Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Wed Apr 2nd Todays News

I googled misandrist and got the first option "misandrist Julia Gillard." A search engine that returns information. Don't expect it to enter the Macquarie Dictionary soon. Sometimes they can be very slow. The behaviour of ALP supporters is puzzling. If they really believed in the ALP, they'd be advocating for improvement and change. It is important for Australia's future that her democracy be strong, and that requires vibrant debate over matters that are important. But the ALP is too compromised by self interest of members to be of value to the Australian public. The ALP are not supporting industry workers with the carbon tax. ALP are not helping minorities with irresponsible spending. ALP are not helping migrants with weak border protection. All of these issues should be ALP strengths, but aren't. In fact, the conservatives have the most effective policies in these areas. It is corruption of process that needs to be addressed by the ALP. They will still have members elected to parliament regardless of what they do, but reform is essential. It was not done by Hawke/Keating in the late 90's when there was an opportunity. Now there is another opportunity. 

Puzzling behaviour is historical too. On this day in 1801 Horatio Nelson shelled Copenhagen and captured a Danish fleet. Only, when things had looked desperate, Nelson had been ordered to disengage. He ignored the order. Had he lost, he might have been executed. He was advised in battle of the order, and reputedly put a spy glass to his eye, remarking "I am supposed to have a bad eye. I cannot see the flag." Two of his fleet got grounded in harbour, but his desperate assault led the Danes to surrender. He landed and was greeted as a hero by the Danes. My possible explanation for the Danish behaviour was that the Danish Government, in charge of a protestant nation, had aligned with Catholic France against Protestant England, and this was unpopular. But I don't know that to be true and would welcome it if anyone knows the actual reason. There might be insight as to why the ALP continues to have support even after their epic failures. 

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 to those born on this day, along with
Matches
Despatches
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Hereditary housos not a matter of trust

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, April 02, 2014 (12:38am)

THE National Trust should stick to preserving heritage buildings instead of sticking its nose into the sensible decision to sell public housing in Millers Point.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Hereditary housos not a matter of trust'
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Twisted view of life and justice

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, April 02, 2014 (12:37am)

HOW can “cultural differences” be an excuse for child sexual offences?

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Twisted view of life and justice'
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Gaia above! Wonders never cease

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, April 01, 2014 (11:04pm)

GAIA guru James Lovelock says environmentalism has “become a religion” and does not pay enough attention to facts”.
And in The Guardian no less. 
The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that “it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms.

Speaking to the Guardian for an interview ahead of a landmark UN climate science report on Monday on the impacts of climate change, Lovelock said of the warnings of climate catastrophe in his 2006 book, Revenge of Gaia: “I was a little too certain in that book. You just can’t tell what’s going to happen.”
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Fossil fuel fanatics make farm life hell

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, April 01, 2014 (7:53pm)

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IN the lush pastures of the northern rivers region, an unholy alliance of local anti-gas protesters and imported green extremists is making life hell for dairy farmer Pete Graham and his family.
They have farmed near Casino for five generations, but their decision to allow gas company Metgasco to drill on their land for natural gas — not coal seam gas — has turned into a nightmare.
Hundreds of protesters have been camped around their property for weeks, blocking their driveways with cars and intimidating everyone going in and out. Peter’s wife, seven-year-old twins and parents are under virtual siege. His gates have been ­repeatedly padlocked and welded shut and a concrete trench with metal spikes dug into his driveway. If he takes cattle to market, he has to ask council for a security escort to get out his gate.
And in nearby Casino, business owners were harassed by anonymous letters last week, threatening a boycott of the town.
“It’s out of control,” Graham, 44, said yesterday of the campaign of intimidation.
“They’ve been told by police not to enter our property and they continually disobey the requests.”
This is the dark side of the campaign against coal seam gas. While apprehension about the impacts on prime agricultural land of gas exploration is real, extreme green fanatics have exploited those fears for their own ends.
Posing as farmer’s friends, professional vigilante activists are dangerous bedfellows for the grassroots anti-gas movement. Their criminal harassment of farmers and contractors and total opposition to all fossil fuels will, in the end, turn off the public and divide communities.
The fact is NSW has the most stringent regulations in the world over gas exploration. Last week the state government oversaw a deal between landowner groups and big energy companies to give farmers veto over drilling on their properties.
Under Australian law, underground resources are owned by the crown and landholders were obliged to provide access to coal seam gas companies, whether they wanted to or not. This imposition inspired the influential Lock The Gate lobby.
But now, under pressure from NSW Resources and Energy Minister Anthony Roberts, Santos and AGL have agreed to forfeit their right to demand access. Roberts has also imposed a six month freeze on new exploration, and further stringent environmental controls.
And that should be the end of the matter, for reasonable people.
Farmers like the Grahams who want to allow drilling on their land should be entitled to do so, as long as the drilling is done in accordance with these tough regulations.
“I’m not an advocate for the industry, never have been, never will be, but as a regulator, we need to ensure that, as the gas industry moves forward, it is based on science and community consultation,” Roberts said.
“Some of activists have shown it’s not about access to farmers’ land but a fundamental hatred of mining or any fossil fuel extraction.
“We cannot become a ­nation of social workers and clients of social workers. We need to produce something if our children want jobs; cheap energy, as long as it’s done correctly, is the way to go.”
Compared to Queensland, highly regulated NSW is ­already missing out on the benefits of the gas boom (which was driven in large part by the demonisation of coal by carbon-phobics).
There is nothing left to protest against. “But the extreme elements will only be happy when they have sent us back to the pushbike and horse and cart,” Graham said.
The good news is that the Casino Chamber of Commerce, which is neutral on gas exploration, is having the last laugh. They’ve turned the ­attempted boycott into a marketing opportunity. Today, in the local newspaper, the Express Examiner, they have taken out full page ads declaring Casino “open for business”.
Bravo Casino!
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A CHILD SHOWS US THE WAY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 02, 2014 (12:20pm)

After listening to this little girl’s compelling arguments, I’ve decided to invest in coal seam gas mining. Let’s have some financial advice in comments.
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False. I’d defend Israel even if every one of its leaders were like Michael Gawenda

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (5:19pm)

An open response to Michael Gawenda, and any Jewish paper is free to reproduce it.
Michael,
Your column today is a grotesque misrepresentation of me and of my argument with Jewish leaders supporting the Racial Discrimination Act.

To claim I simply presented an IOU to the Jewish community in return for services rendered – services I could now withdraw in a pique – is not only untrue but vicious.

May I suggest your cartoonish antipathy towards me has made you write something unfair?

You overlooked – or deliberately omitted – the central point of my argument and one I’ve made several times, finally prompting Mark Leibler to address the matter this year in an open letter for which I am deeply grateful.

I was accused in court by a Jewish barrister before a Jewish judge of sharing the thinking of the Nazis in drawing up the Nuremberg race laws, which, the barrister didn’t need to add yet did, led to the Holocaust.

This was not simply manifestly untrue and, in the circumstances, highly inflammatory. It was an insult so vile that I am enraged again simply to repeat it to you.

What so deeply disappointed me is that half a dozen Jewish leaders I knew - and who knew what I’d done for the community - privately assured me variously that the slur was a disgrace, the law had been misapplied or the law was too broad in scope, if this case was the consequence.

Yet not one of those leaders, until Mark this year, publicly defended me against one of the most vile smears you could possibly dream up in this kind of debate. Not one, until Mark, publicly acknowledged that mine was not the kind of case this law should have applied to.

So why this long silence, only briefly broken? For the reason, I believe, that it was felt more important by those leaders to maintain the myth that the law was perfect than to acknowledge an injustice was done and my reputation unfairly and vilely trashed as a consequence.

This is the source of my disappointment. I also pointed out the danger in this for the Jewish community, that in allowing this trashing of me they were also allowing the marginalising of one of their most dependable media supporters, in a country with distressingly few of them.

All this is on the public record, and I cannot believe that in writing about this issue you could have overlooked the argument I actually put. Here is just one iteration of it, from just last December:
- Several prominent Jewish spokesmen had privately told me they disagreed with the verdict and even the breadth of the Racial Discrimination Act, if used to silence even me, yet not one of those spokesmen had ever said so publicly. It was as if though by conceding an injustice, they risked losing a law they thought useful. I was, in my phrase, “collateral damage”.
- Not a single Jewish spokesman had publicly condemned Ron Merkel QC for telling the Jewish judge in my case that my thinking in the article was of the kind that the Nazis had in drawing up the Nuremberg race laws, (Danny Lamm, however, did offer to speak on my behalf.) I thought this vile slur, explosive in the context of my case, was not just a gross misuse of the victims of the Holocaust, but was false and known to be false by the many members of the Jewish community, who knew me to be one of the most prominent media defenders of Israel and the Jewish community generally. It seemed to me, again, that my reputation was collateral damage in a fight to preserve (unjust) laws.
- I was alarmed that my personal reputation was further being attacked by people who should know better. One very prominent Jewish leader (certainly not Leibler) had even suggested I believed in the “Jewish conspiracy”. I warned that phrasing the debate over the RDA as between racists and non-racists was not just false and offensive, but would damage the standing of someone many Jews felt was useful in defending them publicly.
- These laws would eventually be turned against Jews and those who criticised Islam.
You could have quoted my real position. Instead, you substituted your own version: falsely claiming that because I’d scratched Jewish backs, I felt Jews should scratch mine, particularly if they wanted more favours:
For a start, this suggests that Bolt indeed sees himself as powerful, able to ‘do things’ for the Jews and, it must be assumed, for others who would benefit mightily from his support. In return, he expects support when he gets into a spot of bother. This is the way players in politics sometimes operate but not, I would hope, someone who calls himself a journalist.
Needless to say, your version is not just false and completely at odds with what I’ve written and said privately to several leaders, including Danny Lamm, Yuval Rotem and Colin Rubenstein. It is also extremely offensive, crude and untrue – a play to a racist stereotype of the unreliable goy, a secret anti-Semite, after all, despite all that smiling and backclapping:

If there were a shred of truth to such a spiteful reading you might then be able to go on to note how I’d switched positions on issues involving Israel and attacked what I’d once supported. I warrant you could not find a single such case, or a single case of my failing to speak up as I used to. I would draw your attention to, for instance, my blog comments on the discussion on Q&A only last Monday of Pamela Geller’s signs, or my criticism on The Bolt Report last Sunday of the BDS protests.

I do not need favours from anyone to speak up for Israel as I have done, and for you to now imply I am such a man is shameful. Shameful and very, very wrong.

A real journalist would acknowledge this mistake – this gross injustice - and apologise. 
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Why doesn’t Loewenstein declare the RDA was used against him?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (2:29pm)

Antony Loewenstein in the Guardian defends in a yes-but way the Abbott Government’s changes to Racial Discrimination Act.
Of course, he says he’s sensitive to, say, those playing down the Holocaust::

As an atheist Jew, I find it distinctly uncomfortable to defend the free speech rights of Holocaust deniers. I utterly oppose the inaccuracy, hatred and intolerance that goes with refuting the reality of Nazi crimes against Jews, gay people, Gypsies and many others.
He’s not like other people who defence the RDA reforms – insensitive brutes like, well, me:
[Bolt is not] in a position to understand the awful effect that verbal abuse can have on an Aboriginal, refugee, Jew, Muslim, or Greek.
I’m not? Even so, I’m pretty sure I would understand the awful effect on Jews of some clown publishing a cartoon attacking Australia’s support of Israel by showing Prime Minister Julia Gillard wearing Star of David earrings next to SS guards with Star of David emblems on their helmets.
But is Loewenstein?
Funny, how in all his pieces discussing the RDA that Loewenstein never mentions how it was once used against him – and not, as in my case, because he was fighting racial stereotypes, but because he was airing the very cruelest:
Antony Loewenstein has removed an image from his web site which had been the subject of a complaint lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

On his blog yesterday, Loewenstein wrote under the title ‘How not to discuss Israel and the Middle East’ : “I recently posted an image that was inappropriate and ill-advised and was not intended to cause offense by making comparisons between Israel and Nazism. However, it expressed the sort of extreme views that are widely shared and growing worldwide but on reflection I realise that they should be not be given further oxygen and publicity.”

The offending image showed Prime Minister Julia Gillard wearing Star of David earrings, the Australian and Israeli flags, SS stormtroopers with Stars of David on their helmets and a message to fight Islam and terrorism “with our Israeli allies”.
Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim lodged the complaint. He told J-Wire: “If Loewenstein is hoping to attract Jewish people to his anti-Israel perspective he has scored a spectacular own-goal.  By publishing and apparently endorsing this racist sludge he has confirmed our worst suspicions about the real agenda behind uniformly anti-Israel commentary.” 
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Gag against these gags

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (8:56am)

Free speech

We really are so damn slow to trust Australians and so dangerously quick to stop them reading what they will and making up their own minds:
THE Herald Sun was last night ­silenced from publishing detail on Lawyer X which it believes is of ­extreme public interest.
Victoria Police took the extraordinary action of seeking a Supreme Court injunction at 7.30pm last night preventing the newspaper from publishing any information at all about Lawyer X, whom the Herald Sun had no intention of naming or identifying ...
As the hearing commenced, the Herald Sun was ordered by the judge to stop its presses.
Herald Sun Editor Damon Johnston said that Victorians ­deserved to know the full truth.
“The police last night moved to prevent us from publishing important details that go to the heart of the public interest,” Johnston said.
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And now for some real hate speech

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (8:45am)

Free speech

And when there is true hate speech and racist abuse, where are the thought police then? Reader BBqTalk:
Following the NT News would make you weep. The rebellious back-benchers in the NT Parliament are now using this language: “ we’re not breast-plated niggers”. I’ve been in the Territory for 45 years; I’ve seen an aboriginal gardener in Alice Springs given his morning cuppa in a jam tin in 1967. But I haven’t heard a description of ‘nigger’ ever. I suppose it shows the visceral feelings of the trio. And that a declared coloured person can use language which so many ‘caucasians’ would find extremely offensive makes you think about 18 C provisions.
Now Nova Peris has chimed into the brawling, remembering how she was called a ‘maid’ by Alison Anderson, and a ‘pet aborigine’ by current Chief Minister, Adam Giles when past PM Gillard made her ‘captain’s pick’.
The only adult in the room is Bess Price, who took the comment of ‘breast-plated nigger’ personally, but responded with a ‘do the job you were elected to do’ comment.
Note, though. For all the foul and disgraceful language and the peddling of racial stereotypes, people are giving as good as they are allegedly getting and no one needs an official silencing.
Thanks heavens at least for Bess Price. I’ll say it again: class act.
(WARNING: Feel free to comment, but do not feel quite so free to repeat any of those offensive terms.) 
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Feeding time finished at the golden trough

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (8:43am)

We really have been living in a fool’s paradise, paying ourselves borrowed billions:
SAVINGS of more than $60 billion a year will have to be found by 2023-24 for the Abbott ­government to reach its surplus target, according to the Commission of Audit, which presented a bleaker outlook for tax revenue than was contained in the midyear budget update.
The commission’s pessimism is understood to be based both on a further downgrade in tax revenue growth and on its belief that it is not realistic to assume there will not be any personal income tax cuts over the next 10 years.
The size of the savings task is equivalent to total federal spending on education or defence and will demand the axing of complete government functions and reductions in spending on pensions and allowances. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Where’s the warming?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (6:54am)

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As you trawl through all the global warming scare stories this week, remember this bottom-line fact - there are been no warming of the atmosphere this century:
Our dataset-of-datasets graph averages the monthly anomalies for the three terrestrial and two satellite temperature records. It shows there has still been no global warming this millennium. Over 13 years 2 months, the trend is zero.
The warming may resume after a hiatus that so far has lasted some 16 years, but we simply are not getting the temperature rises the climate models predicted.
UPDATE
Exactly how many more billions does Labor want to waste making no difference to global temperatures, which haven’t risen in 16 years anyway?
Labor leader Bill Shorten has distanced himself from remarks made by opposition environment spokesman Mark Butler who said the case has been made for Australia to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent by 2020...
Campaigning in Perth before the West Australian Senate election on Saturday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott seized on Mr Butler’s remarks, arguing they were a sign Labor was not just going to keep the carbon tax, but increase it…

The independent Climate Change Authority, which the government plans to abolish, said in February Australia should adopt a minimum target of 15 per cent by 2020 and its 5 per cent target was out of step with countries including China and the United States.
Mr Butler said: ‘’It [the authority report] does make the point that the conditions for 15 per cent have been met.
‘’For example, similar countries have targets of 15 per cent. It’s quite clear 20 per cent hasn’t been met but it is strongly arguable 15 per cent has been met.’’
And can we clarify this furphy that the Climate Change Authority is “independent”? In fact, Labor stacked it with extremists and sympathisers who can’t be sacked:

Tell me why the authority members include Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics who is a former Greens candidate and absurd catastrophist? Why on earth should we listen to him?
Tell me why it includes militant warmist David Karoly, with his history of predictions?
Why does it include John Quiggin, a warmist who had to admit to having grossly exaggerated the difference our carbon tax could actually make? 
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Pray that money doesn’t speak in our Parliament

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (6:17am)

It would be an insult to our democracy if Clive Palmer were allowed to buy himself another seat in Parliament:
CLIVE Palmer has been accused of “spending money like a drunken sailor” to secure a third Senate seat for his party, as independent monitoring indicated the Queens­land MP was outspending Labor and the Liberals 10-to-one on television advertising...
The Palmer United Party has bought 530 of the 892 political ads aired on Perth TV since March 1, accusing the major parties of stealing bread from the mouths of West Australian ­babies…
Greens senator Scott Ludlam has also outspent the major parties, airing 90 ads compared with only 35 each for the Liberals and the ALP.
And look at the company Labor is keeping, including a construction union about to be a key focus of inquiry by the royal commission into union corruption:
Two ALP-affiliated unions, the Maritime Union of Australia and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, had collectively bought 142 adverts attacking the Prime Minister.
In further news today about the CFMEU, so determined to destroy Tony Abbott:

A HIGH-ranking Victorian CFMEU official is being investigated by the union’s national branch over allegations of misuse of members’ money…
A whistleblower is also preparing a submission to the impending royal commission into corruption and bribery in the union movement…
The militant union’s construction branch was fined $1.25 million this week for its illegal blockade at Grocon’s Myer Emporium site in 2012. 
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This isn’t a protection but a gag

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (6:13am)

Free speech

Professor John Furedy backs the Abbott Government’s changes to the Racial Discrimination Act – and would even if they allowed Holocaust denial:
The Holocaust survivor came out in support of Attorney-General George Brandis to halt what he calls the creep of “velvet totalitarianism”, under which thought and speech are criminalised.
“The best thing my parents ever did for me was take me to Australia in 1949, but I have watched Australians take their freedoms for granted,” he said.
There has been what I call a velvet totalitarianism creeping in. I call it that because the punishments are less severe but people still try to censor themselves and each other.... There can be no contest of ideas if we go too far down this path."…
Professor Furedy said free speech wouldn’t have saved the Jewish people under Hitler — “there were so many other factors at play” — but was adamant it was the best way to defeat bigotry.
“The only protection against stupid speech is better speech,” he said.
UPDATE
Professor Alan Dershowitz:
Censorship of racist speech is also bad for liberty in general, and especially for freedom of expression. Once a government gets into the business of banning one type of bigoted speech, the circle of censorship inevitably expands. I call this “ism equity”. As soon as one ism, say anti-racism, gets to employ the power of the state to stop its enemies, every other ism claims an equal right to employ the power of the state against its enemies.
Some feminists demand restrictions on sexist speech, which can be defined broadly to include pornography, sexist jokes and other genres deemed offensive to some. Jews demand an end to everything deemed to be anti-Semitic, which can include Holocaust denial, demonisation of the nation-state of the Jewish people and anti-Jewish jokes and cartoons. Other groups similarly demand equal treatment. The result is that the circle of civility expands and along with it the circle of censorship. The big loser is the freedom of all to hear and see everything and to judge for ourselves.
Professor James Allan:
Did you know that the same sort of issue that came up with Bolt came up in the US with now senator Elizabeth Warren and her claim to be one-sixteenth or one-thirty-second Native American and whether that helped her win a job at Harvard?
The debate there was more vigorous than anything here. It seemed in the end that Warren had no Native American lineage at all. We don’t know if it helped her get the job. And the voters in Massachusetts elected her anyway. But no one thought about taking anyone to court, regardless of their tone or anything else.
However, what’s good for the US goose is not good for us Aussie ganders. Or so says our eminent person, Warren Mundine. His sympathies don’t extend that far.
If you think that my tone is dripping with sarcasm in this piece, you’re right. Mundine’s argument is pathetic. It warrants only derision. Yes, I could have written this piece in a more respectful way that covered the same basic ground. But the truth is that Mundine’s position warrants this sarcastic tone.
Sure, I might also have sent my draft along to Bromberg to have him check my tone against his sensibilities, but in a longstanding democracy, one of the world’s most successful democracies, I real­ly don’t feel like making Bromberg the arbiter of my tone of voice or the de facto editor of this newspaper.
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These hands are small, I know. But they are not yours. They are my own. 
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=== Posts from last year ===
4 her, so she sees how I see her






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With Rachelle MercadoSarie-Rose Whitehouse-HartmannAndy Minh Trieu and Chandni Biswas.
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Earlier today our ACM member Peter Tadros along with his wife Mrs Mariam Tadros represented the ACM at an event organised by the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) to celebrate Assyrian New Year. The event was held at the Fairfield Showground and attended by thousands of people and well over 100 politicians and community leaders. 
The photo below includes two politicians who are considered to be champions of promoting the plight of not only the Assyrian community but the Coptic Community as well they are Mr Craig Kelly MP (Liberal member for Hughes) and the Hon. Rev Fred Nile MLC and leader of the Christian Democratic Party.
On the 13th October 2011 Mr Kelly supported the ACM in putting forward a historic motion to be voted on in the Australian Federal Parliament. The motion called for an end to Coptic persecution in Egypt and officially recognised the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt as well as a further three actions points.
The motion passed with support from all politicians following months of continuous campaigning by ACM supporters across the nation. On the following day the Hon. Rev Fred Nile MLC and leader of the Christian Democratic Party introduced the same motion to the NSW Legislative Council and again the motion was successful.
Both Mr Kelly and the Hon. Rev Nile were in attendance today at Assyrian New Year event and in both speeches, they along with the Hon. David Clark MLC and Mr Hermiz Shahine (AUA) again recognised the plight of Egypt’s Copts and their ongoing suffering. We sincerely thank both Mr Kelly and the Hon. Rev Nile for their continuing support to the plight of minorities throughout the Middle East and North Africa and like the many who attended today’s event at Fairfield, we at the ACM call for an end to all persecution of all minority groups in the region and request that the Australian Government fully recognises the genocide that was committed against the Assyrians, Armenians and Pontiac Greeks earlier last century.
We also call upon The Australian Federal Parliament to implement all four action points of the motion on Coptic persecution as the situation for Egypt’s Copts has deteriorated significantly since 13th October 2011.

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A SHIFT FROM ONE CLIMATE SYSTEM TO ANOTHER ?

Remember a few months ago when chief climate propagandist Tim Flannery was excitedly crowing about ‘123 climate records broken’ over 90 days during the warm Australian summer.
Mr Flannery enthusiastically said at the time;

“When you get records being broken at that scale, you can start to see a shifting from one climate system to another.”

Well I’d be interested to hear Mr Flannery’s comments given the fact that in last 7 days in the USA a total of 935 LOW temperature records have been broken.

And 935 records broken for new low temperatures include;
* A new record LOW Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the 28th March, beating the previous record set in 1884.

* A new record LOW in Silverton, Colardo for the 25th March, beating the previous record set in 1885, and

* A new record LOW at the Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, beating the previous record set in 1871 - when Ulysses Grant was President.

These records don't mean we are entering a new ice age, and we need new taxes to "take action" on global cooling, as with tens of thousands of locations recording temperatures around the globe there will always be some new highs or lows being recorded somewhere - but what they do demonstrate, is the alarmist nonsense and propaganda coming Labor’s highly paid Climate Commissioner.

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Shooting a brand spanking new YouTube video out in the city this beautiful long weekend, plenty of action coming your way! We can't say when exactly but it'll be worth the wait! We hope! #team9lives #9livesparkour #9lives1love #sydney #parkour #freerunning
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Last Light of day at Rodeo Beach last Saturday with the Aperture Academy. What fantastic light it was too! I was pretty busy helping our students get outrageously good images just after the rain stopped and the sky exploded. I finally at the end said "I need to get a picture of this!"

Previous to my shooting this pic, there were awesome lenticular clouds off the coast, and I had shot a couple of quick hand held pics of the scene in order to show frames to the people I was teaching, but alas, those images looked pretty shaky on the big screen.

I think this is some of the best light and clouds I've seen together at this spot EVER.
 — at Rodeo Beach.
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The view from Lombard street, San Francisco. Looking over North Beach. — at Lombard Street.
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one last April First thingamajig, whatchamacallit…

The saucer seen above, using only a cloak of cloud cover, descended over the almost barren field field in it's hunt for bovine tastiness, but alas it was only able to find a local McDonald's © which the space aliens immediately zapped into oblivion after being offered gluten free Chicken McNuggets.

It was a grim day indeed, but I was able to catch them in their descent from their planet oh so far away, using my P31 eye stomper Image Compression Module.

For editing I went into the future and got myself a copy of Adobe's Googleshop CS 2002.

It was a steal at only 12,000 yenos (the currency of the new world order).

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MEDIA IGNORE OBAMAS LAVISH 1% VACATIONS

In a Sunday Washington Times column, Drudge Report editor Joseph Curl takes a look at the difference between how the last two White House occupants, President Bush and President Obama, approached vacationing as president. Curl reveals that unlike Obama, Bush was concerned with public perception (especially during the war in Iraq) and made an effort to schedule holiday vacations in a way that wouldn't take others away from their families -- even a media that despised him:

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” [President George W. Bush] said years later. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

That’s also why Mr. Bush did two other things, without fanfare or praise. First, he never headed home to his Texas ranch until after Christmas, instead going to Camp David for a few days. That way, the hundreds of people revolving around him at all times — White House staff, Secret Service agents, reporters, photographers, all the others — could spend the holiday with their families in and around Washington, D.C. No one ever reported that — until this column.

Second, he rarely attended sporting events, although he once owned a baseball team and was a self-confessed stats junkie. His thinking there was the same: If he went to a baseball game (right down the street from the White House), his mere presence would mean hours and hours of extra security for fans.

Conversely, Obama, who never has to worry about the media turning against him (including lying for weeks about a terror attack in Libya), doesn't give a damn about public perception -- not during a recession; not even during a time when sequester cuts are being blamed for the closing of White House tours and airport control towers:

How else to explain the nonstop vacations the pair keep taking during what Mr. Obama calls the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression”? In 2013, the First Family has already enjoyed three vacations — that’s one a month. (Sorry, Joe America, you might have to forget your week at the beach again this year, but make sure you get those taxes in on time!)

Curl closes the piece (which you will want to read in full) by making the point about how much this juxtaposition tells you about Obama. And indeed it does. But I would add that it also reveals just as much about our media.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/04/01/Obamas-Enjoy-Vacation-Lifestyle-of-the-One-Percent

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YOU’RE PAYING FOR IT ……..as reported in today’s Australian; Craig Kelly

The Australian public service is increasingly top-heavy, with 45,000 officials, or 29 per cent of all permanent employees, now classified as executives. 

Analysis by The Australian has found there is now one manager for every 2.5 ordinary workers in the federal bureaucracy.

And the rise in the top five pay grades in Canberra accounts for almost all of the growth in the public service during the past five years, with an ANNUAL COST TO TAXPAYERS OF $1.3 BILLION for the 10,000-plus extra executives.

Since 1998, the number of middle managers in the federal bureaucracy, known as EL1s and EL2s, has jumped 132 per cent, while the elite, three-grade Senior Executive Service has expanded 78 per cent.

The total number of so-called "ongoing" employees in the Australian Public Service increased by 42 per cent over that period, compared with a 22 per cent rise in the nation's population.

The ANNUAL COST to the federal budget of executive remuneration, including salary, superannuation, vehicle allowance and bonus payments, is $6bn.

According to the most recent report on remuneration by the Australian Public Service Commission, the average total reward of the highest classification (SES Band 3), of which there were 135 officials, was $358,552.

The entry-level executive (EL1) positions, of which there were 28,818 at last year's audit, command an average total reward of $116,087.

In the past five years under Labor, the number of permanent public servants has grown by 10,440, including a 10,358 rise in the executive ranks, to 154,307.

Had the number of senior executives and middle managers remained at 2007 levels, the annual salary bill would be $1.343bn less than it is today.

The agencies with the highest proportion of executives are AusAID (57 per cent), the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (52 per cent), Foreign Affairs and Trade (51 per cent), Finance and Deregulation (50 per cent), Attorney-General's (49 per cent) and Treasury (44 per cent).

In June 2010, the federal government introduced a cap on SES growth in each agency, designed to place a control on the number of highly paid roles each agency can staff.

While the government says the total number of public servants, including defence personnel and federal police, has stopped growing and is forecast to fall this year, the number of permanent bureaucrats covered by the Public Service Act continues to rise.

If elected, the Coalition has said it would cut the number of federal public servants by 12,000 over two years through natural attrition, saving $4bn over the four-year forward estimates period.

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One more design from the Botanica Collection - Banksia Bouquet is a striking contemporary design based on Australian Banksias
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Library of love
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*Vibrantly Resting*
A shot from back in February. This is a 2 shot blend. The longest shot was 103 seconds, just at sunset with my 10-stop LEE Big Stopper and a .9 Soft Graduated Filter. I processed this with Photomatix, Lightroom 4 and Color Efex Pro 4. Enjoy!
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Check out this picture of a beautiful wall cloud on a textbook supercell NW of Benjamin, TX. INSANE lightning with this storm. Working on video now!
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Poems are rough notations for the music we are." - Rumi
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Screenshot from youtube.com @Jobar Revo
2,000-year-old Damascus synagogue destroyed
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"Blue Bowling Balls"

Allright, it's official. Joe Azure is bad for my wallet. On Saturday, After we arrived at Bowling Ball Beach near Mendocino, Joe gave Casey McCallister and I a crash course on how you uses his Big Stopper with Reverse NDs, NDs, and Polarizers. Well I have never been a filter guy really, but to see the results you can get IN CAMERA, I was hooked. So I came home and ordered $80...See more
  — with Casey McCallister and Joe Azure at Bowling Ball Beach.
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STREETFIGHTER’S HADOUKEN STRIKES INTERNET AND GOES VIRAL!
People all across the world at getting their inner video gamer out by re-enacting Street Fighter’s Hadouken move. Don’t worry, it’s safer than planking (we think).
Read more about it here:www.urbansociety.com.au/urban-insider/hadouken-goes-viral
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The Hendrick's Gang! Darren Low we're missing you! — with Kendra Renee NgGladys Wong andJak Nu.
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Horatio Nelson
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Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]

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“For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” - Psalm 14:1
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth."
Song of Solomon 1:2
For several days we have been dwelling upon the Saviour's passion, and for some little time to come we shall linger there. In beginning a new month, let us seek the same desires after our Lord as those which glowed in the heart of the elect spouse. See how she leaps at once to him; there are no prefatory words; she does not even mention his name; she is in the heart of her theme at once, for she speaks of him who was the only him in the world to her. How bold is her love! It was much condescension which permitted the weeping penitent to anoint his feet with spikenard--it was rich love which allowed the gentle Mary to sit at his feet and learn of him--but here, love, strong, fervent love, aspires to higher tokens of regard, and closer signs of fellowship. Esther trembled in the presence of Ahasuerus, but the spouse in joyful liberty of perfect love knows no fear. If we have received the same free spirit, we also may ask the like. By kisses we suppose to be intended those varied manifestations of affection by which the believer is made to enjoy the love of Jesus. The kiss of reconciliation we enjoyed at our conversion, and it was sweet as honey dropping from the comb. The kiss of acceptance is still warm on our brow, as we know that he hath accepted our persons and our works through rich grace. The kiss of daily, present communion is that which we pant after to be repeated day after day, till it is changed into the kiss of reception, which removes the soul from earth, and the kiss of consummation which fills it with the joy of heaven. Faith is our walk, but fellowship sensibly felt is our rest. Faith is the road, but communion with Jesus is the well from which the pilgrim drinks. O lover of our souls, be not strange to us; let the lips of thy blessing meet the lips of our asking; let the lips of thy fulness touch the lips of our need, and straightway the kiss will be effected.

Evening

"It is time to seek the Lord."
Hosea 10:12
This month of April is said to derive its name from the Latin verb aperio, which signifies to open, because all the buds and blossoms are now opening, and we have arrived at the gates of the flowery year. Reader, if you are yet unsaved, may your heart, in accord with the universal awakening of nature, be opened to receive the Lord. Every blossoming flower warns you that it is time to seek the Lord; be not out of tune with nature, but let your heart bud and bloom with holy desires. Do you tell me that the warm blood of youth leaps in your veins? then, I entreat you, give your vigour to the Lord. It was my unspeakable happiness to be called in early youth, and I could fain praise the Lord every day for it. Salvation is priceless, let it come when it may, but oh! an early salvation has a double value in it. Young men and maidens, since you may perish ere you reach your prime, "It is time to seek the Lord." Ye who feel the first signs of decay, quicken your pace: that hollow cough, that hectic flush, are warnings which you must not trifle with; with you it is indeed time to seek the Lord. Did I observe a little grey mingled with your once luxurious tresses? Years are stealing on apace, and death is drawing nearer by hasty marches, let each return of spring arouse you to set your house in order. Dear reader, if you are now advanced in life, let me entreat and implore you to delay no longer. There is a day of grace for you now--be thankful for that, but it is a limited season and grows shorter every time that clock ticks. Here in this silent chamber, on this first night of another month, I speak to you as best I can by paper and ink, and from my inmost soul, as God's servant, I lay before you this warning, "It is time to seek the Lord." Slight not that work, it may be your last call from destruction, the final syllable from the lip of grace.
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Jethro 
[Jĕth'rō] - pre-eminence or excellence.
The father-in-law of Moses, and an Arab sheik and priest of Midian (Exod. 3:1, 4:18; 18:1-12). Called Reuel or Raguel meaning "friend of God" inExodus 2:18 and Numbers 10:29, and Jether in Exodus 4:18.
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Today's reading: Judges 13-15, Luke 6:27-49 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Judges 13-15

The Birth of Samson
1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth.3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, "You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean.5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines...."

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 6:27-49

Love for Enemies
27 "But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful....
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Lent=Devotions-Header
Today's Prayer

O merciful Father, do not consider what we have done against you; but what our blessed Savior has done for us. Don't consider what we have made of ourselves, but what He is making of us for you our God. O that Christ may be "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption" to every one of our souls. [May] His precious blood may cleanse us from all our sins, and your Holy Spirit renew and sanctify our souls. May He crucify our flesh with its passion and lusts, and cleanse all our brothers and sisters in Christ across the earth. -- John Wesley

Today's Scripture Reading: John 2:13-22

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a market!" 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
18 The Jews then responded to him, "What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
20 They replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Today's Quote
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
-- "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," an Easter hymn by Isaac Watts. (See http://songsandhymns.org for more about this and other Easter hymns.)

Something to Think About

Jesus spoke about his coming death and resurrection many times, as in the Scripture reading above. Why do you think so many people--including his own disciples--failed to understand what he was saying until afterwards?
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Today's Lent reading: Luke 7-9 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
The Faith of the Centurion
When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. 2 There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6 So Jesus went with them.
He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well....


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