Slattsnews

Analysts say the honeymoon’s over for Rudd but I don’t know so much. Sure, he looks foolish over this FuelWatch rubbish, but that will soon be in the past as prices peak and then drop dramatically at the end of the year.
He’d have got nothing but cheers from the mainstream this week by upsetting porno-defending luvvies and inferring public servants are lazy bastards.
Sure, the arty-farties and Canberra desk jockeys are his constituents, but they’re hardly about to vote Tory, unless it’s for that wet dill Turnbull.
No, I doubt Rudd’s poll numbers would have slipped much this week, despite experts’ assertions. They will dive eventually when the public realises what an empty, policy-free flake he is.
And his unlikeable personality ensures that when his shortcomings are revealed they will be chock-full of vengeful detail.
Remember, when Labor hates it is merciless. Especially when it turns on its own.

I’m the first to bag A Current Affair and other “news” background shows for their grand pursuits of the trivial and celebration of the banal. But the murder contract story ACA aired (Click on the thumbnail tagged Special Investigation: Murder) this week was a cracker. It had everything: hardened crim, a colourful Sydney squillionaire and a high-priced prostitute. And to actually record the hit being ordered was sheer brilliance. I don’t know whether it’s lawyers’ warnings keeping the other media away from this, or whether they’ve decided no one can improve on ACA’s efforts, but it’s a shame non-viewers of the program probably aren’t aware of the ripping yarn. It should be odds-on for a Walkley.

Only bad news sells. That will be the excuse given for reports such as this not getting a widespread run, even though whole forests were devoured to chronicle the situation when all was grim.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level in more than four years, figures released by the US military showed on Saturday, but officials said progress was still fragile and reversible.
Iraqi security officials said an offensive against al Qaeda in the northern city of Mosul, which the US military says is the Sunni Islamist group’s last major urban stronghold, had wiped out most of the insurgent network.
Washington’s envoy to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, declared that al Qaeda had never been closer to defeat. The United States says the group is the biggest threat to peace in Iraq and has blamed it for most of Iraq’s deadliest suicide bombings.

Like the lack of evidence to support the manmade global warming theory, the mainstream media must eventually bite the bullet and print the truth about the Iraq turnaround. In the meantime, those who want the facts and not distorted opinion in their news, will continue to eschew old media — particularly “progressive” outlets — in the pursuit of truth.

It’s getting most perplexing for those US Democrats whose every thought and action is dictated by “isms”.

Geraldine Ferraro, the only woman to run on a major party presidential ticket and a supporter of Hillary Clinton, has accused Barack Obama of conducting a “terribly sexist” campaign.

How long before another Democrat bobs up accusing Ferraro and others of a “terribly racist” campaign?
Be assured, no one’s going to be criticising a “terribly anti-male” campaign.

Blokes are like conservatives, Christians, skilful artists and funny comedians: fair game for the “ism”-aware.

In the meantime, Camille Paglia has the claws out for Mrs Clinton. Savagely:

But doesn’t this saccharine melodrama undermine the central goals of feminism? For all her claims of media bias and ill treatment by her male fellow candidates, Hillary has got off absurdly softly in this campaign. No one – neither her rivals nor mainstream journalists – has had the guts to explore or even list the bursting catalogue of past Clinton scandals, in which Hillary was nearly always hip deep.
Charges of sexism have become Hillary’s rote strategy for evading scrutiny. But by entangling the noble movement of modern feminism with her own knotty psychodrama, Hillary is reinforcing hoary stereotypes about women. Will every losing woman candidate now turn on the waterworks and claim to be maimed by male pride and prejudice?

Of all the good news this weekend in sport, triumphs by Collingwood and Apache Cat (great value for a certainty at $2.30) notwithstanding, none is more welcome than the return of the Windies as a competitive Test force.
SHIVNARINE Chanderpaul scored a century before the West Indies savaged the Australian top order in the first Test at Sabina Park.
Australia’s second innings was in tatters at 4-17 when bad light forced an early stumps after pumped-up quicks Fidel Edwards (2-12) and Daren Powell (2-4) cut a swathe through the world champion’s top order.

There’ll be some sleepy heads in Australian offices over the next few weeks.

Smug? Who me? A Magpie in G-town? Let’s just say I had to buy my own at the local last night.

COLLINGWOOD stunned AFL reigning premier Geelong tonight, smashing them by 86 points with a brilliant team performance. The Magpies’ fierce tackling on the MCG set the agenda from the opening bounce and they dominated all but a few minutes of the match, winning 20.14 (134) to 7.6 (48).

My good pal and the most tragic of Pie men, Michael Schack, implied the danger of grandiose self-endorsement in this text message:
“We’ve beaten the greatest team of all”

Pardon my confusion. Authorities and even the Prime Minister believe that nude photos of sub-teen girls are revolting and encourage pedophilia. These experts clearly believe that a 12-year-old should not be free to flaunt her nakedness and sexuality. And I don’t believe anyone sane is suggesting that happy pix of bare-bummed babies or the masters’ portrayals of naked cherubs are therefore pedophilia.
Police seizure of the images seems like common sense to me.
Coincidentally, in the same week it is reported that one of our esteemed judges has ruled that a 12-year-old has the power to dictate the form her yet-to-arrive adult sexuality will take. And that her own father can have no say in it.
Seems the judge’s ruling is as far removed as Mars from current community attitudes.
Whenever the subject of unacceptable behaviour by young adults emerges, it is frequently agreed that the lack of parental control is a contributing factor.
Yet the forces of the modern socialist state are doing eveything they can to dissipate that control.
At so many levels, society just gets sicker and sicker.

Our local paper’s a beaut. From Hollywood to Extradition Central, it gets the local angle on all the biggies. Who could resist nosing into these stories?
* Geelong’s Portia de Rossi rumoured to be engaged to Ellen DeGeneres
* Tony Mokbel expected at Barwon Prison any day now
* Rottweiler group feels left out of RSPCA Million Paws Walk
* Pubs vow backlash over proposed lockout
* Geelong priest puts weekly message on YouTube
* Credit card scam warning
* Teen arrested hours after his release

When it comes to exercise on a Sunday, I normally take the lead of Oscar Wilde, who said: “I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.”
But I’ve been feeling poorly and lethargic lately, so I got out the bike this morning and went for a 20-kilometre pedal through the northern suburbs. It’s marvellous how much better you feel after a bit of puff and sweat.
Here’s a scene that has just opened for Geelong folk; it’s from the Anakie Rd bridge crossing the partially completed Geelong ring road. Note that one of the first accessories constructed is a gantry for holding speed cameras. Gotta get those priorities right.

We have a wag in the neighbourhood

Rafe, a frequent commenter at this blog, has suggested some headlines to die for:

Demons Win
Ginger’s Dam Full
Lois O’Donahue calls for “Thank You: day.

I’ll add a couple:

Universities close law schools
ABC boss demands balanced reporting

The latter was prompted by a report from Emma Griffith to Insiders this morning from the NSW Labor conference in which she referred to the party’s sole rationalist, Michael Costa, having a “Mussolini flurry”.
The first sign that leftish idiocy has degenerated to brain damage is the fascist slur for anyone who doesn’t peddle the Marxist line.

Any other headlines to die for?

It’s bitingly cold outside yet no sign of much-needed rain, Collingwood is a big worry this arvo against Hawthorn and the beloved has a woodheap sized pile of chores for me. Yet it’s a wonderful day.
It’s always a great day when a commo gets knocked.
It’s an even more joyous occasion when his conqueror is a wit, a bon vivant and a compelling writer with a blistering contempt for lazy, lefty, stupid media hounds. BBC TV news this morning was hilarious as all the old Trots tried their level best to appear balanced but were given away by their gripes and grimaces.
I don’t think Boris Johnson suffers fools gladly and I suspect he is impatient. These seem essential qualities for the leader of a city that has sunk into a morass of political correctness, hooligan culture, divisive multiculturalism, incompetent policing and nanny-state bullying.

Words of wisdom from a fine wordsmith:
“If in speaking to minorities we have to weigh every word in advance in case inadvertently we give offence, how can we be at ease with each other, how can we celebrate our common humanity, our shared anxieties and aspirations, both for ourselves and for those whom we love?” It would be “unfortunate” if the police became “enamoured” of political correctness, which she described as “a pernicious if risible authoritarian attempt at linguistic and social control”.

Headline from a blog that is performing an important archival service for Australians:
“But I still think you’ve got to level with people…I would never knowingly lie.”

That so?

“Within two or three weeks of Dad’s funeral, we were told we had to go. I can remember the terrible discussion between my mother and the fellow who owned the land.”
- Kevin Rudd, The Australian Women’s Weekly, January, 2007.

Jill McCahon said:
But provisions were put in place by our father for Margaret. He explained to her she could remain on the farm, at no cost whatsoever, until such time as the new farmer arrived. What Kevin has always failed to state is that the new farmer didn’t even arrive until July – that’s almost six months after his father’s death. During that entire time, our family continued to run the farm. There was absolutely no reason for them to have left until the new farmer arrived in July. To continuously say he was evicted immediately after his dad’s funeral is quite an unbelievable statement. Not only does he blame our father for the so-called eviction, he subsequently mentions having to sleep rough in a car.”
- Sydney Morning Herald, March 11, 2007.

Lots more blowies there.

The US ABC network reports of a split in Camelot with Robert Kennedy Jr. delivering harsh words to family members who are backing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president.
“Part of our family is divided and our Party is divided and the reason we are divided is because we have two extraordinary candidates both running for president,” Junior gushes.
And we know what he means, but he could have chosen his words a little more carefully: “. . . both who will make unbelievable presidents of this country.”
”Unbelievable” as in “Ah did not have sexual relations with that woman…”?

Here goes one of those global warming denialists again:

“We are told that the sea level is rising and will soon swamp all of our cities. Everybody knows that the Pacific island of Tuvalu is sinking. Al Gore told us that the inhabitants are invading New Zealand because of it.
“Around 1990 it became obvious that the local tide-gauge did not agree — there was no evidence of ‘sinking.’ So scientists at Flinders University, Adelaide, were asked to check whether this was true. They set up new, modern, tide-gauges in 12 Pacific islands, including Tuvalu, confident that they would show that all of them are sinking.
“Recently, the whole project was abandoned as there was no sign of a change in sea level at any of the 12 islands for the past 16 years. In 2006, Tuvalu even rose.”

Who is this heretic?
Why it’s New Zealander Dr Vincent Gray who has worked relentlessly for the IPCC as an expert reviewer since the early 1990s.

Dr. Gray is one of the 2000 to 2500 top scientists from around the world whom the IPCC often cites as forming the basis of its findings. No one has been a more faithful reviewer than Dr. Gray over the years — he has been an IPCC expert almost from the start, and perhaps its most prolific contributor, logging almost 1900 comments on the IPCC’s final draft of its most recent report alone.
But Dr. Gray, who knows as much about the IPCC’s review processes as anyone, has been troubled by what he sees as an appalling absence of scientific rigour in the IPCC’s review process.

Get the feeling that an awful bloody big brick wall is beginning to crumble? From the base.

UPDATE:
There’ll be no shades of Gray in this debate, Colorado State University has decided.
The university has effectively silenced Dr Gray’s namesake, professor emeritus of CSU’s atmospheric department Dr William Gray.

In a memo to colleagues after CSU officials informed him that media relations would no longer promote his forecasts after 2008, Gray wrote: “This is a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the department’s capitulation to the desires of some who want to rein in my global-warming criticisms.”
And critical he has been. At last year’s National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, Gray called Gore a “gross alarmist.” “He’s one of those guys that preaches end-of-the-world type of things,” Gray told AP. “I think he’s doing a great disservice, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Early results from Britain’s council elections look grim for Labour.

The Conservatives made sweeping gains across the country early today as voters gave Gordon Brown a huge rebuff in his first electoral test as Prime Minister.

A landslide defeat after a decade of power. Sound familiar?

The margin was similar to the drubbing handed out to John Major in 1995 two years before Tony Blair entered Downing Street.

Cameron is wetter than a rugrat’s rompers so pom rationalists should not get their hopes too high. As well, the expected election of the erudite Boris Johnson to London’s mayoralty is no gimme.

Mr Cameron still hopes that by this evening he will be able to add the London mayoralty to his list of gains. As voting ended last night, strategists in both main parties agreed that the result was close after a higher-than-expected turnout. Polls and the bookmakers suggested that Boris Johnson was on course to end the eight-year reign of Ken Livingstone, but there were signs that the Labour vote had held better than expected.

UPDATE:
The Tories’ home base is calling it for Johnson.

As a youthful naive leftie, I was conscious that above all, Old Labour valued freedom of expression and a free press. For New Labour it’s whatever it takes.

MAJOR media organisations yesterday unanimously condemned a government-instigated raid on The Sunday Times newspaper in Perth and leading media academics likened it to oppressive tactics used in Malaysia.
The newspaper was locked down for about four hours on Wednesday as 16 police from the Major Fraud Squad tried to find a confidential document allegedly leaked to journalist Paul Lampathakis for a story about election funding. The complaint to police, and to the Corruption and Crime Commission, came from the department of Premier Alan Carpenter, a former journalist.

Decent ALP members must cringe at the types who run their party these days. Carpenter must be confident of his continued employment as a politician; should he ever return to journalism I suspect the only round he’d be given would be Coventry.

Suddenly, manmade global warming is not such an imminent threat. After waiting 20 years for at least a minor calamity caused by foul, carbon-emitting humanity, scientists now tell us we’ll have to wait another 10 years. Or 15. Or 20.

Climate modellers from the Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have stressed they do not directly contradict the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year estimated temperature increases of about 0.2C a decade over the next 20 years.
The research suggests a cooling diversion for the next 15 to 20 years after which there is likely to be accelerated temperature increases as global warming overrides the cooling effect.

I see, global warming, which “experts” predicted as long ago as 1988 would lift sea levels, scorch the earth and cause pestilence and famine by the turn of the century, has refused to live up to expectations.
In fact, reports such as
these are becoming more common and widespread.
So what are the climate alarmists and their gullible followers to do in the face of such contradiction? A silver dollar to the man who came up with the houdini phrase “climate change”. This allows you — with a straight face, a clutter of meaningless jargon and impossible to prove theories — to declare that for the globe to get warmer, first it must get cooler.
More importantly, it gives Goebels Warningistas lots of wriggle room. When doom has not enveloped us over the next few years, they can credit it to “temporary” cooling, but continue demanding totalitarian controls over energy use on the grounds that the dreaded warming is just a few years away.
Hopefully, rationale will prevail. But it must be remembered that a lot of big-headed media, politicians, bureaucrats and celebrities have stupidly embraced the MGW myth and will accept any hypothetical that can spare them embarrassment. And this could be their get-out; it allows them to put MGW on the back-burner, so to speak, while time and fading focus detaches them from the myth.
On the other hand, I want MGW believers to embrace this latest hypothesis. I’d love to hear my local rabid green spout the Max Planck line, just so I could look her in the eye and declare:
“So manmade global warming, which you have warned us about for 20 years, is not going to eventuate in the near future. Instead the globe will cool for 20 years and then it will warm. And climate scientists, who can’t accurately predict local weather for the next week, are certain of this global scenario. And you believe it. Boy, have I got some bargains for you!”