Monday, March 03, 2014

Mon Mar 3rd Todays News

For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/nsw-premier-barry-o-farrell-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball?

 Pachelbel died on this day, but I would happily marry to the canon bearing his name. Death is an ending, but not the worst thing. Because life allowed the choices .. and the choices live on. Life and death choices are telling. Is coming to Australia a calculated risk with the pay off being a future that is rich? Is coming to Australia a desperate act to escape tyranny? The recent death of a person held in an off shore facility designed to allow UN processing has brought out the voices of those who were silent as over 1100 died making the journey under a previous government. A year ago I wrote 
If only those thoughts were coherent. The Age wants people who are poor and desperate to drown? The Age wants, people with little, to give it all to pirates? The Age wants people who are desperate and poor to miss out on a refugee placement? The Age wants people who are poor and desperate to live in cages? Maybe if the Age wants to give them a voice, it can listen to their opinion and report it.
Taken from an impartial view, without entrenched ideas about balance or result, the article is demented. Were we to source thirty thousand people in Sri Lanka, Pakistan or Afghanistan and drown over a thousand of them, and charge each of them over $10k, and then cage them we would expect to be called bad names .. regardless of our intentions. And then to turn to the poor and oppressed and say "Tough luck for now" while asserting that this is fairer than the Pacific Solution .. those words cannot be that sweet .. those arguments cannot be that compelling. Let us forget that conservatives back the Pacific Solution .. I think if we were to be as fair and just as we could be, we would follow the Pacific Solution. I despise the tribalism that refuses to hear good ideas because they weren't made by people we liked.
But those words, apparently are sweet. Compelled by hatred of conservatives, many in the mainstream media object to poor people not being exploited by pirates, and killed by circumstance. A year after I wrote about the issue, and was ignored, there is a new, responsible government. Media object to a conservative government, and are opposing responsible government. 

 Alexander Graham Bell, credited with inventing the telephone, was born on this day. He never telephoned his wife or mother. They were deaf. Bell was working on inventions for deaf people. Making the telephone a terrible product for the target audience. 
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Phillipa Springett, Tracey Lee Maxwell, Tray-C Maxwell, Jenny Au, Rowena Lim and Chanskies Em. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. Because if you forget, it might take a few to remind you ..
Matches
Despatches
=== From a year ago ===
If only those thoughts were coherent. The Age wants people who are poor and desperate to drown? The Age wants, people with little, to give it all to pirates? The Age wants people who are desperate and poor to miss out on a refugee placement? The Age wants people who are poor and desperate to live in cages? Maybe if the Age wants to give them a voice, it can listen to their opinion and report it.
Taken from an impartial view, without entrenched ideas about balance or result, the article is demented. Were we to source thirty thousand people in Sri Lanka, Pakistan or Afghanistan and drown over a thousand of them, and charge each of them over $10k, and then cage them we would expect to be called bad names .. regardless of our intentions. And then to turn to the poor and oppressed and say "Tough luck for now" while asserting that this is fairer than the Pacific Solution .. those words cannot be that sweet .. those arguments cannot be that compelling. Let us forget that conservatives back the Pacific Solution .. I think if we were to be as fair and just as we could be, we would follow the Pacific Solution. I despise the tribalism that refuses to hear good ideas because they weren't made by people we liked. - ed
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A former drug addict is not one to lecture on ending a “war on drugs”

Andrew BoltMARCH032013(5:28am)

One of the key arguments against decriminalising drugs is that what you tolerate you will get more of.
Give that, the front man of the new Drug Law Reform Australia is a poor choice of spokesman for one side of the debate and the right one for those of us arguing against: 
Greg Chipp, 57, said his party, Drug Law Reform Australia, was not pro-drugs, but would push for a debate on harm minimisation and for the decriminalisation and regulation of cannabis.
Yes, Chipp has recovered, but I’m not convinced by his argument:
Addicts would be treated as having a health problem.
Addicts don’t have a health problem when they first take drugs. They have a problem with the law, their lack of responsibility, their indifference to consequences.  And the messages we send as a community to such people could prove decisive in many cases.
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Forgive him. He’s just 23 and a Labor MP’s son

Andrew BoltMARCH032013(5:21am)

The problem with the Internet is that it gives 23 year olds the chance to tell the world - unerasably - that they are still young and stupid:
Ben Hoenig, whose father Ron - a successful barrister - succeeded former premier Kristina Keneally as the state member for Heffron in August, has written a series of threatening posts on the social media website, interspersed with photos of he and his father standing alongside Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Despite his father being voted into Macquarie St by one of the biggest Asian populations in NSW, the 23-year-old Mr Hoenig wrote on November 6: “You know your country is f***ed when you walk into macca and wonder if you just flew to china!”
In this case the damage done isn’t great. He’s the son of a Labor MP, so will be forgiven. 
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What the XX?

Andrew BoltMARCH032013(12:08am)

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Given where Labor is in the polls, what does XX stand for?
UPDATE
Reader aristotlenow: 
XX = Double cross?
Reader Warwick:
Simple typo it should have read Ex Ex PM and Ministers
Yes, double chromosome and all that for the literal minded.
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Omar Barghouti, a skilled propagandist for BDS wrote an op-ed in the NY Daily News. Uncharacteristically, but very effectively, the NY Daily News wrote a counter op-ed calling on Barghouti to check his facts and falsehoods. 
It is worth mentioning that Barghouti is a student at Tel Aviv University, yet calls for academic boycotts of Israeli universities!

 Barghouti's lies are outlined here:
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The Calm and the Storm

Yep… thinking about spring. — at Boise City Oklahoma.
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Scotland - you wouldn't make it up - ed
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The PM speaking authoritatively on a subject she knows well..

 Ms Gillard said the criminal networks were becoming far more complex.

 "It means that they are moving a lot of money around and it means that their activities span the borders of any one state," she said.

 "To track the criminals, you have got to track the money."
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Clean up Australia Day with Tony & Brigid Abbott & Craig Laundy in Auburn. Well done everyone!
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An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''
'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"
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ACT
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the last six years.We have served our time for the crime of electing the worst government ever. Now we will be released from our incarceration. Thank the Almighty for our freedom from bondage. Not long to go now. TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.

Only Rudd was no Napoleon. Rudd was a nerd. Let us not forget Rudd, Gillard and Swan Goose are all to blame equally.>
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<... Here is another one for the record books.

 Gillard is not just the first female prime minister of Australia but she can also possibly claim to be the first prime minister ever who has fornicated with more members of her back bench and union thugs than any other prime minister preceding her.

All these fuck buddy relationships ended amicably

I could just imagine Julia's parting words " Cop u later " :-)

Larry Pickering offers an interesting insight>
=== Todays Events ===

Borghetti is all class

Miranda Devine – Sunday, March 02, 2014 (6:35am)

VIRGIN boss John Borghetti showed again last week what a mistake it was for the Qantas board to pass him over for the younger Irishman, Alan Joyce, as chief executive six years ago.
Not only was he honest enough to blame the carbon tax for costing the airlines “hundreds of millions of dollars”, but he took the time to express sympathy for the staff of his embattled former airline.
“You should have been CEO of Qantas and I’m not the only one who says that,” wrote a former flight attendant on the cabin crew’s Facebook page.
Borghetti replied: “Having worked with outstanding staff at Qantas for 36 years, I too find it hard to believe what is happening to this once great company. I feel for the staff.”
The man is all class. 
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Tough lessons for Bingleton

Miranda Devine – Sunday, March 02, 2014 (6:38am)

SAM Worthington has been well and truly bingled. The latest squeeze of Lara Bingle, who may or may not be her new husband, was handcuffed and bundled into a police car in New York last week after he allegedly punched a diminutive photographer.
Three lessons can be learned from this plight:
1) Woe betide any man who falls in love with a siren. Bingle is Trouble with a capital T, causing her smitten lovers to rescue her from the consequences of her actions. Thus, last week, footage online shows Bingle, 26, manhandling photographer Sheng Li and trying to grab his camera, before Sam, 37, gets involved.
2) If you court publicity for a living, you can’t turn it off at will. A woman with her own reality show, who conducts her life on Instagram, and who has been photographed accidentally nude, can hardly complain that her privacy is invaded on a public street. “We have a lot of celebs in New York City who are even more famous than Sam Worthington and even more well known than Lara Bingle,” quipped Li’s lawyer. “They manage to keep their tempers.”
3) Cops in New York are on the ball. On the scene in minutes, they didn’t buy Sam’s story: “These guys kicked a girl, man.” And when Sam said, “I did that movie called Avatar,” the cop looked away, unimpressed.
The only thing missing was an extra set of handcuffs for the blonde who started it all. 
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It’s time to send Palmer packing

Miranda Devine – Sunday, March 02, 2014 (6:39am)

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CLIVE Palmer, the unlikely darling of the ABC, had two Tony Jones outings last week, most recently on Lateline, where he expounded on aviation matters while snuffling and snorting like Darth Vader in an iron lung.
When Palmer supported the LNP, the ABC treated him like a fat buffoon. Now, of course, he is a sage.
Palmer is licking his rosebud lips in anticipation of power to come. But first he has to get through a re-run of the WA Senate poll, and there is every chance that voters might wise up to the gimlet-eyed ­opportunist beneath the fleshy jocularity.
He’s been on the ABC’s flagship shows, Lateline or Q&A, on average once a fortnight since the election, and is treated like royalty. So much so that he calls Tony Jones a “great journalist”, a “world champion”.
Which is a strange comment from someone supposedly from the right side of politics.
But Clive is a special case. The billionaire Gold Coast mining entrepreneur is feted by the Left like Lee Harvey Oswald was by the Russians – before they realised he was a lunatic.
A turncoat conservative is a rare prize to be carefully cultivated. Especially one full of colourful bile who, by an accident of electoral history and lots of cash, has found himself in a position to wield enormous power.
Palmer is a loose cannon who deserves scrutiny.
But the ABC’s interest is not the investigative probing of The Australian’s estimable ­reporter Hedley Thomas, who has dug out facts on Palmer’s wealth, business dealings and numerable legal stoushes so that the Australian people can judge whether they have themselves a pig in a poke or a pearl in the parliament.
Is Palmer an altruistic self-made man under siege from a media controlled by a Chinese Mata Hari? Or is he a tyrant who inflates his wealth and achievements?
But what the ABC seems most interested in is what Palmer will do to foil the Abbott government in the Senate.
There was a time when the national broadcaster delighted in mocking Palmer, always running footage of him waddling onto his private jet, collapsing onto a kingsize seat and promptly falling asleep with his mouth open. ABC cameramen have lost count of the apnoea snorts they’ve captured for posterity.
Those were the days when Clive and his juicy rolls of filthy lucre were valued members of the LNP family.
Like the night of the hung election in 2010, when he squeezed onto a couch at the Four Seasons Hotel alongside party grandees, crunching numbers himself on a little silver laptop perched on his lap, loudly proclaiming results to all and sundry.
He was incorrect, as it turned out, but, hey, it was a tough election to call.
He soon felt scorned by Campbell Newman and Tony Abbott, who failed to recognise his unique political acumen, so he started his own party and twerked into parliament with two senators.
Now it’s up to the voters of Western Australia to tell ­Palmer his novelty honeymoon is over, and he can’t have the two extra Senate berths he wants.
Regardless of how the ABC portrays him, a serious country facing serious economic difficulties cannot afford to be held hostage to his ego and self-interest.
You just need to go to the former five-star Palmer ­Coolum Resort on the Sunshine Coast, which he bought three years ago, for a vision of a Clive-controlled future.
Guest reviews on Trip Advisor reveal a Fawlty Towers ghost town of dirty swimming pools, musty rooms, overflowing ­garbage bins and $31 pizzas, where staff numbers have been slashed.
Broken-down fibreglass ­dinosaurs, covered in bird poo, dot the tropical gardens, their electronic wails keeping guests awake at night.
A continuous spool of Clive videos plays on the in-room televisions.
“This is a ‘resort’ where everybody — staff and guests — are a little embarrassed to be there,” wrote one disappointed guest last month.
“In the restaurants there are large photos of the fat owner looking as if he is some egotistical ruler,” wrote another ­reviewer. “Such a shame it has gone so far downhill.”
“The entire weekend was a comedy of ­errors,” wrote Natasha.
“WE WOULD NEVER GO THERE AGAIN EVEN IF IT WAS FREE!”
“I am past angry, I’m ­offended,” wrote Natalie, after spending $536 a night for nine nights last month. “We have wasted our hard-earned money on what we thought would be a five-star holiday… our first family holiday.
“Stay away. Stay far, far, away.”
That is good advice for WA voters, too.
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Piranesi in Melbourne

Andrew BoltMARCH022014(6:02pm)

Sure worth seeing at the State Library of Victoria:
Marvel at unforgettable images of classical and baroque Rome in this free exhibition of exquisite rare artworks from 18th-century Italian master-printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78). This stunning exhibition highlights the grand churches, imposing palaces and monumental ruins of Rome. It also includes illustrated books and paintings by his contemporaries. Don’t miss the opportunity to see over 100 significant works, focusing on superb prints from his Vedute di Roma (Views of Rome).

This will be the largest exhibition of Piranesi’s work ever to be seen in Australia – don’t miss it!

Rome: Piranesi’s vision is curated by Dr Colin Holden, former Redmond Barry Fellow at the State Library of Victoria and former Senior Fellow of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne…

This free exhibition is open 10am–5pm daily (to 9pm Thursdays).
I was once very lucky enough to be stopped in the street by Colin to hear him talk on Piranesi and tell the wonderful story of how original plates of his got to France. Colin knows his stuff:
One of the crowd favorites at the exhibition - Prisoners on a projecting platform:
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My favorite at the exhibition (although rather atypical) - Appian way. (Did I see a film like this, or did I just dream it?): 
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A personal favorite for sentimental reasons (but not at the exhibition) - Vetuda di un Eliocarmino, at Hadrian’s Villa:
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The Sydney Morning Herald will only help catch the Caucasian

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (6:05pm)

The Sydney Morning Herald’s refusal to help police to identify certain suspects of favored “races” or faiths reaches absurd heights.
What the Herald reported:
Police say four detainees, three aged 18 and one 15-year-old, then allegedly took off with the juvenile justice van…
However the detainees are still on the run.
The 18-year-olds are described with black hair, medium builds and between 150 and 170cm tall.
The fourth teen is described as being of Caucasian appearance, approximately 150cm to 155cm tall, with a thin build and brown hair.
The Caucasian is identified by “race”; the other three are not. If you suspect the obvious, you are right.
Here is the original NSW police report asking for help to catch the four suspects:
The first is described as being of Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander appearance, between 165cm and 170cm tall, with medium build and black hair.
The second is described as being of Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander appearance, between 150cm and 160cm tall, with medium build and black hair.
The third is described as being of Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander appearance, between 160cm and 170cm tall, with medium build and black hair…
The fourth teen is aged 15, is described as being of Caucasian appearance, approximately 150cm to 155cm tall, with thin build and brown hair.
Gutless. The Sydney Morning Herald would rather three of the suspects escape capture than identify them. What’s more, this cowardice puts people at potential risk:
Police have urged people not to approach the young men but to call 000 immediately.
(Thanks to reader Peter H.) 
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Russia grabs Crimea. Obama grabs platitudes. UPDATE: Does Obama even look scary?

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (4:29pm)

This is extremely dangerous:

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to withdraw his forces in Ukraine has put the US and Russia on the brink of the most explosive confrontation since the end of the Cold War, amid warnings that the situation on the Crimean peninsula is racing towards armed conflict.
President Barack Obama has released his account of what he told President Putin in a 90 minute phone call - which, pathetically, apparently amounts to saying not much more than that people will think Putin isn’t nice and America will hold lots of talks and give some aid to the parts of Ukraine Putin hasn’t taken:
The United States condemns Russia’s military intervention into Ukrainian territory.
The United States calls on Russia to de-escalate tensions by withdrawing its forces back to bases in Crimea and to refrain from any interference elsewhere in Ukraine.... The Ukrainian government has made clear its commitment to protect the rights of all Ukrainians and to abide by Ukraine’s international commitments, and we will continue to urge them to do so…
President Obama urged an immediate effort to initiate a dialogue between Russia and the Ukrainian government… President Obama made clear that Russia’s continued violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would negatively impact Russia’s standing in the international community. In the coming hours and days, the United States will urgently consult with allies and partners in the UN Security Council, the North Atlantic Council, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and with the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum…
President Obama has directed his Administration to continue working urgently with international partners to provide support for the Ukrainian government, including urgent technical and financial assistance.
William Kristol helpfully annotates Obama’s media statement, paragraph by paragraph, For example:
Paragraph Five:
The people of Ukraine have the right to determine their own future. President Obama has directed his Administration to continue working urgently with international partners to provide support for the Ukrainian government, including urgent technical and financial assistance. Going forward, we will continue consulting closely with allies and partners, the Ukrainian government and the International Monetary Fund, to provide the new government with significant assistance to secure financial stability, to support needed reforms, to allow Ukraine to conduct successful elections, and to support Ukraine as it pursues a democratic future.
Commentary:
President Obama will be doing a lot of consulting with, and some assisting of, Ukraine. But Ukraine can expect no serious assistance in getting Russian troops off Ukraine soil or helping secure Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Nor is President Obama committed to seeing to it that President Putin pay a real price for his actions. It would after all be unfair to treat President Putin worse than President Assad or Ayatollah Khamenei.
Scott Johnson:
If it were a parody of liberal handwringing, this would be comedy gold. One highlight would be the obligatory advice to Putin of his country’s interest: “President Obama made clear that Russia’s continued violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would negatively impact Russia’s standing in the international community.” Oh, no, no, not that!…
What a pitiful president. What a pitiful man. What a pitiful fool.
True, the US has the more profound responsibility and cannot hurtle into war. But compare its response to Canada’s:

Canada became the first nation to take concrete action against Russia by withdrawing its ambassador from Moscow yesterday and flagging that it would join the US in considering a boycott of the upcoming G8 summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Compare Obama’s rhetoric to Tony Abbott’s:
I think people right around the world – will be thinking right now, “Hands off the Ukraine”. This is not the kind of action of a friend and neighbour, and really Russia should back off… Russia needs to know and understand that it is simply unacceptable to interfere like this, militarily, in a neighbour. You just cannot do this. You just cannot do this.
UPDATE
The White House has released this picture of Barack Obama warning Vladimir Putin to pull his troops out of Ukraine or face the full might of the free world. Thing is, does Obama look the least bit threatening? A symbol of implacable Western power? Or just some dude who wants to go back to watching TV on his weekend off?
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(Thanks to reader William.) 
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Sorry ABC, with a sorry strategy to deal with a sorry performance

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (2:37pm)

Since the ABC won’t publish apologies, The Australian will kindly do it for them.
UPDATE
How funny. The ABC is paying an ex-Murdoch man $600 an hour for advice that this Murdoch man gives daily for free:
THE ABC has hired Rupert Murdoch’s former spokesman, at taxpayers’ expense, to help it repair its damaged relationship with the Abbott government and stem criticism from News Corporation.
Recognising the public broadcaster has a serious problem with the government, ABC managing director Mark Scott has turned to gun crisis-management consultant Andrew Butcher to tell him how to improve the ABC’s public image…
The Australian can reveal the ABC is paying the Melbourne-based corporate strategist $600 an hour for advice and flew him to Sydney early last month to have a one-on-one session with Mr Scott.
But to be clear. My advice to the ABC is not meant specifically to “repair its damaged relationship with the Abbott government and stem criticism from News Corporation”, and I’d be rather cross if the ABC is paying taxpayers’ money to Butcher to achieve that end, too. That stinks of political deals and secret influence peddling. It would be grossly improper.
All I want is for the ABC to provide the balance it promises in its own charter. Its failure to even try to achieve that balance, or to even admit to its pronounced imbalance in its news and current affairs presentation, is what outrages so many conservatives, including those in News Corp and the Liberal Party.
Fix that bias with a bit of balance and the ABC will have no problem with conservatives. It should not need a former News Corp PR man, even one as nice as Butcher, to tell the ABC just to do its job.
UPDATE
ABC managing director Mark Scott insists he cannot see the Leftist bias of his presenters:
I don’t know how our journalists vote. I don’t know what their personal views are.
That answer is deceptive and treats his critics - and audience - like idiots, as I’ve noted before:
First, this is evasive. I also don’t know how Kelly votes. For the Greens or Labor? Did Adams vote in 2007 for Labor, his long-time party, or for the Climate Change Coalition his wife helped to create? Did Green, whose party in 2007 included a John Howard pinata, vote Labor, Greens or informal? Did Trioli, who protested against Howard and made “he’s-mad” signals when interviewing Barnaby Joyce on TV, vote Socialist or Labor?
Like Scott, I just don’t know. But I do know that whatever way they voted, their ideological leanings are to the Left, and if Scott doesn’t know that, too, he is remarkably ignorant.
In fact, I don’t think he’s being frank. Take his claim that he doesn’t “know what their personal views are” ...

Does Scott seriously assert that he doesn’t know Jones is a global warming evangelist who has been chosen a number of times by warmist conferences to mc the event or moderate the discussions?
Does he really know know that Barrie Cassidy, a former adviser to Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, is a close friend of the Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s partner, and is largely defensive of Gillard on his show?
Has he never heard Trioli opine on his airwaves that the September 11 attacks were possibly the work of the FBI and the correct way to deal with Osama bin Laden was be “sitting down with him, treating him like a human being and talking about it, and then Osama bin Laden going home again, not bombing the hell out of bin Laden?”
Is Scott honestly unaware that Science Show presenter Robyn Wiliiams is such a warming catastrophist that he claimed sea level rises this century of up to 100 metres were “possible, yes”? Or that Williams campaigned against the ABC screening a documentary sceptical of the warming scare?
And here is just today’s example to add to the list:

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AND they say there is no anti-government bias at the ABC. ABC newsreader and Business Today presenter, Whitney Fitzsimmons has posted a photograph on her Facebook page of a woman wearing a charming T-shirt that reads “F. . k Tony Abbott.”
She also likes the comments underneath the photograph, which read “simple yet effective” and “Oddly, Miranda Devine has the same shirt.” This matter was a tough one for ABC’s new chief spinner, Nick Leys, who took two days to come back to Diary when we asked him how the ABC could provide objective and balanced coverage of politics when their journalists posted material like this on Facebook. Finally he said, “While she did take the photograph and post it to her personal Facebook page, she in no way endorses the views on display.” Aaah. If only there was an unendorse button on Facebook.

Speaking of ABC bias, did it slip the ABC’s memory that Michael Williamson. today taken into custody after pleading guilty to fraud, was once the national president of the Labor party? No mention of that fact in its report.
(Thanks to reader Joe.) 
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Why does the Left not longer admit it?

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (1:12pm)

Culture wars, Media

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CONSERVATIVES must be winning. We’ve made the Left so ashamed, they are running a mile from the word. 

All over the country, ageing Leftists are hiding their Che Guevara T-shirts and pulling on cardigans and “who me?” expressions.
Take last Friday, when Left-wing publisher Morry Schwartz went on the Left-wing ABC to plug his new Saturday Paper.
Schwartz’s paper has a stable of pink-hued writers, from huffster David Marr to the even more Left-wing Robert Manne, and ABC host Jon Faine drew the obvious conclusion.
Faine: So it’s going to have a Left-of-centre focus?
Schwartz (horrified): No ... Centrist. Progressive and centrist.
And the next day we saw what Schwartz’s “progressive and centrist” newspaper looked like — exactly like a Leftist one.
(Read full article here.) 
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Does anyone believe Turnbull?

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (11:57am)


I did wonder why Malcolm Turnbull was happy to launch the last Left-wing publication of Left-wing publisher Morry Schwartz when it was bound to do precisely what it has - savage conservatives, including those in his own Liberal party.
And to compound that political error:

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has denied he was referring to News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch when he referred to a “demented plutocrat” during his speech to launch The Saturday Paper.
During the speech on Friday night Turnbull repeatedly went off-script and made several jibes which appeared to be at the expense of News Corp’s flagship newspaper The Australian and Murdoch.
After lavishing praise on The Saturday Paper’s founder Morry Schwartz and his contribution to Australia’s “intellectual life”, Turnbull quipped: “You are not some demented plutocrat pouring more and more money into a loss making venture that is just going to peddle your opinions.”
However, in a blog posting on his website today Turnbull denied the line was intended for Murdoch, saying: “Given that earlier in my speech I had referred to William Randolph Hearst (immortalised by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane) I was surprised that some people have inferred I was referring to Rupert Murdoch.”
Really? The gasps of the audience suggests they took it another way.
And, indeed, the abridged version of his speech - which, like the version put on Turnbull’s own website, misses any Hearst reference - suggests something else:

[Can] I say my estimation of Michael Stutchbury has dramatically diminished ever since I read the persistent editorialising in The Australian about of how he never kept his desk clean — his deficiencies. It’s extraordinary.
That’s the great thing about The Australian — there is nothing too small…
Chris Mitchell this week noted that although The Australian has 65,000 paying digital subscribers print still accounts for 90 per cent of its revenue. Across the Australian industry, digital revenue still only accounts for nine per cent of all income — advertising still accounts for 61 per cent and physical circulation accounts for 29 per cent…
Morry, it is worth reflecting on this. The contribution you have made to the intellectual life of Australia — the public debate in Australia — establishing, supporting and bringing to economic viability The Monthly, The Quarterly Essay and Black Inc alone is an extraordinary one.
That’s a remarkable thing to do. You have made an enormous impact. Many people have spent a lot more money a lot less effectively than you. The combination of vision, passions, truths — you have added immeasurably to the intellectual life of Australia....
Morry you have given everyone enormous optimism not because you are a rich guy – as Deng Xiaoping it is glorious to be rich – but you not only start these publishing venture but you have actually made them profitable.
You are not some demented plutocrat pouring more and more money into a loss making venture that is just going to peddle your opinions. 
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One of these Qantas plans can’t fly

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (10:09am)

The Coalition’s plan to help Qantas:

Federal cabinet will tonight discuss changes to the Qantas Sale Act, including a relaxation of the restriction limiting foreign ownership to 49 per cent and stipulations that a majority of maintenance facilities and other significant operations be located in Australia…
While senior government sources said the debt guarantee was off the table at the moment, changes to the Qantas Sale Act will be taken to cabinet by Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss tonight and the package could be expanded if the airline’s position did not improve…
Family First senator-elect Bob Day, who will take his seat after July 1, told The Australian last night he would back changes to the Qantas Sales Act. “Qantas should be freed of all kinds of restrictions to compete,” he said.
Samuel J at Catallaxy sums up Labor’s alternative plan:

Labor’s five-point plan for Qantas:

Sack Alan Joyce Provide a government guarantee for Qantas debt
Keep the carbon tax
Support union activism
Restrict sale rights for Qantas stock
I am not sure if Labor is brainless or thinks voters are. But I do know which plan is more likely to destroy the airline.

(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Demetriou resigns. This ends the “blackest day in sport”

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (9:49am)

Andrew Demetriou is resigning as head of the AFL. After this and this and this I am not surprised.
Remember Demetriou’s role of one of the most scandalous and damaging beat ups in sport:
It was in February that the Gillard Government made the chiefs of five big sports codes - including the AFL - stand on a stage like guilty men as ministers Jason Clare and Kate Lundy lectured us on how Australian sport was corrupted with drug cheating, match-fixing and organised crime.
Really? So in the two months since, why have we seen not a single player of any code charged? Not a single drug test failed? Not a single instance of match-fixing found?
Where the hell is the proof?
The people behind this farce must be sweating. The search must be on for some face-saver. A scapegoat.
Step up, James Hird.
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Protecting the body, prostituting the mind

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (9:34am)

Pathetic. Being more moral now means telling lies:
For nearly 50 years, a black and white photograph from the battle of Suoi Chau Pha, where six Australians were killed and 14 wounded, gave meaning to [Kerry] Williams’ life. To his family and fellow air force mates, he was the man holding the plasma bottle keeping an injured digger alive....
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The composition is simple but filled with urgency. It shows a man wearing a flight suit, with the surname Williams monogrammed across his chest. He is hoisting a bottle over an injured soldier being borne on a stretcher by three army medics at Nui Dat forward detachment. Ignoring the lit cigarette in his right hand, the plasma-bearer’s eyes are fixed on the injured digger....
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In 2012, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs upset Mr Williams’ fragile world. The department used, and altered, the photo for its Remembrance Day poster and calendar.  
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The American cigarette in the right hand was photoshopped out.
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Late on Friday afternoon, after earlier Fairfax Media inquiries, the [Veterans Affairs] department advised that it would follow the War Memorial ruling and change its caption to identify Kerin Williams in the photo (Kerry is his preferred name). It rejected suggestions bullet holes in the helicopter were removed but admitted photoshopping the cigarette out of the image.
Mistakes I can accept. But lying?
Is protecting health really worth prostituting the mind?
(Thanks to reader CA.) 
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A media bound in blood to Labor’s deadliest mistake

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (9:13am)

Amanda Vanstone nails one of the most disagraceful and deadly lies of Labor and its media supporters:
Quite a few media commentators refused to accept that Labor’s dismantling of the strong border protection policies of the Howard government opened the floodgates. Labor spun out the line that the increased boat arrivals were due to ‘’push’’ factors. It was garbage. It was a cruel hoax. Now, with strong policies, a strong minister and a government with some gumption, everyone can see the truth.
How many journalists let Labor run that stupid, pathetic excuse? Do they now feel guilty, or at least complicit in one of the greatest hoaxes a government has ever tried on?
As I wrote in 2010:
The fact is many journalists, just like [Greens leader Bob] Brown, have been forced to contemplate the carnage wreaked by policies they promoted out of a lazy desire to seem good.
The bodies in the ocean tell them how lethally wrong they were.
That is why my demand that Gillard resign, her Government having blood on its hand, has so outraged them.
If the Government has blood on its hands for persisting in policies that have lured so many to their deaths - more than 200 now in at least 10 known disasters since 2008 - what of the journalists who backed them?
In their guilty rage they have lashed out at me. But, far worse, they have shielded Gillard.
Barely one has held the Prime Minister to account for those policies. Too soon, they cry.
Yet it’s not too soon for journalists such as David Marr to blame the navy, or a Dennis Atkins to blame the meanness of the Australian mob, or a Heather Ewart to wonder if the Christmas Islanders could have done more.
But Gillard is spared almost all such blame and questioning. It is sick.
And, I repeat, it is a sign of the media’s complicity and guilt.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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This isn’t immigration but colonisation

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (9:01am)

An easier solution would be not to import people needing such fundamental instruction in the most basic cultural values of the West:
There are at least 60 child brides living in south-western Sydney, and many more girls are destined to be forced into under-age marriage, according to the head of a women’s health centre.
Eman Sharobeem works with teenage girls in Fairfield, Liverpool and Cabramatta. Many of them have been married in the past three years.
She said that forced and under-age marriages would not stop until immigrants received education the moment that they stepped onto Australian soil. If they were not educated about Australian values and laws, new arrivals would continue to be taught by already settled communities who encouraged the illegal and archaic practice, she said.

Immigration today isn’t what it was through much of last century. We have now reached a critical mass with many immigrant cultures, which have enough members concentrated in some suburbs to maintain their own culture. Add the Internet, cheap air fares and satellite TV beaming in programs from the Middle East and Africa and you have not immigration but colonisation.
(Thanks to reader Peter H.) 
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No, I wasn’t being rude to sparkling Gerard

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (8:18am)

Thanks for the hundreds of kind comments about yesterday’s (bigger) Bolt Report. Most praise seemed to be for the new NewsWatch segment, yesterday with Gerard Henderson as a sparkling guest, and most criticism of me was about its abrupt end.
I should deal with the speculation. No, Gerard wasn’t about to say something dangerous. No, I wasn’t being rude. And you are right: the more of Gerard the better. His takedown of the Saturday Paper particularly was very funny.
But in the drama of putting our first one-hour show to air that pre-recorded segment was quickly shaved of some 20 seconds we needed for the Your Say segment at the end, which I was busily recording. Normally we’d spend time making that cut far smoother.
I have apologised to Gerard for the edit, and assure you all we cut out more of me than him.
Next week’s NewsWatch guest is Rowan Dean. Gerard will be back within the month and has agreed to appear on high rotation throughout the year. I have ordered a pair of kid gloves. I will also see if we can get the clip loaded onto my page. (If someone’s got it, could they kindly post it to me?) 
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In this new world, the only way we pay for Qantas is by flying on it

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (8:10am)

I WON’T cry for Qantas. Lazy Australia is being wiped away — with their bosses and unions still screaming for taxpayer help. 

Holden and Toyota, having wasted billions in subsidies to help pay for their amazing union deals, are closing down now there’s nothing left to loot.
SPC Ardmona, having also agreed to absurd wages and conditions, now holds a begging bowl for government grants.
Alcoa, for years gobbling electricity at cut-rate prices from government, is closing a smelter now the tap is off. And Qantas, which for years paid above-market rates to its workforce, now admits aggressive competition is bleeding it dry and 5000 workers must go.
(Yet even that wake-up doesn’t stop its unions from threatening more strikes.)
Enough. No tears for them. No handouts, either.
The world has changed.
(Read full article here.) 
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But don’t call the Saturday Paper a Left-wing rag

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (7:28am)

Former Labor speechwriter Troy Bramston, usually so serious, has a nice line in reviewing Morry Schwartz’s latest Left-wing publication, the Saturday Paper:
Mungo MacCallum provided a cryptic crossword. MacCallum is described as “one of Australia’s most influential and entertaining political journalists”. So there are jokes, too.
And Bramston, too, notes what I’ve discussed in my column above and with Gerard Henderson yesterday - this ludicrous example of the strange unwillingness of the Left to admit to being exactly what it is:
This is a publication that caters to the narrow green-Left fringe audience clustered around the affluent inner-city suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Its coverage was predictable: Australia’s bipartisan and “barbaric” asylum-seeker policy, mooted savage budget cuts that could force up the cost of medicines, another of David Marr’s tedious critiques of George Pell, an account of “embattled” Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash, among other polemics… [On] the next page was a satirical yet shallow and conceited “comment” by Richard Flanagan contemptuously characterising the attitude western Sydney voters have towards asylum-seekers. “Bomb the boats and kill all the illegals,” he wrote.
The first editorial provided an opportunity for the editor, Erik Jensen, to articulate The Saturday Paper’s values, identify its audience and argue what it wanted to achieve and why. Oddly, he proclaimed: ”We have no agenda and no single view.”
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Sexton: Jewish leaders should know free speech is their best defence

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (7:16am)

NSW Solicitor-General Michael Sexton is worried - as am I - that many “leaders” of the Jewish community are fighting to preserve the parts of the Racial Discrimination Act that stifle free speech:

The notions of offence, insult and humiliation ... involve hurt to feelings. This is always unattractive for the subject of the verbal attack but these shock tactics have always been legitimate tools of debate on questions of politics and public interest.
Sometimes these attacks are totally unreasonable. But there should be no place in a federal or state statute for a prohibition on their use in public discussion of social and economic issue… The right response to speech that one finds offensive is one’s own speech, not suppression....
It would, however, be a pity if representatives of the Jewish community in Australia allowed themselves to be used as part of a campaign to stop the repeal of section 18C. In the long run they have the same interest in freedom of speech as everyone else. As the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes said more than a century ago: “We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expressions of opinions we loathe.”
Do Jewish leaders really want to be seen on the side of oppression? On the side of authoritarianism? Do they really fear their ability to succeed in a free debate?
No one in the mainstream media has argued more strongly for Jewish causes than have I, and I say that Jewish representatives who trash free speech are trashing their best defence - and the strength of their best defenders. 
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But of course Tim Smith won

Andrew Bolt March 03 2014 (6:59am)

Why the surprise? Tim Smith is young, talented, determined, personable and - as he showed as Mayor of Stonnington - a great media performer . Of course Liberal members would be glad to have him:
VICTORIAN Liberal Party delegates delivered Denis Napthine a crushing blow to his leadership authority yesterday when it backed a 30-year-old former suburban mayor ahead of one of the Premier’s “rising cabinet stars” in a preselection for a safe seat. 

Bitter recriminations flowed after Victorian Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge was left without a seat for the November 29 election when delegates comfortably backed Tim Smith as candidate for the safe Liberal electorate of Kew.

I’m assured Wooldridge has talent, too, but how come I can’t even place her after all her time as a frontbencher?
I would have thought there was something wrong with the Liberals not to choose Smith. Now I think there’s something wrong with Napthine’s advisers that they didn’t think so, too.
And, of course, there’s now all the more reason to rate Josh Frydenberg, already a parliamentary secretary and with a rocket under his career:
The vote has broad implications for the party federally, with Tony Abbott’s right-hand man Josh Frydenberg being vindicated after refusing to force Mr Smith to stand aside for Ms Wooldridge, who lost the ballot by more than 50 votes.
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March 3: Clean Monday (Eastern Christianity, 2014); Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2014); Liberation Day in Bulgaria (1878); Casimir Pulaski Day inIllinois (2014); Hinamatsuri in Japan
First AT&T logo from 1889
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“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside.” - Job 23:10-11
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
March 2: Morning
"But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock." - 1 Samuel 13:20
We are engaged in a great war with the Philistines of evil. Every weapon within our reach must be used. Preaching, teaching, praying, giving, all must be brought into action, and talents which have been thought too mean for service, must now be employed. Coulter, and axe, and mattock, may all be useful in slaying Philistines; rough tools may deal hard blows, and killing need not be elegantly done, so long as it is done effectually. Each moment of time, in season or out of season; each fragment of ability, educated or untutored; each opportunity, favourable or unfavourable, must be used, for our foes are many and our force but slender.

Most of our tools want sharpening; we need quickness of perception, tact, energy, promptness, in a word, complete adaptation for the Lord's work. Practical common sense is a very scarce thing among the conductors of Christian enterprises. We might learn from our enemies if we would, and so make the Philistines sharpen our weapons. This morning let us note enough to sharpen our zeal during this day by the aid of the Holy Spirit. See the energy of the Papists, how they compass sea and land to make one proselyte, are they to monopolize all the earnestness? Mark the heathen devotees, what tortures they endure in the service of their idols! are they alone to exhibit patience and self-sacrifice? Observe the prince of darkness, how persevering in his endeavours, how unabashed in his attempts, how daring in his plans, how thoughtful in his plots, how energetic in all! The devils are united as one man in their infamous rebellion, while we believers in Jesus are divided in our service of God, and scarcely ever work with unanimity. O that from Satan's infernal industry we may learn to go about like good Samaritans, seeking whom we may bless!
Evening
"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." -1 Peter 2:7
The apostle Paul felt it a great privilege to be allowed to preach the gospel. He did not look upon his calling as a drudgery, but he entered upon it with intense delight. Yet while Paul was thus thankful for his office, his success in it greatly humbled him. The fuller a vessel becomes, the deeper it sinks in the water. Idlers may indulge a fond conceit of their abilities, because they are untried; but the earnest worker soon learns his own weakness. If you seek humility, try hard work; if you would know your nothingness, attempt some great thing for Jesus. If you would feel how utterly powerless you are apart from the living God, attempt especially the great work of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ, and you will know, as you never knew before, what a weak unworthy thing you are. Although the apostle thus knew and confessed his weakness, he was never perplexed as to the subject of his ministry. From his first sermon to his last, Paul preached Christ, and nothing but Christ. He lifted up the cross, and extolled the Son of God who bled thereon. Follow his example in all your personal efforts to spread the glad tidings of salvation, and let "Christ and him crucified" be your ever recurring theme. The Christian should be like those lovely spring flowers which, when the sun is shining, open their golden cups, as if saying, "Fill us with thy beams!" but when the sun is hidden behind a cloud, they close their cups and droop their heads. So should the Christian feel the sweet influence of Jesus; Jesus must be his sun, and he must be the flower which yields itself to the Sun of Righteousness. Oh! to speak of Christ alone, this is the subject which is both "seed for the sower, and bread for the eater." This is the live coal for the lip of the speaker, and the master-key to the heart of the hearer.
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Bartholomew 
[Bärthŏl'omew] - son of tolmai.
One of the twelve, mentioned only in the lists of the apostles (Matt. 10:3,Mark 3:18; Mark 3:18; Acts 1:13). Bartholomew is really not a name but a patronymic. This apostle is identified as Nathanael.
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Today's reading: Numbers 23-25, Mark 7:14-37 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Numbers 23-25

Balaam's First Message
1 Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me." 2 Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
3 Then Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you." Then he went off to a barren height....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 7:14-37

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them."
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn't go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)



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