The Australian reports that Labor’s lead in this fortnight’s Newspoll is down slightly from 57-43 to 56-44. Kevin Rudd is down three points as preferred leader to 65 per cent while Brendan Nelson is up two to 14 per cent.
The latest weekly Essential Research survey shows no change in Labor’s long-standing 58-42 lead. Also featured is a national-level question on state voting intention which suggests collective primary vote support for the state Labor governments is 7 per cent lower than for federal Labor (40 per cent compared with 47 per cent), although Coalition support is only 3 per cent higher (38 per cent compared with 35 per cent). Further questions involve federal Labor’s performance on various individual issues, and attitudes to the balance of power in the Senate.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/154782/page/1
Ron.this is a link to a Newsweek report on that oily elitist liberal with double standards.I am surprised you did not mention that he is also muslim terrorist who hates Muraka.
It will be interesting to see what sort of welcome the Pineapple Party get in Canberra. Their first outing in the Qld Parliament was a circus.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/treasurer-roasts-kfc-party/2008/08/26/1219516434931.html
42
Ron
We get it, Ron. You hate Obama. Well too bad, for better or worse, he is the Dems choice this time round.
For those of you with an interest, there is a good article in today’s Australian by Simon Montefiore called ‘The ghost of Stalin strides the Caucasus’. Lots of interesting historical detail, such as that Putin’s grandfather was Stalin’s chef and Saakashvili’s grandparents hid Stalin from the Tsarist police. Motefiori has been there often and knows what he is talking about.
Liam at 47:
That would explain it. 😉
Whatever the cause, the paper’s actions are hard to justify.
31 “Apparently Mr Joyce stated yesterday on TV that he was willing to negotiate with the government. Mr X & FF you are on notice!”
Dario, if that was what Barnaby said discount it. The Opposition can do nothing about anything this term. Action has moved to others. Joyce is no position to negotiate anything with anyone. All he needs to know is that the Pineapple Party members did not win at the last election.
“The Opposition has lost its control of the upper house and won’t have the power, on its own, to pass, defeat, delay or amend legislation.”
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24243967-5005361,00.html
Flaneur @ 55
The quality of the discussion in the emails (quoted by ABC last night) between Corkill and the CM journo was not inspiring. What is happening could be a conspiracy or a cockup. Based on the texts provided, cock-up is looking good.
Whatever, it demonstrates why having one newspaper dominating a city may not be good for balanced information flows, and cannot be good for democracy.
Diogenes , you were th one not me , who brought up Candidates houses , but you strangely omitted to mention Obama’s own $1.9 million house , amongst others
Liam I did not make an asertion , I quoted a fact of court records , a fact Obama when questioned tried to slipperly avoid , and when continually cornered with evidence then could hardly deny , so HE aknowledged , followed by approx quote “it was not a smart thing to do” ….meaning by that stage his 20 year mate Rezko had by THEN be charged with property fraud
Obama is comfortable with ‘spin’ , but when confronted with facts he like his admirers you and Just Me can not handle it Check th Court records if you wish
[Obama’s] admirers you and Just Me
I have never said I was an Obama supporter (nor a Clinton opponent). That is your false assumption/imputation, and reveals far more about your views than mine. You will find no evidence on this forum (or elsewhere) that I am an Obama supporter. All I ever said about him was that I thought he would win the Dem nomination, which he did. That was just a straight psephological prediction, it does not in any way imply support for Obama. Indeed, I do not see a lot of difference overall between him and Clinton as far as electoral prospects go, or their general policy positions.
But I do think that much of the criticism of him is hysterical partisan nonsense from embittered Hillary supporters, such as yourself, apparently. He won the race against her fair and square, get over it.
Do you seriously prefer that the Dems lose (again) simply because your preferred candidate did not get up? If so, then you have a lot of political maturing to do. If not, then get behind Obama. Or at least, get off his back.
Ron,you can spin like a top as well as anyone.For your information I did not support Obama.Why do you not address the facts in the Newsweek report? Factcheck.org has shown your story as simply not factual. Just repeating G.O.P. spin does not make it a fact
57 Whatever, it demonstrates…
Boerwar, it is also important that the former media advisor went to work for another council after the elections.
On the topic of the Murray. This made me chuckle.
St Kev has done it again!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24240761-5013169,00.html
“The signs are there that we shouldn’t give up,” said Mr Davis, a curriculum adviser and former teacher. He has cheered the 170mm of rain that has fallen around the lakes since Kevin Rudd visited them in early July — not that he’s calling the Prime Minister a rainmaker.
Diogenes 50
A quick search on Wikipedia suggests that distance is quite possible, though difficult. Apparently armies are now using high calibre (50 cal) heavy rifles for snipers. They can fire over 1000 metres. So its possible and therefore a risk. I imagine it would still take some skill though.
Socrates
I’ve seen a professional shooter, shoot a fox with a .22 designed for the job from over 750 meters. Quite amazing really
The range is challenging but not a problem for someone who knows what they are doing. There would be no problem in the US gun market picking up appropriate gun and ammo. If people have not already got the skills, there is no problem picking up the necessary training. It is plausible that there are willing nutters out there. It is plausible that Obama would be a target.
Hockey bounced out of Question Time.
Member for Kalgoorlie thrown out.
Just Me
You spent a whole post without addressing th facts , and instead used red herring personal but that abuse does not improve your argument As I said not only ar there official public records but also Obama’s own public acknowledgement For someone allegedly not a Obama supporter , you show unusual degree of hostility
Liam
Unfortunately both candidates hav learnt to ‘abuse’ internet with numeous disinformation sites & others that ar attack sites Only reliable information is what comes from there mouths & public records both of which ar unambiguous As to your kindly comment “I am surprised you did not mention that he is also muslim terrorist who hates Muraka.” , well that is not a fact
They’re raving over at The Nameless One’s blog about the appointment of the GG’s private secretary.
Apparently Quentin Bryce knows this guy from way back. And he is gay.
This is all evidence of the sinister Labor government stacking their mates into plum jobs.
Makes you shake your head. They just don’t accept that Rudd is Prime Minister, has a perfect right to appoint whomever he wants (if allowed by law) and that he remains hugely popular among those who elected him, despite the Nameless One’s Acolytes’ wishes and prayers to the contrary, if today’s Newspoll is to be believed (and the last one, and the last one, going back to August 2006).
I know we have a propensity to whinge here, too, but these guys take the cake.
Sheesh…
Obama did publicly admit that he had cocked up on his house purchase arrangements. The ‘significant other’ is facing indictment, or has been indicted or something, I am not sure. (Is being indicted the same as being charged? I don’t know).
Anyway, whether one house that is worth $1.9 million purchased under slightly noisy arrangements is any more of a campaign negative than 7 houses worth who knows how many million will be interesting to see.
The fact that the owner of the seven houses did not know how many houses he had is strangely compelling on two counts. One is that he may have difficulty being in touch with people who are having difficulty holding onto even one house, or who don’t own a house at all. (I used ‘may’ deliberately). The other is that if he can’t count to seven at his human scale, how is going to handle the numbers at a national or international scale?
In both cases, the important point is the capacity of the person concerned to delegate effectively. Do we know anything about that capacity?
The wiki piece on snipers says the “world record” for a sniper kill is 2430m! It was during the Afghanistan War in 2003 by a Canadian. The bullet travels at 750 m/s so it took three seconds to reach the target.
Diogenes
The modern 50 cal snipers rifle can occasionally make those shots but they’re still almost unbelievably difficult.
As for our friends in Denver.
A one shot kill at 750m with a conventionally available rifle is a very challenging shot. In anything less than perfectly calm weather I’d pretty much put my money on a clean miss. At that range a strong crosswind can push the bullet more than ten feet off target!
A professional sniper would change the odds considerably of course but I strongly suspect a pro would go for a shorter range shot anyway. To be sure of a kill at that range even the pros use match quality rifles, barometers, wind speed meters and laser rangefinders.
Coalition in the Senatre now talking down the economy while accusing Swan of… talking down the economy.
Of course the 50 cals also have the advantage that a hit pretty much anywhere on the torso is inevitably fatal. You don’t need a head shot when the bullet is the size of your thumb.
70 Boerwar
The latest I’ve heard is that it’s now 10 houses.
68
Ron Says:
You spent a whole post without addressing th facts
The real facts in this debate are that Obama won the nomination, fair and square, and you cannot accept that.
Sorry if you find that so hard to believe that I am not an Obama supporter (nor a Clinton opponent), and that you have to see anybody not overtly supporting Clinton and attacking Obama as ‘teh enemy’. Can’t help you with that.
Ron @ 12 –
and to posters earlier today who claimed ANZUS was just a ‘consult only with no defence committment , a quote from ANZUS protects this Countrys sovereignty
Article IV
snipped
Whitlam , Hawke , Keating and Rudd hare entitled to believe whatever they wish, but Article IV does not commit any member to come to the military aid of another.
Malcolm Fraser laid out the ANZUS limitations pretty clearly in a 2000 speech:
(Full text here)
He then goes on the list instances where ANZUS was put to the test and the U.S. failed to support us, notably over West Irian and Malaya from which he draws the same conclusions I previously outlined. Quote:
Bottom line: In the unlikely event we are ever invaded the only ones we can totally rely on is ourselves.
.
Socrates @ 63 –
They can fire over 1000 metres. So its possible and therefore a risk. I imagine it would still take some skill though.
Wasn’t Hillary bragging about her hunting prowess during the campaign? Used to blow high flying ducks out of the air if I recall correctly. Or was it raccoons? 😉
dogb
I just looked up the JFK assassination and it was only 81m from the 6th floor of the Book Depository to the motorcade. There was a lot of argument that it was a stretch for Oswald to make that shot. I’m sure the modern rifles are better though but 750m would be a big ask.
Wouldn’t Obama have been wearing a Kevlar vest anyway? Would that have saved him?
Brendan Nelson in SMH saying he believes that the Labor vote is soft and not at all like the opinion polls show?
Yeh! and in 1975 Margaret Whitlam really believed that the Whitlam Government would be returned safely based on who she was talking to on the campaign trail.
I guess it is who you talk to?
Poor Brendan!
Ron,you have lost me,if you have some evidence to link to please do,Newsweek and factcheck.org are not Obama bots.Thats all on this.
Just Me
neither th official records nor Obama’s own acknowledgement ar stacked up against your…what ? abuse , your failure to check th records says it all , you ar th most uncloseted closet Obama supporters around Liam if you wish to rely on boidgy intenet sites for information instead of public records thats your problem
Fact is both US Partys hav made a decision , both made bad decisions , Obama a phoney and Mccain a maverick , and I’ll criticise whether you like it or not because they will both affect Kevin RUDD and Labors FA , and in Obama’ case his “protectionist policys will severeley hurt OUR farmer’s pockets and outr manufacturign exporters
MayoFeral @ 77
You conclude with: ‘Bottom line: In the unlikely event we are ever invaded the only ones we can totally rely on is ourselves.’ Spot on.
Other countries that are smaller than we are, and which have far greater degrees of vulnerability, appear to the have the national confidence to take a fully independent line, and to assume full responsibility for homeland defence.
Australian soldiers have generally, but not always, fought with great physical courage. Some Australian generals have shown high levels of strategic capacity. Australian civilians appear to lack a matching degree of moral courage and an unwillingness to explore an alternative vision.
Ron, you are going to see whatever you want to see.
Have fun.
78 Diogenes
The range for the Kennedy assassination is well within the abilities of even an amateur and while LHO was hardly that, he wasn’t great either. One clean miss from three shots is probably fairly substandard from that range. Someone of Oswald’s talent would probably struggle to get a clean hit on the car at 750m, never mind a head shot.
As for the Kevlar vest, it’s probably a good idea but not for the reason you think. What scares me (and it really does) is not the 750m shot, it’s the 75cm shot. Obama has no choice at this stage but to be as open and friendly with the crowd as possible. I hate to even think of it but I worry that some racist redneck jerk with two teeth, twelve brain cells and a Saturday night special will try to get him from point blank. A headshot at that range is difficult. O will be surrounded by the secret service and those guys react damn fast – but a snapshot is possible and most likely will be a torso shot.
I don’t know if O wears a vest when he goes into the crowd but I certainly hope he does.
Boerwar and MF
I met an Aussie soldier a few days ago who had been stationed in Iraq and the US. I asked him why the soldiers who came to see me never wore their uniforms.
He told me a story of when he was in the US, in uniform, walking down a street. A lady and her kid came up to him and asked him where he came from. When he said “Australia” the lady shook his hand and thanked him for helping their country, and told her kid to thank him as well.
In Australia he says he has been spat on, sworn at, called a murderer and threatened with violence when he wore his uniform in public. So the soldiers are told not to wear their uniforms in public.
Diogenes,
As usual, wikipedia has an answer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper_rifle#Maximum_effective_range
Check the accuracy section just above it as well. With a 0.1 or 0.2 MOA accuracy rifle that range is certainly do-able. At that range as well normal kevlar vests may not be effective for the correct ammunition.
Ron,good luck with all that.
On Four Corners last night they said that Turnbull got 6 million in fees from Packer for his Fairfax work and yet in the dark of night he risks all to scupper the deal. There are some serious questions to be answered here. On whose behalf did he do this? Did Conrad Black play any role in his decision? I am pleased he did, but I would still like to know on whose behalf he was acting.
Boerwar @ 82 –
Other countries that are smaller than we are, and which have far greater degrees of vulnerability, appear to the have the national confidence to take a fully independent line, and to assume full responsibility for homeland defence.
Something I have been advocating for decades. While I accept that a lack of confidence is a big factor, we shouldn’t discount that it has allowed politicians to run defence on the cheap.
The only advantage our alliance with the U.S. has delivered since WW2 is access to their best military equipments, but even that is no longer the case, as demonstrated by their unwillingness to sell us even a lower spec version of the F-22. Plus, I for one am mighty pissed that they have on a couple of occasions now knowingly sold us secondhand equipment which turned out be useless – the rust-bucket landing ships being a classic! It demonstrates a complete lack of regard for our security!
But even that lost advantage may not have been worth the price we’ve paid – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, hosting facilities that are prime nuclear targets, the insistence that, as Fraser noted in the speech I linked earlier, in the event of war with China we must side with America even if it’s against our interests (yes, I’m aware that Rudd has indicated he won’t be bound but when push comes to shove…?), etc.
Diogenes @ 85
Well, I don’t even want to begin to believe that, but if it is true, it has to be faced. It is utterly disgraceful.
I protested against the Vietnam war. But I respected very much then, and I respect now, the men who fought on our behalf and took the opportunity to tell any vets I bumped into that that was my view.
I believe the disgraceful treatment by ignorant civilians of our vets who came back from Vietnam helped to finally destroy many of them psychologically, if the mental trauma of battle damage had not already done so. They should have been welcomed back as heroes, told that, sorry, the democracy had changed its mind, but we honour and respect your efforts on our behalf.
The following bit is a bit personal but anyway here goes.
Yesterday I wept. I was reading a book about the USS Aaron Ward. It was a picket ship near Okinawa and its job was to act as early warning radar station for air attacks from Japan against the US Okinawan invasion force. Most of the sailors aboard the USS Aaron Ward were very ordinary hostilities only people. They were hit by six kamikazis in the space of about an hour. The story describes what happened to individuals during and after the attacks. The story weaves in ordinary details about ordinary men who found themselves in hell. The story also weaves in the details of the families back home as they get the yellow telegrams.
I protested several times against the Iraq war. We don’t yet really know the stories of our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan but they deserve our honour and respect. I understand the a significant proportion of them have been traumatized. If anything, we should weep for them; not revile them.
9
oldtimer Says:
August 26th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
“Brendan Nelson in SMH saying he believes that the Labor vote is soft and not at all like the opinion polls show?
Yeh! and in 1975 Margaret Whitlam really believed that the Whitlam Government would be returned safely based on who she was talking to on the campaign trail.”
Reminds me of Kennett’s wife ahter he was given the royal order of the boot. Her comment? I don’t understand the result – I don’t know anyone who voted Labor.”
Too late to say sorry to ‘nam’ vets , damage was done years ago , fight in rotten jungles , come to ‘oz’ where soldier was not even treated like a reel soldier like ww2 ones Called traitors , my Lai supporters , no anzac day , lost mates , many since died without any recognitions , many hav suffered mentality , but at least now there is appeciation & saw it this year at MCG
Ron @ 91
For the survivors, better late than never. As for the ones that didn’t survive the peace, well, yep, its too late.
Ron, MF and Boerwar
This soldier I met was a very pleasant straightforward guy. I was quite amazed by the matter-of-fact way he related it to me.
We have come a long way recently as Ron pointed out for the Vietnam vets for many reasons. So why is another generation of Iraq vets going through the same thing? Or was his experience very atypical?
#50 Diog – [Plot to Kill Obama: Shoot From High Vantage Point] – The Deer Hunter Boys are singing bye bye Miss American Pie.
being a rabid rabbit and wallaby shooter when young i feel that a few inaccuracies are present in this thread
1. a .22 will not kill at 750 metres
2. the necessary weapon would need to be at least a .357 cal to ensure kill at 750m
3. the line of sight would not be afforded unless the shooter was suspended from the ceiling
4. the room (and precints) is under constant microwave scanning to enable any metal profiling to appear
5. no ceramic rifle exists currently in the .357 cal and above rang
Diogenes @ 93
Let’s hope its atypical.
I saw some figures a month or so ago which, and I have only the haziest memory, indicated that something over 60% of soldiers return from either Iraq or Afghanistan or both were seeking compensation for stress. I hope they get it. That way war budgets can begin to include all the real costs.
I wish I had a dollar for every “soldier being spat on inthe street” story I’ve read or heard in my lifetime.
What a complete load of hogwash. Why do you bother promoting such cheap soap-opera drivel?
Soldiers don’t wear their uniforms in public in Australia. It’s just not the custom. In America they’re into it, but not here.
Bushfire,
Notwithstanding the specifics of what may or may not have happened, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence about Vietnam vets getting a hard time, though, wouldn’t you say?
Bushfire
Some govt departments have uniformed officers working in them.
Bushfire Bill @ 97
Well, I could say something like: ‘I wouldn’t mind a dollar for every time Vietnam vets copped abuse.’ If so, we would both be at an essentially meaningless level of debate. Not sure whether the terms ‘soap opera’ and ‘drivel’ adds much, either. These aren’t actors.
As to ‘complete load of hogwash’, I do recall that quite a few of my lefty peers (I being a lefty at the time) were well into personal abuse of soldiers during, and straight after, the Vietnam war. They boasted about it in righteous tones. Many Vietnam vets have reported having suffered one form of abuse or another. I don’t think they were all, or even mostly, bullshitting, but I may be wrong and you may be right.
Beyond that, I would be interested in how you would approach the issue of what the right approach would be to returned soldiers when either sizable minorities oppose a war, or when the majority shifts from being for a war to against a war.