Monday, February 24, 2014

Mon Feb 24th Todays News

As a younger teenager I read a book called Grimus. It was edgy and strange and depicted sex in a way that was desirable, readable. The author's first published novel, on this day, 1989, the author had a price placed on his head of $3 million for his death by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It is unclear as to why Khomeini issued the bounty after placing a fatwā ordering Rushdie's data. But, it diminishes the authority of the fatwā. It was a time that moderate Islamic scholars could have stood up and corrected the mistake. Someone, some where could have said that the death proclamation was not part of the 'religion of peace', but, sadly for faithful Islamic people today, no one stood forward, or stood up.   

 Some people died. A Japanese translator was murdered by fanatics who failed to adhere to the letter of the proclamation. Publishers were threatened. Rushdie was put into protective custody. In the late '80's I was attending church at St Thomas' Moorebank, Anglican. One idiot minister noted bad things happened to people who weren't faithful, and Rushdie had not adhered to his faith. I can criticise the minister without people wanting to kill me. Tehran maintains a shrine to one idiot who blew himself up trying to blow up Rushdie. Every 14th of Feb, Iran sends a valentine's card to Rushdie, reminding him they want him dead. Worth considering who the people are Obama wants to supervise Middle East peace. 

 But, while it may be viewed as reprehensible that so few within Islam spoke against the outrageous ruling, what of those with a pastoral role? It is not an issue for Christian churches. They give aid to Islamic peoples, too, but not targeted, How dare they have such contempt of Islamic peoples. Iran is not a world leader for Islam. She is a terrorist nation, part of an axis of evil. Her people are far better than their government. It is wrong to promote terror. But that is what many governments and churches have done in their dealings with Iran. Iranian people deserve freedom from such oppression.
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Tad Kaypek and Thai Luong. Born on the same day, across the years, along with

Matches
Despatches
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Parliament moves to wipe the stain of Thomson

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (4:48pm)

Good:
PARLIAMENT’S privileges committee will investigate whether former Labor MP Craig Thomson misled MPs over fraud allegations…
An earlier inquiry by the privileges committee lapsed with the dissolution of the House of Representatives for the September election.
Good Labor response:

“As we supported it in the last parliament, we support the reference in this parliament,’’ manager of opposition business Tony Burke said.
Bad Labor response:
A spokesman for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the case had already been referred, with Labor support, to the privileges committee…
“This just highlights the pathetic stunts that Christopher Pyne will play,’’ the spokesman said.
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Another Australian musical export

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (3:55pm)


The career of another Australian conductor has taken off.
Just 12 years ago Nicholas Milton was still concertmaster at the Adelaide Symphony - where’s he’d been the youngest ever concertmaster appointed to a major Australian orchestra.
In 2001, he was made Chief Conductor of the humble Willoughby Symphony Orchestra in Sydney. In 2007 he moved up a bit to become Chief Conductor of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.
Then - whoosh - six seasons as a guest conductor at the Vienna Volksoper (Vienna’s second opera house) and concert engagements with orchestras including Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Dortmund Philharmonic, the China National Symphony Orchestra and even the London Philharmonic.  In March and April he’s conducting Tales of Hoffmann at the Komische Oper (Berlin).
Even better, he’s just been made music director of Germany’s Saarland State Theatre, and will lead the Saarland State Orchestra. He’s conduct about six operas every season.
Living the dream.
And if you want to congratulate him, he’s conducting a Verdi Gala with the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra on Saturday and Sunday. 
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Morrison warned last Tuesday he had “conflicting reports”. It’s false to say he covered up

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (2:50pm)

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison inadvertently misled journalists at a press conference last Tuesday when he said this about the Manus detention centre riot:
I have no information to confirm how the injuries took place. I do know in the cases of the most serious ones, particularly in the case of the deceased person, their injuries occurred, and the shot being fired, was outside of the centre. But who and when and where, that information is not available to me.
Not true, Morrison has since conceded. Most injuries in fact occurred within the centre, and - as I said - that makes me doubt any other information he received from those in charge of Manus Island.
But those accusing Morrison of misleading us (accidentally) are misleading us themselves - and I believe deliberately. Morally, they are more culpable.
Take Labor’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, in Question Time today:
In the minister’s previous answer, he said he first received information on Tuesday questioning the precise location of Mr Barati’s death. So why did the minister not release his correction to the media until Saturday night at 8:44pm?
In fact within hours of that Tuesday press conference Morrison held another - also on Tuesday - where he himself did cast doubt on what he’d just said about where the dead man had been injured:
Secondly, in terms of the man who died, he had a head injury and at this stage it is not possible to give any further detail on that, including now, based on subsequent reports, where this may have taken place… Where physically this took place based on the information I have received this afternoon, that is a matter where there are some conflicting reports. There is no suggestion to my knowledge or what I am advised that the incident involving that individual had anything to do with staff employed by G4S, the RT team or any of those but you know we are still at early phases…
Journalist: What are the conflicting reports?
Minister Morrison: Well the reports are conflicting on where the individual might have been at the time.
Journalist: Either inside or outside.
Minister Morrison: I am saying that there are conflicting reports and when I have a full picture on where the individual might have been but that could be some time to determine because we anticipate that would be the subject of a police investigation…
Journalist: You ruled out G4S having any involvement in the guy’s death…
Minister Morrison: No I didn’t do that. What I said is we have to wait for all the evidence to come in and we have to wait for investigations to be concluded. I am not aware and I have no report or advice to me which suggests that G4S was in that place or in that vicinity where the event took place but it is still very early days...
I think the outrage over Morrison’s initial remarks are wildly exaggerated, and what his sins are alleged to be has been exaggerated, too.
I wish I’d looked into this more carefully before commenting for tonight’s The Project.  Hope the show uses instead the bit I repeated three times about the hypocrisy of Labor attacking the Coalition over a riot involving a detention centre Labor created and employing staff Labor hired under a security arrangement Labor designed to stop boats Labor had lured over. 
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The tribe farewells Quentin Bryce

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (1:31pm)

The Governor-General says goodbye with parties involving many of her good friends from the Left. (Although does Brendan Nelson count or not?):;
The seating arrangements for lunch had University of Canberra chancellor Tom Calma [the former Race Discrimination Commissioner] and former Treasury secretary Ken Henry [of stimulus infamy] each side of Ms Bryce.
Guests included Chief Minister Katy Gallagher [Labor], University of Canberra vice-chancellor Stephen Parker, Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson, Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt, [Labor] member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann, ABC newsreader Virginia Haussegger and The Canberra Times editor-at-large Jack Waterford [who wants the Coalition’s boat people policies to fail].
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Do the Government’s critics truly want to return to the policies which killed 1100?

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (1:30pm)

Environment Minister Greg Hunt gets an angry email from a voter:
I am so disgusted with your silence on the legal asylum seekers & their shameful treatment by your government ... I am ashamed of my country & Abbott & Morrison to dare to call themselves Christians is beyond belief ..You fall into the same category Greg & I despair of the path my country is taking.
Greg Hunt responds:
Many thanks and I deeply respect your views.
I remember in 2009 meeting with a local Human Rights Group and respectfully warning that the change of policy would lead to a catastrophic loss of life at sea over the following years.
There was much scepticism of the claim at the time.
Sadly the human loss of over the coming years was at least 1100 souls and probably much worse.  The good will and intent of the policy change was however not matched by the simply unimaginable human losses which flowed from that very policy change.
It is undoubtedly the greatest peacetime loss of life in Australia’s history following a Government policy change.
This is the reason why both the previous Government, at the end, and our Government have sought to take steps to stop the catastrophic and despicable trade in human lives from the most wicked criminals who sought to make massive profits while blithely sending the asylum seekers to inevitable catastrophe.
In genuine and deep terms, if I could offer you a reversion to the previous policy, intended as it was in good spirit, but with the certainty that another 1100 would perish at sea, would you believe it was worth it and what is the moral judgment you would make of those who chose to allow the 1100 to perish again?  In my case the answer is a categorical no to whether the previous open door policy was justified.
In conclusion, none of us can make deep moral accusations without examining the alternative scenario.
We have just witnessed the alternative scenario over the last few years and it was a deep national stain with 1100 souls lost to a well intentioned but ultimately catastrophic policy.
I respect your views, but respectfully ask you to consider the 1100 souls lost and whether saving that many lives over the coming years is a worthy and indeed moral imperative.  In my judgment it is and I would be deeply interested in your views.

Excellent response (although I do wish Hunt would cut his use of “respectfully” in half). 
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Missing detail

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (11:46am)

Immigration, Media

Australians are being seriously hurt by a failure in our refugee problem that is too often covered up by the Left.
Here’s yet another example.
The Herald Sun tells the news straight:
A GANG of about 20 teenagers set upon a 14-year-old boy, slashing him four times with a blade, in the latest bout of knife violence to strike Melbourne.
The group, whom witnesses say were mostly Sudanese or of African descent, had tried to gatecrash a nearby party 10 minutes before they set upon Ben Phillips in the frenzied group attack.
Witnesses said the gang was lying in wait for anyone that left the Cranbourne party before attacking Ben as he walked a girl home. After a brief discussion, the gang set on him, landing a flurry of punches and then kicked him as he lay on the ground.The teenager was stabbed four times in the back during the brutal assault, with the blade puncturing both lungs.
But The Age refuses to pass on certain information identifying the attackers, despite police appealing for help to find them:
A teenage boy has suffered serious injuries after he was stabbed by a group of males in Melbourne’s south-east on Saturday night.... Police have not yet made any arrests and have appealed to anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers...
The ABC is suddenly colour-blind, too:
Police say a group of males assaulted the 14-year-old boy in Clarendon Street about 10:00pm....
Detective Senior Constable Kane Taylor says the attackers should hand themselves in.
“...You’d imagine it’s only a matter of time before the offenders are identified,” he said.
Identified? Not by the ABC, they won’t be.
UPDATE
Police also refused to reveal a telling clue to the identification of the suspects.  From the police media release:
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding a stabbing which occurred in Cranbourne overnight. Investigators have been told a 14-year-old Narre Warren boy was assaulted in Clarendon Street by a group of males around 10pm…
At this stage there have been no arrests and detectives are appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward.
UPDATE
The Age updates its report to include the word “African”.
(Thanks to readers David and Ed. UPDATE:  Links fixed.) 
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Hypocrites and poseurs

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (9:16am)

Did the Left light a single candle for the more than 1100 boat people lured to their deaths by the lax border laws of the Rudd and Gillard Government’s?
Yet:
Thousands of people have held candlelight vigils around Australia for slain asylum seeker Reza Berati, who died in violence at the Manus Island detention centre last Monday.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
UPDATE
Reader Harry:
Yup, how terrible. A person actively involved in a violent riot dies at a facility that was re-opened by Labor, using staff appointed by Labor, using practices approved by Labor, in collaboration with security measures provided by PNG negotiated by Labor which Labor put in place to attempt to solve a mass migration of asylum seekers that was in response to changes made by Labor.
Gee, I wonder if there is a clue as to where the blame lies???
UPDDATE
Reader C. notes there was candlelight vigil in 2011 for the latest of the boat people lured to their deaths by Labor. Although it wasn’t quite put that way, of course. 
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LNP actually did pretty well in Redcliffe

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (9:12am)

Reader The Realist says the Redcliffe by-election result in Queensland is actually much less bad for the Newman Government than I yesterday suggested:
In 2009 Labor held the seat with a primary vote of 43.02%.
In 2012 they dropped to 34.03% primary and this time they are at 43.65% primary.
So in reality what has happened is that the protest vote against Bligh in 2012 has returned to the status quo, almost, but with the LNP still above their 2009 30.76% primary having achieved 35.12% this time.
The figures show that despite the stench hanging off Driscoll the LNP have improved their base in Redcliffe and some voters have decided no matter what they will never return to Labor or the minors.
Redcliffe is a traditional Labor seat.
Reader Bill makes the same point:
In 2012 the LNP took the seat with a 15.5% swing away from the ALP.

In the following two years the LNP was beset by allegations of poor business dealings (and worse) by the LNP member Scott Driscoll to the point where the LNP dumped him and forced him out of parliament. This forced a by-election and these historically generally go badly for the incumbent government.

With a huge amount going for it the ALP managed a 16% swing or, a net gain of 0.5% on its previously well established Redcliffe vote and this in a historically strong Labor seat.

A gain of 0.5% in a seat only slightly less troubled than Craig Thompsons is a cause for celebration? 
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Pity the police with this generation to deal with

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (8:53am)


What transport police have to put up with in trying to make public transport safer and more pleasant for commuters.
Note the monstrous sense of entitlement and victimhood.
UPDATE

More of his feral breed:
Up to 100 fans of an Australian “deathcore” band have dangerously stormed the stage at a Brisbane concert, overwhelming security and threatening the safety of music festival staff…
Sydney act Thy Art Is Murder reportedly told fans to “smash” security.
A security guard working at the event said the band had told the crowd “we wanna see someone put in hospital”, News Feeds reports.
“There are thousands of you and dozens of security. Smash them. All of you get on the stage,” the lead singer of the band allegedly said.
(Thanks to readers Wade and Barry.) 
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Is this Flannery’s penguin of death?

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (8:11am)


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Did this penguin give warming alarmist Tim Flannery nightmares?
You see, Flannery has recently been telling lurid stories of his persecution - wild stories I’ve had to correct in the past. Now there’s this:
“I’ve seen him a little bit fearful,” says [Will] Steffen, referring to 15 May 2012 when, in order to get into the Parramatta RSL in Sydney’s west for a public education forum, they had to push through a wall of people yelling “death to Flannery”. “They were saying, ‘Come over here, c-nt, we’re going to f-cking kill you’,” recalled Flannery. “I had to get escorted out with a security contingent.”
That first year of the [Climate] Commission was, Flannery tells me, “a terrible time for me”. He was under vicious attack from the sceptics, he needed constant police protection, his marriage fell apart.
Steffen, of course, is the man who once claimed warming scientists had been threatened with death after a sceptic discussing the ACT kangaroo culling program with an environment bureaucrat showed his culling licence. And this story seems to me just as far fetched.
A crowd of people screaming “death to Flannery”? Really? Does that even seem plausible?
Indeed, I’d have thought reporters at the event wouldn’t have hesitated to report such terrible threats and dramatic scenes. Yet none did.
Here’s the Daily Telegraph’s account:

CLIMATE Commissioner Tim Flannery was drowned out by an interjector at a public forum last night after predicting Sydney’s west faced a future of severe heatwaves, violence and death by rising temperatures. 

The protester, dressed in a penguin suit, went into the Parramatta RSL auditorium and called Professor Flannery a “hoax”.
The protester drew clapping and booing before he was escorted out by security staff, as another interjector called out: “I can’t believe that you people are listening to this waffle.”
Here is the Sydney Morning Herald’s, reporting heated debate but no mob chanting “death to Flannery”:
Sceptics and sympathisers sat side by side at last night’s forum, which was punctuated by heated debate. Several protesters who interrupted speakers and decried climate change as a ‘’hoax’’ were removed, and some community activists later claimed they were refused entry to the meeting.

Others in the crowd reacted angrily when the commission declined to enter into the debate on the federal government’s carbon pricing regime. 
(To be very clear: I am certainly not accusing penguin man of threatening Flannery with anything other than the facts.) 
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Shorten short of sincerity

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (7:43am)

Politics - federal

BILL Shorten will be finished as Opposition Leader if he doesn’t soon find his courage — and his heart.
I’m presuming he has a brain, but as yet, there’s little sign he’s using it.
I’ve long thought Shorten a mere machine man — another Labor lawyer needing someone better to write his brief. Even as a union secretary, he seemed a functionary.
So I didn’t think Shorten was being just a smart-alec when as a minister he said of then prime minister Julia Gillard: “I haven’t seen what she said but let me say, I support what it is that she said.”
But now the public is on to him, too, and his poll ratings have dropped like an anchor.
The core problem? Shorten is insincere and can’t fake sincerity.
Voters can’t trust a leader who is insincere, yet there’s Shorten trying to flog patently trashy policies like they were gold, and looking as fair dinkum as a pope selling condoms.
(Read full article here.) 
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This horrific abuse of Abbott must end. But where is the Left that cried over Gillard?

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (6:37am)

Once a man in a crowd held up a sign calling Julia Gillard a witch. The Left couldn’t have been more horrified. Thundering speeches were made denouncing such “misogyny”.
Last weekend a thrash metal band decapitated “Tony Abbott” on stage:
It wasn’t quite a “joke”:
Thrash metal overlords Gwar have announced their Soundwave sideshow date, and the show may well include a bloody murder of our nation’s PM.
At least that’s what Gwar’s Oderus Urungus told us in a recent interview, promising to “win over Australia forever” by cutting a certain high-profile politician down to size… Sure, everyone’s laughing along, but Urungus declares: “You can tell we are for real.”
Foxtel’s Channel V promoted this barbarity on its Facebook page to earn a few more grubby dollars from ferals of the Left:
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The ferals of the Left cheered and asked for Abbott to be killed for real - their semi-literate cries again published on a Foxtel Facebook site:
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I am shocked that Foxtel encourages such depravity. But the Left, I’m afraid, no longer shocks me at all. It is now the natural home of the foul-mouthed savage.
Take Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford, boasting about her F… Abbott T-shirts, which The Age even promoted:
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There’s the ferals wearing T-shirts with this Fairfax-promoted slogan in our busiest streets:
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Then there’s been the calls - on a Facebook page created from an office at the Geelong Trades Hall - for Abbott to be assassinated:
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There was the banner at the same-sex marriage rally in Brisbane showing Abbott being hanged:
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Much of the abuse of Abbott is brutal, threatening, crude ... and too often licensed by the Leftist media:
Abbott hadn’t even been sworn in before a new Facebook site - “Tony Abbott - Worst PM in Australian History” - savaged him as “a misogynist, sexist, homophobic pr---, a bully, a racist, a liar ...”. It has 170,000 “likes"…
The ABC’s Q & A website left up a tweet about performing a sexual act on Abbott and The Drum vilified him as a religious bigot who denied evolution and wanted to “score points against the ‘feminazis’ and ‘poofs’ “.
Meanwhile, Catherine Deveny, a Guardian writer, boasted on Twitter how her teenage son hated Abbott, and published a photograph of his profanity-strewed poster.
And there’s the inevitable Leftist extremist, hounding Abbott in the streets shouting violent abuse:
Had these things been done to Julia Gillard, would we have heard the end of it? If media organisations do not rein in this violent hatred, will they inspire deeds they will one dark day claim to bitterly regret?
But if nothing else, let’s just end that self-serving and self-pitying myth of the Left:
Anne Summers was one of many Gillard enthusiasts who claimed no prime minister had suffered such abuse: 
It is ironic that this should be the case, given the initial rapture that greeted Gillard’s elevation to the top job, yet there can be no doubting that Australia’s first woman prime minister has had to endure levels of vitriol never before seen in federal politics.
John McTernan, Gillard’s communications director, ran with that victim story of unprecedented abuse:

Gillard has faced serial abuse as a woman on a scale I believe is unprecedented in modern politics. I know that the phrase “The Iron Lady” was coined by the Russians as an insult to Margaret Thatcher, but it became a mark of their admiration. That negative, corrosive, anti-woman rhetoric that Gillard endured for so long has damaged Australian politics, and public opinion.
Nothing, but nothing that Gillard ever faced comes close to the vitriol and abuse now being hurled by the Left at Abbott.
But how silent the media is now that the target is a Liberal.
(Thanks to reader Nick,) 
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Memo to Fin: handsome is as handsome does

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (6:24am)

I am sick of media and entertainment organisations sprinkling glitter on low-lifes. The Melbourne University Press was bad enough, and now here comes the Financial Review:
The Australian Financial Review’s editor Michael Stutchbury must have been proud of Christopher Joye’s interview with controversial figure John Ibrahim because he promoted it as the blurb on page one. Diary has no idea why.
Ibrahim managed to charm the journalist into forgetting he was speaking to a man who was interrogated in the Wood royal commission for being “the new lifeblood of the drug industry at Kings Cross”. [Ibrahim denied it.]
Here are some of the more cringe-worthy lines from the story: “He’s distinctively handsome, almost mesmerisingly so, with tight coffee-gold coloured skin and dark eyes with the same golden tint.” And this: “The man laughs that he’s too old for his still-popular ‘sexy’ moniker today.” And even worse: “I think to myself that Ibrahim’s frankly better looking than the actor Firass Dirani, who played him in Underbelly.” Finally, after a couple of thousand words comes the line in the feature that the Fin’s journalists should be investigating. Joye writes: “So how does the King of the Cross actually make money? ‘I don’t like to elaborate on my private business, he says easily’.”
Still the piece was good for this:
“Who really shoots other people’s houses in the middle of the night?” he queries. “In my time that was unheard of.
“These guys are gutless cowards. The class of 2010 onwards has been the shittiest ever. They’re just plastic gangsters. They drive around in their hotted up cars with gold chains and tattoos and then they go home and sleep at mum’s. They’re all ­wannabes. It’s disgusting – it’s all disorganised crime.
“Before the [Wood] Royal Commission [into the NSW Police Service], none of this would happen. The police would squash you in the night. It’s not organised crime you have to worry about, it’s disorganised crime – they’re the ding-a-lings.”
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Warmists lose argument in a snowdrift. Dream of stabbing “deniers” instead

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (6:10am)

image
Can you imagine the fuss if I “joked” about stabbing warmists - like the New York Times “jokes” about stabbing “deniers”?
Well, we don’t actually have to imagine the outrage of the Left at all, given the hay that warmists made even over one man’s kangaroo culling licence:
ANU Climate Change Institute head Will Steffen warns staff in 2010 of their first real threat:
Written by the head of the Climate Change Institute in 2010, it announced: “Looks like we’ve had our first serious threat of physical violence.
“It has come from a participant in (the) deliberative democracy project last weekend. One of the participants left early after he took exception to my talk about climate science ... (Deleted’s) exact words were:
“Moreover, before he left, he came to the Fri dinner and showed other participants his gun licence and explained to them how good a sniper he is.”
But it was no such thing:
Curious fact three: that person is retired public servant and economist John Coochey, who denies showing a gun licence, and says he was astonished to find himself being defamed - accused of making “death threats”.
He’s written: “At the mediocre dinner on the first day I was approached by Dr Maxine Cooper, then the commissioner for the environment, who recognised me as someone involved in the kangaroo culling program in the ACT which occurs each winter.
“After politely asking if she could sit next to me, she asked me how I had gone in the recent licence test, which is challenging. I told her I had topped it with a perfect score and showed her my current culling licence, not gun licence, to prove it.” 
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Channel Seven rewards Corby, trashes law

Andrew Bolt February 24 2014 (4:40am)

Malcolm Turnbull, Media

CHANNEL 7 is shameless. How dare it try helping Schapelle Corby to break or evade another law — this one against a criminal profiting from their crime?
How dare it pull political strings when there’s a police raid to stop it?
Seven’s commercial director, Bruce McWilliam, last week brazenly admitted Seven indeed wanted to pay “in that ballpark” of $500,000 for convicted drug smuggler Corby to tell about her life and crimes. “Sure, there’s an expectation money might have to be paid,” he said.
Indeed, Seven has already paid Corby’s sister Mercedes $25,000 to arrange the interview — and who can tell how much of that goes to Schapelle, now on parole in Bali?
We actually have a Proceeds of Crime Act to stop this kind of thing.
(Read full article here.) 
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Les Miserables music was a beautiful example. 
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February 24: Independence Day in Estonia (1918); Flag Day in Mexico; National Artist Day in Thailand
Adolf Hitler
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Events[edit]

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Holidays and observances[edit]

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“Do not those who plot evil go astray? But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness.” -Proverbs 14:22
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 23: Morning
"I will never leave thee." - Hebrews 13:5
No promise is of private interpretation. Whatever God has said to any one saint, he has said to all. When he opens a well for one, it is that all may drink. When he openeth a granary-door to give out food, there may be some one starving man who is the occasion of its being opened, but all hungry saints may come and feed too. Whether he gave the word to Abraham or to Moses, matters not, O believer; he has given it to thee as one of the covenanted seed. There is not a high blessing too lofty for thee, nor a wide mercy too extensive for thee. Lift up now thine eyes to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west, for all this is thine. Climb to Pisgah's top, and view the utmost limit of the divine promise, for the land is all thine own. There is not a brook of living water of which thou mayst not drink. If the land floweth with milk and honey, eat the honey and drink the milk, for both are thine. Be thou bold to believe, for he hath said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."In this promise, God gives to his people everything. "I will never leave thee." Then no attribute of God can cease to be engaged for us. Is he mighty? He will show himself strong on the behalf of them that trust him. Is he love? Then with lovingkindness will he have mercy upon us. Whatever attributes may compose the character of Deity, every one of them to its fullest extent shall be engaged on our side. To put everything in one, there is nothing you can want, there is nothing you can ask for, there is nothing you can need in time or in eternity, there is nothing living, nothing dying, there is nothing in this world, nothing in the next world, there is nothing now, nothing at the resurrection-morning, nothing in heaven which is not contained in this text--"I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
Evening
"Take up the cross, and follow me." - Mark 10:21
JYou have not the making of your own cross, although unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose your own cross, although self-will would fain be lord and master; but your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you are cheerfully to accept it; you are to take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to stand cavilling at it. This night Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to his easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or trample on it in vain-glory, or fall under it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; he leads the way in the path of sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide! And if he carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The Via Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny paths.

Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers, or lined with velvet, it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colours, it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with it, that like Moses, you would not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus carried it, and it will smell sweetly; remember that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of trouble. The Lord help you to bow your spirit in submission to the divine will ere you fall asleep this night, that waking with to-morrow's sun, you may go forth to the day's cross with the holy and submissive spirit which becomes a follower of the Crucified.
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Annas 
[Ăn'nas] - grace of jehovah.
A Jewish high priest, the son of Seth, appointed to office in his thirty-seventh year by Quirinus, and who was in office when John the Baptist began his ministry (Luke 3:2; John 18:13-24; Acts 4:6). Annas was an astute and powerful ecclesiastical statesman, who took part not only in the trial of Jesus, but also in those of Peter and John.
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Today's reading: Numbers 5-6, Mark 4:1-20 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Numbers 5-6

Restitution for Wrongs
5 The LORD said to Moses, 6 "Say to the Israelites: 'Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the LORD is guilty 7and must confess the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 4:1-20

The Parable of the Sower
1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 "Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow....


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