Fighting Joel

What. A. Suckup. Have a read of this Age article on our Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon. How many beers did Fitzgibbon have to buy Paul Daley for such a puff piece? But its good to know we have such a highly qualified Minister:

Fast forward and enter Joel Fitzgibbon, a no-bullshit former auto-electrician from Cessnock in country NSW. He has a turn of phrase that could make Belinda Neal blush — the product, perhaps, of knocking about with tradies, cock-fighting through the NSW Labor Right and playing first-grade rugby for the Cessnock Goannas.

Fitzgibbon spent the first few months of his tenure bagging Brendan Nelson and the Liberals for ordering the Super Hornets. Then completely changed his tune when the RAAF explained to him what the aircraft could actually do. Surely Kevin Rudd can find someone better.

Brendan does good

The 7% swing against the government is good news for Brendan Nelson and the coalition. It should keep Nelson leader for a while longer. It appears the proposed fuel excise cut was a big winner for the opposition and there was considerable hostility to the alcopop tax and emission trading. However this was a safe National seat so a win is unsurprising. However Alexander Downer may resign soon bring an by-election in Mayo, a much more interesting seat. Nelson better win that if he wants to keep his job.

Update: Could the wheels be coming off the Rudd wagon already? According to this report the government's school computers policy is falling apart.

Why I shop at Best and Less

Below are two examples of male fashion that have been presented at the Paris Fashion Show. I'll stick to jeans and t-shirts.

Mark Steyn wins one

Heres some good news, MacLean's magazine and Mark Steyn have had the complaint against them dismissed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. However it ain't over yet as the B.C.'s Human Rights Tribunal has yet to make a decision:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed a complaint against Maclean's magazine over a controversial article on the future of Islam, magazine officials said yesterday.

Meanwhile, a decision from the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal over the same issue isn't expected for several months.

The Canadian Islamic Congress launched the dual complaints over an article by Maclean's journalist Mark Steyn.

The article, The Future Belongs to Islam, came under fire by Muslim critics who claimed it spreads Islamophobia.

Earlier this month, closing arguments were made before B.C.'s Human Rights Tribunal over the article, which appeared in Maclean's in October, 2006.

I hope never have similar situation here.

Arctic ice cap to melt

Looks like Santa Clause could be flooded out. According to this report the Arctic ice cap could disappear this year.

THE Arctic ice cap, damaged by a record melt last year, is at good odds to disappear altogether this northern summer, polar scientists have warned.

The ice edge shrank to within about 1100km of the North Pole last year.

The scientists say the chances of an ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50-50 because of last year's melt and the fact that thick ice has been blown way in recent years......

The good thing about the prediction is we should know the result in a few months. Will the Arctic soon be available for water sports? Or is it a case of alarmist scaremongering? We should know soon enough.

Rudd says no to nukes

Labor stalwarts Bob Carr and Paul Howes have come out in support of nuclear power:

THE head of Australia's biggest blue-collar union, Paul Howes, and former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr have called for Australia and the Rudd Government to purge its prejudices and embrace a nuclear power industry.

Their advocacy at the annual Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Washington after a debate on climate change signals a campaign to persuade the federal Labor Government to rethink its policy on nuclear energy.

Mr Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, told The Australian that "if we are going to be a green Labor Government, then we have to look at nuclear". "If we don't start today, we are going to put ourselves in a very precarious position in 10, 15 or 20 years' time," he said......

However Mr Rudd says no:

THE Rudd Government has flatly rejected calls from an influential unionist and the former Labor premier Bob Carr to embrace a nuclear power industry as it grapples with how to cut carbon emissions.

Kevin Rudd told ABC radio this morning the nuclear option was not needed.

And in a short media conference, Treasurer Wayne Swan, when asked about the renewed nuclear push answed: ``No, a capital N-O.''....

No matter what Mr Rudd says we will hear more and more proposals for nuclear power stations in Australia. Labor's carbon emission trading will push up electricity prices making nukes more economical. This is going to be a thorny problem for Labor a problem of their own making.

It ain't looking good

To me the Iran situation is looking worse from day to day. Something is going to go bang there soon, I hope its not a nuke on Israel.

IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said the country's "enemies" will never succeed in stopping Iran's nuclear activities, the official IRNA news agency reported.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana handed Iran an offer on June 14 of trade and other benefits designed to persuade Tehran to curb its nuclear work and end a row that has helped push oil prices to record highs.

"On the nuclear issue ... the enemies were not able to stop our nation and will never succeed in stopping our program," Mr Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the western city of Kermanshah.....

McCain likes alcohol (fuels)

Republican presidential candidate John McCain seems to support the Zubrin plan for flex fuel cars:

"Instead of playing favorites, our government should level the playing field for all alcohol fuels that break the monopoly of gasoline, lowering both gasoline prices and carbon emissions. And this can be done with a simple federal standard to hasten the conversion of all new vehicles in America to flex-fuel technology--allowing drivers to use alcohol fuels instead of gas in their cars," he said.

I'm not surprised he likes alcohol fuels , his wife owns a beer distribution company.

McCain also proposed a $300 million prize for the invention of an advanced electric car battery. Good idea, the $10 million X-Prize allowed Burt Rutanto develop a reusable sub orbital rocket plane, so it might work with batteries too.

Burn the non believers

Dr James Hansen wants to prosecute global warming non believers. Apparently oil companies are funding the heresy. I wonder how much oil money Andrew Bolt gets? Can I get some? I'll be happy with a petrol discount. Hansen is a typical leftest. don't agree with someone so shut them up.

This is just bad science. You don't do science in a court room, or in a government committee. Science is based on experimentation and observation. In science skepticism is a virtue because if you don't question results there can be no progress. Even the most fundamental scientific laws such as gravity, are fair game, let alone something as complex and poorly understood as climate.

When a scientist starts advocating renewable fuels, carbon taxes etc. they are doing policy, not science. They therefore have the face the same sort of political debate any politician is subjected too. If Dr Hansen doesn't like it , tough.

Liberal leadership

Prime Minister Rudd is working his cabinet like a drover dog but is not producing much. Even his own people realise fear that the government has no real agenda. In such a situation the opposition should be able to erode the government's support. They can set their own agenda and have the government respond to them rather then the other way around. Indeed the Nelson opposition did just that with their 5 cent fuel excise tax cut proposal. Unfortunately for them it has had bugger all benefit to their poll numbers.

So it appears Nelson's days as leader are numbered. To me he seemed a capable, hardworking man, a was a good defence minister, but he just doesn't cut it with the public. So lets look at the alternatives.

Malcolm Turnbull: Highly capable, very ambitious and likes tax cuts, but will the westie mortgage belters buy him? I'm doubtful, seems far to trendy to me. Besides a minor twitch to the left in his seat and his gone.

Tony Abbott: Seems to have Howard's cultural and social conservatism but has been more liberal then the government lately, he has spoken up against the binge drinking hysteria. But he keeps acting like a boofhead.

Peter Costello: He had his chance, if he had it in him he would be leader now. The best thing he can do is leave parliament.

Joe Hockey: Blank. What does he believe in?

Not much of a field is it?

Indigenous Protests

Aboriginals have been protesting today but not against the abuse and neglect of their children including drug taking, sexual abuse and teenage prostitution, but against the governments attempt to stop it.

Traditional owner Mr Vince Forrester is one of the protesters, he believes intervention is racist and has this to say:

Mr Forrester told a gathering of about 300 people at Redfern in Sydney that life had simply become harder.

Quarantining welfare funds now meant his people had to shop in Alice Springs.

"It's a five or six hour drive away... so much for building up our own economic base in our own communities," he said....

Well, Mr Forrester if the local economy is dependent on welfare payments its not much of a community. Leave the community and get a real job.

Farewell Cyd Charisse

Cyd Charisse the great dancer, and true Hollywood star has left us aged 86. She also had the best pair of legs in Hollywood history.



From "Silk Stockings".



Her she is again from "The Band Wagon' with Fred Astaire. I don't believe its possible for any hetro male to take his eyes of her.



I wish we had stars today of her talent and screen presence.

Euthanasia

I'm glad we have so far resisted calls to legalise euthanasia. It always seemed a good way for money graping relatives to take advantage of the elderly and vulnerable to me. This case just supports my views:

Shirley Justins was found guilty by the New South Wales Supreme Court jury of manslaughter and Caren Jenning was found guilty of being an accessary to manslaughter.

Mr Wylie died from an overdose of Nembutal, a widely-advocated euthanasia drug, at his northern Sydney home in March 2006.

The 71-year-old had been refused a legally assisted death in Switzerland four months earlier, on the basis of his questionable cognitive ability......

One week before his overdose, Mr Wylie drew up a new will leaving all but $200,000 of his $2.4 million estate to Justins.

If the fellow was suffering from dementia how can he possibly be aware of what he was taking? Not that it will stop Dr Nitschke:

"We'll be advising people not to (declare they have Alzheimer's).

"Don't go to your doctor. Don't have the tests done. And if you do have the tests donethat show that you're starting to lose mental capacity, make sure it is not recorded."

Yeah, so we should kill ourselves if our memory is a vague, is that what you are advocating? Sounds like a death cult to me.

Green targets kills industry

The NSW development minister Ian MacDonald, admits the truth; that the Rudd government's scheme to combat greenhouse warming will destroy our industry. The solution Mr MacDonald offers is compensation. So lets see the logic here. We have a carbon tax/credit or what ever system to reduce carbon emissions, then we counter act that through compensation. Why have the f%$#@ tax in the first place? This is just ridicules, Mr Rudd, how much cooler will we be after these emission targets are met?

Home time story

Saw this on the Libertarian's blog and just had to blog it.

Binge drinking bullshit

A good night out is now regarded as binge drinking by the governments health authorities. They originally wanted it to be as low as two drinks. But they would wouldn't they? What a better way to justify their existence then to make reasonable behavior wrong?

Mr Rudd was just on TV claiming the mums and dads were concerned about the dangers binge drinking pose to their kids. Well they might be too, but the same mum and dads enjoy having a few drinks at the club on Saturday night too.

I don't think I'm alone in thinking this a self serving over-reaction too. Heres the result on the instant poll on the News.com.au poll as of a few minutes ago:

NEWS.com.au

Is four beers or three wines a binge?

Add your vote!

Yes - one or two is enough No - I'd be just getting started Everyone is different

• 
  

Poll Results

Thanks for voting, here are the results so far:

Is four beers or three wines a binge?

Yes - one or two is enough

16% (521 votes)

No - I'd be just getting started

52% (1667 votes)

Everyone is different

31% (987 votes)

Total votes

Total of 3175 votes

Pollies pay

The Sunday Telegraph is running this story on its front page:

NSW MPs have quietly pocketed a minimum 4.2 per cent increase to their exorbitant allowances, putting them on a collision course with angry unions.

The State Government is locked in fierce pay disputes with firefighters, rail workers and police over its hardline, below CPI, 2.5 per cent increase offer.

Premier Morris Iemma has frozen MPs' base pay rates, but last Friday the Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal approved rises of between 4.2 and 14 per cent to their allowances.

Unions called on Mr Iemma to reject the boost to their perks or face a revolt among front-line workers who are fighting a 2.5 per cent pay increase cap imposed by Treasurer Michael Costa.......

I have no problem with politicians being paid well, if you want the best people you need to pay the best price. My only criticisms of politicians income is their generous superannuation. It just encourages the useless to hang on to achieve the required service time.

However heres an alternative. Let candidates put their expected salaries next to their name on the ballot paper. Joe Blogs may want to be your local member for $100,000 another person may offer a cut price $60,000, another may think he is worth $300,000. That way we really would get what we pay for.

How Australia IS stopping nuclear proliferation

Greg Sheridan gets stuck into Kevin Rudd's half baked foreign policy schemes including his useless nuclear disarmament commission. He also mention a policy that does actually work the Proliferation Security Initiative. The PSI is an American lead coalition including Australia, set up by President Bush in 2003. If the PSI members think a ship is carrying parts for WMDs they will stop, search and seize shipments. Some call it piracy, (the Chinese refuse to participate) but tough, it works.

For security reasons not much information can be released but it is known they have stopped a cargo of centrifuge parts going to Libya. Our Foreign Minister seems supportive but the security restrictions mean Rudd can't get much publicity from it so instead we get the no nukes commission.

This government just loves useless symbolism.

Kevin Rudd to bannish nuclear weapons

After laying a wreath at a Hiroshima memorial PM Kevin Rudd announced he he will end nuclear weapons.

In a speech at Kyoto University, Rudd proposed the creation of the "International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament" bringing together experts from around the world.

He said the group would be co-chaired by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and that he would ask Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Thursday to consider a Japanese national as the other head.

"It is impossible to visit Hiroshima and not be moved by what you see -- a graphic human story of the horrendous impact of nuclear weapons," Rudd said...

Hmmm..... He can't do much about interest rates or petrol prices but he will abolish nukes. Anyway, I would have thought the lesson of Hiroshima was that a nuke or two was a good way to stop a war.

The Americans seem to have nukes on their minds too. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has just sacked a couple of USAF top brass for nuclear stuff ups. I hope the shakeup is successful. You would hope the military know what they are doing when it comes to nuclear bombs.

Genetically modified orgasms

Saw this on Andrew Landeryou's blog. Apparently he's an ex Greenpeace member. Wish he had joined the Greens rather than the Liberals.

Aboriginal cop allows child abuse

When even the local police allow child abuse to take place in their own homes what chance do the kids have? To me this is the real threat to children in Australia not Henson's nudie pics.

A 13-YEAR-old Aboriginal girl had to have her dead baby removed from her womb and contracted three sexually transmitted diseases after her police officer father allowed her to marry a 19-year-old man.

Northern Territory Opposition Leader Terry Mills has called for the Aboriginal Community Police Officer (ACPO) to be sacked, saying the man had "stood by while the law was broken in his own home".....

Cut taxes for green cars

Mr Rudd seems to be determined to have a hybrid car manufactured in Australia. The Productivity Commission thinks its a load of crap but hey, what would they know? They are only economic experts anyway so the Prime Minister is off to Japan to discuss his plan with car manufactures.

I have been critical of the Ruddmobile plan for some time. Its good old fashioned socialist industry planning with the government picking winners. If Rudd & Co. are any good at commercial decisions they should be in business not politics.

Theres a much better way to get us off oil, give tax cuts for alternative energy cars. Not hybrids which are just more economical petrol cars but any true alternative car such as flex-fuel and all electrics. Imported cars have a 10% tariff and all cars have a 10% GST. Refunding the GST would knock thousands of the average car. Flex fuel cars would end up cheaper then petrol only cars and be the quickest and easiest to introduce. In my view they are the likely to be the most successful. However I know GM have a all electric car, the Volt in the pipeline that could be imported tax free. I'm happy to let the market decide what succeeds.

What were are likely to get is the continuation of tariffs to support the Ruddmobile enforcing higher cost cars on us. Mr Nelson you had the sense to propose a fuel excise cut how about a car tax cut?

Obama Lightworker

This article has been making its way around the blogosphere for a day or so but I just hod to post it. Apparently Democrat presidential candidate Barrak Obama is a "lightworker" . Didn't they have those on Charmed?

Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul......

This Obama is the messiah bullshit is bound to collapse, the only question is will it end before or after the presidential election.

Henson's photo's not porn

Its official, Bill Henson's photographs of naked children are not pornography. All charges against him and the gallery director Roslyn Oxley have been dropped.

I have purposely waited until the end of this melodrama before making a comment. Just a few points.

Kevin Rudd, Morris Iemma, Andrew Bolt and all the other disgusted critics have not seen the photographs. Only a few people have as the police removed the pictures before the exhibition was opened. Censored internet pictures don't count. Nudes are not pornography, the most that was revealed was a girls breasts. The models in question were there with the permission of their parents.

Frankly if the newspaper pics are any indication, I wouldn't even regard them as erotic. But then perhaps the critics are turned on by pictures of naked 12 year olds more then I am.

I realize theres a need need to prevent child porn, but this was a complete overreaction. We need to keep a sense of preportion here or we risk becoming ridiculously restrictive. Some people even want to ban nappy commercials!

Work Choices still undead

As I suggested months ago Work Choices may be officially dead but it will be replaced by something much more market friendly then its critics want:

Union leader Dean Mighell has accused the Prime Minister and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard of trying to keep 95 per cent of the Coalition's workplace laws intact, despite having pledged to rip them up.

The outspoken Electrical Trades Union secretary is leading a revolt against the Rudd Government amid concerns among senior colleagues that federal Labor has turned its back on plans to restore workplace rights.

In a strong attack on the Prime Minister's Labor credentials, published in The Australian today, Mr Mighell calls Mr Rudd no "true believer" and claims he is listening too much to big business.....

Good news, if we want to keep unemployment low.

UPDATE: Bastard boss Kevin Rudd made his bureaucrats work 35 hours straight. I wonder what sort of contract they are on.

Australia the movie

We saw the latest Indiana Jones film the other night and they ran the trailer for Baz Luhrman new movie Australia before the start. It sure looked good. I really, really, hope its a success. I'm sick of the mostly mediocre crap the local film industry has been producing.

The Spirit Dwarf

A Victorian pub has a "Spirit Dwarf". I wonder how much he gets paid? They might bring back dwarf throwing competitions.

A PUB promotion involving a bare-chested and top-hatted dwarf walking the length of a bar pouring free booze down the throats of patrons has drawn protests from alcohol education campaigners.

The Jagermeister promotion has been on one night a week at The Saint in St Kilda, Melbourne, the Port Phillip Leader reports.

Jagermeister distanced itself from the promotion, which follows the Federal Government's campaign to clamp down on binge-drinking.

The Saint management declined to comment about whether the Wednesday party nights could contravene new laws preventing irresponsible consumption of alcohol......

Global warming crashes computers

Ross Garnaut ran the numbers through and found that the carbon emission cuts he wants are so severe that Treasury computers can't model it.

THE cost of deep cuts in carbon gas emissions proposed by the federal Government's climate change adviser Ross Garnaut is so severe it cannot be reliably predicted by existing computer models.

Economists working for the Treasury and Professor Garnaut, using three sophisticated computer models, have struggled to measure the effect on the economy of a 90 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

The scale of the cuts mooted by Professor Garnaut in an interim report in February overwhelmed the models and work has been delayed until August, barely a month before Professor Garnaut's final report is due......

However that hasn't stopped the Professor coming up with some predictions anyway, especially it it helps him get approval for some home renovations.

In a bid to build a sustainable second house behind his home in inner-Melbourne Princes Hill, Professor Garnaut has told the City of Yarra Council that global warming will lead to more hailstorms in Melbourne - a claim, it now emerges, at odds with those of leading climate change scientists.

In a letter to the council, the economist uses his expertise to argue that heritage traditions, including a slate roof, should not apply to the property when defending what objectors say is an ugly, curving steel roof set to dominate the streetscape at the rear of the property.

He points out the greater resilience of a steel roof over slate given the increasing hailstorm threat. He says he has consulted the insurance industry in the course of his climate change work to back up his argument. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth assessment report, Climate Change 2007 - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability - says in chapter 11: "Decreases in hail frequency are simulated for Melbourne and Mt Gambier." It does not back up Professor Garnaut's letter, which says: "Severe and more frequent hailstorms will be a feature of this change.".....

Global warming can be so convenient.

Relax please Mr Rudd

Working your top people to the ground doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Mr Rudd Losing six secretaries in six months shows theres something seriously wrong. Like most workaholics he is refusing to see anything wrong with his behavior.

Theres a lot the be said for the "relaxed and comfortable" approach.

UPDATE: Heres a quote which I'm sure Mr Rudd will ignore;

It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance? Ronald Reagan.

Cutting petrol prices inflationary?

Mark Arbib is critical of Brendan Nelson's fuel excise cut proposal, claiming its inflationary. I understand some of the argument, that the two billion dollar tax cut would stimulate demand. However on the other side of the coin lowering fuel is bound to lower inflation. To me it sounds like another bullshit excuse to tax us more and attack Nelson.