Liberals take Parramatta

At the recent Parramatta council elections Labor lost two councilors and the Libs gained one. Last night for the first time ever, Parramatta Council elected a Liberal Lord Mayor:

Councillor Issa, 53, of Merrylands, becomes the first Liberal lord mayor in Parramatta’s history.

Labor councillor Julia Finn congratulated Cr Issa as the council’s first Lebanese-born, Arabic-speaking lord mayor.

Former Labor lord mayor Paul Garrard was elected deputy lord mayor as part of a new coalition of Liberal and independent councillors.

The council’s current budget was $7.9 million in debt, Cr Issa told the Advertiser yesterday morning.

He called an urgent meeting with council general manager Robert Lang yesterday to be briefed on the authority’s true financial position.....

Hope he can do something about the parking.

Barry O'Farrell talks sense

Good to see some common sense from the NSW Libs. The government wants to limit or ban advertising. Barry O'Farrell thinks we should accept personal responsibility:

"The key to fixing binge drinking or binge eating is personal responsibility, not some band-aid measure," Mr O'Farrell said.

"Government isn't big enough to be standing beside every person on every occasion to make the decisions for them. That's why personal responsibility is the key."

Note too Mr Della Bosca main concern seems to be keeping health costs down.

Burning down the house

This video provides a good concise explanation of the current financial crisis , at least to my understanding. However as the Hotair bloggers make clear, it was hardly all the Democrats fault.

Swan obeys Turnbull

The government will be injecting $4 billion into the mortgage market to encourage competition:

Mr Swan revealed the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) would buy mortgage-backed securities from smaller lenders, non-banks and building societies.

There would be two tranches of $2 billion each, possibly more. Part of the money would come from the 2007-08 Budget surplus, which came in $2.9 billion higher than expected at $19.7 billion.

The AOFM will buy residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), which are AAA-class arrangements and not the high-risk "toxic loans" plaguing the US. In the long term, the AOFM should make a profit.

Anyone watching Q& A last week would have heard Malcolm Turnbull propose the same plan. The Howard government accused the Rudd opposition of stealing their policies. It looks Rudd & co still need the Liberal to provide the with ideas.

Iridium

Here's another space story. Remember Iridium? Back in the 1980's Motorola had a plan to provide the military with a world wide mobile satellite network. DOD lost interest when the cold war ended so Motorola decided to put up a commercial system thinking there would be plenty of business people willing to pay good money for mobile phones.

After spending $6 billion putting up 66 comsats the system came online in1998 only to go bankrupt 9 months later. The company had completely under estimated the growth of terrestrial mobile networks.

There was lots of talk of the satellites falling out of the sky at the time but the bankrupt company sold its assets for a bargain basement $25 million. The new owners reduced the phone rates, found new customers and have been turning a profit. They now sold it for $591 million. Not a bad return for a $25 million investment. The original satellites will need to be replaced around 2014 so expect the new owners will be investing in broadband capable satellites.

Investment companies usually grow an established company then sell it for a substantial return don't be surprised if the add a zero or two to their investment.

Fake astronauts

This is not going to help the credibility of the Chinese space program.:

CHINA'S leading Xinhua news agency reported the successful flight of the Shenzhou VII - complete with detailed dialogue between the astronauts - hours before the nation's third-ever manned space mission had even lifted off.

On Thursday morning, Xinhua posted a story on its website saying the Shenzhou capsule had been successfully tracked flying over the Pacific Ocean even though the rocket and its three astronauts had not yet been launched.

What would they have done had the launch ended in disaster?

Muslim rebel

Here's one Muslim woman rebelling against Islamic repression, although I don't think Andrew Bolt would approve.

THE daughter of hate cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed is a POLE DANCER, The Sun can reveal.

Busty Yasmin Fostok, 27, leads a secret life after rebelling against her fanatical Muslim dad — who rants against Western “depravity”.

Rants ... Omar Bakri

She has performed in London pole dancing bars and gyrated half-naked in cages at club nights.

And she admitted: “I’m willing to go topless if the venue is right.”

Yasmin, a party-loving girl who quit the family home in North London four years ago, added: “I don’t get on with my dad.”

Bakri, 50 — in Lebanon after being kicked out of Britain — told The Sun: “I am deeply shocked.”...

Via Tim Blair

Greedy landlords

The rental market is just about dead and rents are unsurprisingly increasing which of course is the fault of greedy landlords:

Housing Minister David Borger said today the situation should, however, not become cause for landlords to jack up rental prices unreasonably.

"It's important that we react to the news today in a reasonable and calm way,'' Mr Borger said.

"What we don't want is unscrupulous landlords jacking up rents unreasonably at the expense of tenants, that'll just make the problem worse.''

"Today's news is a sobering reminder of the pressures facing families and workers in NSW.''

The government has done nothing to increase the supply of land so unsurprisingly rents go up. As usual they shift the blame to some one else, this time its land lords. Cutting taxes may help but unless theres a concerted effort to solve the supply problem it will have only a temporary benefit.

Journalist unacceptable

Some journo publishes a story based on classified documents! then complains that the feds investigate him.

The owners of The Canberra Times say they are "gravely concerned" over an "unacceptable" police raid on the Canberra home of one of its journalists this morning.

Australian Federal Police arrived without warning at the inner-north home of the paper's National Affairs Correspondent Philip Dorling at 8.30, investigating allegations of the leaking of official secrets.

Well I'm gravely concerned too. I'm concerned that it took the police so long to investigate him. Journalist do not have a right to break the law, nor do they have a right to publish official secrets. I hope the police throw the book at the creep.

McCain and Australia

Republican presidential candidate John McCain had an article in the Australian today.

He supports the alliance and emission trading, so Mr Rudd should like him. However I especially liked this:

American leadership is also necessary on trade. For six decades, Democratic and Republican presidents have consistently stood for free trade, but in this presidential election the Democratic candidate has broken with that tradition. I believe that free trade agreements, such as those we have entered into with Australia and Singapore and have negotiated with South Korea, are critical building blocks for an open and inclusive economic order in the Asia-Pacific region. They create billions of dollars' worth of new exports and set a higher standard for trade liberalisation that ultimately helps all the nations in the region.

Good to see he is a free trader.

I await with interest Barak Obama's response.

Nuts

Just have a read of this. Beware the return of the giants!

Also a pro-creationism biologist is causing a stir in the UK. I'm not all that surprised really. I remember meeting a professional astronomer who believed in biblical creationism. How he reconciled the age of the universe with biblical version I don't know. The professor was a devout Christian (Seventh Day Adventist I think) .

Desert cities

Here's some good sense from the new Western Australia premier. Don't bring the water to the people, bring the people to the water:

He said a severe lack of services in many areas was due to the fact that most West Australians lived in Perth.

"Look at Queensland. It has 11 cities outside Brisbane and the Gold Coast area with populations of more than 50,000 people. We have one in WA - Bunbury,'' Mr Barnett said.

"Our failure to build regional cities is one of the greatest failings of modern WA history.

"We have to develop the Kimberley and improve living situations in the Pilbara.

"People go and live in places like Dubai. Talk about a harsh environment, yet thousands of people go there to live because they have a comfortable environment.

"What we have done in the Pilbara, in a harsh landscape and with a seriously hot summer, is that we have built replica suburbs of Perth.

"There is something to learn from Dubai. Maybe we need to build apartments with airconditioning and swimming pools.

"Living conditions in the Pilbara are where they were in the 1950s and '60s.

"We need to provide better health services and education. We are going backwards.''

Good to see a State Premier who is actually interested in developing his state rather then just complaining that the feds aren't giving him enough money while waiting for his pension to accumulate.

Kill old people

This is very disturbing, the UK's Baroness Warnock thinks dementia suffers have "a duty to die" to preserve the government medical system.

The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

The left told us a government health plan would help the elderly. Some help it turned out to be.

Muslims have mixed emotions

Read this tonight:

..The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam, issued a statement following today's conviction of a seventh man for being part of a homegrown terrorist cell. ...

"The Islamic community is relieved that this legal process has now come to some conclusion," the sheikh said.

"Although we were not present throughout this lengthy trial, we are confident that the accused were given the opportunity to present their innocence.

"The reaction from the Muslim community to the verdicts is one of mixed emotions, as many people know of these men and empathise with the hardship that their families have endured to date and will continue to endure beyond today."

Mixed emotions? Just what emotions are supposed to be mixed?

UPDATE: Looks like the terrorists wanted to kill John Howard. Fortunately we didn't get to see the Muslim community's emotional reaction to that.

Turnbull

Well, Malcolm Turnbull is now Leader of the Opposition. Personally I rather liked Brendan Nelson, his political instincts were usually right. However the polls showed that me and perhaps Mrs Nelson, were the only ones that did.

I liked the following from Turnbull's speech:

We are a party of opportunity and this, my friends, is a land of opportunity. Australians and Australia can do anything. We can do anything, but we need to have confidence, we need to have leadership. We need, above all, to have the opportunities to do well. And that is the great difference between our side of politics and Labor, because we believe that government’s role is to enable each and every Australian to do their best, to exercise their freedom of choice to do their best. Labor believes government knows best. We are not so vain as Mr Rudd. We know our job is to empower and enable the enterprise, the dreams, the ambitions of Australians- of all Australians. And that is what I commit myself to doing today as the leader of the Liberal Party, as the leader of the Opposition.

Very upbeat. Good. He was good on TV too, very convincing. I like his support for gay rights but have different views on cultural issues such as the Monarchy but lets see what happens over the next few months.

Submarines

Does the RAN need more submarines? Allan Behm thinks so. His response to Mr Rudd's recent speech was to say we needed 12-15 subs.

Leading defence strategist Allan Behm, who has provided advice to the Government on defence policy, said: "The best bang for your buck comes from submarines."

To cover Mr Rudd's ambitious military plan, the federal Government would have to review its current 3 per cent annual growth cap on defence spending.

Under the Behm plan, the army would escape largely unscathed but the RAAF would be forced to halve its $16 billion order for 100 futuristic F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to cover the cost of the new generation subs.

Another $2.5 billion of savings would be achieved if the Government decided not to proceed with a fourth Air Warfare Destroyer.

At least 12-15 new generation submarines would be needed to provide the sort of capability edge envisaged by Mr Rudd, Mr Behm said.

He explains the reasons here. But it ain't going to happen. We can't fully crew the six submarines we have let alone double the number, and we would have to gut the other services to afford them.

The trouble is the current subs don't have the speed planners hoped for. As Abraham Gubler writes:

Rather than double the future submarine fleet we just need to increase the transit speed to match that originally required for the Oberon replacement. For a two month patrol to a location 4,000 NM from FBW (East China Sea, Arabian Sea) an improvement on transit speed from 10 knots to 16 knots would enable an on station improvement of 45%. This means you can achieve almost twice as much tactical presence from the faster boat. So six 16 knot submarines (Oberon replacement specification) would have the combat power of 12 10 knot submarines (Collins class). The faster submarine achieves this without requiring massive increase in submarine crews and supporting infrastructure.

Nuclear submarines would have more then enough speed and range but without a local nuclear industry we couldn't maintain them so have to rule them out. (In my view this is one of the best reasons for developing a nuclear industry but that's a topic for another day).

However not all is lost. Improvements in technology including high temperature super conductor electric motors and Lithium-ion batteries mean the superior specifications can be met. The Collins subs will need to be replaced in the2020 decade so the RAN will begin the procurement procedures in 2010 .

They will be looking at two options, a commercial of the shelf design based on the Collins and a design incorporating the new technology. If the governments wants the RAN to have submarine force that can properly do the job then the new technology design has to be a strong contender.

For more information see Abraham Gubler's excellent article in the April issue of Defense Technology International.

Rudd talks sense on defence

My mind is a bit more at ease today after reading Prime Minister's speech on defence. He has the good sense to reject the isolationist Fortress Australia mentality and accept the need for us to have a forward looking defence:

Mr Rudd said Australia must therefore look to its own military resources and maintain a flexible land force able to contribute to "high-end military engagements".

"We need an advanced naval capability that can protect our sea lanes of communication and support our land forces as they deploy," he said. "And we need an air force that can fill support and combat roles and can deter, defeat and provide assistance to land and maritime forces."

As to what this will really lead to we have to wait for the white paper and the government's response but here are my suggestions.

1) Order the fourth Air Warfare Destroyer. The four AWDs would replace the four Adelaide class frigates with a much greater capability. Install the SM-3 missiles too so we can have an ABM capability.

3) Order a third Landing Helicopter Dock. As well as replacing the two Kanimbla class LPAs the LHDs would replace the other aging amphibious ship, HMAS Tobruk.

4) From the F-35s to be ordered have a squadron of STOVL F-35Bs. A small squadran of 12 or so F-3bs would be a great asset for the ADF. It would give the RAAF the ability to operate from bombed air fields and just about anywhere in the outback. As well they could fly of the LHD's giving the RAN a fixed wing capability. The F-35B would allow us to provide our troops with air cover anywhere in the world, similar to what the US Marine Corps can do with their Harriers. If cost is an issue keep the Super Hornets, which are excellent planes, and order 70 or so F-35s not a hundred.

Recall option for New South Wales?

Brendan Nelson thinks it would be good if we had an early election in New South Wales. The trouble is we have fixed term elections and the next won't be until 2011. There's no way the government would want to call an early election anyway, they would be thrashed.

So how about a recall option? They have them in some American states like California. That's how Arnold Schwarzenegger first got elected. Citizens can circulate a petition and if they get a set number of voters to sign another election will be called. There would need to be safeguards to allow a government to have a fair go and the number of petitioners high enough to ensure the people really annoyed with the government. But surely we deserve a way to get rid of dangerously incompetent governments.

WA election

It looks like the Liberals may have scrapped to power in Western Australia. Remember the Libs leader Colin Barnett was only put there a few weeks before the election. Having a one party state is unnatural in Australia, should the Rudd government win a second election don't be surprised to see all states going to the Liberals.

Nathan rules

Iemma the Incompetent is gone! Hooray! Hooray!


To be replaced by my local member Nathan Rees.

All I can say is good luck Nathan, you are going to need it.

Photos courtesy News Limited

Red necks again

I really get pissed off when the leftest elite attack ordinary people for the great crime of being ordinary. Sarah Palin's future son-in-law admits he is a red neck. As I have previously written red necks is a term used for out door workers who have a red neck from sun burn. Considering that the Palins have a background in commercial fishing they too would qualify as red necks.

The elite just can't handle the reality that a red neck could be a succesful governor and potential President.

Politically incorrect burgers

Hungry Jack has shocked dietitians by coming out with the Quad Stack Burger:

TV commercials are promoting the Hungry Jack's Quad Stack Burger, which contains four beef patties, four slices of cheese, two rashers of bacon, barbecue sauce and two sugared buns.

It contains 71g of fat, 34.7g of saturated fat, 1930 milligrams of sodium and 74.8g protein...

"I was quite surprised that with so much media about healthy eating and the whole anti-supersize thing that they would come out and do the exact opposite," she said.

"I wasn't too impressed when I saw it on the TV, and even the people who watched it with me, who weren't dietitians, said the same thing. It was a bit like 'what are they thinking?'....

Well I think they are thinking that theres a lot of people out there who enjoy a good burger and don't give a stuff what dietitians think.

Personally I keep away from fast food burgers, they usually give me indigestion. But I do like the occasional Aussie burger with the lot. Wentworthville Leagues has the famous Wenty Burger, highly recommended.

Arctic Ice cap didn't melt

Despite predictions by some the Arctic ice cap didn't melt and we won't be playing water sports at the North Pole this year:

Santa can rest easy.

It’s looking like the ice at the North Pole won’t melt to water next month, as had been feared. It would have been the first time in thousands of years that the most northerly place on the planet would have been ice-free.

“It’s quite unlikely at this point,” Walt Meier a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, said today.

The ice in the Arctic Ocean is at near historic lows, and breaks records every couple of years due to human-caused global warming, the scientists at NSIDC say.

This spring, it was looking like the ice might retreat so far that the North Pole itself would be ice-free for at least a day in September – the height of the ice-melt season.

The chances were great enough that the scientists at NSIDC were laying almost even odds on it in an office pool.

But while global warming is playing an important role, seasonal variability does, too. And this summer turned out to be a little cooler than last summer, when the record for ice retreat was set, Meier said......

So it actually got colder this year. Better luck next time with your predictions gentlemen!

Taliban treated like dogs

Muslims groups are outraged that the SAS locked up four Taliban militants in dog pens:

SUSPECTED Taliban militants arrested by Australian special forces in Afghanistan have been detained in "dog pens" in actions that have left Australian Muslim groups outraged and prompted a protest from the Afghan ambassador in Canberra.

The empty dog pens were used to hold overnight four suspected Taliban insurgents who were arrested in a raid by special forces soldiers on April 29.

The raid - in response to the fatal shooting two days earlier of Sydney-based commando Lance Corporal Jason Marks - resulted in allegations of mistreatment of Afghan prisoners.

An army inquiry last week rejected those claims, saying they were not supported by medical evidence....

You know what? I don't give a shit.