Sunday, May 26, 2013

Sun May 26th Todays News


Happy birthday and many happy returns Lapskin Lee and Jenny Nguyen. Born on the same day, across the years. It is Mother's Day in France, Poland ans Sweden. Armenians were defeated by the Sassanid in 451, but this gave them religious freedom 33 years later. In 1938, the house un-American activities committee began, and Nixon would become famous .. A day of choices. Your day.
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Hazel Hawke held her dignity to the end

Miranda Devine – Sunday, May 26, 2013 (10:33am)

THE most poignant revelation of Hazel Hawke’s last days was her whispered “I love you” to ex-husband Bob, the love of her life.
The former prime minister had visited Hazel two weeks ago, after she suffered a stroke in the care facility where she lived for the past four years.
As grandson David, Rosslyn’s son, tells The Australian, Bob may not even have heard her speak.
“He said his goodbyes, he got to the doorway, and Hazel said softly, ‘I love you’. Mum’s heart dropped. We haven’t heard Hazel say those words for a long time.”
But we knew Hazel would love Bob to the end, despite his boozing and womanising during their 39-year marriage. She wrote of their great “love story” and her dream of growing old together in their house on a hill where grandchildren would play.
It’s not clear he really understood what an asset Hazel was to his prime ministership. She was beautiful, accomplished, dux of her primary school. But she was also humble and self-effacing, a woman of her time. Her ambition was to be a mother and support her brilliant husband. How would his political career have fared if he hadn’t married so well?
When she died, aged 83, on Thursday, Bob rated barely a mention in that night’s news broadcasts. Hazel had transcended him. What diminished him had enhanced her.
Her dignity, after being cast aside for his glamorous mistress Blanche d’Alpuget almost 20 years ago, only cemented the respect and affection Australians had for Hazel.
She never tried to harm Bob’s legacy. She and their three loyal children never stooped to tawdry revenge, even when d’Alpuget wrote a biography of Bob which airbrushed Hazel out of the picture, described her as a “doormat” and the marriage as loveless; even after d’Alpuget slapped his daughter Sue Pieters-Hawke’s face in the Qantas lounge one day.
No one should begrudge the grand passion Bob shares with d’Alpuget. Good luck to them.
All I know is that people would think more of him if he’d stuck with Hazel. That’s the price he paid. 

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Beware the enemy within

Miranda Devine – Sunday, May 26, 2013 (10:32am)

THE handsome black man with bloodied hands holding a knife and meat cleaver after butchering a soldier on the streets of London last week was just your average, run-of-the-mill, home-grown Islamist hothead.
Michael Adebolajo, 28, has been in the sights of British intelligence agencies for eight years but apparently was not regarded as a terrorist threat. Born in Britain, of Nigerian Christian parents, he converted to Islam at about age 16, and began attending a mosque where extremist clerics preached jihad.
He is pictured wearing white, flowing robes and standing behind a notorious hate preacher at a protest outside the terror-related trial of a fellow Islamist. At another protest he is seen scuffling with police.
Adebolajo reportedly was arrested after trying to travel to Somalia to join an al Qaeda-linked group.
We’ve seen it all before. There are plenty of young men who would fit his description in the UK, the US - and in Australia. We’ve jailed 23 Islamists who seemed much worse, convicted of plotting to attack the Holsworthy army base or to blow up the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.
But on the streets of London and Boston, where Muslim fanatics last month detonated a bomb that killed three people, we see a new and more difficult threat, which ASIO chief David Irvine has said keeps him awake at night: the “home-grown lone wolf” extremist operating under the security radar.
So far we have relied on superb police work to foil plots on home soil, a tribute to ASIO and our counter-terrorism forces. But NSW authorities are concerned about the holes in our border security apparatus, comprising state police forces working with the Australian Federal Police and Customs and Border Protection.
Customs is beset by corruption allegations, and is perceived by senior police as a dysfunctional Canberra-centric bureaucracy top heavy with overpaid public servants. Between the AFP and state police there have been turf wars and computer mismatches.
In addition, the capitulation of the Rudd-Gillard governments to criminal people smugglers has had two critical impacts on Australia’s national security.
Firstly, it has diverted attention away from the detection of terrorists, drugs and guns. Secondly, asylum seeker arrivals have overwhelmed an already under-resourced ASIO’s ability to perform adequate security assessments.
Opposition Customs spokesman Michael Keenan fears a nightmare legacy if the Coalition takes office in September. There was the Egyptian terrorist on Interpol’s most wanted list who arrived by boat through Christmas Island and ended up at minimum security Inverbrackie in the Adelaide Hills. In the past month the man and his wife and children have been moved to Villawood detention centre in Sydney.
Keenan cites other troubling boat arrivals, including an Iranian drug smuggler currently housed in a mental health hospital; and a Sri Lankan alleged murderer released into community detention.
“These incidents have serious implications for Australia’s national security,” he says.
We know at least 54 asylum seekers in detention have adverse ASIO security assessments. Under our UN treaty obligations they cannot be deported to their country of origin if they face the death penalty, as many would. No third country will take them. Yet we cannot risk releasing them into the community.
To make matters worse, some of these men have children with them in detention. In one case a baby was born in detention.
It is a devil of a problem for an incoming government, but it is only one element of an enormous mess waiting in border security.
As the weakest link, Customs is being targeted by organised crime.
Former detective Tim Priest has pointed out one case in which 53 freight containers of drugs valued at $150 million managed to slip past Customs officials at Port Botany and had to be tracked down by NSW police. Similarly, Customs missed 200 Glock semi-automatic pistols smuggled into Australia via Sylvania Waters post office in Sydney.
The importation was only discovered when the NSW police taskforce investigating gun crime tracked one Glock to Germany.
Forced by Customs failures to act outside his usual jurisdiction, NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione contacted a counterpart in Germany and sent detectives to investigate the source of the guns, with the result they smashed the smuggling ring. Just two weeks ago, Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn linked another of the imported Glocks to the shooting of a woman in Auburn in March, and to the hold-up of an armoured vehicle in Broadway.
But despite fine detective work, only a fraction of the Glocks allowed into the country have been discovered.
The consequences of all this can be seen in the LA-style gun crime on the streets of southwestern Sydney.
Tim Priest has long warned of the nexus between organised crime and the terrorism it funds, and has been urging the Opposition to create an overarching department of homeland security.
The full extent of the mess will probably not be apparent until after the September election, but there is no time to waste.
We cannot afford dysfunctional border security in a time of terrorism.

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SQUARE BRACKETS SAVE THE PLANET

Tim Blair – Sunday, May 26, 2013 (6:02pm)

Professor Myles Allen tells the Daily Mail of classic lefty blathertalk: 
If you suppose that the annual UN climate talks will save us, forget it. I met a delegate at the last talks in Doha in December who told me he had just watched a two-hour debate that culminated in placing square brackets around a semi-colon. 
Read on for the Mail‘s myth-busting eco-quiz.

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LEAF SENTENCE - DAY FIVE

Tim Blair – Sunday, May 26, 2013 (10:05am)

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven … 

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RACE TO THE BOTTOM

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 25, 2013 (11:03pm)

“When did the public start insisting that all art be ‘beautiful‘?” Robyn Archer wondered the other day. Good question: 
Difficult territory is a cornerstone of the visual arts – so artist Mikala Dwyer knew it would be confronting last night when she invited Balletlab dancers to empty their bowels as part of a performance at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
The two-hour act saw the six dancers, masked but naked beneath sheer garments, move around a room in the gallery before sitting on transparent stools and performing – only if they were moved to do so – what is usually one of our most private and rarely discussed daily acts. 
Let’s hope Skywhale doesn’t get any ideas. 
While it all might set tongues wagging, Dwyer, a highly respected artist with an impressive CV who is a painting lecturer at the University of Sydney, hopes we will do so with seriousness, maturity and sensitivity. 
And if we decline, what are you going to do about it? Wait – don’t answer that. 
As she said, this is humanity’s most democratic act: from royalty and supermodels to politicians or the tiniest newborn baby, we all participate in this necessary biological function. ‘’Shit has a great truth to it,’’ she said. 
(Via J.F. Beck)

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SINGING IN THE RAIN

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 25, 2013 (10:26pm)

Sydney’s dams are currently more than 90 per cent full. So what we obviously need is more water
Talk about bad timing. Just as an already-waterlogged Sydney prepares for several more weeks of wet and cold weather, a local music training organisation is encouraging children to sing for even more rain.
VIP Music, providers of instrument lessons to several schools throughout Sydney, has re-worked the children’s classic Rain, Rain, Go Away to reflect what it believes to be contemporary attitudes towards the environment. In the new version, the lyrics are changed to: “Rain, rain, come again, we need more rain every day.”
Aside from the snub to several centuries of singing tradition, this reworked version doesn’t make a great deal of sense, even as an environmental hymn.
More rain every single day wouldn’t be better for Sydney.
Not in the least. In fact, it would eventually leave the city as an uninhabitable marshland fit only for amphibians and scavenging waterfowl. 
Even then, we’d still be doing better than future London
Summer heatwaves could turn London into an ‘island of death’ this century, experts are warning. 
Maybe London should become a sister city with Perth, the “21st century’s first ghost metropolis.”
(Via sdog)

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LIFELINE ON HOLD

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 25, 2013 (9:33pm)

With the help of friends, Mike Carlton is slowly recovering from the shocking trauma of being edited by the ABC
Once again, thanks for the tweets and emails about my column this morning. Overwhelmed by the support. It means a lot. Truly. 
You’ll get through this, mate. Hang in there.

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FIRST FOLEY

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 25, 2013 (4:14pm)

The Prime Minister’s boyfriend is living in a van down by the river:



UPDATE. A caravan might be exactly the place to avoid mood swings
When Julia Gillard was moved to tears last week as she introduced the increase in the Medicare levy to raise funds for the DisabilityCare scheme, some of her colleagues warmly embraced her and kissed her cheek.
Other Labor MPs were cynical, because the Prime Minister had fought the idea of a levy to pay for disability insurance “every inch of the way” for political reasons over the previous 18 months. 

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Global warming: the quiz

Andrew Bolt May 26 2013 (6:46pm)

Global warming - general
image
(Via the Daily Mail. Thanks to reader Andrew R.) 

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The Bolt Report today

Andrew Bolt May 26 2013 (8:17am)







The twitter feed.
The place the videos appear

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Barbarians abroad

Andrew Bolt May 26 2013 (5:52am)

What a wonderful impression we must make:
Four Australian travellers a day are arrested for crimes around the world and statistics show a jump of almost 50 per cent from previous years…
The categories of crime attracting the highest number of arrests were drugs, assault, visa and fraud.

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Crapping on art

Andrew Bolt May 26 2013 (5:39am)

Absolutely true. Modern art is crap:
Difficult territory is a cornerstone of the visual arts - so artist Mikala Dwyer knew it would be confronting last night when she invited Balletlab dancers to empty their bowels as part of a performance at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
The two-hour act saw the six dancers, masked but naked beneath sheer garments, move around a room in the gallery before sitting on transparent stools and performing - only if they were moved to do so - what is usually one of our most private and rarely discussed daily acts.
So easy to offend, so hard to inspire. Even a vandal can defecate over what only a Michelangelo can create.
The kind of artist propped up by grants rather than private sales:
Awards & Grants
2011-2009 Australia Council for the Arts: Fellowship
2000 Australia Council for the Arts: New Work Grant
1990 Australia Council: New Work
There’s a recent history of artists dabbling with their own poo:

image
(Thanks to several astonished readers, and via Tim Blair.) 

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Three boats in a day

Andrew Bolt May 26 2013 (5:25am)

In John Howard’s last six years, boat arrivals were kept to an average of just three a year. On Friday three arrived in just one day:

THREE boats carrying a total of 208 suspected asylum seekers have been intercepted in a 24-hour period near Christmas Island, including one close enough to be spotted by police on the island.
UPDATE
Reader Jane counts the boat people before these latest three boat arrivals:
I thought you may be interested in the following.  The SIEV/’Asylum Seeker’ topic seems to have disappeared off the media radar.
1-May 101
1-May 87
1-May 51
3-May 153
3-May 184
3-May 184
4-May 106
6-May 79
6-May 51
6-May 106
7-May 91
7-May 61
7-May 5
7-May 33
8-May 77
8-May 24
9-May 66
10-May 79
16-May 48
16-May 82
17-May 1
18-May 132
19-May 42
19-May 83
20-May 77
20-May 33
21-May 73
23-May 65
23-May 82
24-May 95
25-May 99
34 boats 2450 “clients”
In the past two months we’ve seen around 100 boat people arrive every single day. This is astonishing. It is also very expensive. And it is a security risk.
What is being done to stop it?
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 

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Stockholm torched by immigrants

Andrew Bolt May 26 2013 (5:20am)

Imported trouble:

STOCKHOLM has experienced a sixth straight night of riots, with cars torched in several immigrant-dominated suburbs.
Nearly a week of unrest, which spread briefly last night to the medium-sized city of Oerebro 160 kilometres west of Stockholm, have put Sweden’s reputation as an oasis of peace and harmony at risk.
The unrest has also sparked a debate among Swedes over the integration of immigrants, many of whom arrived under the country’s generous asylum policies, and who now make up about 15 per cent of the population.
Glenn Reynolds:

As Jim Bennett says, democracy, open immigration, multiculturalism: Pick any two.
UPDATE
A copycat?
A French soldier patrolling a business neighbourhood west of Paris has been stabbed in the neck by a man who quickly fled the scene and is being sought by police, President Francois Hollande said…
French daily Le Parisien cited a police source as saying the suspected attacker was a bearded man of North African origin about 30 years old, and was wearing an Arab-style garment under his jacket.
UPDATE
Reader Alan RM Jones compares and contrasts:
The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that Michael Adebolajo was held by police close to the Somali border with a band of “radicalised” Muslim youths who wanted to join the notorious al-Shabaab group.
He was deported to Britain after he appeared in court in Mombasa in November 2010.
Two months previously the head of MI5 had warned that Britons were training in Somalia and it was “only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-Shabaab”....
The case raises questions about why Adebolajo was not put under greater surveillance or even prosecuted after his deportation from Kenya. Under the Terrorism Act 2006, it is an offence to travel or intend to travel overseas to commit acts of terrorism or take part in terrorist training.
And here:
THE number of Australians believed to be fighting in Syria has doubled in less than six months to about 200, and ASIO is concerned that at least 100 are fighting for radical al-Qa’ida offshoot, the al-Nusra Front....
The spike in the number of Australians fighting with al-Nusra will be of great concern to security agencies. Agencies such as ASIO fear that Australians drawn to the fighting will become increasingly radicalised. They also worry fighters will return equipped with skills, training and combat experience, as well as a potential network of contacts.
Monitoring these returned fighters will be a drain on ASIO resources at a time when the agency’s budget has been cut.
UPDATE
Sweden’s Jews are nervous:
In 2009, a chapel serving [Malmo’s] 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and “Hitler” was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.
“I never thought I would see this hatred again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway,” [Judith] Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.

“This new hatred comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now.”
Malmo’s Jews, however, do not just point the finger at bigoted Muslims and their fellow racists in the country’s Neo-Nazi fringe. They also accuse Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in power for 15 years, of failing to protect them.
(Thanks to reader Steve.) 

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Film Writers Tell Life as Communists from Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1951

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/film-writers-tell-life-as-communists-from-los-angeles-times-december-6-1951/

Edward Dmytryk, producer and director, told the story of how the “Hollywood Ten” became the “Hollywood Nine” when he realized the true motives of Communism.
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NEW TRAINS: Good news for thousands of Sydney rail commuters with trains built 40 years ago set to be replaced and upgraded.

We'll bring you all the details in 9 News at 6PM.
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Joan Redfern gave up the man she loved to save many people from death ... would you be strong enough to walk away?

For the best Doctor Who News and fun make sure you check out Doctor Who and the Tardis by Craig Hurle

WhoVerse United
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Love never forgets - ed
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Kim Jong Un is known to have killed those who politically, not physically, disagree with him. Murdoch has hired on staff people who have disagreed with him and didn't like him. Also Murdoch papers staff are disproportionately in favor of the ALP/Greens compared to public polling. But I can understand how those who are given to hating Mr Abbott don't get it. - ed
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The World’s First Heartless Man
Doctors from the Texas Heart Institute have successfully replaced a patient’s heart with a device that keeps the blood flowing, thereby allowing him to live without a detectable heartbeat or even a pulse.
The turbine-like device, whirling rotors developed by the doctors, does not beat like a heart, rather provides a ‘continuous flow’ like a garden hose. Craig Lewis was a 55-year-old, dying from amyloidosis, which causes a build-up of abnormal proteins. The proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working, according to NPR. But after the operation, with the ‘machine’ as his heart’s replacement, Lewis’ blood continued to spin and move through his body.
However, when doctors put a stethoscope to his chest, no heartbeat or pulse can be heard (only a ‘humming’ sound)—which “by all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients”, Doctor Cohn said, he is dead.
This is proof that “human physiology can be supported without a pulse”. With all the talk of replacing human organs with those of an animal and electronic hearts, it’s surprising that medical researchers overlooked taking a trip to the plumbing section of the hardware store for replacement parts.

Read more here: http://bit.ly/xbU22i
More stories at Universlings for Science and Reason
 
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4 her
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Complete Classic Movie: The Parent Trap

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/complete-classic-movie-the-parent-trap/

Stars: Hayley Mills, Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith. Teenage twin girls swap places and scheme to reunite their divorced parents.
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The brightness of tonight's moon rising over the hill in my backyard reminds me of Job 25:5 "God is so glorious that even the moon and stars scarcely shine compared to him!" (NLT)
Pastor Rick Warren
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Yesterday, Tony Abbott addressed the Victorian Division’s State Council.

In his speech, Tony Abbott talked about the Coalition’s Plan for a strong economy with more jobs and more opportunities. He also discussed the abolition of the Carbon Tax, creating a 15,000-strong Green Army and the full restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

You can read his speech here: http://lbr.al/9p9o
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Saturday night, for the first time since my youngest son died, Kay and I spoke briefly to our church family, thanking them for their love and prayers. John Cassetto, Saddleback's Pastor of Worship snapped this Instagram photo.
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Photographer Barton MacLeod shared this photo of a display in a window in Winterset, Iowa.
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First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. ~ Ronald Reagan

A President acting responsibly for his failings and the failings of his administration. I wish the current President would learn this.
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High above the streets and away from what can sometimes be chaos and craziness, exists a different kind of chaos.. The kind that makes us better, stronger, faster, wiser and much, much more. #team9lives #9livesparkour
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Inspiring: George Bush, Wounded Warriors complete W100K bike ride ==>http://twitchy.com/2013/05/25/inspiring-george-bush-wounded-warriors-complete-w100k-bike-ride/
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The enemy will use every trick possible to keep you focusing on your problems instead of the Promises of God. As soon as you realize that you have been tricked or distracted, Snap out of it! You serve a God that makes the Impossible, Possible! -Holly
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South Eastern Oklahoma Sunset
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May 26Mother's Day in Algeria, France, Morocco, Poland and Sweden (2013); Independence Day in Georgia (1918)
Vauxhall Bridge, London

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