People tire of anti Islam sentiment, so the story of an Islamo fascist serial killer rampaging through the US might have gone unnoticed as press decided there was no human interest angle. Ali Muhammad Brown killed a gay couple in Seattle after setting up a meeting on a dating site. Apparently that will stop Obama from bombing somebody. Or something. One thing that isn't happening is Islamic leaders showing leadership by denouncing terrorism. Some have said in defence of those leaders that that would achieve nothing worthwhile. However, leadership is not about doing what is popular. A competent leader would speak out in support of what decent people would do. One is reminded of how no ALP member of a recent minority government was capable of taking a stand against corruption, so clearly the bottom line has been met and we see the natural constituents of the ALP.
PUP might implode, or it might not. Maybe the issue of race will become an issue of respect. Palmer recently apologised for calling Chinese people bad names. Rudd never apologised for calling them rat fuckers. Now Dio Wang, WA PUP senator might not accept the irrational views of his leader. Or he might. There is no evidence Palmer is a rat, but he isn't a good person by his own admissions. Meanwhile some are saying Lambie is ambitious and might leave the pack. But none of them are saying they will vote sensibly on legislation. Big questions need to be asked regarding judicial bias. A high level union rep asked that her prosecutor be replaced on the grounds she had had a short affair with him over twenty years ago. He should have stepped aside before she had to declare it. But he has not stepped aside even so. The ICAC are still focused on smearing Liberals without addressing actual corruption, almost daring the government to disband them because they don't want to have to investigate the ALP.
===
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
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed
Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.
I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
===1640 – Bishops' Wars: Scottish Covenanter forces led by Alexander Leslie defeated the English army near Newburn, England.
1850 – German composer Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin, containing the Bridal Chorus, was first performed under the direction of Franz Liszt in Weimar, present-day Germany.
1937 – Toyota Motors, now Japan's largest automobile manufacturer, was spun off from Toyota Industries as an independent company.
1963 – During a large political rally in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, describing his desire for a future where blacks and whites would coexist harmoniously as equals.
1973 – Swedish police used gas bombs to end a seven-day hostage situation in Stockholm; during the incident the hostages had bonded with their captors, giving rise to the term "Stockholm syndrome". Scotland is safe, for now. Wagner gave a chorus for Brides. Toyota was born in a barn. The greatest speech of hope for change was given in '63, made a nightmare by Obama. Lock your friends and yourself away from the critics, and give in to Stockholm syndrome. Live the dream.
Matches
- 475 – The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital city, Ravenna.
- 489 – Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.
- 663 – Silla–Tang armies crush the Baekje restoration attempt and force Yamato Japan to withdraw from Korea in the Battle of Baekgang.
- 1189 – Third Crusade: the Crusaders begin the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan
- 1521 – The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.
- 1524 – The Kaqchikel Maya rebel against their former Spanish allies during the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.
- 1542 – Turkish–Portuguese War (1538–1557): Battle of Wofla: the Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed.
- 1565 – Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sights land near St. Augustine, Florida and founds the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.
- 1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
- 1619 – Ferdinand II is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1640 – Second Bishop's War: King Charles I's English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn.
- 1648 – Siege of Colchester ended when Royalists Forces surrender to the Parliamentary Forces after eleven weeks, during the English Civil War.
- 1709 – Meidingnu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.
- 1789 – William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn: Enceladus.
- 1810 – Battle of Grand Port – the French accept the surrender of a British Navy fleet.
- 1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in US railroading.
- 1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 receives Royal Assent, abolishing slavery through most the British Empire.
- 1845 – The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.
- 1849 – After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent as the Republic of San Marco, surrenders to Austria.
- 1859 – A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far away as Japan.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries which lasts for two days.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas.
- 1867 – The United States takes possession of the (at this point unoccupied) Midway Atoll.
- 1879 – Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.
- 1898 – Caleb Bradham invents the carbonated soft drink that will later be called "Pepsi-Cola".
- 1901 – Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. The first American private school in the country.
- 1909 – A group of mid-level Greek Army officers launches the Goudi coup, seeking wide-ranging reforms.
- 1913 – Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.
- 1914 – World War I: the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
- 1914 – World War I: German troops conquer Namur, Belgium.
- 1916 – World War I: Germany declares war on Romania.
- 1916 – World War I: Italy declares war on Germany.
- 1917 – Ten Suffragettes are arrested while picketing the White House.
- 1924 – The Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union.
- 1931 – France and the Soviet Union sign a treaty of non-aggression.
- 1937 – Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.
- 1943 – World War II: in Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation starts.
- 1944 – World War II: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.
- 1953 – Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.
- 1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.
- 1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
- 1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech
- 1963 – Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan apartment, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights.
- 1963 – The Evergreen Point Bridge, the longest floating bridge in the world, opens between Seattle and Medina, Washington, US.
- 1964 – The Philadelphia race riot begins.
- 1968 – Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention.
- 1979 – An IRA bomb explodes at the Grote Markt in Brussels.
- 1988 – Ramstein airshow disaster: three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. 75 are killed and 346 seriously injured.
- 1990 – Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.
- 1990 – An F5 tornado strikes the Illinois cities of Plainfield and Joliet, killing 29 people.
- 1991 – Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
- 1996 – Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales divorce.
- 1998 – Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
- 1998 – Second Congo War: Loyalist troops backed by Angolan and Zimbabwean forces repulse the RCD and Rwandan offensive on Kinshasa.
- 2003 – An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in south east England and brings 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.
Hatches
- 1025 – Emperor Go-Reizei of Japan (d. 1068)
- 1582 – Taichang Emperor of China (d. 1620)
- 1592 – George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire (d. 1628)
- 1749 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author, poet, playwright, and diplomat (d. 1832)
- 1774 – Elizabeth Ann Seton, American nun and saint, co-founded the Sisters of Charity Federation in the Vincentian-Setonian Tradition (d. 1821)
- 1801 – Antoine Augustin Cournot, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1877)
- 1840 – Alexander Cameron Sim, Scottish pharmacist and businessman, founded Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club (d. 1900)
- 1853 – Vladimir Shukhov, Russian architect and engineer, designed the Adziogol Lighthouse (d. 1939)
- 1899 – Charles Boyer, French-American actor, singer, and producer (d. 1978)
- 1913 – Robertson Davies, Canadian journalist, author, and playwright (d. 1995)
- 1913 – Jack Dreyfus, American businessman, founded the Dreyfus Corporation (d. 2009)
- 1913 – Lindsay Hassett, Australian cricketer (d. 1993)
- 1915 – Tasha Tudor, American author and illustrator (d. 2008)
- 1916 – Jack Vance, American author (d. 2013)
- 1917 – Jack Kirby, American author and illustrator (d. 1994)
- 1918 – L. B. Cole, American illustrator and publisher (d. 1995)
- 1925 – Billy Grammer, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2011)
- 1931 – John Shirley-Quirk, English opera singer
- 1941 – Paul Plishka, American opera singer
- 1942 – Sterling Morrison, American singer and guitarist (The Velvet Underground) (d. 1995)
- 1947 – Liza Wang, Hong Kong actress and singer
- 1948 – Heather Reisman, Canadian businesswoman, founded Indigo Books and Music
- 1948 – Danny Seraphine, American drummer and producer (Chicago)
- 1949 – Hugh Cornwell, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Stranglers)
- 1951 – Wayne Osmond, American singer-songwriter and actor (The Osmonds)
- 1951 – Keiichi Suzuki, Japanese singer-songwriter and actor (The Beatniks)
- 1957 – Ai Weiwei, Chinese artist and political activist
- 1957 – Daniel Stern, American actor and director
- 1958 – Scott Hamilton, American figure skater
- 1965 – Satoshi Tajiri, Japanese video game designer, founded Game Freak
- 1965 – Shania Twain, Canadian singer-songwriter
- 1966 – Yoko Takahashi, Japanese singer
- 1968 – Billy Boyd, Scottish actor and singer
- 1969 – Mary McCartney, English photographer
- 1969 – Jason Priestley, Canadian-American actor, director, and producer
- 1974 – Johan Andersson, Swedish game programmer
- 1974 – Takahito Eguchi, Japanese pianist and composer
- 1974 – Kaori Mizuhashi, Japanese voice actress
- 1975 – Vera Jordanova, Finnish model and actress
- 1980 – Debra Lafave, American educator and sex offender
- 1982 – LeAnn Rimes, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1986 – Gilad Shalit, Israeli soldier and journalist
- 1989 – Jo Kwon, South Korean singer, dancer, and actor (2AM)
- 1989 – Cassadee Pope, American singer-songwriter (Hey Monday)
- 1992 – Max Collins, American-Filipino actress
- 2003 – Quvenzhané Wallis, American actress
Despatches
- 388 – Magnus Maximus, Roman emperor (b. 335)
- 430 – Augustine of Hippo, Algerian theologian and saint (b. 354)
- 476 – Orestes, Roman general and politician
- 632 – Fatimah, daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (b. 605)
- 876 – Louis the German, Frankish king (b. 804)
- 1645 – Hugo Grotius, Dutch philosopher (b. 1583)
- 1805 – Alexander Carlyle, Scottish church leader and author (b. 1722)
- 1888 – Julius Krohn, Finnish poet and journalist (b. 1835)
- 1900 – Henry Sidgwick, English economist and philosopher (b. 1838)
- 1903 – Frederick Law Olmsted, American journalist and architect, co-designed Central Park (b. 1822)
- 1978 – Bruce Catton, American historian and journalist (b. 1899)
- 1978 – Robert Shaw, English actor, screenwriter, and author (b. 1927)
- 1987 – John Huston, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1906)
- 1995 – Carl Giles, English cartoonist (b. 1916)
- 2007 – Arthur Jones, American businessman, founded Nautilus, Inc. and MedX Corporation (b. 1926)
- 2007 – Hilly Kristal, American businessman, founded CBGB (b. 1932)
- 2007 – Paul MacCready, American engineer, founded AeroVironment (b. 1925)
- 2010 – William P. Foster, American bandleader and educator (b. 1919)
- 2013 – Rafael Díaz Ycaza, Ecuadorian author and poet (b. 1925)
THE NORTH ISLAND IS OURS
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (5:04am)
University of Otago climate scientist Simon Hales:
In NZ we are very worried about a potential influx of Australians, you know, escaping heat waves and lack of water and infectious diseases …
Read on. I’ve already secured a zone in Hamilton for my own personal climate escape. Here’s a recent snap.
HATERS EVERYWHERE
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (4:55am)
Hate mail in Sydney. A hate incident in Los Angeles. Retro hatred in Europe. And then there’s Ali Muhammad Brown, whose deadly coast-to-coast hatefest in the US seems to have attracted only modest media attention:
For two bloody months, an armed jihadist serial killer ran loose across the country. At least four innocent men died this spring and summer as acts of “vengeance” on behalf of aggrieved Muslims, the self-confessed murderer has now proclaimed. Have you heard about this horror? Probably not.
Among Ali Muhammad Brown’s victims were a gay couple in liberal, tolerant Seattle. Brown set up a meeting through a dating site then murdered the men to avenge American military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Further on this renewed hatred from Andrew Bolt.
SHY ICED
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (4:45am)
To her credit, Sarah Hanson-Young takes the ice bucket charity challenge:
A slightly younger child doesn’t cope so easily:
Better than either: a farmer cops the biggest challenge yet.
A slightly younger child doesn’t cope so easily:
Better than either: a farmer cops the biggest challenge yet.
SLAB x 4.125
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (4:32am)
In Austin, Texas, it’s the world’s biggest slab:
That’s 99 cans of beer in a box, friends. We may have just discovered why Iowahawk is moving to the Texas capital.
That’s 99 cans of beer in a box, friends. We may have just discovered why Iowahawk is moving to the Texas capital.
WHAT’S THE GOOD WORD?
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (4:24am)
It’s a well-known fact that Australian Prime Ministers are often naked. Paul Keating has issues with this.
COULD HAVE BEEN ANY OLD BODIES
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (4:13am)
One of the most unusual comments ever published at this site, from reader Helen:
Thanks for posting this story. I used to live in this county, enjoyed many delicious breakfasts at Sneakers, and my company installed the roof over the building many years ago. Long before any of that,I was apprehended for dumping bodies off the nearby bridge. But that was all a big misunderstanding.
Er, OK.
FILLED WITH TEARS
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (3:57am)
Sydney’s dams are now at 85.6 per cent of capacity. No wonder Tim Flannery, who predicted our dams might havedried up seven years ago, is looking so unhappy.
GRAND OLD TIMES
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 28, 2014 (3:13am)
Reader Smike this week received a New York Times subscription offer he found extremely easy to reject:
That’s $1099.95 for a year of pretentious rubbish. Writes Smike: “C’mon baby, MoDo needs a new pair of pumps.”
That’s $1099.95 for a year of pretentious rubbish. Writes Smike: “C’mon baby, MoDo needs a new pair of pumps.”
Labor Senator: Abbott just “hyping” threat
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (10:05am)
Can Labor really be trusted with your security when it has Senators like Sue Lines?
Yes, all this demanded no comment at all from the Government. It’s all mere spin, says Lines - who seems to me to be simply furious that the world is not behaving as she would wish and that jihadists are naughtily interrupting her spin with undisciplined head-hacking.
Same deal with another Labor MP:
===Labor senator Sue Lines says the Government seems determined to only talk about terrorism and not its tough budget cuts.Yes, the Abbott Government could have chosen to say nothing about an Australian boy holding a hacked-off head, about ASIO warning of the danger of return jihadists, about security agencies demanding new powers to protect us, about a US journalist being beheaded by Islamists warning the West we’re next, about jihadists rallying in our streets, about genocidal attacks on Christians and Yazidis appealing for help; or about the US plans to go back into Iraq.
“It’s [the Government] hyping it up, it’s invented the term Team Australia - you’re either in the team or you’re out of the team,” she said.
“And it’s looking for opportunities in the media and elsewhere to try and scare the Australian public and to distract everyone from the budget.”
Yes, all this demanded no comment at all from the Government. It’s all mere spin, says Lines - who seems to me to be simply furious that the world is not behaving as she would wish and that jihadists are naughtily interrupting her spin with undisciplined head-hacking.
Same deal with another Labor MP:
Senator Lines’s comments have been echoed by fellow West Australian Labor MP Melissa Parke, who tweeted on Wednesday: “Team Australia is a moronic ripoff from 2004 ‘Team America: world police’ parody film. Intolerant nonsense rhetoric, unbecoming of a PM.”But isn’t that exactly the Left? Believing the world to be as they would wish, not as it is?
The real reason we keep asking Muslim leaders to condemn terrorism
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (9:43am)
Julie Szego in The Age:
When Australians demand such “leaders” condemn jihadist atrocities they aren’t wanting them to “own” the horrors. They aren’t even wanting only that these leaders use their great influence to try to stop jihadism.
Perhaps more importantly, Australians also want reassurance that these leaders actually share their moral values and have the same reaction to atrocities which threaten us. They want reassurance from those who claim to best represent Islam that these atrocities are not part of their faith. They want to know they share a common morality, without which there is no community.
That is why the demands to “condemn terrorism” - tiresome though they may be - are critically important in building trust. And it’s why the reactions to those calls are so frightening, leading to ever more anxious calls for condemnation.
Even Szego concedes:
===What I can understand is Muslim leaders’ frustration in having to constantly condemn – and thus, by implication, own – the barbaric atrocities of their communities’ fringe dwellers. The obsessive demand for Muslim leaders to “condemn terrorism” borders on bullying.Many Muslim leaders make the same complaint, not understanding that simply in doing so they fail in an important duty.
When Australians demand such “leaders” condemn jihadist atrocities they aren’t wanting them to “own” the horrors. They aren’t even wanting only that these leaders use their great influence to try to stop jihadism.
Perhaps more importantly, Australians also want reassurance that these leaders actually share their moral values and have the same reaction to atrocities which threaten us. They want reassurance from those who claim to best represent Islam that these atrocities are not part of their faith. They want to know they share a common morality, without which there is no community.
That is why the demands to “condemn terrorism” - tiresome though they may be - are critically important in building trust. And it’s why the reactions to those calls are so frightening, leading to ever more anxious calls for condemnation.
Even Szego concedes:
But the way [these leaders] respond to these calls can be revealing.We keep asking Muslim leaders to keep condemning terrorism because we so often get the “yes but” answers that imply a great threat. Given that, it’s a fair question to keep asking. Indeed, the real trouble starts when non-Muslims conclude it’s pointless to keep asking for an unqualified answer.
In a statement condemning the image of a young boy, thought to be the son of Australian Khaled Sharrouf, holding up what appears to be the severed head of a Syrian government soldier, the Australian National Imams Council said: “Just as ANIC denounces the unspeakable atrocities committed in Gaza, so too do we speak out against the brutality carried out in Syria and Iraq...” The statement included the oblique rider: “The current trend by many world leaders… for injustice, unilateral aggression, duplicitous foreign policies and infringements on basic human rights, will only aggravate the state of global fear and violence.”
The Islamic Council of Victoria, in a release explaining its refusal to meet with Abbott last week, put the case more explicitly. “The question of why young Australians would willingly put themselves in harm’s way is much more complex than some spurious notion of religious extremism,” said the Council, which claims to represent 150,000 Muslims. “We would point the Government to its own foreign policies as a starting point. The government stance on the issue of Israel and the massacres in Gaza over the last four weeks has done more to ‘radicalise’ people than this boogie monster of radicalisation that it uses to periodically scare the community… and divert attention away from reality.”
...the leaders’ persistent deflection to Israel, a tendency shared by some on the hard Left, suggests an inability, or reluctance, to look reality in the face.
To follow the Islamic Council’s logic, some Muslims are so angry about the Australian Government’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza that they head to… Syria and Iraq, where they butcher, with orgiastic delight… other Muslims, Sunnis as well as Shiites. I don’t get it....
And I wonder what it would take to keep aspiring jihadists in the fold? ... If next week the Government miraculously engineered the establishment of a Palestinian state, would the caliphate’s appeal rapidly dissolve? Or would that require the complete dismantling of Israel? And if the Abbott Government even managed to pull that off, are we there yet? Would this fix the “unilateral aggression” and “duplicity” the Imams complained of? Would this be enough to calm the bloodlust of young men yearning for the caliphate?
Why even explain to Macdonald?
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (9:28am)
Tony Abbott should not have felt the need to justify himself to
the likes of bitter Ian Macdonald. And having bit, he should not have
blurted how he arranged his travel to make sure it was free.
Niki Savva:
===Niki Savva:
If voters hate anything more than smelling even the faintest whiff of misuse of entitlements — and the only person to have hinted at that is the Prime Minister — it is when they smell it as they are being asked to cough up more for visits to the doctors or cop less in family benefits.
Many politicians, including those on the Labor side, do what Abbott did and tack on a legitimate function to cover what could be seen as a questionable one; however, few of them blurt it out in a brain snap in front of a roomful of people, not all of whom are well disposed towards them.
Dio Wang has Clive Palmer saying sorry again
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (8:58am)
Clive Palmer apologises a second time to China, but it’s really Senator Dio Wang he’s desperate to placate:
===The first letter was intended to defuse the growing hostility that Mr Palmer’s ABC TV Q&A insults about China a week earlier had aroused…
Mr Palmer said in it: “We must always have an open mind; an open mind allows us to put ourselves in the other person’s position and brings greater understanding and less conflict to the world."…
[Pro-China activist Qian Qiguo], ...who came to Australia from Beijing in 1988, earlier organised a protest against Mr Palmer by about 200 Chinese Australians outside parliament in Canberra…
After arriving in Canberra, Mr Qian discussed Mr Palmer’s letter — of which he had been sent a copy — with Senator Wang in the latter’s office… Following this, he said, the senator passed the message to Mr Palmer, who in turn sent a second letter to [Chinese Ambassador] Ma, which discarded the “open mind” references. This amounted to a modest victory, he said.
Mr Palmer had flown to Perth for talks with Senator Wang last week, amid a furious reaction to his Q&A remarks… The former parliamentary leader of the PUP in Queensland, Alex Douglas, said yesterday Mr Palmer’s decision to say sorry to China was largely about placating the senator, who was more likely than any of the other three to quit the party…
“Dio would have seen Clive’s outburst as pig-ignorant and reckless… Dio is a highly principled, measured and intelligent man who wants everyone to set high standards. Of the four senators (PUP-aligned Ricky Muir of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie), Dio is the one most likely to leave the PUP...”
Nothing in it, journalists told Gillard, now called by the royal commission
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (8:47am)
2007 - as recalled in Jacqueline Kent’s biography of Julia Gillard:
===Today:
THE royal commission into union corruption is calling Julia Gillard and a serving Federal Court judge, her former boss at law firm Slater & Gordon, to give evidence about allegations of fraud in the AWU slush fund scandal…Oh, and about the money:
The hearings will occur over three days from September 9 when the anti-graft probe returns to its investigation of a union slush fund, which was established with legal advice from Ms Gillard to her then boyfriend, allegedly corrupt Australian Workers Union boss Bruce Wilson.
Justice Murphy headed the industrial unit at Slater & Gordon until he and Ms Gillard left the firm in 1995 amid a breakdown in trust among the firm’s partners over the discovery of the fund and a public controversy over another matter....
The AWU Workplace Reform Association registration documents that went to the West Australian government claimed its role was work safety and training.
During the confidential internal probe, Ms Gillard told Mr Gordon in a tape-recorded interview in 1995 that the association was really a “slush fund” for union elections. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid by Thiess into the slush fund.
Ms Gillard has vehemently denied wrongdoing, saying she had no knowledge of the operations of the fund. Mr Wilson has also denied wrongdoing…
The decision to call Justice Murphy, a solicitor who was appointed to the Federal Court by Ms Gillard’s then attorney-general, Robert McClelland, will surprise many lawyers as it is rare for senior serving judges to be called to a royal commission.
In June this year, several witnesses at the royal commission — former AWU staff member Wayne Hem, former AWU official Ralph Blewitt and retired builder Athol James — testified that Mr Wilson was behind the payment of thousands of dollars to Ms Gillard, including for the costs of renovating her home in inner Melbourne. Ms Gillard has emphatically and repeatedly declared since 2012 that she paid for her renovations.
A professional communicator on Q&A
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (8:30am)
Marxist Ali Alizadeh
is a Monash University lecturer in creative writing. I couldn’t help but
be struck by how creatively he expressed himself on Q&A on Monday.
On Tony Abbott’s “Team Australia” appeal:
===On Tony Abbott’s “Team Australia” appeal:
I was just going to say, look, firstly I think - I don’t want to mention the B word, but I think the government is having issues with something that begins with B and ends with T. “Ba-get” something like that. I don’t want to mention it because we will end up talking about it. So I wonder if they are trying to divert attention from that “B-thing” by dividing and conquering the community. But the second point is I mean, it’s interesting, patriotism versus religion and here I am in my sort of Marxist atheist corner and I’m just seeing the, you know, last refuge of the scoundrel versus the opium of the masses and I just think that’s a really poor choice really. If people are expected to side with nationalism or religiosity, then surely there should be more other options for subjectivity and being and activity and participation than, you know, I don’t want to behead people and post it on Twitter or wave the national flag. I mean, that’s really impoverished.On multiculturalism:
Well, look, I have an – I actually agree with Paul. I’m critical of multicultural but from very opposition - well, different political perspective because I think, look, I’m not sure if I believe in culture. I think culture is a bad, fake, fantasy invented to prevent us from engaging with political social realities. Culturism – you see, there is a problem right there. When we’re being told to focus on cultural differences, cultural identity and so on and so forth, because it is so fake, it is so provisional, it is so disconnected, I would say, from material realities and our political needs.On whether multiculturalism divides:
But, I mean, but that’s the problem, though, isn’t it? I mean, I would say that if that is being - if that’s the sort of policy that is being propagated, you know, for probably very good intentions, I wonder what the outcomes of it would be in the long run if they could create sectarianism and so on, but if they could disconnect us, they could divide, if they could extract us from our material reality and conflicts that we should all be participating in together. So I’m not sure if what you mean, that sort of metaphor of an explosion, if you think there is going to be a sectarian conflict between different groups within Australia or not. I don’t think that’s going to happen because we are not a militarised society but, yeah, I’m quite - I’m not quite sure. I have my issues with multiculturalism myself.On political instability in Canberra:
I’m just amazed that you guys write and turning this stuff into books that are publishable and readable. I mean, you know, I’m sorry, you know, I’m a fiction writer and a poet and I think you should be teaching creative writing because, to make this stuff creative and readable is amazing because it’s very dramatic. I mean, Shakespeare had interesting monarchs. They killed each other in very colourful and interesting ways...
Too scared to seem racist, too scared to save children
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (7:59am)
Ironically, our fear of seeming racist is so great that on strong legal advice I’ve had to remove a reference to our blindness to a dysfunction in Aboriginal communities - a reference that is true but potentially offensive, and therefore cannot be published without copious evidential material for which there was no space this time. This country’s laws against free speech are obscene and stifle honest discussion about terrible social problems that badly need fixing.FEAR of seeming racist is now almost as dangerous as racism itself, as a report into child trafficking in a British town showed this week.
Professor Alexis Jay investigated sexual exploitation of about 1400 children in Yorkshire’s Rotherham over the past 16 years.
Her report details astonishing depravity: children as young at 11 “were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities ... abducted, beaten and intimidated ...
“There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone”.
But even more shameful is the cowardice of authorities, too scared of seeming “racist” to admit predominantly Pakistani gangs were responsible: “By far the majority of perpetrators were described as ‘Asian’ by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage ... with the Pakistani-heritage community.
(Read full article here.)
Or maybe he just wanted stimulating reading for the flight
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (7:54am)
No, nothing to worry about at all:
UPDATE
We are so often told to be wary of the backlash that we perhaps don’t pay enough attention to what some might (unfortunately) lash back over. From the US:
===A SUSPECTED Australian terrorist was dragged from a plane at Melbourne Airport by Border Force officials after allegedly trying to fly to Syria to join a jihadi group…The man must be presumed innocent. After all, he could have been so horrified by the images that he was flying over on a peace mission.
The Melbourne man, who is an Australian citizen, was flying to Beirut in Lebanon with three family members when he was detained aboard a flight on a Middle Eastern airline on Monday.
He was searched by Australian Federal Police officers, who discovered he was carrying around $30,000 in Australian currency.
He was also allegedly in possession of terror-related images including photographs of beheadings, and images of the flag flown by the murderous terror group ISIL, which is rampaging across Syria and Iraq.
UPDATE
We are so often told to be wary of the backlash that we perhaps don’t pay enough attention to what some might (unfortunately) lash back over. From the US:
For two bloody months, an armed jihadist serial killer ran loose across the country.(Via Tim Blair, who has more.)
At least four innocent men died this spring and summer as acts of “vengeance” on behalf of aggrieved Muslims, the self-confessed murderer has proclaimed. Heard about this horror? Probably not.
The usual suspects who decry hate crimes and gun violence haven’t uttered a peep. Why? Like O.J.’s glove: If the narrative don’t fit, you must acquit.
How could Abbott be so cruel to such battlers?
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (7:47am)
WE’RE told that battlers — like some surprising pensioners in the papers lately — are being rescued from sheer horror by Labor and so-called billionaire Clive Palmer.
Labor leader Bill Shorten, for instance, is determined to save such people from the Abbott Government’s “unbelievably tough cuts and cruelty”.
He means cruelty like the Government wanting to slow the rise in the age pension, now claimed in full or part by 90 per cent of Australians of retirement age.
Or like making school leavers go on training schemes rather than stay home on the dole.
Or like those other tweaks the Government plans to the $70 billion a year we’re now spending to keep an incredible three million Australians on one of the four main welfare payments — the dole, age pension, disability payments or single-parent handouts.
Palmer, for instance, wildly claimed he knew pensioners who were left with only $15 a week of spending money after their nursing home’s cut, which so moved him that he joined Labor and the Greens in the Senate to reject government plans for a $7 Medicare co-payment.
In fact, “we’re not going to have a co-payment of even one cent”.
No, no, no. Don’t ask pensioners to pay even one cent for a trip to the doctor! Send the Medicare bill — now $18 billion a year — to the rich!
Even though we’re now spending billions we don’t have on an exploding welfare bill, we could not possibly ask battlers to pay even one cent more for anything.
But let’s now put some faces to this welfare class to illustrate its utter deprivation. Here are three people, taken at random from newspaper reports over the past fortnight — people needing Australian workers to dig ever deeper for them.
(Read full article here.)
And even if it’s real it could be gone
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (7:26am)
The painting still looks great, but is close to worthless if the wrong hand painted it:
A RENOWNED art adviser and an art dealer who has previously been sued for selling fake artworks are facing the prospect of jail time for their involvement with allegedly forged works that sold for millions of dollars as Brett Whiteley paintings.The accused both insist they are innocent. But you’d be right to be growing paranoid if you were a collector, after this case earlier this year:
Victoria Police yesterday charged art conservator Mohammad Aman Siddique — who advises significant collectors on acquisitions — and dealer Peter Gant with fraud offences at the Melbourne Magistrates Court.
It is believed to be the first time Mr Gant has faced criminal prosecution despite a long history of litigation that has repeatedly questioned the provenance of artworks he has sold.
The charges relate to three works which were sold or offered for sale as part of Whiteley’s iconic Lavender Bay series, inspired by views from his home overlooking Sydney Harbour.
Police allege that Mr Siddique produced the works while Mr Gant was involved in their sale as authentic Whiteley works.
Again, the accused all insist on their innocence and the judge has reserved her decision.
Christie’s is in the thick of an ongoing case regarding a work purportedly by the Australian artist Albert Tucker, Faun and Parrot, that its owner bought from the auction house but discovered was a forgery when she tried to resell it through Sotheby’s ten years after its purchase.
On 1 May 2000, Louise McBride, a barrister, bought the work post sale (it was bought in at Christie’s) through her adviser, Vivienne Sharpe, and with external financing for A$75,000 ($70,000), plus commissions (A$10,000 to Christie’s; A$2,000 to Sharpe). McBride is suing Christie’s Australia, Sharpe and Alex Holland—the previous owner of the work—and his gallery, in a case that opened in the New South Wales Supreme court in July.
McBride’s complaint brought evidence that Christie’s “had concerns about the painting and its provenance” and that the auction house had two conflicting provenances on file by the time financing on the work had concluded in early June 2000. Around mid-2000, a Christie’s specialist contacted Lauraine Diggins, a Tucker expert, who—together with a panel of other experts—concluded that McBride’s work, and another purported Tucker that Christie’s subsequently sold, were fake. Diggins’ affidavit says that she contacted Christie’s with this information after the meeting.
Then there are those other hazards for the collector. Yesterday I was lucky enough to be shown this lovely painting:
The mystery began on an autumn night in April 1991, when a burglar broke into the Blairgowrie home of elderly retiree Albert Watt.
According to the police report, the only item stolen was Mr Watt’s cherished Rupert Bunny painting, Girl in Sunlight, which hung above his dining table and is worth about $250,000.
Labor battles for the writing class
Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (7:12pm)
Labor now represents not the working class but the writing class, with many former Labor ministers curiously eager to document their roles in one of the worst governments in our history:
I don’t think Bryce should so flagrantly confirm she leaned to Labor - at times in office:
===That will bring to nine — by one calculation — the number of books from [Julia Gillard] and former colleagues on roughly the same subject.Nine?
I don’t think Bryce should so flagrantly confirm she leaned to Labor - at times in office:
Next month former Governor-General Quentin Bryce will formally launch My Story, the memoir of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
ABC goddess charged
Andrew Bolt August 28 2014 (8:38pm)
February on the ABC:
===TONY JONES: Good evening. Welcome to this special edition of Q&A from the Seymour Centre at Sydney University. I’m Tony Jones. Please welcome tonight’s special guest, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. Thank you. Madame Lagarde is a pioneer. She was the first woman to lead an international law firm, then the first female Trade Minister of France. Now as head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde is shaking up the global economy with her emphasis on environmental issues, economic equality and gender inclusion.Now:
IMF chief Christine Lagarde, one of the world’s most powerful women, announced Wednesday she had been charged with “negligence” over a multi-million-euro graft case relating to her time as French finance minister.
The shock announcement came a day after she was grilled for more than 15 hours by a special court in Paris that probes ministerial misconduct, the fourth time she has been questioned in a case that has long weighed upon her position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
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A misleading progression .. Abraham Lincoln served everyone very well without once being a prostitute ..
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We need to be humble ..
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Misleading, but funny. It shows that AGW alarmism is based on faith.
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4 her, so she can see how I see her
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Oops, I accidentally swapped the oxygen with chlorine .. still, it works! ed
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Daniel Bogo
Uluru sunset
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Breathtaking tidal wave of FOG rolls over Newfoundland.
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Kevin Rudd's plan to close the Garden Island Naval Base will be devastating to the NSW economy.
Share and like if you oppose Labor's reckless plans!
Register your opposition here: http://ow.ly/oiDCI
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The Green extremists cannot have control in the Senate again. Help stop them http://ow.ly/nCMYg
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More Atticus Finch: "As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it- whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."
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MSNBC host Karen Finney called into conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s program on Monday for the first, and likely final, time. She ended up hanging up on Hewitt after she grew increasingly frustrated with the host’s persistent questions on “McCarthyism” and whether communists had actually infiltrated the U.S. government in the 1950s.
Hewitt began the interview with a clip from Finney’s weekend MSNBC show in which she compared Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to Joe McCarthy in their shared “paranoia” and “fear-stoking” behavior. Things just got more and more tense from there.
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Chocolate doesn’t make the world go ’round, but it sure does make the trip worthwhile!
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Kelly O'Dwyer.
Last night I appeared on QandA where we discussed Paid Parental Leave, Murdoch Press and other Coalition Policies, because the Government refuse to talk about their own or their record. #auspol
http://youtu.be/sstgUUOfF30
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Israel. The only place in the middle East where an Arab can openly speak out against the government without fearing for their life.
It is good to be an Arab in Israel -
READ MORE : http://www.i24news.tv/en/
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Mo Gelber
'Terminally ill man loses right to die court battle'
He may have lost the battle but something tells me he'll eventually win the war.
===C. H. Spurgeon
The more you know about Christ, the less you will be satisfied with superficial views of Him.
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Time for a 'Plan B'? - Israel National News
Conference held Sunday, 25 August 2013, though the substance of historical truth and not continued fabrication, must be elevated to the far reaches of public and diplomatic attention and policy's scope. To wit:
"Here The Kingdom of Jordan (originally known as "Transjordan") was established in 1946, on three quarters of the territory previously allocated for a Jewish state in the famous Balfour Declaration in 1917.
It was the result of a partition of the British Mandate of Palestine as a compromise between Jews and Arabs - a compromise which began at the 1922 San Remo Conference, when the Arab population received the lion's share (77%) of the country, to the east of the River Jordan, and the Jews received the remaining portion to its west.
But instead of handing over control to the local Arab population, the British government installed the Hashemite tribe of Jordan's King Abdullah I (grandfather of King Abdullah II), which was sympathetic to British imperial interests.
That ushered in an era of autocratic, minority rule which lasted until today, and left the local Jews and Arabs to continue to fight over the remaining 23%.
Despite being the majority, Palestinians in Jordan are subject to widespread discrimination and repression by the government. Recently, sensing the growing threat from disgruntled Palestinians, the Jordanian government began stripping large numbers of their Jordanian citizenship, dealing another blow to their collective civil rights, and illustrating how it relies on their disenfranchisement to survive." - (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/171185#.UhzQrBaXuFJ)
http://paper.li/allysonchristy/1338794440
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For African migrants in Israel, a life in legal limbo
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/08/20/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/for-55000-eritreans-in-israel-a-life-in-legal-limbo#ixzz2dGR9iFS2
Sad. It isn't their fault their people are so terrible .. the UN is culpable in its dealings .. ed
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Israelis are pretty passionate about their dairy products. So important is cottage cheese to the average Israeli that the price of the product was the poster issue for the Israeli social protests three summers ago.
But Joshua Miron, head of the Ruminant Sciences Department at the Volcani Center in Israel, says his work is much more than about a love for milk.
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With sports in the US getting more competitive every year, a torn knee ligament can mean “game over” for a professional footballer, tennis star or basketball champion.
Yet these kinds of injuries are becoming more and more common, with an estimated 700,000 tears of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) –– the most common type of knee tear –– every year.
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Hot, dry summers put forests at great risk of fire. Since January of this year alone, hundreds of wildfires destroyed large swaths of Australia, while Colorado’s Black Forest experienced the worst blaze in state history.
The devastation might not be as vast in the future, if firefighters adopt Israel’s unique Matash Fire Forecasting System, developed by the research department of the Ministry of Public Security in reaction to the record-breaking Carmel Forest fire of 2010.
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FORMER Prime Minister Julia Gillard returned to her Federal electorate of Lalor to say goodbye to the community yesterday.
On her visit, Ms Gillard did a tour of the Wyndham Vale GP Super Clinic which is under construction and attended the opening of the Mambourin Cafe at Isis Primary Care in Hoppers Crossing.
The Lalor MP of 15 years, who announced she would retire from politics in June after losing a leadership poll to Kevin Rudd, was flanked by the Labor candidate for Lalor, Joanne Ryan.
Ms Gillard also farewelled the community at a Civic Reception held by Wyndham Council last night.
Ms Gillard thanked the community for their support and said she had a continued interest in the community and its issues.
She said despite her decision to move back to Adelaide, she would return to Wyndham regularly to attend Werribee Football Club games and stay in touch with the community.
Is the image of Gillard trying to find her electorate on a map? - ed
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*An Arizona Supercell*
I've gotten lucky this year...the hail core by Douglas...and now this storm. Wow. I've never seen anything like it in Arizona before. It was intense. The timelapse (once I'm done with it) will show you all the movement and dust and rain and lightning...it was crazy.
I photographed this north of Tucson in the Red Rock community. I still can't believe it. This is Arizona...we just don't see stuff like this very much!
Copyright © Mike Olbinski Photography // buy print - http://
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This storm was situated just a little South West of Tucson. It kept firing off in different directions, so I kept re-aiming my camera and in turn kept missing strikes. Finally this one happened. I like the trees and the distant row of lights. It lends a little more story to this shot.
Please feel free to share this, and take a look at the image in a much better non compressed environment here:
http://
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Good illustration of where defenders of freedom come from, and where terrorists come from. ed
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The Earth Story
Airglow over Mono lake.
It's not just auroras that fill our sky with eerie light. A weaker phenomenon called airglow (aka nightglow) also exists, and unlike the aurora, which are focussed towards the poles by Earth's magnetic field, it can be seen from anywhere on Earth with luck and a dark sky or long exposure photo. Both phenomena arise from excited atmospheric atoms, but with different solar sources for the excitation energy. Like aurorae, airglow can be patchy and shift on a scale of minutes across the night sky. It is also present during the day but hidden in the glare.
Aurorae are due to high speed collisions with the high energy particles in the solar wind, usually during a coronal mass ejection that is pointed towards our planet and funnelled down our world's field lines. Airglow arises from high energy components of ordinary sunlight, in this case short wave ultraviolet and X-Rays. Several mechanisms combine in the lower reaches of space to produce this glow.
Between 80 and 100 Km up from the surface, oxygen atoms get chemically excited and ionised (the electrons are stripped off from the nuclei by the energy). They then react with hydroxyl molecules (OH) to form water, or recombine into O2 and start to glow green from both chemically stimulated energy and the decay of those atoms excited by cosmic rays (just once in my life I think I've had the blue flash of Cherenkov radiation in one eye reported by astronauts). They only occur at high altitude because lower down the nitrogen in the atmosphere quenches the reaction. Other types of atom also recombine to contribute to the effect, such as nitrogen and oxygen forming nitric oxide (NO), emitting a photon of light as they do so.
It was first identified by the Swede Angstrom in 1868, and subsequent laboratory studies have shown the chemical pathways that create the light as an energetic by product of the photochemical reactions. It limits the sensitivity of ground based telescopes at visible wavelengths, and is one of the reasons space telescopes are so useful to astronomers, as they can see faint objects normally masked by airglow. It usually appears bluish green, and seems brightest about ten degrees above the horizon. Only part of the layer of air that forms our bubble glows, too high up and the atoms are too tenuous to combine, too low and their density means that the energy is dissipated by collisions rather than photochemical reactions.
While it is normally quite weak, and the photographer tells me that this picture has an unusual intensity for the phenomenon, he states that a friend obtained similar results when shooting from the same place in the same direction.
Sometime in the next couple of days, we'll put up a photo of airglow from space, so you can see the shimmering band that encircles our wonderful Blue Marble.
Loz
Image credit: Matt Granz,https://www.facebook.com/
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“Attempts to bypass the Security Council, to once again create artificial, unproven excuses for an armed intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement posted on the Ministry's website."
http://en.rian.ru/world/20130828/183002667/US-Gathers-Intl-Support-for-Possible-Syria-Military-Action.html
US action is too late While Obama was community organising, the opportunity to use diplomacy was passed. Obama referred to a red line which was a challenge for Syria to step over. Thing is, Syria is merely an Iranian puppet. Hit the puppet and make things worse. But pulling the puppet's strings .. that would have been good last week or month .. ed
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Today we welcome a new Chocolate Bar to the Max Brenner family; Max Brenner Gasworks in Newstead, QLD! Come down to experience Max's chocolate culture.
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From AMSA today:
PAN PAN
FM RCC AUSTRALIA 280606Z AUG 2013 AUSSAR 2013/5809
CHART AUS 4708 AUSTRALIA WEST COAST AND INDONESIA
ASYLUM SEEKER VESSEL WITH 55 PERSONS ON BOARD IN POSITION 07-03.73S 105-05.63E AT 280430UTC AUG 2013 ENCOUNTERING HEAVY SEAS AND REQUESTS ASSISTANCE. VESSELS WITHIN 30NM OF POSITION ARE REQUESTED TO MAINTAIN LOOKOUT, PROVIDE ASSISTANCE AS NECESSARY AND REPORT SIGHTINGS TO RCC AUSTRALIA VIA TELEPHONE +61262306811 INMARSAT THROUGH LES BURUM (POR 212,IOR 312), SPECIAL ACCESS CODE (SAC) 39, HF DSC 005030001, EMAIL: rccaus@amsa.gov.au OR BY FAX +61262306868.
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That location is only 30km from the West Java coast, but of course WE will be expected to come to the rescue.
PAN PAN
FM RCC AUSTRALIA 280606Z AUG 2013 AUSSAR 2013/5809
CHART AUS 4708 AUSTRALIA WEST COAST AND INDONESIA
ASYLUM SEEKER VESSEL WITH 55 PERSONS ON BOARD IN POSITION 07-03.73S 105-05.63E AT 280430UTC AUG 2013 ENCOUNTERING HEAVY SEAS AND REQUESTS ASSISTANCE. VESSELS WITHIN 30NM OF POSITION ARE REQUESTED TO MAINTAIN LOOKOUT, PROVIDE ASSISTANCE AS NECESSARY AND REPORT SIGHTINGS TO RCC AUSTRALIA VIA TELEPHONE +61262306811 INMARSAT THROUGH LES BURUM (POR 212,IOR 312), SPECIAL ACCESS CODE (SAC) 39, HF DSC 005030001, EMAIL: rccaus@amsa.gov.au OR BY FAX +61262306868.
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That location is only 30km from the West Java coast, but of course WE will be expected to come to the rescue.
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Oh Japan. You never are one to do things by half are you? This dinosaur prank will delight everyone, especially Jurassic Park fans, not only because the dinosaur looks so real, but because the poor prankee's reaction is just brilliant. It's probably informed by a lifetime of cultural influence from Godzilla. Poor guy.
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This is a good candidate who can represent Griffith better than it has been in many years .. ed
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I don't agree with this. There is far more to the issue not addressed by the diminution. But Gay Pride people have in the past smeared me in such a way as to threaten my life. I don't take to censorship well. My Lord tells me that it isn't my role to judge others, but act with love. I'm sorry for those who misunderstand. - ed
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Nobody likes to be a whinger. But there are some situations in which you absolutely shouldn't put up and shut up: a cockroach runs across your table in a restaurant; your new-ish mobile breaks down; you fork out for a fancy weekend away and find the accommodation needs a serious facelift.
When bad things happen, you have to be able to complain - and get results.
Dr Catriona Wallace is the chief executive of customer experience analyst Fifth Quadrant. According to its research, complaints account for 1 million of the 21 million interactions Australian consumers have with organisations on any given day. While that sounds like a lot of whining, Wallace says Australians are actually reluctant to complain. ''It's tied into mateship culture that we, sociologically, don't really like to complain,'' she says.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/money/planning/how-to-make-complaining-work-20130828-2spp1.html#ixzz2dFzTe09S
My wife says it is ok for me to complain, but I shouldn't *sound* like I do, when I do. But I enjoy ABBA. - ed
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Longer school years aren't the answer. The problem is school itself. Compulsory teach-and-test simply doesn't work
Yes, but your perspective is too narrow .. the assumption being an adult at home provides leadership of a type .. most are not like that .. reated in an attempt to raise literacy .. everyone in Great Britain was to read and write to a year 8 standard. Catholic church initiated a similar program at about the same time. from early 1800's to mid 1800's, students became teachers of the younger years .. boot strapping .. and records were kept of attainments .. rewards given on assembly. Then in mid 1800's, teacher training began at university to make teachers who would inculcate moral values .. this article is asinine .. I use it as a counter example of good scholarship .. ed===
my grandma was trying to fill out a form for the UK pension ..
It asked for her birth year and began 19 with two spaces .. but she was born in 1898 .. true story .. you don't care? Do you!! ed
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Successful election campaigns reward work horses, not show ponies, Sarah.>
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A Canadian woman took matters into her own hands when her bike was stolen last week.
Kayla Smith followed the appropriate channels, filing a police report when her $1,000 bike went missing outside of an apartment building in Vancouver, even though it had been locked. But when she saw an ad on Craigslist featuring her bicycle the next morning for $300, she devised a way to get it back on her own, according to the Vancouver Sun.
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Craig Kelly
KEVIN'S LATEST HALF-BAKED IDEA
Where did Mr Rudd latest half-baked idea of moving the Garden Island Naval base come from ?
• It can’t have come from Defence – it’s clear today Defence was not consulted
• It didn’t come from former military leaders – former chief of navy Russ Crane and former chief of army Ken Gillespie say moving navy’s HQ is impractical.
• It didn’t come from the Labor Government – which released a defence white paper in May making it clear Garden Island facilities and staff would not be relocated
• And it’s not clear whether the idea came from Kevin Rudd’s Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith. Where was the Minister for Defence yesterday when the Garden Island announcement was made?
It's clear that Mr. Rudd is just making it up as he goes along.
While it’s one thing for Mr Rudd to roll-out a series of half-baked ideas that damage the economy – when Mr Rudd’s half-baked ideas threaten to damage our nation’s military & defence infrastructure – it should be an ominous warning of the clear and present danger that Mr Rudd is to Australia.
The pattern of this Labor Government has been chaos, dysfunction and division, making it all up as they go along - continues.
Nothing’s changed.
If Labor are re-elected it won’t just be another three years as bad as the last six – it will be even worse. More debt, more deficits, more chaos, more disunity and more sheer dysfunction.
Australians deserve so much better than this
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Larry Pickering
DEAR UNCLE KEV...
I am really happy you can come to my school so we can all have our pictures taken with you. Everyone is soooo excited!
Guess what Uncle Kev, you know our school essay on, “What a silly man Mr Abbott is”? I copied a story in The Age and my teacher gave me top marks. I got 3 stars and a big ribbon.
Anyway, my Dad says you have no money left and that’s very sad, so everyone is bringing some food for you. My Dad’s coming too, but some of the fruit he is bringing is a bit old.
Mum has bought some high protein free-range eggs and my brother, Shamus, has a hessian bag full of vine-ripened tomatoes.
We won’t let you go hungry, Uncle Kev, we Australians all pull together to help poor people.
I am really worried about you tho’, Uncle Kev, ‘cos I have seen horrible pictures of all those starving little children with big tummies and I noticed your tummy is getting bigger all the time.
My Dad says you’re a psychopathic megalomaniac, I think that means ‘movie star’. So, hurry up and come to see us.
My name is Phoebe and I’m here to help you Uncle Kev.
Love,
Phoebe, (8)
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This is Papakolea Beach, this is one of only four green sand beaches in the World.
Here are some more beautiful images:http://tmblr.co/
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Ann Coulter slammed President Obama and all Democrats for that matter on foreign policy. Tonight on Hannity, she reacted to the developing situation out of Syria and possible missile strikes by the United States on the country. “Do not vote for Democrats for commander in chief, America. This is what happens.”
Read more: http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/08/27/ann-coulter-obama-bomb-syria-so-he-wont-look-idiot#ixzz2dG6RoDvP
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A former high school teacher in Montana will only serve 30 days in jail, despite being convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl who later committed suicide.
The sentence was handed down on Monday by Judge G. Todd Baugh to Stacey Dean Rambold, 54, who admitted to having sexual relations with Cherice Morales, a then 14-year-old student.
Baugh reportedly sentenced Rambold to 15 years prison for nonconsensual sexual intercourse, but suspended all except 31 days. The judge then gave the former teacher credit for one day served, reducing his total jail sentence to just 30 days.
According to The Billings Gazette, the judge said 14-year-old Morales was “older than her chronological age” and Rambold’s lawyer asked the judge to “consider how he’s been punished to this point.”
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The immigration bill seems to be stalled in Congress right now. In an attempt to speed up the process, the American Catholic Church is urging its congregation to support the bill. The issue? Some of that will take place in sermons during mass.
Read more: http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/08/27/catholic-church-push-immigration-reform-sermons#ixzz2dG79yBkZ
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Pastor Rick Warren
Fear makes everything seem impossible.
Faith makes everything seem possible.
"With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26
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Despite being wrapped in red tape and taken for granted, we think small business owners are local heroes. Tag your local small business hero here to tell them are #2BIG2IGNORE
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The Greens claim to support democracy and open debate, but their actions speak louder than their words. Help stop the Greens todayhttp://ow.ly/nCMYg
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Pastor Rick Warren
Anyone can handle one problem at a time, but to be a LEADER you must learn to handle multiple attacks at once without giving up.
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
God decide who you MEET, but you decide who you KEEP.
God brings people together for a valid reason, and it's your
full time responsibility to keep or hold on to who God has
placed in your life. If you agree say: Amen!
Amen .. and I'll add .. I have really troublesome relatives .. but I see them as an inheritance. I have no idea what to do with them or how God wants me to work with them, but they are there. - ed
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The Zionist project was based on the historical necessity, to use a Marxist phrase, of creating a safe haven for European Jews as a reaction to 19th-century anti-Semitism.
But this miraculous process of Jewish reappropriation of the military also spurred the conflict between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel. Such a state for assimilated Jews could have been actualized in Argentina, Uganda or Birobidzhan.
The consequences have been Amona, Homesh, Gush Katif, Kadim, Gadim, Migron.... Ruthless and merciless experiments of Jewish self-exile which have dramatically tested even the faith of non-Jews who believe in the State of Israel.
Now the Eretz Yisrael's mountains, valleys, borders, historical identity, cultural affections, national passions which characterize the entiremountain range from Jenin to Hevron - historically, culturally and religiously the Jewish land of the Bible, where lie the greatest Jewish names of hope and redemption - Elon Moreh, Itamar, Negohot, Beit Haggai, Yitzhar, Tel Rumeida - have been put on the "negotiating table" once again, like meat at the market.
And to the names of the historic destroyers like Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, Commander of the Roman Legions, we risk adding the Jewish names Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, Livni - and now Netanyahu.
Everybody knows that a Palestinian Arab Islamic state cannot come into existence if the Jewish "settlements" remain in their present locations. And this is a consequence of terrorism.
It began with the slogan "only a political solution will end Palestinian terrorism", which was echoed by IDF commanders who lost the war on terrorism. It was a war that for seven years (1987-1994) they were never required to win. Cynically, the governments directed things so that there was no possible solution but surrender.
IDF strongholds have been abandoned, dismantled, even looted by Palestinian mobs. Above all, the prime ministers' pronouncements isolated "Jewish settlers", questioned their legitimacy, defamed them, and tried to break their spirit. They also made life in some of the besieged "settlements" impossible.
Everybody also knows that evacuating the IDF from Palestinian Arab-populated areas will primarily affect the Jewish population in Jerusalem and the center of the country. A hostile foreign army will not face obstacles on the way to Tel Aviv.
The shocking memories of synagogues ablaze in Gush Katif is a sight unseen since the Nazi Kristallnacht and was now repeated in the State of the Jews by the Jews. Could it happen again? Why not?
For me, the Jewish cause transcends everything. Israel is the Jewish state; Jerusalem is Jewish, and exclusively Jewish; Hevron is forever Jewish.
If the "settlements", the world's Jewish designated sacrifical lamb, will be abandoned and destroyed, for the first time since the days of Joshua, the holy land will become the home of a foreign, vicious people. This is what I learned from the Bible.
No real pro-Israel friend will be able to be comforted after the day the Jewish state forsakes the most precious pieces of real estate in the world.
Let's hope that the tragedy of Oslo, the very grave of the Jewish people, will never repeat itself.
A post-retreat and rationalistic-hedonist State of Israel, which gives up the heartland for the sake of "democracy" and under the threat of the PA death sentence for the Jewish people, doesn't deserve my activism and support.
What genius in the UN thought to have Jerusalem separate? ed
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In his defence, she was an embarrassment ed
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- 1830 – Tom Thumb (replica pictured), the first American-built steam locomotive, engaged in an impromptu race against a horse-drawn car inMaryland.
- 1914 – In the first naval battle of the First World War, British ships defeated the German fleet in the Heligoland Bight area of the North Sea.
- 1924 – An unsuccessful insurrection against Soviet rule in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, known as the August Uprising, began.
- 1937 – Toyota Motors, now the world's largest automobile manufacturer, was spun off from Toyota Industries as an independent company.
- 1963 – The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, the world's longestfloating bridge, opened across Lake Washington in Washington, US.
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” Isaiah 26:3 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"How long will it be ere they believe me?"
Numbers 14:11
Numbers 14:11
Strive with all diligence to keep out that monster unbelief. It so dishonours Christ, that he will withdraw his visible presence if we insult him by indulging it. It is true it is a weed, the seeds of which we can never entirely extract from the soil, but we must aim at its root with zeal and perseverance. Among hateful things it is the most to be abhorred. Its injurious nature is so venomous that he that exerciseth it and he upon whom it is exercised are both hurt thereby. In thy case, O believer! it is most wicked, for the mercies of thy Lord in the past, increase thy guilt in doubting him now. When thou dost distrust the Lord Jesus, he may well cry out, "Behold I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves." This is crowning his head with thorns of the sharpest kind. It is very cruel for a well-beloved wife to mistrust a kind and faithful husband. The sin is needless, foolish, and unwarranted. Jesus has never given the slightest ground for suspicion, and it is hard to be doubted by those to whom our conduct is uniformly affectionate and true. Jesus is the Son of the Highest, and has unbounded wealth; it is shameful to doubt Omnipotence and distrust all-sufficiency. The cattle on a thousand hills will suffice for our most hungry feeding, and the granaries of heaven are not likely to be emptied by our eating. If Christ were only a cistern, we might soon exhaust his fulness, but who can drain a fountain? Myriads of spirits have drawn their supplies from him, and not one of them has murmured at the scantiness of his resources. Away, then, with this lying traitor unbelief, for his only errand is to cut the bonds of communion and make us mourn an absent Saviour. Bunyan tells us that unbelief has "as many lives as a cat:" if so, let us kill one life now, and continue the work till the whole nine are gone. Down with thee, thou traitor, my heart abhors thee.
Evening
"Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth."
Psalm 31:5
Psalm 31:5
These words have been frequently used by holy men in their hour of departure. We may profitably consider them this evening. The object of the faithful man's solicitude in life and death is not his body or his estate, but his spirit; this is his choice treasure--if this be safe, all is well. What is this mortal state compared with the soul? The believer commits his soul to the hand of his God; it came from him, it is his own, he has aforetime sustained it, he is able to keep it, and it is most fit that he should receive it. All things are safe in Jehovah's hands; what we entrust to the Lord will be secure, both now and in that day of days towards which we are hastening. It is peaceful living, and glorious dying, to repose in the care of heaven. At all times we should commit our all to Jesus' faithful hand; then, though life may hang on a thread, and adversities may multiply as the sands of the sea, our soul shall dwell at ease, and delight itself in quiet resting places.
"Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." Redemption is a solid basis for confidence. David had not known Calvary as we have done, but temporal redemption cheered him; and shall not eternal redemption yet more sweetly console us? Past deliverances are strong pleas for present assistance. What the Lord has done he will do again, for he changes not. He is faithful to his promises, and gracious to his saints; he will not turn away from his people.
"Though thou slay me I will trust,
Praise thee even from the dust,
Prove, and tell it as I prove,
Thine unutterable love.
Thou mayst chasten and correct,
But thou never canst neglect;
Since the ransom price is paid,
On thy love my hope is stay'd."
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Today's reading: Psalm 120-122, 1 Corinthians 9 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Psalm 120-122
1 I call on the LORD in my distress,
and he answers me.
2 Save me, LORD,
from lying lips
and from deceitful tongues.
and he answers me.
2 Save me, LORD,
from lying lips
and from deceitful tongues.
3 What will he do to you,
and what more besides,
you deceitful tongue?
4 He will punish you with a warrior's sharp arrows,
with burning coals of the broom bush.
and what more besides,
you deceitful tongue?
4 He will punish you with a warrior's sharp arrows,
with burning coals of the broom bush.
5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshek,
that I live among the tents of Kedar!
6 Too long have I lived
among those who hate peace.
7 I am for peace;
but when I speak, they are for war....
that I live among the tents of Kedar!
6 Too long have I lived
among those who hate peace.
7 I am for peace;
but when I speak, they are for war....
Today's New Testament reading: 1 Corinthians 9
Paul's Rights as an Apostle
1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? 2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
3 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4Don't we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?
7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? 8 Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn't the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Is it about oxen that God is concerned?10 Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more?
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