Thursday, March 20, 2014

Thu Mar 20th Todays News

It is difficult to find perfection in individuals. Youthful experience tends to distort adult behaviour. So that in some cases, sexual identity is a result of experience in youth. Not meant in a creepy Kyle Sandilands way, but as recognition that choosing to abstain is also a choice, like choosing to indulge. The mind has a way of convincing the brain that it doesn't make mistakes, but that is exactly what happens. George Washington famously declared as a child he had cut down a cherry tree, because he hadn't wanted to lie. Clearly he knew what a lie would mean, and the discovery of that informed his later behaviour. Without knowing how, or why, exactly, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin on this day in 1850. It changed the world. It was probably based on childhood experience in some ways. In the book, Uncle Tom is a slave interacting with masters and other slaves. Their behaviour and stoicism were inspirational and have since become cliche. 

 Harriet may not have been a good writer, she was a great writer. Like Bob Dylan. But just as the protest movement of the sixties asked questions that today are not answered, so to is the issue of slavery. Slavery exists today, and must be resisted. Part of the modern problem of slavery is that the industry grown to resist it has problems with labelling. Some things are labelled slavery so as to garner support in opposing it. There are a few home truths that are uncomfortable for those who support such industry. A conservative being elected to government is not a slave master. A domestic abuser exploiting family is not a slave master. Being lowly paid is not the same as slave labor. The bible does not endorse slavery, although it has words directed to slaves and masters. However, a people smuggler is no different to a slave trader. Those who endorse people smuggling through bad government policy are no different to US Democrats who supported slavery, and opposed ending it. 

 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?
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Helen Tran, Vinh Tran and John Wilson. Born on the same day as Freema Agyamen across the years. Making you, like, a friend with the Time Lord.
Matches
Despatches
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GREAT MOMENTS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (2:26pm)

Adelaide’s German Club celebrates Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939:

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DOOOOMED AGAIN

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (2:23pm)

As usual, we’re toast: 
After running the numbers on a set of four equations representing human society, a team of NASA-funded mathematicians has come to the grim conclusion that the utter collapse of human civilization will be “difficult to avoid.”
The exact scenario may vary, but in the coming decades humanity is essentially doomed to some variant of “Elites” consuming too much, “resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society.”
That is, unless civilization is ready for one of two “major policy changes”: inequality must be “greatly reduced” or population growth must be “strictly controlled.” 
Let’s start with a cull of NASA-funded mathematicians. In other doomy developments, apparently we can only increase the size of crops by reducing their food supply.
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STATE OF PLAY

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (1:30pm)

The carbon tax was introduced by Labor after then-PM Julia Gillard specifically ruled out such a tax ahead of the 2010 election. The repeal of the carbon tax was a specific promise made by Tony Abbott ahead of the 2013 election. Mandate-wise, there isn’t much of an argument about which policy has greater public support. Naturally, Labor and the Greens continue to block the electorate’s will. Here’s Greens leader Christine Milne: 
The Senate has rejected Tony Abbott’s do-nothing approach on global warming and voted to maintain the price on pollution. No one should give up on the current law. It has the support of leading economists like Ken Henry, Ross Garnaut and Bernie Fraser whilst Tony Abbott’s phoney alternative is friendless. 
These people are ridiculous.
UPDATE. Kevin Rudd, last July: 
“Today we’ve taken the decision to terminate the carbon tax,” Mr Rudd said. 
And now Labor votes to keep the carbon tax – after promising it would never be introduced in the first place.
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HORSE GOES MARCHING IN

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (3:37am)

At around the nine-minute mark of this intriguing 1966 BBC item about Australian football, a horse appears:

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WHY THEY MARCHED

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (3:17am)

March-in-Marcher William Rattley explains the motivation of his fellow whiners: 
People are marching because they are sick of being treated as a number, as a cog in a well-oiled, well-conditioned machine. 
A really good way of dealing with this is to march in a group of similarly-minded people. Sort of like a number, or a cog in a well-oiled, well-conditioned machine. 
People are sick of their health, security and happiness being taken from them simply to make a quick buck. 
Is this actually happening? Is the removal of happiness and health somehow generating money? Sounds interesting. 
People are sick of everything being politicised. 
Like the weather, for example. This bloke is at least one election cycle behind events. 
People feel as though Australia has become cold, apathetic and xenophobic, in regards to the way we treat people who come to our shores to seek aid. 
What about how they treat us? 
We want our country back, and we’ll keep marching till we get it back. THAT is why we march! 
Buy good shoes.
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PRESIDENT BEATS THE SPREAD

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (2:25am)

Following a horribly embarrassing moment during a campaign speech, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos responds with remarkable dignity and calm.
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BROKEST NATION EVER

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (1:35am)

Scary numbers from Mark Steyn: 
In America, federal debt is over 100 per cent of GDP. Australia’s federal debt works out to $12,000 per citizen. In America, it’s $54,000.
The United States is the Brokest Nation in History, broker than anyone else has ever been ever. 
Obama’s answer: keep spending.
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Labor saves the carbon tax

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (2:08pm)

Labor votes to keep the tax it promised to scrap, and which costs Australians money and jobs:
The Abbott government has failed in its first bid to scrap the carbon tax, with the Senate refusing to pass a package of bills to repeal the Gillard-era climate change policy.
After three months of debate, the package of nine bills was finally put to a vote in the upper house today only to be swiftly rebuffed by Labor and the Australian Greens.
UPDATE
So how did the Guardian come to report this last year?
Kevin Rudd has “terminated” the fixed-price carbon tax from July 2014, ...
“Has terminated”?   
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Australia may have found the jet

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (2:05pm)

The Prime Minister says wreckage of the missing Malaysian jet may have been found by Australia through satellite imaging.
UPDATE
Mr Abbott said he has called Malaysian leader Najib Razak to relay the “new and credible information” about potential aircraft wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean.
He told parliament: “The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received the information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search. Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified.
“A Royal Australian Air Force Orion has been diverted in an attempt to locate the objects. This Orion is expected to arrive in the area about this time.”
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A Greens fantasy, where Gillard is abused as Abbott never was

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (2:00pm)

The ABC publishes a bizarre piece by a Robert Simms without declaring he was actually an adviser to Greens MPs Sarah Hanson-Young and Scott Ludlam.
His key argument? That Julia Gillard remains the worst-abused Prime Minister of all. Note how brazenly he tricks up the evidence to compare the milder insults suffered by Howard and Abbott to the worst said of Gillard:
John Howard was famously described as a “lying rodent”, Julia Gillard a “bitch” and a “witch”, while Tony Abbott has been derided as an “economic illiterate” and an imbecile…
However it should also be recognised that some forms of insult are more damaging than others… Of course calling Abbott “a liar” is not the same as calling Gillard a “bitch” or a “witch”. The latter are insults that could only be levelled at a woman.
Pardon? The worst ever said of Howard was that he was a “lying rodent”? In fact, here’s just a small sample of some of the fouler things he was called:
(He) wanted to “cosh the boongs’’, claimed his colleague, Mike Carlton…
A “cold-hearted prick’’, said footballer Michael Long… “..arselicker…”
(He has) “bloodless lips of string’’, added ABC and Herald Sun columnist Jill Singer…
The National Sorry Day Committee (said he was) the “dog of white supremacy” wanting “to return to its vomit"…
See Mungo MacCallum win praise for calling John Howard an “unflushable turd”. See then Labor president Carmen Lawrence endorse a Rock Against Howard CD with tracks such as John Howard is a Filthy Slut.
As for Abbott, the worst insults Simms can recall of him is that he is allegedly an “economic illiterate” and “imbecile”.
Here are just some Simms conveniently overlooks:

No, the Left is the new home of the political feral, so who was surprised to see marchers carrying a banner declaring “F--- Tony. F--- Democracy”?
Who was surprised to also see at these marches around Australia scores of protesters in T-shirts declaring “F--- Tony Abbott’’?

True, there is a new level of savagery in the Left, now drinking at the Twitter sewer, with signs also shouting “Kill Abbott”, “Kill the Politicians”, “I vote for retroaction abortion of Tony”, “Resign d--khead” and “You racist, sexist, elitist, homophobic fascist”, next to a picture of Abbott as Hitler.
Here are some more that Simms strangely failed to mention:
Abbott hadn’t even been sworn in before a new Facebook site - “Tony Abbott - Worst PM in Australian History” - savaged him as “a misogynist, sexist, homophobic pr---, a bully, a racist, a liar ...”. It has 170,000 “likes”.
Other Facebook sites were worse. “Tony Abbott should be assassinated” was created from an office at the Geelong Trades Hall.
ADS hit the mainstream media, too. The Age even promoted “ethically produced” T shirts from columnist Clementine Ford with the slogan “F--- Abbott”.
The ABC’s Q & A website left up a tweet about performing a sexual act on Abbott and The Drum vilified him as a religious bigot who denied evolution and wanted to “score points against the ‘feminazis’ and ‘poofs’ “.
Simms seems to live in a fantasy world where conservatives are the true foul-mouths, cheering on sexists and racists:

This is a reality that the conservative commentariat conveniently overlook. While they condoned the sexist attacks on Gillard under the guise of ‘free speech’, their concern for Abbott suggests there is some terrible political bias against straight, white, middle-class, middle-aged men.
Is Simms serious? Conservatives did not “condone” sexist attacks on Gillard but deplored them. I cannot think of a single member of the “conservative commentariat” who “condoned the sexist attacks on Gillard”, and look forward to Simms producing a list of names.
The only condoning of vile abuse I’ve seen by a commentariat, or in this case by political figures, was this:
When Howard was PM, Lindsay McDougall, of the band Frenzal Rhomb, got musicians to contribute to Rock Against Howard, a CD that included tracks such as John Howard is a Filthy Slut and Gun Him Down.
H-Block 101 sung this advice on handling such politicians: 
F...ing c..., here’s a stunt. Kick him ‘til he’s dead.
Now guess who endorsed this muck?
Answer: Labor’s national president and a former premier, Carmen Lawrence, sent McDougall a warm note, declaring “It’s time to put an end to (Howard’s) regime of fear.” Greens leader Bob Brown also blessed the project, telling these barbarians how “mean, nasty and repressive” Howard was instead.
Even Peter Garrett, now Education Minister, said the CD was a “good idea”.
Yet more evidence that Greens do not see the world as it is but as they dream.
(Thanks to reader Paul.) 
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The “science is settled”? Fat chance

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (1:30pm)

Reader Dr R:
I wonder if you have caught up with the study published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, and now quoted in MSM, debunking the age-old teaching that saturated fats cause heart disease. This was for many years a scientific consensus until disproved by this study of 600,000 patients.
One could have argued that as far as saturated fats were concerned, the “science was settled’ and those who suggested otherwise were “flat earthers” or “heretics”, or should be forcibly silenced for questioning the majority of scientists whose research told us saturated fats cause heart attacks. “Low fat” and “heart healthy” spawned a whole new industry to capitalise on the fear these bad fats would engender in the masses.
Sound familiar? 
Indeed it does. 
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What made these boat people think we’d want them?

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (11:25am)

Boat people policy, Culture wars

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THE ABC’s 7.30 on Monday accidentally showed exactly why we should stop the boats of illegal immigrants — and not only to end the drowning.
The ABC’s footage, including video shot by boat people turned back last month, actually showed a dangerous cultural difference.

How could these 34 people from Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal — mostly Muslim countries that are neither war-torn nor famine-struck — think that threatening to kill our sailors, shouting “f--- Australia” and warning of another September 11 would make us unlock our hearts and our door?
And how many people just like them are among the more than 50,000 Labor let sail in uninvited, even taxiing them in on our warships?
(Read full article here.)  
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Remember when Henry helped “save” the economy with massive spending? Now he’s “saved” Parkinson

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:45am)

Great political skills last week from former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, killing the career of a man he was wanting to save:
SARAH FERGUSON: One of Tony Abbott’s first moves when he came into government was to organise the removal down the track of Martin Parkinson as head of Treasury. Is that the normal operation of government: putting people you trust into key departments and getting rid of others?
KEN HENRY: Well it’s never happened in the Treasury in one hundred and - what is it?: 114 years, 113 years. There have only been 16 Treasury secretaries in that time. Martin is number 16. No government has ever thought it appropriate to remove the head of the Treasury and put in somebody who they think is of the right - let’s say of a more comfortable political character. Now I’m not saying that is what has motivated the Prime Minister on this occasion…
SARAH FERGUSON: But should [Parkinson] be asked to stay in his position?
KEN HENRY: Yes, I think he should.
Niki Savva:
As soon as Ken Henry intervened, ministers and advisers knew Abbott would have no choice but to stick to the original decision. Parkinson knew it immediately.
His friends said Henry’s remarks were akin to pouring petrol on a fire which began with the leaking of a story that Costello and John Howard had suggested he should be kept on.
Making that even more certain was Henry’s rank partisanship:
Senior government members were left seething by Henry’s other free-flowing advice on what else should be done, advice which he could have given publicly after he left his post in 2011 and before Labor lost office more than two years later…

Henry rightly observed last week the government will struggle to find the revenue to pay for big social policies. Rather than criticise Howard era tax cuts, he could have talked about the folly of the mining tax. He can’t. Henry fathered the mining tax in a review that deliberately excluded any evaluation of the GST, the tax he now says should rise…
Henry stood by watching while Kevin Rudd and Swan ­mishandled the mining tax, and as one close observer put it was “out to lunch” when Gillard ­allowed the big three miners to rewrite it to suit them so it went from supposedly raising $13.4?billion over four years to a few hundred million.
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Finally, a real audit of the global warming science

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:24am)

Global warming - dud predictions, Global warming - general

Tony Thomas on a potential turning point in the global warming debate:
The 50,000-strong American body of physicists, the American Physical Society (APS), seems to be turning significantly sceptical on climate alarmism.
The same APS put out a formal statement in 2007 adding its voice to the alarmist hue and cry. That statement caused resignations of some of its top physicists…
By its statutes, the APS must review such policy statements each half-decade and that scheduled review is now under way… The review, run by the society’s Panel on Public Affairs, includes four powerful shocks for the alarmist science establishment.

First, a sub-committee has looked at the recent 5th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and formulated scores of critical questions about the weak links in the IPCC’s methods and findings. In effect, it’s a non-cosy audit of the IPCC’s claims on which the global campaign against CO2 is based. Second, the sub-committee, after ‘consulting broadly’, appointed a panel to workshop the questions and then provide input to the new official statement on climate. The appointed panel of six, amazingly, includes three eminent sceptic scientists: Richard Lindzen, John Christy, and Judith Curry. The other three members comprise long-time IPCC stalwart Ben Santer (who, in 1996, drafted, in suspicious circumstances, the original IPCC mantra about a “discernible” influence of manmade CO2 on climate), an IPCC lead author and modeler William Collins, and atmospheric physicist Isaac Held.
Third, the sub-committee is ensuring the entire process is publicly transparent — not just the drafts and documents, but the workshop discussions, which have been taped, transcribed and officially published, in a giant record running to 500+ pages.
Fourth, the APS will publish its draft statement to its membership, inviting comments and feedback.
....It seems a good bet that the APS will break ranks with the world’s collection of peak science bodies, including the Australian Academy of Science, and tell the public, softly or boldly, that IPCC science is not all it’s cracked up to be…
The American Physical Society’s audit questions are pretty trenchant. Just to recite some of them points in the can of worms soon to be authoritatively exposed.  Here’s a selection:

...While the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) rose strongly from 1980-98, it has shown no significant rise for the past 15 years…[The APS notes that neither the 4th nor 5th IPCC report modeling suggested any stasis would occur, and then asks] …
To what would you attribute the stasis?…
What are the implications of this statis for confidence in the models and their projections?
What do you see as the likelihood of solar influences beyond TSI (total solar irradiance)? Is it coincidence that the statis has occurred during the weakest solar cycle (ie sunspot activity) in about a century?
Some have suggested that the ‘missing heat’ is going into the deep ocean…
Are deep ocean observations sufficient in coverage and precision to bear on this hypothesis quantitatively?
Why would the heat sequestration have ‘turned on’ at the turn of this century?…
IPCC suggests that the stasis can be attributed in part to ‘internal variability’. Yet climate models imply that a 15-year stasis is very rare and models cannot reproduce the observed Global Mean Surface Temperature even with the observed radiative forcing.
What is the definition of ‘internal variability’?…
How long must the statis persist before there would be a firm declaration of a problem with the models? If that occurs, would the fix entail: ... A re-examination of fundamental assumptions?…
What do you consider to be the most important gaps in current understanding?

The rate of [ocean] rise during 1930-1950 was comparable to, if not larger than, the value in recent years. Please explain that circumstance in light of the presumed monotonic [steady] increase from anthropogenic effects.
The IPCC-projected rise of up to 1m by the end of this century would require an average rate of up to 12mm/yr for the rest of this century, some four times the current rate, and an order of magnitude larger than implied by the 20th century acceleration of 0.01mm/yr found in some studies. What drives the projected sea level rise? To what extent is it dependent upon a continued rise in Global Mean Surface Temperature?…
Read it all. This could be a defining moment. 
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Langton’s skins game

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:04am)

Free speech, The politics of race

Leave aside Marcia Langton’s mischaracterisation of my argument; just note her hypocrisy:
Langton, Q&A website, Monday:
IF the parliament removes this section (18c of the Racial Discrimination Act) ... (Bolt) will be free to continue to attack Aboriginal people on the grounds of the colour of their skin.
Langton, The Age, October 2, 2011:

THERE were many Aboriginal people who … (did) pretend to be ‘’white’’ … Not quite despised but regarded as gutless, they were the ones who sneaked back to take advantage of the miserable “benefits’’ that came with policy reform in the 1970s. Then, we called them “very late identifiers’’.
UPDATE
Psychiatrist Murray Walters:

It is ridiculous that it is potentially illegal to question something as intangible as racial identity (or religious identity or the mantle of victimhood, for that matter) just because someone might get offended.  Surely the aggrieved should not entitled to legal protection from scrutiny just because they feel something to an intense degree.
Actually, that intensity to might be a clue: Sometimes we hide the truth even from ourselves.
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Russia laughs at Obama’s US

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:01am)


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Russia does not even try to hide its contempt:
There’s an amazing picture taken a few days ago at the United Nations.
Russia had just vetoed America’s diplomatic proposal for Ukraine. So Ambassador Samantha Power, the former Harvard professor appointed by Barack Obama, who is also a former Harvard grad himself, walked over to Russia’s ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to give him a piece of her mind.
Churkin didn’t even stand up. He just looked at her. And his aides, standing behind him, laughed.
They weren’t laughing at the ironically named Ambassador Power. They were laughing at their good luck; that they had the good fortune to get into the invading business when a feckless man like Barack Obama was in charge of the free world.
Then there is this deeply worrying threat - to relax a pressure on Iran that the feckless Obama has already relaxed too much:
A senior Russian diplomat says Moscow may change its stance in the Iranian nuclear talks amid tensions with the West.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted Wednesday as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia didn’t want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to “raise stakes,” but may have to do so in response to the actions by the United States and the European Union.
The statement is the most serious threat of retaliation by Moscow after the U.S. and the EU announced sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.
(Via Catallaxy Files.)   
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Sinodinos stumbles into the mud

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:57am)

It is strange that Arthur Sinodinos could have got himself in this mess, chairing a company which had Eddie Obeid as a secret shareholder, making secret shady deals. Dennis Shanahan:
Sinodinos’s defence necessarily does damage to his political credibility because while denying any corruption he is left to rely on being naive to say the least.
It is clear ICAC intends to portray Sinodinos as being hired as a sleazy Liberal door opener to an incoming state Liberal government rather than for the skills of a merchant of high finance and business for which he felt he was being paid.
How could someone who became chief of staff to a prime minister because his predecessor had to resign over ministerial travel rorts not see the political trap in being paid a large salary, the prospect of making millions on the success of a single contract and being promoted to chairman ahead of the inevitable coming of a new NSW Liberal government? Some Liberals who are critical of Sinodinos suggest he may have been groomed to become the Liberal gatekeeper for a group of Labor investors on a losing side.
Others believe the explanation is more benign: that Sinodinos, after years of public service, became seduced by the society of wheeler-dealers in the Sydney money set, sought to “set up” for life his wife Elizabeth and two children and was ill-prepared, or unwilling, to see the threats to his integrity and dangers to his career.
I doubt very much that the widely respected Sinodinos did anything wrong. The hurdle he faces in resuming his political career will be the questions this raises about his judgment. 
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Mates no more

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:44am)

Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill asks: Where’s Bill?
Today: 
DISGRACED former Labor MP Craig Thomson has relied on family, friends and former staff to vouch for his good character as he fights a possible jail sentence.
But none of his former parliamentary or union colleagues are willing to offer references to help keep him out of prison.
August 2011:

Neil Mitchell:You’ve run a union, you understand these things, do you support him?
Bill Shorten:Oh, yeah, I believe him.
Neil Mitchell: You believe him [Thomson], no case to answer?
Bill Shorten:I believe him
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The Left cannot see the barbarians marching in their ranks

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:18am)

How the Left hates, The new morality

THE most astonishing thing about the weekend’s March in March rallies was not the vicious hatred it promoted against Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
No, the Left is the new home of the political feral, so who was surprised to see marchers carrying a banner declaring “F--- Tony. F--- Democracy”?
Who was surprised to also see at these marches around Australia scores of protesters in T-shirts declaring “F--- Tony Abbott’’?

True, there is a new level of savagery in the Left, now drinking at the Twitter sewer, with signs also shouting “Kill Abbott”, “Kill the Politicians”, “I vote for retroaction abortion of Tony”, “Resign d--khead” and “You racist, sexist, elitist, homophobic fascist”, next to a picture of Abbott as Hitler.
In fact, Newcastle Trades Hall Council secretary Gary Kennedy, in a speech at his city’s March in March, declared mining boss Gina Rinehart was a “filthy animal” and Qantas chief Alan Joyce “should be shot somewhere in the back of the head” — a line that got applause.
But what was even more astonishing — and frightening — was the hypocrisy.
(Read full article here.) 
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Labor demands return of dodgy donation to Rudd campaign

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:17am)

Labor has more funny-money problems:
THE Labor Party is taking urgent action to unwind a secret $200,000 donation, from a Taiwanese-born businessman, which it believes was arranged in breach of electoral laws for Kevin Rudd to conduct campaign polling on the eve of the election.
The massive donation from developer and former banker Kung Chin Yuan was paid into the then prime minister’s Griffith electorate branch bank account on September 3, allegedly without the knowledge of state Labor officials who are legally responsible for campaign contributions.
It is also alleged that the money - believed to be one of the biggest single donations in the federal campaign - ... was then handed over to Labor’s pollsters, UMR Research, to pay for polling privately commissioned by Mr Rudd and his political advisers, including Bruce Hawker. UMR polling, presented to Labor insiders in early August last year, canvassed voters about former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie running for a federal seat in Queensland.
Mr Rudd, who lost the prime ministership to Tony Abbott just days after the donation was made, has denied any wrongdoing, saying all campaign disclosures were the responsibility of the party. It is understood Mr Rudd was aware of the donation but denies having any role in arranging it…
An extraordinary meeting of the ALP’s state administrative committee late yesterday voted to demand UMR refund the $200,000 to the ALP so that it can be returned to Mr Kung, who has made Labor donations in the past and in 2005 paid for Mr Rudd to travel to London…
In its resolutions, the ALP administrative committee said the state office only became aware of the donation on March 7 and that it “continue to ensure compliance with the ALP’s obligations with electoral legislation"… In Queensland, a political donation of $100,000 or more has to be declared within two weeks.
One theory:
A source who asked not to be named said: “The way this is being handled smells a lot like a set-up against Kevin by the AWU controlled state branch as part of a long-standing vendetta against him, despite all that he did for the party in the last election.”
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No, Elizabeth, weeping for weather is not the same as fighting to free the slaves

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (6:51am)

Global warming - propaganda, The new morality

image
Read Elizabeth Farrelly with this thought in mind - that the planet’s atmosphere hasn’t really warmed in 16 years, and by some measures has slightly cooled over the past 13:

But when the two value systems split, when the legal and the good find themselves in opposition, then the fight becomes bloody. It becomes epoch changing.
Each era has such a battle. Reformation. Slavery. Apartheid. Ours, for this century, is environmentalism. However it ends - and it may not be well - this will be our defining moral issue. Byron Smith, the Anglican minister arrested during a prayer vigil at the Maules Creek mine last week, argues that way. He and his co-arrestees sacrificed their freedom in hope of preventing the sacrifice of lives.
Prosperity actually saves lives. Global warming has not cost any, in net terms.
Farrelly, a Sydney Morning Herald columnist, preaches what she does not understand and accepts what she does not question. She, like many of her colleagues, wants to feel like a soldier in a great moral battle when she’s actually a traitor in a great intellectual one - the defence of reason.
And, of course, she’s a hypocrite:
It’s a point that remakes itself at every step of our 8000-kilometre swag through the Big Empty, from Sydney to the Alice and back.
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Was Rudd warned, and what did he say?

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (5:47am)

So what was done to prevent the risk, and was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned?:
Bureaucrats planning the botched pink batts scheme knew shoddy insulation installations were likely to result in fires, injuries and even death, an inquiry has heard…
A royal commission into the program heard on Wednesday that the government’s environment department knew of the risks by mid-March 2009, a month after the scheme’s announcement.
The department received and responded to emails from industry bodies that warned about potential safety hazards, including electrical fires… The inquiry was also shown a risk assessment document, developed before the scheme’s rollout, that identified the potential for dodgy installers and shonky installations under the program.
Counsel Assisting the commission, Keith Wilson, asked environment department staffer Beth Brunoro whether it was right to assume from the document that the risk of injury, including death, to installers was likely.
‘’That’s correct,’’ she replied.
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 
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=== Posts from last year ===

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My name is Barney Day. I'm thirty-five years old. I like to take pictures. Thank you.
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Noted speech therapist John Wayne uses an unorthodox, yet effective method to cure a young man of a speech impediment

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Smile, today is World Happiness Day! What makes you happy?

For Chenda in Cambodia, it’s spending time with the people she loves. Chenda says she used to worry about her family's future, but with support from World Vision, she can now enjoy being a kid.

We hope you can spread a little happiness today!
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Still, I feel that God needs to be part of any equation .. or the end will be bitter. - ed
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.. a family .. with little people and bigger ones .. all doing their job
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As at the 15th March 2013, total Commonwealth Government Debt is $268,836,000,000.00

http://www.aofm.gov.au/
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I am going over the address that I will deliver this evening at the reception for US President Barack Obama
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Who needs Jenga when you've got a Tim Tam tower to play with?
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March 20: Nowruz in Iran, Central Asia, and Zoroastrianism (2014); Independence Day in Tunisia (1956)
Napoleon Bonaparte
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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
March 19: Morning
"Strong in faith." - Romans 4:20
Christian, take good care of thy faith; for recollect faith is the only way whereby thou canst obtain blessings. If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God's throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and the Lord Jesus in glory. Let that angel be withdrawn, we can neither send up prayer, nor receive the answers. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven--on which God's messages of love fly so fast, that before we call he answers, and while we are yet speaking he hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we receive the promise? Am I in trouble?--I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy?--my soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith. But take faith away--in vain I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the deepest wintertime faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel--aye, and all the better for the biting frost; but blockade the road, and how can we communicate with the Great King? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defence. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything of the Lord? Let not him that wavereth--who is like a wave of the Sea--expect that he will receive anything of God! O, then, Christian, watch well thy faith; for with it thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it thou canst obtain nothing. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
Evening
"And she did eat, and was sufficed, and left." - Ruth 2:14
Whenever we are privileged to eat of the bread which Jesus gives, we are, like Ruth, satisfied with the full and sweet repast. When Jesus is the host, no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is satisfied with the precious truth which Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus, as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for whom have we in heaven but Jesus? and our desire is satiated, for what can we wish for more than "to know Christ and to be found in him?" Jesus fills our conscience till it is at perfect peace; our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of his teachings; our memory with recollections of what he has done, and our imagination with the prospects of what he is yet to do. As Ruth was "sufficed, and left," so is it with us. We have had deep draughts; we have thought that we could take in all of Christ; but when we have done our best we have had to leave a vast remainder. We have sat at the table of the Lord's love, and said, "Nothing but the infinite can ever satisfy me; I am such a great sinner that I must have infinite merit to wash my sin away;" but we have had our sin removed, and found that there was merit to spare; we have had our hunger relieved at the feast of sacred love, and found that there was a redundance of spiritual meat remaining. There are certain sweet things in the Word of God which we have not enjoyed yet, and which we are obliged to leave for awhile; for we are like the disciples to whom Jesus said, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained; places of fellowship nearer to Christ which we have not reached; and heights of communion which our feet have not climbed. At every banquet of love there are many baskets of fragments left. Let us magnify the liberality of our glorious Boaz.
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Today's reading: Joshua 1-3, Mark 16 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Joshua 1-3

Joshua Installed as Leader
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: 2 "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them--to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates--all the Hittite country--to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 5 No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 16

Jesus Has Risen
1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed....

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Today's Lent reading: Matthew 23-24 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
A Warning Against Hypocrisy
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5 "Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called 'Rabbi' by others....

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