Monday, September 29, 2014

Mon Sep 29th Todays News

A children's program in the seventies featured a super hero called Shazam. The character was based on Captain Marvel and got a strong response from the audience in a boy demographic. Producers wanted to have a similar program for girls. They found an Egyptian Goddess that had no obvious drawbacks or bad associations, Isis. Today, an eight year old girl, Isis, is utterly heartbroken by the response her name inspires. It is all right, Isis, just keep your head, and don't take others. In the tv program, the character was summonsed by the lead turning around and calling out her name. Best not to do that outdoors these days. One person who is brave enough to attempt such is Cate Blanchet. But don't let Cate sign a sick certificate for your employer. On this slow news day we found out that Dracula was misunderstood, and his terrorist activity overstated. A good samaritan on a train who went to the aid of a woman being monster-ed by two 'men' got beaten up. Coroner criticises police investigation nineteen years ago and declares the missing man murdered. Police corner a man in Brisbane and shoot him dead as he raised a weapon. A Simpson's character has died, but no one remembered ever seeing him. 

In more serious news, Clive Palmer has claimed to have won 90% of court cases he fights. He has actually won 6% of court cases in the last eighteen months. He should fight more of them. Sophie Mirabella may have lost her seat to an electoral fraud. Australia records another big deficit, thanks to the ALP. Senator Wong had lost over one hundred billion dollars in preceding budgets, it may have reached over $140 billion unaccounted for. 

The ALP are involved with corruption and bad management, but they had supporters who helped, and they help terrorists too. ABC has claimed Australia's need for a strong defence force is a myth. 'Q and A' provides excuses from terrorist apologists delivered straight to media who want to tell terrorists. Some of the excuses put Australia in danger of being hit. It looks like an Afghan expat was killed for being Australian. Crikey expresses concern for those demonising others. Yet Crikey demonises conservatives as editorial policy. Steyn comments on a workplace accident involving an Islamic convert decapitating a colleague. Obama admits an intelligence failure regarding ISIS in Syria going back two years. Only those two years involved an election he was so desperate for that he lied about Benghazi. Tim Blair provides a guide to avoiding terrorists. They say justice is blind, but she appears to be racist. Going back in time in Afghanistan, one sees women living free lives. Once upon a time Islam celebrated wine and women in poetry and lifestyle. Amanda Vanstone drew on myth to denounce Christians so as to reconcile with Islam through Ataturk. Ataturk was successful in opposing radical clerics so that Turkish women today are unaccustomed to wearing 'traditional' robes.  But the pathetic truth is exposed with an Islamic conference where terrorists are welcome, but journalists are not.  

from 2013
Bob Hawke tells an off colour joke. It reminds people of ALP glory days. Only those days weren't very good, and today it is worse. In the glory days of Hawke/Keating, changes were made to the economy which benefited Australia which had bipartisan support. The preceding Liberal PM, Fraser, had been small 'L' liberal and had resisted necessary change. Kudos go to the ALP in floating the dollar and deregulating the financial system. To this day, Fraser still supports the ALP over conservative party policy. Hawke, addressing the UN, told a joke about Mother Teresa and India. His humour crosses boundaries. However, Hawke had no substance to his narrative. Speaking to the Chinese Premier in the wake of the slaughter of democracy protesting students at Tiananmen Square Hawke asked the Premier if he might allow some dissidents to leave China rather than punitively treating them. Whereupon the Premier asked "How many millions do you want?" Hawke later said he hadn't realised the problem was so bad. But the truth is socialist/communist governments degenerate into tyranny.

A recent example of how bad a leftist government can be to hang onto power, is the ALP's attempt to control the media. It was a laughable attempt, as the media are largely theirs anyway. But other sinister examples can be found in Italy and Thailand where billionaire conservative leaders have apparently been stitched up by corruption. That isn't to oppose the rule of law, Greek Fascists should be jailed for their crimes. Having an opinion does not endorse corruption or murder.

Fascism has a way of crossing boundaries. The way fascism has corrupted science under the guise of environmentalism is appalling. Similarly, Islam looks really ugly because of the supremacy of its' fascist elements. In Australia, minor parties like the Democrats and the Greens have been vaporised after they surrendered their independence to the ALP. But the far right parties like One Nation never achieve anything worthwhile.
BTW Hawthorn are 2013 AFL champions .. I made this last year ..

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This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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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


Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR

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.netwhich 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.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Wilson Chu , Diana Ong , Anniemal Nguyen  and An Hoai . Born on the same day, across the years, along with
106 BCE – Pompey, Roman general and politician (d. 48 BC)
1511 – Michael Servetus, Spanish theologian, physician, and cartographer (d. 1553)
1547 – Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (d. 1616)
1571 – Caravaggio, Italian painter (d. 1610)
1758 – Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, English admiral (d. 1805)
1842 – Louis J. Weichmann, American clerk, witness in the trial of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (d. 1902)
1899 – László Bíró, Hungarian inventor, invented the ballpoint pen (d. 1985)
1901 – Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
1907 – Gene Autry, American singer and actor (d. 1998)
1910 – Bill Boyd, American singer and guitarist (d. 1977)
1934 – Lance Gibbs, Guyanese cricketer
1936 – Silvio Berlusconi, Italian politician, 50th Prime Minister of Italy
1946 – Ian Wallace, English drummer (King Crimson and Crimson Jazz Trio) (d. 2007)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You have overcome the sorrows. Your mandate has arrived. We do not joke about '41. Canada has entered the game. Pilot your jet with care. And enjoy the party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2014
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AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CENTURIONS

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (12:43pm)

The ABC’s Peter Lloyd offers a bizarre defence of the billion-dollar broadcaster: 
The mythmakers and self servers tell us that a strong defence force keeps us safe. 
An interesting opening gambit; insult our armed forces. Then again, this is something of an ABC tradition. Lloyd continues: 
A strong ABC is the centurion that guards this country too. 
Yes. Mainly from Australians who don’t vote for Labor or the Greens. 
I’ve spent too many years living in, working in and reporting on broken and rorted countries not to learn this: the common denominator is a weak media sector. 
Which is caused in Australia by the ABC’s obscene public funding advantage. 
All of us keep the bastards honest, and beware the politician. Every one of them benefits when we lose a second on air, or a soldier in the trench. 
So a dead Australian soldier equals one second of ABC airtime. According to Lloyd, then, our total losses in Vietnam are equal to less than a single episode of Media Watch. World War II works out at three-and-a-half episodes of Q & A, and the 60,000 killed in World War I are still eight hours short of a full day’s ABC programming. 
This is not (a) career. It is a vocation; and it’s time the army spoke out. 
You want the army’s support? Wow. Good luck with that. 
This prospective diminishment in our ranks is a surrender of terrain. It’s an attack on the places where craft skill is honed, and the ethics and values are put to the first test, and applied. But most of all, it’s just f---ing dumb. And Australia can’t afford that, anymore than it can a less educated population. Or a smaller army. 
A moment ago Lloyd claimed that only “mythmakers and self servers” believed in a strong military. Now he says a strong military is essential. This bloke displays all the logical application of a rooting pig. 
ABC NSW newsreader Juanita Phillips replied: “Thank you Peter for your passionate defence of the ABC. It brought tears to my eyes.” 
Looking forward to tonight’s ABC news broadcast, Juanita, which as usual will be 1800 dead soldiers long.
(Via Monsterdome)
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YOUR E-Z GUIDE TO TERRORISM AVOIDANCE

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (4:24am)

Everybody always talks about how terrorism is so dreadfully complicated. The causes of terrorism are complicated. The solution to terrorism is complicated. Our responses to terrorism locally and abroad are complicated.
All of this is true, but at the same time there are a range of very simple steps you can take that will help you avoid becoming involved with terrorism in the first place.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'YOUR E-Z GUIDE TO TERRORISM AVOIDANCE'
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COMMUNITY CALM

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (4:22am)

Crikey is concerned
There’s a growing risk that the constant attention, harassment and demonisation of a single community will alienate, isolate and enrage people. 
Don’t worry, Crikey. We harassed and demonised conservatives won’t hurt anybody.
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CUT THE MENTIONS

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (4:19am)

Mark Steyn considers the latest Islamic  decapitation in the US: 
Colleen Hufford was born in 1960. Life is full of grim twists and cruel vicissitudes, but in mid-20th century America it would not have occurred to anyone that one needed to worry about going to work and being beheaded by a colleague. Yet that’s what happened to Ms Hufford on Thursday: She turned up for her job at at the Vaughan Foods food processing plant in Moore, and Alton Alexander Nolen decapitated her …
Many commenters at KOCO-TV seem more outraged by the mentioning of Mr Nolen’s religion than by the beheading:
• Truth is, Islam has nothing to do with it. And Christians are far from innocent.
• What does his religion have to do with this tragedy???
• What does his religious faith have to do with this story?
• Why would you even through in anything about terrorism in this story? The writer of this story is a true DUMBASS!
• I can cite plenty of instances where religion was used to justify the bombing of abortion clinics and the murder of abortion doctors.
• I’ve read plenty of Christians calling for the indiscriminate murder of Muslims.
• Inquisition anyone?
• If he was converting to Christianity would you say that?? 
Steyn’s very reasonable conclusion: “It seems many western heads have too little up there to be worth chopping off.” 
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THE POWER OF ARTS

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (3:51am)

I abandoned my arts degree after just one year when I realised it could result in a career serving food. Or, worse, in Labor politics. Or, worse still, as an academic.
This was a mistake, according to actress and anti-carbon dioxide activist Cate Blanchett, who last week revealed the almost mystical power of an arts degree.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'THE POWER OF ARTS'
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NO WINE, NO WOMEN

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (2:33am)

Roger Scruton on Islamic rage
The Middle East is, as we are discovering, not one thing: on the contrary, it is a patchwork of communities whose peaceful coexistence depended on conditions that no longer exist. And many of those communities are in the habit of producing the two greatest scourges of the human race: young men without women, and puritanical rage …
Thanks to Ataturk polygamy was abolished in Turkey and women were encouraged to enter public life. Their status as the unspeakable ‘secret’ was removed, their faces were revealed, their soothing presence was everywhere perceivable. Thanks also to Ataturk the other great solvent of social tension – alcohol – was permitted and, while drunkenness is rightly viewed with anger all across the Middle East, the example of Turkey has helped many of those ancient communities to let their hair down and relax together over a bottle.
Remove wine and women, however, and the tension quickly escalates. 
It sure does
Mohammad Ali Baryalei is believed to be the most senior Australian member of the terrorist group Islamic State, having travelled to Syria in April last year …
Former Street Dawah friend Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who is now in Syria undertaking humanitarian work, said Mr Baryalei was someone he looked to as a leader.
“He was outspoken and wouldn’t shy from speaking the truth regardless,” he told Fairfax Media. “He wasn’t pleased with living in Australian society and wanted to live in an Islamic society away from open alcoholism, homosexuality, fornication, drugs and capitalism.” 
Instead, he wanted no alcohol, same-sex barriers, no sex at all outside of marriage, no drugs and yay for communism. Sounds just dandy. Plus beheadings.
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WHEN WOMEN WERE ALLOWED TO READ

Tim Blair – Monday, September 29, 2014 (1:57am)

Afghanistan before the Taliban:

image
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Amanda Vanstone cites Ataturk to argue Islam is fine. Big mistake

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (2:25pm)

Former Howard Government Minister Amanda Vanstone is very keen to makes Islam seem as benign - or as threatening - as Christianity in her column for The Age. Trouble is, to do so she must torture history in a way that is astonishing - and sad:

The Muslim and Christian religions have much in common.
The reason is for that is simple, of course, even if Vanstone’s conclusion is misleading: Mohammed cobbled bits from Christianity to create his new faith but then, as a warrior himself, added the war-like twist that makes the two faiths profoundly different.
Islam holds no monopoly on the production of radical fanatics. Hitler is a good example.
Pardon? Is Vanstone suggesting here that Christianity produced Hitler? In fact, Hitler was at war with Christianity, as he himself explained: “National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew… Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.”

Muslim troops fought with the Allies in World War II, and Muslims in many capacities heroically stepped in and saved the lives of thousands of Jewish people.
Vanstone falis to add that the Mufti of Palestine was an ally of Hitler who recruited thousands of volunteers for the SS, that many Muslim terrorist groups such as Hamas today still say Jews are evil and their land must be destroyed.
All of this is worth reflecting on now because of the heightened tension surrounding the so-called Islamic State and its recruitment of young Australians to fight its so-called holy war. Perhaps we need to be reminded of Ataturk’s common sense and goodwill.
Er, does Vanstone, our former Ambassador to Rome, understand why Ataturk - a hero of mine - is actually loathed by many Islamic leaders today?
What Ataturk did for Turkey would today be denounced as Islamophobic by the Left if attempted even in, say, Australia. As Ian Buruma explains:

Ataturk said in 1917 that he would change Turkish social life in one blow. And that, in 1923, is what he proceeded to do. Women were stripped of their veils, Islamic schools were closed and dervish brotherhoods were banned. Even wearing the Turkish fez was forbidden in the new society ruled by ‘’science, knowledge and civilization.’’
You see, Ataturk knew what Vanstone pretends not to- that Islam as was practised was the enemy of a liberal society:
image
[Under Ataturk] the 1924 education monopoly law allowed only the state employees to teach, preach and interpret Islam… Atatürk ordered that the call to prayer, ezan, had to be called in Turkish instead of Arabic. Imams were ordered to preach in Turkish. The Qur’an was translated into Turkish and printed in the Latin alphabet… Atatürk needed a nationalized religion, an altered Turkish Islam, to protect secularism… He asked Rûseni Barkur, a deputy from Samsun, to write a book on nationalization of Islam. Barkur titled his book, Din Yok Millet Var, There is No Religion but Nation.,,
Article 163 of the Turkish penal code was the backbone of state control over religion. According to Article 163, any movement or person that aimed to change social, economical and political and judicial system of the state even partially based on religious principles and beliefs would be imprisoned up to fifteen years. Appealing to religion, religious books and sentiments for personal power would be punishable as well.32 Until it was abandoned in 1991, Article 163 was used to make sure no Islamic movement outside the state apparatus emerged to challenge the secular state. No civil Islamic group was legally allowed to provide religious education. The Turkish state did not want anyone other than state employees to teach, preach and even interpret Islam.
Memo to all readers of Vanstone’s column: no, Ataturk isn’t a reminder that Islam isn’t really a problem. He’s a reminder that it is, and brave steps must be taken to make it more compatible with a progressive, intellectually curious and diverse society.
That’s why I have an Ataturk poster in my study. A great Turk. A great man. 
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I’d believe it if the ABC showed any sign of wanting to fight for Australia

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (2:14pm)

ABC reporter Peter Lloyd’s defence of the ABC tells us so much about the country’s biggest media empire:
The mythmakers and self servers tell us that a strong defence force keeps us safe.
Is that why the ABC seems determined to weaken our defence force
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Radicals welcome, journalists not

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (8:52am)

Bottom line: they won’t ban radical hate-preachers but will ban journalists:
ORGANISERS of an Islamic conference attended by radical preachers Junaid Thorne and Musa Cerantonio have accused the Abbott government of using Numan Haider’s attack on police to instil an anti-Muslim “culture of fear and division"…
“It’s an ugly, criminal incident that occurred for whatever ­reason, but to use it to instil fear in the hearts and minds of people — why is the leadership of this country, why is our leader Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party doing this to divide our community?” said Mr Abu Yusuf, spokesman for the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamah conference held at an Islamic centre in Melbourne’s northern suburbs yesterday…
Scores of people, including women, teenage boys and young children, attended the annual conference yesterday to hear lectures, including one from British journalist Yvonne Ridley, an outspoken anti-­Israeli activist since she was captured by the Taliban and converted to Islam.
Mr Thorne — who reacted to Haider’s death by accusing law-enforcement officials of being “the only source of danger to our community” — told his Facebook followers he had been invited to the conference, although Mr Abu Yusuf said that Mr Thorne was not a recognised speaker and had not been ­officially invited.
Mr Abu Yusuf said Mr Cerantonio — who has called for Muslims to join Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq — was similarly welcome to attend and listen to the Islamic scholars. “We’re not ashamed and afraid of who comes to our events,” he said…
The Australian was refused permission to attend the lectures or interview any of the speakers.
Mr Abu Yusuf said Islamic State’s acts were “abhorrent, but it’s no more abhorrent than any other of the horrible things that have been committed in the name of whatever”.
Merv Bendle is right:
Any proposal to shower attention on potential or actual jihadists in deradicalisation programs should be rejected for the expensive, cumbersome and ineffective academic and social welfare con-job that it is. A campaign to ridicule and anathematise jihadists as gutless wannabes will be far cheaper and much more effective.
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Er, another near-record deficit. Hello? Anyone home?

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (8:37am)

WE are frogs in billions of dollars of hot water. How could last week’s massive deficit figure — our second biggest ever — create so little fuss?
The story lasted barely a day. The deficit Labor last year predicted would be $18 billion blew out to $48.5 billion.
This should have shocked us out of this growing complacency about our debt, a complacency increasingly in the interests of both major parties.
True, some of the blowout was caused by the Abbott Government restoring honesty to the figures, giving $8.8 billion to the Reserve Bank for its reserves.
Some was due to government spending decisions, but most came from falls in government revenue.
As Treasurer Joe Hockey said: “Labor continually over-estimated the amount of tax they’d collect.”
But what went wrong? And here’s where we should worry.
(Read full article here.
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ABC shock jocks put us in danger

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (8:15am)

Culture wars, Islamism, Media

I DO a daily show with Steve Price on Sydney’s 2GB, which ABC presenters sneer is a “shock jock” station demonising Muslims.
But which outlet truly demonises — 2GB or the ABC?
Which most menaces our safety — not least of Muslim Australians?
Let me contrast. Almost every night for the past couple of weeks I have been rung on air by Muslim listeners.
With only one or two exceptions they have backed my complaints about Muslim “leaders” who refuse to fight extremism or speak with forked tongues.
(Read full article here.
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Courts clobber Clive

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (8:10am)

The Village Idiot (Reformed) fact checks Clive Palmer’s claims to be a lion in court:
Clive Palmer constantly states that he wins 90% of his court cases. With nothing better to do, I thought I’d check out his claim, given that #theirABC and FauxFacts Meeja fact checkers certainly won’t. Here’s a list of the judgements of various courts in the last year and a half, with the results:

Federal Court of Australia:
[2014] FCA 879 – August 20, 2014 – LOST

Supreme Court of Western Australia:
[2014] WASC 358 – September 26, 2014 – LOST
Unreported – September 26, 2014 – LOST
[2014] WASC 282 – August 5, 2014 - LOST
[2013] WASC 434 (S) – February 12, 2014 - LOST
[2013] WASC 434 – December 4, 2013 - LOST
[2013] WASC 375 – October 14, 2013 - LOST
[2013] WASC 285 – August 2, 2013 - LOST
[2013] WASC 194 (S) – June 25, 2013 – DRAW
[2013] WASC 194 – May 21, 2013 – MOSTLY WIN

Supreme Court of Queensland:
[2014] QSC 226 – September 17, 2014 – LOST
[2014] QSC 174 – August 5, 2014 – MOSTLY LOST
[2014] QSC 036 – March 13, 2014 - LOST
[2014] QSC 024 – February 20, 2014 - LOST
[2013] QSC 352 – December 20, 2013 - LOST
[2013] QSC 209 – August 19, 2013 - LOST
[2013] QCA 160 – June 21, 2013 - LOST

Supreme Court of New South Wales:
[2013] NSWSC 546 - 14 May 2013 – LOST
[2013] NSWSC 466 - 30 April 2013 - LOST

So to summarise – constant litigant Secretary-General Palmer – has at most, a success rate of approximately 1.3 decided cases out of 19 which have been decided in the last 18 months – or a win rate of 6.8%. 
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Add wine and women and the Middle East may become safer

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (7:55am)

Roger Scruton:
The Middle East is, as we are discovering, not one thing: on the contrary, it is a patchwork of communities whose peaceful coexistence depended on conditions that no longer exist. And many of those communities are in the habit of producing the two greatest scourges of the human race: young men without women, and puritanical rage …
Thanks to Ataturk polygamy was abolished in Turkey and women were encouraged to enter public life. Their status as the unspeakable ‘secret’ was removed, their faces were revealed, their soothing presence was everywhere perceivable. Thanks also to Ataturk the other great solvent of social tension – alcohol – was permitted and, while drunkenness is rightly viewed with anger all across the Middle East, the example of Turkey has helped many of those ancient communities to let their hair down and relax together over a bottle.
Remove wine and women, however, and the tension quickly escalates.
Tim Blair has further observations on this theme.
All this helps to explain why arguably the most reassuring and attractive example of Muslim literature has been the poetry of Omar Khayyam:
I
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight :
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

2
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.”
3
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted - “Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.”
4
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
5
Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose
And Jamshýd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows;
But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.
6
And David’s Lips are lock’t; but in divine
High piping Pehleví, with “Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!” - the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine.
7
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling :
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly - and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
Iran’s clerical leaders have done their best to suppress the humanity:
The name of this south-central Iranian city is known around the world for a red grape that gave the name to a fruity, dark wine - Shiraz.
But since the Islamic revolution in 1979, wine and all other alcholic drinks have been banned in Iran, and that ban has extended to references to wine in the works of some of Iran’s most famous poets - though tellingly the poems of Shamseddine Mohammad Hafez and Omar Khayyam themselves have not been banned altogether. Rather, these specific poems have been officially reinterpreted

The 10th-century poet and scientist Khayyam’s tomb and gardens in Neishabur, west of Mashhad in eastern Iran, equally attracts thousands of admirers every year.
Ultimately, Hafez and Khayyam are too popular and too entrenched historically and in modern times, to face the full force of the censor’s pen - despite some of their religiously satirical material.
In both poets’ work, Hafez and Khayyam extol the virtues of wine, often in a way meant to mock the orthodox clergy…
Khayyam writes in his “Rubaiyat” ("Quatrains"): “My life-long practice is to praise the Vine, And round me have the instruments of wine; Zealot! If Reason guide thee here, be glad, Thy master is a pupil apt of mine!"…
Aside from the poets’ popularity ensuring their continued availability, the official line appears to be that Khayyam and Hafez did not actually drink alcoholic wine… and in the case of Khayyam, focusing on his nonpoetic work. 
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Reckless Q&A gives microphone to some Muslim woman who - surprise! - welcomes the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (7:09am)

I was surprised that Q&A last week not only stacked its panel with two Muslim firebrands, but had more dotted throughout the audience, including radical Rebecca Kay, presented as just some Muslim woman:
The ABC’s Q&A on Monday threw petrol onto the fire by getting together Muslim firebrands and others to portray Australia as a country run by war criminals and xenophobes, helping to kill Muslims abroad and persecute them at home with politically motivated police raids.
One of the most savage indictments of Australia and its institutions came from an unnamed woman in the audience. Note how the Greens and Labor MPs tended to believe and endorse her incendiary claims, and host Tony Jones even assumed the woman was being persecuted by ASIO: 
image
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [The Australian Defence League] make threats to myself and my family, telling them that they want to behead me. So everything you’re saying right now is very insulting.
MICHAEL KEENAN [Justice Minister]: Well, if that is the case, then you need to alert the authorities.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have reported it to police numerous times, thank you.
MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, let me assure you, we don’t police in a way in this country that targets one group over another.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, you do.
MICHAEL KEENAN: I can assure you that that is the case.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, you do.
MICHAEL KEENAN: Well…
SCOTT LUDLAM [Greens Senator]: I’m not sure the message is getting through, whether you sense the reaction of the room when you said that for the first time. I’m not sure, if that is the strategy, that it’s getting through to people…
MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, I mean, I can assure you that threats of that nature would be followed up.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I am trolled 24 hours a day on Facebook and social media because of these right-wing Nazis, okay. My life is not pleasant right now living in this country and no-one seems to care because I am Muslim and they’re not. It’s all right for the non-Muslims to give me a hard time…
TONY JONES: I’m just confirming you’re not saying that was security officials… I thought you said ASIO. Okay, no, I thank you...
Miranda Devine:

Just an average Q&A guest pic.twitter.com/YkyP89xtpJ
image
Will Media Watch tonight tackle Q&A’s dangerous promotion of radical Muslims - and apologise for its own uninformed conspiracy mongering?
The NewsWatch take is here.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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China faces pro-democracy uprising in Hong Kong

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (7:00am)

China could never really be trusted to protect even the limited democracy in Hong Kong, and this confrontation with protesters could become serious:
HONG KONG’S leader has appealed for calm and sought to quell fears that the army would be brought in to quash the pro-democracy protests that have brought chaos to the city.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators were blasted with tear gas in an ultimately vain effort to disperse them, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying went on television in the early hours of today to urge the crowds to go home…
When China took control of the former British colony in 1997 it agreed to a policy of “one country, two systems” that allowed the city a high degree of control over its own affairs and keep civil liberties unseen on the mainland. It also promised the city’s leader would eventually be chosen through “universal suffrage.”
Beijing now says that time has not yet come. China’s insistence on using a committee to screen candidates on the basis of their patriotism to China — similar to the one that currently hand-picks Hong Kong’s leaders — has stoked fears among pro-democracy groups that Hong Kong will never get genuine democracy…
University and college students say they will continue to boycott classes until officials meet their demands, which include reform of Hong Kong’s legislature and withdrawing the proposal to screen the election candidates.
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“Go, Sophie!”

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (6:59am)

Some supporters of Independent MP Cathy McGowan seems unusually nervous:
VOTERS at the centre of a probe into enrolment fraud have deleted potentially incriminating tweets and other details from social-media profiles since weekend revelations of alleged wrongdoing in a close federal election contest.
Staunch supporters of Cathy McGowan, the independent who won the seat of Indi a year ago, have erased material showing they were living and working in Melbourne and elsewhere at the time they were voting in Indi…
Heavy editing at the weekend of social-media profiles and deletions of numerous tweets will not affect the Australian Electoral Commission’s probe, as screen shots were taken prior to the deletions…
Deletions include tweets by several of Ms McGowan’s closest supporters, who admitted to friends on social media that they lived in Melbourne, despite enrolment records obtained by The Australian showing they had switched to Indi.
Grace Collier shows one series of tweets - since deleted - which seem to receive a curious endorsement:
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No doubt there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, and I’d sure like to hear it from all involved.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)   
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Justice must not be racist

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (6:46am)

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Kieran Loveridge attacked five men in one night, killing one, Thomas Kelly, with a punch to the head. He was sentenced to five years and now appeals:
Loveridge’s lawyers have now filed an application for special leave to appeal in the High Court on a number of grounds, including the appeal court’s failure to properly take into account that he was an Aboriginal offender from a deprived background.
He may be from a disadvantaged background, although I am not sure why that should entitle him to a lesser sentence. But of what possible relevance is his Aboriginality in a non-racist justice system?
What an insult to Aborigines who choose instead to be, say, police officers or prison guards.

(Thanks to reader Geoff.) 
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Police rule out “hate crime” in Brisbane shootings at Muslim homes

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (6:30am)

What blessings mass immigration from the Middle East have visited upon us:
POLICE have ruled out a hate-crime motive for drive-by shootings on the homes of a former Iraqi army general and a nearby Lebanese Palestinian family who attend the same Brisbane mosque.
Sky News:
Local Islamic leaders fear they may have been targeted for taking a stand against extremists.
But let’s get that victim narrative another whirl:
Brisbane Islamic community leader Ali Kadri said the events were culturally motivated.
For all we know it could be a hate crime, but we would like to wait until the police complete their investigation,’ he told The Courier Mail.
(Thanks to reader RacerX). 
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Obama admits to another US intelligence failure

Andrew Bolt September 29 2014 (5:48am)

I suspect they were blind to what the president didn’t want to see, either:
President Barack Obama said US intelligence officials failed to appreciate the gains made by Islamic State extremists in Syria during the last few years of that country’s civil war.
“I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Mr Obama said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes program.
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Red Shirt!!!
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=== Posts from last year ===
4 her, so she can see how I see her


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There is not a soul in Hell that ever truly sought Christ.

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Fighting for Us... #MakeDCListen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldSAB4SlsP4

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Australian #DoctorWho fans… ABC iview is showing every Doctor from the classic series, each week from now until the 50th anniversary on Saturday 23 November. 

Vote on their Facebook page and you can choose the final story – which Doctor do you want to see on iview on the day of the anniversary? 
http://abciview.tv/15wLyQK
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"I am coming soon." -Jesus
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#QandA until there is at least a 50:50 Right vs Left balance on the panel and audience, and only appearing on The Bolt Report. I can live with Monday nights being restful and quiet.>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-29/the-silent-treatment---tony-abbotts-new-media/4987566

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TODAY IN JEWISH HISTORY: September 29, 1941. The Nazis start massacre of Kiev Jews in the Baby Yar ravine during which 33,771 Jews were killed in a single two-day operation. Photo: Women waiting for execution.
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2012 New York (CNN) -- A federal magistrate judge has ruled that al Qaeda, the Taliban, Iran and Hezbollah should pay more than $6 billion in damages to the families of victims killed on September 11, 2001, for supporting the attacks. http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/31/justice/new-york-judge-9-11

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UN High Commissioner for Refugees....is doing what, and...where?

“All of the international community is working against us. Are we all wild animals?” asked a middle-aged Syrian man.

More than 200 Syrians, most of them families with young children, live in a trash-infested lot across from the refugee camp. Their names cannot be disclosed because of fear of retribution against family members still in Syria.

Converted shipping containers, enough to hold up to 12,000 refugees, provide crammed living quarters.

The real number of refugees in the camp, which is run by the Turkish government and the UN high commissioner for refugees, is thought to be between 15,000 and 17,000." - Benjamin Weinthal

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"For in the past two decades, the hard Left has managed to convert what was up until the early 1990s a completely marginalized – indeed, borderline treasonous – political doctrine into a respectable, arguably majority mainstream position.

What is required is not to establish an “alternative” discourse, but to take control of the existing mainstream one.

To do this it is essential to be able to “reach across the political divide” and acquire the attention of adversarial target audiences

It is imperative not only to realize – but accept – that the message to be conveyed is not intended primarily to find favor in their own constituencies.

Therefore, what is likely to be appealing to themselves – both in style and substance – and to be persuasive with like-minded publics – may well be totally ineffective with important – indeed, crucial – target audiences on the other side of the political divide." - Martin Sherman

As Dr. Sherman also referred to and included in the article, a 2010 published study:

"When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions”

"Affirming people’s self-worth can buffer the threat to their self integrity posed by counter-attitudinal information and thereby make them more open-minded.” - Political Behavior - Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler

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Duckhole creek
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Aprille Love.



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CENTRE-RIGHT ministers have resigned from Italy's fragile coalition government, unleashing a fresh political crisis after what Prime Minister Enrico Letta called a "crazy act" of encouragement by their leader Silvio Berlusconi.
All five ministers of the People of Freedom (PDL) party took the decision on Saturday at Berlusconi's urging, said Angelino Alfano, Italy's deputy premier and PDL party secretary.
The flamboyant former prime minister had dismissed as "unacceptable" a demand by Letta on Friday for parliament to express support for the government next week, in a bid to end a crisis that has driven the bickering ruling coalition to the brink of collapse.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/berlusconi-ministers-say-they-will-resign/story-e6frfkui-1226729285739#ixzz2gH2LS4DR

Italy is divided as a corrupt left inflates allegations against the centre right leader - ed
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Labor leadership candidate Bill Shorten wants to introduce quotas to boost the number of gay and lesbian politicians in Parliament.
Mr Shorten is continuing his pitch to the party membership, sending out a manifesto that calls for the introduction of quotas for politicians representing minority groups.
He says the party should consider quotas for Indigenous Australians and the lesbian, gay, bixsexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community.
Neil Fharaoh, the national convenor of Rainbow Labor, which represents the party's LGBTI members, says it is a step forward.
"The LGBTI community has been underrepresented, particularly in political seats, both at a state and federal level in Australia," he said.
"There's probably only 12 gay and lesbian identifying politicians across the country and probably not too much more in the history and its definitely underrepresentative.

He is a little man .. nominative determinism? The idea might go down as one of his legacy of major party reform .. but not for political party. - ed
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“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men."
Psalm 33:13
Perhaps no figure of speech represents God in a more gracious light than when he is spoken of as stooping from his throne, and coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the woes of mankind. We love him, who, when Sodom and Gomorrah were full of iniquity, would not destroy those cities until he had made a personal visitation of them. We cannot help pouring out our heart in affection for our Lord who inclines his ear from the highest glory, and puts it to the lip of the dying sinner, whose failing heart longs after reconciliation. How can we but love him when we know that he numbers the very hairs of our heads, marks our path, and orders our ways? Specially is this great truth brought near to our heart, when we recollect how attentive he is, not merely to the temporal interests of his creatures, but to their spiritual concerns. Though leagues of distance lie between the finite creature and the infinite Creator, yet there are links uniting both. When a tear is wept by thee, think not that God doth not behold; for, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Thy sigh is able to move the heart of Jehovah; thy whisper can incline his ear unto thee; thy prayer can stay his hand; thy faith can move his arm. Think not that God sits on high taking no account of thee. Remember that however poor and needy thou art, yet the Lord thinketh upon thee. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him.
Oh! then repeat the truth that never tires;
No God is like the God my soul desires;
He at whose voice heaven trembles, even he,
Great as he is, knows how to stoop to me.

Evening

"Go again seven times."
1 Kings 18:43
Success is certain when the Lord has promised it. Although you may have pleaded month after month without evidence of answer, it is not possible that the Lord should be deaf when his people are earnest in a matter which concerns his glory. The prophet on the top of Carmel continued to wrestle with God, and never for a moment gave way to a fear that he should be non-suited in Jehovah's courts. Six times the servant returned, but on each occasion no word was spoken but "Go again." We must not dream of unbelief, but hold to our faith even to seventy times seven. Faith sends expectant hope to look from Carmel's brow, and if nothing is beheld, she sends again and again. So far from being crushed by repeated disappointment, faith is animated to plead more fervently with her God. She is humbled, but not abashed: her groans are deeper, and her sighings more vehement, but she never relaxes her hold or stays her hand. It would be more agreeable to flesh and blood to have a speedy answer, but believing souls have learned to be submissive, and to find it good to wait for as well as upon the Lord. Delayed answers often set the heart searching itself, and so lead to contrition and spiritual reformation: deadly blows are thus struck at our corruption, and the chambers of imagery are cleansed. The great danger is lest men should faint, and miss the blessing. Reader, do not fall into that sin, but continue in prayer and watching. At last the little cloud was seen, the sure forerunner of torrents of rain, and even so with you, the token for good shall surely be given, and you shall rise as a prevailing prince to enjoy the mercy you have sought. Elijah was a man of like passions with us: his power with God did not lie in his own merits. If his believing prayer availed so much, why not yours? Plead the precious blood with unceasing importunity, and it shall be with you according to your desire.
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Today's reading: Isaiah 5-6, Ephesians 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 5-6

The Song of the Vineyard
1 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”

Today's New Testament reading: Ephesians 1

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
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Hilkiah

[Hĭlkī'ah] - portion of jehovah orjehovah is protection.
  1. The father of Eliakim who was over Hezekiah's household (2 Kings 18:18, 26, 37; Isa. 22:20; 36:3, 22).
  2. High priest in king Josiah's reign (2 Kings 22:4-14; 23:4, 24).
  3. A descendant of Merari, son of Levi (1 Chron. 6:45).
  4. A son of Hosah , descendant of Merari, and a gatekeeper at the Tabernacle (1 Chron. 26:11).
  5. A priest who stood with Ezra as he read the law to the people (Neh. 8:4; 11:11; 12:7, 21).
  6. A priest of Anathoth and father of the prophet Jeremiah and contemporary of Gemariah (Jer. 1:1).
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