Apple iPad released
Apple quote $US499 ($AUD 553.20) entry price. Let’s see what the local market does with it.
iPhone to iPad – natural technical progression.
I want one.
Author: Kev
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.
Sailor does well
Reporters covering the Inquiry into the incident where the asylum queue jumpers set fire to their boat are having a field day with anti navy statements as the story starts to unfold.
AUSTRALIAN defence personnel kicked asylum-seekers in the head to stop them from clambering aboard a rescue boat in the aftermath of a fatal explosion.
Corporal Sharon Jager, an air force
officerNon Commissioned Officer with post-traumatic stress disorder, broke down as she recounted the chaos following the explosion on the boat, known as SIEV36, in April last year.
CprlCpl Jager, who had no experience in boarding illegal vessels, testified she was “shoulder-to-shoulder” in the water with asylum-seekers and watched in horror as a naval colleague in an inflatable rescue boat kicked two men in the head in order to save her first.
Why “watched in horror?” She’s in the water clinging to a piece of wood, close to drowning and more than likely in severe shock; I would’ve thought “watched in relief” would be closer to the truth. Is she suggesting that she would’ve given up her chance to be saved for a queue jumper?
“I saw (Able Seaman Adrian) Medbury leave his position and he’s moved along physically and he’s moved the two asylum-seekers, saying, `f..k off, get the f..k off her’ as he dragged me into the boat,”
CrplCpl Jager told Coroner Greg Cavanag.
I would think that if Medbury hadn’t acted as he did the queue jumpers would’ve climbed over Cpl Jager’s drowned body to save themselves.
He was obviously under stress and functioning as a trained sailor should and unless you were there in the same situation then you can’t criticize him.
For me, I say ‘Well done, that man!
He was trying to save you Cpl and you should be thanking him for saving your life not pointing out how horrified you were at his actions. So he was swearing! He’s a sailor under extreme pressure.
Had my life gone differently I may have joined the Navy and if so I could’ve been a Lt Comdr involved in this branch. Had that been the case I would have had a point in unit/Ship SOPs that included, inter alia “save the crew first so they can more effectively save the others should any such incident occur.
The Captain has responsibility to his crew and he needs all of them to effectively carry out his mission and what if his after Action Report read; “We saved all of the queue jumpers who blew up their boat but in doing so five Australian sailors were drowned”
An attachment to the report would have had to be his signed resignation.
(The strike outs are just me correcting the reporters abysmal Staff Duties!)
Free bus fare home from pub
The Australian Government today announced extra emergency relief and financial counselling services will soon be available in Laverton and the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia to help local residents who are experiencing financial hardship.
The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, today announced an extra $20,000 in emergency relief will be available to existing providers.
Up to $25,000 has also been allocated for extra financial counselling services in and around Laverton and Kalgoorlie.
Maybe the word ‘Precedence’ could get a run here. Is the government planning to have $20,000 for emergency relief and another $25,000 available for all remote communities and what will be the rules. Or, will money only become available for such programmes whenever The Australian newspaper runs an article on another loan shark in another town.
My take on the Laverton usurer loaning money to the locals was that they had spent all their money and had none to get back to their outstations. He loaned them money at 33% which is about the same that poor white people have to pay when they go to the local Pawn shop for help.
Does that mean they now have a licence to go to town, spend all their money at the pub and takeaway and then just drop into the local Centrelink and get their bus fares home?
I also note Macklin is planning to introduce a scheme where they can get their handout money weekly. Will that apply to all handout money recipients or just the indigenous ones?
Band aid government by unqualified social medics in response to a newspaper article headlining what authorities should have known in first place.
Australia Day
Watching TV last night I was struck by a sea of Australian Flags being displayed, on the whole, by young people and I must say I found it pleasing.
Quotes by kids of being proud to be an Aussie while enjoying themselves in youthful exuberance wrapped in flags or dressed in ‘Flag’ bikinis all looking young and healthy must have really depressed the “hate patriotism, hate the Jack in the corner, we want another flag and a Republic” types
And that bodes good for the country.
On the other hand we have a psychiatrist, Professor Patrick McGorry, selected as Australian of the Year who, in light of his background of helping kids with depression makes him a worthy recipient.
Except he just couldn’t stop himself. Someone gave him a microphone and a camera and he was of on his hobby horse. Terrible governments who lock up asylum seekers when all good folk know anyone coming to our shores by boat should be allowed straight into the community. He had to restate his case to make it clear he was only referring to Howard Government which was a little strange as the Rudd government do it as well.
He vowed to use his new position to lobby for asylum seekers to be allowed to live in the community, instead of being sent to detention facilities on Christmas Island.
I would have hoped he might use his new position to advance Australia’s interests at home and abroad rather than going on about the Left wing mantra of letting anyone into the country who pay large sums of money as an investment to place themselves in the well documented Australian social security gravy train.
I would have hoped he might use his new position to advance public awareness and to gain more funding for youth depression but I guess that’s all to simplistic.
Overall, I give the day to the youth.
UPDATE: Australian of the Year is becoming Left Wing Whinger of the Year according to Mark Henderson
Abbott spot on
In an interview with the Australian Women’s Weekly, the Opposition Leader says women should try to stick to ”the rules” when considering sex before marriage. When they could not abstain, they should use contraception, he says.
All this in response to being asked by a reporter ‘What’s the advice you would give to your own kids?’.
Abbott explains;
“Obviously a parent talking to his or her own children is going to be saying different things than someone talking to the world at large … and the last thing I would want to do is to impose my views on the wider world, but in my position I think I’ve got to be honest and upfront about what my views are.”
The feminists, ALP diehards, Conservative haters and assorted camp followers are still screaming.
Sorry folks, it’s how most people view the subject. Few parents would disagree with his comments and the more the haters scream the more people will wonder exactly what sort of standards, if any, they apply at home with their own kids.
UPDATE:
LIBERAL frontbencher George Brandis has attacked Julia Gillard’s ability to understand the way parents think about virginity because she doesn’t have kids.
She walked into that one.
Ms Gillard said: ”Australian women don’t want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott.
They weren’t- he was talking about what advice he would give his daughters.
It’s weird. People are attacking him for things he didn’t say, allude to or hint at. What’s wrong with them?
Mr Abbott has also hit back at Julia Gillard’s criticism of the remarks, noting the deputy prime minister was speaking as a politician, while he was speaking as a parent.
Point, set, match!
Rudd like Obama says Ambassador
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd and US President Barack Obama have a “tremendous affinity”, a senior US diplomat said.
US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich said the powerful pair had plenty in common.
I couldn’t agree more! They both talk well and do little.
After a year in office support for Mr Obama has fallen as the US grapples with the financial crisis, and some of the President’s reforms hit roadblocks.
Another roadblock has just been put in place with Martha Coakley conceding defeat to Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant by Mary Jo Kopechne’s‘s killer, Ted Kennedy.
Scott Brown is on record as saying he will not vote for the health bill in it’s current form.
Hurry up and take this thing!
HE’S never had a nose for trouble before but black labrador Bronson sure knows how to turn heads with his retrieving tricks.
The champion obedience dog stunned his Victorian owners when he recently returned to them to proudly show off his latest find.
Locked firmly in his jaws and coiled around his snout was a long, live snake, believed to be a deadly copperhead.
He was bitten but that didn’t override his training. He never dropped the snake until his master said “Give”
A couple of days on a drip and he’s back home. You just gotta love those Labs
IPCC report based on speculation
First we had the emails detailing how contradictory evidence was suppressed from reports that were the basis of the IPCC report and now this;
THE peak UN body on climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports – that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming – was based on a “speculative” claim by an obscure Indian scientist.
Most of their predictions are speculative, based on computer projections that reflects the data entered by people who have the “faith”
If the data is speculative then so is the IPCC report and yet the results are crammed down our throat every day by government and media who are of the same “faith”, as proven.
Man is causing the change!
Climate change is a given but man’s contribution isn’t and if we are to accept that then what of the billions of dollars being spent propping up careers in AGW.
Green “Wild Rivers” under attack
Queensland declared as wild rivers the Archer, Lockhart and Stewart systems on Cape York, banning most economic activity on them, allegedly after Premier Anna Bligh did a deal to clinch Green preferences for last year’s election.
Aboriginal leaders Noel and Gerhardt Pearson have led the fight against the law. Attacking it for crippling economic opportunity for indigenous communities, Noel Pearson said the state government was “foreclosing on a future for our people”.
Anna’s deal may be ‘alleged’ but it is totally believable as such deals constitute a tenet of the ALP’s tactics to stay in power. Promise the Greens anything; it doesn’t matter if it stuffs up the economy or further disadvantages disadvantage Australians.
Tony Abbot is on the issue and attacking. Unlike most politicians Tony Abbott actually goes on the ground to see for himself what the problems are. Last August, he spent 10 days working as a school truancy officer in the peninsula-top township of Aurukun, and three weeks as a volunteer teacher’s aide in Coen in 2008.
More from George Brandis
Bloody Greens!