Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies. Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.

Whales again

For the Japanese, whaling is like fishing, and a traditional part, not necessarily a terribly important part, of their culture. So says Greg Sheridan and have to say I agree. Whales are just big fish and while the annual catch is sustainable then let them eat whale meat. The local indigenous chappies are allowed to hunt dugongs using traditional methods of tinnies with outboards and 7.62 rifles; the Inuit in Alaska are allowed to hunt seals, other nations are allowed to hunt whales but the Australian left wing, whale hugging types want to deny the Japs the right to conduct their traditional hunting forays into the oceans. The Japs are exceedingly pissed off and they should be. Our government is letting the Sea Sheppard pirates do whatever they want but demand the opposite standard from one of our major allies and trading partners. It’s fine that Rudd should garner a few more greenie votes as well as pay back those who elected him to Chief Clerk of the government but surely common sense should prevail. Not one whale saved and we are having a diplomatic tiff with Japan. Good outcome Kev.

Will the Yanks do it better?

BARACK Obama has proposed a $US6 billion ($6.6bn) program to help millions of American home owners make their houses more energy efficient with government rebates of up to $US3000. Quick learners aren’t they. Obama’s plan includes;
… immediate rebates of up to $US1500 for upgrading their insulation, ducted heating, water heaters, airconditioners, windows, doors and roofing.
and;
Home owners who invested in a “retrofit” of the whole house to greatly reduce energy use would be eligible for rebates of up to $US3000.
Rudd’s now discredited plan cost $2.45 billion (insulation only) sounds a bit grandiose considering the variations in populations, but thats our Kev. Still on Obama, Anthony Albanese, in his role as leader of the government in the House of Representatives, has confirmed that parliament will be specially recalled for the US President in three weeks’ time.
`The visit of President Barack Obama will of course generate a great deal of interest from the Australian public and indeed we will be honoured by his presence in Canberra on that day,” Mr Albanese said. The last American president to address the Australian parliament was George W. Bush in October 2003.
I presume he will be better treated than Bush was seeing as how both parties are now central left and cosy as all get out. Maybe Rudd can give Obama some tips on house insulation precesses or at least offer the services of Garrett – gets him out of our hair. I had my house insulated but my power bill is still on the up and up without the satisfaction of my usage following a similar curve. Isn’t it supposed to save me money?

Wind Farms

Image stolen from Greenpeace...

From todays Climate Change report in The Australian comes this little gem. EARLIER this month, the first Australian order for wind turbines for 2010 was made. It was also the first in three months and just the second since the bottom fell out of the market for renewable energy market in October.
The order was for just two wind turbines, with a capacity of 4 megawatts and a likely cost of $10 million. It was made not by a commercial wind farm developer, but by a 1100-strong community group in Victoria’s Hepburn Springs, who have decided to chip in anything from a few hundred dollars each to make their shire carbon neutral, at least on the energy front.
$10 million divided by 1100 comes to $9,090.90 per man, woman and child living in Hepburn Springs suggesting anyone chipping in a few hundred dollars is a tight arse. Whether they ‘chipped in’ out of their wallets or the council spent their rates on the wind farm is neither here nor there. The point is they are up for the cost and will have a long wait before their capital expenditure is regained. If we presume the winds at Hepburn Springs blows day and night 365 days of the year then they might get their money back just before they retire or die but it doesn’t. Weather patterns suggest Hepburn Springs is a windy town but the residents will still need base load power from the terrible coal fired power stations. So $10,000 capital investment and periodic base load costs. I’m obviously missing something here. Are the residents all Greenies, mathematically disadvantaged, endowed with more money than sense or just happy to see the wind turbine supply company make a lot of money at their expense. Maybe a Greenie dropping by this site accidentally (I wouldn’t expect them to deliberately visit) can explain in monosyllabic terms just what it is I’m missing.

Shut up Malcolm!

Malcolm Fraser’s kids should be looking for a bed in an old folks home that specializes in dementia cases after his most recent ‘strange quote’
Mr Fraser said the Jewish state could no longer use the Holocaust as an excuse to justify state-sanctioned murder, and criticism of its policies should not be dismissed as anti-Semitism. “That happened 65-66 years ago and it cannot be used any longer to prevent proper discussion of Israel’s policies when those policies are counter-productive to world peace,” he said. “To suggest that those who are critical are anti-Semitic — I reject that utterly.”
How on earth did the holocaust get in this mix. The Israelis are currently engaged in a war against Arab terrorists and, if you believe the conjecture, have recently topped a Hamas terrorist. Not a drop of German blood around Malcom old chap.

New Look

A new look to celebrate 2,500 posts over 8 years. Not a big deal but you have to admit, I do hang in there.

Outrage!

KEVIN Rudd and Stephen Smith were full of outrage yesterday following credible suggestions Israel had abused three Australian passports by either procuring or forging them and using them during what looks like a state-sponsored assassination of a Palestinian Hamas leader. They really aren’t that outraged. They need to put on a show for the anti-Israel (aka pro terrorist) bunch – there is some votes in it. “Looks like a state-sponsored assassination” is about as close as we are going to get to the facts. I doubt whether Israel will ever cough up the details as it’s an intelligence operation and they are at war with the terrorists. I think Rudd should congratulate Israel and, just as an aside, mention that in the future, Australia would prefer they should use fake passports from some other country.

Crisis management

And he’s not even good at that. 240,000 homes are at risk from Garrett’s incompetence and the PM tells us that 92% of homes are safe. That’s great Rudd, but until you identify the remaining 8% it’s meaningless. Let’s throw 40 million at the problem and it will go away. No it won’t. That is only bandaiding the problem and of course the government have a plan to stop any of the 40 mil going to shonky operators, hasn’t it? Dennis Shanahan says;
The problem spread out of the government’s control while it looked for political solutions. There seemed to be almost a paralysis pervading the government, which failed to recognise the full extent of concern and the frustration and fear people were feeling. Various announcements and disclosures by Mr Garrett served only to feed the sense of a growing crisis at the same time the media reported stories of accidents, fires and fraud.
Rudd’s plan to whip the Japanese with a feather is also coming off the rails. The deadline he announced for legal action to stop the Japs whaling was obviously set so that he could say ad nauseum during the election that we are doing something about whaling and thus tie up the whale hugger vote. From todays OZ
THE Japanese government has accepted in principle a plan for Antarctic whaling to continue at reduced levels under International Whaling Commission supervision. Japan’s Antarctic whaling operations could be legitimised by the IWC by late June, unless Australia can rally enough support from other members to block the controversial compromise plan.
The biggest moral challenge facing our generation, and if you believe the members of the Church of the Later Day Alarmist, the biggest moral challenge facing all generations past and future, has disappeared off the radar screen. With the IPCC being forced to rewrite it’s Doomsday script; with scientists being accused of, and investigated for, misrepresentation of data to satisfy the UN’s campaign on Global Warming and support for the theory plummeting, it’s no wonder Rudd has down graded the biggest moral challenge to the biggest politically inexpedient issue of this election campaign. Penelope (Penny) Ying Yen, aka Penny Wong, is left to carry the Global Waming Climate Change torch, now burning down to her fingers and threatening third degree burns. Give her credit though, she is still threatening that if we don’t join the congregation we wont be able to swim at Bondi or visit the Great Barrier Reef! Should I be worried about my pool flooding my house, I wonder. Meanwhile the back door to Australia remains open or, seemingly off its hinges, as illegal boats, line astern, queue up for berthing at Christmas Island. Michael Evans from Sydney reasonably asks;
IF so many of the people arriving by boat on our north-western coast are genuine asylum seekers, as the federal government would have us believe judging from the number who are being granted residency, why is Kevin Rudd unleashing his spy agencies and police forces on those who facilitate their arrival (“Rudd sets spy agencies on boats”, 24/2)? Surely these so-called “people smugglers” are simply performing acts of great charity and compassion, are they not? Or is it really the case that the people arriving on our shores are mainly economic migrants seeking to obtain resident status in Australia through a back door aided and abetted by criminal gangs?
All of which is a verbose way of saying “Two Whitlam’s in one lifetime is a bit much” to quote reader HRT in comments.

Sorry now Garrett?

I haven’t liked Garrett since he politicized the Sydney Olympics with his ‘sorry’ shirt so I don’t care if he is sacked and, in an apparent contradiction I don’t care if he isn’t sacked either. If he is sacked, and I think he should be, then the ALP will take some shrapnel from his demise. If he isn’t sacked then Abbott has the right and obligation to regularly mention his incompetency and the fact that the Rudd suffer fools gladly as often as he can fit it in leading up to the election . I figure that’s a win-win situation for the Libs and for Australia.
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