Headlines Saturday 4th July 2009

US Independence Day
===
PM to travel to Europe, meet with Pope
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will have an audience with the Pope next week when he travels to Europe...... - the pope will not endorse Rudd for being faithless, or funding family planning, but the Pope will respect the Australian PM. - ed.

Gillard defends Rudd's soft interviews
PM accused of favouring frivolous media engagements over serious current affairs programs. - many senior journalists do the same, excusing Rudd for incompetence -ed.

IVF blunders destroy baby dreams
EMBRYOS lost, destroyed in a blackout and dropped on a floor are just some of the costly errors.

North Korea test-fires two missiles
North Korea has test-fired two more missiles, South Korea's defence ministry says, further stoking......

Africa refuses to act on Sudan war crimes warrant
The African Union has refused to act on an international war crimes warrant for Sudan's president, at a summit that also forged a deal on a new regional authority for the region - although one that could be toothless.

NRL to investigate Eels' secret deals
The Parramatta Eels have been accused of rorting the NRL's salary cap with undisclosed payments of up to $100,000 to players through secret property deals.

ACT funeral held for 'Bob the truckie'
Canberra grandfather Bob Knight, the innocent victim of a recent shoot-out in Sydney, has been remembered as "Bob the truckie", a regular on talkback radio.

Madonna plans Jackson tribute at UK show
Madonna will perform a special tribute to Michael Jackson during her London show at the venue where he was due to stage his farewell shows, she says.

Sarah Palin resigns as Alaska governor
In a surprise move, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says she is stepping down and will not seek re-election, fuelling swift speculation of a possible 2012 White House bid.

Protests mark start of Biden's Iraq trip
A FIERY protest marked the start of US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Iraq, three days after a major US troop pullback. - it is only fair that they protest. Many Iraqi's will die for the Democratic party's policy. - ed.
=== Comments ===
DRAIN EXPLAINED
Tim Blair
“You know the real reason why Time mag is going down the drain?” asks Nick Gillespie. “The content!” Can’t argue with that:

===
DUNK A MODO
Tim Blair
Due to shame, the Washington Post has cancelled an event at which the paper planned to sell access to its reporters and editors (plus key Obama administration and Congressional leaders). But other struggling media enterprises should take up a modified version of the WaPo‘s idea, writes Cliff Thier – starting with the New York Times:
I’d pay to throw baseballs at a target to dunk Maureen Dowd in a tank of water.

Or, to guess Paul Krugman’s weight.

Or, watch Bob Herbert trying to ignore the laws of gravity on a high wire.

Or, Frank Rich in a cage reasoning with lions.

Or, Thomas Friedman putting a sword down this throat while writing about a Bangladeshi doctor he met while waiting for a plane.

Or, to see how many David Brooks can fit in a Volkswagen.
There’s a fortune to be made at Australian newspapers if this new business model catches on.
===
PALIN QUITS
Tim Blair
Breaking news:
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will resign this month and will not run for re-election as governor, CNN reported on Friday.
UPDATE. Last day in office will be July 26:
Her spokesman wouldn’t say why Palin decided to step down, but the announcement stirred speculation that she would focus on a bid for the 2012 Republican nomination for president.
UPDATE II. Via Michelle Malkin, Fox’s Chris Wallace believes the announcement is a sign Palin won’t run in 2012.

UPDATE III. Instapundit: “I don’t know if it has anything to do with her decision, but she’s been subjected — along with her family — to more abuse than any other non-national-officeholder I can think of.”
===
LUCKY DINERS NOW X-RAY RESISTANT
Tim Blair
Weren’t Republicans meant to be the ones poisoning America? At least they never fed toxic lettuce to the homeless:
It was meant to be a show case for healthy living, with the first lady, Michelle Obama, personally putting hand to pitch fork in a crowd of school children to dig up the first White House vegetable garden in more than 50 years.

Instead, an embarrassed White House admitted today that the plot – whose lettuce, herbs and other produce have been consumed by the first family, visiting dignitaries, local school children and a women’s homeless shelter – had tested positive for elevated levels of lead.
It’s back to safe Whole Foods arugula for the Prez. Reuters insists that lead levels in Obama’s garden of doom aren’t dangerous; then again, they also think that “gardener” is spelled without the first “e”. Possibly due to lead poisoning.

OBAMA UPDATE. “Once an American president had promised we would bear any burden,” writes Bill Kristol. “Our current president promises ‘we will continue to bear witness.’ It’s quite an evolution.”
===
RULE DEFIED II
Tim Blair
Peter Roebuck, March 17:
Brett Lee will be hard pressed to regain his place in the Australian Test team … It’s hard to see him playing any part in the 2009 Ashes and he’ll be 33 in November, a combination that does not bode well for a wholehearted cricketer deserving of a better fate.

Lee has crossed a fine, unseen line and, as a rule, there is no going back.
The SMH, today:
Brett Lee surged into Australia’s Ashes attack with a devastating spell of reverse swing bowling …

The veteran paceman resurrected his Test career with a burst of 5-21 in 40 balls against the England Lions in the tour game at Worcester, rediscovering his extreme speed …
===
How many dead per second?
Andrew Bolt
Mesmerising, and even frightening. Watch the world’s numbers spin, as we die, breed, kill and spend by the second. Discount for some of the tendentious preaching, however.
===
Temperature back to normal
Andrew Bolt
New figures in from NASA’s Aqua satellite - and they show that the global temperature in June dropped back to just about the average for the past 30 years. Which mean we’re back to “normal”.

The average temperate rise per decade over those 30 years was 0.13 degrees. And, of course, we’ve had a cooling trend over the past eight years:
===
Green scrooges wanted
Andrew Bolt
Green believer Adele Horin:

Given climate change, and the social and environmental costs of Western-style consumption, surely the world needs more cheapskates.

Flying spendthrfit Adele Horin:

(P)utting the passport in the bottom drawer would really hurt the people who probably care most about global warming. Those who have seen the world are likely to have not only a pile of frequent-flyer points but an affinity with the inhabitants of countries most imperilled by global warming.
===
Sorry was a distraction, not a platform
Andrew Bolt
Paul Kelly seems faintly surprised that Kevin Rudd’s “sorry” to a non-existent ”stolen generations” and talk of “targets” has left Aborigines as poor, jobless and sick as ever. I’m surprised that anyone ever thought Rudd’s stunts were anything but.

What ails Aboriginal townships is not a lack of compassion in white hearts, but a lack of personal responsibility and drive in black culture. Crudely, it’s not about us, but them. Feeding the guilt industry and talking loudly of how much more compassionate you are is a sign that a politician does not understand the true changes that need to be made - huge changes that will take generations to bear fruit, and which must largely come from within the communities themselves.
===
Palin quits
Andrew Bolt
Sarah Palin quits as Governor of Alaska. Her party waits to hear if she’s preparing a bid for the presidency:

The Alaska Republican Party has not been informed whether Gov. Palin plans another run for national office and as such cannot comment on that possibility.

But this doesn’t sound like the first shot in a campaign to be president:

Sarah Palin abruptly resigned on Friday as governor of Alaska, saying she did not want to waste her time on ”political blood sport”...

Brad Norrington speculates on other options:

The glamorous 45-year-old Governor, meanwhile, appears to be enjoying the celebrity amid rumours she might run for the US Senate next year to boost her national profile or, failing that, do a reality TV show. Asked if she could beat Mr Obama, Ms Palin said that determination and endurance made up for what she lacked in comparable physical strength. “So if it were a long race that required a lot of endurance, I’d win,” she said.

Of course, it may be that Palin wants to spare her family more of the astonishing slimes, inventions and fantasies that the Left has heaped on her in the most unprincipled and barbaric pile-on I’ve ever seen in politics.

Indeed, the Huffington Post, which called Palin’s Down Syndrome son a ”runt” at a time when Michael Moore and other Leftists were claiming he was actually the son of Palin’s eldest daughter, now bids a typically vicious farewell, of the kind that makes me wonder how the Left can possibly claim these days to represent a more humane politics:
In Sarah Palin’s resignation announcement she complained about the treatment of her son Trig who always teaches her life lessons. She said that the “world needs more Trigs, not fewer.” That’s a presidential campaign promise we can all get behind. She will be the first politician to actually try to increase the population of retarded people.
===
Rudd’s revenge
Andrew Bolt
Hugh Borrowman once advised Kevin Rudd on foreign affairs, but without crawling. Rudd now has his revenge, not only blocking Borrowman’s appointment to Berlin, but giving him a second prize he can’t accept:

HUGH Borrowman — the senior diplomat Prime Minister Kevin Rudd barred from a top posting to Germany — has now been forced to drop his concession prize of the ambassador’s role in Sweden. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith last night said Mr Borrowman had pulled out of the job because his disabled adult son could not have maintained his status as a disability support pensioner had he taken up the Sweden post.

Investigations by The Age reveal that had Mr Borrowman’s appointment to Germany gone ahead as Mr Smith had recommended, a treaty between the countries would have ensured his son kept his entitlements. Australia has no equivalent social security arrangements with Sweden.

Remember the excuse Rudd gave for overturning a promotion recommended by his own Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith:

The Prime Minister said Mr Borrowman was rejected for the Berlin post because his German skills were sub-standard.

And remember Smith’s glowing praise of Borrowman?

He has qualifications in German, Mandarin, French and Swedish languages.
===
Wong as wrong on sea as on air
Andrew Bolt
Senator Steve Fielding asked the Rudd Government a simple question to prove to him that man’s gases really were causing the world to heat to hell:

Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5% since 1998 whilst global temperature cooled over the same period (see below)? If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?

When I’ve mentioned, too, that the warming has paused since at least 2001, global warming believers have often preferred not to believe it, or even to see it. But Fielding, with a power to block the Government’s emission’s trading scheme in the Senate, could not be fobbed off. So Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and her advisors had to give him a formal answer.

They still say there’s been an overall warming trend since 1998 (technically true, I believe, but certainly not true of the years since 2001) but imply that any more recent cooling doesn’t count:

(A)t time scales of around a decade, natural variability can mask the atmospheric warming trend caused by the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases.

But, more importantly:

When climate change scientists talk about global warming they mean warming of the climate system as a whole, which includes the atmosphere, the oceans, and the cryosphere… (I)n terms of a single indicator of global warming, change in ocean heat content is most appropriate.

So all that talk about hotter temperatures at this city or that town? Just kidding. The goalposts are now switched. The real measure is in fact the rise in temperature in the oceans. Which, you’d assume from Wong’s response, is real and alarming.

Small problem. The best measure of ocean temperatures, the Argo buoys, actually record a fall in temperature since 2004:

Dr David Evans has more.

Indeed, Evans and three other scientists and weather experts assisting Fielding - Professor Bob Carter, former National Climate Centre head Bob Kininmonth and Associate Professor Stewart Franks - have now complied a more formal response to Wong’s answers, which they find unconvincing. Their report below (and apologies for the formatting errors and the failure here to reproduce graphs). You’ll see it tears to shreds Wong’s case for believing in apocalyptic man-made warming, and concludes that Fielding’s questions “remain unanswered by the government”:
===
Warming millions good, sceptics’ thousands bad
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s Emma Alberici yesterday tried to smear Senator Steve Fielding as the dupe of corrupt scientists, paid by Big Oil to deny global warming.

ALBERICI: Bob Ward (above) - a policy director at the London School of Economics - first wrote to ExxonMobil in 2006. He was concerned about the financial support the company provided to climate change deniers…

WARD: They have stopped funding for a number of the groups that have been denying climate change but they haven’t stopped funding them all. Yet they have been telling people that they have stopped all that funding. So I think they should either own up that they are continuing funding for some of these groups or they should keep their promise.

ALBERICI: How many groups and what are the kinds of figures we are talking about as far as sums of money?

WARD: Several hundred thousand dollars a year… These organisations are not informing public debate on climate change, they are trying to mislead people...

Already a couple of things scream out from this report. First, if Fielding’s facts are wrong, then why not simply show why, rather than smear? But if they are right, then what does it matter if Big Oil helped to fund some of the groups publicising the science? All I see here are red herrings.

Second, why does Alberici - who is better than this - stoop to use the term “denier”, which is not only false but a deliberate and disgraceful attempt to align sceptical scientists and politicians with Holocaust deniers?

But here is the most astonishing thing about Alberici’s report. Not only is the money ExxonMobil gives an insigificant fraction of the billions handed out to global warming scientists and spruikers, but it’s also a fraction of the money that Ward’s own Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE got from a global warming evangelist to preach the doomsday gospel:

Jeremy Grantham has given British universities £24m in a bid to save the planet… The British financier, who founded the Boston-based investment fund GMO, which has £55 billion under its management, gave the money to the London School of Economics (LSE) to fund an institute for researching the economics of climate change. A similar amount went to Imperial College London to study climate science.

Altogether, the £24m is one of the largest donations ever made to climate research… So why did Yorkshire-born Grantham do it?

“Because climate change is turning into the biggest problem humanity has ever faced. I wanted to invest my money in places where it might actually help tackle that problem,” said the financier last week…

Which makes Ward a monumental hypocrite.He complains that a few hundred thousand dollars from Big Oil corrupts debate, but says nothing about the more than $20 million his own university gets from Big Warming.

Why did Alberici not mention this?

So here’s the deal for the ABC. Debate the science, but if you must claim that the funding corrupts, at least admit which side gets the most of it.
===
Gassing on about a deal
Andrew Bolt
Tom Switzer is right to doubt there will be much a deal at the Copenhagen summit on global warming at the end of the year:

In exchange for its own carbon cuts, the Chinese government expects the US and other developed nations to cut their emissions by at least 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. Yet the US legislation that only marginally passed the House of Representatives to cap greenhouse gases (with loads of compensation and loopholes for big polluters) translates to about a 4 per cent reduction from 1990 levels — that is, one tenth of what Beijing demands.

China’s leaders also call on the US and other advanced nations to cough up between 0.5 and 1 per cent of their annual GNP to help poorer nations cope with climate change. Yet the entire US foreign aid budget currently amounts to about only 0.17 per cent of GNP.

No wonder the left-liberal, pro-green Los Angeles Times editorialises: ‘Poor countries are placing such extravagant demands on wealthy ones that no American president, even a strong environmentalist like Barack Obama, could possibly accede.’
===
Better than a short mountain
Andrew Bolt
Better remembered in Australia for the name he gave to our highest mountain than he is in America for the service he gave for its freedoms. But now at least given a biography in English.

Hitler finds out Michael Jackson has died.

Hitler is pretty pissed off to hear that Michael Jackson has died and won't be able to perform at his birthday party.

Headlines Friday 3rd July 2009

Newspaper columnist and editor Frank Devine dies, aged 77
Veteran newspaper columnist and editor Frank Devine has died.

He was 77 years old.

On Friday he was described as the "laughing cavalier of Australian journalism", by friend and former NSW opposition leader Peter Coleman on the website of The Australian newspaper, where Mr Devine was a former columnist and editor.

He had also been editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Post, a senior editor at the American edition of Reader's Digest and editor-in-chief of the Australian Reader's Digest.

He worked as a foreign correspondent in New York, London and Tokyo.

"His laughter, often noisy, was always infectious," Mr Coleman said.

"He was a sports fanatic (he had a bookcase full of dog-eared Wisdens), a film buff (his favourite film was The Godfather), and a stylish writer with a love for words."

Mr Devine was born in Blenheim, New Zealand on December 17, 1931.

He began his career as a journalist at the age of 17 on the New Zealand publication The Marlborough Express.

In 1953 he started work at The West Australian, where he met his wife Jacqueline. They married in 1959.

Mr Devine is survived by his wife and his three daughters Miranda, Alexandra and Rosalind. - In all my years of reading newspapers columns, Frank was my favorite writer. I used to buy the Australian on Saturday just to read his lift-out column on language. He was witty, lively, precise and cultured. He was even handed and an advocate, a rare thing these days. I will not miss him, so much as celebrate his life. I am sure it is a substantial loss for his family, as he seemed a passionate, loving man. Thank you Frank. - ed.
--- --- --- ---
Escapee was being minded by 3 officers
Corrective Services has admitted three officers were minding a prisoner at the time of his escape from a Sydney hospital.

'Someone must have seen 14yo abducted'
Police say someone must have seen a teenage girl being forced into a car in Leichhardt before she was allegedly held down and raped earlier this week.

'Prepare for Aussie deaths in Afghanistan'
NATO chief says an upcoming surge from allied military forces, including Australia, will mean more deaths in Afghanistan. - thank you Rudd and Gillard - ed.

Air France jet 'did not break up mid-air'
THE Air France jetliner that crashed in the Atlantic a month ago with 228 people on board was "intact at the time of impact".

Credit card scam triggers AFP warning
Credit card holders are being urged to keep an eye on their statements, after police smashed a multi-million dollar identity fraud syndicate.

Retraining sacked workers dominates COAG
Commonwealth and State leaders have agreed to measures to tackle Indigenous disadvantage and help retrenched workers following talks in Darwin.

Naked Air NZ demos aim to improve safety
Thousands of Air New Zealand passengers will from this week get their flight safety instructions from staff wearing nothing but body paint.

Animals killed in 'cruel' testing
ONE animal is killed every hour despite moves to replace them in medical and cosmetic research. - it is worse, imho, when a person dies. - ed.

Three new dinosaurs discovered in Qld
Meet Banjo, Matilda and Clancy - the first large Australian dinosaurs to be discovered in almost three decades. - in Canberra, one is PM, another is treasurer and a third is governor general. - ed.

Microsoft pulls 'worst tech ad ever'
MICROSOFT has pulled an ad from the web that promotes its new browser with footage of a woman vomiting on her husband.

Positive thinking can make things worse
CHANTING positive statements such as "I am a lovable person" can make people sad, study says.
=== Comments ===
Quote of the year
Andrew Bolt
Columnist Burt Prelutsky:

On a more serious note, I sincerely hope that when the President goes in for his annual check-up, the doctors at Bethesda will do a brain scan. Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran.
===
Bolt observes that every time Rudd is unthinkingly supported by journalists he gets more popular.
===
A sinister hatred kept alive when we turn a blind eye
Frank Devine
IT is improbable that I could bring myself to stay for long, if at all, in the same room with somebody who had described Jews as "real motherf--king bastards." Apart from this piece of abuse, Maqsood Alsham, an asylum seeker from Bangladesh, has described the Gaza invasion by Israel as a worse atrocity than the Holocaust.

Yet three universities - Sydney, Macquarie and the Sydney University of Technology - continued their support of a conference organised by Maqsood to debate whether Israel should be tried by the International Court of Justice for the invasion.

In an early defence, Maqsood ingenuously whinged: "Is it anything wrong to have a private conversation? This is not my public view."

But to hold and express such views privately or publicy is to put oneself beyond the pale.

The English Catholic schismatic "bishop" Richard Williamson has done that with his dogmatic assertions that "only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews" died under Nazi persecution and none in gas chambers.

Only 200,000 or 300,000 men, women and children murdered for the crime of being Jews! How trivial a transgression!

Williamson reiterated this view on Swedish TV just prior to Pope Benedict's lifting last week the excommunication orders imposed on Williamson and three other "bishops" of the breakaway Society of Pius IX, founded by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in rebellion against some of the conclusions of Vatican Council II.

Not being skilled at reading the minds of popes, I'm inclined to accept the official explanation that Benedict, having responsibility for preserving church unity, seeks to draw the Society of Pius IX back into the Catholic communion. The Pope's personality also makes it plausible that he cancelled the excommunication order, imposed on the four bishops by Paul VI in 1988, out of compassion for the individuals.

But Williamson! Great fools have achieved episcopal rank before, and you don't have to search widely to suspect their contemporary presence.
===
Breeding fighters and haters
Andrew Bolt

How cute. Palestinian kindergarteners do a traditional dance around Israeli bodies.

Add another generation to this particular war.

UPDATE

Reader Lee wonders if this wall will be damned as Israel’s was:

Saudi Arabia has signed a deal with a major European defence contractor to build a hi-tech security system including a fence around the whole of its 9,000 kilometre border… Its two main concerns are its neighbours Iraq and Yemen, and the instability and lawlessness of these two countries have raised fears in Saudi Arabia that their problems will overflow the border.
===
Rudd needs soft sand to spin
Andrew Bolt
John Howard isn’t impresed by Kevin Rudd’s strategy of flirting with Rove but avoiding programs such as Insiders, on which I believe he’s appeared just once since the election:

In stark contrast to Howard, whose medium of choice was talkback radio, Rudd has made a specialty of forums such as FM radio and Rove…

“The reason I didn’t do that kind of media is that I didn’t think I would be very good at it,” Howard told The Australian. “But I also thought the prime minister oughtn’t to do too much of that stuff. I took the view that my responsibility was to go on serious programs. Although I did do talkback radio, I didn’t avoid the serious interviews.

“I had frequent press conferences and I would often go until they were getting agitated and wanted to file.”

While there is certainly nothing wrong with a prime minister discussing his use of a hair-dryer with Rove McManus - or engaging him in exchanges via Twitter - that was not the universal judgment on Howard’s talkback appearances with Neil Mitchell in Melbourne and Alan Jones in Sydney. In an essay in Stifling Dissent, a 2007 collection edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison, Helen Ester argued that the Howard strategy of daily talkback appearances had “diminished other democratic institutions, including the parliament itself”.

Based on interviews with a dozen senior Canberra journalists, Ester said: “Their perspectives show that the last decade has seen an increased focus on strategies to block and control access to information flows from the gaze and analysis of the critical expertise of journalists in the parliamentary round.” ...

Similar criticisms have not been directed at Rudd, despite his blanket ban on appearing with Jones.

Actually, that last bit is not quite true. Some journalists, anonymously, are indeed now complaining - but very quietly, fearfully and without the venom:

But the TV networks - and we spoke to all five - believe it’s getting harder than ever for them to do their job. Some typical comments:

It’s getting worse than with Howard… They are worse than the previous government… It’s disgraceful…
UPDATE

Barack Obama’s press corp, however, is starting to bridle at their own leader’s spin, not least the by-arrangement vetting of questions.

UPDATE 2

The White House corps was right to be sceptical about Obama’s management of even a town hall meeting. A “random” question from the audience turned out to come from a volunteer from an Obama campaign outfit. Not that Obama knew that, he said.
===
How the (compact fluorescent) light died
Andrew Bolt
Dan Bishton discovers it’s not so Easy Being Green, after all, as another green scheme bites the dust:

For two years I worked for Easy Being Green, a Sydney-based carbon trading firm that operated under the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. As a team leader there, I spruiked, cajoled and charmed members of the public into taking home free boxes of energy-saving CFL globes ...

“100 per cent free,” I’d say — “All you have to do is sign this form.”

The form was a nomination form, which stated that the hapless coal-fired electricity consumer could have the bulbs for free, if they promised to use them — as long as Easy Being Green could keep the saved energy. Or to put it more accurately, claim a certificate representing a tonne of saved carbon, which could be sold on one of the world’s oldest carbon markets, the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme…

Ex-Greenpeace Chairman Paul Gilding led the company with galvanising speeches about harnessing market forces… Many of the initial employees were ex-Greenpeace members…

Life was grand at first… The price for a tonne of carbon was at its peak of $25, and the nomination forms were rolling in at an incredible pace… Trade of demand-side certificates (carbon credits) mushroomed to almost 9 million throughout 2006, many times the previous year’s total…

The scheme’s administrator was IPART, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal… (In 2006) IPART received the results from a Newspoll survey conducted on giveaway installation rates. Newspoll’s survey found that only four of every 10 bulbs found their way into light sockets — half the rate that the booming giveaway companies had been claiming credit for. Half-way through August, IPART made a shock announcement that slashed the installation discount factor accordingly to 0.4, halving the value of NGACs generated by giveaway programs....

The IPART announcement killed light bulb giveaways… Easy Being Green became insolvent and went into third-party administration in October 2007.

Carbon trading will give us countless more such stories, I’m afraid, only this time involving a lot more money transferred from you to them.
===
Doing to ourselves what warming won’t
Andrew Bolt
The most bizarre example so far of how fear of global warming causes more damage than global warming itself:

MILLIONS of dollars worth of luxury waterfront homes at Byron Bay will be demolished in the name of climate change following a council decision to enshrine “planned retreat” in law.
===
Global warming shrinks sheep
Andrew Bolt
Top this:

Sheep living on a remote island off the coast of Scotland have been shrinking for 20 years. Now it seems shorter winters caused by climate change are responsible.

Amazingly enough, global warming is blamed even though it’s cooled over the past eight of those 20 years:
===
Manne on fire
Andrew Bolt
Robert Manne blames post-modernism for many of the deaths in the Black Saturday fires:

Drawing on the evidence given so far at the royal commission hearings in Melbourne, Manne explains how the response to the fires was gravely undermined by a culture of institutional timidity and bureaucracy.

”Far too few inside the firefighting bureaucracies were willing on February 7 to break the rules, to disobey authority or to act spontaneously at a time of crisis,” he writes.

He concludes that this timidity contributed to a deadly failure to deliver warnings to people in the path of the fires. But Manne goes further, suggesting that there was a moral vacuum at the heart of the way the firefighting bureaucracies responded.

“Conformity to rules was the enemy of judgment, commonsense and moral responsibility,” he writes.

“The answer to the question of why we weren’t warned ... requires not only the forensic capacity of a royal commission but also a sociologist with the capacity to illuminate the strange character of our postmodern world.”

Post-modernism? I’m not so sure. I’d see it more as a indictment of a common characteristic of any bureaucracy - the elevation of process over judgment. The trouble is that this is not always a failing, given that good judgment is a rarer quality than it should be, and process helps to conquer panic.

So while Manne strikes me as too scathing of the CFA, some of his examples are indeed compelling:

He highlights testimony to the commission about how Jason Lawrence, the CFA chief at Kangaroo Ground, ignored repeated pleas from his staff to issue an awareness message to the fire-threatened regions of Wandong, Wallan, Kinglake, Strathewen and St Andrews in the early to mid-afternoon of Black Saturday.

According to evidence given to the commission Lawrence refused to approve a warning on bureaucratic grounds, saying it was “not appropriate” because a CFA incident control centre at Kilmore had technical responsibility for issuing the warnings in that area.
===
Creating children with no past
Andrew Bolt
THE most medically monstrous thing about Michael Jackson was not his bleached and carved face.

That hurt no one but himself, after all.

No, uglier still was a thoroughly modern medical procedure he had performed—a modish bit of biological engineering of the kind that’s hailed as a life-giving marvel of our time.

Its perverse results now make it bizarre that so many people could both cry for Jackson, yet then gladly switch on one of the country’s biggest TV shows and cry all over again.

That show is, of course, Find My Family, a Channel 7 smash that usually features adopted children trying to find the parents who gave them away.
===
Save our right to fewer rights
Andrew Bolt
YOU’D think we already had more rights than is right, especially when one man’s right means someone else must pay.

Julian Knight is only the latest to prove the point.

Here’s a crowing, unrepentant and cowardly killer of seven people who’s so plagued our courts with trumped-up, look-at-me claims that he was finally declared a “vexatious litigant”.

Foolish me thought that meant he’d never get to waste court time again, but there he was last week, in the Practice Court this time, claiming his “right” to have a computer in his cell.

That even Knight, a man who just shot strangers in a street, can trumpet so noisily about “rights” to even a computer shows how carefully we’ve coached even bottom-feeders to demand more than they are due—and demand it from you, not themselves.

And that our courts still let Knight through their doors shows that even the worst and least deserving of us still has elbow room at that trough.

Yet the Rudd Government is now considering whether to give us even more “rights”—maybe even a bill or charter of human rights—and has had a National Human Rights Consultation Committee tramping the country to see what would best suit.

Popular Kids In Movies

communitychannel
July 02, 2009
are lame *high five*
Thanks for the well wishes from the last video. I'm probably going to punch a baby I'm still in pain but at least I can talk now. Love you all very much!
Hope you guys are well and had a good week and enjoy a good start to the weekend.
x
n
===
I just realized, Nat. Your mum starred in Heathers.

Headlines Thursday 2nd July 2009

Mass murderer 'wants computer in his cell'
HODDLE St murderer Julian Knight says he will continue his fight to have a computer in his cell all the way to the Supreme Court.

Aboriginal child abuse 'getting worse'
Indigenous child abuse and neglect has more than doubled since 2000 according to a new report, with..... - Thank you for your work, Rudd and Gillard - ed.

Escaped python strangles toddler in cot
A 2-year-old girl has been strangled by Burmese python after the pet snake escaped and found its way into her bedroom.

200,000 across Australia lose power
More than 200,000 people lost power across Australia today, because of a major problem at a power......

Credit card scam triggers AFP warning
Credit card holders are being urged to keep an eye on their statements, after police smashed a multi-million dollar identity fraud syndicate.

Retraining sacked workers dominates COAG
Commonwealth and State leaders have agreed to measures to tackle Indigenous disadvantage and help retrenched workers following talks in Darwin.

Naked Air NZ demos aim to improve safety
Thousands of Air New Zealand passengers will from this week get their flight safety instructions from staff wearing nothing but body paint.

Neverland will be Jackson's Graceland
MICHAEL Jackson's body will make a final journey to Neverland, which could become a memorial.

Mum, tot death plunge 'carefully planned'
A MOTHER who strapped her toddler to her chest and leapt off a bridge had planned the suicide for weeks, an inquest hears.

Rudd Government plan to stamp out cane toads
VOLUNTEERS are to be enlisted to help kill off the cane toad. But the carnage will not end the toads. Environment Minister Peter Garrett will today announce a $400 million budget for mitigation programs, including funding 2550 "community volunteer days of cane toad control".- Sounds like a Rudd plan. - ed.

Indian court rules gay sex legal
A top Indian court has issued a landmark ruling decriminalising gay sex between consenting adults, overturning colonial-era legislation that outlawed homosexuality.

Soccer declared globally corrupt
THE multi-billion dollar soccer sector has become a vehicle for money laundering and other forms of corruption, a study says.
=== Journalists Corner ===
According to AEG: This is a picture of Michael Jackson in what would be his final performance, a June 23, 2009 rehearsal for his "This Is It" tour.

===
Remembering a Pop Legend!

He was her childhood idol, influencing her own successful music career! Celine Dion reflects on Michael Jackson.

It's a powerful 'On the Record'!
===
Trouble for the Plan?
As Dems push their healthcare plan, Congress cuts out for recess. So, what awaits the bill after the break? Get answers on 'Your World'!
===
Healthcare, Energy, Economy
All the action, all the politics and all the latest stories. If it's happening in Washington, it's happening here! Only on 'Special Report'!
===
A 'Factor' Investigation!
Geraldo with a shocking update on the child rapist getting released after only months in jail!
===Comments ===
Gay lords should bite the bullet on Bruno
Piers Akerman
IF IT’S OK for a couple of hundred men to prance along Oxford St with feather dusters strapped to their backsides during the Mardi Gras, who could be offended by comic Sacha Baron Cohen dressing up like a homosexual fashion designer and camping it up? - As a beginning teacher, nearly two decades ago, some year 7 kids asked me if I was going to the Campbelltown Mardi Gras known as Fisher’s Ghost festival. I said I wouldn’t be going. They said they would be performing. I said if their parents let them that was ok. They thought that was very funny, and they said .. it isn’t like the Sydney mardi gras. I said I hoped it wasn’t too, not that there was anything wrong with that. Life as a public school teacher is not easy, sometimes. - ed.
===
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE HELPING
Tim Blair
A British academic, part of a team of idiots who stopped a train delivering coal to the Drax power station, explains his motives:
“UN statistics show that the amount of carbon produced by Drax was responsible for 180 deaths a year. Every minute we were on that train, we were stopping carbon emissions.”
No, they weren’t:
In fact, Drax functioned uninterrupted during the 16-hour stand-off before police cut climbing bolts and locks attaching protesters to the train and bridge.
===
RADAR RUDD
Tim Blair
The Prime Minister is working in deepest secrecy:
Much of what the government is doing to combat people smuggling is below the public’s radar, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says …

“We work through these things all the time,” he told Fairfax Radio Network on Wednesday.

“A lot of what occurs is ... below the radar ... never in the public debate.”
Which might explain why so many smuggled people keep coming here. Or dying during the attempt.
===
OUT OF MY WAY, CRIPPLES
Tim Blair
At this eco-minded grocery store, the parking space for a hybrid car is closer to the entrance than are spaces for disabled people:

UPDATE. Where do you park the private jet?
===
EASIER TO EXPORT CADILLACS
Tim Blair
Hey, Al Gore! You can’t sell American chickens in China!
===
TREASONOUS ROOTING
Tim Blair
First we were guilty of treason against the planet. And now, according to Democrat warmenoid Henry Waxman:
“They [Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They’re rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming.”
Of course we oppose the world. Henry Waxman lives on it.

UPDATE. A commenter at Crittenden’s:
The actual 4.6 billion-year old planet, survivor of multitudes of asteroid hits, Milankovitch cycle changes, magnetic pole reversals, solar and cosmic radiation, myriad volcanic caldera collapses, mantle plume eruptions, etc., etc. doesn’t give a rat’s ass about a few degrees Celsius or what idiots like Krugman think.
Treason!
===
KARL MALDEN, MOLLIE SUGDEN
Tim Blair
The great Karl Malden has died at 97.

UPDATE. Are You Being Served? star Mollie Sugden has died at 86.
===
2,478,040,448 FOR PROGRESS
Tim Blair
China has already indicated its opposition to carbon cuts. India joins in:
India said it will reject any new treaty to limit global warming that makes the country reduce greenhouse-gas emissions because that will undermine its energy consumption, transportation and food security.

“India will not accept any emission-reduction target – period,” [Environment Minister Jairam] Ramesh said. “This is a non-negotiable stand.”
Look on the bright side, envirodinks. Think of all the emissions saved by not going to Copenhagen.
===
DIVERSITY CRUSHED
Tim Blair
At last:
The world’s biggest mobile phone makers announced a deal Monday agreeing to a universal standard phone charger that will work on millions of handsets made by different manufacturers.
===
NOW HE’S IN THE BIG HOUSE
Tim Blair
Party boy Gregory McCalium before he broke into the home of 72-year-old British man Frank Corti:

Party boy Gregory McCalium after he broke into the home of 72-year-old British man – and former boxer – Frank Corti:

===
IT’S STILL 2008
Tim Blair
A 9,800-word profile of Sarah Palin reveals more about the author than about the subject, which presumably wasn’t the aim. Also, US newspaper columnists have apparently never heard of Joe Biden:
She may not have won the Vice Presidency, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did receive a consolation prize from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC): the Sitting Duck Award.

Palin, running mate of GOP nominee John McCain, was selected for the award at the NSNC’s Annual Conference, held last weekend in Ventura, Calif. She was nominated for “showing it’s hard to put your best foot forward when it’s in your mouth,” according to the NSNC Web site.
US newspaper employees delivering a sitting duck award to someone other than themselves. Cute.

UPDATE. An ongoing cultural shift:
Since Obama came into office, Fox has continued not only winning, but doing so at unprecedented levels. As the Hollywood Reporter noted last week, the network is having its"best year yet,” with the competition in the ratings shifting from not only the news networks but all of basic cable.
===
Take a chance on us
Andrew Bolt
That’s really sending a signal:

THE Federal Government is involved in multimillion-dollar negotiations to use Christmas Island’s luxurious casino resort in its battle to house the rapidly growing number of asylum seekers and staff required to care for them.

In fact, the people smugglers could use pictures of the casino on their brochures:
===
Planet gets Lucas aid
Andrew Bolt
Only a modern green would see nothing weird in preaching global warming gospel from a seat in a private jet. Take actress Isabel Lucas, star of Michael Bay’s Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen:

The director did learn something from Lucas, though, when he flew her between states in the US on his private jet. “After a flight I asked him if I could offset it. He was like, ‘What’s offsetting?’ He flies everywhere so I explained to him what it meant, and gave him a website to go to where he could learn about offsetting. That would be a move in the right direction.”

And even on the set of this huge, elecrticity-gobbling project, designed to get millions of people driving to electrically-power multiplexes, Lucas did her little best:

I tried suggesting to Michael that perhaps we could create some hybrid cars in the film, like a Toyota Prius that turns into a Transformer. But he’s not really that way inclined.

Warms your heart. And the planet.
===
Sun accused
Andrew Bolt
Correlation recently reported between solar/GCR variability and temperature in Siberia from glacial ice core, 30 yr lag (ie. ocean currents may be part of response)

Man may be innocent, after all. Jasper Kirkby of CERN explains new research into whether solar activity has caused cosmic rays to indirectly warm the earth:

This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.

UPDATE

A new paper in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics also fingers the sun:
In concluding, we find increasingly strong evidence of a clear solar signature in a number of climatic indicators in Europe, strengthening the earlier conclusions of a study that included stations from the United States (Le Mouël et al., 2008 ). With the recent downturn of both solar activity and global temperatures, the debated correlations we suggested in Le Mouël et al. (2005), which appeared to stop in the 1980s, actually might extend to the present. The role of the Sun in global and regional climate change should be re-assessed and reasonable physical mechanisms are in sight.
===
Where are those protesters now?
Andrew Bolt

Greg Sheridan:

Apart from ethnic Iranians, there has hardly been a single demonstration in any Western capital in support of the Iranian democrats.

Yet isn’t there a class, in Australia and in the rest of the West, of people deeply concerned about human rights? The class that Robert Manne and Judith Brett call the moral middle class? Weren’t there thousands of demonstrators against the World Trade Organisation and G20 meetings in Australia because the global economy allegedly repressed the rights of poor people?

What about the groups explicitly dedicated to human rights? ...

The truth is the language and practice of human rights advocacy in the West has become completely corrupted by the postmodern ideologies of the contemporary Left. In this parallel universe all crimes are a subset of imperialism and the only true villains are the US, Israel and, for us, Australia…

Where are you on Iran, Louise Adler, happy to accuse Israel of war crimes without the slightest evidence, but apparently unstirred by the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians in Iran?

What have you got to say, Antony Loewenstein, stupidly and inaccurately labelling Israel an apartheid state and approvingly quoted in the Iranian official media, but listless on your blog in the face of the Iranian repression?

What about The Age’s cartoonist Michael Leunig, who once drew a cartoon so morally obtuse, stupid and offensive that it was happily accepted by an Iranian newspaper in a competition for cartoons that would offend Jews (the cartoon was submitted without Leunig’s knowledge), but who is apparently unmoved to draw an image in sympathy with young Iranian democrats?
===
Vanity Fair invents another Palin
Andrew Bolt
Vanity Fair slimes Sarah Palin in a way that shows how little facts count in the media when you are licensed to sneer.

Tim Blair has more - and notes the continuing rise of Fox News. Coincidence?

UPDATE

Would the lascivious dandy who edits this magazine ever see in Palin anything but a threat to his dinner party’s seating arrangements?

===
Must be more of that sexism
Andrew Bolt
When the figures were reversed they were proof of sexism, and programs and laws were needed to redress the “imbalance”. So what do the figures prove now, and should the same kind of affirmative action laws - this time for men - be introduced?

Christina Hoff Sommers on how men became the second sex at American universities:

In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences released Beyond Bias And Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, which found “pervasive unexamined gender bias” against women in academic science. Donna Shalala, a former Clinton administration cabinet secretary, chaired the committee that wrote the report. When she spoke at a congressional hearing in October 2007, she warned that strong measures would be needed to improve the “hostile climate” women face in university science. This “crisis,” as she called it, “clearly calls for a transformation of academic institutions . . . Our nation’s future depends on it.”

While some scholars contend that ‘unconscious bias’ and persistent stereotypes are primary reasons for the paucity of women in the high echelons of math and science, others, perhaps a majority, suggest that men and women, on average, have different career interests and propensities.

The study was controversial from the beginning. John Tierney of the New York Times interviewed several researchers who dismissed it as politically driven propaganda—the “triumph of politics over science."…

This past Tuesday the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a non-political, objective study of women in academic science (which)… contradicts key findings of Beyond Bias and Barriers. According to its executive summary:

Our survey findings do indicate that, at many critical transition points in their academic careers (e.g., hiring for tenure-track and tenure positions and promotions) women appear to have fared as well as or better than men…

So now what? Can we at least drop the women-as-victims rhetoric? And perhaps we could also drop that whole soggy theorising over differences that are so easily explained by simple preferences, rather than injustice.
===
Goldblum mourns Goldblum
Andrew Bolt
www.colbertnation.com

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Jeff Goldblum is lucky, being able to deliver his own eulogy. Still, it must have felt freaky.
===
A memorial for every housefire, too?
Andrew Bolt
Please, can we keep our catastrophes in proportion? Black Saturday indeed devastated many communities, which deserve and got our help, But is Musk Vale really one of them?

From the Hepburn Advocate:

THE shire will receive almost $80,000 to create a bushfire memorial. The State Government last week announced the shire was one of 19 councils to share in $2.5 million funding for memorials to mark February’s bushfires.

Premier John Brumby said the monuments could be physical monuments, gardens, open spaces for reflection, landscaping, sculptures or a commemorative event.

“Funding can be used to create community memorials to remember the bushfires, to support communities to acknowledge the scale, impact and loss, as well as to acknowledge their pride and resilience during recovery,” he said…

The Musk Vale bushfires, which started on February 23, destroyed one home...
===
Not all genocide and child-theft
Andrew Bolt
Queensland Museum bucks the overwhelming trend, with an exhibition that dares mention that perhaps some Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders might actually be glad the Europeans came:
Torres Strait Islanders celebrate 1st July as The Coming of the Light, a yearly holiday in the Torres Strait.

One Saturday evening, 1st July 1871, the Reverend Samuel MacFarlane of the London Missionary Society anchored at Erub (Darnley Island). The Society had been active in the Southwest Pacific since the 1840’s converting people to Christianity.

Dabad, a Warrior Clan Elder on Erub, “defied his Tribal Law” and openly welcomed the London Missionary Society clergymen and South Sea Islander evangelists and teachers… The Islanders acceptance of the missionaries and Christianity meant the end of inter island conflict. Christian principles were partly compatible with traditional religion and the missionaries gave some protection and assistance to Islanders in their contact with foreigners in the maritime industry.
===
Is It Legal? Supreme Court OKs Protests at Soldiers' Funerals and Mom of 550-Pound Boy Faces Charges
This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," June 30, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MONICA CROWLEY, GUEST HOST: We continue now with "Is It Legal?" The mother of a 14-year-old South Carolina boy who weighs 550 pounds faces felony neglect charges, and 10 more people will reportedly be charged in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. But first, the U.S. Supreme Court says these anti-gay protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church can continue to picket at the funerals of American soldiers.

Megyn, let me begin with you. I think that what these people do is particularly despicable. I mean, if you've got a beef with the United States military and their policies on gays, then go picket outside the Pentagon. But for God's sake, do not be picketing outside the funeral of an American serviceman or woman. I find it so disgusting, and yet, the U.S. Supreme Court says they can do it. Why?

MEGYN KELLY, "AMERICA'S NEWSROOM" CO-HOST: Yes. Who, other than the people who are part of this so-called church, would disagree with that? I can't imagine there's one viewer watching this show who likes what these people have to say. And they don't care whether the service people were gay or straight. In fact, as far as I know, they all have been straight. And yet, they go to their funerals to try to protest the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. They're nut cases. It's all one big family.

In any event, I don't think the judges on the Supreme Court or the lower courts like these people anyway. What they do like is the First Amendment, and what happened here was Missouri tried to pass a law as other states have done saying you can't protest within a certain radius of funerals. And the — but the law wasn't that well-defined. It didn't say what the radius was. So this crazy church hired the ACLU, or didn't have to hire but the ACLU, of course, stepped in and volunteered to sue to challenge the law. They got an injunction preventing the enforcement of the law. The Supreme Court was just asked whether that injunction should be left in place. They refused to take the case, which means as a practical matter the law cannot be enforced while this litigation plays out in Missouri. So they still have a chance of enforcing it.

CROWLEY: OK. So do you agree that the reason the Supreme Court turned it down was because the case just wasn't ripe yet?

LIS WIEHL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Exactly. The Supreme Court said, look, we're not ruling on the constitutionality. They didn't say we love these guys either. I agree. Everybody could agree on that. But they said, "It's not right for us yet. You at the lower court level have to decide on the constitutionality." Because yes, there is a First Amendment, of course. But you can also put reasonable time, manner and limit restrictions. You can say, as the law tried to say, OK, you can protest, but not for an hour before and an hour after. Let's see…

CROWLEY: And isn't it true that in America we do have protected areas like Arlington National Cemetery for example...

WIEHL: Of course. Of course.

CROWLEY: ...and schools, so if a protest is going to happen and have an adverse impact, right, the law says that they can be blocked.

WIEHL: Exactly.

(CROSSTALK)

KELLY: But Monica, the problem here, Missouri would have been fine, I think, if they had written the law the way Ohio did, where they said 300 yards away from the funeral and don't do it for an hour before or an hour after the funeral service. Unfortunately, they did a broad-brush law that said just stay the heck away, essentially. And that's why they got the challenge. I think even if their law winds up failing, they're going to pass a law that looks more like Ohio's, and the soldiers' families will be protected in Missouri ultimately.

CROWLEY: Megyn, do you know if any other states have laws like this in place?

KELLY: Yes, about 40, all because of these crazies at the Westboro Baptist Church, who come out to make a ridiculous point. No one ever thought we needed a law like this. Nobody was bothering grieving family members of service personnel until these people decided to make their message known at the funeral. So, now, thankfully, most states are protecting funeral goers. And I think Missouri will get the law right eventually one way or the other.

WIEHL: They need to rewrite the law.

CROWLEY: And the Missouri attorney general actually says he's going to appeal on this.

WIEHL: Absolutely.

CROWLEY: Well, these people do this to their eternal shame.

All right. Let's move on to Bernie Madoff. A report today...

WIEHL: Right.

CROWLEY: ...saying that up to 10 more indictments could be coming. Who are we looking at here? Maybe the wife, Ruth?

WIEHL: Absolutely. The wife, Ruth, the two sons. The wife wasn't just the wife who sat at home. She was the bookkeeper for this organization. And the only other person that's been charged right now is Madoff's accountant. So what I would be doing if I were the prosecutor is — I'm sure they already have — is, you know, getting everything from that accountant, getting the names of everybody else that knew things and then what incentive does Madoff have now after a 150-year sentence? Not much except one: to try to save his family.

CROWLEY: Well, and Megyn, we saw yesterday a statement from the wife, Ruth. It was clearly lawyered up. She is clearly lawyered up. I think this was a CIA — CYA statement from Ruth Madoff.

KELLY: Right.

CROWLEY: He also had two sons.

KELLY: Now she feels bad.

CROWLEY: Well, I guess. I guess. But we also had two sons. We've got a brother who worked with Bernie Madoff.

KELLY: The brother. The brother. Hello, the brother was the compliance officer for the company.

WIEHL: Right.

KELLY: He's the guy responsible for saying "We're meeting all the SEC regulations. We're not doing anything wrong." I would say the brother would be the No. 1 place you look to see who's going to be charged next. But I don't know. So far they haven't named anybody specifically, and so far we haven't heard anything about these two sons, who Bernie Madoff has maintained knew nothing about it. They only ran the legitimate end of the business.

CROWLEY: And just one quick thing though. Don't forget, a la Martha Stewart, if you lie to the feds during an investigation, a federal investigation, that's a crime right there. The cover-up is — well, maybe not in this case but it's usually worse than the actual crime. This was a very sophisticated fraud. One man did not do this by himself.

KELLY: Exactly. Exactly.

WIEHL: Absolutely right.

CROWLEY: All right. Let's move on to the South Carolina case. Megyn, we have this very sad story about this boy, 14 years old, weighing 550 pounds. The mother has now been charged with a count of child neglect and I guess endangerment. If this child weighed, say, 60 pounds, that would be a clear case of neglect, right? The child's life is in danger. But can't you make the other argument that he's so morbidly obese that his — that his life is also in danger?

KELLY: You absolutely can, and I'm glad they did. Listen, I am not for the nanny state. And I get upset when I see prosecutors coming in and trying to tell parents how to parent their children. This is not one of those cases. This is not a problematic case. This is egregious. This mother basically says, well, she didn't have a lot of money, and she didn't have that much time to, you know, sort of watch him, make sure he was eating the right thing. Well, she certainly had enough time to buy him the food and to provide food that was obviously unhealthy, because no 14-year-old boy should be 555 pounds. She's pushing this kid toward a heart attack, not to mention a litany of other health problems. The state tried to step in. They tried to warn her, and say, "Ma'am, you're basically killing your son," and she blew it off.

CROWLEY: That's right. That's right. Quickly, Lis.

WIEHL: First of all, this woman needs help. I agree with that. Maybe she needs psychological counseling putting her in prison where he says the boy is now going to get depressed is going to make him eat more.

CROWLEY: All right, ladies, thank you so much for joining me today.

wisdom teeth and Viktor stood me up

communitychannel
June 30, 2009
I bled for you, I just want you to know. Sorry, I got my teeth out yesterday morning hence not being able to talk much.
I promised a video soon so here it is although short and strange. Sorry about that.
Hope you're all well and enjoying your week.
x
===
I saw Viktor, briefly. He was flying, with his arms around your mum .. she stood me up.

A Timeless Question of Two Roads and Two Guards

I'm reminded of this timeless question. One road leads to hell, and another to great riches. At the gate to these two roads stand two guards, nearly identical. One will always lie, although the listener may identify much that is urbane, making social sense. The other guard will tell the truth, but bumbles and stumbles as a bad liar. You get to email a guard, and have the reply "That road will lead to a free ute, mate." The question is, which of the two guards is Kevin Rudd, and which is Wayne Swan?
===
a variant;
which of the two guards is Obama, and which is Biden?

A Hostage's Dream

Blues piece. Written by David Daniel Ball, performed by Barretok and Filmscore
at icompositions
http://www.icompositions.com/music/so...
Lyrics;
A Hostage's Dream by ddball

Only because I wanted friendship
Only because you seemed to care
Only because I lost my brother
And the ambulance wasn't there

Only because I grieved for summer
Only because of the sports we dare
Only because there seemed no hope
Yet that dream we seemed to share

Only because its worth the journey
Only because we have to fight
Only because the flash of brilliance
Dims before the morning light

Only because I had to see you
Only because of the way you smile
Only because of the pet you rescued
From beneath the stinking pile.

Only because I have no power
Only because I lost my strength
Only because I gave to anger
And said some rather silly things

Only because there is tomorrow
Only because the sun will rise
Only because a mornings promise
Shines beyond that daring glare.

Headlines Wednesday 1st July 2009

Turnbull's Ozcar statement satisfies police
THE Australian Federal Police have declared a statement from Malcolm Turnbull over the weekend was all they needed concerning their investigation into the fake email at the heart of the Ozcar affair. - Rudd was wrong to use the AFP to attempt to smear Turnbull. Will Rudd submit himself to a similar examination? Will Rudd stand up like a man and resign for his appalling behavior? - ed.

Turnbull visits troops in Afghanistan
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has escaped to the relative sanctuary of Afghanistan after one of the toughest weeks of his political career. - Still Rudd escapes serious examination of possibly corrupt conduct. - ed.

Silvestri's 'slap on the wrist' slammed
Leo Silvestri, one of the men charged over the cruise ship death of Dianne Brimble has been handed a 15 month suspended jail sentence.

Anthony Zervas's brother charged
The brother of the man killed in the Sydney Airport brawl has been charged over the deadly fight.

Jackson's parents get his kids, for now
Michael Jackson's mother has become the temporary guardian of his three children.

Police apprehend escapee 'Buffalo Bill'
Police have rounded up a furious escapee in Sydney’s west this afternoon, known only as ‘Buffalo Bill’.

Officer at centre of Mallard case quits
A former assistant West Australian police commissioner at the centre of a wrongful imprisonment case has resigned from the force.

Jackson's children 'aren't his or Debbie's'
WEBSITE reports neither Michael Jackson or ex-wife Debbie Rowe are the parents of his children.

Israel boards activist ship
THE Israeli navy overnight boarded and seized a ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists that was heading to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's blockade, a military spokesman said.

First Europeans were cannibals, say Spanish archaeologists
The remains of the "first Europeans" discovered at an archaeological site in northern Spain have revealed that these prehistoric humans were cannibals who particularly liked the flesh of children.

=== Journalists Corner ===
Too Much, Too Soon?
The president's trying to tackle healthcare, the economy, global warming, automakers, and more -- but is he in over his head?===
A City in Trouble
One city's staggering unemployment -- is the government doing enough? The mayor of Elkhart, IN reacts!
===
D.C.'s Epic Energy Battle!
The Cap & Trade bill passes in the House! Now, Michael Steele on the GOP's plan to shut down the biggest tax hike ever!
=== Comments ===
SCAR LUST
Tim Blair
AAP’s Gabrielle Dunlevy on lottery winner priorities:
Most winners have a list of things they want to do immediately – pay off the mortgage, pay off their children’s mortgages, have a holiday and buy that long lusted-for sport scar, boat or dream home.
Heh. Already got one. I’m so rich.

UPDATE. Fixed in the SMH, but the scar remains elsewhere.

UPDATE II. An Adelaide man is $53 million richer following last night’s draw. How will he spend his riches?
“I might take a holiday to Melbourne or Sydney …”
===
BYRD AGAINST BILL
Tim Blair
Barack Obama’s global warming bill requires 60 votes to pass the Senate, a task that should be made easier by Al Franken’s victory in Minnesota. But at least two Democrats – including old lefty favourite Robert Byrd – are leery of the job-stripping Obamanian carbon madness:
One of West Virginia’s U.S. senators is opposed to the landmark global warming bill that passed the House Friday, while the other has “serious concerns” about the measure.

Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd issued a statement Monday that said Byrd “cannot support” the American Clean Energy and Security Act “in its present form.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s office also issued a statement that said Rockefeller “continues to have serious concerns about the House bill.”
That’s 58 votes for, assuming support/rejection along party lines from other Senators.

UPDATE. Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln may also be among the sane.

UPDATE II. Rich Lowry:
The cap-and-trade bill passed the House of Representatives shrouded in a fog of willful ignorance and calculated irrationality.

No one could be sure what he was voting for — not after the 1,200-page bill had a 300-page amendment added at 3:09 a.m. the day of its passage. The bill is so complex and jerry-built that even its supporters can’t know how, or if, it will work. And it’s metaphysically impossible for someone to know whether the motivating crisis, impending planetary doom, will ever materialize.

Other than that, it’s a model exercise in thoughtful lawmaking.
UPDATE III. Poll news:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 19% believe the climate change bill passed by the House on Friday will help the economy. Fifteen percent (15%) say it will have no impact, and 24% are not sure …

The divide on the question between populist or Mainstream America and the Political Class is a wide one. Fifty percent (50%) of Mainstream Americans say the climate control measure will hurt the economy, but two-thirds of the Political Class (67%) say it will help.
No surprise there; the Political Class likes pushing people around. Happily, people are pushing back:
There’s more intensity on the “no” side: Only 12% strongly favor the measure, but more than twice as many (25%) strongly oppose it.
===
HE’S RIGHT
Tim Blair
News Ltd CEO John Hartigan, currently on ABC TV delivering a Press Club speech, on why US newspapers are closing:
Many of them are boring … their management and editors have a lot to answer for.
===
MONGERS MOCKED
Tim Blair
New Scientist continues its recent doomer mockery:
Doom-mongers have got it wrong – there is enough space in the world to produce the extra food needed to feed a growing population. And contrary to expectation, most of it can be grown in Africa, say two international reports published this week.
===
Banning burkas
Andrew Bolt

ABC newsreader Virginia Haussegger on banning the burka:

The sight of this hideously shrouded figure in an Australian shopping mall is confronting and offensive. And it makes me angry, very angry......I abhor the burka, and the niqab......This shroud of cloth thrown over women defies freedom. It is a symbol of control.....Australia must not allow that radical and overt tool of fundamentalism, the burka, to be worn here. It defies our cherished values of equality and freedom......There is no place here for the burka. Australians must rally to have the burka banned.

Is it still racist to say such things? Or is it now an ABC-approved feminist cause? I get so confused.

If I dared to opine, I’d say I agreed the burka was offensive, oppressive and divisive. I’d be very glad if it were removed from Australia, but I’d rather wage that battle with opinions than bans. There’s one exception, though - I’d ban, as Turkey has, the wearing of burkas in government buildings, or at least schools. I’d also question whether our immigration rules are apppropriate if we bring in this country people whose values are so hostile to those which have made this country so free and easy.
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We will survive
Andrew Bolt
News Ltd boss John Hartigan is bullish about Australian newspapers, noting that the crashes in circulation seen in the US and Britain have not been seen here. He’s also confident that our own internet sites and blogs (one of which he alas fails to mention) can beat off the challenge of other blogs and news aggregators:

Like Keating’s famous “all tip and no iceberg”, it could be said that the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insight.

Relevance and credibility will be the keys to our survival.
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Hype update
Andrew Bolt
Again, I ask: if the evidence for catastrophic man-made global warming is so clear, why the exaggerations, lies and absurd abuse?

That abuse grows even wilder as the alarmists’ case crumbles. Take Nobel laureate Paul Krugman:

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

We now owe allegiance to the planet? And can commit treason against Mother Earth? Wow.

So what’s Krugman’s evidence for catastrophic temperature rises?

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate.

But as Thomas Fuller points out:

If these are the reasons he cries treason, he should perhaps reconsider. One ice cap shrunk, as it has before, but is recovering, as it has before. The other ice cap is growing at the rate of 10,000 square kilometers per year. As for deserts, both in China and Africa deserts are actually shrinking.

Then there’s the alarming reports from a conference in Copenhagen of alarmist scientists (who want us to use less of the gases they just blew out the back of their jets to get to yet another warming jamboree):

The world faces a growing risk of “abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts” as fallout from global warming hits faster than expected, according to research by international scientists released Thursday. Global surface and ocean temperatures, sea levels, extreme climate events, and the retreat of Arctic sea ice have all significantly picked up more pace than experts predicted only a couple of years ago, they said.

In fact, says distinguished climatologist Professor Roger Pielke Sr, none of that seems true.
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More rights for them, not you
Andrew Bolt
The Australian Human Rights Commission demands the Rudd Government do more for human rights. In particular:

Recommendation 36: The Australian Government should resource a significantly enhanced nation-wide human rights education program.

Recommendation 37: The Australian Government should enhance the powers, functions and funding of the Australian Human Rights Commission, particularly if a Human Rights Act is adopted. Any new functions should be accompanied by appropriate funding.

Recommendation 38: The Commission’s existing functions and powers should be enhanced as follows: ...

Do the words “gravy train” resonate?
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Power blown away
Andrew Bolt
Wind power costs way more than coal-fired power, and for what? We get ruined views, and power that comes and goes - and goes just when things get very hot, or very cold and blowy. Just ask Rodney O’Hearne of South Australia’s Snowtown Wind Farm, as Matt Abraham did yesterday on Adelaide ABC:

ABRAHAM: … we had a question about the wind farms … they do switch off when the winds get too high, and I imagine today was such a day?

O’HEARNE: Yeah it was … they turn off around 85 kilometres an hour. We had several turbines actually shut down with over wind speed earlier on this morning, then we had a major storm come through about 10.20, which tripped the electronet transmission network and tripped the whole wind farm out, which is still out at the moment.
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Lemmings demand higher cliff
Andrew Bolt
Michael Stutchbury has a question:

Could there be anything more bone-headed than the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union vowing to set the pace for a national wage round of more than 4 per cent just as business is trying to avoid a wave of job layoffs that would push the unemployment rate above 8 per cent?

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Embracing what kills
Andrew Bolt
What is it with the Left and violence?

THE Green Left Weekly is probably Australia’s best-known radical-left newspaper. While nominally independent, it is affiliated with the Socialist Alliance party and its youth movement Resistance! Like most radical socialist groups, it invariably aligns with the anti-Israel movement.

For some time it has been apparent that an unholy alliance is growing between extreme left-wing groups and Arab and Islamic extremists, despite completely different visions for society… But what isn’t widely known is that the Green Left Weekly is openly promoting extremism among Arabic speakers in Australia through a monthly Arabic-language insert called the Flame. This support is not limited to Green Left Weekly’s own far-left agenda. It supports terrorist groups and promotes violence as the solution to the existence of the “Zionist state.”

You would think GLW’s declared pursuit of the advancement of “anti-racist, feminist, student, trade union, environment, gay and lesbian, civil liberties” would rule out the promotion of radical Islamist groups such as Hamas, which are deeply hostile to all the above.
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Questioning Rudd
Andrew Bolt
Madonna King is just the latest player of an increasingly popular new game: try to get a direct answer out of Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan.

Previous players, with equally entertaining results, include Emma Griffiths, Chris Uhlmann, Tony Jones (twice), and Kerry O’Brien.
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Mission accomplished
Andrew Bolt
Ralph Peters:

OUR effort in Iraq passed a major milestone today: Our troops are leaving the cities.

Advisers remain in place. Joint patrols will still occur. And our forces will wait nearby to respond to Iraqi calls for support. But the last of the bases and US-only outposts within Iraq’s urban centers will be vacated.

Terrorists have already begun testing the new security arrangements. Iraqi forces won’t always pass with flying colors. Yet this situation seemed a pipe dream not so long ago: Iraq’s security forces, serving an elected government, assume primary responsibility for the good order of their own country.

We all recall the delighted leftist claims that Iraq had entered a hopeless civil war. Wrong. That Iraqis preferred al Qaeda to us. Wrong. That Shia militias represented the people. Wrong. And that Iran would seize control. Wrong again.
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Bush unplugged
Andrew Bolt
Professor Paul Kengor hears a noble man speak, some six months after he’s left office:

Speaking of ingratitude, the unpopular ex-president didn’t whine about how he was poorly treated… He said it was far harder watching his father get attacked as president… Besides, said Bush, he can look in the mirror knowing he didn’t “sell his soul” for political gain. He always did what he felt was “morally right.” The George W. Bush presidency was truly the sacrificial presidency…

Bush shared a fascinating insight into his conviction that the Middle East can be democratically transformed. He reaffirmed his faith-based belief that Middle East Muslims have an inherent yearning for freedom placed on their hearts by a “loving God.” To think otherwise was “condescending.” God created them, too.

He made explicit reference, speaking passionately, and to hushed silence, about Muslim women in particular, and how they long to be educated and raise their babies in freedom. That emphatic statement from Bush haunts me right now as I now watch footage of Iranian women literally taking bullets for freedom…

What was new was the personal way he brought Japan into the equation. After World War II, many judged that Japan couldn’t become a democracy.... And yet, explained Bush, not only did Japan change dramatically, unthinkably, but one of his best friends as president was Japan’s prime minister, who was the first to telephone after 9/11. Imagine, exhorted Bush: There he was, President George Bush, son of President George Bush. The father had been shot down by imperial, anti-democratic Japan. Now, after 9/11, peaceful, democratic Japan was calling the son to express condolences and offer help.

That moving message deserves pause: If Japan could change that much, what might transpire in the Middle East?
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Going negative on Obama
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama is now even more popular outside the USA than inside it. Or, to put it less kindly:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 31% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-three percent (33%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That matches the lowest level yet recorded
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Too many sevens
Andrew Bolt
Another sign that Iran’s theocrats stole the election: like most humans, they are hopeless at making up numbers.