Sunday, December 14, 2014

Sun Dec 14th Todays News

Supporting prisoners of conscience is easy. It would be depraved indifference to the realities of brutal dictatorships to not do so. Which is why the decision of Amnesty International to divert resources meant for prisoners of conscience to support terrorists is so disturbing. David Hicks is not just a dead beat dad that gave up minor crime to embrace terrorism He was the elect of Osama Bin Laden's international recruits. Hicks has hidden behind much corruption. He was captured in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban. He is known to have been to a number of jihadist hot spots prior to that where he has been as faithful to Islam as he's been to his own family. For Hicks, faith means he hates Jews and Westerners. He wants them dead. When he was incarcerated, he was not a prisoner of conscience, but a trained terrorist. Democrats gave approval for his torture, which they now blame entirely on others. Amnesty spent money meant to support those who were imprisoned because they want freedom, on those who killed for bigotry. And they did so egged on by Democrats who gave them permission. Obama was given a Nobel Peace prize for no reason other than the colour of his skin. He repaid that gift by hosting a dinner for those who jailed the winner of the following year's Nobel Peace prize. Obama has a depraved indifference to those suffering for their desire for freedom. 

 There is division in the Liberal Party as there should be, because the party has a collection of people with divergent views on similar topics. Mr Abbott is an economic conservative, but he also has social conservative views which are well known. As health minister he acted in the national interest, as he does now on on issues he believes in. Abbott is aware and keen to address the issue of Aboriginal disparity and suffering. He is also keen to lessen the burden on young families. One can disagree with his method of addressing these issues, but one cannot deny that they are important. 

 But such division as there is is exploited by hateful people or professional pundits. Lying, as the Fairfax press has to inflate issues and inspire opposition is not professional punditry. Hockey suing the SMH is important, but there is a defense the SMH can employ, and there is not certainty the judiciary is unbiased. Peta Credilin, the chief of staff of Mr Abbott is under attack after five extraordinary years of successfully serving the party. She might go, but that will not change who Mr Abbott is. He might go but that won't change the issues he addresses. One can oppose the idea of a racist constitution without removing Mr Abbott as PM. Because Mr Abbott is an economic conservative too, and his policies are far broader than one item. There is such a thing as a cultural asset. A cultural asset unites a community where a minority cause divides it. People can be on both sides of a constitutional debate and it will unite the community even if the issue divides it. I will oppose Mr Abbott's constitutional change, but I will support Mr Abbott's decision to put it forward. 

 Meanwhile a corrupt senate is opposing needed budget measures. They are egged on by a corrupt press. So business criticism of opposition to budget measures is twisted by the media to read as criticism of the government. The press are not biased. They are partisan. 

 Latham critical of Frightbats. Sunday Age employs activist to report for Greens on climate. Russell Brand is a moron and his lines have been fed by those with a depraved indifference to suffering. 
2013
Blair Poll shows 0.73% want the ABC to have increased funding, the rest asking for it to be privatised, have funding cut, or punitive measures taken against her staff. Or in gender neutral terms favoured by the ABC, against his/her staff. Obama told the truth, once, just on a different day. Holden has become like many Australian icons, a victim of ALP policy. Al Gore was wrong five years ago with his prediction of an ice free north Polar cap. The hand waver who could not sign, but stood next to the hand wringer who didn't care, has been accused of murder. The hand wringer, meanwhile .. doesn't care. My handwriting is too poor for some plumb jobs. AMWU reps must take their skills elsewhere .. parasite host beware. 

Bolt challenges Turnbull on gay marriage statement. Rhiannon admits she was trained by neo-Stalinists.  Why our intelligence service targeted the activity of a significant political player. Why is the media hiding the demonstrated effectiveness of boat people policy? 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 557, Constantinople was severely damaged by an earthquake. In 835, Sweet Dew Incident: Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspired to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot was foiled. In 1287, St. Lucia's flood: The Zuiderzee sea wall in the Netherlands collapses, killing over 50,000 people. In 1542, Princess Mary Stuart became Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1751, the Theresian Military Academy was founded as the first military academy in the world. In 1782, the Montgolfier brothers' first balloon lifts off on its first test flight.

 In 1812, the French invasion of Russia came to an end as the remnants of the Grande Armée were expelled from Russia. In 1814, War of 1812: The Royal Navy seized control of Lake Borgne, Louisiana. In 1819, Alabama became the 22nd U.S. state. In 1836, the Toledo War unofficially ended. In 1896, the Glasgow Underground Railway was opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company. In 1900, Quantum mechanics: Max Planck presented a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law. In 1902, the Commercial Pacific Cable Company laid the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu. In 1903, the Wright brothers made their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1907, the schooner Thomas W. Lawson ran aground and foundered near the Hellweather's Reef within the Isles of Scilly in a gale. The pilot and 15 seamen died. In 1909, New South Wales Premier Charles Wade signed the Seat of Government Surrender Act 1909, formally completing the transfer of State land to the Commonwealth to create the Australian Capital Territory.

 In 1911, Roald Amundsen '​s team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, became the first to reach the South Pole. In 1913, Haruna, the fourth and last Kongō-class ship, launched, eventually becoming one of the Japanese workhorses during World War I and World War II. In 1914, Lisandro de la Torre and others found the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1918,  Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King Väinö I, renounced the Finnish throne. Also, Portuguese President Sidónio Pais was assassinated. In 1939, Winter War: The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland. In 1941, World War II: Japan signed a treaty of alliance with Thailand. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish its headquarters in New York, New York. In 1947,  Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home of Real Madrid C.F., staged its first football match.

 In 1955, Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and Spain join the United Nations. In 1958, the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition became the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility. In 1961, Tanganyika joined the United Nations. In 1962,  NASA's Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus. In 1963, the dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir burst, killing five people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, California. In 1964, American Civil Rights Movement: Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States – The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Congress can use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to fight discrimination. In 1971, Bangladesh Liberation War: Over 200 of East Pakistan '​s intellectuals were executed by the Pakistan Army and their local allies. (The date is commemorated in Bangladesh as Martyred Intellectuals Day.) In 1972, Apollo program: Eugene Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt completed the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo 17 mission.

 In 1981, Arab–Israeli conflict: Israel's Knesset ratified the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the occupied Golan Heights. In 1983, the third Congress of the Communist Youth of Greece started. In 1988, the ET3 television network was launched in Thessaloniki, Greece. In 1992, War in Abkhazia: Siege of Tkvarcheli – A helicopter carrying evacuees from Tkvarcheli was shot down, resulting in at least 52 deaths, including 25 children. The incident catalyses more concerted Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazia. In 1994, construction began on the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river. In 1995, Yugoslav Wars: The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris by the leaders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1999, Torrential rains caused flash floods in Vargas, Venezuela, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of thousands of homes, and the complete collapse of the state's infrastructure. In 2003, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. In 2004, the Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, was formally inaugurated near Millau, France. In 2008, Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq. In 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Twenty-eight people, including the gunman, were killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. In 2013 a reported coup attempt in South Sudan led to continued fighting and hundreds of casualties.
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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 Milan Limbu, Ramsen Oraham and Icweekly Show. Born on the same day, across the years .. 
Three Gorges Dam
The earth moved. The fighting has ended, with few bruises. The bath has the boat. We can gorge. We can dance. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2014
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Abbott Government needs a new course of action to win next election

Piers Akerman – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (11:00pm)

DESPITE signing off on a series of significant policy triumphs, the Coalition hasn’t finished the year with a tick from the public in the opinion polls. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Abbott Government needs a new course of action to win next election'
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Whingeing David Hicks has a lot to say sorry for

Miranda Devine – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (11:03pm)

CONVICTED terrorist David Hicks, aka Mohammed Daw-ood, the one-time al-Qaeda golden boy, is at it again, playing the victim, and being ­applauded by leftist stooges like Sarah Hanson-Young. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Whingeing David Hicks has a lot to say sorry for'
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Why is Abbott giving $5 million to Labor/Fairfax/Aboriginal Leftists to divide us by “race”?

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (11:10am)

I cannot understand how changing the constitution to formally divide us by “race” is actually meant to unite us.
From Tony Abbott’s speech this week insisting the constitution be changed to recognise Aborigines:
But there is almost nothing that this generation of Australians could do that would more impress posterity than enabling black and white Australians to walk forward together, forever, as one united people.
So, I am a supporter of constitutional recognition because I want our country to transcend the “them and us” mindset to embrace “all of us” in the spirit of generous inclusion that has always marked Australians at our best.
There is also this:
This country we created, as a matter of undisputed fact, has an Aboriginal heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character and it is high time that this reality was highly recognised in our Constitution.
The constitution does not actually recognise “British foundation” let alone our “multicultural character”. Is recognising multiculturalism - a further step in the retribalising of our nation to be the next project of the Left, aided by conservatives in search of friends?
And then there’s this - the sad sight of Abbott encouraging something else he should oppose:
To this end, I announce that the Government will provide a further $5 million to RECOGNISE.
This Government now directs taxpayers’ funds to favoured activists? And in this case to activists of the Left?
Just check who runs the Recognise campaign:
Joint Campaign Director Tanya Hosch
Tanya Hosch is the Joint Campaign director for Recognise, the movement to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Constitution. She was a key contributor in the creation of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples…
Joint Campaign Director Tim Gartrell
Tim Gartrell is the Campaign Director for Recognise… Earlier in his career, he was National Campaign Director for federal Labor, including the 2004 and 2007 election campaign…

Communications Director Misha Schubert
Misha Schubert is communications director for Recognise… She came to the role from a long career in journalism, including stints as national political editor for The Sunday Age, political correspondent for The Age and as a reporter for The Australian. 
A conservative government has paid $5 million to a divisive activist group driven by the Labor/Fairfax/Aboriginal Left collective that is fighting to impose a new tribalism - the most destructive form of identity politics.
I can hardly believe it. Has Abbott given a single dollar to a conservative to fight this proposal on the grounds that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin and should not by divided by race?
UPDATE
Where is $5 million for the Recognise What? campaign, run by Labor/Aboriginal conservatives?
To donate to Recognise What? - denied equal or any funding by the Abbott Government - go here.
(Thanks to reader amf.) 
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Entsch just makes the mess worse

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (10:25am)

Tony Abbott’s defence of his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, hasn’t much helped:
Veteran Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch has now lodged an official complaint against Mr Abbott with the chief whip Philip Ruddock.
His decision to go public followed the Prime Minister’s claims that Credlin’s critics are sexists.
As Foreign Minister Julie Bishop declined to support the Prime Minister’s claim yesterday that sexism was to blame for attacks on Ms Credlin, she praised her tireless work in the role…
On Friday, the Prime Minister’s claimed in a television interview that Ms Credlin’s critics were sexists who would not make the same claims if her name was “P-E-T-E-R as opposed to P-E-T-A”.
“It’s not about her bloody gender for God’s sake. Let me tell you. It’d doesn’t matter if her name is H-A-R-R-Y or D-I-C-K,’’ Mr Entsch said.
“To suggest there’s an issue because of her gender I find offensive. He’s basically said, ‘if they don’t like it they are sexists’.
But if Entsch thinks Abbott should have said less, he might care to explain how his own noisy intervention helps anyone but Labor. 
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Democrats damn the torture they approved

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (10:10am)

Charles Krauthammer on the CIA torture scandal:
The report by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding CIA interrogation essentially accuses the agency under George W. Bush of war criminality. Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein appears to offer some extenuation when she reminds us in the report’s preamble of the shock and “pervasive fear” felt after 9/11…
It’s a kind of temporary-insanity defense for the Bush administration. And it is not just unctuous condescension but hypocritical nonsense. In the aftermath of 9/11, there was nothing irrational about believing that a second attack was a serious possibility and therefore everything should be done to prevent it. Indeed, this was the considered opinion of the CIA, the administration, the congressional leadership and the American people…
Nancy Pelosi, then ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, was briefed about the interrogation program, including the so-called torture techniques. As were the other intelligence committee leaders. “We understood what the CIA was doing,” wrote Porter Goss, Pelosi’s chairman on the House committee. “We gave the CIA our bipartisan support; we gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.”
Democrat Jay Rockefeller, while the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was asked in 2003 about turning over Khalid Sheik Mohammed to countries known to torture. He replied: “I wouldn’t take anything off the table where he is concerned.”
There was no uproar about this open countenancing of torture-by-proxy. Which demonstrates not just the shamelessness of Democrats today denouncing practices to which, at the time and at the very least, they made no objection. It demonstrates also how near-consensual was the idea that our national emergency might require extraordinary measures.
This is not to say that in carrying out the program there weren’t abuses, excesses, mismanagement and appalling mistakes (such as the death in custody — unintended but still unforgivable — of two detainees). It is to say that the root-and-branch denunciation of the program as, in principle, unconscionable is not just hypocritical but ahistorical.
To make that case, to produce a prosecutorial brief so entirely and relentlessly one-sided, the committee report (written solely by Democrats) excluded any testimony from the people involved and variously accused. None. No interviews, no hearings, no statements…
Why weren’t they interviewed?  Answer: So that committee Democrats could make their indictment without contradiction. So they could declare, for example, the whole program to be a failure that yielded no important information — a conclusion denied by practically every major figure involved, including Democrat and former CIA director Leon Panetta; Obama’s current CIA director, John Brennan; and three other CIA directors (including a Clinton appointee).
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Latham on the attack of the frightbats

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (9:56am)

Mark Latham vs the feminists he says are picking on him:
In theory, they want men to stay at home, freeing up career opportunities for women. But in practice, when a prominent man actually takes on this responsibility, he’s greeted with disbelief and denigration…
In truth, no matter what men do, no matter the support they provide for their partners, radical feminists will describe them as misogynistic.
Modern feminism is not about the practicalities of helping families. It’s a sub-culture that positions parenting as a prison and men as women-haters.
While this anti-child/anti-male doctrine is supported by just 1 per cent of the population, left-feminism controls 20 per cent of the journalism profession and 40 per cent of Twitter – an unrepresentative influence.
This was how Julia Gillard and her allies got away with branding Tony Abbott a misogynist, purportedly hating his wife and three daughters.
Not surprisingly, most men are now reluctant to talk about left-feminism, fearing a hysterical backlash.
So let me have a go, with some advice for anyone thinking about becoming a home-dad: it’s very rewarding, an opportunity to really know and love your children.
But beware the feminazis: they won’t give you any credit for what you’re doing, only scepticism and ridicule.
Hmm. Seems Latham has encountered the frightbat phenomenon identified by Tim Blair - and which in naming created the greatest controversy facing feminists today:
Australia currently lacks a mainstream debate about feminism, says Ann Mossop, curator of the forthcoming All About Women festival at Sydney Opera House.
Six months after the Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Blair polled his readers to name Australia’s “craziest left-wing frightbat” from a shortlist of 10 women journalists, Mossop said she hoped the programme of talks and lectures on International Women’s Day would open up the conversation.
“Australia has figures like Germaine Greer and Anne Summers, a generation who have been influential across the world, and there are some really interesting young voices talking about feminism in Australia, people like Clementine Ford,” said Mossop as she announced the full line-up.
“But I feel, in some ways, there is not actually a mainstream conversation about this – something the frightbats brou-ha-ha illustrated. Writing from a mainstream position, somebody like Tim Blair was able to dismiss a whole group of female journalists and commentators in a way that was only remarked on in that community.”
Self-obsessed much?
UPDATE
Mark Steyn says the victim industry is running out of oppressors:
The problem with a victim culture is that so many people want to join the ranks of victimhood that eventually you run short of oppressors. As I say in my new book… Elizabeth Warren is the whitest white since Frosty the Snowman fell in a vat of Wite-Out, but a dubious claim to be one 32nd Cherokee was enough to persuade Harvard Law School to promote her as their first “woman of color"…
Lena Dunham is an upper-middle-class child of white privilege who’s had a charmed life, but she’s a victim, too. According to her new memoir, she was raped by “Barry”, the token conservative at Oberlin. The real-life Barry the Conservative denies raping her, and Random House has been forced to issue a statement “regretting the confusion” and to cover his legal bills, which he’d been paying for by “crowd-funding”. The publisher couldn’t resist a parting sneer:

We are offering to pay the fees Mr. Minc has billed his client to date. Our offer will allow Mr. Minc and his client to donate all of the crowd-funding raised to not-for-profit organizations assisting survivors of rape and sexual assault.
Because even if Barry the Conservative never raped Lena Dunham, odds are he’s raped someone else, right? As Ann Coulter put it:

How about donating it to organizations that assist survivors of false rape accusations?
Rather than an epidemic of campus rape, there seems to be some sort of psychological inversion of “white flight”, in which untold numbers feel the need to flee their bland middle-class suburbs and pitch up in edgier ghettos…
The sadly misnamed Cavalier Daily of Charlottesville has a highly non-cavalier story about how “Jackie”, the “victim” of the University of Virginia “gang” “rape”, is owed a debt of gratitude for “pulling back the curtain on rape”:
Jackie, a University student, told Rolling Stone magazine seven men — one of whom she worked with as a lifeguard at the Aquatic and Fitness Center — raped her at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party on September 28, 2012.
The fraternity has since disputed Jackie’s story, claiming there was no party on that particular date and that no Phi Kappa Psi brother worked at the Aquatic and Fitness Center at that time…
“… the fact is, whatever happened, something happened to Jackie,” Mirza said. “And even if she made up the story, things like this do happen.... Whatever comes of this, we’re still behind her and we still think she did something brave by coming forward.”
 “Even if she made up the story”, she “pulled back the curtain on rape”. And even if there was no rape going on behind the curtain she raised awareness of how rape culture is so prevalent that women are being traumatized into making up stories that they’ve been gang-raped by seven Phi Kappa Psi men even when they haven’t been.
(Thanks to readers Steve and Spencer.) 
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Entitlements are killing our entitlement to keep our own money

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (9:06am)

All this free money is killing us:
JOE Hockey has warned that childcare and family welfare payments are set to explode by $5.6 billion in a cost blow-out that will reignite the debate over means testing…
The Mid Year Economic Fiscal Outlook will confirm that Family Tax Benefits payments are expected to increase by more $3.2 billion over the next four years.
This blowout is despite the Senate agreeing to a tougher means test for Family Tax Benefit A that will scrap payments for parents earning over $100,000. Labor has blocked proposals to restrict payments to families with children over the age of six.
The budget update will also confirm that the Child Care Rebate and Benefit payments are expected to grow by around $2.4 billion over the next four years. Combined, the cost blow-outs will contribute additional cost pressures of $5.6 billion. Over the next four years, the government is already on track to spend $28 billion on childcare subsidies.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Independent? Using a reporter sponsored by green carpetbaggers?

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (8:51am)

The Fairfax boast:
image
The Fairfax reality - having the Lima global warming talks reported by a warmist reporter subsidised by the global warming industry:
image
The Sunday Age adds:
image
Independent? Always? 
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How Fairfax sold criticism of Labor as criticism of the Liberals

Andrew Bolt December 14 2014 (7:53am)

How Fairfax’s Sunday Age sells the story - Joe Hockey’s Budget wrecks the economy:
image
How Fairfax’s Sunday Herald sells the same story - Joe Hockey’s Budget wrecks the economy:
image
How the first paragraph sums up this Fairfax story - Joe Hockey’s Budget wrecks the economy:
The Abbott government’s beleaguered first budget is sapping consumer and business confidence at the cost of growth and jobs, the heads of Australia’s biggest banks have warned.

What this Fairfax story in fact reveals - Labor, the Greens and crossbenchers wreck the economy by blocking Joe Hockey’s Budget:
Is the delay over the government’s budget measures harming the economy?
Mike Smith, ANZ: It’s certainly not helping. They have a clear mandate to govern and should be allowed to get on with it.
Ian Narev, CBA: ... these delays are not good for confidence.
Andrew Thorburn, NAB: It is important for business and individuals to have certainty… I know the government is working hard to secure the passage of budget measures and their goal of returning the budget to surplus is encouraging.
George Frazis, St George:… I think it’s important that the budget is put on a long-term sustainable footing…
Jon Sutton, Bank of Queensland:  Uncertainty of any kind can potentially impact markets and the economy.
John Nesbitt, Suncorp:  We would like to see more bipartisanship ... Political uncertainty, which is a common theme across the globe, is always a negative for investment…
Rob De Luca, Bankwest: The delays in passing key government budget measures in the Senate are adding to anxiety for both businesses and households ....
Scott Tanner, Bank of Melbourne: .... It’s important that the budget is sustainable over the long term and supports economic growth. Legislation often needs to be negotiated through parliament. This Government, like many before, is doing that.
Mike Hirst, Bendigo Bank: Markets hate uncertainty…

If you are astonished that a story of bankers actually condemning the uncertainty caused by Labor is sold as a story of bankers attacking the Liberals, then remember this evidence from the court hearing of Hockey’s defamation claim against Fairfax newspapers:
[Herald editor-in-chief Darren] Goodsir wrote in an email to [Age and Sunday Age editor-in-chief Andrew] Holden and senior Fairfax reporters: “Given what Andrew and I endured last week with Hockey, I want to have this nailed to the cross in more ways than one ... I have long dreamed (well, actually only since last Friday), of a headline that screams: Sloppy Joe! I think we are not far off, but perhaps even more serious than that.”
Holden also discussed a news story in text messages the day after the initial controversial story ran [falsely claiming Hockey had received and returned a dodgy donation]. “In that story you can run hockey’s claim he knew nothing though as members of the forum entitled to meet him he must have seen membership list. Beyond that f..k him,” Holden texted Goodsir....
On April 19, before going on leave, Goodsir wrote: “I will be back on Mon 28 and want to be in a spot to launch our dirt on Hockey team. This one ain’t over yet!"…  
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Brand new moron

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (9:58pm)

If Russell Brand has lost The Age he’s lost everyone:
Brand’s ideas are those of a spoiled narcissist. Where he doesn’t understand something, he makes a show of his ignorance (in fact, he makes a virtue of it). History is a joke. Other countries are a joke. The only subject Brand takes seriously is himself, and woe betide the commentator who suggests that his newfound revolutionary principles may be inconsistent with his lavish lifestyle, since it is for this critic that Brand reserves his only flashes of real anger. Everyone else – even the scumbags of IS – just need a bit more love in their lives.
Can you believe a man who didn’t even know of the Spanish Civil War having the hide to write a book explaining revolutions?
The book is a grab-bag of vague ideas - a breathless series of riffs upon and rambles through the source material, which includes David Graeber’s thoughts on debt, some fragments of Noam Chomsky and Thomas Piketty, and George Orwell’s essay on the Spanish Civil War (a war which, by the way, Brand hadn’t heard of when he began his book a year ago).
Tim Blair notes other signs of fed-uppedness with the hypocrite with the big mouth and small brain. 
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Post by Architecture & Design.

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Post by Matt Granz.

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=== Posts from last year ===

POLL BELIEVED

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 14, 2013 (5:29pm)

The ABC’s Barrie Cassidy turns to that most dependable of sources, the online poll: 
A recent online poll on ABC funding in the Fairfax media drew 21,145 respondents. Of that, 72 per cent agreed the ABC was an excellent and essential service that deserved more money. Another 12 per cent ticked the box that suggested the ABC did good work, and that funding was about right.
Even allowing for a disproportionate number of ABC backers reading the Fairfax newspapers, they are exceptional figures. 
And also completely reliable. Let’s see what a trustworthy BlairPoll reveals:
Thank you for voting!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Total Votes: 275
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OBAMA DID TELL THE TRUTH, JUST ON A DIFFERENT DAY

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 14, 2013 (4:52pm)

PolitiFact rates Barack Obama’s honesty in 2008: 
“No. 1, let me just repeat, if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it,” Obama said. “All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor.”
Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here … people who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama’s plan. His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True. 
PolitiFact rates Barack Obama’s honesty in 2013: 
It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America’s health insurance system.
“If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” President Barack Obama said – many times – of his landmark new law.
But the promise was impossible to keep.
So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong …
For all of these reasons, PolitiFact has named “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” the Lie of the Year for 2013. 
Or, as the New York Times might put it, the Clear Misspeaking of the Year or the Incorrect Promise of the Year. ViaIowahawk, who celebrates “revolutionary Politi’fact’ science: conclusively writing the results of an experiment before it even happens.” Further from the Washington Examiner: 
In an October 2008 column – just before the election – PolitiFact actually rated Obama’s promise as “true.” It said at the time: “Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here. He advocates a program that seeks to build on the current system, rather than dismantling it and starting over.”
In other words, it rated him on the basis of whether he was accurately stating his own campaign promise, a hurdle no politician could fail to clear. 
Meanwhile the blunders continue. As Esquire famously asked of a previous president, why is this man laughing?
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DOORS OPEN, FACTORIES CLOSED

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 14, 2013 (3:12pm)

Among the problems faced by last century’s car designers was “that bugbear of all motorists – the door.”
Happily, Holden engineers were able to meet this awesome technological challenge. Further on Holden’s early days
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AL LIED, POLE UNFRIED

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 14, 2013 (2:38pm)

Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. 
It isn’t. To celebrate, even Cairo is turning on the snow. Look at the happy children:

image

(Via CL)
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SCAM LANGUAGE

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 14, 2013 (2:07pm)

What’s the sign language symbol for “hilarious fraud”? Thamsanqa Dyantyi demonstrates:

image

Mr Dyantyi presumably also knows the symbols for “convicted thief” and “accused murderer”.
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POLITENESS MONEY

Tim Blair – Friday, December 13, 2013 (4:25pm)

Attention, note writers: 
Our client, a large Government organisation, is seeking expressions of interest from experienced writers to support a small team on a casual term basis. A requirement for this position is that you must be an Australian Citizen.
In this position you will provide support to an engagement team through writing notes to those who have participated in sessions and meetings, thanking them for their contributions. 
Seems simple enough. But check out the qualifications: 
To be considered for this position, you will be an experienced writer with a capacity in writing, editing and proofreading text. You will be able to demonstrate perseverance, a good grasp of narrative, awareness of audience and the demonstrated ability to develop strong working relationships with a variety of stakeholders. 
And also the ability to write: “Thank you for your contribution to this session and/or meeting.”
(Via Ganesh)
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JOE BLAMED

Tim Blair – Friday, December 13, 2013 (4:06pm)

Former Fairfax business editor Ian Porter: 
The question that needs to be answered after the government effectively forced General Motors to abandon car manufacturing in Australia is a simple one: why did Treasurer Joe Hockey do it? 
It’s just possible that one or two other factors were involved in Holden’s decision. Speaking of which, here’s Bill Leak today:

image

UPDATE. Peter Switzer: 
The greatest piece of drama acted out on TV was the Academy Award performance by the Opposition Deputy Leader, Tanya Plibersek, as she reacted to the Holden decision. If you arrived here from Mars on Wednesday, you’d now believe that Joe Hockey chased the company out of the country.
Plibersek’s pathos-ridden effort made me recall if she was so tearfully outspoken when Mitsubishi and Ford pulled up stumps under Labor.
She wasn’t. 
UPDATE II. Doug Cameron is sad.
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High Court uses slippery slope argument to defend same sex marriage. Where is Malcolm Turnbull now?

Andrew Bolt December 14 2013 (9:29am)

The High Court this week endorsed the “slippery slope” argument used by opponents of same-sex marriage - and unwisely sneered at by the likes of Malcolm Turnbull.
In this case the argument is simple:  once you insist that two gays should be free to marry each other on the grounds that they are consenting adults then you cannot logically oppose three consenting adults from marrying, either.  Agree to same sex marriage and you must agree to polygamy, too.
It turns out i was wrong only in one detail - one that actually underlines my point. The High Court says we already legally endorse polygamy for many purposes, so we cannot logically oppose same sex marriage. This is indeed the “slippery slope” argument - backed by our Highest Court, albeit with a different agenda in mind.
The High Court, in over-ruling the ACT’s same sex marriage laws, noted the classic definition of marriage:
Reference might also have been made (and now commonly is made) to the earlier decision of Lord Penzance in Hyde v Hyde and Woodmansee and the statement[9] that “marriage, as understood in Christendom, may for this purpose be defined as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others”.
But it said our law already recognised for many purposes, polygamous marriages (contracted overseas, although we also have traditional Aboriginal polygamous unions):
Second, statements made in cases like Hyde v Hyde, suggesting that a potentially polygamous marriage could never be recognised in English law, were later qualified by both judge-made law and statute to the point where in both England and Australia the law now recognises polygamous marriages for many purposes[46]. 
Once it is accepted that “marriage” can include polygamous marriages, it becomes evident that the juristic concept of “marriage” cannot be confined to a union having the characteristics described in Hyde v Hyde and other nineteenth century cases. Rather, “marriage” is to be understood in s 51(xxi) of the Constitution as referring to a consensual union formed between natural persons in accordance with legally prescribed requirements which is not only a union the law recognises as intended to endure and be terminable only in accordance with law but also a union to which the law accords a status affecting and defining mutual rights and obligations.
It is not now possible (if it ever was) to confine attention to jurisdictions whose law of marriage provides only for unions between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Marriage law is and must be recognised now to be more complex.
(My bold throughout.) That is exactly the slippery slope argument, used here to justify in advance a future decision by the federal parliament to redefine marriage. To justify more “complex” definitions that “must be recognised”.
Malcolm Turnbull once mocked warnings of the slippery slope when they came from opponents of same-sex marriage. His original article attacking my own warnings is no longer on-line, but here is some of my response to Turnbull at the time:
First (Turnbull) says the “slippery slope” argument against same-sex marriage is nonsense, but without explaining why - other than to assert that unnamed judges would treat it with contempt… Turnbull also fails to explain on which grounds those judges would dismiss the slippery slope argument. Is it simply on a matter of law or through a superior understanding of how humans behave once taboos are broken? I’m not sure Turnbull knows himself. 
The truth is that we do not need to go far at all to see how slippery the slippery slope can be. For instance, abortion was once - and on a strictly legalistic reading of the law in Victoria still is - limited to those cases in which a woman’s physical or mental health is endangered by her pregnancy. Now the restriction is so broadly interpreted that abortion is available to virtually any adult woman who simply wishes it, even when (in states such as Victoria) the child to be aborted is healthy and just weeks from birth. Australian ethicists, building on the work of Peter Singer, now argue even for the post-birth killing of babies by mothers who no longer want them… As these and other examples show. once a traditional social taboo is lifted, it is very difficult to get people to agree on where the new limits should be set. And, exhausted by disagreement, we sometimes fail to agree on any limits, or none we’re prepared to defend.
Turnbull back then claimed what the High Court this week implicitly rejected by declaring polygamy was already for many purposes already recognised under our law:
Anyway, says Turnbull, “there is no demand, no lobby, no support, no constituency for legalising polygamy under the Marriage Act”, so where’s the slippery slope? 
I am astonished that someone to the Left of the Liberal Party should be so blind to the desires of some of Muslim citizens, who argue that polygamy - unlike same sex marriage - is licensed by the Koran. Calls for the recognition of polygamy have been made by Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Lakemba and Keysar Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association. Australia’s then Mufti, Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam, said polygamy was an issue for the Australian National Council of Imams to discuss, and Yasser Soliman, one of the Muslim advisers handpicked by then prime minister John Howard argued:  “I don’t think it should be discussed in terms of any threat to the Australian way of life.” Turnbull says we’d resist polygamy because of our “view of the equality of men and women”, but defenders of polygamy would not just question Turnbull’s judgment or opinion, but would use against him some of the very arguments used to back same-sex marriage: as in, by what right does he deny three adults the freedom to live together in marriage, should that be their wish? Aren’t Islamic values and ideal of equality to be treated as second class? Why is he imposing his values on others? Why is polygamy a threat to his own marriage?
The High Court, no doubt inadvertently, this week validated an important objection to same sex marriage - that it opens the door to endless redefinitions of marriage that will turn an important communal custom, freighted by tradition with responsibilities, into little more than highly individualistic arrangements with little moral power. This could be a disaster given that marriage serves one important role above any other: it glues parents together in the combination that is most likely to produce well-socialised children.
Weaken that glue and we all will pay.
Turnbull’s once claimed judges would treat the slippery slope argument with contempt. Now that judges in fact use the slippery slope argument to defend same sex marriage, will he now revise his stand?
(Thanks to reader Ganesh.) 
===

Rhiannon admits a brutal Communist regime schooled her

Andrew Bolt December 14 2013 (9:14am)

The ABC wins an admission from a Greens Senator that she was educated - as a guest - by a Communist regime long infamous for its brutality and oppression:
James Carleton: Tell me, you did study – correct me if I’m wrong – in Russia? The International Lenin School for around 6 months or so, when you were a member of the Socialist Party? Is that correct? 
Lee Rhiannon: Yes. Yes. I’ve always been very open about my work and I’ve studied in many countries – political economy, Marxism.
Gerard Henderson:
Hold it there. How frightfully interesting. Caught on the hop, Senator Rhiannon admitted that she had studied at the International Lenin School in Moscow at the time when the communist neo-Stalinist (to use Mark Aarons’ term) dictator Leonid Brezhnev ran the Soviet Union. The year was 1977 and Rhiannon (born in 1951) was in her mid 20s.... 
But the point is that Lee O’Gorman (as she then was) undertook a course at the International Lenin School – which was an exclusive institution in Moscow which trained willing comrades for political action and which was controlled and funded by a totalitarian communist regime which locked up dissidents in psychiatric institutions and was overly anti-Semitic. The Greens Senator did not break with the pro-Moscow communists until 1990 – when she was close to 40 years of age....
MWD is astounded, absolutely astounded, that few members of the Canberra Press Gallery – outside the News Corp stable, where Christian Kerr has done considerable research – have focused on what Lee Rhiannon did between the ages of 18 and 39. Yet there has been excessive focus on David Marr’s unproven (and now revised) claim that Tony Abbott punched a wall at Sydney University when still a teenager. See MWD passim.
And then there is the matter of double standards. Imagine what ABC journalists would say if Cardinal George Pell confessed on RN Drivethat he studied at, say, the International Mussolini School in Rome financed by the French National Front. Just imagine. 
===

Why we spied on a harmless Indonesian housewife to the horror of our media Left

Andrew Bolt December 14 2013 (7:31am)

Naive reporters - or worse - pretended there was no reason for us to monitor the phone of the Indonesian president’s wife, thus justifying their otherwise baseless claim that our spying was such an outrage that it had to be exposed despite the damage it would cause and the drownings it would lead to.
A typical example, from Crikey’s Bernard Keane:
The Australian Signals Directorate, as it’s now called (formerly the DSD), has sailed serenely through the trashing of our relations with Indonesia, and the damage inflicted on a new government that had nothing to do with its actions, with little attention. Its errors of judgement in taking so grievously offensive a step as spying on the Indonesian President’s wife merely because it could, rather than for any particular intelligence value.... 
It was as if the reporters were sexists who really believed President Yudhoyono’s wife just did the ironing and cooking as she waited meekly each night for her husband to come home.
You have to despair at the stupidity of so much media today, so often made manifest by the cynicism of the idiot who trusts nothing but the ignorance he takes for his superior intellect. Who trusts his own uniformed prejudices about the considered professional judgment of our intelligence agencies and the politicians overseeing them.
The truth:
AUSTRALIAN intelligence agencies targeted the mobile phone of Indonesia’s first lady in 2009 because she had become the single most influential adviser to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and was thought to be hatching a presidential succession plan for her eldest son. 
The decision to target Kristiani Herawati’s phone was not done on a whim but was part of a deliberate and calculated strategy to learn more about the shifting balance of power inside Jakarta’s ruling elite.
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Who is hiding the non-boats?

Andrew Bolt December 14 2013 (7:03am)

Labor and its media mates accused the Abbott Government of not informing the public of boat arrivals:
Bill Shorten accused the Coalition of ”hiding the boats”....
But when the Abbott Government slows boat arrivals this past week to just one, carrying just three people, it is the media which shows almost zero interest in informing the public. 
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Cancer victim Colby Curtin, 10, granted dying to see new Pixar movie Up
http://www.news.com.au/world/cancer-victim-colby-curtin-10-granted-dying-to-see-new-pixar-movie-up/story-fndir2ev-1226782890443
A TEN-YEAR-OLD girl struck down with a rare form of cancer battled to stay alive so that she could see a new movie.
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"We're not left or right, we're individuals!" *Snigger*
Mark Scott must step up and rid ABC of its green hue
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/mark-scott-must-step-up-and-rid-abc-of-its-green-hue/story-fnkqo7i5-1226782717544#mm-register
I'M not into prophecy. However, I will have a stab at predicting the likely outcome of the inaugural editorial audit on ABC program topics. The initiative was announced by ABC chairman Jim Spigelman during his address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. I stand to be corrected, but I predict th...
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The awkward family photos that would give Santa Claus a belly laugh
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522875/Ho-Ho-Ho-The-awkward-family-photos-Santa-Claus-real-belly-laugh.html
Holiday traditions vary from home to home, but awkward family photos are a yearly occurrence no holiday should be without.
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Scientists discover Indonesian cave with 'stunning' record of tsunamis dating back thousands of...
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/scientists-discover-indonesian-cave-with-stunning-record-of-tsunamis-dating-back-thousands-of-years/story-fn5fsgyc-1226782895230
SCIENTISTS say they have discovered a cave on the Indonesian island of Sumatra that provides a "stunning" record of Indian Ocean tsunamis over thousands of years.
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Professor Henry Graff : “I taught at Columbia for 46 years” Obama Could Not Have Gone There
http://www.conservativeinfidel.com/uncategorized/professor-henry-graff-taught-columbia-46-years-obama-gone/
Via Resist The Tyranny.com There is no shortage of evidence that Barrack H. Obama is quite possibly the most inept, deceptive and disgraceful president that America has ever seen. With all that we do know about Barrack Obama, what don’t we know? We know that congress refuses to investigate Obama’s b...
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New York emergency services send bill to 'unknown Asian'
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/new-york-emergency-services-send-bill-to-unknown-asian/story-fnkjidjt-1226781908863
IT'S a pretty darn good excuse not to pay your bill.
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“When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”” Matthew 2:4-6 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Salt without prescribing how much."
Ezra 7:22
Salt was used in every offering made by fire unto the Lord, and from its preserving and purifying properties it was the grateful emblem of divine grace in the soul. It is worthy of our attentive regard that, when Artaxerxes gave salt to Ezra the priest, he set no limit to the quantity, and we may be quite certain that when the King of kings distributes grace among his royal priesthood, the supply is not cut short by him. Often are we straitened in ourselves, but never in the Lord. He who chooses to gather much manna will find that he may have as much as he desires. There is no such famine in Jerusalem that the citizens should eat their bread by weight and drink their water by measure. Some things in the economy of grace are measured; for instance our vinegar and gall are given us with such exactness that we never have a single drop too much, but of the salt of grace no stint is made, "Ask what thou wilt and it shall be given unto thee." Parents need to lock up the fruit cupboard, and the sweet jars, but there is no need to keep the salt-box under lock and key, for few children will eat too greedily from that. A man may have too much money, or too much honour, but he cannot have too much grace. When Jeshurun waxed fat in the flesh, he kicked against God, but there is no fear of a man's becoming too full of grace: a plethora of grace is impossible. More wealth brings more care, but more grace brings more joy. Increased wisdom is increased sorrow, but abundance of the Spirit is fulness of joy. Believer, go to the throne for a large supply of heavenly salt. It will season thine afflictions, which are unsavoury without salt; it will preserve thy heart which corrupts if salt be absent, and it will kill thy sins even as salt kills reptiles. Thou needest much; seek much, and have much.

Evening

"I will make thy windows of agates."
Isaiah 54:12
The church is most instructively symbolized by a building erected by heavenly power, and designed by divine skill. Such a spiritual house must not be dark, for the Israelites had light in their dwellings; there must therefore be windows to let the light in and to allow the inhabitants to gaze abroad. These windows are precious as agates: the ways in which the church beholds her Lord and heaven, and spiritual truth in general, are to be had in the highest esteem. Agates are not the most transparent of gems, they are but semi-pellucid at the best:
"Our knowledge of that life is small,
Our eye of faith is dim."
Faith is one of these precious agate windows, but alas! it is often so misty and beclouded, that we see but darkly, and mistake much that we do see. Yet if we cannot gaze through windows of diamonds and know even as we are known, it is a glorious thing to behold the altogether lovely One, even though the glass be hazy as the agate. Experience is another of these dim but precious windows, yielding to us a subdued religious light, in which we see the sufferings of the Man of Sorrows, through our own afflictions. Our weak eyes could not endure windows of transparent glass to let in the Master's glory, but when they are dimmed with weeping, the beams of the Sun of Righteousness are tempered, and shine through the windows of agate with a soft radiance inexpressibly soothing to tempted souls. Sanctification, as it conforms us to our Lord, is another agate window. Only as we become heavenly can we comprehend heavenly things. The pure in heart see a pure God. Those who are like Jesus see him as he is. Because we are so little like him, the window is but agate; because we are somewhat like him, it is agate. We thank God for what we have, and long for more. When shall we see God and Jesus, and heaven and truth, face to face?
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Today's reading: Hosea 12-14, Revelation 4 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Hosea 12-14

1 Ephraim feeds on the wind;
he pursues the east wind all day
and multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a treaty with Assyria
and sends olive oil to Egypt.
2 The LORD has a charge to bring against Judah;
he will punish Jacob according to his ways
and repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel;
as a man he struggled with God.
4 He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
he wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel
and talked with him there—
5 the LORD God Almighty,
the LORD is his name!
6 But you must return to your God;
maintain love and justice,
and wait for your God always.
7 The merchant uses dishonest scales
and loves to defraud.
8 Ephraim boasts,
“I am very rich; I have become wealthy.
With all my wealth they will not find in me
any iniquity or sin....”

Today's New Testament reading: Revelation 4

The Throne in Heaven
1 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3 And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. 4 Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. 6 Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal....
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Manasseh, Manasses[Mānăs’seh,Mānăs’sēs]—causing forgetfulness.
  1. The elder son of Joseph, who was born in Egypt and was half Hebrew and half Egyptian. He was the founder of a tribe (Gen. 41:51; Num. 1:10 ). Manasseh and his brother Ephraim were Jacob’s Gentile descendants, since both were children of an Egyptian mother. Ephraim means “the multitude of nations,” or “the fulness of the Gentiles,” and was prophetic of Christ as the Saviour of the world. The tribe of Manasseh produced two out of the four Old Testament men whose faith has been thought worthy of notice in the New Testament—Gideon and Jephthah (Heb. 11:32).
  2. The grandfather of Jonathan who, with his sons, became a priest to the tribe of Dan when they set up a graven image in Laish ( Judg. 18:30). Perhaps Moses should be read for Manasseh in the verse.
  3. The son of Hezekiah and father of Amon, king of Judah, who succeeded his father when he was only twelve years of age (2 Kings 20:21; 21).

The Man Whose Policy Was Wrong

Manasseh, the prodigal king of the Old Testament, was overwhelmed by Assyrian forces and in the twenty-third year of his reign was taken as a prisoner to Babylon where he lingered for twelve years. During these years he turned to God and was restored to freedom and his kingdom. For the next twenty years left to him, he sought to undo the wrong of the past. His long reign of fifty-five years, the longest in Jewish history, closed not inauspiciously. He died a penitent, and left a son who followed his father in his sins but not in his repentance.
Gathering together what we can of Manasseh’s life, it would seem that he was a man of policy:
His policy of idolatry . How he hated the first two commandments of Sinai, and reversed the reforms of his father! How exceedingly bold he was in his idolatry!
His policy of immorality. Idolatry and immorality go together, thus in rejecting God there came the worship of the Syrian Venus. This action let loose a flood of iniquity over the land of Judah.
His policy of persecution. Manasseh allowed nothing to stand in the way of license and open evil. Martyrdom became the cost of service. Idolatry was set up under the pain of death.
His policy of destruction . As far as he could, Manasseh destroyed the Word of God. Every copy found was consigned to the flames. God’s truth testified too plainly against the sins of king and people. So complete was this destruction of the Word of God that when Josiah, Manasseh’s grandson, came to the throne, a copy of it was found in the Temple.
But Manasseh’s eyes were opened to his sinful condition and he sobbed out the misery of his helpless and craven soul. Theoccasion of his repentance was affliction. In the prison-house of Babylon he prayed. As to the character of his repentance, he besought the Lord and humbled himself before the God of his fathers and prayed unto Him. Penniless and penitent, his cry for mercy came from a broken heart, and God graciously received this prodigal king. Alas, however, he stopped short of being out-and-out for God! He allowed the high places of idolatry to remain. It will not be possible to doubt God’s grace in heaven in the ages to come if we can but catch a glimpse of Manasseh—godly-reared, apostate, idolatrous, devilish, stricken, humbled, repentant Manasseh!
4. One of the family of Hashum who had married a foreign wife ( Ezra 10:33).
5. One of the family of Pahath-moab who had done the same (Ezra 10:30).
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