Slattsnews

John of Ringwood, commenting at Bolt’s, nails the beloved leader:
Round face, blond hair, full of big ideas, not fully conversant with adult issues and, if reports are correct, subject to outbursts of foul language.
Stan, Cartman, Kyle, Kenny and Kevin … it even sounds right.

MareeS, a commenter at Bolt’s, strikes a familiar chord in an observation about manmade global warming scepticism:

And why don’t I feel any guilt about my carbon footprint?
Because I was born a Catholic, and I know all about undeserved guilt.
AGW is inflicting guilt through a protestant prism, attempting to force people into penance.
Funny how lapsed Catholics can spot the tactics.

This report just in should challenge newsreaders’ straight faces:
GENEVA (AFP) — A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.

Chef came back from the dead in South Park. But I can’t see life (or should that be death?) imitating art in this case.

ISAAC Hayes, the pioneering American singer, songwriter and musician, has been found dead at his Tennessee home aged 65.

The US political blog mill is grinding overtime on a looming catastrophic revelation about Barack Obama. Seems there already is plenty of mysterious stuff about his identity and citizenship doing the rounds. With one-time vice-presidential candidate favourite John Edwards in disgrace over an extra-marital affair and its denial, the Clinton camp will be keen to get any new scandal out quick smart so they can present as Democratic saviours at the party convention.

UPDATE:
It just gets worse for Obama. The Telegraph reports that Americans are now ready to laugh at him.
Late night comic Jimmy Kimmel also cracked a joke at Mr Obama’s expense: “They really love Barack Obama in Germany. He’s like a rock star over there. Impressive until you realise that David Hasselhoff is also like a rock star over there.”

Here we go! How long before our lefty media run with this theme? It will be comforting for them to again cuddle up to Russia.
A number of experts agree the military conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia is not in Russia’s interests. The Former Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili says the United States could be partly responsible for the violence in South Ossetia.

Reckon this is how the pathetic Rudd thinks:
Golly, I’m important in this job. You wouldn’t believe the things I see and hear. Yes, I was a diplomat. But that was then. Now I’m important and I just have to tell you how much.
Mr Rudd revealed in an interview with Beijing Now in Beijing on Saturday that he was sitting just two rows behind Mr Bush when an “animated” discussion between he and Mr Putin broke out over Russia’s advance into South Ossetia, a breakaway region in neighbouring Georgia.
He’s like the kid down the street who could hardly wait to get home and tell Dad about standing next to Gary Ablett at the urinal.

I think we’ve found an opener to replace Gilly.

Hasn’t the plague of lawyers spawned in the past generation produced a wonderful new class of citizen?
LAWYERS representing MP Paula Wriedt’s former lover have extended an olive branch to the Tasmanian Government in their bid for a payout after losing his job.

Nothing is ever their responsibility.
THE mother of a teenager who fell to her death in a derelict power station is suing the authorities she claims let her daughter run wild.

Finally. A prominent media outlet has published an objective piece that acknowledges there is a body of learned thought with serious doubts about man’s contribution to global warming, or whether global warming is actually a serious threat.
The tide is truly turning. Much embarrassment ahead methinks.

Who should the Pies put on the P155 today?

ABC director of editorial policies Paul Chadwick provides an extraordinary defence of bias in the broadcaster’s online coverage of major issues such as the Federal Government’s “stolen generations” apology and intervention into dysfunctional remote communities.
Mr Chadwick’s report on online opinion content finds “the test for impartiality was met”, despite 13 items supporting the apology and just three opposing it. The report — which was outsourced to communications consultant Denis Muller, formerly a senior journalist with The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald — also finds the website had almost five times as many items that criticised the Howard government’s stance on indigenous issues than those that supported it.
During the same period, more than twice the space was given to those opposing the intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities than those in favour of it.
Mr Chadwick says the disparities are acceptable, because online editors tried, but failed, to commission more opinion pieces supportive of John Howard’s position on the apology and the intervention, and because the “tide of public opinion” was running strongly against the former prime minister.

So the tide of public opinion will now determine the ABC’s stand on issues? Can we expect the comrades and luvvies to be overwhelmingly in favour of capital punishment, tougher sentencing by judges, deportation of illegal aliens, the building of more dams, eradication of political correctness and the opening of more land for suburban development? Don’t think so, somehow. Yet a tsunami of public opinion supports such actions.
And online editors “tried, but failed, to commission more opinion pieces supportive of John Howard’s position on the apology and the intervention”. Strange, editors at outlets such as The Australian found no such difficulty.
Add incompetence to biased, out of touch and arrogant to any ABC performance description.

With global warming scepticism gaining roller coaster momentum and Rudd appearing as hollow as bongo drums, there’s precious little for Fairfax’s old marxists and maoists to wax goo-goo about.
Thank Lenin for the Beijing Olympics. How’s this for hyperbole?
It was a ceremony seemingly made in heaven, featuring spacemen, flocks of doves, a dreamy, flutter-by of fairies and fireworks - thousands of fireworks.
In 50 fleeting minutes, rich in colour and choreography, they dramatically showcased more than five millenia of Chinese history for 91,000 spectators and an estimated television audience of 4 billion. Even “lao tian ye”, the heavenly grandfathers earlier invoked by Wang Wei, secretary-general of the BOCOG organisers, looked kindly on the event, withholding bad weather.
Me? After a week of 4am wake-ups, I slept through it all. Besides nationalistic kitsch doesn’t really pump my tyres.

UPDATE:
Tim Blair’s commentary has me almost wishing I’d stayed awake to watch. Particularly this gem: 10.38pm: Nothing like a few bars of Peasant and Eastern music to get the crowd hollerin’.

Fourteen million years ago: no fuel-burning cars, no power generation plants, no filthy industry. Lots of methane emitting dinosaurs, I suppose. Something melted down the antarctic.
WASHINGTON - Mosses once grew and insects crawled in what are now barren valleys in Antarctica, according to scientists who have recovered remains of life from that frozen continent. Fourteen million years ago the now lifeless valleys were tundra, similar to parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia — cold but able to support life, researchers report.

Just when you think civil rights lawyers couldn’t get more preposterous.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A man on death row in Ohio is suing the state on grounds that due to his obesity he would suffer unduly during lethal injection, the Ohio Attorney General’s office said Tuesday.

Bloody hell! That roar you North Queenslanders heard at 7.02pm was a bellow from in front of the Slatts’ Victorian-based TV set.
The lead piece on ABC news came from Olympics correspondent Lisa Miller who referred in her opening quote to the prospect of Australia winning less Olympic medals.
Along with objective reporting, the ABC seems to have dropped its commitment to correct English usage at all times. Perhaps that’s why they have fewer and fewer viewers.
Expect Lisa to soon tell us about athletes standing on the dias and how a heat time is so good it all goes well for the final.

Art you can slip on. A Canadian artist has a $2500 price tag on his latest work: a fresh banana on a window sill.

There could be a nasty accident if this work of art appears in the same gallery as the above-mentioned piece.
Martin Creed’s new installation in London’s Tate Britain features a runner sprinting through the neo-classical sculpture gallery every 30 seconds.

Well, now we know who didn’t get the ugly camel. (Ancient joke about sexual choices in the French Foreign Legion).
“See this one?” he asked, pointing to a white female camel with long eyelashes and a calm gaze. “She isn’t married yet, this one. She’s still a virgin. Look at the black eyes, the soft fur. The fur is trimmed so it’s short and clean, just like a girl going to a party.”

Tim Blair’s razor wit is even more relevant with this report from the lands of sand:
Hamas has resumed its policy of shaving mustaches of political opponents to humiliate them, Fatah officials said Wednesday.
Hamas resorted to this form of punishment in the past after arresting senior Fatah representatives in the Gaza Strip, the officials said.
Hamas, for its part, accused the Palestinian Authority security forces of shaving the beards of detained Hamas officials in the West Bank.

Tim’s news attracted the funniest comment read this week. It’s from one surfmaster of Down south .

Aksa Martyrs Brigades spokesterrorist Farzi Wazoo today condemned the actions of Hamas declaring the indiscriminate shaving of Fatah members as a “Barberous” act. Mr Wazoo went on to say that members of his peace loving organisation of bearded cross-dressers would be issuing a fatwah against all stores selling razors including the Gaza K-Martyr store, all Palestinian branches of Martyr-10 and all local 9-11 convenience outlets. Mr Wazoo also said, “the cruel actions of these capitalist pig dog western left handed shaven zionist puppets will be punished, God willing, I swear on my camels grave that we will bring this barbershop quartet to justice. These poor victims are inconsolable without their facial hair as they no longer look like their mothers”.
The International Red Cross announced that it will be shipping emergency relief supplies to the stricken martyrs with 1000 cartons of false moustaches, beards, rubber noses and glasses already on its way to Gaza.

Gaza K-Martyr store, indeed!

It seems that with every passing chilly day another learned mind joins the vocal ranks of manmade global warming doubters.
And with tough economic times looming, you can bet those numbers will swell dramatically when battlers learn their power bills could well double to finance Rudd’s emissions trading frolic.
Want to add more sceptics to the growing horde? I recommend Michael Crichton’s State of Fear to bring any open-minded rationalist to the tipping point of doubt.
As usual, Crichton’s work is fastidiously researched, weaving hard factual data with fiction to produce an immensely readable, action-loaded thriller about gradually-awakening naivetes caught up in an eco-terror conspiracy.
The author pulls no punches about his doubts and argues convincingly that the environmental movement has ignored science and gone off track to create what he calls a “State of Fear”, a “near-hysterical preoccupation with safety that’s at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism”.
And that’s what puzzles me about the modern Left: Weren’t the libertarian-inclined hippies of the 60s and 70s all about expansion of the human spirit and contempt for the state’s jackboots? Yet, here’s the old hippy lefties and their spawn buckling under to new world orders based on dodgy scientific theories.
Ah well, the truth will out sooner rather than later and Crichton will deserve his place in the vanguard of “told-you-so” forces.

The bride and I returned this week from a delightfully relaxing week on Lake Macquarie in the Hunter region. Now this is an area that mines coal, operates power stations and votes Labor. Judging from attitudes expressed by blue collar types in a couple of clubs visited during our stay, that last definition will not apply if Rudd’s ridiculous carbon emissions tax becomes reality. The average Australian worker has a highly refined bulldust detection system. And nothing gets its antennae quivering like talk of manmade global warming. We also discovered many Tim Blair fans during our travels who’ll no doubt enjoy a chuckle and a few nods of agreement at this splendid piece of commentary.
Oh, and weren’t all the Kevvie luvvers from the media in a stink on Insiders this morning? They realise the Opposition has finally found the nads to enunciate climate change policy that takes into account minor concerns like the national economy and honest appraisal of meteorological theory.
Paul Toohey, in particular, was pathetic as he whinged about oppositions elsewhere going along with MGW bulldust. He wasn’t specific, but I’m pretty sure oppositions in the industrialising states north of here aren’t suggesting policies that would ruin their economies.
And sceptics, take heart. We’re attracting some very well credentialled company. Such as Art Raiche, former Chief Research Scientist of the CSIRO who tips a huge bucket on the once-great organisation.