A Western Heart

Don't Cry for Me, Am-er-I-ca

2009-11-22T15:13:00.005+11:00

Great post here by Doug Ross on the warning afforded by what was the wealthiest country (GDP per head) a century ago: Argentina, now a veritable basket case.

Government entitlement programs are (compulsory) Ponzi schemes - Bernie Madoff on steroids; early adopters get the benefits (hence Peron's populatiry) and later arrivals/generations get the bills.

It takes very little cultural/economic sophistication on the part of a population to enable the market to work; yet to guard against such things as government run Ponzi schemes it requires the majority of a population to be very sophisticated - a depth of character that can be easily lost in a generation, as Ronald Reagan warned.

A lesson of history we either learn or repeat.

ZEG

2009-11-22T10:53:00.001+11:00

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG thinks that Malcolm Turnbll has more in common with the Labor party than with the conservative party that he ostensibly leads

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Come on slimestream, report the news

2009-11-22T08:08:00.000+11:00

UPI - ...The alleged e-mails between Army Maj. Nidal Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki intensified in the months before the Nov. 5 attack that killed 13 people, two sources close to the investigation told The Washington Post in a story published Saturday. The two men discussed in "cryptic and coded exchanges" how to transfer money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention, an unidentified source told The Post, adding Hasan "clearly became more radicalized toward the end." The FBI monitored the e-mails but did not forward them to the military, government and congressional sources told The Post. Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric who once lived in the United States, is considered by U.S. officials to be an al-Qaida supporter.

Apart from the above and in the Washington Post, you can't find this news in any of the other outlets, it's not even mentioned in broadcast news anymore. They started by saying it could have been an amazonian pygmy, then weaseled on to stress from the war the bastards never fought it and it's too early to say anything, islam=peace, hasan was such a beautiful person and now it's just complete silence. The media have made the assumption that we all don't give a damn any more and would prefer the story of the dog that chased the moving car last week in Mombasa, Africa.

Here's another story that the slimestream media have been silent on for a few days at least. Sort of like an inconvenient truth. I saw this story first over at Crusader Rabbit.

FOX News - Hackers broke into the servers at a prominent British climate research center and leaked years worth of e-mail messages onto the Web, including one with a reference to a plan to "hide the decline" in temperatures. The Internet is abuzz about the leaked data from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (commonly called Hadley CRU), which has acknowledged the theft of 61MB of confidential data. Climate change skeptics describe the leaked data as a "smoking gun," evidence of collusion among climatologists and manipulation of data to support the widely held view that climate change is caused by the actions of mankind.

Again, it's not in any of our local media outlets, just on a few international ones and mainly on the blogosphere. While I'm on this subject, I wanted to point my fellow Aussies to a petition that one of our politicians in the Senate is running. Barnaby Joyce has been against the carbon tax that our prime minister and his gaggle of socialist turkeys want to foist upon the Australian taxpayers. Below is the text from his website.

To the Honourable President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:

The petition of the undersigned shows that we object to Australia adopting an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the Copenhagen Treaty as foreshadowed by the Rudd Government.

Your petitioners ask that the Senate reject the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Sign the Petition. Get on there folks, they want to tax us even more, time to push back.

Spread the word on the above news stories folks and contact your media outlets, send them emails and such, tell them about the stories and dare them to report on it, if nothing else, they'll at least read them and know that we're not all dumb schmucks who blindly swallow whatever they decide to give us.

Must not express a preference for Anglo names

2009-11-21T23:57:00.000+11:00

Even in the British Conservative party

"A former Tory Parliamentary candidate was suspended by the party last night after complaining that people bidding to become an MP did not have ‘normal’ English names. Councillor Peter Hobbins is accused of sending racist emails to colleagues attacking the list of prospective Parliamentary candidates for the Orpington seat in Kent.

Mr Hobbins, who stood unsuccessfully for the Tories at the 2001 election and was shortlisted for the London mayoral race, suggested he should change his name to ‘Petrado’ to succeed in the party. One email said: ‘I have been contacted by a Mr Dilon Gumraj and a Zerha Zaidi and others who are all on the approved Conservative Parliamentary Candidates list. ‘Not one of them has a ‘normal’ English name.

‘Why are the Candidates Department so keen on these foreign names?!!!! Maybe I should change my name to something foreign – how does Petrado Indiano Hobbinso sound to you?!’

Mr Hobbins also said he was fed up with reading about ‘Africa’ on the CVs of would-be candidates.

A Tory spokesman said: ‘Councillor Hobbins has been immediately suspended from the Conservative Party and from the Conservative Group on Bromley council and he will play no part in the selection of the Parliamentary candidate. There is no room for racism in the Conservative Party.’

Source

The man was actually making a serious point. It is arguably true that Anglo voters are more likely to vote for candidates with Anglo names. Any political party in England that puts up a candidate with an obviously foreign name may well be doing a bit of foot-shooting.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Andrea Mitchell of NBC News Tries to Ambush Sarah Palin at Book Signing

2009-11-21T23:56:00.000+11:00

The dark shirted Security guy on the left and the white shirted Security guy have no intentions of letting Andrea Mitchell cut in line and get closer to Gov. Palin. For her part, Gov. Palin rightfully just ignores Andrea.

A picture is worth a thousand words... One lady has a smile, one does not. One is happy in her skin, one is not. One is attractive, one is not. One is a conservative, one is not. One is a positive, one is a negative. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Comment above from a reader. Pictures from Weasel Zippers

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Indian Sikh to join BNP

2009-11-21T09:24:00.002+11:00

Times Online - A Sikh who claims that Islam is based on “deception, fraud and surprise attack” is set to become the first non-white member of the British National Party. Rajinder Singh, 78, who emigrated from the Punjab region of India in 1967, said today that he would be honoured to become a member of the BNP because it is the “only party who has the guts to say the word Muslim”.

“It’s a natural process in the Muslim psyche, to take over [the country]. The fear of Islam is well founded, well justified,” he told The Times. “I don’t hate Muslims. By definition a Sikh is supposed to love all — even the enemy.” The retired schoolteacher will be put forward by the far Right party’s executive as its first non-white member after it makes changes to its constitution. The BNP was forced to agree to the changes in September after the Equality and Human Rights Commission took legal action against the party claiming that its rules, which restricted membership to “indigenous Caucasians”, were a breach of the Race Relations Act.

“I think Britain is a lot more important than me. I have to put my own ego aside and think for Britain. They were (racist) but if they pass this bill they will not be.” ...Mr Singh told The Times that Britain was in danger of being taken over by Muslims and the BNP was the only party prepared to do anything about it. He blames Islam for the death of his father during the partition of India in 1947, which led to the deaths of an estimated two million Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus.

One of the solutions the haters of the BNP in Britain refuse to accept is that they can very easily stop the growing support of the BNP. You see, instead of caterwauling about the racism and trying to ban, smear and stifle the BNP into submission through any means possible, all they have to do is simply to adopt the legitimate concerns of those who are going to the BNP, like Rajinder Singh above. If they really cared about Britain and the citizens of Britain, they'd at least try and address their legitimate concerns about immigration and multi-culturalism and if they displayed a genuine willingness to do something about them, there would be no need for Rajinder Singh to join or vote for the BNP.

But you see, they don't really care about Rajinder Singh and those like him who have sensible and legitimate concerns about muslim immigration and integration, if he were white, they'd brand and smear him as a racist, bigot and everything else they could think of. And so, people like him will move in their droves from the mainstream parties and guess what's going to happen after that.

The other thing I'd like to talk about is the BNP's rule about excluding non-whites, I've always thought that this leaves them at a disadvantage because it excludes people like Rajinder Singh from supporting them. However, can anyone tell me why a political party should not be allowed to make their own rules about who can join them?

If someone started a club for women only and refused membership for men, why can't they do this? If there was a Blacks-only party, should they be forced to open it up to non-blacks, will the above Equality and Human Rights Commission pursue them with the same vigor and passion? The Miss India UK pageant is only for women of Indian origin, that's fine with me but isn't that racism, why isn't Equality and Human Rights Commission running after them and suing them into submission.

The way I see it, if you don't like the BNP's membership policy or parties that refuse membership based on skin-color or anything else, then don't vote for them or join them. You are free to campaign against them, debate them and protest them peacefully, but you can't sue them into submission or force them to bend to your will. My feeling is that most people out there will simply ignore such parties, unless off course no one else gives a damn about them.

Can you convince me otherwise?

P.S. This is not an invitation for hate-filled lefties to start raving and ranting at me for daring to speak.

Unbelievably brainless waste of taxpayer's money

2009-11-21T00:35:00.001+11:00

$600k for 'sub-standard hot-box' house that is totally inappropriate for the tropical climate and for the people concerned. Open timber houses were needed. The most any aborigine would do with the house below is sit outside it

SMALL brick houses with no airconditioning, no fans and no landscaping are costing taxpayers $600,000 a pop to build in remote communities. Kennedy MP Bob Katter has condemned recent federally-funded community housing "slapped up" on Mornington Island, saying it cost $4 million to build seven tiny homes that local contractors have since valued at being worth less than $300,000 each. And the high building costs do not include the "hundreds of millions" blown on the government administration of community housing projects - all to provide indigenous communities with "substandard hot-boxes".

"The house I stood outside of was a hot-box that you couldn't even swing a cat in - it was a bloody disgrace," Mr Katter said. "And they set the taxpayer back about $600,000 apiece."

And indigenous mayors from the Cape met in Cairns yesterday to debate land leases tied to future funding. The proposed 40-year lease system will see indigenous communities sign over their land in return for a share of more than $1 billion in social housing dollars in the next decade. "To me, this is the Federal and State governments saying, 'We're going to give you a fair trial, then we're going to hang you'," Mr Katter said. "They are telling these people they aren't capable of running their own affairs.

"When it (housing) was controlled by the council, they were getting 10 times as many houses built for infinitely less, but if you compare the (Federal Government controlled) Northern Territory to Yarrabah, then I think it will become clear who is doing the better job. "This is just blood sucking for white fella bureaucrats."

The caucus of mayors, who labelled the 40-year-lease as ransom bargaining, unanimously called for the State Government to extend the December 11 deadline for four months to allow the communities to pursue their own legal advice in regards to the land sign-over bid.

"Communities are in dire need of housing, but the delivery should be one of consultations, not predetermined policy and those who must benefit most are those on the ground, not only for this generation but for the generations to come," Cherbourg Mayor Sam Murray said.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Ignorant scientists again: Say "Hobbit" was distinct species

2009-11-21T00:31:00.001+11:00

They say the female "hobbit" was too short to be a modern human but, at 3'6' tall, there are Australian blacks alive today of that height. These "experts" are just ignorant of basic physical anthropology -- which is what they are talking about! They obviously know nothing of Australia's pygmy race. I come from the area where they survived and have had them walk right past me in the street. And Australia is quite close to Indonesia

Researchers have added new weight to theories that a prehistoric "hobbit" found by Australian and Indonesian scientists in Indonesia is an unknown human species. Bones belonging to a mini-human and believed to be about 18,000 years old were unearthed on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004, sparking theories about our ancient relatives. Since then, scientists have debated whether Homo floresiensis was a descendant of a known human species suffering from some sort of genetic disease which caused them to be so small, or whether they belonged to a new species.

A new study of the bones of a female "hobbit" (several skeletons were ultimately unearthed at the site) by American scientists William Jungers and Karen Baab has given fresh impetus to the theory that floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease.

Their study, published in the December issue of Britain's Royal Statistical Society magazine Significance, was based on a detailed examination of the individual's skull and other bones which led them to estimate her weight and height. Their analysis suggests it was unlikely she was a relative of Homo Erectus or other known human species and was instead "probably derived instead from an even more primitive hominin species".

They found her brain was "remarkably small" compared to living humans, including modern pygmies, and more similar to those of chimpanzees and ancient hominins like the bipedal "ape men" of Africa. While some scientists have argued the hobbit's head was unusually small because she suffered from a disease, Dr Jungers and Dr Baab found no resemblance between her brain shape and that of modern humans with abnormally small heads.

They suggested the hobbit was not a dwarfed descendant of Homo Erectus but a different species "with already-small bodies and smaller brains when they arrived on Flores".

Dr Jungers and Dr Baab also reconstructed the hobbit's body shape and size and found it to be unlike any modern human because of its shorter thigh and shin bones. They estimated she was much smaller and stockier in shape to modern humans, even when compared to the smallest living people. [Rubbish!]

She was just 106cm tall and weighed 30-35kg, suggesting a "very non-human body shape for our hobbit, in the sense that a relatively large mass is being distributed over a relatively small skeletal frame". "This is not a pygmy human," Dr Jungers, who works closely with the Australian scientists who discovered the skeletons, said.

The Australian Research Council is providing funding for a five-year project so Dr Jungers and Australian scientists can continue their work on trying to establish the hobbit's status.

Dr Jungers said the team would return to Indonesia to examine sites near to where the skeletons were found and where tools dating back one millions years have been unearthed. "We will focus on finding skeletons that go with the tools," he said. "If we dig up bones of H Erectus, the diseased dwarf theory will gain credibility. "But if there are bones like Lucy's (Australopithecus afarensis, a 3.2 million-year-old set of fossils found in 1974) or H Habilis, our hypothesis that this is a more primitive human than H Erectus will gain more support."

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

One Year's Worth Of Perspective

2009-11-20T17:35:00.000+11:00

I got this in an email.
Not sure who wrote it, so if anyone knows, email me and I'll give it a proper attribution.
In the meantime - read, consider, then think about your kids....and THEIR future.
*******************************************************************************

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims through out the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had created the position 32 or more Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had spent more than all the Presidents combined since George Washington, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?
Can't think of anything?
Don't worry.

He's done all this in 10 months -- so you'll
have 3 years and 2 months to come up with an answer.

LET'S SEE HOW MANY OF YOU FORWARD THIS...

Slimestream & elites still dodging islam

2009-11-20T09:27:00.000+11:00

News.com.au - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has announced a review of the Fort Hood shootings to examine if the military had missed warning signs or remained "vulnerable" to similar assaults. The 45-day review would look at possible "lapses or problems" before this month's army base shooting that killed 13 people and "what can we do to prevent something like this from happening again", Mr Gates said.

Oh what lies, if they really wanted to know why and how to prevent it, they'd at least start by accepting that hasan was a muslim scumbag who killed all those people in the name of islam. Oh and the only reason he only killed 14 (including the unborn baby) was because a brave officer shot the scumbag and stopped him.

All these days later the slimestream media are still dodging the truth, even some conservative pundits have swallowed the bullsh*t that hasan was just a troubled fellow, troubled by the war he never fought in, troubled unlike all the other medical personnel who treated soldiers returning from the war. No sir, only the beautiful hasan saw all those troops, thousands and thousands of them every single day. Finally the poor, beautiful soul that is nidal hasan lost it and slaughtered the very soldiers he was so desperate to help.

I know, you could get more logic and sense from a freaking baboon! I don't see much about the islam-inspired killings on the news anymore, the slimestream media have chosen to ignore it and refuse to report it altogether now. Now you only see the carrying of water for islamist scum in the internet media reports.

If you read the above article in full, there is no mention of 'islam' or 'muslim', it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they want to lie about it and say he was a Christian but are afraid they'll get caught out for it. All the way down at the bottom is some obscure mention that hasan was in contact with some Yemeni cleric, who incidentally 'blessed' the murders at Fort Hood. Again, nothing about islam or that he was a muslim cleric, could have been one of those wicked Buddhists for all we know.

Despite the following mass-murders by muslims in the name of islam.

Bomb attack kills police in northwestern city of Peshawar.
Bomber kills 19 outside court in Peshawar.
Suicide attack kills 10 in Oruzgan province.

It matters nothing, they all don't understand islam, the cleric who blessed it is just confused, the whores masquerading as unbiased journalists in the pursuit of truth know islam far better that those who memorized the koran. Yes, islam=peace, mohammed was a beautiful man pursuing gay rights, freedom from tyranny and social justice, sort of like a modern-day community organizer. Don't blame islam, these are just extremists who distort the religion, you get the same extremists in all religions etc.

The truth is that western governments don't really give a damn and our elites are actively fighting with and supporting the enemy.

Climate Theology: Gore's new book offers eco-salvation to his followers: 'I'm offering you the choice of life or death'

2009-11-19T23:53:00.000+11:00

As the scientific basis for Warmism becomes vanishingly small, the religious nature of it comes to the fore

On a page by itself, we find this inside the front cover of Al Gore's latest climate fraud promotion book: "I'm offering you the choice of life or death. You can choose either blessings or curses." --Deuteronomy Chapter 30, Verse 19

Let's imagine that a Republican former vice president (say Dan Quayle or Dick Cheney) authored a similar book telling us that apocalypse was at hand unless we shoveled massive amounts of public money toward companies they've heavily invested in. Let's say the Republican-authored book also prominently featured the Bible verse above, suggesting that Quayle or Cheney was offering the reader the choice between life of death.

In the scenario above, would the mainstream media give Quayle or Cheney with the same respect and free book promotion airtime that Gore has received in recent weeks?

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

School defies parents; kills boy; no penalty

2009-11-19T13:27:00.000+11:00

Sounds like teachers getting full of themselves again. Maybe a big civil lawsuit will get some questions answered and the guilty parties identified. You don't send your kid to school to have him come home in a coffin. My son is not a good swimmer. It could have been him. But I was told when he was due to swim and was there to watch him

THE parents of a Tasmanian student who drowned say they had no idea he had been going on a school excursion. "We had no knowledge of any excursion to Bells Parade, no permission slip was signed," Sera Levi, the mother of Latrobe High School teenager Rene, told The Mercury. His father Laupule said he had told the school his son was to be excluded from school trips. "He was not a strong swimmer and we did not encourage him going in the water," Mr Levi said.

Tasmania Police spent a couple of hours with the family yesterday afternoon, but Rene's parents were still unsure exactly what had happened at the Mersey River near Devonport on Monday afternoon.

"There were five teachers with 120 students," Mrs Levi said. "Some of the children were swimming. They went under the trees when it started raining. "A boy saw splashing, but no one was there," Mrs Levi said.

Rene's parents did not know their son had drowned; they only knew he was late returning from school. "We went looking for him and turned up at the school, and no one had anything to say," Mrs Levi said. "I was asked to wait for the principal. Phil McKenzie said he was sorry. I asked what for and then ran from the building screaming. "When we arrived at Bells Parade there was no sign of life. He had just been found and he was dead."

Tasmania Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the teenager's death. The Department of Education, he said, would be asking Latrobe High School staff some more probing questions about the incident in days to come.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

BrookesNews Update

2009-11-19T00:57:00.001+11:00

The US economy is beginning to resemble a Japanese economic tragedy : Inflation is the disease, not the cure. Using inflationary policies as counter recessionary-weapons will - depending on the circumstance - create stagflation or generate another boom followed by another crash. Right now it looks like stagflation
The Treasury wants to impose the fallacious rental resource tax on mining companies : Despite the fact that the concept of economic rent has been refuted a number of times the Treasury is now proposing to use this dangerous fallacy as an excuse to impose more taxes on the mining industry. Treasury officials seem to think of the mining industry as a magic cow that can keep on giving no matter how much you milk it
Will a constant money supply generate economic stability? :The whole idea that money could be neutral is ridiculous. Neutrality means that money would cease to be the medium of the exchange. However, then it would no longer be money
Headed towards defeat in Afghanistan : The Democrats really are the Party of Defeat. The administration's loathing for America is reflected in its callous treatment of US troops, treatment that is killing them
When our military is attacked, Obama is a Nowhere Man : Obama loves his wife, children, dog Bo, and himself - especially himself. And he relishes his far left ideology. But the working stiff, the heart and soul of this country? I don't see it. The United States? I don't think so. And that's why Obama should never have been elected president
The Fort Hood massacre: Time to jump to some conclusions : Political correctness is murdering American troops and Obama refuses to stop it in the name of diversity. An army is held together not by diversity but discipline, unity of purpose and patriotism - especially patriotism. Is that why Democrats loath the military?
The Berlin Wall: 20 years on : The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall finds millions of human beings still under recalcitrant communist tyrannies that have defied the historical 'inevitability' of totalitarianism's demise. We owe it to the inhabitants of Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Cambodia to take a fresh look at what happened on Nov. 9, 1989

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

The Victorian Human Rights watchdog again interferes with people's human rights

2009-11-19T00:55:00.000+11:00

VCAT rejects woman's bid to set up women-only travel service -- but Muslims can do anything, of course

A TRIBUNAL has rejected a Melbourne woman's bid to set up a women-only travel service. Erin Maitland, a former tour guide, applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for an exemption under the Equal Opportunity Act to set up her business, Travel Sisters. She argued some women would feel more comfortable travelling in women-only groups and safer than travelling alone.

Ms Maitland said her tours would also be tailored to common women's interests including cooking, shopping and crafts and that women's partners would be more supportive of them travelling if they knew they were with other women. Ms Maitland relied on a ruling two years ago in which VCAT granted an exemption to a woman, allowing her to arrange tours for women only.

But the tribunal must now assess exemption applications in line with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. VCAT president Judge Marilyn Harbison refused Ms Maitland's application, saying she had not shown enough evidence that limiting a human right is reasonable or necessary. "The grant of an exemption may well be convenient and practical to assist Erin in the establishment of her business but it cannot presently be justified on human rights principles,'' she said.

Judge Harbison said there were other steps that could be put in place to ensure women feel safe and comfortable travelling in groups, without having to exclude men.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, which argued during the hearing that the evidence provided was "weak'', said Ms Maitland could enforce standards of conduct, select facilities with separate male and female change rooms, ensure privacy for her clients and encourage people to report safety concerns.

The commission said that even without an exemption, market forces could result in Ms Maitland's business being successful because men would not be interested in it. The ruling comes after a Melbourne party company specialising in dance events for lesbians and bisexual women won the right to ban men earlier this year.

In May, VCAT granted a three-year exemption to an inner western suburbs gym, enabling it to conduct women-only swimming sessions and related programs. Many of the women at the YMCA gym in Ascot Vale are Muslim who, because of their cultural and religious beliefs, cannot take part in mixed swimming lessons.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Time for some good news

2009-11-18T22:46:00.001+11:00

The Age - Newly separated twins Trishna and Krishna remain unconscious and have undergone scans to establish how their brains are functioning, their guardian says. The formerly conjoined twins remained in a stable condition at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, their co-guardian, Moira Kelly, told reporters this afternoon.

...The scans aside, Ms Kelly said that when Krishna blew her a "raspberry" she would know that the twins' had survived the operation intact. Australia could be proud of its role in the girls' surgery, having demonstrated its skills and compassion to the world, Ms Kelly said. Earlier today, the head of Ms Kelly's charity, which was responsible for bringing the twins to Melbourne, described the sight of the girls in separate beds as "beautiful".

Cute little buggers aren't they, just looking at them puts a smile on ones dial, also puts things in perspective, got a bit tired of all the bad news and treachery going on in the world folks. Get well soon little ones, many of us are thanking God for keeping you safe and praying for your speedy recovery to your new lives. Please do read more on the two little ones at the link above folks, there are more pictures and info on the operation they had to be separated.

Traitorous bastards!

2009-11-18T07:04:00.003+11:00

Andrew C. McCarthy - The decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other top al-Qaeda terrorists to New York City for a civilian trial is one of the most irresponsible ever made by a presidential administration. ...The Obama Justice Department teems with experienced defense lawyers, many of whom (themselves personally or through their firms) spent the last eight years volunteering their services to America’s enemies in their lawsuits against the American people.

...That is, Pres. Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, experienced litigators, fully realize that in civilian court, the Qaeda quintet can and will demand discovery of mountains of government intelligence. They will demand disclosures about investigative tactics; the methods and sources by which intelligence has been obtained; the witnesses from the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement who interrogated witnesses, conducted searches, secretly intercepted enemy communications, and employed other investigative techniques. They will attempt to compel testimony from officials who formulated U.S. counterterrorism strategy, in addition to U.S. and foreign intelligence officers. As civilian “defendants,” these war criminals will put Bush-era counterterrorism tactics under the brightest public spotlight in American legal history.

...Now, we see the reckoning: Obama’s gratuitous transfer of alien war criminals from a military court, where they were on the verge of ending the proceedings, to the civilian justice system, where they will be given the same rights and privileges as the American citizens they are pledged to kill. This will give the hard Left its promised feast. Its shock troops, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, will gather up each new disclosure and add it to the purported war-crimes case they are urging foreign courts to bring against President Bush, his subordinates, and U.S. intelligence agents.

From indictment to trial, the civilian case against the 9/11 terrorists will be a years-long seminar, enabling al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies to learn much of what we know and, more important, the methods and sources by which we come to know it. But that is not the half of it. By moving the case to civilian court, the president and his attorney general have laid the groundwork for an unprecedented surrender of our national-defense secrets directly to our most committed enemies.

...By transferring this case to civilian court rather than leaving it to be handled by the military-commission system created by Congress, Obama and Holder have needlessly created a perilous dilemma. Do we deny KSM & Co. the right to represent themselves and thus risk reversal of any convictions on Sixth Amendment grounds? Do we grant them self-representation but withhold critical discovery and thus risk reversal on due process grounds? Or do we grant them self-representation and disclose directly to our wartime enemies the nation’s security secrets, which they can then pass on to confederates who are actively targeting us for mass-murder attacks?

In the military court, there would be no such dilemma. Indeed, in the military court, this case would be over now. If President Obama had simply let it proceed, there would have been no trial, and these war criminals would be well on their way to the execution of death sentences. But then the Left would not have gotten its reckoning. Can’t have that.

As I always say, the left will never forgive America for fighting back. Deep down inside, they do think that America deserved 9/11, that it was much-deserved payback, finally someone stuck it to Sam for all the wrongs that he's done. Why else would they want to give this piece of shit a voice, why else are they making war upon everything that has kept America safe from another 9/11? You know, it wouldn't surprise me if they quietly cheered with those vermin in palestine when the news broke.

Thank heavens that George Bush was the president when 9/11 happened, can you imagine if the traitorous scumbag leading America now was in charge, he'd seriously send some dumb schmuck over to Afghanistan to negotiate a time when said schmuck can hand over a subpoena to Osama bin Laden without appearing in some fuzzy video getting his throat slit to chants of 'allah akbar'! Oh and the aforementioned traitorous scumbag would be assuring Americans that they shouldn't jump to any conclusions and diversity was their most treasured asset.

From the whole article above, there are only two things that will happen from this, KSM has to be freed because America cannot risk compromising its methods, sources and other classified material to convict him OR compromise its methods, sources and other classified material to convict him. Either way America is weakened in ways her enemies could never have hoped for without the aid of their infidel whores on our ideological left.

I mean think about it, why the @#$% does someone like KSM need to be brought before a court, any court for that matter? The scumbag's guilt is like knowing that water can make you wet, you're not some sort of neanderthal. If someone brought adolf hitler to you and asked you if the bastard was guilty, would you stand there and say, oh well, that's a real head scratcher mate, bloody hell, we need to form some sort of trial of our peers and organize appeals and what not, where's the DNA and witness statements and all that? It's dumb, we all know the scumbag's guilty, so why the yearning for the trial, why the yearning to supply him with a voice and the rights that he despises, fought against and would never grant to any one of us?

And don't give me that bullsh*t about the rule of law and the foundations of civilized society and what not, if someone dragged KSM or adolf out the back and emptied a Glock .45 into both, society isn't going to fall apart, there isn't going to be anarchy and chaos in the streets of America. And you wouldn't be lying awake at night crying over them, you wouldn't be marching in the streets braying, 'where is the justice'. I know leftist scum will though, but not because they want 'justice' and want to keep society from falling apart.

If people need any more proof that leftist scum hate America and the western world with every fiber of their being, just sit back on your ass, do nothing, vote democrat, call for obumboy to be made emperor for all time and you'll see it. The intelligence and tactics that good people had to use to keep us safe will evaporate, the likes of every terrorist scumbag on the planet will be free to plot and blow themselves and lots of you to pieces. And it will happen, many of you will be slaughtered like at Fort Hood because the agencies tasked to defend you will be under even more pressure to be politically-correct and constrained by bullsh*t laws to the point of being essentially useless, just like the left want.

The only question is, is that what you want?

Five Terrible Cruelties of Liberalism

2009-11-18T00:11:00.000+11:00

(Liberalism in the current American sense)

Liberalism is an extraordinarily deceptive, ruinous and cruel ideology. That's because liberalism comes, arms wide open, whispering sweet words of compassion and pity, even as it forcefully slams down a boot upon the neck of people it's "helping." It's bad enough to see people's lives ruined by those who make no pretense about their intentions, but to see human beings destroyed by those who claim to have only their best interests at heart...well, let's just say it's a hell of a thing.

What liberalism does to minorities: Liberalism falsely convinces minorities in America that they are widely hated and despised for their skin color. How terrible it must be to spend your days seeing racial slights that don't exist, feeling despised by people who don't give you a second thought, and expecting that you will be treated unfairly by people, most of whom think no more of your skin color than they do the color of the carpet they're standing on.

Believing these lies leads to a sense of victimhood that liberalism offers to "fix" with more destructive solutions like Affirmative Action. How many white Americans have doubted the achievement of a black American because of Affirmative Action? How many black Americans have doubted their own worthiness because they thought they may have been given a helping hand because of their race? How many black college students who would have graduated with honors at UNC-Chapel Hill flunked out of Harvard because Affirmative Action got them into a college that was over their head? In the wildest dreams of the Ku Klux Klan, they could have never come up with an ideology as deviously destructive to minorities in America as liberalism.

What liberalism does to children: One of the great ironies of modern life is the constant liberal refrain of "do it for the children." That's true, not only because liberalism is directly responsible for the death of more than 40 million children via abortion, but because liberal policies have descended like a plague of locusts upon the inheritance that America's sons and daughters would have otherwise received. Generations after everyone who went to Woodstock is in the ground, Americans will still be paying off their spending. What better thing could we do for the children than to safeguard the country we grew up in so that they'll have an opportunity to live the American dream, too?

What liberalism does to Africa: Liberalism's smothering paternalism has arguably done considerably more damage to Africa than European colonialism. "The Western world has given Africa 'about a trillion dollars in aid in the past 50 years' and yet as a whole, the continent could be fairly said to have gone backwards over the last 10-15 years." Obviously our aid is doing little for Africa, but we can't stop, even if it would be better for them to learn to stand on their own two feet, because liberalism says it’s better to ruin millions of lives than to risk making liberals feel bad.

If only liberalism similarly prioritized the lives of African children over those of song birds. In another great irony, it's conservatives who argue that DDT should be used in Africa to kill mosquitoes and wipe out malaria, while liberals are willing to watch millions die because they're afraid that to do otherwise -- might put a few birds at risk.

What liberalism has done to the American family: Oh, the intentions are always good...so liberalism says. They just don't want anyone to feel bad or be judged negatively. They want everyone to have a good time and they believe the government should be there to pick up the pieces if things don't go well. So, we get...

Welfare checks. Gay marriage. No fault divorce. The sexual revolution. Attacks on Christianity. Lauding hedonism and single mothers in Hollywood. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."

But, when inevitably divorce rates skyrocket, our prisons fill up with children who never had fathers living in the home, and our society starts to fray around the edges, no one wants to admit that liberalism is at the heart of the entire problem.

What liberalism does to the poor: What mother dreams that her child will grow up to be on food stamps? What decent father wants to see his son eating free breakfast at school? How can you care about a person and want to see him living in a government housing project, collecting welfare, and nursing a grudge against the people in our society who have succeeded in life, instead of trying to become a success himself?

Liberalism says its adherents should pat themselves on the back for their compassion because they're making it possible for people to live that way. How many men's pride have they stolen with that "compassion?" How many lives has that "compassion" helped mire in misery? How many people, who could have made good lives for themselves, in the end, became dependent on the government and chose lives of mediocrity? If someone views that as "compassion," then his moral compass is shattered.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Al Gore, the scientist

2009-11-18T00:10:00.000+11:00

Political scientist only, it would seem

Note Al Gore's recent rant about earth's core being several million degrees...SEVERAL MILLION DEGREES!?‏ See here where Al Gore tells O'Brien (at 40 seconds): "the earth's core is "several million degrees."

Not hardly, Al, you doofus. The core of the earth is "only" about 10,000 degrees F. (5700 K; 5400 C)

Besides, we've already been using geothermal energy for years in easily accessible places where it vents to the earth's surface; it's not new.

Regardless, Libs will forgive his pure ignorance because, after all, "he means well." Intelligent folks will further question his motivations (besides smarts) for pursuing CO2 so vigorously. (Income he gets from selling books, carbon credits and speeches on Catastrophic AGW, perhaps?)

Of course, we now we also understand his rants on supposed Manmade Global Warming/Climate Change; he really doesn't understand temperature differences.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Where is the common sense?

2009-11-17T08:46:00.000+11:00

News.com.au - VICTORIA Police say they are worried about an alarming spike in sexual assaults against teenage girls. ...Detective Inspector Glenn Davies from the Sexual Crimes Squad said of the 47 serious sexual assault crimes investigated between June and September, 28 involved female victims aged under 17, with those aged 14 to 16 featuring most prominently. ...He also said the young women were often incapable of giving consent because they were intoxicated and in some instances were being intimidated by large groups of men.

Putting the criminality and evil of raping someone aside, what the heck are 14 year-olds doing partying and getting drunk with large groups of men. Is something going on out there that drains people of common sense and also prevents their brain from engaging. And what about the parents of these teenagers, what the heck are they doing letting their kids go off to get drunk with strangers and coming back with their lives destroyed.

Is it so hard to tell teenagers that you can't go out in the middle of the night, yes, I realize they know the answers to all the worlds problems and parents are just dopes and all that, but it can't be that hard to tell em' to get upstairs, shut up and suck it up, can it. And what about teenagers, in this world of facebook, mobile phones, texting, calling, wi-fi, beepers and every other bloody thing to communicate, is it too hard to call someone who gives a damn to get your drunken ass home? Even cleverer, is it so hard to think ahead and do the math, party with 10 guys, 3 girls, maybe not a brilliant idea to go, let alone go and get stoned and plastered.

I don't know folks, is it 'uncool' to tell kids not to play with matches, is it 'cool' to let them dance around in the fire.

Australia sends some Sri Lankans illegals home

2009-11-16T23:49:00.001+11:00

How come these guys did not get the normal big welcome? As far as I can tell, they forgot to say the magic word "asylum" when first interviewed

THE Rudd government chartered a 100-seat jet to Sri Lanka at the weekend to forcibly remove six asylum-seekers who staged a dramatic eight-hour protest inside the Christmas Islands immigration detention centre last month.

The six Sinhalese fishermen became the first asylum-seekers to be isolated inside the centre's controversial "red block", built by the Howard government, with small metal cells to detain violent or unstable detainees.

They were among 50 Sri Lankans who had been trying to reach New Zealand when their boat hit a reef in Torres Strait on March 28. So far, only 12 have been found to be refugees and granted visas.

Another 29 have gone home voluntarily on commercial flights from Perth, one is in detention in Perth in preparation for returning voluntarily on a commercial flight and the remaining two are in detention on Christmas Island while their claims are resolved.

On October 30, the protesting six, who had been assessed and rejected, refused to board a charter plane from Christmas Island to Perth, where they were expected to join a commercial flight to Colombo as voluntary removals. Instead, one of the men stunned onlookers by swiftly climbing a pole thought to be more than 12m. He stayed there poised to jump for the most of the day while the five others refused to co-operate with people sent to the scene, including a psychologist.

The operation to return the six to Sri Lanka began on Friday when the Department of Immigration and Citizenship chartered a Fokker 100 from the mainland. It brought in guards specially trained in involuntary removals. At 6.30am on Saturday, the Sri Lankans were brought to Christmas Island's airport in two minibuses with guards. In total, 17 guards and immigration workers accompanied the men to Colombo on the airliner. The minders returned to Christmas Island alone yesterday morning.

Yesterday there were 1114 asylum-seekers on Christmas Island and 14 crew. Authorities were preparing for the delivery early this week of the 40th boatload of asylum-seekers intercepted this year. The group of 47 and three crew were spotted on Friday near Ashmore Reef.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Obama's psychopathic detachment

2009-11-16T23:46:00.001+11:00

I never thought I would find myself wistfully remembering President Clinton and wishing he were still around to inject some heart into the Oval Office (I know, I know, he may have injected some other things as well). However, after listening to President Obama's passionless words in poignant moments over the past ten months, I now yearn to hear the oratory of President Clinton. After Obama's reactions and comments to the Islamic massacre at Ft. Hood, I could only remember the good old days when our president inspired us and spoke passionately after a tragedy like the Oklahoma City bombing. At least when President Clinton spoke, you knew he cared about the people he addressed.

Obama's poor crisis leadership skills revealed themselves in June when Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad murdered Private William Long outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock. Two full days passed without even a word from the president. Finally, President Obama issued a terse statement of “sadness” and never mentioned the incident again. Quite a contrast to his swift, strongly worded response and his statement of “shock” and “outrage” at the “heinous” murder of abortion doctor, George Tiller, just days before in Wichita, Kansas.

In August, at the funeral for Sen. Ted Kennedy, again President Obama's coldness and aloofness raised red flags. Others, like Peggy Noonan, have also noted Obama's cold distance as he arrived, nodded, shook hands and spoke to the family and friends of the Kennedys. In watching the funeral, I was struck by how the president could simultaneously be so completely appropriate and so emotionally vacant. He was polite to be sure, but exhibited a total absence of warmth.

Last week, in his remarks via telecast, at the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Obama recognized no other presidents before himself and also failed to mention either Margaret Thatcher or Pope John Paul II . Worse still, he failed even to utter the words “communism,” or the “Soviet Union,” or “Russia.” A major moment arrives, the president speaks, and he whiffs entirely. He exhibits no knowledge of history, no sense of poignancy or America's contribution to the world, and no passion for the freedoms that arrived with the fall of the wall. An utterly cold and vacuous moment.

Finally, the Islamic massacre at Ft. Hood occurs, and President Obama's initial instincts are to warn us all “not to jump to conclusions.” He urges us to react in direct contrast to his own hasty reaction in Gates-gate at Cambridge, and his comments there that the police “acted stupidly.” More strikingly, Obama is unable to state the simple, obvious truth: we have had another incidence of Islamic terror on our own soil. Islamic terror does not occur in a vacuum; jumping to conclusions is very different from reading the pattern of having 63 other Muslim men charged, convicted, or sentenced on terror in our own country just in 2009. Obama again totally misses the point. His trademark coolness belies a glaring ignorance of the matter at hand and his total lack of passion for the American people.

Worse still, his remarks at the memorial service at Ft. Hood fell flat. Does anyone remember a word he said? Years later, I can still remember the warmth and grace exhibited by President Clinton in the aftermath of Oklahoma City. In contrast, Obama's presence and comments at Ft. Hood were utterly forgettable. He failed to show up emotionally in any way. Were one to listen to the president's comments regarding the terror deaths of 13 Americans on an American military base at the hands of an Islamic jihadist, one would notice no difference whatsoever in modulation, tone, or posture from any other speech he has ever given. They have all begun to sound the same. He is everywhere, speaking on everything, and thereby speaking on nothing. No one listens anymore. He speaks as if he is just passing through, a mere observer on the events of life. The hollowness is unsettling.

All in all, Obama's impassioned speeches are reserved for fund-raisers and for healthcare addresses, for which he has no shortage of energy. Line up a pile of dead Americans, and he can barely muster an inflection or an exclamation point. Fill the room with wealthy donors, and the man comes alive. For a mercenary, that may be an admirable thing, but for a president, the vacancy is disturbing.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

"O-bow-ma"

2009-11-16T16:14:00.004+11:00

This pathetic excuse of a politician is reaching new depths of stupid every damned day.
In Japan, a bow that deep is what a beggar renders to his king.
Just like the one he did when he went to kiss the...er, ring....of the Saudi king.

I've got no problem if this Chicago punk wants to schlep around the planet, offering his ass for everyone to kick - hell, I'd love to put a boot-print on his britches, myself! - BUT NOT WHEN HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF MY AMERICA!

That "Pharaoh of the progressive mind-set" is the gravest threat to America's liberties since the near-Emperor FDR.

Now there's the marketing of "Oba-Mao" shirts and posters and the like....
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//091113/481/3b37e231a7ea4e11af079d090307cb1e/

Ya know, if a few hundred million communist Chinese can recognize what this tit-head is, then why the hell can't a few million "progressive" Americans muster up the intellectual candle-power to name this treasonous punk for what he truly is?
Namely, the communist spiritual brother of the genocidal Chairman Mao.

...aw, hell, most of those idiots still believe the murderous Che Guevarra is just a "cool revolutionary" on fashionable tee-shirts...
....and the sickest part is that the rest DO know what he is, but still WANT his "change".

2012 can NOT come soon enough.

Rudd buys off the farmers. He wants a climate deal at any price

2009-11-16T00:04:00.000+11:00

Agriculture now to be exempt from Warmist laws but that blows a huge hole in any effect the laws might have. Rudd is showing his Chinese influences: He is now just trying to save face. He cares about global warming about as much as I do

In a shock move, the Federal Government has decided to exempt all agriculture from its proposed emissions trading scheme, turning up the heat on Malcolm Turnbull's Opposition leadership. The Coalition has been calling for the exemption – and the Government's surprise move dramatically raises the stakes for Mr Turnbull to close a deal with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong to pass the ETS in the next two weeks of Parliament.

Yet sections of the Opposition Leader's Liberal Party and the Nationals are likely to remain opposed to any such deal regardless, leaving Mr Turnbull's authority in shreds.

The surprise concession by the Government will be announced by Senator Wong today ahead of the resumption of Parliament this week. The initiative will also isolate the Nationals, who have been using the inclusion of agriculture in the proposed scheme by 2015 to spearhead its opposition to the package.

Senator Wong's announcement is likely to get backing for the scheme from key Nationals constituencies such as the National Farmers Federation, which has been lobbying heavily for such a decision. In another concession, Senator Wong will also announce the Government will develop plans to give farmers carbon credits for any efforts to capture and store carbon as part of their farm practices.

Opposition climate change spokesman Ian Macfarlane has been locked in talks with Senator Wong trying to negotiate a deal to get the scheme through the Senate. By announcing the exemption of agriculture, the Government will be able to say it has made major concessions and Mr Turnbull should now secure the backing of his party room to pass the scheme.

But Mr Turnbull is still likely to face a revolt. A number of Liberals, including Senate Leader Nick Minchin and senators Cory Bernardi and Julian McGauran, along with WA backbenchers Dennis Jensen and Wilson Tuckey, remain sceptical of the idea of man-made global warming and the Nationals are continuing to oppose the ETS outright. A refusal by the joint party room to back a compromise that includes the exemption of agriculture could make Mr Turnbull's leadership untenable. He has previously said he does not want to lead a party that does not embrace the idea of climate change.

The exclusion of agriculture had been presented by Mr Macfarlane as a "deal-breaker" in the ongoing talks. The move by the Government means farmers now will not have to buy permits for their carbon emissions, substantially reducing farm costs.

The exemption is likely to be attacked by economists, who argue that to be effective a carbon emissions system must be broadly based to share the huge costs. If one sector is exempted it increases costs on other sectors, such as energy-producing industries.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has estimated Australia has the potential to store up to a billion tonnes of carbon a year for the next 40 years through improved pasture management and farm practices. The group says if Australia were to capture just 15 per cent of this capacity, it would offset the equivalent of 25 per cent of our current annual greenhouse emissions over that period. Under the new concessions farmers will be compensated for such carbon offsets, opening up new sources of income.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Obama and 'The Great I Am'

2009-11-16T00:02:00.000+11:00

by Jeff Jacoby

PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was "a painful barrier between family and friends" that symbolized "a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being." He referred to "tyranny," but never identified the tyrants -- he never uttered the words "Soviet Union" or "communism," for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan -- or even Mikhail Gorbachev.

He did, however, talk about Barack Obama. "Few would have foreseen," declared the president, "that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for "Ich bin ein Berliner," still less another "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn't be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made "destiny" of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama? The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called "The Great I Am," regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many "I's" in his prepared remarks. Ronald Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn't mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was "peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies."

Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am. "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that . . . I'm a better political director than my political director."

At the start of his presidency, Obama seemed to content himself with the royal "we" -- "We will build the roads and bridges . . . We will restore science to its rightful place . . . We will harness the sun and winds," he declaimed at his inauguration.

But as the literary theorist Stanley Fish points out, "By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we [had] flowered into the naked 'I': 'As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.' 'I called for action.' 'I pushed for quick action.' 'I have told each of my cabinet.' 'I've appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.' 'I refuse to let that happen.' 'I will not spend a single penny.' 'I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves.' 'I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half.'" In his speech on the federal takeover of GM, Obama likewise found it necessary to use the first-person singular pronoun 34 times. ("Congress" he mentioned just once.)

At this rate, it won't be long before the president's ego is so inflated that it will require a ZIP code of its own. Then again, how modest would any of us be if we were as magnificent as Obama knows himself to be? "I am well aware," he told the UN General Assembly of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world." in September, "

In 1860, writes Doris Kearns Goodwin in her celebrated biography Team of Rivals, an author wishing to dedicate his forthcoming work to Abraham Lincoln received this answer: "I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect."

Obama has often claimed Lincoln as a role model. Apparently it only goes so far.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

You lie gordon!

2009-11-15T15:01:00.001+11:00

Daily Mail - Gordon Brown staged a major Labour U-turn over immigration yesterday by insisting it was 'not racist' to discuss the issue. In his first speech on the subject for two years, the Prime Minister said he had 'never agreed with the lazy elitism that dismisses immigration as an issue, or portrays anyone who has concerns about immigration as a racist'. ...His words left him open to accusations of hypocrisy, however. Labour has previously accused the Tories of pandering to racism when they have raised the issue.

For years now, leftists have maintained that anyone who dared to question immigration policy in the western world was racist. They have been responsible for unchecked immigration across the western world, bringing groups of people who have no intention to assimilate here, who only want to set up their own enclaves and bring the culture that failed them back home over to the western world. When told about this over and over, they refused to listen and do a damn thing about it.

Folks like us who questioned any of this have been smeared from pillar to post and now all of a sudden these SOBs turn around after the damage has been done and want to talk about it. Don't believe it for one second folks, the only reason gordon brown suddenly wants to talk about immigration is because his worthless, traitorous labour party is most likely going to be wiped out at the next election in Britain.

You can be guaranteed that if this scumbag were to retain power, the next day the smearing over immigration will be right back to normal. This is what they do everywhere, since the left lied and weaseled their way into power in Australia, our immigration policy is the joke of the world, it's so pathetic and shameful, but this is what they do everywhere, import what has failed over and over elsewhere. I just hope the Brits have learned their lesson and will not be fooled by the lies and posturing from the left.

And one more thing, they're doing the same thing on the religion of Islam, everywhere you turn in the world, muslims are murdering and terrorizing in the name of Islam and leftists keep on insisting that it's a religion of peace and there is nothing to worry about. Thousands and thousands have been slaughtered by terrorists claiming islam as their religion, but no, it's just a misunderstanding, they're just reading the koran upside down or something.

Every other week we hear of muslims in the western world plotting jihad and executing it, but the left refuse to even discuss the option of deporting any who have extremist tendencies. Mark my words, once the islamists start blowing up and murdering more and more in the western world and it's too late to do anything, the left will turn around and say, well now, it's not racist to discuss the issue of islam and we don't agree with the lazy elitism that dismisses islam as an issue, or portrays anyone who has concerns about islam as a racist or islamophobe.

We the voters have to learn this, the left won't learn and they don't want to learn because both of the above undermine the western world and that is what they want.