Tom Cruise is a liberal but is this going too far?

The US has been critical of China in recent days over suspicions that they have stolen US technology to produce their J20 stealth fighter. Now footage has been shown on China’s state broadcaster, CCTV showing a training exercise in which the missile strikes come from the movie Top Gun.

From Wall St Journal:


Beijing has been very critical of news outlets using this sort of reporting when they get sprung. Some previous reports have criticized US congressmen citing The Onion and an X-ray image of Homer Simpsons head.

Olbermann hits the wall.

I have been away for a few days, part of which was spent at the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) National Convention. I remain on the Federal Executive, although this is no big deal as these bastards are libertarians. Any other party would allow me to let the power go to my head, but bossing these pricks is like mustering cats. In another age when we were the Progress Party, one of us recommended a film as, "should be compulsory viewing," only to get several replies telling him, "Don't tell us somethings compulsory you authoritarian prick."

Anyway, like most bloggers I have the constant worry that if I leave the net for more than a day, the world will go to hell. Naturally I was concerned as I got home and rushed to my computer to get online, fortunately the news is reasonably good. I noticed among other things that Olbermann has been terminated at MSNBC.

Pundits are speculating on the reasons, some are saying that he wanted to leave anyway. Some say he was sacked because he was a raving egotist and was impossible to deal with, others say that he had lost all credibility. I am somewhat inclined to go along with the school of thought that says that the new owners of the network are hoping to improve their ratings by attracting rational viewers, although that fails to explain why Mathews, Maddow, Shultz and so on are still there.

Anyway, he will be missed by some:

Herman Cain Vs Clinton Healthcare.

At last years Southern Republican Leadership Conference the most brilliant address was given by Tea Party Republican, Herman Cain. After he left the stage and the applause died down, he returned to the microphone and announced:

I just want you to keep this in mind when you get to 2011, that a lot of people might be interested in seeking the Republican nomination, but I want you to remember one thing, there may also be a dark horse candidate you don’t know about.

The full speech is here, and an edited version is here.

Recently he has jumped in to the race and formed an exploratory committee to assess the potential for candidacy.

He has an incredible bio, being the son of a poor farmer who left with nothing to work three jobs to educate his sons. Herman rose to the top of the business world, and now among other activities is a talk show host. Probably one of the most interesting things I have read is that he was responsible for the demise of Clinton’s healthcare proposal, after a televised town hall in which he laid out the facts.

Now the following video has come to light of the actual event. Interestingly Clinton comes across as sincere here. Perhaps he had a certain intellectual honesty lacking in the present incumbent:



This round of primaries should be interesting, as apart from the usual suspects we have Herman as well as former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and the possibility of Donald Trump, who has aides leaking that he is almost certain to stand.

Of the three newbie’s, Johnson would have to be the favorite owing to having been a successful Governor. I am a bit skeptical of Trump, I know too little about him, but this guy would be an asset to the position. It should be remembered though that the last person to become President without being a Governor, Senator, or at least a Rep was Eisenhower.

Cato, Reason, and other libertarian groups completely ignoring the Threat of Radical Islam

This is a guest post from Eric Dondero from Libertarian Republican, and Worldwide Liberty.

Generally libertarians tend to vary on foreign policy, from the extreme anti war, whatever that may mean, libertarians right through to pro defence types, which includes me. Noninterventionism is fine as a principle if you hold to it, however there is a strong element within that who seem to believe that this principle binds us to ignore the atrocities of the world on the basis of it being none of our business. This is wrong.

While it is reasonable to accept the idea of not sending troops to foreign countries, liberty is the rightful state of affairs for all mankind. At a time when public opinion is crippled by the tyranny of PC to the point where most of the 'mainstream' press simply ignore everything that could conceivably be thought vaguely if improbably possible to cause the slightest offence to the most radically extreme believer in any philosophy, no matter how ridiculous its foundation, some of us need to stand up for our beliefs.

Where injustice is seen we need to hold the blowtorch of visibility to its belly. We don't ask Cato, Reason, or the anti war swabs to go over there and fight but at least let the world outside our doors see that supporters of the principle of liberty, are at least willing to offer moral support. That is of course if those entities can get past parsing the word 'moral' to see who can come up with the most binding definition.

Anyway, here is Eric:-

Foreign Policy analysts Dr. Clifford May opines over at National Review: "The War Against the Christians. The most important story not being told" Jan. 13:
He writes:

Imagine if Muslims in Europe were being arrested for nothing more than peacefully practicing their religion. Imagine if Muslims in South America were being sentenced to death for “insulting” Jesus. Imagine if mosques were being bombed and burned by terrorists in a growing list of Christian-majority countries.

Now here’s what you don’t need to imagine because it is all too real: In recent days, Christian churches have been bombed in Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, and the Philippines. In Indonesia a mob of 1,000 Muslims burned down two Christian churches because, according to one commentator, local Islamic authorities determined there were “too many faithful and too many prayers.” In Iran, scores of Christians have been arrested. In Pakistan, a Christian woman received the death penalty for the “crime” of insulting Islam; the governor of Punjab promised to pardon her — and was then assassinated for the “crime” of blasphemy.

I could provide dozens more examples of the persecution and, in many cases, “cleansing” of Christians in what we have come to call the Muslim world...

Radical Islam presents the absolute Greatest Threat to Liberty in our Lifetimes
LibertarianRepublican.net in which I serve as Editor, is one political website that has been telling the story. Within the last week alone, LR has run stories on:

Labour MP: Pakistanis raping British Girls rampant in UK

Police in Britain too "frightened" of PC to arrest Pakistani men raping British Girls

Muslim police officer guns down 6 Christians on Egyptian Train - Female victims not wearing Burqas

South Sudan votes for Independence like our own fight for Independence in 1776
Islamist attackers hack to death 13 Christians in Nigeria
Radical Muslim conquest of Somalia near complete

Cato jumped on the demise of the Soviet Union, but refuses to promote Liberty in the Middle East

Clifford May is correct in questioning the liberal media, and there serious lack of coverage of these vastly important stories. But he misses the libertarian media.

Where's Reason on the rise of Islamo-Fascism? Where's the Cato Institute and their daily blog? The Libertarian Party? Influential libertarian pundit sites like The Agitator, Liberty Papers, The Daily Libertarian, Nolan Chart?

Of course, numerous other left-leaning libertarian sites completely avoid the subject for obvious reasons; sites like AntiWar.com, LewRockwell.com, and many of the Ron Paul sites. To talk of the threat of Radical Islam, would bring up the uncomfortable subject of what to do about it, for these hardline non-interventionist/isolationists.

But Cato, Reason? Why are they taking a head-in-the sand approach on Islamo-Fascism? They proclaim to be consistently Pro-Liberty, but how can we have liberty if Sharia Law is being shoved down our throats?

And Cato has no leg to stand on in this regard. For, in the early 1990s, they sent an entire delegation of free market economists and policy analysts to the former Soviet Union to promote freedom-oriented policies, at considerable expense. Why aren't they doing the same now in the Muslim world, sending libertarian scholars and policy analysists over the Middle East to promote Ayn Rand, Hayek, and other free marketeers?

LibertarianRepublican.net is virtually the only libertarian website giving coverage to the threat of Radical Islam. In fairness, Reason touches on the subject once in a great while, when it overlaps with free speech concerns such as the Danish cartoonist and South Park controversies. But that's it.

Yes Clifford May, the liberal media is purposely avoiding coverage of Radical Muslim violence against Christians. But the libertarian media is just as absent. It just doesn't fit the template.

Update: This item from Eric has been published at Breitbart's Big Peace.

Is blaming Palin, covering sheriff’s incompetence?

Cartoon: Glen Foden.

The Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and around eighteen others was and still is a tragedy. The unfortunate attempts by the left to spin it to their own paranoid agenda are fast turning it into a farce, or an exercise in the truly bizarre. It seems that in the eyes of the left there has to be someone other than the killer to blame, and that has to be someone on the right.

In the beginning there was speculation that the intended target was Judge John Roll as he had made a recent decision that had upset ranchers in the area. It was not difficult to see where this was heading. Despite the fact that the killer was caught right there in the act, and was known to be a relatively unstable drop out the media immediately moved to blame the Tea Party, and more specifically Sarah Palin.

The Sherriff, Clarence Dupnik was especially quick off the mark in blaming the crime, not on the killer but on “vitriol of the nation's talk radio fueling the kind of hatred that was acted out today.” This is a lawman who didn’t think to have a police presence in the area where the Congresswoman was holding a public meeting, even just to keep an eye on things.

It seems that he may have good reason to deflect the blame for this event as far away from Tucson as possible.

Loughner has been in trouble for a long time, including being tossed out of college after five run-ins with college police. Now it has been revealed by Dupnik himself that he has made death threats before and been contacted by law enforcement officers about it.

There is now a post in “The Cholla Jumps,” which though unconfirmed adds another dimension to the storyline:

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation.

If true, it raises the specter of the local sheriff using his influence to protect a family member of an employee of the local authority that he is responsible to. In other words it is nepotism. It appears, if this is true that if anyone other than the killer is to blame it is Dupnik himself.

It is not surprising that he wants the blame to be laid on Sarah Palin.

Forget Climate Taxes – Climate always Changes, and Man must Adapt.

By Viv Forbes; Chairman,

The Carbon Sense Coalition.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused Western Governments of massive waste of community savings on frivolous climate "research" and alternative energy toys while neglecting the infrastructure needed to maintain sustainable societies in the face of an unknown climate future.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that none of the massive government climate spending has produced anything of long term use to the people paying their bills.

"The US government spends over two thousand million dollars per year on "climate research" but the recipients were completely unable to forecast the frigid winter they are now suffering. That money would be better spent on snow ploughs and highway improvements.

"Australian governments are spending at least eight hundred million dollars per year on "climate research", but were unable to forecast the massive floods now affecting much of Australia. That money would have been better spent on water storage and flood-proofing roads, bridges and airports.

"The UK Government plans to spend one thousand million pounds on carbon capture and burial schemes and untold billions on wind power subsidies, but wind provided almost zero power when needed in the recent freeze. In places, the wind towers actually consumed electricity to protect them from frost damage. UK residents would have been better off had all of that money been spent on reliable power sources and snow-proof infrastructure.

"It is time for all western politicians to recognise climate reality. Changing climate and weather extremes are enduring features of earth's history. This reality exists even if not one elected member recognises it.

"Change is what climate does – floods or droughts, stinking hot or snow storms, stilly nights or violent hurricanes.

"The cycles of ice age extinctions and verdant warm eras are well recorded in earth history. Only 17,000 years ago, much of the northern hemisphere was covered in ice and sea levels were 130m lower. Then followed a long warm period with several peaks hotter than today. This time of warm abundance was terminated by a sudden return of the cold.

"But good times returned with the Roman Warming. It was not Roman use of coal which caused the warming and no carbon tax triggered the lethal Dark Ages cooling which followed.

"Then, with no help from man's carbon dioxide, earth recovered into the Medieval Warming Period but soon slipped back into the bitter Little Ice Age that helped defeat Napoleon's Grand Army in Russia.

"Finally, well before man's engines and smelters became numerous, the Modern Warming started.

"Unfortunately, this warming too will end when the earth, moon, sun and stars command. Taxing carbon to subsidise green playthings will not stop the floods, prevent the snow or change future climate.

"Man must do what every one of our ancestors did – adapt to climate change or suffer the consequences."

For those interested in recent climate cycles: and Here: 


If you want to get angry on how they are wasting your savings:

And to gauge how difficult it is to get governments to come clean on just how much they do spend:

Here's a hint of UK expenditure on wind generators:

Magnifying National Disasters.

Queensland is suffering terrible floods, and many people have lost lives, property, homes, animals and crops. We have enormous sympathy for those who have suffered so badly.

Unfortunately, there is nothing so bad that government action cannot make it worse.

The Queensland floods have attracted a flood of politicians, and not one brought a bucket or a shovel. All are preparing master plans for how, when, where and why flooded people can rebuild their homes and businesses. And lots of officials are jostling to get dictatorial powers over ordinary mortals and their properties. People not allowed to re-enter their homes "until we have deemed it safe". Repairs, of course, must get approvals from people who have probably never built anything. And of course, this terrible flooding is "an example of the extreme climate we will get unless we introduce a carbon tax."

The most useful thing they can do is get their road, rail, air, water and power infrastructure working quickly and suspend all the red tape rigmarole preventing people from cleaning, repairing and rebuilding as quickly as possible. They would be amazed at what free people would achieve.

Here is an article written 20 years ago which is still relevant today:

Was 2010 the Warmest year Ever?

The warm peaks of the last 100 years were 1934, 1998 and maybe 2010.

But where do they rank in a longer term list of warm years?

Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010. Thus, regardless of which year (1934, 1998, or 2010) turns out to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in a longer-term list.

The climate has been warming slowly since the Little Ice Age, but it has quite a ways to go yet before reaching the temperature levels that persisted for nearly all of the past 10,500 years.

It’s really much to-do about nothing.
For a good summary of temperature trends:

And for responses to a recent alarmist article in "The Australian" see:
 "Lies, Damn Lies and Global Warming Statistics"

The Carbon Tax Committee reveals its plans for their
Tax on Hot Air.

While we were all busy preparing for Christmas the Gillard/Greens coalition announced the 11 principles that will guide their planned carbon tax. We have just 6 months to kill this idea. We must restore certainty to the energy and electricity industries by deciding the new tax on carbon will be ZERO.

For an assessment on the Hot Air Tax by Professor Bob Carter: 




Enquiry on Wind Farms

The Australian Senate has called a public inquiry on wind farms. The deadline is Feb 10th. 

Wind Power has very little to recommend it. If private investors wish to risk their savings on these speculative ventures, they should not get handouts from governments or electricity consumers, and should have no power to force landowners or power retailers to accept them.

Wind power is not new or innovative – the world has given us plenty of disastrous examples in Spain, UK, California, Denmark and here in Australia. They are intrusive, unreliable, costly and ugly additions to our environment and our economy. They waste capital and provide little savings of carbon dioxide emissions (even if that were a desirable aim.)

Here is just one comment on the performance of UK wind power recently:

Follow us on Twitter

Carbon Sense now has a twitter page now and if you follow it, you will get a short note every time an article is added to our Carbon Sense web site. Visit:

Stop Press: Thanks to all the people who have asked how we are faring in the great floods of 2011. We live on high ground so are safe from flood waters. The rain has filled all dams (and burst one), replenished underground water and soaked the soils. But on the flood plains in the valley, people have been washed away and drowned and tremendous damage has been done to towns, houses and properties and roads are badly eroded. Farm animals and wildlife are suffering from hunger and exposure. Weak ones will die unless we see some sun soon. Viv & Judy Forbes

Oleg Atbashian on Blogtalk Radio.

Illustration from “Cracking the Obama Code: Don Quixote vs. the Windmill Owners.”

It is somewhat ironic that one of the most articulate advocates for the free market or capitalist system in America today is a former Russian propaganda producer who saw the light and emigrated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is sometime the case that those who grow up in a great system tend to take it for granted or simply fail to appreciate what they have. I have found it’s not uncommon to be having a great time in a great town, but hear the local would be intellectuals bitching about how dull it is.

Oleg is the owner of the satirical website “The Peoples Cube,” which is essentially faux Marxist and has been described as the Stalinist version of the Onion. He does however write some serious articles elsewhere. One that is well worth reading is, “Cracking the Obama Code: Don Quixote vs. the Windmill Owners.”

The following is an interview with Mark Gillar on Blogtalk Radio on his new book, “Shakedown Socialism.” It is just over an hour but seems a lot shorter than that and is well worth the listen:

Listen to internet radio with Mark Gillar on Blog Talk Radio

The Australian may be right.

My Australian readers will appreciate the irony in the “Most read,” headlines section of The Australian today.

First there was; “Aussie rules has turned us into nation of losers.”

Followed by; “Collingwood to quit Test cricket.”

No reaction yet from Eddie McGuire.

Daily show on Happy meal ban.

I am not sure whether this is edited heavily or not but it is a rather hilarious take on the SF ban on happy meals. The interviewer makes ban proponent, Councilman Eric Mar distinctly uncomfortable with the following exchange:

Interviewer: “So you’ve literally created a nanny state, to get your toy you have to eat your fruit and vegetable?”

Mar: “No, we are saying we want healthier options, from fast food companies in San Francisco if they want to attach a toy to it.”

Int: “But that’s what I just said.”

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
San Francisco's Happy Meal Ban
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

Another great contradiction in logic is the part:

Int: “Would it be hard to pass a law to force Netflix to send Super Size Me to every parent in San Francisco?”

Mar: “You can't force Netflix, a private company, to do something like that.”

Int: “Are you serious right now?”

Mar: “We have no power to force Netflix or a private company like that to change a business practice.”

“So, on one hand you are like you can’t do that, but on the other hand, you are doing that.”
Mar: “We don’t have that kind of power.”

“You just said you did.”

Even BP smarter than NSW government.

"I have the best gag writers in the business - politicians."
- cartoonist, Michael Ramirez

I have heard rumours for a while that despite the flooding in the Western river systems of New South Wales, the Snowy Hydro people were still required to top up the floods with ‘environmental’ releases which was exacerbating the problems of the residents down stream. I have to admit to being a bit sceptical at the time as there comes a point occasionally where you get the feeling that even a government authority just couldn’t be that bloody stupid.

I have given myself a few smart slaps round the ear for underestimating the ability of Labor governments to place ideology above common sense.

Jennifer Marohasy is one of our best and brightest, and has followed up on this issue like a bloodhound as is related by her in a Quadrant article in which she explains that she thought it was inconceivable till a few things just didn’t add up.

I was angry at even the concept. It was inconceivable. I phoned Snowy Hydro early on December 10 to set the record straight.

I was put through to their media spokesperson, Paul Johnson, who assured me that Snowy Hydro would do nothing to exacerbate the flood crisis and in particular that no water was being released from Lake Eucumbene. The lake has a capacity nine times Sydney harbour, he said. It was only about 25 percent full because most of the rain had been falling below the Lake.

When I fed that reply back into the email stream from which the rumour originated, Ron Pike, a retired rice farmer and tireless advocate for agriculture, asked, “Why then have water levels in Lake Eucumbene been falling despite significant inflows?”

Perhaps water was being sent to the Snowy River, I thought, but surely not to the Murrumbidgee?

I phoned Mr Johnson back, to put that question to him, but he won’t speak to me anymore. I phoned him back several times during the remainder of last Friday. His assistants initially assured me that he would return my call, but by 4pm, could only confirm that he was in his office and had received my many phone messages.

After a number of unsuccessful inquiries a Mr. James Muddle contacted her suggesting he could help:

… So I asked him, “Is Snowy Hydro releasing water from Lake Eucumbene?” He replied he couldn’t answer that question, that it would be an operational issue for Snowy Hydro whether any water was being released or not. So I asked Mr Muddle what he did – wondering if I could ask him a question that he might be able to answer. Mr Muddle replied that the NSW Office of Water was concerned with water policy issues.

“Ahh,” I thought and asked, “Is Snowy Hydro releasing water from Lake Eucumbene because of commitments to the NSW Office of Water to return water as part of its environmental flow obligations?”

Mr Muddle replied that we don’t normally talk about environment flows when there are floods. So I asked, “No environmental flow releases are being made, that might be topping up the current deluge?”

“You are putting words in my mouth,” he replied.

After more inquiries and an attempt to find answers in the operating license of Snowy Hydro, which seems to be a jumble of bureaucratese and impossible to make sense out of she did some more inquiries online:

A most reliable source and someone who recently attended a meeting with David Harris, the boss of Snowy Hydro, explained that somewhere in the range of 4,000 to 5,000 megalitres of water per day will continue to flow from the Snowy Hydro System, regardless of downstream impacts, because of environmental flow obligations in the Snowy Hydro operating licence. ...

In short, senior bureaucrats have signed off on an agreement, which they are now honouring, which requires environmental flow releases into the already swollen Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. Of course these men in suits don’t live in the Murray Darling Basin and they will continue to receive a salary, paid into their Sydney bank accounts, regardless of how many extra wheat fields flood and extra homes are destroyed.

Jennifer Marohasy is a biologist and adjunct research fellow in the Centre for Plant and Water Science at Central Queensland University.