HUNGRY children as young as six broke into a Mount Isa pre-school looking for food at the weekend. Two six year olds were among 10 children aged 14 and younger caught by police for seven break-and-enters within a 48-hour period. Mount Isa Police Station's Sergeant Chris McLoughlin was stunned when he found two small children stuffing their faces with food from a pre-school refrigerator on Saturday night....
"When I first saw them I thought they were only four because they were so little and undernourished."But what shocked officers even more was the reaction they received when they dropped the children at home."When I was attending the children's homes they didn't seem concerned that their six-year-old kids were missing," he said."They didn't know how long they had been gone for, where they were, who they were with – it's just horrendous....
Flex fuel cars are not the only alternative to petrol vehicles, another contender is electric. The Israelis are sick of paying for their own destruction and have chosen electric cars to liberate them from oil.
...Announced on Monday, the plans for electric car infrastructure include the construction of 500,000 quick recharge points throughout Israel and tax breaks for electric vehicle buyers. With the tax breaks, electric cars in Israel will be less expensive to purchase than gasoline engine cars. And with 500,000 places to either recharge while you go get dinner, or just have the exhausted battery taken out and replaced with a juiced up one, a lot of consumers will probably be opening their checkbooks to take home an electric car.
Renault, in association with Nissan, will be selling several of its standard vehicles in electric models for the Israeli market. These won't be weak electrics either; according to Bloomberg.com the electric engines will perform similarly to a 1.6 litre gasoline engine. With batteries built by NEC, the expected distance of Renault's electric vehicles is around 124 miles, pretty good considering that Israel is only one-third larger than New Jersey. Plus, Israel's most populous areas, aside from Eilat, are located relatively near each other. This means that, for an average Israeli, recharging an electric car at night after driving only a few miles is a feasible alternative to a gasoline engine vehicle. Renault is confident enough that the average Israeli will buy electric cars that it expects to sell 10,000 to 20,000 electric cars per year starting in 2011. ...
The company will sell the cars like mobile phone with a lease contract for four years after which the cars will be owned by the motorist. Israel is a small country so the limited range of battery cars is less of an issue. I still think alcohol fuels would make better sense in Australia but who am I to know. Thats why I proposed a carrot and stick plan that would all the market to decide. With government support, the Israelis hope to be all electric by 2020. think the main impediment would be if some Islamist decides to nuke Israel of the map.
"I commit my government to making substantial inroads into reducing Aboriginal disadvantage in the three years of the parliamentary term left," the premier told the Australian Legends Luncheon.
FIFTEEN-year old Demi-Lee Brennan defies belief. Dubbed the "one-in-six-billion miracle girl", the South Coast teenager is the first transplant patient ever to change blood types and take on the immune system of her organ donor. Her body's ability to accept a new liver - and then produce new blood cells on its own - has left doctors mystified. The rare phenomenon now means Demi no longer has to take a cocktail of anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life.......
QUEENSLAND welfare workers were unable to find a 13-year-old indigenous multiple-rape victim, a profoundly deaf cerebral palsy sufferer whose behaviour had exhausted 43 foster carers and who had been known to the system almost her entire life.
Doctors at Cairns Base Hospital had rung the Department of Child Safety crisis line in an urgent bid to find the girl to treat her for three sexually transmitted infections - chlamydia, gonorrhoea and trichomoniasis - contracted when she was allegedly raped by her 19-year-old cousin at Weipa on Cape York in December. Crisis line staff on December 28 were "unaware" the child was under the care of DCS and had no contact details for her, say case notes provided to the Cape York Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect office and obtained by The Australian....
...The Opposition Leader said it was "absolutely essential" the intervention be extended to Queensland and not only because of the revelations about rapes of children at Kowanyama and Aurukun.
"It's fair to say that some of the same issues that prompted the intervention in the Northern Territory are endemic in a number of remote Aboriginal communities in the Cape," Dr Nelson told The Australian at the Mossman Gorge Aboriginal community yesterday...
‘If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for . . but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”“If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.”
The Queensland Nationals and Liberals are seriously looking at merger again. Considering the Libs recent clowning around it might be a good idea. I'm in no position to discuss this with any degree of wisdom, but this got my attention.
Another senior Queensland Liberal, Senator Russell Trood, issued a statement rejecting the merger proposal, on Wednesday night.
"I congratulate Mr Springborg on his election as leader of the Nationals in Queensland, but am unable to support his self-serving call for amalgamation which would seem to envisage the disappearance of the Liberal Party from Queensland's electoral landscape," Senator Trood said.
"Despite the results at last year's federal election, the Liberal Party continues to command a very significant level of support as the main party on the right of Queensland politics."
Very significant level of support? There are 89 seats in the Queensland parliament. The Liberals have a total of 8, the Nats have 17. It may be different at the federal level ( I haven't checked) but at the state level its hardly a significant level of support for either of them, certainly not for the Liberals.
If it does happen I wonder what they will call the new party?
The Rudd government wants to fight inflation and high interest rates by cutting government expenditure and thereby reducing demand. It wants a $18 billion surplus. Considering that the last few budgets have ended up around that level anyway it shouldn't be too difficult. Malcolm Turnbull reckons its mostly spin. As well the government wants to encourage savings and investment in infrastructure.
Those funds will end up in the Future Fund which already has over $60 Billion. Money which is being invested to eventually pay public servants superannuation. Thats right, the billions of dollars of our tax money which the government keeps through the surplus will end up paying for public servants retirement.
Governments need to raise enough tax to pay for the proper roles of government, not invest in the stock market. Even if public servants super obligations are large its better to cut taxes to encourage economic growth then to over tax people. I'm no economist, so lets assume there is a need to run surpluses to combat inflation and keep interest rates down. Is their a better alternative then the Future Fund?
I believe there is. Privatize the Future Fund. Theres enough money to give every man, woman and child in Australia $3000. Do it, give everybody a Personal Future Fund. For most people it would be linked to their superannuation, retired people get a free $3000 investment bond. Also give workers a flat $500 tax cut which would be added to the Fund. Any budget surplus can be credited into an individuals Fund by way of a tax cut. If the government ends up with an $18 billion dollar surplus it would mean Australia's 10 million workers would get $1800 credited into their fund not $500.
When the fund reaches $6000 anyone can withdraw savings from their fund in case of temporary unemployment, giving them the equivalent of six months dole. No need to see Centrelink, no means test either. After six months there would be a government benefit perhaps tied to a compulsory work for the dole. At retirement time any money in the fund would be transferred to your superannuation for you to enjoy.
Once the Personal Future Funds are accepted they can be expanded to replace other welfare payments, perhaps Medicare.
Personal Future Funds are not my idea, Peter Saunders has been promoting them for some time.
Personal Future Funds replace welfare with wealth fare and are the best way to reduce tax and substantially cut government spending as they address the largest budget items, our welfare and health bill. It should appeal to both parties and I wouldn't be surprised if Rudd implements a similar scheme. If he doesn't I hope the Liberals run with it.
Gale has finally confirmed she has been cast as Wonder Woman in George Miller's upcoming blockbuster, Justice League Of America.
"I still can't believe it," she said. "I have been infatuated with Wonder Woman since I was a teenager."
She will continue in her role as brand ambassador for David Jones, but her final catwalk will take place in Melbourne on February 27, after she launches the retailer's Winter 2008 Collection at a runway show in Sydney on February 12.
With demand for sperm growing rapidly - particularly from single Sydney women - clinics are importing vials from the US on a monthly basis.
"The demand is incredible and continually rising," said John Braine, from Fertility East in Bondi Junction.
The most surprising trend has been a 40 per cent rise in the number of single women seeking sperm donors.
"These are women, aged from 35 to 40, who are single, attractive career women, who cannot find a man to have a baby with," he said.
While Sydney's man-drought had compounded the problem, new laws giving children the right to know the identity of donor parents was a big factor in the decline in donor numbers. As a result, there are fewer than five registered sperm donors in NSW.
Industry Minister Kim Carr is overseeing work on an election promise to create the car, which could rival other successful energy-efficient models such as the Toyota Prius,Why? Hybrids are petrol cars with an electric motor and battery pack to extend range. They are about conservation, all they do is extend our use of oil not replace it. Having both an IC engine and electric engine they are more expensive and complicated. No wonder motorist have been wary of them.
The Government has pledged to put in half a billion dollars to create Green Car Partnership over a five year period from 2011.
Senator Carr said: "This fund will generate $2 billion in investment to develop and build fuel-efficient cars in Australia and will be developed in consultation with the sector as part of the upcoming review of the auto industry.
Australians have been slow to embrace green cars. There are not any manufactured here and only 3200 hybrids were sold in 2006.Substitution is the key not conservation. I’m a great believer in flex fuel cars that can run on alcohol as well as petrol but even this compressed air Noddy car makes more sense to me.
Ms Gillard wants to introduce programs to reduce social isolation in new housing developments in regional areas and cities, particularly on the outer fringes.
"The analysis would lead you to believe that if economic growth alone was going to fix the problems of those communities, it would be fixing them by now," Ms Gillard said.
"The truth is economic growth alone is not fixing the problems of those communities and they're getting left behind."
......As a very modest monetary reform I would propose that the mint be required to always have on issue a coin series with a legal tender value of A$1000 and a retail price of A$1000 (plus handling costs as per the normal coins issue to banks) and a gold content value of at least A$800. As the gold price changes over time they would be free to adjust the design and weight of the coin to stay within these parameters so long as each new series was distinguishable from the last. In pratice this would mean most designs include A$900 worth of gold so that any shift up or down in the gold price did not mean that the issue had to be immediately replaced.
The effect of having such high value coins in circulation would be evident over time as inflation pushes up the price of gold. If the gold price went up such that the gold content of circulating coins was worth more than the legal tender value, then these coins would ultimately disappear from circulation (and eventually be melted down, collected or sold abroad for their gold content) and the monterary base (M0) would in essence notionally contract. Of course Reserve Bank Policy and the notes issue would of course be the final determinent of inflation. Under such a reform the community would once again get a practical feel for how gold operates as a monetary entity. And it can hardly be argued that such a reform would cause any harm.
But the Opposition's treasury spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, continued the attack, saying the Treasurer should have sought a more detailed explanation from the banks to justify their increases.If there’s a deregulated financial system then banks can increase interest rates when they choose too. To keep interest rates below the market rate would dry up credit. I’m interested to know how Mr Turnbull intends to punish banks who don’t provide explanations he likes.
"That is the business-like approach," Mr Turnbull said. "If he'd done that I think the banks would have given a second thought and either not increased their rates, or certainly not increased them by so much."
The car, Tata said, is smaller than a Maruti , but has 21 per cent more volume or space inside than the 800. He said that the dealer price of the car will be Rs 1 lakh, plus value-added tax (VAT) plus transport charges.The car will have a 624-cc petrol engine generating 33 bhp of power. It will sport a 30-litre fuel tank and 4-speed manual gearshift. The car will come with air conditioning, but will have no power steering. It will have front disk and rear drum brakes. The company claims mileage of 23 km per litre.
The car's dashboard features just a speedometer, fuel gauge, and oil light. The car does not have reclining seats or radio. The shock absorbers are basic.
You might think giving the Indian masses the equivalent of a Citroen CV2 or Volkswagen Beetle might just be the thing to allow them to enjoy the mobility and freedom we take for granted, but no we can't have that can we:
Professor Lucas Reinders, Amsterdam University's 'professor of the environment', is very concerned: "This car will offer an attractive alternative to people who rely on India's poor public transport or who ride cycles or motorbikes on its dangerous roads. Therefore, I think there's a good chance a huge number of the cars will be sold."
Review by Ralph Buttigieg
Every time we fill a car's tank with petrol we are helping someone who wants to kill us. That's the central issue of the war on terror. Even if not a drop of Australia's oil comes from OPEC countries our demand keeps prices up and help fills the treasury of Islamist terrorists.
Rocket scientist Robert Zubrin has the guts to clearly expose the problem and propose a radical but simple solution. He outlines the rise of the Saudi royal family and shows how oil rich Saudis have corrupted Western governments. How their influence in Washington effect American foreign policy and allowed criminal Yasar Arafat to prosper . Zubrin explains how Saudi money has been used to spread their Whahhabi ideology through schools and control of media outlets. He describes how oil billions directly fund terrorist and support nuclear Iran.
However Energy Victory is more then a book on Islamist threats, he has a solution. Zubrin proposes we replace our oil dependence with alcohol. He tells how two alcohols, ethanol and methanol, can free the world from the OPEC cartel. Methanol, not just ethanol is essential because methanol unlike ethanol, can be made from any biomass including garbage. As well it can cheaply be manufactured from hydrocarbons like coal and gas.
An alcohol economy would have other advantages. Alcohol would be a cleaner fuel giving us less polluted air. As well, fuels made from agricultural products would help reduce CO2 making the global warming mob happy. Perhaps the best secondary benefit would be that by lowering their fuel cost and boasting their agricultural industries poor countries can trade themselves out of poverty.
To break free from oil he has simple plan. The United States would mandate that all new cars sold be flex-fueled, they would be able to run on whatever mixture of petrol and alcohol available. The technology is well proven and such cars are already available . In this way there would soon be millions of flex-fuel cars on the road and service stations would have the incentive to offer alcohol fuel mixtures. Motorists would have fuel choice and could purchase what ever was the best deal on the day. The OPEC countries would have no option but to drop oil prices to match the cheaper alcohol fuels. The USA would effectively take the rest of the world down the alcohol path and the oil cartel would be broken.
Zubrin is aware of the critics of alcohol fuels, he analyses those criticisms and answers them. He also attacks the proponents of Hydrogen fuels claiming its a hoax.
I don't normally read a book in a couple of days anymore, but for Energy Victory I made the time and finished it over a weekend. As an Australian I found the chapter on how Brazil moved to alcohol very relevant. We couldn't really mandate flex-fuel cars in Australia as our market is to small but I think there may be ways we can achieve energy independence. I'll write about that some other time.
Anyway I highly recommend the book.
Heres the book's website.
This week the US magazine Vanity Fair published the first image, taken by Annie Liebowitz, of Blanchett dressed in character for the film.
The magazine says the story is set in 1957, and this time Dr Jones is up against cold-blooded, Cold War Russians led by Blanchett. As VF explains, Blanchett's character, Agent Spalko, "looks like the toughest Soviet customer since Lotte Lenya's Rosa Klebb took on Sean Connery in From Russia With Love."
Blanchett spent three weeks in Hawaii six months ago to shoot her part for the film and has been gagged by the director, Steven Spielberg, from talking about the mega-budget production.
She was joined in Hawaii by her two sons, Roman and Dashiell, who she later said had immensely enjoyed the experience of watching her in action hero mode.
Besides she looks so hot, hot, ohhhh so hot.
Some areas, including NSW and the Murray-Darling Basin, recorded their warmest year since records have been kept.
The Bureau of Meteorology, in its annual Australian Climate Statement released today, said the annual mean maximum temperature for 2007 of 28.6C was 0.73C above normal.
The average annual mean temperature was 21.8C, with the annual mean minimum temperature 0.61C above normal.
Mean temperatures were above average across Australia during every month except June and December in 2007.
Despite widespread drought in the far south-west and south-east of the continent, annual mean rainfall was slightly more than average at 497mm (25mm above normal).
The bureau said there was average to above average annual rainfall across northern and central Australia, average to below average annual rainfall in the southwest and mixed results in the remainder.
Today we are also reminded with the recent release of the latest study on gambling addiction and poker machines in particular, we are reminded that Australians are spending about $10 billion a year - $500 for every man, woman and child in Australia – on poker machines. Much of the money that is going through poker machines comes out of pension cheques and the pay packets of hard working battlers and it’s now long past time when governments throughout Australia need to be doing everything we can to assist those who are at the sharp end of gambling and poker machines.So pensioners and workers shouldn't be playing the pokies? Who are you to tell them that? Pensioners have as much right to spend their pension on poker machines as they have buying sweets for their grandchildren. Considering how fat some kids are is properly better anyway. Those hard working battlers actually, you know , work for their money and you want to stop them relaxing with a few beers and some time a their local club. Get over it, their gambling it subsidizing the cheap club meals and drinks anyway.
ETHNIC groups have backed an overhaul of Australia's new citizenship test after reports thatone in five applicants are failing it.
Of the 10,636 people who have taken the test since it was introduced by the Howard government in October, 2311 - about 20 per cent - failed.
Candidates must take a 20-question quiz on Australian history, values and way of life, and show adequate competence in the English language.
The West Australian newspaper reported that new Immigration Minister Chris Evans would review the citizenship test in the wake of the failure rate and could make substantial changes to it.
NSW Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian was critical of the test's content, saying it should rely less on culture and more on practical knowledge about Australia.
The government is reviewing the former governments decision to replace the F-111 with the Super Hornets (FA-18F). Well, a new government has every right to review expensive orders but the criticisms of the FA-18F given by some journalist are just nonsense. Case in point Ian McPhedran in todays Herald Sun.The Super Hornets are designed and built to operate from aircraft carriers.
Australia doesn't have an aircraft carrier, so why are we buying them?
That's obviously the question that new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has put to our defence chiefs.
Yeah, well the 75 FA-18A and B we brought years ago were designed for carriers too. Does McPhedran think an aircraft designed to operate from a carrier can't operate from an air field? The FA-18 is used by various countries including land locked Switzerland.
With superior Russian Sukhoi Flanker jets in the region there is possibly some justification for this.
The Flanker is far better than the Super Hornet in range, close-up and beyond-visual-range combat.
Former Air Commander and retired Air Vice Marshal Peter Criss said he was "'absolutely astounded" with the Super Hornet decision.
He said it was the wrong aircraft and he pointed to evidence given to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, that it was inferior to both the MiG-29 and the Su-30 Flanker. These aircraft are -- or will be -- flown by India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Firstly theres no threat. Malaysia is a member of the Five Powers Pact with Australia, we are not threaten by India and Indonesia has a total of four Flankers. No threat there. More importantly the Super Hornets are not meant to be used to defend Australian territory They are strike jets like the F-111 that would be deployed in a Air Expeditionary Wing. We are getting the FA-18F so we can still maintain this capability after the F-111s are gone. They, like the other FA-18s will be eventually replaced by the F-35.
This is just a Leftest attack against Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, the former Defence Minister. After the review I'm betting the government will reaffirm the order and find some way to dump crap on Nelson for having the sense to replace the F-111s.
Author JK Rowling could be tempted to give in to her "weak moments" and write an eighth Harry Potter book.
The creator of the popular child wizard released the seventh and final book
in the Harry Potter series earlier this year.
But now Rowling has admitted she could be tempted to write another instalment, although Potter might not be the main character.
"There have been times since finishing, weak moments, when I've said: 'Yeah, all right' to the eighth novel," Rowling told Time magazine.
"If, and it's a big if, I ever write an eighth book about the (wizarding) world, I doubt that Harry would be the central character.
"I feel I've already told his story. But these are big ifs.
"Let's give it 10 years."
