Sunday, February 03, 2013

Sun 3rd Feb Todays News


Happy birthday and many happy returns Danny Minotte,Barry Ngo and Josh Sweeney. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
===

February 3Setsubun in Japan; Four Chaplains' Day in the United States
José de San Martín

===

Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances


===

All the strife is coming to a head … and it’s Gillard’s

Piers Akerman – Sunday, February 03, 2013 (12:15am)

A number of senior Labor figures have compared the Gillard government’s performance over the past week with the dying days of the Whitlam government in 1975, marred by distrust.

===

Gillard’s kicking own goals

Miranda Devine – Sunday, February 03, 2013 (8:48am)

IT really wasn’t an auspicious week for the Prime Minister to announce history’s longest election campaign.
Whether she chooses to call it a campaign or not, through a combination of bad luck and own goals, the omens for Julia Gillard have not been good.
It began on Monday night with her partner, Tim Mathieson’s, unfortunate joke about choosing a “small, Asian, female doctor” to perform rectal examinations for prostate cancer.
It was the First Bloke’s first official speech for the year, at a reception for the West Indies cricket team made right in front of Gillard, whose smile froze solid as the words emerged from his mouth.
In any reasonable environment, what he said would be written off as harmless blokey oafishness. But he fell victim to the anti-bloke jihad Gillard launched last year with her world-famous misogyny rant against Tony Abbott.
The PM’s Bloke Trap was meant for the Opposition Leader, an Oxonian Rhodes scholar with degrees in economics and law, who is a bloke, but no oaf. Instead it has become a trap for all blokes, which is a predicament for Labor, the blokiest of all parties.
Own goal one.
Mathieson also fell victim to the outcry over the government’s draconian proposed anti-discrimination laws, with their potential threat (since softened) of criminalising such jokes.
Double own goal.
On Tuesday, Rudd supporter Robert McClelland, the former attorney-general Gillard dumped from cabinet, announced he would not be contesting the election, amid reports he would join the bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, and speculation about a by-election in his southern Sydney seat of Barton.
And there came a poll shocker showing Labor would lose up to 18 seats in the election.
Wednesday was Gillard, in her new glasses, with a crisp set-piece speech to the National Press Club and the problem of how to seize the moment, especially with Tony Abbott up the next day in the same venue.
Announcing September 14 as the election date seemed to hit the spot, although for NSW voters it evoked memories, unflattering to Labor, of other longed-for election days set by fixed terms far into the future.
Barely 24 hours later, two long-running Labor scandals hit the headlines.
Central Coast MP Craig Thomson, long protected by Gillard, was arrested, hardly a surprise to him or those he confides in, since Victorian police had invited him to surrender himself in Melbourne before Christmas, an offer they say he had declined.
Then there was former NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid and family before ICAC in an unfolding story alleging corruption from ill-gotten mining leases involving ministers in the governments of wait for it - Gillard’s Foreign Minister, former NSW Premier Bob Carr and his successor Morris Iemma, now said to be a contender to take over McClelland’s seat.
Labor’s prospects are stinkier than durian in a Shanghai street market.
But there was worse to come. On Friday night, ALP vice-president Tony Sheldon gave an extraordinary speech at the Young Labor annual conference saying the party was suffering from a “crisis of belief brought on by a lack of moral and political purpose”, and that the
NSW Labor Right had become “a byword for what is wrong with Australian politics”.
A couple of hours later and the Opposition’s Christopher Pyne was on ABC’s Lateline, wiping the floor with a punch-drunk assistant treasurer (and marginal western Sydney seat-warmer) David Bradbury, hailed as one of Labor’s rising stars, who didn’t even know about Sheldon’s speech.
Then, just before midnight on Friday, came the bombshell news, first tweeted by my colleague Peter van Onselen: First Chris Evans, leader of the senate, and third-most senior minister in the government, and then Gillard ally attorney-general Nicola Roxon, will quit cabinet and retire at the next election.
Oh, and all the while there was also Kevin Rudd, tweeting away innocently on Friday night, including a strange retweet of a spoof movie poster depicting him slaying foes with a chainsaw, while a buxom woman clings desperately to his leg.
Rudd, by the way, had begun the day popping up in his former slot on Channel Seven’s Sunrise, opposite his old frenemy Joe Hockey, in what will be a weekly showcase of his talents.
All in all it was a messy start for a PM trying valiantly to defy poll figures showing a dispiriting trouncing for Labor, with a swag of western Sydney seats kaput.
Gillard put on a sunny face yesterday, as she always does, but you can’t help but think she is over-strategising every move.
There’s not much she can do about ICAC or the Victorian police, but her central campaign strategy of demonising Abbott is a cyanide pill which only exacerbates the empty, calculating cynicism corroding the core of modern Labor. In any case, giving Abbott a seven month platform in the hope he will better hang himself is high risk.
The fact is, that rough edges and all, and pathetically eager as he is to come across as a “good bloke”, Abbott is not what Labor says he is. He’s not “nuts”, weird, or anti-woman, even though the female scold section of the chattering classes keep writing that he makes their “skin crawl”.
Abbott and his family are refreshingly normal. They live in an unpretentious house in an unpretentious suburb surrounded by family and long-term friends. The kids work part-time in shopping malls and do volunteer work. The working mum does volunteer work.
The dad has an unusual job that often takes him out of town but he also volunteers.Demonising Abbott demonises any suburban family bloke. You can’t draw an imaginary line between them. And it will prove to be Gillard’s most profound own goal.
In the marginal seats where this election will be won or lost - former Labor heartland turned relatively affluent aspirational - blokes abound and the women who are married to them like it that way. 

===

Admitting defeat maketh The Man

Miranda Devine – Sunday, February 03, 2013 (9:05am)

BOXING has a place in my heart because one of my earliest memories of my father was staying up late in Tokyo to watch him on TV, in Lionel Rose’s corner in 1968, when the legendary Aboriginal boxer won the world bantamweight title fight.
The first boxing match I went to in Sydney was Anthony Mundine’s first professional fight in 2000, after he left rugby league, a glittering display of showmanship, even if it disappointed purists.
He was nice and even gave me a signed boxing glove to auction for charity at my childrens’ school.
He’s courted controversy off and on, but I always admired him, in part because of his decent father Tony, but also because he didn’t drink, smoke or take drugs, and was a clean-living, hard-working role model for young people, especially Aborigines.
But his unsportsmanlike behaviour before and after last week’s fight against Daniel Geale was beyond disappointing.
To complain he was “robbed” of victory when all judges and impartial observers of the match unequivocally scored the fight as a Geale win was plain embarrassing. Anyone who genuinely cares about Mundine ought to start telling him some home truths: to man up and accept defeat, because it is there we learn our greatest lessons.
Geale is, by all accounts, a good family man, who got his battered body out of bed a few hours after the fight to take his little girl to her first day of school. He didn’t deserve to be called an “Uncle Tom” by Mundine or have his own Aboriginal heritage called into question.
It’s all very well to say controversy makes for more $50 pay-per-views but soon, when 37-year-old Anthony Mundine is just another ex-boxer, the dollars dry up and his manipulative entourage no longer finds a use for him, what is left is his reputation.
I’m sure he’s better than that. 

===

WE MISS YOU NICOLA

Tim Blair – Sunday, February 03, 2013 (6:47pm)

Mark Dreyfus dials up the outrage
Remarks comparing the federal government to the Nazi party are offensive and hurtful, new federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says.
Coalition frontbencher Christopher Pyne on Sunday said the federal government was unravelling like Hitler’s government in the movie Downfall …
“These immature and offensive comments have no place in Australian political debate,” Mr Dreyfus told journalists on Sunday.
“There is no place in Australian political debate for a comparison of any Australian government with Hitler’s Third Reich.
“These comments are deeply hurtful to holocaust survivors, they are deeply hurtful to any right thinking Australian.” 
Oh, really? But what about ... 
Mr Dreyfus said his own comments last year comparing Mr Abbott’s campaign on the carbon tax to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was different. 
(Via CL)

===

LOW AIM

Tim Blair – Sunday, February 03, 2013 (11:45am)

With respect, Mr President, the idea is to shoot the skeet before it lands:

image

Via Lee M., who asks: “What the hell is Barack ‘Annie Oakley in Mom Jeans’ Obama shooting at – the trap house? His gun is almost horizontal, yet judging by the smoke it’s in muzzle jump. Was he shooting at a copy of the Bill of Rights nailed to a post five feet off of the ground?
“What’s the smoke blowing out of the right side of the barrel – is it a ‘one-sided compensator’ that prevents him from shooting too far right? And while he’s no doubt firing low base shells he sure can handle recoil for a skinny guy. If I didn’t know better I’d think he was posing with a fake shotgun that was just blowing smoke out of the barrel for effect.
“Now this is what shootin’ clays looks like: leaning into the shot; actually pointing the gun up(where the targets are).”
Better stick to bowling.

===

Smith denies wanting to jump ship, too

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(7:34pm)

More of that “certainty” and “stability” Julia Gillard promised on Wednesday:

WA Labor may approach Mr Smith to take the helm if it loses the March 9 state election and federal Labor loses the September 14 poll, News Limited reported today.
“This subject matter has been raised a number of times over the years during the minister’s time as Member for Perth,” a spokesman for Mr Smith said in a statement.
“So far as these suggestions about conversations over the years are concerned, the minister has said ‘I made my choice about which parliament I wanted to be in a long time ago, and I’m not proposing to shift’....

Shopworkers union boss Joe Bullock was reported as saying Mr Smith had indicated to him he was interested in switching.

===

To explain this morning…

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(12:46pm)

The Bolt Report now attracts more viewers in total than Insiders on ABC TV does… Oztam figures up to last Sunday show there has been a 11%-plus rise in viewing of his program on Sundays (the 10am broadcast and then the 4.30pm repeat) in metro markets… His program has so far averaged in 2012 a total of 272,000 people in both screenings, up from the 258,000 who watched in 2011, when the program started.
But for those wondering what’s happening at Channel 10, with Insiders back today, here’s a report on the latest:
Ten has dusted off its long-running national current affairs show, Meet The Press, and has partnered with News Limited to give the program a face lift.

The revamped show will kick off in February with journalist Kathryn Robinson to host the new hour-long format…

The announcement to return Meet the Press “to its place as a key showcase of political journalism, with a renewed focus on policy debate” comes after the election was set yesterday for September.

The extension to an hour-long format will see the show move beyond its focus on politics to include sport, entertainment and lifestyle. Experts in fashion, entertainment, money and health will be pulled in from Ten and News Limited talent pools.

The new-look show will return on Sunday, February 17 at 10.30am.

James Warburton, chief executive officer at Network Ten, said: “Over the past two decades, Meet The Press has become an iconic program on Australian television screens.”

“Our partnership with News Limited will take Meet The Press to a new level and is another example of the innovative content partnerships we are pursuing at Network Ten.”

Kim Williams, News Limited’s chief executive, added: “Network Ten and News Limited will partner to create a fresh news show that will resonate strongly with audiences. It will cover politics in ways that are really relevant to people across Australia, as well as offering fresh coverage of sport, entertainment and lifestyle.”

Bernie Slattery reviews today’s Insiders.
For those missed the AbbottAbbottAbbott show, a replay:
UPDATE
Thank you for all the kind feedback. Unfortunately, with no moderators on I can’t publish it. Which may be as well…

===

Who do you trust? A warmist or your lying eyes?

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(12:26pm)

 Global warming - propaganda
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet backed climate adviser Ross Garnaut’s judgment that Australia was falling behind the world’s biggest economies in dealing with climate change and said it was ‘’absolute rubbish’’ to suggest it was acting ahead of the world…

Government advice says China leads the world in renewable energy investment, has shut some of its most polluting coal plants and plans to tax coal, oil and gas extraction in its western provinces. The US Congress had rejected emissions trading, but more than 10 US states and Canadian provinces plan to introduce a joint scheme in 2012.

‘’I think the argument that we’re out ahead of China and the US is fallacious,’’ Mr Combet said.
 
Environmentalist Geoff Russell in The Punch, June 2012:
China understands the accelerating rate of climate change and its human and environmental impacts and is acting accordingly.
The Climate Bridge group, October 2012:
Individuals ask ‘what is the point?’ of reducing their own carbon footprints, when ‘dirty’ China is belching out greenhouse gases without limit.

However, as demonstrated by the recent Climate Bridge report ‘Carbon Markets and Climate Policy in China: China’s pursuit of a clean energy future”, released in collaboration with the Climate Institute, these excuses are no longer valid. China is taking ambitious measures to tackle climate change…

For Australia, the realisation that it is being soundly beaten by China in the global clean technology race should be a call to action.
China leads the world in renewable energy with the most installed renewable power and the largest investment in 2011.
Beijing smog, January 2013:
image
(Thanks to reader MJA.)

===

Labor runs out of cash for those free computers

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(8:34am)

Another Labor promise turns out to be less than it seemed:

THE federal government’s scheme providing high school students with laptop computers is on the brink of collapse, leaving parents with hefty bills and educators with a chaotic start to the school year.
Schools are already telling parents they must lease approved laptops for pupils this year, at a cost of hundreds of dollars. Some are telling students to bring their own computers, raising a raft of problems around internet capacity, security and provision of software, as well as placing pressure on low-income families…
In 2007, as a key election promise - reiterated by Labor in 2010 - then prime minister Kevin Rudd promised all high school students would receive a laptop, a ‘’21st century toolbox’’, but funding for the program finishes in June.
A spokeswoman for School Education Minister Peter Garrett would not make a commitment on future funding, saying the five-year program had been ‘’delivered on time and within budget’’, with 957,805 computers purchased nationally at a cost of $2.4 billion…

Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals president Frank Sal said it would not be feasible for schools to continue providing computers for all students when the funding dried up.

===

Coalition makes Thomson an offer too good to refuse

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(7:51am)

A potentially embarrassing development - for Labor - is averted with the Coalition’s help:

The MP, who faces 149 counts of fraud, had been advised that the Parliamentary Privileges Act exempts an MP from being arrested or appearing in court five days before or after Parliament sits.
The Coalition makes an unnecessary offer - given Thomson now claims to be an independent:
Manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne said yesterday the Coalition was prepared to offer Mr Thomson a pair so he could attend court.
That offer has been accepted. I think the Coalition has made a tactical mistake. Let Thomson try to delay the hearing. Let Labor complain he needs a pair from the Coalition.
Meanwhile:
Yesterday Mr Thomson was photographed allegedly driving erratically on his way to Sydney.

Mr McArdle said the media was harassing his client.

“That’s all a big lie. He has contacted the Australian Federal Police to report the person who was frightening him,” he said.
UPDATE
Reader OnceWasAGlobalWarmingAlarmist is one of many readers to disagree with me:
I think it’s a great tactical move. It makes the Coalition seem magnanimous while highlighting the obvious ... that Thomson is still Labor and the government depends on his vote. It only seems like a poor decision if you expected to see the same negative tactics that were previously employed. We’re in campaign mode remember?
Reader Rebellion likewise:
Andrew, I have to disagree with you on this one. I think it is a brilliant move. The nightly news will show the coalition bagging the government for their member CT, and then juxtapose that with him attending court instead of sitting in the House. Likewise, by offering to “Pair” him, CT’s position as an ALP member is further entrenched within the minds of the punters. You only offer a pair to a Government member, not an independent. Kind of hard for the ALP to completely disown him if he gets treated as a govt flunky.

===

Plant forests and the rain will come

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(7:41am)

Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, an author of the standard textbook Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, is encouraging. “The process they describe is physically correct,” she said. “The main question is its relative magnitude compared with other processes.” She thinks it could explain why climate models do not get monsoons and hurricanes right.
Fancy. Scientists questioning the science. I thought that was called “denialism”. Turns out it’s called “science”.

===

So far, not so good

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY032013(6:59am)

After four days of Julia Gillard’s 227-day election campaign - announced from behind new glasses - reader Brian wonders: 
I wonder how much longer the PM will persist with her new lucky spectacles before they are put back in the dressing-up box.
Good question. The media commentary today is not kind, even from Fairfax.
WATCHING Julia Gillard’s government disintegrate is a gruesome revisitation of the flame-out of Kristina Keneally’s government two years ago.
THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, capped the third day of her election campaign with the resignation of two frontbenchers, leaving her to fend off accusations Labor was spinning out of control…

‘’We agreed at the right time they would relinquish their ministerial roles and I would make new appointments,’’ Ms Gillard said. ‘’This is precisely the right time as Parliament resumes next week.’’
But exasperated colleagues did not share her view. ‘’If this is the best time, then I know nothing about politics,’’ said one. ‘’This is not a cunning plan … it’s ridiculous, it’s got me f---ed,’’ said another.

The resignations have also raised talk of rats leaving a sinking ship and had internal critics claiming it again showed the Prime Minister’s political judgment remained problematic, with her government seen as lurching from crisis to crisis.
JULIA Gillard wept as two of her senior ministers quit politics yesterday, insisting the pair was not deserting a sinking ship.

But senior Labor sources predicted more resignations would follow before the next election as Ms Gillard hinted the Speaker may choose to delay any resulting by-elections until September 14, the date of the federal election.
WATCHING two ministers quit after you’ve just set the election date is an unlikely strategy for an election campaign.

Julia Gillard has confirmed some of the doubts among her own colleagues about her political tactics by announcing a reshuffle so soon after a major speech last Wednesday that sought to project “certainty” about her plans as well as the idea that Labor had everything in place to fight to retain government…

Caucus members who strongly support Gillard nonetheless admit she has a “roll the dice” approach that worries them.
JULIA Gillard’s war bunker is now such tightly controlled airspace that even when she has a plan it looks like chaos to the ALP caucus.

The Prime Minister still lets Wayne Swan, Anthony Albanese and a handful of others in on some secrets.

But most ministers are strapped into a re-enactment of the Hindenburg blimp disaster for the same shock-and-awe revelations that voters get.
UPDATE
This doesn’t sound helpful at all, even with a Labor man writing the script:

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that work has begun on the series, with author Bob Ellis commissioned to write an initial script…
Mr Ellis has been a speechwriter for Foreign Minister Bob Carr, with whom he remains a close confidant… He once chastised Ms Gillard for her “girly tears” over the death of her father, and using John Gillard’s death to “take time off playing hooky from her national obligations” while he has described Mr Rudd as “friendless”.

The series is the brainchild of Beyond executive producer Mark Hamlyn, whose company lists Nine, Seven and the ABC among its clients.
The series is supposed to screen “within 12 months”. The election is in seven and half months.

===

===

===

===

===

===

My good friend Tracey Lee Maxwell's acting showreel.
You may recognise her as CereCere from Dead Moon Circus. I thought this might be interesting for all the fans and supporters to see :)
Tracey Lee Maxwell Thanks for sharing David Daniel Ball!! *ahem... sir* hehe

Would you be so kind as to share this link below? I'm in the running to win "Most Fascinating Actress" of the month for Star Central Magazine (You may have seen my posts..? LoL) I would looove 
your votes and support!! You can vote once a day and voting closes Feb 28... Thank you so much!!! Sending you good wishes and many blessings!! Chat soon xx  Tracey 

Most Fascinating Female Actresses Of The Month – March 2013 Edition===

===
A few more words about the "advice" Ms Gillard gave about incorporating the AWU-WRA===

===

Goody. I luv seconds for dinner and dessert
===

===

===

The Beach Bash Xtreme Obstacle Challenge came to The Entrance this weekend. Caught up this morning with one of the local competitors, Paul who just wants to see strong, secure and stable Government. Congratulations Paul on successfully completing a difficult course.
===

===

The Glass Igloo Village in Kakslauttanen, Finland is a winter resort and skyward-focused hotel of individual glass igloos. Each igloo is fashioned with glass that allows one to gaze at the magnificent northern lights.
===

===

The corridors of Parliament House ?
===
I am reminded of the weak measurement fallacy that sparked President Reagan into spending billions on education in the '80s. Many high schools in the US hadn't had a physics laboratory for their kids, or chemistry lab. An international report showed the US was falling in international standings. It wasn't noticed until later the US had improved in every single ethnic subgroup. The ethnic subgroups were White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and other. The reason for the overall fall was because of greater representation among weaker performing sub groups .. remember, you shouldn't add averages .. Australia can cut spending on education and still improve its international standings were it to focus on worthwhile aspects and not merely fads
===
Fear will bring you into disobedience. Faith will bring you to dependence on God - Mandy F
===

===

Valentines Day is fast approaching, make this Black Forest Cake for that special someone from our cookbook, 'Chocolate: A Love Story'! Max Brenner
===

===

===

And Vietnamese-Australian cage fighter Thanh Vu advances to the semi-finals of the Bantamweight Grand Prix with a devastating TKO victory in the first round over Malaysian Bantamweight Mohd Fouzein!
===

WE'VE GOTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE...........

More Labor resignations are expected as government members flee Labor's dysfunctional and divided regime. 

Just look at the chaos and confusion in Gillard’s ranks in the last 3 days – do they seriously expect the public to give them another 3 years !!!. Craig Kelly
===

===
Photo
===

No comments: