Bolta the Unbelievable

This was Teh Bolta on the 23^rd July 2011 before the first of many judicious post updates:

“Once the identity of the attackers becomes known, the consequences for Norway’s immigration policies could be profound:

A BOMBING and a separate shooting in Oslo, which appear to have targeted Norway’s prime minister and have left at least 11 people dead, are believed to be linked, police say.
Police say seven people have been confirmed dead following a bomb blast outside prime minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office in Oslo.

Acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim told broadcaster NRK that investigators suspect today’s bombing was linked to a shooting spree that killed four people at the Labor Party’s youth camp later in the day by a gunman in a police uniform.

The bomb left seven people dead and another 15 injured, two seriously, police said.

Already the unconfirmed reports suggest our immediate suspicions are correct, although the shooter’s appearance tells us to still be cautious about our conclusions:

Abu Suleiman al-Nasser, an Islamist with links to Al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups, has claimed responsibility for today’s bomb in Oslo…”

The fourth update by Bolta to the original post:

“He claims to be a Christian.”

And this was the same eejit Murdoch journalist four days later:

“HEAR that gloating sound, among the sobs for the 76 people murdered last week by Anders Behring Breivik?

Hear that cackling among the moans?

It’s Leftist polemicists, gleeful that the Norwegian murderer was a “far-Right Christian”.

How often you’ve been reminded.

One ABC news story filed on Sunday mentioned three times that Breivik was a “Christian”…”

So it’s alright for Bolta to quickly publish his erroneous suspicion that the acts of terrorism in Norway were the work of Islamic extremists, then to later mention the declared religious allegiance of the actual perpetrator – but it’s hands off the news story completely if you're not prepared to bash Teh Big Bad Left along with with him?

Andy has more hide than Jessie the Elephant!

In which Rupert Murdoch, John Howard, Peter Costello, Ross Cameron, Keith Windschuttle & Cardinal Pell are used as building blocks for terrorism

It hardly comes as a surprise that members of Australia’s right-wing are directly quoted (or in Phillip Ruddock’s case mentioned by reference link) in a manifesto* openly inciting racial hatred and violence nor that Rupert Murdoch’s desire to dominate media ownership is mentioned as one contributing reason for action, but it was a surprise to find a very brief quote from writings of the late academic Alex Carey mentioned:

In 1998, Rupert Murdoch owned 34% of the daily newspapers and 37% of the Sunday newspapers in the UK. Successive UK governments have allowed his empire to grow in return for his media's support. 53% of UK newspaper and magazine distribution is controlled by just two companies, WH Smith and John Menzies. Cross-media ownership and the fact that a small number of people own so many of our means of obtaining information is a threat as it institutionalises globalism and multiculturalism....

Luckily, not all Christian leaders are appeasers of Islam. One of the intelligent ones comes from Australia, a country that has been fairly resistant to Political Correctness. They have taken serious steps towards actually enforcing their own borders, despite the predictable outcries from various NGOs and anti-racists, and Prime Minister John Howard has repeatedly proven to be one of the most sensible leaders in the Western world....

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello [28] said Australian Muslim leaders need to stand up and publicly denounce terrorism in all its forms. Mr. Costello has also backed calls by Prime Minister John Howard for Islamic migrants to adopt Australian values. Mr. Howard caused outrage in Australia’s Islamic community when he said Muslims needed to speak English and show respect to women....

All over the developed world, the same pattern is apparent. Russia, Britain, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Italy and dozens of other countries are contending with fertility rates well below replacement levels....
A study from the United States [13] identified the main barriers to men tying the knot. Heading the list was their ability to get sex without marriage more easily than in the past. The second was that they can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabiting rather than marrying.
The report lends weight to remarks by Ross Cameron, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services, who chided Australian men, blaming Australia’s looming fertility crisis on men’s commitment phobia.
“The principal reason young women say they don’t get around to having children is they can’t find a bloke they like who is willing to commit,” he said. “This commitment aversion in the Australian male is a real problem.”....

Australian writer Keith Windschuttle [22], a former Marxist, is tired of that anti-Western slant that permeates academia: “For the past three decades and more, many of the leading opinion makers in our universities, the media and the arts have regarded Western culture as, at best, something to be ashamed of, or at worst, something to be opposed. The scientific knowledge that the West has produced is simply one of many “ways of knowing.”
“Cultural relativism claims there are no absolute standards for assessing human culture. Hence all cultures should be regarded as equal, though different.” “The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.”
He urges us to remember how unique some elements of our culture are: “The concepts of free enquiry and free expression and the right to criticise entrenched beliefs are things we take so much for granted they are almost part of the air we breathe. We need to recognise them as distinctly Western phenomena. They were never produced by Confucian or Hindu culture.” “But without this concept, the world would not be as it is today. There would have been no Copernicus, Galileo, Newton or Darwin.”....

George Cardinal Pell [30], Archbishop of Sydney, tells of how September 11 was a wakeup call for him personally [31]:
“I recognised that I had to know more about Islam.” “In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages.” “The predominant grammatical form in which jihad is used in the Koran carries the sense of fighting or waging war.” “Considered strictly on its own terms, Islam is not a tolerant religion and its capacity for fear-reaching renovation is severely limited.” “I’d also say that Islam is a much more war-like culture than Christianity.” “I’ve had it asserted to me is that in the relationship between the Islamic and non-Islamic world, the normal thing is a situation of tension if not war, or outright hostility.”....
Our traditional Judeo-Christian religions have proven this capability. Islam never has, and probably never will. As Australia's Cardinal George Pell [13] says, "some seculars are so deeply anti-Christian, that anyone opposed to Christianity is seen as their ally. That could be one of the most spectacularly disastrous miscalculations in history." ....

"The 20th century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy." Alex Carey, Australian social scientist.
[ Berwick, Andrew (believed to be Anders Breivik) 2083: A Europen Declartion of Independence, 2011]

* The complete manifesto is not linked for download due to the nature of its contents.

Catholic Church to issue sly apology for forced adoptions and human rights abuses in Australia

CathNews on 24 July 2011:

Catholic Health Australia will today issue an apology to the victims of forced adoption practices from the 1950s to 1970s and offer those affected counselling and a pathway for complaints, reports The Australian.
The apology will be made through a Senate committee, which is inquiring into the past practices of hospitals and social workers employed by government, churches and charities, who forcibly removed babies from unwed and teenage mothers and adopted them out.
The adoptions often occurred against the wishes of the mothers, who sometimes signed consent forms under duress or the influence of sedatives and other medication. In some cases no birth records are available.
"We acknowledge the pain of separation and loss felt then and now for the mothers, fathers, children, families and others involved in the practices of the time," Catholic Health Australia says in its apology.
"For the pain and suffering that arises from practices of the past, we are genuinely sorry.
"These practices of the past are no longer tolerated, nor allowed by today's law, and are deeply regrettable."

At the time of writing it would appear that few in the mainstream media have noticed that: (i) this so-called apology (not the Church’s first on this subject) would again be given under parliamentary privilege; and (ii) statements made to the media are carefully based on the protected Catholic Health Australia submission already before the Inquiry. Which may possibly be an attempt to limit liability on the part of the Catholic Church and its agencies managed by the Sisters of Mercy, Christian Brothers and Sisters of St Joseph amongst others.

The agency intending to make this particular 'apology' states no authority to formally apologize on behalf of the wider Australian Catholic Church and senior church official, Cardinal George Pell, remains strangely silent on the matter. One has to wonder if any journalist has bothered to contact him this week.

The agency also claims no expertise in adoptions, repudiates any detailed agency knowledge before this year, is careful not to mention the word “compensation”, blatantly attempts to minimise the number of women affected, sidesteps the illegality involved in Church-endorsed policy/practices and, expects government to address the problems created by these forced adoptions.

It is publicly canvassing this 'apology' at a time when the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs has no future public hearings scheduled for this inquiry and presently expect to hold only one other hearing on a yet unspecified date.

But Lily Arthur, from the forced adoption support group Origins NSW, is sceptical about apologies. "I don't think that anyone can accept an apology for something that's never been basically dealt with legally," and Therese Pearson, of Merewether, and Juliette Clough, of Windale, agree that nothing will ease the decades of pain they have endured and they want to launch a class action against the organisation that drugged them and "stole" their babies.

I also note that Catholic Health did not make its brief two-page submission until after the Inquiry closure date was extended and is only the second Catholic agency identified in the published submission list to date.

The Catholic Health Australia website professes that it seeks to promote the interests of a just health system and the dignity of the human person and lists its stewardship board as including:Mr Tony Wheeler [Chair],
Br Joseph Smith OH [Deputy Chair], Mr Pat Bugden [Treasurer], Sr Therese Carroll rsj, Dr Michael Stanford, Mrs Lynne Sheehan, Ms Madonna McGahan, Mr Michael Thom, Sr Berneice Loch rsm, Ms Rowena McNally, Bishop Joseph Oudeman, Accociate [sic] Professor Kate Birrell, Sr Helen Monkivitch rsm, and Dr Michael Walsh. However this list may be outdated.

One has to wonder why Catholic Health Australia and its board would expect this ham-fisted Clayton's apology to ease the obvious distress of the women and children who suffered under Church adoption policy.

*Catholic Health (CHA) Submission No. 279, dated 1 July 2011: Inquiry into the Commonwealth contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices
*Mackillop Family Services Submission No. 86, dated February 2011: “THE LEGACY OF PAST ADOPTION PRACTICES:ACCESSING RECORDS AND SUPPORT”

Vale Margaret Hannah Olley 1923-2011

Margaret Hannah Olley

Born 24 June 1923 in Lismore NSW
Died 26 July 2011 in Paddington NSW
Sadly missed by all who appreciate her art

Portrait by Ben Quilty

Yaegl people claim native title over Crown land & water in an area covering 1,400 sq kms on the NSW North Coast

A fifth native title claim covering traditional lands on the NSW North Coast has been lodged with the National Native Title Tribunal.

This claim covers approximately 1,400 sq kilometres and appears to be the second claim involving the Yaegl People of the Clarence Valley.

The first co-claim (with the Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr peoples) which primarily involves waters of the Clarence River, from below Harwood Bridge to the sea, is yet to be determined

National Native Title Tribunal
Notice of an application for determination of native title in the State of New South Wales
Notification day: 27 July 2011

This is an application by a native title claim group who are asking the Federal Court to determine that the group hold native title in the area described below.
A person who wants to become a party to this application must write to the Registrar of the Federal Court, Level 17, Law Courts Building, Queens Square, Sydney NSW 2000, on or before 26 October 2011.
After 26 October 2011, the Federal Court’s permission to become a party is required.
Under the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) there can be only one determination of native title for a particular area. If a person with native title rights and interests does not become a party to this application, there may be no other opportunity for the Federal Court, in making its determination, to take into account those native title rights and interests in relation to the area concerned.


Application name: Yaegl People #2
Federal Court File No: NSD168/2011
Date filed: 23 February 2011
Registration test status: The Native Title Registrar has accepted this application for registration.
Description: The application covers areas of Crown land and water in the vicinity of the towns of Maclean, Yamba and Wooli.
The application excludes: freehold land, other areas where native title has been extinguished and the area covered by NSD6052/1998 Yaegl People #1.
The application falls within the Local Government Authority of Clarence Valley Council.

Data statement: claimant application boundary compiled by the NNTT.
For assistance and further information about this application, call Nicole Maher on freecall 1800 640 501 or visit www.nntt.gov.au.

The largest and most successful North Coast claim to date was made on 29 November 2007, when the Federal Court of Australia made a consent determination recognising the Githabul People’s native title rights and interests over 1,120 sq km in nine national parks and 13 state forests in northern New South Wales.

The 'weightless' flight of Mister Abbott

 

Courtesy of the perceptive pen of Annabel Crabb:

“Once you've severed the guy ropes of obeisance to empirical evidence, many happy hours of ballooning lie ahead. Mr Abbott's liberation from such constraints allows him to lead a free-market party while advocating a carbon reduction scheme that is interventionist to its core. Or to deplore, for instance, a goal of reducing Australian emissions by 5 per cent over the next nine years as "crazy", while simultaneously holding that goal as sworn Coalition policy. Last week, when the Leader of the Opposition assured a group of Victorian voters that carbon dioxide was a tricky gas on account of being "weightless", it seemed for a glorious moment as if he was hedging his bets even on the work of Newton.”

Breivik: a frightening perspective on the world

The Sydney Morning Herald on 24 July 2011:

The suspect in twin attacks in and near Oslo that killed at least 92 people has admitted responsibility, his lawyer says.
Anders Behring Breivik, 32, was arrested and detained for allegedly shooting at least 85 people dead at a youth Labour Party meeting on an island and killing seven more in a car bomb explosion which ripped through government buildings in Oslo.
His lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said his client had admitted he was responsible for the two attacks.

Snapshots (24.07.11) taken from a lengthy video allegedly created and posted on YouTube by Anders Behring Breivik:

Click on images to enlarge

In July 2011 Australia really began to drag its knuckles in the dust

In response to a journalist who wrote of her dislike of the term Juliar, a foot soldier in Abbott's Army wrote this:

Albert Henry of Tamworth: "Your story was the greatest lot of crap ever written. It is obvious your political bias does not give a true picture of how we true Australians think and the hatred we have against traitors like yourself, defending that very ugly female atheist communistic destructive Prime Minister Juliar Gillard.
It is so easy for second-class lesbian reporters like yourself to run down ordinary Australians who see very clearly that this ugly ranga with the long ears and witch-like nose and a big-arse has set her sights on destroying the living standards of all Australians. Claire, we realise you can't change your lesbian ways and your love for that ugly Juliar Gillard, but the chances of you bedding her are zero. Sorry Claire, you will have to just dream. I truly understand your problem in getting yourself a man because you are so ugly."

The Australian, Rintoul and the truth about recent research into regional mean sea level rise deceleration

Snapshot from Google search index on 23 July 2011

Stuart Rintoul is variously described as a senior journalist and/or author currently working for News Ltd’s The Australian newspaper.

On Friday 22 July 2011 he wrote an front page article loosely based on interview with Phil Watson, from the Coastal Unit in the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.

As soon as I read the article I began to wonder at the level of misrepresentation by The Australian this article by Rintoul might involve, given the stable from which it sprang.

I went to the quoted peer-reviewed article and found that all was not as The Australian would have us believe and this NSW Government Office of Environment & Heritage letter to the editor bore out my suspicions:

Letter to the Editor - Sea-level rises slowing: tidal records
Media release: 22 July 2011
I refer to today's article titled, Sea-level rises slowing: tidal records.
Your article has misrepresented our Mr Phil Watson's research paper by saying that "global warming is not affecting sea levels". This is untrue and misleading and it is not what Mr Watson told your journalist. Mr Watson’s research looked only at measurements of historical data. It specifically did not consider predicted linkages between sea level rise and global warming predicted by climate models.
Our organisation is committed to open scientific investigation. This important research will help us understand the different contributions of the El Nino-La Nina Southern Oscillation and of climate change to sea level change. The research and underlying data is entirely consistent with the rate of global average sea level rise for the 20th century advised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was of the order of 17 +/- 5 cm.
There is strong national and international evidence that sea levels will increase substantially in this century. The world is warming and this includes the ocean. When water warms, it expands and sea level rises.
Sea level rise is a slow process but it has serious medium and long term impacts. The projections are for a rise of 40 cm by 2050 and 90 cm by 2100 in NSW, and this data is reflected in NSW policies. Our scientists are working with others to increase understanding of what and where the impacts may be, so that we can better plan for and help local communities adapt. If we are prudent now, we can substantially reduce future costs.
Yours sincerely
Mr Simon A Y Smith
Deputy Chief Executive - Environment and Heritage Policy and Programs
Contact: Public Affairs

This is a brief outline taken from Watson’s actual article published in The Journal of Coastal Research:

Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level Rise around Mainland Australia? by P.J. Watson

There is unequivocal measured evidence of a global average rise in mean sea level during the 20th century on the order of 17 +- 65 cm (IPCC, 2007)
….. Satellite altimeters that have been measuring changes in the world’s ocean water surface since late 1992 with improved global accuracy and reliability have focussed attention on measured global trends that appear to be increasing at rates exceeding 3 mm/y, generally in line with the upper bound projections of global average sea level rise (IPCC, 2007).
It is, however, important to understand that there will be specific localised or regional variations compared with the global average sea level rise projections. In addition to international scientific endeavours, it is imperative to analyse and understand the trends emerging from the longest Australasian tide gauge records to improve the picture of ‘‘regional’’ sea level rise to augment forecasting capabilities.
Very long, continuous records from Fremantle (1897), Auckland (1903), Fort Denison (1914), and Newcastle (1925) have been analysed to investigate whether there is evidence of acceleration in the rise of mean sea level over the longer term at these particular locations…..
The longest continuous Australasian records, Fremantle and Auckland, situated on the western and eastern periphery of the Oceania region, respectively, exhibit remarkably similar trends in the relative 20-year moving average water level time series after 1920. Both time series show a rise in mean sea level of approximately 120 mm between 1920 and 2000 with strong correlation (R2 $ 0.93) to fitted second-order polynomial trend lines that reflect a tendency toward a general slowing in the rise of mean sea level (or deceleration) over time on the order of 0.02–0.04 mm/y2. The Fort Denison water level time series after 1940 similarly reflects a decelerating trend in sea
level rise at a rate of 0.04 mm/y2 based on a strongly correlated fit (R2 5 0.974) to the second-order polynomial function.
This decelerating trend was also evident in the detailed analysis of 25 U.S. tide gauge records longer than 80 years in length (Dean and Houston, pers. comm.) and a general 20th century deceleration, driven predominantly by the negative inflexions around 1960 evident in many global records, are well noted in the literature (Douglas, 1992; Holgate, 2007; Woodworth, 1990; Woodworth, Mene´dez, and Gehrels, pers. comm.).
In considering shorter term recent accelerations, it is evident that there is a high rate of relative sea level rise averaged over the decade centred around 1994. Although average decadal rates of rise in relative ocean water levels are clearly high during the 1990s, they are not remarkable or unusual in the context of the historical record available for each site over the course of the 20th century. Similar conclusions have been drawn by Holgate (2007) in examining global data and by Hannah (2004) examining long-term sea level records for New Zealand. These recent post-1990s short-term accelerations fit within the overall longer term trend of deceleration evident in these long Australasian ocean water level records.
Using a 20-year moving average (10 y either side) water level time series limits the current analysis to the year 2000 (although the year 2000 uses data up to 2010). It is probable that if there is any longer term increase of significance in the rate of sea level rise embedded within the latter portion of the record, as distinct from a cyclical short-term attribute, this may take a further 10 to 20 years to influence the longer term time series.
Further research is required to rationalise the difference between the acceleration trend evident in the global sea level time-series reconstructions and the relatively consistent
deceleration trend evident in the long-term Australasian tide gauge records. These differences are likely to have a significant bearing on the global average and ‘‘regional’’ projections for sea level rise into the future.

The Australian publishes for the lulz

Hold on to your hats, good folk in the media! opens The Australian newspaper's Media Blog article on 12 July 2011 titled The little crap sheet that could, as News Corporation was preparing to front a U.K. parliamentary committee.

It went on to say:

Crikey says today that it’s going to draw up a Code of Conduct - for itself!
Of course it won’t be some wanky document it uses to fan its face.
Once it’s done, you can expect:
a) to get a call from Crikey staff, each and every time they intend to smear you;
b) no more using the answers you give, in good faith, to sneer and giggle at you a second time; on the contrary, you’ll get a fair, honest, mature hearing;
c) no more quoting from cheap-shot anonymous emails which, whether they believe it or not, most media outlets get, and most choose to ignore;
d) no more nastiness, in the putrid swamp that is the Crikey comments thread;
e) no more publishing, verbatim, the emails from PR flaks that yes, everyone gets, but no-one else goes near (Did you see this mistake, on Nine?! Did you see that mistake, on Seven!) not least because it makes them look cheap, nasty and lazy;
f) a celebration from Crikey, each and every time one of their enemies (none of which they’ve ever met) does something good, as opposed to piling on the bile;
g) some original reporting for a change, instead of endless raking over what other media are doing;
h) no more carping at successful media companies that employ many staff, do many good things, try new ideas, and who occassionally [sic] fail but at least give it a go, when the best Crikey can do is put out a dicky little newsheet, 90 per cent of which is recycled, bitchy, or wrong;
i) pigs, flying.

Now I've stopped uncontrollably laughing at The Howard Abbott Gazette, I would point out to its management and staff that, as a newspaper in the News Limited group, it also has a Professional Code of Conduct which was drawn up by the parent company itself - presumably which it also uses to fan its face et ectera.

The anonymous journalist sarcastically writing in Media Diary unintentionally furthers the case for removal of the media's right to self-regulate its own behaviour through that tame and toothless body, the Australian Press Council.