Monday, February 11, 2013

Mon 11th Feb Todays News


Happy birthday and many happy returns Fiona Thapa andLiuba Hlebnikov. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
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February 11Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2013); Victory of the Revolutionin Iran (1979); National Foundation Day in Japan; Tsagaan Sar begins in Mongolia (2013)
Swaminarayan writing the Shikshapatri

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Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances


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WA Labor leader shuns Gillard poison

Piers Akerman – Monday, February 11, 2013 (5:37am)

WEST Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan hasn’t a hope of winning next month’s State election but he is streets ahead of other Labor leaders around the nation.
McGowan has belled Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s carbon tax.
He said at the weekend he opposed the tax.
He would not have introduced such a tax and he could not support such a tax.
It was not a spontaneous outpouring of honesty however.
McGowan had been pressed to say whether he believed in the federal Labor nonsense for more than a year and had spent that time ducking and weaving.
Over recent months he has distanced himself from the national Labor leader, conveniently leaving the State or city whenever she ventured to the West.
He has all but told her not to appear in WA in the run-up to the March 9 election.
He knows she is electoral poison.
In fact, the WA Liberal Party is capitalising on the State’s loathing for Gillard pointing out that she and federal Labor are at war with the West using the carbon dioxide trax and the mining tax to cripple the economy of the fastest growing state.
McGowan has a cuddly image but most West Australians are sufficiently hard-headed to realise Labor can’t run an economy.
A Newspoll taken for The Australian newspaper last week found that while more people considered the Opposition Leader likeable and caring, more thought Premier Colin Barnett was the better economic manager, by 54 per cent to 33 per cent.
The same Newspoll survey published on Saturday found the Liberal-Nationals government leads Labor by 57 to 43 per cent in two-party preferred terms.
A Liberal victory in WA next month will be another blow to Gillard’s leadership.
Her leadership rival Kevin Rudd is a frequent visitor to the state where he is warmly greeted by Labor fans.
Gillard’s toxic brand is electoral poison.
McGowan knows it and recognises it. Labor leaders in other states should be brave enough to stand up to her destructive agenda also before it destroys the remainder of the economy.

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THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL TIPSTER SINCE CANBERRA BECAME THE CAPITAL

Tim Blair – Monday, February 11, 2013 (5:08pm)

Malcolm Mackerras, 2004
On Monday, December 20, 2004, the Electoral College will meet and 327 votes will be cast for John Kerry and 211 for George W. Bush. 
George W. Bush won that election by 286 Electoral College votes to 251. Malcolm Mackerras, 2009:
I think there will be a big swing against the Liberal party in both Bradfield and Higgins. The effect of that swing will be that the Greens will take Higgins from the Liberals. 
Liberal candidates easily won Bradfield and Higgins, carrying more than half of the primary vote in both seats. Malcolm Mackerras, 2013
I predict Abbott will be the least successful conservative elected prime minister since Canberra became the capital. Abbott’s main mission seems to be to tear down Labor’s achievements. He cannot do that without a Senate majority. Consequently, I have a further prediction to make. The 44th Parliament will be the second shortest in our history, double-dissolved before even a year in being. 
President Kerry and the Greens member for Higgins probably agree.

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SOCK PUPPET REGIME

Tim Blair – Monday, February 11, 2013 (2:02pm)

Sybil supports Labor
An investigation has been launched into the use of the parliamentary computer network to post pro-Labor messages online, using fake names.
The Department of Parliamentary Services investigation was sparked by a story in the Colac Herald last week.
The Victorian newspaper reported a computer user in Parliament House had pretended to be at least nine different people while making pro-Labor comments online.
The user posed as an employee of Bulla Dairy Foods, Colac Area Health and Barwon Health among other organisations. 
(Via sdog)

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LEAKERS OF THE HOUSE

Tim Blair – Monday, February 11, 2013 (1:36pm)

Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently warned Labor’s caucus to stop leaking to journalists. Naturally, this was immediately leaked to journalists. The speed and accuracy of Labor’s apparatus for leaking is something to behold.

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SMOKE GRABBER

Tim Blair – Monday, February 11, 2013 (1:13pm)

Attention, Nicola Roxon! You are needed in Armenia.

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DON’T CALL HIM A BULLY

Tim Blair – Monday, February 11, 2013 (12:56pm)

We didn’t learn much about mass killer Nidal Malik Hasan in the immediate aftermath of his murderous attack on Fort Hood in November 2009.
For example, the ABC ran an eight-minute piece on the Texas shootings without mentioning once Hasan’s faith, which turned out to be more than slightly relevant. A Euronews item on the attack, which left 13 people dead, began with the line: “The motive for the deadly Fort Hood shooting rampage that has left America reeling is still unclear.”
Well, unclear to everyone who didn’t hear Hasan screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ before opening fire. Bit of a clue there.
The alleged motivation behind Anders Behring Breivik’s bloody rampage wasn’t treated so delicately. Breivik identified several conservatives in his 1500-page manifesto prior to murdering 77 people in Norway two years ago. This was proof, according to several news outlets, that conservatism leads to killing.
Which brings us to the case of Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles police officer who last week allegedly shot and killed three people and is now believed to be hiding in California’s snow-covered mountains.

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IT ALSO CAUSES EVERYTHING ELSE

Tim Blair – Monday, February 11, 2013 (11:12am)

Global warming causes asteroids.

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Deep sigh.

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(7:54pm)

Why on earth was Christopher Monckton endorsing the nationalist Rise Up Australia Party? Great chance for warmists to paint climate sceptics as fringe dwellers.

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Sport’s “blackest day” so far more spin than substance

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(4:26pm)

IT IS mad, how recklessly some politicians last week trashed the reputation of Australian sport.
Don’t blame athletes or officials for making sports codes seem riddled with “endemic corruption” - from rampant drug use to match-fixing and gangsters.

Blame instead the Gillard Government and commentators who on Thursday ballyhooed a desperately thin Australian Crime Commission report.

It started innocently. The ACC, after a year of investigation, produced a report into drug-taking in sport that was full of warnings, but so short of evidence that no-one has - yet - been charged with anything.

True, the full report does apparently name names.

But the rest of us had to go on the censored public version, which does not name a single club, player or even code that has broken the law.
In fact, its key allegations are heavily qualified with “may”, “could” and “possibly” ...
(Subscription required for full article.)
UPDATE
Reader Michael makes a point suggested by several others today:
This reminds me of live cattle exports. Shut down the entired industry based on 1 or 2 abbatoirs doing abhorant things. Now impune the whole of Australian sport, because of 1 or 2 bad eggs.

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Warmists feed off taxpayers

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(4:03pm)

If warming alarmists want taxpayers to stop overheating, they shouldn’t treat our money with such contempt:

The dinner was held so the executives of the outfit created in July to review and make recommendations about the carbon tax and other federal government green schemes could meet in “an informal setting” to better their “collective decision making” capacity.
Executives dined at swish Melbourne eatery The Italian Restaurant and Bar on a $135-a-head menu of New Zealand king salmon, calamari, caprese salad, southern supreme beef, gnocchi with oyster mushroom and vanilla panna cotta with dark chocolate…

Authority members at the dinner included Bernie Fraser, Lynne Williams, John Marlay, Professor David Karoly, Heather Ridout, Elana Rubin, Professor John Quiggan and CEO Anthea Harris, the spokeswoman said.
I’d have thought Karoly should go without dinner until he publicly apologises for the errors in his last alarmist paper - since withdrawn- about “unusual” warming in Australia.
Moreover, should Quiggin still be on the authority after vastly exaggerating the estimated effect of the government’s global warming policies on the temperature?
And one last question: if there was no global warming scare, would such people get the government money allowing such fine dining?
(Thanks to many readers, steaming dangerously.)

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Of course Rudd is likely to return. Check today’s 45-55 poll

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(2:59pm)

In the end, most politicians really do prefer to win: 

“Politics in the end is driven by the laws of arithmetic.’’
UPDATE
The arithmetic is this - another slump in Labor’s support, as measured by Essential Research:Labor 45, Coalition 55.

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Emerson was wrong on global warming and must retract

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(2:49pm)

Trade Minister Craig Emerson last week claimed I was wrong to say the world hasn’t warmed for 16 years:
image
I then gave conclusive evidence that the pause was real. Not one single measurement of global temperatures used by even the warmist Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could detect a warming around that period that was statistically significant.
Today, more evidence of the pause in warming, presented in a way Emerson - and ABC science presenter Dr Karl - cannot possibly miss:
image
Think of it as a sideways bar graph where the lengths of the lines indicate the relative times where the slope is 0. In addition, the sloped wiggly line shows how CO2 has increased over this period. 
The lines show the periods of zero temperature rise of the world’s main measurements of global temperature. But when you add the period of “statistically insignificant” warming - where the warming measured is too tiny for scientists to be sure it’s real - the warming pause extends anything up to 23 years.
Brozek sums up what the main measurements find:
RSS 
The slope is flat since January 1997 or 16 years and 1 month… For RSS the warming is not significant for over 23 years…

UAH 
The slope is flat since October 2004 or 8 years, 3 months… For UAH, the warming is not significant for over 19 years…
Hadcrut4 
The slope is flat since November 2000 or 12 years, 2 months… For Hacrut4, the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
Hadcrut3 
The slope is flat since May 1997 or 15 years, 7 months… For Hacrut3, the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
Hadsst2 
The slope is flat since March 1997 or 15 years, 10 months.
GISS 
The slope is flat since May 2001 or 11 years, 7 months… For GISS, the warming is not significant for over 17 years.
Emerson denied there was a pause in the warming. He was wrong.
Emerson claimed the world was warming. In fact, there hasn’t been statistically significant warming for between nearly 16 years and 23 years, depending on which measurement you use.
Emerson should apologise, retract and publicly correct his claims. So far he has failed to do so, despite being made aware of his error.
This is important, after all. Emerson is a member of a government which imposed on us a carbon tax and a $10 billion “clean energy” fund on the assumption the world was warming dangerously.
It isn’t, or not as one of its senior ministers publicly claimed and apparently believed. 
If the facts change, does Emerson change his opinion? He must explain.
UPDATE
A new paper from researchers at the University of Washington says warmist scientists seem to have exaggerated the warming trend since 1950 by 100 per cent. 
After reviewing evidence in both the latest global data (HadCRUT4) and the longest instrumental record, Central England Temperature, a revised picture is emerging that gives a consistent attribution for each multidecadal episode of warming and cooling in recent history, and suggests that the anthropogenic global warming trends might have been overestimated by a factor of two in the second half of the 20th century. A recurrent multidecadal oscillation is found to extend to the preindustrial era in the 353-y Central England Temperature and is likely an internal variability related to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), possibly caused by the thermohaline circulation variability. The perspective of a long record helps in quantifying the contribution from internal variability, especially one with a period so long that it is often confused with secular trends in shorter records. Solar contribution is found to be minimal for the second half of the 20th century and less than 10% for the first half. The underlying net anthropogenic warming rate in the industrial era is found to have been steady since 1910 at 0.07–0.08 °C/decade, with superimposed AMO-related ups and downs that included the early 20th century warming, the cooling of the 1960s and 1970s, the accelerated warming of the 1980s and 1990s, and the recent slowing of the warming rates. Quantitatively, the recurrent multidecadal internal variability, often underestimated in attribution studies, accounts for 40% of the observed recent 50-y warming trend.
Wow. At that rate, man-made emissions would warm the world by 0.72 degrees by the end of the century.
Another question to Emerson then: does it really make sense for Australia to spend so many billions of dollars to makes such a small difference to such a tiny and non-threatening rise?
PS:
About the study’s lead author: Professor Ka-Kit Tung is chief editor of Journal of Atmospheric Sciences and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. 
(Thanks to reader Steve.)

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Proud Leftists aren’t killers. Or not that you’re told

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(1:52pm)

Tim Blair on a curious silence from a media that wasn’t silent at all when it came to Anders Behring Breivik:
Which brings us to the case of Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles police officer who last week allegedly shot and killed three people and is now believed to be hiding in California’s snow-covered mountains.

Dorner’s online manifesto – no killer is complete these days without a manifesto – proclaimed his admiration for many left-wing identities and causes, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, gun control and opposition to racism…
Then he went out and shot to death 28-year-old Asian woman Monica Quan and two other people.
Curiously, initial news reports of Dorner’s manifesto omitted much of his expressed left-wing notions. “When a crazed shooter’s ideology is explicitly and demonstrably left-wing,” observed US writer Noah Rothman, “the media displays admirable restraint about linking a gunman’s politics to their acts of violence.”

Worse still, the media feels sympathy. Here’s the New York Times: “The accusations by the suspect — however disjointed and unhinged — have struck a chord. They are a reminder, many black leaders said, that some problems remain and, no less significant, that memories of abuses and mistreatment remain strong in many parts of this city …”

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AWU scandal: Gillard’s ex-builder refuses to give statement

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(11:39am)

 The AWU scandal
Odd. Why won’t the builder provide a sworn statement to police saying everything was on the level about the renovations he once did on Julia Gillard’s house?

[Former Gillard boyfriend and client Bruce] Wilson and his one-time deputy Ralph Blewitt are under investigation over allegations they established a Perth-based “slush fund”, used to siphon $400,000 from building firm Thiess Contractors. ..
Former AWU Victorian Secretary Mr Smith, who told Mr Wilson in 1995 he would “go to the slammer”, confirmed that he had been interviewed by police and provided a statement.
This detailed how Mr Smith was approached by Mr Spyridis in 1995 who was demanding payment for work the builder had done on Ms Gillard’s then home, in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Abbottsford.
Mr Smith said he told police that “Kon Spyridis approached me, came to my office, and requested payment for work he had done on Ms Gillard’s home at Abbotsford.
“I explained to him that it was nothing to do with us (the AWU) and that he would be better served by speaking to Gillard or Bruce Wilson,” he said…
A former Victorian Labor MP, Mr Smith said he also told police that he contacted Ms Gillard - then a partner at legal firm Slater & Gordon - over the request for payment.
Mr Spyridis has previously told News Limited that Ms Gillard paid for renovations on her home, which she sold in 2007.
But the retired builder is now refusing to give a sworn statement. “I had advice from my solicitors, why sign a statement?” Mr Spyridis said.
“The story is that I got my money.”

In an exit interview from Slater & Gordon in 1995, Ms Gillard ... told her bosses that while she believed she paid for the entire renovation she could not “categorically” rule out that some renovations had been paid for with money from the slush fund. Last August the PM told reporters that she had in fact paid for the renovations.
Gillard insists she did nothing wrong, and knew nothing about her boyfriend’s scams, including those committed using the slush fund she helped to create. So she should be disappointed that the builder won’t give a sworn statement on how he was paid.

[Them AWU employee] Wayne Hem says that he deposited $5,000 in cash into Julia Gillard’s bank account, at a time when she was paying back 100% of the borrowed value/price for her home, plus a $20,000 further bank loan, plus an advance on her salary - and during which time her home was being extensively renovated.  Hem says the cash was handed to him by Wilson.  Within weeks of Gillard receiving that money, Wilson was informed that he would be charged internally within the union and referred to police over allegations of fraud involving the AWU Members Welfare Association and other accounts. Didn’t it cross Ms Gillard’s mind to disclose the receipt of $5,000 from Wilson just a couple of weeks earlier to the union? 

Wilson was advised about the charges against him on 4 August, 1995.  On 9 August, 1995, Ian Cambridge wrote to the Commonwealth Bank referring to the frozen accounts and the “dispute” between Bob Smith and Bruce Wilson, who as Cambridge recorded at the time were represented by Maurice Blackburn and Slater and Gordon respectively.  According to Bruce Wilson, Ms Gillard continued to represent him legally up until the August 17 meeting at the Commonwealth Bank when about $160,000 in bank cheques were made out to construction companies, returning money that Wilson had received.
Again, Gillard says she did nothing wrong and cannot recall Hem’s deposit.
Smith also shows a cheque with Spyridis’s name on the back that was drawn in 1995 (on the AWU Members Welfare Association but not on the slush fund Gillard helped set up). It is for cash and there is no proof it indeed went to Spyridis or for what purpose:
Says Smith:
image
The Federal Court holds files for legal proceedings launched in 1995 and 1996 by the AWU and Mr Cambridge, supported by the union’s then president, Bill Ludwig, to try to unravel a fraud perpetrated using the slush funds controlled by Mr Wilson.

One of those files contains affidavit material including bank documents obtained from the CBA. One is a $15,000 cheque for cash drawn on the Victorian slush fund, the AWU Members Welfare No 1 account, on April 27, 1995.
Mr Collins and Mr Wilson signed the cheque. The handwriting on an accompanying note later handed over by the bank to Mr Cambridge states: “5000—cash. K. Spyridis—10,000 B/chq.”
Kon Spyridis is now retired and living in inner Melbourne, but at the time had a business called KM & J Spyridis and did building work around the city, including extensive work valued at more than $30,000 to refit new offices for the AWU at the request of Mr Wilson.

Mr Spyridis was introduced to Ms Gillard by AWU organiser Bill “the Greek” Telikostoglou and they were both involved in the renovations on her workers’ cottage in Abbotsford.

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A chance for Fairfax to balance its political coverage

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(8:53am)

Fairfax’s Canberra bureau has been gutted:

FAIRFAX’S Canberra bureau is on the verge of crisis following the resignation of senior political journalists Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy, who have both been hired by The Guardian for its soon-to-be-launched Australian operation.
Diary confirmed last night they decided to leave the joint Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times bureau, unhappy with Fairfax management. In one week, Fairfax has lost The Age’s political editor, Michelle Grattan, and now Taylor, the Walkley-winning chief political correspondent for SMH, and Murphy, national affairs correspondent for The Age.

Canberra bureau staff have told Diary morale among the political staffers is now at an all-time low less than one month before the company converts its mastheads to tabloid and raises paywalls around its websites. 
All three women can safely be said to be of the Left. Taylor was particularly strident in pushing the global warming scare and the carbon tax.
Will Fairfax take this opportunity to add a little balance to its political coverage?

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Time Swan sent 4B another video

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(8:44am)

Will the Treasurer go back to the eight year olds of 4B and admit that he won’t actually give us the surplus he talked about?
After all, it is important to teach students to live up to your word, and not to deceive.
(Thanks to reader Jules.)

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Will these warmists get the Jones treatment?

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(8:34am)

 Global warming - propaganda
SYDNEY broadcaster Alan Jones two years ago was ritually humiliated for saying something inaccurate about global warming.
He’d said Australians produced just “1 per cent of .001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air” when it was nearer 0.45 per cent.

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Swan should have asked Obeid to help design his tax

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(8:12am)

IF you believe the allegations being reported daily, Eddie Obeid may have earned twice as much out of the resource bonanza as the MRRT. It’s comforting that at least one part of Labor takes seriously Wayne Swan’s mantra of “spreading the benefits of the mining boom”. 
The Gillard Government promised all kinds of wild spending would flow from its mining tax. In fact, so sure was it of the money that it went right ahead and spent it: 
Lateline, July 14, 2010: 
WAYNE Swan: This is quite extraordinary. We’ve got Tony Abbott, who’s now opposing the revenue from the MRRT, which we are going to use to give a big tax cut to small business, to boost superannuation and also to invest in infrastructure.

The Treasurer, ABC Radio 720, Perth, March 25, 2011:
REVENUE from the MRRT does go to investment in infrastructure projects like the Gateway project in Western Australia around the airport. That is what it’s all about, making the investments, particularly in these mining communities. If we don’t have the revenue from the tax then we can’t make the investments.
Budget Strategy and Outlook: Budget Paper No 1, May 10, 2011: 
THE net revenue from the MRRT is $3.7 billion in 2012-13…
ABC News 24, September 7, 2011: 
SWAN: The revenue from the MRRT is important to giving a tax cut to companies, a significant tax cut to small business, to boosting the superannuation savings of low-paid workers…
Press conference, October 27, 2011: 
SWAN: We think it is absolutely vital legislation for the future of our country and it goes to the very core of having sustainable growth which is spread to all quarters of our country. The revenue from the MRRT will be spread right around the country…
The Treasurer’s economic note, February 26, 2012: 
REVENUE from the MRRT will provide a tax break for Australia’s 2.7 million small businesses from July 1 this year. It will also help fund critical investment in roads, bridges and other infrastructure, relieving capacity constraints particularly in our great mining regions. And, importantly, we’re saving some of the gains from the MRRT through superannuation, with a boost to the super guarantee for 8.4 million workers and new concessions for 3.6 million low-income workers. These changes are expected to increase Australia’s pool of retirement savings by $500 billion by 2035. We all know Australia’s resources boom won’t last forever. The MRRT will help lock in the gains for generations to come. 
Julia Gillard, March 20, 2012: 
THE MRRT is central to the government’s plan to spread the benefits of the mining boom to more Australians for generations to come. 
Press release on Friday:
TODAY, the Australian Taxation Office provided the government with combined Minerals Resource Rent Tax revenue figures for the first two quarters of the 2012-13 financial year. Combined revenue from the first two quarters of the MRRT totalled $126m.

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Great speech, maybe. But what of the “stolen generation” facts?

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(7:49am)

 The "stolen generations"
Former Labor speechwriter Troy Bramston rhapsodises about former boss Kevin Rudd’s apology to the “Stolen Generations”:

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the national apology to the Stolen Generations. Rudd’s 30-minute speech went beyond symbolism; it pledged a new beginning in indigenous policy…
It is the finest speech delivered by any Australian politician in the past two decades...
The apology and the attendant Closing the Gap policy commitment is a reminder of what we have gained but also of what is rare in modern politics: real leadership, defined by intellect, imagination and courage.

Rudd was a far from perfect prime minister; he made many mistakes and misjudgments. But his national apology to the Stolen Generations was his finest moment as prime minister.
There was only one small problem with the speech - one Bramston does not even allude to.


Extraordinary. Five years after my challenge, [Professor] Robert Manne still cannot come up with even 10 names of the 25,000 children he claims were stolen just for being Aboriginal… In particular, could Manne at last name just 10 children stolen just to “breed out the colour"…
Manne actually gives fewer than 10 names… But let me try to do what he does not, and identify the children he does mention en bloc, like here: 
Protector Walter Roth ... pointed out in his 1905 report, in the past five years 167 “half-caste” children in Queensland had been removed to missions… Windschuttle is aware that under a Queensland law of 1865 having an Aboriginal or half-caste mother was in itself legal proof of “neglect”.
So did Roth, as Manne clearly suggests, just steal Aboriginal children simply because they were Aboriginal, in line with a law that Manne wrongly argues was intended for just that purpose?…
Manne has not publicly identified the individual circumstances of any of those 167 children (with the partial exception of one) to show precisely why they prove his case. But I have indeed looked into the individual circumstances of those children I could trace and found only children it would have been a crime not to rescue and send into care.
They included a fatherless 12-year-old girl with syphilis, a 13-year-old who was seven months pregnant and working for no wages on a station, and a boy who was kept chained up in a back yard by white employers when he was bad. Shirleene Robinson says Roth also rescued children kept as virtual slaves: “These children were extremely vulnerable to exploitation because of their position as members of a colonised population and because of their youth. During the period from 1842 to 1902, large number of Aboriginal children were kidnapped and removed from their families and traditional localities for employment, received no remuneration and suffered abuse by their employers."…
But let’s go to the few names Manne does give, clearly suggesting - without openly saying - that these are examples of children who were stolen for racist reasons…
Doris Kartinyeri, of the family behind the “secret women’s business” scandal, claims she was stolen because her widowed father thought the form he was signing was an application for child endowment, and not a permission form to have her given to the care of Colebrook Home. In fact, other children raised at Colebrook, such as Nancy Barnes, have told me they do not remember Katrinyeri as having been stolen, and South Australian law did not allow Aboriginal children to be stolen, either, as the South Australian court found three years ago in the Bruce Trevorrow case…

Manne also lists Rosalie Fraser, who in fact writes that she was made a ward of the state at two in 1961 - but why? To “breed out the colour”, as Manne suggests? Or because of some family dysfunction? Manne does not say, yet the fact that Fraser was removed by child welfare officers, not Aboriginal welfare, and sent with one of her sisters to live with her father’s relatives suggests Fraser’s sad story is not part of the “stolen generations” narrative.
Indeed, we still “remove” or “steal” a disproportionate number of Aboriginal children for a good moral purpose: they are in trouble and need help.

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Government admits: no surplus means weaker defence

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(7:34am)

This is just clownish and craven: 

The extract says “a strong national economy is fundamental to a strong Defence Force. An economic surplus is Australia’s best defence against the uncertain outlook”.

Referring to the reviews that have paved the way for defence budget cuts, it declares: “The government has taken direct action to protect and bolster Australia’s economic security to seek to ensure the foundation for a strong Australian Defence Force.” 
First, this sounds like the Government writing a paper on our defence needs to suit its economic spin.
Second, the paper simply assumes that to reach a surplus, our defence forces and not, say, social security or green programs, must bear the brunt of the cuts.
Third, the surplus target has actually now been abandoned. So is a surplus still our “best defence against the uncertain outlook”, or will that line been quickly rewritten to suit the Government’s revised spin?
What a difference between the Gillard Government’s draft White Paper on defence and what the Rudd Government handed down just four years ago. Here’s the preface of that paper, by then Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon:
There is no greater responsibility for a national government than the defence of the nation, its people and their interests....

The 2009 White Paper was developed in the midst of a global recession. The Government has demonstrated the premium it puts on our national security bynot allowing the financial impact of the global recession on its Budget to affect its commitment to our Defence needs. This White Paper produces a substantial additional investment in the capability of our Navy,Army and Air Force.Force 2030 is a balanced force,capable of meeting every contingency the Australian Defence Force may be required to meet in the coming two decades.

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Dank sues

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(7:29am)

This “blackest day in Australian sport” is so far all allegations and little proof. There may very well be plenty to it, or there may be one hell of a defamation case:
THE man at the centre of the scandal engulfing Australian sport, Stephen Dank, is launching a $10 million defamation suit alleging media outlets have wrongly accused him of selling illegal performance-enhancing drugs to elite footballers.

The sports scientist’s lawyer, Greg Stanton, confirmed he was launching the legal action and said the Australian Crime Commission “knew stuff all” about the peptide hormones his client had administered to sportspeople and had been “on a fishing expedition” in its 12-month investigation into drugs in sport and organised crime.
He described as bizarre calls by Julia Gillard and Justice Minister Jason Clare for players to come forward with confessions about use of drugs.
“The Prime Minister and Mr Clare are both lawyers, and their premier investigative body is saying it has credible evidence, yet they are calling for people to come forward and incriminate themselves,” Mr Stanton said…

Mr Dank will tell the ABC’s 7.30 tonight that he denies allegations of wrongdoing. He claims he sourced GHRP-6 legally from a compounding pharmacy in Melbourne and that all products sold through his Medical Rejuvenation Clinic Australia website were offered legally.

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Emerson denounces his own style of abuse. Yet still won’t admit to his error

Andrew BoltFEBRUARY112013(12:10am)

 Global warming - general
On Saturday I wrote: 
What should a senior minister of the Gillard Government do when he learns he is wrong about global warming?

How should a minister who helped impose the carbon tax react to proof he was wrong to claim there’s been no pause in warming since 1997, and world was instead warming fast?
How should he respond upon finding instead that none of the measurements used even by the IPCC detect any warming trend that is “statistically significant”?
Here’s what I would expect.
I would expect Trade Minister Craig Emerson to apologise for being so badly informed.
I would expect him to revise his thinking about about the nature and speed of any warming, and the warming influence of our emissions.
I would expect him to explain why, in the light of the facts I’ve now drawn to his attention, he thinks trying to “stop” global warming with a carbon tax and billions in subsidies still makes economic sense. Or to admit it does not, after all.
These are the kinds of things a serious man, a responsible politician, would do when presented with facts contradicting a critical assumption behind an important public policy.
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As you can see, that’s not an argument. That is the lamest abuse - below even sandpit level.  No child, even in primary school, would dare serve up such a response in their homework. 
Emerson is yet to apologise, issue a correction or adjust his warmist faith in view of the facts brought to his attention.
But he must surely be aware that abuse is not a substitute for argument - at least not when that abuse is flung at Labor, rather than by it. Here is the hypocrite’s own tweet from Friday: 
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WHO will make it in Tinseltown? Find out this time tomorrow in the SERIES FINAL of Next Stop Hollywood.
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Jesus’ blood has redeemed you from every curse and disease (Gal 3:13), so you can expect blessings to come upon you! Check out today's devotional. Be sure to click "like" to help spread the word! Thanks, all!http://bit.ly/WlA7a2
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Awesome Page ●► Awesome Quotes
Make Sure To Visit : ●►www.AwesomeQuotes4U.com
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Grammar nazis
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Lady Vader
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Red pockets for all my little bundles of joy ♥
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PM Netanyahu's Statement on the Investigation into the Terrorist Bombing in Wake of the Bulgarian Government Announcement.

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/pm-netanyahus-statement-on-the-investigation-into-the-terrorist-bombing-in-bulgaria
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When God stepped into your life, He already knew everything about you. Yet, He loves you deeply. That is grace!
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4 TMN
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Click LIKE if you think the major media should let the world know that LAPD cop killer Chris Dorner is a major gun control advocate and supporter of Obama and Hillary! Clicking LIKE helps spread this message to others so they can see the truth! Read his own words here:http://ktla.com/2013/02/07/read-christopher-dorners-so-called-manifesto/
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So far, the cost of Labor reversing Howard's policy on border protection is $6.6 Billion ($6,600,000,000.00) .......

That's works out at about $12.8 million for each boat that arrives ....... 

Or around $175,000 per person.

PS: Another Two boats - one carrying 47 passengers and two crew, and another carrying 88 passengers - were picked up by Australian authorities late on Wednesday.

The arrivals bring to 650 the number of people who

have travelled to Australia by boat this year.

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Battle Till the End
by Pervandr

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