Thursday, June 05, 2014

Thu Jun 5th Todays News

Joe Tripodi has been found to have acted corruptly and prosecutors are discussing what charges might be laid against him, if any. There is a process being followed. If the full spread of Tripodi's activity is not examined there will be procedural unfairness. I know Tripodi from the late '90s and Canley Vale HS where the Principal Garland, a strong ALP supporter allowed the former local mayor to make a speech to a graduating class. The speech was illogical and disjointed. Staff rumoured he had written it himself. In his early days as a local member, Tripodi told the parliament (circa '97) that he had spoken to the Principal about the local gang issue and hand guns. Garland asked the deputies if either of them had spoken to Tripodi because he hadn't and he thought it was bad form to lie to parliament over a non issue. On retirement, the Principal got a dream job as a development officer for the Wallabies. 

 I was being harassed by ALP government and by anonymous education department officials so I approached my local member, Tripodi, and told him of the seriousness of my issue. This was before a child died. Tripodi's office sent me a form letter saying he didn't know why I was being treated as I was, but he would represent me to the parliament as part of his normal duty. I complained to the ICAC about my issue regarding pedophiles and the ALP government and they replied they would do nothing as they could not see how anything I had alleged would lead to a corruption prosecution. After the child died, I again referred the matter to the ICAC and they expressed the view I was inflating the issue opportunistically. But, if they had acted the child might be alive today. 

 The ALP appear to have facilitated Tripodi's corruption. I have approached the ALP on a number of occasions suggesting they quietly help me settle my issues. All ALP members have denied they could work with me. I am a Liberal party supporter, but I demand competence from those who represent me. Will procedural unfairness deny me justice again? ===
For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott 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 https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Linda Huynh. You were born on that remarkable day, when in 663 the Daming Palace became the government seat and royal residence of the Tang empire during Emperor Gaozong's reign. Being mainly old people, I always think the government should have seats. Anything less is cruel. In 1862, as the Treaty of Saigon was signed, ceding parts of southern Vietnam to France, the guerrilla leader Truong Dinh decided to defy Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam and fight on against the Europeans. Poor Vietnam deserves peace and prosperity .. and freedom. In 1947, At a speech at Harvard University, United States Secretary of State George Marshall called for economic aid to war-torn Europe, outlining a recovery program that became known as the Marshall Plan. And, Juicily, in 1963, the British Secretary of State for War John Profumo admitted he lied to the House of Commons during enquiries about his involvement in a sex scandal and resigned. It is your birthday, you choose your wish. But be it scandal, freedom, dignity or giving, own it, as you were born to it.
Matches
Despatches
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When push comes to shovel

Piers Akerman – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (6:32pm)

ANDREW Bolt is a champion of free and forthright speech. Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull is too, as am I.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'When push comes to shovel'
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Taking the electorate for fools

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (2:40pm)

Instead of doing the job he’s paid so handsomely to do by taxpayers, Clive Palmer has vacated Canberra in the middle of Parliament sitting week.
Hard to miss, he was spotted today chowing down in the Queensland Parliament’s Strangers’ Dining room at lunchtime. Even his private jet and 150 cars wouldn’t get him to Canberra on time.
Really, what’s the point of becoming an MP if you are either asleep in your seat or MIA on the paltry 60 days a year when Federal Parliament sits.
Why is Clive an MP? 
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More proof of lefty hypocrisy

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (1:59pm)

Labor Senator Sue Lines “miaowed” at Liberal Senator Marise Payne in an estimates hearing this morning.
The former unionist from the Left faction made an audible catcall when Payne began to speak, and became belligerent when chastised for the “sexism”.
You mightn’t think it’s too big a deal, but just remember how they all squealed when a Liberal senator, David Bushby, made similar cat noises at Finance Minister Penny Wong in Parliament.
Twitter went wild, and Treasurer Wayne Swan condemned the Coalition as “feral’’ and sexist “goons’’.
Oh how selective is their outrage. All noted, thank you.
UPDATE:
After an apparent intervention by Wong to pull the junior Senator into line, so to speak, Lines has apologised unreservedly for the cat call and Payne has accepted. 
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Feminists let Clive strip them of their integrity

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 03, 2014 (7:58pm)

CLIVE Palmer has ­finally unmasked himself as a vile piece of work, after his pointedly cruel attack on the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Peta Credlin. Under parliamentary privilege, Palmer claimed Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave policy was ­designed “so [his] chief of staff can receive a massive benefit when she gets pregnant”.
Credlin is 43. As is well-known in Canberra, she and her husband have been trying unsuccessfully for years to have children. She has spoken openly about her ongoing IVF treatment. Her revelation that she kept her fertility drugs in Abbott’s ­office fridge was front page news around the country.
What a pig to target a woman’s most private vulnerability just to niggle her boss.
Malcolm Turnbull’s new best friend is nothing but a wrecker and a bully.
But where’s the handbag hit squad now, as the women around the Prime Minister are picked off one by one? His wife, his daughters and now his female chief of staff.
So ready to savage Tony Abbott for a stray wink, they are silent when Palmer targets a woman whose fertility struggles should be no part of any political contest.
Greens leader Christine Milne was the rare feminist with the integrity to condemn Palmer’s remarks.
The independent member dug himself in even deeper, refusing to apologise and then calling Credlin a “top dog”.
“No, of course I won’t,” he said when reporters asked him if he would say sorry, ­before claiming Credlin has “undue influence” over the government. “She’s a top dog, I should say. Oh, I shouldn’t say that! She’s the boss …”
His sly insinuations grew worse. “If you go back and look at history in Australia, in precedent, you can go back to Ainsley Gotto, who had similar position under John Gorton, she had particular policy positions she supported and they were subject to public debate.”
Unbelievable. John Gorton was the Liberal prime minister in 1968. Ainsley Gotto was the pretty 22-year-old he appointed as his principal private secretary. The only “public debate” was the unsubstantiated gossip that she was his mistress.
Having started in the ­gutter, Palmer ended in the sewer.
He did try to backtrack later, claiming not to have known about Credlin’s struggles with IVF, and tweeting “I’ve not intended to personally attack Peta Credlin”.
Palmer claimed he only targeted Credlin on the PPL “because she’s propagating it and she gave Tony Abbott his ideas. He can’t think of anything himself.”
Mr Nasty can’t even get his facts right. For one thing, even if Credlin were pregnant, she wouldn’t get any “benefit” from the government’s PPL because she is a public servant, eligible for a generous taxpayer-funded maternity leave scheme, of the type which Abbott, ironically, was trying to extend to private industry.
What’s more, Abbott came up with the idea of maternity leave as a workplace entitlement all by himself, back in 2009, when he first proposed it in his political biography Battlelines. At the time Credlin worked for the man who was then Liberal Party leader … the incorrigibly ambitious Malcolm Turnbull.
It’s no secret there’s no love lost between Credlin and Turnbull, and that she is fiercely loyal to Abbott.
And it soon became clear whose cause Palmer really was pushing in his attacks on the woman who has the most influence on Abbott.
None other than his Wild Duck dinner companion of last week, Turnbull.
In an interview with press gallery doyenne Michelle Grattan on The Conversation website, Palmer gave a gushing endorsement of Turnbull’s leadership qualities.
He was quoted as saying a Coalition government led by Malcolm Turnbull would have different policies and be “more approachable”.
“Tony Abbott’s policies seem to create great division in society … Malcolm Turnbull was a great leader of the Liberal Party. He’s a very popular person.”
Palmer’s hostility to the PM has ratcheted up since he ate an “enormous” banana split with the Communications Minister at the Wild Duck last week. At the time he was supposed to be at a dinner at which Abbott was speaking, but bolted early after receiving a text invitation from Turnbull.
His disrespect bodes ill for a government which will likely need the support of his Palmer United Party in the Senate come July 1.
Turnbull’s motives for palling up with Palmer are opaque, but his extreme reaction to my colleague Andrew Bolt’s mild questioning of his loyalty shows a nerve was hit.
Why so angry if he’s not playing a Machiavellian game?
Usually, he is a charming man whose buttering up of independent politicians reaps rich rewards, for him, if not for his party. He did the same with turncoat independent Rob Oakeshott, whose autobiography abounds with starry-eyed descriptions of Turnbull: “Strong admirer”, “valiant stand” and so on.
Turnbull can’t help it if lesser men fall at his feet and want to go into battle on his behalf.
But it’s brought him undone in the past. Hapless Treasury official Godwin Grech tried so hard to please that he forged the email at the centre of the 2009 Utegate affair that wrecked Turnbull’s leadership.
Embarrassingly, last night Turnbull had to pull out of a “charity fundraiser reunion” dinner with Palmer, in protest at his Credlin comments.
With friends like Palmer you have to wonder at his judgement. 
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Sex abuse inquiry offers an insight into evil

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 03, 2014 (7:55pm)

PETER Fox, the wannabe whistleblower cop who claimed a “Catholic police mafia” in the Hunter Valley was protecting paedophiles, was revealed last week as a self-aggrandising zealot unfairly smearing his colleagues.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Sex abuse inquiry offers an insight into evil'
I see a reflection in history here, suggesting the gains have been limited and the opportunity in danger of being squandered. No one disputes the evil of pedophilia .. even pedophiles are aware that the public detest it. When D Grusovin got the ball rolling in the ‘90s there was the public pronouncement that there was a lot that would be released.

Some alleged abusers have since died. But the allegations were not tested in court, and so they remain as smears in which, bizarrely, the courts must prevent the claims from being represented maliciously by strangers.

It is an echo of drugs in sports which many claim must be pervasive but which an inquiry has found no evidence for.

This means that legitimate lines of inquiry are sidelined. And that would be what pedophiles want.

Yes, historical lines of inquiry are vindicated, but it becomes an issue which can be compared and contrasted with the Saville inquiry in UK which branched to include Rolf Harris. Saville should never have prospered, but been jailed. Harris should be ashamed of himself, but it appears, for the moment, there is an over reach and it threatens to derail further inquiry. Unless the UK can find someone sent Harris a bottle of wine .. ed===

Haunting legacy of a night of terror

Miranda Devine – Sunday, June 01, 2014 (9:42am)

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TO this day, when Mick Drury hears a baby cry, he has a private meltdown. While maintaining his outward composure, he can’t relax until he finds the baby and can see it’s safe.
That’s just one of the legacies of that terrible night 30 years ago, when the decorated drug squad officer was gunned down in the kitchen of his Chatswood home, right next to his 18-month old daughter.
The man who tried to kill him was the late hitman Christopher Dale Flannery, aka Mr Rentokill.
And the man who the court was later told helped organize the hit, and provided Flannery with Drury’s home address, was his fellow detective Roger Rogerson. The notorious corrupt cop is back in the headlines this week facing charges that he and another ex-detective, Glenn McNamara, murdered 20-year-old UTS student Jamie Gao.
Those allegations are still to be tested in court.
For former Detective Inspector Drury, the latest dramatic chapter of the Rogerson files has hit hard.
“It brings back sad memories of what happened 30 years ago,” he said last week over coffees and chain-smoked cigarillos. “These things live with you your entire life.”
Drury was targeted for assassination because he was honest. He had refused the $30,000 bribe he claimed Rogerson allegedly offered him to change his evidence at the heroin trafficking trial of Melbourne drug dealer Alan Williams, from the notorious Painters and Dockers Union.
The union was eventually deregistered after the Costigan Royal Commission found it was importing narcotics and firearms through the Port of Melbourne. 
In the meantime, it was cleanskin Drury who was sent to Victoria undercover to investigate the union, at great risk to his life.
This Friday is the 30th anniversary of his attempted murder. It was a Wednesday, 6.10pm, pitch dark, on June 6, 1984.
Drury, then 31, was a tall, athletic undercover drugs squad officer. He’d just fed his little girl dinner and she was still sitting in her high chair. His wife was breastfeeding their nine-month-old baby girl in the lounge room. He went to the kitchen sink and was drinking a bowl of chicken noodle soup when two shots smashed through the window.
One hit him square in the abdomen. The other tore through his chest, spinning him around and throwing him against a wall. He remembers his blood pumping out and spraying the room.
For his wife, “it was very soul-destroying to see something like that.”
She ran for a doctor next door, and Drury is still haunted by the cries of his babies as he lay on the kitchen floor unable to comfort them while the life drained out of him.
He lost 20 litres of blood in the first 48 hours. But as he lay unconscious for 12 days in casualty, members of the public lined up outside Royal North Shore Hospital to donate blood to match his rare blood type.
He still chokes up at the community concern. “It just blew me away.”
The Hunter Valley son of a bus driver and a homemaker joined the police force to help the community and he will never forget that, in his hour of need, the community helped him.
That wasn’t the case, however, for many police officers, to their eternal shame. The drug squad was split between Rogerson and Drury supporters, and the attempted murder inquiry was compromised.
During Drury’s 78 days in hospital, Flannery tried to kill him again, but was deterred by an enormous police presence protecting, not just Drury, but Justice Ray Watson, injured in one of the unrelated Family Court bombings that had killed his wife, Pearl, at their Greenwich home.
Drury was so ill the coroner was dispatched to take a “dying deposition” from him in which he alleged Rogerson had offered him a bribe.
The painter and docker Williams pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to conspiring with Flannery and Rogerson to murder Drury.
Rogerson eventually was acquitted of bribery and conspiracy to murder, but spent two stints in jail in the 1990s for unrelated convictions.
Until last week, he had become a sought-after celebrity, travelling around the country doing stage shows riffing on his past.
Drury recovered from his injuries, stayed in the police force until 2000, then worked as an ethics advisor. He is a private person but suffice to say the attempted murder took its toll on his family.
Five years ago, at the age of 56, he remarried. “I’m a very lucky boy,” he says. “Life is wonderful”.
Despite the suffering, if he had his time over again he wouldn’t change a thing.
“I couldn’t have lived with myself otherwise.”
It’s a twisted world in which a man like Rogerson is celebrated.
In the end, character is destiny and Mick Drury is a well-loved man at peace with himself. 
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CAPITALISM DID IT

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (1:54pm)

The ABC offers a unique view on the cause of 1989’s Tiananmen Square massacre: 
China’s shift towards capitalism creates inequality and anger. 
(Via JH)
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DAILY MAYHEM

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (1:18pm)

A siege in Adelaide – at an adult services agency, of course – and a manhunt in Moncton, Canada, where a maniac has killed three police officers.
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YOUR MONEY, THEIR FUN

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (5:45am)

Legal issues are no big deal when you’re playing with taxpayers’ money: 
Hours before the ABC broadcast an on-air apology last night to Kenny, the Chaser presenter named in the defamation suit, Andrew Hansen, appeared to defy the terms of the settlement in a tweet: “ABC’s apologising to Chris Kenny, again. The Chaser isn’t, again. But we’ve agreed not to make more pictures of ABC execs shagging hamsters.”
The Chaser’s Chris Taylor posted on Facebook: “Just to be clear. The Chaser team is not apologising,and will never apologise to Chris Kenny. Tonight’s on-air apology is from the ABC, not us.”
Both statements appeared to breach the terms of the ABC’s settlement with Kenny that specified members of the Chaser team would not make public statements that “detract” from the apology. 
They’re such a classy bunch. And the ABC’s apology wasn’t much better: 
What an apology of an apology ABC – sue them again Chris Kenny! 
They’ve sure got the cash: 
The ABC is massively over-funded. Consider this: if the ABC received similar per capita funding in the US as it does in Australia, its budget would be somewhere in the vicinity of $16.6 billion.
That’s pretty much equal to the entire annual budget of NASA, yet the only person the ABC has ever put on the moon is Mr Squiggle. 
Squiggle should swap roles with Mark Scott. Win/win.
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BURNED AND DROWNED

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (4:41am)

Fairfax columnist Sam de Brito:

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What do you say? Try this: “Let’s turn up the heater a couple of degrees and find out! Still breathing, kid?” And here’s another Fairfax warmo doomist:

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Don’t get your hopes up, Clementine. Both of them have built kilometer-high watertight fortresses from Mike Carlton’srejected invoices. They’re safe for centuries.
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THEATRE WORLD MOURNS

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (4:22am)

Following budget cuts, the mayor of Parkes will miss the involvement of state-funded scientists in his town’s activities: 
“Our local music and drama society has probably got some of the best sound and lighting set ups of any in Australia because we have had those technicians to be able to put it all together,” he said. 
It’s back to just one of these, luvvies. 
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MURPHY’S LAW

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (3:38am)

Florida judge John Murphy deals with attorney Andrew Weinstock: 
As part of a procedural issue he and attorney Weinstock have an exchange of words.
It quickly escalated.
“If I had a rock I would throw it at you right now. Stop pissing me off, just sit down.”
The judge orders the attorney to leave the dock. The attorney refuses — defending his right to represent his client.
The judge’s challenge rings out: “If you want to fight let’s go out back and I’ll just beat your ass.”
The attorney immediately accepts the challenge — and exits stage right.
The judge follows, amid nervous laughter from the court.
Off camera, loud banging and cursing can be heard coming from the adjacent passageway.
The panting judge returns to the courtroom. To applause.
The attorney does not. 
Click for video.
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CHECK OUT THAT WALL

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (3:35am)

Every single page from every edition since 1924 – the complete MotorSport archives. It’s all great, but some of the cover shots were a little dicey:

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KNOW YOUR THUNDER LIZARDS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (2:43pm)

Meet the Palmersaurus:

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FAULT LINES

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (1:03pm)

The scientists are unsettled: 
Australia’s peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue.
After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve.
Mr Hutton said the issue “had the potential to be too divisive and would not serve the best interests of the society as a whole.” 
So much for the consensus.
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Yet another Turnbull interview to kick along the leadership talk

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (10:34am)

What could possibly be the strategy behind Malcolm Turnbull’s string of media attacks on conservatives and shouted protestations of loyalty? If he’d shut up there would have been no story, but on he goes, with an interview on 7.30 to follow:
Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt are ”bomb throwers” doing the work of the Labor Party to undermine the Abbott government, says Malcolm Turnbull…
In a showdown with Mr Jones on Thursday morning, Mr Turnbull accused the commentator of creating trouble where there was none after the 2GB announcer said Mr Turnbull was “happy to chuck a few bombs around that might blow up Abbott a bit”.
‘’Well, that’s what you’re saying, that’s what Andrew Bolt is saying and it is doing the Labor Party’s work,’’ Mr Turnbull responded.
It is curious that Turnbull thinks my role is to fight Labor for the Liberals. But it all makes sense if you see this through Turnbull’s eyes: that he trying to marginalise commentators he perceives as supporters of Tony Abbott, to the delight of his own media constituency, the ABC and Fairfax.
But how any of this helps the Liberals is beyond me. But at least Jones got Turnbull to say just a bit in defence of the Budget he should have spent this past week and more selling.
Listen to Turnbull on Jones here.
UPDATE
Turnbull’s contribution to the debate on the Budget, as registered today by Fairfax:
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UPDATE
What on earth is his game?
Guess who’s on 7.30 tonight?
The man of a million interviews, Malcolm Turnbull.
But it was not always thus.
As political correspondent James Massola writes, the Communications Minister has pulled out of four appearances on ABC programs in the month since the budget.
Has Turnbull been prevented from going on these shows from above?
“Completely false” says a spokeswoman for Tony Abbott.
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Turnbull should back off crazy Clive

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (9:08am)

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MALCOLM Turnbull should remember his fatal embrace of Godwin Grech, the lying Treasury official he thought could help him become prime minister.
Because here we go again, with the Communications Minister now cosying up to Clive Palmer, another fantasist.
Turnbull should run a mile from Palmer, the most dangerous politician in Parliament — an erratic populist preaching voodoo economics, blackmailing the Government, vilifying a Liberal staffer and using his status as one of Australia’s richest people to influence others.
Instead, Turnbull risks courting the same disaster all over again, even if he’s doing it from a heartfelt desire to help the Abbott Government negotiate with its enemies.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Apologies. I had the wrong link. Fixed now. 
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Advice for Palmer

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (8:53am)

Excellent advice from Niki Savva:
Speaking of trash, Clive Palmer should look beyond his favourite foods of revenge on a plate and freebie banana splits. He has been given a rare and valuable gift by the Australian people — power.
He can use it to do some good and contribute constructively to policy and political life or abuse it by feeding his ego daily with cruel gibes and populist stunts — a sure-fire way to ending up as a national joke, and a nasty one at that.
A good question to Palmer from the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson, although she gives him far too much credit in suggesting this rank populist has a “serious political message”:
SARAH FERGUSON: it is part of a pattern with you that these extravagant, at the very least, sometimes offensive, but certainly silly statements can obscure what must be for you a serious political message. The question is: are you in politics just to be a bomb thrower or are you there for serious reasons?
UPDATE
Campbell Newman attacks:
QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman yesterday struck back at Clive Palmer by filing a document in the state’s Supreme Court in which the tycoon is squarely accused of trying to use his political donations to get ­favourable treatment for his coal interests in Queensland. 

Mr Newman, the defendant in a defamation action lodged by Mr Palmer in Brisbane last month, also asserts in court documents filed late yesterday that the Palmer United Party leader had ­showered gifts on two politicians before and after they defected to PUP.
The Premier’s “notice of intention to defend” states that Carl Judge, a Liberal National Party parliamentarian until he joined PUP, has “received substantial gifts from Mr Palmer and or companies controlled by or associated with Mr Palmer from the period leading up to or around the time that Mr Judge joined the (PUP)"…
Mr Judge, who yesterday asked a question in state parliament directly relevant to Mr Palmer’s coal interests, formally joined the PUP on June 6, 2013.
Mr Newman claimed another ­defector from the LNP, Alex Douglas, also “received substantial gifts” from Mr Palmer including sponsored travel, accommodation, legal fees and paid advertising.
Mr Newman disclosed details of an April 13, 2012, meeting at which Mr Palmer “sought to have all of the staff” of Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney leave before the two men could discuss Mr Palmer’s coal interests in the Galilee Basin.
Mr Newman’s Supreme Court document states that Mr Palmer claimed in the meeting that he had prepared his own draft legislation for development of the Galilee Basin and he wanted Mr Seeney to ensure it was adopted, rather than relying on the normal machinery of government.
The document says Mr Palmer “explained to Mr Seeney that the proposed legislation would give him exclusive rights to develop ‘Port Palmer’ at Abbot Point and a railway in an exclusive rail corridor between the port and the Galilee Basin”. Mr Newman’s document further states that when Mr Seeney told the tycoon there were processes to follow, Mr Palmer replied that “he had paid substantial sums to the Liberal National Party to have the LNP elected and that he had a lot more money to support the LNP in the future”.
Palmer has refused to comment.
UPDATE
Mark Latham describes Palmer well, and there’s advice between the lines for Tony Abbott:
Within the major parties, most of the authentic parliamentary characters have disappeared, replaced by heavily scripted machine apparatchiks…
Accordingly, a niche market has opened up for crossbench infotainment politicians – independent MPs who attract publicity by offering the media colour and movement… A large part of Palmer’s electoral appeal comes from the novelty of his media appearances. As public disillusionment with the major parties has grown, a certain kind of voter has emerged ... committed to anyone who appears to be “shaking up the system”.
Even though he comes from a Liberal/National Party and big business background, Palmer is seen as an anti-establishment figure.... He speaks his mind and uses language most people can understand.
In many ways, he is reminiscent of the Pauline Hanson phenomenon in the late 1990s – a political leader who, despite obvious shortcomings, has the virtue of authenticity…
Today, the nation’s right-wing establishment is pushing back against Palmer in a more conventional way, using the resources of The Australian newspaper to dig into his business affairs and expose inconsistencies in his public statements.
So far, none of this has harmed the Elephant Man. He brushes aside any inconsistencies as yesterday’s news and, as the 24-hour cycle rolls forward, it’s an effective strategy.
Like Hanson, the biggest threat to the Palmer party will come from within. It’s hard to see his Senate team holding together. The problem with right-wing mavericks is that they don’t like people telling them what to do – a natural aversion to party discipline.
Eventually, this will be the greatest freak show of all: watching the Palmer people turn on each other.
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Anne Summers does not fight for a feminist principle but for a side

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (8:47am)

Hypocrites:
Bettina Arndt in The Australian, yesterday:

WHERE’S Anne Summers? … How strange that the ABC has been running the news of Clive Palmer’s attack on Peta Credlin without any feminist commentary bemoaning this latest example of our nation’s misogyny.
Guess who pops up to take a swipe at Peta and Tony? Anne Summers, ABC online’s The Drum (edited by Mr Anne Summers), yesterday:

WHATEVER you thought about Peta Credlin’s intervention on behalf of her boss Tony Abbott at the weekend, and I thought it was pretty knuckleheaded, there was no excuse for the sexist, misogynist and in some cases downright cruel responses it elicited …. That said … for the staffer to bring her personal story ... into the equation verged on the tacky … More than that, it has got the political class trawling through Abbott’s record once again and reminded us of the things he has said about abortion, IVF and RU486. Had Credlin not reintroduced IVF, abortion and contraception into the political debate, we would not be checking to see what Abbott said … Now that we are, and the yield is astonishingly rich, Abbott will be forced back on to the defensive. He will have to explain, recant, reassure. And hope to be believed.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Economy strengthens, government heartens

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (7:48am)

Very good news for us - and for the Abbott Government:
JOE Hockey is “cautiously optimistic” unemployment will not reach the bleak forecasts in the budget after the release of the best economic growth figures in two years, with the Treasurer expecting a recovery in con­fidence and investment outside the resources sector.
As Treasury yesterday dismissed fears the budget had damaged consumer confidence, Mr Hockey said he expected economic growth to slow from the rapid 3.5 per cent achieved in the 12 months to March but strong foundations had been laid.
“We inherited unemployment going up to 6.25 per cent; I am cautiously optimistic we won’t get there but we’ve got much work to do, and our budget is part of that,” he said…
The latest national accounts showed Australia’s gross domestic product grew 1.1 per cent in the first three months of the year on the back of soaring coal, iron ore and gas exports…
Despite projections from the government and Reserve Bank that the unemployment rate would broach 6 per cent before July, its rise stalled at 5.8 per cent where it has remained for almost three months.
One warning:
While exports rose 4.8 per cent during the three months to March, household consumption, the biggest component of economic activity, grew 0.5 per cent, even before the slowdown in retail spending and reported slump in consumer confidence… A slowdown in retail sales and building approvals since March and cancellation or delay of major resource projects have also raised questions about whether growth would remain strong.
And let’s not relax:
Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson strongly backed the need for the budget spending cuts, saying he, Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and Parliamentary Budget Officer Phil Bowen had all declared that the budget position was not sustainable. “If the two most senior economic bureau­crats are saying, ‘People we have a challenge’, it is about time we have a serious community discussion,” he said.
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So what will Scott do next?

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (7:39am)

The ABC under Mark Scott is out of control:
THE Chaser team has defied the ABC managing director Mark Scott by declaring it will never apologise to The Australian columnist Chris Kenny for its offensive skit, thus flouting the terms of a defamation settlement.
Nine months after the skit depict­ing Kenny as a “dog f. ker’’ first aired on the election-night edition of The Hamster Decides, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the ABC had mishandled the affair and former ABC chairman Maurice Newman said the Chaser team was defying management.
Hours before the ABC broadcast an on-air apology last night to Kenny, the Chaser presenter named in the defamation suit, ­Andrew Hansen, appeared to defy the terms of the settlement in a tweet: “ABC’s apologising to Chris Kenny, again. The Chaser isn’t, again. But we’ve agreed not to make more pictures of ABC execs shagging hamsters.”
The Chaser’s Chris Taylor posted on Facebook: “Just to be clear. The Chaser team is not apologising, and will never apologise to Chris Kenny. Tonight’s on-air apology is from the ABC, not us.”
Both statements appeared to breach the terms of the ABC’s settlement with Kenny that specified members of the Chaser team would not make public statements that “detract” from the apology.
This clause in the settlement, which also included the ABC paying Kenny’s legal fees and some damages, was intended to prevent a repeat of the way The Chaser’s Julian Morrow undermined Mr Scott’s personal apology to Kenny in April. Mr Scott refused to respond to questions yesterday about whether statements made by the Chaser presenters breached the terms of the settlement. A source close to the ABC said, “If management is not able to insist that its instructions be followed then what you have is anarchy.”
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Fairfax frames Howard

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (7:33am)

The Fairfax headline:
John Howard rebukes Tony Abbott over fairness
Now check the quotes underneath that headline:

Former prime minister John Howard has delivered a guarded rebuke to Tony Abbott, saying today’s politicians rely too heavily on slogans and declaring Australians will support change and reform so long as they are satisfied it is ‘’fundamentally fair’’.
Describing politics today as less ideological than in his time, the country’s second longest-serving prime minister has observed: ‘’We sometimes lose the capacity to argue the case - we think that it sufficient that we utter slogans.’’…
Although Mr Howard, 74, avoided any reference to Mr Abbott or the federal budget, his remarks were seized upon by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
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Obama offers Taliban five terrorists for one deserter

Andrew Bolt June 04 2014 (10:07pm)

PRESIDENT Barack Obama demonstrated last weekend how weak the US has become by releasing five top Taliban leaders to free one American deserter.
That’s five unrepentant enemies of the US in exchange for a US soldier who wouldn’t defend it.
In 2009 Bowe Bergdahl, then a private serving in Afghanistan, emailed his Baptist parents that “the horror is that America is disgusting”. Bergdahl raged: “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing ...
“The US Army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at. It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools and bullies.”

Then, having sent his books back home, he walked off the base.
(Read full column here.) 
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Ick! Is this photo of a Taco Bell employee part of a larger, more grotesque problem?http://tinyurl.com/mu29olk
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Phillip Jensen - Father and Son

Sailing was their hobby. They joined a club and sailed together most weekends. They were part of that great armada of small sailing boats that ply their way around Sydney Harbour. Theirs was the joy of a father and son working together as they raced against others.
But as a father and son crew they were slightly unusual. The young boy was the skipper and the dad was the crewmember. It was a risk. The boy had to take great responsibility. More responsibility than most fathers would give to their sons. But the father had confidence in his boy's ability. He was sure that his son was up to the challenge. So, rather than teach his son how to sail by being the skipper he became the crew and let his son skipper. Other fathers were rather astonished. Many commented on what seemed a strange way to operate.
Some fathers questioned who was really in charge. To them it looked as if the boy was playing at being skipper. They wrongly assumed that the father was really making the decisions and giving the orders from his position as the crew. But in fact the boy was fully in charge of the boat and his father was his crewmember. The father genuinely handed over all authority to his son.
Others questioned how this affected their relationship as father and son. Did this kind of “role reversal” continue in life? But the father was very clear. On the boat the son was in charge as the skipper. He submitted himself to his son. He took orders from his son and did what he was told. But once ashore he was the father who ruled his household, and his son returned to being in submission to him. Neither the father nor the son had any difficulty in distinguishing between being on board or on shore. There was never any doubt who was in charge in any situation.
This sailing duo illustrates many aspects of the Bible's teaching on submission.
We submit ourselves to a person in authority. Authority is not derived from power or ability but from God's appointment (Romans 13:1). Of course people can abuse authority. They can become tyrants using their authority in ways that are unjust and even inhumane. But one person's sinfulness does not alter the reality that all authority comes from God, and that we should submit ourselves to those whom God appoints.
This father and son illustrate what the Bible means by submitting ourselves to one another. In this case both father and son submitted themselves to the other in the appropriate circumstances. They were not really sailing as father and son but as skipper and crew. There cannot be two captains on a boat. The skipper must be able to call the shots knowing the crew will follow his orders. On board, the father became the crew and so submitted himself to his son. Once off the boat they reverted to the normal honour and obedience that a son should have towards his father. Even the Lord Jesus submitted himself to his earthly parents (Luke 2:52).
But even more interesting, they stimulate thought about the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. Jesus knew that his Father was “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matthew 11:25). Yet in his death and resurrection he could rightly say to his disciples “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18), for God had made him “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36) and gave him the name above every name (Phil 2:9-10). While Christ now reigns over this world he does not reign over his Father. The Father is subjecting everything under his Son—but when all is under Christ's authority then the Son will hand his kingdom over to his Father. He too will be subject to his Father, for God will “be all in all”. (1 Corinthians 15:23-28).
The boy who skippered his father is now a man. He told me his story for he is so proud to honour his father.

I value these posts. In my walk with God, I read the bible three years ago. And then read it aloud and posted it on youtube the next year. I now need to re read it again, but this time differently to study aspects. I haven't yet got to where I can reach out at will to different parts and draw them together .. I'm not a bible scholar. So I value these posts. But .. subject matter! I have spent most of my life in Western Sydney and the yuppy values of boating, while beautiful and with roots in the bible, leaves me wanting things closer to home. I was reading Delderfield's Swann saga the other day .. and this brings home beautifully what I enjoyed in the second book "Give us this day." Family illustrates authority - ed
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A Doctor Who Cyberman spotted on local bus
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4 her, so she can see how I see her


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The Orient Express, 1883
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“Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”1 Chronicles 29:11 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The kindness and love of God our Saviour."
Titus 3:4
How sweet it is to behold the Saviour communing with his own beloved people! There can be nothing more delightful than, by the Divine Spirit, to be led into this fertile field of delight. Let the mind for an instant consider the history of the Redeemer's love, and a thousand enchanting acts of affection will suggest themselves, all of which have had for their design the weaving of the heart into Christ, and the intertwisting of the thoughts and emotions of the renewed soul with the mind of Jesus. When we meditate upon this amazing love, and behold the all-glorious Kinsman of the Church endowing her with all his ancient wealth, our souls may well faint for joy. Who is he that can endure such a weight of love? That partial sense of it which the Holy Spirit is sometimes pleased to afford, is more than the soul can contain; how transporting must be a complete view of it! When the soul shall have understanding to discern all the Saviour's gifts, wisdom wherewith to estimate them, and time in which to meditate upon them, such as the world to come will afford us, we shall then commune with Jesus in a nearer manner than at present. But who can imagine the sweetness of such fellowship? It must be one of the things which have not entered into the heart of man, but which God hath prepared for them that love him. Oh, to burst open the door of our Joseph's granaries, and see the plenty which he hath stored up for us! This will overwhelm us with love. By faith we see, as in a glass darkly, the reflected image of his unbounded treasures, but when we shall actually see the heavenly things themselves, with our own eyes, how deep will be the stream of fellowship in which our soul shall bathe itself! Till then our loudest sonnets shall be reserved for our loving benefactor, Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love to us is wonderful, passing the love of women.

Evening

"Received up into glory."
1 Timothy 3:16
We have seen our well-beloved Lord in the days of his flesh, humiliated and sore vexed; for he was "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He whose brightness is as the morning, wore the sackcloth of sorrow as his daily dress: shame was his mantle, and reproach was his vesture. Yet now, inasmuch as he has triumphed over all the powers of darkness upon the bloody tree, our faith beholds our King returning with dyed garments from Edom, robed in the splendour of victory. How glorious must he have been in the eyes of seraphs, when a cloud received him out of mortal sight, and he ascended up to heaven! Now he wears the glory which he had with God or ever the earth was, and yet another glory above all--that which he has well earned in the fight against sin, death, and hell. As victor he wears the illustrious crown. Hark how the song swells high! It is a new and sweeter song: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, for he hath redeemed us unto God by his blood!" He wears the glory of an Intercessor who can never fail, of a Prince who can never be defeated, of a Conqueror who has vanquished every foe, of a Lord who has the heart's allegiance of every subject. Jesus wears all the glory which the pomp of heaven can bestow upon him, which ten thousand times ten thousand angels can minister to him. You cannot with your utmost stretch of imagination conceive his exceeding greatness; yet there will be a further revelation of it when he shall descend from heaven in great power, with all the holy angels--"Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." Oh, the splendour of that glory! It will ravish his people's hearts. Nor is this the close, for eternity shall sound his praise, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever!" Reader, if you would joy in Christ's glory hereafter, he must be glorious in your sight now. Is he so?
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Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 21-22, John 14 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 2 Chronicles 21-22

1 Then Jehoshaphat rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Jehoram his son succeeded him as king. 2Jehoram's brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat, were Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael and Shephatiah. All these were sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel.3 Their father had given them many gifts of silver and gold and articles of value, as well as fortified cities in Judah, but he had given the kingdom to Jehoram because he was his firstborn son....

Today's New Testament reading: John 14

Jesus Comforts His Disciples
1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going...."


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