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.

Look over here!

In a “look over here” distraction ploy Rudd releases a new terrorism white paper to take everyone’s mind off Garret.
THE government will unleash the full resources of its major spy agencies, including phone taps and satellite surveillance, against people-smugglers and other criminal gangs threatening Australia’s border security.
If the government hadn’t told the world that people smugglers and their clients are welcome back in Australia in the first place Rudd wouldn’t have to resort to spending more money on a problem that was solved a couple of years ago by the Libs. Even the Age is onto the spin with an article dubbed ‘How embattled PM played ‘jihad‘ card’

New laws just excuses-on-the-run

THE Rudd government’s media policy-on-the-run continues as it flags moves to introduce new laws forcing TV networks to hand back their $250 million-plus tax windfall if they don’t produce enough Australian TV shows.
A review of 10 years’ worth of data held at the Australian Communications and Media Authority indicates that the commercial networks never fall below the 55 per cent threshold in any case, the television networks mindful that any breach could mean they have their licence to broadcast revoked under existing laws.
So why the new laws to replace the old laws that have worked for ten years? Maybe, just maybe, the Rudd government’s policy-on-the-run is morphing into excuses-on-the-run.

Go, you good thing!

THE British government stepped up diplomatic pressure on Israel last night, calling in the Israeli ambassador to discuss the use of six faked British passports in the assassination of a senior Hamas official in Dubai. I can sympathise with the Brits but hey, I admire the Israelis for topping the bastard. He’s a terrorist, a member of Hamas that is recognized as a terrorist organization by most civilized countries, and he was the logistics manager. He organized shipments of rockets etc from Iran to bombard Israeli civilians. While the rest of the western civilizations actually listens to lawyers who advocate terrorists be read their rights and treated as ordinary criminals Israel knows she is at war and acts accordingly. Go for it but look for a better solution than using friendly power fake passports.

Penny’s preaching to the gullible

In her opening address to the National Climate Change Forum in Adelaide yesterday, Senator Wong made some alarming predictions for Australia’s coast.
“Not only are our assets and environments at risk, many of our sandy beaches could erode away or recede up to hundreds of metres over the coming century,” she said. “It is possible that with climate change and without large and expensive nourishment programs, Bondi Beach, (Queensland’s) Sunshine Coast and (Victoria’s) Bells Beach may no longer be the beaches we know today.”
I admire consistency but jeez Louise, read the papers. I’m happy to concede that Climategate doesn’t necessarily prove that global warming doesn’t exist but it does leave us in no doubt that the believers of the faith, the members of the Church of Latter Day alarmists, have tended to gild the lilly. You see Penny, Australians react poorly to people who call wolf too often – we tend to wonder why you are trying to panic us and what your agenda really is. I hesitate to point out the obvious but a hundred metres in a century is one meter a year and that is just plain scare tactics. If the problem is real as you say, why exaggerate?

Climategate and the retreat from Immediate

Brian Micklethwait at Samizdata has his say on Climate Change
Are you bored with Climategate? And bored with me writing about it, again and again? Yesterday, fellow Samizdatista Michael Jennings told me he is. I understand the feeling, and would be interested to hear if any of our commentariat shares it, but as for me, I can’t leave this thing alone. I mean, this is now the biggest single battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, and the forces of darkness are now in definite, headlong, ignominious retreat. I for one do not feel inclined to stop shouting about that any time soon.
It is a well thought out piece so do go and read. Now!

More school altercations

A MOTHER was holding her 15-month-old baby when she stabbed another woman in the stomach outside a Sydney infants school, police allege.
According to police facts, Ms Hoang allegedly pulled out a 20cm long knife following an argument outside the school gate and stabbed Ms Nguyen in the lower abdomen. Police allege the altercation between the women, who both served on the school’s P&C, stemmed from 28-year-old Hoang believing Ms Nguyen caused the break-up of her relationship.
Bloody knives – what ever happened to ‘bitch slapping’?

Local tragedy

A local Catholic boys college has had one of its students killed during a knife attack. One of my sons went there, I know the Principal and often meet staff at social functions. I feel for the parents and the college, as does the whole community. So sad! Bloody knives – what ever happened to fisticuffs?

Greenie watch

A SURVIVOR of Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires has told a royal commission that conservation laws were so strict in her shire that it was illegal to clear away debris on her own property, such as a limb fallen from a tree. Toni-anne Collins, who lost her 40ha property in Ninks Road, St Andrews, told the Teague royal commission that clearing native vegetation on her property was totally prohibited under rural conservation and environmental regulations.
Kimberly Dripps, a biodiversity director with the state’s Department of Sustainability and Environment,(read Greenie) said that under “like for like” regulations in Victoria, a property owner could remove a eucalypt and replace it with a deciduous tree, so long as they also planted an offsetting eucalypt, or similar tree, elsewhere in the state. Ms Dripps said tree removal was one of the causes of human-induced climate change.
And people like you, Ms Dipps, are one of the causes of human induced death and, could I point out, the woman was talking about not be allowed to remove dead fall, not cutting down trees. Trees are important to the ecology but humans are important to society and they should be able to clear vegetation close to their houses. The same people might also expect the local forests to be cleared of dead fall from time to time by winter back-burning to minimize fuel for the bush fires but I guess that’s another subject. Another mob of dangerous Greenies have done their level best to stifle agriculture in the tropics with the release of their report that only considered the north’s agricultural potential in terms of available groundwater supplies and not surface water and dams. My old Army mate Dennis Quick now living just south of Cairns has his say;
MOST thinking people would be absolutely gobsmacked by the levels of ideological bias and “Ruddspeak” that has emanated from the Northern Australian Land and Water Taskforce report. The carefully selected Labor replacements of the original taskforce members have published a turgid grab bag of gobbledygook that defies belief. In so doing, they have, in complicity with their political masters, denied many small communities on Cape York and across the Far North, any semblance of real hope for economic and social gain over the coming years. There is not one substantive recommendation that comes out of the report. It’s nothing but a mirror of the clap trap that emanates from the Wilderness Society and other extremist groups that have captured Labor governments with their preferences blackmail.
The Rudd government put a Greenie in charge to achieve a politically expedient outcome as Senator Boswell notes
…the inclusion on the taskforce of Northern Territory environmentalist Stuart Blanch, who played a role in preventing the territory government from clearing 110,000ha near the Daly River for agriculture. “The last person you’d put on is a green environmentalist,” Senator Boswell said. “You know what they think before they even go on there . . . they don’t want dams, they just want things left as is and turned into a big national park.”
The problem is, as the election year progresses, green votes will become more and more important to Rudd so we can expect a huge shift to the left in his dealings with the environment. Its a pity and will damage or put on hold needed development, but like painful and long route marches – they do end and so will the Rudd government.

Protests expected

A letter to The Australian warns about protests when Obama visits Australia
GUANTANAMO Bay is still open, the US is about to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and during the past 12 months Barack Obama has authorised more lethal Predator drone strikes in Pakistan than did George W. Bush in the three years prior to that. So I guess that the authorities will be preparing for massive protests against President Obama, by anti-war protesters, when he visits here next month? Alternatively, pigs might fly. Richard Shankland, Pymble, NSW
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