Andrew Bolt's Blog, page 1912
December 21, 2010
Assange is just a naughty boy
Brendan O'Neill on the Left's embarrassing creation of a cult around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the bringer of "truth":
Strikingly, it shows how utterly degraded the idea of truth has become. In celebrating Assange as a "truth teller", as a prophet of truth, as a being who has arrived to "deliver humanity the truth", the WikiLeaks worshippers are reverting to a pre-Enlightenment view of truth, to a view of truth as something that is revealed to us by powerful entities rather than as something we discover through political engagement, public debate and critical thinking.
This is truth as a religious-style revelation rather than truth as the endpoint of thoughtful interrogation. It reduces us to passive beings waiting to have our eyes opened and our heads filled by the heroic truth-revealer Assange.
UPDATE
Do you think Assange is even aware of the hypocrisy revealed in the juxtaposing of these two paragraphs in the same report?
In his first UK newspaper interview since releasing hundreds of secret diplomatic cables last month, Mr Assange told The Times he predicts the US will face reprisals if it attempts to extradite him on conspiracy charges.,,
Speaking from the English mansion where he is confined on bail, the 39-year-old Australian said that the decision to publish incriminating police files about him was "disgusting". in Sweden.
Me, Joan and my fantasy fulfilled
I've finally realised one of most cherished goals in journalism - to write the diary for the Spectator. It's in the Christmas edition, and not on line, so you'll have to buy the magazine if you're interested. It's the one with cover that advertises a line-up I've never had dreamed would be bracketed together: "Andrew Bolt, Joan Collins, Mark Latham".
I can retire fulfilled. My cup overflows.
Tips fpr Wednesday, December 22
Tell us the news here.
I'll be on MTR 1377 from 8am (listen here).
And for Christmas:
But more seriously:
And more familiarly, and so wonderfully sung:
I'm guessing not a single one
So how many people have been sacked over this disgusting farce?
Power prices rise, just for a green piece of paper
Green hysteria costs us more and more - and what do these green schemes actually achieve?
About 370,000 AGL electricity customers will be the first hit. From next week a 3.8 per cent increase in charges will push up customers' annual bills by $54.
It's the first case of a NSW provider jacking up charges to recoup the cost of buying small-scale technology certificates, or STCs, which the Federal Government is introducing to help fund a shift towards green energy…
The other 10 NSW retailers will follow, most likely in July… In other states another 19 million certificates will need to be purchased, bringing the total to $1.12 billion next year alone.
An STC is created for every megawatt hour of electricity generated by small-scale technologies such as solar water heaters, household photovoltaic systems and small-scale wind and hydro power systems.
UPDATE
Yet another disastrous green scheme bites the dust, with the Gillard Government spending $30 million to fix what it spent millions in breaking:
THE Gillard government has pulled the plug on the troubled Green Loans program and its proposed Green Start successor scheme.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said $30 million would be set aside to assist Green Loans assessors now out of a job.
Mr Combet said data collection for Green Loans had been deficient in a number of areas and that meant the government could not have confidence in the Green Start program.
(Thanks to reader Tim.)
The third since the one that sank
The third boat to arrive since last Wednesday's tragedy at Christmas Island:
A SUSPECTED asylum seeker boat carrying 68 passengers and two crew has been intercepted by HMAS Glenelg north of Christmas Island.
Julia Gillard must change her laws to stop this trafficking, not least because one boat will inevitably not make it.
Henry quits
Not what Julia Gillard needed right now, whatever you think of Ken Henry's performance:
AUSTRALIA'S best-known public servant, Treasury boss Ken Henry, has dropped a bombshell on the Gillard Government and will leave before the May Budget.
The Government insisted as recently as last month that Dr Henry was not about to resign.
Happy Christmas, Britain
Yet more eivdence that Britain's cheery plan to have radically different cultures living side by peaceful side has gone very badly wrong, with no foreseeable means to fix it:
Police arrested 12 men in early morning raids on three cities on Monday aimed at thwarting a major new terrorism plot against British targets. Assistant Commissioner John Yates, Britain's senior counter-terrorism police officer, said the suspects were detained in London, Stoke-on-Trent and Cardiff.... The arrested men are thought to be British nationals but with links to Bangladesh and Pakistan...
And:
Britain made "little progress" in reaching out to Muslim communities despite investing "considerable time and resources" after the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, US diplomats concluded in cables passed to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks....
"Since 7/7, HMG has invested considerable time and resources in engaging the British Muslim community," a diplomat at the US embassy in London wrote in August 2006 after the failed liquid bomb plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. "The current tensions demonstrate just how little progress has been made."
US fears that Britain was struggling to deal with extremism, outlined a year after the 7/7 bombings, are highlighted as police continued to search a house in Luton as part of an investigation into Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly.
The Iraqi-born Swede, who set off a car bomb in the Swedish capital on Saturday night before killing himself with a second bomb strapped to his body, was believed to live in the house while studying for a BSc in sports therapy at the University of Bedfordshire....
The challenge of confronting extremists is highlighted in US embassy cables which warned of British Somalis returning to the UK after indulging in "jihadi tourism"… Concerns were raised that a "Mumbai-style attack" could be launched in Britain....
The same diplomat wrote: "The Muslim community's reaction to the arrests of 24 of its own sons (over an airline bomb plot) – a kneejerk reaction blaming HMG – shows that its leaders too have far to go ..."
When the reaction becomes as violent as the provocation, there will be deep, deep trouble, and there will be no point then in even arguing which side was right.
"Delay is denial"
Julia Gillard, November 2009:
We can't afford any more inquiries, reports or investigations into climate change.
Julia Gillard, November 2009:
We want to act now to deal with climate change.... Delay is denial.
Julia Gillard's committee on climate change issues a communique, December 2010:
The Multi-Party Climate Change Committee held its third meeting in Canberra today. The Prime Minister, the Hon Julia Gillard MP, the Deputy Prime Minister the Hon Wayne Swan MP and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency the Hon Greg Combet AM MP were joined by co-deputy chair of the Committee, Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne, Australian Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown, Mr Tony Windsor MP, and Mr Rob Oakeshott MP....
The Committee adopted the Minutes from its 10 November 2010 meeting and agreed to release the Minutes on the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency's website.
The Committee agreed to adopt and publicly release the eleven policy principles that will provide a consistent basis for the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee's deliberations on carbon price mechanisms. The policy principles are at Attachment A.
The Committee acknowledges that some of these principles will be more relevant than others when examining each of the specific design issues, and further, that some design decisions may require a trade-off between two or more principles.
The Committee notes that each of these principles builds on the fundamental need to develop and foster lasting community consensus and an understanding of the need for a carbon price.
The Committee considered a range of different carbon pricing mechanisms and discussed the key features, advantages and disadvantages of each model.
The Committee commenced consideration of the key design choices to be made when developing a carbon price including scheme architecture, impacts, assistance measures and the issues of scheme coverage and international linking
Professor Ross Garnaut provided an update to the Committee on the progress of the first two papers of the Garnaut Review Update (Paper 1 – Weighing the Costs and Benefits of Climate Change Action, and Paper 2 – Progress Towards Effective Global Action on Climate Change).
Mr Combet also gave an update to the Committee of the recent outcome at the United Nations Climate Conference held in Cancún.
(No link to press release. Thanks to reader Nadia.)
Playing politics, all right
It's now six days after the deaths of up to 50 boat people at Christmas Island. Exactly how long does the ABC's 7.30 Report think we must wait before discussing the causes of this tragedy?
HEATHER EWART: Well moving on, on the Christmas Island accident, you left it a few days before the gloves came off, but now they're well and truly off. Is this the right time to be using the tragedy for political and policy discussion?
The dead were Iranians, Iraqis and Kurds. So why suggest they were actually pushed here by wars?
HEATHER EWART: But that does take account of various push factors? Is that a distortion of the figures because you've had various events in Afghanistan, in Sri Lanka and so on?
For six years after John Howard implemented tough border control policies - decried by the ABC - the boats were slowed to an average of just three a year. So why suggest nothing works?
HEATHER EWART: Is the political reality here that no side really has the answers here to stop the boats? There is no simplistic and quick solution?
For years Labor savaged the Howard Government, with the ABC's help, over its "cruel" policies, which actually stopped people from drowning at sea. So why assume that only the Liberals, in an argument over these polices, are being divisive?
HEATHER EWART: Are you prepared to try to work together with the Government on this, to avoid polarising the community, which we've seen going on for several years now?
if there's no difference between a centre on Nauru or in East Timor, then isn't it the Gillard Government that's playing semantics, and not the Opposition? Why not ask this of Julia Gilalrd instead?
HEATHER EWART: Why is Nauru, a processing centre on Nauru, your insisted solution to this issue when the Government is arguing that East Timor is a solution? Is this basically an argument over semantics?
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