Free Republic

One of the nice things about debating about the cons and cons of gun control: the real world is full of real-world examples of why gun grabbing is beyond foolish. I’ve already connected the dots between gun control and the destruction of press freedom, drawing on the lessons provided by Mexico. Today’s case-in-point hails from the land down under. smh.com.au reports . . . THE police have launched an audacious effort to get thousands of illegal guns off Sydney’s streets, urging people to be more courageous and simply pick up the phone to tell them where weapons are in order...

A MAN was killed and another wounded by a single shot from a 100-year-old pistol during a fight in a Gold Coast McDonald's restaurant car park. The Supreme Court in Brisbane heard Samuel Mark Friedman went to the car park at Burleigh Heads to meet Ben Matthews early in the morning of August 15, 2009. However, Friedman, who was a passenger in a car, was "surprised" when Matthews was joined by a second man, Richard Doherty, and they began punching him through the window. The court heard a gun was discharged and the bullet passed through Matthews's left arm tricep...

Obama snaps up crocodile insurance Down Under... (and Michelle gets £30,000 if he's eaten) By Emily Allen U.S. President Barack Obama snapped up an unusual gift on a visit to Australia this week - £30,000 worth of crocodile insurance. The official gift, worth about A$10 or just over £6, was given to mark his stopover in Australia's tropical north, home to some of the world's biggest and deadliest crocodiles. If he had been attacked and eaten during the visit his wife Michelle would have received a £30,000 pay-out. Mr Obama told about 2,000 U.S. Marines and Australian troops at the...

George Robert Lazenby was born on September 5, 1939 in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia.

HOME-grown extremists are actively considering launching terrorist attacks in Australia. The latest intelligence also suggests sporting venues, transport hubs and other places of mass gatherings have become the favoured targets of terrorist planners, the Herald Sun reported. "Clearly there are extremists now on our shores," Australian Federal Police counter-terrorism chief Steve Lancaster said. "There are people out there who genuinely think about doing bad things, or support terrorist acts overseas." In an interview with the Herald Sun to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Assistant Commissioner Lancaster also revealed: POLICE have secretly foiled several potential terrorist threats...

The man, 34, was shot in the leg with a vintage Luger pistol after a struggle with the homeowner at Silvereye Circuit in Gilston in the Gold Coast Hinterland in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Sources say the 29-year-old homeowner told police he arrived home about 1.40am to be confronted by four masked men inside the house. He told police he wrestled with one of the intruders and the gun discharged, the bullet hitting the man's femoral artery. Bleeding profusely, he staggered outside and into the street where he dropped dead, leaving a 50m blood trail in his wake....

“Americans take pot shots at us,’ a Tarnaki Daily News editorial headline claims. In Rachel Stewart's Riding Shotgun column on December 29 she told of losing count of the number of times she had eaten a meal in a Texas diner "in the immediate company of a man, or men, with shooters on their hips in plain view"…Spurred on by an email posting by David Codrea, the emailers shot high – but usually low – at the integrity of Ms Stewart, questioned this newspaper's political standing and demanded apologies. Here’s what they expect us to believe she meant: Her time...

<p>Unlike most of the world, Australia did not have a recession during the last two years. In fact, it has not had a recession in the last 19 years. Its economic growth rate is higher than in the United States, and the unemployment rate there is only 5.1 percent. From the middle 1800s until the early 1900s, Australia enjoyed a higher per-capita income than the United States. It then fell behind, but in the last couple of decades, it has gone through an economic revival. There are positive and negative lessons for the U.S. and the rest of the world from Australia.</p>

AN Australian artist will ask American TV talk show queen Oprah Winfrey to strip off and have her body painted for charity when she comes Down Under in December. Sydney body painter and make-up artist Eva Rinaldi has started an international campaign to get the huge star to agree to being tastefully painted with Australian icons, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach, while wearing only a bikini, the Mosman Daily reports. The stunt would not only be for a kick but to also raise money for a worthy cause of Winfreys choice, Rinaldi said. Winfrey will film...

The pop band Men at Work has been ordered to pay a music publishing company 5 percent of the royalties it earned in Australia for its song "Down Under." A judge said Tuesday the group must pay Larrikin Publishing because it borrowed without permission a flute riff from the popular Australian nursery rhyme "Kookaburra," penned by the late Marion Sinclair in 1932, CNN said. Sinclair died in 1988. Larrikin holds the copyright to the "Kookaburra" but did not became aware of the similarities between it and 1981's "Down Under" until they were compared on a game show in 2007, the...

SYDNEY—The Australian economy grew at a much slower pace in the first quarter than at the end of last year as the withdrawal of economic stimulus, surprise weakness in business investment and sluggish growth in export volumes took some of the steam out of activity. The average measure of GDP rose 0.5% in the first quarter of 2010 from fourth-quarter 2009 and rose 2.7% from the year-earlier period, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. Economists expected that GDP rose 0.4% on a quarterly basis and rose 2.4% from a year earlier. Significantly, the bureau revised fourth-quarter GDP growth to...

Australia has probably been one of the economies who held its foot tightly in the tough times of Recession. Glenn Stevens, the governor of Reserve Bank of Australia mentioned that the challenge for Asia and Australia to manage the expansion, which is not going to be less but huge. He believed that the financial crisis is over except for what he calls a ''North Atlantic crisis''. When grilled by federal MPs, the Reserve Bank governor talked about confidence heading back into a resources boom for Australia. He mentioned that the economy will take time to develop but there are brighter...

Australian Catholics were celebrating the country's first saint Saturday after Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that a Melbourne-born nun was to be canonised. Mary MacKillop, who founded her own order of nuns and devoted her life to building schools and helping the poor, has been a revered figure in Australia since shortly after her death in 1909. "We are delighted that the goodness, the holiness of the life of Australian Mary MacKillop has been recognised by the Catholic Church throughout the world," said Anne Derwin, head of MacKillop's Sisters of St Joseph. The Vatican had earlier recognised two miracles by MacKillop...

To provide Australian armed forces with an integrated communications system, the Australian Defence Force contracted with Boeing Defence Australia, a subsidiary of US-based Boeing, to deploy an integrated HF communications system throughout the country, replacing the separate HF communications systems operated by each service. The A$628 million (US$547 million) system – called the Modernized High Frequency Communications System (MHFCS) – provides the ADF with a nation-wide secure command and control network for all of the armed forces. The project is divided into two phases [pdf] – the MHFCS core system and the final system. The core system was delivered in...

AUSTRALIA Day marks the real start of the year in this country: once tomorrow's holiday is out of the way, the nation gets down to the serious business of work and school after the summer break. This year, the celebratory mood is likely to linger longer thanks to the upswing in the economy and a growing confidence in the future after a year of living anxiously in the shadow of a global downturn. The year begins with real hope that economic stability and strength will nurture the social coherence and health that must be the core goal of any modern...

ADELAIDE, Australia -- Two 8-year-old boys in a young lifeguards training program rescued a man who was struggling in the ocean off Australia's east coast. Jake Satherley told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that he and friend Spencer Jeams saw a middle-aged man having trouble Sunday off Northcliffe beach, in Queensland state. "We saw him put his hand up and saying, 'help, help,' so we went over to him and pulled him on our board," Satherley said Monday. The boys are part of the under-14 lifeguard training program at Northcliffe Life Saving Club. Club president David Shields said he'd never seen...

I can't find an online news story on this or I would post it. Back in January, Australia awarded its first Victoria Cross - Australia and the Commonwealth of Nation's as a whole, highest award for valour in the face of the enemy - to Trooper Mark Donaldson of the Special Air Service. He was decorated by Her Excellency Quentin Bryce AC, Governor General of Australia, appointed by the Queen on the advice of Australia's Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the first woman to hold the role as Australia's de facto Head of State as the Queen's representative. She...

ONE'S a pub classic, belted out at top volume by tipsy patrons around closing time. The other is a more dignified affair, a favourite of youth choirs and choral groups. Now, as unlikely as it seems, the classic children's ditty Kookaburra and the Men At Work hit Down Under are set to go head-to-head in court amid accusations part of the rock anthem is a rip-off, The Daily Telegraph reports. Music publishing company Larrikin owns the Kookaburra song and claims the melody that accompanies the line "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" is reproduced in Down Under. The case...

The castaway dog who swam SIX miles through shark-infested waters, then survived FOUR months on a desert island By Richard Shears Last updated at 5:27 PM on 06th April 2009 When Jan Griffith's beloved dog, Sophie Tucker fell overboard from her family's yacht she feared her pet had drowned. But Sophie Tucker, a grey and black cattle dog, wasn't going to give up that easily. The determined pet swam six miles through ferocious shark-infested seas to an island, where she survived for more than four months by hunting wild goats for food. The extraordinary story of the castaway hound emerged...

AN Indonesian villager had to be rushed to hospital after a horse bit off one of his testicles during a freak attack.

Partial video ... gives good picture of how the same thing with housing is also happening in Australia.

Yesterday I voted early in New Zealand at our Public Library, as the Advance Polling Booth was open and it was going to be very difficult for me to get to the polling booth on our Election Day, November 8 2008. (I am Patrolling the night before and I did not want to be too tired to vote with a clear mind.) Folks, I do not need to tell you how important it is to Vote: it is a Sacred Trust and a debt of gratitude to all those who have taken up arms in Liberty's cause throughout the ages....

The 'how-to' plan to criminalize Christianity 'Homosexuals know they must silence the church and that's what's behind this' A growing movement that experts believe could end up in the criminalization of Christianity in the United States is being exposed in a new documentary being prepared for airing on October 26, officials at Coral Ridge Ministries have announced. "Hate Crime Laws" is a half-hour exposé that shows how Christians in America, Canada, Australia, and Sweden have been arrested and prosecuted for expressing opinions that are rooted in the Bible regarding homosexual conduct, Islam or other topics about which Scriptures express clear...

There is rising criticism that the Machang Bridge, which opened in July at the cost of millions of won, is only enriching speculative capitalists with tax money. They say that throughout the country, roads built through private investment are becoming white elephants where investors eat tax money via rough traffic predictions and contracts with excessive profit guarantees. The province of South Gyeongsang spent 380 billion won (US$337 million) in budget outlays and 190 million won in private capital to build the Machang Bridge linking Changwon and Masan. For the next 30 years, the earnings from the bridge tolls will be...

Queensland, Australia (AHN) - The mayor of a small Australian mining town received negative feedback when he said that unattractive women could find a partner in his locality because men outnumbered women, five-to-one, in the country's northwest mining center. Mount Isa's Mayor John Molony said, "five blokes to every girl, may I suggest that beauty-disadvantaged women should proceed to Mount Isa." He also said, "not so attractive women appeared happy with the five-to-one gender imbalance." Women were angered by Molony's 'not-so-beautiful' comment and since then he has received complaints from both genders. But the mayor refused to apologize, even if...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Thursday told a huge gathering of young people that they were inheriting a planet whose resources had been scarred and squandered to fuel insatiable consumption. His latest appeal to save the planet for future generations came in a address to some 150,000 youths in Sydney after he rode through the city's harbor standing on the outdoor deck of a white ferry as dozens of boats blew their horns. "Reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth, erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and...

Sydney, July 16 (ANI): A University of New South Wales study has opined that Aussies are more likely to shoot at Muslims, especially if they”re in a good mood. The researchers say that Australians perceive Muslim-style headgear as a threat. The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, involved 66 students playing a computer game in which different male and female figures appeared on a balcony. Some figures were wearing Muslim-style turbans or hijabs while others were bare headed. Participants were asked to shoot at the targets carrying guns and spare those who were unarmed. Researchers found that...

It's important for Muslims to keep reminding us that there is absolutely, positively no relationship between Islam and violence. Otherwise it's easy to forget. The latest excuse for Islamic bonhomie is the documentary "Fitna" by Geert Wilders. In the 15-minute film, showing on YouTube and other Internet sites, the Dutch MP says that far from getting Islam wrong, terrorists understand their religion only too well. "Fitna" (Arabic for "upheaval" or "ordeal") has verses from the Koran -- which Wilders calls a "fascist book" -- artfully interspersed with scenes of carnage from 9/11 and the March, 2004 Madrid train bombing, as...

WOULD a Barack Obama ascendancy in the US presidential election lead to a new war in the Middle East? There's quite a respectable case for thinking it might. Would it also lead to catastrophe in Iraq? And what would it mean for Australia? In terms of who would be best for Australia, there is a respectable case to be made for each remaining US presidential candidate: Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. The case for Obama rests on the fact that greater US power and prestige directly benefits Australia. Certainly the Rudd Government believes this. The case for Obama is...

THE boy from the bush is back in town, with country music star Lee Kernaghan tonight named Australian of the Year for 2008. A proud Kernaghan, 43, admitted he was surprised at the honour but said he would use his new role to help farmers battling the drought. The Victorian-born singer and songwriter was anointed successor to climate change crusader Tim Flannery at a ceremony outside Parliament House in Canberra tonight. Naming him Australian of the Year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "Lee Kernaghan's music resonates with every Australian by connecting us all to the spirit of the bush, but...

"Paulo Melo, 29, has been in a coma at the Royal Darwin Hospital for two weeks, after severing his spinal cord in a car crash." - read more below: doctor requested, family objected, court granted

Pig heads at Islamic school site Last Updated: Wednesday, 28 November 2007 Two pig heads have been stuck on metal stakes outside the site of a planned Islamic school in Australia's largest city. A passer-by reported that the heads had been placed near an Australian flag at an empty site in Camden, a suburb of Sydney. Pigs are considered unclean by Muslims and the act was described as a "display of hatred". Detective Inspector Paul Albury said police were seeking information about a person who used a citizen's band radio to claim responsibility for the pig heads. More News Bush...

AN Australian army officer serving in Iraq says Diggers are disappointed with the media coverage of their positive work in the troubled nation. Major James Kerr said he and the rest of the 550 Australian soldiers in Overwatch Battlegroup West III had completed 34 projects since May, including rebuilding schools and orphanages, and training Iraqi police on how to handle militias. The group, based at the Tallil air base, had also provided irrigation systems and pedestrian bridges to help the Iraqi people. "The boys get disappointed with what they see in the media. There's no focus on what we're achieving...

Toll road contract in Texas allows state to lower speed limits on nearby interstate freeway to avoid paying penalties to a private company. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has agreed to consider lowering the maximum speed limit on a stretch of interstate highway that competes with a planned toll road. Cintra-Zachary, a joint Spanish-US venture, paid TxDOT $1.3 billion for the right to collect tolls on 40-miles of State Highway 130 set for construction beginning in 2009. Although TxDOT suggested that free market competition was part of the goal of using a public-private partnerships to construct and operate roads,...

My six nights up a tree, by Crocodile George By Barbie Dutter in Sydney Last Updated: 11:49am BST 15/08/2007 An Australian cattle rancher has told how he spent seven days up a tree looking down into the jaws of two hungry crocodiles after stumbling into a swamp crawling with the reptiles. 'I knew they were looking' David George, 53, was knocked unconscious after falling from his horse during a bush-burning operation in north Queensland. Dazed and bleeding after coming round, he remounted his horse hoping it would take him home. Instead it took him to a swamp criss-crossed by crocodile...

A man who raped a Muslim woman because she showed an interest in Christianity has been jailed for at least five years by a Sydney court. As Abdul Reda Al-Shawany was sentenced today, the Downing Centre District Court heard a harrowing statement from the victim, revealing that her shame and fear had been compounded by her cultural background. The woman, who cannot be named, arrived in Australia as a refugee from Iraq. But she said that even when she was jailed by dictator Saddam Hussein, she never feared for her life the way she did after the rape. "It is...

Gay Aussie Hotel Wins Right To Ban Heterosexuals, Lesbians May 28 05:00 AM US/Eastern An Australian hotel popular with gay men has won the right to refuse entry to heterosexuals and lesbians, officials and the owner said Monday. The Peel Hotel in Melbourne won an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act to prevent insults and abuse directed toward gays in its bars and nightclubs, owner Tom McFeely told AFP. "The hotel predominantly markets itself towards homosexual males, towards gay men and we want to protect the integrity of the venue as well as continue to make the men feel comfortable,"...

Robert Poole, a mechanical engineer who has advised the administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to privatize U.S. highways, estimates that more than $25 billion in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) highway projects are planned or approved in the United States. Now, a prominent Oklahoma state representative has invited Poole to promote his PPP toll road ideas, a move evidently designed to counter growing citizen opposition. Poole Lobbies for PPP Highways in Oklahoma Oklahoma House Speaker, Republican Lance Cargill, the founder of a group known as The 100 Ideas Initiative, has invited Poole to give a June...

Dress "offensive" to Islam By Ellen Connolly May 20, 2007 12:00 THIS is the outfit that has been labelled "offensive" and "disrespectful" to the Muslim community. Twenty-three-year-old journalist Latika Bourke was verbally attacked bya group of Muslim men outside a Sydney mosque because of her dress. "This young man approached me and said: 'You should be wearing more clothes. You need to cover up, you mutt','' Ms Bourke, who works for 2UE Radio, recounted. Ms Bourke, who was wearing a black trenchcoat, knee-high boots and gloves, said she was shocked and humiliated. "I'm just incredulous as to why they would...

MUSLIMS are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia's values system. Australia's peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question -- revealed in the Herald Sun -- was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the "Abrahamic tradition" or "universal values" would be less divisive ways of describing the nation's moral base. Dr Ali said use of the term Judeo-Christian was the result of "WWII guilt", and before 1945 Australia would have been called only Christian. "That question must be rephrased," he said. Dr...

Not Welcome Down Under April 27, 2007 Snoop Dogg has been refused entry into Australia because of his extensive criminal record, the immigration minister said yesterday. Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr., was due to fly into Sydney this week to co-host the MTV Australia Video Music Awards. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said Snoop Dogg's visa was canceled because he had failed to pass the country's strict character test, which takes criminal convictions into account. “He doesn't seem the sort of bloke we want in this country,” Andrews told Sydney's Macquarie Radio. Snoop Dogg has 28...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Australian government's plea for couples to have more children, with "one for mum, one for dad and one for the country," has helped slow the aging of the nation's population, Treasurer Peter Costello said on Monday. But Australia still faced slowing economic growth and a significant budget shortfall in 40 years due to the demographic impact of the aging population, Costello said. "Demographic changes are still working against us," Costello said in an address to the National Press Club as he released a government analysis on the impact of an aging population. He said Australia was...

A LEADING Muslim cleric has blamed the devastating drought, climate change and pollution on Australians' lack of faith in Allah. Radical sheik Mohammed Omran told followers at his Brunswick mosque that out-of-control secular scientific values had caused environmental disaster. "The fear of Allah is not there. So we have now a polluted earth, a polluted water, a wasteland," he told a meeting this year. "What are the people now crying for? The prophet told you hundreds of years ago, 'Look after the water'." A Sunday Herald Sun investigation also found clerics railing against "evil" democracy, vilifying Jews and Christians and...

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has sold his consulting firm to the Australian company involved in the 75-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road and the privatization of other U.S. infrastructure. The New York Times reported that Macquarie Bank of Australia – parent company of Macquarie Infrastructure Group – has acquired Giuliani Capital Advisors. Giuliani reportedly profited between $70 million and $90 million from the sale of the consulting and investment company he founded in 2004. A campaign spokeswoman said in a statement that the transaction was part of Giuliani’s plan to focus on his campaign. Meanwhile, Macquarie continues to...

British actor Rupert Everett and 250 men dressed as pop singer Kylie Minogue were among 8,000 revelers who marched through Sydney late Saturday for the 29th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The yearly parade began as a street demonstration in 1978, but has since morphed into one of the city's biggest outdoor parties, attracting thousands of spectators from around the world. New South Wales state police said about 350,000 people packed the sidewalks of Oxford street -- the center of Sydney's gay scene -- to catch a glimpse of the colorful floats bearing messages both political and playful. One...

DAVID Hicks has renounced Islam, his American military lawyer confirmed yesterday.Major Michael Mori declined to say why Hicks was no longer a Muslim, saying it was a personal issue for the suspected terrorist. Hicks adopted the name Dawood when he converted to Islam in Adelaide in the late 1990s. He was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and has spent five years in the high-security US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. A former Guantanamo inmate has claimed Hicks was denounced by Muslim prisoners for his change of faith.

THE Sydney-based Macquarie Infrastructure Group will know tonight if it has garnered an early slice of the vast toll road riches up for grabs in Texas. The announcement by the Texas Department of Transportation of the winning bidder for State Highway 121 - a planned 42km toll road in northern Dallas, one of the fastest growing areas of the US - shapes up as the first big test of MIG's decision to all but jettison its Australian routes for a shot at the far larger but less developed US markets. Texas, which is forecast to double its population to 50...

Freeze jail diet cash, says victim Hedley Thomas February 14, 2007 ONE of the victims of a Brisbane pedophile who was controversially awarded $2000 compensation for being refused fresh halal meat in prison has urged the Queensland Government to freeze the funds and launch an appeal. The woman, now in her late 20s, said she was still receiving counselling to help her cope with severe trauma arising from the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Sharif Mahommed. "He could flush that money down the toilet and it would be better than going into his pocket," she told The...

Surely Fort Worth Weekly publisher Lee Newquist’s phone will be ringing any second now with a call from Australia and an offer of millions of dollars. After all, your favorite alt-weekly criticized the Trans-Texas Corridor in a recent cover story (“Detours on a Super-Highway,” Jan. 10, 2007), and it’s pretty obvious that foreign fat cats who lease U.S. highways and charge tolls to drivers don’t take kindly to criticism. Macquarie Media Group of Australia is set to pay upward of $100 million for American Consolidated Media, which owns small community newspapers across Texas — newspapers that have criticized the proposed...

The New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister has taken a swipe at critics of Australia and the United States. Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand's media has turned Australian and American-bashing into a national sport. Mr Peters says New Zealanders who continually take "cheap shots" at Australians and Americans fail to appreciate the valuable work they do in the Pacific. Not for the first time, he pointed the finger of blame squarely at the media. "It's the kind of thing that you see in too many commentators and particularly some papers allowing all sorts of outrageous cartoons which are an insult,...