Slattsnews

Apologies for scarcity of posts lately. On-job training and a new committee role at the local footy club have eaten into spare time. Maybe time will be found in the next few days.

An addition to the list of the pathetically aggrieved:

A coven of witches is accusing the Roman Catholic church of religious persecution after being banned from using a parish social centre for a Halloween gathering.
Sandra Davis, the “high priestess” of Crystal Cauldron group in Stockport, Greater Manchester, said she was shocked to be told that the pagan group was not considered to be compatible with the church’s “ethos”.

Nearly as funny as this one:

Breaking down, an emotionally distraught Vvzzvzwwzzz was comforted by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk and ACLU President Nadine Strossen. The two groups announced they will file an amicus brief in the case and file a separate class action suit against the insecticide, flyswatter and pest strip industries, seeking over 1 million metric tons of compensatory shit on behalf of 200 billion Fly-Americans.

Oh, the delicious irony of it all: Rudd and Swan — who would have you believe they personify propriety — in it up to their kneecaps for allegedly trying to get a favour for their little mate — a car salesman.
Tim Blair’s done all the legwork around the commentariat and I think it’s safe to say that while the party with the media luvvies may not be quite over, there’s a queue at the cloakroom.

Seems the Greens are going all out for the ‘Look-at-moi’ airhead vote by getting a senator to tote her sprog into the Chamber, inviting inevitable disapproval.
Whatever they hoped to achieve, it’s backfired with widespread condemnation greeting Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s stunt.
David Penberthy is particularly scathing:

This wasn’t a sickening denial of the rights of a mother but a demonstration of the sense of bourgeois entitlement that underpins the work-life balance set, who selfishly believe it’s the job of everyone else to adjust their behaviour in the workplace because they can’t be bothered to get their act together.

And now, a variation on the ancient “and that’s how I ended up with a 12-inch pianist” jape:
An Aussie truckie walks into an outback cafe’ with a full-grown emu behind him. The waitress asks them for their orders.
The truckie says, ‘A pie n’ sauce, chips and a coke,’ and turns to the emu, ‘What’s yours?’ ‘I’ll have the same,’ says the emu.
A short time later the waitress returns with the order ‘That will be $9.40 please,’ and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the exact change for payment.
The next day, the man and the emu come again and he says, ‘A pie n’ sauce, chips and a coke.’ The emu says, ‘I’ll have the same.’
Again the truckie reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.
This becomes routine until the two enter again. ‘The usual?’ asks the waitress.
‘No, it’s Friday night, so I’ll have a steak, baked potato and a salad,’ says the man. ‘Same,’ says the emu.
Shortly the waitress brings the order and says, ‘That will be $32.62.’
Once again the man pulls the exact change out of his pocket and places it on the table.
The waitress cannot hold back her curiosity any longer. ‘Excuse me, mate, how do you manage to always come up with the exact change in your pocket every time?’
‘Well, love’ says the truckie, ‘a few years ago, I was cleaning out the back shed, and found an old lamp. When I rubbed it, a Genie appeared and offered me two wishes. My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything, I would just put my hand in my pocket and the right amount of money would always be there.’
‘That’s brilliant!’ says the waitress. ‘Most people would ask for a million dollars or something, but you’ll always be as rich as you want for as long as you live!’
‘That’s right. Whether it’s a gallon of milk or a Rolls Royce, the exact money is always there,’ says the man.
The waitress asks, ‘What’s with the bloody emu?’
The truckie sighs, pauses, and answers, ‘My second wish was for a tall chick with a big arse and long legs, who agrees with everything I say.’

And another boom, boom, tish from brother Tim:
After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish
scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to
the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more
than 100 years ago.
Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed,
English scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters and shortly after,
headlines in the UK newspapers read: ‘English archaeologists have found
traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their
ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a
hundred years earlier than the Scots.’
One week later, ‘The Kerryman’, a southwest Irish newsletter,
reported the following: ‘After digging as deep as 30 meters in peat bog
near Tralee, Paddy O’Leary, a self taught archaeologist, reported that
he found absolutely nothing. Paddy has therefore concluded that 300
years ago Ireland had already gone wireless.’

No one ever suggested subtlety was the Governator’s strong suit:
The gag gift from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a metal sculpture of bull testicles, came with a note suggesting the lawmaker would need them to make some tough budget choices, said legislative sources who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Of course, California’s a nanny state, so there was the inevitable response employing that weasel word.
One lawmaker said the governor’s gift was inappropriate and unhelpful at a time when he and legislators are clashing over keeping the state solvent.

Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong has had four days now to answer three simple but crucial questions. If she can’t produce a convincing response, the government has no choice than to abandon its plans to cripple the already ailing Australian economy with a ridiculous emissions trading scheme.
These are the questions published in The Australian today:

* Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5percent since 1998 while global temperature cooled during the same period? If so, why did the temperature not increase, and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?
* Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th-century phase of global warming) were not unusual as compared with warmings that have occurred earlier in the Earth’s history? If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has experienced similar warmings in the past?
* Is it the case that all computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990 to 2008, whereas in fact there were only eight years of warming followed by 10years of stasis and cooling? If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy-making?

Look, about 20 years ago plenty of us embraced the manmade global warming scare. With time and clearer understanding, we realised there were far too many variables for the theory to stand up. So we changed our minds. That is nothing to be ashamed about; after all, in my callow youth I was a full-on red ragger. Then the adult part of my brain kicked in.
Senator Wong et al should for once in their lives behave like adults, admit they were wrong and adopt realistic policies for a cleaner and greener world.
But then, that would be expecting policians to behave honestly. Fat chance!

Here’s the biggest story this weekend on manmade global warming. It’s disastrous for the Rudd government so I guess you won’t hear about it on the 7pm news.
China will not make a binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions, putting in jeopardy the prospects for a global pact on climate change.
Let the wriggles begin.

Dennis Cometti has been white hot of late, proving no one else comes within an 80 yard torp for colourful, clever footy commentary.
Last week Bulldogs forward Brad Johnson had three Richmond defenders around him as the ball sailed into the scoring area. Johnson knocked it into open space and dashed away from goal. Two of the defenders seemed undecided as to whether to follow Johnson out or join the third player in going for the ball. As Cometti put it, the instant of uncertainty allowed Bulldog big man Ryan Hargrave to lumber in and “split the indifference” of the flat-footed Tigers, pounce on the agate and goal.
Friday night, old Tortoise Head was still on top of his game, acknowledging a brilliant Stephen Milne goal for the unbeaten Saints against Carlton: “Whooo!” exclaimed Cometti, “Little Stevie’s not playing with the Easybeats tonight.”
Later, he warned the Saints could not afford to leave mercurial Carlton forward Brendan Fevola unmanned on the forwardline: “It’s like leaving Freddy Kruger alone in a cupboard!”.
Pure gold.

Here’s a physical extension of the old Catholic/Protestant dogs slurs kids hurled at each other in earlier generations.
It’s literally a ‘church signs’ debate, being played out in a southern US town, between the Catholic church and a Presbyterian church that face each other across a street.
From top to bottom you will see the response and counter-response over time.
Imagination-stifling and humourless political correctness has been enthusiastically adopted by latter-day wowser churches like the Uniting Church — an amalgamation of Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationals.
Catholics, on the other hand — not all, mind you — are less inclined to wholeheartedly embrace dogma (birth control, for instance, where church leaders say no and congregations please themselves) and to see the funny side of things.
The papists get the joke here.

The great old Warren Zevon song, Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me springs to mind.
The Israeli TV network Channel 2 has broadcast dramatic video of an Israeli woman who apparently attempted to commit suicide on train tracks in northern Israel on Sunday.
The CCTV footage, which Channel 2 acquired exclusively from the Israeli Railroad Company, shows the woman, circled in red, as she appears to approach the tracks and a railway guard to the right of the screen tries to signal to her.

Any day now, we can expect a sceptical piece on manmade global warming from The Australian’s political writer Lenore Taylor who writes:

Seriously. By 2022 this year’s kindy kids will be finishing high school, having enjoyed lovely new assembly halls and language labs all the way, but perhaps fewer fancy holidays in their childhood when family finances were a bit tight.
Does anyone really believe we can make accurate forecasts that far ahead? About anything?

Manmade global warming alarmist Nicholas Stern makes a dire prediction on the 7.30 Report last night:
It would transform the planet, some areas, probably much of Australia, southern Europe, becoming deserts . . .
News flash, Nick — much of Australia is desert.

Don’t you just love crazy gardens?
Today’s Herald Sun brings us the quirky creations of Ick Chu.

Liz Hayes and the 60 Minutes crew last night made utter clowns of themselves with an hysterical piece that claimed manmade global warming was submerging the Maldives islands.
Introducing the astonishing concept of a lumpy ocean that rises up to a metre in some places but clearly not in others, the report ignored easily found research which concludes that the Maldives are not being flooded, and high water marks in some places are actually lower than they were before 1970.
Such unbelievable exaggerations as produced by 60 Minutes can’t be doing the manmade global warming case any good, beset as it already is with crazy doomsday predictions.
At least on its website 60 Minutes is publishing comments about the report, the majority of which ridicule Hayes’ bizarre claims. Unfortunately airhead TV personalities don’t do embarrassment well.

Deft slice of satire by Victor Davis Hanson as he imagines White House press coverage if someone else was the incumbent.

ANCHORAGE STYLE
A “dragon lady in heels” is what President Palin is, according to the NYT’s Frank Rich. “Don’t fall for this pageant nice-girl stuff. Our former beauty queen is a ward hack. Look at her nominations. Can’t Palin find anyone who has paid his taxes — or do they simply ignore that stuff in no-tax Alaska? Does ‘No more lobbyists’ mean ‘More lobbyists than ever’? Her chief performance overseer doesn’t perform too well herself — and, like Daschle, Geithner, and the rest, skips out on her taxes. When Palin brags about fiscal sobriety, it really means record deficits. In Sarahland, not wanting to take over banks and car companies translates into, ‘She already has.’ Highest ethical standards equates to ‘There are none.’ Calling herself the VA president means she’s just told vets to use their own health insurance.”

That should embarrass the biased media. It probably won’t because they’re too stupid to get it.

It’s bad enough that the market slump has eaten away a third of my superannuation holdings. Now these incompetent socialists are planning to steal the rest. Surely, for once the media will come out en masse and condemn this piracy by the ship of state.

THE Rudd Government plans to tap Australia’s $1 trillion pool of superannuation savings to help plug a $58 billion hole in its nation-building program.
The funding shortfall for approved infrastructure projects has raised concerns that unless a greater portion of national savings can be accessed, some of the 15 rail, road and ports projects announced by Wayne Swan as Tuesday night’s budget centrepiece may never be built.

You’d maybe consider going along with it if you could be guaranteed market-level returns. But that’s as likely from this mob of marxist muddleheads as me growing an extra backside.
I’m off to the super company this week to see what I can salvage before the federal bushrangers come aplundering.

Anyone got Slater and Gordon’s number? Waddayareckon, have Australian middle-aged men got a class action or not?

A Kenyan man is suing for damages over a week-long sex boycott called by national women’s organizations in Kenya who were trying to make political leaders put aside rivalries and work together, Agence France-Presse reported.
“Since the women called for the sex boycott, my wife has denied me my conjugal rights. This has caused me anxiety and sleepless nights,” said James Kimondo, who is suing the leaders of G10, a coalition of women’s groups.
“I have been suffering mental anguish, stress, backaches, lack of concentration,” he said.

You’d rather it weren’t so, but the biggest problem for greens and socialists is that they’re just not very bright.

WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.
Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

You can almost hear the ‘ka-chings’ ringing in the offices of Slater and Gordon.

Socialists always pose on the high moral ground. But so often when they achieve power they display all the mannerisms of the tyrannical and sleazy.
We’ve got one here:

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is facing fresh allegations of an explosive temper after claims he threw a “wobbly” over a hairdryer in Afghanistan.

And the poms have got a swag of them over there:

The Prime Minister is among 13 members of the Cabinet facing questions over their use of Parliamentary expenses. On Thursday, after being approached by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Brown repaid a plumbing bill he had claimed for twice during 2006.

As my dear old dad would say: You wouldn’t feed the bastards.