Unwrapping the EU Climate Package

Report from the straight-shooting Roger Helmer, MEP

I attended a European Policy Centre Breakfast Meeting on Feb 28th with Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. It was well attended with about 300 there: I sat at the top table with the Commissioner. He spent some time "unwrapping the EU Climate Package". When I had a chance to put a question, I spoke as follows:
"Is the Commission aware that 1998 was the hottest year in recent history, and that climate change now seems to have stalled? Is it aware that new data in recent days from four highly respected meteorological institutes shows that in recent months average global temperatures have dropped dramatically, far outside the range of recent years? Is the Commission aware of the exceptional snow-fall in China, in the Middle East, in parts of the USA?" (I could see that the American Ambassador, Boyden Grey, also at the top table, was following my question with interest). "Does the Commission know that sea ice cover in the Antarctic is currently the highest since records began? You may say that these are anomalies against the trend, but we seem to have an awful lot of anomalies and not very much trend.

"Isn't it true that we are relying on predictions from computer models which are increasingly at odds with reality, and that based on those predictions we are putting in place policies which will do huge damage to European economies, and impoverish our grandchildren?".

The guy from the WWF booed. Commissioner Dimas muttered a long reply which contained a lot about the IPCC and the Stern report, nothing at all about the actual climate data .

Source

Viscount Monckton comments:

And a footnote on sea ice. Two months ago there was no sea ice south of Greenland. Today my jet flew over the North Atlantic about 400 nm south of the south cape of Greenland, and there was sea ice as far as the eye could see, extending all the way to Newfoundland. This hasn't been seen for many years. A very strong La Nina indeed, helped along by the eerily-prolonged solar minimum. An excellent moment to be holding a climate conference that raises serious questions about the predictions of the Forces of Darkness.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. Also, don't forget your handy-dandy summary of Obama news at OBAMOLOGY

Interesting language:

Is Olmert finally getting serious about these animals? Or just afraid for his position?
"Israel warns of Gaza 'holocaust'
Israeli leaders are warning of an imminent conflagration in Gaza after Palestinian militants aimed rockets at the southern city of Ashkelon.

The deputy defence mister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a "bigger holocaust" in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip."
Link:

The wheels are coming off, warmenoids!

"It took a century for earth's recorded average temperature to rise by 0.6 degrees Celsius, and then one year - last year -- for it to drop by between 0.6 and 0.75 degrees Celsius, depending on which of the four major global tracking agencies you follow (that's Britain's Hadley Centre's graph for the last twenty years at right).

Just to repeat: that's more than the rise in recorded surface temperatures over the whole of the twentieth century, and more than four times greater than the supposed effect on temperatures of every every nation on the planet reducing its emissions according to the Kyoto Protocol." (bold mine)
Not PC
will this information put a stop to the proposed new taxes and regulations which are supposedly going to put the brakes on global warming? Will it shut up the hysterics who are babbling on about carbon footprints and derail the burgeoning carbon trading scams?
Nope. This is now all about power and screwing the taxpayer, aided and abetted by gullible useful idiots.
But then, some of us always knew that.

When lefties are left in charge

NZ Herald - New Zealand's loss of population to our trans-tasman neighbour is at its highest level since early this decade, new figures show. The net outflow of people from New Zealand intending to live permanently, or at least long term, to Australia, was last month at its highest for 6-1/2 years, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) said. In the year to January, 28,600 more people left for Australia as permanent or long term departures (PLT) than came the other way. That compared with 21,600 in the January 2007 year and was the highest annual net outflow to Australia since the August 2001 year, when the figure was 29,100, SNZ said.
Rest assured folks, Kiwis are not leaving their homeland because things are getting so much better for them in NZ and the grass is dry and brown over here. Guess who has been running that country for the last 8 or was it 10 years, yep, lefties. Recently their glorious leader came over here to meet with our newly elected glorious leftist leader, from what I read about their talks, they have both agreed to implement similar policies, that caused Kiwis to flee their homeland, over here as well. That's what lefties call 'equality' and once all this is done Kommisar Klark (Pictured) from New Zealand can then crow that she has stemmed the tide of Kiwis fleeing to Australia and isn't she wonderful!

Smacking children is not assault, say police

New Zealand take note

South Australian police accept parents using "minor force" to discipline their child, Police Minister Paul Holloway has told State Parliament. The Minister said SA Police did not have a "specific official policy" regarding smacking of children by parents, but accepted the community standard. Mr Holloway, in a written response to a question in State Parliament, said officers would only act if they believed the "application of force was more serious than an act of minor discipline, he said, and could then charge them with aggravated assault. "Police would take action against a parent in those circumstances where they believe that the force applied was or is excessive," he said. "SAPOL accept the community standard that on occasion some parents apply minor force to their child as an act of discipline," he said.



But Family First MP Dennis Hood yesterday said SA Police needed to develop an official policy to establish a consistent approach to the issue. Mr Hood said he was trying to protect the rights of parents to discipline their children by smacking in a bill introduced into Parliament late last year, which was not supported by the Government. Under his bill, parents would be protected under law from being charged if they smacked their children with an open hand on the bottom, hand or back of legs.

"I haven't pushed the legislation to a vote because the Government has said it won't support it and so it would be unsuccessful," Mr Hood said. "If somebody gives their child a whack on the bottom or the hands or legs they shouldn't be facing potential court action over that - as happened in other states and there are reports of it having happened here in South Australia as well." "Clearly there are inconsistencies with the way this issue is handled. I am not endorsing the beating of children or any form of child abuse whatsoever."

Mr Holloway said police don't keep records of parents charged with smacking their children because if action was taken, the parent would be charged with aggravated assault. Mr Hood said smacking children is illegal in New Zealand. Last week a retired Victorian family court judge called called on state governments to follow New Zealand's move to abolish the legal defence of "reasonable chastisement" for parents who hit their children.

Officers have the power to remove children from dangerous situations if they believe the child was in serious danger and they had to protect the child from harm, Mr Holloway said.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. Also, don't forget your handy-dandy summary of Obama news at OBAMOLOGY

Obama's women reveal his secret

Excerpt:

""Cherchez la femme," advised Alexander Dumas in: "When you want to uncover an unspecified secret, look for the woman." In the case of Barack Obama, we have two: his late mother, the went-native anthropologist Ann Dunham, and his rancorous wife Michelle. Obama's women reveal his secret: he hates America.


America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world's 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama's mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.

Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother's revenge against the America she despised.

Ann Dunham died in 1995, and her character emerges piecemeal from the historical record, to which I will return below. But Michelle Obama is a living witness. Her February 18 comment that she felt proud of her country for the first time caused a minor scandal, and was hastily qualified. But she meant it, and more. The video footage of her remarks shows eyes hooded with rage as she declares: "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
The desperation, frustration and disappointment visible on Michelle Obama's face are not new to the candidate's wife; as Steve Sailer, Rod Dreher and other commentators have noted, they were the theme of her undergraduate thesis, on the subject of "blackness" at Princeton University. No matter what the good intentions of Princeton, which founded her fortunes as a well-paid corporate lawyer, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong." ....

"Frustration" and "disappointment" have dogged Michelle Obama these past 20 years, despite her US$300,000 a year salary and corporate board memberships. It is hard for the descendants of slaves not to resent America. They were not voluntary immigrants but kidnap victims, subjected to a century of second-class citizenship even after the Civil War ended slavery. Blackness is not the issue; General Colin Powell, whose parents chose to immigrate to America from the West Indies, saw America just as other immigrants do, as a land of opportunity. Obama's choice of wife is a failsafe indicator of his own sentiments. Spouses do not necessarily share their likes, but they must have their hatreds in common. Obama imbibed this hatred with his mother's milk.

"Naivete" is a euphemism for Ann Dunham's motivation. Friends describe her as a "fellow traveler", that is, a communist sympathizer, from her youth, according to a March 27, 2007, Chicago Tribune report. Many Americans harbor leftist views, but not many marry into them, twice.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. Also, don't forget your handy-dandy summary of Obama news at OBAMOLOGY

Maybe They'll Found Rome?

By AR - Legend has it that the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf as abandoned infants. As legends go it is... fabulous, but when you hear the modern day equivalent you'll get a shiver down your spine.
The UK Telegraph reports on coroner Alistair Hope's investigation into aboriginal suicide rates: "Aboriginal children in Outback Australia are so neglected by their alcoholic parents that some have suckled from dogs' teats in a desperate search for food."
These are the same sort of children Kevin Rudd has apologised to on our behalf... not for allowing such a situation to occur, but for actually rescuing them from their plight. Is there some nuance that I don't get?

Oh, Oh. No Global Warming Last Year.

We've had snow in Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Athens. There has been some of the heaviest snow in North America in fifty years. Near record lows have been seen in many countries including Australia. Of course Global Warming is a settled issue. But in the last year we've experienced the largest drop in temperature ever recorded.
The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down. Source.
Although, as we have noted in the past charts can be misleading, they are still fun and useful to demonstrate a point. And since the Global Warming enthusiasts use them so much, here is one that doesn't look like global warming.


But this is not the only problem for Global Warming crowd. Remember how they claim the ice caps are melting? Well, the reality is just the opposite. In Antarctica it has been getting colder over the last 50 years. (Source). Further, the Antarctic ice sheet has more ice than normal for this time of year and the extent of the ice is more than one million square kilometers about the 28 year average despite it be summer. (Source). Still many web sites continue to report massive loss of ice, even though this appears not to be the case.
Hopefully, we are not headed into another ice age, which would be much worse than warming. In any case, Global Warming will not be over until Al Gore says so.

Capital Punishment Works

Apologies if you all already know about this and it's all old news, some of us are still shuffling along alright. I happened to stumble upon this while reading a different article in National Review last night.
WSJ - Most commentators who oppose capital punishment assert that an execution has no deterrent effect on future crimes. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the death penalty, when carried out, has an enormous deterrent effect on the number of murders. More precisely, our recent research shows that each execution carried out is correlated with about 74 fewer murders the following year. The study examined the relationship between the number of executions and the number of murders in the U.S. for the 26-year period from 1979 to 2004, using data from publicly available FBI sources. The chart nearby shows the number of executions and murders by year.
There seems to be an obvious negative correlation in that when executions increase, murders decrease, and when executions decrease, murders increase. In the early 1980s, the return of the death penalty was associated with a drop in the number of murders. In the mid-to-late 1980s, when the number of executions stabilized at about 20 per year, the number of murders increased. Throughout the 1990s, our society increased the number of executions, and the number of murders plummeted. Since 2001, there has been a decline in executions and an increase in murders.
In summary, if you want to save people from murdering scumbags, then execute the murdering scumbags, it's as simple as that. Needless to say, it's leftists who are at the forefront of saving these murdering sacks of filth, shock/horror, and yet they insist that it is us Conservatives who are the hard bastards, go figure.

Constitution? What Constitution?

Barack Obama's thoughts on the selection of Supreme Court judges:

"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
Obama's SCOTUS Picks: Can you say 'Nightmare?'

Obama and the Power of Words

These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny: "More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"

So Ronald Reagan proclaimed on July 17, 1980, as he accepted his party's nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Mich. Earlier that day, the New York Times ran a long profile of Reagan on its front page. The author, Howell Raines, lamented that the news media had been unsuccessful in getting Reagan to speak in anything other than "sweeping generalities about economic and military policy." Mr. Raines further noted: "political critics who characterize him as banal and shallow, a mouther of right-wing platitudes, delight in recalling that he co-starred with a chimpanzee in 'Bedtime for Bonzo.'"



Throughout his campaign, Reagan fought off charges that his candidacy was built more on optimism than policies. The charges came from reporters and opponents. John Anderson, a rival in the Republican primary who ran as an independent in the general election, complained that Reagan offered little more than "old platitudes and old generalities."

Conservatives understood that this Reagan-as-a-simpleton view was a caricature (something made even clearer in several recent books, particularly Reagan's own diaries). That his opponents never got this is what led to their undoing. Those critics who giggled about his turn alongside a chimp were considerably less delighted when Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes in November. One Reagan adviser had predicted such a win shortly after Reagan had become the de facto nominee the previous spring. In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously."

Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama? ... In just the past week, conservative commentators have accused Mr. Obama of speaking in "Sesame Street platitudes," of giving speeches that are "almost content free," of "saying nothing." He has been likened to Chance the Gardner, the clueless mope in Jerzy Koscinski's "Being There," whose banal utterances are taken as brilliant by a gullible political class. Others complain that his campaign is "messianic," too self-aggrandizing and too self-referential....

The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. Also, don't forget your handy-dandy summary of Obama news at OBAMOLOGY


Suffer the little children

Daily Mail - They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 20 vulnerable children. But Eunice and Owen Johns have been forced to abandon their good work because they refuse to tell children as young as ten that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. To do so, they say, would go against their Christian beliefs. The council says its fostering panel felt it would not be following the regulations if it placed a child with a couple who could not comply with the Act. The couple's case comes at a time when there is a chronic shortage of foster parents, who work on a voluntary basis. Around 8,000 more are needed nationally.
It's not like these two are running some sort of gay-bashing vigilante gang or something. It's not like the couple said that if the child comes home and says they're gay, they're going whip the homosexuality out of the child or something. You see folks, you're not allowed to even think that homosexuality is wrong, no sir. Soon these bureaucratic scum will be at your door asking you why you didn't attend last months annual gay and lesbian street celebrations, you a homophobe or something boy? So when they have a shortage of such volunteers, who suffers the most, that's right, the children. As far as these bureaucratic scum are concerned, the children can whistle, you see it's more important that homosexuals are not discriminated again in thought than children are properly cared for, go figure!

Muslim medics refuse to roll up their sleeves in hygiene crackdown--because it's against their religion:

"Health officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.
Medics in hospitals in at least three major English cities have refused to follow the regulations aimed at helping tackle superbugs because of their faith, it has been revealed.

Women medical students at Alder Hey children's hospital in Liverpool objected to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands and removing arm coverings in theatre, claiming it is regarded as immodest."
Daily Mail UK
"immodest" eh....apparently there's nothing immodest about their infidel patients dying from infections because these primitives put religion before basic hygiene.
And would those same health officials be "having talks" with Christian or Hindu or atheist medical staff who refused to follow infection guidelines?
The hell they would.

more leftist 'principles' on display:

"A PROPERTY developer who donated more than $160,000 to the NSW ALP has been given a $200 million windfall in a land rezoning deal – despite the Government's own expert panel warning Planning Minister Frank Sartor against the move.'
News.com

This Messiah has a strange smell about him...

The UK Times reports that Barack Obama's involvement with Chicago slum landlord Tony Rezko, currently under indictment, may involve money originating from a British-Iraqi Middle East wheeler-dealer, Nadhmi Auchi, a convicted criminal.

Rezko, an Obama fundraiser, helped facilitate Obama's purchase of a $1.65 million mansion in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood for $300,000 below the asking price. The owner wished to sell both the house and an adjoining lot. Mrs. Rezko paid the full asking price of $625,000 on the same day that the Obamas purchased their luxury home. At a substantial discount. The seller denies that there was any connection between the two transactions. Later, a small portion of the land was sold to the Obamas so that they could expand their garden.
Senator Obama calls this arrangement a "mistake."
The Obama-Rezko plot thickens (updated)

The Cult of Obama

America as been fortunate in avoiding political cults of personality. The closest that we have come to it may have been the 4 terms that Franklin Roosevelt was elected to. We should note also that FDR was a special case. He was first elected during the Great Depression and continued into World War II. This form of crisis situation has been unusual, and while one might disagree with the way that President Roosevelt handled some aspects of them, he certainly understood the gravity of the situation and the need for America to take action to preserve itself. This is exactly the opposite of what we see with current Democrat presidential front-runner, Barack Obama.


Simply stated, and as a significant number of critics, both liberal and conservative have pointed out, Senator Obama is an empty suit; a candidate who talks in endless platitudes, but says nothing of substance, except that he wants to enact a myriad of tax and spend programs at home, while ignoring the true nature of its enemies abroad and emasculating the military. Perhaps he believes that the foreign dictators are foolish enough to fall for his charm. If elected, he will quickly learn that they will be more than willing to say anything, and then do exactly the opposite if it suits their interest at the time. As Neville Chamberlain sold out Europe to Nazi Germany, Senator Obama is willing to sell out the United States anyone and everyone who has an axe to grind and is willing to say the right things in public, regardless of their true intentions.

Sean Hannity has talked a lot about two focus groups that were asked if they could identify any of Obama's accomplishments. Both came up with essentially nothing, which speaks volumes; the man really has done nothing, except promote his own political career as rapidly as can. Now, the fact that he can speak charismatically is really all that he is running on. People like what he says, regardless of whether it has any substance. I remember having a similar reaction to Jimmy Carter many years ago. I was a teenager when I told my, now departed, Mother that he said a lot of things that sounded nice, but there was nothing that I could identify specifically as practical or realistic. Obama is now doing the same thing. He talks about "hope" but it is a blind hope; faith that he has all the answers and that electing him to office will somehow solve all of America's problems. To make matters worse, his campaign is taking on a messianic attitude. This may well speak of an even greater underlying danger.

Michael Medved recently asked of his audience why people are supporting this candidate. He received all of the usual empty answers about hope, unity and the like. In the end, there really was nothing of substance that anyone could identify. I have an answer; it is not one I like, but I believe that it is the truth; that Senator Obama is the candidate of the intellectually bankrupt. It is no wonder to me that so many young people are swooning over this charlatan. He is all show and no substance, like so much of modern entertainment. He is the MTV candidate. He is the candidate of people who love special effects and don't care about the plot. Politically they are oblivious to the consequences of electing someone who is as gullible as they are. He is their drug that will make all problems go away, but like with a drug, the problems don't really go away and after effects are terrible.

Enacting the Obama domestic policies would result in a quick trip to national bankruptcy. His foreign policies would create a weak, vacillating nation that will not defend itself because talking to an implacable enemy is always better than eliminating him. He has no realistic method for dealing with our national energy needs. In short, he is running on hot air, and despite his contentions to the contrary, empty words. He does not have the depth to create words of real substance.

More here

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

ELSEWHERE

I confess! I confess! I have become an Obamablogger. And not only on this blog. There are now lots of blogs devoted to dissecting the words and deeds of the vacuous one but I now have a new blog which is simply a gathering-together of what I have posted about him here and elsewhere. I intend it more as a handy archive than anything else. See Obamology.

This is just what they used to say about Hitler: "When you watch an Obama speech, you lean forward and listen and think, That's good. He's compelling, I like the way he speaks. And afterward all the commentators call him "impossibly eloquent" and say "he gave me thrills and chills." But, in fact, when you go on the Internet and get a transcript of the speech and print it out and read it--that is, when you remove Mr. Obama from the words and take them on their own--you see the speech wasn't all that interesting, and was in fact high-class boilerplate"

Obama no compromiser: "After his victory last week in Wisconsin and again at the Austin debate, Obama revealed himself to be the most liberal candidate since George McGovern. He is not thrilled with building a border fence. He wants to meet with Raul Castro. He will raise taxes and spend a boatload of money on new programs. He will exit Iraq pronto and spend that money on domestic programs. He opposes any restriction on partial birth abortion and thinks the District of Columbia's total handgun ban is a 'common sense' regulation. This is no 'third way' and, other than a few rhetorical flourishes, there is no sign of 'reaching across the aisle.'

Obama corruption: "A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain's wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago. A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million. Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city's South Side while Mr Rezko's wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15."

I guess it WAS a Jewish guy who said "Love thine enemy": "It is no secret that Obama's candidacy has been supported financially and politically by many prominent members of the American Jewish community. Even previously outspoken Clinton-supporting spokespersons for Democrats Abroad here in Israel have been hedging their bets recently in articles and interviews, suggesting that an Obama Administration would augur well for Israel. Incredibly, citing unenthusiastic, canned pro-Israel campaign statements, these dyed-in-the-wool Democratic sycophants would urge Jewish voters to cast their fate and Israel's with Obama rather than with the Republican candidate, McCain. With all due deference to the Obama celebrity supporters like Steven Spielberg and George Soros, can Jews herein Israel and in America and other friends of Israel risk a vote for Obama in November? A quick look at the facts should switch on a big red light in most peoples' minds."

Foreign press warnings on Obama: "Der Spiegel editor: "The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance." And that was just the first sentence. On Friday, it was Gerard Baker of the Times of London asking: "are Americans really ready to leap all the way across in one go to embrace a European-style Left?" Now there is a warning about Obama from Gabor Steingart of Der Spiegel's Washington bureau. "The senator's successes in the primaries also have a narcotizing effect. Obama defines himself as a new type of politician, as someone who refuses to be judged by the old standards," Steingart wrote. Judging by old standards = accountability. I realize my readers are not Obama fans. But they should not buy the baloney about the rest of the world having a feel-good crush on Obama. Europeans want a strong America - that they can complain about being too strong. Steingart pointed out: "If democracy functions only half as well as the market economy, the Obama bubble will burst. The burning question is: When?"

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

Shock/Horror - Leftists Violent and Intolerant

News.com.au - THE US presidential race has become a blood sport, with a family feud over which Democratic candidate was the best person for the job spilling over into a full-blown fight, with punches thrown and a man stabbed. The incident took place last week, when Jose Antonio Ortiz began arguing with his brother-in-law Sean Shurelds about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, US website The Smoking Gun has reported. Mr Ortiz, 28 is a Clinton supporter. Mr Shurelds, 41, is an Obama man.

No wonder they're usually doing things that aid and assist violent and intolerant terrorists around the world.

Come on, wake up people!

Yahoo!7 News - Most Australian adults would fail a test on household finances and many would only last a month on their current savings if they lost their job, a new survey shows. The Citi Fin-Q Survey, conducted by Citibank, found that only 28 per cent of people save something from each pay packet and 50 per cent save when they can, while 22 per cent rarely save anything. The survey of 400 Australian respondents - as part of a wider survey of 4,400 people across 11 Asia-Pacific countries - found that 45 per cent would last up to one month only on their savings to pay their current usual expenses - mortgage, food, utility bills - if they lost of their job.
Good grief people, wake up will ya, you're supposed to be adults, start behaving like them if you want to be treated like adults. They can last one month, that's it! Haven't people heard of the saying, save for a rainy day, I don't know where that came from, but that wasn't brought about by folks lazing about with nothing to do and thought it just sounded good. In my opinion we should be working towards lasting a lifetime if you lose your job, not 10 months, let alone 1 useless month. After all one day we will all stop working and the way life expectancy is, you'll be around for a lot longer than 1 month after retirement.

It's been a while since I formed this opinion but the way I see it, the easier it is to do something, the less of it we actually do. When you think about it, it's so easy to set up one of those savings accounts, you can sit on your ass in front of a computer and get it all done in a few days. Once it's set up, you can sit on your ass again and move your savings over to it via the internet as well, it's that easy. We have flash cars and public transport and banks everywhere making it easier to shuffle our backsides to the nearest bank, all to make it easier, but we still don't do it. Image thanks to Yahoo Images.

Our Ailing Meritocracy: Merit takes second place to gender and religion

Excerpt:

When all the political sophistry is said and done, there is no denying that the claim to fame of the Democratic Party's two superstar candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, is that the one is a woman, the other black and from something of an "ambiguous" religious background (little wonder bland John Edwards stepped out, with the jocular yet true remark during January's CNN Democratic Debate that being white and male wasn't helping his cause). Clinton's and Obama's primary appeal, then, is that they are "minorities" - who, so the unspoken logic goes, must be in tune, domestically and internationally, with minorities everywhere, due to their own "diversity," and therefore must be open-minded and just. Yet, while diversity, multiculturalism, pluralism, et. al. are all well and good, is that all there is when choosing a president - when choosing a leader for our nation during these trying times?


Hillary can boast White House experience - eight years worth as First Lady, of being privy (except on a few occasions) to key presidential decisions being played out in the Oval Office. Still, it is very clear that Hillary's main appeal to democrats and liberals everywhere is, simply, that she is a woman. In that-and that alone-does she truly bring something new and unprecedented to the White House.

As for Barack (whose Arabic name, incidentally, means "Blessing"), it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where his merit or experience lies - aside from his reported "charisma" which apparently manifested itself in the 2004 democratic convention. But presidents - whose ultimate worth manifests itself behind the scenes, where many uninspiring yet momentous and consequential decisions are made - need a bit more than charisma and platitudes of "change." That said, does anyone doubt that Obama would have been able to come out of nowhere to represent the Democratic Party if he wasn't black and with a "diverse" religious identity/heritage? ...

Let no one be deceived, however. Favoring a candidate primarily because they are female, or because they are ethnic or religious minorities is absolutely no different than disfavoring a presidential candidate simply because they are female, or because they are ethnic or religious minorities. Prejudice works both ways. We are supposed to choose presidents based on their merit and the good they can do for our country - not because they are men or women, black or white, Christian or Muslim. We cannot be a society constantly preaching that race, gender, and religion are immaterial in the public and political spheres - and then simultaneously turn around and use race, gender and religion to win political support, though from another angle. Oprah Winfrey's unwavering support for Obama's presidential bid - primarily because he is black, as most political observers have noted - is absolutely no different than if a prominent white talk show host gave his unwavering support to a fellow white presidential candidate, for no other reason than their shared "whiteness." ...

At any rate, the question every American should ponder is: If race, religion, and gender are aspects that have no bearing in our society and should always be overlooked, why are they the defining characteristics of the democratic candidates?

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

Give Communism a chance!

News.com.au - COMMUNIST party chief Demetris Christofias won a historic victory in Cyprus's presidential election overnight and immediately vowed to launch a new drive to reunite the island after 34 years of division. His jubilant supporters - some in luxury convertibles - cruised the streets of Nicosia, the world's last divided capital, waving Cypriot flags and banners of communist icon Che Guevara, their car horns blaring.
Luxury convertibles and Che Guevara eh, I thought communism was supposed to bring equality, sharing and all that or were they just taking their last rides in those luxury convertibles before handing them over to the masses so they could also 'share'. One would think that people would have had enough of commies by now, but I guess not, I wonder if the folks who voted for this mob are aware of how their hero Che dealt with dissent. I wonder too, if this will be the last election they'll get to vote in, because in the communist countries I've heard of, they aren't big on this citizens subjects voting, democratic elections and all that. None the less, good luck to them, they obviously want to give Communism another chance. Image thanks to Yahoo Images.

In Conclusion, Quack-Quack!

In Australia, we have very strict gun control, the gun-grabbers insist that we are all safer for it. They point to the shootings in the US as proof, but they conveniently forget to mention that those shootings usually occur in stupid gun-free zones. Now, if we were so much safer, why do we suddenly need all these programs to address these 'disenfranchised' students, why do we suddenly yearn for social justice in our universities? I thought it was the evil, terrible, mean, nasty gun that caused all the killings and now that we'd taken them away from the law-abiding nasties, we'd all be safe and could just hop and skip along singing kumbaya!
SMH - But the Monash incident, in which the perpetrator was later diagnosed with a paranoid delusional disorder, sounded an alarm bell to universities. Suddenly they were forced to confront difficult questions about their duty of care to students and the reality that allowing just one student to slip through the cracks could result in harrowing consequences. Universities across Australia ramped up their counselling programs and encouraged teaching staff to identify and refer loner students to support services. They reviewed their safety and response procedures again last year after the Virginia Tech shooting in the US.
When I first read this article, I thought, they have a plan, these folks are taking pre-emptive action, 320 highly trained... perhaps top-notch ninjas or something, at the first sign of some 'disenfranchised' student pulling a nasty gun out, they'd have him on his ass and completely disabled using their secret 'touch of death' finger jabs. If not that, then these folks would be armed and ready to deploy and neutralize the baddie, post-haste. Shock/horror folks, those were the old days, it's a new sophisticated world we live in now, yes they are highly trained. They are organized, they have their careful plans and fancy drills, just that they all involve some form of running away!
Much of the strategy is focused on prevention and involves early identification of disenfranchised or vulnerable students, but it is almost impossible to protect campuses from gunmen walking off the streets. "To stop people coming in is very, very difficult," said Steve Wallace, security manager at the University of Technology, Sydney, where 33,000 students are enrolled. "You can't. There's just so many access points and nobody wants to live in a jail." UTS trained 320 supervisors to be wardens in charge of evacuating students in case of an emergency and has developed a system to contact them quickly via SMS messages and can make broadcasts around the campuses. Some universities can contact all students via text message.
So, what they're saying, once you cut through all the BS about counseling, hold-hands and all that, is that they cannot protect you, that there is always the possibility of some 'disenfranchised' student suffering social injustice walking into your bastion of higher learning, inquiry and free thought and start busting caps. It's amazing how they, who consider themselves to be intellectually superior and of greater brainpower than us, refuse to acknowledge this very plain reality. So in summary, you're just sitting ducks, strolling ducks, studying ducks, so Quack-Quack!

A reminder...


Brought to us by Panday, some say he's the sharpest knife in the drawer, others get worried, very worried, when he brings a knife to a gunfight. To us, he is known as The Panday.

A PROPHETIC POEM

One does occasionally hear the term "The white man's burden" as a mocking reference to the claim that the British and other empires were good for the native peoples whom they dominated. I wonder how many people are aware that the term was originally the name of a poem and that the poet was Indian-born British poet Rudyard Kipling? Some, no doubt. But I would not at all be surprised to hear that NOBODY reading this was aware that the poem concerned was inspired by the deeds of a famous American "Progressive". Let me explain:


Right into the 1960's, the American Left (e.g. JFK) was patriotic and nationalistic. Nowadays they mostly make only a shallow pretense of patriotism. Getting the votes of minorities is their desperate aim these days and glorifying America does not serve that aim very well. And with Obama, even the pretense seems to be fading.

And the most nationalistic icon of the American Left in history was undoubtedly TR (Theodore Roosevelt), founder of the "Progressive" party. TR was the first Fascist leader of the 20th century -- where Fascism is conceived of as Leftism plus nationalism. He glorified war as a purifying force for the nation, built lots of battleships and invaded and took over three countries. And on the home front he attacked big business. Fascist enough? His conquests were in fact in the last few years of the 19th century but his Presidency of the USA continued into the early 20th century.

The British empire had however never been Fascist. It was run by conservatives most of the time and when the Left came to power they were much more inclined to wind it down than expand it. And, as the saying goes, the empire was mostly acquired "in a fit of absence of mind". It was not acquired as the result of any deliberate expansionist policy but rather as the byproduct of pursuing other objectives -- such as containment of the French. And if anyone doubts the humane impulse that formed British policy of the time, just reflect that it was in 1807 that Britain became the first major country to abolish slavery. And, unlike Abraham Lincoln many years later, the British both attacked it outside their own domain and abolished it at home. Lincoln's war "against slavery" was fought while permitting slavery in the North! Lincoln's war was really a power-motivated war with slavery as a thin pretext.

And India is an excellent example of the non-imperialistic origin of the British empire. The British first came to India as the representatives of a private company, the British East India company, and the aim was trade, not conquest. The company encountered various attacks on its operations, however, so gradually built up a private army to defend itself (perhaps a bit like the security guards employed by Halliburton in Iraq today). And when Indian princelings took on the company in battle, the company tended to win -- meaning that it eventually had large parts of India under its private control. At that stage, the British government got a bit concerned that the company was not treating the natives well and took over the company's military and rulership operations. So the British government in a sense "inherited" India rather than invading and conquering it. The history I have just given does of course simplify much for the sake of brevity but that is the essence of it.

And the humane thinking (mostly of Christian origin) behind British policy is spelled out in Kipling's poem. Kipling saw the British as having a civilizing mission and saw that mission as one of replacing savage values with humane and Christian ones. And he persuaded himself that TR had such values too. He wrote his poem as a commentary on the American takeover of the Philippines. He saw America as joining Britain in the mission of civilizing savages.

And what he wrote was very prophetic. And it was good prophecy because it was based on experience -- British imperial experience. He prophesied that the gift of liberty and humaneness that America would give to other nations would not be appreciated and would instead lead to resentment of America. And that was long before the liberation of France from the Nazis and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam! Here are some excerpts from a wonderful and idealistic poem that is now almost always misrepresented:

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--

That's amazingly good prophecy by my lights. Very wicked of him to mention skin color judged by today's hysterical political standards but Britain and America WERE largely white countries at the time, and still are.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

unintended consequences:

"Fairtrade 'does more harm than good to Third World countries', says think tank

The "ethical" brand Fairtrade, backed by A-list celebrities and £2million of taxpayers' cash, leaves Third World farmers worse off, according to a damning new report....

Huge publicity, including a Government-sponsored education campaign in schools, has attempted to persuade the public to pay more for goods such as coffee, chocolate and bananas to ensure a better deal for producers in impoverished nations.

And stars such as Coldplay singer Chris Martin have been queuing up to endorse its products.

But an investigation by the Adam Smith Institute, the highly respected Right-wing think-tank, claims that Fairtrade's efforts to help African and Central American farmers do more harm than good.

The Fairtrade Mark – familiar to anyone who shops in Britain's leading supermarkets – guarantees that producers in developing countries receive a fair price for their goods.

Last year, British consumers spent more than £300million on Fairtrade products.

But the report Unfair Trade claims that the organisation's "positive image appears to rely more on public relations than research".

It adds:
• Fairtrade helps only a very small number of farmers while leaving the majority worse off.
•It favours producers in better-off nations such as Mexico, rather than poor African countries.
•It holds back economic development, paying inefficient cooperative farms and discouraging diversification and mechanisation.
• Supermarket chains profit more from the higher price of Fairtrade goods than farmers.
•Only a fifth of produce grown on Fairtrade-approved farms is actually purchased at its guaranteed fair price.

Tom Clougherty, policy director of the Adam Smith Institute, says: "At best, fair trade is a marketing device that does the poor little good.

"At worst, it may inadvertently be harming some of the planet's most vulnerable people."

Most damning of all, the report claims that Fairtrade is hurting the poorest group of all in the production process of its goods – the casual labourers hired by farmers to pick the bananas, coffee and cotton.

Last night, Harriet Lamb, UK executive director of Fairtrade, said: "Of course, Fairtrade is not perfect and has not solved all the world's problems. But the Institute is condemning us for trying."

Give it up Hillary, it's over

Yahoo! News - Hillary Rodham Clinton accused presidential rival Barack Obama of political plagiarism Thursday night, but drew boos from a Democratic debate audience when she ridiculed him as the candidate of "change you can Xerox." Obama dismissed the charge out of hand, then turned the jeers to applause when he countered, "What we shouldn't be spending time doing is tearing each other down. We should be spending time lifting the country up."
The writing is on the wall Hillary, it's over, whatever Obama says will draw applause, but if you step out of line or say anything, you'll get booed, Obama simply cannot do any wrong. The masses are not interested, in a way the left promoted this themselves. It's too late now, you have to let the masses choose and get burnt, it's just the way sometimes, no matter how much you warn them, some will have to frolic with the flames and learn when they get burnt.
Reuters - In a bitter exchange, the Obama campaign defended the leaflet as accurate and decried Clinton's "negative campaign. Shame on you, Barack Obama," Clinton said, speaking to reporters after a rally in Ohio, a state that is key to her struggling campaign.
They dumbed down the masses and now they won't listen to reason, you can have all the healthcare plans down to details, but that won't sway the masses Hillary, because you're talking jobs and healthcare, while Obama talks hope and change. No one knows what change and hope for what, but the masses don't care, it's like he is the messiah. We had our own recently, no detail, little understanding, but the masses didn't care, he spoke about revolutions and the future, now we have wars on things no one is really sure about. Soon he'll run out of things to make war on and the masses will have to learn the hard way. Best you let go and walk away while you can.

Just Collect The Garbage PtII

By AR - I have been watching with lurid interest the story of the Wollongong Council officer and the property developers. It's got everything, sex, money, deceit, corruption, a list of names that could be from The Sopranos, and it threatens to bring down some big political names.
But of course none of this would be occurring if councils didn't have so much power and control over development. If property development relied just on investors making a commercial decision to invest their money rather than negotiating a mountain of compliance approvals then the industry would not attract so many of the type of person who "knows how to make a deal". By that I mean spivs. When developers are so willing to engage in bribery to expedite matters, then maybe the red tape is the problem?

Extreme parenting? This could start a fad...

"Shot student jets home to England, mum says thanks"
"he was always difficult to control, but now somebody has saved me the trouble" she said today.
(not really--I added that second line)

A black Leftist sees the reality of black problems

And our blinkered Prime Minister thinks bigger government is the answer

THE Rudd Government must stare down the indigenous service provider industry that profits from entrenched Aboriginal disadvantage or risk dooming the federal intervention into Northern Territory communities, former Labor president Warren Mundine has warned. Mr Mundine urged his party to "have courage" in challenging the "old guard" whose political power base lay within remote Aboriginal communities and who opposed aspects of the intervention. He warned that a welfare industry had built up around Aboriginal people that could derail Kevin Rudd's pledge to "close the gap" between indigenous and non-indigenous life expectancy rates.

"What we have created in Australia is an indigenous industry that lives off people's poverty and misery," Mr Mundine said. "It's destroyed incentives. There's a whole culture that developed over a period of time of dependency." He said some Labor powerbrokers in remote Australia, such as Defence Science and Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon, had been key players in the land rights political movement and were pushing for the party to return to the "status quo" prior to the intervention. "There's no doubt there's a split in the party about what needs to be done," Mr Mundine said. "And we have people whoare harping back to keeping the status quo prior to the intervention."


His comments came as Reconciliation Australia director Fred Chaney labelled remote Australia a "failed state" with little electoral clout that had been abandoned by federal, state and territory governments. "Government have essentially stepped outside and left these communities to their own devices," Mr Chaney said. "This intervention has had to make it up as it goes along. There is a serious gap in governance of the governments themselves." ....

The Northern Territory Government this week introduced legislation to reform disparate local government authorities into a series of "super-shires", but the reforms that were crafted by Australia's father of reconciliation, Pat Dodson, were watered down at the last minute when the Government exempted the Top End shire, dominated by white pastoralists, from the super-shire structure. The exemption prompted the resignation of NT local government minister Elliot McAdam.

Visiting the northwest NSW town of Walgett yesterday, the Prime Minister said the Government had begun formulating a plan to attack duplication and infighting among Aboriginal service providers and government agencies by creating local boards for remote indigenous communities that would be responsible for ground-level service delivery.

Speaking on his first visit to an outback indigenous community as Prime Minister, Mr Rudd said he was considering bringing together service providers and local, state and federal government agencies to co-ordinate indigenous service delivery on a community-by-community basis. "Maybe it's time for us to look at much more of a whole-of-local-community focus whereby you have around the one table not just all the representatives of organisations and groups but the various levels of government," he said.

But Mr Mundine said the "indigenous industry" would prove difficult to reform. "There's a whole culture that's developed over a period of time of dependence," he said. "I have never seen a place in the world where they've got more governance of people. "We've got to get bureaucrats out of the way. Let's stop spending money on bureaucrats and get money on to the ground."

Mr Mundine's comments come after former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough told a dinner for Quadrant magazine in Sydney last week that political correctness hampered many of the people working within the indigenous sector who wanted to bring about change...

Mr Rudd said that governance was one of two key messages from his five-hour visit to Walgett. The other was creating a flexible approach to housing that would allow private ownership in one community and communal title in another. With a majority of indigenous residents, Walgett is one of the most disadvantaged communities in the state. Mr Rudd toured two Aboriginal reserves and was taken to task by Ann Dennis about the level of duplication and lack of communication by service providers. She said funding was not the problem. "It's the co-ordination and planning, not the money coming in," she said. [That would be right. That's typical bureaucracy]

Mr Rudd said he was committed to ending a one-size-fits-all approach. "It may be that in the 300 to 400 remote indigenous communities in Australia that we'll end up with lots of different housing models from full private ownership, through to leasehold through to community ownership," he said. He asked Ms Dennis if they wanted private ownership of homes, and she said the community did.

Source


Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

Banks Did Swan A Favour

By AR - The conventional wisdom is that interest rate rises by the RBA hurt the government politically. Interest rate rises which occur outside the RBA's cycle however can easily be blamed on the profit-hungry banks. And blame the banks is exactly what Treasurer Wayne Swan did earlier this year when he condemned lenders for "excessive" rises and urged mortgagors to "vote with their feet". But it seems that the Big Bad Banks did Swan a favour when they raised their rates off cycle in January as this dissuaded the RBA from raising the official interest rate by 50 basis points in February, instead raising it only 25 points.

Swan should be thanking the banks, rather than demonising them and inspiring futile anger in their customers.

State & Judiciary - Fend for yourself England

Daily Mail - Jails were declared absolutely full last night for the first time in history. Even court and police cells were packed as the number of prisoners rose to 82,068 - almost 100 above the official safety limit. The crisis is expected to trigger the early release of thousands of muggers, burglars and other convicts. In a desperate attempt to buy time, Jack Straw begged magistrates to imprison fewer offenders. But magistrates refused point-blank to help him out of the shambles - saying they would continue to hand down whatever sentence they saw fit. The Magistrates' Association said it did not react kindly to being placed under "pressure" by ministers.
Daily Mail - A judge listening to graphic details of an immigration centre riot yesterday warned that Britain had lost control of its borders "for the first time since 1066". Christopher Elwen gave the dramatic assessment after four foreign nationals were cleared of masterminding the "rampage" at Harmondsworth removal centre. Two of the men were jailed for the millions of pounds worth of damage caused during the huge disturbance, which left large parts of the 555-bed West London centre wrecked.
10 short years folks, 10 short years of leftist rule, now they have no guns, no protection, no justice, more taxes, the economy much worse than Americas', the criminals let out early and their borders are a shambles. Earlier I read that the UK is going to strengthen its citizenship rules, a sort of reinforcing the barn door after the horses, donkeys and all the farm animals had bolted about a year ago. Apparently this is going to affect us Aussies who wanted to move to Britain, something about ancestry ties, I couldn't help but think, who would want to go and live there now. Just 10 short years of leftist rule, that's all it takes folks, just 10 short years.

Obama Fascism peeping out again

The hysteria Obama produces in his followers is not normal in democratic politics but it is VERY reminiscent of the 1930s German reaction to Hitler. And, like Hitler, Obama is an extreme socialist who want the government to control everything. But we now get another glimpse of the all-controlling Fascist leader in the words of his wife:
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.



And note that Hitler was democratically elected too. And Obama even wants to invade Pakistan!. Not as ambitious as invading Russia but it is the thought that counts.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

NIU killer a leftist, terrorist-loving sack of filth

Chicago Sun Times - I met Steve Kazmierczak in an introductory political science class in 2002 as a freshman in college. He was inquisitive, smart, respectful and nice. The Steve I knew studied the consequences of chaos and havoc and spoke out against it. The man who declared himself a pacifist wouldn’t own a gun, much less kill several people in cold blood. Hat tip Woman Honor Thyself.
See, if only us gun-crazy Conservatives could get a dollar for every time we told you that criminal killers also like gun control. But do the stupid gun-grabbers ever listen, No! Just like the stupid Democrats in America and leftists worldwide, their small brains just can't work out why western hating terrorist filth also yearn for them to get elected into power. For the last time, your stupid policies and ideas intentionally or unintentionally aid them and that is not a good thing for us and you.
Once we took a course called “The Politics of the Middle East.” At the beginning of the course, our instructor informed us a research paper would be due by the end of the semester. Steve decided on Hamas, which is known mainly to the world as being a Palestinian terrorist group, which was the first thing that interested Steve about the group. But he also heard Hamas funded many social services, which also interested him. How could one group be put into two completely different categories, Steve would ask. Steve said that his perception of Hamas changed with all the research he did.
There you go folks, shock-horror eh, a mass murderer turns out to be a gun-hating, pacifist, terrorist-loving sack of filth. Now, in which group do we see those same qualities and actions that aid such vermin, ah yes, the left.

Crime surge rocks Victoria





Since so many Victorian police have been transferred to "community" functions (e.g. "gay and lesbian liason") by Victoria's big fat pro-Lesbian top cop (See above), this is not exactly a surprise

VICTORIA has witnessed staggering rises in assaults over the past five years, with Melbourne and the outer suburbs hardest hit. That is the picture painted by a comparison of official Victoria Police figures for the 2000-01 period with those for last year. In the metropolitan area, Melton tops the list, registering a 160.6 per cent increase from 226 to 589 cases reported in 2007. Close behind is Casey, where assaults jumped from 595 to 1358 over the same period, an increase of 128.2 per cent. Moreland, Mornington, Wyndham and Cardinia are close behind, all seeing five-year increases in excess of 100 per cent. Across the state, assaults climbed from 21,939 in the 2000-01 reporting year to 31,020, an increase of 41.4 per cent.



Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walsh blamed alcohol and domestic violence for the increases, insisting that much of the surge was due to a campaign aimed at encouraging victims of spousal abuse to report attacks. "We've been concentrating on family violence and encouraging people to report that violence," he said. "The other driver is alcohol, and we're addressing that."

Casey councillor Steve Beardon said the figures demonstrated the need for drastic measures. "We have hoons on our roads, and shopping strips and parks are magnets for kids hanging out and causing trouble," he said. "I've taken up a petition with 1500 signatures of local residents, which called for a curfew. "It was tabled in parliament and then forgotten, even though the same measure has worked very well in Western Australia. "Bottom line: we need more cops and we need them now."

In Dandenong, where in the past five years assaults have risen from 709 to 1151 -- a 62.3 per cent hike -- councillor and anti-crime campaigner Peter Brown echoed the call for more police. "After the trouble we had last year in Noble Park," he said, referring to the beating death of 19-year-old Liep Gony, "the police blitzed the area and we saw problems with gangs drop off. "Give them credit, they did a good job but it didn't solve the problem. What it did was move it somewhere else . . . "On Monday night as I was driving by, there was a mob of these kids -- drunk or high, I'm not sure which, probably both -- spilling out into the street and playing havoc with the traffic. You don't cure a problem in Noble Park by moving it to Dandenong."

Across Melbourne, Werribee activist Lori McLean hailed police efforts to curb violence and hooning, saying that a "tough-minded approach" was working. "Big, burly male coppers; they're the ones that get taken seriously, and they are the ones that have been getting the results."

Country Victoria also had major increases in assaults, with Whittlesea experiencing a 104 per cent increase from 375 to 765. In Bendigo it was 49.3 per cent and in Geelong it was 38.1 per cent.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

The Stupidity of Bureaucrats

Daily Mail - They are trained to brave every kind of danger to safeguard the public, but now firefighters are being ordered to turn back if they encounter a cloud of smoke - from a cigarette. Fire crews have been banned from making home visits to offer safety advice to people who smoke, unless the residents stub out all cigarettes at least one hour beforehand and open their windows.
The official edict was sent out by fire brigade chiefs in order to comply with the workplace smoking ban - after they decided that private homes filled with cigarette smoke are officially a firefighter's 'workplace' for the duration of the visit. Officials stressed that the new rules would only apply to prearranged "Home Fire Safety Visits", and not to emergencies in which homes were actually burning down.
Well, at least they weren't stupid enough to ban firefighters from, well you kow, fighting fires! For now they're just banned from advising people who smoke. One would have thought that people who light cigarettes with small flames, and keep em lit for a short while, would benefit the most from the advice of a firefighter, but this is the bureaucratic sty we're talking folks, a completely common sense free area. Image from Yahoo Images.

Netherlands:


"Fortis Bank claims Knorbert the piggy bank "does not meet the requirements that multicultural society imposes."
Dinah Lord
In other words: "screw our own traditions, we're afraid of offending a bunch of vicious 7th century primitives"

The Castro "retirement"





Castro declares his reign at an end

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

Lunacy, hypocrisy & a dash of backwardness

JPost - Iran urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to condemn Israel and demand that it immediately stop threatening to use military force against the country's nuclear program.
Yes folks, this is the very country that regularly threatens to wipe Israel off the map, maybe that means something else to the Iranians, maybe they mean that as in, wipe them off some atlas or something. If that's the case then Israel should just say the same thing, proceed with your nuclear program and we'll wipe you off the map. Give the lunatics back just as much they give out.
JPost - In yet another verbal attack against Israel Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "filthy bacteria" whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region. "The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast," the Iranian president told supporters at a rally in southern Iran.
Yeah I know, the hypocrisy is simply stunning! Yesterday we read how Muslims in Europe feel that their hosts, or should I just say 'dhimmi', think they're backward and incompatible with western values. Well folks, stories like this certainly don't do them any favors. If this ain't backward and stupid, I don't know what is.
FOXNews - A 70-year-old Iranian man was arrested and sentenced to four months in jail and 30 lashes for walking his dog, Adnkronos.com reported Tuesday. Police caught the man on the street with his dog in Shahr Rey, a suburb of Tehran.

Young Socialists rally?

Nope--Hezbollah. (the dp gear is a dead giveaway)

Supporting Obama is About Feelings Not What He stands For.

We’ve all wondered why liberals support the same disastrous and failed programs of the left over and over again. Why do they fall for scams like man made global ice ages, and when that fails to materialize immediately fall for man made global warming? Why do they vote for far left nut cases, whose policies will damage the economy, keep them poor and dependant upon government, deprive them of their rights, their ability to defend themselves, weaken national defense, etc?

Well, one reason is that it's not about substance, facts, or issues, but rather it is about feelings like "hope" and "coming together". Nothing demonstrates this better than when an elected politician, who should know the facts and issues, has absolutely no clue as to why he's supporting Barack Obama in his effort to become the most powerful elected official in the world. Check out this video of Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson, as he attempts to explain why people should support Obama for president. It makes for a good laugh, but is instructive as to what the Obama movement is all about.

State Sen. Kirk Watson on Obama, courtesy of hotair.com

Mrs McCain has ALWAYS been proud of her country

SHE'S no whining Leftist



Michelle Obama. Millionaire. Harvard Law grad. Wife of a senator. A person who has been afforded the best of opportunities in that land of opportunity that we call the United States, told a crowd in Milwaukee this: "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."

Cindy McCain. Also a millionaire. USC educated. Wife of a senator. A person who has been afforded the best of opportunities in that land of opportunity that we call the United States, told a crowd in Brookfield, Wisc.: "I am proud of my country. I don't know about you? If you heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my country."

Reporters asked her if she was responding to Mrs. Obama's statement. Mrs. McCain replied: "I just wanted to make the statement that I have and always will be proud of my country."

More here

There has been a LOT of adverse commentary about Mrs Obama's deeply ungrateful dislike of America. See for example here and here and here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

Eurabians starting to wake up?

Islam Online - Muslims in Holland are suffering from Islamophobia, which mainly results from the anti-Islamic perceptions that are spread by Western media, a pan-European anti-racism commission based in France said. In its report, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), said that many Dutch Muslims are complaining about the rising violence and discrimination against them. The ECRI also said that the country’s Muslims, who make up 6% of Holland’s population, are facing "stereotyping, stigmatising", "outright racist political discourse" and "biased media portrayal.” “Islam has been repeatedly presented as a 'subculture' and Muslims have been presented as the carriers of backward values, generally incompatible with democracy and the values of Western societies," the report said.
Are these folks for real? Have they ever stopped to think that things like female genital mutilation, honor killings, beheadings, Sharia law, homicide bombers, flying planes into buildings, shooting little children in the back, using mentally retarded women as homicide bombers, placards saying "freedom go to hell" might have a wee bit to do with the perceptions of backwardness and incompatibility with democracy? Why, on the same website they address the pressing issue of what a Muslim man can do about marrying a Christian woman, if he's made the mistake of marrying one in the first place that is.
Islam Online - However it is not advisable to marry a kitaabi (i.e., Jewish or Christian) woman nowadays, because it is fraught with dangers, especially with regard to the children̢۪s upbringing. In order to be on the safe side, the believer should not marry her. Hence you can see that the Christianization of the children is one of the greatest dangers to be feared as a result of marrying a Christian woman. Undoubtedly it is not permissible for you to allow that under any circumstances.
Hence some of the followers turn violent and nasty when caught in such a predicament, remember all those western women who married Muslims and are shocked and horrified when the children are taken and she is cut off from them. You see, 'any circumstances' is not always interpreted the way we think it is, let's have more of a look shall we.
What you have to do now is protect your son̢۪s religion and prevent him from being made a Christian. If your wife insists on that then you have no choice but to make her stay with you in your city, or keep the child only, even if that leads to you leaving her and divorcing her. Try by all means to protect this child and prevent him being taught Christian teachings. Remember that you are responsible for him and that the worst neglect and betrayal of this trust would be to leave him disbelieving in Allaah.
In other words Allah will be extremely pissed off if you let the kid be raised as a Christian, there's that famous tolerance we always hear about shining brightly through. I don't know folks, maybe honor-killings and such are signs of an advanced, progressive society. It's always our fault isn't it, the problem is always us. I feel sorry for the media outlets, most of them have done such a good job of trying to cover for the militants and extremists in Islam and this is the thanks they get. Perhaps it's time for them to really get unbiased.

Well done, Kevvy!

Hokey "apology" now an excuse for mob violence by blacks

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd's national apology to the stolen generation has sparked a spate of racial violence in Darwin. Five people had to be admitted to hospital after one brawl. The Caucasian men were attacked by a group of 10 Aboriginal men, who demanded that their victims "say sorry".


A 28-year-old Territory woman watched helplessly as her friend was king-hit and kicked to the ground outside a Darwin 24-hour eatery on Sunday morning. She said three men ran at them from across the road, when they looked at the group yelling at two women. "They just started king-hitting him. They got him on the ground and then two others came over and started kicking him," she said. "They kept screaming that we were not sorry at all - 'Say sorry to us'. You just couldn't stop them."

The woman said three more men grabbed another Caucasian man and punched him in the middle of Smith St. "That's when I called the police. He managed to roll into the gutter but they kept on kicking him," she said. They and her friend ran to the Mitchell St police station, where they met up with other victims of the racial attack.

"The police officer said since the sorry apology on Wednesday, it had been completely out of control."

The woman said there were four other victims of racial violence in the emergency room at Royal Darwin Hospital. Her friend had fractured ribs and bad bruising. Others had head injuries and bruises. "I don't know why they did it," she said. "They're just making it worse for everyone. It was gutless. It doesn't have to be this way."

Another big brawl occurred at Fairway Waters in Palmerston on Saturday night. Police said witnesses and victims of the "series" of assaults on Sunday were being questioned. Senior Sergeant Steve Martin warned that "thugs" and "troublemakers" had no place in Darwin. "Police take a zero tolerance approach to violence and antisocial behaviour and any assaults of this nature will be thoroughly investigated," he said. Constable Michael Lunney, officer-in-charge of the investigation, said he was confident police would find the men responsible for the attacks.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM

Finally - The Education Revolution

kevin_rudd.jpgDaily Telegraph - THE Rudd Government will axe a $1.2 billion program which has allowed schools across NSW to upgrade toilets, landscape their grounds and improve facilities. The Investing in Our Schools scheme - one of the most popular policies of the former Howard government - will not be continued after the money runs out this year. Angry primary principals are seeking an urgent meeting with new Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard at which they are expected to voice a strong complaint about the decision. "Under this scheme a little bush school could get equal access to funds.
Well, he promised a revolution yes, but he never said anything about it being a 'good' revolution. As Mark Steyn says about real revolutions - "They’re messy, your cities get torched, the economy collapses, much of your talent flees. Ask the many peoples around the world for whom revolution means not a lame-o Sixties poster above your desk but the carnage and horror of the day before yesterday." I wonder if all the leftie schools that put up the "Society not an Economy" placards are regretting their scorn of the previous government now, while they contemplate their coming funds totaling zero dollars and zero cents. Perhaps now they might learn the hard way that without an economy, you can't have much of a society.

SOME OBAMOLOGY

Hunger For Change Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism?

I am not really sure that what the wife of a presidential candidate says is all that important but as The Obamassiah himself says, words matter. Here's what his wife says:

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.

Not once during her adult life has Michele Obama "really" been proud of America? Not of the fact that it won the Cold War and liberated tens of millions from totalitarian rule? What about sending billions to ease the plight of millions of AIDS sufferers in Africa? What about the nation's selflessness in stopping genocide in the Balkans when it had no immediate security interest in the region? What about our ability to produce hundreds of thousands of brave men and women who will risk life and limb to liberate two countries from despotic regimes right out of the Dark Ages? Doesn't the Herculean Tsunami Relief effort generate a flicker of national pride?

The list could go on ad infinitum. But she's proud now because her empty suit of a husband may become the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party by saying 'hope' and `change' more than anyone else? The audacity of stupidity.

Sources here and here



ELSEWHERE



Obama the Messiah: It was inevitable. There is now a blog following references to Barack Obama as something more than an ordinary politician. See here

The official Obama web site has mysteriously made a page vanish: It was a page that predicted failure of the "surge" in Iraq. But a false prophecy can't be made to disappear so easily these days. The "censored" page is reproduced here.

The real Barack Obama: "The effects of 'political correctness' are prevalent in the 2008 elections and very well may result in electing a person whose true agenda and even the facts of his childhood are kept from the public because anyone expressing the true nature of his views and life would be subjected to unbearable tirades and attacks upon their own character for bringing these facts to light. To touch on the issue of Barack Obama's Muslim childhood and intended Black agenda as president would subject his opponent, media political pundits, and the general public to shrieks of racism and worse. Truth is on the chopping block -- but so is our country's future"

Tax delusions: "Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both propose to 'turn the economy around' in a novel way -- by raising tax rates on small businesses, working couples and stockholders in general, including retirees. Of course, their plans are also meant to raise revenue for their various hundreds of billions in new spending -- but the move would fall flat on that front, too."

Posted by John Ray. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and for a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM