Now I'm really scared

Mr Rudd has a plan to save capitalism:

The Prime Minister has vowed to use the "greatest market failure" in 75 years to commit his Government to sensible new market regulation and intervention to stabilise the economy and save jobs.

"The time has come, off the back of the current crisis, to proclaim that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed, that the emperor has no clothes," Mr Rudd says in a lengthy essay for The Monthly magazine, to be published next week, The Australian reports.

Twenty years of economic reforms that have freed up the economy and given us unprecedented prosperity are now to be replaced by regulation. And the leaders of the new socialist intervention will be those Labor social democrats like Mr Rees, Mr Bracks etc. Oh dear.

Bush's Legacy

The reviled former President left behind at least one great legacy:

SOLDIERS, police, prisoners and displaced people cast early ballots today in provincial polls that will define Iraq's political landscape as US forces withdraw and Iraqi forces seek to defend a fragile calm.

Polls open to the general public on Saturday in the first Iraqi election since 2005....

Interestingly the Dali Lama likes Dubya:

"I love President George W Bush." He went on to add how he and the US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting unlike politicians who take a while to develop close ties.

His Holiness has some words of wisdom on non-violence and terrorism too:

NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama, a lifelong champion of non-violence on Saturday candidly stated that terrorism cannot be tackled by applying the
principle of ahimsa because the minds of terrorists are closed.

"It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence," the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.

Bush I and Clinton

Teenage girl in horrific hours-long sex ordeal

The teenagers are too young to have their names revealed but it would be interesting to know their background:

SEVEN youths, some in school uniform, subjected a 13-year-old girl to sex acts, one of which was filmed and sent to a mate, a Sydney judge has been told.

The girl, who felt threatened and intimidated, performed oral sex on five of the youths during her hours-long ordeal at two isolated toilet blocks and on a building rooftop in Sydney.

During one incident, she was told, "Just smile like you're enjoying it," while one youth later gave her his phone number and asked her to call him.

At times, youths yelled at their mates to "hurry up, it's taking too long" and "your turn's up". .....

The offences took place in July 2007, at two different toilet blocks in Yagoona parks and later on the rooftop of a Bankstown building.

The facts said the girl agreed to meet KD at the Bankstown Bus Depot on that day, after having first met him days earlier at a shopping centre. ......

Housing to become cheaper

Heres some good news, well its good news if you are looking for a house to buy. The housing bubble is going to burst:

AN international group has predicted that the housing bubble in Australia is yet to burst.

The public policy group Demographia says a comparison of median house prices with median household incomes in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Britain and the US found Australia has the most cities in the "severely unaffordable'' category - where house prices are more than five times the median income.....

Demographia says affordability in Australia is worsening relative to Britain, Ireland and New Zealand, where prices have recently collapsed. Australia will be next, it said.

The government should do absolutely nothing to prevent this. Let the market work and give a chance for home buyers to enter the market.

Young Liberal reject slavery

Noel McCoy's proposal to bring back conscription ended in farce:

Anyway. The time comes for the motion to be debated. Noel asks for a mover…

*dead silence*

NOT A SINGLE DELEGATE WAS WILLING TO EVEN MOVE THE MOTION.

Not one. Every single voting delegate from every single state delegation was against this ridiculously stupid motion.

The motion lapsed and went promptly into the dustbin of history where it belongs.

It’s good to know that the Young Liberal Movement believes in freedom.

Thanks to Tim Andrews for the update.

Turnbull and biochar

Today Malcolm Turnbull gave a major speech at the Young Liberal's convention were he outlined the Liberal's answer to global warming. There's much of it I like. Agriculture is central to the plan (the Nationals should love it) with much emphasis on revegetation and biochar. I especially like the promotion of biochar, which as well as producing charcoal to improve the soil and suck CO2 also produces syngas which can be made into methanol fuel. (Now if I can only convice Malcolm to run with my flex fuel proposal).

I'm less entusiastic about his alternative enegy plans. Rather then building a couple of pilot solar plants a fair dinkum commercial 500 megawatt nuclear plant would make a real contribution .

Lets bring back slavery

That's what the Young Liberals are proposing:

THE Young Liberals are proposing nine months of compulsory national service for all young Australians, to be completed before age 24.

The service would not be restricted to the military but include community and foreign service and trades.

Under the plan, young Australians could do their service overseas, working in foreign aid and development, either in programs run by the Australian government or helping non-government bodies such as the Red Cross or Doctors Without Frontiers,,,

And the reason for this:

Young Liberal president Noel McCoy said the aim was to provide a sizeable low-cost workforce that would help to offset the effects of the financial crisis.

In other words slave labour. Have they got rocks in their heads or what?

*****************

Further thoughts, I think Obama proposed something similar during his campaign, have they Young Libs been watching too much American politics?

The Gym Dwarfs

First there was the spirit dwarf, now there's the gym dwarf:

A gym in Britain is offering its customers an unusual set of dumbbells to exercise with — including an overweight man and two dwarfs.

Members of Gymbox in Bank, central London, can choose to lift any of five differently sized “human weights”.

Wearing Lycra catsuits which label their weight, they sit on specially adapted machines and shout words of encouragement.

The “dumbbells” include two dwarfs — Arti Shah, 32, who weighs just 30kg, and Mike Edwards, 64, who weighs 55kg.

Muslim cleric's Key to a successful marriage

Muslim cleric Samir Abu Hamza tells Melbourne Muslim men that its OK to hit your wife and you can force sex on her when you want. But he was only speaking metaphorically so its OK:

A MELBOURNE Muslim at the centre of a storm over a lecture where he apparently directed his followers to hit their wives and force them to have sex reportedly says his message was taken out of context.

Coburg mosque cleric Samir Abu Hamza has told a confidant his message about hitting was meant in a metaphorical sense.

Ahhhh, the benefits of multiculturalism.

My Hope for Change

I'm an unashamed admirer of how Barack Obama used the Internet in his election campaign, awestruck would be a better description, so I'll be watching closely how he will use the Internet in government. Lots of Youtube videos and a blog for the White house are obvious developments, but will he be able to usher in a Web 2.00 government? Will he be able to use modern technology to reform public service administration? That's the big test. Various governments have introduced some interesting applications such as fix My Street and the Apps for Democracy but clearly there's a long way to go. If he can harness the 'net to cut through bureaucracy and red tape I'll be a happy little small government free marketeer.

Rudd stimulated gambling

Looks clubs did really well from Kevin Rudd's stimulus package:

POKER machines won out with the Federal Government's stimulus package, which has been blamed for a $15 million boost in revenue in Queensland.

More than $167 million was spent playing poker machines in December – 10 per cent above the previous month's $152 million....

If Mr Rudd want to help subsidise my cheap beer thats OK with me.

Support for nuclear power

My post the other day was timely, Australian engineers and scientists have come out in support of nuclear power in Australia:

AUSTRALIA will probably have to go nuclear to tackle climate change, engineers and scientists say.

They say nuclear power is the only reliable, proven source of electricity with a minimal carbon footprint.

They're tipping 15 per cent of the country's electricity will come from nuclear reactors by 2050.

And the first plant could swing into action just 10 years after approval is given.

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, which represents more than 700 experts, has issued a report calling for nuclear power to be on the table....

Nuke Australia

The global warming of debate will be with us for some time, so I'll take the opportunity to state my views. I accept that the Earth's temperature has increased compared to the 60's and 70's although it seems to have leveled off during the last decade or so. I do not know if global temperature will increase, decrease stay the same or what. I am unconvinced that anybody really does either. Certainly I'm unaware that climatologists were able to predict the current stability.

However what I'm really sceptical about is that any government policy can effect climate. I can't see any real benefit in cap and trade proposals. The ETS will enrich financial traders and public servants at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer. Any effect on emissions will be limited, that has been the experience in Europe. The government wants to cut Australia's emissions at the same time they want to improve infrastructure so we can export more coal to China! Why the Opposition supports ETS I don't know. f there must be financial incentives to reduce CO2 a carbon tax is probably the lesser of the two evils.

Now there is a proven effective way to reduce carbon emissions without sending us broke or having to give up air conditioners. Replace fossil fuels with that safe renewable energy source- nuclear power. Solar, wind etc are useless for base load power, they are to intermittent. The Howard government had the sense to start moving Australia in that direction but Rudd has banned any consideration of the nuclear alternative. There are good environmental and strategic reason for going nuclear that have nothing to do with carbon emissions (for one thing it would allow the RAN to have nuclear vessels) but the facts are startling; Australia's per ca pita carbon emissions 16.3 tons, France 6.2 tons. The French receive 80% of their electricity from nuclear power. As far as I'm concerned people who wants to lower our carbon emissions and refuses to support nuclear power are just not fair dinkum.

The Western Lines is proud supporter of nuclear energy and has signed the petition.

Inflation, Gold standard and government borrowing

John Humphreys has posted an excellent article on inflation and what can be done to prevent it. Here's an extract:

However, in contrast with the private sector (which needs to expand production to pay back the loans) the government has no market dicipline to ensure that their spending increases national production. Indeed, government spending often decreases national production though distorted incentives, deadweight loss, administrative and compliance costs, waste and corruption. This means that there will be more money chasing the same (or fewer) goods… leading to inflation.

Greenspan suggests that only a gold standard can prevent this. But he is wrong. All of these problems still exist with a gold standard. If the government is still allowed to borrow and tax, then even under a gold standard banks will have an incentive to create credit for the government without ensuring an equivalent increase in production.

The only way to ensure a stable monetary system is either to (1) remove the government’s power to tax; or (2) remove the government’s right to borrow; or (3) allow them only to borrow when the future repayments on the loan do not come from tax revenue.

Very much worth reading in full and even clear enough that even I can understand it.

Obesity myth

The obesity "epidemic" is really about expanding the nanny state:

A new research study from the University of South Australia has found obesity rates among children hit a plateau in 1998, and have not moved since.

The revelations cast serious doubt on previous warnings childhood obesity is increasing every year.

Some honesty at last:

"People are always reluctant to let go a notion which is their life work," he told The Australian.

"I include myself in that because I've written quite a few papers predicting that exponential increase, but we've got to look at the facts and the facts don't bear that out."

Sea Kittens

PETA's new bright idea.:

Outspoken animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is using the "sea kitten" name as part of its push to restrict fishing.

"Nobody would hurt a sea kitten!" the group says on its website.

"People don't seem to like fish.

"We're going to start by retiring the old name for good.

"When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it's time for a serious image makeover."

I just had some very tasty sea kitten patties and fish for dinner. Yum, yum!

Muslims attack KFC

Perhaps KFC were using Zionist chooks:

ANGRY Indonesian Muslim students stormed a KFC restaurant today in protest against Israel's military strikes on the Gaza Strip.

About 300 protesters gathered outside the US fast food outlet in Palu, Central Sulawesi, waving Palestinian flags, burning US and Israeli emblems and carrying banners condemning Israel as a "terrorist and criminal" state.

A handful of demonstrators then stormed the restaurant, overturning tables and chairs.

"KFC's licence is from America, an important Israeli ally. In consuming US products it means that we give financial contributions to Israel's military strikes on the Palestinian people," protest coordinator Maful Haruna said....

No Gas for Europe

I don't know whats going on here. Are we seeing the ground being laid for a war?

ALL deliveries of Russian gas through Ukraine have been halted, officials from both sides said, amid growing concerns that European consumers could suffer from the crisis amid freezing weather.

Ukraine accused Russia of cutting off the gas to Europe while Russian energy giant Gazprom blamed Kiev for shutting the last remaining pipeline. But neither disputed that supplies of Russian gas across Ukraine had now been halted.

Ten European states have now reported complete halts of Russian supplies, with Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia becoming the latest countries to announce they were no longer receiving any Russian gas....

Israel at war

Lets get real here. The constant wars Israel finds itself in will one day come to an end. They will cease for the same reason every other war has stopped, one side wins the other sides loses. in this case either Israel will be destroyed or the Palestinians will lose so many lives they will give up and sue for peace. I just can't see any other alternative, I have watched handshakes, peace processes, American Presidential intervention etc all my life but as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow they all failed.

As far as I'm concerned the Israelis have every right to defend their people from Hamas rocket attacks, and if that means they have to blow the crap out of Gaza so be it.

We might take Gitmo refugees

The Australian government has been approached by the United States to take in former detainees from Guantanamo Bay.:

The Federal Government is preparing to quietly accept detainees, but insisted yesterday there would be no wholesale intake of former terror suspects, as each of up to 250 prisoners would be assessed on an individual basis.

About 60 detainees have been cleared for release by the US, but for security reasons they are unable to be sent to their home nations.

After intense lobbying from the US administration - which is preparing to deliver on the Obama promise to close "Gitmo" - both Australia and the British have begun laying the groundwork to examine accepting detainees.

So just why can’t these people be returned to their home country? Or some other Muslim nation whose culture they should be more familiar with?

Major General John Altenburg warns us:

General Altenburg yesterday said there was a significant degree of reoffending among the detainees who had been released from the Cuban prison.

"About 30 of them have been captured or killed or are known to be back on the battlefield," he said. "These are people who were

released because they thought they weren't dangerous. To me, it's a fair comment to say, 'we don't want these people. Now we've got the burden of watching them and we don't know whether they're dangerous or not'."

I note the United States doesn’t want to take them but Obama still wants to close Guantanamo Bay. I don’t like this at all.