Thursday, February 19, 2015

Thu Feb 19th Todays News

On Bolt Report an ongoing policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome.  
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The technicality which has David Hicks declared as not being a terrorist by a court martial in Cuba does not obscure the fact that Hicks trained with Al Qaeda, Met Osama Bin Ladin and called him 'brother,' hates Jews and was armed to fight US soldiers in Afghanistan. David has claimed to forget much, and so will never explain his choices. In all likelihood, under modern law, in Australia, Hicks would be found to have been a terrorist. However, when Hicks went on his 'holiday' as a tourist trained to be a terrorist the legal issues were not so well defined. The extraordinary cases of death tourism which are part of jihadism were not anticipated by law makers. Shorten has said he wants Hicks retried. One suspects Shorten wants Hicks tried under laws which weren't designed to address what he has done. Headline has porn star Sasha Grey 'hitting back' at Russian propaganda saying she had been killed acting as a nurse in Ukraine. Clearly she hasn't been nailed in her nurse outfit on this occasion. And the odds are as likely that the propagandists are Washington's acting for Ukraine, as they might be Russian. 

 The bloodiest battle in Roman history began on this day in 197. Severus wanted to be a memorable emperor, and wanted his son as co ruler. Albinus wanted to be emperor and wanted to live. Albinus lost the two day battle which was said to involve 300,000 troops, but probably only half that number. Severus became the last emperor to form a dynasty until the third century crisis. In 356, Constantius II issued a decree closing all pagan temples in the Roman Empire. He was a kind of Christian. He also passed a law barring anyone from buying a Christian prostitute, except another Christian. Clearly he 'understood.'  In 1674, New Amsterdam became New York City. In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested for Treason. Burr had some get rich quick schemes. They failed. He was acquitted, fled to Europe for a few years, and returned to NYC to serve out his life time as an obscure lawyer. In 1847, the first group of rescuers reached the Donner Party. They had headed West in 1846 for California along a new route. It should have taken six months, but took some two years and some of the party had resorted to cannibalism. It was another few more years before the '49ers found gold. In 1859, Daniel Sickles, a Tamany Hall Democrat was acquitted of killing a district attorney (who happened to be Francis Scott Key's son) on the grounds Key was having an affair with Sickles' young wife. Seven years earlier, 33 yo Sickles had married the 15 yo who spoke five languages. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity. The first time such a defence had been successfully laid. In 1878, Thomas Edison patented the Phonograph. And the world kept turning. In 1942, 250 Japanese planes attacked Darwin. 
2014
A momentous day, where former ALP parliamentary member and union leader Craig Thomson has been convicted of misusing union funds for whore-ing and inappropriate personal use. Apparently it was felt that his use of a union credit card to access porn in hotels was ok by members. That is how they expect their union dues to be spent. Also today, Peter Slipper's case is being heard. Queen Mary 2 docks in Sydney, as a powerful electrical storm approaches. Flannery said it would never rain again. It wasn't the only thing he got wrong. 

Today is a momentous day. Copernicus, Merle Oberon, Lee Marvin, Smokey Robinson, Seal and Lisa McCune were born on this day, providing eternal entertainment value to the reality challenged Sarah Hanson-Young. Edison patented the phonograph, allowing us to hear again Thomson's heartfelt protestations of innocence before parliament, which we now know were lies. It is the day Democrat FDR signed executive order 9066 so that anyone identified as Japanese was placed in a camp regardless of virtue. And the day GOP President Ford rescinded that executive order. A day of justice. Give thanks to someone born on this day.
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 197, Emperor Septimius Severus defeated usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, the bloodiest battle between Roman armies. 356, emperor Constantius II issued a decree closing all pagan temples in the Roman Empire.1594, having already inherited the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth through his mother Catherine Jagellonica of Poland in 1587, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa was crowned Kingof Sweden, having succeeded his father John III of Sweden in 1592. 1600, the Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina exploded in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America. 1649, the Second Battle of Guararapes took place, effectively ending Dutch colonization efforts in Brazil. 1674, England and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transfers the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, and it was renamed New York.

 in 1807, former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr was arrested for treason in Wakefield, Alabama and confined to Fort Stoddert. 1819, British explorer William Smith discovered the South Shetland Islands, and claimed them in the name of King George III.1846, in Austin, Texas the newly formed Texas state government was officially installed. The Republic of Texas government officially transferred power to the State of Texas government following the annexation of Texas by the United States.1847, the first group of rescuers reached the Donner Party. 1859, Daniel E. Sickles, a New York Congressman, was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity. This was the first time this defence was successfully used in the United States. 1861, Serfdom was abolished in Russia.1876, founding of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA) in Philadelphia. 1878,  Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.1884, more than sixty tornadoes struck the Southern United States, one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history.

 In 1915, World War I: The first naval attack on the Dardanelles began when a strong Anglo-French task force bombarded Ottoman artillery along the coast of Gallipoli.1937, Yekatit 12: During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two Ethiopian nationalists of Eritrean origin attempted to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades.1942, World War II: Nearly 250 Japanese war-planes attacked the northern Australian city of Darwin killing 243 people. Also 1942, World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese-Americans to internment camps. 1943, World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia began. 1945, World War II: Battle of Iwo Jima – about 30,000 United States Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima. 1948, the Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence convened in Calcutta. 1949, Ezra Pound was awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry by the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University.

 In 1953, Censorship: Georgia approved the first literature censorship board in the United States. 1959, the United Kingdom granted Cyprus independence, which was then formally proclaimed on August 16, 1960. 1960, China successfully launched the T-7, its first sounding rocket.1963, the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique reawakened the Feminist Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness raising groups spread. 1965, Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and a communist spy of the North Vietnamese Viet Minh, along with Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Trần Thiện Khiêm attempted a coup against the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh. 1972, the Asama-Sansō hostage standoff began in Japan. 1976, Executive Order 9066, which led to the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, was rescinded by President Gerald R. Ford's Proclamation 4417 1978, Egyptian forces raided Larnaca International Airport in an attempt to intervene in a hijacking, without authorisation from the Republic of Cyprus authorities. The Cypriot National Guard and Police forces killed 15 Egyptian commandos and destroyed the Egyptian C-130 transport plane in open combat.

 In 1985, William J. Schroeder became the first recipient of an artificial heart to leave hospital. Also 1985, Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 crashed into Mount Oiz in Spain, killing 148.Also 1985, EastEnders BBC's flagship soap opera broadcast for the first time. 1986, Akkaraipattu massacre: the Sri Lankan Army massacred 80 Tamil farm workers the eastern province of Sri Lanka. 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing museum was dedicated at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. 2002, NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe began to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system. 2003, an Ilyushin Il-76 military aircraft crashed near Kerman, Iran, killing 275. 2006, a methane explosion in a coal mine near Nueva Rosita, Mexico, killed 65 miners. 2011, the debut exhibition of the Belitung shipwreck, containing the largest collection of Tang Dynasty artefacts found in one location, began in Singapore. 2012, 44 people were killed in a prison brawl in Apodaca, Nuevo León.
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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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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
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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 Stephanie Carroll, Sylvia Phan, Matthew Tjong, Jacob Bozdas, Sylvia Te, Jacqueline Bailey and Jacki Bailey. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
February 19: Chinese New Year, Korean New Year, Tsagaan Sar in Mongolia, and Losar in Bhutan and Tibet (2015)
The Soviet/Russian space station Mir
You heard it too. Ignore the burr. Trafford isn't old. The coup failed. We placed the module. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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INVERNESS TO INSANITY

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 19, 2015 (2:21pm)

Roger Lewis reviews the life and times of Dylan Evans, a global warming fanatic whose demented beliefs led him to abandon civilisation: 
Evans couldn’t wait to create his retrograde society, where waif-like girls ‘with long, tawny dreadlocks’ would be doling out ‘bowls of bean stew from a steaming cauldron’. He sold his house, gave up his academic career and moved to a field near Inverness. He looked at an adjacent waterfall and thought it could ‘generate electricity’. He gazed at an acre of scrubland and believed he could ‘keep a few pigs and chickens’. He spotted a deer and, though he had no butchery or tanning training, imagined turning its hide into shoes and gloves. 
Evans’s sustainable wonderland quickly lured several like-minded idiots ("a former Royal Marine who had ambitions to be a cobbler; a computer-programmer ‘passionate about vegetables’; a teacher who’d once met an Inuit; a graffiti artist from Belfast; a Cambridge student keen on the recorder"), but then the problems began: 
It attracted only idealists and disaffected romantics when what was needed were people with practical skills, like plumbers, carpenters and engineers. Soon the militant vegetarians were squabbling with the meat-eaters, and the small group began to disintegrate. One member even started to invent his own religion, building a shrine with ‘carefully arranged’ bits of driftwood and old coins …
There was neither soap nor detergent. ‘We got used to a thin layer of slime covering the pans and bowls.’ There was no toothpaste or lavatory paper – the sanitary arrangements were grotesque. There was also no music. 
Leading to the inevitable conclusion: 
It soon became apparent that ‘the whole experiment had been a huge mistake’. Jittery, with a permanently wide-eyed expression and wanting only to kill himself, Evans was eventually detained under the Mental Health Act in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. 
His journey from utopia to derangement seems to have taken just one year.
(Via Tim T.) 
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QUICK HANDS

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 19, 2015 (2:18pm)

Known as his nation’s hardest-working batsman, former Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim may have the finest technique of any wicketkeeper playing in the World Cup. Just something to look out for when Bangladesh play Australia this Saturday in Brisbane.
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KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 19, 2015 (1:07pm)

Full disclosure: I am an investor in the Alaskan Rock vodka company. Another full disclosure: Charlotte Crosby is made almost entirely out of legs.
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DOCTOR TO THE STARS

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 19, 2015 (1:06pm)

No comments permitted, because it is an ongoing investigation, but this is fascinating.
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The Press Council is an enemy of free speech

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (5:47pm)

It is getting dangerously difficult to tell the public the frank truth about important issues - sometimes even matters of life and death.
There are the defamation writs, “vilification” laws, touchy lawyers, nervous advertisers, activist judges, Labor threats of tighter media muzzles and, now, increasingly serious death threats against journalists.
So it seems to me disgraceful - with the lights going out - that the Press Council has, in my opinion, been aiding the enemies of free speech.
Astonishingly, it has been actually initiating its own complaints against the media, and most obviously those parts of the media that offend its clearly Left-wing views.
I’ve already written how the Press Council actually sexed up a dodgy complaint against me by global warming activists, adding misleading and cherry-picked data apparently of its own.
I’ve noted how it’s presumed to insert itself into political arguments to insist some stories be given less prominence than others.
I’ve noted how it’s damned climate sceptics for using satire.
I noted, aghast, how it pushed its political agenda by telling journalists not to call boat people “illegal immigrants” - a term I believe is perfectly justified on the facts and which many politicians commonly used.
This is simply unacceptable. I’m astonished the publishers permit this.
And it’s getting worse. The Press Council has since decided off its own bat to grill the Daily Telegraph for using a confronting picture of an Islamic State murderer about to decapitate journalist James Foley. The Daily Telegraph had to devote precious time and money to justify an image it believed was necessary to wake up more people to the threat of Islamist terrorism.
And now this:
THE Australian Press Council has expressed deep concern at the actions of The Australian in revealing the contents of a preliminary ruling on whether the newspaper was wrong to publish a photograph on its front page…
The statement was issued in response to an editorial on February 17 that criticises the Press Council for seeking to pass judgment on whether newspapers had published material on the correct page.
The editorial quotes a Press Council ruling concerning a photograph of American photojournalist James Foley that had been published on the front page of Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph.
The Press Council told the Telegraph that “on balance” its standards had not been breached but the photograph “could well have been published on an inside page without losing its effectiveness”.
In a preliminary ruling concerning The Australian, the Press Council said that “on balance” a front-page photograph of the crash site in Ukraine of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 did not amount to a “clear breach” of council standards.
However the preliminary ruling also says the risk of causing undue distress “could have been further reduced by placing the image on an inside page or pixelating parts”.
The Australian had cropped the image to protect the identity of the dead and had published it across two columns in the lower half of its front page. A similar image had been used as the main page one photograph of The New York Times and had also been published by Time magazine.
Chris Mitchell, editor-in-chief of The Australian, said: “I absolutely promise to do everything I can to remove my paper from the activism of the council, which has no business telling people what pictures to run. I am interested in publishing truth.”

The editorial that triggered the Press Council statement says The Australian chose to breach its undertaking of confidentiality concerning the preliminary ruling to expose the Press Council’s “jurisdictional overreach” in the clearest possible way.
Today’s statement by the Press Council denies it has exceeded its authority… 
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Faine confirms everything I’ve said about his bias

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (1:05pm)

Today I wrote about the ABC’s astonishing bias against the Abbott Government. Contrary to the law and its charter, the ABC is using taxpayers’ money to campaign for the Left.
I gave in that article several of hundreds examples I have documented over the years. One involved ABC 774 presenter Jon Faine, a green Left barracker.
Faine this morning wasted no time in confirming everything I’ve said about his rank bias - and that of the ABC Here are just some excerpts from this aggressive, angry and highly partisan interview of Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg:

FAINE: ...  in the name of cutting red tape, which is your particular favourite topic, in the name of cutting red tape you could argue that the public have been put at risk…
FAINE: In the interests of supposedly cutting costs to consumers, and I question whether they’re ever passed on anyway, you’ve put the public at risk by cutting red tape that in fact was important and vital and kept people safe…
FAINE: Can we talk about the obsession with red tape...? And we’ve seen it now in evidence absolutely with food checking and food safety. We’re seeing it with private training organisations rorting a government scheme and developing courses that are meaningless, and students are getting no quality training whatsoever and massive debts as a result, for courses that weren’t worth doing. We’ve seen it with the greyhound industry, we’ve seen it with 457 visas, we’ve seen it with self-auditing of tax for goodness sake of all things – this obsession with red tape that has helped you make your political name. It’s leaving the public exposed in issue after issue after issue…
FAINE: I’m quite happy to get excited about something where I think the public is harmed and harm is being done in the name of ideology.

FRYDENBERG: Well let me take you through some very positive red tape reduction examples. For example (FAINE INTERRUPTS.)
FAINE: Oh look, flying kites on Sunday, we’ve heard it before Mr Frydenberg. That is not the issue. That is not the issue. These are serious matters of public welfare and wellbeing, and because of nothing other than an ideological obsession of people on the hard right of politics in Australia, you’ve taken us down a path that has in fact turned out to put the public at risk time and time again.
FRYDENBERG: Well, Jon, I don’t know what was in your Wheaties this morning, but the reality is (FAINE INTERRUPTS)
FAINE: I haven’t had any Wheaties. Just please answer the question…
FAINE: One of my concerns is that it seems that your party in power, Minister, seems to have a disregard for the ability of the public service. And as you downgrade and undermine the public service and their role, and you outsource everything you possibly can, we end up with a much lower level of public protection on issue after issue after issue…
FAINE:  And you and Joe Hockey, apparently according to various reports out of Canberra, are coming to the realisation that cutting government services will never bridge the gap between revenue and expense, and you’re going to have to do something on the revenue side. But the tax office has been massively reduced in size and capacity and the people who, for instance, would be doing external audits of multinational corporations, sending profits offshore, apparently all those people have gone and you can’t do that work anymore in house?
FRYDENBERG: Well, Jon, you’ve led with your chin on that one. Because Chris Jordan, the Commissioner of Taxation, has said that it has had no material impact on the ATO’s ability to collect revenue. And you raised the issue of multinational tax avoidance. We’ve just hired an extra 50 tax experts for our international section in the ATO which is now larger under us than it was with the Labor Party. So we’re actually increasing our resourcing in that particular area....
FAINE: And have you personally got a view on where revenue might come from? I saw The Australian the other day, which is not to be confused with Green Left Weekly, but on its front page, it was complaining about how the rich are milking the system and not paying their fair share.
I defy any ABC manager, starting with managing director Mark Scott, to deny that Faine displayed his political bias to the Left and used the “interview” to pursue his far Left agenda.
If they can’t deny it, what do they intend to do about it?
Full interview follows:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Faine confirms everything I’ve said about his bias'
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Swedish journalist asks if Jews are to blame for anti-Semitism

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (10:02am)

Europe is becoming too dangerous for Jews as the Left provides cover for Islamists.
The latest example is a Swedish journalist asking a Jewish official - after the murder of a Jew in Copenhagen - whether Jews aren’t actually to blame for the hatred of them:

Sveriges Radio, Swedish public radio, has apologized for a presenter’s question to the country’s Israeli ambassador about whether Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism.
The reporter asked Amb. Isaac Bachman live on air: “Are Jews themselves responsible for the progression of anti-Semitism?” The ambassador responded that he rejects the question, to which the reporter responded: “Why,” the French news agency AFP reported.
The question came in the wake of a shooting attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark, which left a Jewish volunteer security guard dead.
The station issued an apology and removed the program from its on-line archive.
Sweden is already changing its foreign policies to appease its rapidly growing Muslim minority - now five per cent of the population:
Sweden officially recognized the state of Palestine in October ...
Half of that state is run by the Hamas terrorist group.
UPDATE
The Jews aren’t the only ones in danger as Muslim “asylum seekers” continue to flood Europe:
Islamic State militants are planning a takeover of Libya as a “gateway” to wage war across the whole of southern Europe, letters written by the group’s supporters have revealed.
The jihadists hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq, who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants on people trafficking vessels, according to plans seen by Quilliam, the British anti-extremist group…

The document is written by an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) propagandist who is believed to be an important online recruiter for the terror in Libya, where security has collapsed in the wake of the revolution that unseated Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.
UPDATE
Many journalists are eager to dismiss the Copenhagen attack as just the actions of a “lone wolf”. This ignores the fact that such terrorists are fed on a culture of hatred and anti-Semitism that is spread by too many Muslim leaders. The day before Omar El-Hussein murdered a Jew outside a synagogue, a Copenhagen imam delivered this tirade:

In a fiery sermon delivered only a day prior to twin terror attacks that rocked Copenhagen and left two dead, a Danish imam rejected calls for interfaith dialogue, instead urging “ideological conflict” with anyone who rejects Islam…
Imam Hajj Saeed is seen [in the video above] delivering a sermon at the Al-Faruq Mosque in Copenhagen in which he seems to call for “war against the Jews.”
There is no known connection between Saeed and Omar El-Hussein, the gunman suspected of killing Danish filmmaker Finn Norgaard at a free-speech event on Saturday, and later targeting the city’s main synagogue where he killed 37-year-old guard Dan Uzan…
Rejecting a conciliatory approach toward other religions, the imam recalled Muslim prophet Muhammad, who waged war against his Jewish neighbors rather than engage in dialogue with them.
“Did he call for closer relations, harmony, and dialogue with them, in the manner of the UN and of those who call to reconciliation Truth and Falsehood? Or did he call upon them to worship Allah? When they violated their pledge and did not accept this call – well, you know what he did to them… He waged war against the Jews,” he said…
He also called for an ideological conflict in order to “present Islam as alternative to their bogus culture, which has hurled them into the abyss of depravity and corruption, and which has reduced them from humanity to the level of beasts.”
(Thanks to readers Tom and Philip.) 
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Harf truths: Obama official blames jihadism on lack of jobs training

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (9:38am)

Allen West is rightly astonished by the Obama Administration’s latest cowardly evasion in the war against Islamism:
My, oh my.... State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf actually said “we cannot win this war by killing them [ISIS], we cannot kill our way out of this war” yesterday on MSNBCS’s “Hardball.” Instead, her solution is a jobs program and training for all those jihadis. Even host Chris Matthews was shocked. ‘Nuff said. Watch.
From the transcript:
HARF: We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs, whether…
MATTHEWS: We’re not going to be able to stop that in our lifetime or fifty lifetimes. There’s always going to be poor people. There’s always going to be poor muslims, and as long as there are poor Muslims, the trumpet’s blowing and they’ll join. We can’t stop that, can we?
HARF: We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people…
(Thanks to readers Ken and fulchrum.) 
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Bill Shorten articulates

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (9:25am)

The polls say this man will be our next prime minister:

REPORTER (at Monday press conference in Cairns): 
How do you think the anti-terror measures could work? Do you think maybe changing the onus on benefit of the doubt?
BILL SHORTEN:

Well, first of all the Prime Minister, or, and Tony Abbott need to, ah, er, ah, ah, articulate what it is they want done. I think it is important in this sort of very, ah, intense era, time of interest and commitment to working out what needs to be done. The, Tony Abbott articulates what he actually thinks is the problem and what he actually thinks needs to be done. He said that there is softness in the system. Well, that’s alarming. Ah, and I think Tony Abbott needs to come clear about where he thinks the softness is and then what we’ll do is work with him to, ah, make sure Australians are safe. That’s our record.
Funny, yes. But also a worry.
UPDATE
The Liberal plotters and Turnbull supporters have badly wounded the Abbott Government - and for nothing - but polls suggest Abbott still can’t be ruled out in a head-to-head contest with Bill Shorten:
Last week’s internal push to remove Tony Abbott as Prime Minister has “blown apart” the Liberal Party’s central proposition that it alone offered stable and responsible government…
Focus group research conducted by seasoned pollster Tony Mitchelmore ... canvassed the views of voters in western Sydney marginal seats, all of whom had voted for Labor in the 2010 election but switched to the Coalition in 2013…
A summary of the research found a sense of disbelief and disillusionment when it became apparent the push against Mr Abbott was serious… Such reactions as “I can’t believe this is happening”, “it’s a joke, it’s embarrassing”, “we just went though all of this with Labor”, “a pox on both their houses”, and “I voted Labor out because of all this stuff and here we are just one year in and they’re doing this too”, were representative of the general response...
But if the Liberals now turned on Shorten with the energy that some turned on Abbott, it’s on:
Labor was still regarded as irresponsible and dysfunctional while Mr Shorten was either largely unknown, thought to be “out of his depth”, “yet to be tested” and “competitive by default”.
“Shorten is yet to prove himself with swinging voters,” the research concludes. Similarly, Labor is still an unknown quantity.
“They’re not heard of much”, “they are only reactive’, “I forget about them”, “Im not sure where they are heading” and “I don’t know their policies” were reflective of responses.
UPDATE
Are these guys really ready?
Opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen gets a torturous trial on tax, Richo and Jones, Sky News, Tuesday night:

ALAN Jones: Can you outline to everyone out there what are the various tax levels, at what point we pay so much tax if you’re an income earner?
Bowen: Well, hang on.
Jones: At what point do we pay nothing for tax?
Bowen: Hmm?
Jones: Nothing at all.
Bowen: Well, you get a tax-free threshold.
Jones: What is it?
Bowen: Well, you pay no tax.
Jones: What is it?
Bowen: Well, you get a low income earner’s tax offset.
Jones: What is the tax-free threshold?
Bowen: You get a low income earner’s tax offset…
JONES: He’s the treasurer, I’m talking about details, he doesn’t know ... There’s a point to which we don’t pay any tax ...
Bowen: And then you get a low income tax offset.
Jones: What is it?
Bowen: Which provides a refund to low and middle-income ...
Jones: What is it?
Bowen: … earners, Alan, and you raised high-income superannuation and I’m here to talk to you about serious issues, I’m not going to do a pop quiz for you, Alan, with all respect.
But Jones has to have the last word:

JONES: I’ll give you the answer. The answer’s $18,200…
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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It’s Bill Shorten’s Government that’s performing worst

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (8:52am)

AUSTRALIA’s problem isn’t the Abbott Government. No, it’s the other one that’s pushing us to disaster.
Few voters understand that Australia effectively has two governments.
One is Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s, which dominates in our House of Representatives and so gets to do the official governing.
The other is actually Labor leader Bill Shorten’s, which rules in the Senate.
(Read full article here.) 
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Biased ABC trying to destroy Abbott

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (8:39am)

THE ABC is trying to destroy Tony Abbott. Its bias — actually unlawful — has never been so ruthless.
Even the ABC’s hand-picked reviewer had to admit this week that the ABC’s coverage of the Abbott Government’s first Budget was marred by anti-Liberal bias — and she hadn’t even looked hard.
Colleen Ryan, a former Fairfax editor, had been asked by the ABC to check its reporting of the Budget in the week after it was delivered.

This Budget was the country’s first and best hope of reining in Labor’s massive deficits.
If it wasn’t a make-or-break moment for the country, it sure was for Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
And he got smashed, especially by the ABC, our biggest media organisation, with four TV stations, five radio stations, an online newspaper and a publishing house.
Ryan singled out four examples of ABC reporting that suggested bias — each time a bias against the Liberals.
Most dramatic was the flagship 7.30 program’s hostile interview of Treasurer Joe Hockey.
Host Sarah Ferguson kicked it off with a contemptuous statement lightly disguised as a question: “Is it liberating for a politician to decide election promises don’t matter?”
Then there was Lateline host Emma Alberici, who asked a Coalition MP: “Do you think voters are really stupid and can’t recognise a lie when they see one?”
Ryan also criticised Tasmania’s 7.30 edition for pulling the ABC stunt of giving the microphone to a parade of Leftist critics, while The Drum copped it for another old trick — stacking its panel with two pro-Labor panellists against one lone conservative.
The ABC might argue that four examples of bias in a week of coverage isn’t much, but Ryan clearly wasn’t wearing her glasses.
(Read full article here.) 
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Bill Shorten cries for refugees. But you will pay the price for his tears

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (8:30am)

Paul Sheehan warns that Bill Shorten’s “compassion” would expose us to even more danger:
In an address to the Australian Christian Lobby on October 25 last year, Labor’s leader, Bill Shorten, advocated a dramatic increase in Australia’s intake of refugees from the Middle East:
“In government, Labor increased Australia’s refugee intake under the Humanitarian Program to 20,000 places a year…
“Given the scope and scale of the current crisis gripping the region, Labor believes that, as a starting point, those seeking refuge from the current crisis in Iraq and Syria should be taken in addition to the existing allocation...”
The words “those seeking refuge from the current crisis should be taken in addition to the existing allocation” quite clearly do not mean 20,000. It means much more…
Shorten’s proposal ... opened the door to a radically large intervention in the enormous social upheaval in the Middle East, which has deep and bloody roots in sectarianism and tribalism, with no end in sight.
The morality of Shorten’s rhetoric is glorious. The practicality is not. There is a super-abundance of evidence that a large-scale humanitarian intake creates a corresponding increase in social problems. The most recent evidence comes from socially conscious, socially inclusive and socially wealthy Denmark…
As a result of large-scale and poorly defined immigration and refugee intakes, in a country of 5.6 million people 4 per cent of Denmark’s population is now Muslim and the Muslim population is significantly over-represented in crime and welfare dependence…
More than a 100 young Danish Muslims have left Denmark to take up the cause of Islamic jihad.
Has Labor really learned nothing from the 1970s?

In Australia, the last federal government that decided to act as a safety valve for turmoil in the Middle East was Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government, which allowed a poorly monitored refugee stream from Lebanon in the 1970s. As a result, Australia imported, in addition to a stream of constructive arrivals, a self-marginalising, self-perpetuating Muslim underclass that still exists after 40 years.
This illustrates an important difference between the Left and conservatives. The Left want to be judged by their intentions; conservatives insist in judging by results. Shorten wants us to admire his compassion; we should fear the price of his tears. 
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Where is Triggs’ proof for her claims of widespread abuse?

Andrew Bolt February 19 2015 (7:41am)

Jennifer Oriel suggests more reasons to doubt the report of the highly partisan Gillian Triggs into children in detention:
The most serious allegations of child physical and sexual assault [of children in detention] receive curiously little attention, with a note that they have been referred to a government department. If child abusers are in the general population of immigration centres or have been given residency in Australia, why doesn’t the commission recommended their deportation?
Of the two academic studies cited as evidence that prolonged periods in immigration centres “both cause and exacerbate mental illness”, one is more than a decade old with a statistically invalid sample. The other demonstrates complex causality in health among different immigration groups. “Visa overstayers”, for example, had progressively fewer health complaints over time in immigration detention while unauthorised arrivals seeking Australian residency reported ill health at a much higher rate.
The research indicates complex causality underlies reported ill health among aspiring immigrants, which may include experiences before arrival. It also may include vested political ­interests, as we learned from recent reports refugee advocates were coaching self-harm among immigrants in detention centres. The inquiry did not study complex causal pathways, and the systemic statistical bias arising effectively nullifies the validity of its conclusions.
I thought it interesting that Triggs gave no definition of “sexual abuse” (an important point, since Triggs has previously considered sipping shampoo to be a “suicide attempt"). It is also concerning that Triggs has provided no proof that sexual abuse has actually occurred to children in detention. In fact, she presented only two very vague anecdotes from the 33 cases, most involving children, which she claimed to have found.
The two anecdotes:

In November 2013 a 16 year old boy was allegedly sexually assaulted by a cleaner, in view of security staff. It is understood that the cleaner was removed from the centre indefinitely.
An 8 year old boy was allegedly sexually assaulted by adult detainees in view of a security staff member.
If Triggs believes that last case is true, shouldn’t she and we demand that all those adults never be admitted? But back to the main point: what evidence does Triggs actually have to support her claims about the widespread sexual abuse of children in detention? I note with concern how her report easily and rapidly slides from noting allegations of abuse to presenting them as proven “incidents”.  I’ve indicated that confusion of terms in bold:
From January 2013 to March 2014 there were numerous assaults and self-harm incidents in detention centres in Australia where children are held. They include ... 33 incidents of reported sexual assault (the majority involving children)…
The Commission has viewed the case files detailing incidents of reported sexual assault involving children. Given the seriousness of these incidents, the Commission considers that some may come within the scope of the terms of reference of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse… In instances where Commission staff were advised of sexual assaults involving children, these were reported to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection…
The numerous reported incidents of assaults, sexual assaults and self-harm involving children indicate the danger of the detention environment.
I am not denying children were sexually abused. I am only asking Triggs to present the evidence for her claims, and to define “sexual abuse”.   
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Post by Funny Videos.

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Post by Scott Morrison MP.

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Post by Bernie Sanders.

That is a misleading meme .. raising tax won't address the issue of over spending, but will limit business growth - ed
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Post by Cars 108.

I get some of it .. treble, sharp, flat and repeat .. - ed===

Post by Meluskey US Senate.

Because a flat tax is fair and effective. This is for Arizona. - ed
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Post by Dude Perfect.

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Post by Australian Politics memes.

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Post by ABC2.

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=== Posts from last year ===

The Craig Thomson charade is over

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, February 18, 2014 (8:10pm)

SO Craig Thomson is guilty. Surprise surprise. Now we can drop the whole farce of pretending we buy his ridiculous story that someone stole his credit card, misappropriated his driver licence, cloned his phone, forged his signature, and tried to set him up with prostitutes.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Craig Thomson charade is over'
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If Iran is so evil, why this protest?

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (12:34pm)

I thought the “asylum seeker” unfortunately killed on Manus Island was actually seeking asylum from the wicked Iranian regime. So why this protest over his fate?
IRAN’S foreign ministry has reportedly summoned Australia’s ambassador to protest the death of an Iranian asylum-seeker during rioting on Manus Island...
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Bolt Report back - and bigger

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (11:59am)

The Twitterverse has exploded in rage, but I trust lovers of reason won’t be displeased:
NEWS Corp Australia columnist Andrew Bolt is being given more airtime with his Network Ten show to double in length to one hour when it returns on March 2.  

The new-look The Bolt Report will include a new segment, called News Watch, which promises “to put the media under genuine scrutiny”.
The fun starts at 10am and 4pm on Sunday, March 2.
I believe this is meant to be a complaint, but I shall treat it as a request:
image
Among the guests for the first show: Peter Costello, Michael Costa and Gerard Henderson.  We have invited Bill Shorten to come on the show on the very near future, of course, and hope the old Labor ban is lifted. I did think it counter-productive.  
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Freedom-loving fox in ABC Lateline’s henhouse

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (11:50am)

Tim Wilson, being a classical liberal rather than of the Left, gets a hostile introduction from the ABC’s Lateline, which normally treats “human rights” advocates with the most studied respect:
MARGOT O’NEILL, REPORTER: ....A former media commentator specialising in trade and climate change for the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, he has no conventional professional human rights experience.
What on earth is a “conventional professional human rights experience”? What was the “conventional professional human rights experience” of Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, a former Labor staffer? 
Fuming Leftists are interviewed, making ludicrous analogies that, if they had any merit, could be equally applied to Soutphommasane but were not:
BEN SAUL, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: I think the process for his appointment was not fair or open or transparent. ... You can’t just have opinions about human rights, in the same way that I wouldn’t be appointed Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth just because I’ve got opinions about hospitals.
The interviewer then starts with a hostile question containing a strange non sequitur:
EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER:  ...: Do the other commissioners have any reason to fear your appointment, given that 12 months ago the IPA was actually calling for the abolition of the Human Rights Commission?
How would the views of some IPA members (not Wilson himself) on the abolition of the HRC make Wilson’s appointment to that body something to “fear”?
EMMA ALBERICI: Well, can we just talk about - just so that we can really understand your position here, ...
Who is this “we”, Emma? Who is this “we” that demands to be reassured?
And then a string of questions such as this, showing just where the ABC sides:
EMMA ALBERICI: But your view presupposes a level playing field, where in fact it becomes survival of the fittest, doesn’t it?
Just nail him:
EMMA ALBERICI: But if I could just get - that’s all hypothetical. But as the law currently stands, I just want to pin you on this matter, particularly: is it discriminatory, in your view?
And then almost a gasp of surprise at the audacity of freedom:
EMMA ALBERICI: OK. Well this is the Attorney-General’s view. He wants to abolish Section 18C of the [Racial Discrimination Act] ... 
TIM WILSON: Well he’s actually said he’s going to - looking to change it.
EMMA ALBERICI: Changing it.
TIM WILSON: I want full repeal. EMMA ALBERICI: Pardon? 
UPDATE
Reader Stephen Dawson:
Yesterday I was jolted awake by AM on ABC Radio National. In its report ‘Indonesian foreign minister responds to leaked trade spying report’ the reporter, Helen Brown, called Marty Natalegawa ‘The consummate diplomat’: 
HELEN BROWN: The consummate diplomat made the remarks in both English and Indonesian, well knowing that Western and local media reporters were taking note.I wonder if she would ever term, say, Julie Bishop as ‘the consummate diplomat’.  
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Parliament could jail Craig Thomson for lying

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (8:23am)

 I was wrong on 2GB last night to suggest Craig Thomson could escape punishment for lying to Parliament: 
CRAIG Thomson faces a fresh inquiry for allegedly misleading the parliament over a 2012 speech in which he denied spending union money on prostitutes. Senior government sources have confirmed consideration is being given to re-referring Thomson to parliament’s powerful privileges committee, following yesterday’s court ruling that he defrauded the Health Services Union… 
The House of Representatives has the power to impose jail terms of up to six months and fines of up to $5000 for a “breach of privilege”. It could also publicly admonish the former MP by calling him “to the bar”, and seeking an apology. 
UPDATE
Great skills at the ABC. It publishes a long article on former Labor MP Craig Thomson - a man defended by Labor with Labor Party money - without once mentioning the word “Labor”.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and Baldrick.) 
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Green policies are killing manufacturing - and for what?

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (8:13am)

Brendan Pearson, chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, on how green policies made our power prices among the world’s highest - and for what?.
Less than a decade ago, Australia enjoyed the lowest energy costs in the developed world… But today that advantage has largely gone. 
As a result of the carbon tax, the renewable energy target and a range of other energy policy interventions at the federal and state government level, Australia has some of the highest electricity costs in the developed world.
Household electricity prices have increased by more than 110 per cent in the past five years… Australian businesses - which account for 70 per cent of total electricity use in Australia - have experienced an almost 80 per cent increase in prices since 2009 and there are more rises on the way.
The causes are not hard to find.
The carbon tax accounted for 16 per cent of the electricity bill for a typical large industrial user in NSW in 2012-13.
In 2013-14, the carbon tax added an estimated $6.4 billion to the nation’s tax bill.... Official estimates suggest that the RET will generate a transfer of $20bn from householders and industrial users by 2020… 
These green policies are helping to destroy manufacturing in Australia. But even Pearson shies away from nailing the true insanity of them: the carbon tax and renewable energy target actually make essentially zero difference to the global temperature they are meant to lower. All this astonishing pain for zero gain. The scale of the madness is for most Australians simply beyond comprehension.
UPDATE
And workers and the poor o pay most for this new religious mania of the disenchanted urban elite:
Alan Morris and Lynne Chester, The Conversation, September 20, 2012: 
AN increasing number of low-income households are suffering from energy poverty ... the lowest 20 per cent of Australian households had an average weekly income of $314. Their average expenditure on household energy was 7 per cent of disposable income, three times more than the wealthiest households ... The Salvation Army recently found that in regional NSW, just over half the people are going without meals to pay for electricity. A third of these people could not afford to heat their homes. Many ... were plagued by constant anxiety and depression was common ... 
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Human Rights Commission silent when boat policies fail, outraged when they don’t

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (7:50am)

In six years of Labor Government, the Human Rights Commission held just one inquiry into the policies which had lured 50,000 boat people to Australia, drowned at least 1100 of them, crammed our detention centres to overflowing and had thousands of boat people released into the community without proper vetting or permission to work. And that inquiry was into only the jailing of the younger people smugglers:
The outgoing President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Catherine Branson QC, recently completed an Inquiry into the treatment of individuals suspected of people smuggling offences who say that they are children.
Not six months into the Abbott Government, and the Human Rights Commission is already holding one inquiry and now demanding a second into policies that have stopped the boats, stopped the drownings and cut the number of detainees. Following the riot and death on Manus Island:
The president of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, said Australia was not upholding its international responsibility to asylum seekers, and also called for an inquiry.
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Natalegawa fools the ABC again

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (7:30am)

Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa is a blowhard who seems to be getting off on the eagerness of the ABC and Fairfax to report his every attack on the Abbott Government’s attempts to stop Indonesians from smuggling illegal immigrants to our shores. Take last week:
Dr Natalegawa told reporters Indonesia does what it can to stop boats leaving the country and that Australia’s actions are “against the values of humanity”. 
He says he will inform US secretary of state John Kerry - who will visit Jakarta next week - about Australia’s actions and let officials draw their own conclusions. “There is no need to ask; we only need to inform it, and let America draw its own conclusion,” he said.
Bait swallowed. ABC Insiders on Sunday:
BARRIE CASSIDY: You are being true to yourself and true to your policy, as you say, but nevertheless it does seem to be offending the Indonesians, to the point where they’re now going to raise this issue with the US Secretary of State, John Kerry. 
SCOTT MORRISON: They’re welcome to do that…
BARRIE CASSIDY: What do you think John Kerry would do about it anyway, even if he does regard it as a global issue? SCOTT MORRISON: That’s a matter for secretary Kerry, it’s also a matter for the Indonesians.
But once again Natalegawa is all headline and no story:
EMMA ALBERICI: How concerning was it for yourself and secretary Kerry to hear the foreign minister of Indonesia raise the issue of border protection vis a vis the relationship with Australia? Does it concern you that the relationship between Australia and Indonesia is becoming so strained as a result of those policies? 
DANNY RUSSEL [US assistant secretary of state for East Asia]: Well I didn’t see in our conversation evidence that the issue of border control was something that the Indonesians wanted us to understand let alone do anything about. In the press conference that secretary Kerry and foreign minister Natalegawa gave, of course the Indonesian foreign minister memorably referred to the disclosures reports...
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 
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Traitor: Edward Snowden tips off Al-Shabaab terrorists

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (7:14am)

Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group behind the Kenyan mall massacre, gets a heads-up from US traitor Edward Snowden:
In January, Al-Shabaab issued a 15-day ultimatum for local giant, Hormuud Telecom [Somalia’s biggest telco], to stop proving mobile internet and fibre optic services because it said they were used by Western spy agencies to collect information on Muslims… 
The Mayor of Mogadishu, Mohamed Nur Tarzan, told the media that Hormuud officials had said company staff were forced “at gunpoint” by Al-Shabaab fighters to switch off the mobile internet service…
Mohamed Yusuf, an academic in Mogadishu, said that the extremist group actions to ban mobile internet services in southern and central Somalia were triggered by the Edward Snowden revelations of widespread U.S. government surveillance programmes it maintained in and outside the country…Yusuf also said that the major reason for the group decision was the possibility that mobile internet connections could be used to track the leaders and commanders of Al-Shabaab, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist entity and a legitimate target for its drone attacks.
(Thanks to reader Tabitha N.) 
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In praise of politics

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (6:47am)


In praise of politics. Professor James Allan on Q&A:
YASSMIN ABDEL-MAGIED: That’s the crux of the matter. I mean, the discussion [about a carbon tax] is political. The discussion - The discussion is political. You guys are making something that’s about the future and our environment into something that’s about politics and that’s not what we want to hear. What we want to hear - I mean John Kerry got up and said “Climate change is the weapon of mass destruction”. I mean isn’t that clear? We were people - we were a country that ... HEATHER RIDOUT: He’s a serious guy, John Kerry. Yeah. And Christine Lagarde is a serious person.
YASSMIN ABDEL-MAGIED: Exactly. And so it’s something that we need to tackle with the seriousness that it deserves and I think reducing it to simply a policy discussion is disrespectful and…
JAMES ALLAN: Yassmin, life is about politics when people disagree.
YASSMIN ABDEL-MAGIED: Well, this is true.
JAMES ALLAN: And there is no way you can attend that we are all going to be in a Coke commercial holding hands and singing. People disagree and when you disagree you have politics and politics is a good thing and to say that it’s just about politics misses the point. It is good that it’s people disagree and you have to discuss it and you end up having to vote. It is the only way to resolve disagreement. Unless you believe in some world experts who sit on climate commissions or something deciding these things, which is a bad thing, you have to decide by politics and politics is a good thing.
YASSMIN ABDEL-MAGIED: I mean, look, politics is a good thing but not when it stops progress… ERIC ABETZ: But who determines what progress is? I’m old-fashioned. I believe in the ballot box and the say of the people.
A proto-autocrat and a hand-maiden to the corporate state are confronted by two democrats. Thank heavens.

In praise of even brutal politics. House of Cards writer and show runner Beau Willimon on his creation, the murderous US congressman Francis Underwood:
We tend to make heroes out of folks like Martin Luther King and Gandhi – as we should – who give voice to major ideas that are world-changing. But then there’s the people who actually have to go and enact it into law, figure out how it’s going to work, work with the people Gandhi and Martin Luther King won’t speak to, the other half. And that’s where pragmatism comes into play. Pragmatism is the vehicle of idealism....
We offer an extreme version of unapologetic self-interest, someone who has no discernible moral code whatsoever other than self-preservation and advancement of himself and his wife. And yet he manages to get more done than most people around him. Is that OK?
There is a case to be made that progress should be divorced from motive. I could have the best motivation in the world, I could be a saint, but if I achieve nothing what good is it?…
I do have to agree with Francis Underwood to a degree. Ideology is a form of quicksand. It’s prescriptive behaviour. You give yourself the illusion of choice – ‘I’m choosing not to support these people’ or ‘I refuse to negotiate because I’m standing up for what I believe in’ – but really you’re just doing nothing. You’re sitting on a white stallion that’s not going anywhere. Government is the business of compromise. And if people don’t find a way to loosen themselves from their own ideologies … nothing can ever be achieved. 
Mmm. Ronald Reagan? Margaret Thatcher?  I wonder whether Willimon, a former Democrat staffer, is speaking more to the Left. But still...
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Corrupt. How Labor blew $40 million on its favorite union

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (6:07am)

Julia Gillard was propped up by the AWU and blew $40 million of our money on fluffing the pillows of a dying smelter than featherbedded AWU members.
Grace Collier:
JOE Hockey is dead right: the $40 million of our money given to Alcoa in June 2012 has gone “down the tube”. 
Alcoa spent a lot of money on three new enterprise bargaining agreements… Thanks to the EBAs, perhaps up to half of the $40m was committed to cash pay rises and flow-on labour costs. The rest may go towards the closure bill, estimated by Alcoa as between $250m and $270m. Roughly divided, this equates to a budget of $250,000 to $270,000 in redundancy pay and associated benefits for each employee…
The Point Henry Rolled Products EBA gave pay rises totalling 12 per cent from September 2012.
Under the life of that EBA, the entry-level wage for a continuous seven-day shift worker was hiked from $82,106 annually to $91,571 by 2015. The wage for an experienced continuous seven-day shift worker went from $119,334 annually to $133,092 in 2015. Union representatives get up to 10 days a year paid union training… . Should any other business be contracted to provide labour, Alcoa will force it to match its own terrible wages outcomes....  An employee with 20 years’ service would receive a severance payment of more than two years’ pay.
Gillard did not just want to guarantee the AWU’s support for her against Kevin Rudd. She also wanted to buy the union’s support for the carbon tax that threatened to kill Alcoa’s Point Henry smelter prematurely. From 2012:
The Commonwealth is contributing most of the $40 million [actually all] and the Victorian Government is putting up $4 million to go into a fund to help Alcoa’s supply chain…
Australian Workers Union federal secretary Paul Howes welcomed the deal and said it guaranteed Australia could continue to produce aluminium…
Mr Howes, who negotiated with Alcoa over the carbon tax, denies the tax’s impending introduction will force the closure of the smelter when its viability is reviewed in 2014… “[As] all economic modelling shows, the carbon price impact on aluminium smelting is the equivalent of a one cent appreciation in the value of the Australian dollar.”
By sheer coincidence, $40 million is what Alcoa had said the year before was what the carbon tax would cost its Victorian plants:
Its general manager of climate strategy and federal government relations, Tim McAuliffe, told a Senate select committee inquiry into carbon tax pricing mechanisms that Alcoa faced extra costs of $40 million per year if the tax was introduced.
No wonder Howes demanded the handout. Check the pain Labor’s carbon tax caused Alcoa last financial year:
Alcoa Australia, which is reportedly close to shutting down its Point Henry aluminium smelter, paid $137.2 million.
Another shameful story of subsidies and Labor politics. The word “corrupt” can’t be far off the mark in describing this rank opportunism. And as for the madness of forcing a company to pay $137 million just to make a useless symbolic gesture about global warming…
Meanwhile, Alcoa has no carbon tax in the United States, and fewer pro-union workplace restrictions on how it runs its operations. So while it has closed some uneconomic potlines there, too, it nevertheless last month announced:
Alcoa (NYSE: AA) today announced it has completed a $300 million expansion at its Davenport, Iowa facility dedicated to supplying aluminum sheet products to the automotive industry… 
According to automakers, demand for aluminum to produce vehicles—already the second-most-used material used to make cars today—is expected to nearly double by 2025…In addition to its expansion in Iowa—for which long-term supply agreements have been secured—Alcoa is adding automotive capacity in Alcoa, Tennessee which is scheduled to be complete in mid-2015; and at its joint venture rolling mill in Saudi Arabia, to be complete by the end of 2014. Alcoa is investing approximately $670 million in the three expansions ...
Message received yet? 
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Freedom training

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (5:46am)

A new course is offered on the economics that actually works:
Most universities teach a biased version of political economy that promotes big government and failed Keynesian policies. In response, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance (with the support of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation) last year launched “Foundations of Liberty & Free Market Economics” in Sydney, to introduce students to free-market ideas, and the people behind these ideas. 
We are now delighted to announce that we shall be launching Foundations of Liberty & Free Market Economics in Melbourne during Semester 1, 2014.
The Melbourne program will be jointly run by two of Australia’s leading economists, Professor Sinclair Davidson and Professor Jason Potts, and is a must for all students and recent graduates interested in expanding their knowledge of economics and the fundamental underpinnings of a free society.
The course shall consist of 10 interactive 2 hour evening seminars and will include student-led discussion, stimulating debate, and structured material, followed by further discussion over beer and pizza…
The cost of the full program is $750. However, both full and half scholarships will be awarded to up to 15 deserving applicants.
This course is open to EVERYONE and not just currently enrolled tertiary students.
Enrol here.
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Bad news for Barry: we’ve got more readers than ever

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (5:35am)

Paul Barry seems to have been in too much of a hurry to bury News Corp:
NEWS Corp Australia has hit out at the ABC’s Media Watch for lacking professionalism after host Paul Barry failed to seek any response before airing an episode “littered with errors”. 
“You’d think after the national bollocking the ABC rightly received just this month about the lack of fact checking and serious lack of balance they would have been a little more careful with Monday night’s Media Watch,” News Corp CEO Julian Clarke said on Tuesday…
“Paul Barry subjects his viewers to a lecture about the state of our business and the standards of journalism and fails to contact a single executive from our company while compiling his report,” Mr Clarke said…
“Barry quoted the Herald Sun’s circulation as being under 400,000 sales per day. If Media Watch was attempting to give the viewers some insight into the newspaper business, it may have pointed out that the Herald Sun’s total audience, print and digital, is larger this year than last year and that the public are happily paying for the digital version,” Mr Clarke said.
“He should also have pointed out that The Australian has over 57,000 digital subscribers, with paid digital sales growing 45 per cent over the last year. Total print and digital sales are up 4.4 per cent over the year."… Given the chance to reply, Mr Barry repeatedly refused to say whether Media Watch had a duty under the ABC code of practice to give News an opportunity to respond.
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Turnbull denies telling Channel Seven mate he regretted police raid

Andrew Bolt February 19 2014 (5:11am)

A misjudgement, if true:
SEVEN’S commercial director Bruce McWilliam says a senior Abbott government minister regretted the raid at his network [yesterday] over a Schapelle Corby deal… 
“I did speak to someone in government and they didn’t know this raid was occurring,’’ he said. “When they went back and checked they were told what I believe to be a falsehood, that we weren’t co-operating (with police), which is completely untrue,” he said.
A bad look, given the police investigation is and should be independent of government, although Turnbull denies he apologised:
FEDERAL communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull ... phoned the Attorney General George Brandis and Justice Minister Michael Keenan after receiving a call from Seven commercial director, former business associate and friend Bruce McWilliam after scores of armed AFP officers descended on the Pyrmont headquarters yesterday morning over Seven’s planned paid interview with the convicted drug smuggler… 
Mr Turnbull last night said his actions were “entirely appropriate”.
“I’m the communications minister and it’s perfectly natural for a television business that’s got problems of any kind to call me — I’m their minister.” he said.
“They rang me about the AFP raid and I rang or got in touch with and spoke to the relevant ministers, Michael Keenan and George Brandis, just to ascertain what was going on.
“And then I told Channel Seven that if they wanted to discuss the matter further with the government they should call George Brandis. And that’s it.
”I didn’t express any sort of views about the merits of it either way.’’… COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Bruce McWilliam go back a long way. Both lawyers, the pair formed their own firm, Turnbull McWilliam, in 1986...
McWilliam is aggrieved by the even the slightest inconvenience caused by police checking to see if, as is widely suspected, his network is in the process of breaching laws against criminals benefitting from their crimes:
Poor Kim Wilson, the editor of New Idea, had all her fabric samples pushed aside while they sought evidence of criminal offences in her office...
UPDATE
As far as I can tell, Seven’s story is that it has a deal with Corby but doesn’t, and that it wouldn’t pay her - well, at least not more than $1 million. And how dare the police believe it’s about to help a convicted criminal from benefitting from the proceeds of crime.
Channel Seven seems to me to feel peculiarly free to play the law and the public for suckers:
Seven itself initially reported an agreement with the Corbys for an exclusive interview had been made and provided to the police, although Mr McWilliam subsequently said that “no one has reached an agreement — I think that’s the element the federal police don’t accept”. 
Mr McWilliam said Seven’s offer for the exclusive interview with Corby was well under $1 million — not the $2m reported… Veteran journalist and Sunday Night reporter Mike Willesee fronted the media in Bali yesterday, reiterating that no deal had been signed with Corby but said Seven was in the box seat when it was appropriate for her to give an interview. 
That’s not how Channel Seven’s own David Koch and Samantha Armytage understood the deal last week:
“I reckon we should have nothing to do with her as a network. Totally disagree with paying a convicted drug smuggler $2 million,” Koch said. 
His co-host, Samantha Armytage, responded: “Too late for that.”
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Law upheld

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (8:32pm)

It is reassuring to know that not even Channel Seven is above the law. Less reassuring is that some Liberal Minister is apologising for that inconvenience: 
SEVEN’S commercial director Bruce McWilliam says a senior Abbott government minister regretted the raid at his network this morning over a Schapelle Corby deal. 
He is furious more than 20 Australian Federal Police officers barged into the offices of Channel Seven at Pyrmont and New Idea to examine their paperwork and correspondence with the Corby family.
UPDATE
Chris Berg of the IPA:
As I argued in this recent FreedomWatch post, Australia’s literary proceeds of crime laws are a restriction on freedom of speech. An AFP on a media organisation is an incredibly serious thing.
I disagree. Corby is perfectly entitled to speak to whomever about her experiences as a convicted drug smuggler. The legislation merely prevents her from being paid for it. The only thing that’s being kept shut here is Channel Seven’s wallet. 
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What does Labor say now about Craig Thomson and the money it gave him?

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (7:37pm)

 September 2010:
Neil Mitchell: 
You’ve run a union, you understand these things, do you support him?
Bill Shorten:
Oh, yeah, I believe him.
Neil Mitchell:
You believe him [Thomson], no case to answer?
Bill Shorten:
I believe him;
August 2011: 
Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP (Mackellar) (15:26): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to her statement that she retains complete confidence in the member for Dobell but that she had not undertaken a thorough investigation into the allegations surrounding that member. Has she now conducted an investigation of her own into the allegations surrounding the member for Dobell and is she satisfied that her confidence in the member for Dobell is warranted? Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (15:27): I thank the member for the question. It gives me the opportunity to say I have complete confidence in the member for Dobell. I think he is doing a fine job representing the people of his constituency in this place and raising their concerns in this parliament, as is appropriate for a local member. I look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.
June 2012:
THE NSW Labor Party paid almost $350,000 in legal costs for Craig Thomson before the troubled MP was suspended from the party in May.
Today:
FORMER Labor MP Craig Thomson has been found guilty of defrauding the Health Services Union during his time as national secretary. 
Melbourne magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg today ruled Mr Thomson had dishonestly obtained a financial advantage by using his union credit card to pay for prostitutes.
Labor has been soft on union corruption. The links between Labor and the union movement need to be investigated by the royal commission into the union movement.
PS: Has anyone ever met such a brazen, shameless liar?
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Who is minding the gate?

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (7:29pm)

Once again, I would like some assurances on how our immigration program is being run to our benefit. Yes, we import families who produce brilliant medicos, but we also seem to import people seemingly ill-equipped to join in:
Kareem Al-Salami, 48, was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed highly respected surgeon and award-winning researcher Dr Michael Wong in the foyer at the Western Hospital in Footscray about 8.30am… His lawyer said the man spoke “very broken English” and was assisted by an Arabic interpreter during the police interview, but not while speaking with his lawyer.
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Dogs should not take steroids .. ed
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“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:38-39
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 18: Morning
"Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me." - Job 10:2
Perhaps, O tried soul, the Lord is doing this to develop thy graces. There are some of thy graces which would never be discovered if it were not for thy trials. Dost thou not know that thy faith never looks so grand in summer weather as it does in winter? Love is too often like a glow-worm, showing but little light except it be in the midst of surrounding darkness. Hope itself is like a star--not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity. Afflictions are often the black foils in which God doth set the jewels of his children's graces, to make them shine the better. It was but a little while ago that on thy knees thou wast saying, "Lord, I fear I have no faith: let me know that I have faith." Was not this really, though perhaps unconsciously, praying for trials?--for how canst thou know that thou hast faith until thy faith is exercised? Depend upon it, God often sends us trials that our graces may be discovered, and that we may be certified of their existence. Besides, it is not merely discovery, real growth in grace is the result of sanctified trials. God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains his soldiers, not in tents of ease and luxury, but by turning them out and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long mile with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. Well, Christian, may not this account for the troubles through which thou art passing? Is not the Lord bringing out your graces, and making them grow? Is not this the reason why he is contending with you?

"Trials make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to his feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there."
Evening
"Father, I have sinned." - Luke 15:18
It is quite certain that those whom Christ has washed in his precious blood need not make a confession of sin, as culprits or criminals, before God the Judge, for Christ has forever taken away all their sins in a legal sense, so that they no longer stand where they can be condemned, but are once for all accepted in the Beloved; but having become children, and offending as children, ought they not every day to go before their heavenly Father and confess their sin, and acknowledge their iniquity in that character? Nature teaches that it is the duty of erring children to make a confession to their earthly father, and the grace of God in the heart teaches us that we, as Christians, owe the same duty to our heavenly Father. We daily offend, and ought not to rest without daily pardon. For, supposing that my trespasses against my Father are not at once taken to him to be washed away by the cleansing power of the Lord Jesus, what will be the consequence? If I have not sought forgiveness and been washed from these offences against my Father, I shall feel at a distance from him; I shall doubt his love to me; I shall tremble at him; I shall be afraid to pray to him: I shall grow like the prodigal, who, although still a child, was yet far off from his father. But if, with a child's sorrow at offending so gracious and loving a Parent, I go to him and tell him all, and rest not till I realize that I am forgiven, then I shall feel a holy love to my Father, and shall go through my Christian career, not only as saved, but as one enjoying present peace in God through Jesus Christ my Lord. There is a wide distinction between confessing sin as a culprit, and confessing sin as a child. The Father's bosom is the place for penitent confessions. We have been cleansed once for all, but our feet still need to be washed from the defilement of our daily walk as children of God.
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Rufus 
[Ro̅o̅'fus] - red.
1. A son of Simon the Cyrenian who was compelled to bear the Cross (Mark 15:21).
2. A believer in Rome greeted by Paul as "the chosen in the Lord" together with "his mother and mine" (Rom. 16:13). Some writers feel that these two may have been the same persons. "Simon's widow might have emigrated to Rome with her two sons, where they became people of eminence in the Church, and that this is the reason why the brothers are mentioned by Mark (15:21), who probably wrote in Rome" (Hastings Dictionary).
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Today's reading: Leviticus 23-24, Mark 1:1-22 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Leviticus 23-24

1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.
The Sabbath
3 "'There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the LORD....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 1:1-22

John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
"I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way"--
3 "a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.'"

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