Category: General Musings

THE NSW Liberals have been trounced in the by-election to replace former state opposition leader John Brogden, losing one of the party’s safest state seats to independent Alex McTaggart.

Commentators had anticipated a backlash against the Liberal Party for choosing as its candidate Paul Nicolaou, who did not live in the electorate, and the way the party had treated Mr Brodgen.

I could be wrong but it looks like a local issue to me but the ALP/ACTU will be not see it that way. You watch tomorrows headlines…..Howard in trouble and the people are sending Howard a message – they don’t like the IR laws There could be a bit in that but IR will be dead issue by the time the next election is called.

DECAFFEINATED coffee may raise the risk of cardiovascular disease more than regular coffee does, Atlanta investigators announced at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005.

The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: noncoffee drinkers, coffee drinkers and decaf drinkers, who drank three to six cups a day for two months.At the end of the study period, Superko found no significant differences in fasting glucose or insulin (measures used to diagnosis diabetes), total cholesterol, HDL2 (the very good cholesterol) or triglycerides among the three groups. However, decaf coffee significantly increased free fatty acid levels, which in turn led to an increase in apolipoprotein B, which is associated with LDL cholesterol.

Decaf always amazed me as the reason I drank coffee was for the caffiene kick. If there is no caffiene kick then what’s the point of drinking it?. You might as well wear baby clothes and drink warm milk.

VICTORIAN police were too trigger-happy and poorly equipped to deal with the mentally ill, the corruption watchdog declared yesterday, calling for drug and alcohol testing and urgent retraining of officers after a spate of fatal shootings. What about calling for better facilities for the mentally ill. A succession of state governments with their wacko ideas of closing politically incorrect Mental Asylums have put the problems on the streets. General hospitals can’t and won’t handle the criminally or dangerously insane so it’s left to poor old Constable Plod to handle the problem. His only answer to civilians, himself or his partner being in mortal danger from a mentally insane citizen is bang bang..two rounds…instant counselling and treatment. Constable Plod is traumatized by being forced to kill to do his job and the politicians have the temerity to criticize him. Not good enough.

THE Federal Government has offered a Melbourne man deported to Serbia temporary housing and medical checks, but is standing by its decision not to allow him back in the country. The Left will go beserk over this one. Another case of some poor sweet innocent deported with claw marks on the tarmac. Of course it could also be a case of a drug addict with a record of armed robbery being deported but that doesn’t make the government look mean enough.

…. last year, the Government deported him on character grounds after he had been jailed for committing a string of burglaries to support his heroin habit.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Tom Cruise has made an unusual purchase for his fiancee Katie Holmes – one that will let them see the development of their baby. A Sonargram worth anything from $34 to $270K

The 43-year-old actor said the couple would do their own ultrasounds to look at their unborn baby.

I hope he has better luck than me. When the twins were due, sometime last century, my wife and I went to have a ultrasound test of the babies. “Look, see them?”, says the operator. “No!” “Can’t you see their hearts beating?” “No!” Disadvantaged, not being a sailor, I had never done a Sonar Interpretation course. All I could see was a whorl of grey lines. Pre-birth snaps are quiet popular these days and when I’m shown them I say what all other savvy husbands say; “How cute, a whorl of grey lines.”

From Arab News JEDDAH, 24 November 2005 — About 85 percent of terror suspects detained in the Kingdom are in the age group of 18 to 25, according to Muhammad Al-Nujaimi, a faculty member of King Fahd Security Academy in Riyadh. He pointed out that 90 percent of these young people lacked proper understanding of Islam. Do tell!

From LGF

U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight _ some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

Although The White House said Sunday that it was “highly unlikely” that the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead one can live in hope. UPDATE: The news hasn’t improved overnight. This morning MSM caught up with the Blogger world and states it is unlikely that al-Zarqawi is amongst the dead

The story of Australians being held for attempting to carry a disassembled pistol and bullets onto a plane in Syria has been downgraded to ‘young boy souveniring a used cartridge’.

The son of one of four Australian women detained in Syria amid fears of a hijacking plot says an empty gun cartridge souvenired by a child travelling with them sparked the drama.

But the lead in the original article was based on the disassemble pistol.

Early reports about the women’s detention had said a dismantled gun was found inside a toy carried by a child who was with them.

So what happened to it?

This report from the NZ herald. The US government has won its battle to retain control of the internet, under a compromise worked out ahead of this week’s United Nations summit on the information society, which leaves the current addressing and traffic direction system intact. Thank God. I can’t think of any organization in the world less qualified to control the internet. Can you imagine the UN with its stable of wacko, tinpot countries running anything as technical as the internet? Half of the committee would be working out how to make life difficult for the US and the other half, like China, Cuba etc would be working out how to stem the information that their citizens have through access to the web. Who’s idea was it in the first place?