Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Tue Apr 23rd Todays News


Happy birthday and many happy returns Jaimee Pham. Born on the same date Charles II was crowned king of England, Ireland and McLand in 1661. I don't believe in accidents.
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Call the Boston attack by its right name - jihad

Piers Akerman – Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (2:56am)

THE usual bleeding hearts and moral poseurs can’t see terror until they’re blown sky high.
Having watched the city of Boston emerge from lockdown following the murderous terrorist attack on the Boston marathon, the politically correct are now pondering what motivated the Tsarnaev brothers.
The thought that the pair of young Muslims had signed up to the global jihad seems to have escaped them.
This is not infrequent in Obama’s US, as even the President seemed to choke on the “t"-word.
As former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey pointed out in a hard-hitting piece in The Wall Street Journal there was no mystery about the agenda in reality – it was jihad.
Mukasey wonders why the US is driven by political correctness – as Australia seems to be also.
Islamist terror is rarely cited in America and here, our own Attorney General Mark Dreyfus has gone out of his way to claim that the fire-breathing imam Shaikh Fez Mohammad, whose video was listed on the elder Tsarnaev’s website, is now a peace-loving fellow.
The question for Australians surely must be whether Tamerlan, whose namesake was apparently Tamerlane, the Muslim conqueror who enjoyed building pyramids of his victims’ skulls (after entertaining himself and his horde by torturing his defeated foe), ever was in contact with the former Auburn-based cleric.
If so, when, and what did Fez Mohammed teach him?
Perhaps the surviving brother, Dzhokhar, will tell us when he can speak.
Mukasey is more concerned though with by Obama’s disbanding of the CIA interrogation team that used to handle suspects like this.
He says it is likely that the younger Tsarnaev will be questioned by the High-Value Interrogation Group, or HIG, which the FBI created after so-called underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up the airplane in which he was traveling as it flew over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 and was advised of his Miranda rights.
He also says that the Obama has bowed to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups as the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, and other self-proclaimed spokesmen for American Muslims to the extent that the FBI has bowdlerized its training materials to exclude references to militant Islamism.
He notes that the US Army’s after-action report following Maj. Nidal Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood in November 2009, preceded by his shout “allahu akhbar"— referred to the incident as “workplace violence” and that the Army chief of staff at the time said the most tragic result of Fort Hood would be if it interfered with the Army’s diversity program.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is the fifth person since 9/11 who has participated in terror attacks after questioning by the FBI. He was preceded by Nidal Hasan; drone casualty Anwar al Awlaki; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (born Carlos Leon Bledsoe), who murdered an Army recruit in Little Rock in June 2009; and David Coleman Headley, who provided intelligence to the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre in 2008. That doesn’t count Abdulmutallab, who was the subject of warnings to the CIA that he was a potential terrorist.
The former Attorney General questions whether the intelligence yielded by the FBI’s investigation will be able to be used during Dzhokhar’s trial or whether it might have to be withheld because it compromises security.
He says it now apparent that with al Qaeda unable to mount elaborate attacks like the one it carried out on 9/11, other Islamists have stepped in with smaller and less intricate crimes, but crimes that are nonetheless meant to send a terrorist message.
These include Faisal Shahzad, who failed to detonate a device in Times Square in 2010, and would-be subway bomber Najibullah Zazi and his confederates.
Mukasey warns that the US needs to confront the totalitarian ideology that has existed since at least the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s.

He says it has regarded the United States as its principal adversary since the late 1940s.
The first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993, al Qaeda attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the USS Cole in 2000, the 9/11 attacks, and those in the dozen years since—all were fueled by Islamist hatred for the U.S. and its values.
If this war is going to be fought, it’s high time we in the West called it for what it is – jihad. 

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BRING OUT THE MACHINES

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (3:16pm)

The 8th Annual Iowahawk Earth Week Cruise-In is on. Your rules of entry: 
• Submit a photo or video of your hooptie (preferably as a link), along with a pithy description, to the email link on the left using the subject line “Cruise In”.
• Eligibility is open to fossil fuel-powered human conveyances (cars, motorcycles, boats, aircraft, spacecraft, etc.) and other devices at my discretion. E.g., an electric blender is not interesting; a blown Hemi-powered blender is.
• Please submit only those vehicles you personally own, or have stolen. I know many of you have pics of other people’s cars, but this exhibition is about taking personal responsibility for the environment.
• If your vehicle was featured in last year’s Cruise-In, please wait ‘til next year to re-enter. Let’s keep it fresh, people!
• Submission deadline Sunday, April 28. 

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CHICK CHICK BOOM

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (1:57pm)

Seems logical enough: 
A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.
Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.
“Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair. 
The shameless quake-causing sluts. While Sedighi’s 2010 seismic theory was obviously based on the very latest science and deserves great respect, if there is indeed some connection between clothing and earthquakes, surely Sydney must be due for something in the range of a magnitude 20 tectonic terror.
In any case, I blame Edwina Storie.
(Via Brat)

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LISTENABILIDY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (4:18am)

Speech analyst Dean Frenkel – a former cricket teammate of mine, as it happens; he was a gifted batsman, but I once had to shout at him for playing a harmonica on the field – praises the Prime Minister’s vocal skills: 
Each day her ‘’listenability’’ continues to improve. Ms Gillard has removed the edges off her voice and added a mixture of strength and softness. Her voice has more body. She speaks with a grounded deep resonance that sounds more relaxed. There is more strength in her voice and she no longer sounds stilted. She is relaxed enough to reveal more of herself. The floor of her voice is more solid and it now dominates her overall sound. Her degree of projection control with microphone technique takes considerable respiratory and vocal strength. 
Yet the PM, still learning to talk at 51, remains unable to pronounce the letter “t”. Further from Dean:
Ms Gillard’s most impressive speechmaking skills are her quick mind, memory, speech fluency and an ability to rarely stumble when she’s talking. 
Really, Dean? Listen up to some of Gillard’s “rare stumbles”: 
• Hyperbowl
• Tasmania
• Taliband
• Taliband, again
• Tenant
• High dungeon 
When it comes to speech, our Prime Minister can’t walk gum and chew at the same time.

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RACING AHEAD

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 23, 2013 (12:23am)

How confident was the Sydney Morning Herald that the Boston bombers were associated with the Tea Party? So confident that last Friday it ran this teapot terror image:

image

The associated article, which has one or two problems of its own, actually applauds thoughtful media reaction: 
We’re witnessing something truly remarkable: media outlets almost sticking to reporting what they know, and not racing ahead of a terrorism story. 
UPDATE. Two years ago, Media Watch‘s Jonathan Holmes devoted a segment of his tax-funded program to me and Andrew Bolt. Our crime: we’d posted links to the Guardian and the New York Times, speculating that “a jihadist group” was behind deadly Oslo attacks. Of course, it soon emerged that these sources were mistaken. As my updated post noted, the attacks were the work of a solitary psycho Norwegian.
Still, this didn’t stop Holmes from complaining about a lack of “common sense and decency” in coverage of that international atrocity. Following the latest international atrocity, then, you’d expect Holmes to have something to say about pre-emptive Tea Party slurs. But no, because international stories are suddenly off Media Watch‘s agenda: 
We do local media stories … 
Except when you don’t. Thanks for all the common sense and decency, Jonathan.

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Here we go again. The IPCC prepares for a scare. GG, too

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (4:32pm)

Strange. An Australian paper claiming unprecedented warming of our part of the world is quickly exposed as having made a howler that causes it to be withdrawn.
Yet slabs of it seem now to have been included in the IPCC’s upcoming review of global warming.
Too convenient to exclude?
UPDATE
The Gillard Government claimed it would rake in more than $9 billion a year from carbon trading from 2015 because Europe’s price would be a healthy $29 a tonne. The latest estimate?

[O]nce the fixed-price period for the carbon tax ends in 2015 and Australia’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) links with Europe’s carbon market...RepuTex forecasts...a tonne of carbon could drop from its fixed price of $25.40 to as little as $8.
UPDATE
Ths crude scaremongering on behalf of the Gillard Government is unworthy of the Governer General, and is not compatible with her apolitical role:
Papua New Guinea’s coastline from Vanimo in West Sepik to Lae in Morobe province has been described as vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

This is according to a report from the Australian Government’s International Climate Change Adaptation Initiative (ICCAI) data.
The data was presented to Prime Minister Peter O’Neill by the Australian Governor-General Quentin Bryce yesterday.
(Thanks to readers John, Peter and Christianj.) 

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Claim: Police investigating Gillard on slush fund

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (4:26pm)

2GB’s Ben Fordham claims police are investigating Julia Gillard:
BEN FORDHAM:
March 7th,, her trip to western Sydney, you might remember she was staying at the Rooty Hill RSL for a week, the threat of Kevin Rudd, yeah, well that was only a week or so before those dramas were popping up once again, issues leading up to the September election in general and we also discussed allegations about what has become known as the Australian Workers Union slush fund scandal. And while discussing that issue with the Prime Minister a comment was made on this radio programme that I now know not to be true. The comment was made by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. We were talking about the police investigation, the ongoing and very real police investigation into the AWU slush fund scandal and when I mentioned this police investigation the Prime Minister sought to clarify something. Julia Gillard wanted to make it clear to you that she was not one of the people being investigated. Here is a reminder:
BEN FORDHAM:
Final issue just on this and I’m not talking about political drama and whatever, I’m talking about a police investigation that’s currently going on. Now you concede that money from…
JULIA GILLARD:
Just be a bit careful Ben. Do not slur me with that.
BEN FORDHAM:
I have not Prime Minister, I have just said that there’s a police investigation currently going on. You know that.
JULIA GILLARD:
And you should then clarify and that’s nothing to do with me.
BEN FORDHAM:
Well, I don’t know that Prime Minister. Do you know that?
JULIA GILLARD:
Yes I do and I’ve answered that publicly before Ben and I’d refer you to those statements…
[Hear the interview here.]
BEN FORDHAM:
So Julia Gillard told me to “be careful” and not to “slur her” when talking about that police investigation. The PM told me to clarify that it had nothing to do with her. Well, I am correcting that record this afternoon because I know for a fact that the Prime Minister is being investigated by police over the slush fund scandal. She was being interviewed at the time of the interview. Let me say that again so there’s no confusion. She was being investigated at the time of the interview. She was being investigated at the time that interview went to air on the 7th of March on this radio station. She’s not been interviewed. The investigation is comprehensive and by no means complete but police are still in the process of taking statements on this issue involving the Prime Minister Julia Gillard and I know this because I have actually been asked by police to make a formal statement. The police are interested in comments made by Julia Gillard in the interview with me on 2GB on the 7th of March. At the request of police, I’m not going to go into any detail about it other than saying what I’ve just said. I have been asked to make a statement to police and I’m in the process of making that happen. I feel it’s appropriate to share this news with you because this is your show. And when someone tells us something that’s not true and I know it not to be true, I’m going to tell you about it.
Just to clarify. Gillard has not been interviewed by the police. Police are investigating her role in the AWU matter.
To repeat: Gillard insists she did not know of her boyfriend’s scams after she helped to create his slush fund, and insists she did not profit from them.
UPDATE
It’s a kind of denial, or something. So believe Fordham or believe Gillard - or believe you’re not getting a straight answer:
A spokesman for the Prime Minister this afternoon rejected the new claims, saying Ms Gillard stood by her previous comments on the matter.
”Nothing has changed from our previous statements,” the spokesman said.
In response to the broadcast, a Victorian Police spokeswoman said: “Our Fraud and Extortion Squad is currently investigating a complaint regarding the alleged misappropriation of funds from a union. Victorian Police will not be providing running commentary in relation to this investigation. The investigation remains ongoing.”

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Now for the Loverson inquiry

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (3:05pm)

image
Would we be allowed to publish this gossip if Lord Leveson has his way with the press?
Two key lawyers at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards have faced accusations of a “conflict of interest” after admitting that they started a relationship following a trip to a Greek island.
Carine Patry Hoskins, who is married with two children and was a member of Leveson’s inquiry team, is in a relationship with David Sherborne, who has represented some phone hacking victims....
In August last year, four months before the end of the Leveson inquiry into press standards, the pair went on holiday to the Greek island of Santorini.
A spokesman for the couple said that while they discussed the “possibility of a future relationship” they had decided against it. They say they only started a relationship after the inquiry came to an end in November of last year.
Yeah, sure.
Murdoch laughs:
image
Those sanctimonious ....  Presuming to run the moral ruler over the media, demanding new curbs on reporters.
Here is Patry Hoskins gently, sweetly questioning her (now) lover’s clients before the Leveson inquiry:
The Daily Mail makes a few obvious points:

Mrs Patry Hoskins had access to confidential information supplied under compulsion by media organisations, cross-examined several of Mr Sherborne’s clients, and helped formulate some of the thinking behind the Leveson report.
Her dealings with Mr Sherborne should have been strictly at arm’s length. Indeed, under Bar Council rules, both lawyers should have informed Leveson of their relationship – which neither did – and at least one should have withdrawn.

Frankly, this affair shows how incestuous, self-righteous and hypocritical the legal profession can be. Along with doctors, they are one of Britain’s last great unreformed institutions – self-policing and impervious to external criticism.
They are supposed to defend liberty, yet have been in the vanguard of the current assault on Press freedom.
Draconian judge-led privacy laws, superinjunctions, defamation rules that make Britain the libel capital of the world, and the explosion of the no-win, no-fee compensation culture can all be laid at their door.
And in the post-Leveson era – abetted by an increasingly authoritarian police force – their power to stifle free speech and protect the powerful from criticism is becoming even more frightening.
Here too, of course. 

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Money gone, leaving us defenceless

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (2:27pm)

Terry McCrann says Wayne Swan’s five Budgets have left us dangerously exposed:
In fact as we know, in reality, they’ve all been deficits, including the one to come. Six budgets, six deficits. And counting, into the distant future.
Those six deficits by themselves will add to around $210 billion…
Back in 2008 [to counter the global financial crisis], Treasurer Swan had plenty of deficit and debt elbow room to embark on spending, or to simply let the budget bottom line blow out. He of course did both.
Because back then, he started with a $20 billion yearly surplus and zero net debt when the cold winds started to blow.
Further, although we didn’t realise it at the time—and the Government still refuses to acknowledge its positive significance for the budget as well as the broader economy—China would come spectacularly to our help from 2009 on.
None of that, and I mean none of that, is going to be available ``next time’’; assuming there is a ``next time’’; and trust me, there will be a ``next time’’.
We now start with a $20 billion deficit instead of a $20 billion surplus.
We now start with net (federal) debt already at $200 billion instead of being at zero.
And there is no way that China can, far less would even try, to do what it did in 2009, which sent commodity prices soaring and directly and indirectly poured billions into the economy and into Swan’s budget…
Indeed, even relatively optimistic forecasts of what might happen in China over the next few years, point to likely (hopefully modest) falls in commodity prices, a far, far cry from the spectacular increases we saw in 2009-10.
The truth of what happened to those promised Swan surpluses, is that the Government never really reined in spending after the stimulus surge; and it did not face up to, yes, lower, but not as low as claimed, revenues…
The evidence is clear and simple. This is a high-spending, high-taxing Government, that leaves the budget bottom line in entrenched deficit.
And leaves us horribly exposed to the next downturn in the economy.
(No link yet to full column.)
UPDATE
Finance Minister Penny Wong gives away the truth about those “declining revenues” the Government is blaming for its deficits:

the amount of money that’s coming to government for the reasons you and I have already touched upon is substantially less than was anticipated. I mean, the example I give is for this budget year, just two years ago, we were predicting $20 billion more coming in than is and even since the mid-year review in October we’re about $7.5 billion less for this financial year than we anticipated. 
Revenues haven’t actually fallen. They just haven’t risen by the wild amounts Labor foolishly assumed, as Judith Sloan explains:
It is your fault, Wayne, for assuming out-of-reach increases in revenue, which you needed in order to continue the sham of a budget surplus being delivered in 2012-13…
Just take a look at the figures, even the ones shaved in the MYEFO. Government receipts were expected to increase from 22.5 per cent of GDP in 2011-12 to 24 per cent in 2012-13 - by 1.5 percentage points in one year!
Revenue was expected to rise by 11.3 per cent or more than $37 billion. Were we supposed to take these estimates of revenue seriously, when we always knew that nominal GDP growth was unlikely to exceed 6 to 7 per cent?
Actually, growth in government revenue has not been doing too badly in the current financial year, averaging about 7 per cent growth on an annual basis. 
A government of spenders not savers, fantasists not realists.
UPDATE
A rare bit of good news:

A report by Deloitte Access Economics released yesterday suggests the deficit to be unveiled in next month’s budget will be much better than expected, reaching just “a handful of billions” because of rising iron ore prices.
Fancy, Swan helped by those greedy miners. So what happens if mineral prices fall?
UPDATE
The proof that revenue isn’t the problem, declining only in one year, three years ago. From the Reserve Bank, this tale of increasing total revenues for both Coalition and Labor governments (in millions of dollars):
image
(The Reserve Bank’s latest estimates for final figures for this financial year: total revenue $376 billion, total expenditure $378 billion. So a huge increase in earnings.)
Reader Rod:
Howard – last 5 years:

total income $1.06 Trillion
total expenditure - $0.98 Trillion
Gillard/Rudd – last 5 years
income total $1.54 Trillion
total expenditure $1.73 Trillion
Bottom line:
Gillard/Rudd –total income increase of 145%, total expenditure increase of 176%

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New Labor appalls old Labor. UPDATE: Gillard brought to book

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (1:09pm)

Simon Crean should have enough heart-broken Labor stalwarts to form a new party:

ONE of Queensland’s former union powerbrokers has quit the Labor party after 36 years, warning it has “lost the plot” and is being ruined by factional power struggles.
In a scathing critique of his party, David Harrison said Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her predecessor Kevin Rudd had trashed Labor’s values with “crass politics”.
Mr Harrison warned Labor was controlled by a small cabal who were only interested in petty power struggles.
A self-described “rusted on” Labor supporter, Mr Harrison was president of the Queensland Council of Unions for a decade until 2004 and AMWU secretary for 24 years…

He mocked Ms Gillard’s repeated use of the phrase “Labor values”, saying this just alienated voters.
“I am horrified by the crass politics. There are no Labor values in the stuff that’s going on.”
UPDATE
Julia Gillard cleansed her foes from her Ministry to head off Kevin Rudd. Now they’re busy preparing some pre-election surprises:
Labor’s leading warrior of the Left, Senator Kim Carr is writing a book to be published by MUP ahead of the September election.
Senator Carr was the third minister to resign after Kevin Rudd declined to challenge Prime Minister Julia Gillard after former Arts Minister Simon Crean called for a leadership spill last month… Senator Carr is a true believer and his book, A Letter to Generation Next - why Labor? lays out the case for the Labor Party. His focus is firmly on generations X and Y, who have lost faith in the ALP, and feel the Party can no longer claim to be the party of social justice, reform and equality.
And:
FORMER minister Chris Bowen has ignited speculation he is positioning himself for a future tilt at the leadership by writing a book setting out his blueprint for “how modern Labor must govern"…
Mr Bowen, a former minister for Immigration, Financial Services and Tertiary Education, was a key player behind the push for Kevin Rudd to return as prime minister and quit the frontbench after last month’s leadership fiasco…
The title of the book is being kept under wraps but it will be published before the September 14 election and is set to spark a new round of Labor navel gazing.

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More “young adult males” of some irrelevant faith arrested

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (11:53am)

The Sunday Age on the Boston Marathon bombers:

It mentioned the bombers were Chechen, but not that they were Muslim, adding: “It should be noted that information that emerged. . . didn’t fit into any neat profile, aside from the fact that the suspects were young adult males.”
More “young adult males” are arrested:

Canadian police say they have arrested two people and charged them with trying to carry out an Al Qaeda-backed terrorist attack against a passenger train.
Authorities say Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, were planning to derail a VIA passenger train, which is part of Canada’s national rail network.
This from another ABC report which, yes, gives the clue in “al Qaeda” but does not mention the word “Muslim” once.
Mind you, Canadian police did not want to use that “M” word, either:
Authorities said the pair are “not Canadian citizens” but declined to reveal their respective nationalities. The main suspect lived in Montreal for several years, another official added.
The suspects’ plans were ”not based on their ethnic origins but on an ideology”, police said.
So which “ideology” would that be?

UPDATE
Gerard Henderson:

ABC Radio National does not have one [conservative] presenter of, or regular [conservative] political commentator on any of its main programs. So it came as no surprise that its first substantive comment on the Boston attack took place on Late Night Live last Tuesday when left-wing presenter Phillip Adams interviewed Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor at the left-wing journal The Nation.
Like Jones, Shapiro acknowledged that the facts were not known. However, like Jones, he had a theory. Shapiro made it very clear that the Boston bombing was almost certainly carried out by a home-grown extreme right-wing terrorist who held extreme views “on issues like guns and abortion"…
The following morning Monash University’s Professor Greg Barton (who usually talks sense) appeared on the ABC1 News Breakfast program. Barton made it clear that it was most likely that “right-wing extremism was involved” and not “Muslim Americans”.
It turns out that many commentators in the West were hoping that the Boston culprits were home-grown so-called “patriots"… For understandable reasons, there was a hope that the Boston terrorists had not embraced the Jihadist cause. But they had.
Most of the Jihadist attacks on the US have been conducted by foreigners or new citizens. The list includes the “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted to bring down a plane over Detroit in 2009 and Faisal Shahzad who attempted to explode a bomb in Times Square the following year. The former was Nigerian, the latter a Pakistani-American citizen.
The time has come for blunt talking.
UPDATE
When will Media Watch take on the Sydney Morning Herald for pre-emptively blaming American Right-wingers for the Boston bombings?
Answer: the Left excuses its own.
UPDATE
More victims of the Boston bombers?
Authorities have confirmed they are investigating a possible link between Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, killed during a gun battle with police on Friday, and the murder of a man said to be his close friend, Brendan Mess, 25. Also killed were Erik Weissman, 31, and Raphael Teken, 37.
The bodies of the men were discovered in September 2011 at Mess’s home in the Boston suburb of Waltham. Each of the men’s throats were slashed and they were almost decapitated. Their mutilated bodies were covered with marijuana.
UPDATE
More of this pretend “what Muslim?” blindness:
BOB Ellis makes a prediction last Tuesday:  
IT seems to me likely that this [the Boston bombings] was not al-Qa’ida or a lone madman . . . but more likely, much more likely, the NRA . . . No responsibility will be claimed by any group, and there will be no second attack; and no culprit ever found. This is my prediction. 
Andrew O’Keefe, host of Channel 7’s Deal or No Deal (and secret terror expert) tweets on Friday:
“THE common link is not Islam, it is young men.”
Well, this can’t be the explanation. ABC Radio National’s Jonathan Green tweets April 15:

TIM Blair (wrote on his blog): “Multiple bombs are the usual strategy in Islamist terrorist attacks.”
Matt J tweets yesterday:

LOOKS like Tim Blair was right. So does that mean we can discuss Islam . . . again, or should we just ignore and hope it goes away?
Green tweets yesterday:

TO the extent that it prompted these actions of course but we know nothing of that as yet. the talk is empty.
Robert Elliott ... tweets yesterday:

THE problem with the ABC/Left echo chamber is that it excludes reality and conflicting views. Be more curious Jonathan.
Green tweets yesterday:

BLAIR was islamophobing as usual. we have only circumstantial evidence. none of us have a clue why this happened.
Elliott tweets yesterday:

YOU seriously believe that Islamism is not a clue to why this happened? Do Buddhist, Hindu or Christian students do this?
Green tweets yesterday:

I HAVE no idea why they did this. neither do you. and yes. obviously. read the papers
UPDATE
Will the ABC and Fairfax newspapers use the M word now? AP reports:
The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to have been motivated by their religious faith but do not seem connected to any Muslim terrorist groups, U.S. officials said Monday after interrogating the severely wounded younger man. He was charged with federal crimes that could bring the death penalty.
And:
BOSTON bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators his brother was the leader in last week’s deadly attacks, and that no international terrorist groups were behind them, CNN has reported…
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, wounded and held in a Boston hospital, has said his brother (Tamerlan, 26) - who was killed early Friday - wanted to defend Islam from attack,” CNN quoted the source as saying. 

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More teachers do not mean better ones

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (11:52am)

Remember how smaller class sizes were said to be the key to better education results?
Cassandra Wilkinson on the obvious-from-the-start results of the great spending spree on education demanded by teacher unions and indulged by both Labor and Liberal governments:

Most obviously, if you split a class of 30 into two groups of no more than 22, you need a lot more teachers, resulting in massive salary cost increases. Second, you need a second classroom. Kids in NSW found themselves with less and less room to run as demountable classrooms annexed their cherished playgrounds.
Finally, to meet the sudden requirement for large numbers of additional teachers, entrance standards slipped. Last year’s Good Universities Guide notes that the entry to teacher training can be gained with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank as low as 46.5.

And, of course, education standards have not improved. Surprised? Yet how few commentators stood against this groupthink.
The key to better teaching is ... wait for it ... better teaching. 

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Labor promises another $14.5 billion, voters unmoved

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (11:00am)

Big spending promises haven’t helped Julia Gillard, according to Newspoll:

LABOR’S release of the Gonski school education reforms has failed to give the Gillard government an immediate boost, while Tony Abbott has increased his lead as preferred prime minister…
According to a calculation of second preference votes, based on the flow of preferences at the 2010 election, the Coalition on 55 per cent continues to lead Labor on 45 per cent.
Not much return for a $14.5 billion promise. What will Gillard try next? A $100 billion giveaway?
UPDATE
NSW grabs the money, giving it a benchmark it will demand Tony Abbott match:
JULIA Gillard and Barry O’Farrell have sealed the first Gonski education deal…
NSW is the first state to formally agree to Labor’s Gonski education funding reforms and in doing so will create pressure for other states to come on board.
The government has agreed to the deal this morning, worth at least $5 billion to NSW.
Do we have that $5 billion? Who cares! 

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Only bad when Liberals say they’re illegal

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (10:10am)

The Coalition’s ad is apparently bad:

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Tony Abbott’s office has defended his continued use of the word “illegal” when describing the arrival of asylum seeker boats by referring to the UN Refugee Convention…
Mr Abbott on Monday re-launched the Coalition’s famed “illegal boats” billboards in Perth,.. The billboards read: “How many illegal boats have arrived since Labor took over? 639 illegal boats. Labor has lost control of Australia’s borders”.
Mr Abbott was interrupted during his address to reporters in Perth by a passerby, who took exception to Mr Abbott’s description of asylum seekers arriving in boats as ‘’illegal’’. ‘’It’s not illegal, that’s a lie,’’ the man interjected. ‘’You know it’s a lie.’’…
The online reaction was swift, with a petition launched calling on Mr Abbott to apologise for his use of the word, and Twitter users outraged at the use of the term. Refugee advocates accused the opposition of fear-mongering.
But Labor’s ad is apparently good:
image
The asylum seekers are only illegals when Labor says so. Then it’s fine.
UPDATE
Reader Fixer notes the identity of the “passerby” who heckled Abbott:

The opposition leader was admonished by a school teacher, Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Mark Goudkamp, over his use of the term ‘illegal’’ arrivals.
UPDATE
No such fussiness from the South China Morning Post:
Police detained eight South Asian illegal immigrants off Sai Kung yesterday… Marine officers picked up the eight Pakistani men, aged between 24 and 40, on an isolated island near Shek Ngau Chau (island).

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Iran’s now-undercover reporter

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (8:58am)

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Edwina Storie is the Australian correspondent of Press TV, backed by Iran’s fascist regime.
As you see, she dresses modestly, as befits someone working for an Islamic state.
And she holds the appropriate views on the criminality of John Howard and others:

Australians remain remorseful over what they call the war crimes committed by the US-led forces, especially Australia in Iraq which have taken many lives and displaced a lot of people.
She reports glowingly on what seems to me an anti-Semitic - or at least racist- boycott movement:

The boycott, divest and sanction campaign, known as the BDS campaign, is a global civil movement that strongly opposes Israel’s occupation of Palestine. It says it hopes to promote a message of impunity of Israel in its serial breaches of international law and internal humanitarian law.
But as Andrew Landeryou reports in detail, this tailoring of both views and clothes involves a quite remarkable transformation:
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Out of control: an Adelaide every three years

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (8:44am)

Remember Julia Gillard’s promises three years ago?

Take this, for example: “I do not believe in a big Australia.”
A voter would assume Gillard meant that she believes in a smaller one, right?
Or take this: “I don’t believe in simply hurtling down a track to a 36 million or a 40 million population (by 2050).”
Our gullible voter would again assume our nice Prime Minister meant she’d at least cut our net immigration to 180,000 a year just to stop us from going over that 36 million figure the Australian Bureau of Statistics says we’re already hurtling to right now.
Indeed, Gillard urges voters to think just that: “I say this: let’s slow down, let’s take a breath and let’s get this right.”
William Bourke rightly notes Gillard broke all those promises and our population growth is out of control:
A quick glance at the Bureau of Statistics population clock tells us we’ll reach a high point of 23 million as early as next week, well ahead of any previous prediction....
Australia’s population is growing by more than 1 million people every three years. That’s the size of Adelaide.
Our growth rate now stands at an extraordinary 1.7 per cent a year. By comparison, the world average is 1.1 per cent, with most developed nations well below this average.
In June 2010, Julia Gillard promised she would not pursue Kevin Rudd’s ‘’big Australia’’ population target of 36 million by 2050....
But what has happened since?
Baby bonuses remain on offer and the permanent immigration program has been increased - yes, increased. We are now on target for not 36 million but 40 million by 2050. Under Gillard, the permanent immigration program stands at more than 200,000 a year - the highest level in Australian history.

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Breaking the censorship of the Media Class

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (8:13am)

Media Watch last night was alarmed that politicians can speak directly to people via the Internet, without being filtered by the media:

Charles Feldman: in a world where there are now fewer checks and balances and I’m talking about journalistic checks and balances, the danger is that the politician’s voice is then not examined and cross-examined as it ought to be by journalists… what they should do is govern, stick to the job of governing, and leave journalism to people who do journalism.
A few problems here. First, there is not an either/or here: my strong suspicion is that people who read politicians on-line also read the take of journalists. This is normally praised as going directly to the source before trusting the spin. Second, journalists can’t often be trusted to tell you straight what politicians are saying. Indeed, the examples Media Watch gives of Malcolm Turnbull using social media show him correcting hostile Fairfax spin. This is breaking the gatekeeper role not of dispassionate fact-checkers, but of Media Class ideologues. For instance, how many journalists have permitted a frank discussion of the weaknesses of global warming theory or the absence of proof of the “stolen generations”?
True, Media Watch covered the first of these arguments - although host Jonathan Holmes’ sympathy was clearly with Feldman, as you’d expect from the Media Class, defending its power and privileges, and blind to its bias.
That blindness was most startlingly obvious in this part of the Media Watch report:
That’s one view that Laurie Oakes shares. The journalist’s job, he’s always believed, is to ask the questions, not to answer them.
“ Laurie Oakes: a concentration on providing facts - simple unfiltered information - would be a real point of difference in the coming contest with the new kind of political journalists - the ones who’ll be players in the political game reporting on themselves and using the media access that technology has given them to push their own political interests. — Laurie Oakes, Political Editor, Nine Network, Media Alliance Centenary Lecture, 29th November, 2012”
 Laurie Oakes is hoping – vainly, perhaps – that the mainstream media will see that fact-based reporting, not endless opining, is what it can do better than the blogosphere. But he, and I, both fear that it may be too late.
“Too late” is one way of putting it. “Hypocrisy” is another. It seems to me that Oakes is actually demanding a monopoly by the Canberra press gallery on “endless opining”, which he himself does, well, endlessly from a generally anti-Liberal perspective. Here is a list of some his recent columns:
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As the ABC sees it: Coalition is mean, dated and stingy

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (7:44am)

Paul Bongiorno and Fran Kelly this morning discuss federal politics in their daily chat on ABC Radio National.
It’s established that Tony Abbott is appealing to xenophobia by referring to “illegal” boats, Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne is going “back to the past” in urging less black-armband teaching of our history, and we need the Coalition to agree to raise more taxes, not just cut spending.
Does Fran ever have on as guest commentator on politics someone with a more neutral or, dare I say, conservative point of view? After all, 55 per cent of Australians seem to endorse the Coalition world view.
UPDATE
Fran then has a long chat on global warming with someone from the Climate Change Authority. Not once is mention made of the most remarkable fact about global warming: that although emissions have risen faster than predicted, warming has been at a virtual standstill for 16 years. 

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This reckless spending must stop

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (7:39am)

Tim Colebatch:
If the economy goes bust, deficits will be just one of our worries.
One of Australia’s most respected economists, Ross Garnaut, of the University of Melbourne, warns that when the mining boom busts, the economy is likely to bust with it. History is on his side. Since 2005, mining investment has reared up like a tidal wave, from 2 per cent of GDP to more than 8 per cent. If it breaks like a tidal wave, it will swamp the economy.

Take the existing budget problems first…
First, tax revenue has collapsed, and Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson warns that, on current settings, it will stay weak for years ahead…
Second, Labor has introduced three big new fiscal commitments without the revenue to pay for them. The mining tax was meant to fund the government’s share of the increase in superannuation contributions from 9 per cent to 12 per cent, but that is now essentially unfunded. So is the commitment to $9.4 billion of new education spending from the Gonski report and so is the national disability insurance scheme.
Third, the pressures of an ageing society on the budget, which Treasury has warned of for years, are becoming real…
The bottom line is that something’s got to give. Australia cannot continue this level of spending with this level of revenue…
Garnaut, a former ambassador to China, says we underestimate the seriousness of China’s rulers in planning to shift its economy to a more gradual, less resource-intensive growth path. He points out that last year, coal use declined in Chinese power stations…
... every mining boom since the war has ended in a bust, and there is no reason to think this time will be different. It was a very big boom, so it could be a very big bust.
UPDATE
Professor Sinclair Davidson suggests the real problem is bad management by Wayne Swan:
New Zealand actually went into recession during the GFC; yet has been able to return to budget surplus before Australia without the benefit of a mining boom.

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Speaking of the dour Julia

Andrew Bolt April 23 2013 (7:31am)

Speech analyst Dean Frenkel says Julia Gillard seems to have been working on her voice, making it a weapon:
Yet it appears that Ms Gillard has consciously decided to defiantly maintain her controversial accent and articulation patterns. Interestingly there has been no effort to refine them, which is probably a reflection of her personal values. The way she articulates may be a product of her union background or perhaps is her way of expressing her Australian pride. Which begs the question: does poor articulation make you more ‘’Australian’’?
Here are some of her articulation bloopers: ‘d’s sound more like ‘dge’s as in ‘ed(dj)ucation revolution’; ‘t’s are expressed as ‘d’s as in ‘bedder’ (better), ‘ee’s become ‘eryees’, as in ‘berleryeeve’ (believe) and ‘a’s become ‘eyes’ as in ‘Ostrylya’ (Australia) …
Ms Gillard’s most impressive speechmaking skills are her quick mind, memory, speech fluency and an ability to rarely stumble when she’s talking…
Some of Ms Gillard’s values are detectable through her speech. She is very proud to be Australian. She wants to appear solid and grounded and is prepared to sacrifice colour from her delivery… . The dour demeanour is consistent with trying to project that she wants us to feel we are in safe hands. 
UPDATE
Tim Blair isn’t sure about that “ability to rarely stumble when she’s talking”. Blair’s list, with references supplied:

- Hyperbowl
- Tasmania
- Taliband
- Assification
- Taliband, again
- Tenant
- High dungeon
Links at the link. 

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Aussie aid, doing more good to lucky Jack Warner

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (10:02pm)

Nice to see our aid money going to a struggling executive in the Caribbean:

Former top FIFA official Jack Warner allegedly stole a $462,000 donation the Football Federation of Australia donated to his Caribbean football organisation in 2010, at a time when the FFA was lobbying Mr Warner to back its bid to host the World Cup…
The finding that Mr Warner stole the money – made over the weekend by an integrity panel headed by several former judges – raises fresh questions about the FFA’s decision to give lucrative grants in 2010 to soccer organisations headed by influential FIFA officials previously accused of corruption.
The existence of the $462,000 donation– and its subsequent alleged theft – has never been reported publicly in Australia, including in the FFA and government inquiries into Australia’s failed $45 million bid. 

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Does Dreyfus see what’s happening under his own nose?

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (7:50pm)

The Attorney-General talks about his electorate:
Isaacs MP Mark Dreyfus said..."One third of Australians were born overseas and Greater Dandenong is home to citizens representing 150 different nationalities,” he said. “Our community is a wonderful example to others of a modern, diverse and harmonious society.”

This week:

Around Dandenong, young men stalk parks in gangs and rob anyone who walks through. About 300 others brawled so viciously at a 21st birthday party last year that police had to use capsicum spray to bring things under control.... There is certainly a public fear of violence: one caller tells police she has seen about 50 Sudanese men heading towards a party heaving with Pacific Islanders.
And:
Community leaders have joined police on regular patrols in Dandenong as the force tries to improve ties with troubled ethnic youths. The ethnically diverse city has crime rates almost 40 per cent higher than the state average… Pacific Islander and Sudanese community leaders were informed by Victoria Police last year that their populations were overrepresented in crime statistics.

There comes a time when the desire to seem nice collides with the need to be honest. Dreyfus is not telling the truth, in my opinion. When you can’t be honest about trouble in your back yard, are you likely to ever fix it?
(Thanks to reader Ed.)
UPDATE
Reader Skeptical Denier:

Maybe it would help if Dreyfus actually lived in his electorate rather than the leafy ‘burbs of Malvern. He may then actually know what is going on in our electorate. Typical seeming of the hand-wringing left rather than actually doing.

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Gillard speaks

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (5:51pm)

Julia Gillard is doing a people’s forum in Deakin, the country’s second most marginal seat. You can follow it here.
UPDATE
Curious. The audience is supposed to be uncommitted voters, selected by Galaxy. Here are the questions so far:

Gay marriage - an advocate urges Gillard to get on board.
Education - a critic of the cuts to university funding.
Debt - a neutral question on when the government will return to surplus.
NBN - A supporter of the NBN complains not enough people know of the benefits.
Achievements - An apparent supporter tells Gillard she has a lot of achievements to her credit and should tell people. What will she do to get out the message?
Negative gearing - a neutral question on where she will change the rules.
Food security - someone who’s read Tim Flannery’s book The Future Eaters has a question.
Superannuation - a man calling himself “a socialist at heart” says he’d be prepared to pay more tax on his super.
Same sex marriage - another supporter. Attacks Tony Abbott for a “political connivance”.
Live cattle trade - Woman says “I’ve always voted for the Labor Party” but live trade is disturbing.
An audience of uncommitted voters? A couple of committeds seem to have slipped in under the net. 

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Hear with your heart, see with your soul, be guided by a hand that you cannot hold, and trust even if you cannot see. That's how faith must be... Holly
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4 Her
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God's love .. ed
the best things in life are hideously expensive and I love them (anon)
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My bedroom is terribly misleading
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Graphic Quotes: John Wayne on Well-Educated Idiots

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/graphic-quotes-john-wayne-on-well-educated-idiots/
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Taking off from backwards hover, just to make things a little bit more complicated and challenging cause we just don't like things that are EASY. :D
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Get ready for abundance in your life because God has been to your future and He declares that it is good! Check out more in today's devotional and be blessed!http://bit.ly/10yiW7i
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What's the best way to dispel darkness in a room? Switch on the light! Likewise, the best way to dispel any darkness in your life is to turn on the light of Christ. In this uplifting video excerpt, Joseph Prince shows you how Jesus, the light of the world, lifts you up and gives you a confident expectation of good even in your darkest hour. It's time to let His light in and banish every cloud of darkness in your life! http://josephprince.com/
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Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me (Ps 23:4, NLT).
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Check out today's devotional to find out why you are already blessed in Christ! http://bit.ly/11phPcK
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Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.—Matt 11:29–30

Jesus sees the cares you carry in your heart. He knows the worries you have for your family and for the future. 

And He wants to give you rest today. The way you receive rest is to be yoked with Him, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

When a pair of oxen is yoked together, the younger ox just follows what the lead ox does and in this way, learns what it needs to do. Likewise, all you have to do is to follow God’s leading and flow with Him.

God will not lay anything heavy on you. Ask Him to come into your career, family and relationships. You will find Him leading you to do the right thing at the right time, prospering all that you put your hands to!http://josephprince.com/
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Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for April 22nd. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Death doc Kermit Gosnell’s silent co-conspirators

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Bill Clinton has been handed a giant eraser and tasked with scrubbing anything from the political past that could be a hindrance to Hillary’s White House bid in 2016...

Reminder: Boston bombers not the first refugee jihadist brothers to plot against America

More details are seeping out about how the Boston jihadist brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev came to the U.S. and managed to stay here despite security threat red flags raised to the FBI two years ago...

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Happy Monday!

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April 23: World Book Day; Saint George's Day in various countries;Children's Day in Turkey
Charles de Gaulle

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