Devine an indomitable cavalier

Peter Coleman writes: Frank Devine, who died on 3 July, was the Laughing Cavalier of Australian journalism. His laughter, often noisy, was always infectious. When I asked Rupert Murdoch for a comment, he said : “Frank had a great sense of humour… which he applied to nearly everything in life!” Paul Kelly found him “always engaging, always optimistic and always full of amusing anecdotes.” William Shawcross recalled him as large, cheerful and jovial.

But he was also an indomitable cavalier. A bon vivant who loved long lunches, he was a conviction journalist whose religious faith was central to his life. (He used to pray privately at work: “Jesus Christ, Son of God , have mercy on us.”). His politics were conservative. (He once supported E.G.Whitlam — in 1972 — but not for long.) A family man, his last published essay, in the May Quadrant, honours his wife Jacqueline, his three children, and his fifty years of marriage.

Read Peter Coleman’s tribute to Frank Devine at Quadrant Online.

US/UN plot against Honduras

Cliff Kincaid

The people of Honduras are pleading for media fairness and understanding of how they saved their democratic system of government from an international conspiracy based in Venezuela and Cuba. In desperate messages to the outside world, Hondurans want America to know they do not want former President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya returned to power through the intervention of the United States and the United Nations.

On Tuesday the leftist governments of Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez sponsored a United Nations resolution that condemned the people of Honduras for resisting the spread of communism by evicting a would-be dictator. Many people in Honduras view “Mel” as a puppet of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who is destroying the democratic system and the opposition in that country. More

Who are the enemies of society?

Ron Kitching

I laughed out loud when I saw the Queensland Treasurer Frazer say about fuel prices: “The Government is looking out for price gougers”. There are only two price gougers here and they are the state and federal governments.

The propaganda produced by both state and federal governments would have us believe that it is the oil and gas companies and their agents who are the enemies of society. But they are the ones producing the goods for which we scramble to buy. And it is the governments which double the cost to consumers with their taxation.

And Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, proud of reinstating union monopoly of coercion stated on TV: “We are celebrating the beginning of a new era”. More

US shows Rudd’s ETS is radical, extreme

Warren Truss

The Rudd Labor Government must withdraw and drastically rewrite its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill following the narrow passage of climate change legislation through the US House of Representatives, Nationals’ leader Warren Truss said yesterday in a media release.

The passage of the US Bill completely vindicates the Coalition’s decision not to vote on Labor’s emissions trading proposals in the Australian Senate last week, Mr Truss said. More

Obama sides with Marxists over Honduras

Cliff Kincaid

The so-called “military coup” in Honduras was a successful effort by Honduran patriots to preserve their constitutional system of government from an international alliance of communists and socialists backed by Iran. Not surprisingly, America’s Marxist President has come down on the anti-American side.

If all of this is news to you, consider yourself a victim of the “state-run media,” as Rush Limbaugh calls it. We are being bombarded with liberal media propaganda that a “military coup” took place in Honduras, and that the U.S. should therefore oppose it.

Fox News, which has been trumpeting news about the “military coup,” should be ashamed of itself for following the liberal media line.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, noted that the problem was that the deposed president, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, was “moving to re-write the Honduran constitution to extend and expand his power, while retaliating against those who stand in his way.” More

Hal Colebatch: UK bill an attack on faith

Hal Colebatch’s 1999
book on Blair’s
cultural revolution.

In an opinion piece in today’s Australian, Hal G.P. Colebatch writes: I wrote here in April that Britain appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state, but it seems I didn’t know the half of it. A sinister new equality bill is before a parliamentary committee. So far there has been surprisingly little about it in the British media, although the Catholic Church has called attention to the fact it would give the government unprecedented powers to police not only public but private religious and other activities. Read the opinion piece by Hal G.P. Colebatch.
See also:
The descent of Britain: a new chapter

The heat is on the climate alarmists

Ian Plimer

“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.”
So writes Kimberley Strassel in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Ms Strassel provides a list of the growing number of skeptics worldwide, giving Professor Ian Plimer and Senator Steve Fielding a special mention.
The columnist says that Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe “now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.” More

Green jobs … and real green jobs

Ron Kitching

News items tell us that governments here and abroad are determined to proceed with their lunatic ambitions to bury carbon dioxide, the essential gas on which all life on earth depends.

They promise “green jobs” will develop from windmills, solar cell capture of energy and even wave motion. A large unit of wave motion power was recently demonstrated. The developer claims it would possibly provide enough energy to cook two scrambled eggs.

A huge $300 million model, costing $300 million he claims will develop enough energy to power 40 homes.

The only real green jobs there are in this or any other nation are those which are performed by people who are growing grass, which is Australia’s most important crop.

Grass includes wheat, sugar cane, hops, barley and many other important crops.

Foresters plant trees, another long term green crop, from which past and present societies reap great benefits through the unencumbered free market system. More

How the Rudd Government has wrecked the retirement plans of millions

Sen Cory Bernardi

In politics, as in life, it can be tempting to take a short term outlook driven by self interest. The longer term plans that are actually espoused by many of our political leaders are usually done to comply with the ‘vision thing’ - the need to be forward looking in order to achieve electoral success. Mr Rudd’s 2020 Summit and his 2050 emissions targets are clear examples of spin over substance.

There are, of course, some spectacular exceptions to this premise.

The Snowy Mountains Scheme, some defence projects and fluoridisation of water, are just a few that spring to mind. However, surely one of the most important positive changes was the introduction of the compulsory superannuation system in 1992.

At the time, I recall thinking that placing additional costs solely on employers was not equitable and that the compulsory savings program should be split with employees. More

Tony Abbott on ABC1’s Insiders