Slattsnews

Did they get fries with that? Loopy litigation of the week.

Shelley Lynn claims in the suit that she was “economically and psychologically” coerced into prostitution by her ex-husband and former manager at a McDonald’s in Arroyo Grande, Calif., the Courthouse News Service reported this week.
Lynn, who was hired by the restaurant to work behind the counter in 1982, claims in the complaint that her former boss and ex-husband, Keith Handley, pushed her into prostitution in Nevada and also “engaged in pimping operations out of the McDonald’s franchises he owned.”

MORE:
What is it with Maccas and hookers?

The woman, the detective reported, replied that the pair “could go have sexual intercourse if I bought her two double cheese burgers off the dollar menu at McDonald’s.” The cop added, “I agreed to the deal and purchased the hamburgers for $2.75.”

Aw gee, what a cutey.

Meet Harry the hippo, a baby pygmy so small the average person could carry him around with ease.
Harry, named after Britain’s Prince Harry, was born last week at the Cango Wildlife Ranch in South Africa, the Star reports. His handlers are being forced to hand-rear Harry after his mother Hilda refused to feed him. Keeping Harry healthy is a priority, as there are only an estimated 3,000 pygmy hippos left in the wild.

Easy mistake to make.

A Colorado man was sentenced to five years’ probation after accidentally shooting a woman whose red mohawk he mistook for a fowl that had been harassing his cats.

War is inevitable when one side refuses to debate a serious global issue.
And when war breaks out, the first casualty is truth.

A GLOBAL lobby group has distributed a “spin sheet” encouraging its 300 member organisations to emphasise the link between climate change and extreme weather events, despite uncertainties acknowledged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
An “action pack” distributed by Global Campaign for Climate Action said members “shouldn’t be afraid to make the connection”, despite the sometimes low level of confidence in the official documents of the IPCC. The action pack, which was produced to coincide with the release of the latest full IPCC report into the link between climate change and extreme weather events, rekindled claims that overstating the case damaged the credibility of the science.
“What this leaked document shows is again we have groups out there promoting more extreme situations than the report actually warrants because the latest report shows there are degrees of uncertainty,” said Institute of Public Affairs climate spokesman Tim Wilson.
“When the claims don’t correlate it undermines the confidence that people can actually have in climate science.”

UPDATE:
When your “truth” becomes lies and propaganda, re-education programs and social therapy are surely the next step.

Scepticism regarding the need for immediate and massive action against carbon emissions is a sickness of societies and individuals which needs to be “treated”, according to an Oregon-based professor of “sociology and environmental studies”. Professor Kari Norgaard compares the struggle against climate scepticism to that against racism and slavery in the US South.

Barack Obama incensed Las Vegas city fathers with this barb in in 2009: “You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.”
The ABC network reports today: Now the Obamas have arrived in Las Vegas for a private family visit.

We’ve never thought much of Twitter – too much crap there.
Seems our judgement was on the money.

The worst aspect of Finkelstein and Ricketsen’s attack on free speech is that it encourages other censorious ideologues to follow their lead.

A GROUP that represents girls’ schools across Australia has provoked a storm of protest (a shrill whine from a victim wrangler lobby) for inviting the chief executive of dieting company Jenny Craig to speak at its conference at Melbourne Girls Grammar.

How is it that a group that pretends to be a mouthpiece for women and their rich potential should present a highly accomplished young woman in such a pathetically one-dimensional manner?

Responding to the controversy, the alliance’s chief executive, Jan Butler, said: ”The choice of Amy Smith as a speaker at the conference relates to her long-standing support of women and their status and her work as an advocate for change. In no way will Amy Smith be talking about dieting or even mentioning Jenny Craig.”

Boy, there’s some bitchin’ in that schoolyard.

How the hell will Labor improve its lot if it and its media barrackers are not prepared to acknowledge the obvious? Katherine Murphy refusing to open her eyes in The Age today:

The Queensland election was not, as Tony Abbott would have it, a referendum on the Gillard government’s carbon tax. It was a landslide against the absence of meaning in politics; an ”up yours” to the cheap tricks that modern politics too often substitutes for meaningful debate, and an ”up yours” to a mouldering government.

An exit poll shows the carbon tax was the third most important issue for Queensland voters behind cost of living pressures to which the carbon tax will contribute mightily.

Here’s one: an exit poll conducted by Sky News showed that 40 per cent of voters were concerned about the carbon tax, behind cost of living (69 per cent).
That spells doom for Labor federally, if current polling trends weren’t already clear enough.

If Labor continues to ignore widespread resentment brought about by its carbon tax lie it could well face a Queensland-style annihilation at the next Federal poll.

Oh, and how predictable was this? A Fairfax lefty lass blaming the Bligh mutiny on sexist voters.

IF THERE is a federal portent in Queensland Labor’s wipeout, perhaps it is this: unlike male leaders, who sometimes get a second chance (think John Howard and Peter Beattie), female leaders judged to have lied get punished the next time they face the polls.

Tony Abbott must be chortling about the out-of-touch shallowness of his media opponents at the ABC and Fairfax.

This is worth a few minutes – a collection of Charlie Chan quotes:

He who squanders today talking about yesterday’s triumphs, have nothing to boast of tomorrow.
Man who flirt with dynamite sometime fly with angels.
Curiosity responsible for cat needing nine lives.
Dreams, like good liars, distort facts.

Geelong trounces Collingwood in the Grand Final. So, whose rooms do the Sunday morning sports post-mortem TV programs visit first?
Collingwood’s?
Any sports news producer who went for that option would justifiably be slung out on their arse.
So what do the lefties on Insiders present first this morning? Anna Bligh’s concession speech in the wake of the Queensland election bloodbath.
It gets even more ridiculous. Laura Tingle warns there are lessons to be learnt from this Labor disaster. Lessons for Tony Abbott, for gawdsakes.
They just can’t help themselves, these dills.
Federal Labor – you’re next.

Love it. Commenter Kevin at Bolt’s blog:

What’s the difference between Queensland ALP and a Toyota Tarago ?
A Tarago has more seats !

Best result of all: The maggoty Greens won nothing.

Supporters often praise the eloquence of President Obama. But a Danish commentator catches the Chosen One repeating himself in a particularly brainless way.

He then rolls the tape. “That’s fairly typical of the way that Danes have punched above their weight in international affairs,” President Obama says at a press availability in the Oval Office with Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark.
“It’s nice to be praised,” Buch-Andersen remarks. “We punch harder than our weight class would suggest. But how much should we read into his words? According to Obama, are we doing any better than, say, the Norwegians?”
The TV host again turns to the tape, this time showing President Obama in the Oval Office with Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg. “I’ve said this before, but I want to repeat: Norway punches above its weight,” Obama says.

The commentator also reveals Obama has delivered similar lines about the Dutch, Irish and Filipinos.

Ever wondered how a dolt like Rob Oakeshott could get elected? Well, it’s understandable when you consider the geese the folk of Port Macquarie – who put raving Rob into parliament – elect to their council.

But yesterday the Secombes’ sense of hard-earned stability collapsed when they discovered they could be among the first victims in Australia to be dispossessed of their home. Not because of any existing environmental threat, but because the local council believes climate change could pose one by the end of the century.
In a move that struck incredulity, alarm and fear among locals, Port Macquarie Hastings Council put a study on the council website recommending that council enforce a “planned retreat” for the owners of the 17 houses on Illaroo Road. The area is one of 15 “hot spots” identified by the NSW government as being vulnerable to the effects of sea level rises due to climate change, as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Their street is seven metres above sea level.

This is so idiotic, an intellectual must be behind it:

TEACHERS are banning schoolkids from having best pals — so they don’t get upset by fall-outs.

Barry Rubin exposes malicious lies from leftist media and academics in Europe:

What is needed is not expensive conferences and long speeches about the evils of anti-Semitism. The real solution is a change in the behaviour of media and academics who slander and distort, and governments that refuse to stand by a democratic country and people beset by terrorism and the world’s oldest hatred.
One more thing is needed: the admission that the greatest threat of hatred, “racism”, dehumanisation of the “other” and threat of persecution today — as statistics for Europe and North America show — is not “Islamophobia” but anti-Semitism.
None of those things will happen because hating and lying about Israel and the Jewish people are too entwined with left-wing ideology, Islamism and the dominant interpretation of Islam.

A correspondent for The Age was in no doubt yesterday about the political motivation of France’s mass murderer.

Police are a long way from understanding what was going through the head of someone who could catch a little girl by the hair so he wouldn’t have to waste a second bullet on her. But some things are already becoming clear. He shouted no jihadist or anti-Semitic slogans, going about his grisly business in the cold, military manner oddly similar to Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian gunman who massacred 77 people last northern summer.

Oops! One for Media Watch?

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) – French police launched an assault late on Wednesday on an apartment where a gunman suspected of killing seven people in the name of al Qaeda was holed up, officials said.

Mysterious events in China:

U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring China’s Internet say that from March 14 to Wednesday bloggers circulated alarming reports of tanks entering Beijing and shots being fired in the city as part of what is said to have been a high-level political battle among party leaders – and even a possible military coup.

UPDATE:
More reports of upheaval here.

Online reports of tanks on the streets of the capital Beijing and shots fired within the secure leaders’ compound – which is located next door the top tourist attraction, the Forbidden City – are being closely monitored by the international intelligence communities, including the U.S. and UK.

More blatant waste by incompetents in Canberra:

FROM the centre of Byron Bay, a 2.5m-wide, uneven asphalt bike path stretches 750m to the west.
This is what $370,000 – half of it federal government money – and 56 workers gets you in this green-leaning coastal hamlet in northern NSW.
The Australian National Audit Office has fingered the project to illustrate its major concerns about the number of jobs created under a nationwide $40 million regional bike path scheme, conceived in the wake of the financial crisis.
The audit office blamed sloppy or non-existent government analysis for a wide gap between the number of jobs it was claimed would be created and the actual figures. In its application for funding, Byron Shire Council initially stated the bike path would create two short-term jobs and two work experience positions. Despite the small number of extra jobs forecast, the federal government contributed $185,000.

One way of partially repleting government coffers would be to apply the law to Byron Bay’s cyclists.
We were there recently and I estimated that 80 per cent of cyclists were not wearing helmets. Yet the plods recently cracked down on bareheaded riders in Sydney, issuing thousands of dollars in fines. Perhaps authorities believe nothing can be damaged if Byron Bay hippies land on their unprotected heads.

It’s hard to believe this was written by a lefty economist in The Age.

It’s not possible to know what the future holds, of course, and such modelling – economic or scientific – is a highly imperfect way of making predictions.

That’s what manmade global warming sceptics have been saying for decades.
Of course it doesn’t stop him from reiterating the latest barrage of gloomy predictions from a body whose well-rewarded raison d’etre is alarmism.

There’ve been a few electrifying events over the old town in past weeks.
Great presentation by the Geelong Advertiser.

Who would play the lead role in Mr Hitler Goes to Hollywood?