Saturday, March 01, 2014

Sat Mar 1st Todays News

The ABC wasn't competent last year either. Last year, Morrison was being verbal-ed by the press. The last pope stepped down graciously, and was savaged. AGW alarmists had made some obvious gaffes. Part of this posting includes items from a year ago. 

 Today is the anniversary of the first Roman King celebrating the first Roman triumph. Two hundred and fifty years after, the Roman Republic celebrated her first victory. Five hundred years after that, on this day, a Roman army entered Athens. But although it was a good day for Roman conquests, Charles 1st England bungled by taxing everyone for things that not everyone needed. It was three years into his reign, and twenty one years later his subjects cut off his head. It was a diplomatic coup when, on this day in 1917, The US released publicly the Zimmerman telegram from Germany to Mexico suggesting Mexico fight the US if the US went to Britain's aid. Germany had already sunk US sea craft. A month later, US entered the war. In 1914, a Captain Berry had jumped out of a plane at 152 metres height .. with a parachute. 1932, Charles Lindbergh's son was kidnapped and murdered. An investigator Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr failed to retrieve the child alive, but his son became a commanding General in the first Gulf War. In 1971, friends of Obama blew up a mens room in the Capitol. 

 This year, Morrison is being verbal-ed by the press. The Pope has promoted Cardinal Pell, who is attacked by the press. AGW alarmists have made some obvious gaffes.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Frank Aksoy. Born the same day as Romulus celebrated the first Roman victory. May all roads lead to your dealership.
Hatches
Matches
Despatches
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IT’S CHASING ME

Tim Blair – Saturday, March 01, 2014 (2:49am)

The scene this morning at my Wyoming hotel.
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TIM vs THE POLAR VORTEX, PART II: THE DAWN OF SEAN

Tim Blair – Friday, February 28, 2014 (7:34pm)

The story so far: due to a lack of climate change awareness, Tim has become trapped by snow somewhere between Seattle and Spokane. No rescuers are available, his door is blocked by snow and Tim has just remembered his rental agreement forbids him from smoking in the vehicle. How can he possibly escape? Does anyone even want him to escape? What lurks in the woods? Is Bigfoot carnivorous?

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'TIM vs THE POLAR VORTEX, PART II: THE DAWN OF SEAN'
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CRAZY FROM THE HEAT

Tim Blair – Friday, February 28, 2014 (7:31pm)

Your global warming headline of the month:

image

Add it to the list.
(Via Adam I)
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THEY’RE SORRY … NOW

Tim Blair – Friday, February 28, 2014 (7:24pm)

Australian sorryists deliver a killer load of compassionate head-tilts, along with some spectacular long-distance gazes of concern. Also, there are cats and teddy bears.
None of them mention the drownings.
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KNOWING ISLAM

Tim Blair – Friday, February 28, 2014 (7:20pm)

A point of clarification from representatives of a famously peaceful religion: 
The Islamist killers of Drummer Lee Rigby erupted into violence in an Old Bailey courtroom as they were sentenced for murder.
Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, had to be manhandled out of court by security guards after being told by Mr Justice Sweeney that their crime was a “betrayal of Islam”.
Adebolajo screamed at the judge as he was manhandled down the dock stairs in the historic Court No 2 but, in scenes lasting several minutes, his co-defendant was held to the floor and cuffed before being carried downstairs head first …
Angered by the judges’ comments about Islam, Adebowale stood up and shouted: “That’s a lie. It’s not a betrayal of Islam. You don’t know what Islam is.” 
Oh, yes we do. 
The struggle erupted as the murderer yelled: “I swear by Allah that America and Britain will never have any safety. Allahu Akbar [God is Great].” 
Perhaps the ABC will take this as the primary and official confirmation they’ve long wanted.
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HIPSTERS MOVE IN ON GHOST TERRITORY

Tim Blair – Friday, February 28, 2014 (6:53pm)

Tim Flannery once predicted that Perth might become “the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis”. Instead, the city faces something even worse: 
The capital of Western Australia, where some 1.8 of the state’s two million residents live, left this New Yorker mesmerized: Could a city really be so easy, breezy, green and pristine — so positively livable? I’d thought Williamsburg was hipster heaven; it pales beside Perth. 
Destroy it. Immediately.
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How low can the Herald go to smear Pell?

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (1:22pm)


Fairfax hangs the name of one of the world’s greatest mass-murderers around the neck of Cardinal Pell:

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(Thanks to reader Brian.) 
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University is the last refuge of the failed Labor Minister

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (9:33am)

Our universities are extraordinarily generous in offering former Labor politicians refuge - and money.
This week’s example comes from Victoria’s most Left-wing university, which absurdly honours a former Attorney-General who tried to censor political debate at the workplace - which I kind of expected a university to deplore:
The Honourable Nicola Roxon will become an Adjunct Professor within the College of Law and Justice at Victoria University.
A full list of such appointments would be telling.
Must get onto it.
UPDATE
Check, for instance, the list of Melbourne University’s Vice Chancellor’s Fellows:
image
And check the sole former Liberal MP chosen for “balance” - Petro Georgiou, more famous for his criticisms of the Howard Government’s policies than any he ever made of Labor.
UPDATE
Or take the fellows of the Senate of Sydney University.
They include a reconciliation activist who identifies as a Torres Strait Islander, an ABC staffer, an editor of the Left-wing Matilda, a Fairfax writer with a red bandana and pink politics, and one former ex-politician - yes, another Labor one, Verity Firth.
UPDATE
Monash University’s council has one former politician - Labor’s Simon Crean. Plus the Labor heroine Christine Nixon, the former Chief Commission who notoriously left the Black Saturday emergency centre to go eat with friends. 
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Journalists should unite against Palmer’s ban: boycott the buffoon

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (9:00am)

Journalists should defend the right of Nicolas Perpitch - and any other Australian journalist - to report:
THE Australian has been kicked out of a Palmer United Party press conference in Perth after the newspaper was labelled “antagonistic’’.
PUP media adviser Andrew Crook said party leader Clive Palmer did not want The Australian at the party’s announcement today of its candidates for the state’s April 5 Senate election re-run. Reporter Nicolas Perpitch was escorted out of the press conference to a waiting Mr Crook, who said it was PUP’s event at Perth’s Hyatt Hotel and it could invite who it liked....
Mr Crook said The Australian was an “antagonistic’’ newspaper and not welcome. Questioned by other reporters inside the event, Mr Palmer said it occurred because: “We don’t recognise The Australian as a newspaper, simple as that.
“There’s been a campaign run against me by The Australian because he’s upset — (News Corp executive chairman) Mr (Rupert) Murdoch’s upset that I don’t support Tony Abbott as prime minister.’’
Journalists should boycott Palmer’s press conference until he drops this ban. No leader of a political party should be able to pick and choose which reporters to exclude from a press conference on the basis of the perceived bias of their boss. Put it this way: what would the gallery think if Tony Abbott excluded the ABC?
Defend the profession from bullies the like of Palmer. Boycott the buffoon.
UPDATE
A precedent - the stand White House correspondents took when the Obama Administration tried to ban Fox News from a pool interview with Obama administration “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg:
Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente ... said that CBS News Washington Bureau Chief and current pool chairman Chris Isham ... received a call from the Treasury Department Thursday saying that Feinberg would be available to speak to all of the networks in the pool except for Fox News, and that Bloomberg would be included instead.
Clemente said that when Isham presented that scenario on a conference call with the other pool members — including Fox News — “they unanimously said, instantly, no, that’s not gonna fly. Either Fox is in or none of us is doing it.”
Once Isham relayed that message to Treasury, Treasury cleared it with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who approved Feinberg’s interview with Fox News’ Major Garrett…
“If any member had been excluded it would have been the same thing, it has nothing to do with Fox or the White House or the substance of the issues,” one pool network bureau chief told TPM Friday. “It’s all for one and one for all.”
The media here should take the same stand. Boycott the buffoon until he drops his ban. 
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The government grows a spine

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (8:37am)

Many conservatives and free-market economists feared Tony Abbott was a old-style Catholic interventionist who’d use government patronage to “save” jobs and prop up pet industries.

I was also seriously worried a couple of months ago that the Government had failed to develop an economic narrative and, crumbling to political pressure, would waste more billions in industry assistance to dying and incompetently managed companies at the cost of the good ones.
Not a bit of it. The past few weeks have actually been exciting:

TRANSPORT Minister Warren Truss has hardened the government’s opposition to a debt guarantee for Qantas, saying the airline’s plans for recovery are not dependent on commonwealth backing for its debt.
Ahead of an expected cabinet discussion on Qantas on Monday, Mr Truss said that, while the airline faced significant challenges, it was not at a critical point that would require such an intervention as a debt guarantee…
Coalition sources said yesterday Tony Abbott cooled on the idea of a debt guarantee for Qantas early this week, effectively rolling Joe Hockey, who had strongly hinted in recent weeks that the government would support the move.
Phil Coorey says no, Hockey, a real powerhouse in the economic debate, is right on board:
People close to both men say that – public language aside – there is no difference between the pair over Qantas. The Prime Minister just happens to be more linear in his approach.
And although the government would never say it publicly, it too has concerns about the way Qantas has been managed, which further fuels its reluctance to be a debt guarantor.
Abbott’s language in Parliament against a debt guarantee appeared definitive, but those close to him say the prospect is not entirely dead… Abbott’s belief that the playing field should be levelled by amending the (Qantas Sale) Act would remove the government from any more responsibility for Qantas, other than deciding on a foreign takeover bid that has already been scrutinised by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
And once again Labor is crippled by its union ties, which are corrupting its policy stands:
Labor...believes Qantas should remain majority Australian owned and it knows that if the Act were amended, ­Qantas would offshore thousands more maintenance jobs.
The unions, especially the Transport Workers Union and the Australian Services Union, would not have a bar of it and any shift by the opposition would spark a civil war inside the labour movement.
Which means Labor is demanding policies which would kill Qantas or bleed taxpayers so Qantas unions can keep promising members the mirage of high wages and life-time jobs.
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 
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The Left should thank Morrison for saving us from Rudd’s 10,000

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (8:21am)

Kevin Rudd’s Immigration Minister, Tony Burke, last year suggested as many as 10,000 boat people might be held on Manus Island under Labor’s policies:
Burke ...  knows the capacity issue on Manus is the most vulnerable part of Labor’s policy, which is why he was so vocal this week about options for expansion. These included ... a vacant 265ha site which he says could hold up to 10,000 people…
But the Coalition’s attack on the deal was undermined this week by the PNG government, which sought to dispel doubts it was willing to accept large numbers of asylum-seekers.

These doubts had been fanned by ambiguous comments made by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill about the fact he did not expect more than 3000 people to be resettled on Manus. Labor interpreted these comments as meaning he expected the policy to work before such capacity was reached… Labor’s interpretation proved to be correct, with PNG’s Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato saying this week that PNG would agree to greater capacity… In addition, PNG’s chief migration officer, Mataio Rabura, told The Australian this week that Manus could eventually hold up to 15,000 people,
So you’d think the Left would thank the Abbott Government for stopping the boats and limiting the detainees on Manus to just 1325 - and falling:

Immigration and Border Protection Minister Scott Morrison said ... 11 Iranians were among 17 asylum-seekers who volunteered to return to their home countries in the week up to 9am yesterday. They included three people who went back to Iraq, and three to India.  Mr Morrison said ... 171 asylum-seekers had gone home voluntarily since the Coalition won government in September.
He said no people-smuggling boats had made it to Australia in the past 71 days....
There were 1325 asylum-seekers in the centre on Manus Island and 1107 on Nauru.
Where’s the thanks to Morrison?
UPDATE
Peter Hartcher:
The market price for a place on a boat to Australia is signalling that the message is getting through. The people smugglers had been charging $10,000 or more but now promise passage for as little as $1000.... Friday marked the 71st day without a boat arrival. This is the longest since Rudd dismantled the successful Howard government policy in 2008. It has been six months and with 1500 journeys disrupted on land, two (transfer) rescues at sea and eight turnbacks.
The message is also getting through to Sydney Morning Herald commentators:

(I)f there is ever to be an end to the suffering in the detention centres, the only realistic solution will be when there is an end to the arrival of new detainees. Likewise, the only realistic way to bring an end to the drownings at sea that took the lives of 1100 asylum seekers in the last few years will be when there is an end to the flow of unsafe boats sent to carry them…
So far, Morrison’s policy has been ugly but effective. He has no critics within his party, even among the moderate Liberals. One of his ministerial colleagues put it this way: “When we look at Scott, we think two things. One, ‘thank God it’s not me in that job.’ Two, ‘it’s working.’”

UPDATE
This in no way excuses Reza Berati’s death in the riot on Manus. But this does suggest we are not talking about an asylum seeker but an economic migrant trying to get in illegally:
Mr Barati had graduated as an architect, but like more than 20 per cent of his countrymen, he had been unable to find work in Iran’s sanction-strapped economy, the brother-in-law said. He had set out for Australia hoping to further his architectural studies.

This is not the picture that Greens MP Adam Bandt painted in incendiary colours:
A young man came to our doorstep seeking our help and we killed him.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and Wiley.) 
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Malcolm Turnbull to launch Left-wing newspaper attacking Abbott and Morrison

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (7:49am)

Left-wing property developer Morry Schwarz has today launched this Left-wing newspaper, staffed by Left-wing journalists, attacking the Left wing’s pet hate figures:

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It’s chocka with attacks on the Abbott Government and conservatives generally:
Also in the launch issue is ... a piece on Cardinal George Pell’s appointment to a senior finance role at the Vatican, written by ex-Fairfax scribe David Marr — who last year wrote an essay for Schwartz’s Quarterly Essay on how Pell dealt with claims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Other stories include an article about whether the Abbott government will cut back the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and a piece by Debra Jopson on Senator Fiona Nash and her bungled Health Star Rating website launch.
So who did Schwartz, who comically claimed yesterday his paper would not be Left-wing, get to launch this Left-wing newspaper, so full of vitriol for the Abbott Government?
The 32-page paper, bankrolled by Melbourne publisher and property developer Morry Schwartz, will be launched by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney tonight. Turnbull has even written for the magazine, giving it cover as its token Liberal, and wishing its endeavours succeed ...::
I wish the editors and journalists of The Saturday Paper the best of luck in their endeavours.
Add that to Turnbull’s long list of political misjudgements and disloyalties.
UPDATE
In Schwartz’s don’t-call-it-Left-wing paper, this extraordinary exhortation:

Bomb the boats and kill all the illegals.
That’s Richard Flanagan doing an Elizabeth Farrelly, peopling Australia with hideous creatures of his self-pleasuring imagination. The Left really has not the faintest understanding of - or love for - their fellow citizens. 
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With unions like this, don’t blame Joyce

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (7:33am)

Judith Sloan tackles the know-alls now claiming Qantas boss Alan Joyce was wrong to lock out his workers in October 2011 as they fought his attempts to cut costs:
This is just a flavour of what he was up against (the outlined events occurred between 13 April 2011 and 29 October 2011) :

Union (ALAEA) notifies Qantas of protected industrial action in the form of a one hour stoppage at all Australian ports between 8 am and 9 am;

A single employee, the president of ALAEA, engages in a one hour stoppage;
ALAEA notifies Qantas of protected industrial action in the form of indefinite overtime bans and 2 hour stoppages between 1 am and midday in Melbourne;
Ditto Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide/Darwin on successive days;
ALAEA notifies Qantas of one minute work stoppage for 15 July 2011, overtime bans and a limitation on how work is customarily performed;
AIPA notifies Qantas of protected industrial action by long haul pilots in the form of bans on complying with Qantas’ in-flight announcement policy and performing work in a manner different from that which is customarily performed;
AIPA notifies Qantas of protected industrial action by two long haul pilots in the form of two minute work stoppages;
Pilots start making AIPA endorsed passenger announcements;
One pilot implemented a ban on working days off;
One pilot engages in two, two minute stoppages;
NUW notifies Qantas of national wide 24 hour stoppages;
ALAEA notifies Qantas of one hour stoppages each weekday from 25 August to 16 December;
ALAEA notifies Qantas of protected industrial action in the form of weekend overtime bans;
TWU notifies Qantas of 4 hour stoppages in all mainland cites and higher duties ban of 48 hours duration;
ALAEA notifies Qantas of full shift stoppages at the heavy maintenance facilities (Avalon and Brisbane)
TWU notifies Qantas of one hour stoppages at 8 am at all major airports;
ALEA calls off four hour work stoppages due to start later that day;
TWU members (baggage handlers and ground crew) engage in two, two hour work stoppages in Melbourne and Sydney;
TWU lodges an application with Fair Work Australia for a good faith bargaining order, claiming Qantas breached good faith obligations by notifying TWU members through a ‘late-night post delivery’ that Qantas would not accept part performance;
TWU rejects Qantas offer of 3% pa pay increase, a 1% increase to superannuation, no forced redundancies for the life of the agreement;
TWU notifies Qantas (date of AGM) of a one-hour stop-work meeting;
Ground staff participate in nationwide one hour stop meeting.

And as Sloan shows, such is our crazy IR system that Qantas could not get Fair Work Australia to stop this guerrilla campaign to bleed the airline into submission. Only grounding his planes would do it.
And now the unions - having learned nothing - are threatening strikes to stop the airline from saving itself.
Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett takes on the armchair critics of Joyce in a much more personal way:
UPDATE
Reader Kingsley Smith:
What I am finding interesting with Qantas’s current travails is imagine if the Government’s solution was to re-nationalise Qantas and - furthermore - provide more than $1 billion each year to offer completely free flights into the airline market? Imagine how hotly contested this would be with all of Qantas’s competitors. They would be quite rightly completely outraged. Indeed we see Virgin Australia already attacking just the mere prospect of Qantas getting a “mere” government debt guarantee, pointing out that by their calculations it will give Qantas a $100m leg up per annum. 

 Yet I have described essentially what the ABC is, particularly to Fairfax. Yet bar it seems Gay Alcorn who you linked to a while back, no Fairfax journalist is at all concerned about this, in fact quite incredibly they rush to the ABC’s defence.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Who hid the hiatus?

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (7:23am)

The editors of the world’s leading environmental journal, Nature Climate Change, seem to be admitting the public was misled on global warming - but by whom?:
To complicate things even more, in the past decade the climate hasn’t warmed at the rate projected, and evidence of the slowdown in temperature rise has sparked a lively scientific and public debate, as highlighted this month by a collection of articles in our Focus ‘Recent slowdown in global warming’…
The media reporting of a ‘hiatus’ came as a surprise to the public. Prior to this, the message had been of continuous warming — to be suddenly told that this was not true led to confusion. Questions started to arise as to whether the previous message had been incorrect — was global warming not happening?
Does this help to explain that surprise?
April 2012: Warmist Professor Matthew England accuses sceptics of telling untruths when they say the planet hasn’t warmed as the IPCC predicted: 
What Nick just said is actually not true.  The IPCC projections from 1990 have borne out very accurately.
December 2012:  England accuses sceptics of lying when they say the rise in global air temperatures has paused: 
And so anybody out there lying that the IPCC projections are overstatements or that the observations haven’t kept pace with the projections is completely offline with this. The analysis is very clear that the IPCC projections are coming true.
February 2014 - England now admits there has been a “hiatus” in warming, after all, which the IPCC did not predict:

Lead author Professor Matthew England, a climate scientist and oceanographer at the University of New South Wales, says since 2001 global surface temperatures have remained steady despite an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases…
“Even though there is this hiatus in this surface average temperature, we’re still getting record heat waves, we’re still getting harsh bush fires … it shows we shouldn’t take any comfort from this plateau in global average temperatures.”
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Frozen Tim and the Egyptian ankh

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (7:06am)

The story so far: Tim Blair, in the footsteps of Chris ”Ship of Fools” Turney, is trapped by climate change.
Today: Out of the snow, mysterious help emerges and asks:
I’m going to need you to locate the towing pin inside your vehicle. It looks a little like an Egyptian ankh.  
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The sound of five alarmists baa-ing at the UTS

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (5:26am)

What a ”debate” at the University of Technology Sydney looks like:
UTS Speaks: Deluding doubters & double dealings?...
This lecture and panel discussion on Wednesday evening 5 March examines the media’s treatment of climate change and climate science and the forces influencing how news is framed.
Drawing on the FASS Australian Centre for Independent Journalism research on the media’s treatment of climate change and climate science, this public lecture and expert panel discuss our media landscape and the forces influencing how news is framed. It considers whether scientific discoveries and evidence are selectively used or abused in ways that could leave us befuddled, complacent and uncertain whom to believe.
Speakers & panellists 
- Wendy Bacon: Investigative journalist and Professorial Fellow ACIJ UTS
- Professor Peter Ralph: Director of the Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster UTS
- Robyn Williams AM: Science journalist and presenter of ABC Radio National’s The Science Show and Ockham’s Razor.
- Will Steffen: Councillor with the Climate Council of Australia and global change researcher ANU
MC and Panel moderator: Tom Morton Director ACIJ.
That is truly disgraceful. Check the links I’ve added to each name.  Five alarmists agreeing with each other about the wickedness of sceptics.
Some of the world’s leading scientists, including climate scientists, are sceptics. Yet the UTS holds discussions as if sceptics are just tricksters befuddling the gullible. As people who should be excluded from debate.
These academics should ask themselves: are you betraying your duty to nurse the spirit of inquiry? Would free-thinkers be welcome or intimidated where you teach? Would sceptics have to go to another university to pass your courses?
What kind of academic are you really? 
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Conserve your culture like you conserve nature

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (2:20am)

Lovely quote (with acknowledgement to Camus) from French conservative philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, a man concerned about the impact of immigrants who refuse to assimilate:
SPIEGEL: What do you say to people who call you a reactionary?
Finkielkraut: It has become impossible to see history as constant progress. I reserve the possibility to compare yesterday and today and ask the question: What do we retain, what do we abandon?
SPIEGEL: Is that really any more than nostalgia for a lost world?
Finkielkraut: Like Albert Camus, I am of the opinion that our generation’s task is not to recreate the world, but to prevent its decline. We not only have to conserve nature, but also culture. There you have the reactionary.
(Thanks to reader Correllio.) 
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Mark Scott is conning us when he says his ABC isn’t biased - then publishes this hate of Abbott

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (12:52am)

Media

Gerard Henderson, the first guest of my new NewsWatch segment on the Bolt Report (on Sunday), tackles the extraordinary self-deception - or worse - of ABC boss Mark Scott. Read it here:
Thanks to one of MWD’s avid Brisbane readers who drew attention to the interview of Mark Scott, the ABC’s managing director and editor-in-chief, with presenter Steve Austin on ABC Metropolitan Radio 612 in Brisbane which took place on Friday 21 February 2014.
The interview gives a clear example of Mark Scott’s unwillingness to acknowledge any problems of any kind at the ABC… [which] has not one conservative presenter or producer or editor on any of its prominent television or radio or online outlets…

The first question and answer gives a flavour of the interview as the ABC managing director engages in denial followed by passive aggression:

Steve Austin: You’ve been in the job now for, what, seven years I think it is. Where are there any conservative contracted commentators employed by this organisation in any of the flagship programs of the ABC? Mark Scott: Well, you know, there’s an assumption behind your question, Steve, that we put labels on people – and that’s not the kind of broadcasting that we run. I know there are some critics who run that line – but I think it’s an important one to engage on. But take you, for example, I have no idea how you vote. It’s of no interest to me how you vote. But it is of interest to me how you conduct yourself as a broadcaster.
And we have clear editorial policies that guide the way you conduct this program. You are to be fair, you are to be balanced, you are to be impartial, you are to be open minded. And so what I worry about is not how our people vote, I worry about how they do their jobs… So there are some, you know, professional critics of the ABC out there who somehow miraculously think they know what happens in the ballot box for our journalists. The key question is how our journalists perform on air and that’s how we hold them to account.
Now, we have Phillip Adams who’s a champion of the left. I mean he’s held down a position on Radio National for a long time. And Amanda Vanstone has a program on Radio National. But I must say, people who are strongly –
Steve Austin: [interjecting] She doesn’t call herself a conservative though. She’s a small “l” liberal -
Mark Scott: Well, but she’s been a member of the Coalition cabinet for a long period of time, Steve. And she’d identify herself broadly with the right of politics, I think you’d find. And people would identify her in that way. But what I’d broadly say is – if you look at the style of journalism that we are conducting here, we are hosting a conversation where we’re encouraging a wide range of voices from our guests and from our audience, rather than having identified partisan figures on air in broadcasting roles.
Now, some critics won’t accept that but that’s the way that we’ve set it up. That’s the way that the [ABC] Board has endorsed our strategy and that’s the way the overwhelming majority of public hear our content...
Mark Scott’s reply to Steve Austin was quite disingenuous.  Here’s why:

- Mark Scott attempted to divert the question by stating that Steve Austin was talking about how ABC presenters voted.  This is not the point – it is not even that important.  Even ABC chairman, Jim Spigelman, acknowledged in his recent speech to the National Press Club in Canberra that ABC presenters, producers and editors were more interested in gay marriage than electricity prices.  Supporters of gay marriage might vote for the Coalition or Labor or the Greens – but they are not conservatives. In other words, Mark Scott’s focus on voting habits is just a distraction.
- Mark Scott then threw the switch to abuse by describing critics of the ABC as “professional critics” – an ad hominem argument… Mark Scott then resorted to ridicule by maintaining that these professional critics “miraculously think they know how” ABC journalists vote. No one has made this claim…
- Mark Scott then contradicted himself drawing attention to how two ABC presenters voted.  He contrasted the “champion of the left” Phillip Adams with the former Coalition cabinet minister Amanda Vanstone (whom Scott implied voted for the Coalition). Mark Scott also overlooked the fact that Phillip Adams’ program goes to air five nights a week at the key time of 10 pm – compared with Amanda Vanstone’s program which airs just once a week during working hours between 4 pm and 5 pm on Mondays. Mark Scott simply dismissed the fact that Ms Vanstone regards herself as a small “l” liberal and rejects the term conservative when applied to her.  Yet this is an important point.
Mark Scott glossed over the fact that Vanstone’s program – consciously titled Counterpoint to indicate that it is counter to the prevailing views heard on Radio National – is the ABC’s right-of-centre token offering.  Also, he ignored the fact that Counterpoint is not one of the ABC’s flagship programs.
- Mark Scott claimed that the ABC Board has “endorsed” the fact that the ABC has only one presenter who can be cited as right-of-centre.  He provided no evidence for this.  MWD understands that the lack of diversity of political views within the public broadcaster has been raised at ABC Board meetings.
When Steve Austin persisted with his line of questioning, Mark Scott told him to “be a bit more sophisticated”. The ABC managing director then took on his staffer on live radio with comments close to workplace bullying – when the relationship between the two men is considered. Let’s go to the transcript:
Mark Scott : The lines you’re reciting this morning, Steve, I read these criticisms from time to time. There are critics of the ABC and I welcome those critics…

It is unfair and unprofessional for the ABC managing director and editor-in-chief to accuse an ABC staffer of “reciting” lines allegedly written by others during a live interview.  Especially when he has no evidence to support his assertion. Steve Austin is an experienced ABC journalist and does not need his questions written by others.  Mr Scott should be able to do better than this…
Mark Scott contrasted the ABC’s token right-of-centre Amanda Vanstone with Phillip Adams.  But the Late Night Live presenter is just one of a bevy of left-of-centre types in key ABC positions.  Including Fran Kelly, Jonathan Green, Chip Rolley, Waleed Aly, Linda Mottram, Russell Skelton, Andrew West, Geraldine Doogue, Paul Barry, Peter McEvoy and more besides.
I don’t know whether Scott is just fooling himself or trying to fool the people who pay his salary. I consider his analysis almost comically deceptive and beneath the dignity of man with his responsibilities.
It is clear he has no intention of tackling a bias that is both blindingly obvious and against the ABC’s charter. In that case he must be removed.
In the meantime, Scott’s ABC publishes what seems unforgivably close to an incitement to the murder of our Liberal Prime Minister:

image
Your ABC not biased, Mark?
The boss of the ABC must be the last person left to say so.
UPDATE
And on Radio National it’s party-party-party - where the party is either Labor or the Greens. Reader Andrew:
I know it is tedious, but they keep doing it because the ABC simply doesn’t care.
Fran Kelly had her end of week discussion panel which consisted of: Leonore Taylor, Guardian, Philip Coorey AFR and Bernard Keane, Crikey.

The talked about Craig Thompson, Labor’s pursut of Fiona Nash, Stephen Conroy’s outburst and Qantas jobs.
For some reason, they all agreed.
But of course. 
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Sack the Press Council. It is a menace to free speech

Andrew Bolt March 01 2014 (12:48am)

Free speech

Sack the Press Council. As I’ve said before, it has grown overmighty and is now a real threat to free speech. It is also insulting and unseemly for media lions - who actually created this control - to beg for their muzzles.
This week (sorry for the delay in republishing) the Daily Telegraph published this powerful indictment of the latest Press Council effrontery. And as you read it, note this: on the very same day the Federal Court upheld an appeal by James Ashby against the decision to strike out his claim against Peter Slipper. Now, which page of the Daily Telegraph does Julian Disney think should have run that news?
The Australian Press Council has undermined the principle of a free press with an adjudication we regretfully must publish today.
It has upheld a complaint brought against The Daily Telegraph by former Fairfax staffer and political activist Margo Kingston about the placement of a story relating to former Speaker Peter Slipper. Ms Kingston’s complaint was that The Daily Telegraph on December 13, 2012, did not give prominence to and balanced coverage of a Federal Court decision to dismiss as an abuse of process a legal action for sexual harassment brought against Mr Slipper when compared with its initial coverage of the matter eight months earlier. Importantly, Ms Kingston’s complaint was not one that sought a correction to some factual error in the newspaper; it was simply based on her contention, for whatever personal reason she had, that the follow-up report on the Federal Court’s decision was positioned in a part of the newspaper that was not to her liking.
Had it been a matter of correcting a factual error, there would have been no problem. But there was no error in our original report, and we believe the Press Council, not for the first time, has dangerously overreached its mandate and raison d’etre in what we can only conclude is its desire to impose its own brand of selective political correctness on the newspaper industry.
This ruling is an unwarranted interference in the editing and production process; showcasing the Council’s apparent eagerness to determine where and how an independent press publishes articles. At the outset, we take issue with the APC’s willingness to hear complaints from third parties; critics who have nothing to do with the original reports or are wholly irrelevant in regards to the topic of the story. This includes the APC itself, which has expressed a willingness to initiate its own investigations and complaints when those who are actually the subject of the stories have not pursued any action.
This is symptomatic of the desire of the current chairman, Julian Disney to make the Council, an appointed body, a protagonist rather than a mediating interface between the media and the public. Mr Disney has no background in journalism but after five years in this position, surely he would understand the pressures of limited space, the fast- moving news cycle and competing interests that editors confront every day.
Second, we question Professor Disney’s reluctance to take into consideration Ms Kingston’s well-known political extremism and previous employer and consider whether her complaint was part of her own political agenda. Apart from expressing the repugnant and wildly inaccurate anti-Semitic view that a “fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia”, Ms Kingston has also suggested that “there is a case for making climate change denial an offence, it is a crime against humanity”, and is notorious for her opposition to anything that may even vaguely be regarded as conservative opinion. 
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DAWKINS DUCKS

Tim Blair – Friday, March 01, 2013 (12:04pm)

Further to Monday’s post on selective atheism: 
In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of “the Old Testament” is “hideous” and “a monster”, and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character “in fiction”.
Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: “Well, um, the God of the Koran I don’t know so much about.”
How can it be that the world’s most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct. 
(Via Instapundit)
UPDATE. Dawkins in 2011: “Islam is one of the great evils of the world”:

Curious that he should offer a milder view when speaking more recently with Al Jazeera.
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But it’s the anti-Catholic thought that counts

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(5:56pm)

Gerard Henderson points out to David Marr one or two - or twenty - errors he makes in attacking Tony Abbott and Catholics generally.
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Labor’s ABC

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(4:53pm)

Last month, despite plummeting government revenue, the Gillard government could still find an extra $10 million to give to the ABC. The sum did not emerge through the normal channels of government budget process. ABC managing director Mark Scott told a Senate Estimates Committee hearing on February 11 that it had been especially negotiated with the government in late 2012. The ABC normally operates on a three-year funding period, which now grosses it about $1.2 billion a year. The last three-year period ended in 2012 but the government rolled-over one extra year’s funding and let the ABC apply for a new three-year grant in the 2013 budget.
The ABC wanted the additional $10 million, Scott said, entirely for its news division. It would spend it on recruiting more journalists, providing new links between local radio journalists and ABC News 24, and establishing a specialist unit to do fact-checking for news staff.

This was an extraordinary manoeuvre. When I was a director of the ABC from 2006 to 2011, the ABC’s allocation in the May budget was fixed. If the organisation had a case for more money, it had to wait another year and make its plea in the context of all the other demands on the Treasury at the time. No one imagined that if the ABC wanted to do more things, all it had to do was go back to the government mid-year and ask for supplementary funds… There is something fishy here…

The two major ABC unions were ... pleased. Both the Community and Public Sector Union and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance put out media releases praising the move.
Hence it is pretty clear, at the start of this election year, that the Gillard government and its communications minister Stephen Conroy are using the grant to demonstrate to ABC journalists that Labor is on their side. The unspoken but none­theless unequivocal message is that, if the journalists recognise their self-interest, they should reciprocate.
Earlier today, in question time, Senator Bob Carr in his capacity as the Minister for Foreign Affairs answered some questions relating to democracy in Fiji. His answers were welcome…
Amongst the criteria that Senator Carr rightly set out were that we would expect any changes in Fiji towards the restoration of democracy to include robust freedom of expression, association and the media. I hope that, as Senator Carr spoke about the freedom of expression and of the media, his colleagues in the Labor Party were listening—especially the Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy. We are soon to face media reforms from Senator Conroy, if speculation in the media is accurate. I hope that Senator Conroy is very mindful of maintaining the utmost level of freedom of expression and freedom of the media in whatever reforms he proposes.

I have concerns, however, that that may not be the case. My concerns are driven by the words of many Labor MPs, by the words of Senator Conroy himself and by the encouragement from some on the cross benches, including Senator Ludlam, who I note is here this evening. Recently we saw Mr John Murphy, of the other place, single out a news entity. His words were: 

We cannot possibly allow News Corporation to own more print or electronic media and that is a top legislative priority to deal with what is becoming a cancer in our democracy.
They are strong words indeed. I would be extremely concerned were the minister for communications, the man who should be the chief defender of a free media within the government of the day, to believe that we have a cancer in our democracy because we have robust and critical media. I would be concerned if Senator Conroy were to believe that somehow restricting that capacity of the media to be robust and critical were, as Mr Murphy says, ‘a top legislative priority’.
Read on. Birmingham is right: Conroy seems unable to understand that the real threat is not a concentration of media - with the exception of the vast expansion of the ABC - from from its disintegration. Either that, or Conroy really does see media critics as enemies who must be silenced.
I know who you’ve called, Steve. You should be ashamed of yourself.
UPDATE
A lovely read from Nick Cater - watch out for when his new book hits the shelves - about the growing revolt against the enemies of free speech: 
Quietly at first, but with a swelling, indignant chorus, respectable Australians of unimpeachable character began howling Roxon’s bill down. The contrivance of describing race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or 14 other grounds for victimhood as ‘protected attributes’ jarred; the inclusion of industrial history, breastfeeding or pregnancy or social origin suggested overkill; the reversal on the onus of proof, obliging alleged racists, misogynists and wheelchair kickers to demonstrate their innocence, seemed a step too far. The ABC’s chairman, Jim Spigelman, a lawyer of some standing, voiced his concerns about the outcome of the Bolt case. ‘I am not aware of any international human-rights instrument or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy that extends to conduct which is merely offensive’, Mr Spigelman said. ‘We would be pretty much on our own in declaring conduct which does no more than offend to be unlawful. The freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech.’
Ms Roxon has now stepped down, not ostensibly over the bill, although the unexpected controversy may have strengthened her desire to spend more time with her family. It is unlikely to proceed: Australia’s prime minister Julia Gillard has too many challenges in an election year to want to fight this battle. Incredibly, the conservative opposition, which will almost certainly be in government in seven months, is at last muscling up for a fight: the one it should have picked in 1975 and again 20 years later. 
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Gillard’s new socialism

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(12:22pm)

It’s bad enough that the Gillard Government throws money at car makers for little apparent reward. But this kind of corporate welfare is unforgivable:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard will today announce a $4 million package that will enable the Kingston Vodafone Hutchinson call centre to double the number of permanent employees to 1500.
Why stop there if you think governments should be subsidising employment?  Why not pay employers to create hundreds of thousands of more jobs? Why stop here?
What this really means is the transfer of money from healthy, job-creating businesses to sick ones. 
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Stone and the decline of the public service

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(11:05am)

He describes a time when Labor was led by people talented and confident enough to tolerate dissent and robust debate, and to retain the services of a conservative such as Stone himself.
Yet the Hawke Government also prepared the way for Labor’s decline in to a party of sycophants, served by a cadre whose dominant characteristic is political loyalty rather than apolitical talent. The age of Tim Flannery.
Stone describes a key turning point:
{Soon after he became Prime Minister, Bob] Hawke told [Sir William] Cole that, when his term as Chairman of the Public Service Board expired on November 1, 1983, and although the government “and he personally had ‘no complaints’ to make about Sir William’s discharge of his duties” during the past five years, nevertheless the government would not reappoint him…

[The] proposal was to appoint as his successor Dr [Peter] Wilenski…

The Treasurer … immediately said that he personally had very strong objections to the whole matter and, in particular, to the proposal to appoint Dr Wilenski…
On Saturday 27 August I telephoned the Treasurer … expressing … my utter disgust both at the treatment … being accorded … Cole and, if anything even more strongly, my repulsion at the very thought of Dr Wilenski as … ‘Head of the Commonwealth Public Service’"…
During [a later] discussion “I pointed out that Sir William was a distinguished public servant who had given his life to successive governments … He had been …Director of the Bureau of Transport Economics; Commonwealth Statistician; Secretary of the Department of Finance; and finally Chairman of the Public Service Board … I had known him personally for over 25 years and I knew him to be a person of the highest character and unimpeachable integrity … I regarded [the decision not to reappoint him] as a wanton act and a disgraceful one …
On Wilenski, “I said that without in any way disguising my personal contempt for Dr Wilenski … [his] appointment would be hailed as a kind of Second Coming by that small coterie of would-be politicians masquerading as public servants … within the great bulk of the bureaucracy his appointment would be treated with shock and dismay … As to [his] qualifications for the post … so far as I was aware he had none”.
True, he had become a department head late in the life of the Whitlam government, but only because “the then Prime Minister ...  wanted to get rid of him from his Private Office [where he had been Whitlam’s Principal Private Secretary] … In short, prior to his political appointment as head of the Department of Labour, [he] had done nothing (other than to ingratiate himself in powerful political quarters) to qualify him to head a major government department. … [He] had absolutely no ‘track record’ as an administrator; his whole career illustrated the key point that administration simply bored him”.
Wilenski was a destructive force in relation to those things in which I personally believed—not least, the apolitical nature of the Commonwealth Public Service…

In the end, of course, despite his Treasurer’s warnings… Hawke was unable to resist the pressure being applied from Gareth Evans, John Dawkins and others (as well as, characteristically, lacking the courage to reverse his own earlier decision).
... the real keys to Peter’s glittering career are to be found in his sheer intellectual brilliance; the courage with which he was prepared to re-examine old certainties and received wisdoms; the strength of his own vision and convictions as a committed, instinctive, true-believing democratic socialist; and his immense human qualities of gentleness, good humour and sheer decency that endeared him to people all around the world, and which made him so remarkably effective a communicator and persuader.
I’m not sure that answers Stone’s criticism.
UPDATE
The comments on the original post have been chewed up. I’ve transferred the post to a different link, so let’s see if it works now.
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Woodward slams Obama “madness”

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(9:58am)

Under Barack Obama, the US thinks defence just costs too much - unless it’s defending the president from his critics: 
Bob Woodward said this evening on CNN that a “very senior person” at the White House warned him in an email that he would “regret doing this,” the same day he has continued to slam President Barack Obama over the looming forced cuts known as the sequester…
The White House aide who Woodward said threatened him was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith reported.

Earlier ... Woodward ripped into Obama in what has become an ongoing feud between the veteran Washington Post journalist and the White House.Woodward said Obama was showing a “kind of madness I haven’t seen in a long time” for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.

The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the sequester.
“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget document?’” Woodward said on MSNBC.

“Or George W. Bush saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to invade Iraq because I can’t get the aircraft carriers I need?’” Or even Bill Clinton saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters,’ ... because of some budget document?”
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Green deniers of the science

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(7:48am)

 Global warming - dud predictions
Do the Greens listen to scientists when they blame global warming for what they clearly think is an increase in cyclones in Queensland?
GREENS leader Bob Brown says the coal mining industry should foot the bill for the Queensland floods because it helped cause them…

“It’s the single biggest cause - burning coal - for climate change and it must take its major share of responsibility for the weather events we are seeing unfolding now,” he said in Hobart today.
Firstly to the natural disasters occurring around the country, particularly in Queensland… But it’s time for parliamentarians to recognise that we are going to be living with extreme weather events every year from now on. We can’t say where, we can’t say when, but what we know in a world that is increasingly warming, we are going to see more extreme events.
But here is a new peer-reviewed paper, Reconstructing tropical cyclone frequency using hydrogen isotope ratios of sedimentary n-alkanes in northern Queensland, Australia:
And here is the Bureau of Meteorology (a bit behind in updating its graphic): 
image
(Thanks to reader Steve.)
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Labor’s compassion

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(6:56am)

 Boat people policy
Labor’s more ”compassionate” border policies haven’t just given us 1000 dead boat people: 
Sri Lankan refugees have been sleeping up to 10 to a house and on the bare floor of several near-derelict houses in Parramatta, in Sydney’s west, that have been slated for a multi-million-dollar redevelopment as luxury flats.
Judge policies by outcomes, not intentions. 
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The Liberals cannot waste a big win on doing nothing

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(6:46am)

The timetable for reform is worrying slow, if seemingly politically expedient:
THE Productivity Commission would be charged with overhauling the nation’s workplace laws if Tony Abbott wins power - but major changes to the Fair Work Act would be delayed until after the 2016 election under a plan being “actively considered” by the federal Coalition.
Defying business demands for major changes to Labor’s workplace system, senior Coalition figures said yesterday the proposal was designed to neutralise a looming multi-million-dollar campaign by Labor and the unions to convince voters that the Opposition Leader would reintroduce aspects of John Howard’s Work Choices regime if he won the September 14 election.

Under the proposal, which has been canvassed with senior business figures, a Coalition government would appoint the Productivity Commission to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the Fair Work Act.

Following a lengthy investigation, the Coalition would undertake months of stakeholder consultation on the commission’s recommendations before seeking a “mandate” for any proposed changes at the 2016 election.
I’d hope the Opposition could wait until closer to this election before deciding to put on hold for three years the reforms the economy needs - which in turn could help generate the national income the Liberals will need.
If the polls show Labor irretrievably stuck in the death zone, with no room left for even hope, the Liberals may well consider it has buffer enough to seek a mandate now for at least limited reforms.
It can’t waste a thumping win by spending the next three years twiddling its thumbs as the economy stagnates. Ask Ted Baillieu what voters think of inactivity.
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Morrison was verballed

Andrew BoltMARCH012013(12:08am)

The story that started the latest moral witchhunt:
Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison has called for an immediate freeze on the provision of bridging visas for asylum seekers, after it was revealed a man released into the community on a bridging visa had been charged with indecent assault.
Mr Morrison said that a review was needed into the guidelines for how boat arrivals were released into the community.

He said that such a review must detail a “requirement” to notify police and neighbouring residents about people on bridging visas or community detention in their area and the establishment of “behaviour protocols ... with clear negative sanctions for breaches of such protocols”.
Opposition immgration spokesman Scott Morrison said on Wednesday that local residents should be notified when asylum seekers were housed in their area, and called for new behaviour protocols for asylum seekers housed in the community…
Cabinet minister Peter Garrett describes the call as “a major dog whistle” which has been exposed by one of the coalition’s own MPs…

Labor Senator Doug Cameron was unimpressed.

“The dog whistle you have just seen is the worst politics I have witnessed for many years in this parliament,” he said, adding there was no evidence refugees or asylum seekers in Australia were criminals. 
Even I criticised Morrison, on the assumption that the report above was correct.
In fact, it wasn’t quite - or was ambiguous enough to allow some creative moral indignation.
I’ve gone through transcripts and tapes of Morrison on 2GB and Sky News, as well as at his press conference, and the nearest he came to saying that neighbours should be alerted to boat people in their area was this:
MORRISON:
Well I think especially say in the case of what we saw with Macquarie University that certainly the residents of that same facility should be aware of something of that nature happening in the place where they live.
SPEERS:
Where someone’s charged with an offence?

MORRISON:
No, no what I’m talking about is if that facility is taking on asylum seekers on bridging visas into that residential complex then I think there’s a simple courtesy that needs to be provided to other people, that they simply know that that’s taking place.
Morrison is saying that if boat people are moved into a student dorm, then other students should be told about the strangers in their midst as a courtesy. Same deal with the residents of the old people’s home in Adelaide who found lots of young Sri Lankan men suddenly living with them.
Is anyone seriously arguing against such a suggestion? Is anyone seriously claiming this is racist talk?
Morrison is being verballed by people whose own morality is shonky enough for such work.
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Scientists have unearthed one of the earliest animal fossils ever found, an extraordinarily well preserved fossil of a 520-million-year-old sea creature. http://oak.ctx.ly/r/2mzo
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NOW IT REALLY IS ABBOTT’S FAULT Larry Pickering

 The monsoon and cyclone season used to mean a sharp decrease in illegal arrivals. Not any more because those who propose getting here by boat can read polls. 

 Tony Abbott is certain to win the next election and is certain to stop the boats, so the panic driven deluge has started.

The number of arrivals is approaching 35,000 since Labor purposefully dismantled the Coalition’s border protection policy and Gillard now has no hope of coping.

The Prime Minister’s stupidity has reached jaw-dropping new heights.

Her first idea was to pay the average citizen up to $300 per week to house the overflow. No response to that dangerous little thought bubble.

Then her “expert” panel who predictably advised a mix of Howard’s solution and the Malaysian solution. But unfortunately someone forgot to tell the panel that the High Court had already ruled Gillard’s Malaysian solution illegal. So that didn’t work. Mmm.

So now Gillard has adopted the new “I give up” solution and has allowed thousands of unprocessed illegals loose on the community. Blimey! But there’s more!

These unprocessed, unknown people are not allowed to work! Now there’s a recipe for certain disaster.

Gillard’s lack of foresight is mind-blowing. Those loose illegals who eventually pass the processing test in 2 or 3 years will be able to stay. But those who knew they would never pass will have disappeared.

So why bother processing any of them? We will get the same result!

Gillard is simply adding to the more than 60,000 people who are illegally in Australia right now and we have no hope of knowing who or where they are. Well done Ma’am.

STOP PRESS! Pickering Post has learnt today from a reliable informant at the reopened Curtin Detention Centre in WA that the centre is being “cleaned out”.

Illegal immigrants who display traits of violence are regularly sent to Curtin Detention Centre.

This week there has been movement at the centre.

Charter jets are coming and going at all hours of the night and locals suspect these people are being distributed around Australia on bridging visas.

These detainees, males between 25 and 45, have proved to be violent. Four murders committed at the centre have so far gone unreported.

One informant who works closely with the centre said he was told (tipped off) that a certain detainee was to be murdered. Two days later that same detainee had his throat slashed.

“It appears that these blokes have had some sort of military training. You can tell by the precision (with which) they carry out the hits” the informant said.

“It is shocking what is going on here and authorities have been told not to pursue this stuff.”

Well Julia, you have certainly done another fine job with this one.

Hope you are safe out there at Rooty Hill.
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4 her
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March 1: Independence Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992); Victory at Adwa Day in Ethiopia (1896)
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile
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“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” - 2 Timothy 1:7
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 28: Morning
"My expectation is from him." - Psalm 62:5
It is the believer's privilege to use this language. If he is looking for aught from the world, it is a poor "expectation" indeed. But if he looks to God for the supply of his wants, whether in temporal or spiritual blessings, his "expectation" will not be a vain one. Constantly he may draw from the bank of faith, and get his need supplied out of the riches of God's lovingkindness. This I know, I had rather have God for my banker than all the Rothschilds. My Lord never fails to honour his promises; and when we bring them to his throne, he never sends them back unanswered. Therefore I will wait only at his door, for he ever opens it with the hand of munificent grace. At this hour I will try him anew. But we have "expectations" beyond this life. We shall die soon; and then our "expectation is from him." Do we not expect that when we lie upon the bed of sickness he will send angels to carry us to his bosom? We believe that when the pulse is faint, and the heart heaves heavily, some angelic messenger shall stand and look with loving eyes upon us, and whisper, "Sister spirit, come away!" As we approach the heavenly gate, we expect to hear the welcome invitation, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." We are expecting harps of gold and crowns of glory; we are hoping soon to be amongst the multitude of shining ones before the throne; we are looking forward and longing for the time when we shall be like our glorious Lord--for "We shall see him as he is." Then if these be thine "expectations," O my soul, live for God; live with the desire and resolve to glorify him from whom cometh all thy supplies, and of whose grace in thy election, redemption, and calling, it is that thou hast any "expectation" of coming glory.
Evening
"The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah." -1 Kings 17:16
See the faithfulness of divine love. You observe that this woman had daily necessities. She had herself and her son to feed in a time of famine; and now, in addition, the prophet Elijah was to be fed too. But though the need was threefold, yet the supply of meal wasted not, for she had a constant supply. Each day she made calls upon the barrel, but yet each day it remained the same. You, dear reader, have daily necessities, and because they come so frequently, you are apt to fear that the barrel of meal will one day be empty, and the cruse of oil will fail you. Rest assured that, according to the Word of God, this shall not be the case. Each day, though it bring its trouble, shall bring its help; and though you should live to outnumber the years of Methuselah, and though your needs should be as many as the sands of the seashore, yet shall God's grace and mercy last through all your necessities, and you shall never know a real lack. For three long years, in this widow's days, the heavens never saw a cloud, and the stars never wept a holy tear of dew upon the wicked earth: famine, and desolation, and death, made the land a howling wilderness, but this woman never was hungry, but always joyful in abundance. So shall it be with you. You shall see the sinner's hope perish, for he trusts his native strength; you shall see the proud Pharisee's confidence totter, for he builds his hope upon the sand; you shall see even your own schemes blasted and withered, but you yourself shall find that your place of defence shall be the munition of rocks: "Your bread shall be given you, and your water shall be sure." Better have God for your guardian, than the Bank of England for your possession. You might spend the wealth of the Indies, but the infinite riches of God you can never exhaust.
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Shemaiah 
[Shĕma ī'ah] - jehovah is fame, jehovah has heard or obeys the lord.
Evidently this popular name was shared by many Bible men, and at times two of the following may be the same individual. It is not an easy matter to identify them exactly.
1. A prophet sent by God to prevent Rehoboam from warring against the house of Israel. His part in the revolution and history are clearly defined (1 Kings 12:22; 2 Chron. 11:2; 12:5, 7, 15).
2. Son of Shechaniah and father of Hattush, descendant of Zerubbabel (1 Chron. 3:22).
3. Father of Shimri, perhaps Shimei, and head of a family of Simeon (1 Chron. 4:37). See verses twenty-six and twenty-seven.
4. A son of Joel, perhaps Shema of 1 Chronicles 5:8, and head of a family of Reuben (1 Chron. 5:4).
5. A Merarite Levite dwelling in Jerusalem (1 Chron. 9:14; Neh. 11:15).
6. A Levite, father of Obadiah (1 Chron. 9:16). Called Shammua in Nehemiah 11:17.
7. Head of the Levitical Kohath clan who assisted in bringing the Ark from the house of Obed-edom (1 Chron. 15:8, 11).
8. The son of Nathaneel, a Levite, who recorded the priestly office in David's time (1 Chron. 24:6).
9. Oldest son of Obed-edom, a Korhite Levite and a gatekeeper of the Tabernacle in David's reign (1 Chron. 26:4, 6, 7).
10. A Levite, commissioned by Jehoshaphat, to teach the people in Judah (2 Chron. 17:8).
11. A son of Jeduthun who helped in the purification of the Temple under Hezekiah (2 Chron. 29:14).
12. A Levite in Hezekiah's time who was over the freewill offerings of God (2 Chron. 31:15).
13. A chief Levite in the days of Josiah (2 Chron. 35:9).
14. A son of Adonikam who returned with Ezra from exile (Ezra 8:13).
15. A chief man under Ezra sent to Iddo to ask for ministers. (Ezra 8:16).
16. A priest of the family of Harim who married a foreign wife (Ezra 10:21).
17. A person who helped to repair the wall (Neh. 3:29).
18. A son of Delaiah hired by Sanballat and Tobiah to intimidate Nehemiah (Neh. 6:10).
19. A priest, one of the twenty-four courses of priests that with Nehemiah sealed the covenant (Neh. 10:8; 12:6, 18, 34, 35).
20. A singer who took part in the dedication of the wall (Neh. 12:36).
21. Another, or perhaps the same person as the previous one, who gave thanks at the dedication (Neh. 12:42).
22. The father of Urijah the prophet who was slain by Jehoiakim for prophesying against Jerusalem and Judah (Jer. 26:20).
23. A prophet called "the Nehelamite" who in captivity was actively engaged in reproving or opposing Jeremiah (Jer. 29:24-32).
24. The father of Delaiah, a prince of the Jews to whom Baruch read the roll he had written under Jeremiah's direction (Jer. 36:12).
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Hodesh
Scripture Reference: 1 Chronicles 8:8-9
Name Meaning: New moon
This is the name of one of the wives of Shaharaim. The other wife of the Benjamite was Hushim. It will be noticed that in the pedigree of the family of Benjamin the wives of Shaharaim are said to have been Hushim and Baara; but, when the children of each of his wives are enumerated, the name of Hodesh appears instead of that of Baara. The explanation of these two names on the one person is given thus by Wilkinson-"The word Baara is derivable from baar, 'to burn,' and may thus mean 'a burning,' 'a kindling,' which is the sense of beera in Exodus 22:6; whence some suppose that it designates the same person called Hodesh, by allusion to the kindling of fires as beacons, by which it was customary among the Israelites in very ancient times, to announce the appearance of the new moon."
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Today's reading: Numbers 17-19, Mark 6:30-56 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Numbers 17-19

The Budding of Aaron's Staff
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff.3 On the staff of Levi write Aaron's name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe. 4Place them in the tent of meeting in front of the ark of the covenant law, where I meet with you. 5 The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites...."

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 6:30-56

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things....


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