Saturday, January 31, 2009
Headlines Saturday 31st January 2009
Fresh moves to oust embattled Premier Nathan Rees
There is new moves afoot to replace Nathan Rees as NSW Premier, with Frank Sartor looming as the man most likely to assume the top job as soon as April.
The Nine Network reports that Rees is rapidly losing the support required to stay in the job, as more disgruntled labor government members rally behind a push to see Sartor replace the embattled Premier.
The former Sydney Lord Mayor has reportedly been approached by Labor powerbroker on two occasions to gauge his level of interest, and has been promised a enough votes from right wing MP's to oust Rees when the time is right.
As a way of attempting to unify the deeply divided Labor right wing, Kristina Keneally would become the new deputy under Sartor.
Labor head office boss Matt Thistlethwaite is yet to rubber stamp the remove, and remains a Rees supporter.
The latest Labor power struggle took the gloss off today's swearing in ceremony for two new ministers, ex-union boss John Robertson and Monaro MP Steve Whan. - There was gloss at that event? - ed
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Victoria facing days without power after blackout bedlam
A huge power blackout has hit Victoria, leaving almost 350,000 residents and businesses without power.
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British man fined for riding horse while drunk
Using a 19th-century law, a British court has fined a man STG150 ($A330) after he admitted riding a horse while drunk.
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Rudd calls for new era of "social capitalism"
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and called for a new era of "social capitalism". - that is a new phrase, like when he called himself an 'economic conservative.' One guesses Rudd is going through a new phrase. - ed.
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Mother urged daughter to hit girl harder, court told
A mother accused of filming a brutal attack by her daughter on a teenager shouted advice on how to land a good kick, with the footage later posted on MySpace, a court has been told.
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Police smash thieves 'Aladdin's Cave'
Redfern police say they have smashed an 'Aladdin's Cave' of suspected stolen goods, seizing up to five tonnes of cosmetics and toiletries.
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Move over Dick Tracy, now anyone can have a watch phone
KKK still alive and well...in New Zealand
Teenager jailed for killing mates in crash
Google Maps caught running down Bambi
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You are not safe anywhere
Andrew Bolt
Reader Andrew R. went to OPSM for new glasses this week and was asked to read this chart to check his eyesight:
In case you need glasses yourself, that newspaper extract reads as follows:
The planet’s rapid warming has pushed temperatures to their hottest level in nearly 12,000 years and within a hair’s breadth of a million years, a study by the US space agency showed yesterday.
Global warming, which has added 0.2C a decade over the past 30 years, has caused temperatures to reach and now pass through the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which has lasted almost 12,000 years, according to the study led by James Hansen, a leading climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The nagging never stops, does it?
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Buy America, bye bye Europe
Andrew Bolt
Gee, weren’t nice Mr Obama and his Democrat mates going to make friends again with Europe after that awful George “unilateralist” Bush?
The EU trade commissioner vowed to fight back after the bill passed in the House of Representatives late on Wednesday included a ban on most purchases of foreign steel and iron used in infrastructure projects.
The Senate’s version of the legislation, which will be debated early next week, goes even further, requiring that any projects related to the stimulus use only American-made equipment and goods. The inclusion of protectionist measures has quickly raised hackles in Europe.
This kind of last-century protectionism should raise hackles within America, too.
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COMMENCE THE FETTERING
Tim Blair
Attention, robber barons, gold prospectors and fur trappers! Your days of unregulated freedom are over:
Kevin Rudd has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and called for a new era of “social capitalism” in which government intervention and regulation feature heavily.
This’ll be hard to get used to. You know, after three decades of little or no government intervention or regulation.
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GET OFF MY LAWN
Tim Blair
Imagine pitching a movie like Gran Torino to one of Australia’s sheltered film-funding workshops: “It’s about an old guy who lives alone …”
“Why? Did his boyfriend leave him for another man after a disputed heroin deal?”
“No. His wife died. Anyway, he doesn’t like his neighbours …”
“Because they’re rich? Because they’re yuppies who work for banks?”
“No. Because they’re Asian. So one day this Asian kid tries to steal his …”
“His stash? His Aboriginal art collection? His Koran, autographed by David Hicks?”
“No. His car. Then the kid’s parents make him regain family honour by …”
“Killing the old guy! Yes! At last! Now we’re getting somewhere. Take that, property-owning, carbon-emitting white oppressor!”
“No. They make him work for the old guy, to redeem their shame.”
Somehow, you can’t really picture Gran Torino getting very far as a project financed by Australian film tsars. Given the values on display in Gran Torino – in fact, given that it has actual values – it’s likely local film folk would wonder if it had any audience at all.
You’d have to bow to their superior insight. If there’s one thing that local film folk know all about, it’s films that nobody wants to see.
Yet Gran Torino, directed by and starring 78-year-old Clint Eastwood as retired factory worker Walt Kowalski, has a very large audience indeed. In the US it generated $44 million over its first weekend of release – the most for any Eastwood movie, ever. It took only three days for the film to earn in sales what it cost to make (for the record, $53 million).
Analysts expect Gran Torino will earn more than $228 million before it closes in cinemas, meaning it will be Eastwood’s most successful film.- I think you are being a little unfair on local film makers. There is definitely a problem, as you correctly note, but it isn't entirely that good films are not being made. The problem, imho is that good films are not being picked up by the promoters and industry insiders, so that when a good film is made (like Maximum Choppage 2) then it isn't promoted and the cast and crew remain unpaid .. meanwhile reall dog films like Australia are promoted for their virtues which have nothing to do with good cinema. Delightfully (not), community Channel Natalie has already said she is looking forward to the film because that scene where a neighbor tells their asian neigbors to go home is so much part of her life .. - ed.
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JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!
Tim Blair
“The Science is screaming at us,” claims newbie warming alarmist John Kerry, who evidently thinks “Science” is a specific and malevolent entity, like “Teresa”. Al Gore takes Kerry’s screamin’ science concept and kicks it up a notch:
“The scientists are practically screaming from the rooftops. This is a planetary emergency. It’s outside the scale we’re used to dealing with,” Gore told the senators.
Let’s wait until they’re literally screaming from the rooftops. Which they’ll probably only do if their grants are withdrawn.
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HE’S GOT THE SKILLS
Tim Blair
One day, Ryan Seacrest might become the Vice President of the United States:
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IT HAPPENED
Tim Blair
Barack Obama before his election:
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.
And now:
The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
He’s killing the planet.
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FORESTS FULL
Tim Blair
Environmentalist Jill Redwood explains why East Gippsland logging should be halted:
“The place is literally teeming with endangered species,” Ms Redwood said.
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FUTURE COORDINATED
Tim Blair
An internal ABC memo arrives via our Ultimo mole, who emails: “Note the mock-cheerful tone and bubbly enthusiasm for a purely voluntary program, offset by the casual revelation halfway through that it actually doesn’t matter what the hell you think, it’s going to be compulsory soon anyway.” The message was sent in green typeface:
Hi All,
I’m Kirileigh, the Green Futures Coordinator of the ABC (I also answer to Green Queen and that-chick-who-is-always-telling-me-to-recycle)
It’s my job to make the ABC a more environmentally friendly and aware corporation. It’s a big job and I’d like to ask for your help.
At the moment we send out paper payslips to all of our employees nationwide. It uses thousands of sheets of paper a fortnight, as well as the ink and water required to print them. As the payslips are shipped to Ultimo and then freighted to other areas it also adds carbon to the environment through road and air travel. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Did you know you can now receive your payslip by email? Or use ESS? It’s more environmentally friendly and it is also more secure than receiving a paper payslip. And of course if you need to print your payslip out you can. Eventually email/ESS payslips will be mandatory, at the moment it is voluntary …
Swapping to electronic payslips is an easy and painless way to help the environment so please make the change. If only so that you don’t have to put up with me harassing you ever again!
Thanks and have a great day
Kirileigh
You too, Kirileigh. The surprise is that the ABC hasn’t already changed to email payslips, which the private sector mostly shifted to some time ago for the simple reason of reduced cost.
UPDATE. Kirileigh flew to Las Vegas for a low-carbon wedding in 2007.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Special, Andrew Bolt's Article on The school Israel didn’t shell
The school Israel didn’t shell
Andrew Bolt
Every Israeli operation to defend itself has one. And the “bombed school” was the ”Jenin massacre” or the ”bombed ambulance” hoax of Israel’s operation this past month in Gaza.
In early January Israel was once again accused of a horrific war crime - an allegation that ran and ran. Some examples:
From Britain’s The Independent:
Massacre of innocents as UN school is shelled
From The Australian:
THE deaths of 42 people in an Israeli attack at a UN-run school in Gaza overnight has finally forced Barack Obama to break his silence over the conflict...
From The Age:
43 Palestinians in a UN school were killed by Israeli shelling...
From Iran:
The UN High Commissioner for Rights has also called for independent investigations into possible war crimes after Israel’s shelling of a UN school compound which killed 42 people...
From India:
Israeli tank shells killed more than 40 Palestinians on Tuesday at a UN school where civilians had taken shelter, in carnage likely to boost international pressure on Israel to halt a Gaza offensive.
The key ingredients in this latest “proof’’ of Israeli depravity: 43 dead, school attacked, sheltering civilians massacred. Oh, and with no good cause:
The United Nations on Wednesday denied Israeli army allegations that militants were inside a school in Gaza that was hit the previous day by an Israeli strike, killing at least 42 people.
Now for the facts of that January 6 mortar shelling of the Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Yes, the 43 people are dead, and that is a tragedy, given many were undoubtedly innocent. But the rest of the allegations? False, false and false. Yet again the media has bought anti-Israeli propaganda, as a Toronto Globe and Mail investigation has found:
Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed....
While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers....
The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: “Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead."…
Hazem Balousha, who runs an auto-body shop across the road from the UNRWA school, was down the street, just out of range of the shrapnel, when the three shells hit. He showed a reporter where they landed: one to the right of his shop, one to the left, and one right in front.
UNRWA itself now openly concedes its school was not actually shelled:
John Ging, UNRWA’s operations director in Gaza, acknowledged in an interview this week that all three Israeli mortar shells landed outside the school and that “no one was killed in the school.” ... The Israelis are the ones, he said, who got everyone thinking the deaths occurred inside the school.
“Look at my statements,” he said. “I never said anyone was killed in the school. Our officials never made any such allegation.”
But the Globe and Mail recalls an earlier Ging quote:
Speaking from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as the bodies were being brought in that night, an emotional Mr. Ging did say: “Those in the school were all families seeking refuge. ... There’s nowhere safe in Gaza.”
And a World Health Organization report:
On 6 January, 42 people were killed following an attack on a UNRWA school ...
And a UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs weekly report:
Israeli shelling directly hit two UNRWA schools [including this one]...
So why did Israel lob those three mortar shells into the street outside the school? As Associated Press reported at the time:
In a statement, the Israeli army said an initial investigation found that “mortar shells were fired from within the school at IDF soldiers. The force responded with mortars at the source of fire. The Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields.” The army said two Hamas militants — Imad Abu Askar and Hasan Abu Askar — were among the dead.
Two neighborhood residents confirmed the Israeli account, saying a group of militants fired mortars from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets. Israel then opened fire. The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety, said the Abu Askar brothers were known low-level Hamas militants.
“Within” is not right, of course. But it seems the real story is that 43 people, including at least two Hamas militants, were killed when Israel returned fire from Hamas mortars launched from among a crowd in the street.
You might still not like what occured. But it is very, very different to what was so widely alleged, and far more forgivable.
And after the earlier evidence of the media repeating pro-Hamas propaganda and gross exaggerations of the death toll in Gaza, especially among civilians, we need to ask again: how much can we trust the coverage of journalists and welfare groups reporting from territory run by terrorists?
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Go tell it to them
Andrew Bolt
I’m very happy to be told by Islamist apologists here that jihad means merely a spiritual struggle. I just wish they’d go tell some of the hundreds of thousands of Indonesians referred to in this survey:
A recent survey conducted by the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University’s (UIN) Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture revealed Thursday that, although the majority of mosque leaders in Jakarta are still ‘moderate’ leaning. The survey also shows that 26 percent agree that war is the main form of jihad (striving in the way of God) while 20 percent support the formalization of Sharia law.
good directions
communitychannel
January 29, 2009
because son, if you give me more than two turns, you've pretty much lost me.
Let me know which method you guys would prefer to use.I just realised i could always just set up an ebay store which i never thought of before. Let me know.
Hope you're all well.
booyah
x
n
Headlines Friday 30th January 2009
Happy Birthday my Ox tailed Rat friend.
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Father 'suicidal' after daughter's bridge death
Four-year-old Darcey Iris Freeman died after her father allegedly took her out of the family car and threw her 58 metres off Melbourne's West Gate bridge in front of her two brothers.
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Rees denies deal to promote Robertson
New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees denies he made a deal with John Robertson, to help him get onto the front bench.
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Ouch! Light pole foils inmates' escape
It was less than a Great Escape as two New Zealand prisoners handcuffed together fled a courthouse, only to find themselves wrapped around a light pole.
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Which state has Australia's deadliest hospitals?
Doctors in one state have made more than a quarter of Australia's hospital bungles - and it's not New South Wales.
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Police pursuit ends in fiery crash
A police officer has been taken to hospital and an entire apartment building evacuated after a fiery end to a police chase in Sydney's West.
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Judge refuses Obama's call to suspend Guantanamo trial
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday rejected President Barack Obama's request to suspend the trial of a Saudi accused in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the Pentagon said.
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Aussie tourism jobs in the firing line
ATM bandits hit Drummoyne
Discharged hospital patient dies next day
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Woolworths' win is your loss
With supermarket giant Woolworths somehow posting an 8.8% increase in sales during an unprecedented economic crisis, it is clear that you, the consumer, are losing out, writes Alan Jones.
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Tax cuts, not panic, the solution to economic crisis
With economists and governments all too willing to spread doom and gloom, Australians could do well to ignore them and realise that things will recover, writes Alan Jones.
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SCIENCE SCREAMING
Tim Blair
Power duo Al Gore and John Kerry take their global warming show to snowbound Washington, DC:
“The Science is screaming at us,” said Kerry, who, like Gore is a former Democratic Presidential candidate. Kerry also has his own tome on the threat of global warming.
“To the naysayers and the deniers out there, let me make it clear the little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis that we face,” Kerry said.
Note that “Science” is now a proper noun. Like “Jesus”.
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CHANGE!
Tim Blair
American comedians struggle to find anything funny about Barack Obama. So – just as with the automotive industry – a market gap opens for the innovative Japanese:
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Importing tension
Andrew Bolt
It seems our urban chic-sters aren’t so comfortable with muliticulturalism, after all:
THE trendy inner-city suburbs of Sydney are full of gloomy and miserable people - and they have been that way since before the economic turmoil began....
The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index report, compiled by Bob Cummins, professor of psychology at Deakin University, shows ... the combination of high density living, high numbers of young people, and high rates of immigrants in a community can be a recipe for disaffection. “When people don’t know the people living around them, it gives rise to bad thoughts,” Professor Cummins said. “They don’t feel as safe...”
The survey also shows lower rates of wellbeing in communities where more than 40 per cent of residents were born overseas. This finding was likely to reflect the anxiety about “strangers” felt by the Australian-born in the area who were more likely to be interviewed for the survey, Professor Cummins said, rather than the feelings of the immigrants.
I suspect that in some areas of Australia multiculturalism and immigration have been pushed close to their limits, and that no amount of earnest fingerwagging will stop tensions rising.
Interesting that suburbs with big green votes tend also to be unhappier than non-green ones.
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Behar actually tells a joke
Andrew Bolt
Larry King interviews Joy Behar, comedian and panellist on The View:
KING: OK, is this administration going to be hard for the comics to have fun with?
BEHAR: Yes. And all I can say is thank you for Joe Biden, because he is going to always give us some laughs. He’ll say something crazy and out there, and it will be fun. And Sarah Palin, you know, we can always rely on her to come back and give us some material. But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they’re really — they’re kind of really perfect, aren’t they?
Bill O’Reilly had already pinned her, even though her body language alone screamed plenty.
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How the media sticks to its story
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama trying to walk through a window isn’t news, because he’s a genius.
George Bush trying to walk through a locked door is huge news, because he’s, you know, a moron.
Same story when clever Obama merely repeats what dumb Bush said already.
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Models monstered
Andrew Bolt
Professor J. Scott Armstrong, co-founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, says there are eight reasons not to trust the IPCC models that forecast runaway warming.
They are:
1. No scientific forecasts of the changes in the Earth’s climate.
2. Improper peer review process.
3. Complexity and uncertainty of climate render expert opinions invalid for forecasting.
4. Forecasts are needed for the effects of climate change.
5. Forecasts are needed of the costs and benefits of alternative actions that might be taken to combat climate change.
6. To justify using a climate forecasting model, one would need to test it against a relevant naïve model.
7. The climate system is stable.
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
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So endangered that they’re everywhere
Andrew Bolt
Sometimes a green will stretch exactly the wrong trurth:
AUSTRALIAN Greens Leader Bob Brown and environment groups have called for a halt to logging in Victoria’s East Gippsland area after the discovery of several endangered species....
Environment East Gippsland spokeswoman Jill Redwood said the Orbost spiny crayfish, endangered sooty and powerful owls and a large population of greater gliders were discovered at the weekend.
”The place is literally teeming with endangered species,’’ Ms Redwood said.
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Gore mocked
Andrew Bolt
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank watches New-New Testament prophet Al Gore deliver his latest apocalyptic sermon to the US Senate:
The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.
What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth—and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”
Milbank is astonished no one in the room is laughing at this guy:
Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority”—and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.
So from where comes this awe for Gore?:
The Goracle’s powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people.
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Melbourne is wrecked, and full
Andrew Bolt
EXCUSE me if I sound cross. Didn’t get much sleep, after the power to my home and air-conditioner - was cut three times.
Oops. Make that now four.
And last night I counted all the plants I lost because the Government can’t get me enough water, either.
Thirteen so far, actually, plus the two lawns. Not to mention the grass of the park down the end of our street.
No power, little water and the radio just now was warning that dozens more trains were being cancelled, too.
So, yes, I’m tired and cranky. But aren’t you also angry - enraged - that our great city has been brought so low by such mammoth incompetence?
Fact is, Victoria is now paying the price for being too green, blind and thick to build basic stuff for a population we let grow far too fast.
Melburnians in particular this week suffered for it.
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Rudd splashing cash we’ll need later
Andrew Bolt
KEVIN RUDD is planning another stimulus package to stop the economy from tipping into a hole.
Hand out another few billion, build more public housing, cut taxes a bit, and the cash will keep the tills kerchinging and factories whirring.
That’s the theory, but here’s the reality. All the Prime Minister’s spending so far - not least last month’s $8 billion of handouts - has failed.
In fact, Rudd has already blown almost our entire surplus on “rescue” plans, without managing to stop the economy from braking hard.
So is he merely squandering billions that we’ll need later? After all, it’s now clear this slowdown—or recession—may last as long as three years. Westpac this week predicted a 0.7 per cent contraction this year, with sluggish growth in 2010.
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Costa withdraws credit from Ruddbank
Andrew Bolt
Michael Costa, the former Labor NSW Treasurer, smells a rat in “Ruddbank”:
In proposing the $4 billion scheme, Kevin Rudd has confirmed his inability to provide reasoned and financially responsible responses to the present economic problems.
The partnership, according to the information provided on the ALP federal website, has been established by the Rudd Government “to help support Australian jobs”. The fund “will support the commercial property assets of viable Australian businesses, which without financing, would be forced to retrench thousands of employees”. ...
Rudd’s justification for these special measures is weak and lacks credibility. In promoting his initiative he has pointed to jobs.... (W)hy are commercial construction jobs more worthy of government support than other jobs? The Government provides no direct explanation. But interestingly, it provides a clue. The federal ALP website, claims that “many of the 150,000 workers employed in the commercial property sector are tradespeople such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters”.
Maybe it’s a coincidence but these also tend to be highly unionised sectors represented by politically significant ALP-affiliated unions....
The other justification Rudd points to is ... that half of the $285billion in syndicated loans to Australian businesses was made by foreign banks and that $75 billion of these loans are set to fall due over the next two years. Again, this might be true but so what? The Government needs to provide evidence that these loans will not be rolled over or, alternatively, new sources of funding won’t be available.
Rudd also needs to talk to Wayne Swan, who told 2GB’s Alan Jones in an interview on January 19 that while the Government was keeping an eye on the situation with domestic and foreign banks, at this stage there was no problem. He also claimed: “No, the banks are not, at this stage, having problems accessing what’s called term finance, internationally. Many of the banks, just prior to Christmas, were very successful in their fundraising activities overseas.”
Something dramatic must have happened between January 19 and 24, when the partnership announcement was made.
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But if it had been Israelis…
Andrew Bolt
Here’s a small story Reuters has just put out, but which has not yet been picked up by the mainstream media, according to this Google News search. But imagine the headlines if this news item named not Hamas...:
A Palestinian man has accused Islamist Hamas militants in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticising them.
... but Israel, like this:
A Palestinian man has accused Israeli troops in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticising them.
Still, give the MSM time. Let’s see what they make of it, and so many reports like it. Our is holding Israel to higher standards in fact yet another case of holding Israel and Hamas to double standards?
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Baz Luhrmann now writes for AFP
Andrew Bolt
It’s time AFP got a new Sydney correspondent before their patronising ignorance does more damage to our reputation overseas:
The former British penal colony, which has become a sought-after destination for its laid-back sun-and-surf lifestyle, was until 1973 ruled by a “White Australia” policy restricting immigration to Westerners.
Reads like a piece by someone who got their history from Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.
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Wong wrong to pick that cherry
Andrew Bolt
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is very nice in person, so Im guessing she’s not really trying to trick people or be deceitful:
The scorching weather across southern Australia proved the accuracy of warnings by climate change scientists, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says....
“All of this is consistent with climate change and all of this is consistent with what scientists told us would happen.”
But there’s something sneaky about this, nevertheless. The heat in Melbourne and Adelaide breaks no records - not like the cold these past weeks in the United States. So why seize on them as “proof” of anything?
The more important fact is that the temperature of the world has in fact fallen since 2002, which contradicts climate models that predicted warming as we pumped out ever more carbon dioxide. That’s the inconvenient truth Wong repeatedly fails to address, as I found when I asked her about this myself.
All this recent heat has proved is the accuracy of forecasts that Melbourne in summer can be damn hot. And?
UPDATE
Reader Charles wonders why Wong thinks a hot day in Victoria is proof of global warming, when in fact most of Australia on the day before she spoke had temperatures below average.
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Ten Things You Can Do To Save The Planet
by Iowahawk
A Go-Green Guide for the Hollywood Community
More than ten years after the Kyoto accords, our planet continues to careen helplessly toward certain environmental destruction. The skies are choked with pollutants. Adorable helpless polar bears plunge through thinning ice caps. Ben Affleck still can’t find a decent comeback project.
The signs are ominous, but it’s not too late to do something. As a member of the entertainment community, you are uniquely qualified to save our planet from coming climate disaster. But it will take more than raising awareness — it will take action. Have your personal assistant add these 10 to-dos to your Blackberry, and let’s get the Earth on the road to recovery!
1. Reduce Water Consumption. One single dripping faucet or flushed bidet may not seem to be much of an environmental threat, but those numbers really add up when you’re hosting an NRDC fundraiser for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. When possible, encourage guests to pee in the pool, and remind them that “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.” Unless you’re serving asparagus canapes.
2. “Green Begins At Home.” Whether you live in East Hampton or Topanga Canyon, there are dozens of little things you can do around your compound to reduce your carbon footprint. For instance, tell your groundskeeping crew to plant a tree. Save your leftover foie gras to grow your own homemade organic Botox. Turn off your energy wasting security cameras between 1 AM and 7 AM. If you own a vanity cattle ranch in Montana, email the trail boss and tell him/her to add Beano to your herd’s feed to reduce ozone-depleting methane emissions.
3. Upgrade To a New Gulfstream G550. Next time you take off for Cannes or Sundance or that big Environmental Defense Fund gala, stop and think how much fuel that clunky old G450 is using. Not only does the new G550 have real burled walnut and 10.8% better fuel efficiency, it has smoother ride — meaning 20% fewer annoying turbulence-related Cristal and cocaine spills. And with a maximum cruising speed of Mach 0.885 you’ll never be late for the red carpet at the Palm d’Or!
4. Crush a Third World Economic Development Movement. One of the most pressing threats facing our environment is rising income in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A generation ago these proud little dark people were happily frolicking in the rain forest, foraging for organic foods amid the wonders of nature. Today, corrupted by wealth, they are demanding environmentally hazardous consumer goods like cars and air conditioning and malaria medicine. You can do your part to stop this dangerous consumerism trend by supporting environmentally progressive leaders like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe, and their programs for sustainable low-impact ecolabor camps.
5. Don’t Reproduce. Many people are shocked when they learn that fewer than 25% of the Screen Actors Guild have been spayed or neutered. Sure, babies make great fashion accessories and it’s fun to give them awesome names, like Kumquat Wildebeest Paltrow and Toploader Enchilada Cage. But these miniature humans will eventually grow up and begin ravenously eating up the Earth’s depleted reserves of aux pairs and psychotherapists.
6. Use Alternative Fuel Motorcades. Let’s face it: whether you are on an international press junket or going to an awards banquet, limousine motorcades are a way of life. But this doesn’t mean you can’t make your red carpet entrance in an eco-friendly way. When possible, tell your publicity team to request a electric, hybrid, or E-85 stretch limo for you and your entourage. Later, when you are vomiting outside the Viper Club, encourage the paparazzi to share the photos to conserve high-energy-use camera flash pods.
7. Avoid Over-Packaged Products. Just look at all the wasteful packaging that goes into your DVDs and CDs: bulky plastic jewel cases, annoying and unnecessary anti-theft devices, price stickers. To reduce the use of petrochemicals, encourage your fans to download copies of your latest album or movie straight from the internet — for free! When they realize it sucks even worse than the reviews on BitTorrent, they can simply erase it from their hard drive instead of sending it to the landfill.
8. Go On a Random Killing Spree. The scientific debate is over: our current environmental mess is caused by an oversupply of human beings, and it’s high time we address these two-legged eco problems head on. Next time you’re on your way to a location shoot, do a little location shooting of your own - Biggie/Tupac style. Have the driver lower the tinted windows and pop a few caps on behalf of Mother Earth. Not only will you be doing the environment a good turn, it will earn you valuable youth market “street cred.”
9. Destroy The Entertainment Industry. Science shows that no single sector of the economy exemplifies America’s obscene energy waste more than show business. Witness the untold megatons of carbon released into the atmosphere every year by the production and consumption of entertainment, with no objective benefit to society. It all adds up to one gigantic, mindless, Earth-raping waste of time, and will take the commitment of progressive industry leaders like you to stop it. Before greenlighting any new project, make sure it contains at least 85% organic recycled preachy self-indulgence. By ridding your products of their dangerous popular appeal, you can keep the public where they belong — at home, with the TV off, playing eco-friendly board games like ‘Scrabble’ and ‘Mystery Date.’
10. Commit Suicide. As an eco-aware, planetary resource parasite, you will eventually want to kill yourself to spare the environment any further damage that your personal existence has already caused. However, it is important that you plan your suicide carefully as not to disturb the ecosystem’s delicate balance. Self immolation, while poignant, can release up to 50 kg of airborne fluorocarbons. Why not try the the hot new Malibu trend, ritual Japanese sepukku? it’s exotic, elegant, and your intact corpse will make a great compost pile addition!
===
Father 'suicidal' after daughter's bridge death
Four-year-old Darcey Iris Freeman died after her father allegedly took her out of the family car and threw her 58 metres off Melbourne's West Gate bridge in front of her two brothers.
===
Rees denies deal to promote Robertson
New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees denies he made a deal with John Robertson, to help him get onto the front bench.
===
Ouch! Light pole foils inmates' escape
It was less than a Great Escape as two New Zealand prisoners handcuffed together fled a courthouse, only to find themselves wrapped around a light pole.
===
Which state has Australia's deadliest hospitals?
Doctors in one state have made more than a quarter of Australia's hospital bungles - and it's not New South Wales.
===
Police pursuit ends in fiery crash
A police officer has been taken to hospital and an entire apartment building evacuated after a fiery end to a police chase in Sydney's West.
===
Judge refuses Obama's call to suspend Guantanamo trial
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday rejected President Barack Obama's request to suspend the trial of a Saudi accused in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the Pentagon said.
===
Aussie tourism jobs in the firing line
ATM bandits hit Drummoyne
Discharged hospital patient dies next day
=== ===
Woolworths' win is your loss
With supermarket giant Woolworths somehow posting an 8.8% increase in sales during an unprecedented economic crisis, it is clear that you, the consumer, are losing out, writes Alan Jones.
===
Tax cuts, not panic, the solution to economic crisis
With economists and governments all too willing to spread doom and gloom, Australians could do well to ignore them and realise that things will recover, writes Alan Jones.
===
SCIENCE SCREAMING
Tim Blair
Power duo Al Gore and John Kerry take their global warming show to snowbound Washington, DC:
“The Science is screaming at us,” said Kerry, who, like Gore is a former Democratic Presidential candidate. Kerry also has his own tome on the threat of global warming.
“To the naysayers and the deniers out there, let me make it clear the little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis that we face,” Kerry said.
Note that “Science” is now a proper noun. Like “Jesus”.
===
CHANGE!
Tim Blair
American comedians struggle to find anything funny about Barack Obama. So – just as with the automotive industry – a market gap opens for the innovative Japanese:
===
Importing tension
Andrew Bolt
It seems our urban chic-sters aren’t so comfortable with muliticulturalism, after all:
THE trendy inner-city suburbs of Sydney are full of gloomy and miserable people - and they have been that way since before the economic turmoil began....
The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index report, compiled by Bob Cummins, professor of psychology at Deakin University, shows ... the combination of high density living, high numbers of young people, and high rates of immigrants in a community can be a recipe for disaffection. “When people don’t know the people living around them, it gives rise to bad thoughts,” Professor Cummins said. “They don’t feel as safe...”
The survey also shows lower rates of wellbeing in communities where more than 40 per cent of residents were born overseas. This finding was likely to reflect the anxiety about “strangers” felt by the Australian-born in the area who were more likely to be interviewed for the survey, Professor Cummins said, rather than the feelings of the immigrants.
I suspect that in some areas of Australia multiculturalism and immigration have been pushed close to their limits, and that no amount of earnest fingerwagging will stop tensions rising.
Interesting that suburbs with big green votes tend also to be unhappier than non-green ones.
===
Behar actually tells a joke
Andrew Bolt
Larry King interviews Joy Behar, comedian and panellist on The View:
KING: OK, is this administration going to be hard for the comics to have fun with?
BEHAR: Yes. And all I can say is thank you for Joe Biden, because he is going to always give us some laughs. He’ll say something crazy and out there, and it will be fun. And Sarah Palin, you know, we can always rely on her to come back and give us some material. But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they’re really — they’re kind of really perfect, aren’t they?
Bill O’Reilly had already pinned her, even though her body language alone screamed plenty.
===
How the media sticks to its story
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama trying to walk through a window isn’t news, because he’s a genius.
George Bush trying to walk through a locked door is huge news, because he’s, you know, a moron.
Same story when clever Obama merely repeats what dumb Bush said already.
===
Models monstered
Andrew Bolt
Professor J. Scott Armstrong, co-founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, says there are eight reasons not to trust the IPCC models that forecast runaway warming.
They are:
1. No scientific forecasts of the changes in the Earth’s climate.
2. Improper peer review process.
3. Complexity and uncertainty of climate render expert opinions invalid for forecasting.
4. Forecasts are needed for the effects of climate change.
5. Forecasts are needed of the costs and benefits of alternative actions that might be taken to combat climate change.
6. To justify using a climate forecasting model, one would need to test it against a relevant naïve model.
7. The climate system is stable.
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
===
So endangered that they’re everywhere
Andrew Bolt
Sometimes a green will stretch exactly the wrong trurth:
AUSTRALIAN Greens Leader Bob Brown and environment groups have called for a halt to logging in Victoria’s East Gippsland area after the discovery of several endangered species....
Environment East Gippsland spokeswoman Jill Redwood said the Orbost spiny crayfish, endangered sooty and powerful owls and a large population of greater gliders were discovered at the weekend.
”The place is literally teeming with endangered species,’’ Ms Redwood said.
===
Gore mocked
Andrew Bolt
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank watches New-New Testament prophet Al Gore deliver his latest apocalyptic sermon to the US Senate:
The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.
What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth—and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”
Milbank is astonished no one in the room is laughing at this guy:
Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority”—and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.
So from where comes this awe for Gore?:
The Goracle’s powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people.
===
Melbourne is wrecked, and full
Andrew Bolt
EXCUSE me if I sound cross. Didn’t get much sleep, after the power to my home and air-conditioner - was cut three times.
Oops. Make that now four.
And last night I counted all the plants I lost because the Government can’t get me enough water, either.
Thirteen so far, actually, plus the two lawns. Not to mention the grass of the park down the end of our street.
No power, little water and the radio just now was warning that dozens more trains were being cancelled, too.
So, yes, I’m tired and cranky. But aren’t you also angry - enraged - that our great city has been brought so low by such mammoth incompetence?
Fact is, Victoria is now paying the price for being too green, blind and thick to build basic stuff for a population we let grow far too fast.
Melburnians in particular this week suffered for it.
===
Rudd splashing cash we’ll need later
Andrew Bolt
KEVIN RUDD is planning another stimulus package to stop the economy from tipping into a hole.
Hand out another few billion, build more public housing, cut taxes a bit, and the cash will keep the tills kerchinging and factories whirring.
That’s the theory, but here’s the reality. All the Prime Minister’s spending so far - not least last month’s $8 billion of handouts - has failed.
In fact, Rudd has already blown almost our entire surplus on “rescue” plans, without managing to stop the economy from braking hard.
So is he merely squandering billions that we’ll need later? After all, it’s now clear this slowdown—or recession—may last as long as three years. Westpac this week predicted a 0.7 per cent contraction this year, with sluggish growth in 2010.
===
Costa withdraws credit from Ruddbank
Andrew Bolt
Michael Costa, the former Labor NSW Treasurer, smells a rat in “Ruddbank”:
In proposing the $4 billion scheme, Kevin Rudd has confirmed his inability to provide reasoned and financially responsible responses to the present economic problems.
The partnership, according to the information provided on the ALP federal website, has been established by the Rudd Government “to help support Australian jobs”. The fund “will support the commercial property assets of viable Australian businesses, which without financing, would be forced to retrench thousands of employees”. ...
Rudd’s justification for these special measures is weak and lacks credibility. In promoting his initiative he has pointed to jobs.... (W)hy are commercial construction jobs more worthy of government support than other jobs? The Government provides no direct explanation. But interestingly, it provides a clue. The federal ALP website, claims that “many of the 150,000 workers employed in the commercial property sector are tradespeople such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters”.
Maybe it’s a coincidence but these also tend to be highly unionised sectors represented by politically significant ALP-affiliated unions....
The other justification Rudd points to is ... that half of the $285billion in syndicated loans to Australian businesses was made by foreign banks and that $75 billion of these loans are set to fall due over the next two years. Again, this might be true but so what? The Government needs to provide evidence that these loans will not be rolled over or, alternatively, new sources of funding won’t be available.
Rudd also needs to talk to Wayne Swan, who told 2GB’s Alan Jones in an interview on January 19 that while the Government was keeping an eye on the situation with domestic and foreign banks, at this stage there was no problem. He also claimed: “No, the banks are not, at this stage, having problems accessing what’s called term finance, internationally. Many of the banks, just prior to Christmas, were very successful in their fundraising activities overseas.”
Something dramatic must have happened between January 19 and 24, when the partnership announcement was made.
===
But if it had been Israelis…
Andrew Bolt
Here’s a small story Reuters has just put out, but which has not yet been picked up by the mainstream media, according to this Google News search. But imagine the headlines if this news item named not Hamas...:
A Palestinian man has accused Islamist Hamas militants in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticising them.
... but Israel, like this:
A Palestinian man has accused Israeli troops in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticising them.
Still, give the MSM time. Let’s see what they make of it, and so many reports like it. Our is holding Israel to higher standards in fact yet another case of holding Israel and Hamas to double standards?
===
Baz Luhrmann now writes for AFP
Andrew Bolt
It’s time AFP got a new Sydney correspondent before their patronising ignorance does more damage to our reputation overseas:
The former British penal colony, which has become a sought-after destination for its laid-back sun-and-surf lifestyle, was until 1973 ruled by a “White Australia” policy restricting immigration to Westerners.
Reads like a piece by someone who got their history from Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.
===
Wong wrong to pick that cherry
Andrew Bolt
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is very nice in person, so Im guessing she’s not really trying to trick people or be deceitful:
The scorching weather across southern Australia proved the accuracy of warnings by climate change scientists, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says....
“All of this is consistent with climate change and all of this is consistent with what scientists told us would happen.”
But there’s something sneaky about this, nevertheless. The heat in Melbourne and Adelaide breaks no records - not like the cold these past weeks in the United States. So why seize on them as “proof” of anything?
The more important fact is that the temperature of the world has in fact fallen since 2002, which contradicts climate models that predicted warming as we pumped out ever more carbon dioxide. That’s the inconvenient truth Wong repeatedly fails to address, as I found when I asked her about this myself.
All this recent heat has proved is the accuracy of forecasts that Melbourne in summer can be damn hot. And?
UPDATE
Reader Charles wonders why Wong thinks a hot day in Victoria is proof of global warming, when in fact most of Australia on the day before she spoke had temperatures below average.
===
Ten Things You Can Do To Save The Planet
by Iowahawk
A Go-Green Guide for the Hollywood Community
More than ten years after the Kyoto accords, our planet continues to careen helplessly toward certain environmental destruction. The skies are choked with pollutants. Adorable helpless polar bears plunge through thinning ice caps. Ben Affleck still can’t find a decent comeback project.
The signs are ominous, but it’s not too late to do something. As a member of the entertainment community, you are uniquely qualified to save our planet from coming climate disaster. But it will take more than raising awareness — it will take action. Have your personal assistant add these 10 to-dos to your Blackberry, and let’s get the Earth on the road to recovery!
1. Reduce Water Consumption. One single dripping faucet or flushed bidet may not seem to be much of an environmental threat, but those numbers really add up when you’re hosting an NRDC fundraiser for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. When possible, encourage guests to pee in the pool, and remind them that “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.” Unless you’re serving asparagus canapes.
2. “Green Begins At Home.” Whether you live in East Hampton or Topanga Canyon, there are dozens of little things you can do around your compound to reduce your carbon footprint. For instance, tell your groundskeeping crew to plant a tree. Save your leftover foie gras to grow your own homemade organic Botox. Turn off your energy wasting security cameras between 1 AM and 7 AM. If you own a vanity cattle ranch in Montana, email the trail boss and tell him/her to add Beano to your herd’s feed to reduce ozone-depleting methane emissions.
3. Upgrade To a New Gulfstream G550. Next time you take off for Cannes or Sundance or that big Environmental Defense Fund gala, stop and think how much fuel that clunky old G450 is using. Not only does the new G550 have real burled walnut and 10.8% better fuel efficiency, it has smoother ride — meaning 20% fewer annoying turbulence-related Cristal and cocaine spills. And with a maximum cruising speed of Mach 0.885 you’ll never be late for the red carpet at the Palm d’Or!
4. Crush a Third World Economic Development Movement. One of the most pressing threats facing our environment is rising income in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A generation ago these proud little dark people were happily frolicking in the rain forest, foraging for organic foods amid the wonders of nature. Today, corrupted by wealth, they are demanding environmentally hazardous consumer goods like cars and air conditioning and malaria medicine. You can do your part to stop this dangerous consumerism trend by supporting environmentally progressive leaders like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe, and their programs for sustainable low-impact ecolabor camps.
5. Don’t Reproduce. Many people are shocked when they learn that fewer than 25% of the Screen Actors Guild have been spayed or neutered. Sure, babies make great fashion accessories and it’s fun to give them awesome names, like Kumquat Wildebeest Paltrow and Toploader Enchilada Cage. But these miniature humans will eventually grow up and begin ravenously eating up the Earth’s depleted reserves of aux pairs and psychotherapists.
6. Use Alternative Fuel Motorcades. Let’s face it: whether you are on an international press junket or going to an awards banquet, limousine motorcades are a way of life. But this doesn’t mean you can’t make your red carpet entrance in an eco-friendly way. When possible, tell your publicity team to request a electric, hybrid, or E-85 stretch limo for you and your entourage. Later, when you are vomiting outside the Viper Club, encourage the paparazzi to share the photos to conserve high-energy-use camera flash pods.
7. Avoid Over-Packaged Products. Just look at all the wasteful packaging that goes into your DVDs and CDs: bulky plastic jewel cases, annoying and unnecessary anti-theft devices, price stickers. To reduce the use of petrochemicals, encourage your fans to download copies of your latest album or movie straight from the internet — for free! When they realize it sucks even worse than the reviews on BitTorrent, they can simply erase it from their hard drive instead of sending it to the landfill.
8. Go On a Random Killing Spree. The scientific debate is over: our current environmental mess is caused by an oversupply of human beings, and it’s high time we address these two-legged eco problems head on. Next time you’re on your way to a location shoot, do a little location shooting of your own - Biggie/Tupac style. Have the driver lower the tinted windows and pop a few caps on behalf of Mother Earth. Not only will you be doing the environment a good turn, it will earn you valuable youth market “street cred.”
9. Destroy The Entertainment Industry. Science shows that no single sector of the economy exemplifies America’s obscene energy waste more than show business. Witness the untold megatons of carbon released into the atmosphere every year by the production and consumption of entertainment, with no objective benefit to society. It all adds up to one gigantic, mindless, Earth-raping waste of time, and will take the commitment of progressive industry leaders like you to stop it. Before greenlighting any new project, make sure it contains at least 85% organic recycled preachy self-indulgence. By ridding your products of their dangerous popular appeal, you can keep the public where they belong — at home, with the TV off, playing eco-friendly board games like ‘Scrabble’ and ‘Mystery Date.’
10. Commit Suicide. As an eco-aware, planetary resource parasite, you will eventually want to kill yourself to spare the environment any further damage that your personal existence has already caused. However, it is important that you plan your suicide carefully as not to disturb the ecosystem’s delicate balance. Self immolation, while poignant, can release up to 50 kg of airborne fluorocarbons. Why not try the the hot new Malibu trend, ritual Japanese sepukku? it’s exotic, elegant, and your intact corpse will make a great compost pile addition!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Super Cheesy Pick-Up Lines Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/askapet
Subscribe to her channel!!! She is awesome!!!
When I agreed to do this collab I was planning to make myself look like a super player. The only problem was that the sketch wasn't that funny. So I compromised my cool factor for some laughs. This is a comedy channel after all. My goal is to make you laugh at all costs. :)
Hope you enjoy.
1. I hope you know CPR because you took my breath away.
2. There must be something wrong with my/your eyes because I can't get them off of you.
3. Ni how~~ ma~ (Chinese for how are you)
4. I wish I was a pokemon master. That way I can peek-a-chu
5. So my friends bet me I can't talk to the most beautiful girl in the room. Want to buy drinks with their money.
6. I bet I can kiss you without touching you. Darn. I guess I lost that bet.
7. If I was Peter Pan, you'd be my happy thought.
8. If I was a fly I'd be all over you because you're the shit.
9. My love for you is like diareea, I just can't hold it in.
10. If you're a hamburger at Burger King, you'd be Wah~~per~
11. The word of the day is legs. Let's go back to my place and spread the word.
12. Your eyes are bluer than the water in my toilet.
13. You must the the north pole because all I'm feeling is an attraction.
14. Mango does a body good. Here have a mango.
Bill O'Reilly Slams Bush-Bashing European Press On SKY News
Bill O'Reilly slammed the Bush-hating European liberals for twisting their news against President Bush and America. He was interviewed on SKY News out of Great Britain after the inauguration of Barack Obama. I think he is too kind regarding Obama - ed.
RTA Visit
On David's birthday, Jan 14th, he went to the Road Traffic Authority and handed in a form. The form had taken him almost two months to complete because of Christmas vacation.
A few years ago, David owned up to having Sleep Apnea, so every year he needs to get forms filled out or he will have his license suspended. The treatment David takes for Sleep Apnea is considered a cure, so there are no actual issues. However, David's eyes are not perfect. He doesn't require glasses (each eye -0.75), but they aren't perfect, so he needs to go to the optometrist to get the form completed too.
At the registry, the completed form is taken. No receipt is issued, not required.
Eleven days later, RTA posts a form saying that the license has been suspended because the document for which David was not given a receipt had not been lodged.
David can appeal to the local court within 28 days of the issuing of the suspension notice.
So for the civic duty being performed of alerting the RTA that David is no longer sick, David is not allowed to drive.
Thank you ALP NSW.
A few years ago, David owned up to having Sleep Apnea, so every year he needs to get forms filled out or he will have his license suspended. The treatment David takes for Sleep Apnea is considered a cure, so there are no actual issues. However, David's eyes are not perfect. He doesn't require glasses (each eye -0.75), but they aren't perfect, so he needs to go to the optometrist to get the form completed too.
At the registry, the completed form is taken. No receipt is issued, not required.
Eleven days later, RTA posts a form saying that the license has been suspended because the document for which David was not given a receipt had not been lodged.
David can appeal to the local court within 28 days of the issuing of the suspension notice.
So for the civic duty being performed of alerting the RTA that David is no longer sick, David is not allowed to drive.
Thank you ALP NSW.
Special, Andrew Bolt's Article on Obama's Thoughts
Obama dreams of a past that’s rosy - with blood
Andrew Bolt
An astonishing line from Barack Obama in his first TV interview as president, that suggests he knows next to nothing about American history or the Middle East:
...the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that.
Twenty or 30 years ago, when - says Obama - America had “respect and partnership” with the Muslim world, the US was led by this “cowboy” Republican:
Iraq was led by this dictator:
American hostages were at last being freed by this Iranian despot after 444 days in captivity:
This, in part, is why the US sent this special envoy to offer the Iraqi dictator US “respect” and (limited) “partnership” in his war with Iran:
Terrorists around the world were being financed by this Libyan dictator, whose “respect” for the US led him to bomb even a Berlin disco popular with US soldiers, forcing the US to launch (ineffectual) bombing raids on Tripoli:
This Palestinian terrorist leader (right) was accused of masterminding or planning attacks on American targets, including even one on Reagan’s secretary of state, with the backing of some “partnerships” of his own:
241 American soldiers in Lebanon were killed in this 1983 Islamist attack on their barracks:
This plane was hijacked, and an American passenger killed, by Islamists seeking revenge for the US bombardment in 1984 of Beirut by the USS New Jersey:
Libya showed its “respect” for US power by in 1988 blowing up this Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, most of them Americans:
And by this time this man was so convinced that the US was weak - was so inspired by Reagan’s hasty withdrawal of his troops from Lebanon, crowing that the ”false courage” of the US had been “turned into scattered bits and pieces” by the 1983 bombing of the marines - that he decided a terrorist band could now hope to defeat this great superpower, perhaps even with just one spectacular attack on its cities:
That’s the “respect” and those are the “partnerships” the US had then. And that is the past of which Obama dreams. Or which he never knew.
UPDATE
Now even John Santor of the Huffington Post is forced to admit that Barack Obama, far from offering “change you can believe in”, is parroting the very kind of words that the despised Bush uttered, at least on the Middle East. But, in analysing Obama’s first interview, Santor bravely attempts to draw a distinction:
Many of these proclamations were made in some way or another by President Bush. What is different this time, however, is a president who is already coupling them with meaningful action...
Action? What? Where? For pity’s sake, the man has been in the job for just a week, and already he’s being hailed for having backed his grand plans for Middle East peace with meaningful actions?
With a cheer squad that desperate, this man cannot lose.
Onegai Teacher Koishi Herikawa Senecio
keikusanagiotaku2
May 22, 2008
Onegai Teacher Music Collection Senecio ^^
Please Teacher! (おねがい☆ティーチャー Onegai Tīchā?, Onegai ☆ Teacher), is a Japanese anime series, directed by Yasunori Ide and written by Yōsuke Kuroda, and produced by Bandai Visual, which was adapted into a manga and light novel, centering around a group of friends and the odd things that happen to them after they get a new teacher.
Special, Andrew Bolt's Article on Che
Che: Hollywood’s pet killer
Andrew Bolt
Benicio del Toro thought it would be wonderful to produce and star in a movie that made the psychopathic killer Che Guevera seem a hero. Naturally, some of the usual suspects love his portrait:
Though the movie has received mixed critical reception, Mr. del Toro won top acting honors at Cannes this year. In his acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to Guevara.
The film was screened in Cuba, to much applause.
“Del Toro is spectacular in the role of Che, not only in his physical resemblance but also in his brilliant interpretation,” wrote Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. “After more than five hours of screening, the Cuban public gave its endorsement with a strong ovation.”
So how did del Toro come to love a man infamous for shooting prisoners, imprisoning the innocent, crushing freedom and ruining an economy? Simple: by doing what all intellectuals tend to do, and judging people by their bright words and schemes, and not by their deeds or their consequences:
In doing research for the picture, Mr. del Toro was drawn to the writings of Guevara. “First, you start with what he wrote. What Che Guevara wrote. And he was a great writer, he wrote for years, so you start with that,” he said.
OK. Shall we start, then, with these “great” writings, Mr del Toro?:
Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!…
Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …
As for that bloody reality of Che, well, del Toro would rather his audience not see it:
Mr. del Toro doesn’t deny that Guevara’s persona had some darker aspects. “We have to omit a lot of stuff about his life,” he said, “but we’re not omitting the fact that he’s for capital punishment, which is the essence of that.”
Er, shooting people after a show trial or none - including people whose “crime” was merely to disagree - is to merely be “for capital punishment”? That’s actually dishonest. As dishonest as the film, it seems:
In the movie, Guevara is shown executing a man. But the man is executed for raping a child, not for being disloyal to the cause of revolution. Troops are offered a chance to desert, and get nothing more than a scolding for their cowardice.
I guess, then, that the people Che killed were just animals who deserved all they got.
Joe Lima picks up another of the film’s many lies:
At the end of the first half of the film, Che orders a rebel to return a red convertible the rebel has plundered. Che was not a plunderer, you see. Even if this incident is factually true, its inclusion in this film is a lie, because the film neglects to tell us that shortly after the war, Guevara moved into an extravagant beachfront mansion in Tarara, a few miles outside of Havana (after kicking out the previous owner). In March of 1959, Che lamely explained in a letter to future exile Carlos Franqui, then editor of the newspaper Revolucion, that “I am ill…due to my revolutionary work…Doctors advised a house at a distance (from Havana), so as to avoid too many visitors and I was lent this one by the Ministry of Property Recovery…” *
This really is sick. Yet countless students will find new reasons to worship evil.
Evil Teacher Nat
communitychannel
December 11, 2006
i'm only joking about being such a bitch teacher by the way. I actually really love kids.
My apologies. i couldn't talk too long so i had to do quite a few little segments.
By the way, in case you were wondering about my sudden jump in numbers i wrote a comment a few days ago on my page which explains it. I'm not a cheater!
Headlines Thursday 29th January 2009
Rees asks Rudd for $2.5b hospital handout
New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees plans to rebuild the state's major hospitals, but to do so he wants a $2.5 billion handout from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
===
Church schools to ban gay teachers, hijabs
Religious schools will be able to reject gay teachers and prevent students from wearing hijabs and other religious garments under proposed changes to anti-discrimination laws in South Australia.
===
Man arrested for stalking young girls
Police have arrested a man accused of following young girls in Sydney's north-west.
===
'50 million jobs will be lost in 2009': ILO
Two years of global financial and economic meltdown could leave over 50 million more people unemployed by the end of 2009, risking social unrest, the International Labour Organization said.
===
Govt handouts prompt $500m pokies boom
There are suggestions a large proportion of the Federal Government's stimulus package went into poker machines, after poker machine revenue jumped $500m last month in NSW alone.
===
Three teens die in Vic car crash
NSW Labor set to promote Robertson
Two charged over Qld double murder
Hamas 'would recognise' pre-1967 Israel
===
Wen, Putin blame US over economic crisis
Chinese and Russian leaders Wen Jiabao and Vladimir Putin have blamed the United States for causing the global economic crisis on a gloomy first day of the Davos forum.
Both leaders on Wednesday called for a new attitude by US President Barack Obama, while deepening pessimism over the future of the global economy enshrouded the World Economic Forum.
Chinese premier Wen said America's voracious appetite for debt and "blind pursuit of profit" had led to the worst recession since the Great Depression which has rocked the 2,500-strong political and business elite gathered in the Swiss mountain resort.
Putin said the disappearance of some Wall Street titans in the past six months testified to the errors committed.
Wen blamed the crisis on "inappropriate macroeconomic policies of some economies" and "prolonged low savings and high consumption," in a lightly veiled attack on the United States.
He blasted the "excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit and the lack of self-discipline among financial institutions and ratings agencies" while the "failure" of regulators had allowed the spread of toxic derivatives.
Wen said the crisis had posed "severe challenges" for China and that it needed 8.0 per cent growth in 2009 to maintain social stability while the International Monetary Fund predicted 6.7 per cent for this year.
The Chinese leader called for faster reform of international financial institutions and for a "new world order" for the economy.
The Russian prime minister followed him to the podium and said the crisis had been a "perfect storm".
He also took aim at US banks and the outgoing US administration.
"Although the crisis was simply hanging in the air, the majority strove to get their share of the pie, be it one dollar or one billion, and did not want to notice the rising wave."
=== ===
Fighting for the right to speak without fear
Piers Akerman
FREEDOM of speech and a free press are among the freedoms we take for granted in Australia. To those unfortunate enough to live in other nations, principally those outside the West, such freedoms are as rare as clean water. - I feel a little uncomfortable saying that a major difference between free Australia and dictatorship elsewhere is our rule of law which embraces liberal freedoms .. because it often doesn’t. It fails. Yet in its failure, we still have moderate to high success.
When the question was posed to the senate last year if the Department of Education had paid attention to the grave accusations made by David Ball the reply was interesting for what it failed to provide, highlighting my point. The answer suggested there was a struggle in the bureaucracy to determine if David was a teacher who had a job. The answer then gave a long winded ‘no.’ So a grave accusation was made and the government admits in parliament it ignored it .. suggesting that the government was struggling to know what, epistemologically, a teacher is.
But to say that Australia is successful only because of a culture is to overvalue one thing and deny those that have fought so hard to preserve that culture.
In short, I think we need more than the right to be able to speak without fear. We also have, and need, the right to be heard. - ed.
===
BIG LIST EVEN BIGGER
Tim Blair
Remember that consensus we used to hear so much about?
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009.
===
MESSAGE THE SAME
Tim Blair
The anti-immigration slogan “F… off, we’re full” was displayed by many stupid (and destructive) kids during Australia Day. Much condemnation followed. Next year, these youngsters should just explain that they are deeply-concerned environmentalists who are worried about our ecological sustainability. Controversy avoided.
===
Melbourne crumbles, Government to fall
Andrew Bolt
Melbourne now pays the price of being too green and mushy to build the infrastructure to match its booming population, or even to cope with the weather.
Water:
MELBOURNE’s summer water storage levels have slumped to their lowest point in 25 years… Yarra Valley Water managing director Tony Kelly, said Victorians were now using an “unacceptable” amount of water…
Power:
TENS of thousands of houses sweltered through the night as sizzling heat caused power outages across the state.... “These extreme temperatures and excessive use of air conditioning can impact on the electricity distribution network,’’ Mr Batey said.
Transport:
MELBOURNE’S train system buckled under the strain of Wednesday’s heat, forcing maintenance workers to cool the rails with water… But commuters were left boiling mad after enduring more than 150 cancelled services in one of the system’s worst days in recent memory…
PUBLIC Transport Minister Lynne Kosky has blamed ”underinvestment over a long period of time” as a key factor in the poor performance of Melbourne’s public transport network in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, having spent so much with so little to show:
THE Victorian Government is close to breaking one of its promises to voters with the budget close to slipping into the red for the first time in 15 years.
Water restrictions, power cuts, cancelled trains, choked freeways ... this Government is now heading for a shock defeat at the next election.
UPDATE
But at least Victoria isn’t yet NSW:
SENIOR doctors at Dubbo Base Hospital are threatening to quit after running out of morphine and watching patients in the intensive care unit swelter in 37 degree heat for five days because pharmaceutical companies and maintenance contractors had not been paid.
The last hospitals I heard of that were running out of morphine were in African war zones.
===
Good for unions, bad for jobs
Andrew Bolt
Have you noticed that Kevin Rudd’s economic “reforms” tend to come with very nasty unintended consequences?
THE commercial shipping industry has warned the Rudd Government that it could move its operations and hundreds of jobs offshore because of the new industrial relations laws.
===
Bligh’s bounty of gases
Andrew Bolt
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh wants the state’s children to cut their planet-murdering emissions:
We are working to put Queensland out ahead of the pack…to make Queensland schools world leaders in reducing their carbon emissions…
Bligh herself, though, gases on in her personal jet, the only one allocated to any state premier:
QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh has breached her Government’s guidelines by flying in the state government-owned jet at a cost to taxpayers of $3000 an hour to watch the football… The guidelines were sidestepped for a trip by Ms Bligh and Sports Minister Judy Spence in September 2007 in the jet to Townsville to watch a rugby league match between the Queensland Cowboys and the New Zealand Warriors.
===
Labor’s green power runs out of wind
Andrew Bolt
Victoria in this heat wave has been desperate for electricity, not least for all the airconditioning. So how have our green-dazed Labor Government’s new windfarms been helping out the state’s supplies?
Well, to start with, let’s check the winds at Wonthaggi over the past three days, and see if they’ve been strong enough to drive the six turbines that now despoil that coast:
28/1 3:00pm CALM
28/1 09:00am 4km/h
28/1 06:00am 4km/h
27/1 3:00pm 7km/h
27/1 09:00am 9km/h
27/1 06:00am 4km/h
26/1 03:00pm 15km/h
26/1 09:00am CALM
26/1 06:00am CALM
Hmm. Not enough breeze to even fan a face. Thanks heavens for coal.
===
Being green kills the planet
Andrew Bolt
For a green believer, it’s like a sheet of paper with “PTO” printed on both sides:
Peter Jones suggested that an “urgent” review of Labour’s policy on recycling was needed to make sure the collection, transportation and processing of recyclable material was not causing a net increase in greenhouse gases.
Mr Jones, a former director of the waste firm Biffa and now an adviser to environment ministers and the London Mayor,.... suggested that much of the country’s waste should simply be burnt to generate electricity.
Meanwhile, yet more evidence that recycling is a gigantic con - or at best a mere genuflection:
Last month, The Daily Telegraph disclosed that councils in England and Wales were dumping more than 200,000 tons of recyclable waste every year – up to 10 per cent of all the glass, paper, plastic and other materials separated out by householders. Thousands of tons of recyclables are shipped to China because of insufficient capacity and demand in Britain.
In some parts of the country, residents have to sort their waste into as many as seven containers, including food waste bins, which has helped councils to justify the scrapping of weekly bin collections.
===
“Politics” is only a sin of the Right
Andrew Bolt
Fox News reports:
Obama Urges GOP to Keep Politics to a Minimum on Stimulus
And from the Wall Street Journal, this report on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most senior Democrat in Congress:
Pelosi Lashes Out at Bush, McCain Over the Financial Crisis
===
Grandchildren stolen
Andrew Bolt
The we-know-better brigade in Britain has astonishing powers to meddle in the most intimate of family relationships:
Two young children are to be adopted by a gay couple, despite the protests of their grandparents. The devastated grandparents were told they would never see the youngsters again unless they dropped their opposition.
The couple, who cannot be named, wanted to give the five-year-old boy and his four year old sister a loving home themselves. But they were ruled to be too old - at 46 and 59.
For two years they fought for their rights to care for the children, whose 26-year- old mother is a recovering heroin addict. They agreed to an adoption only after they faced being financially crippled by legal bills.
The final blow came when they were told the children were going to a gay household, even though several heterosexual couples wanted them. When the grandfather protested, he was told: ‘You can either accept it, and there’s a chance you’ll see the children twice a year, or you can take that stance and never see them again.’
===
African kills Asian. Australians blamed
Andrew Bolt
Look hard enough, and you’ll find an Anglo to blame:
An African migrant who viciously bashed a father to death with a full bottle of wine in a random attack has been jailed for eight years.
Leong Lim, 45, was walking home from a pokies venue when he was attacked in a Springvale park and repeatedly hit over the head with a bottle of Passion Pop on March 3 2007.
A Victorian Supreme Court judge said on Wednesday that Australian culture was partly to blame for the attack.
And no, the judge wasn’t referring to our culture of taking in people who find it so hard to fit in that they end up killing people.
===
Bush gets the tofu vote
Andrew Bolt
The Dalai Lama, the guru of the Left before Al Gore, will have millions of his fans choking on their lentils. First, although he wouldn’t - literally - hurt a fly, he seems to draw the line at terrorists:
“It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here…
“They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated...but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed,” the Dalai Lama said.
Which might help explain his even more grievous offence against Leftist dogma:
So, does he advocate the let’s engage terrorism and terrorists policy of the new US administration by talking to Iran, Hamas, Shining Path or even the Chinese Communists? He didn’t exactly say that but he left the audience stunned when he said ”I love President George W Bush.”
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Special, Bolt's Column on Rudd's Failing Economy Rescue
(Click on the link to go to the original article .. the layout is better, and there are the other links there)
Rudd’s rescue is killing us
Andrew Bolt
Kevin Rudd has so far spent almost our entire surplus on economic “rescue” plans, not one of which seems to have worked to stop the economy from slowing.
In fact, some have been disastrous or were bungled. The unlimited bank deposit guarantee caused a run on other financial institutions, which have had to freeze deposits. Much of the pre-Christmas $8 billion giveaway - meant to stimulate the economy - went on booze or gambling, especially on pokies, or was simply saved by the more prudent, despite Rudd’s pleas to spend it. Certainly some big retailers, such as Harvey Norman, said they saw little or nothing of Rudd’s cash in their tills, and called his package a “dud”.
Now we face massive new interventions in the economy, including wild plans for a ”Ruddbank” to offer Government loans to commercial developments (and thus bail out union-backed super funds) and even for the Government to keep paying workers forced to take unpaid leave by ailing firms.
It should be clear now that Rudd’s plans are simply grossly expensive ways to make him seem like he’s being “decisive’’ and “Doing Something”. That they are designed for headlines, not recovery.
But here’s the worst problem we now face. This economic slump is now expected to last between one and three years. Government revenues will fall during that period, just as the social security bill skyrockets. Is Rudd now squandering the cash we will need over the following hard years? Rather than splash out cash in short-term windfalls, that soon evaporate, should he not use that money instead to set up long-term incentives to invest and grow?
How about cutting taxes, especially payroll tax, just for a start? How about freeing up workplaces again, to help them compete? How about dropping the planned emissions trading scheme, which will tax businesses without doing a thing to stop a warming that seems to have stopped already? And how about cutting greentape of the kind that’s killing the Gunns pulp mill?
I now sense a growing concern about Rudd’s economic populism, and reckless - almost panicky - spending. Experts and journalists are now daring to speak out - albeit rather late.
Breath of an Angel (ORIGINAL SONG BEACHGIRLTV FUSION)
BeachGirlTV
January 27, 2009
This Video Contains Some Nudity And is for the 18 and Over Crowd - thank you
"Breath of an Angel" is an Original song by my band "Fusion"
Fusion Members: Levente & BeachGirlTV
Instrumental by: Fusion
Lyrics and Vocals: Fusion
Images and Video Editing: Fusion
Please Email this channel if you want to download the MP3
THANKS
XOXO
BEACHGIRLTV
Movie Career? I think not... plus small hello to lensei
communitychannel
December 06, 2006
sorry i haven't replied to msgs etc. I will get round to them after work if i'm not dead!
Headlines Wednesday 28th January 2009
Rudd not on Obama's must-call list
BARACK Obama has phoned several leaders since taking office, but our PM is still waiting.
===
Dad shot dead in road rage horror
A MAN is dead after being shot twice in the back in a shocking outbreak of road rage.
===
Officer filmed video of drunk Aborigine
A POLICE officer has been reprimanded for making a drunk man sing and dance on camera.
===
Woman gives birth to eight babies
A CALIFORNIA woman has shocked doctors by giving birth to octuplets, believed to be only the second set born in the US.
===
Jellyfish appears to be immortal
Jellyfish usually die after propagating but Turritopsis is capable of rejuvenating itself and reverting to a sexually immature stage after reaching adulthood.
Theoretically, this unique cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it potentially immortal.
Marine biologists and geneticists are researching how the jellyfish essentially reverses the ageing process.
It is thought that the creature's cells can actually transform from one type to another.
===
Would you eat this? Virgin boss gets a serve over flight food
Virgin boss Richard Branson has thanked the author of an email tirade, currently circulating the internet, which describe the food on his flight as "culinary journey of hell".
===
Third arrest over Sydney gangland murders
Police have arrested a third person in their seven year investigations into a string of murders linked to underworld activity in Sydney.
===
Racism difficult to stamp out: Rees
People should speak up against racism, but the problem will always be difficult to stamp out in Australia, NSW Premier Nathan Rees says. - Mr Rees, if the issue is too difficult for you, stand aside for people who can do better. - ed.
===
Sarah Palin starts 'building America's future'
Alaska Governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has launched a political action committee to help support candidates for federal and state office.
===
More troops in Afghanistan may be needed
Doubling Australian troop numbers in Afghanistan will make no difference if other coalition force nations are not prepared to do more, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says.
===
Sacked father shoots wife, five children dead
A father who may have recently been fired from his job has shot dead his wife and five young children, police in Los Angeles say.
===
Don't bring Symonds back, says Chappell
Recalling cricket bad boy Symonds to the Australian side would provide the team with an "enormous distraction" given their current on-field woes, says former Test captain Ian Chappell.
=== ===
Billion-dollar stimulus package not the answer
The Government has plenty of ways to help the economy before it needs to start wildly spending taxpayers' money, argues Alan Jones.
===
Gore on ice
Andrew Bolt
They have to thaw Gore to let him speak. From the Drudge Report:
Al Gore is scheduled before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning to once again testify on the ‘urgent need’ to combat global warming.
But Mother Nature seems ready to freeze the proceedings. A ‘Winter Storm Watch’ has been posted for the nation’s capitol and there is a potential for significant snow… sleet… or ice accumulations.
“I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to showcase Mr. Gore and his new findings on global warming as a winter storm rages outside,” a Republican lawmaker emailed the DRUDGE REPORT. “And if the ice really piles up, it will not be safe to travel.”
===
Rudd’s phone won’t ring
Andrew Bolt
I’m sure it’s simply because Barack Obama is too busy. And yet it will hurt Kevin Rudd not to have the access to him that John Howard once earned with George Bush:
BARACK Obama began his presidency last week with telephone calls to leaders in the Middle East. He has since placed calls to the prime ministers and presidents of Britain, Russia, France, Germany and Canada.
But almost a week after his inauguration, the new president is yet to pick up the phone to Kevin Rudd, the leader of America’s most steadfast ally…
The talks came amid the fall-out from The Australian’s publication of an account of a telephone conversation between Mr Rudd and then president George W Bush. US officials denied Mr Rudd’s account of the conversation.
Rudd’s problem, of course, is that Obama will not need Rudd as Bush needed Howard. For a start, he is a multilateralist, and in that game we’re small beer. What’s more, Obama does not stand short of (largely fair-weather) friends at the moment, so we’re at the back of a long queue. Third, of course, is Rudd’s chronic leaking of private calls.
===
Green faith means puce faces
Andrew Bolt
Make your children sweat for the planet:
THE South Australian Government is urging people not to use their air conditioners as the state swelters in three days of 40C-plus temperatures…
The department said its advice was intended to minimise greenhouse emissions.
Someone should now check the offices of these Versace Hairshirt wearers to see if the aircon has been turned off there, too. What’s the betting?
===
Obama may be imprisoned by Guantanamo
Andrew Bolt
How easy to repeat the Left’s street slogans on Guantanamo Bay. How much harder once you are president and must face the consequences of closing a jail that houses such extremely dangerous men, many beyond the ability of a domestic court to wisely try:
PRESIDENT Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay within a year appears to be unravelling with the emergence of former inmates on terrorist websites, fierce opposition in the US and a lukewarm response to taking detainees from the European Union.
After signing an executive order last week to close the US military prison, Mr Obama has been confronted with myriad obstacles that are making his ambitious pledge look unrealistic.
It reminds me that a critical difference between conservatives and the Left is the willingness to consider the consequences of fine-sounding plans, and to judge those plans by them.
===
Model spending on greenhouse scare
Andrew Bolt
Wow, isn’t global warming alarmism a wonderfully stocked gravy train? Barack Obama’s new $850 billion stimulus bill has been loaded up with yet more incentives to scientists to get on board:
For an additional amount for ‘‘Procurement, Acquisition and Construction’’, $600,000,000, for accelerating satellite development and acquisition, acquiring climate sensors and climate modeling capacity, and establishing climate data records: Provided further, That not less than $140,000,000 shall be available for climate data modeling.
Slight hitch with that last item, though, as David Kreutzer points out:
This raises the question of how many unemployed climate modelers are out there pounding the pavement.
When presented with that question, last Friday, Pat Michaels, former president of the American Association of State Climatologists stated “I don’t know one unemployed modeler.”
Whether or not another $140,000,000 for climate data modeling is a good idea, it is hard to see an immediate, economy-stimulating impact from this item. What’s the rush? Maybe they need to get all their modeling done before another cool year highlights how bad the models are.
===
Godfather of Grievance
Andrew Bolt
IT was obvious we had to be given - for the eighth time - an Aborigine as our Australian of Year.
But why, oh why, did it have to be Mick Dodson?
Why pick this Godfather of Grievance, whose first speech as our new Top Bloke was typically divisive, attacking January 26 as a “day of mourning” for “our” people and demanding Australia Day be shifted?
Good question, indeed, because Dodson, an ANU professor and co-chair of the misnamed Reconciliation Australia, clearly did not win this honour because of any astonishing ability to bring Australians together.
===
Obama praised for Bush’s words
Andrew Bolt
PEOPLE whose business is words love Barack Obama. Worship him, actually, just for speaking well.
Prof Michael Eric Dyson, even cried in The Sydney Morning Herald that “words crackle and sentences simmer or sing in his mouth”.
Not like that boor George Bush.
In fact, adds Prof Simon Jackman of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre: “Obama’s dazzling capacity for rhetoric has been . . . , and will continue to be, one of the cornerstones of his power.”
Academics, journalists and other wordspeople say this to praise the new US President.
Words are their currency, you see, and Obama flatters them by using their coin. But so enchanted are they that they miss one thing. They’ve heard these words before. From Bush.
Take Obama’s inauguration speech last week, which the ecstatic Age said used “refined” and “restrained” words, “tugging at listeners’ hearts” and revealing Obama as “thoughtful”, “sophisticated” and “intellectual”.
===
Cash looking for hate
Andrew Bolt
Yet another campaign to fight racism?
THE Federal Government will be able to respond more quickly to ugly flare-ups such as the Cronulla riots with a new anti-racism campaign to be announced today.
The Diverse Australia Program will replace grants by the Howard government to promote “living in harmony”, after an internal review found the need for a stronger focus on racial tolerance.
Add that to our Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the state human rights bodies, the anti discrimination tribunals, the state multicultural commissions, Harmony Day, the appointment of migrants and Aborigines to honors such as state governer or Australian of the Year, the vilification laws, the anti-discrimination laws, the criminal law and, most importantly, our study good sense. And note also that we actually have remarkably little racism in this country in the first place.
This one, of course, will hand out lots of grants. Has anyone ever bothered to discover if they actually do any practical good at all? I mean, what are the chances of this working?:
The parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, Laurie Ferguson said the anti-racism campaign would target outer suburbs with high migration levels, such as Rosemeadow, the scene of a recent brawl.
===
Ruddsters wanted
Andrew Bolt
Naturally, a Sinophile PM wants his own Rudd Guard:
PM KEVIN Rudd wants to recruit an army of young volunteers to help the elderly, feed the homeless, and clean up the environment.
UPDATE
The Government’s briefers are claiming this is a “big” idea that came out of their 2020 summit last year (making it the first the Government has bothered to take on in a year since that farce):
The plan is believed to be one of about six big ideas from the 2020 summit to get the green light.
But reader Scooter says that idea was first raised in Parliament in 2002 by .... the Liberals. And guess what the then Labor Opposition thought of it then:
The Federal Opposition says a proposal for university students to get HECS fee discounts by doing community work is a distraction from the debate over the Government’s higher education overhaul. Liberal Senator for Victoria Mitch Fifield used his maiden speech last night to promote his plan for students to do volunteer work in exchange for HECS discounts....
Labor’s Education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin says the scheme is designed as a distraction from the Government’s higher education reforms.
“Let’s get real, going out and doing a bit of community work is not going to turn around the latest 25 per cent fee hike,” she said.
But some questions:
- How can this be called “community work” by “volunteers” when in fact it is paid labor, with these “volunteers” receiving HECS discounts?
- Are they really giving back to the community, when in fact this plan allows them to escape paying for their own higher education?
- Will this paid “volunteering” actually weaken the willingness of real volunteers - already too scarce - to give their time for nothing?
- Should the Government’s “volunteer” corps really aim to do services that real volunteer community groups are doing already? Check the suggestions given in the news story above. You’ll find there are already volunteer bodies doing firefighting, meals on wheels, tree planting and nursing home visits.
- Is it healthy for a Government to draft youth into its own corps, to work to its own agenda of what is worthy?
- Can we actually trust the Government to run any “volunteer” corp?
===
Israel will be blamed, which is why Hamas kills
Andrew Bolt
If Hamas is really the peace-loving victim of Israel’s “disproportionate” violence, as the Left loudly claims, why does it want to keep fighting?
ISRAEL carried out an air strike on the Gaza Strip overnight after Palestinian militants killed a soldier in a bomb attack, as the fragile ceasefire between the two sides stood on the brink of collapse.
It strikes me that the Hamas benefits from the same Pavlovian response of the Left that so many Islamist terrorists, especially in Iraq, have found so useful. The Left says nothing when these extremists kill Jews or Americans or even other Muslims, but it then savagely attacks the inevitable attempts of Israel or the US to defend their citizens and friends.
Which is why Hamas will keep killing.
===
CHILDREN INSTRUCTED
Tim Blair
The problem for Hamas is, sometimes the sleeping cat fights back:
Another problem for Hamas: some lions don’t live in cages.
===
ARTISTS: MONEY IS IMPORTANT
Tim Blair
Here come the arts moochers:
As the Obama administration tackles the challenge of shoring up the economy through infusions of capital and job creation, cultural leaders are urging the president not to forget arts institutions, which are also reeling from the market downturn.
Arts institutions aren’t the only ones forgotten. Resume the whining:
“We wanted to make sure arts were not left out of the recovery,” said Robert L. Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts, a national lobbying group. “The artist’s paycheck is every bit as important as the steelworker’s paycheck or the autoworker’s paycheck.”
Such solidarity! Still, reverse that thought – “the autoworker’s paycheck is every bit as important as the artist’s paycheck” – and imagine how many artists would agree.
Arts groups, meanwhile, are urging federal departments like Transportation or Labor to factor culture into their financing. A transportation enhancement program, for example, could pay artists for related public artworks; through the Labor Department displaced arts professionals could receive new training to stay in the work force.
Try the steel industry or something in the automotive field. Every bit as important! Here’s a good idea:
[Then-candidate Obama] called for a young “artist corps” to work in low-income schools and neighborhoods; affordable health care and tax benefits for artists; and efforts at cultural diplomacy, like dispatching artist-ambassadors to other countries.
Against their will, if necessary. Moldova needs artist-ambassadors.
But what arts executives are most eager for, they say, is additional direct financing …
There’s a shock.
Arts professionals sense that the Obama administration is “open and desirous of partnering with the arts community,” said Jesse Rosen, president and chief executive of the League of American Orchestras.
“That bodes well for what will happen next,” he said. “It’s important that our voices be heard.”
So speak. It’s free, you know.
===
MAQSOOD IS SORRY
Tim Blair
“The simple answer is that Aborigines are real motherf----- bastards. They’re simply assholes who should stop playing the bloody victim games.”
If someone prominent in debate over Aboriginal issues ever wrote that, the author would likely be removed from his or her place of employ. And forget any Parliamentary conferences. But if you make identical comments about a certain other group:
The convener of a conference on justice for Palestine, to be held at State Parliament tomorrow, has apologised for making anti-Jewish comments despite having earlier defended them as “private conversation”.
Maqsood Alshams … who was once nominated for the National Human Rights Award, wrote in private emails obtained by the Herald that Israel had overshadowed the Holocaust in its treatment of Palestine and that God hated Jews.
“The simple answer is that you the Jews are real motherf----- bastards,” he wrote in an email to Richard Benkin, a human rights activist based in Chicago.
“You guys are simply assholes … Stop playing the bloody victim games.”
Maqsood then apologised: “I am ashamed to say they were made at a time when I was intoxicated and angry. Of course, there is no excuse for such remarks.” Problem solved. The conference – supported by the University of Technology, Macquarie University and the University of Sydney – will proceed.
===
EXISTENCE ACKNOWLEDGED
Tim Blair
Time‘s Joe Klein experiences his first moment of disappointment in President Messiah Lightbeam Operfect:
I was disappointed that President Obama even acknowledged the existence of Rush Limbaugh …
Klein’s magazine has ignored popular conservative voices for years, which is one reason it’s losing so many readers.
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