Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Tue Nov 4th Todays News

Melbourne Cup Tragedy
Melbourne cup is over for another year. Many congratulations to German race horse Protectionist placing first. Red Cadeaux placed second for the third time. But questions need to be answered regarding the 7th placed Araldo and the last placed, favourite, Admire Rakti. Japanese Rakti died in its' stable soon after placing last. It seemed distressed before the race, but had won handsomely in other meets recently. Araldo was spooked by a young boy waving flag soon after the race and broke a leg and was put down. It is not good enough if horses die in the race. Another horse broke a leg in the same race last year. There are many horse races in Australia and internationally where the horses do not die. Accidents happen, but too often, and the race appears fixed. Tom Waterhouse promised up to $25 million to any better who could choose the top ten places. With the favourite not even appearing in the top ten, that bet is pretty safe. 

World Trade Centre and US Mid Terms
World Trade Centre and US Mid Term elections happening almost simultaneously. The expectation is that Obama whose reputation was made after he spoke against GOP policy following the war in Iraq after the World Trade centres collapsed in 911 is likely to lose all external authority to the Presidency as Democrats lose prestige. A sensible congress has been absent eight years, coinciding with Democrats controlling the houses. The new World Trade Centre is elegant and beautiful. A symbol of the promise of hope for the future. 

The future for ALP and US Democrats
ALP unreformed and without a policy or credible leader. In the US Democrat fortunes have collapsed, but they have a future if the two year lag between US and Australian politics remains as it has since '96 when Mr Howard won government for the conservatives and, two years later, Clinton was at his lowest. Thing is, the ALP have not reformed, does not have a credible leader or policy, but is polling well thanks to institutionalised lean from the mainstream media. Policies that are so bad they killed people are applauded by the media as compassionate. The death of Whitlam is a signal for a lie frenzy about his achievements and celebrations in which it is wrong to question what happened. So as the US Democrats sink, they can rest assured that they need not do anything worthwhile to get votes again. However, the Democrats have a possibility they might explore. They can reform, and distance themselves from dangerous divisive minority interests. They can work to unify the US by supporting cultural assets and promoting prosperity for all. If they did the basics right, a good leader would be revealed. At the moment, all the Democrats got for leaders are broken down horses. 

Four Corners on the ABC had an enlightening expose of jihadists and the CFMEU but failed to draw the line connecting the ALP. The ALP have fostered corruption in the union movement for decades. Not solely through the use of slush funds to skew elections but through protecting the unions from scrutiny, which is partly what the demarcation dispute over Work Choices was about. In Victoria, a few weeks out from election, the over popular ALP have continued to maintain strong links to the CFMEU, including having CFMEU leadership on ALP steering committees. On Four Corners it was shown that the Islamo Fascists ALP champion, some of whom are currently fighting for ISIL, were working for CFMEU leaders as independent contractors and bikie gangs as stand over men. The independent contractors were debt collectors and stand over men and seem to have had substantial influence over corrupt transactions in the building industry. Gillard had dismantled the oversight into the industry. The possibilities are chilling. 

The National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) was created by Rudd in '07. It was intended to help poor people with rent. Instead it has been abused, so that commonwealth auditors are joining police in probing how a NSW based company defrauded Victorian charities. Another Rudd scheme for the poor is exploited by filthy rich corrupt mates of the ALP. 

ALP are ahead in polls 54:46 according to Newspoll. The apparent popularity of the ALP seems to stem from their irresponsibility in denying the budget, in particular budget cuts. Mr Abbott has signalled that Public Service pay rates would be raised beneath inflation. Thank the popular ALP for failing to pass cuts. The result exposes a truth. Conservatives need to be conservative to win and hold office. The Liberal party has been too timid at the start of their administrations in recent years. 

ABC and Global Warming
Roast axed by ABC after criticism from Bolt. The Roast has put up abysmal comic items which weren't funny, but were actionable for their crudity. Naturally it was biased to the left. Dr Karl boasts he is inflexible and wrong when he talks of Climate Change. He too has been criticised by Andrew Bolt. Sceptic bashing in the ACT as the Canberra International Film Festival will screen Merchants of Doubt and follow that with a public forum. The whole concept seems extraordinarily unbalanced. The 7:30 report with Leigh Sales and alarmist Professor Lesley Hughes are fact checked by Bolt. ABC poll fail on alarmism on AGW as the ABC post a simple poll, and get a number greater than 90% asserting that the world won't warm as much as the ABC hysterically claim. 

Mediawatch fail on Peris emails. Previously, Mediawatch applauded the outing of private emails which have destroyed the career of a poet. But the reflex to protect a possibly corrupt ALP senator asserts itself. 

Mixed issues
Jihadism is growing, fuelled by Islamic leadership and mainstream media encouragement of a dismal and wrong point of view of politics and religion and culture. Children are being raised in the West believing propaganda which is not challenged concerning Jews, custom and culture. Support of ISIL is alarming because terrorists do not offer a hope or a future for their adherents. 

Fairfax fails to apologise for a mistake in verballing Mr Howard. They had claimed Mr Howard was criticising Mr Abbott for his effective turn back the boats policy. In fact Mr Howard supports Mr Abbott's policy and his speech Fairfax quoted from was eighteen months earlier than the report, when Mr Abbott was not PM. 

Rinehart leaves Ten board .. Will Bolt Report remain?

from 2013
I have no interest in whomever Bieber sleeps with so long as he/she/it is legal. Nor Miley Cyrus. But a defence force girl humiliated through a scandal concerns me. It was politicised by then ALP defence minister so as to embarrass the defence forces who were getting toey. Losing soldiers to bad defence policy is upsetting to senior personnel too. We know it was bad policy because adults in the form of conservative government did not lose a soldier over about the same time the ALP did. 40 to nil is not a good soccer score. In this case, the score are soldier's lives. The young woman concerned in this particular scandal, and others involved in other scandals did not benefit from the spotlight. Like other victims of sexual abuse, they are entitled to a fair process sympathetic to their futures. Instead they were pawns in political battles that had little to do with them. Naturally, the press shy away from why this woman was treated differently to other such victims Australia wide. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Which is why the caretakers of the unknown soldier needs to be watched. 

Miranda Devine pays appropriate tribute to a highly decorated SAS soldier. Also UWS Vice Chancellor gets rewarded for her diligence doing what I would love to have done, but with equal opportunity never can. Opportunity knocks the Golden Eagle, which while not endangered, is protected by the US Government unless it flies into a bird killing wind mill. If Obama spoke on the issue, I'm sure he mis-spoke. Read a compelling story of a man who loves his work, by Tim Blair .. the man is an Egyptian executioner. He works with his hands, which is something the ABC should do, not broadcast news or current affairs, but community service for their crimes against culture and truth. Who doesn't love cooked, crispy Bacon? Certainly better than the journalist educator. Bruce Hawker describes for Bolt how he abused and used the willing press. A protestor gets legal aide for a trumped up charge .. I am threatened, my home is at risk, and no legal aide for me. 
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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

Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel 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.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Tegan Perkins Ftk and Carla J. Patterson. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
November 4: Day of Ashura (Islam, 2014); Unity Day in Russia
Altare della Patria, Rome
Time to put Anaesthetic to bed. The union supplied the Forrest. The soldier is unknown. Socialism doesn't last. Pardon the rude. Let us party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2014
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Labor sells sizzle, but no sausage

Piers Akerman – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (9:56am)

Proving he learnt nothing from the Whitlam fiasco, the Latham folly, or the Rudd catastrophe and the Gillard farce, Opposition leader Bill Shorten has saddled Labor with yet another empty slogan instead of delivering concrete policy.
“Fairness between generations” is the new banner Shorten waved Friday to rally his divided and disheartened troops.
It could have come from the litany of banalities chanted by followers of Mao’s appalling Cultural Revolution or a headline from the noxious Little Red Schoolbook.
Labor’s problems go well beyond a need for new slogans as was highlighted by the abject stupidity of the party’s response to a suggestion from immigration spokesman Richard Marles that Labor might accept the idea of turning back asylum-seeker boats.
After Marles recognised the obvious last Sunday and acknowledged that the Abbott government’s policy of boat turn-backs had stopped asylum deaths at sea and was having an impact on stopping boats entirely in tandem with the offshore processing which was resumed by Labor under Kevin Rudd in 2013, Shorten donned the blinkers.
“No, we don’t see that the argument has been made or the evidence has been made out about boat turn-backs. Labor’s policy hasn’t changed,” Shorten said.
Shorten argues Labor’s decision in July last year after Rudd returned to the leadership to strike a regional resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea was the “origin of the success” in stopping the floods of asylum-seeker boats to Australia.
That doesn’t accord with the facts, as Immigration Minister Scott Morrison reminded Parliament last week.
In the five months after the former Labor government returned to offshore processing, 75 asylum-seeker boats had turned up in Australian waters.
“For five months after the introduction of turn-backs, do you know how many boats there were? None. Absolutely none,” Mr Morrison said. “Do you know how many boats turned up in the five months after that? One.”
Contrary to the mythology of Labor and the Greens, the boat turn-back policy at the heart of the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders has been an outstanding success.
More than 1200 asylum-seekers were presumed dead or missing at sea during the Rudd and Gillard government years, including about 50 asylum-seekers who died after their rickety boat crashed into rocks at Christmas Island’s Flying Fish Cove in late 2010.
A year later almost to the day, an asylum-seeker boat carrying 250 capsized off Java. Fewer than 50 survivors were found. In August 2012 a vessel carrying 150 vanished after sending a distress signal from the Sunda Strait.
The voters are in no doubt about the success of the policy, Shorten is because he has no control over the Left of his party and is worried that Labor will lose even more votes to the mindless Greens unless he condemns the government’s achievement.
How can Abbott’s call for sensible debate on policy possibly survive when Labor’s can only provide such a moronic response?
There’s little doubt that Labor hopes its call for fairness between generations will be cheered by adolescent students protesting about the proposed increases in university fees.
They will seize on the overblown reputation of the dysfunctional Whitlam government and its introduction of fees, forgetting conveniently that there was a subsequent abandonment of the Commonwealth Scholarship scheme which meant the brightest were accommodated, and ignoring the other inconvenient truth that Labor introduced the HECS fee system when it discovered that the nation could not afford yet another impractical Whitlam dream.
They should be reminded that each and every one of them – just like every other Australian – has been left with a $25,000 debt burden courtesy of six years of disastrous Labor policies.
Shorten hopes to distract potential supporters with a redefinition of Labor’s moral purpose.
He would do better to outline Labor’s practical solutions for the problems that he and other members of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Cabinets created.
Whitlam had a vision for the nation which sustained a political elite, a coterie of luvvies, and a clique of fabulists but left the nation with what was then an historic deficit.
Rudd sought out the bien pensants for a weekend of visionary thinking in Canberra, where, surrounded by sheets of butchers’ paper, the themes of the future were solemnly debated. They were a complete nonsense and none survived.
Shorten says Labor needs to seek a “higher ground” when it all needs do is acknowledge reality.
Ominously for Labor, the public is showing a greater regard for the Coalition in the polls.
With the taxpayer-funded media giant, the ABC, in vehement irrational opposition to all its policies, and Fairfax not far behind, this is heartening for conservatives.
It demonstrates, again, that the electorate may not agree with all the details of every policy but it respects the fact that the government does have plans and moreover, they are working.
The carbon tax is gone, the boats have, by most measures, been stopped.
The simple message for Labor is that electorate doesn’t want sizzle, it wants sausage.
(ends ...) 
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ROAST IS TOAST

Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 04, 2014 (2:15pm)

Our scoldy ABC friends have been cut: 
Rising Australian satirical comedy series The Roast has been axed by the ABC.
In a pointed farewell on social media, the team behind the ABC2 show thanked viewers for the support they’d given during the show’s three-year run and “We’d also like to wish young, promising comedians like Shaun Micallef and The Chaser the best of luck as we pass the torch down to them.”
One member of the team told The Australian the decision was not their own. 
On the plus side, The Roast has finally made people laugh.
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FOG PROTECTION

Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 04, 2014 (1:55pm)

A big night of sceptic bashing in Canberra: 
The Canberra International Film Festival will turn the spotlight on professional climate sceptics on Monday night with the screening of the controversial documentary Merchants of Doubt followed by a public discussion forum …
Dr Matthew Rimmer, an associate professor with the ANU College of Law, said Canberra was the perfect location to screen the documentary given the political termoil caused by climate change policy in recent years. 
Forget the “termoil”. The real reason Canberra is the perfect location is that it’s full of alarmist rent-seekers who are terrified about getting real jobs. This gig would’ve drawn a full house. 
“A larger discussion will also be about the implications of climate scientists’ work abnd how we can better to protect them in terms against the fog machine of fossil fuel propaganda,” Dr Rimmer said. 
Is the “fog machine of fossil fuel propaganda” anything to do with the celebrated enormous conservative fuselage? 
The screening begins at 6.45pm and discussion will moderated by ABC Radio presenter Adam Shirley. 
But of course.
(Via Noel G)
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A HAPPY TEAM

Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 04, 2014 (1:31pm)

“In order to fulfill a bet with the Premier of Victoria, Mike Baird was required to wear a Hawthorn tie in Parliament last month,” emails Imre Salusinszky. “I am now the proud owner of this historic garment.”

image
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The jihadist danger grows, and so does the denialism of too many Muslim “spokesmen”

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (4:26pm)

The numbers grow:
ATTORNEY-GENERAL George Brandis has revealed 71 young Australians have fought in northern Iraq and Syria while 73 people have had their passports cancelled to prevent them from joining the conflict.
Add their supporters, friends and enablers and we have a serious number of supporters of one of the most violent terrorist movements in generations.
UPDATE
How impressive was George Brandis on Q&A last night?
And how frightening the astonishing sense of victimhood of so many in the audience? You’d have thought Australia actually had no jihadists, no ISIS supporters and no Muslims jailed for terrorism plots.  You’d have thought Australian Jews serving with the Israeli army were as dangerous to us as Australian Muslims serving with the Islamic State. You’ve have thought the recent police raids were a failure or even a hoax, and that police truly took away a plastic sword and not a steel one.  You’d have thought that “team” was a word the Government used to exclude Muslims. And you’d have heard veiled threats that operations to arrest extremists and disrupt terrorist attacks should stop or we’d be made to pay. You’d have also heard Muslim leaders suggesting jihadism was the result of the Government not listening to the legitimate grievances of Muslims. You’d have heard Muslim leaders suggest the definition of consulting with them was simply doing what they said. 
Incidentally, I was also struck by how many converts, especially women, purport to speak for most Muslims here, and how many could not ask Brandis a question without sneering. I was also struck by the effort Q&A had gone to to assemble a room dominated by Muslims and assorted critics of the Government and the country, and the smirking attempts of host Tony Jones to goad Brandis.
As reader L suggests, if this is what we get when Muslims make up just 2 per cent of our community, what would 20 per cent look like?
PS: Brandis did so well not just because he had the facts and made good arguments - not least against the claims that metadata collection was useless and that journalists should be exempted from laws banning the release of information about protected security operations. He seemed reasonable, calm, informed and very open to engagement and consultation with moderate Muslims. I suspect many moderate Muslims would have been impressed, and that would be an important gain for Brandis.
But his reasonableness came, inevitably, at a cost. Brandis could not and did not make the link between Islam itself and violence. Sure, it may well be that he sees no such link at all. But even if he did, it is now too inflammatory and dangerous for mainstream politicians to discuss, let alone assert.
UPDATE
Here are the audience questions, edited for length, but every one included. Only two - one from a non-Muslim - express any real concern about jihadists and the threat thy pose to Australians, Muslims included. The victimology, paranoia and blame-shifting is suffocating:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The jihadist danger grows, and so does the denialism of too many Muslim “spokesmen”'
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Victorian Labor should not be this close to the CFMEU. UPDATE: Packer denies backing Labor

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (2:47pm)

Jennifer Hewett on Victorian Labor’s dangerous links to a shady union:
(T)here’s no doubt the conclusions of the counsel assisting the trade union royal commission are humiliating for a former prime minister and further tarnish the federal Labor brand and era…
But ... (t)he real public interest is in what the evidence to the royal commission suggests about the current state of union behaviour and its continuing impact on a wide range of businesses and the broader economy. Try the long list of corruption, thuggery, criminal offences, blackmail, bribery, fraud, extortion and conflicts of interest.
The 1000 pages of final submissions by Jeremy Stoljar cite many different examples of egregious behaviour of officials from familiar favourites like the Maritime Union of Australia, the Transport Workers Union and, naturally, the Health Services Union.
But nowhere is the extent of the corruption more breathtaking and widespread than in the actions of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in the building industry…

[The] commission’s findings may make [Victorian voters] more alert to the influence of the CMFEU on any Labor government and increase the pressure on state Opposition Leader Dan Andrews to distance himself from some of the most powerful of his union backers…
Stoljar says, for example, that various CMFEU officials engaged in “criminal, unlawful and unprofessional conduct”. 
Nor is this confined to the fringes of the union with Stoljar pointing to the existence of “a pervasive and unhealthy culture” that sees the law as something to be deliberately avoided, while those that speak out about union wrongdoing are to be vilified.
According to the commission’s examination of case studies involving the CMFEU, this culture includes “blackmail and extortion” along with boycotts, cartels and other anti-competition behaviour in Victoria and Queensland; death threats against a fellow union organiser in NSW; misuse of private details of Cbus industry super fund members and deliberate defiance of orders by the Fair Work Commission and judgments by the courts.
UPDATE
Voters seriously want a party with these links, outlined in Parliament by Christopher Pyne?:
It’s important to know who the CFMEU is because I think many members of the public don’t quite realise the kind of rogue union that we are talking about. This is a union that received a $1.5m record fine for criminal contempt of court just last year in 2014. So just this year in 2014 for its blockade of the Myer Emporium site. This is a union that’s been found guilty of contempt of court 28 times since the year 2000, with links to gangland bosses like Mick Gatto through its secretary, with links to the Comancheros and the Rebels bikie gangs. And Labor’s response to this, Labor’s response to this information about the CFMEU which is quite public has been to welcome it back in to the Victorian Labor Party...
UPDATE
Voters seriously want a party with these links?

LABOR MP Cesar Melhem used tens of thousands of dollars from a union-backed slush fund to smooth his path into parliament, according to counsel assisting the royal commission into union corruption.
He also spent $27,286.26 from his Industry 2020 fund on overseas trips and a high-flying lifestyle, without reimbursement, Jeremy Stoljar, SC, says in his submissions to commissioner Dyson Heydon.
The former Australian Workers’ Union secretary also incorrectly told hearings he repaid $1001 of cigars bought in Singapore with the fund’s money, Mr Stoljar says.
“Donations assisted Mr Melhem to become a person of notoriety and influence within the Labor Unity faction and the ALP in Victoria,” he says. “(His) entry into Parliament was truly charmed. It could not sensibly be contended his history of financial support … did not have some role to play.”
No wonder union bosses are so desperate for Labor to be back in charge.
UPDATE
As I said yesterday, I find it hard to believe James Packer would back Labor, given its record and its ties:

JAMES Packer today strongly distanced himself from racing identity Lloyd Williams’s assertion that Victorian Labor would have the billionaire casino mogul’s overt backing during the November 29 election campaign. 

Mr Packer ... said his company wanted to work with both sides of politics.
This was after Mr Williams was recorded claiming to Labor leader Daniel Andrews that Mr Packer would “kick every goal he can for you"…
“...Lloyd is a very close friend of mine, but he did not speak to me before making his comments to Daniel Andrews and they don’t represent my views,’’ James Packer said.

“Any issues I had with the Victorian government in relation to a proposed gaming levy were fully resolved through negotiation and goodwill.
“I do not intend to get involved in this or any election. Crown will continue to work with whichever Government the public elects in the best interests of our Melbourne resort and our thousands of employees.”

(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and bill b.) 
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Why does the ABC employ warmist Dr Karl when he boasts about his failure to correct errors?

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (2:27pm)

Global warming - dud predictions

Dr Karl wears my criticisms with pride - and confirms them:
image
The howlers that the ABC science presenter proudly refuses to correct are here.
Why does the ABC continue to employ a science presenter who is not only so wrong but so determined not to correct obvious mistakes?
UPDATE
Still, the angry children at the Roast seems to think I am responsible for the ABC canning its show. All I did though, was advertise its content. But Dr Karl should take heed and at least issue a few corrections, as a professional science communicator should. 
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Newspoll: Labor ahead 54 to 46

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (11:31am)

I would bet this Newspoll result is an outlier:

Based on preference flows from last year’s election, where 80 per cent of Greens votes and 60 per cent of other votes flowed to Labor, the ALP holds a crushing lead of 54 to 46 per cent — the reverse of the election result.
Yesterday’s Ipsos poll put the margin at 51 to 49, and I suspect the truth is inbetween.
That said, I’ll say it again: the Government is doing very well for now on foreign issues but the election will be won and lost on domestic ones.
UPDATE
Readers remind me of a good reason to be less sure that this result is an anomaly. Hiking the petrol excise, even by no more than would cost the average motorist 40 cents a week, is not a winning strategy.
UPDATE
More pain to come, including to the Government:
TONY Abbott has signalled an across-the-board reduction in public service wages, warning nobody should expect a better deal than the real-terms pay cut imposed on Defence personnel. 

The Defence Remuneration Tribunal yesterday approved a below-inflation 1.5 per cent pay rise for military personnel each year for three years, in a move branded “insulting” by defence advocates....
Australia’s inflation rate is about 2.3 per cent…
The Prime Minister, asked today to defend the wage offer, said ...  repairing the federal budget meant that all employees of the federal government needed to exercise restraint…
“We would all like to pay our serving defence personnel more, but there is going to have to be very tight pay restraint across the public sector, including the defence personnel. I regret that,’’ he said in Sydney.
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Fact-checking the ABC and it warmist guest, Professor Lesley Hughes. No wonder I distrust both

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (10:13am)

Global warming - propaganda

image
Another ABC report on global warming in desperate need of an injection of cool facts:
Claim:

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: ... The United Nations’ climate change body’s new report says the scientific evidence is unambiguous about the warming of the planet .. The Earth is on a trajectory for warming of at least four degrees Celsius by 2100. That’ll mean more and longer heatwaves and storms and more species extinctions.
Alarmist.
In fact, the 4 degrees prediction is based on the report‘s highest estimate of the most extreme model of emissions and temperature sensitivity:
image
That extreme scenario does not predict “at least” 4 degrees of warming by 2100 but 2.6.
(Note, by the way, that even the worst IPCC prediction of sea level rises comes more than 99 metres short of the 100 metres that ABC science presenter Robyn Williams once suggested was possible and has never corrected.)
Claim:
LEIGH SALES:… I was joined earlier tonight by Lesley Hughes, one of the lead authors on this Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report…
LESLEY HUGHES, LEAD AUTHOR, IPCC REPORT: Well under a - what we call a business as usual trajectory - and we’ve already had about a degree of warming since pre-industrial times; we will almost certainly get another half a degree or a degree by 2030. Under a business as usual trajectory, the IPCC is saying 3.7 to 4.8 degrees by the end of this century.
False, exaggeration:
Check the box. Under the most extreme scenario the IPCC predicts a rise of between 2.6 and 4.8 degrees.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: Well, we’re also seeing the ice caps melting, sea levels going up, coastal flooding increasing, we’re seeing increases in hotter, drier drought, hotter, drier heatwaves.
False or incomplete:
Only one ice cap is clearly melting. Antarctica, however, has had record sea ice, which has grown steadily since records started in 1979. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center says of the land-based ice that “in East Antarctica, no clear trend has emerged, although some stations appear to be cooling slightly”, and “overall, scientists believe that Antarctica is starting to lose ice, but so far the process has not become as quick or as widespread as in Greenland.”
As for “hotter, drier droughts”, The IPCC last year conceded “there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century” and past “conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated”.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: ... Here in Australia we’re suffering the effects of earlier bushfire seasons. 
Misleading:
Last year’s early bushfire was an anomaly that cannot be attributed to global warming, especially given 16 years of no world-wide warming. Moreover, there have been many past examples of early bushfires in Australia, and last year’s fires had more to do with three years of good fuel-feeding rains that warmists claimed we wouldn’t get.
Claim:

LEIGH SALES: The report also acknowledges the pause in warming over the past decade, which is something that climate sceptics often point to.
False:
The report in fact admits to not 10 but at least 15 years of a warming pause: “the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade”.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES:  ... But when we look at the global climate, the global climate has not stopped warming. About 90 per cent of the extra heat is going into the oceans and there’s been absolutely no pause in the warming of the ocean. 
False:

NASA last month announced: ”The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years… The temperature of the top half of the world’s ocean — above the 1.24-mile mark — is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures.” Hughes’ excuse for the missing heat won’t wash.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: Well I’d say to them firstly that about - the latest survey is that 98 per cent of practising climate scientists are actually at one on this, so there is extremely broad scientific consensus.
False or misleading:
The various surveys making this claim have have been comprehensively debunked. One is based on just 79 responses. Last years included as members of the 97 per cent climate scientists such as Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir J. Shaviv and Nils- Axel Morner, who all question the alleged consensus and say the survey authors ignored or misrepresented their work. In such surveys, the most that can usually be said is that scientists agree man has some influence on the climate, which is hardly controversial.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES:… If you want to know about the climate, go to climate scientists.
Arrogance, refusal to admit mistakes:
In fact, climate scientists did not predict this warming pause. They did not predict record crop yields. They did not predict record sea ice around Antarctica. They did not predict fewer hurricane and cyclones. They did not predict colder European winters. They did not predict a return here of dam-filling rains. They did not predict more snow in the northern Hemisphere. They did not predict a failure of the Great Barrier Reef to bleach for years now. Some did not predict ice cover of the Arctic would be this extensive.
And even the IPCC now admits that the climate models build by climate scientists are just not predicting the temperatures we are actually getting: “For the period from 1998 to 2012, 111 of the 114 available climate-model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations.”
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: ... Australia is somewhat at odds with the rest of the international community.
False:
Australia was at odds with the rest of the world only when we had the world’s most punitive carbon tax, measured by tax raised per head of population. Most of the world does not have any national carbon tax or emissions trading scheme.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: ...There will be boundless opportunities from renewable energy.
False:
Renewable energy from wind, solar, tidal or geothermal is in fact a cost, not an opportunity. That is why each sector is demanding big subsidies or taxes on cheaper forms of power.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: ... So, in my view, it’s our moral duty as people in a developed country to help the developing countries leap forward into development without making the same dirty mistakes that we did.
Hyperbole, misleading:
Cheap, coal-fired power actually is the foundation of so much Western wealth and development, from which poor countries have also benefited - not just from the power but from the transfer of aid and technology, as well as from trade. China and India have in fact determined to increase their own emissions, because ending poverty depends heavily on coal-fired generation - and ending poverty is no “mistake”.
Claim:
LESLEY HUGHES: Absolutely. I mean, President Modi in India has said he wants to see a solar panel on every roof in India. Countries like Australia should be helping with that, not shipping coal off there.
False, hyperbole, ideological extremism:
Modi wants India to have both solar and coal, and is in fact opening India’s coal reserves to foreign investors. Solar alone cannot come close to giving electricity to all Indians, especially not to all Indian businesses. Ending coal exports to India would hurt us and India both. If we don’t give India our coal, it will be forced to go somewhere else - and pay more.
When so many false claims, exaggerations and partial truths are made in an interview with an IPCC lead author, why would you trust another word any IPCC spokesman said?
And when is the ABC finally going to put global warmists under the same basic scrutiny it puts politicians?   
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Any sorry from Fairfax for framing Howard?

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (9:55am)

I thought The Age and Sydney Morning Herald had verballed John Howard:
The Age is either better than me at cracking codes or it’s just making stuff up.
The claim:

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard has delivered a coded rebuke to his successor Tony Abbott for his diplomatic handling of boat turn backs in his first year in office…
Howard agrees:

“I have made no rebuke, implied or otherwise, of Mr Abbott’s handling of the policy,” Mr Howard told The Australian.
The Sydney Morning Herald published a story yesterday stating that Mr Howard had “delivered a coded rebuke to Tony Abbott for his diplomatic handling of boat turn-backs in his first year in office”.
But Mr Howard’s remarks were made in an interview conducted at least 18 months ago while Mr Abbott was still opposition leader and publicly promising to turn back asylum-seeker boats to Indonesian waters “where safe to do so"…
Yesterday Mr Howard said his remarks were not about Mr ­Abbott’s first year as prime minister but were a statement about how to deal with Indonesia.
But damage done, yet again. Any apology likely? 
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Too much alarmism even for ABC listeners

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (9:18am)

I don’t think ABC Radio National got the result it expected:

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(Thanks to too many readers to name.) 
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Why did Fran pick Bonge? Yes, silly question

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (9:13am)

Paul Bongiorno is a nice man but to the Left of probably almost every other prominent member of the Canberra press gallery, which is itself overwhelmingly of the Left.  Pick a topic - boat people, global warming, immigration, “reconciliation”, the “stolen generations”, the NBN, Whitlam, the national disability insurance scheme, multiculturalism, the ABC, Iraq, George W Bush - and you know exactly what side of the argument Bongiorno will be on.
So of all the commentators Fran Kelly picks for her ABC Radio National Breakfast show other than Michelle Grattan (of the more mainstream Left), who does she favour?
And so there Bongiorno was again this morning, in full global warming alarmism mode. And, of course, not challenged at any point by Kelly.
The ABC bias is simply astonishing, shameless and in breach of its legal duty. In a private media outlet such as The Age it would be forgivable. But in a state-funded broadcast - and the biggest media operation in the country by far - it is dangerous.
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
On it goes, every day and in every way. Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
Disappointing effort from Media Watch on the Peris emails last night, especially when stacked against its handling of the Spurr emails last week.
Publication of both sets of emails was in the public interest, yet there’s a gulf between the positions adopted by Paul Barry on the respective cases.
Remarkably, Barry noted the ‘blackmail’ claim Peris offered in the Senate, without acknowledging New Matilda’s swift demolition of the claim.
Curious to note also that while Barry was quite comfortable in broadcasting slab after slab of the Spurr emails, he suffered an apparent bout of the vapours at thought of broadcasting more than one of the Peris emails.
Peris is Labor and black, Spurr apparently a conservative and white. And the ABC is pink. Or do I mean green? 
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Why Victorian Liberals deserve all they look like getting

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (8:08am)

Former Treasurer Peter Costello compares and contrasts:
In Victoria Labor is ahead according to opinion polls. The Liberal Party only narrowly won the last election, perhaps surprising themselves more than anyone else.
They got off to a slow start. Not much happened. The public service inherited from the previous Labor administration was largely left in place and largely left to govern the state. Only a change of Leader and a realisation that the electoral term was more than halfway over got the Government to show some energy. It developed a proposal for a $6 billion East-West road tunnel to be built by the private sector.
Construction is due to commence soon. The question the voters will decide is whether it has done enough.
In NSW, the Liberal Party was elected with the biggest victory in that State’s history. After 16 years of Labor Government it was given a huge mandate to turn things around. Strangely, it took a timid approach. Although it had nothing like the corruption of its predecessor, it ensnared itself in funding and disclosure irregularities. After losing a Premier over a petty disclosure failure, it has now stabilised. It has a program of infrastructure funded from long overdue asset sales. It is well ahead in the polls.
In Queensland the Liberal-National Party was elected after Labor was smashed. Labor had governed for 14 years and was well on the way to destroying the financial position of the state. A comprehensive Audit (which I chaired) recommended a far-reaching program to cut waste and restore financial discipline. The Government had a mandate and it exercised it. For a while, it went behind in the polls. Now that the state is turning around, it is back in front.
A state government that does nothing will be slaughtered. A state Liberal government too scared to explain what it stands for, or which takes its politics from the Age and Fairfax, deserves all it gets.
Victorian Liberals must stop running away from the battle of ideas. It shows weakness or confusion or simply lack of intellectual nous. Besides, why be in power if on the social agenda you simply do what Labor would have done anyway?
I overstate the matter in Victoria, but not by much.
No Liberal minister in Victoria would have dared send the message Campbell Newman sent two years ago (albeit with finances in a far more desperate shape):
PREMIER Campbell Newman has scrapped the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards in a move that has shocked and outraged arts and publishing identities. 

[A] spokesperson issued a statement this afternoon which said cancelling the awards was part of the LNP Government’s plan to control government spending and lower the cost of living for Queenslanders.
The results was a terrific conservative message - that when governments step back in such areas, individuals step in.  Moreover, what was government controlled is now grass roots:
‘Boy, Lost’ has been shortlisted for two literary awards in Queensland: The Courier-Mail Book of the Year/People’s Choice Award, and the non-fiction category of the Queensland Literary Awards.
These awards were established after the then incoming premier, Campbell Newman, abolished the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards by wiping funding for them. With Queensland the only mainland state with a suite of premier’s literary awards, a band of writers and community members formed a committee to establish our own awards, all privately funded. Last year was the first the new prizes were offered, an extraordinary achievement by those volunteers who insisted that people in this State really did care about literature and about writing, and proved it.
They proved it. So much healthier and so much more inspiring than a government using other people’s money to reward writers and themes. And there’s the public money saved, of course.
But in Victoria, mainland Australia’s most Left-wing state, the Liberals keep funding a tightly policed arts collective at militant odds with all that conservatives represent.

The winner of this year’s Premier’s Literary Award is Liquid Nitrogen, by Jennifer Maiden:
Jennifer Maiden’s poems are both political and intimate… Julia Gillard is considered by her mentor Nye Bevan, Kevin Rudd shares a flight with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eleanor Roosevelt plays Woody Guthrie for Hillary Clinton…

Judge’s Report
As she has over her last couple of books, Maiden again ventures into the minds of public figures: a lyrical portrait of an imagined Julian Assange, and private conversations between Australian Prime Ministers and their inspiring mentors or inner consciences....
Book Review
...My daughters, like the rest of us genetically inclined to the Left, struggle to understand the unravelling narrative of politics of the last few years. For the first time, I showed them Gillard’s misogyny speech on YouTube. Then we watched Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation.
The immediacy and intimacy that technology has brought to politics reverberates in Jennifer Maiden’s astonishing collection, Liquid Nitrogen.... I, for one, relished the project....
Gillard – in poetry – is a way of exploring the vulnerable body that exists in politics. Her femaleness – like Obama’s blackness – brings the body into play. With the body comes the vulnerabilities of the body, the limitations, sex, death, ambivalent power.
Winner of the Victorian Premier’s award for non-fiction is Forgotten War, by Henry Reynolds:

Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. Why are there no official memorials or commemorations of the wars that were fought on Australian soil between Aborigines and white colonists?… It is particularly timely as we approach the centenary of World War I. This powerful book makes it clear that there can be no reconciliation without acknowledging the wars fought on our own soil…
Henry Reynolds ... accepted a lectureship at James Cook University in Townsville… In 2000 he took up a professorial fellowship at the University of Tasmania. Since then he has written Drawing the Global Colour Line with Marilyn Lake and co-authored What’s Wrong With Anzac?…
Judge’s Report
Henry Reynolds’ Forgotten War calls for the principle of ‘lest we forget’ to include all Australians who died in defending their country, including Indigenous people....
The non-fiction judging panel also wished to commend Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari, by Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation.

Book Review
...  The Indigenous population fought against colonisation and fought hard, and central to the thesis of Forgotten War is the argument that recognition of their crusade is just as crucial to the national story, and they ought to command as much respect as any veteran or victim of Vietnam or Gallipoli.
Naturally, to ensure the taxpayers’ funds are spent by the Left without interference, the Victorian Government has given the job of administering the Premier’s Literary Awards to the far-Left:
The Awards are administered by the Wheeler Centre on behalf of the Premier of Victoria.
The director of the Wheeler Centre:

Michael Williams ... grew up in a family of avid readers, teachers and campaigners for social justice – which ‘absolutely informed’ the way he sees the world.... When he returned to Melbourne, he freelanced for pretty much every publishing house in Australia – before taking a seeming career diversion into broadcasting, as one of Triple R’s Breakfasters.
The big private donors to the Wheeler Centre, after whom the centre is named:
Lonely Planet founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler ... have also emerged as figureheads at Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre… In the address to staff, Tony Wheeler, who has just returned from Nauru, noted sagely said that if he and Maureen had “come to Australia in a boat under the Howard Government, we might have ended up in Nauru and the whole operation might have been run out of Nauru instead of Melbourne.”
Chairman of the Wheeler Centre:
Eric Beecher: co-founder and largest shareholder of Text Media, ...  went on to purchase Crikey of which he is now the proprietor and publisher.
Typical Victorian Liberals, funding anti-Liberals to reward other anti-Liberals with money largely extorted from Liberal voters.
And they wonder why they are losing the cultural war in Victoria. 
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Rinehart quits Ten board

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (7:15am)

How ironic. Gina Rinehart, long vilified and mocked by some many Fairfax journalists, now offers Fairfax the best chance in years of some kind of strategy to arrest its decline:
MINING magnate Gina Rinehart has resigned from the board of the Ten Network, igniting fresh speculation about the future of the media company.
The move comes after The Australian revealed Ten had held high-level merger talks with Fairfax Media about a billion-dollar merger early last month, uniting Mrs Rinehart’s two media investments.
While it is understood the discussions are no guarantee that a deal will happen, Mrs Rinehart believes a combination of the free-to-air network and newspaper publisher will create the scale needed to compete in a disrupted media sector challenged by overseas entrants and audience fragmentation.
Mrs Rinehart is Fairfax’s largest shareholder, owning 14.99 per cent of the newspaper publisher. She also owns 10 per cent of Ten.
I have no idea whether this merger is planned, or whether, say, Sky News is a better fit for Ten.
But Rinehart’s role should remind the cultural socialists on the Fairfax staff that nothing is achieved unless you first generate the wealth to pay for it. That basic insight might well have tempered not just their scorn of Rinehart but their faith in Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Mind you, there is another possibility that should scare Fairfax. What if Rinehart got bored with banging her head against the brick wall that is its board?
UPDATE
Reader Frank of Malvern:
Ten becomes part of Fairfax. You could soon be very lonely in the staff room, Andrew
And as a News Corp man even lonelier. Might have to bail, Frank. 
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Just another Labor scheme

Andrew Bolt November 04 2014 (6:40am)

Just another Labor free-money scheme run the Labor way:
COMMONWEALTH auditors are expected to join police in probing allegations of fraud ­involving the National Rental Affordability Scheme, over a case that has allegedly left ­charities and a developer hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket.
Victoria Police has confirmed it is looking into claims that a NSW-based property company defrauded organisations in Victoria by selling them NRAS incentives that proved worthless.
The Australian understands investigators are focused on ­between 80 and 120 incentives originally allocated to the University of Ballarat for a student housing development that did not proceed, but were later ­obtained by a Sydney-based firm. The firm is alleged to have sold the $10,000-a-year ­incentives to charities UnitingCare, St Laurence and Catholic Housing, as well as a Victorian builder called the Macneil Group, for an upfront payment.
The scandal is the latest blow to the Rudd government’s flagship social housing scheme, which has already been exploited — legally — by universities to build units for wealthy foreign students.
The $4.5 billion NRAS was launched by Kevin Rudd in 2007 as part of his public campaign to tackle homelessness and rising housing costs for struggling Australians, and has helped community organisations build thousands of affordable units for the needy. But it has also proven prone to exploitation by sophisticated investors, as well as ­administrative problems, and its expansion has now been frozen by the Abbott ­government…
The latest allegations could be traced to flaws in the original design and implementation of the scheme. .
Judith Sloan called out this Labor scheme early this year:
Can I also point out what a laughable outcome this scheme has produced – 14,000 units built in six years. Given that we probably need somewhere in the order of 120,000 to 150,000 new dwellings PER YEAR to accommodate our growing population, 2,300 per year of NRAS accommodation just doesn’t hit the sides, let alone affect rents. And all for billions of taxpayer money.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Post by Matt Granz.

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UN can't tell difference between peace activists and Arabs who want Israel destroyed

The UN is holding a "Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East." As you can imagine, the seminar has nothing to do with peace in Egypt, Syria, Iraq or Lebanon.

The panel speaking today at the seminar "Youth activism, digital journalism and social media in the Middle East" reveals quite a bit about what the UN considers to be "peace."

Youth activism continues to be a driving force behind movements for peace, justice and democracy in Israel and Palestine, and across the Middle East. This panel will discuss how the acceleration in digital technologies and social media is affecting youth activism, and how the use of social media by youth activists has helped and/or hindered their causes.
Moderator: Mr. Ahmed Shihab Eldin, Producer and host, Huffington Post Live
Mr. Ahmad Alhendawi, United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth
Ms. Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, Youth activist, Palestine
Ms. Sahar Vardi, Peace activist, Israel
Mr. Gökhan Yücel, Digital diplomacy expert and Lecturer at the Leadership, Politics and Diplomacy School of Bahçeşehir University

The Israeli representative, Sahar Vardi, is a far-left activist who refused to serve in the IDF and who participates in weekly anti-Israel protests. It seems clear that she really wants peace between Jews and Arabs, however misguided her viewpoint.

Contrast this with the Palestinian Arab representative, Rana Nazzal Hamadeh. She has this quote on herTwitter profile:

From you steel & fire, from us flesh, from you another tank, from us stones. So leave our country, our land, our sea, our wheat, our salt, our wounds- M Darwish

Does a demand that all Jews be ethnically cleansed from the area sound peaceful to you?

Can you imagine a Jew who says anything close to that ("leave our country, our land...") being invited to speak at any UN-sponsored conference, ever?

The fact is that any Jew who would speak like this would be considered an intolerant far-right bigot and would not be accepted in polite society. A Palestinian Arab who says this is honored as a leader on peace and justice.

There is a serious problem here.

The people who should properly protest this are the liberals. Hamadeh's attitude is the exact opposite of liberalism. But the acceptance and tacit encouragement of Arab violence is so ingrained in the "enlightened" Western world that nobody bats an eyelash.

(I tweeted Vardi asking if she agreed with Hamadeh's quote, but didn't receive a response yet.)
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What A Week Of Groceries Looks Like Around The World
http://www.nutritionnews.com/food/diet-food/what-a-week-of-groceries-looks-like-around-the-world/
Here's a novel way to plan your next trip. Taking a look at what groceries the locals buy is a good way to know a new place to visit, although I'd have second thoughts about the good old USA. […]
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Worrying will not empty the bowels of tomorrows movement. Everything in its time. - ed
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Andy Trieu
Chillin at my old Uni for a interview for the Uni alumni publication. First question... How has your degrees helped u become a ninja....haha — atAustralian National University - Manning Clarke Leacture Theatres
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Check out these amazing TREE CLIMBING goats.

Found in Morocco, they climb these Argan tree in search of food. It's hard to imagine that animals with hooves could be so adept at climbing but these images are 100% real. Food is fairly sparse in this area, so they have to grab it when they can - even if it's high up in a tree!

The secret to their ability to climb lies in the shape of their hooves. The keratin reinforced hoof wall adds strength, while the soft textured sole provides traction and grip. It's also capable of deforming inwards to counter irregularities in the terrain. Their toes are capable of operating independently giving them more of a "grip".

These hooves evolved to allow the goats to climb rocky, mountainous areas - but they've shifted ecosystems to the trees!

Check out more photographs here:http://yhoo.it/16virRi

Hat tip to Natural Selection.
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David Bowles
My poems "Crockpot" and "Valley Haiku" were accepted for an upcoming edition of Illya's Honey. Super cool!
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'Facebook rape' scandal engulfs NZ          
New Zealand police are being criticised for not taking action against a group of teenage boys who have been getting girls drunk, having sex with them and naming them on the internet.
"This is gang rape, full stop,'' said NZ Labour's women's affairs spokeswoman, Carol Beaumont.
"The fact that police have known for two years that these revolting individuals have been posting their 'exploits' on Facebook, and have identified victims as young as 13, but took no action, is astonishing.''
The group of Auckland teenagers, who call themselves the Roast Busters, have been using Facebook since 2011 to recruit others to join them in having sex with girls - some of them drunk - and then naming them publicly, TV3 reports.
"We take what we do seriously - some of you think this is a joke, it's not," says one of the teens in a video uploaded to Facebook.

"You try and get with the amount of girls we do. This is hard, it's a job, we don't do this shit for pleasure."
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Youtube video released by Anonymous
QUEENSLAND'S police minister says activists targeting Premier Campbell Newman over tough new bikie gang laws are "gutless cowards".
A Youtube video released at the weekend - purportedly by the activist group Anonymous - says Mr Newman's new laws are extreme.
The clip, featuring a masked figure, says the laws are an assault on fundamental human rights and warns: "We do not forgive, we do not forget, Campbell Newman expect us."
Police Minister Jack Dempsey said police are investigating the clip.
"We'll ensure the safety of everyone involved," he said on Monday.
"They are just gutless cowards. They have to hide behind a mask."
Meanwhile, police say they can't comment on how they are responding to reports Mr Newman and his wife received a number of menacing phone calls on the weekend.
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Justin Bieber
JUSTIN Bieber tried to sneak out of a strip club in Brazil while covered in a sheet Friday — but photographers caught him red-handed.
The 19-year-old pop star and a friend spent more than three hours in the popular strip club Centauros in Rio de Janeiro — before leaving with two women, sources said.
He jumped into the back seat of a car while the women, who covered their faces, were put in SUVs and escorted back to his hotel.
Bieber’s security team covered him with a bedsheet bearing the club’s logo as he walked out of the establishment — and one of his handlers sprayed photographers with water, demanding they stop snapping, sources said. 
The photographers, who had been tipped off about Bieber’s visit, confirmed it was the singer through his security team. 
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Jewellery & Gemstone Fashion DESIGN Gallery
CAA is pleased to present 'Hot Glass! New Work From The Furnace' Private View tonight in the gallery from 6-8pm. 
A world class exhibition featuring work by 27 selected National and International glass makers, dedicated to the best in contemporary blown, hot-worked and sand-cast glass! Also this will be the last exhibition at our Percy Street location, make sure you don't miss this dynamic exhibition!
www.caa.org.uk
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“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13:1 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Behold, he prayeth."
Acts 9:11
Prayers are instantly noticed in heaven. The moment Saul began to pray the Lord heard him. Here is comfort for the distressed but praying soul. Oftentimes a poor broken-hearted one bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of sighs and tears; yet that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has been caught by God and treasured in the lachrymatory of heaven. "Thou puttest my tears into thy bottle," implies that they are caught as they flow. The suppliant, whose fears prevent his words, will be well understood by the Most High. He may only look up with misty eye; but "prayer is the falling of a tear." Tears are the diamonds of heaven; sighs are a part of the music of Jehovah's court, and are numbered with "the sublimest strains that reach the majesty on high." Think not that your prayer, however weak or trembling, will be unregarded. Jacob's ladder is lofty, but our prayers shall lean upon the Angel of the covenant and so climb its starry rounds. Our God not only hears prayer but also loves to hear it. "He forgetteth not the cry of the humble." True, He regards not high looks and lofty words; He cares not for the pomp and pageantry of kings; He listens not to the swell of martial music; He regards not the triumph and pride of man; but wherever there is a heart big with sorrow, or a lip quivering with agony, or a deep groan, or a penitential sigh, the heart of Jehovah is open; He marks it down in the registry of His memory; He puts our prayers, like rose leaves, between the pages of His book of remembrance, and when the volume is opened at last, there shall be a precious fragrance springing up therefrom.
"Faith asks no signal from the skies,
To show that prayers accepted rise,
Our Priest is in His holy place,
And answers from the throne of grace."

Evening

"Their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, even unto heaven."
2 Chronicles 30:27
Prayer is the never-failing resort of the Christian in any case, in every plight. When you cannot use your sword you may take to the weapon of all-prayer. Your powder may be damp, your bow-string may be relaxed, but the weapon of all-prayer need never be out of order. Leviathan laughs at the javelin, but he trembles at prayer. Sword and spear need furbishing, but prayer never rusts, and when we think it most blunt it cuts the best. Prayer is an open door which none can shut. Devils may surround you on all sides, but the way upward is always open, and as long as that road is unobstructed, you will not fall into the enemy's hand. We can never be taken by blockade, escalade, mine, or storm, so long as heavenly succours can come down to us by Jacob's ladder to relieve us in the time of our necessities. Prayer is never out of season: in summer and in winter its merchandize is precious. Prayer gains audience with heaven in the dead of night, in the midst of business, in the heat of noonday, in the shades of evening. In every condition, whether of poverty, or sickness, or obscurity, or slander, or doubt, your covenant God will welcome your prayer and answer it from His holy place. Nor is prayer ever futile. True prayer is evermore true power. You may not always get what you ask, but you shall always have your real wants supplied. When God does not answer His children according to the letter, He does so according to the spirit. If thou askest for coarse meal, wilt thou be angered because He gives thee the finest flour? If thou seekest bodily health, shouldst thou complain if instead thereof He makes thy sickness turn to the healing of spiritual maladies? Is it not better to have the cross sanctified than removed? This evening, my soul, forget not to offer thy petition and request, for the Lord is ready to grant thee thy desires.
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 30-31, Philemon 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 30-31

Restoration of Israel
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. 3 The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the LORD.”
4 These are the words the LORD spoke concerning Israel and Judah: 5 “This is what the LORD says:
“‘Cries of fear are heard—
terror, not peace.
6 Ask and see:
Can a man bear children?
Then why do I see every strong man
with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor,
every face turned deathly pale?
7 How awful that day will be!
No other will be like it.
It will be a time of trouble for Jacob,
but he will be saved out of it.
8 “‘In that day,’ declares the LORD Almighty,
‘I will break the yoke off their necks
and will tear off their bonds;
no longer will foreigners enslave them.
9 Instead, they will serve the LORD their God
and David their king,
whom I will raise up for them....

Today's New Testament reading: Philemon 1

1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker— 2 also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier—and to the church that meets in your home:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
4 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers,5 because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. 6 I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. 7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
Paul’s Plea for Onesimus
8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— 10 that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me....
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Sheba

 [Shē'bă] - seventh, an oath orcaptivity.
  1. Son of Raamah, son of Cush, son of Ham (Gen. 10:7; 1 Chron. 1:9).
  2. Son of Joktan of the family of Shem (Gen. 10:28; 1 Chron. 1:22).
  3. Son of Jokshan, son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. 25:3; 1 Chron. 1:32).
  4. A son of Bichri who rebelled against David after Absalom's death. This worthless adventurer, who snatched at what he thought was a chance of winning the sovereignty of northern Israel, had his head cut off by the people of Abel (2 Sam. 20:1-22).
  5. A chief Gadite, dwelling in Gibeah in Bashan (1 Chron. 5:13, 16). Also the name of the Arabian home of the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1) and a city in Simeon (Josh. 19:2).
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