Brother Number One’s Government saying “come on down” to people smugglers.

(Now Updated)

Mores invitations to people smugglers bought to you by Brother Number One

Hands up those of you who are just not taking note  any more when ever there is a news item about another load of illegal immigrants arriving in our waters in a leaky boat ?

The fishing boat north west Christmas Island. It is the 16th boat to enter Australian waters this year.

A BOAT carrying 194 people, the largest number in eight years, has been intercepted by border protection 23 nautical miles north-west of Christmas Island.

The small wooden fishing boat, which defence sources said was “overcrowded”, had been tracked since Friday by Australian officials, after it left Indonesia.

On board were mostly men, understood to be of Afghan or Iraqi descent, who are now being processed on Christmas Island in immigration detention. No children were on board.

It is the 16th boat to arrive in Australian waters this year — during which 867 people have been intercepted by border protection.

[...]

Shadow immigration minister Sharman Stone said the latest arrival could be directly attributed to a softening in Australia’s immigration regime by the Rudd Government.

She said last week we had seen “another softening” — referring to proposed legislation to remove charges for people’s stay in immigration detention.

“No wonder we have seen a boat this big,” she said. “We know from asylum seekers who travel on these boats that the people smugglers watch the online Australian media, so they would have known what happened in Parliament and now they are saying ‘come on down’.”

Of course those seeking to come here illegally know what sort of reception that they are likely to get under the regime of Brother Number One and when they realise that they will not incur any penalty for a failed attempt there will obviously be an even bigger jump in the numbers. and speaking of the numbers we could reasonably expect that for everyone of the men on this latest boat that there may be ten or so others for whom they act as a vangaurd. Because you can be sure that as soon as they are able they will seek to have their families cone over under our” family reunion ” programs. So perhaps we should consider that the complement of a boat like this is really1940 rather then 194…

As I have said before prompt determination of their status and then an equally prompt repatriation and if they have  “lost” (disposed of more likely) their identifying documents, assume that they are not what they claim to be and repatriate them even quicker.

You know it makes sense

Cheers Comrades

8)

PS

I bet that even the Labor government is pleased that John Howard built the facility at Christmas Island even though they were delusional enough to believe that it would never be needed.

UPDATE

10,000 more on their way

Ray Dixon  will be delighted!

June 30, 2009

INDONESIAN authorities are bracing for a huge influx of boat people, anticipating as many as 10,000 asylum-seekers are waiting in Malaysia to transit through the archipelago and on to Australia.

This estimate was backed by a Malaysian group that deals with unauthorised immigrants. An Australian Government source warned of the potential for a similar influx to the thousands who began arriving in Australia from the late 1990s.

About 1500 asylum-seekers have arrived in Indonesia this year and registered for refugee status, almost all travelling by boat from Malaysia. Another 1500 are believed to have arrived and have not registered.

Indonesian police intelligence suggests between 7000 and 10,000 more people are waiting in Malaysia to make the journey once their passage is organised by people-smugglers.

“It could be 10,000,” said senior commissioner Eko Danianto, head of the people smuggling unit at the Indonesian National Police.

“They comprise a mix of nationalities, not only Afghans. There are also Sri Lankan, Myanamerese (Burmese), Iraqis.”

However an Australian academic, Dr Roslyn Richardson, of Charles Sturt University, has said asylum seekers know little about Australia before their arrival here.

Networks of people-smugglers service the 1 million Indonesian illegal workers who regularly travel to Malaysia by boat. The same networks also help arrange passage to Australia via Indonesia.

On Saturday, Malaysian authorities arrested 36 Afghans and six Pakistanis being smuggled to Australia via Indonesia. On Sunday, a boat carrying 194 asylum-seekers, mostly Sri Lankans, was intercepted near Christmas Island. Immigration sources said it was believed to have come from Malaysia. It was the biggest boatload of asylum-seekers to arrive in eight years.

“When they start getting big numbers through on a boat, they [people smugglers] get credibility and they get money. It becomes a virtuous cycle for them,” said one Australian immigration enforcement official.

The paragraph that I have emboldened in the quote above goes right to the nub of the problem, sadly my latte sipping friends just don’t get the bigger picture .

Also the same report says that the 194 people on the boat about which this  post was written are from Sri Lanka which should mean that they can be promptly repatriated to their country of origin as that conflict has now been resolved by the defeat of the LTTE.

Cheers again Comrades

Vale Farrah Fawcett

I never had a poster of Farrah Fawcett on my wall as a teenager but many did and that hair was reflected in the styles I so often saw in my youth…
Hmm makes me feel old to see the style icons that I knew as a young chap popping their clogs…

Farrah Fawcett has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 62.

ICONIC 1970s poster girl and actress Farrah Fawcett has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 62. Fawcett, who rose to fame as the star of US television’s Charlie’s Angels, was first diagnosed with anal cancer in late 2006.

She died in a Los Angeles hospital.

Later Comrades

UPDATE

Well it seems that Micheal Jackson has also popped his clogs , Hmm that one leaves me  feeling even more ambivalent, I liked some of his earlier stuff but was deeply saddened by the scandals and his terribly sad attempts at reinvention.

It will be interasting to see which gets more attention in the media…

Just a quick bathe in the relected glory…

I am a religiously tolerant chap, someone who likes to acknowledge the festivals of all of the major faiths. As faith events go there are none more significant in this part of the world than the “State of Origin” series. perhaps Charles Darwin would even appreciate that there are no better examples of the battle for the ” survival of the fittest” than this sporting battle.

Party time … when Queensland's Cameron Smith scored the Maroons' last try at ANZ Stadium last night to clench a record fourth series win, it was time to celebrate. Photo: Anthony Johnson

NSW 14 Queensland 24

NSW first showed fright, then showed fight, but ultimately the match would be noticeable only for Queensland might. Four straight series wins is a mighty effort, even if the Blues appeared to hand this one to them on a platter – or at least they would have handed it to them had they been able to hold the thing.

As we saw in Melbourne, if the Blues had been able to wipe a 20-minute horror show the result might have been different. They could not hold the ball and so now the Maroons hold the trophy. A slow start beats a fast finish most times.

While the Blues showed remarkable grit to recover from an 18-0 deficit – to the point where, after David Williams scored with 18 minutes remaining, the momentum and the big moments were theirs – they could not produce a miracle.

All of that aside I did not watch one second of the game, none the less my emotional response is right up there with all of my fellow Queenslanders ,  there must be something in the air that does it because no matter how much disdain I show for any kind of sport I am still moved …

Cheers Comrades

Hmmm Cue Comrade Ray who will undoubtedly try to set me on the “right” path to football Nirvana…

The girl with stars on her face

Tattoos have gone from being something that designated one as a member of societies fringes to being very mainstream indeed and some of them can really enhance the attractiveness of the person thus indelibly marked or they can say that a person is a total idiot.

Kimberley Vlaminck who said she fell asleep after asking for only three stars Photo: EUROPICS

Amid a frenzy of media attention, she then said she would sue the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, for the £9,000 she needed for laser surgery to have them removed.

She said after the tattooing last week: “It is terrible for me. I cannot go out on to the street. I look like a freak.”

But the 18-year-old has finally confessed she did not fall asleep, that she wanted all the stars and was “fully aware” of what Mr Toumaniantz was doing.

Ms Vlaminck told a Dutch TV crew: “I asked for 56 stars and initially adored them. But when my father saw them, he was furious. So I said I fell asleep and the that the tattooist made a mistake.”

Mr Toumaniantz – himself covered from head to foot in tattoos and piercings – had consistently denied he had made a mistake and always insisted Vlaminck wanted all 56 stars.

He said at the time: “I maintain that she absolutely agreed that I tattoo those 56 stars on the left side of her face.”

There is also no doubt that the placement choice of any skin art can make a big difference to how it may be received and appreciated by friends and family but more importantly that piece of art work that you may have loved when you committed to it and while you sat listening to the buzz of the tattooist’s tools may become something that you loathe. I had a friend who got a few tattoos when he was a young man and when he reached middle age he very much regretted them all. He was however not as foolish as Kimberley Vlaminck none of them  were on his face.

I actually hope that Kimberley Vlaminck comes to love those tattoos  as much as she did when the artist first laid down his needles because, unlike love, tattoos are forever, something that many people do not really appreciate when they have their bodies scarred for life.

Cheers Comrades

8)

Digital killed the picture star

In an age when almost everyone now has a digital camera in their phone it is easy to forget that taking good pictures required good equipment and the very best chemical technology and I can vouch for the quality of Kodak’s Kodachrome. I have some slides taken on this stock many years ago that are still as crisp and bright as they were when got the parcel in the post.

Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak is taking your Kodachrome away. Eastman Kodak is discontinuing its oldest film because of falling demand in an increasingly digital age.

The world’s first commercially successful colour film, immortalised in song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak’s portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 per cent of the company’s total sales of still-picture films. Only one commercial lab in the world still processes it and it was being made only about once a year.

Simon crooned about it in 1973 in the aptly titled Kodachrome. “They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day,” he sang. “… So Mama don’t take my Kodachrome away.”

Indeed, Kodachrome was favoured by still and motion picture photographers for its rich but realistic tones, vibrant colours and durability.

It was the basis not only for countless family slideshows on carousel projectors over the years but also for world-renowned images, including Abraham Zapruder’s 8mm reel of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963.

I have gone digital now just like most other photographers But my first real camera was a Pentax K1000 that I bought new in my first year at university it was a a no nonsense SLR everything on it was manual and the only really modern feature that it had was through the lens light metering. I loved it for its robust design and its versatility. I also loved to shoot black and white because I could process and print my own pictures  and the pleasure that I got from printing my own is one of the reasons that I,  like so many others have embraced digital photography. The end of Kodachrome almost  marks the end of film cameras and I wonder how long it will be before you can’t get film stock for any 35mm camera?  Not that long I would imagine. But I wonder too if being able to take as many shots as you please for virtually no cost will mean that individuals take less care in composing each shot…

Cheers Comrades,

The Vicky Pollard defence of discrimination in favour or Gay couples

The much mooted changes made by the federal government, to remove all kinds of discrimination against homosexual couples from the first of July is something that I fully endorse. No ifs buts or maybes. We are a society that does not prescribe a template for the sort of relationships that consenting adults can make, have or maintain. I do however think that it is more than a bit rich for gay advocates to complain that some people will be worse off because they will be treated the same as heterosexual couples under the new regime.

Same sex wedding cake Equality comes at a price - literally July 1 should be a celebration for gay couples when they are recognised by law, but there will be a catch.

He said for many years elderly gay people had missed out on family tax benefits, medicare benefits, partner benefits or family assistance.

“Despite having paid higher taxes all their lives and not being recognised as a same sex couple, now they’re going to receive less money in their retirement when their planning was done many years ago,” Mr Mackereth said.

“Gay and lesbian people don’t want any more than equality; they don’t want special rights; they just want to be treated the same as everybody else.

“But when somebody’s been treated poorly for their entire life and then suddenly the laws are going to treat them poorly again, that makes it awfully tough on those people, especially older people.

Mr Page called on the government to install a grandfather clause, so that people affected kept their current benefits until their situation changed.

He said he realised it could be politically difficult to continue paying a gay couple more than a heterosexual couple when they were now recognised as the same by the law.

The argument that Gay couples should continue to have a financial advantage over heterosexual claimants of social benefits and welfare is self-serving and deeply offensive to those of us who believe in equality and it ignores the fact that lacking the obligation of raising a family gives most homosexuals a potentially lifelong advantage in terms of disposable income. Frankly if individuals have frittered that “edge” away with hedonistic living then they should be prepared to enjoy the consequences of the choices that they have made just as heterosexuals do who make the same sort of lifestyle choices.
Cheers Comrades
8)

Paramedics and the “Pink Mafia”

Just what is with the political correctness zealots within the publicly funded organisations in the UK? This sounds to me rather like an attempt to give the public a rather false impression about how many people actually approve of and support the promotion of a very sexualised public life.

Paramedics are being encouraged to walk along Brighton's seafront in uniform

Dozens of paramedics, the majority of whom are heterosexual, are being encouraged to walk along Brighton’s seafront in their uniform at this year’s Pride festival.

They will be provided with refreshments and driven to and from the resort, all adding to the bill for the taxpayer.
A paramedic who contacted the Daily Mail said South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Trust had decided to pay its workers £40 each to take part in their own time because it was feared that not enough would volunteer for the event.

The money is the equivalent of two hours’ overtime pay, although paramedics say the trust has recently stopped paying overtime while they are actually on duty, blaming financial pressure.

The trust, which covers parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, has put up posters around its headquarters advertising the August 1 march with an ambulance covered in rainbow-coloured balloons and offering staff free transport to Brighton.

One paramedic said: ‘People from the trust went last year but they all attended as volunteers. I heard that the turnout wasn’t very high and they wanted to get more people there.

‘They’ve had to bribe people with the overtime cash because the overwhelming majority of staff are straight and not totally comfortable about giving up their free time to go on a gay march.’

Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said: ‘It is unacceptable to use taxpayers’ money in this way, especially as it’s a political movement.

‘The fact that the ambulance service is having to bribe paramedics to go is even worse. It would be much better to let them take a day off so they can get refreshed before they have to start their vital work saving lives.’

You have to wonder about the priorities of any public official who is willing to spend even a small part of their budget on crap like this just to make themselves look “Uber progressive” and in the vanguard of the “Rainbow Revolution” But really it is just an intolerable nonsense that will undoubtedly lead to the victimisation of those who decline to take up the offer by the elements of the “pink Mafia” who have thought up this plan to waste public money.
When it comes to the crunch I am all for celebrations of cultural diversity and I am more than happy that we live in an age when any individual can decide to openly express their sexuality but forcing encouraging  them to do so  through the use of public money is just not right.

Cheers  Comrades

The connection between totalitarian socialism and vegetarianism…

Yesterday’s post was poking a little bit of fun at those latte-sippers who give up meat for the cause. This post is to show the connection between totalitarian socialism and vegetarianism…

Revolutionary: Lydia Guevara, on the set of the PETA photoshoot, wore a red beret and bandoliers of carrots (click to enlarge)

‘It very much evokes the tag line of the ad, which is ‘Join the vegetarian revolution,’ Mr McGraw said. ‘It’s an homage of sorts to her late grandfather.’

Che Guevara was a Marxist leader who played a pivotal role in Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba. He was executed by the CIA in Bolivia in 1967.

The ad is PETA’s first campaign promoting vegetarianism in South America.

Yesterday I pointed the finger at a modern-day totalitarian socialist vegetarian but today I am going to remind my readers that there was another far more dangerous totalitarian socialist vegetarian who caused quite a bit of bother in his day.

That is not to say that the local lad is anything like the historical figure after all I know for a fact that he has no air force, no tanks, and no intention of invading Poland. The strike on the local butcher shop is however, on, because the carrots told him to…

Cheers Comrades

Screaming carrots and millitant vegetarians

Anyone who has been around for a while has probably dabbled with vegetarianism, as fads go it’s pretty popular with a lot of latte sippers who often seem to do this so that they can demonstrate to all and sundry just how committed they are to their ethical perspective, many however end up rather sick of living on lentils and brown rice and relent to the more natural* omnivorous diet. If they do not see the light they could very well end up being very sad and miserable examples of humanity who constantly play on the martyrdom of “I am a vegetarian“.

Alicia Silverstone ... The actress appears naked in the latest print ad to promote vegetarianism, produced by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PEOPLE for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is upset with Barack Obama killing a fly during a televised interview – and are sending him a parcel to prove it.

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

“We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. “We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals.”

During an interview for CNBC at the White House on Tuesday, a fly intruded on Obama’s conversation with correspondent John Harwood.

“Get out of here,” the president told the pesky insect. When it didn’t, he waited for the fly to settle, put his hand up and then smacked it dead.

“Now, where were we?” Obama asked Harwood. Then he added: “That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it? I got the sucker.”

Friedrich said that PETA was pleased with Obama’s voting record in the Senate on behalf of animal rights and noted that he has been outspoken against animal abuses.

Still, “swatting a fly on TV indicates he’s not perfect,” Friedrich said, “and we’re happy to say that we wish he hadn’t.”

Source

The nutters from PETA are of course the most militant face of vegetarianism they do the more moderate lentil munchers no favours when they do something as stupid as make a fuss about the US President killing a fly during an interview on TV. Frankly I think that anyone who can actually kill an annoying  fly with their hand deserves respect because the pesky buggers are fast and swatting the blighters takes very fast reflexes and a little knowlege of the species.

It is really about having a balanced perspective on the place of humanity on the planet, we are essentially the top predator  and we should not feel any guilt about holding that position as long as we are able to maintain enough respect for the living things that we kill and consume to live. but trap and release flies? Hmm that is just so ridiculous  that it just brings the whole notion of vegetarianism in to the realm of the absurd.

I think that having a vegetarian diet can be respectable, (as demonstrated by the millions of Hindus ) sadly though the preachy and holier than thou types spoil it for all of those who do it quietly without a fuss.

Cheers Comrades

* for human beings

Day made

Justice?

As a parent I can not say that had someone that I knew molested one of my children that I would not have reacted in anger with violence, especially if it had happened in my own home while I was near by.

A QUEENSLAND father who bashed a man caught molesting his 10-year-old son is facing a prison sentence, while the boy’s attacker walks free.

In a highly unusual case, Shane Thomas Davidson was spared jail despite pleading guilty to molesting the boy on State Of Origin night last year.

Judge Ian Dearden told Beenleigh District Court the sentence was reduced because the young victim’s father had wrongly taken action into his own hands and badly beaten Davidson.

“There is no place in our community for a vigilante approach,” he said.

Davidson was sentenced on Monday to a nine-month intensive corrections order.

The boy’s father is awaiting trial on one count of grievous bodily harm, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Child safety campaigner Hetty Johnston yesterday slammed the sentence for Davidson..

But this sort of sentencing is just bonkers, the offender being justifiably assaulted by his victim’s father should have no bearing on the legal sanction he received. This is the same sort of fuzzy thinking that led to the light sentencing in that Aurukun Rape case. Justice is ill served when  its blindfold is removed if a crime deserves jail time then it deserves jail time in all circumstances .

As for the victim’s dad, I can bet that every day he spends in jail will be served with pride, because protecting your kids , even with extreme prejudice, is part of the job description.

Cheers Comrades

100 leftard slaves required

My general opinion of cats can be summed up by my suggestion that they make excellent bait in crab pots, or by the aphorism that “dogs have masters, cats have slaves” so I post this with the hope that there are 100 willing slaves out there for these poor widdle puddy cats…

HOMES wanted ... Nellie Worringham of the RSPCA with birman kittens up for adoption. Picture: Annette Dew

THE RSPCA is helping a Lockyer Valley couple who have a problem – about 100 cats too many – after a home breeding program went out of control.
Already 20 of the strikingly coloured birman cats have been taken to RSPCA headquarters, where they are being neutered before being offered for adoption.

Some with illnesses have been euthanased.

RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty said yesterday the couple was working with the RSPCA to reduce cat numbers at their property.

It is sadly amusing that so many lefties seem to also be cat fanciers, ah well that must be because, at heart they are all slaves .
Cheers Comrades

Bridgit Gread "Being the hardline Marxist lesbian Nazi"

Bridgit Gread and some of her fellow travellers have been making much of my mention of Abby Winters  in a recent post at my main blog.

I agree with Jeremy Sear when he says:

If you’re talking about the abusive porn industry, Abby Winters is quite the opposite – the “explicit sex acts” they’re talking about are girls masturbating. Hardly women being abused.

#

In fact if you check out the “model for us ” page on the Abby Winters website you will see that the whole process of becoming a model appears to be based upon fully informing candidates of what they are getting into and what is to be expected. I think the correct term here is informed consent.

Bridgit Gread is naturally being her usual hypocritical self in response to Jeremy:

The nature of this ‘business’ is what concerns me and undoubtedly what concerned the Herald Sun. The recruiting field for models seems to be young students and backpackers, two demographics who are chronically short of cash and eager for a quick buck. The company offers them relatively small amounts of cash, presumably subverting taxation, contract and employment law, to strip and masturbate. The video footage of this is then proliferated. That ;;;; finds all this A-OK doesn’t surprise me, since his misogynistic views of women are well established, however I find your condoning of it as some kind of expression of sexual liberalism to be quite unnerving.

#

Gread is  rather patronising of the models , all adults who must provide proof of age before they are photographed, are not getting a big enough share of the profits she implies wrongdoing  with regard to taxation and contractual  arrangements with out a scrap of evidence  about the same  level of proof that she has for her claims about my attitude to women.

Unlike her I think that young women , over the age of majority, are entitled in law to willingly do as they please even to model naked.  Sanctimonious and patronising are rather mild ways of describing her line of argument.

Still patronising Gread continues to prove how stupid her argument is:

I am not opposed to pornography per se but like prostitution it needs to be tightly regulated. Slipping some naive and hard-up young girl $500 to strip and self-pleasure in front of a camera might be good business for the pornographer and a simple expression of sexual liberation for “social progressives” like yourself – but for the girl it is likely to be a life-changing experience with unforeseen ramifications. Who is protecting her rights – financial, moral and otherwise – in this process, Jeremy?

#

Just when is she  going to expect that an individual has to take responsibility for their actions? Because the clear implication from Gread’s argument is that the age of majority at eighteen is too young.  She is unwilling to believe that becoming officially an adult when one turns eighteen means anything, like a lot of socialists she thinks that the nanny state should eternally interfere with people’s autonomy “for their own good”.

Newsflash! there is a probably no perfect time for declaring some one an adult there will always be the precocious and the naive  so we have to accept that some young people will make decisions that they may later regret. Good bad or indifferent once a person reaches their majority it is their decision to make and sanctimonious leftards like Gread have no right to deprive them of their autonomy.

Ever the elitist Gread misses the point yet again

From my perspective there’s a clear difference between the high-profile female porn stars – who probably have agents and legal representation – and the cash-in-hand outfits like Abby Winters, who seem to target students, itinerants and travellers. Before approving of such an operation I’d want to be sure that it was lawful and that it protected the interests of its ‘models’ by providing full disclosure about what they are getting into.

#

Had she actually read the “model for us” page that I linked to above she would see that this company  goes to some effort to fully disclose their employment terms for models , in plain language and she makes the mistake of assuming that because models are paid in real currency rather than  by some other method makes them a “fly by night” outfit. She “self pwns ” simply by failing to fact check even though she linked to the site in her article.

There’s also a question of money. If the site has 30,000 subscribers at $30 a month then it’s making close to a million bucks a month. How much of this is finding its way to the models? If they’re being paid $500-800 cash for a single shoot, I’d hazard a guess at “not very much”. Being the hardline Marxist lesbian Nazi I am, I say “more spoils for the workers!”

#

In a free market the price for any good or service is set by “market forces” and Gread would have also seen , had she checked that this company make  the point that they pay more than the going rate for such this sort  “work”.  But where is her research about levels of payment for this sort of modelling? Gread’s complainants t about the proportion of the company’s profits that go to the models is just a desperate ploy to support her contention that the models are being “exploited” she fails miserably to make her case here.

I will leave the last word here to Jeremy Sear who I actually agree with on this issue:

Now, there may be plenty of problems with the porn industry as it exists today, but all of them would be better dealt with by proper regulation. If sex workers are exploited, it is difficult to see how driving the industry underground has helped. A legal and regulated industry would enable them to unionise, effectively demand proper working conditions and fair compensation, and in other ways protect their rights in a way that the present system does not. The argument that criminalising porn somehow protects women is flimsy at best, given the obstacles it puts in the way of such workers having any agency at all in defending their rights. And as a justification for the state censoring any and all depictions of this major area of the human experience, it’s just offensively inadequate.

source

Cheers Comrades

Fly away Peter

Peter Costello

Unlike some of my fellow conservatives I have never held a torch for Peter Costello. I have always thought that as leader he would have been unelectable. But for the benefit of the party and those of us who want to see that Brother Number One only has a single term in the lodge the imminent retirement of the member for Higgins is a very good thing indeed.

A RESURGENT Malcolm Turnbull is free to go to the next federal election without speculation over his leadership after Peter Costello eliminated himself as a rival yesterday by announcing his retirement.

And as the former treasurer told parliament he would end two proud decades in parliament at the next election, a Newspoll showed the opposition had smashed Labor’s long-standing first preference lead to move to within a percentage point of the government.

While Kevin Rudd continues to command strong personal popularity, the poll, conducted at the weekend exclusively for The Australian, has Labor on a primary vote of 41 per cent with the opposition on 40 per cent.

Maybe he will make a return to the law because regular readers will realise that there must be a dearth of talent at the Victorian bar if the example  of one of its members seen here is anything to go by.
Cheers Comrades

The perils of late starts

The biological imperative tells us to reproduce before we die, The commercial imperative tells us to buy until we can’t buy any more and Feminism tells us that women should value a career above all else.
Am I the only one who sees that there are “irreconcilable differences” between these three imperatives?

Cameron Diaz expressed recently that to be child-free is to be happy (click to enlarge)

A worrying range of conditions (for example, cleft palate, heart-valve defects, digestive-system abnormalities) was more likely to occur in IVF babies.

The HFEA ordered an alert and decided to update its guidance.

But behind all these complex issues lies a more simple question: what has brought so many people to the point where they place a faith in the science of IVF that would once have been placed in God (or at least nature)?

Some doctors have conjectured that the poorer health prospects of IVF babies and children may to be to do with the fact that older women seek IVF when their eggs are of a lower quality.

Whatever the truth, it’s certainly sobering to recall that when I had my first child in 1974, at the age of 28, I was considered by the medical profession in those days to be quite old for childbirth.

Today few educated, professional women are even considering having children until they are into their 30s – and often not until they are well over 35.

It’s as if they are thinking (even subconsciously) that if they fail to conceive, IVF will come to the rescue.*

The simple truth is, there are no such guarantees.

I am the very last person on the planet who would suggest that a woman should not pursue career goals, just remember that your carer ambitions are able to be fulfilled at any time during your life but the ability to conceive and gestate  healthy children is not so amenable to your whims and desires.

Cheers Comrades

*My bold

Labor’s anti-Semites break cover

Israeli Drag queen K-Long participates at the annual Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv,Israel. AP Photo*

Its always sadly amused me that when it comes to dialogue with Israel all that the far left want to hear is the announcement of that nations dissolution so it is no surprise that when our deputy PM Julia Gillard announces that she is leading a delegation to Israel that the anti-Semites  Zionists Israelis in the party break cover.

SEVERAL Labor MPs have expressed concerns about Julia Gillard’s upcoming trip to Israel, where the Deputy Prime Minister will lead a delegation to hold a dialogue with Israeli leaders.

The MP for Fowler, Julia Irwin, an executive member of the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Palestine group, yesterday criticised the trip as an unnecessary “public relations exercise” for Israel. “When leaders and academics are distancing themselves from Israel following its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Australian politicians are taking part in this public relations exercise,” Ms Irwin said.

The delegation also includes the Labor MPs Michael Danby and Mark Dreyfus and the Liberal MPs Peter Costello, Christopher Pyne and George Brandis.

Ah well it is probably better that they are in the open rather than pretending that they are fair minded individuals who don’t want to see every Jew driven into the sea …

Cheers Comrades

*I do wonder how the minions of the far-left reconcile their support for the Palestinians, who are predominately members of  the faith that wants to see a capital sanction for gay sex, and their support for the gay agenda.