Wednesday, May 04, 2011

News Items and comments

How to avoid raising a bully ..
conservativeweasel.blogspot.com
Osama bin Laden's death is sure to kick off a cyberscammer arms race, with spam messages, fake videos and poisoned pictures used as their weapons of choice.
===
David Daniel Ball was tagged in Zeg Editorial Cartoonist's album.
THE PHOTOSHOP CONSPIRACY CONTINUES........


===
Will they get good behavior?
A SPANISH court has sentenced two Somali pirates to prison terms of 439 years each for their role in hijacking a trawler.
===
Maybe not Osama insurance plan.
BRITISH police arrested five men under anti-terrorism legislation close to a nuclear plant.

===
Ridiculous. The leadership of the protestors should be charged.
A MAN caught up in the 2009 London G20 protests was unlawfully killed by a riot squad officer, an inquest jury has ruled.
===
They have known this for decades but the Greens opposed it.
FLOOD mitigating dams on the Bremer River and Lockyer Creek, stormwater backflow valves and levees around major infrastructure like the Brisbane markets at Rocklea have been mooted as options to help ...
===
How do you rehabilitate from not being a racist?
A TEEN member of a "Punji hunting" gang which bashed and robbed six Indians in Melbourne's west was not a racist and had shown an exemplary effort to rehabilitate, a judge said today.


===
Good idea
A GIANT artificial reef is set to be built off The Gap in a bid to increase fish stocks. The State Government put out a tender this week for a company to build and install up to four steel structures ..
===
It will take years to remove the ALP stain.
SYDNEY'S main railway freight line is blocked in both directions after a runaway train crashed into empty fuel wagons, derailing at least three carriages at Enfield.
===
What is the excuse?
THE man accused of the murder of journalist Jennifer Maree Smith on her way to visit The Whitlams lead singer Tim Freedman 13 years ago made his first appearance in court yesterday.
===
Tragedy mixed with more money than love. The lawyers win.
A WOMAN who fell down stairs while clutching her five-month-old granddaughter is being sued by her own family, who claim her negligence left the baby girl with "traumatic" head injuries.
===
I must thank the author journalist of reminding me Tripodi chuckled over the deaths of motorists and pedestrians
ANDREW Fraser, the Member of Parliament who chased Joe Tripodi around the chamber and assaulted him after drinking at the bar in 2005, has been rewarded with the job as custodian of parliamentary beha...
===
Twenty MPs but no talent. Still they are not stirred over Hamidur Rahman.
THEY inhabited just one corner of the chamber - 20 Labor MPs who survived the wreckage of the March election loss.
===
He will never again plan another attack from the luxury of his home.
WHILE security has been stepped up at airports, train stations and bus terminals across much of the Western world, Australians were yesterday able to go about their daily lives untouched by Osama bin ...
===
They did a good job.
THEIR motto - Failure is Not an Option - would have been ringing in the ears of the Navy Seals as they flew into Pakistan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.
===
Show he is alive. That would destroy the credibility of the US. But they can't because he is dead.
THE decision by US authorities to quickly dispose of Osama bin Laden's body has already fuelled a host of new conspiracy theories, just 24 hours after the announcement he was dead.
===
They don't have the money for this. It needs to be spent on the NBN. Which is why they are canceling research and drug subsidy.
MORE than 213,000 NSW families will receive up to $4200 a year extra in family assistance from next week's Budget for keeping their children in school after age 16.
===
Pakistan also provided assistance to those who assaulted India recently.
PAKISTAN has received a giant "please explain" as details continue to emerge of Osama bin Laden's life of luxury in a regional hill town.
===
From luxury he would order the poor and desperate to their deaths. He had numerous wives and promise the same to those who died for him. He died cowering behind a hijab.
THICK persian rugs cover the floor around the king-size bed, flowery curtains hang at the ornate windows and, in the background, a dog barks.
===
Make responsible decisions and they will hate you, but make bad decisions and they will say why they hate you.
www.heraldsun.com.au
FAMILIES hoping the Coalition would meet its election slogan of "fix the problems and build the future'' in its first State Budget have been short changed.
===
It won't take long for the incompetent git to trip himself up too much for the government to accept. We don't need an ALP minister in a Liberal government.
www.news.com.au
STOP the spin and get on with making Victoria safer - that is Police Minister Peter Ryan's order to embattled Chief Commissioner Simon Overland.
===
throw away the key
www.couriermail.com.au
THE first Australian convicted of "internet trolling'' by plastering child pornography on the Facebook tribute pages of two slain Queensland schoolchildren has been refused bail this morning pending his appeal against his three years jail term.
===
He was treated well by his employer whom he betrayed. If he wanted to make policy he could have studied theology, not preaching. Instead he has behaved as an advocate in an inappropriate way.
www.couriermail.com.au
SACKED Bishop Toowoomba Bishop William Morris says he's not angry he's been forced into early retirement by the Catholic Church.
===
Congrats
www.dailytelegraph.com.au
The NSW lower house has elected its first female speaker, with South Coast Liberal MP Shelley Hancock given the job of keeping the notorious "bear pit" in order.
===
Far safer than when he was alive
www.foxnews.com
The world is safer, President Obama said Monday, a day after announcing that the U.S. had killed Usama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout.
===
Mr Abbott must be PM for Australia to have a prosperous future.
www.news.com.au
TONY Abbott's campaigns against the carbon tax and detention centres have lifted his standing and kept the Liberals ahead of Labor.
===
Liked on www.youtube.com
http://www.nma.tv/ Bin Laden was killed by the US Navy Seal on Sunday. While most part of the world is celebrating, NMA has made an animation to portray what had happened during the siege and what happens to him after his death. Donald Trum...

===
Information you need to know about Obama.
www.youtube.com
Information about Obama's hidden past is finally coming out due to the diligent research ofwww.citizens4freedom.com and Donald Trump's investigation into Ob...
    • David Daniel Ball America is a great nation. A foreign national drug user and prostitute, a cheat and liar and a friend to terrorists can rise to become President.
===
US Campaign for Burma Arrest yourself campaign update
conservativeweasel.blogspot.com
My name is Myo Myint. As a former Burmese soldier, a political prisoner and a democracy activist, I come to you with a request to help secure the immediate and unconditional release of Burma's 2,073 political prisoners by hosting an Arrest Yourself event with the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

===
Bible Gateway news
conservativeweasel.blogspot.com
Greetings from Bible Gateway! This week we have a new devotional to announce and an important anniversary to salute. Read on....


===
Tools for genealogy research
conservativeweasel.blogspot.com
If you supply the Registration Number on your application, you will receive a discounted fee, as the Registry does not have to search for the record. The Registration Number can be obtained by conducting a search on the Historical Indexes.

===
A PM who knows how to be PM
www.youtube.com
John Howard's press conference in full. See more at tennews.com.au


===
A good victory.
THE death of Osama bin Laden is good news but it is not the end of the war on terror. Those who deliver death and destruction in the form of terror long ago stopped needing him to order and direct the...
===

Pouring oil on to fire

Miranda Devine – Sunday, May 01, 11 (08:27 pm)

You would think that the lefty meddlers who style themselves as the saviours of refugees would realise they have done enough damage to the people they claim to be helping, even if they don’t care about the country.

Miranda, you are brilliant and even handed. I denounce what you calmly observes about ALP policy, but your reach is extended to show the hypocrisy of Gillard et al. Hicks disgusts me. I am ashamed I contributed to his legal defense when I gave to amnesty international. I no longer give to Amnesty, although I wish them well in Burma, Cambodia et al.

I feel cheated because the mainstream press have (apparently) supported the ALP’s unstated position. When I try to express how I feel about the abysmal politics I need to resort to explanation about things that many people are not aware of. It is cold and heartless to subject desperate people to piracy and possible death on empty promise of freedom and prosperity. I like migrants and want Australia to have more migrants. I feel the best way of achieving my hope for a bigger Australia is encapsulated in tough but fair policies like those the Liberals have applied. The people who arrive by boat are desperate and not at their best when they get here. And then there are those poor people who can spend decades in refugee camps.

DD Ball of Carramar/Sydney (Reply)
Sun 01 May 11 (08:58pm)

Oh the vicious left, especially that Robert Manne, yadda, yadda yadda....I thought we covered this already ?
So the Rudd government thought of treating asylum seekers in a more humanistic fashion. Hardly a surprise since the opposition of John Howard’s handling of the issue came from the broad community, not just the left.

So the border protection policy was a big mistake. Is that really such a big crime ? People stuff up, businesses make the wrong choices and even governments get some things wrong. It happens, tough luck.

But what the rest of the article implies is that Julia Gillard is the bad boogie women here. Lets make her the fall girl and push hard to rid us of this ridicules Labor government.
This media push has gained momentum in the last twelve months, fuelled by Tony Abbott’s “against anything that they propose” parliamentary behaviour.
Somewhere something has gone terribly wrong In Australian politics for the last few years.

Lindsay Tanner, in his new book, is really getting to the bottom of this. He says :

“I happily plead guilty to starting with a sense of anger, and particularly an anger at the way politicians were being constantly attacked for spin and being robotic,” Mr Tanner told The Australian this week."And what I wanted to do was say ‘why do you think this is happening?’. (I believed) politicians were responding to the way they were being treated in the media."He argues there are two key rules now governing the practice of Australian politics - “look like you’re doing something” and “don’t offend anyone who matters"."Australian politics is like a Hollywood blockbuster - all special effects and no plot,”

The big problem is that Julia and her ministers listen to the right wing commentators far too much and act to stem the tide against them. Now this the the real crime of modern Australian politics. Instead of making good decisions and sticking to them they listen to Allan Jones and his supporters. What frightens me is how much power the media has gained and how much they dictate Australian political behaviour.

Personally I believe that Julia Gillard, like most politicians that represent us, is doing her job in the interest of the nation and deeply cares for this country and its future.

But the unsteadiness of this Government, coupled with the constant media attacks, has opinion stacked against her. It would not surprise me if we go to the polls before Christmas this year to elect a Liberal government.
But not for the right reasons.
The reason for Julia’s downfall will be the constant media slur against her, and sadly, the party’s willingness to react to it. What also is totally wrong with Labor is that parties that chop and change policies, topple leaders and have internal power struggles are usually in opposition, not Government.

Rainer the cabbie of Darlo (Reply)
Mon 02 May 11 (12:41am)
Kick replied to Rainer the cabbie
Mon 02 May 11 (09:35pm)

You are right about the media and now “realtime” events. Everybody being part of the loop means that we are all participating in the media now. The information and consequently disinformation is at a peak, I think politicians are part of the problem though, they like celebrities use it as much as they are victims of it. Politics is just another form of ‘reality television’ where the actors come cheap and the production is as interactive as you can get (you’d hope there is a limit).

But unlike you I think she actually has a substantial part of the media on her side (I’m not a Labor voter, true) and she has tried to control it far more than Abbott. That won’t stop them sticking the boot in if it suits the moment and they think the polling is no longer just benign. Abbott playing the game right for the moment, small target politics...almost bland.

DD Ball replied to Rainer the cabbie
Tue 03 May 11 (08:47am)

Rainer, I have worked with these people who are suffering under this horrendous policy. I have also worked with people who were affected by Mr Howard’s Pacific Solution. The Pacific Solution was a good, effective policy which was fair. It allowed an increase in migration, better outcomes for all involved, even boat people, who were given a pathway to have their status resolved. Other refugees had greater hope their journey would come to an end. It was more secure from the possibility of terrorist manipulation.

People are dying for Gillard’s rhetoric which was unchallenged by the media in the years following SIEV X. However, all the problems the Howard administration had with Gillard’s rhetoric then is borne out now. Yet Gillard persists with this policy that is killing people and leaving thousands in limbo and exposing security concerns.

And yet you don’t care. What is important to you is that Gillard wins the next election without reference to her policy failure here.

I was a caller in to a 2GB event when Howard debated Rudd. I said then that Rudd was winning the beauty contest while Mr Howard won the substantial debate. I will not accept that happening again. The substantial debate is part of the beauty contest and Gillard should not win without defending her policy.

===

HATE FEST

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (09:32 am)

Imre Salusinszky celebrates the entirely merit-based and non-political appearance of David Hicks at the Sydney Writers’ Festival:

One could quibble with Hicks’s punctuation here and elsewhere, but that would be nitpicking. Whatever momentary loss of clarity is occasioned by Hicks’s use of free-form writing is more than compensated by the immediacy with which the evil and conspiring nature of the Jews is portrayed.

Still, at least Hicks can probably work out simple initials, which means he’s doing better than another writers’ festival favourite.

===

HELP THE CHILDREN

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (02:28 am)

Melbourne’s Age offers comfort advice:

Parents can comfort children who are disturbed by the killing of Osama bin Laden by answering their questions honestly, psychology experts say.

Child’s question: “Mummy, what should I do if I meet someone who has slaughtered thousands of innocent people in the name of a perverted theocracy?”

Honest mother’s answer: “If I’ve raised you right, you will kill him. Goodnight, sweetie.”

(Via Andrew V.)

UPDATE. It’s all frowns at the ABC.

===

427 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S SHRINKING JULIA TAX

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (02:06 am)

The plunge continues:

Voters are overwhelmingly against Julia Gillard’s carbon tax after a sharp fall in support in the past two months among the young, families, women and even Labor supporters …

The latest Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, shows that voters are not only against the carbon tax on a ratio of two-to-one, but that opposition to the plan is far more intense than the support for it. Of the 60 per cent opposed to the carbon tax, 39 per cent are “strongly against”, but of the 30 per cent for the plan only 12 per cent are “strongly in favour”.

Even foreign types are beginning to notice:

In Australia the carbon tax tabled by the Labor government is struggling to gain acceptance. Every week sees another industrial pressure group come out against the bill.

Labor is headed north.

===

DEPENDS WHOSE SIDE YOU’RE ON

Tim Blair – Tuesday, May 03, 11 (12:25 pm)

image(Today’s newspaper posters in Melbourne, captured by Ultimo Mole)

===

If true, there must be a new chief commissioner

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (07:03 am)

This inquiry could force a change of leadership of the Victoria Police, and the withdrawal of the unexplained resignation of assistant commissioner Sir Ken Jones:

Association secretary Greg Davies yesterday said that if the Victorian Ombudsman were able to prove the former government successfully pressured Chief Commissioner Simon Overland to release incomplete statistics ahead of the state election it would amount to ‘’unprecedented corruption at the highest levels of both the police force and government’’.

Ombudsman George Brouwer is investigating the interaction between the former government and senior police figures ahead of the release of the crime statistics on October 28 last year, a month before a state election in which law and order was a big issue.
Mr Brouwer is also examining the accuracy of those statistics after it emerged in February that crucial data was not released. This meant the public had been given a misleading and incomplete snapshot of assaults in Melbourne’s central business district, which had been a high-profile matter over the previous 12 months.

This is the bit that should worry Overland:

Deputy Commissioner Ken Jones and other senior police figures, including media director Nicole McKechnie, were concerned that the police force could be viewed as acting in a partisan way if Mr Overland agreed to the request from the government so close to an election.

The Age understands Mr Overland believed releasing the statistics in October was in the public interest given the level of publicity over assaults in the city.

===

Baillieu blinks

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (06:56 am)

All the evidence so far suggests the Baillieu Government is timid. And if it cannot make tough decisions in its first Budget, there’s little hope there will be tougher ones in Budgets closer to the election:

A NEAR-DOUBLING of net debt and limited spending cuts will force the Baillieu government to overhaul its economic strategy after its first budget.

The first state to hand down a budget this year has failed to deal with the challenges of rising debt and the two-speed national economy. Treasurer Kim Wells said yesterday the government had opted to avoid deep cuts to restore the budget bottom line because he feared job losses would be too great and tax rises too steep.

Mr Wells conceded this meant the government would be sent back to the drawing board, although the government funded nearly all of its $5.2 billion in recurrent election promises.

Net debt in Victoria is set to jump from just under $12bn this financial year to more than $23bn by the end of the budget cycle.

While the Coalition delivered most of its election promises, it opted for cuts of just $2.2bn over five years, despite the sharp rise in the debt position.

Terry McCrann says the Budget is dangerously reliant on a growth in already record revenue, especially from stamp duty:

This suggests we are headed for something of a reality check next year. Either a horror budget or a horror deficit. Or both.

===

Unarmed, and not hiding behind a woman

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (06:49 am)

The story changes:

OSAMA Bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot dead by Navy SEAL commandos, even though the White House maintains they were prepared to take him alive.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Bin Laden resisted arrest but did not outline what resistance he offered. He said Bin Laden’s unarmed wife was in a room with him and rushed a commando, but she as well was unarmed.

She was shot in the leg and survived.

So the mission really was to kill, not capture, bin Laden ... which was probably wise. And bin Laden did not hide behind a woman.

I think it would have been better to say all this at the start. This way looks sneaky, even apologetic

- Osama could not be allowed to live as to do so would have allowed him to say anything, vis lie, to achieve division. Eg, he could have said Obama was illegitimate as President and he had proof. Or that the Democrats had cooperated or played into the hands of Al Qaeda etc etc. - ed

===

Rudd: we’re building mosques in Afghanistan

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (06:23 am)

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd:

Similarly in Afghanistan where we’re building schools, we’re building health clinics, roads, mosquesto support local community development and economic vibrancy as well ...

Very odd. I really don’t think that’s the most appropriate use for our aid dollars. For a start, I suspect Afghanistan would be healthier with fewer mosques, not more. Second, since when was it our foreign policy goal to promote Islam?

UPDATE

I thought Rudd must have misspoken, but from the Department of Defence website:

The task force is there to conduct repairs and maintenance on the villager’s mosque.

Indeed, from Rudd’s press conference in Washington yesterday:

We even opened our first Australian government-funded mosque in the Tora Valley...

(Thanks to reader Sol Spots.)

===

Flannery 100 per cent wrong about that 60 per cent

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (06:02 am)

Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery:

You know, 60 per cent of people consistently now, for a number of years, have wanted something done about climate change. That’s why the government is acting.

In fact:

...the latest Newspoll survey reveals 60 per cent of voters are opposed to the government’s plan to put a price on carbon next year and only 30 per cent remain in favour.

===

WikiLeaks nearly saved bin Laden

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (12:07 am)

image

The Atlantic Wire explains just how close WikiLeaks came to tipping off Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden that the US was onto his courier.

(Thanks to reader Giorgio and others.)

===

Good for a scare while it lasted

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (12:06 am)

image
2007:

Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett yesterday visited drought-ravaged North Pine Dam, north of Brisbane, to promote a new Australian Conservation Foundation online campaign whoonearthcares.com.

“I actually have little races with myself, thinking ‘Oh no, I’m not washing my hair. I only need to have a two-minute shower’,” Blanchett revealed.

Blanchett and Australian Conservation Foundation director Don Henry visited the dam – presently at just 16 per cent of capacity – to see the effects of the drought and to share her passionate views about climate change.

2011:

THE dam at greatest risk of failure during the January floods was not Somerset or Wivenhoe, but North Pine Dam, north of Brisbane, according to the State Government’s dam safety expert…

Operators were forced to wade through water to operate the sluice gates and electrical switchgear came within 55cm of being submerged as a volume of water almost equal to its own capacity passed through the already full dam in a matter of hours.

(Thanks to reader Matthew.)

===

Hamilton demands more militancy against the rest of us

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (12:05 am)

I’ve worried before that Professor Clive Hamilton, the former Greens candidate, has within him a totalitarian instinct.

Now come more classic signs of a man so convinced of the rightness of his cause that it justifies the use of force - or at least the deliberate breaking of democratically agreed laws:

The difficulty and importance of the global warming campaign is many times greater than every other environmental struggle. Controlling carbon pollution requires a wholesale industrial restructuring…

In the face of the failure of mainstream environmentalism to achieve significant progress on the biggest issue it will ever face, we need a new environmental radicalism....

A wave of environmental radicalism, of uncivil disobedience, will have succeeded when the conservative press begin praising Bob Brown and Christine Milne as voices of reason and moderation, as indeed they are....

Sometimes coaxing the public to your point of view reaches an immovable barrier. Sometimes people must be jolted out of their complacency by militancy, even if that means a period of rancour, turmoil and danger

So let me leave you with a final thought. The historic responsibility of environmentalism cannot be overstated. Beyond women’s suffrage, beyond civil rights, its mission is nothing less than saving humanity as a whole. Today’s environment movement is no place for the faint-hearted.

Some people wonder why the great revolutions, launched by people convinced of their moral superiority, usually end in tyranny and cruelty. It’s because the “good” who seize power feel licensed to crush the “evil”.

(Thanks to reader Craig.)

===

ABC writers agree: killing bin Laden was useless, bad and sad

Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, May 04, 11 (12:01 am)

There seems to be a party line at the ABC’s online site on the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Drum, but it’s not a party-party-party one:

Amin Saikal:
Bin Laden’s death may well be welcome news to the US and its allies, and many others around the world, but it cannot be expected to make the world any less insecure and volatile than it is at present.

Kellie Tranter:

The US vigilantes may have killed bin Laden, but they haven’t helped to make the world a more peaceful or secure place. In fact, peace is about the only thing that has never been tried.

Greg Barns:

There should be no mindless ranting and chest beating about Bin Laden’s death but soul searching about how easily lofty and fundamentally important principles of humanity and fairness are cast aside when there is a vote in it or when primal vengeance is given its head by our leaders.

Anson Cameron:

And now some snitch, some stool-pigeon from the back streets of Abbotabad in Pakistan, has taken the CIA’s forty pieces of silver.

(Thanks to reader Colin.)

===

Picking sides

Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, May 03, 11 (08:23 pm)

image

(Thanks to reader Michael.)

===

Canada cools on warming - and on a Labor-style ETS

Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, May 03, 11 (08:09 pm)

April 13, and Michael Ignatieff, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, sells his plan for an emissions trading scheme:

“What’s good about this country is all Canadians, whether you’re easterners or westerners want to face the challenge of climate change.

On the other hand, Conservative leader Stephen Harper goes a bit sceptic, offering only a pie-in-the-sky carbon-capture scheme:

On the domestic front, Harper defended Canada’s Arctic claims, while appearing to show little interest in climate change.

Election day yesterday, and Canadians tell Ignatieff exactly how keen they are on tackling climate change:

With 99 per cent of polls reporting, the Conservatives won 167 seats, followed by the NDP with 102, Liberals with 34 and the Bloc Québécois with four and the Green Party with one.

(Thanks to readers Frank, Steve and others.)

===

Tell me Pakistan didn’t know where bin Laden was

Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, May 03, 11 (03:14 pm)

image

This is the Google Earth satellite picture of the garrison town of Abbottabad.

The middle circle marks Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. To the north east, just 1km away, is the Pakistan Military Academy. To the south west, is the regimental depot of the Army’s Frontier Force and its Baloch Regiment (larger circle).

UPDATE

Peter Oborne in Abbottabad:

General David Petraeus (in charge of the US forces in Afghanistan) visited Abbottabad as recently as last November, when bin Laden was reportedly already present – an event in itself that would have made a major security search inevitable. That is why so many are coming to believe the theory that Pakistan’s army was complicit in hiding bin Laden.

That said, Oborne says a rival theory is that bin Laden was lured to Abbottabad and betrayed.

UPDATE

Professor Sinclair Davidson rightly asks whether Defence Minister Stephen Smith is up to the job by this wild performance on the ABC’s 7.30 yesterday, denying the undeniable:

CHRIS UHLMANN: Now, Pakistan must’ve known and known for years where Osama bin Laden was?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, that’s an assertion. I don’t know what evidence you have to base that on.

CHRIS UHLMANN: He was in a high security compound, 100 kilometres from the capital, eight times larger than anything around it, six metre-high walls.

STEPHEN SMITH: It doesn’t follow from that that Pakistan or the Pakistan state or the Pakistan Government was knowingly harbouring. I think the most important element of today’s events so far as Pakistan is concerned is that President Obama has made it clear that Pakistan assisted and that when he rang President Zardari to effectively thank him, they both welcomed the outcome. So, that’s a good sign.

CHRIS UHLMANN: But the US didn’t tell Pakistan ahead of this.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well you don’t know that.

CHRIS UHLMANN: It’s been said – it’s been stated, I thought, that they told no-one until after the operation had been carried out.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, there’s no doubt that the matter was very closely held. That’s the first point. It’s also clear to me from President Obama’s comments that he was pleased with Pakistan’s assistance. Now what the nature, extent of that was, I’m not pretending that we have access to that at this stage. But, I regard that today, in terms of Pakistan making a significant contribution, as a good development.

===

Watching the execution

Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, May 03, 11 (02:42 pm)

It really is like in the movies.

UPDATE

Which means he may well have watched this:

A US official says Osama bin Laden was shot above his left eye and the bullet blew away part of his skull… Photos of bin Laden’s injuries were transmitted to Washington as proof that the mission was a success.

And you might soon be shown the pictures, too, because Lieberman is right:


Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman said:

“It may be necessary to release the pictures - as gruesome as they undoubtedly will be, because he’s been shot in the head - to quell any doubts that this somehow is a ruse that the American government has carried out,”.


No comments: