Lette helps herself
Andrew Bolt
Pun-until-you-puke writer Kathy Lette takes self-promotion in a tacky new direction:
Best-selling Australian novelist Kathy Lette has confessed to having affairs with two married men…
===
Not rights, but claims
Andrew Bolt
Associate professor Helen Irving warns that a bill of rights, now being discussed by the Rudd Government, is an attempt to use judges to impose on voters contentious political decisions best left to them:
(M)any rights are in fact political. They rest on controversial propositions, matters open to reasonable disagreement, issues that should properly be debated in the public arena.
We hear, for example, of the “right to die with dignity”. This is not a natural right, or a settled matter. It is deeply, and essentially, contentious.
Another example: the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities includes a provision giving a person of “a particular cultural … background” the “right, in community with other persons of that background, to enjoy his or her culture”. To determine whether a person has a “particular” background, and whether its enjoyment has been denied, requires detailed knowledge of cultural practices and expectations, both in “particular” and mainstream cultures.
These are sociological and historical issues, not questions for the courts.
===
Reinventing the black family
Andrew Bolt
Kay Hymowitz says ideological blindness can be devastating:
In 1950, at the height of the Jim Crow era and despite the shattering legacy of slavery, the great majority of black children - an estimated 85 per cent - were born to their two married parents. Just 15 years later legal barriers to equality were falling… Yet 24 per cent of black mothers were then bypassing marriage…
President Lyndon Johnson was deeply shaken by (Assistant secretary of labour Daniel Patrick) Moynihan’s findings… (B)oth believed that fatherlessness undermined the “basic socialising unit”. Johnson declared: “When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled.”
Unfortunately, those warnings were as prescient as they were reviled. Civil rights leaders, worried about reviving racist myths about black promiscuity, objected to what they viewed as blaming the victim. Feminists were inclined to look on the “strong black women” raising their children without men as a symbol of female autonomy. The Moynihan report and the subject disappeared…
Since then the black family has unravelled in ways that have little parallel in human cultures… Today 70 per cent of black children are born to single mothers.
What has this meant for racial progress? Fifty years after Jim Crow, black households have the lowest median income of any racial or ethnic group. Close to a third of black children are poor, and their chances of moving out of poverty are considerably lower than those of their white peers.
===
The Left burns Athens
Andrew Bolt
The Left and the anarchists of Greece show their customary love of peace and the respect for the rights of others:
Thousands of youths enraged by the fatal police shooting of a teenager rampaged through cities across Greece on Monday, attacking police stations, firebombing stores and battling with authorities in a third day of massive riots…
Rioters have torched the capital’s massive Christmas tree in central Syntagma Square. Some protesters posed for photos in front of the blaze. Others sang the Greek version of “Oh Christmas Tree.”..
Nearby, thousands of demonstrators gathered for separate protests organized by two left-wing parties.
===
Memo to poor: be reckless
Andrew Bolt
”Spend, spend, spend” may be good for the economy, but it’s lousy for individuals. Michael Stutchbury:
Kevin Rudd is urging Australians to spend most of the $10.4 billion in government handouts to low-to-middle class families, pensioners and young home buyers.
That makes sense in political terms or as a patriotic call to arms. But financial advisers who told their clients to do the same would risk being struck off.
===
Bolt Baffled - the party he supports are too bad
Andrew Bolt
On the whole, Kevin Rudd’s staff won’t work for him, his colleagues don’t like him, his top public servants resent him and even the Left-leaning press gallery privately sneers at him. But the public loves him.
Help Mr Bolt find a reason to vote Liberal ..
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
George Smoot: The design of the universe
http://www.ted.com At Serious Play 2008, astrophysicist George Smoot shows stunning new images from deep-space surveys, and prods us to ponder how the cosmos -- with its giant webs of dark matter and mysterious gaping voids -- got built this way.
Headlines Monday 8th December
More stimulating if Rudd’s gift was sound
Piers Akerman
NO-ONE begrudges pensioners and carers, and other less fortunate members of the community a Christmas bonus but the rationale for the Rudd Labor government’s hand-out deserves serious examination.
After all, half of the $20 billion surplus left by the former Howard-Costello Coalition government is being splashed around.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, formerly an avowed economic conservative is showing himself to be anything but now.
At the beginning of the year, Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan were hyping the inflation genie solely to discredit their predecessors’ strong economic record.
And they did a great scare job. They convinced the Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens to hike interest rates to levels that had evaporated with the Keating government in the first half of 1996.
So fixated were they in denigrating the prosperity the Howard years had left the nation however, they ignored the economic tsunami that former treasurer Peter Costello warned about in the months before last year’s federal election and that current Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull focussed on earlier this year. - I'm not one of the Rudd targets. But I don't wish to be either. I view it as a waste. I view it in the same terms as I viewed the $50 back to school allowance of NSW fame, now gone. Never worth as much as it cost, always possible to be replaced with something better until it is spent. A gimmick. Rudd is not father Christmas, but the result of his tenure will look like that of the Grinch. - ed.
===
Save that green whatchamacallit
Andrew Bolt
Control the words, and you control the thoughts:
Oxford University Press has removed words like “aisle”, “bishop”, “chapel”, “empire” and “monarch” from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog”, “broadband” and “celebrity”. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.
The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.
That said, these deletions seem intended more to follow social changes, than to push them.
But note another trend to be detected in this deletion and addition of words of the OUP Junior Dictionary…
===
Jackman does Australia, and does it good
Andrew Bolt
From 1:55, hear Hugh Jackman explain the “stolen generations” to Americans - linking us even to Nazi Germany.
Hugh, name just 10 such children.
===
Change you can’t believe in
Andrew Bolt
It’s not often that I’m glad a politician delivers the opposite of what he’s promised:
On a range of issues, from Kosovo, China, Russia and Nato’s eastward expansion, and the Middle East, former White House officials and leading analysts are disappointed at how quickly the president-elect has moved to the centre ground since his election just a month ago.
===
Our gases mean nothing
Andrew Bolt
Good sense from Garnaut:
CLIMATE change adviser Ross Garnaut has warned that developed nations will be unable to avert global warming by simply setting exemplary emissions targets in the hope that developing nations will follow, saying China and India must join a global action plan from the start if there is to be any hope of success.
And that’s assuming the warming is actually happening now, that it’s caused by man, that it’s bad, that we can stop it and that it’s actually worth the pain to try.
===
Caste privileges asserted
Andrew Bolt
A New York Times columnist demands that working people be licensed before they write books - and probably not even then.
===
Not freedom fighter, but killer
Andrew Bolt
David Burchell says writers of the West have a sick need to romanticise and aggrandise terrorists like the captured Pakistani who was taught to hate and murdered so many in Mumbai:
(T)he young terrorist’s name is in reality Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman… And he’s neither a hardened militant, nor a glamorous Ocean’s Eleven-style saboteur, nor evidently a high-quality anything.
Born to a snackfood cart driver and a downtrodden housewife in a dirt-poor rural community in southern Punjab, young Iman was booted out of the family home at an early age, and took to a life of petty crime. While shopping for a handgun in a Rawalpindi bazaar, he was handed a pamphlet advertising the political wing of the Pakistani-based jihadist group Lashkar-e-Toiba, and, lured by the prospect of professional weapons-training, he decided to join.
A year or so afterwards young Iman ... discharged several AK-47 magazines into the crowds at Mumbai’s historic railway station, randomly killing as many as 55 people. Among his victims were six hapless members of a Mumbai Muslim family, the Ansaris, on their way to a village holiday ceremony. (Their five-year-old boy, Firoze, still asks for his parents.)
In short, Iman is that most familiar of figures from the supposedly fervent, intense, highly strung world of jihadist extremism. He’s the gullible patsy, the man who does the dirty work.
In the Lashkar training camps in rural Pakistan they feed the raw recruits on a diet of weapons training and pseudo-Koranic sermonising: the same stuff David Hicks faithfully regurgitated to his mum about the need to kill all the Jews before Judgment Day, when even the rocks will cry out “There’s a Jew hiding behind me!"…
===
Look! Behind Winslet’s body!
Andrew Bolt
Critic Charlie Finch has created a pre-Oscars controversy by declaring himself repelled by the film of The Reader:
Based on a bestselling novel, The Reader begins with Kate Winslet, as a 1950s German bus conductor, deflowering a horse-faced German lad, with lots of groaning, full nudity front and back and bathtub play… Every time they have sex, the Winslet character asks the kid to read to her from the classics, Dickens, Homer, Shakespeare. Anyway, the kid grows up to be a law student ...and, in 1966, his professor takes him to a trial. Who should be on trial but Kate Winslet, who it turns out was a concentration camp guard who burned 300 Jewish prisoners to death.
The evidence of the trial turns on whether Winslet wrote the report about the atrocity, and, rather than admit that she is illiterate (that’s why she had the kid read to her), she confesses to writing the report and gets 20 years behind bars. Those under her get four years, all of the sentences seeming rather light…
===
Winding up the welfare state
Andrew Bolt
When even a British Labor Government contemplates this kind of reform - like that endorsed in the US by Democrat President Bill Clinton - you know what an utter disaster the Left’s post-60s welfarism has been:
A SHAKE-UP in British welfare will force almost all benefit claimants to look for a job or prepare for work if they want to continue to receive state handouts.
===
Boo the audience, not the film
Andrew Bolt
Jim Schembri pointed out in his blog that Australian audiences were giving Australian films the big swerve, despite having been good enough to lavish truckloads of grants on their makers:
After 35 years and an investment of around $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars, Australian cinema still occupies only the very margins of the marketplace - something starkly reflected by the “major” films nominated for this year’s AFI Awards.
Up for best film and best director are The Jammed, The Black Balloon, The Square and Unfinished Sky. These four films had a combined box-office of about $3.9 million…
For a far more disturbing gauge of the film industry’s peril, however, compare that four-film box-office figure against the $7 million budget for the Australian film The Tender Hook, a period film set in Sydney during the jazz age. It’s a film almost nobody has heard of. And no wonder. Its take at the ticket counter? Less than $40,000!
For Schembri, and even big players in the industry, the fault lies precisely where you’d expect - with the filmmakers, and especially the scriptwriters:
A big part of the industy’s malaise has been the prevalence of audience-averse doom-and-gloom themes.... The Black Balloon dealt with a family living with an autistic child. It was the most successful of the crop, taking $1.5 million in five weeks - about the same as what the coarse teen comedy Sex Drive made in two.... (T)he film’s 11 nominations is a triumph of feel-good emotion over good judgment. The film is strewn with glaring inconsistencies, story holes and poor characterisations, yet it is also up for best original screenplay along with the appalling teen flick Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger.
Both films demonstrate how the decades-old problem of script development still dogs the industry.
===
At least Turnbull earned his
Andrew Bolt
Michelle Grattan and Brendan Nicholson of The Age play a game of stereotypes, but in mono:
SPEND spend spend.
That’s the urgent advice Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is delivering to 2 million families and 4 million pensioners who will from today receive the largesse from the Government’s $10 billion stimulus package… While Mr Rudd was calling on people to spend, Opposition Leader and self-made multimillionaire Malcolm Turnbull urged a more cautious approach.
===
Welcome mat out
Andrew Bolt
Yet another boat of illegal immigrants is lured in:
The 44 passengers and three crew were intercepted by Customs and taken in groups to detention on Christmas Island yesterday.
The arrival of their small boat - the sixth since temporary protection visas were abolished by the Federal Government in August - immediately sparked a political brawl about the state of Australian border security.
The Opposition claims the arrivals off Western Australia’s north coast proves Indonesian people smugglers now see Australia as a soft touch.
Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus blamed the increased people smuggling activity on “seasonal activity” and said the Government had already increased its border patrols.
A deadly trade may have resumed, thanks to Labor’s “kindness”:
The International Organisation for Migration chief-of-mission in Indonesia, Steve Cook, ... warned of a dangerous shift in tactics, with people smugglers increasingly favouring smaller, more fragile boats in an attempt to avoid detection. (Immigration Minister Chris) Evans predicted this would cost lives.
Stopping this dangerous trafficking in queue-jumpers by criminals was called cruel. Tempting it to restart was hailed as kind.
Piers Akerman
NO-ONE begrudges pensioners and carers, and other less fortunate members of the community a Christmas bonus but the rationale for the Rudd Labor government’s hand-out deserves serious examination.
After all, half of the $20 billion surplus left by the former Howard-Costello Coalition government is being splashed around.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, formerly an avowed economic conservative is showing himself to be anything but now.
At the beginning of the year, Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan were hyping the inflation genie solely to discredit their predecessors’ strong economic record.
And they did a great scare job. They convinced the Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens to hike interest rates to levels that had evaporated with the Keating government in the first half of 1996.
So fixated were they in denigrating the prosperity the Howard years had left the nation however, they ignored the economic tsunami that former treasurer Peter Costello warned about in the months before last year’s federal election and that current Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull focussed on earlier this year. - I'm not one of the Rudd targets. But I don't wish to be either. I view it as a waste. I view it in the same terms as I viewed the $50 back to school allowance of NSW fame, now gone. Never worth as much as it cost, always possible to be replaced with something better until it is spent. A gimmick. Rudd is not father Christmas, but the result of his tenure will look like that of the Grinch. - ed.
===
Save that green whatchamacallit
Andrew Bolt
Control the words, and you control the thoughts:
Oxford University Press has removed words like “aisle”, “bishop”, “chapel”, “empire” and “monarch” from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog”, “broadband” and “celebrity”. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.
The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.
That said, these deletions seem intended more to follow social changes, than to push them.
But note another trend to be detected in this deletion and addition of words of the OUP Junior Dictionary…
===
Jackman does Australia, and does it good
Andrew Bolt
From 1:55, hear Hugh Jackman explain the “stolen generations” to Americans - linking us even to Nazi Germany.
Hugh, name just 10 such children.
===
Change you can’t believe in
Andrew Bolt
It’s not often that I’m glad a politician delivers the opposite of what he’s promised:
On a range of issues, from Kosovo, China, Russia and Nato’s eastward expansion, and the Middle East, former White House officials and leading analysts are disappointed at how quickly the president-elect has moved to the centre ground since his election just a month ago.
===
Our gases mean nothing
Andrew Bolt
Good sense from Garnaut:
CLIMATE change adviser Ross Garnaut has warned that developed nations will be unable to avert global warming by simply setting exemplary emissions targets in the hope that developing nations will follow, saying China and India must join a global action plan from the start if there is to be any hope of success.
And that’s assuming the warming is actually happening now, that it’s caused by man, that it’s bad, that we can stop it and that it’s actually worth the pain to try.
===
Caste privileges asserted
Andrew Bolt
A New York Times columnist demands that working people be licensed before they write books - and probably not even then.
===
Not freedom fighter, but killer
Andrew Bolt
David Burchell says writers of the West have a sick need to romanticise and aggrandise terrorists like the captured Pakistani who was taught to hate and murdered so many in Mumbai:
(T)he young terrorist’s name is in reality Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman… And he’s neither a hardened militant, nor a glamorous Ocean’s Eleven-style saboteur, nor evidently a high-quality anything.
Born to a snackfood cart driver and a downtrodden housewife in a dirt-poor rural community in southern Punjab, young Iman was booted out of the family home at an early age, and took to a life of petty crime. While shopping for a handgun in a Rawalpindi bazaar, he was handed a pamphlet advertising the political wing of the Pakistani-based jihadist group Lashkar-e-Toiba, and, lured by the prospect of professional weapons-training, he decided to join.
A year or so afterwards young Iman ... discharged several AK-47 magazines into the crowds at Mumbai’s historic railway station, randomly killing as many as 55 people. Among his victims were six hapless members of a Mumbai Muslim family, the Ansaris, on their way to a village holiday ceremony. (Their five-year-old boy, Firoze, still asks for his parents.)
In short, Iman is that most familiar of figures from the supposedly fervent, intense, highly strung world of jihadist extremism. He’s the gullible patsy, the man who does the dirty work.
In the Lashkar training camps in rural Pakistan they feed the raw recruits on a diet of weapons training and pseudo-Koranic sermonising: the same stuff David Hicks faithfully regurgitated to his mum about the need to kill all the Jews before Judgment Day, when even the rocks will cry out “There’s a Jew hiding behind me!"…
===
Look! Behind Winslet’s body!
Andrew Bolt
Critic Charlie Finch has created a pre-Oscars controversy by declaring himself repelled by the film of The Reader:
Based on a bestselling novel, The Reader begins with Kate Winslet, as a 1950s German bus conductor, deflowering a horse-faced German lad, with lots of groaning, full nudity front and back and bathtub play… Every time they have sex, the Winslet character asks the kid to read to her from the classics, Dickens, Homer, Shakespeare. Anyway, the kid grows up to be a law student ...and, in 1966, his professor takes him to a trial. Who should be on trial but Kate Winslet, who it turns out was a concentration camp guard who burned 300 Jewish prisoners to death.
The evidence of the trial turns on whether Winslet wrote the report about the atrocity, and, rather than admit that she is illiterate (that’s why she had the kid read to her), she confesses to writing the report and gets 20 years behind bars. Those under her get four years, all of the sentences seeming rather light…
===
Winding up the welfare state
Andrew Bolt
When even a British Labor Government contemplates this kind of reform - like that endorsed in the US by Democrat President Bill Clinton - you know what an utter disaster the Left’s post-60s welfarism has been:
A SHAKE-UP in British welfare will force almost all benefit claimants to look for a job or prepare for work if they want to continue to receive state handouts.
===
Boo the audience, not the film
Andrew Bolt
Jim Schembri pointed out in his blog that Australian audiences were giving Australian films the big swerve, despite having been good enough to lavish truckloads of grants on their makers:
After 35 years and an investment of around $1.5 billion taxpayer dollars, Australian cinema still occupies only the very margins of the marketplace - something starkly reflected by the “major” films nominated for this year’s AFI Awards.
Up for best film and best director are The Jammed, The Black Balloon, The Square and Unfinished Sky. These four films had a combined box-office of about $3.9 million…
For a far more disturbing gauge of the film industry’s peril, however, compare that four-film box-office figure against the $7 million budget for the Australian film The Tender Hook, a period film set in Sydney during the jazz age. It’s a film almost nobody has heard of. And no wonder. Its take at the ticket counter? Less than $40,000!
For Schembri, and even big players in the industry, the fault lies precisely where you’d expect - with the filmmakers, and especially the scriptwriters:
A big part of the industy’s malaise has been the prevalence of audience-averse doom-and-gloom themes.... The Black Balloon dealt with a family living with an autistic child. It was the most successful of the crop, taking $1.5 million in five weeks - about the same as what the coarse teen comedy Sex Drive made in two.... (T)he film’s 11 nominations is a triumph of feel-good emotion over good judgment. The film is strewn with glaring inconsistencies, story holes and poor characterisations, yet it is also up for best original screenplay along with the appalling teen flick Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger.
Both films demonstrate how the decades-old problem of script development still dogs the industry.
===
At least Turnbull earned his
Andrew Bolt
Michelle Grattan and Brendan Nicholson of The Age play a game of stereotypes, but in mono:
SPEND spend spend.
That’s the urgent advice Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is delivering to 2 million families and 4 million pensioners who will from today receive the largesse from the Government’s $10 billion stimulus package… While Mr Rudd was calling on people to spend, Opposition Leader and self-made multimillionaire Malcolm Turnbull urged a more cautious approach.
===
Welcome mat out
Andrew Bolt
Yet another boat of illegal immigrants is lured in:
The 44 passengers and three crew were intercepted by Customs and taken in groups to detention on Christmas Island yesterday.
The arrival of their small boat - the sixth since temporary protection visas were abolished by the Federal Government in August - immediately sparked a political brawl about the state of Australian border security.
The Opposition claims the arrivals off Western Australia’s north coast proves Indonesian people smugglers now see Australia as a soft touch.
Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus blamed the increased people smuggling activity on “seasonal activity” and said the Government had already increased its border patrols.
A deadly trade may have resumed, thanks to Labor’s “kindness”:
The International Organisation for Migration chief-of-mission in Indonesia, Steve Cook, ... warned of a dangerous shift in tactics, with people smugglers increasingly favouring smaller, more fragile boats in an attempt to avoid detection. (Immigration Minister Chris) Evans predicted this would cost lives.
Stopping this dangerous trafficking in queue-jumpers by criminals was called cruel. Tempting it to restart was hailed as kind.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Franco Sacchi: Welcome to Nollywood
http://www.ted.com Zambia-born filmmaker Franco Sacchi tours us through Nollywood, Nigeria's booming film industry (the world's 3rd largest). Guerrilla filmmaking and brilliance under pressure from crews that can shoot a full-length feature in a week.
NSW Lib Updates
More Labor Lies On Ambulance Rescue: State Government Hasn’t Got A Clue
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
The NSW Ambulance Rescue Service has been axed, for the second time in three months, despite assurances from the Health Minister John Della Bosca that it would be saved, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
“This is the second time the State Labor Government has axed the Ambulance Rescue Service since September – Labor doesn’t have a clue as to whether they’re coming or going,” Mrs Skinner said.
Precious Donors Deserting Donations Because Of Labor’s Blood Tax
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
Reports that blood donors are withdrawing their services because of the State Labor Government’s mini-budget blood tax could result in a severe shortage, putting patients lives at risk, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
“This State Labor Government blood tax is a disaster,” Mrs Skinner said.
Labor’s Surgical Shutdowns: Mini-Budget Cuts Hit Frontline Services
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
The extended closure of hospital surgical theatres over summer, in some cases up to eight weeks, will lengthen the already long waiting list for operations in our public hospitals, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
"It makes no sense to shut operating theatres for 8 weeks when there are more than 58,000 patients on the surgical waiting list,” Mrs Skinner said.
Future State Funding In Doubt - Coalition Concerns Realised
Written by Mike Baird MP
The NSW Premier and Treasurer must immediately meet with the Prime Minister to allay the NSW Liberal/Nationals long-held concerns that the Federal Government’s bank guarantee would hamper the State’s ability to borrow money for essential infrastructure, Shadow Minister for Finance Mike Baird said today.
Labor Rejects Opportunity To Have Ministers Report Corruption
Written by Barry O'Farrell MP
The NSW Government today rejected an opportunity to strengthen the powers of the State’s anti-corruption agency, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and impose an obligation upon Ministers to report possible corrupt conduct NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell said today.
In a debate on amendments to the ICAC Act in Parliament the Rees Labor Government refused to support Coalition amendments to impose an explicit duty on Ministers of the Crown to report alleged corrupt conduct to ICAC.
New Contaminated Land Management Rules Will Dump Problems In Court
Written by Pru Goward MP
Flawed legislation forced through the NSW Parliament by the State Labor Government will make land management more uncertain for NSW property owners and business, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Environment Pru Goward said today.
Ms Goward said changes to the Contaminated Land Management Act have created new uncertainties that will need expensive court cases to sort out.
Even Rudd Govt Says Della Bosca’s Mini-Budget Blood Tax Could Be Illegal
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
The $26 million blood tax introduced by John Della Bosca in Labor’s mini-budget has been slammed by the Rudd Government because it could breach national blood regulations, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
The Australian Private Hospitals Association has also taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers today urging families to lobby their local Labor MP to oppose the blood tax.
Strait Jacket Or Sedation - Patients Hit By Government Planning Failure
Written by Greg Aplin MP
The withdrawal of NSW Police from inter-hospital transfers of patients with mental illness could see strait jackets and chemical sedation being used because of the State Labor Government’s failure to plan alternative secure transport, Shadow Minister for Mental Health Greg Aplin said today.
Labor Neglect: 18 Yr Old Heart Patient Forced To Wait For Surgery
Written by Barry O'Farrell MP & Jillian Skinner MP
After waiting several months for heart surgery, 18-year-old Raymond Terrace woman Kirra Notley was told this week her scheduled surgery has been cancelled because the State Labor Government has failed to fund enough intensive care beds, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell and Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
Ms Notley has a hole in her heart, which has grown from 17 millimetres in size to more than 27 millimetres in just four weeks.
More...
Coalition Prompts Hope Of Government Action For Homeless Youth
Dithering Della Delays Decision: Says He Needs More Time After Three Years Of Inaction
Retirement Village Reforms Shot down
Rees - Rolled Gold Hypocrite. Dithered Over Dumping Of Brown And Stewart
Urban Taskforce Labels Nathan Rees A John Cain And Joan Kirner Look-Alike
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
The NSW Ambulance Rescue Service has been axed, for the second time in three months, despite assurances from the Health Minister John Della Bosca that it would be saved, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
“This is the second time the State Labor Government has axed the Ambulance Rescue Service since September – Labor doesn’t have a clue as to whether they’re coming or going,” Mrs Skinner said.
Precious Donors Deserting Donations Because Of Labor’s Blood Tax
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
Reports that blood donors are withdrawing their services because of the State Labor Government’s mini-budget blood tax could result in a severe shortage, putting patients lives at risk, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
“This State Labor Government blood tax is a disaster,” Mrs Skinner said.
Labor’s Surgical Shutdowns: Mini-Budget Cuts Hit Frontline Services
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
The extended closure of hospital surgical theatres over summer, in some cases up to eight weeks, will lengthen the already long waiting list for operations in our public hospitals, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
"It makes no sense to shut operating theatres for 8 weeks when there are more than 58,000 patients on the surgical waiting list,” Mrs Skinner said.
Future State Funding In Doubt - Coalition Concerns Realised
Written by Mike Baird MP
The NSW Premier and Treasurer must immediately meet with the Prime Minister to allay the NSW Liberal/Nationals long-held concerns that the Federal Government’s bank guarantee would hamper the State’s ability to borrow money for essential infrastructure, Shadow Minister for Finance Mike Baird said today.
Labor Rejects Opportunity To Have Ministers Report Corruption
Written by Barry O'Farrell MP
The NSW Government today rejected an opportunity to strengthen the powers of the State’s anti-corruption agency, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and impose an obligation upon Ministers to report possible corrupt conduct NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell said today.
In a debate on amendments to the ICAC Act in Parliament the Rees Labor Government refused to support Coalition amendments to impose an explicit duty on Ministers of the Crown to report alleged corrupt conduct to ICAC.
New Contaminated Land Management Rules Will Dump Problems In Court
Written by Pru Goward MP
Flawed legislation forced through the NSW Parliament by the State Labor Government will make land management more uncertain for NSW property owners and business, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Environment Pru Goward said today.
Ms Goward said changes to the Contaminated Land Management Act have created new uncertainties that will need expensive court cases to sort out.
Even Rudd Govt Says Della Bosca’s Mini-Budget Blood Tax Could Be Illegal
Written by Jillian Skinner MP
The $26 million blood tax introduced by John Della Bosca in Labor’s mini-budget has been slammed by the Rudd Government because it could breach national blood regulations, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
The Australian Private Hospitals Association has also taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers today urging families to lobby their local Labor MP to oppose the blood tax.
Strait Jacket Or Sedation - Patients Hit By Government Planning Failure
Written by Greg Aplin MP
The withdrawal of NSW Police from inter-hospital transfers of patients with mental illness could see strait jackets and chemical sedation being used because of the State Labor Government’s failure to plan alternative secure transport, Shadow Minister for Mental Health Greg Aplin said today.
Labor Neglect: 18 Yr Old Heart Patient Forced To Wait For Surgery
Written by Barry O'Farrell MP & Jillian Skinner MP
After waiting several months for heart surgery, 18-year-old Raymond Terrace woman Kirra Notley was told this week her scheduled surgery has been cancelled because the State Labor Government has failed to fund enough intensive care beds, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell and Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.
Ms Notley has a hole in her heart, which has grown from 17 millimetres in size to more than 27 millimetres in just four weeks.
More...
Coalition Prompts Hope Of Government Action For Homeless Youth
Dithering Della Delays Decision: Says He Needs More Time After Three Years Of Inaction
Retirement Village Reforms Shot down
Rees - Rolled Gold Hypocrite. Dithered Over Dumping Of Brown And Stewart
Urban Taskforce Labels Nathan Rees A John Cain And Joan Kirner Look-Alike
Headlines Sunday 7th December
Rudd asylum policy a leaky boat to tragedy
Piers Akerman
The inevitability of a replay of the 2001 SIEV-X disaster, with the loss of more than 350 lives, has undeniably increased since the Rudd Labor Government softened its approach to asylum seekers.
===
So the false claims worked
Andrew Bolt
If the mother is that fragile and vindictive, why is she the one entrusted with the child?
“STEVE” has been barred from seeing his daughter for seven years. He has never harmed his only child or her mother. He has never threatened them and a court has accepted he is of good character.
But last week, after a tortuous 10-year journey through four courts, more than 20 hearings, 12 psychologists and six lawyers, he was told he could not see his daughter until she came of age…
His wife twice raised sexual-abuse allegations, proven false after months of investigation. But the court accepted she would “shut down” emotionally if Steve was allowed to see his daughter and that her distress would affect her parenting skills.
===
Herbal cures make city sick
Andrew Bolt
I’ve never trusted herbal treatments, but never suspected they actually drove people to crime:
Amsterdam has unveiled plans to shutter up to half of its famed brothels and marijuana cafes as part of a major clean-up of its ancient city centre.
The city says it wants to drive organised crime out of the neighbourhood, and is targeting businesses that “generate criminality,” including prostitution, gambling parlours, “smart shops” that sell herbal treatments, head shops and “coffee shops” where marijuana is sold openly.
===
The wages of spin
Andrew Bolt
The more that a premier fails, the more people he needs to shout he’s a success. In this case Labor’s disastrous failure to find enough water in time for Victoria’s capital city has Premier John Brumby scrambling for people to hide his party’s shame:
Documents obtained under freedom of information by the The Sunday Age reveal the number of communication officers in the Department of Premier and Cabinet increased from seven to 16 between 2000-01 and 2008…
===
Not working for Rudd
Andrew Bolt
That’s some turnover:
THE pace of the 24/7 Government has taken its toll. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has lost about 40 per cent of all new appointments to his private office since last December, and his deputy, Julia Gillard, has lost almost 50 per cent.
===
Protesting against gassy greens
Andrew Bolt
An artist protests by doing something utterly shocking:
On 29 September, Francesca Galeazzi walked to the top of a small hill in Greenland’s Jakobshavn fjord carrying a black gas tanks, kneeled down, opened the valve and released 6 kilograms of pure carbon dioxide into the air.
===
Stolen money
Andrew Bolt
Frank Devine claims:
However, no movie company can expect to flourish here if shackled by the not-sufficiently-Australian standards that recently saw George Miller and Warner Bros abandon filming in Australia of the super-hero flick Justice League Mortal, after being refused film production tax concessions, which Australia got, reportedly after surrendering to government pressure to tack on a Stolen Generations theme.
===
Dear Pakistan: protest this
Andrew Bolt
Thomas Friedman has a frank word to Pakistan about the Mumbai slaughter:
On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?
After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son ˜ purely because they were Sunni Muslims ˜ where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.
===
Idealists powered by wind
Andrew Bolt
Some youthful idealism is so shiny eyed that it’s frightening ... or comical:
OVER the past five weeks, Jack Fuller has jumped from a moving train in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, handed in a university assignment from Beijing and written a proposal for his honours thesis in Warsaw.
With four mates, he has travelled through 10 countries — from Singapore, through south-east and central Asia to Moscow and across to Poland — by bus, train and tuk-tuk. They cut the carbon emissions involved in getting from their living rooms across Australia to the UN climate change conference in Poznan by 40 per cent — and paid about twice as much for the privilege.
Hang on! Why go in the first place? Why not, say, teleconference instead? Or simply accept that a few more Australian students in Poznan will make not the slightest difference to anything but the emissions?
Piers Akerman
The inevitability of a replay of the 2001 SIEV-X disaster, with the loss of more than 350 lives, has undeniably increased since the Rudd Labor Government softened its approach to asylum seekers.
===
So the false claims worked
Andrew Bolt
If the mother is that fragile and vindictive, why is she the one entrusted with the child?
“STEVE” has been barred from seeing his daughter for seven years. He has never harmed his only child or her mother. He has never threatened them and a court has accepted he is of good character.
But last week, after a tortuous 10-year journey through four courts, more than 20 hearings, 12 psychologists and six lawyers, he was told he could not see his daughter until she came of age…
His wife twice raised sexual-abuse allegations, proven false after months of investigation. But the court accepted she would “shut down” emotionally if Steve was allowed to see his daughter and that her distress would affect her parenting skills.
===
Herbal cures make city sick
Andrew Bolt
I’ve never trusted herbal treatments, but never suspected they actually drove people to crime:
Amsterdam has unveiled plans to shutter up to half of its famed brothels and marijuana cafes as part of a major clean-up of its ancient city centre.
The city says it wants to drive organised crime out of the neighbourhood, and is targeting businesses that “generate criminality,” including prostitution, gambling parlours, “smart shops” that sell herbal treatments, head shops and “coffee shops” where marijuana is sold openly.
===
The wages of spin
Andrew Bolt
The more that a premier fails, the more people he needs to shout he’s a success. In this case Labor’s disastrous failure to find enough water in time for Victoria’s capital city has Premier John Brumby scrambling for people to hide his party’s shame:
Documents obtained under freedom of information by the The Sunday Age reveal the number of communication officers in the Department of Premier and Cabinet increased from seven to 16 between 2000-01 and 2008…
===
Not working for Rudd
Andrew Bolt
That’s some turnover:
THE pace of the 24/7 Government has taken its toll. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has lost about 40 per cent of all new appointments to his private office since last December, and his deputy, Julia Gillard, has lost almost 50 per cent.
===
Protesting against gassy greens
Andrew Bolt
An artist protests by doing something utterly shocking:
On 29 September, Francesca Galeazzi walked to the top of a small hill in Greenland’s Jakobshavn fjord carrying a black gas tanks, kneeled down, opened the valve and released 6 kilograms of pure carbon dioxide into the air.
===
Stolen money
Andrew Bolt
Frank Devine claims:
However, no movie company can expect to flourish here if shackled by the not-sufficiently-Australian standards that recently saw George Miller and Warner Bros abandon filming in Australia of the super-hero flick Justice League Mortal, after being refused film production tax concessions, which Australia got, reportedly after surrendering to government pressure to tack on a Stolen Generations theme.
===
Dear Pakistan: protest this
Andrew Bolt
Thomas Friedman has a frank word to Pakistan about the Mumbai slaughter:
On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?
After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son ˜ purely because they were Sunni Muslims ˜ where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.
===
Idealists powered by wind
Andrew Bolt
Some youthful idealism is so shiny eyed that it’s frightening ... or comical:
OVER the past five weeks, Jack Fuller has jumped from a moving train in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, handed in a university assignment from Beijing and written a proposal for his honours thesis in Warsaw.
With four mates, he has travelled through 10 countries — from Singapore, through south-east and central Asia to Moscow and across to Poland — by bus, train and tuk-tuk. They cut the carbon emissions involved in getting from their living rooms across Australia to the UN climate change conference in Poznan by 40 per cent — and paid about twice as much for the privilege.
Hang on! Why go in the first place? Why not, say, teleconference instead? Or simply accept that a few more Australian students in Poznan will make not the slightest difference to anything but the emissions?
Saturday, December 06, 2008
WELCOME TO THE CONSERVATIVE DVD LIBRARY
This ain’t no peace sign, cowards
===
Welcome To A Pansy Free Zone…
Here lie the DVD essentials for any self respecting, red blooded, America loving, right wing extremist. You display these films proudly. You display them next to your gun rack where your wife’s liberal friends who come over to drink foo-foo coffee and Bash Bush can’t miss them. And then you leave that wife and it’s just you and your DVD collection. And beer.
===
(Um, you need to click on the link ..)
Isaac Mizrahi: Fashion, passion, and about a million other
http://www.ted.com Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi spins through a dizzying array of inspirations -- from '50s pinups to a fleeting glimpse of a hole in a shirt that makes him shout "Stop the cab!" Inside this rambling talk are real clues to living a happy, creative life.
Liberal Messages Saturday 6th December
People smugglers arrested: Will Kevin Rudd now admit to and urgently address the problem?
With almost daily revelations of Indonesian government interceptions of people smugglers heading for Australia, Prime Minster Rudd has to acknowledge he has a serious problem, and take action.
Many parents and industry still left in the dark
The statement today by the Receivers of ABC Learning has been welcomed by the Opposition but still leaves many questions unanswered.
Coalition Amends Digital-TV Bill
Despite Government opposition, the Senate last night insisted on inserting a provision into the legislation that requires the Government to publicly identify and report on efforts to rectify digital transmission blackspots. Today in the House, the Government backed down and accepted the Coalition’s sensible amendment.
Government shuts down greenhouse gas project on eve of climate talks
As the world goes to Poland for high level talks on climate change, the Rudd Government has shut down an Australian not-for-profit organisation working to reduce damaging greenhouse gas emissions... But Peter Garrett is refusing to answer questions on the issue – he’s hiding behind his department. Journalists calling his office are being diverted to public servants who are being left to explain the Government’s decision.
No show no pay - no way
Last night the Opposition and Senator Nick Xenophon combined to defeat Labor’s legislation... Under Labor’s defeated Bill, job seekers can miss up to 6 appointments in a 6 month period without reasonable excuse, before possibly incurring an 8 week non-payment period.
International Volunteer Day 2008
Over five million Australians undertake voluntary work each year, contributing an estimated $70 billion to the economy.
Safe Work Australia
The Deputy Prime Minister has walked away from safety consultation at the highest level by refusing to incorporate the Senate amendments in the Safe Work Australia Bill.
Carr did not use "the same form of words"
Minister Gillard has claimed in Question Time that today’s statement in the Senate by Minister Carr, the basis upon which the Coalition has supported the Schools Assistance Bill, is nothing new, and only reflects “the same form of words” she herself used in Hansard.
Carr must act on State Government discrimination against Australian-made cars
Today’s 22.2 percent decline in new car sales are further confirmation that Australian car and components manufacturers are under severe pressure.
Rudd's 'nothing' announcement will not stop people smugglers
Today’s National Security announcement is yet another example of Mr Rudd’s do-nothing strategy with the re-badging of Customs to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.
Senate calls for critical infrastructure transparency
Today the Senate has supported a number of measures to ensure transparency in regards to the Government’s Nation-building Funds Bill.
Rudd's security statement ignores the fundamentals
The National Security Statement contains some serious inconsistencies - the glaring one being Mr Rudd’s refusal to sell uranium to India subject to IAEA safeguards.
Conroy must commit to broadband due diligence
The Australian public must be given the opportunity to scrutinise and comment on critical regulatory advice and expert panel bid recommendations before the Rudd Labor Government makes any binding decision to pour $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money into its troubled National Broadband Network (NBN).
National water reforms clouded by grubby north-south pipeline deal
Today’s unanimous passing of The Water Amendment Bill includes the Coalition’s Senate Declaration which demands the Rudd Government stops the North-South pipeline, honours the Living Murray environmental plans and helps the people of the Lower Lakes.
Statement to the Senate clarifies curriculum
The Government has compromised on the inflexibility of the National Curriculum. Kim Carr in the Senate today shifted the Government’s position through the mechanism of a Statement to the Senate.
Marginally better than a whiteboard - Sports funding under Labor
Any notion that the Labor Party doesn’t indulge in pork barrelling has been blown sky high today after revelations that over 91 per cent of funding promised by Labor to local sporting clubs at the last election went to Labor targeted marginal seats.
Peter Dutton Daily Telegraph Blog - Gillard's partner appointment part of wider spin cycle
Tim is the partner of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Now Tim is probably a nice guy, but his appointment (without pay) sadly is more about helping Julia Gillard’s march to the Lodge. The appointment was made in the absence of Kevin Rudd (he was overseas again) and since then he has refused to back the appointment.
Turnbull interview with Ray Hadley (Radio 2GB) - Interest rates, economy, Bill of Rights, Fair Work Bill, second Sydney Airport, Julia Gillard
Assuming growth is slowing and that’s what everyone expects it to be, that will mean less business activity, it will mean more unemployment. That is why we keep on saying the three top priorities of the Government should be jobs, jobs, jobs. They don’t talk about jobs very much, they particularly don’t talk about the 2.1 million jobs created during the 11 and a half years of the Coalition government.
Release of the September Quarter National Accounts
The Government has received warnings from the Reserve Bank and the OECD about the harm that low confidence will have on our economy’s ability to withstand the global economic downturn and continue to grow.
Kim Carr's one-year report card
In Opposition Senator Carr promised the world, in Government he did worse than deliver nothing – he actually took the sector backwards.
Bank Guarantee in effect while significant questions remain unanswered
The Government’s bungled bank guarantee has recently come into effect, yet the Government still has no answer to the market distortion it has caused.
Julie Bishop interview with Marius Benson (ABC News Radio) - Government sends mixed messages on interest rate cut, growth forecast, deficit....
The Opposition is of the view that the full rate cut must be passed on to mortgage holders, small businesses and credit card holders and this should be done immediately. The Government is sending mixed messages about passing on to consumers and families the benefit of the one per cent rate cut.
Labor Sells out Centrelink and staff
The minister for Human Services Senator Ludwig today attempted to brush aside the impacts of the arbitrary budget cut to Centrelink in the order of 3.25% that have resulted in a reduction of service and an increase in customer complaints by inferring that the staff of members of parliament should pick up the workload.
Minchin urges Government to embrace Coalition safeguards for Australian television viewers
The Government’s Bill, which will set a schedule for the phased switchover from analog television to digital by 31 December 2013, lacked appropriate safeguards to help ensure thousands-upon-thousands of Australians are not left without a television picture on switchover.
Oh no, Lindsay - Not again!
After yesterday criticising the voluntary use of superannuation funds in infrastructure, the Minister for Finance, Mr Tanner, today said it was already happening.
Mass exodus from aged care industry
The Rudd Government is failing to adequately fund the aged care sector, which has resulted in aged care providers refusing to apply for bed licences in this year’s round of licence allocations.
Leading economic body seriously questions Labor's troubled broadband approach
The Committee for Economic Development (CEDA) has today added its considerable voice to the groundswell of criticism of the Rudd Labor Government’s fundamentally flawed National Broadband Network (NBN) policy.
Ninth episode of people smuggling: Yes, we have a problem
The ninth boat carrying suspected asylum seekers being smuggled into Australia was intercepted late yesterday near Ashmore reef, off Western Australia. Thirty-five passengers and five crew are reported on board.
'Alcopops' - Another failed policy
The consumption of alcohol has incurred the largest growth of any household expenditure item in the last quarter of the National Accounts.
$500 million for shared equity mortgages to keep people in their homes
The Commonwealth Government should look to invest up to $500 million of funds allocated for residential mortgage backed securities to support shared equity loans to ensure mortgagees continue to have access to this viable option to reduce their mortgage burden, especially during the global financial crisis.
Border security - What is the government saying?
Today the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Penny Wong, not only failed to reassure the public that our maritime border is not exposed by the naval personnel Christmas stand down, but also openly contradicted her colleague when claiming there would be no change in operational intensity in regard to border security.
Confusion and contradictions about disability funding indexation
Increased funding for disability services is always welcome, but the Rudd Government needs to spell out the detail around the National Disability Agreement.
More pressure on Rudd to act for Clyde farmers
The township of Bothwell and surrounding farm community is on its knees. The Prime Minister must consider this very legitimate request that he overturn the poor decision made by Minister Garrett which dismissed the emergency water release application.
International day of people with disability 2008
Throughout Australia events are being held to celebrate people with a disability and I encourage all Australians to get involved and support this great event.
Rudd government leaks but no answers
The Rudd Government has demonstrated its contempt for the Senate committee process by leaking answers to questions on notice to selected journalists, while still refusing to provide them directly to a committee.
Turnbull interview with Keith Conlon & Tony Pilkington (Radio 5AA) - Interest rates, Labor deficits, water, Julie Bishop...
Now the easiest thing is for a government to take no hard decisions and take the budget and of course the tax payers further and further into debt. So deficits should be a last resort, not an easy way out. And that’s why we’re not just going to give a leave pass to Labor to take our nation’s budget into the red.
Government fails to demand immediate and full interest rate cut for all
Today the Prime Minister has given Australian banks a leave pass to simply deliver today’s rate cut ‘as rapidly as possible’. The Treasurer and the Finance Minister have also indicated that Australian banks just need to pass on the cut in a ‘timely way’.
Rudd government fails to alleviate credit card pain
The Rudd Government has failed to put pressure on banks to pass on interest rate cuts to credit card holders.
Rudd Government divided on interest rate policy
Prime Minister Rudd and Finance Minister Tanner are at odds with Treasurer Swan on what the Government expects Australian banks to do when interest rates are cut.
What has Gillard got to hide on childcare data?
The Rudd Government has been slammed as “irresponsible” for not revealing important national data on childcare vacancy rates, as the industry struggles to deal with the current ABC Learning crisis.
Conroy deluded over broadband prices
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was today unable to explain in Question Time how broadband prices could possibly be cheaper than they are now under the proposed funding model for his troubled National Broadband Network (NBN).
Gillard trips in Question Time
The Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, did her best Comical Ali impersonation in question time today by denying that she had implemented Labor’s workplace relations policy as drafted.
Government in a state of confusion over infrastructure investment
This public contradiction is just the latest in the spat between Mr Tanner and Mr Albanese which was first revealed in October when Mr Tanner’s original legislation to establish the various infrastructure funds was pulled by Mr Albanese, minutes before it was to be introduced into Parliament.
Government concedes legislation was flawed on Schools Bill
Christopher Pyne, welcomed the Government’s backdown on two of the three key concerns the Opposition has had with the Schools Assistance Bill.
Julie Bishop Fairfax Blog - Mumbai attacks
While there has been an understandable outpouring of grief and frustration about these attacks, it is a sad fact that not all terrorist plots can be detected in advance and can be prevented.
Rudd and Swan must not mix messages on rate cuts
Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan must stop mixing their messages when it comes to calling on banks to pass through interest rate cuts.
Labor shops around for a Coalition electorate for a second Sydney Airport
The merry-go-round of picking a site for Sydney’s second airport continues today, with the Federal Government again leaving open options which have been rejected by previous studies dating back to the 1940s.
Rudd must honour Senate declaration on the North-South Pipeline, the Murray and the Lower Lakes
The Senate tonight issued a formal Declaration on the future of the Murray as an amendment during concluding debate on the Water Amendment Bill.
Turnbull interview with Chris Uhlmann (AM programme) - Labor deficits, computers in schools cost blow-out, stimulus package, Julie Bishop, carbon...
The critical thing is the quality of the spending. You see what Kevin Rudd – having inherited probably the best public finances in the developed world from the outgoing Coalition government – what Kevin Rudd is seeking to get is a leave pass to have undisciplined and unbridled spending.
Michael Keenan speech - Fair Work Bill 2008 – Labor still stands for unemployment
Whilst the Parliament will spend the week debating workplace relations, it is only this side of the house that will actually address the central issue in this portfolio – that of job security.
With almost daily revelations of Indonesian government interceptions of people smugglers heading for Australia, Prime Minster Rudd has to acknowledge he has a serious problem, and take action.
Many parents and industry still left in the dark
The statement today by the Receivers of ABC Learning has been welcomed by the Opposition but still leaves many questions unanswered.
Coalition Amends Digital-TV Bill
Despite Government opposition, the Senate last night insisted on inserting a provision into the legislation that requires the Government to publicly identify and report on efforts to rectify digital transmission blackspots. Today in the House, the Government backed down and accepted the Coalition’s sensible amendment.
Government shuts down greenhouse gas project on eve of climate talks
As the world goes to Poland for high level talks on climate change, the Rudd Government has shut down an Australian not-for-profit organisation working to reduce damaging greenhouse gas emissions... But Peter Garrett is refusing to answer questions on the issue – he’s hiding behind his department. Journalists calling his office are being diverted to public servants who are being left to explain the Government’s decision.
No show no pay - no way
Last night the Opposition and Senator Nick Xenophon combined to defeat Labor’s legislation... Under Labor’s defeated Bill, job seekers can miss up to 6 appointments in a 6 month period without reasonable excuse, before possibly incurring an 8 week non-payment period.
International Volunteer Day 2008
Over five million Australians undertake voluntary work each year, contributing an estimated $70 billion to the economy.
Safe Work Australia
The Deputy Prime Minister has walked away from safety consultation at the highest level by refusing to incorporate the Senate amendments in the Safe Work Australia Bill.
Carr did not use "the same form of words"
Minister Gillard has claimed in Question Time that today’s statement in the Senate by Minister Carr, the basis upon which the Coalition has supported the Schools Assistance Bill, is nothing new, and only reflects “the same form of words” she herself used in Hansard.
Carr must act on State Government discrimination against Australian-made cars
Today’s 22.2 percent decline in new car sales are further confirmation that Australian car and components manufacturers are under severe pressure.
Rudd's 'nothing' announcement will not stop people smugglers
Today’s National Security announcement is yet another example of Mr Rudd’s do-nothing strategy with the re-badging of Customs to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.
Senate calls for critical infrastructure transparency
Today the Senate has supported a number of measures to ensure transparency in regards to the Government’s Nation-building Funds Bill.
Rudd's security statement ignores the fundamentals
The National Security Statement contains some serious inconsistencies - the glaring one being Mr Rudd’s refusal to sell uranium to India subject to IAEA safeguards.
Conroy must commit to broadband due diligence
The Australian public must be given the opportunity to scrutinise and comment on critical regulatory advice and expert panel bid recommendations before the Rudd Labor Government makes any binding decision to pour $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money into its troubled National Broadband Network (NBN).
National water reforms clouded by grubby north-south pipeline deal
Today’s unanimous passing of The Water Amendment Bill includes the Coalition’s Senate Declaration which demands the Rudd Government stops the North-South pipeline, honours the Living Murray environmental plans and helps the people of the Lower Lakes.
Statement to the Senate clarifies curriculum
The Government has compromised on the inflexibility of the National Curriculum. Kim Carr in the Senate today shifted the Government’s position through the mechanism of a Statement to the Senate.
Marginally better than a whiteboard - Sports funding under Labor
Any notion that the Labor Party doesn’t indulge in pork barrelling has been blown sky high today after revelations that over 91 per cent of funding promised by Labor to local sporting clubs at the last election went to Labor targeted marginal seats.
Peter Dutton Daily Telegraph Blog - Gillard's partner appointment part of wider spin cycle
Tim is the partner of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Now Tim is probably a nice guy, but his appointment (without pay) sadly is more about helping Julia Gillard’s march to the Lodge. The appointment was made in the absence of Kevin Rudd (he was overseas again) and since then he has refused to back the appointment.
Turnbull interview with Ray Hadley (Radio 2GB) - Interest rates, economy, Bill of Rights, Fair Work Bill, second Sydney Airport, Julia Gillard
Assuming growth is slowing and that’s what everyone expects it to be, that will mean less business activity, it will mean more unemployment. That is why we keep on saying the three top priorities of the Government should be jobs, jobs, jobs. They don’t talk about jobs very much, they particularly don’t talk about the 2.1 million jobs created during the 11 and a half years of the Coalition government.
Release of the September Quarter National Accounts
The Government has received warnings from the Reserve Bank and the OECD about the harm that low confidence will have on our economy’s ability to withstand the global economic downturn and continue to grow.
Kim Carr's one-year report card
In Opposition Senator Carr promised the world, in Government he did worse than deliver nothing – he actually took the sector backwards.
Bank Guarantee in effect while significant questions remain unanswered
The Government’s bungled bank guarantee has recently come into effect, yet the Government still has no answer to the market distortion it has caused.
Julie Bishop interview with Marius Benson (ABC News Radio) - Government sends mixed messages on interest rate cut, growth forecast, deficit....
The Opposition is of the view that the full rate cut must be passed on to mortgage holders, small businesses and credit card holders and this should be done immediately. The Government is sending mixed messages about passing on to consumers and families the benefit of the one per cent rate cut.
Labor Sells out Centrelink and staff
The minister for Human Services Senator Ludwig today attempted to brush aside the impacts of the arbitrary budget cut to Centrelink in the order of 3.25% that have resulted in a reduction of service and an increase in customer complaints by inferring that the staff of members of parliament should pick up the workload.
Minchin urges Government to embrace Coalition safeguards for Australian television viewers
The Government’s Bill, which will set a schedule for the phased switchover from analog television to digital by 31 December 2013, lacked appropriate safeguards to help ensure thousands-upon-thousands of Australians are not left without a television picture on switchover.
Oh no, Lindsay - Not again!
After yesterday criticising the voluntary use of superannuation funds in infrastructure, the Minister for Finance, Mr Tanner, today said it was already happening.
Mass exodus from aged care industry
The Rudd Government is failing to adequately fund the aged care sector, which has resulted in aged care providers refusing to apply for bed licences in this year’s round of licence allocations.
Leading economic body seriously questions Labor's troubled broadband approach
The Committee for Economic Development (CEDA) has today added its considerable voice to the groundswell of criticism of the Rudd Labor Government’s fundamentally flawed National Broadband Network (NBN) policy.
Ninth episode of people smuggling: Yes, we have a problem
The ninth boat carrying suspected asylum seekers being smuggled into Australia was intercepted late yesterday near Ashmore reef, off Western Australia. Thirty-five passengers and five crew are reported on board.
'Alcopops' - Another failed policy
The consumption of alcohol has incurred the largest growth of any household expenditure item in the last quarter of the National Accounts.
$500 million for shared equity mortgages to keep people in their homes
The Commonwealth Government should look to invest up to $500 million of funds allocated for residential mortgage backed securities to support shared equity loans to ensure mortgagees continue to have access to this viable option to reduce their mortgage burden, especially during the global financial crisis.
Border security - What is the government saying?
Today the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Penny Wong, not only failed to reassure the public that our maritime border is not exposed by the naval personnel Christmas stand down, but also openly contradicted her colleague when claiming there would be no change in operational intensity in regard to border security.
Confusion and contradictions about disability funding indexation
Increased funding for disability services is always welcome, but the Rudd Government needs to spell out the detail around the National Disability Agreement.
More pressure on Rudd to act for Clyde farmers
The township of Bothwell and surrounding farm community is on its knees. The Prime Minister must consider this very legitimate request that he overturn the poor decision made by Minister Garrett which dismissed the emergency water release application.
International day of people with disability 2008
Throughout Australia events are being held to celebrate people with a disability and I encourage all Australians to get involved and support this great event.
Rudd government leaks but no answers
The Rudd Government has demonstrated its contempt for the Senate committee process by leaking answers to questions on notice to selected journalists, while still refusing to provide them directly to a committee.
Turnbull interview with Keith Conlon & Tony Pilkington (Radio 5AA) - Interest rates, Labor deficits, water, Julie Bishop...
Now the easiest thing is for a government to take no hard decisions and take the budget and of course the tax payers further and further into debt. So deficits should be a last resort, not an easy way out. And that’s why we’re not just going to give a leave pass to Labor to take our nation’s budget into the red.
Government fails to demand immediate and full interest rate cut for all
Today the Prime Minister has given Australian banks a leave pass to simply deliver today’s rate cut ‘as rapidly as possible’. The Treasurer and the Finance Minister have also indicated that Australian banks just need to pass on the cut in a ‘timely way’.
Rudd government fails to alleviate credit card pain
The Rudd Government has failed to put pressure on banks to pass on interest rate cuts to credit card holders.
Rudd Government divided on interest rate policy
Prime Minister Rudd and Finance Minister Tanner are at odds with Treasurer Swan on what the Government expects Australian banks to do when interest rates are cut.
What has Gillard got to hide on childcare data?
The Rudd Government has been slammed as “irresponsible” for not revealing important national data on childcare vacancy rates, as the industry struggles to deal with the current ABC Learning crisis.
Conroy deluded over broadband prices
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was today unable to explain in Question Time how broadband prices could possibly be cheaper than they are now under the proposed funding model for his troubled National Broadband Network (NBN).
Gillard trips in Question Time
The Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, did her best Comical Ali impersonation in question time today by denying that she had implemented Labor’s workplace relations policy as drafted.
Government in a state of confusion over infrastructure investment
This public contradiction is just the latest in the spat between Mr Tanner and Mr Albanese which was first revealed in October when Mr Tanner’s original legislation to establish the various infrastructure funds was pulled by Mr Albanese, minutes before it was to be introduced into Parliament.
Government concedes legislation was flawed on Schools Bill
Christopher Pyne, welcomed the Government’s backdown on two of the three key concerns the Opposition has had with the Schools Assistance Bill.
Julie Bishop Fairfax Blog - Mumbai attacks
While there has been an understandable outpouring of grief and frustration about these attacks, it is a sad fact that not all terrorist plots can be detected in advance and can be prevented.
Rudd and Swan must not mix messages on rate cuts
Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan must stop mixing their messages when it comes to calling on banks to pass through interest rate cuts.
Labor shops around for a Coalition electorate for a second Sydney Airport
The merry-go-round of picking a site for Sydney’s second airport continues today, with the Federal Government again leaving open options which have been rejected by previous studies dating back to the 1940s.
Rudd must honour Senate declaration on the North-South Pipeline, the Murray and the Lower Lakes
The Senate tonight issued a formal Declaration on the future of the Murray as an amendment during concluding debate on the Water Amendment Bill.
Turnbull interview with Chris Uhlmann (AM programme) - Labor deficits, computers in schools cost blow-out, stimulus package, Julie Bishop, carbon...
The critical thing is the quality of the spending. You see what Kevin Rudd – having inherited probably the best public finances in the developed world from the outgoing Coalition government – what Kevin Rudd is seeking to get is a leave pass to have undisciplined and unbridled spending.
Michael Keenan speech - Fair Work Bill 2008 – Labor still stands for unemployment
Whilst the Parliament will spend the week debating workplace relations, it is only this side of the house that will actually address the central issue in this portfolio – that of job security.
Headlines Saturday 6th December
Dear Pakistan: protest this
Andrew Bolt
Thomas Friedman has a frank word to Pakistan about the Mumbai slaughter:
On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?
===
Idealists powered by wind
Andrew Bolt
Some youthful idealism is so shiny eyed that it’s frightening ... or comical:
OVER the past five weeks, Jack Fuller has jumped from a moving train in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, handed in a university assignment from Beijing and written a proposal for his honours thesis in Warsaw.
With four mates, he has travelled through 10 countries — from Singapore, through south-east and central Asia to Moscow and across to Poland — by bus, train and tuk-tuk. They cut the carbon emissions involved in getting from their living rooms across Australia to the UN climate change conference in Poznan by 40 per cent — and paid about twice as much for the privilege.
Hang on! Why go in the first place? Why not, say, teleconference instead?
===
linked to above article .. the greenshirts looking like brown shirts from 2:06
===
Crunch still coming
Andrew Bolt
This could really hurt:
One in 10 American homeowners fell behind on mortgage payments or were in foreclosure during the third quarter as the world’s largest economy shed jobs and real estate prices tumbled.
===
Globe still refusing to warm
Andrew Bolt
Global cooling has raised fears:
This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office…
===
Pumping out a plot
Andrew Bolt
Age columnist Tracee Hutchison smells a conspiracy - or, or something:
ISN’T it ironic that when the Government wants us to spend more money to keep the economy from stalling completely, somehow — miraculously — petrol prices come down? It will tell you it has no control over petrol prices, but to me they always seem to be a litmus of the times, working in mysterious ways like a teller of our fortunes.
===
Ruining a good spaghetti
Andrew Bolt
Ah, the smell of new money:
TUNA tycoon Tony Santic has parted with a gold mine of cash, luxury cars, mansions and penthouse apartments in the split with his ex-wife, Christine.
The carve-up of Mr Santic’s bulging $200 million empire included a fleet of BMWs, Lexus 4WDs and a prized convertible red Mustang with the number plate MAKYBE, referring to his champion race mare Makybe Diva…
And it’s been revealed Mrs Santic, the family’s former cleaning lady, ... allegedly used a $1000 bottle of Grange to cook spaghetti bolognaise.
===
Children aren’t museum exhibits
Andrew Bolt
There are good reasons that the official language of British-settled Australia is not Saxon, or Jutish, or Norman French, or Celtic, or Old Danish or the tongue of the Angles. And one of the best is that learning a common tongue has helped us to break out of ethnic ghettos and make our way in the wider world. It’s also helped us to create a wider community than that of our own tribe, and to assimilate into it.
But there are still ideologues who demand that some languages should be preserved long after their usefulness has passed, and that their speakers should live as museum exhibits - set apart rather than joining in
===
The only summit idea worth much
Andrew Bolt
At last one idea from Kevin Rudd’s 2020 ideas summit is now being investigated:
A PRIME Ministerial staffer has been interviewed by the Audit Office about the awarding of a contract to a company owned by Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s media adviser…
===
New victims invented
Andrew Bolt
The problem with paying people big money to detect discrimination is that they have a vested interest in finding it even where it does not occur. In fact, they have a vested interested in inventing even new victims unknown even to nature:
THE Federal Government’s human rights arm plans to invent a new official status called “intersex” adding it to male and female as a legally recognised gender.
====
But if the killer is black…
Andrew Bolt
The crime seems straightforward, but the punishment is complicated by race:
Here’s the crime:
The brother of a “good bloke” killed by a single punch outside an Adelaide suburban football club says he is relieved the assailant has been found guilty of manslaughter…
===
Three times too many
Andrew Bolt
The criticism isn’t that Kevin Rudd has broken another election promise, but why Labor was so stupid as to make this promise three times:
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has formally abandoned the plan for a massive new department of homeland security that Labor took to the past three elections.
And why didn’t such a turkey of an idea get canned long ago by the media collective?
===
Ours is not to reason why
Andrew Bolt
Columbia Journalism Review’s Curtis Brainard isn’t:
There has been a notable trend in global-warming skepticism among meteorologists; it’s unclear exactly why that is...
Andrew Bolt
Thomas Friedman has a frank word to Pakistan about the Mumbai slaughter:
On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?
===
Idealists powered by wind
Andrew Bolt
Some youthful idealism is so shiny eyed that it’s frightening ... or comical:
OVER the past five weeks, Jack Fuller has jumped from a moving train in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, handed in a university assignment from Beijing and written a proposal for his honours thesis in Warsaw.
With four mates, he has travelled through 10 countries — from Singapore, through south-east and central Asia to Moscow and across to Poland — by bus, train and tuk-tuk. They cut the carbon emissions involved in getting from their living rooms across Australia to the UN climate change conference in Poznan by 40 per cent — and paid about twice as much for the privilege.
Hang on! Why go in the first place? Why not, say, teleconference instead?
===
linked to above article .. the greenshirts looking like brown shirts from 2:06
===
Crunch still coming
Andrew Bolt
This could really hurt:
One in 10 American homeowners fell behind on mortgage payments or were in foreclosure during the third quarter as the world’s largest economy shed jobs and real estate prices tumbled.
===
Globe still refusing to warm
Andrew Bolt
Global cooling has raised fears:
This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office…
===
Pumping out a plot
Andrew Bolt
Age columnist Tracee Hutchison smells a conspiracy - or, or something:
ISN’T it ironic that when the Government wants us to spend more money to keep the economy from stalling completely, somehow — miraculously — petrol prices come down? It will tell you it has no control over petrol prices, but to me they always seem to be a litmus of the times, working in mysterious ways like a teller of our fortunes.
===
Ruining a good spaghetti
Andrew Bolt
Ah, the smell of new money:
TUNA tycoon Tony Santic has parted with a gold mine of cash, luxury cars, mansions and penthouse apartments in the split with his ex-wife, Christine.
The carve-up of Mr Santic’s bulging $200 million empire included a fleet of BMWs, Lexus 4WDs and a prized convertible red Mustang with the number plate MAKYBE, referring to his champion race mare Makybe Diva…
And it’s been revealed Mrs Santic, the family’s former cleaning lady, ... allegedly used a $1000 bottle of Grange to cook spaghetti bolognaise.
===
Children aren’t museum exhibits
Andrew Bolt
There are good reasons that the official language of British-settled Australia is not Saxon, or Jutish, or Norman French, or Celtic, or Old Danish or the tongue of the Angles. And one of the best is that learning a common tongue has helped us to break out of ethnic ghettos and make our way in the wider world. It’s also helped us to create a wider community than that of our own tribe, and to assimilate into it.
But there are still ideologues who demand that some languages should be preserved long after their usefulness has passed, and that their speakers should live as museum exhibits - set apart rather than joining in
===
The only summit idea worth much
Andrew Bolt
At last one idea from Kevin Rudd’s 2020 ideas summit is now being investigated:
A PRIME Ministerial staffer has been interviewed by the Audit Office about the awarding of a contract to a company owned by Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s media adviser…
===
New victims invented
Andrew Bolt
The problem with paying people big money to detect discrimination is that they have a vested interest in finding it even where it does not occur. In fact, they have a vested interested in inventing even new victims unknown even to nature:
THE Federal Government’s human rights arm plans to invent a new official status called “intersex” adding it to male and female as a legally recognised gender.
====
But if the killer is black…
Andrew Bolt
The crime seems straightforward, but the punishment is complicated by race:
Here’s the crime:
The brother of a “good bloke” killed by a single punch outside an Adelaide suburban football club says he is relieved the assailant has been found guilty of manslaughter…
===
Three times too many
Andrew Bolt
The criticism isn’t that Kevin Rudd has broken another election promise, but why Labor was so stupid as to make this promise three times:
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has formally abandoned the plan for a massive new department of homeland security that Labor took to the past three elections.
And why didn’t such a turkey of an idea get canned long ago by the media collective?
===
Ours is not to reason why
Andrew Bolt
Columbia Journalism Review’s Curtis Brainard isn’t:
There has been a notable trend in global-warming skepticism among meteorologists; it’s unclear exactly why that is...
Friday, December 05, 2008
Stewart Brand: Building a home for the Clock of the Long Now
http://www.ted.com Stewart Brand works on the Clock of the Long Now, a timepiece that counts down the next 10,000 years. It's a beautiful project that asks us to think about the far, far future. Here, he discusses a tricky side problem with the Clock: Where can we put it?
Beach Girl: My Opinion On Christians
My Opinion On Christians.
BeachGirlTV
XOXO
===
I got a different take on this issue. I respect her position, but I got a different take .. people need to hear the truth. Some of the garbage some speak is not the truth. But there is a truth to salvation though Jesus that many miss because those who believe are unwilling to share. I respect and admire President Bush's position on the matter. - ed.
Headlines Friday 5th December
Ours is not to reason why
Andrew Bolt
Columbia Journalism Review’s Curtis Brainard isn’t:
There has been a notable trend in global-warming skepticism among meteorologists; it’s unclear exactly why that is...
===
What Jewish targets?
Andrew Bolt
I remember the outrage of Leftist critics when I first suggested some of the Left would soon by relativising or rationalising or moral equivalising the Mumbai massacres. But this effort from the New York Times on the last day of the seige is, surely, among the most stupid attempts to be blind to what occurred:
It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene.
===
Respect those who showed little
Andrew Bolt
First the Left lead the charge against institutions and authority, but now that they’re in charge they demand a return of what they did so much to destroy:
JOHN Brumby has declared war on the “me” generation of out-of-control young Victorians who lack respect and fuel crime.
===
Their country, too
Andrew Bolt
Claims on both sides, and I sure hope the school’s version is right:
A BRISBANE school has banned the national anthem at assemblies and sacked the teacher who asked for it to be played.
Australian International Islamic College teacher Pravin Chand was sacked in November, four months after his proposal for students to sing Advance Australia Fair was ruled to be against the “Islamic view and ethos”.
===
“100 metres” Williams demands nuance
Andrew Bolt
ABC Science Show host Robyn Williams says those who contradict him when he makes absurdly alarmist - and false - claims about global warming just don’t understand “nuance”. And the warming alarmist who claimed, in defiance of every scientific paper, that the seas could rise 100 metres this century now says his critics should listen to the scientists.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t stunned by his brazen cheek. How is it that he doesn’t die of shame?
First, the background… This was my notorious exchange with Williams last year when I asked him if global warming would really cause the seas to rise 100 metres this century:
Andrew Bolt: I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century...do you really think that?
Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that they’ve noticed in Greenland and the amount that we’ve seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge.
The maximum sea level rise Williams’ claims is in fact 170 times greater than the even the maximum rise predicted by the alarmist IPCC, and I know of not a single scientist anywhere, not even the maddest, who’d put the rise by 2100 at even a tenth of his plainly bogus figure.
But Williams has never apologised or corrected the record. Rather, in an attempt to justify his absurd exaggeration he once cited as his best authority Professor Jonathan Overpeck, without actually mentioning that Overpeck’s own worst-case estimate was not 100 metres by 2100 but just 1 metre.
The most Williams ever conceded was this, in an interview on Triple J:
Williams: “It is a most unlikely figure.’’
Sharkey: “Is it alarmist?
Williams: ”It could be alarmist, yes.”
===
Whites not all right
Andrew Bolt
On now! At Monash University! Come hear this exciting conference on”Re-Orienting Whiteness”.
Andrew Bolt
Columbia Journalism Review’s Curtis Brainard isn’t:
There has been a notable trend in global-warming skepticism among meteorologists; it’s unclear exactly why that is...
===
What Jewish targets?
Andrew Bolt
I remember the outrage of Leftist critics when I first suggested some of the Left would soon by relativising or rationalising or moral equivalising the Mumbai massacres. But this effort from the New York Times on the last day of the seige is, surely, among the most stupid attempts to be blind to what occurred:
It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene.
===
Respect those who showed little
Andrew Bolt
First the Left lead the charge against institutions and authority, but now that they’re in charge they demand a return of what they did so much to destroy:
JOHN Brumby has declared war on the “me” generation of out-of-control young Victorians who lack respect and fuel crime.
===
Their country, too
Andrew Bolt
Claims on both sides, and I sure hope the school’s version is right:
A BRISBANE school has banned the national anthem at assemblies and sacked the teacher who asked for it to be played.
Australian International Islamic College teacher Pravin Chand was sacked in November, four months after his proposal for students to sing Advance Australia Fair was ruled to be against the “Islamic view and ethos”.
===
“100 metres” Williams demands nuance
Andrew Bolt
ABC Science Show host Robyn Williams says those who contradict him when he makes absurdly alarmist - and false - claims about global warming just don’t understand “nuance”. And the warming alarmist who claimed, in defiance of every scientific paper, that the seas could rise 100 metres this century now says his critics should listen to the scientists.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t stunned by his brazen cheek. How is it that he doesn’t die of shame?
First, the background… This was my notorious exchange with Williams last year when I asked him if global warming would really cause the seas to rise 100 metres this century:
Andrew Bolt: I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century...do you really think that?
Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that they’ve noticed in Greenland and the amount that we’ve seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge.
The maximum sea level rise Williams’ claims is in fact 170 times greater than the even the maximum rise predicted by the alarmist IPCC, and I know of not a single scientist anywhere, not even the maddest, who’d put the rise by 2100 at even a tenth of his plainly bogus figure.
But Williams has never apologised or corrected the record. Rather, in an attempt to justify his absurd exaggeration he once cited as his best authority Professor Jonathan Overpeck, without actually mentioning that Overpeck’s own worst-case estimate was not 100 metres by 2100 but just 1 metre.
The most Williams ever conceded was this, in an interview on Triple J:
Williams: “It is a most unlikely figure.’’
Sharkey: “Is it alarmist?
Williams: ”It could be alarmist, yes.”
===
Whites not all right
Andrew Bolt
On now! At Monash University! Come hear this exciting conference on”Re-Orienting Whiteness”.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Ursus Wehrli: Tidying up art
http://www.ted.com Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art -- by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size.
Headlines Thursday 4th December
Labor’s death wish for local hospitals
Piers Akerman
THE systemic destruction of the NSW health system, highlighted by the need to helicopter a female patient to Queensland for treatment last weekend, has South Coast residents wondering where they will go for emergency care.
The Rees Government is continuing Labor’s ideologically-driven scheme to scale back services and rid NSW public hospitals of private doctors. - Della Bosca being placed in charge of health reminds me of another ALP bungle which may have led to the death of a boy and been covered up. Three questions were posed recently in the NSW senate by Marie Ficarra MLC
1) Does the former Minister for Education Mr John Della Bosca acknowledge that on the 6th of April 2007, he received a letter from a former teacher of Hurlestone Agricultural High School regarding possible negligence in the death of Hamidur Rahman?
2) Can Mr Della Bosca affirm to this house that this allegation was duly investigated given the gravity of the case?
3) What steps has the Department of Education taken in liasing with Mr David Daniel Ball and his concerns for the Rahman family.
I have only recently read the coroners report on the matter and was disturbed by some things it failed to examine. It reminds me of the Vanessa Anderson case whereby a child seems to have been buried in public. I note Della Bosca, on a separate matter, called for people to be personally responsible. Time for Della Bosca to take personal responsibility. - ed.
===
MP sets himself on fire
Andrew Bolt
Erk:
A FEDERAL Labor backbencher has been blasted by the Prime Minister for allegedly trying to sell photographs he took of a man threatening to set himself on fire. Queensland MP James Bidgood took the photos on the front lawn of Parliament House yesterday when a man seeking visas for his parents doused himself in petrol. - probably when the guy chose politics and to be in the ALP he didn't know he would be lampooning the desperate and needy. - ed.
===
Australia: Fake but true
Andrew Bolt
Jill Singer loved Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, and says it shouldn’t be criticised for not telling the historical truth, even though it’s, um, wrong to say it’s the truth, and in fact, er, is the truth:
The mean-spirited and literal-minded might condemn Australia on documentary rather than dramatic grounds.
But it’s a movie, for mercy’s sake - it can make its own rules.
That said, it might be a good idea to scrap textual references to the Stolen Generation that top and tail the film.
It didn’t bother my mum, however. She also loved the film, though she sniffs at my sympathy for Aborigines hurt by past assimilation practices.
If you think that makes no sense at all, then you’re mean-spirited.
===
Which mob runs Thailand?
Andrew Bolt
Richard Lloyd Parry choses his words very carefully, given that Thailand still punishes lese majeste, but he wonders how a mob could take over Bangkok’s airport for so long and force the resignation of the elected Prime Minister:
The key question is how such a mob, with a few light arms at best, was able to occupy a key strategic installation such as an airport so easily and for so long. If foreign soldiers or terrorists, such as the ones who attacked Mumbai last week, had stormed Suvarnabhumi airport, there is little doubt that the Thai police and army would have fought against them. It was not that they could not keep out the PAD but that they chose not to.
And this raises the crucial question: Who is really running Thailand?
===
Terrorists can read, too
Andrew Bolt
Brett Stephens warns that when terrorists kill to avenge evils against Muslims, they may be just reacting to more beat-ups by Western journalists:
When it comes to terrorists and their grievances, nearly all the Western media have provided them with a rich diet on which to feed.
In the spring of 2005, Newsweek ran with a thinly sourced item about the Koran being flushed down a Guantanamo Bay toilet. Result: at least 15 people were killed in Afghan riots. Newsweek later retracted the story, which was the right thing to do but also, in its way, exceptional. Compare that to the refusal of French reporter Charles Enderlin and his station, France 2, to retract or even express doubt about his September 2000 report on Mohammed al-Durrah, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy allegedly killed by Israeli soldiers during an exchange of gunfire in the Gaza Strip…
Maybe Durrah was somewhere in the minds of the Mumbai killers. If not, there was no shortage of other Israeli “atrocities” for them to choose from, mostly fictitious or trumped-up and all endlessly cited in Western media reports: the “siege” of Gaza; the 2002 Jenin “massacre”; the 1982 massacres (by Lebanese Phalangists) in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut; the execution of Egyptian prisoners of war in 1967.
(I)t’s worth wondering why a media that treats nearly every word uttered by the US, British or Israeli governments as inherently suspect has proved so consistently credulous when it comes to every dubious or defamatory claim made against those governments. Or, for that matter, why the media has been so intent on magnifying genuine scandals (such as Abu Ghraib) to the point that they become the moral equivalent of 9/11. Some caution is in order: terrorists, of all people, might actually believe what they read in the papers.
===
Howard gone, boats arrive
Andrew Bolt
My goodness, but didn’t the people smugglers learn fast that Kevin Rudd was now in charge?
ANOTHER boat carrying suspected asylum-seekers has made it to Australian waters… The boat is the fifth to make it to Australian waters in recent months.
===
Red alert
Andrew Bolt
Queensland was once a bold, frontier country, where they bred them tough:
TEACHERS have been told to stop marking schoolchildren’s work with red pen because it is an “aggressive” colour.
===
Raining on bureau’s parade
Andrew Bolt
The Bureau of Meteorology admits:
In marked contrast with recent months, November was a wet month through most of Australia. Averaged over the continent it was the eighth-wettest November on record, with only a few areas significantly below normal. The wet conditions were also reflected in the temperatures, with daytime maximum temperatures below normal, and overnight minimum temperatures above normal, over large parts of the country.
Not quite what the global-warmists of the Bureau predicted just five weeks ago:
The national outlook for temperatures over the November to January period shows a moderate to strong shift in the odds favouring warmer than normal conditions over eastern Australia. ...Across the rest of the country, including WA, south western NT and western SA, the chances of a warmer than average November to January period are between 40 and 60%,
Piers Akerman
THE systemic destruction of the NSW health system, highlighted by the need to helicopter a female patient to Queensland for treatment last weekend, has South Coast residents wondering where they will go for emergency care.
The Rees Government is continuing Labor’s ideologically-driven scheme to scale back services and rid NSW public hospitals of private doctors. - Della Bosca being placed in charge of health reminds me of another ALP bungle which may have led to the death of a boy and been covered up. Three questions were posed recently in the NSW senate by Marie Ficarra MLC
1) Does the former Minister for Education Mr John Della Bosca acknowledge that on the 6th of April 2007, he received a letter from a former teacher of Hurlestone Agricultural High School regarding possible negligence in the death of Hamidur Rahman?
2) Can Mr Della Bosca affirm to this house that this allegation was duly investigated given the gravity of the case?
3) What steps has the Department of Education taken in liasing with Mr David Daniel Ball and his concerns for the Rahman family.
I have only recently read the coroners report on the matter and was disturbed by some things it failed to examine. It reminds me of the Vanessa Anderson case whereby a child seems to have been buried in public. I note Della Bosca, on a separate matter, called for people to be personally responsible. Time for Della Bosca to take personal responsibility. - ed.
===
MP sets himself on fire
Andrew Bolt
Erk:
A FEDERAL Labor backbencher has been blasted by the Prime Minister for allegedly trying to sell photographs he took of a man threatening to set himself on fire. Queensland MP James Bidgood took the photos on the front lawn of Parliament House yesterday when a man seeking visas for his parents doused himself in petrol. - probably when the guy chose politics and to be in the ALP he didn't know he would be lampooning the desperate and needy. - ed.
===
Australia: Fake but true
Andrew Bolt
Jill Singer loved Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, and says it shouldn’t be criticised for not telling the historical truth, even though it’s, um, wrong to say it’s the truth, and in fact, er, is the truth:
The mean-spirited and literal-minded might condemn Australia on documentary rather than dramatic grounds.
But it’s a movie, for mercy’s sake - it can make its own rules.
That said, it might be a good idea to scrap textual references to the Stolen Generation that top and tail the film.
It didn’t bother my mum, however. She also loved the film, though she sniffs at my sympathy for Aborigines hurt by past assimilation practices.
If you think that makes no sense at all, then you’re mean-spirited.
===
Which mob runs Thailand?
Andrew Bolt
Richard Lloyd Parry choses his words very carefully, given that Thailand still punishes lese majeste, but he wonders how a mob could take over Bangkok’s airport for so long and force the resignation of the elected Prime Minister:
The key question is how such a mob, with a few light arms at best, was able to occupy a key strategic installation such as an airport so easily and for so long. If foreign soldiers or terrorists, such as the ones who attacked Mumbai last week, had stormed Suvarnabhumi airport, there is little doubt that the Thai police and army would have fought against them. It was not that they could not keep out the PAD but that they chose not to.
And this raises the crucial question: Who is really running Thailand?
===
Terrorists can read, too
Andrew Bolt
Brett Stephens warns that when terrorists kill to avenge evils against Muslims, they may be just reacting to more beat-ups by Western journalists:
When it comes to terrorists and their grievances, nearly all the Western media have provided them with a rich diet on which to feed.
In the spring of 2005, Newsweek ran with a thinly sourced item about the Koran being flushed down a Guantanamo Bay toilet. Result: at least 15 people were killed in Afghan riots. Newsweek later retracted the story, which was the right thing to do but also, in its way, exceptional. Compare that to the refusal of French reporter Charles Enderlin and his station, France 2, to retract or even express doubt about his September 2000 report on Mohammed al-Durrah, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy allegedly killed by Israeli soldiers during an exchange of gunfire in the Gaza Strip…
Maybe Durrah was somewhere in the minds of the Mumbai killers. If not, there was no shortage of other Israeli “atrocities” for them to choose from, mostly fictitious or trumped-up and all endlessly cited in Western media reports: the “siege” of Gaza; the 2002 Jenin “massacre”; the 1982 massacres (by Lebanese Phalangists) in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut; the execution of Egyptian prisoners of war in 1967.
(I)t’s worth wondering why a media that treats nearly every word uttered by the US, British or Israeli governments as inherently suspect has proved so consistently credulous when it comes to every dubious or defamatory claim made against those governments. Or, for that matter, why the media has been so intent on magnifying genuine scandals (such as Abu Ghraib) to the point that they become the moral equivalent of 9/11. Some caution is in order: terrorists, of all people, might actually believe what they read in the papers.
===
Howard gone, boats arrive
Andrew Bolt
My goodness, but didn’t the people smugglers learn fast that Kevin Rudd was now in charge?
ANOTHER boat carrying suspected asylum-seekers has made it to Australian waters… The boat is the fifth to make it to Australian waters in recent months.
===
Red alert
Andrew Bolt
Queensland was once a bold, frontier country, where they bred them tough:
TEACHERS have been told to stop marking schoolchildren’s work with red pen because it is an “aggressive” colour.
===
Raining on bureau’s parade
Andrew Bolt
The Bureau of Meteorology admits:
In marked contrast with recent months, November was a wet month through most of Australia. Averaged over the continent it was the eighth-wettest November on record, with only a few areas significantly below normal. The wet conditions were also reflected in the temperatures, with daytime maximum temperatures below normal, and overnight minimum temperatures above normal, over large parts of the country.
Not quite what the global-warmists of the Bureau predicted just five weeks ago:
The national outlook for temperatures over the November to January period shows a moderate to strong shift in the odds favouring warmer than normal conditions over eastern Australia. ...Across the rest of the country, including WA, south western NT and western SA, the chances of a warmer than average November to January period are between 40 and 60%,
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Karle Elachi: The story of the Mars Rovers
http://www.ted.com At Serious Play 2008, Karle Elachi shares stories from NASA's legendary Jet Propulsion Lab -- including tales and video from the Mars Rover project.
Headlines Wednesday 3rd December
Possums not fried
Andrew Bolt
You are being misled by alarmists:
SCIENTISTS say a white possum native to Queensland’s Daintree forest has become the first mammal to become extinct due to man-made global warming.
===
It’s what Obama would do
Andrew Bolt
It’s the Obama doctrine being played out - by India:
PAKISTAN was bracing last night for a retaliatory airstrike by India against the sprawling headquarters of the al-Qa’ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation near Lahore.
===
The shame of Australia
Andrew Bolt
BAZ Luhrmann’s first big mistake was to get so full of himself that he called his movie Australia.
Worse, he then added titles to the beginning and end of his $180 million spectacular to tell viewers his take on our history was historically accurate.
And so a movie that is a huge grab-bag of cliches - a collation of gaudy images pecked from deserted movie sets by an insatiable bowerbird - isn’t just bad storytelling.
It’s also an exercise in bad faith - a movie allegedly about Australia, defining Australia, that’s shot by a man who actually doesn’t understand the country, and doesn’t like it, either.
And that lazy contempt is precisely what American critics, for instance, have picked up on. What’s more, fooled by Luhrmann into thinking they really are seeing Australia as we are, they’ve assumed as true that we’re as heart-rotten as he shows.
Hear it from the New York Observer: “Wow, who knew Australia was so racist?”
===
Rudd’s jobs reduction scheme
Andrew Bolt
Further proof that at least some in Labor are gagging at Kevin Rudd’s emission trading scheme, realising that slashing emissions actually means slashing jobs:
THE Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has told his backbenchers to hold their nerve over Labor’s emissions trading scheme amid internal concerns about its impact on jobs and intense lobbying by interest groups.
Less than a fortnight before the white paper detailing the scheme is released on December 15, a handful of backbenchers used yesterday’s caucus meeting, the last for the year, to express concern about the impact of the scheme on jobs in difficult economic times.
===
Reining in the voters
Andrew Bolt
Announced like it’s a good thing:
Bill of rights to rein in Parliament
A bill to rein in the people we elect to do what we’d wish? With this reining in done by unelected judges? Who’d do anything so undemocratic?
===
Why, then, kill the Rabbi?
Andrew Bolt
David Aaronovitch on those on the Left already relativising and explaining away the Mumbai massacre:
There is a branch of apologetics - which I take crudely to be the belief that the crime is the fault of the victim - that assumes a milder form, and which I’ll call explanetics. So the explanatists’ view of the Mumbai massacres last week is that the cause lies in what concretely has been done to, or in the vicinity of, the young, cool-looking men with the grenades and the machineguns.
===
Chemical dummies
Andrew Bolt
The easy-fix generation would rather give a child a pill than their care:
UNPUBLISHED figures show that nearly 4000 children under the age of 10 were prescribed anti-depressants last financial year, including 553 children under five and 48 babies…
Leading pediatricians and psychiatrists can offer no reason why infants would be given the drugs.
===
Selling out
Andrew Bolt
Is the Opposition now too scared to oppose? It’s already approved, at least initially, the apology, Kyoto, emissions trading, the $10.4 billion spendathon and the unlimited bank guarantee.
Now The Australian protests:
AS The Australian pointed out yesterday, the industrial relations model Julia Gillard took to last year’s ALP conference was so retrograde that Kevin Rudd, after its flaws were exposed by Paul Kelly and others in this newspaper, was forced to step in and moderate it. The Prime Minister must do so again after Kelly’s critique on Saturday showing why the Fair Work bill is a blueprint for pattern bargaining by stealth. If passed, it would return aspects of workplace relations to an unproductive rigidity predating the Hawke-Keating Accord reforms of the 1980s and early 90s.
===
As you were in Iraq, soldier
Andrew Bolt
Remember Barack Obama’s vow to pull US troops out of Iraq within 16 months? Now come the caveats that make the promise meaningless, because he sure as hell doesn’t want to lose this peace:
But as I have said consistently, I will listen to the recommendations of my commanders. And my number one priority is making sure that our troops remain safe in this transition phase and that the Iraqi people are well served by a government that is taking on increased responsibility for its own security.
Spot them? First caveat is that he’ll let his commanders tell him to wait. Second is that he won’t pull out if that exposes his troops to danger. Third is that he must be satisfied that Iraqis won’t suffer by a pullout too premature.
And there’s yet another caveat: his promise applies only to combat troops.
Andrew Bolt
You are being misled by alarmists:
SCIENTISTS say a white possum native to Queensland’s Daintree forest has become the first mammal to become extinct due to man-made global warming.
===
It’s what Obama would do
Andrew Bolt
It’s the Obama doctrine being played out - by India:
PAKISTAN was bracing last night for a retaliatory airstrike by India against the sprawling headquarters of the al-Qa’ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation near Lahore.
===
The shame of Australia
Andrew Bolt
BAZ Luhrmann’s first big mistake was to get so full of himself that he called his movie Australia.
Worse, he then added titles to the beginning and end of his $180 million spectacular to tell viewers his take on our history was historically accurate.
And so a movie that is a huge grab-bag of cliches - a collation of gaudy images pecked from deserted movie sets by an insatiable bowerbird - isn’t just bad storytelling.
It’s also an exercise in bad faith - a movie allegedly about Australia, defining Australia, that’s shot by a man who actually doesn’t understand the country, and doesn’t like it, either.
And that lazy contempt is precisely what American critics, for instance, have picked up on. What’s more, fooled by Luhrmann into thinking they really are seeing Australia as we are, they’ve assumed as true that we’re as heart-rotten as he shows.
Hear it from the New York Observer: “Wow, who knew Australia was so racist?”
===
Rudd’s jobs reduction scheme
Andrew Bolt
Further proof that at least some in Labor are gagging at Kevin Rudd’s emission trading scheme, realising that slashing emissions actually means slashing jobs:
THE Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has told his backbenchers to hold their nerve over Labor’s emissions trading scheme amid internal concerns about its impact on jobs and intense lobbying by interest groups.
Less than a fortnight before the white paper detailing the scheme is released on December 15, a handful of backbenchers used yesterday’s caucus meeting, the last for the year, to express concern about the impact of the scheme on jobs in difficult economic times.
===
Reining in the voters
Andrew Bolt
Announced like it’s a good thing:
Bill of rights to rein in Parliament
A bill to rein in the people we elect to do what we’d wish? With this reining in done by unelected judges? Who’d do anything so undemocratic?
===
Why, then, kill the Rabbi?
Andrew Bolt
David Aaronovitch on those on the Left already relativising and explaining away the Mumbai massacre:
There is a branch of apologetics - which I take crudely to be the belief that the crime is the fault of the victim - that assumes a milder form, and which I’ll call explanetics. So the explanatists’ view of the Mumbai massacres last week is that the cause lies in what concretely has been done to, or in the vicinity of, the young, cool-looking men with the grenades and the machineguns.
===
Chemical dummies
Andrew Bolt
The easy-fix generation would rather give a child a pill than their care:
UNPUBLISHED figures show that nearly 4000 children under the age of 10 were prescribed anti-depressants last financial year, including 553 children under five and 48 babies…
Leading pediatricians and psychiatrists can offer no reason why infants would be given the drugs.
===
Selling out
Andrew Bolt
Is the Opposition now too scared to oppose? It’s already approved, at least initially, the apology, Kyoto, emissions trading, the $10.4 billion spendathon and the unlimited bank guarantee.
Now The Australian protests:
AS The Australian pointed out yesterday, the industrial relations model Julia Gillard took to last year’s ALP conference was so retrograde that Kevin Rudd, after its flaws were exposed by Paul Kelly and others in this newspaper, was forced to step in and moderate it. The Prime Minister must do so again after Kelly’s critique on Saturday showing why the Fair Work bill is a blueprint for pattern bargaining by stealth. If passed, it would return aspects of workplace relations to an unproductive rigidity predating the Hawke-Keating Accord reforms of the 1980s and early 90s.
===
As you were in Iraq, soldier
Andrew Bolt
Remember Barack Obama’s vow to pull US troops out of Iraq within 16 months? Now come the caveats that make the promise meaningless, because he sure as hell doesn’t want to lose this peace:
But as I have said consistently, I will listen to the recommendations of my commanders. And my number one priority is making sure that our troops remain safe in this transition phase and that the Iraqi people are well served by a government that is taking on increased responsibility for its own security.
Spot them? First caveat is that he’ll let his commanders tell him to wait. Second is that he won’t pull out if that exposes his troops to danger. Third is that he must be satisfied that Iraqis won’t suffer by a pullout too premature.
And there’s yet another caveat: his promise applies only to combat troops.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Samantha Power: Shaking hands with the devil
http://www.ted.com Samantha Power tells a story of a complicated hero, Sergio Vieira de Mello. This UN diplomat walked a thin moral line, negotiating with the world's worst dictators to help their people survive crisis. It's a compelling story told with a fiery passion.
Headlines Tuesday 2nd December
Dad’s army in charge of border protection
Piers Akerman
FORMER prime minister John Howard sent people-smugglers a potent message when he declared “we will decide who comes to this country” during the 2001 election campaign. - I don’t blame the refugees, economic or otherwise. I think Rudd’s handling of the issue appalling and political when the needs of these people are clearly not being met. Mr Howard’s policy was not just kind, it was the best available. Rudd attacked it as a wedge issue, and now is keeping his promise to be an abysmal leader. - ed.
===
Safe - and jobless
Andrew Bolt
Gerard Henderson is astonished that the Rudd Government could draw up new laws in this climate that it admits may make bosses less keen to hire workers:
The section dealing with what (Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Julia) Gillard has described as the implementation of “protections from unfair dismissal for all employees” actually acknowledges the legislation ”may reduce the incentive of businesses to employ workers” and may increase the incentive for medium to small businesses to employ “more staff on a contract basis”. In other words, according to the Rudd Government’s own analysis, the Fair Work Bill may lead to more unemployment and less full-time employment. - but the conditions don't even guarantee safety. As Gillard had been asked to clarify on August 1st 2007 in what way would her IR legislation be an improvement in any area. She has failed to answer. - ed.
===
Save the planet! Ban warming summits!
Andrew Bolt
No one is gassier than a global warming alarmist:
Around 13,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) will be added to the Earth’s greenhouse effect from the December 1-12 meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC said.
That estimate is based on a turnout of 8,000 people, but as of Sunday 10,657 people had registered for the talks.
Before than was the UN’s Bali conference, of course, attended by up to 20,000 gas bags.
===
It’s Clinton, and little change
Andrew Bolt
It’s confirmed: Hillary Clinton is Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. Less Obama’s emissary than his colleague - if not rival.
Also confirmed is Robert Gates, to continue his role under George Bush as Secretary of Defence.
===
Hating dad is safer
Andrew Bolt
Bollywood’s stars suffer from the same derangement as the Hollywood ones:
On the evening of Nov. 26, the biggest names in Bollywood walked the red carpet at the Bombay premiere of “The President Is Coming,” a comedy about six 20-somethings vying to win the right to shake hands with President Bush.
Among those in attendance at the star-studded premiere Wednesday evening was Bollywood’s “new heartthrob” Imraan Khan, who proudly posed for paparazzi donning a T-shirt with Mr. Bush’s face sandwiched between the words “International Terrorist.”
Mr. Khan - a member of India’s Muslim minority - chose not to mock international terrorists who kill in the name of Allah. He and his co-religionists know the deadly results for those who do.
===
Too white to save
Andrew Bolt
David Warren on a new mixture of stupidity and ignorance:
Last Monday, the student council of Carleton University attracted much attention to their university and to the city of Ottawa—around Canada and the world—with their decision to cancel their annual Shinerama fundraising efforts on behalf of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Their argument was that this disease afflicts ”white people and primarily men.” They would rather choose a charity that is more “inclusive.”
===
Chilling news
Andrew Bolt
Professor Emeritus Don J. Easterbrook warns of global cooling:
Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.
The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977.
===
Bush the liberator
Andrew Bolt
There’s an even chance he’ll get his wish - provided Barack Obama doesn’t fumble the ball:
George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.
”I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” Bush said…
===
A war the terrorists would love
Andrew Bolt
This war of words, between two nuclear armed powers with a history of armed confrontation, is threatening to get out of control:
New Delhi said it was raising security to a “war level” and had no doubt of a Pakistani link to the (Mumbai) attacks....
Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a U.S.-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.
===
The Age detects doom-talk
Andrew Bolt
The Age reports there’s too much talk of doom:
Australians are ‘world class whingers’, carry around a ‘prophets of doom’ attitude and have a tendency to sulk.
For proof of that doom-talk, look no further than ...The Age itself - one should click on the link to see the examples. - ed.
Bolt suggests this was filmed at the Age's editorial meeting.
===
No negotiation possible
Andrew Bolt
Before some in the Left prepare their standard apologias, arguments of moral relativism or appeals for negotations, consider this about the Mumbai terrorists:
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, (one doctor performing post-mortems of the victims) said: ”It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.
And this:
Investigators said the terrorists left Karachi around mid-November aboard the Al Hussaini merchant ship before dragooning a trawler, named Kuber, in mid-sea, killing three of its four-man crew. With the help of its “tandel”, or skipper, they then made their way to within 5 miles of the Mumbai coastline.Before abandoning the vessel, they beheaded the skipper...
===
How can the people fail the party?
Andrew Bolt
True - but what’s the mechanism for changing the government if it fails that test?
CHINA’S economic challenges are now so serious that they are a test of the Communist Party’s ability to govern, says President Hu Jintao.
===
Tell Pilate that
Andrew Bolt
Cleaning yourself of physical dirt might make you more forgiving, it’s claimed:
A new study has found that people are more likely to be lenient in making decisions if they have just washed their hands.
===
Pictured at the pictures
Andrew Bolt
The first I’ve heard of this kind of thing - and hopefully the last. From the Cairns Post, this letter:
I warn prospective patrons of Cairns cinemas wanting to see the epic movie “Australia” that you may be distracted throughout the performance, as I was, by a guy walking up and down the aisles with a camera trained on the audience.
He told me it was a night vision camera so when I asked him to go away as he was distracting people from the movie, he did not move for a while and then went up the other aisle and kept on doing it.
When I complained to management at Earlville cinemas that this movie experience was spoiled for me, he apologised but said it was a requirement of the film’s owners that a night vision camera be used to spot anyone filming the movie from the audience...
Piers Akerman
FORMER prime minister John Howard sent people-smugglers a potent message when he declared “we will decide who comes to this country” during the 2001 election campaign. - I don’t blame the refugees, economic or otherwise. I think Rudd’s handling of the issue appalling and political when the needs of these people are clearly not being met. Mr Howard’s policy was not just kind, it was the best available. Rudd attacked it as a wedge issue, and now is keeping his promise to be an abysmal leader. - ed.
===
Safe - and jobless
Andrew Bolt
Gerard Henderson is astonished that the Rudd Government could draw up new laws in this climate that it admits may make bosses less keen to hire workers:
The section dealing with what (Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Julia) Gillard has described as the implementation of “protections from unfair dismissal for all employees” actually acknowledges the legislation ”may reduce the incentive of businesses to employ workers” and may increase the incentive for medium to small businesses to employ “more staff on a contract basis”. In other words, according to the Rudd Government’s own analysis, the Fair Work Bill may lead to more unemployment and less full-time employment. - but the conditions don't even guarantee safety. As Gillard had been asked to clarify on August 1st 2007 in what way would her IR legislation be an improvement in any area. She has failed to answer. - ed.
===
Save the planet! Ban warming summits!
Andrew Bolt
No one is gassier than a global warming alarmist:
Around 13,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) will be added to the Earth’s greenhouse effect from the December 1-12 meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC said.
That estimate is based on a turnout of 8,000 people, but as of Sunday 10,657 people had registered for the talks.
Before than was the UN’s Bali conference, of course, attended by up to 20,000 gas bags.
===
It’s Clinton, and little change
Andrew Bolt
It’s confirmed: Hillary Clinton is Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. Less Obama’s emissary than his colleague - if not rival.
Also confirmed is Robert Gates, to continue his role under George Bush as Secretary of Defence.
===
Hating dad is safer
Andrew Bolt
Bollywood’s stars suffer from the same derangement as the Hollywood ones:
On the evening of Nov. 26, the biggest names in Bollywood walked the red carpet at the Bombay premiere of “The President Is Coming,” a comedy about six 20-somethings vying to win the right to shake hands with President Bush.
Among those in attendance at the star-studded premiere Wednesday evening was Bollywood’s “new heartthrob” Imraan Khan, who proudly posed for paparazzi donning a T-shirt with Mr. Bush’s face sandwiched between the words “International Terrorist.”
Mr. Khan - a member of India’s Muslim minority - chose not to mock international terrorists who kill in the name of Allah. He and his co-religionists know the deadly results for those who do.
===
Too white to save
Andrew Bolt
David Warren on a new mixture of stupidity and ignorance:
Last Monday, the student council of Carleton University attracted much attention to their university and to the city of Ottawa—around Canada and the world—with their decision to cancel their annual Shinerama fundraising efforts on behalf of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Their argument was that this disease afflicts ”white people and primarily men.” They would rather choose a charity that is more “inclusive.”
===
Chilling news
Andrew Bolt
Professor Emeritus Don J. Easterbrook warns of global cooling:
Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.
The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977.
===
Bush the liberator
Andrew Bolt
There’s an even chance he’ll get his wish - provided Barack Obama doesn’t fumble the ball:
George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.
”I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” Bush said…
===
A war the terrorists would love
Andrew Bolt
This war of words, between two nuclear armed powers with a history of armed confrontation, is threatening to get out of control:
New Delhi said it was raising security to a “war level” and had no doubt of a Pakistani link to the (Mumbai) attacks....
Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a U.S.-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.
===
The Age detects doom-talk
Andrew Bolt
The Age reports there’s too much talk of doom:
Australians are ‘world class whingers’, carry around a ‘prophets of doom’ attitude and have a tendency to sulk.
For proof of that doom-talk, look no further than ...The Age itself - one should click on the link to see the examples. - ed.
Bolt suggests this was filmed at the Age's editorial meeting.
===
No negotiation possible
Andrew Bolt
Before some in the Left prepare their standard apologias, arguments of moral relativism or appeals for negotations, consider this about the Mumbai terrorists:
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, (one doctor performing post-mortems of the victims) said: ”It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.
And this:
Investigators said the terrorists left Karachi around mid-November aboard the Al Hussaini merchant ship before dragooning a trawler, named Kuber, in mid-sea, killing three of its four-man crew. With the help of its “tandel”, or skipper, they then made their way to within 5 miles of the Mumbai coastline.Before abandoning the vessel, they beheaded the skipper...
===
How can the people fail the party?
Andrew Bolt
True - but what’s the mechanism for changing the government if it fails that test?
CHINA’S economic challenges are now so serious that they are a test of the Communist Party’s ability to govern, says President Hu Jintao.
===
Tell Pilate that
Andrew Bolt
Cleaning yourself of physical dirt might make you more forgiving, it’s claimed:
A new study has found that people are more likely to be lenient in making decisions if they have just washed their hands.
===
Pictured at the pictures
Andrew Bolt
The first I’ve heard of this kind of thing - and hopefully the last. From the Cairns Post, this letter:
I warn prospective patrons of Cairns cinemas wanting to see the epic movie “Australia” that you may be distracted throughout the performance, as I was, by a guy walking up and down the aisles with a camera trained on the audience.
He told me it was a night vision camera so when I asked him to go away as he was distracting people from the movie, he did not move for a while and then went up the other aisle and kept on doing it.
When I complained to management at Earlville cinemas that this movie experience was spoiled for me, he apologised but said it was a requirement of the film’s owners that a night vision camera be used to spot anyone filming the movie from the audience...
Monday, December 01, 2008
Lee Smolin: How science is like democracy
http://www.ted.com Physicist Lee Smolin talks about how the scientific community works: as he puts it, "we fight and argue as hard as we can," but everyone accepts that the next generation of scientists will decide who's right. And, he says, that's how democracy works, too.
Headlines Monday 1st December
First day of Summer in Aus.
Anniversary of the first ALP government anywhere. Queensland 1899. The leader died less than a decade later as a drunk.
===
Tell ‘em he’s Henson
Andrew Bolt
If the man’s an artist, he’ll be let off with a grant:
A man caught taking mobile phone photographs of young children paddling in water at Sydney’s Darling Harbour faces child pornography charges.
===
Three ways Rudd is wrong
Andrew Bolt
Henry Ergas warns that the Rudd Government has forgotten three lessons of history in battling this financial crisis:
Lesson 1: Don’t reduce labour market flexibility. During the period of the two oil shocks (in 1973 and 1979), a slew of European countries strengthened unfair dismissal provisions and gave unions greater bargaining powers. Without exception, the result was to increase unemployment and make it far more persistent… The Government’s proposed new IR laws are therefore especially dangerous…
Lesson 2: Don’t trash the capital stock. The oil shocks made large parts of the capital stock uneconomic, especially in manufacturing, as it was designed for an era of low energy prices… An emissions trading scheme is like a self-inflicted oil shock.. The Government’s combination of an ETS and new IR laws may therefore provoke anticipatory shutdowns in capacity and reductions in employment.
Lesson 3: Trying to spend your way out of recessions is a mug’s game… They are ineffectual because the lags between government spending decisions and ultimate economic impacts are difficult to predict and, at least for some kinds of expenditures, likely to be very long… Increased outlays are additionally likely to be inefficient because the setting of spending priorities is so vulnerable to rent-seeking.... Ultimately, the greatest difficulty with poor-quality public expenditure is that it is difficult to reverse.
===
Computers didn’t compute
Andrew Bolt
Glenn Milne says Julia Gillard is spending $800 million more that what she’d promised on computers for schools - a stunt which won’t actually do much to improve teaching:
Kevin Rudd jubilantly announces that an extra $800 million from the commonwealth had secured the states’ agreement to the federal Government’s education revolution to supply children from Year 9 to Year 12 with their own laptops in school.
===
The kindness that kills
Andrew Bolt
Exactly as predicted:
INDONESIAN people smugglers are back in business, with the federal Government conceding there has been a spike in activities…
Immigration Minister Chris Evans… denied the spike was due to Labor’s softening of refugee policy, a move experts on the ground say has encouraged people-smuggling outfits.
The International Organisation for Migration chief-of-mission in Indonesia, Steve Cook, told The Australian the smugglers had tracked the policy changes and there had been a dramatic surge in smuggling in the past 12 months.
===
Our new expert in unwatched films
Andrew Bolt
There’s a very particular reason Australians should care about the way New Zealand taxpayers are forced to subsidise films they’d hate to see:
Last week we saw the release of the (NZ) Film Commission’s usual “aren’t we doing marvellously, darling” annual report… So far, so good, until you get down to a miserable failure, The Ferryman, into which the commission poured $6m of our money… Not one theatre bought this movie…
===
Gore does Oprah; Steele does Gore
Andrew Bolt
Al Gore took his fry-and-die routine to Oprah’s show. Russ Steele does what Oprah wouldn’t and fact checks the professional alarmist’s claims - on temperatures, hurricanes, glaciers and Arctic ice.
And he urges readers who are horrified that Gore was given so much time to distort the truth to contact Oprah to complain.
===
It’s the cartoonist who’s the joke
Andrew Bolt
Only a Sunday Age cartoonist would believe America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq caused the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington. And that the US caused the attacks on Mumbai, too.
Matt Golding is the same fool who thought Kevin Rudd wasn’t lying when he claimed George Bush said “What’s the G20?”
===
No artist can be a pedophile
Andrew Bolt
I’ve already written how Kerry Negara’s new documentary on artist Donald Friend shows the arts caste defending Friend’s pedophilia.
Negara sends me further examples from the transcript of A Loving Friend which shows just how far that caste will go to excuse their sort from even the most fundamental rules of a civilised society - like not having sex with boys aged as young as nine.
===
Wind farms: monuments to stupidity
Andrew Bolt
Britons are learning what an over-priced con wind power really is:
(T)he U.K., under pressure to meet an ambitious E.U. climate target of 20 percent carbon dioxide cuts by 2020, assumed the mantle of world leader in wind power production....
While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.’s energy needs…
===
A busker would do better
Andrew Bolt
Only an arts festival could put on a sell-out show at a subsidised venue with a cast stripped down a single person - and still not make money
Anniversary of the first ALP government anywhere. Queensland 1899. The leader died less than a decade later as a drunk.
===
Tell ‘em he’s Henson
Andrew Bolt
If the man’s an artist, he’ll be let off with a grant:
A man caught taking mobile phone photographs of young children paddling in water at Sydney’s Darling Harbour faces child pornography charges.
===
Three ways Rudd is wrong
Andrew Bolt
Henry Ergas warns that the Rudd Government has forgotten three lessons of history in battling this financial crisis:
Lesson 1: Don’t reduce labour market flexibility. During the period of the two oil shocks (in 1973 and 1979), a slew of European countries strengthened unfair dismissal provisions and gave unions greater bargaining powers. Without exception, the result was to increase unemployment and make it far more persistent… The Government’s proposed new IR laws are therefore especially dangerous…
Lesson 2: Don’t trash the capital stock. The oil shocks made large parts of the capital stock uneconomic, especially in manufacturing, as it was designed for an era of low energy prices… An emissions trading scheme is like a self-inflicted oil shock.. The Government’s combination of an ETS and new IR laws may therefore provoke anticipatory shutdowns in capacity and reductions in employment.
Lesson 3: Trying to spend your way out of recessions is a mug’s game… They are ineffectual because the lags between government spending decisions and ultimate economic impacts are difficult to predict and, at least for some kinds of expenditures, likely to be very long… Increased outlays are additionally likely to be inefficient because the setting of spending priorities is so vulnerable to rent-seeking.... Ultimately, the greatest difficulty with poor-quality public expenditure is that it is difficult to reverse.
===
Computers didn’t compute
Andrew Bolt
Glenn Milne says Julia Gillard is spending $800 million more that what she’d promised on computers for schools - a stunt which won’t actually do much to improve teaching:
Kevin Rudd jubilantly announces that an extra $800 million from the commonwealth had secured the states’ agreement to the federal Government’s education revolution to supply children from Year 9 to Year 12 with their own laptops in school.
===
The kindness that kills
Andrew Bolt
Exactly as predicted:
INDONESIAN people smugglers are back in business, with the federal Government conceding there has been a spike in activities…
Immigration Minister Chris Evans… denied the spike was due to Labor’s softening of refugee policy, a move experts on the ground say has encouraged people-smuggling outfits.
The International Organisation for Migration chief-of-mission in Indonesia, Steve Cook, told The Australian the smugglers had tracked the policy changes and there had been a dramatic surge in smuggling in the past 12 months.
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Our new expert in unwatched films
Andrew Bolt
There’s a very particular reason Australians should care about the way New Zealand taxpayers are forced to subsidise films they’d hate to see:
Last week we saw the release of the (NZ) Film Commission’s usual “aren’t we doing marvellously, darling” annual report… So far, so good, until you get down to a miserable failure, The Ferryman, into which the commission poured $6m of our money… Not one theatre bought this movie…
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Gore does Oprah; Steele does Gore
Andrew Bolt
Al Gore took his fry-and-die routine to Oprah’s show. Russ Steele does what Oprah wouldn’t and fact checks the professional alarmist’s claims - on temperatures, hurricanes, glaciers and Arctic ice.
And he urges readers who are horrified that Gore was given so much time to distort the truth to contact Oprah to complain.
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It’s the cartoonist who’s the joke
Andrew Bolt
Only a Sunday Age cartoonist would believe America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq caused the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington. And that the US caused the attacks on Mumbai, too.
Matt Golding is the same fool who thought Kevin Rudd wasn’t lying when he claimed George Bush said “What’s the G20?”
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No artist can be a pedophile
Andrew Bolt
I’ve already written how Kerry Negara’s new documentary on artist Donald Friend shows the arts caste defending Friend’s pedophilia.
Negara sends me further examples from the transcript of A Loving Friend which shows just how far that caste will go to excuse their sort from even the most fundamental rules of a civilised society - like not having sex with boys aged as young as nine.
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Wind farms: monuments to stupidity
Andrew Bolt
Britons are learning what an over-priced con wind power really is:
(T)he U.K., under pressure to meet an ambitious E.U. climate target of 20 percent carbon dioxide cuts by 2020, assumed the mantle of world leader in wind power production....
While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.’s energy needs…
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A busker would do better
Andrew Bolt
Only an arts festival could put on a sell-out show at a subsidised venue with a cast stripped down a single person - and still not make money
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