Sunday, February 23, 2014

Sun Feb 23rd Todays News

The Ukrainian President had worked closely with Russia, which makes sense, as their opponents, celebrated media endorsed leftists willing to use violence to achieve their ends, have been antagonistic to Russia. Ordinary Ukrainians suffer from left wing's bad decision making. People are dead, The scene has not played out completely. The only certainty is that the left has not been responsible. Now look at the bye election result against the LNP in Redcliffe. The media endorsed an ALP line and the ALP won. It illustrates the impressiveness of the Griffith swing to Liberals. But the cheerleaders for the ALP won't analyse that factoid. Maybe Manus will be closed as it is no longer needed?

I love books. Today is the anniversary of the publication of the first Gutenberg Bible. Anyone who does not read books is restricted to living only one life. Humble in aspect, the vellum copies were made with loving care. They predate the knowledge revolution, because they began it. It is possible to collect all the written work around the world made before this book on a single CD. As of 1972, there were a thousand non fiction books printed in the US every day. I had a library I valued at $50k. I intended to give it to the next generation, but I had to give it away to several different charities. None wanted it. Time marches on. Now, I have a Kindle .. 
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns David Nguyen. Born on the same day, across the years, as
Matches
Despatches
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Ukrainian president flees, but this fight is not over

Andrew Bolt February 23 2014 (9:19am)

The Opposition seizes power in Ukraine in a conflict that could set East against West - and tear the country in two:
President Viktor F. Yanukovych fled Kiev on Saturday to denounce what he called a violent coup, as his official residence, his vast, colonnaded office complex and other once impregnable centers of power fell without a fight to throngs of joyous citizens…
While Mr. Yanukovych’s nemesis, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, was released from a penitentiary hospital, Parliament found the president unable to fulfill his duties and exercised its constitutional powers to set an election for May 25 to select his replacement. But with both Mr. Yanukovych and his Russian patrons speaking of a “coup” carried out by “bandits” and “hooligans,” it was far from clear that the day’s lightning-quick events would be the last act in a struggle that has not just convulsed Ukraine but expanded into an East-West confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War…

A pugnacious Mr. Yanukovych appeared on television Saturday afternoon, apparently from the eastern city of Kharkiv, near Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, saying he had been forced to leave the capital because of a “coup,"…
“I don’t plan to leave the country. I don’t plan to resign,” he said, speaking in Russian rather than Ukrainian, the country’s official language....
Regional governors from eastern Ukraine met in Kharkiv and adopted a resolution resisting the authority of Parliament....
Mr. Yanukovych said in his television appearance that he would be traveling to the southeastern part of Ukraine to talk to his supporters — a plan that carried potentially ominous overtones, in that the southeast is the location of the Crimea, the historically Russian section of the country that is the site of a Russian naval base. 
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Newman Government hit hard

Andrew Bolt February 23 2014 (8:52am)

The LNP’s former member resigned in disgrace.  Labor’s candidate was strong. The LNP’s wasn’t. A sitting government is always likely to be clobbered.
But whichever way you cut it, yesterday’s result in the Redcliffe byelection was still bad for the Newman Government:

While he said the spectre of disgraced former MP Scott Driscoll loomed large over the result, Mr Newman took some responsibility for the massive swing against the Liberal National Party.
With all booths reporting back on Saturday night, ... there was a 16.3 per cent two party preferred swing against the LNP and its candidate, former Family First candidate Kerri-Anne Dooley.

Across town at the Redcliffe Leagues Club, a victorious Yvette D’Ath claimed victory for the Labor Party, thus increasing their parliamentary stocks from seven to eight....
Ms D’Ath, the former federal MP who lost the seat of Petrie in last year’s election, said she wanted to “fix the damage this LNP government has done to this community” ...
The Newman Government seems to have been rocked repeatedly by the consequences of having had inadequate or poorly vetted candidates elected as MPs. A note for the future.
And once again I must ask why the Left is so prone to abuse:

The writing was on the wall for the LNP early on Saturday when the Premier visited a polling booth at Humpybong State School, where Ms Dooley, who was ineligible to vote herself, had just accompanied her parents to the polling station. Mr Newman faced a hostile reception from unionists, Labor Party members and other protesters, who all subjected him to a barrage of abuse.
UPDATE
Good point from Gerard Henderson today: the big swing to Labor in the Redcliffe by-election makes even more remarkable the swing to the Abbott Government in the Griffith by-election. 
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The riot shows Manus should be better run, not necessarily closed

Andrew Bolt February 23 2014 (8:46am)

It should be possible to run a detention centre in Manus Island well, but I would want it much better run than seems to have been the case:
IMMIGRATION Minister Scott Morrison has refused to rule out shutting down the Manus Island detention centre as a damning new report warns Australia is failing in its “duty of care” to detainees in offshore processing centres. 

Confirming Australia had sent more than 100 private security officers to Manus since last week’s riots that killed one man and injured 77, Mr Morrison said the possibility of closure was only a “hypothetical”.

Asked if Manus Island was a safe environment he said that was what the contract paid local staff to ensure.
“When people have taken it upon themselves to rip fences down and try and wreck the joint, well, they are going to put themselves at the risk of how people respond,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
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In what way is this another Malaysian solution?

Andrew Bolt February 23 2014 (8:31am)

Not true:
The Australian government has asked Cambodia to accept refugees seeking asylum in a move similar to the former Labor government’s so-called ‘’Malaysian solution’’…
When they were in opposition, Coalition MPs were strongly critical of Labor’s attempt to send asylum seekers to Malaysia in 2011.
That first sentence is not true, because the proposal - as the very same Fairfax article explains - omits the controversial element of the Malaysian people swap:
Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong said the request was made on Saturday morning during a meeting between his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop and the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
‘’In the past, there have been Cambodians going out as refugees to different countries. Now perhaps it is time for Cambodia to receive refugees back to Cambodia,’’ Mr Hor Nam Hong told journalists after a press briefing, adding the number of refugees had not been decided but this would depend on Australia…
‘’But my Prime Minister and myself this morning have told Australia that Cambodia will consider very seriously the request of Australia because before there were many Cambodians seeking asylum outside of Cambodia through the war but now maybe it is the time for Cambodia to accept some of the foreign refugees in Cambodia.’’
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill notes the obvious inaccuracy:
Nowhere in the story does it suggest Australia and Cambodia would be ‘swapping’ asylum seekers - which means the arrangement would be nothing like the Malaysia Solution. It was the ‘swap’ element that made the Malaysia Solution a reprehensible concept.  
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Michael Mann hides the decline in reports he says “exonerate” him

Andrew Bolt February 23 2014 (7:35am)

Global warming - general

image
Warming alarmist Michael ”Hockey Stick” Mann is suing Mark Steyn for defamation after being mocked over his dodgy research.
Mann has claimed in court documents that he was in fact found innocent by every inquiry into the Climategate scandal:
In paragraph 21 of the Complaint, Mann claimed that there had been “separate and independent” investigations by Penn State and UEA (two each) and by five government agencies into misconduct by “Mann and colleagues” and that all nine found no basis to allegations of “scientific misconduct or manipulation of data”: 
21. Following the publication of the CRU [Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia] emails, Penn State and the University of East Anglia (in four separate instances) and five governmental agencies [listed] have conducted separate and independent investigations into the allegations of scientific misconduct against Dr. Mann and his colleagues. Every one of these investigations has reached the same conclusion: there is no basis to any of the allegations of scientific misconduct or manipulation of data.
But Steve McIntyre says that claim is false.
Take first the Oxburgh inquiry. The part of its findings cited by Mann don’t actually relate to him but to the CRU, as Mann’s own document reveals:
The Report of the International Panel assessed the integrity of the research published by the CRU and found “no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit”. 
In fact, says McIntyre, the Oxburgh report did not examine Mann and his infamous “hockey stick” (showing unprecedented warming) in any detail, yet still included criticisms of him:
Oxburgh and his “Scientific Appraisal Panel” ... interpreted its terms of reference as the examination of a list of 11 academic articles selected by the University of East Anglia… The list included three CRU articles presenting variations of the Briffa MXD reconstruction [of tree ring data] that had originated the hide-the-decline controversy. Two of the three articles – both from 1998 – unambiguously showed the decline [in temperatures] in the Briffa reconstruction. (Indeed, it was the inconsistency between these articles and the IPCC diagram that had originally occasioned my interest.)
However, both these articles were prior to the unsavory discussion among Mann and other IPCC authors in which senior IPCC officials expressed their concern that inclusion of the Briffa reconstruction [showing a later cooling, not warming] might “dilute the message”, with Mann readily acquiescing because he did not want to give “fodder to the skeptics"… CRU later sent Mann a version in which data was deleted after 1960....
The Oxburgh panel had only the following short report on these issues: 

7. Recent public discussion of climate change and summaries and popularizations of the work of CRU and others often contain oversimplifications that omit serious discussion of uncertainties emphasized by the original authors. For example, CRU publications repeatedly emphasize the discrepancy between instrumental and tree-based proxy reconstructions of temperature during the late 20th century, but presentations of this work by the IPCC and others have sometimes neglected to highlight this issue. While we find this regrettable, we could find no such fault with the peer-reviewed papers we examined.
Oxburgh obviously did not respond to actual criticism, which was of the IPCC diagram [the “hockey stick” prepared by Mann showing runaway warming]… The Climategate emails obviously shed a very unsavory light on the decision to delete adverse data in IPCC TAR.
The Oxburgh panel considered the IPCC diagram only in passing, but its finds were all adverse to Mann. They described IPCC’s failure (in Mann’s section) to highlight the discrepancy as negligent and “regrettable”.
But at a press conference to discuss the Oxburgh findings, panel member Professor David Hand went much further in criticising Mann, as the Daily Telegraph reported at the time:
Professor David Hand said that the research – led by US scientist Michael Mann – would have shown less dramatic results if more reliable techniques had been used to analyse the data… But the reviewers found that the scientists could have used better statistical methods in analysing some of their data, although it was unlikely to have made much difference to their results.
That was not the case with some previous climate change reports, where ”inappropriate methods” had exaggerated the global warming phenomenon. Prof Hand singled out a 1998 paper by Prof Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a constant target for climate change sceptics, as an example of this. He said the graph, that showed global temperature records going back 1,000 years, was exaggerated – although any reproduction using improved techniques is likely to also show a sharp rise in global warming. He agreed the graph would be more like a field hockey stick than the ice hockey blade it was originally compared to. “The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick. Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller,” he said. ”The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper.”
Mann was also wrong to claim he’d been exonerated by the Muir Russell inquiry.
In fact, McIntyre claims Mann or his team even tampered with the evidence in their court filing:
In my most recent post, I showed that Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Oxburgh inquiry had no more validity than Mann’s claim to have won a Nobel prize....  Mann’s claim to have been “exonerated” by the Muir Russell inquiry is equally invalid.
In their memoranda supporting their original motions to dismiss, both National Review and CEI had observed (correctly) that the Muir Russell panel had limited their findings to “CRU scientists” and contested Mann’s assertion that the Muir Russell panel had made any findings regarding Mann himself, let alone “exonerated” him.
In Mann’s Reply Memorandum, he vociferously rejected the (correct) assertion that the Muir Russell had not exonerated Mann himself… Mann supported this bluster with an apparent quotation from the Muir Russell report, but the phrase within the quotation marks does not actually occur within the Muir Russell report. As shown below, Mann and/or his lawyers subtly altered the quotation to more supportive language.....
Mann purported to provide the requested supporting quotation from the Muir Russell report showing that the supposed exoneration was not limited to “CRU scientists”, but extended more generally to “the scientists”, including Mann himself: 

Three months later, the University of East Anglia published the Independent Climate Change Email Review report, prepared under the oversight of Sir Muir Russell. The report examined whether manipulation or suppression of data occurred and concluded that ”the scientists’ rigor and honesty are not in doubt. (my bold)(38 – Muir Russell Report)”
But watch carefully here… The actual quotation from the Muir Russell report (shown below) clearly limits its findings to CRU scientists…

On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.
Had Mann’s Reply Memorandum provided the actual quotation, it would have confirmed National Review’s and CEI’s claim that the Muir Russell had confined its findings to “CRU scientists”, but not in the quotation as altered by Mann and/or his lawyers.
And note how Mann and/or his lawyers even changed the spelling of “rigour” in purporting to quote from the report.
McIntyre pomises more revelations to explode Mann’s claims he was “exonerated”. 
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Morrison claims he was misled: detainees injured inside Manus centre

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (9:45pm)

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison admits he was misled about the Manus Island riot - misled, I’d add, in a very serious way:

I wish to confirm that contrary to initial reports received, I have received further information that indicates that the majority of the riotous behaviour that occurred, and the response to that behaviour to restore order to the centre, took place within the perimeter of the centre.
As advised on the afternoon of Tuesday February 18, I indicated that I had received further information which meant that I could no longer confirm that the deceased man sustained his injuries outside the centre. The further information I have now received casts further doubt on the initial advice that his injuries were sustained outside the centre.
I find it hard to believe that whoever assured Morrison or his staff that most injuries were suffered outside the centre was not lying. It’s no longer possible to believe other assurances now, including claims there was no evidence of anyone having their throat cut.
My confidence in the information given to date by the Government on this riot is now extremely low.
There is now an independent investigation, but I’d like some interim signs that the guilty are being removed and any suspect staff urgently replaced. 
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David Daniel Ball's photo.

Today
Online at Change.org http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/nsw-premier-barry-o-farrell-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball
You're going
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February 23National Day in Brunei (1984); Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia and several other former Soviet republics
Werner Heisenberg
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“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” - 1 John 4:18
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 22: Morning
"His bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." -Genesis 49:24
That strength which God gives to his Josephs is real strength; it is not a boasted valour, a fiction, a thing of which men talk, but which ends in smoke; it is true--divine strength. Why does Joseph stand against temptation? Because God gives him aid. There is nought that we can do without the power of God. All true strength comes from "the mighty God of Jacob." Notice in what a blessedly familiar way God gives this strength to Joseph--"The arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." Thus God is represented as putting his hands on Joseph's hands, placing his arms on Joseph's arms. Like as a father teaches his children, so the Lord teaches them that fear him. He puts his arms upon them. Marvellous condescension! God Almighty, Eternal, Omnipotent, stoops from his throne and lays his hand upon the child's hand, stretching his arm upon the arm of Joseph, that he may be made strong! This strength was also covenant strength, for it is ascribed to "the mighty God of Jacob." Now, wherever you read of the God of Jacob in the Bible, you should remember the covenant with Jacob. Christians love to think of God's covenant. All the power, all the grace, all the blessings, all the mercies, all the comforts, all the things we have, flow to us from the well-head, through the covenant. If there were no covenant, then we should fail indeed; for all grace proceeds from it, as light and heat from the sun. No angels ascend or descend, save upon that ladder which Jacob saw, at the top of which stood a covenant God. Christian, it may be that the archers have sorely grieved you, and shot at you, and wounded you, but still your bow abides in strength; be sure, then, to ascribe all the glory to Jacob's God.
Evening
"The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power." - Nahum 1:3
Jehovah "is slow to anger." When mercy cometh into the world she driveth winged steeds; the axles of her chariot-wheels are red hot with speed; but when wrath goeth forth, it toileth on with tardy footsteps, for God taketh no pleasure in the sinner's death. God's rod of mercy is ever in his hands outstretched; his sword of justice is in its scabbard, held down by that pierced hand of love which bled for the sins of men. "The Lord is slow to anger," because he is great in power. He is truly great in power who hath power over himself. When God's power doth restrain himself, then it is power indeed: the power that binds omnipotence is omnipotence surpassed. A man who has a strong mind can bear to be insulted long, and only resents the wrong when a sense of right demands his action. The weak mind is irritated at a little: the strong mind bears it like a rock which moveth not, though a thousand breakers dash upon it, and cast their pitiful malice in spray upon its summit. God marketh his enemies, and yet he bestirs not himself, but holdeth in his anger. If he were less divine than he is, he would long ere this have sent forth the whole of his thunders, and emptied the magazines of heaven; he would long ere this have blasted the earth with the wondrous fires of its lower regions, and man would have been utterly destroyed; but the greatness of his power brings us mercy. Dear reader, what is your state this evening? Can you by humble faith look to Jesus, and say, "My substitute, thou art my rock, my trust"? Then, beloved, be not afraid of God's power; for by faith you have fled to Christ for refuge, the power of God need no more terrify you, than the shield and sword of the warrior need terrify those whom he loves. Rather rejoice that he who is "great in power" is your Father and Friend.
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Shimri, Simri 
[Shĭm'rī,Sĭm'rī] - jehovah is watching.
1. A Simeonite and head of a tribal family (1 Chron. 4:37).
2. Father of Jediael, one of David's heroes (1 Chron. 11:45).
3. A son of Hosah and Tabernacle gatekeeper (1 Chron. 26:10).
4. A son of Elizaphan who assisted in Hezekiah's reformation (2 Chron. 29:13).
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Today's reading: Numbers 3-4, Mark 3:20-35 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Numbers 3-4

The Levites
This is the account of the family of Aaron and Moses at the time the LORD spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai.
2 The names of the sons of Aaron were Nadab the firstborn and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. 3 Those were the names of Aaron's sons, the anointed priests, who were ordained to serve as priests. 4 Nadab and Abihu, however, died before the LORD when they made an offering with unauthorized fire before him in the Desert of Sinai. They had no sons, so Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of their father Aaron....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 3:20-35

Jesus Accused by His Family and by Teachers of the Law
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons...."


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