=== Todays Toon ===
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wylie Norman GCB, GCMG, CIE (2 December 1826 - 26 October 1904), Field Marshal and colonial Governor.
Vanity Fair Print ~ Field Marshall Sir Henry Wylie Norman Published 25-Jun-1903=== Bible Quote ===
“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.”- Isaiah 55:6=== Headlines ===
Green Beret to Receive Medal of Honor for Saving 22 Lives
President Obama will bestow the nation's highest military honor for valor on a soldier who died after saving the lives of 22 men in Afghanistan when his unit was ambushed near the Pakistan border.Report: Border Agents Burdened by Red Tape
Agents trying to keep up with the pace of illegal immigration along the border have gotten stuck in limbo, with a new government report showing federal regulations have stalled projects for months on end
Conn. Candidates Spar Over Death Penalty
GOP businessman Tom Foley and Democratic former mayor Dan Malloy, slug it out over the death penalty, their attack ads, creating jobs and other state issues in Connecticut governor's race
Relief at Guilty Verdict, But 'Family Still Gone'
Dr. William Petit, sole survivor in vicious Connecticut home invasion and grisly murder of his wife and two daughters, says there is some 'some relief' after jury finds paroled burglar Steven Hayes guilty
Breaking News
Dollar up 1.5 US centsDOLLAR surges almost 1.5 US cents, as healthy risk appetite saw the currency recover from Tuesday's losses.
French rogue trader guilty of forgery
FRENCH rogue trader sentenced to three years in jail for fraud scandal that threatened to topple one of Europe's biggest banks.
Cyclist critical after being hit by wallaby
A WOMAN is in a critical condition after she was hit by a wallaby while cycling in central Queensland.
Firefighters let man's home burn to ground
FIREFIGHTERS in a far western Tennessee city let a mobile home burn to the ground because the owner didn't pay an annual $US75 ($77) fire protection fee, authorities say.
Opposition dares government on vote
IRANIAN opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi called yesterday for a referendum on the policies of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
NSW/ACT
Rorting MP says title is racistAN ICAC inquiry heard state Labor MP D'Amore took "deep offence" at the investigation title Operation Syracuse because it was "racist".
Missing nurse clue, 27 years on
A FORMER builder remains a person of interest in the disappearance of Mary Wallace.
Bearing up as the boys biff
SOMETIMES a girl needs peace and quiet, especially when the lads are rowdy. And so it was on the North Coast for this koala.
Inquiry into Matilda fleet fire
THE fleet of Matilda passenger vessels on Sydney Harbour is under investigation after a fire on one of them. Read more here.
Electric deal to make us poor
THE State Government has budgeted on bagging nearly $2 billion by charging NSW's three electricity distributors a faux form of tax.
New housing estate just stinks
IT'S Sydney's newest, ritziest neighbourhood and boasts million-dollar views as long as you can put up with the stench of sewage.
Virgin Blue shuts down online bookings
VIRGIN Blue has cancelled more flights and shut down its online bookings for three days as it tries to fix its ailing computer system.
Police will ban non-video Tasers
NSW Police will eliminate Tasers that do not automatically record video of confrontations.
Walking With Dinosaurs is back
Walking With Dinosaurs, the Australian arena spectacular which has thrilled 6.5 million people, will return to Sydney in May.
Queensland
Cancellations hit Virgin againVIRGIN Blue has been forced to cancel and delay flights, as the airline's primary check-in system gradually comes back on line.
Two armed robberies in 15 minutes
TWO bottle shops have been held up at gunpoint in Toowoomba within 15 minutes of the other, but police are yet to determine if they are linked.
'Voodoo con' to get girl naked
MAN used bizarre "voodoo" ritual to con teen girl into undressing and taking part in a ceremony in which she was sexually assaulted, a court has heard.
Cyclist critical after wallaby KO
A WOMAN, 55, is in a critical condition after she was knocked off her bicycle by a wallaby in Yeppoon.
Johnston in stink over council office
A BRISBANE councillor has staged a sit-in outside the chief executive's office in protest at the condition of her ward office.
Craig Moore recalls jail scare
HAVING fallen asleep in the back of a taxi, Craig Moore could only have wished his Dubai ordeal last month was nothing more than a bad dream.
State strips council planning powers
COUNCILS are gearing up for yet another fight with the State Government after it stripped planning powers over a major development site at Caloundra.
Food market for old Myer site
BRISBANE food lovers are clutching their shopping baskets in anticipation of Brisbane's first permanent undercover fresh food market.
Class war fires up over House stoush
HE earns more than $200,000 a year, owns three properties and gets chauffeur-driven around town.
Ex-staffer to sue Labor MP
A FORMER electorate officer is planning to sue a Labor MP after being cleared of stealing more than $16,000 from the politician's allowances.
Victoria
Teen sprayed in police stand-offA 13-year-old girl was doused with capsicum foam after she brandished a large kitchen knife at police.
Two men injured in fiery crash
UPDATE 8.25am: TWO men have been seriously injured in a head-on crash in Melbourne’s western outskirts this morning.
Pair arrested over armed robbery
TWO teenagers have been charged over an alleged armed robbery in Thomastown.
Metro plans to keep you standing
METRO plans to run a two-tiered train system in Melbourne to cope with booming patronage expected this decade.
Ambo cuts put our lives at risk
THE state's top health chiefs could have put lives at risk by advising Ambulance Victoria to slash staff numbers, documents reveal.
Vic tasers draw a blank
VICTORIANS have been unwilling to take on the Taser guns being tested by some of the state's police.
Maggie joins Black and White Army
BABY "Maggie" began to stir just as her family's beloved Magpies claimed their momentous victory.
Snake Man's hiss and kiss
A KISS of death from a deadly tiger snake is the lick of love for Snake Man Barry Goldsmith.
Overland sticks to his guns
CHIEF Commissioner Simon Overland revealed that Noel Ashby and Paul Mullett were charged as a result of an inquiry he requested.
Victorians embrace hi-tech training
WITH just a few days to go before the Melbourne Marathon, Victorians are turning to their iPhones to put extra spring in their steps.
Northern Territory
Bashing women 'not terrible' in our lawLAND council chairman said Aboriginal law viewed violence against women as a "mild one".
South Australia
Thugs dodge police againMEN wanted over a southern-suburbs home invasion yesterday have been involved in a high-speed chase with police..
MPs in dark on seats for next poll
MPS may be kept in the dark about whether they will keep existing seats or have marginal electorates until 12 months before the next state election.
Parks will not be closed - Rann
THE Government has been forced into an embarrassing backdown on plans to replace The Parks community centre.
Council to push for higher city buildings
THE city skyline is set for significant change now that Adelaide City Council wants to increase maximum building heights in the city centre.
Three in court after death crashes
THREE drivers accused of killing five people in separate crashes between February 2009 and June this year, appeared in court yesterday.
Weight off their shoulders
THE Parks Community Centre users are relieved at the reprieve for the centre but some remain sceptical of the State Government's promise to not sell up.
Wine expert's development fears
ONE of the world's foremost authorities on wine has thrown her support behind the McLaren Vale wine industry's fight to stop a housing development.
Your chance to tell the Yanks where to go
SICK of taking orders from the American on your GPS navigator?
Hayfever season to be sneezed at
POLLEN counts are set to soar in what's shaping up to be the worst season for hay fever and asthma in years.
Golden arches banished from Barossa
McDONALD'S cannot open an outlet in the Barossa Valley, the Development Assessment Panel has ruled, ending a battle that turned locals into arch enemies.
Western Australia
Taxi driver charged after women assaultedA TAXI driver will face court later this month after two separate attacks on young Perth women in four days.
Jail for savage home invasion attack
A MAN who brutally assaulted an elderly Perth couple in their home has been jailed for four-and-half-years -- with no chance of parole.
Toodyay officer is WA's best cop
A POLICEMAN who helped Toodyay survive the devastating bushfires has been named the 2010 Police Officer of the Year.
Man jailed over Northam BBQ shooting
A MAN who shot another man in the wrist with a home-made gun during an alcohol and drug-fuelled tirade has been sentenced to three years in jail.
Four charged over Perth drug bust
FOUR people charged and thousands of dollars seized after a three-month drug operation targeting heroin and methylamphetamine distribution.
WA tops nation in car sales
FEARS of rising interest rates cooling vehicle sales failed to materialise as private buyers shot WA September sales figures to a record high.
Tasmania
Murder accused 'gets days mixed up'THE woman accused of murdering a medical specialist told police she gets her "days mixed up" when asked why her story had changed, a Hobart court has been told
=== Journalists Corner ===
The Gubernatorial Impact!How the state races for governor will affect the balance of power in DC, and what it could mean for the 2012 presidential election.
On Fox News Insider:
Inside The Connecticut Home Invasion TrialVIDEO: Grey's Anatomy Star Ellen Pompeo Dishes on Show, Kissing McDreamy
VIDEO: Wife Speaks Out After Husband Reportedly Shot by Mexican Gang
Donald Trump for President?
The Truth Behind Jon Scott's Injured Shoulder
=== Comments ===
BROTHERHOOD OF BLASTERSTim Blair
The WSJ’s James Taranto:
What kind of people blow up children?Indeed they have. Formerly friendly corporations are re-thinking things, however. And in a new Washington Post poll, this option seems to be doing well:
White supremacists, for one example. On the morning of Sept. 15, 1963, members of a Ku Klux Klan “splinter group” set off dynamite under the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four girls: Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. Denise was 11; the other three were 14.
Islamic supremacists, for another example. Groups like Hamas and al Qaeda not only attack civilians indiscriminately but frequently employ Muslim children as suicide bombers …
There’s a new kind of supremacist on the scene: green supremacists. They haven’t blown up any children – not in real life. But they’ve been thinking about it.
It’s official: Environmental activists have lost their mindsUPDATE. Now they’re hanging kids. These people are unwell.
===
LET’S PUT ON A SHOW!
Tim Blair
It’s Global Warming – the Musical:
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $700,000 grant to the Civilians, a New York theater company, to finance the production of a show about climate change. “The Great Immensity,” with a book by Steven Cosson ("This Beautiful City") and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman ("Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson"), tells the story of Polly, a photojournalist who disappears while working in the rain forests of Panama. The grant is a rare gift to an arts organization from the foundation, a federal agency that pays for science, engineering and mathematics research and education.In other showbiz news, apparently we’re fighting a fundamentalist singing troupe known as the Taliband – at least according to Julia Gillard, who hasn’t been paying attention.
The company says it plans to spend the money on the development and evaluation of the show, as well as on a tour and educational programs, including post-show panel discussions with experts in related scientific fields. No performance dates have been announced.
(Via MM)
===
LIFE BEFORE PLASMA
Tim Blair
The bidding for this historically significant television set begins at just $25.
===
Hanged children? What is stirring in these warmists’ minds?
Andrew Bolt
Just what sick impulse are global warmists pleasuring when they threaten children with death?
A few days ago we saw the green group 10:10 “jokingly” show children being blown up if they did not join the global warming crusade:
But ACT Responsible, a group of Left-wing advertising executives (!), had already come up with this for a Cannes conference:
Then there was this scare-the-kids video shocker that launched last year’s Copenhagen summit:
(Thanks to reader Paul.)
===
No pity it’s Michelangelo
Andrew Bolt
Nice autograph to find on the painting on your wall. Nice painting, too:AN unfinished painting of the Virgin Mary and Christ owned by a former pilot is a lost masterpiece by Michelangelo. If the attribution is confirmed, the work will rank alongside only three surviving panel paintings by the Italian master, potentially making it worth more than the record $118 million so far achieved for a work of art....(Thanks to reader John.)
The owner of the pieta ... told The Sunday Times in an email that he grew up with the pieta hanging in the family home. It once crashed to the ground when hit by a tennis ball he and his brothers were playing with, but was undamaged.
===
Oakeshott knows all about gassing on
Andrew Bolt
Julia Gillard’s deliberately stacked committee on climate change just got even more radical:
Federal Independent MP Rob Oakeshott has accepted an invitation to be part of the Government’s climate change committee.===
Warm September
Andrew Bolt
Oceans cool, but atmospheric temperatures still remain high, which surprises Dr Roy Spencer:Despite cooling in the tropics, the global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly has stubbornly refused to follow suit: +0.60 deg. C for September, 2010.===
Since the daily global average sea surface temperature anomalies on our NASA Discover web page have now cooled to well below the 2002-2010 average, there remains a rather large discrepancy between these two measures. Without digging into the regional differences in the two datasets, I currently have no explanation for this.
Ali finds a refuge in Australia
Andrew Bolt
Professional anti-American Tariq Ali finds a paper that still takes his conspiratorial Marxist preaching seriously. But why does The Age still see merit in a rant that includes such grotesque caricatures of 1970’s agit prop as these:
THE election to the presidency of a mixed-race Democrat, vowing to heal America’s wounds at home and restore its reputation abroad, was greeted with a wave of ideological euphoria not seen since the days of Kennedy. The shameful interlude of Republican swagger and criminality was over...Bush the criminal? Even most of today’s campus radicals would think this analysis shallow.
There was no fundamental break in foreign policy between the Bush and Obama regimes. The strategic goals and imperatives of the US imperium remain the same, as do its principal theatres and means of operation.Exactly what are the colonies controlled by this “imperium”? Where is America’s India?
On December 27, 2008, the Israeli Defence Forces launched an all-out air and ground assault on the population of Gaza. Bombing, burning, killing continued without interruption for 22 days...Ah, the fashionable new anti-Semitism - sorry, anti-Zionism - of the Left. Well, as new as the Beatles, anyway. An all-out assault on Gaza? If true, it’s astonishing that the nuclear-armed Israel managed in this alleged uninterrupted slaughter of three weeks to kill no more than 1400 people - and then stopped. And is there any reason that Ali neglects to mention just why Israel went to war with Hamas, a terrorist group pledged to its destructrion?
There persists (in the US) the uneasy thought that the Iraqi resistance, capable of inflicting such damage on the US military machine only yesterday, might just be biding its time after its heavy losses and the defection of an important segment, and could still visit havoc on the collaborators tomorrow, should the US pull out altogether.The fascists, Islamists, headhackers and suicide bombers who killed so many civilians, election officials, policemen and followers of the “wrong” brand of Islam are “resistance” fighters? Their victims, and the men and women trying to maintain Iraq’s new democracy, are “collaborators”? What a vile mischaracterisation. What sinister praise for fascists and damnation of democrats.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps Ali is not a retro symbol of the ‘70s but the ‘30s. And what does that say of the Australian institutions now feting him, from The Age to the University of Adelaide?
===
Gillard can’t remember the name of the force we fight in Afghanistan
Andrew Bolt
Five times on the 7.30 Report last night, Julia Gillard referred to our enemy in Afghanistan as the “Taliband”, not Taliban.
Check for yourself at 3:03, 4:00, 7:02, 7:54 and 8:08.
“Foreign policy is not my passion,” Gillard admitted. But a Prime Minister who grandly referred to “my own soldiers” in this same interview should at least know the name of the force she’s asked them to fight.
(Thanks to reader Andy.)
===
Gillard may mock, but Abbott now in danger
Andrew Bolt
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott this week walked into an ambush on his road to Afghanistan.
Not only did Prime Minister Julia Gillard blow him up politically, she may have endangered him physically, too.
Want to know how brutally Labor now plays politics? Read on.
Gillard dropped in on our troops in Afghanistan and - deliberately? - stirred up speculation about whether Abbott would visit, too.
In fact, Gillard, unforgivably, went further. She mentioned she’d actually asked Abbott along, but he’d refused.
So kind of her, you’d think. So callous of him.
So Abbott was naturally asked by reporters why he hadn’t gone with Gillard to check on the men and women risking their lives for their country. After all, like Gillard, he’d been on his way to Europe, anyway.
That’s when he was caught - suddenly unable to tell a hypothetical truth, for reasons I’ll explain.
All he could say - and it was especially stupid, I agree - was that he’d wanted “to do justice” to his visit to Britain, where he’s meeting the British Prime Minister and attending the Conservative Party conference.
“I didn’t want to get here entirely in jet-lagged condition,” he said lamely.
Too tired to inspect soldiers in a war? Cringe-making stuff.
And how Gillard has exploited it, jeering that she’d managed to visit Afghanistan on her way to Europe without losing a moment’s sleep.
“I slept very well last night,” she smirked.
“I’ll let Mr Abbott work out his own sleeping patterns. For myself, obviously, as you know I went to Afghanistan, then to Zurich, then came here and did manage to get eight hours’ sleep last night and that prepared me for a very long day.”
But I must now speak hypothetically, and hope the full truth will emerge in some not-too-distant future.
Any politician or other VIP planning to visit our troops in Afghanistan is forbidden from saying when - or even if - they are going. The military does not want them to become an even bigger lure for terrorists there.
On both my own trips there, even I was forbidden from telling close friends and colleagues of my plans.
So if Abbott, hypothetically speaking, had already planned to visit Afghanistan on his own, could he say so?
And if Abbott, hypothetically speaking, was going to Afghanistan, wouldn’t the Prime Minister have known that full well, and made sure she got there first? She’d certainly have known it before she mocked him this week.
===
Helping refugees should not mean this trouble
Andrew Bolt
THERE is an implicit deal - or should be - with our refugee program.
We use it to save people from danger, not to expose our own citizens to it.
Last weekend, up to 100 Africans, mostly Sudanese attending a Miss Africa pageant, fought several battles in the centre of Adelaide, using knives, tyre levers, clubs and even a bedpost.
Four men were stabbed and four arrested, two from Victoria.
For a community as small as the Sudanese, that is a lot of street-fighters.
But naturally, Australians being admirably anti-racist, the significance of this brawl has been played down.
Yet hard truths must be faced. The Sudanese here are some four times more likely to be jailed. Two years ago brawling African gangs also fought in the centre of Adelaide, leaving one boy dead and another fighting for life.
The year before, a mass brawl after a Sudanese beauty pageant in Dandenong left another man stabbed.
Again, we must stress that most Sudanese and Somali refugees here are law-abiding and grateful, just as we must remember that the vast majority of Muslims here are peaceable, even if 20 have so far been jailed for terrorism.
Yet it is clear that saving them from danger has exposed more Australians to danger themselves, and increasingly we must ask if this is a wise way to help refugees - whether Lebanese Muslims in the 1970s or Africans today.
===
Black politicians aren’t just for black voters
Andrew Bolt
Jack Kelly says it’s the Republicans who, in November’s election, are treating black candidates as politicians who can transcend race:
Tim Scott, Allen West or Ryan Frazier ... are three of the 14 black candidates running for Congress as Republicans this November… If all three win, that would be a post-Reconstruction record…===
One might think the resurgence of black Republicans, coming as it does at a time when a black Democrat is president, would rate more than a feature story or two in the national media. But that would conflict with the liberal meme that Republicans are racist…
The black Republican candidates (12 men and two women) are impressive people. I’m most impressed with Mr. West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was a hero to his troops in Iraq.
Their stories are similar. Most were raised in poverty or near-poverty by a parent or parents who instilled in them conservative values. Most have been working hard since they were children. Half the men are military veterans…
Of the 39 black Democrats in the House, all but two represent districts where blacks are a majority or plurality. One other black Democratic contender is running in a white majority district. So in this election, Republicans are running more blacks in white majority districts than the Democrats are. Shouldn’t that be taken into consideration when accusations of racism are being hurled about?
Human cane toads
Andrew Bolt
White humans and other non-Africans are best thought of as an “invasive” species outside their natural habitat, says Doctor Science,a theoretical population genetics graduate from New Jersey:
Last year, I read Africa: A Biography of the Continent by native South African John Reader. In his prologue, he states his central question of (sub-Saharan) African* history:(Via Instapundit.)While the out-of-Africa population grew from just hundreds to 200 million in 100,000 years, and rose to just over 300 million by AD 1500, the African population increased from 1 million to no more than 20 million in 100,000 years, and rose to only 47 million by AD 1500. And the disparity persists to the present day, though both groups were descended from the same evolutionary stock.... Why did the migrant population grow so much faster? ...My answer to Reader’s question should be obvious. Once you think of Homo sapiens as an invasive species—like stink bugs, or kudzu, or cane toads—the answer is blindingly obvious.
The only part of the world to which human beings are truly native is sub-Saharan Africa. Ecologically, there are no “native peoples” anywhere else in the world, because outside of Africa Homo sapiens is always an invasive alien species. You’d think that the fact that we’re adapted to Africa in a way we aren’t adapted to anywhere else would be an advantage, but it turns out not to work that way. The overwhelming factor, for H. sapiens as well as stink bugs, is that our native range is adapted to us—humans or bugs become dangerously invasive when we can escape not just the limited space of our native range, but the constraints on our population that come from other co-native species: predators or parasites (including diseases).
===
The solar con: seeming green, being greedy
Andrew Bolt
Green power is not just ludicrously expensive, but too often a transfer of wealth from the poor to the salvation-seeking rich:
SCHEMES that pay households to produce power using rooftop solar panels are costing about 25 times as much to cut greenhouse gases as a nationwide ETS…
In a confidential submission obtained by The Australian, the National Generators Forum has told the NSW government that its scheme is costing between $520 and $640 to reduce each tonne of carbon dioxide - compared with the $23 per tonne proposed in the emissions trading scheme shelved by Kevin Rudd.
The submission states that although the scheme will create green jobs, each job created will cost between $130,000 and $700,000....
The Australian Council of Social Service’s senior policy officer of energy and climate change, Tony Westmore, feared “a serious increase” in power bills and said ”those people who have the cash to be able to put the panels on their roof will be subsidised by people who can’t afford their current bills”.
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