Slattsnews

Politically interesting days ahead, I reckon.

VOTERS are demanding an early federal election to blast out a government they believe is desperate to cling to power and a prime minister who has poor political judgment.
The findings of the exclusive Herald Sun/Galaxy Poll come as Prime Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday she no longer wanted Craig Thomson in her partyroom – but would still rely on his vote to stay in power.

Heh, heh. This must qualify for the ever-growing list of unintended environmental consequences:

But on huge wind farms the motion of the turbines mixes the air higher in the atmosphere that is warmer, pushing up the overall temperature.
Satellite data over a large area in Texas, that is now covered by four of the world’s largest wind farms, found that over a decade the local temperature went up by almost 1C as more turbines are built.

This poll should end any doubts that the Greens’ influence is on the wan.

CONCERN for the environment has dwindled into a ”middling” issue that many people do not have strong feelings about, a major study into Australian attitudes towards society, politics and the economy has found.
Food, health, local crime, safety and rights to basic public services – the tangible things that people confront on a daily basis – are dominant national concerns. ”Australians are effectively indifferent to global and societal issues, rating these significantly lower,” according to the report What Matters to Australians, produced by the Melbourne Business School and the University of Technology in Sydney, with the support of the Australian Research Council.

Swiped this from a Bolt commenter. Pretty much sums it up:

If a Conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one. If a Labor/Greenie doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.If a Conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. If a Labor/Greenie is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a Conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. If a Labor/Greenie is homosexual, he demands legislated respect. If a Conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. If a Labor/Greenie is down and out, he wonders who is going to take care of him. If a Conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. If a Labor/Greenie doesn’t lake a talk show host, he demands that those he doesn’t like be shut down. If a Conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church. If a Labor/Greenie is a non-believer, he wants any mention of God and religion silenced. If a Conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it,or may choose a job that provides it.If a Labor/Greenie decides he needs health care, he demands that the rest of us pay for his. If a Conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh. If a Labor/Greenie reads this, he will delete it because he’s “offended”.

This is huge, the equivalent of a cardinal embracing atheism and should lead bulletins all over the world.
But don’t hold those front pages. Widespread coverage would mean the media having to admit they failed dismally at their most basic task: to present news objectively.

It will also reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.
“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.
He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.

The strife-stricken Australian Labor Party hardly needs this from former leader Mark Latham:

People regularly ask me about the humiliation I must feel for having once led a corrupted rabble like the ALP.

Mark Steyn on the scandal enveloping the White House. Hilarious.

What we know so far is this: All 11 Secret Service men and all 10 U.S. military personnel staying at the Hotel Caribe are alleged to have had “escorts” in their rooms that night. All of them. The entire team.
Twenty-one U.S. public servants. Twenty-one Colombian whores. Unless a couple of the senior guys splashed out for the two-girl special. “Some of them were saying they didn’t know they were prostitutes,” explained Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
“Some are saying they were women at the bar.”
Amazing to hear government agents channeling Dudley Moore in Arthur:
“You’re a hooker …? I thought I was doing so well.” It turns out U.S. Secret Service agents are the only men who can walk into a Colombian nightclub and not spot the professionals. Are they really the guys you want protecting the president?

Given the scandals of the past few days, Julia Gillard would welcome this show of respect.

JULIA Gillard will join the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana and singer Ricky Martin in having an orchid named after her
in Singapore.
Dendrobium Julia Gillard will be unveiled on the first day of the Prime Minister’s visit to Singapore today, during which she will hold security and trade talks with her counterpart Lee Hsien Loong.

But a reader at Bolt’s blog asks if someone is having a joke because the orchid pictured is a variety of Dendrobium bigibbum.

Surely, the Federal Government’s sheer incompetence is at such a staggering level that there must be at least one decent member who’ll eventually cry “enough”.

THE furore over the National Broadband Network has intensified amid fresh claims that the $36 billion project is 15 months behind schedule because of “fundamental” shortcomings in Labor’s policy and that cost blowouts are inevitable.

But then bungling has been their stock in trade. So maybe the shell-backed evasion of parliamentary standards will prick the conscience of one of those Labor MPs who know they’re on their way to electoral oblivion.

LABOR MP Craig Thomson received a secret payout of almost $160,000 from the Health Services Union three years after he left the union and had been elected to Federal Parliament.

But then they’ve done whatever it takes to avoid propriety over the Thomson scandal. So, as always, it seems that with no one in the government prepared to do the right thing by the electorate, it will be the numbers that force the issue.

SPEAKER Peter Slipper is facing explosive allegations he sexually harassed a young male adviser and misused taxpayer-funded Cabcharge dockets in a major new crisis for the Gillard government.
The man who holds the highest parliamentary office in Australia is accused by a key adviser, James Ashby, 33, of making “unwelcome sexual advances” and “unwelcome sexual comments”.

Quite an anxious day at Chez Slatts. We’re due to become first-time grandparents in a few hours.

UPDATE:
Around 2.30pm Erin and Gerard welcomed Arlo Jack McHugh into the world. All well and delighted.
Already been warned by grandmother against quipping: Arlo, Arlo, Arlo, wot have we got here, then?!

Ain’t he cute?

Joe Hildebrand lets rip. Pure gold.

A case of the end justifiying the means?

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota prison inmate is suing the hospital where he was circumcised as a newborn, saying he only recently became aware that he’d undergone the procedure and that it robbed him of his sexual prowess.

Imagine the class action this could trigger.

Now, this is definitely leaving on your own terms:

Weary of reading obituaries noting someone’s courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died.

Trooble at mill. Why does it not surprise?

NATHAN Buckley is under siege, with predecessor Mick Malthouse questioning Collingwood’s corridor-based game plan and AFL legend Wayne Carey fuelling rumours of a player-coach rift.

Wine tip of the week: Get down to Dan Murphy’s and snaffle the 2008 Wine Men of Gotham shiraz. Sweet fruit on the schnozz; spice and nut on the palate. You won’t find a better red under $8.
Turf tip of the week: Sangster each way in the Australian Derby. Trialled brilliantly through the week, connections say.

North Korean fizzer:

News of the controversial launch was first broadcast on North Korean television and in South Korean media outlet Yonhap.
The United States has also confirmed the launch, but it is believed the rocket broke up soon after take-off from the west coast hamlet of Tongchang-ri.
It is the third unsuccessful attempt North Korea has made to test its long-range missiles since 1998, and there is no word out of Pyongyang about the failure.

Another glorious triumph for the forces of socialism. They must be learning ineptitude from our illustrious government.
You wouldn’t want to be part of the launch team.

Wallace Craig got the picture:

Best thing about the Geelong Ring Road is that it keeps idiots out of town. There’s enough already there.

A COUPLE critically injured in a high-speed crash pelted dim sims at another car moments before flipping their four-wheel drive multiple times on the Geelong bypass, police allege.
The driver and the passenger of a Mitsubishi Pajero could face charges of endangering their children after an alleged road-rage incident in which police claim food was thrown at a white Ford on Good Friday.

Well, they did say ”butt out!”

An “exhausted” woman has caused scenes of confusion after stripping naked at Denver International Airport in the US.
Officials said the woman was caught illegally smoking a cigarette about 8.45am yesterday at an airport departure gate, the FOX31 network reports.
When ordered to put out the cigarette she took off all her clothes then asked an official to reprint her boarding pass.

An unhealthy lack of irony exists in government departments:

The Federal Labor Government’s freedom of information reforms have stalled with departments spending thirteen times more money on high performance shredding machines than they are training public servants to handle requests for information from the public.

Hilarious if it weren’t so serious.

Mainstream media bias in the US has degenerated beyond disgraceful.

In the NBC segment, Zimmerman says: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
The full version, though, unfolds like this:
Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”
911 operator: “Okay. And this guy, is he white black or Hispanic?”
Zimmerman: “He looks black.”

And how does the lying media outlet explain itself?

NBC News declined to comment.