Thursday, August 01, 2013

Thu Aug 1st Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Leila Khiev and PureMacquarie Liverpool. Born on the same day, across the years, along with Claudius (10BC), Francis Scott Key (1779), Herman Melville (1819), Yves Saint Laurent (1936) and Boz Burrell (1946). On your day Lughnasadh (Northern Hemisphere); Imbolc (Southern Hemisphere); Lammas in England and Scotland. 1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Battle of the Nile started between a British fleet commanded by Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson and a French fleet under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers.
1842 – A parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, celebrating the end of slavery in the West Indies was attacked by a mob, leading to three days of riots.
1907 – Robert Baden-Powell held the first scout camp at Brownsea Island in Dorset, England, beginning the Scouting movement.
1944 – World War II: The Polish Home Army began the Warsaw Uprising in Warsaw against the Nazi occupation of Poland, a rebellion that lasted 63 days until it was quelled by the Germans.
1991 – US President George H. W. Bush delivered a speech in the parliament of the Ukrainian SSR in which he warned against Ukrainian independence. You were warned about your independence. It is ok to rise against tyranny .. but be prepared!. Celebrate the end of slavery. And victory on the Nile.

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Corruption leaves Rudd in the spotlight

Piers Akerman – Thursday, August 01, 2013 (12:10am)

MORE corrupt activity from the ALP and Tony Abbott has firmly nailed Kevin Rudd’s pathetic reforms.
It took the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption to expose the stinking morass of corruption which has been the NSW Labor Party – but voters apparently need reminding that both the federal ALP and the NSW ALP, as well as other branches, have desperately been fighting to prevent the light shining in on the crooked dealings.
As Abbott said yesterday, ICAC has exposed the rottenness at the heart of the New South Wales Labor Party, and the rottenness at the heart of the Labor Party nationally because the Federal Labor Party is very much dominated by the New South Wales Labor Party and by New South Wales members of the Caucus.
He used the opportunity to launch the Coalition’s policy to ensure that Australia has clean unions and clean registered organisations in the future.
He said he wants unions that don’t betray their members and let down the low-paid workers of our country, “the way we have seen all too often in the recent past with instances in the Health Services Union; whose president Michael Williamson, was the national president of the Labor Party and whose national secretary Craig Thomson, is still the Member for Dobell and apparently is still having his legal fees paid by the New South Wales Labor Party, the subject of the damning findings, the damning corruption findings from the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption today”.
He pledged that an incoming Coalition government would introduce legislation to ensure that dodgy union officials face the same penalties, the same sanctions, the same criminal penalties and criminal sanctions as dodgy company officials.
And he challenged Rudd, if he is serious about cleaning up the Labor Party, if he is serious about cleaning up union movement, to offer bipartisan support for the Coalition’s proposal.
The Labor Party opposed Abbott’s anti-corruption private member’s bill when he introduced it in Parliament a couple of months ago.
So much for Rudd’s phony claims to want a better politics.
Given the chance to take a bipartisan approach to corruption, he ducked the issue and sided with his union mates.
Abbott also announced that the Coalition would reinstate the construction watchdog, the ABCC, as swiftly and as effectively as possible should there be a change of government at the coming election.
Abbott said Rudd needs to come clean about all the dealings that senior members of his government have had with the former NSW Labor government Ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian MacDonald.
He said former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr put Obeid into the NSW ministry and as Premier and leader of the Labor Party in New South Wales defended Obeid at every possible opportunity.
He said federal Labor government minister Tony Burke stayed at Obeid’s ski lodge down on the New South Wales snowfields and deputy Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended Macdonald’s pre-selection when this was under threat.
Abbott said Rudd is only Prime Minister because the NSW Labor Party put him there; and if he ever seriously tackles the rottenness at the heart of the New South Wales Labor Party he will be dealt with by the war lords of Sussex Street again, as he was back in June of 2010.
“Rudd is only Prime Minister because of the New South Wales Labor Party and if he ever tries to tackle the corruption in New South Wales Labor, his Prime Ministership will swiftly be terminated. He says he’s against the Sussex Street machine, well, if he is against the Sussex Street machine why is it that Sam Dastyari, the General Secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party, is at the heart of the federal Labor Party’s reelection campaign; and why is it that Rudd is said to be supporting the imminent entry of Dastyari into the Senate?” he asked.
If he is serious about tackling the rottenness at the heart of New South Wales Labor, why is he backing Matt Thistlethwaite, a former assistant secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party, for the seat of Kingsford Smith?
If he Rudd is seriously affronted by the rottenness at the heart of New South Wales Labor, why did he make a former secretary of New South Wales Labor, a former lynch pin of Sussex Street, namely Mark Arbib, a minister in his Government.
Rudd simply can’t wash his hands of this. He is the leader of the Labor Party and the Labor culture is absolutely defined and determined by New South Wales Labor and we now know the rottenness at the heart of it.
The stench emanates from Labor. Rudd’s Labor.
Rotten through and through, crooked and rotting.
Rudd can show how serious he is about corruption – he just has to sign up to the Coalition’s anti-corruption legislation. 

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SAME AS KEV EVER WAS

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 01, 2013 (4:04pm)

Intense Rudd hatred alleged by Fairfax political reporter Jonathan Swan:

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UPDATE. Is it just me, or is the image of Julia Gillard at her yet-to-be-completed website looking happier these days?

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4 of 26

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 01, 2013 (3:53pm)

Confident Australian coach Darren Lehmann ahead of the Third Test, beginning tonight: 
“I wouldn’t be panicking about that at all. I know it’s easy to say after losing the first two Tests. Everyone back home is probably saying we don’t have the players. But we’re fine mate. Once we get the skills right, we’ll blow teams away. It’s easy as that. But it will take us a bit of time.” 
Of course, Lehmann was speaking before Old Trafford’s unusual pitch was revealed. We’re in big trouble (again) if we bat second on those mown Machester metres
An Australia defeat will hand the tourists seven consecutive Test match losses for the first time since 1888. 
This. Cannot. Be. Allowed. Already, we’re three-nil down in the 26-match Anglo-Australian hyperseason:
England: Three wins, 1569 runs
Australia: No wins, 1160 runs
UPDATE. Great news: “Australia have won the toss and will bat. Michael Clarke confirms the return of Warner, Lyon and Starc.”

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IT’S JUST OUTRAGEOUS! THESE GUYS!

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 01, 2013 (12:36pm)

High-pitched political activism from Kevin Rudd’s Brisbane attack squirrels:



(Via Michael Smith, now returning to Sydney radio.)
UPDATE. Jobs for the boys
Kevin Rudd has placed both his sons in key election roles in an ‘all-in-the-family’ move that has ruffled feathers within Labor’s campaign team.
Youngest son Marcus, 20, has joined the ALP’s digital campaign team – and has already caused a stir after suggesting the use of a video from the TV satire, The Hollowmen …
The youngest of the Rudd children caused bemusement when he suggested the release of a Hollowmen clip – only to be told the satirical series was loosely based on his father’s first stint. 
Well, he was only 15 and too young to vote when the series first aired. You can’t expect senior political tacticians to know everything.

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FAIRFAX FLIPS

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 01, 2013 (11:43am)

quality media moment: 
Fairfax Media chief Greg Hywood refused to publish $30,000 worth of advertising promoting an acclaimed book charting the company’s decline only days after trumpeting its support of “fiercely independent” journalism …
HarperCollins publishing director Shona Martyn said Fairfax advertising executives informed her team by email on Wednesday that the advertising material had been “knocked back twice by our CEO”. 
That fiercely independent decision remained firmly in place right up until the Telegraph‘s John Lehmann started asking questions: 
Late on Wednesday night when The Daily Telegraph informed Fairfax’s corporate communications officer of the refusal to publish the ads slated originally for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Mr Hywood intervened to reverse the previous decision.
Fairfax’s external corporate spin-doctor Sue Cato said Mr Hywood had not been aware of the proposed ads. “The ads will run and Fairfax looks forward to banking the revenue,” she said. 
Lehmann should ask for a 10 per cent fee.

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Another boat

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (7:55pm)

Boat people policy
With 70 on board, intercepted today.  

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Labor spends your $30 million to stop Liberals coming by boat

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (7:12pm)

Utterly shameless:
The government plans to spend $30 million on its anti-asylum boats advertising blitz, making it more costly than 90 per cent of government information campaigns in recent years…
On Saturday, Fairfax Media reported that the government spent $3 million in six days on ads in the Australian media before any ads had been placed in countries-of-origin of asylum seekers.

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The Press Council says we can’t call them “illegal immigrants”

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (7:00pm)

Asylum seeker one:

Hassan fled Pakistan last month, convinced he was out of options. But if the 20-something business graduate felt he lacked choices in Karachi, he faces a potentially even greater predicament since landing in Indonesia a week ago to the news that the gate to asylum in Australia he was hoping to use has been slammed shut…

The fluent English speaker with a degree from a respected international business school in Thailand had no interest in working 12-hour shifts as a taxi driver or factory worker, as some friends were now doing.
He wanted Australia to welcome him as a skilled migrant with something to offer.
A year of job searching in Karachi - skilled migrants must have experience and not just potential - wore him down. A spate of sectarian bomb attacks on fellow Shia Muslim Hazaras across Pakistan this year, which resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people, heightened his fears for his safety. His mind was made up the day he was robbed at gunpoint, in broad daylight, by two teenaged boys on a busy Karachi street.
Asylum seeker two, released on a bridging visa:
A Bangladeshi refugee who is accused of groping a blind woman’s breasts on a Sydney train may have assaulted others, a court has heard.
Rubel Sheikh, 25, ...  arrived to Australia by boat and was on a temporary visa.
Sheikh’s lawyer Jeff Tunks said he had no family or support network in Australia, spoke little English and had told him he was here on a tourist visa.

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If I want to see a band, I don’t need Rudd to buy my tickets

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (5:40pm)

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If you believed the headline, you deserve all you’re going to get. Get stolen, that is.
“Boom’s $190bn windfall ‘wasted’,” announced The Australian this week, citing a study by the Melbourne-based Grattan Institute.
The Institute should know. After all, $15 million of that windfall was wasted by the Rudd Government in setting up the Leftist think-tank.
The Institute now complains that governments over the past decade squandered our earnings from record mineral prices on “unsustainable” spending and tax cuts.
But the good times are over, which is why Labor has a $20 billion crater in the Budget it handed down not three months ago.
But here is what is so offensive about that headline - a mark of the general brainlessness that has Labor en route to delivering a decade of deficits. Those tax cuts we got were “wasted”?
The Grattan Institute doesn’t specifically say you and I flushed the money we were allowed to keep, but it praises the government’s spending: “Some has been well invested.”
Enough. As the Government hands another $560,000 to lounge lizards for some live music, our problem becomes clear. We have been trained to think what we spend ourselves is “wasted”, while what governments spend is “investment”. In fact, the mining boom shows the opposite is usually true.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
The Hoodoo Guru’s Dave Faulkner says he’s ”kind of pissed off” about my piece, partly because I quoted something he says he’d actually “written through the filter of my hazy Sunday morning powers of recollection”.
Oh.
And his big finale:

This is a country whose people support live music to the tune of a billion dollars a year, netting our economy $650M million which goes towards paying the equivalent of 15,000 full-time workers annually. Just how big does an industry have to be before a blowhard like Andrew Bolt thinks it is one worthy of attention from the Australian government?
Let me turn that around for Faulkner:

Just how big does an industry have to be before a whinger like Dave Faulker thinks it no longer needs grants from the Australian Government, pinched from my pay packet?
Dave, if I want to hear your band I’ll spend my own money, thanks. Hands off my wallet. 

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Kevin Rudd recalls illnesses of his mother

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (3:42pm)

Kevin Rudd justifies his tax hike on cigarettes:
I’m the son of a woman who never smoked in her life and she died of lung cancer, we assume through passive smoking.
Kevin Rudd meets a sufferer of Parkinson’s disease:

Anne was also delighted to meet personally with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Anne shared some of her personal story of living with Parkinson’s and her volunteer work for the organisation and Parkinson’s community. Prime Minister Rudd’s mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and she passed away in 2004.
Kevin Rudd at the Pink Ribbon Breakfast:
Lending his support to the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre’s Pink Ribbon Breakfast in Sydney yesterday, the Prime Minister said his mother Margaret had been diagnosed with breast cancer in1963.
She had undergone a mastectomy in rural Queensland only to have a recurrence in 1973, he said… He said his mother had died of unrelated causes in 2004.
Could passive smoking really be blamed for the death of Rudd’s mother, given her serious illnesses?
UPDATE
Rudd in Parliament during the stem cell debate:

When I last participated in this debate back in 2002 I referred then to the fact that my mother was a Parkinson’s sufferer. Parkinson’s is a truly terrible disease… I voted for the legislation four years ago. Mum died two years ago, so she is not here to ask about this one.
(Thanks to reader gab.)
UPDATE
Strong hints from Labor HQ that not everyone in Labor is happy in the service of Emperor Kevin.

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Now a bank tax, as Labor runs out of money again

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (2:30pm)

More scrabbling for cash by glad-spending Labor - and another tax:

The federal government will prop up the budget bottom line with a new levy on banks that will be badged as providing insurance in case future bailouts are needed.
The Australian Financial Review has learned that the government’s economic statement, set to be released Friday, will contain a deposit insurance levy as recommended by the Council of Financial Regulators, which will raise funds to underwrite any Australian bank should it need assistance in the future.
The proposed levy would be between 0.05 per cent and 0.1 per cent. Presently, the government guarantees deposits up to $250,000 without charging the banks.
A senior source said the levy ... would raise less than $1 billion over the forward estimates but build over the outer years.
The revenue raised by the levy will also be added to the budget bottom line, helping the government offset a forecast plunge in revenues since the May budget and meet its target of returning to surplus in 2016-17…
The source said while the money collected would count as revenue, should the fund ever be drawn upon it would count as expenditure.
But don’t call the bank tax a tax, just like you must not call the carbon tax a tax:

At a press conference Thursday morning, the Treasurer said “we have no plans to tax banks’’.
The original idea was for a levy half of what this desperate government now wants to charge:

[The Council of Financial Regulators] says a fee could be between 0.02 and 0.05 of a percentage point, set at the same rate for all institutions, and the funds collected in a “ring fenced” special purpose fund.
Commonwealtrh Bank shares took a hit:
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And whose idea was this? From March 8:
The Australian Greens have proposed a new tax on the big four banks, in exchange for the federal government’s protection to ensure they do not fail…
The minority party has proposed a 0.2% fee on all bank assets above $100 billion, which would apply to ANZ Bank (ASX: ANZ), Commonwealth Bank (ASX: CBA), National Australia Bank (ASX: NAB) and Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX: WBC).
Since Rudd returned to the prime ministership, he has devastated the salary packaging industry, belted smokers, hit banks shares and slashed car sales

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Obeid claims he got Rudd’s NSW Labor ally his job

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (12:05pm)

Eddie Obeid, the former NSW Labor Minister found by ICAC to have been corrupt, seems keen to drag down other Labor figures with him:

Mr Obeid said today [NSW Opposition Leader John] Robertson was “irrelevant”.
“He will get his day later, him and [NSW state secretary] Sam Dastyari,” he said.
“But that’s not the time for that now. These people wore out the carpet in my office when they wanted support. And even the Liberals had… someone watching my office.
John Robertson and Sam Dastyari - I cannot believe these people who I supported, I mentored - I got ‘em in their jobs - they don’t give me the benefit that every Australian should have, you’re innocent until proven guilty...”
Dastyari is Rudd’s man in NSW. He backed Rudd’s “reforms” to the NSW branch and will run Rudd’s marginal seats campaign. He’s also expected to take over the Senate seat of Mark Thistlewaite, who is replacing Peter Garrett as the member for Kingsford-Smith, voters willing.
This links the NSW scandal more firmly to Rudd, even if Dastyari is indeed as clean as he insists. 

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Car sales drop after Rudd’s FBT changes

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (11:27am)

The Government’s last cut (actually a tax grab) didn’t go so well:
CAR dealers say up to 1000 sales have been cancelled since Kevin Rudd proposed changes to fringe benefit tax concessions for motorists, with hundreds of job losses likely.
A survey of dealers by the Australian Automobile Dealers Association in the two weeks since the Prime Minister’s July 16 announcement has found 75 per cent of about 160 members have had vehicle orders cancelled…
Almost three-quarters of members said they would have to sack between one and five staff as a result of the sales slump.
If this were extrapolated across the association’s 3600 members, up to 13,500 jobs could be lost in the sector…
South Australian Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said he agreed with state Premier Jay Weatherill that the tax changes were bad for the automotive industry, and for Holden’s carmaking plant in Adelaide. 

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Boat reported sinking with 100 on board

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (9:07am)

It appears another boat carrying asylum seekers is in trouble:

PAN PAN
FM RCC AUSTRALIA 311918Z JUL 2013 AUSSAR 2013/5173
INDIAN OCEAN NORTHERN PART CHART AUS 4071
AN INDONESIAN STYLE VESSEL WITH 100 PLUS POB REPORTED TO BE DISABLED AND ADRIFT IN POSITION 06-27.7S 104-59.8E AT 311828UTC JULY 2013. VESSEL ALSO REPORTED TO BE TAKING WATER AND INSUFFICIENT LIFEJACKETS FOR ALL ONBOARD. VESSELS TRANSITING THE AREA ARE REQUESTED TO DIVERT AND ASSIST OR PROVIDE SIGHTING REPORTS TO THIS STATION OR RCC AUSTRALIA VIA
(Thanks to reader Jeff.)
UPDATE
Reader Brook:

That location is only around 40km from West Java mainland, and 200km from Jakarta. The closest Australian mainland is roughly 2,000km distance. It’s time the Indons accepted some responsibility for rescuing people who get into trouble on the Indon’s door step.

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reat: finally a tax I won’t pay. But why not cut spending instead?

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (9:02am)

Smoking is good for Labor’s health:

SMOKERS will cough up an extra $5.3 billion in tax to help the Rudd Government plug a huge new hole in its Budget.
The unusual election-eve notice of a tax grab, adding $5.25 to the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes over four years, is being sold as a step up in the war on smoking-related cancer, which kills 15,000 people a year.
UPDATE
What Kevin Rudd says - July 31, 2013:
I say again, when it comes to cancer, treating cancer and smoking-related cancers costs the Australian taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars each year and frankly these are funds which we have to raise from the taxpayer.
What Kevin Rudd does - July 12, 2013:

Being told that the Cuban ambassador was out of town, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said to his deputy: “Tell him to bring me back some cigars.”
UPDATE
Nick Cater:
How much does smoking cost the country? Hundreds of millions, as the Prime Minister told us yesterday? $31 billion, as the ABC told us on the news last night? Is it a staggering $31.5 billion as news.com.au reported? Or about $35 billion as Latika Bourke told us at ABC online?
The beauty of shockonomics is that no figure is ever too large to persuade a gullible reporter that is time to get serious about a perceived social vice.
In fact if every smoker gave up smoking today it would cost the government billions of dollars in lost revenue, which far exceeds the expense of health care for smoking-related diseases.
As Cater explains, “cost” figure is a furphy:

IF smoking was really costing the nation $31.5 billion a year, and that wasn’t just a cooked-up figure, then a responsible government would have no hesitation in banning tobacco.
Read on.
UPDATE
Smokers cost the health system $318 million a year, according to a Treasury analysis this year.
But with this increase they will pay in total more than $7 billion a year in excise and customs duties.
On that measure, smokers more than pay their own way.
(Thanks to reader Baldrick.) 

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No more “whatever it takes”

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (6:22am)

Troy Bramston on the lessons for Labor from the ICAC debacle:

If Labor wants to ensure there are no more ICACs, it needs to reform its structure and culture, including its union linkages. Labor cannot reduce factionalism unless it reforms the party-union nexus.
The days when union bosses and party officials could sit around a table in a Chinese restaurant and divide up parliamentary seats for their acolytes must end.
Labor must also rediscover its purpose. If Labor does not know what it stands for, what it wants to achieve or who it represents, it will inevitably pursue political power for its own sake.

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Rudd’s threat deterring some

Andrew Bolt August 01 2013 (6:09am)

Kevin Rudd’s threat is having some impact, says Peter Alford in Indonesia, but too little is being done to spread the word:

At the UN High Commissioner for Refugees compound, 50 to 200 people wait every weekday morning for the doors to open ...
None of the new arrivals is being told at first contact with the UN how the rules have drastically changed: “If you come by boat, you won’t be settled in Australia."…
At least a dozen of the young men had arrived in Indonesia since the Rudd ultimatum. Some are broadly aware of it; all are confused about what it means for them…
Haddi and 24-year-old Taqi are in a group who left Quetta, Pakistan, on July 9 and arrived in Cisarua just in time for Mr Rudd’s bombshell message… They still hoped, Taqi said, there was “a soft corner” in Australia’s new policy for people who were indisputably preyed upon daily by Sunni gunmen and suicide bombers…
However, a daily growing number of Iranians who are mostly unoppressed at home, but also some people from demonstrably persecuted groups, such as Hazaras, are asking to be sent home from Indonesia.
Confusion about the consequences of the Australian shut-out is also spreading up the smuggling chain, according to people who have very recently dealt with big agents in Kuala Lumpur, Quetta and Bangkok.
Those people are beginning to peddle cover stories to their customers: that the embargo on boat arrivals is not directed at them; that PNG is only a way station to Australia for genuine refugees… But there is not yet any convincing official contradiction of those messages, at least in places such as Cisarua.
There is no dedicated Australian government message aimed at the Indonesian “market”, no prominent message on the Jakarta embassy’s website, as with Islamabad, Baghdad and Colombo....
It seems Australia’s foreign messaging is focused on potential asylum-seekers in origin countries, who are yet to move, rather than transit countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, where tens of thousands of asylum-seekers are desperate to make the trip.
UPDATE
Kevin Rudd won’t say what he’s spending on his fix, but PNG suggests it alone is getting nearly $500 million:
THE core elements of Australia’s new aid package for Papua New Guinea, an integral part of Kevin Rudd’s asylum-seeker deal, will cost about $787 million, of which Australia will pay about $489.5m.
PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill revealed for the first time the cost of the projects and the extra aid money to be provided by Australia.

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What lengths will Weiner go to?
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The Washing Machine.

I dedicate this image to my beach loving friend Darvin Atkeson who is now officially fully moved into the Sierras as of today.

Somehow when I visit my mom we always wind up at the beach. Today we explored some places that we hadn't been to in our past travels, and found this incredible place. I hope to return soon, as that I forgot to take along my tripod and lenses. The tide was riding very high and I was getting soaked a good bit as well.

The colors of the water and sky combined were nothing short of phenomenal.
 — with Leslie Bell atGerstle Cove Reserve.
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Symbolic of God's promise .. ed
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Confronting Israel's Precarious Future: An Interview With Dr. Martin Sherman: Part One - The Inquisitr 

"The Myth of Palestinian Homeland:

Article 16 of the original version of the Palestinian National Covenant sets out the desire of the people of Palestine “who look forward to…restoring the legitimate situation to Palestine, establishing peace and security in its territory, and enabling its people to exercise national sovereignty..”

However, since the Covenant was adopted in 1964, well before Israel “occupied” a square inch of the “West Bank” or Gaza, the question is precisely what is meant by “its territory” in which the Palestinians were “looking forward… to exercise national sovereignty”.

Indeed in Article 24, they state specifically what this territory did not include, and where they were not seeking to exercise “national sovereignty”.

In it they explicitly proclaim that they do not desire to “exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, [or] on the Gaza Strip…” - Dr. Martin Sherman

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The Age journalists' sympathies lie.
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Don't let her killer escape justice- ed
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How would Bangladesh treat such behaviour? Is that why he is a refugee? - ed
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Nobody thinks that he said it would be a good idea to adopt Nazi policy .. but .. they scent blood from an idiot.- ed
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He did not have sex with that woman? - ed
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debate has everything backwards
over who benefits from the law. Poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas are not only the most likely victims of crime, they are also the ones who benefit the most from Stand Your Ground laws. It makes it easier for them to protect themselves when the police can't be there fast enough. Rules that make self-defense more difficult would impact blacks the most.>===

Imagine if any political leader would say: "No blacks will be allowed to live in my state". He would be denounced correctly, as a racist, a bigot.
That does not seem to include Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Arab leader of Ramallah, who on the verge of the new "peace talks" in Washington just declared: "In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli - civilian or soldier - on our lands".
This is not "peace", but pure Nazism, it is ethnic cleansing. And instead of the expression "final resolution", Abbas should have said what he really means,  "final solution".

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<I presume that talks would fail, and after this explanation of what Kerry is doing, I feel even more strongly that this will happen. That’s why the Israeli government has accepted this bad deal, believing, I think accurately, that the PA will make the talks fail. I understand why this option was taken — also, because there might be American or European threats and promises; nobody can be as bad as Obama in the future — but this tactic is getting tired. >
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Is there anything he has been honest about? - ed
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I want one - ed
elfbike.jpg
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A few characters on the side of a 3,000-year-old earthenware jug dating back to the time of King David have stumped archaeologists until now -- and a fresh translation may have profound ramifications for our understanding of the Bible.

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This photo was taken at Jaffa Gate, at the entrance to The Old City in Jerusalem, Israel.

Where else in the Middle East could Arab school girls stand around so freely and safely?

Only in “Apartheid” Israel.

Travelling in Israel on a visit from the US, Audrey M was often shocked

seeing scenes that were so different than those she was familiar with in the media.

“Where are we now?” she kept asking herself.

We plan to share more of these photos,

real ones that you will not find on the evening news,

the ones that do not fit the “narrative.”

image group of Arab girls
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Washington Post are trying to enter my list of known terrorists? - ed
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top leaders have taken a disturbing turn to political correctness
. They have ignored conventional wisdom to “know your enemy” and, even more alarming, have taken actions within the government and military to crush efforts to do so. Never having fought a religious war, strategic leaders don’t understand an enemy whose church and state is immersed. This essay discusses warnings our top leaders ignored, the dangers of political correctness, thwarted opportunities to “know our enemy,” and ideas on changing this deadly path. Unless this strategic myopia is turned around, at worst our nation may fall prey to the “boiled frog” syndrome. At best, we will suffer from future attacks from radical Islamic forces.>===

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4 her
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A rock is like a box - ed
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4 her
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"the person who despises theirself, still respects their own opinion" Nietzche
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THIS DAY IN HOLOCAUST HISTORY, 1942: German industrialist Eduard Schulte, whose company has mines near Auschwitz, reveals to a Swiss colleague that Hitler and the German Reich have decided to round up the millions of Jews of Occupied Europe, concentrate them in the East, and murder them using prussic acid starting in the fall of 1942. The information is soon communicated to Swiss World Jewish Congress representative Gerhart Riegner.

This telegram from Gerhart Riegner, Secretary of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, was received by the Foreign Office in August 1940. The telegram was among the first pieces of unambiguous evidence received by the Allies that the Nazi Government planned a 'final solution' to the "Jewish question".

Some comments within the file show officials suggested the telegram be used to influence the Vatican to condemn German atrocities more strenuously. Another civil servant dismisses Riegner's report as a "rather wild story".

Samuel Sydney Silverman, the telegram's intended recipient, was the Labour MP for the Lancashire constituency of Nelson and Colne. Silverman was a campaigner for Jewish rights, amongst other causes including opposition to capital punishment.

Date: August 10th 1942

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Sagebrush Trail – Trailer
- Film Clip -

At this link:
http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/sagebrush-trail-trailer/
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RUDD THE WRECKER – DESTROYS 20% OF LOCALLY MADE AUSTRALIAN CAR SALES

The Australia car industry has confirmed the significant damage of the Rudd Government’s recent changes to FBT arrangements, concluding that sales of locally manufactured cars will be slashed by close to 20 per cent.

Labor’s surprise spur of the moment decision – made without any consultation – to change the pre-existing FBT rules has caused devastation across the car industry since its announcement two weeks ago.

On the back of new analysis it has undertaken, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has today described Labor’s decision as “terrible news” for the industry and concluded it could have “a dire effect on Australian car production, including the manufacturing supply chain”.

The problem is, that Rudd has a complete inability to admit he makes any mistakes - therefore he will push ahead with this destructive policy regardless of the obvious damage he is doing.

If only Rudd the Wrecker was as effective in destroying the business model of the people smugglers, as he is with wrecking the business model of the Australian Car industry, we might be getting somewhere.

NB : If elected the Coalition the not proceed with this poorly thought through policy.

Further reading -

http://www.caradvice.com.au/243976/fringe-benefits-tax-changes-to-wipe-out-100000-new-car-sales-fcai/

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Has Phillip even read either Timothy? If both candidates are acceptable to be candidates, given that the decision will be made for secular reasons based on divine guidance, then Phillip would be better off giving a prayer of thanks and a reasoned opinion. This diatribe is painful and does nothing but show the author misses his own point. It is better to be an example, than to give them. - ed===

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
Dangerous Warning For Ministers of The Word.
Ministers should live and act wisely in their relationships with the opposite sex.The day will come when a woman/man will sit in your office and proposition you,available to you sexually. If your marriage is in trouble or if you're not up-to-date in your relationship with your Lord, you could get in big trouble fast.Christ was tempted and yet without sin.

The Scripture says,My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding.That you may observe discretion, and your lips may reserve knowledge.
For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable, she does not know it” (Proverbs 4:1-6).

I have pondered long and hard a question: Why do people repeatedly return to sexual sin? Are you lured to sin? The real problem is hidden deep within. The least bit of lust is an indication of vast corruption in the human heart. It is an enslavement that cannot be broken through any form of behavior management, recovery program, or counseling. The inside is so ravaged by sin that we can do nothing to change it.Only Jesus living in you can make the difference.Don't loose your anointing,Focus on Christ,the author and finisher of our faith.He alone can set you free.God bless you.

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“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” John 1:12-13 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"I in them."
John 17:23
If such be the union which subsists between our souls and the person of our Lord, how deep and broad is the channel of our communion! This is no narrow pipe through which a thread-like stream may wind its way, it is a channel of amazing depth and breadth, along whose glorious length a ponderous volume of living water may roll its floods. Behold he hath set before us an open door, let us not be slow to enter. This city of communion hath many pearly gates, every several gate is of one pearl, and each gate is thrown open to the uttermost that we may enter, assured of welcome. If there were but one small loophole through which to talk with Jesus, it would be a high privilege to thrust a word of fellowship through the narrow door; how much we are blessed in having so large an entrance! Had the Lord Jesus been far away from us, with many a stormy sea between, we should have longed to send a messenger to him to carry him our loves, and bring us tidings from his Father's house; but see his kindness, he has built his house next door to ours, nay, more, he takes lodging with us, and tabernacles in poor humble hearts, that so he may have perpetual intercourse with us. O how foolish must we be, if we do not live in habitual communion with him. When the road is long, and dangerous, and difficult, we need not wonder that friends seldom meet each other, but when they live together, shall Jonathan forget his David? A wife may when her husband is upon a journey, abide many days without holding converse with him, but she could never endure to be separated from him if she knew him to be in one of the chambers of her own house. Why, believer, dost not thou sit at his banquet of wine? Seek thy Lord, for he is near; embrace him, for he is thy Brother. Hold Him fast, for he is thine Husband; and press him to thine heart, for he is of thine own flesh.

Evening

"And these are the singers ... they were employed in that work day and night."
1 Chronicles 9:33
Well was it so ordered in the temple that the sacred chant never ceased: for evermore did the singers praise the Lord, whose mercy endureth forever. As mercy did not cease to rule either by day or by night, so neither did music hush its holy ministry. My heart, there is a lesson sweetly taught to thee in the ceaseless song of Zion's temple, thou too art a constant debtor, and see thou to it that thy gratitude, like charity, never faileth. God's praise is constant in heaven, which is to be thy final dwelling-place, learn thou to practise the eternal hallelujah. Around the earth as the sun scatters his light, his beams awaken grateful believers to tune their morning hymn, so that by the priesthood of the saints perpetual praise is kept up at all hours, they swathe our globe in a mantle of thanksgiving, and girdle it with a golden belt of song.
The Lord always deserves to be praised for what he is in himself, for his works of creation and providence, for his goodness towards his creatures, and especially for the transcendent act of redemption, and all the marvellous blessing flowing therefrom. It is always beneficial to praise the Lord; it cheers the day and brightens the night; it lightens toil and softens sorrow; and over earthly gladness it sheds a sanctifying radiance which makes it less liable to blind us with its glare. Have we not something to sing about at this moment? Can we not weave a song out of our present joys, or our past deliverances, or our future hopes? Earth yields her summer fruits: the hay is housed, the golden grain invites the sickle, and the sun tarrying long to shine upon a fruitful earth, shortens the interval of shade that we may lengthen the hours of devout worship. By the love of Jesus, let us be stirred up to close the day with a psalm of sanctified gladness.
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Today's reading: Psalm 54-56, Romans 3 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 54-56

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. Amaskil of David. When the Ziphites had gone to Saul and said, "Is not David hiding among us?"
1 Save me, O God, by your name;
vindicate me by your might.
2 Hear my prayer, O God;
listen to the words of my mouth.
3 Arrogant foes are attacking me;
ruthless people are trying to kill me--
people without regard for God.
4 Surely God is my help;
the Lord is the one who sustains me.
5 Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
in your faithfulness destroy them....

Today's New Testament reading: Romans 3

God's Faithfulness
1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.
3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God's faithfulness? 4 Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:
"So that you may be proved right when you speak
and prevail when you judge."
5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" 8 Why not say-as some slanderously claim that we say-"Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is just!
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===

 

Friend,
Take a look at these headlines:
Hard-working Americans had hope that President Obama would be different and that his policies would provide us with a spring board towards economic prosperity.  But that's not what is happening. And it's time to do something different.
Now.
That's why Patriot Voices is here.  In a world where every special interest group has someone fighting for them in Washington, hard-working American families do not.  Until now.  Karen and I formed Patriot Voices - to be that voice for you.
Already, we've made an impact advocating for policies that will improve our economic future.  Policies that will help revitalize our manufacturing sector, put our fiscal house in order with a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, and stop paralyzing future generations of Americans with crippling debt.
We did a lot in our first year, but our fight continues.  And when I head to Iowa in August, I'll talk more about this and what we can all do to improve our economy and our future.
Will you join us?  Connect with Patriot Voices at the state level, by clicking HERE. 
Sincerely,
Rick Santorum signature 
Rick Santorum

===
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A rocket fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza hit southern Israel on Tuesday, as "peace talks" between the Palestinian Authority and Israel began in Washington.
Last week two rockets were fired from the southern Gaza Strip into Israel, Army Radio reported.
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Such natural beauty!
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Check out the trailer for this hysterical new movie that's coming out soon about a baseball team of Yeshiva students!
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There is No-one but HIM!!! – Beautiful Music
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Enjoy!
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Wow, check out the thousands of Israeli paratroopers jumping out of the sky!
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Click here to watch: The Magic of Jerusalem
See the magic of Jerusalem as a city that combines diversity with harmony, modernity with history, and as a sacred city that for the first time in history, under Israeli sovereignty, all types of people live side by side. In addition, the video shows the unbreakable bond between the Jewish people and Jerusalem!
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Israel – The Great Promies (Movie of old 1947 Footage!)
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Photo credit: www.jensensutta.com
Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for July 31st. Enjoy!

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