Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Headlines Wednesday 25th June

Worse than dogs
Andrew Bolt
But of course:

CHILD protection officers have allowed 12 children to remain in an Adelaide property despite the removal of two dogs by the RSPCA.

It’s a symbol of fashionable moral priorities. I’ve warned before of this drift:

Because we must learn that people who want animals to be treated like humans really want humans to be treated like animals.
Or worse than, actually.
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More of our starving children
Andrew Bolt
Beautiful Sunset
Adelaide’s child protection service isn’t alone in facing hard questions as yet more starving children are found, this time before it’s too late:

FOURTEEN malnourished children have been hospitalised and a mother has been charged with neglect after up to 21 starving children were found crammed into one suburban house (pictured above).

The children’s plight was uncovered after one boy, aged five, was taken to hospital suffering hypothermia and malnutrition....

Two families whose mothers are sisters were involved in the raids - one with seven children and the other with 12 children…
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Mugabe’s mates
Andrew Bolt
Note who lines up where:

The UN Security Council was to raise the Zimbabwe crisis overnight after the US and Britain managed to get it on the agenda, despite resistance from South Africa, Russia and China.

And this is how China’s friend imposes his authority:
Beautiful Sunset
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Rudd Government spends more money, sometimes well
Andrew Bolt
I approve:

AN army of private investigators will be employed as part of a crackdown on parents who collectively owe $1 billion in child support payments.

Human Services Minister Joe Ludwig yesterday said the Rudd Government had made new arrangements to seize assets from parents who failed to comply with court orders to pay outstanding child support.

Laws would also be introduced to ensure both parents lodged tax returns and that salary-sacrificed amounts were added to income for the purpose of calculating child support payments.

But how terrible that a father’s obligation to his children needs to be enforced by law.
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Money for all
Andrew Bolt
We’re in the money - and none more so than Kevin Rudd:

THE China-led boom will boost Australia’s export revenue by at least $58 billion in the coming year, equivalent to almost $3000 for every person in the country. - the money would have been Australia's even if the PM did not prostitute himself - ed.
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Obama surges, as Dukakis did
Andrew Bolt
Obama surges:

A Newsweek poll released at the weekend shows Senator Obama with a substantial double-digit lead, 51% to 36%, over his Republican rival, John McCain.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll, also this weekend, showed Senator Obama with a national lead of 50% to 44%.


But TimesOnline warns that only once in 20 years has the leader in the June polls gone on to win most votes at the election:

As hard as it may be to believe, Michael Dukakis was leading the first George Bush by an average of 8.2 percent in June of 1988. Bush went on to win the general election by 7.8 points.
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Jail the warming extremists
Andrew Bolt
James Hansen, NASA’s chief global warming alarmist, wants to criminalise debate on global warming:

(F)ossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming… CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual… In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

What about global warming prophets who spread misinformation? Should they face trial, too?
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Don’t underestimate Mugabe
Andrew Bolt
John Simpson is furious, and not just with Robert Mugabe:

It has been done with great brutality, but Robert Mugabe has achieved an extraordinary turnaround here. Back in March, when the first round of voting took place, he was humiliated by being beaten into second place in the presidential race, and by losing the parliamentary election outright.

Now he’s the sole effective candidate in Friday’s presidential run-off, and he cannot fail to win with an overwhelming majority…

His opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been completely outmanoeuvred.... The suburban street outside the Dutch embassy where he’s taken refuge in Harare is empty… Even his choice of embassy has been turned against him by his political enemies. It might well have been better for him politically if he had chosen an African rather than a European country to ask for help…

The moral is clear: never underestimate Robert Mugabe’s ferocious determination to stay in power, nor the ability of his political opponents to destroy their own case.


That’s easy to say, of course, when it’s not you being bashed or your supporters murdered.
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Dutch doomed
Andrew Bolt
There’s a special madness in the air:

Thousands of people in the Netherlands say they expect the world to end in 2012, and many say they are taking precautions to prepare for the apocalypse. - understandable, given the weekend soccer results. - ed.
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The big war will be over emissions trading
Andrew Bolt
The battlelines are slowly forming on what promises to be the biggest battle of the Rudd Government’s first - and perhaps only - term:

THE Coalition has dashed hopes of bipartisan support on a carbon emissions trading scheme, arguing petrol should be excluded unless offset by a cut in fuel excise.
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Corby family nasty, ungrateful: lawyer
Schapelle Corby's former lawyer has described the Corby family as "ungrateful" and "nasty".
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No relief from high oil prices: OPEC
OPEC president Chakib Khelil has rebuffed calls to increase supply, saying the cartel has already done what it can on high prices.
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ALP Smears Governor General
By Ian McPhedran and Steve Lewis
OUTGOING Governor-General Michael Jeffery has denied claims he leaked confidential material to the Coalition.

No evidence was found to back the claims, and as he prepared to leave the vice-regal mansion Yarralumla, Maj-Gen Jeffery described them as "repugnant and defamatory".

But a former Labor minister said Maj-Gen Jeffery had been suspected of leaking sensitive material in the early 1990s.

Another senior Labor figure confirmed that Maj-Gen Jeffery was in the sights of the former Keating government.
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Kevin Rudd orders MPs to hype ALP spin
KEVIN RUDD has told Labor MPs to hype his Government's achievements amid claims voters are growing weary of his approach.
ALP nervous: Voter anger over superannuation losses
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Premier Iemma's parallel universe
A LONE MP has finally told Morris Iemma what none of his minders has ever dared to: The Premier is out of touch and his Government is on a firm path to destruction
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Beautiful Sunset
Baby crocodiles chat before hatching
BABY crocodiles start chatting to one another and to their mothers just before they hatch, perhaps signalling that it is time to be born, French researchers said.

The little crocs make an "umph! umph! umph!" sound right before they hatch, Amelie Vergne and Nicolas Mathevon of Universite Jean Monnet in Saint-Etienne, said.

"Crocodile mothers react strongly to playback of pre-hatching calls, most of them by digging the sand," they wrote in the journal Current Biology.
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The big war will be over emissions trading
Andrew Bolt
The battlelines are slowly forming on what promises to be the biggest battle of the Rudd Government’s first - and perhaps only - term:

THE Coalition has dashed hopes of bipartisan support on a carbon emissions trading scheme, arguing petrol should be excluded unless offset by a cut in fuel excise.
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There’s a reason we said no to polygamy
Andrew Bolt
I think not:

Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Lakemba yesterday said polygamous marriages, although illegal, existed in Australia and should be recognised.

Our friend Keysar Trad tries to explain the virtues of polygamy, making what may seem alien actually awfully and tawdrily familiar:

Mr Trad once proposed to another woman with the consent of his wife, Hanefa, but the second marriage did not proceed…

“Rather than entertain any thoughts of an affair I thought the only decent thing to do was to consider a proper commitment to that person…

“In a sense, it’s a compliment to the original partner that if he didn’t find marriage to be so good why would he go into it again,” he said.

“In a sense, he’s saying that his first wife has made life like heaven for him so he’s willing to provide the same service, love and support to a second woman.” ...

Asked if it was just about wanting sex with more women, (Trad’s wife) said: “Yeah it can be, but having it in the right way instead of having it in like go to prostitute or just date’’.


A second wife as a prostitute-substitute? How could a woman resist such a proposal?
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Bill of Rights would make us shirty
Andrew Bolt
Beautiful Sunset
Apparently we need a right to be a jerk:

A GOLD COAST teenager ... was stopped by police in Biggera Waters after he was spotted wearing a t-shirt which claims “Jesus is a (expletive deleted)” and depicts a nun masturbating… The teen was charged with offensive behaviour under the Summary Offences Act 2005 for public nuisance on Monday…

Gold Coast lawyer Bill Potts told website goldcoast.com.au that the arrest highlighted Australia’s need for a Bill of Rights.

No, it actually highlights Australia’s need to make some fools mind their manners in public. If a Bill of Rights means greater licence to wear shirts like this in public places, I think I’ll pass.
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Faine presents a third un-stolen victim
Andrew Bolt
ABC Melbourne host Jon Faine tries yet again to present a member of the “stolen generations”. Having failed with Mary Hooker and Archie Roach, he today presents Heather Vicenti.

To his small credit, he at least asks Vicenti why she considers herself stolen, and gets a long, vague reply which says nothing but that she was told it was “part of the White Australia policy’’. She says she remembers at the time thinking how stupid it was that she was being judged by her features. Faine asks how old she was, and seems taken aback when she replies: two.

Hmm. In fact, had Faine actually bothered to do some simple research, he would have known that he is once more promoting as “stolen” somone who clearly was not.
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Children of the damned
Andrew Bolt
HOW much do we need to change? Judge from this: that parents in this country now let their children starve to death.

Last November for instance, a seven-year-old girl was found dead from hunger in bed.

Two weeks ago in Brisbane, twin babies just 18 months old were found dead of starvation in their cot.

And yesterday in Adelaide, 14 malnourished children from two families were taken to hospital.

It’s not for lack of money that such children starve.

In fact, they are, if anything, children of a welfare generation gone rancid, and what’s desperately lacking is not cash but responsibility.
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Leaving the children in hell
Andrew Bolt
Where’s Mal Brough when you need him? Gary Highland says the NSW Government 18 months ago was told it had a terrible problem:
Written by a taskforce headed by Aboriginal leader Marcia Ella-Duncan, Breaking the Silence found that child abuse in Aboriginal communities had reached epidemic proportions, with child sexual assault up to four times the rate of the general population…

Yet as documents obtained by NSW Nationals leader Andrew Stoner revealed last week, after a year of the Government’s implementation plan in response to Breaking the Silence, only one Aboriginal child sexual assault counsellor had been hired to deal with such an enormous demand. Although two more counsellors have recently been appointed, the vast majority of children in need of this support remain unable to access it.
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Refusing to die
Andrew Bolt
The Age last week:


Australia now world’s fattest nation

The most definitive picture of the national obesity crisis to date has found that Australians now outweigh Americans and face a future “fat bomb” that could cause 123,000 premature deaths over the next two decades.

The Age today:
Australia now second in life expectancy stakes

AUSTRALIANS are now the second-longest-living people on earth with falling death rates for cancer, heart disease, stroke and injury
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It’s Canberra - and bust in the states
Andrew Bolt
Winning Canberra might help lose Labor the states:

LABOR’S coast-to-coast stranglehold on power is weakening, with voter support in NSW collapsing to its lowest level since 1996…

The Coalition has opened up a nine-point lead over Labor in primary support, 41 per cent to 32 per cent… Once preferences in the NSW Newspoll are distributed ...the Coalition leads the Government by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, a 4per cent swing since the election…

However, there are early signs of potential trouble for Labor in the other states as well, suggesting the beginning of the reversal of the cycle that saw the Coalition govern nationally for 12 years while Labor took all the states.

A Galaxy poll published in Brisbane’s The Courier-Mail on the weekend showed primary support for Anna Bligh’s Government plunging nine points to 43 per cent, while Ms Bligh’s support as preferred premier fell 10 points to 55 per cent.
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Exposed by cover-ups
Andrew Bolt
BELINDA Neal is limping, bleeding proof of one of the hardest political maxims: the cover-up is worse than the crime.

In fact, the federal Labor MP is proving it twice over in ways that will go into the textbooks.

They won’t match the fame of cover-ups such as Watergate and “I did not have sex with that woman - Ms Lewinsky”, but they’re up there with “children overboard”.

The most damaging of Neal’s two sins is the cover-up she attempted after stacking on a turn at Gosford’s Iguanas nightclub when asked to move tables.

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