Special protection for pedophiles?

When I wrote on May 24 "Will discrimination against pedophiles be outlawed next?", I was being satirical. I didn't know that reality has nearly beaten me to it. The report below is from May 13 and concerns a bill that is already through the Reps and is now with the Senate:
"The US Senate Judiciary committee is now considering the so-called Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed by the House April 29, under the sponsorship of Rep John Conyers (D-MI) and 120 other Representatives. Dubbed the ”Thought Crimes Prevention Act” by some House Republicans, HB1913 includes pedophilia as a protected sexual orientation.

Prior to approval by the whole House, a party-line 10-13 vote of Conyers’ House Judiciary Committee April 23 rejected a proposal by Republican Rep Steve King (R-IA) “to define the term `sexual orientation’ as used in the bill to explicitly exclude pedophilia.” Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, an open lesbian, called the amendment, “unnecessary and inflammatory.”

When judges are required to interpret any Act resulting from passage of HB1913, they will refer to this vote and see that the intent of the lawmakers was to protect pedophiles. This could lead to federal felony prosecutions against anyone who acts to expel a pedophile from his neighborhood. Federal felony convictions require a minimum one year incarceration in a federal penitentiary.

Source

Many reports on conservative sites have interpreted this bill as prohibiting speech. But that is a stretch. It refers to violent assaults or physical attacks. The current text of the bill is here. The definitions it refers to are from H.R.3355 (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) and can be found here. Earlier versions of the bill did explicitly include a statment that speech was not targeted but that has now gone. At the end of the bill there is simply a pointless assertion that the bill does not attack any constitutional protections (such as the 1st Amendment).

A point to note is that H.R.3355 ALREADY adds extra punishment for "hate" in crimes prosecuted in Federal jurisdictions. The new bill aims to extend that to all jurisdictions. Since H.R.3355 has not led to prosecutions of speech alone and since HB1913 uses the same definition of "hate crime" as H.R.3355, concerns about it affecting speech may be over-cautious.

It is clear, however, that under the new law, attacking a pedophile would attract a more severe sentence than attacking a normal heterosexual person. The law puts pedophiles into an especially protected class. How that is compatible with the 14th ("equal protection") amendment escapes me.


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Western diet linked to teen's poor mental health

As we see from the original journal abstract following the article below, the study was more sophisticated than most in that there was some attempt to take social class into account. Maternal education is controlled for. It is however primarily paternal education that influences social class and there are other factors as well. So we have not escaped the influence of the fact that working class people eat more junk food and have poorer health generally. What they found could therefore have been a class effect, not a food effect.

I also suspect the factor-analytic approach used. I know factor analysis well, which is why I rarely use it. Factor identities are usually far from clear and relationships with them can be substantially altered by removing just one or two items from them. Conclusions derived from them are usually therefore pretty arbitrary. That one of the factors is identified as Western, whereas all or most of the participants were presumably Western, tends to raise the eyebrows a bit. Such a general appellation suggests that the factor was highly heterogeneous in its loadings, thus making generalizations about it very shaky. Looking at the individual foods and their relationships with behaviour would be much less inferential -- though appropriate error-rate adjustments would have to be made, of course (Let me hazard a guess that an experiment-wise error rate approach would have shown no statistically significant relationship between any food and any measure of mental health!). Identifying fruit and vegetables as the critical element in a factor that apparently comprised around 100 different foods is certainly an act of faith rather than a committment to rigorous hypothesis testing


A NEW study in WA has shown a link between Western-style diets and more mental health problems in teenagers. The research paper, from WA's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, has just been published online in the respected international journal Preventive Medicine. Report author and leader of Nutrition studies at the Institute, Dr Wendy Oddy, said the results were based on detailed analysis of diet records and behaviour checklists that were collected from more than 1600 West Australian 14-year-olds in the Raine Cohort Study.




“Our analysis found that higher levels of behaviour and emotional problems were associated with a more Western-style way of eating, namely a diet high in takeaway foods, red meat, confectionary, soft drinks, white bread and unrefined cereals,” Dr Oddy said. “We also showed that these problems were less among teens with a more healthier style of eating, specifically those who ate more fruit and vegetables. “This suggests that if we want to reduce the high rates of mental health problems among young people, then improving their overall diet could be a good place to start.”

The study participants' food intake was assessed using a 212-item food frequency questionnaire. The Child Behaviour Checklist was used to assess internalising mental health problems, such as withdrawn and depressed behaviours, and externalising mental health problems, such as delinquent and aggressive behaviours.

Dr Oddy said previous studies have shown that one in five children are expected to develop some form of mental health problem by the time they reach adulthood, and that 50% of all adult mental health problems develop during adolescence. “We know that since 1985, children and teenagers have been increasing their energy intake by consuming more soft drinks and processed foods.

The number of overweight adolescents has doubled and obesity has tripled in that age group. At the same time there have been marked increases in sedentary behaviours such as TV viewing and computer use,” Dr Oddy said. “Investigating factors that influence mental health in young people must be a high priority. These findings show that there is a need to look at the overall diet, rather than concentrate on individual nutrients.”

SOURCE

The association between dietary patterns and mental health in early adolescence

By Wendy H. Oddya et al.

Objective: To investigate associations between dietary patterns and mental health in early adolescence.

Method: The Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study is a prospective study of 2,900 pregnancies recruited from 1989-1992. At 14 years of age (2003-2006; n=1,324), the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) was used to assess behaviour (characterising mental health status), with higher scores representing poorer behaviour. Two dietary patterns (Western and Healthy) were identified using factor analysis and food group intakes estimated by a 212-item food frequency questionnaire. Relationships between dietary patterns, food group intakes and behaviour were examined using general linear modelling following adjustment for potential confounding factors at age 14: total energy intake, body mass index, physical activity, screen use, family structure, income and functioning, gender and maternal education at pregnancy.

Results: Higher total (b=2.20, 95%CI=1.06, 3.35), internalizing (withdrawn/depressed) (b=1.25, 95%CI=0.15, 2.35) and externalizing (delinquent/aggressive) (b=2.60, 95%CI=1.51, 3.68) CBCL scores were significantly associated with the Western dietary pattern, with increased intakes of takeaway foods, confectionary and red meat. Improved behavioural scores were significantly associated with higher intakes of leafy green vegetables and fresh fruit (components of the Healthy pattern).

Conclusion: These findings implicate a Western dietary pattern in poorer behavioural outcomes for adolescents. Better behavioural outcomes were associated with a higher intake of fresh fruit and leafy green vegetables.

Preventive Medicine, Article in Press

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Hussein yearns to sell Israel out

Haaretz - Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem are growing after the U.S. administration's demand that Israel completely freeze construction in all West Bank settlements. Israeli political officials expressed disappointment after Tuesday's round of meetings in London with George Mitchell, U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East.

"We're disappointed," said one senior official. "All of the understandings reached during the [George W.] Bush administration are worth nothing." Another official said the U.S. administration is refusing every Israeli attempt to reach new agreements on settlement construction. "The United States is taking a line of granting concessions to the Palestinians that is not fair toward Israel," he said.
The lefties don't like the Jews, they never did and they never will. Yeah, they might prattle on in front of the cameras about how much they really do and all that, but that's all just bull. That's simply because they know they won't keep their positions if they really let their hatred of Jews out in the open. Look to their actions and it's pretty obvious they'll stand aside and won't do a damn thing against the Islamist savages trying to wipe out Israel.

Lefties also believe that when confronted by savages wanting to separate your head from the rest of your body, the best course of action is to throw your head back and bare your throat to the savages blade. Just that in this case, it's not Hussein who is baring his throat, it's Israel and the Jews who have to bare their throats to humor leftists stupid fantasies and it's them who are being asked to pay the price.

Stand firm Bibi and Israel, tell him to shove off, Hussein's day will come, this will be just one more instance to those who vote back in America to question the ability and wisdom of this fellow. The evidence of his true nature is mounting and bit by bit, he'll keep giving people reasons to question his motives and his leadership.

And this is also yet another lesson to all of us around the world, I believe we can count on a Conservative American president, but America will not always be led by such a leader. So look after your own homes, it's always good to have an extra gun in the guard towers but it's not their responsibility to do it.

Too late Chavez..

FOX News - President Hugo Chavez says he has a new book for President Barack Obama: "What is to be Done?" by communist Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state. Chavez says he'll "give it to Obama at the next meeting." "What is to be Done?" is Lenin's political treatise on the role of intellectuals and the proletariat in promoting revolution, written more than a decade before he led the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

Hussein knows 'what is to be done' and is doing it, right now.

Nasty Health Dept. bureaucrat trying to destroy a popular and hard-working family doctor

Bureaucrat George Cerchez tried to get the doctor for wrongly treating 4 patients but when that failed Cerchez suddenly came up with another 19 allegations. No patients have complained and the other doctors in the area disown all knowledge of the complaints. It's just Georgy boy at work. A fine example of government regulation at work

PAUL McGinity is an old-style country doctor, so dedicated to his 3000 patients that he is berated by colleagues for working too hard, never refusing a home visit in the early hours and taking too few holidays. After 32 years of service to the rural community around Scottsdale, a timber town in Tasmania's northeast, Dr McGinity's career has come to a humiliating halt.

He has been linked to the death of seven patients after complaints to the Medical Council of Tasmania, which has suspended the general practitioner's registration pending an investigation. However, far from being treated as a pariah, Dr McGinity has the unwavering support of his patients, including at least one whose treatment forms the basis of a key allegation.



What's more, Dr McGinity is turning the tables on what he claims are "vexatious" accusers. He claims his chief accuser -- Department of Health and Human Services primary health adviser George Cerchez -- has a potential conflict of interest. Dr McGinity and his supporters claim his only crime is to be a thorn in the side of plans for a new $1.2 million clinic for Scottsdale.

A recording of a telephone conversation obtained by The Weekend Australian reveals DHHS secretary David Roberts saying Dr Cerchez was "not acting for the department" -- casting doubt on comments made in parliament by Health Minister Lara Giddings. While most politicians would run a mile from a doctor facing such serious allegations, the state Opposition said there was such a "stench" about the case that it should be subject to an independent review.

There are complaints against Dr McGinity relating to 23 patients, but unusually none is made by them or their families. Dr McGinity has been led to believe that all but four complaints were submitted by Dr Cerchez. Dr McGinity was notified of the further 19 cases at the same time his suspension over the first four was being successfully challenged on a technicality in the Supreme Court. The suspension was later reinstated.

Dr Cerchez, with whom Dr McGinity has a history of dispute, is also on the board of local doctors' group GP North. GP North has obtained federal funding of $500,000 to build a $1.2million medical complex in Scottsdale. Dr McGinity is not interested in joining the new clinic, preferring his old style of solo operation. The other four complainants are GPs at Scottsdale's other practice, despite their insistence yesterday that they had "nothing to do with" the allegations. It is expected the four will move to the new medical centre, which -- if Dr McGinity loses his registration -- will take his 3000 patients.

The 68-year-old told The Weekend Australian he was confident he had not made "any mistakes". And while accepting the medical council's obligation to investigate the complaints, he believed there should be an inquiry into the manner in which the allegations were made. He was "very concerned that there is an ulterior motive behind this" and that Dr Cerchez had a potential conflict of interest: "There are three factors: he is on the board of GP North; GP North wants to build a clinic; I've got lots of patients -- 3000; they haven't asked me to join the clinic but they need those patients." He said he also had a long history of "disagreements" with Dr Cerchez, including a dispute over the management of a case at the Scottsdale hospital in February last year. Dr Cerchez had transferred a patient against his direction, undermining his position, he said.

In the recording of his conversation with Dr McGinity, Mr Roberts says Dr Cerchez was "absolutely ... not" acting for the department in making the allegations. This appears to be a direct contradiction of advice given by Ms Giddings to parliament that Dr Cerchez "made the complaints as the longstanding medical adviser". Yesterday, Ms Giddings deferred to Mr Roberts, who said he had never meant to suggest Dr Cerchez was not acting for the department's primary health section. Instead, he had simply meant to convey that the "central department", which had to be divorced from such operational matters, was not involved. "The department is not trying to distance itself from Dr Cerchez ... I have been strongly supportive of the actions George has taken," he said.

Questions to Dr Cerchez were answered by DHHS deputy secretary Alice Burchill, who suggested concerns about a potential conflict of interest were "without foundation". "Dr Cerchez ... does not practise in the northeast and cannot personally benefit from the development," she said. "There is no underlying professional dispute between Dr McGinity and Dr Cerchez."

The Weekend Australian has a document naming the four GPs from Scottsdale's Victoria Street surgery who raised allegations against Dr McGinity: Linda Clow, Jim Wilson, Natalie Burch and Gretchen Stone. However, when asked to comment yesterday, Dr Clow said on behalf of the practice, they had "nothing to do with" the issue. "I don't know where you got that idea from, but we've got no comment," she said. "On behalf of the whole practice, we have not and will not make any comment. We've got nothing to do with this and we want to stay out of it." She would not say whether she and the other doctors at the surgery intended to shift to the new medical centre.

GP North chief executive Phil Edmondson would not say whether the four Victoria Street doctors had indicated a willingness to join the new medical complex. Nor would he say how many patients the new centre required to be viable. When asked whether he was confident the allegations against Dr McGinity were not related to plans for the new centre, he said: "I have no knowledge of the nature of the complaints against Dr McGinity. From the perspective of GP North, there is absolutely and categorically no link whatsoever between the matters."

The medical council, negotiating with Dr McGinity on conditions under which he might be allowed to return to practise while the allegations are investigated, could not be contacted yesterday. However, it has previously insisted its handling of the case has been appropriate.

Opposition health spokesman Brett Whiteley said Ms Giddings should address the "possible conflicts of interest" and order an independent review. "They came up with 19 new allegations -- they didn't say they came from one bloke, and they said 'they include seven people who died'," he said. "How alarmist is that? Who are these dead people? When did the first person die? Were there inquests? And if there were, why didn't the coroner report them? This whole decision needs a new set of eyes cast over it."

SOURCE


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Rudd embroiled as tensions rise over racist attacks on Indian students

Despite the predictable official denials, these attacks are overwhelmingly by young African "refugees" that the government has kindly lumbered us with. Not only do the Africans contribute little themselves (they are mostly on the dole) but they attack those who do -- greatly damaging Australia's reputation in the process. Education is one of Australia's major export industries and it is under attack by these criminals. Letting moronic and useless thugs loose on the students concerned is disastrous. The thugs concerned should be relentlessly rounded up and jailed for long periods instead of being treated "sensitively" because of their origins. But that would depend on a sudden influx of honesty into the corrupt Victoria police and that is a big ask. The deliberately blind Victoria Police are letting the whole of Australia down at the moment

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has spoken to his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, amid growing anger in India over attacks on Indian students in Australia. The issue has raised diplomatic tensions between the two countries. In a telephone conversation, Mr Rudd congratulated Dr Singh on his recent re-election but the pair also discussed the recent series of violent assaults, sources told The Age. A statement released last night indicated Dr Singh spoke strongly to Mr Rudd about the attacks. The Indian Prime Minister had "suitably" conveyed his concerns about the vicious attacks, it said.

The Indian foreign ministry called in Australia's high commissioner to India, John McCarthy, yesterday to discuss the matter. "I told him that the Australia Government is also very concerned, that Australian ministers had expressed this, and that we are doing everything we can to address the issues," Mr McCarthy said. Mr Ravi conveyed to Mr McCarthy the Indian Government's "deep anguish and continuing concern" about the welfare of its students in Australia, a statement released last night said. It was the first time Mr McCarthy has been called in by the Indian Government since the 2007 arrest of Muhammad Haneef, an Indian doctor working in Australia, on terrorism-related charges.



As the diplomatic temperature rose yesterday, Indian Foreign Minister S.N. Krishna spoke to Foreign Minister Stephen Smith about the issue. Mr Krishna said the Australian Government had assured him that steps were being taken to protect Indian students. "We hope these aberrations that have taken place will be dealt with," he said. "They said that they are going to take stern steps and they have assured us that every student from India will be adequately protected."

Meanwhile, agents in India who arrange student placements have warned that Australia's lucrative education industry could pay a high price for the attacks. "These attacks will definitely have an impact on the market because parents are calling me up and they are very concerned," said Bubbly Johar, who runs a Delhi education consultancy and is vice-president of the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India. "The media coverage here is encouraging parents to rethink whether they should send their children to Australia for studies. We can't assure them that they will be safe."

In Melbourne, India's high commissioner to Australia said Victorian police were insensitive towards some Indian crime victims. Sujatha Singh said many students felt insecure and some were unhappy with police treatment. Her comments came as Victoria Police again denied that the increasing attacks — which the Indian student community claims could be as many as 70 in 12 months — were racially motivated.

Mrs Singh said the Indian high commission in Canberra had received complaints from students about police. When an incident was reported, there was a perception that there was sometimes "a delay in reacting and … perhaps a lack of sensitivity dealing with the issues".

Mrs Singh flew to Melbourne from Canberra to meet Premier John Brumby and police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland following the attack on Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 24, last weekend. He was allegedly racially abused and stabbed with a screwdriver at a party at a house in Hadfield, near Glenroy. Last night he remained in a coma in intensive care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. A 17-year-old from Glenroy has been charged with attempted murder. It was the third serious attack this month.

In two of those, the victim or witnesses have told The Age of specific racial abuse. But Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said yesterday he had "no specific data" on that. [He doesn't want to hear it] "They (Indian students) are seen as vulnerable soft targets … I don't deny it may have happened but my sense is that these are opportunistic crimes, not racially motivated crimes." Mrs Singh said she had told police about the racial element in some attacks. She did not believe Australia was racist but "some of these attacks have not been opportunistic".

Trauma psychologist Dr Michael O'Neill, who works with Indian victims of crime in Melbourne, said he saw on average one bashed student a week and about half of those attacks were racial.

SOURCE


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Some pigs are now more equal

FOX News - Charges brought against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense under the Bush administration have been dropped by the Obama Justice Department, FOX News has learned. The charges stemmed from an incident at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008 when three members of the party were accused of trying to threaten voters and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force -- one even brandishing what prosecutors call a deadly weapon.

......In his affidavit, obtained by FOX News, Bull wrote "I watched the two uniformed men confront voters and attempt to intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters." He also said they tried to "interfere with the work of other poll observers ... whom the uniformed men apparently believed did not share their preferences politically," noting that one of the panthers turned toward the white poll observers and said "you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."
Funny that ey, black man gets the top job and by pure coincidence black racism and intimidation is no big deal anymore. It's all good, thanks for helping to get Hussein elected, here's a free pass guys. Speaking of those who consider those with the right skin color more equal.
FOX News - Judge Sonia Sotomayor could walk into a firestorm on Capitol Hill over her stance on gun rights, with conservatives beginning to question some controversial positions she's taken over the past several years on the Second Amendment. Earlier this year, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states. A 2004 opinion she joined also cited as precedent that "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right."
I wonder if it makes a difference to her if you're not white, in that instance would she believe that the right to defend oneself is a fundamental right or are her fellow Latinos also far safer bare-assed and defenseless too. First it was abortion, now they're coming after your guns. I hope Americans are ready to fight because the left have always yearned to disarm you and use your money to kill off as many unborn babies as they can.

I heard that the NRA is looking into this, I sure hope they do and they hinder and fight these leftists at every turn. On a parting note, I saw the following at Old Soldier's blog and I think everyone who lives next to some gun-hating leftist should put this sign up out on their front lawn, or any position that has the best visibility to the public.



If those who believe in gun-control really believe that having no guns makes you safer, then go on, don't leave it up to your neighbor to put up the sign, you put it up yourself, the one that says it's you not your neighbor. Then put it on your car too, after all it's supposed to make you safer isn't it.

Sotomayor and free speech

Sonia Sotomayor is a female judge of Puerto Rican descent whom Obama has nominated to the Supreme Court

Sotomayor not so bad after all?

She gives an excellent defense of free speech in the excerpt from one of her judgments below:
"One of her more controversial cases was Pappas v. Giuliani, involving an employee of the New York City Police Department who was terminated from his desk job because, when he received mailings requesting that he make charitable contributions, he responded by mailing back racist and bigoted materials. On appeal, the panel majority held that the NYPD could terminate Pappas for his behavior without violating his First Amendment right to free speech. Sotomayor dissented from the majority's decision to award summary judgment to the police department. She acknowledged that the speech was "patently offensive, hateful, and insulting," but cautioned the majority against "gloss[ing] over three decades of jurisprudence and the centrality of First Amendment freedoms in our lives just because it is confronted with speech it does not like."

In her view, Supreme Court precedent required the court to consider not only the NYPD's mission and community relations but also that Pappas was neither a policymaker nor a cop on the beat. Moreover, Pappas's speech was anonymous, "occur[ring] away from the office on [his] own time." She expressed sympathy for the NYPD's "concerns about race relations in the community," which she described as "especially poignant," but at the same time emphasized that the NYPD had substantially contributed to the problem by disclosing the results of its investigation into the racist mailings to the public. In the end, she concluded, the NYPD's race relations concerns "are so removed from the effective functioning of the public employer that they cannot prevail over the free speech rights of the public employee."

Source

But maybe she just doesn't like the NYPD, which would not be hard. She comes from NYC so frustrating them a bit could well appeal to her. It does appear that feelings are an important criterion for her in the judgments she hands down.




Sotomayor rules against free speech for blogger

We read:
"President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy has yet another tie to Connecticut. She sided against a student in the infamous “douche bag” case, and that has upset some free-speech advocates.

In August 2007, Judge Sonia Sotomayor sat on a panel that ruled against an appeal in Doninger v. Niehoff. Avery Doninger was disqualified from running for school government at Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington after she posted something on her blog, referring to the superintendent and other officials as "douche bags" because they canceled a battle of the bands she had helped to organize.

The case went to court and in March 2008, Sotomayor was on a panel that heard Doninger’s mother’s appeal alleging her daughter’s free speech and other rights were violated. Her mother wanted to prevent the school from barring her daughter from running. Sotomayor joined two other judges from the 2nd Circuit in ruling that the student’s off-campus blog remarks created a “foreseeable risk of substantial disruption” at the student’s high school and that the teenager was not entitled to a preliminary injunction reversing a disciplinary action against her

The ruling in this case has come under heavy criticism from some civil libertarians. Some say this case presents a solid rationale for rejecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the seat of retiring Justice David Souter.

“The continual expansion of the authority of school officials over student speech teaches a foul lesson to these future citizens,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the New Britain Herald. “I would prefer some obnoxious speech [rather] than teaching students that they must please government officials if they want special benefits or opportunities.”

Source

So she only upholds free speech when it suits her.

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is rejoicing at the slow downfall of Australia's Warmist laws.

Posted by John Ray.

A warning about online computer and electronics retailer OzDirect

Report from a customer of OzDirect

I ordered a video camera from Ozdirect on 17/03/09. It was listed as 'in stock' and the website seemed to indicate that it would ship 48 hours after funds cleared and take 24 hours by courier to reach me. I paid an additional $20 (percentage of total) to use my credit card and thus speed up funds clearing. They debited my credit card in 10 minutes flat. After a week of waiting I started to enquire where my order was. They were slow to reply and then said there were delays in the warehouse. Another week went, by...more emails...nothing changes...another week goes by...more emails...nothing changes...I start to get angry, and they finally (after 3 weeks waiting) offer the option of cancelling the order and getting a refund...It takes another week of emails to get a response. 10 days later no refund... now they tell me it can take 30 days to refund money! They have had $600+ of my money for over 5 weeks now and I have nothing to show for it.

I lodge a complaint with NSW Office of Fair Trading...a week later they tell me they can get no response from Ozdirect, so there is nothing further they can do!! In 12 years of shopping online this is the worst experience I have ever had! Nothing else even comes close. For displaying absolute contempt for customers, Ozdirect are in a league of their own!

SOURCE. See also here

If anybody reading this has their own blog, please pass the warning on

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

The lefties will be thrilled with this news

FOX News - Cuba will reinstate sex-change operations previously banned on the island, President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela said Wednesday. The Health Ministry authorized the operations last year, but none has been performed since. It was unclear when the surgeries would begin. Mariela Castro, a sexologist and gay-rights advocate, announced the return of sex-change procedures in comments aired on state television.

She runs the Center for Sex Education, which prepares transsexuals for sex-change operations and has identified 19 transsexuals it deems ready to undergo the procedure. Castro also said she backs efforts to allow lesbians to be artificially inseminated, a procedure currently barred. .......The government would bear the cost of the operations because Cuba has a universal health care system.
Forget the absence of freedom, tyranny, human rights violations and prisoner abuses that would make Gitmo look like the Ritz, lefties now have something other than their beloved terrorist scumbag, Che, to admire about Cuba. Never mind that a Communist hellhole like Cuba has more important things to spend its meager wealth on than sex-changes for confused fairies. Lefties will be so pleased that Larry can finally become Lucy and then back to Larry when she gets bored or perhaps Barack or Hugo and then something in between when that novelty wears off too.

And to top it all off, the tab is picked up by the Cuban taxpayer, yay! I can just picture lefties doing their hippie-dance and lighting up another 'bong' when they read about this. You see, nothing excites lifelong parasites like adding another perverted burden to their tired and dying hosts.

I have a feeling even more Cubans are going to take their chances with the sharks on their way to America than subsidize the indulgences of the local fairies.

White House to critics of Obama's racist court nominee: Be 'careful'

Hey! I've got an idea! Why not be as careful as the Donks were when they were interviewing Robert Bork or Clarence Thomas?



White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a pointed warning to opponents of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination Wednesday, urging critics to measure their words carefully during a politically charged confirmation debate. “I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation,” Gibbs said.

He was replying to a question from CBS’s Chip Reid about a blog post by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accusing Sotomayor of imposing identity politics on the bench and declaring: “A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. A Latina woman racist should also withdraw.” “I think we're satisfied that, when the people of America and the people of the Senate get a chance to look at more than just the blog of a former lawmaker… they'll come to the same conclusion that the president did” about Sotomayor’s qualifications, Gibbs replied.

The White House also took shots at politicians and commentators who have questioned whether Sotomayor has the intellectual capacity for the Supreme Court. In a statement Tuesday, Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) said he planned “to thoroughly review Judge Sotomayor’s record to make sure she has the right intellect and understands the proper role of a judge.” “A lot of people in the last couple of days…they've mentioned ‘intellect,” Gibbs said. “I'm not sure what number they graduated in their class at Princeton, but my sense is it's not second.”

Latino activists were up in arms over what one called “innuendo” challenging the smarts of Sotomayor, who graduated with highest honors from Princeton and was editor of the law review at Yale Law School. [We know what Clarence Thomas thought his Yale degree was worth] “Her intelligence is apparent. It is outrageous that she is being attacked on those grounds,” said Ramona Romero, president of the Hispanic National Bar Association. “I’m assuming these folks are grasping at straws….I wonder if she were a white male we would be hearing that about somebody with the same credentials.”

Gingrich and other commentators leveling the charge that Sotomayor is racist have seized on her comments in a 2001 lecture about how her Hispanic background contributed to her judicial work. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Sotomayor said.

Gibbs said critics had taken out of context Sotomayor’s attempt to declare that “she has lived a different life than some people have, based on her upbringing—that she understands that.” He said Sotomayor was simply acknowledging that a different background “could certainly lead to different conclusions.” Journalists at the White House briefing were dubious about the press secretary’s explanation, with several shouting back in unison: “She said ‘better.’” “Look at the totality of it,” Gibbs replied....

More HERE

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

HEAT-RESISTANT CORALS ADAPT TO WARMING

This should frustrate Hoagy, Australia's chief coral doomster

Among the many catastrophes that are to befall our world due to global warming, the imminent demise of coral reefs is one of the worst. According to climate change proponents, as waters warm the ocean's reefs will bleach out and die, leaving the seas aquatic deserts, devoid of life. Now comes news that scientists have discovered live, healthy corals on reefs already as hot as the oceans are supposed to get 100 years from now, according to IPCC predictions. Looks like the corals didn't read the IPCC reports.

Climate catastrophists have warned that more than half of the world's coral reefs could disappear in the next 50 years, in large part because of higher ocean temperatures caused by climate change. Supposedly, corals—tiny sea creatures that, working together, manage to build gigantic ocean reefs—are so delicate that a shift in water temperature of little more than 1 degree Celsius can cause them to whither and die. Corals create the most diverse ecosystems in the oceans: the beautiful and vibrant tropical reefs. If corals were to go extinct, the repercussions would likely affect all life on Earth.

Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with tiny, single-celled algae. It's a partnership, with the corals provide a home for the algae and the algae provide nourishment for the corals. Rising temperatures can stress the algae, causing them to stop producing food. The corals evict the deadbeat algae, spit them out to fend for themselves. Without their algal partners, the reefs die and turn stark white, an event referred to as coral bleaching.

In a report this month in Marine Ecology Progress Series, Stanford University scientists have found evidence that some coral reefs are adapting and may actually be able to shrug off the worst of the IPCC's predicted global warming. They discovered that some corals resist bleaching by hosting types of algae that can handle the heat, while others swap out the heat-stressed algae for tougher, heat-resistant strains.

“The most exciting thing was discovering live, healthy corals on reefs already as hot as the ocean is likely to get 100 years from now,” said Stephen Palumbi, a professor of biology and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. “Corals are certainly threatened by environmental change, but this research has really sparked the notion that corals may be tougher than we thought.”

For their investigations, Palumbi and Tom Oliver, a former student, traveled to Ofu Island in American Samoa. Ofu, a tropical coral reef marine reserve, has remained healthy despite gradually warming waters. In cooler lagoons, Oliver found only a handful of corals that host heat-resistant algae exclusively. But in hotter pools, he observed a direct increase in the proportion of heat-resistant symbionts, suggesting that some corals had swapped out the heat-sensitive algae for more robust types. “These findings show that, given enough time, many corals can match hotter environments by hosting heat-resistant symbionts,” Oliver explained.

The whole matter of coral delicacy is a bit puzzling, since reef building corals have been around since at least the Permian period. All corals in the sea, particularly the familiar kinds that form reefs, have hard external skeletons. In a 2006 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of researchers led by Allen Collins dated the origin of stony corals to between 240 and 288 million years ago, much more closely matching the fossil record of corals than earlier estimates.

This means that corals survived the worst ever mass extinction event in the history of Earth—the Permian-Triassic Extinction, 251 million years ago—and lived through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. During this span of nearly 200 million years, CO2 levels were 5-10 times higher than they are now with temperatures as much as 10ºC higher than today.. After surviving the event that killed off the dinosaurs, corals have remained the ocean's primary reef builders during the Cenozoic era, roughly the past 63 million years. Scientists should have known that any creatures who can live through all that are tough enough to put up with slight fluctuations in water temperature.

More HERE


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

The Australian police experience again

Three current articles below about our fine police services

Abusive police in court

I can see no reason why police should abuse suspects so I hope they lose this one. Everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence and in this case the accused WERE innocent. There was not even enough evidence to take them to court. Unless they are being physically attacked, the police should be polite at all times -- as in the old British tradition

THREE men questioned by police on Sydney streets are suing the New South Wales Government, saying the officers made defamatory comments about them within earshot of passers-by. Alleged statements such as "we are stopping you because you guys were ... intending to steal" could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and restrict the way police conduct routine investigations, The Australian reports.

The NSW Government recently tried to have the men's cases thrown out of court. However, a NSW District Court judge not only gave the two separate cases the go-ahead, but ordered the Government to pay the men's legal costs. Payouts of up to $250,000 can be awarded if comments are found to be defamatory.




In both cases, none of the men can identify any members of the public who are said to have heard and witnessed the alleged defamatory comments made by the officers, but the court ruled they did not have to provide further details because it would be an "unnecessary expense" at that stage of proceedings.

In the first case, David Moses and Tangiwai Kawenga are suing the police for defamation over an incident in inner-city McEvoy Street in September last year. Police arrived after receiving a call that a criminal offence had taken place and arrested and charged the pair. At the time, one of the officers allegedly said to Mr Moses: "You're robbing women", "you're a thief", and "you have stolen from women". Mr Kawenga claims a police officer said to him: "You're under arrest -- you're a piece of shit ... you're f**ked -- you're going to jail."

The pair say officers were speaking "in a loud voice within the hearing of passers-by and residents of premises adjoining George Street, many of whom were standing at and near their front fence observing the police and (Mr Moses and Mr Kawenga)", according to court documents. Mr Kawenga tried to argue that the words "you're under arrest" were also defamatory but this was knocked out by judge Judith Gibson last week and he and Mr Moses were ordered to pay costs.

The charges against the pair were later dropped and no further action was taken against them.

In the other case, police were called to the exclusive watch store TAG Heuer, in Sydney's King Street luxury shopping precinct, in June last year. Staff had pressed the "hold-up button" while Michael Lassanah and another man were in the store. Police arrived shortly afterwards.

Mr Lassanah said he was defamed when police spoke to him on the footpath outside and allegedly said: "The manager of the TAG shop said you were intending to steal from the shop. We are stopping you because you guys were in the TAG shop intending to steal. You were intending to steal. Don't go into that shop. You were intending to steal."

Mr Lassanah is suing for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment and says police kept him on the footpath for an hour and searched him "in the presence of the general public".

Seeking to have the cases dismissed, the NSW Government unsuccessfully argued in the District Court that it was protected by defences available to the defamation laws. The matter will return to court in September.

NSW Police have yet to give their version of events. But a spokesman said yesterday: "It should be noted that this is an interim finding only and not final, and police will leave it in the hands of the courts to make a decision. The NSW Police Force has always stood behind its officers who carry out their duties in good faith."

SOURCE

Murder calls to police emergency number ignored

A CIVILIAN police radio operator in Queensland ignored two triple-0 calls which may have helped save a man's life, it has been revealed. Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said the calls were received at the Maroochydore Police Communications Centre on Monday night, about 10 minutes apart. Both calls are believed to have been made by a woman screaming that someone was in trouble.

Mr Atkinson said it was "highly likely" both calls related to the death of a 48-year-old man whose body was found near a Nambour creek about 6.30am (AEST) on Tuesday. James Albert Madden, 23, of Nambour, has been charged with the man's murder. Kilah Johnelle Jones, 17, of Yandina, faced Maroochydore Magistrate's Court yesterday charged with being an accessory. Jones was granted bail, while Madden did not appear yesterday and his case was adjourned for six weeks.

Mr Atkinson yesterday admitted it was his "biggest fear" that the man's death could been prevented had information from the 000 calls been relayed to police. "The person who took the calls is a civilian radio operator . . . who has been in that position for six months," Mr Atkinson said. "He brought the matter to light today when he became aware of the murder charge and related it to the two phone calls he received on Monday night."

An inquiry has been launched by the Ethical Standards Command. "The investigation will focus on the origin, nature and appropriateness of any response to any such call," Mr Atkinson he said. He said a civilian radio operator usually would pass on such information to the duty sergeant at the communications centre. "It's early days yet but it doesn't appear as though that happened," he said. "We have grave concerns that this information that was provided at the time was not acted on." [I'm guessing that the operator brought the matter up because he DID pass the info on to the cops]

SOURCE

More useless police

Emergency calls 'not answered'. It is common in the USA for police to arrive within a couple of minutes of a robbery call, often quickly enough to catch the robbers. That's a dream in Australia

South Australia's Police Minister has ordered a review of the emergency response to an armed hold-up at Torrensville in Adelaide. Witnesses to the robbery at Grech Jewellers on Monday afternoon say they were put on hold for up to 10 minutes when they tried to telephone 000. When shop owner Bruce Bubner heard a gunshot at the jewellery shop, he says he called 000 straight way. But he says he waited eight minutes, then hung up.

"It was worrying that David (jeweller) could have been lying in there waiting for the police to arrive, you know, he could have been injured," he said. "I saw other people on the phone as well and I figured that they had made contact. "As it turns out, when I talked to Theresa at the snack bar, she hadn't made contact either."

Opposition police spokesman David Ridgway says the lack of response is a worry. "The system if it can't cope then it needs to be upgraded or there needs to be a full explanation about why that happened," he said.

Witnesses say police took 20 minutes to arrive. SA Police Minister Michael Wright has ordered a report on the response. "I don't think we should make any assumptions at this stage. What we do know is there was a very high volume and that may have caused the difficulty," he said. Police are searching for the two men armed with a shotgun and a tomahawk who robbed the store.

SOURCE


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Thank you Texas!

Israel National News - A Dallas, Texas court gave stiff sentences to five heads of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a Muslim ‘charity’ that channeled over $12 million to the Hamas terrorist organization. Shukri Abu Baker, 50, and Ghassan Elashi, 55, will each spend the next 65 years behind bars. Another leader sentenced is the brother of Hamas politburo chief in Syria, Khaled Mashaal, according to the Al Arabiya news network.

......Mashaal’s brother, Mufid Abdulqader, received 20 years imprisonment for three charges, including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to provide funds, goods and services to a terrorist, and conspiracy to launder money. Abdulrahman Odeh was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the same charges as Abdulqader. Mohammed El-Mezain was sentenced to 180 months in prison and three years of supervisory release for providing support to Hamas.
Folks, when I read this story, I couldn't believe it, my first reaction was, damn! 65 years! I'll say it again, 65 years! Hats off to Texas, 65 years! I can't believe it, in the rest of the western world, they won't even give you that much for beating and torturing a little toddler to death! The sentence for such a crime is so piss-weak and what's worse, the government in charge will only appeal is after thousands of their constituents complain and shame them into doing the right thing. Even then, the best is a lousy 10 years. Seriously folks, you'd have to kill a lot of people to get 65 years in jail out here, and you'd have to be a really nasty piece of crap too. If you were a rapist or a pedophile, you'd have to rape like 500 people or something, to get that many years.

Not in Texas though, they just threw a bunch of terrorist coddlers into jail for 65 years! Forget trying to change our lousy, useless courts, we'll never get any justice from them. I say we outsource our justice to Texas, it's money well spent I tell ya. Damn, 65 years! Yee-haw!

Those tolerant, welcoming, diverse lefties

FOX News - If you've been booed, hissed, heckled or hollered at ... scathed, scapegoated, scanted or screamed at ... if you're the bane of blue states and a gall to all the Greens ... you may be feeling lonely, but you're certainly not alone. Author Harry Stein has written a book for the elephant in the room. It's called "I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican," and he calls it "a survival guide for conservatives marooned among the angry, smug, and terminally self-righteous."

Which is to say: liberals.

"You deal with a lot of people who pretty much hate your guts" simply because you disagree with them, says Stein, who lives in a suburban liberal enclave a few miles north of Manhattan, which generally shades a deeper blue than the rivers that surround it. ......"I sat down with a bunch of conservatives in San Francisco, (including) a gay man who was talking about what it was like being a gay conservative in San Francisco. He said it's a lot harder being conservative than it is to be gay," Stein told FOXNews.com. "His friends all turned on him."

To avoid that kind of reception, some secret right-wingers take the extra step of pretending to be in lock-step with those around them. One studio executive he interviewed posted Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama signs around his office, depending won which way the political winds were blowing during the presidential campaign. Advertising his actual beliefs would have been deadly, Stein says.

"People out there understand that those positions are really dangerous -- they jeopardize your livelihood. We'll see if I survive the book," he told FOXNews.com. "My car was keyed once already during the campaign (because of a bumper sticker), so we have contingency plans for hiding it over the next few months."

Yeah, they like to bray about tolerance and diversity, but that's just lies and bull, a clever facade used to deceive the public. At heart lefties are cowards, bullies, racist and are intolerant and fascist ratbags if you ask me.

Obama's SCOTUS nominee

Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, "has an inflated opinion of herself" and is "kind of a bully on the bench."

That view doesn't come from a conservative -- it's the view expressed by a former clerk for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where Sotomayor now serves, to Jeffrey Rosen, legal affairs editor for The New Republic. The New Republic is a decidedly liberal publication -- but the magazine published a harsh portrait of the new Obama nominee three weeks ago, when she was being mentioned as a contender for the Court post.

Rosen's article, headlined "The Case Against Sotomayor," also noted that he had spoken to a range of people who have worked with Sotomayor. Rosen wrote: "Most are Democrats and all of them want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber who has the potential to change the direction of the court.

"Nearly all of them acknowledged that Sotomayor is a presumptive front-runner, but nearly none of them raved about her. They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative.

"The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was 'not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench,' as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. 'She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue.'"

Rosen added: "Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees."

Even Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald, who defends Sotomayor, cites some of her less-than-praiseworthy behavior in court. Greenwald writes that he remembers, "... she was very assertive and aggressive - at times unpleasantly so - in how she presided over her courtroom. "In the first case I had with her ... I committed some sort of substantial procedural mistake ... and she very harshly excoriated me in a courtroom packed with lawyers from other cases. I certainly did not enjoy that, and at the time harbored negative sentiments towards her (who wouldn't?), but that behavior - for judges - is the opposite of uncommon."

The most controversial case in which Sotomayor participated as an appellate judge is Ricci v. DeStefano. She sided with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case that white firefighters brought after the city threw out results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Must not mention an Hispanic background?



An Hispanic businessman who was hired to run Australia's biggest telecoms company and who walked away from the job that had paid him over $30 million in four years is still not happy:
"After slipping out of Australia ahead of his June 30 resignation date and just days after boasting of his achievements at Telstra at a conference in San Diego, Mr Trujillo told the BBC that being in Australia was like "stepping back in time''.

In the BBC interview, the American claimed Australians were racist, including Kevin Rudd, who greeted news of Mr Trujillo's departure with the word, "adios''.

"Many Australians have come up to me and they've apologised, because they're embarrassed by that kind of behaviour,'' Mr Trujillo, who talks proudly of his Hispanic heritage, told the BBC in the interview.

But Mr Brumby said he did not accept Mr Trujillo's comments. "I think there was a bit of sour grapes in them actually,'' he said. "He's an example, he came here from overseas and he had a great job, he was awarded that job, there was no discrimination or prejudice against him. I don't know what he's talking about frankly.''

Telstra shares performed woefully during Mr Trujillo's four-year reign. From the day of his appointment in mid-2005 to his departure this month - before the end of his five-year "transformation'' plan - Telstra shares underperformed the wider market by about 20 per cent.

During his time in Australia, media commentators and cartoonists repeatedly made reference to Mr Trujillo's Hispanic background. The gang of American executives he recruited to work at Telstra, who have all returned to the US, were referred to as Mr Trujillo's "amigos''.

But Mr Brumby insisted people from all walks of life were accepted and welcomed into Victoria, where Telstra is based, and Australia. "I couldn't agree with his comments at all. Our country is the multicultural capital of the world. In our state we've got 44 per cent of our population born overseas, or one of their parents overseas. We are the land of opportunity.''

A spokeswoman for Mr Rudd told the ABC that Mr Trujillo's statements were "ridiculous comments which will disappoint Australians who welcomed him to this country".

Source

Australia is said to be second only to Israel for the percentage of the population not born in the country so Senor Trujillo is talking through his anal orifice. If he himself was treated badly in any way, that does not reflect how Australians treat immigrants generally.

He ran the company in a way that gave offence to just about everybody (including me) so I imagine that some of the people he angered might have called him a "wog" or the like in the heat of the moment but he was in a position of power when few of his critics were -- so people do tend to get back at arrogant people in power however they can.

Other commentators also trace Senor Trujillo's gripes to his own personal failures. And there are some details here of the appalling treatment Australian phone users got from Mr Trujillo. Another writer points out that Senor Trujillo made some racial slurs of his own. The cartoonists have been having fun with Senor Trujillo too. An example below:



Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Ocean, Sky and Khaki.

A few bloggers get together and suddenly a new blog is born. I didn't even know we were expecting!

Ocean, Sky and Khaki is a blog set up to help support Australian military forces serving away from home, particularly those overseas, with things like care parcels and information on what to put in them and where to send them.

Kae, Boy and I want OSK to be a point of reference and meeting for those who wish to support Australia's Military and for members to contact us to let us know what to put in those care packages to make their lives alittle easier.

If anyone has any links or ideas for the blog please let us know at OSK.

Blurb shamelessly ripped from Kae.

Obamanomics - How to Run a Car Company

Obama's bailout of the auto industry in the US has been a contorversial topic. The President with almost no government experience and even less business accument except for his disdain for capitalism, is taking a forceful hands on approach. Trying to mandate green cars and dictate that end of SUVs even if they are the only money making product. With Crysler Obama is demanding drastic changes but are the changes meant to save a troubled company or is there another purpose.

Recently, Crysler has announced the closing of 25% of its dealerships. Too many dealers with not enough clientel, or so they said. Almost immediately Many dealers began to point out that they were a profit and doing just fine. Further, Chrysler's profitability is only indirect ties to the dealerships which operate as independant franchises. So, what's going on?

Well, a preliminary review of the closure list revieled that they predominantly donated to Republican political causes. Only one dealer donated to Obama, and then only $200. Source.

An employee of one of the dealerships wrote:

this isn't just Chrysler's decision. They were forced into bankruptcy by President Obama. When Chrysler emerges from bankruptcy the Federal Government will be a junior partner in the new Chrysler. This is SOCIALISM! Wake up people! This isn't about business it's about politics and control. My dealership is in the top 125 out of the 3500 plus dealerships nationwide...yet we are on the list. We are not small nor are we rural. We are in a large major metropolitan area. Our new vehicle inventory alone is well over $4.0 million. Is that small? Secondly, Chrysler is already "shopping" for dealers to take over the open "points" (another name for franchise) left by the closed dealerships. Source.

Further, it's being reported by Reuters that one of the attorneys representing some of the dealerships who deposed Chrysler president Jim Press, claimed that Chrysler did not supplier the recovery plan and stated the following:

"It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom
of terminating 25 percent of its dealers," Bellavia said. "It
really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous
pressure from the President's automotive task force."

This is certainly disturbing if true. The Obama administration would be forcing bad decisions on American businesses soley for political vengence. Further, if Obama is closing down profitable dealership and then turn around and sell the franchise to someone else, it would be an illegal taking under the US Constitution. So, we may be witnessing bad economic policies accompanied by political bias, disrespect for the law, loss of personal freedom, that will result in further growth of govenment power at the expense of the people.

"Prodos", global warming and the CIS

"Prodos" is a flamboyant Melbourne libertarian of Greek extraction who has done some good work in publicizing libertarian ideas but who is in my view a bit too sensationalist for me to take much notice of. For that reason, I don't think I have ever linked to any of his writings. On his occasional blog, however, he has recently put up an attack on Greg Lindsay, head of the Sydney-based "Centre for Independent Studies" claiming that Greg is a supporter of global warming. Greg is an old friend of mine and I was one of the first donors to CIS so when Gerry Jackson of Brookes News sent me a link to the Prodos article, I immediately emailed Greg expressing amazement that he had fallen for such humbug.

Greg emailed back noting that he has NEVER personally taken any position at all on global warming but referred me to a post on the subject by John Humphreys, which in turn links to his CIS monograph on the subject.

The work of CIS is to offer scholarly contributions to public policy debates from a free-market viewpoint and CIS publications often get respectful mentions in the press. And on this occasion, Humphreys took as a starting point the apparent intention of both major Australian political parties to implement global warming laws of some sort. From that point he set out to argue for the least harmful set of laws that could be adopted.

And that is what Prodos objects to. He thinks that CIS should just oppose all global warming laws and thus have no influence on what laws are adopted. I think Prodos's ego has run away with him. He thinks that his own approach is the only defensible one, whereas it is my view that you are more likely to defeat the enemy if you attack him from all sides. And the currently-proposed Warmist laws would certainly be a major enemy of Australia's prosperity. So I welcome the CIS approach and deplore the narrow-minded hostility of Prodos towards an organization that is much more influential than he is. And putting a picture of Greg Lindsay at the top of his post when Greg has never said a word in public about the subject is just plain dishonest.

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Socialist weasels and their bullsh*t

Ninemsn - The government's growing debt burden will be repaid by 2022, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says. On Monday, Mr Rudd had told parliament that by 2020 there would be a net debt liability of $75 billion. Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull asked on Tuesday when that debt would be paid off. "I am advised by the Treasury within about two years of that time," Mr Rudd said.
Oh look, those bastards in the media who helped to elect the socialist weasel have climbed out of his rectum temporarily to tell us, not to worry sheeple, our socialist pimp will pay off your debt by the year 2020, go back to sleep sheeple, it'll all be fine, vote Labor, working families, your rights at work etc, etc.

Only a few days ago the socialist weasel masquerading as the prime minister of this country was whining like a petulant turd that the previous conservative government didn't leave enough of a surplus for him to piss away at the first sign of trouble. And now the socialist weasel promises us that the debt will be paid off in 13 years. Only an arrogant socialist weasel has the gall to expect us to believe that this socialist weasel and his fellow parasites will still be around in 13 years to answer when, as expected, they push and shove this fine country even further down the bloody toilet.

I'll tell you one thing though, they won't be in government in 13 years and the debt this socialist weasel created for us (not him) will still be around but, like death, disease and taxes, the socialist weasel and his current gang of worthless parasites will still be suckling at our taxes long into their soft, fat retirement years.

Heavens above, I'm praying that Australia doesn't go down the same road as New Zealand where the life was sucked out of their nation by that leftist scumbag Helen Clarke for over a decade. Please, please wake up Australia and put the boot into the socialist weasel before it's too late.

Why oh why do a few Jews make it hard for Jews generally??

Once again I am going to go out on a limb and half cut off the branch behind me. But I seem to be one of the few who is ready to speak the unspeakable so I think I should take up that burden again.





Jews are overall exceptionally generous givers. They donate large amounts to charities and to causes that they see as worthy. I gather that around 50% of the funding for Mr Obama's election campaign came from Jews, despite the fact that Jews are only a small fraction of the U.S. population. You may question the wisdom of those donations (I do) but you cannot fault the generosity of them.

Sadly, however, that is good news and one look at any newspaper will tell you that it is bad news that people are interested in and take note of. And bad news about Jews will, sadly, be particularly noted. Jews are just too prominent in the community for it to be otherwise. And one set of foul deeds can negate a large set of good deeds.

So I come to Mr Anthony Steen (Stein) above. He is one of Britain's most well-known Jews. He has been a member of parliament since 1974 and in that time has served on many public bodies. His appalling behaviour has been noted on several occasions -- abusing a secretary who did not know who he was, parking his car in disabled zones etc. And he has always been impenitent about his misdeeds, though an apology usually gets forced out of him eventually.

In his latest performance he has however excelled himself. He is one of the many British politicians who have been caught up in the scandal of misused personal expense allowances. Most of those caught have shown embarrassment and been penitent to some degree but Steen was at his most impenitent when he was confronted and refused to admit to any wrongdoing at all. You can read the whole sorry story here. Rather than admitting any fault for his large and improper expenses claims, he went on the attack and said that his critics were just jealous of his large house -- which of course put pictures of his house into most British newspapers. See above.

It is hard to convey how offensive all that would have been to most Brits. The British are characterized by a self-effacing culture. If you inadvertently tread on a British man's foot, HE will usually apologize, despite being the injured party. Arrogance, ostentation and boasting are about as un-British as you can get. And yet here is a well-known Jew flaunting all those characteristics in public.

Perhaps there are occasions when that would not matter but Britain now is not one of them. Antisemitism has in recent years become acceptable in conversations among Britain's educated classes. And Steen will be seen as a graphic confirmation of all those opinions.

To be a Jew is to be in the public eye and given all the accusations that have been levelled at Jews over the years, people will be alert to bad Jewish behaviour. It may not be entirely rational but that is the way it is. One foul man can destroy the good work of thousands. It is the bad news that will be noted, not the good.

The only reason I am writing this at all is that I am aware that there is a certain cohesion among the Jewish community in a given area. If they do not see one another at shul, they see one-another at charitable functions etc. And it is my probably vain hope that the wiser members of such communities will press other Jews to avoid public displays of arrogance and ostentation. Perhaps that already happens to some degree but I think it should be carried to the point of shunning any offenders who do not reform. That way, if someone like Anthony Steen comes to public notice again, members of the local Jewish community can say: "We do not recognize him as one of us. We deplore his behaviour as much as you do".

That could be a big help.

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

HATING CLARE WERBELOFF



Clare Werbeloff, the girl who claimed to have witnessed a minor shooting in Sydney's nightclub district and used the word "wog" in the course of her decsription of it has now said that she made it all up and did not witness the shooting at all. She retracted as soon as the police asked her to make a statement. The retraction may however have been because she did not want to get involved in any litigation. Her description had many hallmarks of accuracy.

Her retraction does however seem to have unleashed a remarkable wave of hatred against her:
"Across Facebook, sites are popping up attacking Clare for being racist over her "wog" remarks, and she has been described as a bitch, liar and a moron and with plenty of people saying they want to "Chk Chk Boom" her.

People are saying they would like to take her on, see her get smashed and that she makes them ashamed that this could have happened in Australia...

"The Clare Werbeloff is a liar and a moron" Facebook page had one woman Louise ask: "Why the f*** does my country worship idiots like this? It makes me really sad." Other comments on the site included:

* I agree with all the girls who want to smash her bimbo head in

* I would love to take this bitch on one on one. Aussie vs Aussie racist bitch... Whose out to watch it!!!!

* Clare, i hope you can see this, cause i would love you to know what an absolute f***head i think you are!!!!!!!

* WHITE TRASH... Hope she cops s*** over it now!!

Source

The hatred certainly does no credit to the haters. They display far more hatred in what they say than she ever displayed in what she said. The usual Leftist pattern, of course.

I am rather pleased to see one Sydney newspaper blogger satirizing the haters.


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

Hussein furthers his baby-killing agenda

LifeNews - In a new national survey conducted by the Polling Company for the pro-life organization Americans United for Life, a majority of Americans say they know someone who has had an abortion. A majority of those surveyed also believe that abortion hurts women.
Well that's really swell and all that, but pity enough didn't vote for the other guy back when the election was on. Also remember how Hussein was calling for tolerance and understanding from all sides on murdering the unborn? I'm sure he would have said that he cares for the views of all Americans, well that was then, this is now and the truth is Hussein doesn't give a damn.
LifeNews - President Barack Obama is expected to name his replacement for retiring pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice David Souter. When he makes his nomination, which could come as early as Tuesday, pro-abortion 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge Diane Wood has become the front-runner. Wood is one of several pro-abortion judges or political figures observers have placed on Obama's likely short list of candidates. Over the weekend, she appeared to rise to the top of the list.
Her record on abortion, just like Hussein's, should concern those of us who believe that the unborn need to be protected. They might waffle on about rights and how they're concerned, but the reality is much further from the bile they spout.
......Wood ruled against bans on partial-birth abortion in cases involving legislation from Wisconsin and Illinois. She joined the federal court in ruling that Wisconsin's law was unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's first ruling on partial-birth abortions in 2000. Judge Wood also ruled in favor of abortion advocates by allowing them to misuse the RICO law designed to control mob activities to sue pro-life protesters. ......Finally, Wood wrote a dissent in a case concerning an Indiana law requiring counseling and informed consent prior to an abortion.
Yeah, and Hussein is going to lower the number of abortions folks, if you believe that shit, you'll believe anything. And to think Christians actually voted for this fellow. And as for that university that recently polished his ass with some now-worthless degree, all I can say is that, from my understanding of the Lord, he gets really pissed off when those who profess to lead his flock, lead them astray and coddle even those who support the killing of almost-born babies.

Another police goon: This time in Melbourne

Teen boy 'taped policeman's baton threat'

A 14-YEAR-OLD boy says he used his mobile phone to secretly record a police officer's threat to assault him with a baton. The boy said he was intimidated by Leading Senior Constable Matthew Lake, who he said threatened to shove a baton up his backside. The officer has been put on alternative duties while the Ethical Standards Department investigates.

The 20-minute one-on-one interview - over an accusation the boy pushed a younger child off his bike and punched him repeatedly - was at Narre Warren station last Thursday. According to a tape heard by the Herald Sun, Sen-Constable Lake warned he'd circulate the boy's photo to other police so they could harass him.

The boy said the officer also waved a baton at him during repeated threats. He said that when Sen-Constable Lake left the interview room at one point, he turned on his mobile phone recorder. On his return, Sen-Constable Lake advised the boy anything he said could be used as evidence in court.

He then asked if the boy wanted the matter to end in court. Recorded was this comment: "If I hear one more complaint . . . about your behaviour, I'll shove this thing so far up your a***. . . you won't know what day it is."

The boy was eventually given a warning; on leaving, he told his mother he had been threatened. She phoned Sen-Constable Lake, told him the interview had been recorded, then taped several heated conversations with the officer. The registered nurse said he tried to calm her, apologising and explaining he was trying to teach her son a lesson and handled it the "wrong way".

She said she was not permitted to sit with her son during the interview, which is against police regulations when dealing with a child. "The more I listen to it, the more angry I get. I feel terrible I didn't go into that room," she said. "I said 'Don't be rough with him'. When my son got out of there he was pale. He couldn't breathe." She said her son suffered an asthma attack soon afterward and had to be put on a ventilator pump. The next day he was prescribed sedatives because he could not sleep.

She said she would seek legal advice over the unprofessional and damaging conduct. "I feel abused," the boy said. "He's a big guy. He stood over me . . . he had a baton and I thought he was going to hit me. He was waving it in my face."

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here

New boatload of "asylum seekers" stokes island tensions

AUTHORITIES on Christmas Island were yesterday preparing to process a boatload of 73 suspected asylum seekers - the 20th arrival since September - fuelling tensions among local residents over food shortages exacerbated by the island's swelling population. The boat was intercepted off Ashmore Island at 7am yesterday, as new figures were released showing the number of skilled overseas workers coming to Australia on temporary 457 visas had plunged to its lowest level in four years.

Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus did not give details of where the passengers and four crew were from. They are due on Christmas Island by the end of the week.

The flood of asylum seekers has swollen the island's population by almost 60 per cent forcing the Department of Immigration to employ a community liaison officer to ease ongoing tensions on the tiny territory. Immigration officials were confronted for more than two hours at a community meeting last week by about 150 angry residents demanding to know how the Rudd Government intended to ease pressure on the resources of the small island, whose population of 1200 regularly endures supply shortages as a result of late shipments from Perth.

There are currently 464 detainees on Christmas Island and 226 immigration workers, contractors and service providers. The presence of the fly-in, fly-out workforce - many of whom have a daily allowance of about $80 for food on top of their wage - has led to recriminations over scarce and expensive fruit at the local store. Fresh food flown in from Perth is many times more expensive than in mainland stores - one man claimed last week to have paid $21 for three capsicums.

Some residents have grown resentful that the 29 asylum seekers living in community detention on the island are able to buy fruit on store credit provided by the department. The department moved quickly to squash rumours that asylum seekers were living on unlimited credit. It issued detailed information showing a family of four asylum seekers on Christmas Island would receive $766 in store credit each fortnight and $300 cash. [Over $500 per week for free!]

SOURCE


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Roast lamb threatens the planet


Tomatoes too! And don't mention booze! But Coca Cola and chocolate are OK. All of which shows what absurdities you end up with when you start from silly assumptions



GIVE up lamb roasts and save the planet. Government advisers are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting out "high carbon" food such as meat from sheep, whose burping poses a serious threat to the environment. Out will go kebabs, greenhouse tomatoes and alcohol. Instead, diners will be encouraged to consume more potatoes and seasonal vegetables, as well as pork and chicken, which generate fewer carbon emissions.


"Changing our lifestyles, including our diets, is going to be one of the crucial elements in cutting carbon emissions," said David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change. Kennedy has stopped eating his favourite doner kebabs because they contain lamb. A government-sponsored study into greenhouse gases found that producing 2.2lb of lamb released the equivalent of 37lb of carbon dioxide.

The problem is because sheep burp so much methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Cows are only slightly better behaved. The production of 2.2lb of beef releases methane equivalent to 35lb of CO2 Tomatoes, most of which are grown in heated glasshouses, are the most "carbon-intensive" vegetable, each 2.2lb generating more than 20lb of CO2 Potatoes, in contrast, release only about 1lb of CO2 for each 2.2lb of food. The figures are similar for most other native fruit and vegetables.

"We are not saying that everyone should become vegetarian or give up drinking but moving towards less carbon intensive foods will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve health," said Kennedy.

The climate committee is analysing emissions from farming and will suggest measures to reduce them. However, it has concluded that people will have to change their habits.

Alcoholic drinks are another significant contributory factor, with the growing and processing of crops such as hops and malt into beer and whisky helping to generate 1.5% of the nation's greenhouse gases.

The Carbon Trust, a government-funded firm, is working with food and drink companies to calculate the "carbon footprints" of products - sometimes with surprising results. Coca-Cola, for example, generates only about half the greenhouse gas emissions of Innocent's "smoothies". Cadbury's chocolate generates about 4«lb of CO2 for every 2.2lb eaten - less than half that from the same weight of chicken.

SOURCE


Posted by John Ray. 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 (John Ray) here