 9. on her deal with the independents:===Indeed, this process, born of parliamentary deadlock, has resulted in more openness, transparency and reform in how we conduct our Parliament and the business of government than at any other time on modern Australian politics. Throughout this process of forming a new government we’ve been open with the Australian people. To quote Rob Oakeshott, sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we’ve agreed to far-reaching reforms that make me as Prime Minister and our government and how it functions more accountable to the Australian people. So, let’s draw back the curtains and let the sun shine in; let our parliament be more open than it ever was before. That’s real reform, and that’s the direct result of the election.Julia Gillard, September 27, on her deal with the Greens for this climate committee:The Committee will ensure its deliberations and papers remain confidential to the Committee and the Cabinet until a final position is agreed or all parties to the Committee agree otherwise.
China isn’t the Greens’ new Sweden, after all
Andrew Bolt
Doyle McManus says we shouldn’t believe all those praise-heaping stories about China’s enlightened policies to cut emissions and fight global warming. First, ithe country’s rulers remain keener on growth than green deeds. But, second:
There’s one more big factor that makes improving China’s environment difficult: the messy realities of China’s authoritarian bureaucracies. National leaders in Beijing announce ambitious goals, but many local officials and business owners ignore or subvert them, often as a result of perverse incentives that reward increasing production without considering other costs.(Thanks to reader Alex.)
In central and southern China, for example, local governments met Beijing’s demand for lower energy consumption this year by imposing electricity blackouts, but many factories merely fired up diesel generators to replace the electricity. That way the local officials met their performance targets, but more pollution went into the air.
In the Pearl River delta, coal-burning power plants installed scrubbers in their smokestacks to comply with government orders, but some didn’t bother to turn them on, because that would have cost additional money. In the north and northwest, the government ordered hundreds of wind turbines to produce clean power, but the power grid can’t handle their output. Production targets were met, but some turbines are spinning uselessly in the wind.
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It’s not just the face that’s being hidden
Andrew Bolt
When three of the more alarming Islamist apologists cannot give a straight answer to even one simple question about the burqa, repeatedly turning it instead into an attack on the West, what hope of an honest discussion on, say, terrorism?
From SBS’s attempt to hold a sane discussion on its Insight program last week with Oxford University’s Tarqi Ramadan, Melbourne’s Sheikh Mahomad Omran and Sydney hothead Uthman Badar of Hizb ut-Tahrir (watch here):
JENNY BROCKIE: Sheikh Omran I want to break bring you in here, because you are the leader of an Islamic fundamentalist movement in Victoria, how central do you think the burqa and the niqab are to being a Muslim woman?
SHEIKH MOHAMAD OMRAM, AHLUS SUNNAH WAL JAMA’AH ASSOCIATION: First, I am not from Victoria I am in Australia. Secondly, as Brother Ramadan talked about, this issue being for centuries, maybe Australians are a little bit unaware of it but they came to our countries, occupied our countries for hundreds of years - we mixed with them for centuries. They know that it is not a new matter anyhow.
JENNY BROCKIE: How central is it - how central is it wearing a niqab or a burqa to be a Muslim woman?
SHEIKH MOHAMAD OMRAM: I am going to answer that. Listen to me.
JENNY BROCKIE: I am just trying to get you to answer the question.
SHEIKH MOHAMAD OMRAM: Yeah, but not in the way again. We are using either my way or the highway, we can’t do that. We as Australians, I would say, come together in some values and one of the values we come to accept each other as we are. We don’t have to be following the trail of Job, we are so far from Job anyhow, even some of their ancestors are Jobian but we are not Jobian any more. We are Australians and we have our identity and we should build our country according to that identity. Not according to the French or anyone else.
JENNY BROCKIE: Is it OK - forget about the ban for a moment, is it OK for Muslim women to wear whatever they like?
SHEIKH MOHAMAD OMRAM: Of course, it is their choice, and they should answer that, not me, but Islamicly, there is a practice of code for everything. Even for Islam now, even for the Australian in general, or even the French talking about equality of the man and the woman, where is the equality? I never see a President French woman? I didn’t see a President United States woman? I didn’t see even Australian - this is the first time having an Australian prime minister. Where is the equality that he is talking about?…
JENNY BROCKIE: Uthman, how do you see the burqa. Do you see it as an absolutely….
UTHMAN BADAR, HIZB UT – TAHRIR: ... I think the issue about the niqab is not an issue about the niqab itself. It comes in the context that all things Islamic has increasingly come under the spotlight. We are talking about the mosques, the teaching of the Koran in schools, halal food and so on and so forth. Muslim loyalties, we have had that debate a few years ago, and so it is not about the cloth but what it represents in terms of Islam itself and the revival, and this is where Tanveer’s comments, I think he has given it a western interpretation but what we see is an Islamic revival on the global stage. It has been said before, Tony Blair in 2006 said that the full face is a mark of separation. He went further to very importantly, I think, say, or indicatively that there is need not only to debate the full face veil, but the place of Islam and how it fits in the modern world. So for me it - for us I think it is a very clear a discussion of values and differing values and the whole question of integration.
JENNY BROCKIE: Can I ask you the same question I asked Sheikh Omran earlier, because you are from an Islamic political group which has been banned in some other countries and I wonder whether you think the burqa and the niqab are central to being a Muslim woman. Do you think the wearing of these garments is central to being a Muslim woman?
UTHMAN BADAR: That is an interesting question but from the Islamic perspective it is important to understand that Islam is vast in the sense that it allows for differences of opinion, and a thing can be Islamic, even though there are difference opinions, so the niqab is certainly Islamic, even though there are opinions which say it is obligitory.
JENNY BROCKIE: Is there freedom for women to not wear it if they are Muslim?
UTHMAN BADAR: There is a very important distinction between law and fact, as there is in the western law.
JENNY BROCKIE: I want you to answer from your perspective, from your group, as one Islamic group, do you think it is central to being a Muslim woman to cover your face like this?, is it central?
UTHMAN BADAR: What I am saying the world ‘Central” is not adequate.
JENNY BROCKIE: Do you think that woman should?
UTHMAN BADAR: The point is that Islam has certain rules, it says the Hijab is obligatory on everyone …
MAN: Why can’t you answer the question? I have heard the question be asked five times and why can’t you answer it.
UTHMAN BADAR: You are asking it from a western premise....
JENNY BROCKIE: OK, OK, everybody we can’t hear anyone!! We can’t hear anyone!!, sorry, everyone, please, time out. Sheikh Omran.
SHEIKH MOHAMAD OMRAM: We didn’t say we refuse to answer two of them have said I refuse to answer or he refuses, no, we don’t refuse to answer the question. The question is there anyhow, in any book as you are studying and seeing the history of Islam you should know the answer yourself. But the answer is not required here. We are not here debating a separate issue, is it compulsory or is it not compulsory. That matter should be decided somewhere else, not here. We are not - no, excuse me –
MAN: You guys misunderstood the question. I just ask whether you think women should wear.
JENNY BROCKIE: Sheikh Omran, should women wear it…. No, you didn’t say. That you said—I was just trying to get a clear answer from you about whether you think that women should wear the burqa.
MAN; Listen to the question.
SHEIKH MOHAMAD OMRAM: I answered that question.
JENNY BROCKIE: I am going to go back to Tariq Ramadan. I want to ask you about this. Look at your face. I want to ask you about this question of choice and how you define choice in this context, because I think this is a fascinating debate around the issue of what is choice and what is not choice. As an Islamic scholar, how do you answer these questions and how do you feel about the idea of a ban in that context?
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No, 99 per cent of climate scientists do not agree
Andrew Bolt
A newly released survey done in 2008 of 375 climate scientists - mostly mainstream ones - reveals not quite the certainty and unanimity we’re so often sold by the Leftist media:
66.5% agreed or strongly agreed that future climate “will be a result of anthropogenic causes.”A third also agree or strongly agree that “external politics” has influenced the direction of climate research this past decade.
Even so, there are areas of climate science that some people want to claim is settled, but where scientists don’t agree.
Only 12% agree or strongly agree that data availability for climate change analysis is adequate. More than 21% disagree or strongly disagree…
Perhaps most importantly, only 17.75% agree or strongly agree with the statement, “The state of theoretical understanding of climate change phenomena is adequate.” An equal percentage disagreed or strongly disagreed.
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Planet groans under eco-worriers’ footprint
Andrew Bolt
Frequent flyer Kevin Rudd, who famously called climate change the “greatest moral and economic challenge of our times”, has bought himself a second home to add to his already enormous carbon footprint.Tim Blair counts the rooms:
With their latest properties alone, the Rudds and Al Gore now have a total of ten bedrooms and twelve bathrooms. Add their other houses and the bathroom footprint is looking gigantorious.Surely the new Rudd pool, at least, is not heated? Or is even that too big a sacrifice for a warming preacher?
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Rudd tells the UN not to be like him
Andrew Bolt
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, 1 December 2009:
After ten years of delay on climate change, further delay equals denial on climate change. Delay on climate change equals denial on climate change. And it’s time, instead, we voted in support of this bipartisan Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, because to do so votes to act.Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, 27 April 2010:
The Opposition decided to backflip on its historical commitment to bringing in a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and there’s been slow progress in the realisation of global action on climate change. These two factors together inevitably mean that the implementation of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia will be delayed.Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd lectures the United Nations, 25 September 2010:
The implementation of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia will therefore be extended until after the conclusion of the current Kyoto commitment period, which finishes at the end of 2012.
If we fail to make the UN work, to make its institutions relevant to the great challenges we all now face, the uncomfortable fact is that the UN will become a hollow shell… Put even more starkly, we must do that which we say.UPDATE
And what does this line from Rudd mean? That nation states will have their autonomy destroyed if they defy the “consensus” of the (in part unelected) UN and its (unelected) officials?
The international community can no longer tolerate the actions of a few dissenting states to roadblock the common resolve of the many.I feel much safer with the Czech president’s position:
Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Saturday criticized U.N. calls for increased “global governance” of the world’s economy, saying the world body should leave that role to national governments.UPDATE 2
The solution to dealing with the global economic crisis, Klaus told the U.N. General Assembly, did not lie in “creating new governmental and supranational agencies, or in aiming at global governance of the world economy.”
Reader John wonders what Rudd means when he insists the “international community can no longer tolerate the actions of a few dissenting states to roadblock the common resolve of the many”:
Does this mean that if the 56 member OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) tables a resolution, eg censuring Israel, that dissenting democratic nations such as Australia must kowtow?
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Dam lies will cost us plenty
Andrew Bolt
The Victorian Labor Government - gripped by the green ideology - decided to ban any new dam for Melbourne, and even turned a dam reservation on the fast-flowing Mitchell into a national park.
Instead, it decided to spend at least four times more on building a desalination plant that would provide a third of the water. But that’s assuming we’ll actually use the water:
Even if the plant produces nothing, the government will be forced to pay under its contract $570 million a year for 30 years. This is equal to $3.80 a kilolitre without the supply of any water.That figure actually came out a fortnight ago, but Kenneth Davidson discovers the financial idiocy of this green plan doesn’t stop there - and neither does the red ink or green lies:
If the plant is turned on, it uses electricity. The government promised it would be carbon neutral. This means consuming power at the renewable wind farm rate, which is $125 a megawatt hour compared to base rate coal-fired power of $35.
Of course, it will really be powered by brown coal, probably from Hazelwood, the closest and cheapest power station. There are two reasons for this: wind power is intermittent and grid wind output calculations are based on 8 per cent of the wind farm capacity.
This means the 98 megawatts required to run the desal plant and pump water across Melbourne can’t be supplied by existing or planned wind farms…
To calculate the cost of desal water to the household, we have to add in the cost of electricity and the mark-up of at least 25 per cent each for Melbourne Water and the three water retailers.
This means the ... cost of desal water will be $7.05 a kilolitre compared to $1.20 now.
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Gillard cheats on carbon
Andrew Bolt
Global warming seems to be a licence to deceive and to spin:
JULIA Gillard and Wayne Swan have appealed to the new parliament to let them put a price on carbon in this term to deliver certainty for business.What a nonsense. First, if Gillard is so concerned about “certainty”, she would not rule out a carbon tax before the election, and then suggest a carbon tax after it. Second, “certainty” can be had just as easily by ruling out a price on carbon dioxide as it can by imposing one. In fact, if Labor joined the Coalition in opposing an emissions trading scheme it would give business all the certainty it needs that there would be no big change in policy if there were a change in government.
Which brings me to the third problem with this call for “certainty”. No certainty is possible even if Parliament were to agree to tax carbon dioxide emissions, whether directly or by an emissions trading scheme. A change of government would change any such scheme. An there’s no certainty that any tax imposed today would not be raised tomorrow, especially when the truth is discovered - that a price on carbon dioxide (in fact, electricity) will have to be very, very high to slash our emissions.
But this deception pales in significance when compared to this:
Ms Gillard had declared before the August poll “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead"…Circumstances always change. But no circumstance has changed that warrants Gillard today reneging on a promise she made less than two months ago.
Labor has since left the door open to introducing a carbon tax rather than an emissions trading scheme. Asked why she had shifted on a carbon tax, Ms Gillard told the Ten Network’s Meet the Press yesterday “circumstances have changed” and said the government had to be realistic.
More than 80 per cent of voters at last month’s election gave their first vote to a party which opposed a carbon tax. There is no way any carbon tax could be inflicted on the public while Labor and the Coalition keep their promises. The only way it could be imposed is by Labor breaking its word to please the Greens - which would be a classic case of letting the tail wag the dog.
So this is not a situation in which a minority Labor Government is unable to fulfill a promise because of opposition in Parliament. No, this is instead a case where Labor voluntarily breaks a promise it is perfectly able to keep, with the Coalition’s willing help.
And that is not forgivable.
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Alarmist reports from his virtual reality
Andrew Bolt
Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery explains the “scientific” approach he now uses when terrifying people about global warming:
I’ve begun to think I’ve misunderstood the scientific process. The reductionist science that I’ve practised all of my life is very good for answering the small questions, but I learnt as I looked at the climate problem that we can’t use reductionist science to examine that system. We have to create a model world, a virtual world, which is what the computer models do. And those model worlds are actually very much like theatre or literature, novels where we create a kind of model of the world we live in and then vary some of the aspects of it. We can watch it play or we can look at a computer model. When you’re dealing with complex problems that’s what you need to do. So this book is in fact a synthesis of those approaches.Flannery just last November discovers his computer models actually read like a novel with chapters missing and a plot that doesn’t make sense:
When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate...We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem...But who looks to Flannery for consistency in anything?
Down with capitalism. Flannery on The 7.30 Report on Thursday:
THIS idea of the free market is one of the most dangerous spin-offs of Darwinism that we’ve seen, where we’ve had this idea that a free market will solve our problems. You’ve only gotta go back to the 18th century and see people selling their teeth to be set in the heads of rich men to understand how wrong that is, you know.
Let the markets rip. Flannery 12 hours later on Radio National’s Breakfast:
THE marketplace is what made us. It’s where we first learned to trust, to trade. The market is the only system where you get a win-win. Prior to that, someone would bang someone over the head and steal something, and it was a win-lose.
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Less preaching from Pureheart Oakeshott may well suit him
Andrew Bolt
Independent Rob Oakeshott demonstrates his new paradigm of group-hugs politics:
ROB Oakeshott, the independent MP pushing for a squeaky clean parliament, was investigated by the NSW corruption agency after allegedly forging his wife’s signature.I suspect many politicians on both sides of Parliament will feel they’ve already had more than enough moral lectures from Oakeshott.
The investigation revealed Mr Oakeshott, whose vote ensured Julia Gillard became Prime Minister, was counselled by the Clerk of the NSW Parliament in 2000 although there were no charges.
He also paid $10,000 to his former electorate officer Anne Kaye after she sued him for unfair dismissal.
The man seeking a new era in parliamentary accountability also did not disclose a personal conflict of interest this year when he attacked Australia’s highest paid public servant Dr Stephen Gumley.
Mr Oakeshott, who was last night being talked about as a possible deputy speaker, pursued Dr Gumley over the case of Jane Wolfe, a former senior bureaucrat sacked from and later reinstated at her Defence Materiel Organisation job.
The independent MP did not declare he was a friend of Ms Wolfe nor that his sister Jane Oakeshott helped her get the highly paid job.
Still, before Labor points any fingers at mate-politics:
ONE of Anna Bligh’s close friends has scored an $80,000-a-year pay rise after landing an unadvertised job as one of the most powerful public servants in the Premier’s department.(Thanks to readers CA and Rob.)
Bronwen Griffiths – who was one of a select group of family and friends to attend the Premier’s 2005 secret wedding “elopement” in Sydney – ... was promoted in June from the role of Cabinet Secretary to Department of Premier & Cabinet acting associate director-general.
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Aliens and earthlings: meet the planet’s new leader
Andrew Bolt
The UN never misses an opportunity - however remote - to stake its claim to (unelected) world leadership:A space ambassador could be appointed by the United Nations to act as the first point of contact for aliens trying to communicate with Earth.What, not Kevin Rudd? He will be upset.
Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, is set to be tasked with co-ordinating humanity’s response if and when extraterrestrials make contact.
Aliens who landed on earth and asked: “Take me to your leader” would be directed to Mrs Othman.
(Thanks to reader Dave.)
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I wouldn’t like that “Andrew Bolt” either
Andrew Bolt
Back from my my holidays, I’ve found a number of articles about myself in Left-wing media outlets which, if true, would have me despising this person they call “Andrew Bolt”. What a vile, hate-preaching, racist, cowardly, heartless person he must be, if those descriptions of what he says and believes are true.
Take one of the diatribes published by the ABC and written by Michael Brull, a moralist who has “a featured blog at Independent Australian Jewish Voices, and is involved in Stop The Intervention Collective Sydney”
Brull was outraged by the suicide of a Fijian asylum seeker who had been about to be deported, and decided to hold some of the guilty to account:
Just a few days ago, Piers Akerman warned readers (again) that Gillard left a “welcome sign for asylum seekers”.There are two possible explanations for this passage. The simplest is that Brull is a liar - the kind of moralist who believes his cause is so noble that any lie told to advance it is excusable. The more charitable explanation is that he’s simply ignorant, and had not troubled himself to check whether any of the people he vilifies here have in fact said anything like what he says they do or would.
Obviously, the message he - and Andrew Bolt, and Tony Abbot, and Julia Gillard et al - wants to send is that they are not welcome. If they had a megaphone, they would call out something like this:“You are not welcome here. You are not wanted here. We want you to leave, and we will make your life miserable until you do. We don’t care how miserable you are. We don’t care how desperate you are. We don’t care if you’ll be executed if we send you to your home country.* You are different, and you will never be one of us.”
I’ll speak here for myself, but am sure the others that Brull so gleefully defames would say the same of themselves. I have never said anything remotely like what Brull claims I would if I had a megaphone - which I in fact do. I do not believe anything remotely like what he claims I do and challenge him to present a single quote that proves otherwise.
Go through what Brull claims I believe:
“We don’t care how desperate you are.”
False. I believe we have a duty to take in refugees, and to ensure that people held in detention are treated humanely.
“We don’t care if you’ll be executed if we send you to your home country.”
False, I strongly oppose sending asylum seekers back home if they are likely to face any such mortal danger.
“You are different, and you will never be one of us.”
False. I hold as a great prize and inspiration the fact that Australia is an immigrant country that has made a community out of people from so many different cultures, whether Fijian, Dutch or Jewish. I am concerned only that those joining us have the willingness and skills to make the most of that chance and to live with us, not simply among us. If I thought otherwise I’d call for a ban on immigration from all countries that are “different” - however Brull defines that.
But, of course, I haven’t.
If Brull truly fancies himself as the herald of a new, improved morality in which we treat people more fairly, he might better advertise that fact by at least being honest and fair himself. But hate-preaching against others always was a shortcut to seeming more moral.
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Get away with you
Andrew Bolt
One sentence here seems superfluous:
Media can reveal that high-profile blogger Grog’s Gamut is actually Greg Jericho, a public servant who spends his days working in the film section of the former Department of Environment, Heritage, Water and the Arts.
The identity of Mr Jericho, who shot to prominence after making some sharp observations about media coverage of the 2010 election and subsequently has written for the ABC’s The Drum website, has triggered much speculation in recent weeks on Twitter…
The prolific blogger shows a strong preference for the ALP...
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Getting it said
Andrew Bolt
Pay attention to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and not just because he may hurt you if you don’t. Here are his greatest hits ... so far.
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