Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Tue Dec 9th Todays News

Conservative writer gets a literary award. The writer covered the shameful activity of unions during WW2. Outraged leftist writers denounce and abuse those who report this fact. In response to the assertion that conservative writers winning a literary award is very rare, one caustic wit said that Churchill had won such an award. Churchill died nearly fifty years ago. It is a reminder of when the ABC's balance was asserted by saying a WA newsreader was a known conservative. It turned out they actually supported Greens. But Costello pointed out that with fifty thousand employees, it did not surprise him that the ABC might know the name of the one single employee thought to be conservative. 

 One highly lauded literary figure in Australia is Barry Spurr. He might not be a conservative, but he has helped to write a report for the conservative government. That has meant that the magazine New Matilda has felt licensed to print his personal emails. New Matilda framed the emails as being racist and bigoted, but the professor has explained how they were composed which suggests he is not a racist bigot but instead a victim of lefties who hate bash conservatives. He is still suspended by his university that seems concerned he might in fact be a conservative. 

 Talking to trees is the brainchild of Melbourne Council who have an agricultural unit posing as trees on email. If a tree could talk it would probably beg to be given plant food and for the IPCC to be chopped up for fire wood. But that kind of realism is beyond the unit. Meanwhile, in a survey of expert commentators, Australia leads the world in climate realism. This is because we ditched the useless tax that only made industry more expensive. It is doubtful this would be reported in the partisan Age or ABC. 

 CFMEU running amok as Vic Libs are silent. A conservative can never lean far enough to the left to please the left wing. However the Vic Libs have tried, and it has had them ditched from government after one term where they failed to engage in the culture wars. Clearly the Liberals cannot compete with the CFMEU as they are a political party and don't have bottomless slush funds stolen from union members. Which is why they should speak out while speech is free. Except it isn't now, because they didn't stand for it then. 

 ASC tasked to reform to prove it can build a canoe. Otherwise they cannot be considered to build a submarine. They are currently over budget and very late with their current project and that means there is less money to support the ADF because these parasites are doing exactly what the unions were doing in WW2 when they supported the enemy.

 Defending free speech by hiring stoats to judge rabbits is the Watership Down style analogy which sees a censorious non publisher take over the press council. The partisan appointee should resign on bias alone. 

 Good government finds solutions, and Mr Abbott has a Medicare co payment solution which might get past the blockage called a senate. It is $5, instead of $7, as doctors had opposed a $2 pay rise. It will fund a $20 billion research budget, and those who want scientific research should support that. Once in place, it should be clear that it is not a harmful measure, and is in fact as useful as public transport charges. 

 Peter Reith advises Hockey to press harder on economic need for cuts. The public understand the need, but they also need to be told, and have it explained. The partisan press will not do so, but will obstruct, which is ok, as the people can see through that. Sometimes. 
2013
Today is the anniversary of my father's passing, age 76, in 2009. He wrote many books on Educational Psychology, edited the prestigious Journal of Educational Psychology for decades, 'wrote' the original Australian Sale of the Century questions but will primarily be remembered for his work as educational evaluator of Sesame Street and the Electric Company. I didn't know him very well. My parents had separated before I was born. They had a rocky relationship, coming together again when I was five ('72) after my mother burned down our house in Leonia, and we moved to Princeton, NJ, where my dad began work for ETS in educational measurement related to SATs. They stayed together until my sick sister's death in '78. Then we came to Australia to live. I lived with my mother. 

He was very good at his work, and was a lovely charming person. The dysfunctional nature of my family is more closely related to my mother, and in some ways he would have had to have been a saint to not fail against her attention. He tried, but he made choices, and had integrity. A half sister of mine nominated him for father of the year, which he won. Tony Barber congratulated him on the birth of his first child while my brother was watching from home. But it is really hard to navigate two families in the public face. No one would have known he had a fractured family life. He was made CEO of the Victorian Board of Studies by Kennett, and did a great job, introducing mass testing of students by computer in a world first. 

I posted a tribute to him, following his death. It became top on the google search list for him, so my family ordered me to take it down. I did, but reposted it too. I'm not the son he wanted. I'm not his only child. But he was my father. 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 480,  Odoacer, first King of Italy, occupied Dalmatia. He later established his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate. In 536, Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius entered Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison fled the capital. In 730, Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilated an Umayyad army and killed its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami. In 1425, the Catholic University of Leuven is founded. In 1531, The Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City. In 1775, American Revolutionary War: British troops lost the Battle of Great Bridge, and left Virginia soon afterward. In 1793, New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, was established by Noah Webster.

 In 1824, patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeated a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence. In 1835, Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captured San Antonio, Texas. In 1851, the first YMCA in North America was established in Montreal. In 1856, the Iranian city of Bushehr surrendered to occupying British forces. In 1861, American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was established by the U.S. Congress. In 1872, in Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback became the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state. In 1875, the Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's Oldest Active Gun Club", was founded. In 1888, statistician Herman Hollerith installed his computing device at the United States War Department. In 1897, activist Marguerite Durand founded the feminist daily newspaper La Fronde in Paris.

 In 1905, in France, the law separating church and state was passed. In 1911, a mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, killed 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines. In 1917, World War I: In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem. In 1922, Gabriel Narutowicz was elected the first president of Poland. In 1931, the Constituent Cortes approved a constitution which established the Second Spanish Republic. In 1935,  Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, was killed in a gangland murder. Also, the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later renamed the Heisman Trophy, was awarded for the first time. The winner was halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago. In 1937, Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking – Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launched an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing (Nanking).

 In 1940, World War II: Operation Compass – British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attacked Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt. In 1941, World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declared war on Germany and Japan. Also, World War II: The American 19th Bombardment Group attacked Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon. In 1946, the "Subsequent Nuremberg trials" began with the "Doctors' trial", prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia. Also, the Constituent Assembly of India met for the first time to write the Constitution of India. In 1950,  Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony was later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In 1953, Red Scare: General Electric announced that all communist employees would be discharged from the company. In 1956, Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashed near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board. In 1958, the John Birch Society was founded in the United States.

 In 1960, the first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, was broadcast in the United Kingdom. In 1961, Tanganyika became independent from Britain. In 1962, the Petrified Forest National Park was established in Arizona. In 1965, Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball was seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admitted that it examined the object. Also, a Charlie Brown Christmas, first in a series of Peanuts television specials, debuted on CBS. In 1966, Barbados joined the United Nations. In 1968, Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS). In 1969, U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposed his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which led to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.

 In 1971, the United Arab Emirates joined the United Nations. Also, Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executed an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences. In 1973, British and Irish authorities signed the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. In 1979, the eradication of the smallpox virus was certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction. In 1987, Israeli–Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada began in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. In 1988, the Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland, was officially opened. In 2003, a blast in the center of Moscow killed six people and wounded several more. In 2008, the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama's election to the Presidency. In 2013, at least seven were dead and 63 were injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.
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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 Jack Tuan Nguyen, Andrew Ridgway, Pio Johann Pamintuan, Duc Vo  and Michael Le born on the same day, across the years, as 
Mayor Hussein al-Husayni of Jerusalem surrendering to the British
You are first! You have the city. You have the constitution to succeed. You have birched the opposition. You have eliminated that disease. Now let us party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2014
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NON-WINNER NOT HAPPY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 09, 2014 (1:57am)

Hal G.P. Colebatch’s excellent Australia’s Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II – buy it here – last night won a Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Colebatch’s victory (shared with Joan Beaumont’s Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War) marks the first time in global history that a major literature prize has gone to a conservative author writing from a conservative point of view. Mike Carlton, whose epic tome I Like Boats! failed to secure any of the $80,000 on offer, graciously conceded defeat: 
The Hal Colebatch book Australia’s Secret War should not have won a PM’s literary award. It is a right wing farrago of error and rumour.
Parts of it are just plain wrong. Some of it is sheer nonsense. But the win is not surprising given Gerard Henderson is judging chairman.
A hard right jackass from Perth, part of the ever-diminishing Quadrant crowd.
Colebatch has written a disgraceful, right wing tract.
No doubt I’ll be accused of sour grapes, but I intend to expose the Colebatch book for the drivel it is. Chapter and verse.
Shame that the winning Colebatch book is a right wing tract shot through with fantasy and error. The award is a disgrace.
The award to Hal Colebatch is a disgrace. The book is a right wing tract stiff with error and fantasy.
The win to The Colebatch book makes a mockery of these awards. It is rubbish.
A history award should not go to a book so studded with error and fantasy. 
Poor Michael. If only there were journalistic or literary awards – even just one, somewhere, anywhere – available to left-wing writers.
UPDATE. Helen Razer: 
Today, Right-thinking writers thank goodness for the perfume of reason and Tim Blair applauds the happy day that “marks the first time in global history that a major literature prize has gone to a conservative author writing from a conservative point of view”. Either Blair has the same revulsion for historical research that Colebatch seems to or he doesn’t think that Winston Churchill, recipient of a Nobel Prize for literature, is creditably “conservative”. 
I await humourless Helen’s devastating discovery that Carlton’s book isn’t really called I Like Boats!
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THEY TALK TO THE TREES

Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 09, 2014 (12:40am)

“Once admired for their logic and technical rigour,” writes Tony Thomas, “Germans are succumbing to green craziness by the day.” Definitely so, but Melbourne gives twisted Teutons a run for their carbon credits: 
Melburnians have started emailing trees.
And sometimes they reply.
In what is believed to be a world first, Melbourne City Council says all of its 70,000 trees can be contacted and wants more people to join the “correspondence program” set up to connect people with the green environment …
One emailer told a tree: “I am stuck inside and am so jealous of you soaking up the sun. You seem to be having a ball out there.”
The Chinese elm replied: “Sorry that you are stuck inside. I am really enjoying stretching my stomata and giving my chloroplasts a good workout. I spent the weekend well hydrated and preparing for the summer ahead” …
The concept is the brainchild of the City of Melbourne’s urban landscapes team. 
This is the finest Melbourne moment since the discovery last year of Heidegger-reading Monash University academic and tea enthusiast Stuart Grant.
(Via Patrick H.)
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Abbott big compromise on Medicare

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (4:11pm)

The Abbott Government should finally crash through on the co-payment, after exempting children. pensioners and people in aged care - and cutting the effective co-payment to $5 at the discretion of doctors:
TONY Abbott has dumped plans to impose a $7 co-payment on Medicare services, instead using his executive power to cut payments to doctors and encouraging them to raise fees. 

The Prime Minister’s new policy includes a price signal on doctors’ visits by cutting the rebate for doctors’ visits by $5, forcing doctors to consider imposing an “optional co-payment” to recover their loss.
The government will also impose a requirement for Medicare-funded doctors’ appointments to tackle 10-minute “sausage machine medicine” where patients are simply “churned through”.
The policy shift will save the government $3.5 billion over four years - $100 million less than the government’s initial proposal.
The money will be funnelled into the proposed Medical Research Future Fund until its balance reaches $20 billion, after which the money would flow to Treasury.
Now let Labor promise to scrap this saving, too.
But why did it take so long for this more saleable version to be produced?
The one question:

Mr Abbott, announcing the policy shift, said the cut to the Medicare rebate for GP visits would not require legislation. The change would be disallowable by a vote of the Senate, but Mr Abbott urged non-government senators against taking that “extreme step”.
UPDATE
This is an important reform, whether at $5 or $7, even if pensioners are now exempted. It is just as important for the Government not to back down on the principle.
UPDATE
Bill Shorten says this important reform is still a tax (it’s not) and still a broken promise (it’s not), and that he’ll raise the $5 when he can (a scare).  Claims Abbott still intends to wreck Medicare.  Labor is against.
Gross irresponsibility and potentially a big mistake from Labor, if the Senate does not disallow the change. How on earth does this self-serving opposition fit Labor’s record on reform? One day soon the heat will go on Labor to make its Budget sums add up.  
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If ASC can’t be helped to reform, it can’t be trusted with submarines

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (11:50am)

This is the best way to make the case - to publicly try to help ASC ship up before contracting subs out:
AN expert defence team has until July next year to reverse the fortunes of the beleaguered air warfare destroyers, as the government reveals the $8.5 billion construction project is running three years behind schedule…
But exposing the challenge to salvage the nation’s largest ever defence project, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann revealed that the first and second ships are now running 30 months behind schedule, and the final ship’s delivery date is now three years delayed until 2020. This is a further 15 month delay since the project was last “rebaselined” in 2012…
Senator Cormann said the group of up to 40 defence experts from Raytheon, Navantia and BAE to be deployed to the ASC shipyard in Adelaide would be contracted to help manage the project until July next year…
He said that the most recent advice was that the project was at least $600m over budget…
A shipbuilding source said all participants had been convinced by the government to cooperate, in recognition that future shipbuilding contracts — including Australia’s role in the future submarine project — would be jeopardised if the AWD project could not be salvaged…
The move comes after Defence Minister David Johnston last week said ASC could not be trusted to build a canoe...
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When will the Press Council be led by a warrior for free speech?

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (9:34am)

The overly censorious and Leftist Press Council gets a new head:

THE Australian Press Council has appointed a University of Sydney law professor to replace chairman Julian Disney when he steps down in March. 

Professor David Weisbrot, an Emeritus Professor of Law and Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney, will take over the role on March 1.
Bad omens:
NEW Australian Press Council chairman David Weisbrot will be leading an organisation whose constitution requires it to challenge, where appropriate, “political, legislative, commercial or other developments which may adversely affect the dissemination of information of public interest, and may consequently threaten the public’s right to know”. In 2008, however, when Professor Weisbrot was president of the Australian Law Reform Commission, that organisation called for a new way of suing the media for invasions of privacy. 

It had no public interest defence nor a ­defence of truth.
It would have enabled publishers to be stripped of profits and subjected to court ­orders to destroy materials.
At the time, media lawyer Peter Bartlett said: “This is an ­extraordinary attack on the freedom of the press in this country.”
Professor Weisbrot has one of the main requirements for leadership of the Press Council: he has never been involved in the media as a proprietor or employee… When Professor Weisbrot takes over from Julian Disney, he will be the beneficiary of a selection process in which representatives of publishers are in the minority.
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Nagging you into warmist submission

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (9:12am)

The sheer volume of the warmist propaganda in The Age would be enough to crush some readers into submission.
Just from today’s paper, these stories - all preaching the paper’s faith:
- Julie Bishop outflanks Prime Minister Tony Abbott on climate change conference...
- One of the more hilarious neologisms of the 21st century is the term “warmist”, a snarky word used by those who don’t believe in climate change to refer to those who do - to wit, the overwhelming majority of credible scientists and the civilian sheeple who figure that said scientists probably know best…
- Australia is the worst-performing developed nation when it comes to climate-change action, with the Abbott government’s scrapping of the carbon price cementing its lowly ranking, a survey by European non-government organisations shows…
- Six out of 10 of Australians think Tony Abbott’s Direct Action plan in place of the carbon price is an inadequate policy to address global warming, according to the latest Fairfax Ipsos poll…
- A former energy adviser to US President Barack Obama has described the direction of Australian climate policy as “unfortunate”, particularly for the economy...
And The Age also publishes yet another report from a warmist journalist sent to the Lima climate change talks by the Clean Energy Foundation, representing companies which profit from the warming scare:
The author of the ground-breaking 2006 Stern Report into the economics of global warming is backing a push by the United States to ensure a new global climate agreement is not legally binding.
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Peter Reith: Go in even harder

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (8:54am)

Former Liberal Minister Peter Reith is right - go in harder on the economics argument:
The Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the Treasurer Joe Hockey missed the opportunity in last week’s statement on the National Accounts to spell out the need for more cuts.
And the weekend announcement to change the paid parental leave (PPL) is just tinkering: instead the government should drop the PPL, drop the company tax increase that goes with it and stop making claims such as saying the economy will be better next year.
The truth is that commodity prices are falling, unemployment and youth unemployment are going in the wrong direction, the latest GDP figures are not good and many families are feeling the pinch of falling living standards…
First and foremost, the Australian public voted for Tony Abbott to clean up Labor’s economic mess. And if he does not give it his best shot then he will be putting his political future at risk…
Abbott does not have many options. He could claim he has done better than Labor and, given the reality of the most difficult Senate since 1975, now all he can do is soldier on; a recipe for slow political death. Another approach might be to accept Labor’s claim that there is no problem: a recipe for a Labor win in 2016. The third option is to go harder and make fiscal reform his No. 1 priority and, if necessary, put the government’s future on the line.
The third option is preferable because it is in the country’s best interest. We cannot go on living beyond our means…
He should start by going much stronger on explaining the collapse in commodity prices and the risks of higher unemployment and falling family incomes if we don’t get a grip on the budget....
A fillip would be to use the MYEFO to finally dump spending commitments already announced by Abbott. He should scrap the $20 billion medical fund, the PPL and slash the $50 billion infrastructure spending, which is a state responsibility anyway.
- The economy is still one area where the Coalition is ahead of Labor.
- The easiest cuts to make are cuts to spending you haven’t started
- The Paid Parental Leave scheme will be hard to get through the Senate and the battle will shout the message that the government wants to spend when it tells us it must cut. A badly mixed message.
- There is a backbench keen for something to fight on. This is the best battleground for them.
Fight.
UPDATE
Henry Ergas on the bungled sale of the Medicare co-payment:
>...displaying a stunning lack of political judgment, the government has treated voters to a half-baked proposal backed by a jumble of explanations. Is the co-payment intended to reduce the deficit, as Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann have claimed? Why then devote its receipts to added spending on medical research? Or is it a price signal aimed at encouraging more efficient use of primary care, as Peter Dutton has suggested? If so, what evidence is there that it would achieve that goal without imposing unnecessary social costs?
With so poorly articulated a rationale, it is unsurprising that the co-payment is floundering; and much the same could be said about the paid parental leave scheme. That is not to argue that the PPL scheme lacks merit. The problem, however, is that it places the government in the position of advocating a major new expenditure program while foreshadowing harsh cuts to public spending. A better established government, with more political capital, might have managed that tension; this one can’t. 
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CFMEU unleashed. Why are Victoria’s Liberals silent?

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (8:21am)

The CFMEU uses its muscle to shut down a project just one week after the election of a new Labor Government in Victoria:
THE CFMEU has told builders it plans to shut down an Aldi construction site for “the foreseeable future” after stopping work on the supermarket for a second day.
The Herald Sun again saw CFMEU representatives block off the site at Millers Rd, Altona on Monday, after Geelong-based builder Magellan Projects was forced to abandon work on Friday.
CFMEU representatives again refused access to trucks carrying building materials, parking a car across the fenced-off site’s entrance to prevent them getting inside…
The Herald Sun understands the CFMEU has taken issue with Magellan Projects as it does not have a union-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreement and “owes money to people in the industry”.
Why are the Liberals not making an issue of this thuggery? Didn’t they claim this would be the price of a Labor victory? Don’t they now care? Have they lost their identity and their passion?
It may be time for either a new party or a movement to clean out the trimmers and time-servers in this one.
(Thanks to readers Steve, Dave and Keith.) 
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Fairfax reports surprise finding: warming alarmists cross the carbon tax is gone

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (7:23am)

The Sydney Morning Herald’s paid climate alarmists believes this propaganda counts as news:
Australia is the worst-performing developed nation when it comes to climate-change action, with the Abbott government’s scrapping of the carbon price cementing its lowly ranking, a survey by European non-government organisations shows…
“While the developed world is going in one direction, Australia is going in the opposite,” said Guy Ragen, a climate change campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, which helped compile the findings.
My own specially commissioned survey of expert climate commentators has Australia ranked at the top of the world for climate realism. Could the Herald give my press release a run, too?  
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No immunity from naivety

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (7:09am)

Professor Peter Doherty, winner of a Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, demonstrates the folly of assuming expertise in one area means expertise in many. Indeed, a man who praises Clive Palmer’s party might fairly be judged to lack wisdom, and the eco-alarmism simply confirms it:

image
No self awareness, I suggest, given one tweet peddling the most absurd scare (one hot day in Brisbane suggests world-wide warming) is immediately followed by a tweet denouncing fear-mongering:
image
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Scandal! Conservative author wins prize

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (6:29am)

image
A Prime Minister’s Literary Award for the first time I can recall goes to an openly conservative writer who has exposed how militant unions damaged Australia’s war effort in World War Two.
One of the losers, Leftist Mike Carlton, is apoplectic.
image
Leftist historian Peter Stanley, denouncer of “Anzackery” and self-proclaimed “media go-to guy”, is angry Tony Abbott wasn’t booed as he handed writers yet more taxpayers’ cash:
image
From the blurb for Colebatch’s book:
Hal Colebatch’s new book, Australia’s Secret War, tells the shocking, true, but until now largely suppressed and hidden story of the war waged from 1939 to 1945 by a number of key Australian trade unions against their own society and against the men and women of their own country’s fighting forces at the time of its gravest peril....Between 1939 and 1945 virtually every major Australian warship, including at different times its entire force of cruisers, was targeted by strikes, go-slows and sabo­tage. Australian soldiers operating in New Guinea and the Pacific Islands went without food, radio equipment and munitions, and Aus­tralian warships sailed to and from combat zones without ammunition, because of strikes at home. Planned rescue missions for Australian prisoners-of-war in Borneo were abandoned because wharf strikes left rescuers without heavy weapons. Officers had to restrain Australian and American troops from killing striking trade unionists.
Judge’s comments:

Hal. G. P. Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War relates a neglected chapter in the history of Australia during World War Two. Based on letters, diaries, memoirs and interviews rather than on official hand-outs, it shows in telling and often shocking detail how strikes by a minority of trade unionists in essential industries sabotaged the war effort both during and after the Hitler-Stalin pact.
To order, go here.
Tim Blair has lots more fun. 
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The rise of the new racism: universities crumble

Andrew Bolt December 09 2014 (5:13am)

Nick Cater on the fashionable new racism and the rise of the barbarian Left:
THE barbarism of the modern Australian university is an ugly sight to behold. On a Friday afternoon in October, a vigilante mob assembled on the University of Sydney campus to denounce Barry Spurr, a distinguished professor of poetry and poetics and an intellectual treasure. 

A wide-eyed Trot from the ­lunatic fringe, Ridah Hassan, poured scorn on Spurr as “racist scum” before revealing her own ethnological prejudice. Spurr was not only “a vile bigot” but “a rich white bastard” to boot.
They marched to the John Woolley Building and Spurr’s empty office, scrawling swearwords across his door in permanent marker. With that, the lawlessness, intimidation, foul language, disruption and vandalism was over for another day.
Michael Warren Davis, a Bostonian studying English at the University of Sydney, describes these disturbing scenes in an article in December’s Quadrant.
“The country’s finest academic institution is happy to let professional rabble-rousers skip class to hijack its campus and insult its most accomplished faculty members,” he writes.
The administration had capitulated to hundreds of caustic 20-year-olds who insult and abuse a 60-something-year-old who has given the better part of his life to that institution.
“There would be no University of Sydney without men like Barry Spurr,” writes Davis, “and there would be no Australia without the Western civilisation he defends.”
How fashionable is that new racism?:

If only Ergas were black. [Bernard] Keane in Crikey on December 8 after the carbon tax repeal:

IT’S an attack, primarily, of old white men, men in complete denial about climate change, on the future and on the young.
Not just old white men. Keane on Twitter on April 3:

WHAT we really need is a system where there’s free speech for middle-aged white men and their companies, and everyone else has to STFU.
We’re starting to guess Keane is the only vaguely acceptable white man around. On Twitter on June 23:

The White Man’s Burden — only conservative white men know how to properly use free speech and are the only ones who can be trusted with it.
Ruby Hamad in The Age:
It’s a clever trick, getting non-white people to spout racist rhetoric…
Whiteness is essentially those cultural beliefs, practices, norms and values that are sanctioned by white, western society.. Rise Up Australia is an example of how you can share in the bounty of white privilege even if you are not white, as long as you are willing to play by the rules. And one of these rules is to talk about race in a way that legitimises the dominance of white culture. 
Erin Riley in The Age:
Before the game, a friend texted me a screenshot from Channel Seven’s coverage, showing the commentators’ predictions for the final score, with the caption “Who do the white men think will win?”
Yet the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association, representing Australian academics, was still concerned last week that the whites were winning this race war declared by the Left:
2014 Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Conference,
Brisbane, Queensland, 4-5 December…
This conference aims to reinstate the importance of the study of race. The study of race, racialization and racism runs the risk of being relegated to the role of junior partner in the coupling of ‘Critical Race and Whiteness Studies’. The seeming ascendance of Whiteness Studies is not altogether unproblematic, particularly in relation to perceptions that the discipline has been enlisted in the service of recuperating white virtue. 
Some lectures, outlining the sneaky ways this wicked whiteness is being imposed:
Harjeet Badwall…
Being brown and teaching whiteness… I argue that academics of colour are expected to perform whiteness, while at the same time, they are perceived as a threat within the academy… To begin, I will examine the ways in which innocence is reinscribed through moral technologies that shape ‘who’ the good social worker (or educator) is and how these ideas translate into our teaching about social work practice. I will draw extensively from my current research to illustrate how social work education remains focused on the needs of white students…

Nilmini Fernando…
Just as colonial discourses racialized, sexualized and fetishized women of colour to ‘market’ white supremacy, contemporary asylum and security discourses appropriate and deploy black female bodies as objects of western humanitarianism to re-articulate ‘whiteness’. Drawing from a participatory Feminist research project with African women in Irish asylum, I first take readings of whitely humanitarian scripts that cycle through global, national and local economies of representation…
Jennifer Nielsen…
McLeod v Power (2003) involved a complaint by a white prison guard (McLeod) against an Aboriginal woman (Power) under the racial hatred provisions in the Race Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). During an altercation, Power abused McLeod, describing him as a ‘white piece of shit’ and commented, ‘f… you whites you’re all f...ing shit’. McLeod’s complaint failed because the Federal Magistrate found that ‘white’ did not refer to a racial identity and that a reasonable person would not be ‘offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated’ by Power’s words. While I agree with the outcome, I remain troubled by the Magistrates’ reasoning on the capacity of a reference to ‘white’ to impart racial identity… Power was talking about race and the Magistrate (perhaps pragmatically) failed to hear her. By leaving whiteness invisible (because ‘race’ is about ‘others’ not white people), the Magistrates’ reasoning precluded any examination of the way race ‘matters’ in some groups’ daily lives.
Even whites helping Aborigines is racist:
Sam Schulz and Daisy Miller…
This paper explores the racialised underpinnings of teaching in contemporary Australia in two discrete ways; first, by interrogating a set of ‘voluntourism’ advertisements pitched at pre-service teachers in a metropolitan Australian university. And second, by closely examining the desires of ‘white’ teachers to work in remote communities in the desert. The former exploration sets the scene for understanding the largely covert ways in which discourses of race and whiteness continue to inform ‘white’ teachers’ desires to ‘help’ Aboriginal students in remote locations ...

Tony Abbott’s plan to recognise Aborigines in the Constitution is also denounced as racist, which I actually believe, too - although for very different reasons. I think it will institutionalise differences of “race”, but Gordon Chalmers protests it simply helps whites control blacks:
Gordon Chalmers
The Con-stitutional Re-cognition (s)Cam-pain: re-cognising First Nations peoples’ ontological subordination in the supreme colonial authoritative piece of paper…
The rhetoric surrounding this campaign suggests that it will result in a just, albeit delayed, recognition of Indigenous peoples. However, beneath the surface of this seemingly benevolent gesture is a reaffirmation of the subordination and colonisation of the several hundred original nations’ peoples and ontologies; another step towards the total erasure of those peoples who represent the strongest forms of colonial resistance… The effect of maintaining special measures-associated categories of indigenous identities is to effectively re-cognise, to yet again understand, aboriginal peoples in the Constitution as deficient beings who are in need of control so as to erase their (rightful) colonial resistance by becoming normalised as ‘Australian’.
And implicitly acknowledging this new racism:
Chelsea Bond…
In the Australian colonial context, blood talk operated as a critical tool of oppression and was the ‘standard test’ for classifying Aboriginality and measuring the dilution of race. While these essentialised notions of race have been resisted by an anti-racist discourse, today Aboriginal people draw upon notions of blood in articulating their identities. Thus Aboriginal blood talk sits at an awkward juncture in race politics; it can be seen to represent a ‘false consciousness’ of sorts, a taking on of colonial oppression, creating a quaint but ultimately unfashionable narrative of identity. Yet it also represents a steadfast ‘talking back’, a refusal to follow the trajectory of a white rendition of race and blood. ..  
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Post by Animal Equality.

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Post by Matt Granz.

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=== Posts from last year ===

FAIR SHAKE

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (1:30pm)

A bus driver had been awarded $400,000 for tomato sauce trauma.
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TEST PASSED

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (1:28pm)

My claim: 
Those who refer to Nelson Mandela by his clan name of Madiba are fantastic poseurs. 
Imre Salusinszky’s response: 
The test of that, my friend, will be Fitzsimons’s column tomorrow ... 
Indeed. Here we go: 
My most compelling memory of Nelson Mandela was when, attending the opening ceremony of the 1995 World Cup in South Africa, the great man came out on to the field. As one, 50,000 white South Africans got to their feet and cheered him, punching their fists into the air, and roaring ‘’Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!’’ All this, just a few kilometres from Robben Island, where he had been imprisoned for 18 of the 27 years he spent behind bars until his release in 1990. The atmosphere was electric, just as it was four weeks later when Mandela came out on to the field for the Springboks v All Blacks final, wearing the No.6 jersey of the Springboks captain, Francois Pienaar … and the people roared once more. Invictus did not get close to capturing the magnificence of the moment. No book could capture the greatness of the man. Vale, Madiba. 
It took a while, but the master eventually got there.
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BLONDE JOURNALISM

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (5:38am)

Shock! Paris Hilton isn’t the stupidest person on Twitter.
Far from it, in fact. But the popular hotel heiress and amateur video enthusiast does have a certain reputation, so Hilton was an easy target for mockery in the wake of Nelson Mandela’s death last week.
Someone quickly composed a fake tweet in Hilton’s name. “RIP Nelson Mandela,” it read. “Your ‘I Have A Dream’ speech was so inspiring. An amazing man.”
Ha ha ha. Poor dumb Paris. Why, she’d be exactly the type to confuse the former South African president with Martin Luther King Jr! Everyone had a good laugh at the silly blonde before getting all serious about the political implications of Mandela’s death.
And that’s when the real idiots stepped forward.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'BLONDE JOURNALISM'
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NAMELESS AND SHAMELESS

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (4:52am)

Back in August, Fairfax’s Jonathan Swan revealed an astonishing story of Labor infighting. Swan cited “multiple sources” from the Prime Minister’s office and among Kevin Rudd’s campaign team, some of whom offered these devastating – but anonymous – quotes: 
“The majority of people in HQ actually hate Rudd.”
“I don’t want us to win under Rudd.” 
Swan, however, only revealed this story on Twitter. Despite having government sources who declared that they wanted Labor to lose, no such story ever appeared in the Fairfax press. Swan’s explanation: 
Swan told The Australian he did not report the story elsewhere because “they were unnamed sourcesand that didn’t seem like stringent journalism to me”. 
Let’s see how that journalistic stringency is holding up under the new government. On the weekend, Swan contributed to a Fairfax piece slamming Peta Credlin, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff. Check the primary sources for this story: 
… anonymous briefings to journalists …
… anonymous attacks through the media …
… cabinet sources …
… one source who witnessed the exchange …
Not a lot of names there. How did this meet Fairfax’s (and Swan’s) standards for “stringent journalism”?
UPDATE. Jonathan Swan calls to point out that his only contribution to this multi-bylined piece were the quotes from Senator Mathias Cormann, who obviously was named – responding to anonymous quotes. Fairfax, however, remains on the hook.
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HANG IN THERE, HONEY

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (4:02am)

Only $39,997.99 for a TV? Sign me up for two! (Scroll down to customer reviews for the story of Amanda, her TV-buying parents, and white slavery.)
(Via Irobot)
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HELEN WHEELS

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (3:50am)

Sometimes bad parkers need a strong message:

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(Via Instapundit)
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CHINS MUSIC

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (3:09am)

Wandering around Liverpool in the UK a few months ago, I encountered a fellow who wore his hatred of Australia with pride. The lardy lad was clad in a t-shirt bearing the hand-written words: “He bowls to the left, he bowls to the right, that Mitchell Johnson, his bowling is shite.”
It would be interesting to find out if this chap has recently updated his wardrobe. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'CHINS MUSIC'
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HAIL THE WHISTLE-BLOWER

Tim Blair – Monday, December 09, 2013 (2:32am)

For many years, a helpful spy deep within the ABC has kept me up to date with the beloved billion-dollar broadcaster’s internal communications.
Earlier in 2013, for example, Marieke – er, I mean, my completely anonymous ABC source, ahem – forwarded an internal email sent to ABC staff from the organisation’s NSW news editor Donald Lange. He was upset about the ABC’s inability to correctly pronounce a certain difficult word.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'HAIL THE WHISTLE-BLOWER'
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MASSIVE

Tim Blair – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (6:44pm)

Catherine Deveny reports on a gigantic feminist cycling rally: 
The glorious Clementine Ford addresses the massive and final PushyWomen ride for 2013. 
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Is offering money to an MP’s lawyers - on condition - an offence?

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (10:41am)

This needs some investigation:
LABOR senator Sam Dastyari has avoided a potentially awkward court battle by settling a claim from Craig Thomson’s lawyer Chris McArdle alleging that he reneged on a promise to pay the then independent MP’s legal fees. 
Mr McArdle told The Australian the civil case was settled on mutually satisfactory terms, which under the deal are confidential.
Senator Dastyari has repeatedly denied Mr McArdle’s claims that in a meeting at the lawyer’s office, the then NSW ALP general secretary had promised to find $35,000 to help pay Mr Thomson’s mounting legal debts in his fight against union corruption allegations. The settlement late last week came a day before Mr Thomson was due to file a sworn statement to the court which, Mr McArdle earlier told The Australian, would claim Senator Dastyari had promised to cover the former Labor member of parliament’s legal fees if he agreed to move quietly to the backbench.
How much of members’ money has Labor now donated to Craig Thomson to fight charges relating to what he did with his expenses as a union boss? Do such payments - as alleged - amount to an inducement of a member of parliament, and, if so, should police investigate? 
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We should not spend a dollar on failing companies with featherbed wages

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (10:23am)

Paul Sheehan: 
At Qantas, two years ago, several unions led staff through months of rolling industrial action, guerilla tactics and disruptions of service, accompanied by vituperative class warfare by union officials. It was designed to bring management to its knees unless unions got the pay rises and job security they were demanding… 
Qantas bought short-term peace but the price was long-term decline. It has an unsustainable cost base. Now shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has declared that Qantas is too important to fail and urged the government to consider making a direct equity injection.
This is classic Labor: subsidise the unions, rather than restructure the company, and pass on the cost to taxpayers…
Holden management also warrants a bucketing. As noted in February last year: ‘’Over the past seven years [the GM Holden collective bargaining agreement] has delivered a cumulative wage increase of 29 per cent, an average of more than 4 per cent per year - a real increase over inflation.’’… It raises the question: why are Australian taxpayers being asked to make sacrifices, via subsidising higher costs, that the local auto-makers and their staff have not themselves been willing to make?’’
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Flannery should explain past dud predictions before whipping up fresh scares

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (9:39am)

Global warming - dud predictions, Global warming - propaganda

Professional alarmist Tim Flannery whips up more fear by exploiting bushfires which he falsely claims were “unusual” and “unprecedented”:
In October, huge bushfires devastated communities, property and livelihoods in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Tragically, two lives were lost. As the Climate Council’s first major report makes clear, our changing climate is increasing the chances of similar events in future. 
Yes, bushfires are part of the Australian experience, but large and severe bushfires in October are unusual… The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria were also preceded by extreme fire danger conditions: a decade-long drought and a number of record hot years, all compounded by a heatwave in the week prior. The ferocity of these fires was unprecedented, and so severe were they that they broke the record for the Forest Fire Danger Index, and a new category - ‘’catastrophic’’ or ‘’code red’’ - was added. 
As I’ve shown several times already, even the 2009 Black Saturday fires were far from our biggest recorded - in 1851.  NSW has had several severe October fires that were bigger and deadlier than this year’s.
What’s more, Flannery claims the NSW fires were the product of unusual heat and dryness: 
Hot, dry conditions create conditions favourable for bushfires. Australia has just experienced its hottest 12 months ever recorded.
And, of course, that’s the kind of global warming Flannery was warning of in 2005:
I’M afraid that the science around climate change is firming up fairly quickly . . . we’ve seen just drought, drought, drought, and particularly regions like Sydney and the Warragamba catchment—if you look at the Warragamba catchment figures, since 98 the water has been in virtual freefall, and they’ve got about two years of supply left . . . 
Maxine McKew: But. . . we won’t see a return to more normal patterns?
Flannery: . . . they do seem to be of a permanent nature.
In fact, the world hasn’t warmed for 15 years, the fires followed years of good rains which built up fuel load and - incidentally - Warragamba is at 92.6 per cent capacity.
Why do Fairfax newspapers still treat Flannery seriously? Why no fact-checking of his claims?
Here’s a suggestion. Why not ask Flannery for an article explaining this prediction of his from 2008, just brought to my attention by reader Richard:
Just imagine yourself in a world five years from now, when there is no more ice over the Arctic, when we stand under threat of a rapidly warming Arctic Ocean, when we’re starting to see the first destabilisation of the Greenland ice cap, and all of those things happening because we don’t have a solution, because if things advance that rapidly we simply will not have a solution, in terms of reducing emissions. Then you’ve got to start pulling in your last-ditch efforts. 
Arctic ice cover five years later:
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Not a croc story

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (9:20am)

Rachel Hancock is the first woman to edit the NT News, a paper I used to sell as a boy. People wondered: how would the paper’s culture change? Would Hancock make it less blokey and less obsessed with stories of crocodiles?
The answer is yes. Here is the new feminised NT News, full of compelling reading with not a croc in sight:

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Love it.
(Via Andrew Landeryou, a sad loss to blogging.) 
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The Left’s hatred risks turning lethal

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (9:18am)

Culture wars, How the Left hates

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A WORD to the Left. Hasn’t this bastardry gone too far? What do you want: bodies in the street?
Three examples from the past week shocked me.
Example 1. The ABC’s main TV news bulletin in Brisbane last Thursday showed the exterior and street number of the home of Bill Mellor, a decorated former army brigadier, and gave out his suburb.
Mellor’s wife was in tears and police rushed in to secure the house.
The reason? As the ABC report pointed out, Mellor was co-ordinating the Queensland Government’s war against criminal bikie gangs linked to murder, rape, drug trafficking and extortion.
Why on earth did the ABC show bikies the home of the man overseeing the fight against them that has led to nearly 400 arrests? How could his home be relevant to its report?
There may be an innocent explanation involving extreme stupidity, but Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and others, me included, also suspect bias.
(Read full article here.)  
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Would you create a $1.2 billion-a-year ABC today?

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (9:14am)

Boy On A Bike asks for help:
If we lived in a world where the ABC did not exist in 2013 (ie, it had never been created), what reasons could be given for creating an ABC in 2014? 
Go ahead, give it your best shot. If Turnbull was asking for $1 billion to create this entity, what arguments would he be making in public for the annual expenditure of this money? 
I’ve got my thinking cap on……..can’t think of anything so far. Help me out here.
(Thanks to reader Gab, who is stumped.) 
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But a hot day in June is called global warming

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (9:08am)

image
The next time some warmist spreads panic about a hot day in winter, remember this picture of Thredbo and the summer snow in Victoria:
Snow falling. In Australia. In summer. That is all
(Thanks to reader Viperous.) 
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Column - Mandela’s greatness does not excuse his backing of tyrants and terrorists

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (8:26am)

imageimageimage
MUCH of the sanctimonious grieving for Nelson Mandela is not just a sin against history - but a danger.
It is true Mandela rose to greatness. Freed after 27 years in a South African jail, the anti-apartheid fighter emerged not bent on vengeance but healing.
He negotiated a peaceful end to apartheid, and as the first president of democratic South Africa, preached - and practised - reconciliation. In this he was great. A healer. An inspiration.
For many whites abroad, he seems even Christ-like - someone who’d suffered for the sins of white guilt, and absolved those who believed in him of the sin of racism.
But Mandela was no Christ nor even Gandhi nor Martin Luther King. He was for decades a man of violence.
(Read full article here.)
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If Holden doesn’t want the handout, the handout wouldn’t save it

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (7:48am)

The money might or might not be too much. But why won’t Holden say if it actually wants it? 
The Abbott government has confidential documents that show it would cost less than $150 million extra a year to keep Holden in Australia until 2025, says former industry minister Kim Carr… 
The claim comes as a dominant group of Coalition ministers says the government can do nothing to keep Holden in Australia, because the company has made up its mind and “doesn’t want to be saved"… A spokesman said Holden would not “engage in speculation” and refused to say whether it had already decided to leave Australia. 
If Holden is pulling out anyway, then Carr’s claim that “just” $150 million more a year would save it is plainly false. 
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An offer too good to refuse

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (7:44am)

Win win: 
Mr Bakr was one of at least 20 men whose passports have been cancelled by ASIO on the grounds they were prepared to engage in politically motivated violence or had a ‘’jihadist mentality’’… 
Wissam Haddad, a spokesman for the 20 men, said he knew of at least 45 Sydney Muslims who have had their passports cancelled or bank accounts frozen, often without warning or the ability to provide evidence in their defence.
Mr Haddad said the men were so incensed that, if they could, they would leave the country and not return. ‘’...These people are willing to hand in their citizenship and not return if they’re not welcome here.’’
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Defenders of laws against offending people shouldn’t be so offensive. Note well, Mark Leibler

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (7:22am)

Free speech

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz says those of us wanting to scrap section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 are dishonest:
If people genuinely think it should be legal for Australians to harass others on the basis of race, then they are welcome to make that argument. What’s troubling about the anti-18C campaign is its dishonesty… 
But then, being honest about 18C makes it harder to spin the provision as a threat to free speech, and nobody wants to openly defend racial harassment. Do they?
Samuel J rebuts Meyerowitz-Katz’s outrageous smear:
It suggests that those who oppose section 18C are automatically supporters of racial abuse. That is a type of false dilemma. 
I support absolute freedom of speech, which is presently best expressed in the United States under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. But I do not support racial abuse.
Meyerowith-Katz cannot comprehend the difference. For him, the State should regulate our conduct and our behaviour. Only someone with a blinker could argue.. Au contraire. Racial abuse of the type covered by section 18C is the province of good manners.
I made a similar argument last week:
Diversity Council of Australia CEO Nareen Young ... tries to scare gays and lesbians into believing the Abbott Government’s planned repeal of parts of the Racial Discrimination Act will unleash a torrent of abuse - and against them, too:
If the RDA is amended to remove section 18C that makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people because of their race, does that mean that words like ‘wog’, ‘gook’, ‘slope’, ‘kike’ or ‘coon’ become acceptable in the course of the working day or night? What next? Will equivalent sections of the Sex Discrimination Act be repealed so that describing a co-worker as a ‘slut’, ‘hag‘, ‘silly cow‘ or ‘bitch’ is not deemed to be offensive? 
It is pretty clear where this could be heading for the LGBTI community....  I mean, really, if ‘Abo’, ‘coon’, ‘dago’ or ‘slope’ are ok, the inevitable question from some quarters will be why are ‘the gays’ being so sensitive?
This is almost as obscene as it is absurd.
No one I know who supports these reforms thinks the insults Young lists are “acceptable”, “OK” or not offensive. What is offensive is the suggestion that this argument about the RDA is about making such insults “OK”. On the contrary, they were not socially acceptable before the law was passed and will not be after.
The truth is that there are many things more powerful - yet more democratic and less chafing - than the law to enforce good manners and I expect they to remain powerful. These are the social sanctions that are present in every healthy community. 
The latest line of defence of the RDA is offensive, false and, I suspect, not honest. It is an argument by vilification - reductio ad villainum - which is curious from people claiming we need laws to stop insults.
And again: I believe Jewish community leaders now leading the charge to defend the RDA have seriously misread the lessons of their community’s tragic history. The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, for whom Meyerowitz-Katz speaks, is profoundly wrong about this and is now publicly insulting people it privately supports.
AIJAC chairman Mark Leibler is causing more harm than he realises by sanctioning this vilification of people whose free speech his community and organisation has relied upon. Mark, making me collateral damage in your campaign is something I cannot forgive. 
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Hilton too good for Mike

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (6:55am)

Mike Carlton makes Paris Hilton seem a genius.
And isn’t Mandela a hero for wanting reconciliation? Then why do some of his professed admirers use his name to vilify others? 
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It’s not the principle but the side with The Age

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (6:46am)

Fairfax reporter Jonathan Swan doesn’t report stories from “unnamed sources” because that’s not “stringent journalism”. But when unnamed sources smear a Liberal instead...
UPDATE
In fairness, the piece smearing Peta Credlin on the say-so of “sources” did not originally carry Swan’s byline but that of two other Age reporters. Swan tweets that he contributed only a sourced quote some time later, so he’s off the hook for hypocrisy.  
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Conroy Awards

Andrew Bolt December 09 2013 (6:34am)

Neck Leys hands out  the Conroy Media Awards for 2013 for leakers, whingers, main chancers and a man with a glass jaw who had the hide to sool a lawyer onto me, too. 
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If Hanson-Young has a case, Chris Kenny sure does

Andrew BoltDECEMBER092013(4:33pm)

The ABC said it was perfectly entitled to televise a doctored picture of a conservative critic having sex with a dog, under the banner “Chris Kenny, dog f...er”.
But a judge has ruled it’s probably off merely to photoshop the face of a Greens MP onto the body of a bikini model:
In a decision that paves the way for the matter to proceed to a jury trial next year, NSW Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum ... said all four of the defamatory imputations claimed by the senator “were capable of being made out"… 
“To say of a politician that he or she is not serious does specify [defamatory] imputation of that politician which is capable of being considered to arise.”
Justice McCallum also said that the publication was “reasonably capable of conveying that, by reason of her pro asylum seeker stance, the plaintiff was justifiably exposed to ridicule”.
I’m actually amazed that Hanson-Young has shown herself to be so censorious, and worried that a judge has given her such comfort. There should be nothing wrong in claiming Hanson-Young is ridiculous and and not serious. In fact, I believe she is as irresponsible and self-regarding as a child.
But the judgment at least sets up a direct comparison on how judges treat a Greens MP and a conservative who have both been mocked by photoshopped images. Although I must say that having your head photoshopped onto a bikini model’s body is infinitely less offensive than being shown sodomising a dog.
If I were the ABC, I’d start preparing an exit strategy.
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Christian Porter gives maiden a speech. Well, a married woman

Andrew BoltDECEMBER092013(4:25pm)

Christian Porter, the former WA Treasurer, is one of the federal Liberals’ finest recruits in the last election. He should have now sewn up the women’s vote with this tribute to his wife in his maiden speech in Parliament today: 
I am perhaps a bit slow to give my wife public compliments. But as Ray Charles said, ‘wake up boy, because a girl like that aint going to wait all night.’ So here is my compliment to my wife…
Jennifer, if I were told that it were within in my power to go back to the 1970s to watch Dennis Lillee bowl again at the WACA, that I could take all my friends, that Sir Isaiah Berlin and Han Solo would be special guests and James Reyne would do an acoustic set during the lunch break, but the one catch was that you couldn’t attend with me, then I wouldn’t bother.
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AWU scandal: magistrate rules Slater & Gordon documents were arguably part of a fraud

Andrew BoltDECEMBER092013(4:08pm)

 The AWU scandal
This scandal was nearly buried - not least by Julia Gillard and her media supporters: 
Magistrate Peter Lauritsen today ruled that lead investigator Ross Mitchell could access 363 documents, seized by a warrant from law firm Slater & Gordon, over which former AWU boss Bruce Wilson claimed privilege…
Mr Wilson is being investigated amid allegations he used the AWU Workplace Reform Association to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from construction giant Thiess and to purchase a house in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy.
Mr Wilson was in a long-term relationship with Julia Gillard when she provided legal advice to help to help establish the association while working at Slater & Gordon, later describing it to her employer as a “slush fund’’.
In his ruling, Mr Lauritsen said ...  “The evidence of Blewitt establishes that Thiess was deceived… It believed it was paying for a particular service. The association provided no such service.
“Wilson bought a home with some of Thiess’ payments. Only he knows what happened (to) the rest."…
Money was withdrawn from the fund to purchase the Fitzroy house in Mr Blewitt’s name at a 1993 auction, which Ms Gillard attended with Mr Wilson, who subsequently lived in the property.
Slater & Gordon handled the conveyancing and helped provide finance…
Ms Gillard has denied wrongdoing and said she had no knowledge of the fund’s operations other than it was a “slush fund’’ for the re-election of union officials.
Mr Wilson has not been charged with any offence and has similarly denied any wrongdoing.
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Matt Granz
People sometimes make me pause and wonder. 

It snowed in Yosemite and my friend Darvin Atkeson went there to document and make some fine art out of what he saw. 

His report included that while shooting he heard the sound of stomping feet and witnessed two photographers trashing an area where there had been pristine snow. One said to the other "there, that will keep anyone else from getting this shot!" To which my reply is... Really??? Talk about juvenile, and not respecting nature! I'm glad I wasn't there.... I might have done something equally stupid, such as calling them out very loudly.

Like I said... People sometimes realy cause me to wonder....
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10 things your boss won't tell you
http://www.news.com.au/business/worklife/things-your-boss-wont-tell-you/story-e6frfm9r-1226778645440
HAVE you ever suspected there are certain things the boss is keeping close to their chest?
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What kind of worker are you? Ask your parents
http://www.news.com.au/business/worklife/what-kind-of-worker-are-you-ask-your-parents/story-e6frfm9r-1226778944451
DO YOU work for the weekend, for better social status or to make a difference to the world?
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Scientists discover huge freshwater reserves beneath the ocean
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/scientists-discover-huge-freshwater-reserves-beneath-the-ocean/story-fnjww010-1226778644615
SCIENTISTS have discovered vast reserves of fresh water located deep beneath the ocean that could prevent a global water crisis.
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Nine shockingly low movie star salaries you'll find hard to believe
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/nine-shockingly-low-movie-star-salaries-youll-find-hard-to-believe/story-e6frfmvr-1226778982788
THEY'RE the filthy rich movie stars who land the lead roles, but these Hollywood heavyweights don't always rake in as much mulah as you might think.
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Magistrate says Slater & Gordon documents were part of AWU fraud
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/magistrate-says-slater-gordon-documents-were-part-of-awu-fraud/story-fng5kxvh-1226778847865
VICTORIA's chief magistrate has granted police investigating the AWU slush fund scandal access to hundreds of documents, finding they were part of a fraud and therefore not covered by legal privilege.
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That said, dealing with the Greens...a long shower with lots of soap-scrubbing is required ASAP. Yikes.>
Senate approves scrapping of debt ceiling
www.canberratimes.com.au
The deal between the Abbott government and the Greens to abolish Australia's debt ceiling has been approved in the Senate.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senate-approves-scrapping-of-debt-ceiling-20131209-2z0n9.html
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All of the Terrible Ways the Media Treated Women in 2013 in One Video
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/05/how-far-we-havent-come-all-of-the-terrible-ways-the-media-treated-women-in-2013-in-one-video/
How far we haven't come.
Lol, they forgot to include the corrupt and incompetent former Australian PM Julia Gillard. I can understand why the car dealers use 'sex sells' but don't accept that the image they portray is subservient and not sexy. For me, sexy is an Emma Watson asserting herself on her own terms. Miley's recent work just seems sad. I feel it is wrong to attribute misogyny to Hillary's critics .. many of whom applaud Palin. But if you can't criticise a politician for their effort, and need to rely on their looks, as that KFC meme does, and as those Palin critics do, then you've lost. - ed
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David Bowles
<Another compelling article on the dire need for culturally relevant and diverse children's literature.>
"You can’t do that! Stories have to be about White people”
mediadiversified.org
Young Writers of Colour by Hip Hop Teacher I’ve spent almost two decades teaching in English primary schools, which serve multiracial, multicultural, multifaith communities. I want to explore two t...
Aye, books movies, political positions .. I celebrate cultural diversity. But I despise the bean counting cultural imperialists who would have one believe that rich diversity be balanced with nuanced difference. Let there be those stories where race makes no difference .. it is challenging precisely because the rules of story telling suggest an issue raised should be resolved. - ed
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Stop rewarding 'romantic' stalker behaviour online
www.dailylife.com.au
Why setting up a web presence to track down a woman is neither romantic nor appropriate.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/stop-rewarding-romantic-stalker-behaviour-online-20131208-2yz5e.html
Happy ending .. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11169158
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False outrage distracts from fight against real racism
www.heraldsun.com.au
QUESTION: What's white, humourless and prone to sudden bouts of furious outrage? Answer: Australian do-gooders desperate to portray their country as a racist backwater.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/false-outrage-distracts-from-fight-against-real-racism/story-fni0fhh1-1226778152581
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Two school friends, Ellise Hayes, 12 and Gemma Donnelley, 13, thought it was a ‘‘cool’’ idea.

‘‘It’s good. It saves petrol. If you’re home alone you can just order,’’ Ellise said.

‘‘It’s not unhealthy. If you’re fat you shouldn’t [eat it]. But if you’re skinny you should.’’>

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/the-fats-in-the-firing-line-as-mcdonalds-home-delivers-20131207-2yy6s.html#ixzz2mvc9hZ28
  • David Daniel Ball Meh, when the drones begin, they'll be able to despatch breakfast orders too

  • 오사렘 You can already order online through their app & skip queues.

  • John Tran The drones will keep your food heated too..

  • David Daniel Ball .. the drones can prepare it in from of you?

  • John Tran ..state debt recovery drones will humiliate you in front of everyone on the street by announcing you have a 3rd fine outstanding in 2 months.. police drones will issue fines one the spot for J walking and littering..
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Daniel Bufkin
There were 2 Trees in the Garden Of Eden.... The Tree Of Life... and The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good and Evil.... Notice that the wrong tree involves "knowledge" of this world and those things that are considered to be Good and/or Evil.... Knowledge... Learning Of The Mind.... The Feeling Of Needing To "Understand" Is Usually Rooted In Unbelief and Doubt and Especially Fear.... Trying to "understand" is our source of Security instead of God's Love and Faithfulness being our Security.... We Falsely Think That "Controlling Everything and Everybody Around Us Will Bring Security and Happiness"..... But It Never Does..!!! The Right Tree To Eat From Is The Tree Of God's Life.... The Tree Of Life.... Partaking Of "The Life Of God' and Resting In God's Faithfulness and Love.... Learning Spiritual Truth instead of Head Knowledge.... Growing In Spiritual Strength instead of Mental Strength... Learning To ""Walk By Faith and Not By Sight""..!!!
Careful, brother. I want to encourage you, but I most point out that it isn't humble to stand before the Lord and say "I did not eat of that fruit." Instead, we have been blessed through grace. We have *some* knowledge, but not all of it. And we are to use it too, not bury it. My father knows my heart. I might see the devil, but I will hold fast to my father, the Lord. - ed
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Jimmy Kimmel Reminds Viewers Just How Sensitive Los Angeles Reporters Are To 'Cold' Weather...
http://www.thewrap.com/jimmy-kimmel-arctic-los-angeles-weather
A high of 50 degrees is just too low for local NBC, Fox and CBS affiliates
funny .. but it ain't global warming - ed
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Cleaning gadget switches on and moves onto hotplate in suicide bid
www.dailymail.co.uk
Local media in Kirchdorf, Austria have referred to the incident as 'robot suicide' and even suggested it was fed up with the constant cleaning it had to do.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2503733/Paranoid-android-Cleaning-gadget-switches-moves-kitchen-hotplate-suicide-bid.html
"I know now why you cry. But it is something I cannot do" - ed
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4 her

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“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy."
Revelation 3:4
We may understand this to refer to justification. "They shall walk in white;" that is, they shall enjoy a constant sense of their own justification by faith; they shall understand that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them, that they have all been washed and made whiter than the newly-fallen snow.
Again, it refers to joy and gladness: for white robes were holiday dresses among the Jews. They who have not defiled their garments shall have their faces always bright; they shall understand what Solomon meant when he said "Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart. Let thy garments be always white, for God hath accepted thy works." He who is accepted of God shall wear white garments of joy and gladness, while he walks in sweet communion with the Lord Jesus. Whence so many doubts, so much misery, and mourning? It is because so many believers defile their garments with sin and error, and hence they lose the joy of their salvation, and the comfortable fellowship of the Lord Jesus, they do not here below walk in white.
The promise also refers to walking in white before the throne of God. Those who have not defiled their garments here shall most certainly walk in white up yonder, where the white-robed hosts sing perpetual hallelujahs to the Most High. They shall possess joys inconceivable, happiness beyond a dream, bliss which imagination knoweth not, blessedness which even the stretch of desire hath not reached. The "undefiled in the way" shall have all this--not of merit, nor of works, but of grace. They shall walk with Christ in white, for he has made them "worthy." In his sweet company they shall drink of the living fountains of waters.

Evening

"Thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor."
Psalm 68:10
All God's gifts are prepared gifts laid up in store for wants foreseen. He anticipates our needs; and out of the fulness which he has treasured up in Christ Jesus, he provides of his goodness for the poor. You may trust him for all the necessities that can occur, for he has infallibly foreknown every one of them. He can say of us in all conditions, "I knew that thou wouldst be this and that." A man goes a journey across the desert, and when he has made a day's advance, and pitched his tent, he discovers that he wants many comforts and necessaries which he has not brought in his baggage. "Ah!" says he, "I did not foresee this: if I had this journey to go again, I should bring these things with me, so necessary to my comfort." But God has marked with prescient eye all the requirements of his poor wandering children, and when those needs occur, supplies are ready. It is goodness which he has prepared for the poor in heart, goodness and goodness only. "My grace is sufficient for thee." "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
Reader, is your heart heavy this evening? God knew it would be; the comfort which your heart wants is treasured in the sweet assurance of the text. You are poor and needy, but he has thought upon you, and has the exact blessing which you require in store for you. Plead the promise, believe it and obtain its fulfilment. Do you feel that you never were so consciously vile as you are now? Behold, the crimson fountain is open still, with all its former efficacy, to wash your sin away. Never shall you come into such a position that Christ cannot aid you. No pinch shall ever arrive in your spiritual affairs in which Jesus Christ shall not be equal to the emergency, for your history has all been foreknown and provided for in Jesus.
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Today's reading: Daniel 8-10, 3 John 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Daniel 8-10

Daniel’s Vision of a Ram and a Goat
1 In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. 2 In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal. 3 I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns, standing beside the canal, and the horns were long. One of the horns was longer than the other but grew up later. 4 I watched the ram as it charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great.
5 As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between its eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground. 6 It came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at it in great rage. 7 I saw it attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering its two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against it; the goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it, and none could rescue the ram from its power. 8 The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven....

Today's New Testament reading: 3 John 1

1 The elder,
To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth.
2 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3 It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
5 Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. 6They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God. 7 It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. 8 We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth....
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Nicodemus [Nĭco dē'mus]—innocent blood or victor over the people. An elderly and somewhat wealthy Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin (John 3:1-9; 7:50; 19:39 ).

The Man Who Came to Jesus by Night

Whenever Nicodemus is mentioned it is always with the label, “the same that came to Jesus by night.” Why is this master in Israel always spoken of in this way? Was he a coward, afraid of what the fellow-members of the Sanhedrin would say if they saw him seeking out Jesus? We feel that he came by night because it was the best time for both Jesus and himself to have a quiet, uninterrupted conversation about spiritual matters. Nicodemus had been occupied all day with his teaching duties, and Jesus had been active in His out-of-door ministry. Now both could relax and talk through the night. It may be that Nicodemus had such a heart hunger that he could not wait until morning, and so came running to Jesus as soon as he could.
There had been no direct voice from God in Israel for a long time, and here was One whose message carried the stamp of divine authority. So Nicodemus, the cautious enquirer, but a man of spiritual perception (John 3:2), sought out Christ, and listened to one of His remarkable conversational sermons. Nicodemus figures three times in John’s gospel:
He came to Christ (John 3:2 ). This master in Israel confessed Christ to be a Teacher sent from God and heard that in spite of his culture, position and religion, he needed to be born anew by the Spirit of God. His name, meaning “innocent blood,” is suggestive. Nicodemus came to realize that his salvation was dependent upon the shedding of innocent blood (John 3:14, 16).
He spoke for Christ ( John 7:45-52). As a fair-minded man, Nicodemus, although a disciple at heart and afraid to avow his faith, raised his voice on behalf of Christ as the Sanhedrin devised measures against Him. The rulers were His avowed enemies, and Nicodemus raised a point of order in favor of the One he had learned so much from. Perhaps he should have been more courageous and outspoken on Christ’s behalf. When the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death, there was no protest from Nicodemus. It is likely that he absented himself from that fateful meeting.
He honored Christ ( John 19:39, 40 ). After the death of Christ, ashamed of his cowardice, Nicodemus rendered loving though belated service to Christ. Openly he joined Joseph of Arimathaea, another secret disciple, in preparing Christ’s body for a kingly burial. But the dead cannot appreciate our loving attention. Mary gave her spices to Jesus while He was alive. It is better to give flowers to the living than reserve them for their burial.
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