Kevin Rudd has taken on his arch-rival Tony Abbott on a heavenly question - whose saintly namesake is the best?At a dinner in Brisbane to mark St Patrick's Day, attended by both leaders, the Prime Minister jokingly contrasted his namesake - St Kevin of Glendalough - with Italy's St Anthony.
Mr Abbott (said) "...the PM is trying to be more Queensland and more catholic then he really is."
Sticking to the Irish-Catholic theme, Mr Abbott joked that Archbishop John Bathersby said that Mary Mackillop's second miracle was to bring him as leader of the opposition.
Can you both step into the 21st century, please?
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Last night, Abbott also attempted to unleash on prime minister Kevin Rudd.Abbott will stick to "all hat and no cowboy". He won't allow himself to be seen comparing Rudd to Bush. Ever."It is pretty clear he is a guy who is all announcement and no follow through. He is, to coin a phrase, 'All Hat And No Cowboy'."Abbott didn't coin the phrase. It's been in common usage in Texas for decades :"It is not a compliment in West Texas to be referred to as 'All hat and no cowboy'. It is a term of derision used to indicate the person has little real character beneath the very thin veneer of appearance."It's a good line, but it doesn't sound very Australian.
There is argument that the correct West Texas historical phrase is actually "All Hat, No Cattle", which certainly sounds more local.
Or perhaps Abbott knows this phrase, too, and decided not to use it to attack Rudd, because it has been popularly attached to George W. Bush since the late 1990s.
"....the internet has made it possible for people to express that hate before their better instincts kick in, before the instant rush of blood to the head dissipates and is forgotten. Their primal viciousness is captured and congealed in digital form."It sure is. Miranda Devine, February 12, 2009 :
If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.Miranda Devine, December 2006 :
When commentators describe the deteriorating situation in Iraq as "satisfying" because it gives them an opportunity to score a point against rivals who supported the 2003 invasion, they reveal an addiction to Schadenfreude so profound it has alienated them from moral reality.When challenged, Devine could not produce one example of any commentator, in Australia or elsewhere, stating they found car bombings in Iraq "satisfying".
"....as much as we will miss their avocados and bananas on our supermarket shelves, we can live without their whingeing."Primal viciousness, indeed.
"The media hasn't been good at picking these things up and it's really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical.The Full Interview Is Here
"And I brought in as well in that vain what's been going on in climate change where there's been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead.
"I think the ABC has probably been more balanced than most in the mainstream media. I think that we've listened to the words of sceptics as well as those who are scientists in the field.
"But climate change is at the moment an emotional issue but it really is the fundamental issue about the need to bring voices that have authority and are relevant to the particular issue to the attention of our audiences so that they themselves can make decisions. So that we are seen to trust and respect them sufficiently that they can make up their own minds about the various points of view that are being expressed through the medium of the ABC.
"....I still have an open mind on climate change, I have an open mind on a whole range of issues because I think that to have a closed mind leaves you in a position where if you take a strong stance you are likely to be wrong-footed.
"I think that what seems fairly clear to me is that the climate science is still being developed. There are a lot question marks about some of the fundamental data which has been used to build models that requires caution."
With just one speech, the ABC’s chairman has returned the national broadcaster to the days of having a politically interventionist board running a culture wars agenda — and he has done it by trashing the editorial independence of some of this country’s finest journalists.
"Has she bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?"I predicted it would be a month or more before Australia's conservative media elite began claiming that Julia Gillard is planning to, or is "set to challenge", prime minister Kevin Rudd for the leadership of the Liberal Party. I was wrong.
Do you or do you not "totally trust partner with shared finances"?Well, you have to consider that the story was written by Joe Hildebrand.
"I'm dead against paid maternity leave as a compulsory thing. I think that making businesses pay what seems to them two wages to get one worker are, almost nothing could be more calculated to make businesses feel that the odds are stacked against them."Tony Abbott, last night on Lateline, stacks the odds :
"If we are gonna have a comprehensive paid parental leave scheme any time soon, the fairest way to do it is for it to be a cost on business, and the fairest way to make it a cost on business is to ask larger businesses, the businesses that have the greatest capacity to pay, the businesses that have suffered least through the global financial crisis, they're the people who can best bear it."Tony Abbott wants big business to share the wealth around, in particular to single-income families?
"(Compulsory paid maternity leave) is pro-family, it's pro-child, it's pro-mother, and in the end, it's gonna produce a much stronger economy, because if we look after mothers in the workforce, we'll have more kids, and there is no greater contribution to the future economic strength of Australia than the kids we have now."Well, kids, and coal.
TONY ABBOTT: ....I'm fully aware of that quote, Leigh. I have changed my mind.
LEIGH SALES: I'm sure you are. Our viewers ...
TONY ABBOTT: And isn't it a good thing to change your mind as your understanding grows?
LEIGH SALES: That is quite a change of heart.
TONY ABBOTT: Yeah, no, look, I accept that.He wants big business to pick up the tab for his daughters' maternity leave.
LEIGH SALES: So what's brought it about?
TONY ABBOTT: Well, what's brought it about is deeper understanding of the practical difficulties of women who are trying to juggle families and careers. We should not ...
LEIGH SALES: And how have you come to that deeper understanding?
TONY ABBOTT: By, I suppose, being more conscious of the burdens that friends and family members are carrying and of thinking more deeply about the sorts of choices that I would like to be available for my own daughters.
"It is pretty clear he is a guy who is all announcement and no follow through. He is, t coin a phrase, 'All Hat And No Cowboy'."Abbott didn't coin the phrase. It's been in common usage in Texas for decades :
"It is not a compliment in West Texas to be referred to as 'All hat and no cowboy'. It is a term of derision used to indicate the person has little real character beneath the very thin veneer of appearance."It's a good line, but it doesn't sound very Australian.
I was there having coffee, the sky turned grey within seconds. Withinsecond, hail storm. Within 3 minutes, the street has gone chaos. It was a wave pool and flying branches and bins.Melbourne's Flinders Street, a few minutes after storm clouds appeared :
And it isn't over yet.The storm become curiouser and curiouser for Clemence Harvey, of South Yarra, who was watching the new Alice in Wonderland film with her 13-year-old in a packed theatre at the Jam Factory when water started pouring in front of the screen.
"Water started pouring through the ceiling and a torrent of water was pouring right in front of the screen, then they put a very large bucket down."
"Jones and I aren't alone among conservatives for falling for a politician whose choice of books now suggests she's readying to take over from the increasingly friendless Kevin Rudd."She's already challenging Kevin Rudd for leadership of the Labor Party? Scoop!
"Watch your back Kevin."
"So while we love challenger Gillard now...."
"I fear this love for La Gillard may well end in tears, like Act 5 of Romeo and Juliet itself."Julia Gillard will appear one day to be dead, and Australian conservative journalists will commit suicide and then Gillard will wake up from her sleep to find them all dead and then kill herself out of intolerable grief and loss?
Has (Julia Gillard) bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?Weirdo.
His personal website reveals a man with bower-bird interests. These ranged from an obsession with suicide rates in the United States, Japan, Britain and Australia, the writings of Japanese Kamikaze pilots, Quebec's suicide ''hot spot'', ''suicide clubs'', The Complete Manual on Suicide to holocaust scenarios of nuclear attack, chemical poisoning, terrorist attacks and extensive works on the morality of war.That's a bit thin to label someone having a Dark Side, isn't it? Bit weird, perhaps, but what if most of it is related to his research?
A factory worker claims that during an official visit to his plant the PM hurled a tangerine into a laminating machine after flying into a rage while on a phone call. He said: "The fruit got stuck in the machine and clogged it.
"It was very embarrassing, we had to stop the tour and he got even more angry. He called the person that gave him the tangerine an idiot."
"Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere.
"I haven't lost my marbles. Thank god it didn't rain crocodiles."
I would go see that movie. As long as the rain of crocodiles fell over a city.
Lajamanu is the town where the fish fell from the sky. It sits on the edge of a desert, hundreds of kilometres from lakes, or the coast.
Even more bizarrely, rains of fish fell on Lajamanu in 2004, and in 1974.
A weather forecaster told The Northern Territory News that a tornado could have been responsible, but there were none in the area on the days the rain of fish occurred.
This story is now being picked up by the Drudge Report, Reddit, Digg, thousands of bloggers and the news wires. The Northern Territory News has found its clickbait tale of the year.
Mr Garrett has always struggled with the impossible task of melding mainstream political reality with the strong conservation and human rights views he espoused as lead singer of the Oils.Glenn Milne is now doing fashion reviews :
A barefoot and dejected Peter Garrett yesterday insisted he would stay on in politics, despite being demoted for his role in the $2.5 billion home insulation fiasco.Unlike Mr Milne, who presumably, Frank Drebin-like, changes into a more comfortable business suit on a Saturday morning before taking the dog outside to drop a load.The Environment Protection Minister was photographed outside his Randwick home in Sydney, looking miserable and dressed down in tracksuit pants and a grey T-shirt.
History's largest recorded earthquake, magnitude 9.5, struck Chile in 1960. More than 6000 people died.Possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore floodingAnd probably the most important piece of advice :
for several hours from 08:15 am [EST] Sunday.
Sea level observations HAVE confirmed a tsunami has been generated.
Tsunami waves are more powerful than the same size beach waves, with the first
wave not always the largest. First tsunami effects are expected as follows:
Coolangatta after 08:15 am [EST] Sunday
Maroochydore after 09:00 am [EST] Sunday
Brisbane after 09:15 am [EST] Sunday
And the most important piece of advice :Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami. Check that your
neighbours have received this advice.
"SEA LEVEL READINGS CONFIRM THAT A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED WHICH COULD CAUSE WIDESPREAD DAMAGE. AUTHORITIES SHOULD TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THIS THREAT."* (11.04pm Syd) Evacuations under way on Easter Island, tsunami to hit within an hour.
WHEN NO MAJOR WAVES ARE OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS AFTER THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT OCCURRED FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS THEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE THREAT IS PASSED. DANGER TO BOATS AND COASTAL STRUCTURES CAN CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS DUE TO RAPID CURRENTS. AS LOCAL CONDITIONS CAN CAUSE A WIDE VARIATION IN TSUNAMI WAVE ACTION THE ALL CLEAR DETERMINATION MUST BE MADE BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.
Threatened areas extend from Broken Bay to Point Danger.
Possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding
for several hours from 08:45 am [EDT] Sunday.
Further south from about 8am Sunday for coastal areas from Broken Bay to Gabo
Island, there are likely to be unusual currents and tides during Sunday.
At this stage, those areas, including the coast and bays around Sydney Harbour,
are not considered to be under threat of significant tsunami effects.
1. Stay off beaches* (12.44am) If you're an Australian with relatives in Chile, you can get updates from the Department of Foreign Affairs on hotline : 1800 002 2142. Stay out of the water (sea, rivers and estuaries, including boating activities)3. Do not go sightseeing4. Share this information with family, neighbours and friends5. Listen to the radio and/or TV for updates6. Follow instructions of your local Civil Defence authorities.
"I am weeping tears of patriotism."I tried to explain to him the claims that tinfoil can protect against remote mind surveillance are actually part of the mind control conspiracy, and that tin foil instead helps to focus and increase the power of mind-invading psychotronic weapons.
"Racism only exists towards oppressed white men like me."
"The ABC took my chair. What next? Are they going to take my pants?"
"There's a black van over the road from my house. The ABC are spying on me! This tinfoil headgear will protect my thoughts."
"Bet you don't know what I'm thinking now, Tony Jones. Kerry O'Brien, go and invade someone else's mind."
"Pulled down office blinds so ABC helicopters can't spy. Turned off lights. Kerry O'Brien has X-ray vision...."
"Protection from thought control is doubled if I wrap my body in tinfoil..."
Were those Australian passports issued recently, or, more likely, between 1997 and 2002?Police have 15 more suspects in the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, including three who were allegedly travelling on Australian passports, CNN reported last night.
The network reported police as saying that among the new suspects are six more people who are accused of using British passports in the commission of the crime, four others using Irish passports, two other French passport holders and three people, including a woman, travelling on Australian passports.
The Department of Foreign Affairs was unavailable for comment last night.
HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: Labor says more than 2000 Australian passports went missing between 1997 and 2002 when the Government dropped requirements for them to be sent out by certified mail. The trade in counterfeit identification is big business and in high demand. In the last year police broke up two major fake identity scams in NSW alone. A national identity card to bring uniformity to the identification process which currently differs from state to state has been proposed as an additional way of fighting ID fraud.The incredible fact that thousands of Australian passports went missing back then was quickly hosed down by the Howard government.
"The fact they've gone missing doesn't mean they've ended up in the hands of crooks who've been using those passports," he said.
"I think you'll find that if there is any passport that has gone missing and the person you send it to hasn't received the passport, the probability is around 100 per cent that they would report that and then you can obviously cancel that passport.
"I mean, it's not a major problem."Will the Rudd government make as big a deal of all those missing passports now, as they did back in 2005?
"...any state which has been complicit in the abuse of the Australian passport system is treating Australia with contempt."For now at least, Dubai is claiming the passports are not forgeries.
"the absurdly confected outrage"I thought that was the title of his new easy listening radio show.
"To sport, and there are some pretty weird events in the Olympics. Look at curling in Vancouver right now, a sport you actually play with a broom.I guess it depends if the winner is decided on points, or tips.
"But what about pole-dancing?"
"....in the old days pole-dancing was pretty much reserved for nightclubs. Pretty seedy nightclubs.
"Is (pole-dancing) any more weird than prancing around with a ribbon or a ball?"
"(GNW) producers volunteered the seven comedy quiz questions to the Prime Minister in advance...'I wonder what would have happened had they changed those questions on the night, without letting Rudd or his people know?
We Are LegionA Roman Legion :
...Australia has changed its Anglo-Irish characteristics for a nation drawn from all corners of the earth, this amazing diversity is celebrated (at this school)....The Rest Is Here
In congratulating all school leavers, I urge you to remember success in life does not necessarily come from prizes. What is important is the person you are, the kindness you express, the compassion you feel and the courage you show. Go into the world and relinquish the safety of silence and make trouble - remembering that the most important trouble is calling to account those who assume power over our lives.
"...you really should read an article before commenting on it. Unless you have an intellectual disability, and are incapable of understanding plain English."UPDATE : I have contacted the online Daily Telegraph's editor, Kathy Lipari, to find out why she thinks it is appropriate that a Daily Telegraph columnist can claim that intellectually disabled people are "incapable of understanding plain English."
....the laptops issued to high-school students....have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families.Don't panic. Yet. This story is about an extremely creepy laptops-for-students program in Philadelphia.
