Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Wed Feb 18th 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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Shadow treasurer and former treasurer Chris Bowen was asked several times about the minimum threshold for which a person pays tax. He later said he was aware of the answer. Some are saying it was a slip. Had Mr Abbott or Mr Hockey made such a gaff the press would end their careers. Little will be made of Bowen's inability. He wasn't capable as a treasurer. He isn't capable now. However, Bowen is part of the furniture the ALP needed saved so that they could continue to butcher the economy. There is no policy or plan to address the debt that the ALP have left us. Bowen has said that such plans exist, but he perhaps did not want to let on that they don't. A campaign slogan prior to the '13 election was that it was important that the conservatives did not get the balance of power in the senate. They didn't. It is important not to forget the betrayal of the ALP. Meanwhile, Malcolm Farr tries to blow clouds by writing about others that have slipped as treasurer. But Farr ignores the fact the current ALP have no policy on any issue. 

 Why do authorities feel it is ok to give tax advantages to thieves and criminals of the green protest lobby? Let them have their unemployment like their victims who cannot work because the lobbyists have closed down jobs. Meanwhile their friends, anti semitic bigots, don't get full credit for their work. It must be disheartening to kill jews at schools, or shopping, and not get full credit for it. Often the bigots will die to achieve their ends and only their family and friends can set things straight "I don't understand. They were always quiet and never did anything like that before. I raised my son to stand for themselves. If you like your healthcare, you can keep it. They weren't targeting jews." 

 On this day in 1299, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor on 6th Crusade got Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem by signing a ten year truce. The Pope hadn't helped. In 1478, George, Duke of Clarence was executed for treason by order of his older brother, Edward IV. In 1861, King of Italy became a unified title under Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont Savoy. In 1885, The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published in the US. In 1911, Indians invented airmail in Allahabad. In 1913, Pedro Lascuráin became President of Mexico for 45 minutes. That is 45 minutes longer than Shorten would be PM of Australia. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto in some photographs of the sky. Also in 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow in a fixed wing aircraft, also the first cow milked on said aircraft. In 1954, Scientology began after a bet in a bar. In 1979, Snow fell in the Sahara desert for the only time in recorded history. In 1991, IRA had two bombs explode in London. In 2001, Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent, was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. 
2014
Mr Bolt, I am addressing this to you. I need your help. Firstly, let me apologise for shamelessly using your name to gain followers. I have tried hard to keep the page open, free and virtuous. I aim for the quirky, and sometimes get the weird. I aim for the off beat, but sometimes get the off colour. I guess you can't get critical thinking by demanding it or enforcing it. Some have taken to begging for moderators to ban people for politely saying what others don't like. I have taken to deleting comments without explanation, because the nasty ones know they can complain about the explanations and get FB to ban administration. I had not known there was a lunar right in Australian politics before I began moderating this page. But it exists, in all of its' dumb, shameless glory. I am not in agreement with you on all issues all the time, but respect our differences of opinion.

We have interacted before, years ago, on your site, but I'm not holding you to remember it. What I'm asking for now is related to what I was asking for then. Only, I'm desperate. I have testimony before the Royal Commission into institutional responses to Pedophilia. The Royal Commission has accepted my testimony, but given it a low priority. They will not investigate it further, but will include it in their report, in years to come. However, my reason for making that submission has made powerful enemies within Australian Government and public service. I have been issued a death threat from a mafia type hit man who is serving time. I have had my citizenship denied, and evidence of it illegally destroyed by a Premier of NSW. I have been abused at my workplace for being fat, and been declared partially disabled, accused of being too fat to teach Mathematics. I am fat, so the charge is hard for me to dismiss. When my students became targeted by my abusers, I resigned from teaching to speak out publicly. That was in 2007. I tried to time it so my complaint was heard after the NSW election and before the Australian one, so as to not intrude into the political cycle. But the ALP panicked, and have smeared me badly, so that no one will report my complaints, and no one will say why. There is no legal impediment for me to work, but no one will hire a teacher who has been political and conservative. I recently lost my library I have been building since I learned to read. About $50k worth of books, videos, CDs and DVDs. Soon I will have to sell my home. Unless there is a remedy for my issues. But the Royal Commission don't view it as important to give me a remedy. I must petition for one. I can't petition the Royal Commission, that isn't their job. But there are those whose job it would be to act on my testimony. The NSW Dept of Ed. The Premier of NSW. The NSW Police. The Federal Police. The attorney General's office of either NSW or Australia. Or the Prime Minister. I've not yet set up the petition. But I am asking for help. Would you help me, Mr Bolt? 
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 1229, the Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signed a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy. 1268, the Livonian Order was defeated by Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakvere. 1332, Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia began his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces. 1478, George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, was executed in private at the Tower of London. 1637, Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepted an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by 6 warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.

 In 1745, the city of Surakarta, Central Java was founded on the banks of Bengawan Solo River, and became the capital of the Kingdom of Surakarta. 1766, a mutiny by captive Malagasy began at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators. 1781, Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Captain Thomas Shirley opened his expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa (present-day Ghana). 1797, French Revolutionary Wars: Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invaded Trinidad.

 In 1814, Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Montereau. 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America. Also 1861, with Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumed the title of King of Italy. 1865, American Civil War: Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia. 1873, Bulgarian revolutionary leader Vasil Levski was executed by hanging in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities. 1878, John Tunstall was murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico. 1885, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published in the United States.

 In 1900, Second Boer War: Imperial forces suffered their worst single-day loss of life on Bloody Sunday, the first day of the Battle of Paardeberg. 1906, Edouard de Laveleye formed the Belgian Olympic Committee in Brussels. 1911, the first official flight with air mail took place from Allahabad, United Provinces, British India (now India), when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivered 6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) away. 1913, Pedro Lascuráin became President of Mexico for 45 minutes; this is the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country. 1930, while studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Also 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft. 1932, the Empire of Japan declared Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from the Republic of China. 1938, during the Nanking Massacre the Nanking Safety Zone International Committee was renamed "Nanking International Rescue Committee" and the safety zone in place for refugees fell apart.

 In 1942, World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army began the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore. 1943, the Nazis arrested the members of the White Rose movement. Also 1943, Joseph Goebbels delivered his Sportpalast speech. 1946, sailors of the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny in Bombay harbour, from where the action spread throughout the Provinces of British India, involving 78 ships, twenty shore establishments and 20,000 sailors 1947, First Indochina War: The French gained complete control of Hanoi after forcing the Viet Minh to withdraw to mountains. 1954, the first Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles, California. 1955,  Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot "Wasp" was successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots in the Teapot series. 1957, Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi was executed by the British colonial government. Also 1957, Walter James Bolton became the last person legally executed in New Zealand.

 In 1965, The Gambia became independent from the United Kingdom. 1969, Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 crashed into Mount Whitney killing all on board. 1970, the Chicago Seven were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. 1972, the California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidated the state's death penalty and commuted the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment. 1977, the Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle was carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747. 1978, the first Ironman Triathlon competition took place on the island of Oahu and is won by Gordon Haller. 1979, Snow fell in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the only time in recorded history. 1983, thirteen people died and one was seriously injured in the Wah Mee massacre in Seattle, Washington. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history.

 In 1991, the IRA exploded bombs in the early morning at Paddington station and Victoria station in London. 2001, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Also 2001, seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt died in an accident during the Daytona 500. Also 2001, Inter-ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese breaks out in Sampit, Indonesia, that would ultimately result in more than 500 deaths and 100,000 Madurese displaced from their homes. 2003, Nearly 200 people died in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea. 2004, up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue workers, died near Neyshabur in Iran when a runaway freight train carrying sulfur, petrol and fertilizer caught fire and exploded. 2007, terrorist bombs exploded on the Samjhauta Express in Panipat, Haryana, India, killing 68 people. 2014, at least 76 people were killed and hundreds were injured in clashes between riot police and demonstrators in Kiev, Ukraine.
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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 Alex Beer and to those others born on this day, including
February 18: Ash Wednesday in Western Christianity (2015); Independence Day in the Gambia (1965)
Vasil Levski
You are patient. You weather time. Your followers will martyr themselves. There are no more hostile elements. We use law, not violence. Let's party.
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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The secret mobs must simply rack off

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, February 18, 2015 (12:31am)

NICK Kaldas is the most well-respected police officer in NSW. His outstanding 33 years of service, leading homicide, armed robbery, drug and counter terrorism operations, has cemented the loyalty of his troops.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The secret mobs must simply rack off'
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Self -promoter Turnbull revels in front of leftie audience

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, February 18, 2015 (12:30am)

I DEFY anyone to watch Malcolm Turnbull’s flagrant self-promotion on the ABC’s leftie panel show Q & A without squirming.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Self -promoter Turnbull revels in front of leftie audience'
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JUST A LONER WHO HATED JEWS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, February 18, 2015 (1:44pm)

Further details emerge about Copenhagen gunman Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein: 
Former classmates of Mr. El-Hussein described him to local media as a loner who liked to discuss Islam and the Israel-Palestinian conflict and his hatred for Jews …
“I knew him from Mjolnerparken [a residential area where the gunman is believed to have lived],” Sanna al-Baltam told reporters at TV2 while placing a bouquet on the ground. “We’re not sure it was him who did it. If it was, it has nothing to do with Islam. He must have been manipulated,” she was quoted saying. 
As Mark Steyn again notes, it is never to do with Islam. In other nothing-to-with-Islam developments: 
The German city of Braunschweig has cancelled a planned carnival parade because of a “specific threat of an Islamist attack”, police say.
The event, which was to begin around midday (local time), was called off following a tip by “reliable state security sources”, police said in a statement. 
And in France: 
France’s interior minister says several hundred tombs had been defaced at a Jewish cemetery in the northeast of the country, in what he called “a despicable act”. 
And, no doubt, nothing to do with Islam. By the way, check how the New York Times reported the second Copenhagen attack:

image

Near a synagogue? Seriously? Tom Gross corrects the former paper of record: 
It wasn’t near a synagogue. It was at a synagogue. The synagogue was the target. Which is why a Jew guarding the synagogue was shot dead. With the New York Times’ reporting one starts to understand how Obama and his spokespeople could say the kosher attack in Paris was “random” even though the perpetrator – interviewed live on French radio during the attack – proudly boasted that he had come all the way across Paris in order to kill Jews gathering before the sabbath. 
In a totally non-Islamic way, of course. Having spent considerable time studying resurgent Islamic terrorism, Graeme Wood, for one, isn’t buying this nothing-to-do-with-Islam myth.
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TAX BREAKS FOR LAW BREAKERS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, February 18, 2015 (1:34pm)

Locked-on losers claim charity cash: 
Professional protest groups linked to high-profile activists who lock themselves to mining equipment are being handed lucrative tax breaks by the tax office.
Groups including Lock The Gate, The Sunrise Project and the Nature Conservation Council of NSW receive GST concessions, income tax exemption and fringe benefit tax rebates. 
Moves are now underway to correct this anomaly: 
Lock The Gate national co-ordinator Phil Laird described the move to strike them off the charity list as a “bullying" tactic. 
Maybe they’d prefer it if tax officials chained themselves to Lock The Gate’s stupid protesters.
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HELLO MARTYR, HELLO FATAH

Tim Blair – Wednesday, February 18, 2015 (1:10pm)

When people talk about a “two-state solution”, perhaps they mean one state for Fatah and another for Hamas: 
A senior Fatah official in the Gaza Strip on Monday survived an assassination attempt while two of his aides were injured.
Three unidentified gunmen opened fire at a car belonging to Ma’moun Sweidan, who is in charge of Fatah’s international relations, in the center of Gaza City …
The attack was the second of its kind against a senior Fatah official in less than 24 hours.
On Sunday night, arsonists set fire to a car belonging to another senior Fatah official, Abdel Muni’m Al-Tahrawi, who lives in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Although no group claimed responsibility for the attacks, Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf accused Hamas’s “armed terror groups” of targeting the Fatah officials. 
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HE DOES THINGS THAT MAKE PEOPLE MAD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, February 18, 2015 (12:43pm)

Let’s kick off the afternoon with a Frightbat-friendly classic from Hank Williams Jr:



Mr Williams’s tune is best heard through a Frightbat sound system.
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CITY DOOMED

Tim Blair – Tuesday, February 17, 2015 (6:24pm)

A floral tribute appears in Copenhagen following the weekend’s Islamist murder of two innocent people. A floral tribute to the killer, that is.
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WHERE’S WARMING

Tim Blair – Tuesday, February 17, 2015 (6:00pm)

Via Tony Thomas, PBS presenter Where’s Wally explains why all of you stupid people don’t believe in climate panic. Spoiler alert – it’s because you’re stupid:



The puppies appear at 1:33. Disgraced NBC mythcaster Brian Williams appears at 3:17. The haircut, lamentably, is a constant. 
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This is not the way to save two lives

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (8:17pm)


It is both morally wrong and counter-productive to link our aid to appeals to spare two Australian heroin smugglers from execution:

INDONESIA’S Foreign Ministry has reportedly rebuffed Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s statement that the nation should remember Australia’s Boxing Day tsunami aid in its deliberations over the fate of Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
Foreign Ministry spokeman Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters in Jakarta he hadn’t studied Mr Abbott’s comments on the tsunami aid but he understood he had made a linkage to “the issue now in Indonesia”.
“There’s a saying in Indonesia, ‘orang akan terlihat warna sebenarnya,’ (people will show their true colours),” he said…
“But what I know is this, threats are not part of diplomatic language ... Threats are not part of diplomatic language and from what I know, no one responds well to threats.”
The rebuke comes after Mr Abbott made his strongest stance yet against the executions, urging Indonesia to remember all of the assistance Australia gave to the country after the Boxing Day tsunami.
The Prime Minister this morning said Australia would feel “grievously let down” if Indonesia proceeded with sending the two Bali Nine ringleaders to face the firing squad.
“Let’s not forget that a few years ago when Indonesia was struck by the Indian Ocean tsunami Australia sent $1 billion worth of assistance, we sent a contingent of our armed forces to help in Indonesia with humanitarian relief,” Mr Abbott said.
I’m not sure Abbott meant this quite as it sounded. I presume he meant he wanted Indonesia to show compassion as we once did.
But Indonesia will naturally resent this. For a start, we seem to be asking the Indonesian Government to grant clemency for money - trade lives either for money already received or expected. How offensive.
Moreover, we donated that aid to help victims of a terrible tragedy, not to spare Australian criminals from Indonesian justice. Suddenly what seemed compassion on our part now seems self-interested.
This kind of stuff will play very well to a certain part of the community. But it diminishes us and hurts what it’s meant to help. 
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Just a random shooting by some Dane not far from some religious centre

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (7:48pm)


The New York Times perfectly demonstrates how the Left evades the true nature of the threat faced by the West:
image
Indeed, that is so evasive that it’s actually deceptive.
The key fact omitted is that the man was Muslim. An important and related fact similarly distorted is that this terrorist didn’t shoot near the synagogue. He actually attacked the synagogue and murdered a Jewish guard.
Tim Blair has lots, lots more.
But this desperately deceitful kind of reporting follows the script of the equally evasive Barack Obama. Remember how Obama referred to a Muslim extremist deliberately murdering four Jews at a kosher supermarket?


It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris,

What else aren’t they telling you? 
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The Islamic State is indeed Islamic

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (9:37am)


Graeme Wood in The Atlantic:


We are misled ... by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature… The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic....
Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do.... But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition."…
According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said… He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”
All Muslims acknowledge that Muhammad’s earliest conquests were not tidy affairs, and that the laws of war passed down in the Koran and in the narrations of the Prophet’s rule were calibrated to fit a turbulent and violent time. In Haykel’s estimation, the fighters of the Islamic State are authentic throwbacks to early Islam and are faithfully reproducing its norms of war. This behavior includes a number of practices that modern Muslims tend to prefer not to acknowledge as integral to their sacred texts. “Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition,” Haykel said. Islamic State fighters “are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day."…
The Koran specifies crucifixion as one of the only punishments permitted for enemies of Islam. The tax on Christians finds clear endorsement in the Surah Al-Tawba, the Koran’s ninth chapter, which instructs Muslims to fight Christians and Jews “until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The Prophet, whom all Muslims consider exemplary, imposed these rules and owned slaves.
Leaders of the Islamic State have taken emulation of Muhammad as strict duty, and have revived traditions that have been dormant for hundreds of years. “What’s striking about them is not just the literalism, but also the seriousness with which they read these texts,” Haykel said. “There is an assiduous, obsessive seriousness that Muslims don’t normally have.”
... when the Islamic State began enslaving people, even some of its supporters balked. Nonetheless, the caliphate has continued to embrace slavery and crucifixion without apology. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” Adnani, the spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.” ...

Muslims can say that slavery is not legitimate now, and that crucifixion is wrong at this historical juncture. Many say precisely this. But they cannot condemn slavery or crucifixion outright without contradicting the Koran and the example of the Prophet. “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid,” Bernard Haykel says. That really would be an act of apostasy.

Wood meets an Australian jihadist in Melbourne:
In November, I traveled to Australia to meet Musa Cerantonio, a 30-year-old man whom Neumann and other researchers had identified as one of the two most important “new spiritual authorities” guiding foreigners to join the Islamic State....
Cerantonio—a big, friendly man with a bookish demeanor—told me he blanches at beheading videos. He hates seeing the violence, even though supporters of the Islamic State are required to endorse it. (He speaks out, controversially among jihadists, against suicide bombing, on the grounds that God forbids suicide; he differs from the Islamic State on a few other points as well.)…
Cerantonio explained the joy he felt when [Islamic State leader] Baghdadi was declared the caliph on June 29… “I was in a hotel [in the Philippines], and I saw the declaration on television,” he told me. “And I was just amazed, and I’m like, Why am I stuck here in this bloody room?"…
The caliphate, Cerantonio told me, is not just a political entity but also a vehicle for salvation.... Cerantonio nodded gravely. “I would go so far as to say that Islam has been reestablished” by the caliphate.
And Wood offers some small hope:


Properly contained, the Islamic State is likely to be its own undoing. No country is its ally, and its ideology ensures that this will remain the case. The land it controls, while expansive, is mostly uninhabited and poor. As it stagnates or slowly shrinks, its claim that it is the engine of God’s will and the agent of apocalypse will weaken, and fewer believers will arrive. And as more reports of misery within it leak out, radical Islamist movements elsewhere will be discredited: No one has tried harder to implement strict Sharia by violence. This is what it looks like.
Even so, the death of the Islamic State is unlikely to be quick, and things could still go badly wrong: if the Islamic State obtained the allegiance of al?Qaeda—increasing, in one swoop, the unity of its base—it could wax into a worse foe than we’ve yet seen.
(Thanks to reader Jason and many others.) 
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Two Governments rule Australia. One is killing us

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (8:45am)


There are actually two governments in Australia. The main one controls the House of Representatives and is trying to cut spending - now adding more than $100 million a day to the deficit - before the country gets smashed.
The other government is a loose coalition in the Senate, comprising Labor, the Greens, Clive Palmer’s Senators and Jacqie Lambie. This coalition believes there is no financial disaster to fix and is blocking spending cuts and reforms to our welfare culture.
Alan Mitchell says it’s time this second, Labor-led government is held to account:

The Australian public should now demand Labor plays its part in resolving the nation’s fiscal problem.
Labor is content to let the Senate crossbenchers exercise the balance of power, but Labor has 25 seats in the Senate. Acting in concert with the government, the Labor senators could pass a package of measures to bring the structural budget back into surplus by the end of the decade…

(I)f Labor can happily announce what it won’t pass, surely it can indicate the kind of measures it would vote for. That, voters might reasonably think, is a pretty basic responsibility of any alternative government that is using its numbers to hold up a significant part of a much-needed fiscal repair program.

Janet Albrechtsen says it’s time for a reality check:

According to record low polls for the government, we, the ­people, have told the Abbott government it will be obliterated at the next election for aiming for a budget that spends only as much as it earns....
A modest Medicare co-payment with carve-outs for the needy and the young? No thanks.
A sustainable university funding model? No thanks.
A fairer pension system to better fund those in need as the ageing population grows? No thanks.
Reining in disability payments so those in genuine need are better cared for? No thanks.
Fewer middle-class perks — think baby bonuses, family benefits, childcare rebates — so money can be better directed to the poorest? No thanks…
And if voters continue to rebuff these efforts, what then? ... [Labor leader Bill] Shorten will be handsomely rewarded for being irresponsible about budget reform, let alone the economy....
Reform comes down to us. It always does. As economist Chris Richardson said last week, it’s time we looked in the mirror. Try it. If you find yourself looking at Shorten or maybe Sarah Hanson-Young, that explains why reform has become so difficult in this country. If we really are saying we’re happy for our children to foot the bill for our selfishness, we, the people, truly get the government we deserve.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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The pension is a charity, not a right of the wealthy

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (8:33am)


Last night again I had wealthy people ring me on 2GB insisting that they deserved the age pension because they’d paid their taxes.
So the words of David Leyonhjelm at Catallaxy Files are as welcome as water in a desert:
To my fellow mature Australians, I’d like to explain something. We are not entitled to an age pension merely because we have paid taxes all our life. Pensions are not for everyone; fundamentally they are welfare, reserved for the poor.
Like many others, I have been in continuous employment since 1974 and paid my taxes each year, increasingly fairly considerable sums. But governments have not saved my taxes to pay for my retirement. Instead, those sums were spent each year. In fact, our taxes haven’t even covered each year’s government spending. Over the past forty years, budget deficits have been the norm, with the country now in debt to the tune of $245 billion…
It is true my taxes have also funded the welfare state. But that doesn’t represent a down payment on a pension. The welfare payments were primarily to parents, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed…
What Australians have an entitlement to is the assets we own; our houses, our superannuation, our savings. If we give in to the notion that everyone is entitled to government handouts when we are not poor, then our assets will surely suffer the death of a thousand taxes. Let’s save for our retirement and keep pensions in the charity basket.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Chris Bowen would be finished if his name was Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (8:22am)


This would be a huge media scandal - complete with lots of gloating and predictions of last days - if we were talking about Tony Abbott.
But shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen is a Labor man, and this will be allowed pass:

Repeatedly pressed by talkback host Alan Jones to outline Australia’s tax levels, Mr Bowen was unable to identify the $18,200 figure as Australia’s tax-free threshold.
Asked by Jones at what point Australians pay “no tax at all”, Mr Bowen declined to nominate a figure....
Not satisfied with the answer, Jones repeatedly asked: “What is it?"…
Jones eventually gave the shadow treasurer the answer, before berating his credentials as would-be treasurer.
“This is a serious issue. The man wants to be the treasurer of Australia but he doesn’t know the tax thresholds.”
Jones persisted with the issue, asking the NSW MP to identify the percentage of tax paid in the next bracket.
Attempting to shut down the line of questioning, Mr Bowen said: “I’m not going to do a pop quiz with you Alan.”
He then incorrectly nominated 15 per cent as his answer.
“We don’t pay 15, we pay 19 cents in the dollar,” Jones said.
Mr Bowen said he had been referring to the superannuation tax rate, which is 15 per cent.  
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Weak Europe imports a threat. Isi Leibler warns Jews to leave

Andrew Bolt February 18 2015 (7:06am)


Europe has grown weaker - in power and will - as threats mount and dangers are imported. Here is a perfect example:


Last weekend in Italy, as the threat of ISIS in Libya hit home with a new video addressed to “the nation signed with the blood of the cross” and the warning, “we are south of Rome,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi shuttered up the Italian embassy in Tripoli and raised his fist with the threat of impending military action.  Never mind that Italy has only 5,000 troops available that are even close to deployable, according to the defense ministry. Or that the military budget was cut by 40 percent two years ago, which has kept the acquisition of 90 F-35 fighter jets hanging in the balance and left the country combat-challenged to lead any mission—especially one against an enemy like the Islamic State.
In fact, Renzi didn’t specify exactly who would wield that military might, and, two days later, when no one volunteered to lead the charge, he backtracked.  “It’s not the time for a military intervention,” Renzi told an Italian television station Monday night and said the United Nations had to lead the way.  “Our proposal is to wait for the UN Security Council. The strength of the UN is decidedly superior to that of the radical militias.”
Whether the time is right or not, there is no question that there is a palpable tension in Italy over the ISIS threat—Libya is just 109 miles away from the island of Lampedusa and 300 miles from Sicily—made worse by a 64 percent increase in illegal migrant arrivals by sea since last year.  In all of 2014, more than 170,000 people arrived from Libya and Turkey, the highest number ever recorded.  Last weekend, as the embassy staff made their way to Italy on a mercantile ship, 2,164 migrants left the same Libyan shores en route to Sicily… Meanwhile, the Italian government said they are prepared to deploy 500 special anti-terrorism police to protect sensitive tourist sites in Rome. 
As so often, Jews are the canaries in the coal mine. They are so often among the first targets of the enemies of Enlightenment, of civilisation, of democracy. And in Europe that is exactly what we see again, with Islamist shootings in the past year of Jews in France, Belgium and Denmark.
This week a Jewish radio station in Copenhagen was even forced to shut down:
For the first time in the station’s history, Radio Shalom did not broadcast its usual blend of programs about Jewish culture, music and history on Monday evening.
The control board located in a basement in Nørrebro was silenced for what host Abraham Kopenhagen called “security reasons”.
“PET says it’s too dangerous,” Kopenhagen told DR Nyheder. “We do not feel that it is too dangerous, but we respect the information we are given.”
In Sweden, Jews in Malmo report living in a climate of fear:
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has called on Europe’s Jews to leave and come to Israel instead:


This wave of terror attacks can be expected to continue, including antisemitic and murderous attacks. We say to the Jews, to our brothers and sisters, Israel is your home and that of every Jew. Israel is waiting for you with open arms.
Isi Leibler, former head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and chairman of the World Jewish Congress, told me last night that Netanyahu was right.
He said Jews .were no longer safe in France, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia and increasingly in Britain, thanks to Muslim immigration and rising anti-Semitism encouraged by the Left:


In a sense, I think, anti-Semitism in Europe today is worse than it was before the Holocaust. Worse in the sense that at least at that time there were some people standing up on the Left or whatever. Liberals were defending Jews. Today Jews are on their own… It is a graveyard, as far as I am concerned…
The Left is leading the charge against Zionism which is another form of anti-Semitism because they are not being critical of Zionism or Israel. They are simply using the Jewish state in lieu of attacking Jews individually and this kind of anti-Semitism has become part and parcel of the DNA of the Left. Combine that with Islamic fundamentalists and it’s a pretty awful concoction.
And in Europe, I believe Netanyahu is right: they should get out, certainly those that can, and certainly those that want to see their kids growing up in a normal society… I’m not suggesting they’re all going to leave, but there’s certainly going to be large numbers and they’re already coming now. And it makes sense…
By and large Europe itself is no longer a place where a Jew can grow up in a normal environment. Most Jews are considered pariahs and they are also subject to violence by the Islamic fundamentalists particularly now augumented by the fact that they are going and getting military experience overseas and coming back and killing.

Leibler agrees that the maths is inescapable - that as Muslim immigration grows, so does the threat of terrorism and anti-Semitism:

To be politically correct I would evade that question, but to be blunt the answer is where there have been large groups of Muslims coming into countries there has not only been anti-Semitism that has grown but you’ve had the threat of terrorism overall, and that is a fact of life. That’s not because all Muslims are bad, but because you have a large number of them, a large percentage of them, that are jihadists. Now if only one in four are jihadists, that represents millions and millions of people.
To simply dismiss it and to say a tiny minority and that Islam is a religion of peace, that is absolute nonsense… Islam certainly today represents within itself extremes that are not as evident in other religions.
But it is almost impossible to have a frank debate about the threat of Islam to multi-faith democracies of the West:


There is a refusal by the European political leadership to face up to the fact that this is a threat coming from Islamic extremists… Every time you try to discuss the the subject you are accused of Islamophobia. The fact is the majority of violence against Jews, in fact the majority of terrorism, undoubtedly comes from one quarter only.
Leibler says Australia is facing the same problems:


I think we are, but you don’t have the same numbers… The writing is on the wall unless action is taken.
UPDATE
Novelist Howard Jacobson agrees - the Left is helping to make Europe dangerous for Jews:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Weak Europe imports a threat. Isi Leibler warns Jews to leave'
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Dozens of Danish Muslims mourn Islamist killer

Andrew Bolt February 17 2015 (7:17pm)


This is frightening, especially for the Danes, who now cannot reverse the consequences of their mass immigration policies:

With baseball caps pulled low over their eyes and scarves wrapped tight around their mouths, the young men huddled at sundown to pay tribute to a killer.
Dozens had come to the scene where their “brother” was shot dead by police after he sprayed gunfire outside a cafe and a synagogue. Now they would give him a proper – and defiantly public – send-off: quiet prayers, followed by repeated chants of “Allahu Akbar” and the raised-index-finger salute of the Islamic State.
“May Allah show you grace,” read the handwritten sign they taped to the bullet-scarred apartment building where 22-year-old Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein fell. “Rest in peace, Captain."…
After paying their respects Monday evening at the spot where Hussein was shot dead, the young men – many no older than their late teens – walked en masse back to Mjolnerparken. At least a dozen assault-rifle-wielding police followed from a wary distance.
“There’s only one terrorist, and that’s the guy who drew the Prophet,” said Adnan Abdec, a 29-year-old Muslim who was not with the group but who watched its actions approvingly. “He made 1.5 billion people angry. If you push Muslims, it’s going to come back to you.”
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Never again? A Jew tries to walk in Paris

Andrew Bolt February 17 2015 (4:25pm)


Sick results:

A journalist decided to test how safe the streets of Paris are for Jews - by wearing a religious skullcap and filming the public’s reaction using a hidden camera.
Zvika Klein, a reporter for Jewish news outlet NRG, silently walked in the city for ten hours wearing a kippah - also known as a yarmulke - on his head and a tzitzit (knotted ritual tassels).
Is the metric really so crude, that the more Muslims enter a country, the less safe are Jews within it? And what of the Left, which has done so much to licence Jew-hatred under the guise of “anti-Zionism”?
(Thanks to reader Jennifer.) 
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Post by Kenny Stills.

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=== Posts from last year ===

Law upheld

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (4:52pm)

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.
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What does Labor say now about Craig Thomson and the money it gave him?

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (4:37pm)

  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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The first sign of hope I’ve seen from North Korea

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (10:12am)


Four Corners last night showed a brilliant documentary on North Korea. That it is a murderous tyranny capable of the most appalling cruelty is no secret. But what was startling - at least for me - was the secret footage it showed of North Korean civilians defying authority. Here is a clip from the documentary, and below is the relevant part of the script - the part that gives hope:
NARRATOR: Behind closed doors, even members of the North Korean elite have voiced unhappiness with the regime, like this businesswoman filmed at a private lunch. 
[subtitles]
1st MAN: All we’re saying is give us some basic rights, right? We don’t have any.
WOMAN: It’s not like that in China. In China, they’ve got freedom of speech, you know. They went through the Cultural Revolution.
2ndWOMAN: We North Koreans are wise and very loyal. An uprising is still something we don’t understand.
1st MAN: But even that’s only to a certain point.
WOMAN: There can’t be a rebellion. They’ll kill everyone ruthlessly. Yes, ruthlessly. The problem here is that one in three people will secretly report you. That’s the problem. That’s how they do it.
2ndMAN: Let’s just drink up. There’s no use talking about it.
NARRATOR: The cynicism about their leaders comes partly from radical change in the way people make a living.
JIRO ISHIMARU: [through interpreter] Looking at footage shot inside North Korea, we can see that a huge number of people have started doing business with each other. This used to be illegal, and anyone caught buying or selling for personal gain was severely punished.
NARRATOR: Illegal markets first began to appear when the state stopped being able to feed its people during the famine. Today the state tolerates them, but people are pushing the limits of private enterprise. This woman is running an illegal private bus service. An army officer tries to stop her from picking up passengers.
WOMAN: [subtitles] If you’re an officer, where are your stars then? Let me see them then. Let me see your stars then. Where are your stars if you’re an officer? Let me see your stars. Where are your stars if you’re an officer?
OFFICER: Hey! Hey! Hey!
WOMAN: Hey! Hey! Hey! You bastard! You’re an ass-[deleted]!
JIRO ISHIMARU: [through interpreter] People’s willingness to confront or ignore authority has become more and more common. People around the world have this image of North Koreans as being brainwashed, but that’s very mistaken. Often now, when North Koreans are challenged for infringing a certain law, as long as the offense is not political, they don’t hesitate to protest if they believe the law to be irrational.
NARRATOR: Until recently, it was illegal for women to wear pants. Soldiers are arguing with this woman about breaking the dress code.
WOMAN IN PANTS: [subtitles] Don’t hit me! Why are you hitting me?
OFFICER: [subtitles] Stop it, bitch!
WOMAN IN PANTS: [subtitles] Watch your mouth. Don’t call me a bitch!
NARRATOR: The soldiers put an armband on her to mark her offense.
WOMAN IN PANTS: [subtitles] Those people are wearing trousers.
NARRATOR: But before long, she rips it off, and a senior officer steps in.
[subtitles]
SENIOR OFFICER: You’re not going to be quiet?
FEMALE OFFICER: You’re saying you don’t deserve this? Watch your mouth! Don’t call me a bitch.
SENIOR OFFICER: Please stop it. WOMAN IN PANTS: Why aren’t you telling off those people wearing trousers? I’m so annoyed.
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Now Alcoa closes, too. Labor’s subsidies fail and its carbon tax kills

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (9:04am)

Yesterday:
Alcoa says no decision has been made to shut its aluminium smelter at Geelong, and will tell employees if the Point Henry plant will continue to operate by the end of March.
Today:
ALCOA will today announce the closure of its Point Henry aluminium smelter near Geelong, endangering 1200 jobs ...
That decision has now been announced. It’s another terrible blow to Geelong and to the Victorian Government, already struggling with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
Note: an aluminium smelter produces what is rightly described as ”congealed electricity”. Our high power prices make such a smelter, and an old one at that, simply unaffordable.
UPDATE
More proof that governments just throw money away when they try to subsidise a dying industry (with, no coincidence, a highly unionised workforce). From June 2012:
The Australian and Victorian Governments will invest in a restructure of Alcoa’s Point Henry aluminium smelter in Geelong with more than $40 million in assistance to help ensure its economic sustainability and support more than 500 local jobs… 
The Minister for Industry and Innovation, Greg Combet, said the $40 million in Federal funding recognised the challenges to the aluminium sector from the high Australian dollar and low world aluminium prices.
So how stupid was Labor to give subsidies with the one hand, but then take a carbon tax with the other? From 2012:
MORE than 300 jobs are set to be lost as a Norwegian company plans to shut its aluminium smelter in the NSW Hunter Valley. 
Norsk Hydro will shut down its Kurri Kurri plant, as low metals prices and the strong Australian dollar impact its profitability, the company said today… A subsequent review of the plant has revealed ...  its long-term viability would be negatively affected by increasing energy costs and the carbon tax, Norsk Hydro said.
In fact, Labor fully expected and planned for its carbon tax to kill aluminium plants such as Alcoa’s, which is also battling a high dollar, ageing technology and low international prices:
Deloitte Access Economics in its report to the Victoria Government last September cites Treasury modelling showing Gillard’s tax will savage the aluminium industry: 
The climate change scenarios modelled in this report are based around the Commonwealth Treasury modelling of the Government’s Clean Energy Future proposal… Specifically, aluminium output is projected to decrease by about 31% by 2020…
The Australian Aluminium Council last year warned how devastating the tax would be: 
This imposes a carbon cost on Australian aluminium producers of at least $60 per tonne of aluminium compared to only $8 per tonne in China.… This is putting jobs in Gladstone, Geelong, Hunter Valley, Portland, Tasmania and Western Australia on the line when no other country is exposing their industry to the same risks. 
Alcoa to the Gillard Government last October:
Given the extraordinary electricity intensity of aluminium smelting and limitations of supply opportunities in Victoria, Alcoa has no flexibility to obtain its long term power needs from anywhere other than Victorian brown coal-fired generators… This situation will impact the future economic viability of these two smelters ...
UPDATE
Former Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery tells the ABC this morning that the closure of Alcoa is just a “cost” of saving us from having a “filthy planet”.
Green policies mean longer job queues. The AWU members at Alcoa should demand their union explain why it backed the Labor carbon tax that’s helped cost their jobs. Remember this promise?
Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes has warned the Government that ”if one job is gone, our support [for the carbon tax] is gone”.
Labor is still using its Senate numbers to help the Greens stop the Abbott Government from axeing the carbon tax.
UPDATE
Treasury three years ago modelled the effects of the Gillard Government’s “Strong Growth, Low Pollution” policies - including the carbon tax - and found the aluminium industry’s output would fall by two thirds by 2050:
image
Green activists can put their feet up. They won’t need to do this again:

Climate change protestors halted production for approximately three hours today, in Australia’s largest aluminium smelter.
UPDATE
Reader StevenM:
I have long argued that aluminium is the clearest example of the stupidity of the carbon tax. The bauxite will now be shipped overseas to be refined. This will increase the amount shipped seven fold, using seven times the amount of fuel. The bunker fuel burned by large ships is the dirtiest fuel there is.The aluminium will now be refined in the cheapest country available. Cheap power is dirty power - much worse than using Australian power. Emissions can only rise as a result of the counter productive carbon tax.
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Two more stories on AM on Abbott’s (successful) border policies

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (8:47am)

Boat people policy

As I said yesterday, never has the ABC been so obsessed with boat people policy than now, when the Liberals are succeeding where Labor disastrously failed.
Today again. The ABC’s AM leads with not one but two stories questioning the Abbott Government’s policies.  
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What Scott did next

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (8:32am)

Scott Morrison has performed even better as Immigration Minister than I predicted. It is astonishing that no boats have arrived in more than eight weeks, despite some Indonesian authorities’ refusal to cooperate. Morrison has also smartened his media presentation, and his performance on Insiders on Sunday was faultless.
Yes, there is still much to do before the Government can claimed the boats have indeed stopped. The sailing season is still to come. The boat people in detention still need to be sent back home or resettled. But this is a very good start, and a very good job advertisement for Morrison, who is emerging as a potential Liberal leader (behind Joe Hockey). I suspect Tony Abbott would also be comfortable with Morrison’s brand of politics.
Morrison would still need to prove himself in another portfolio or two to widen his experience and demonstrate this success with the boats was no fluke.
So where would a canny Prime Minister - keen to nurture talent, promote his agenda and confound his enemies - next place Morrison? Where could a capable and articulate conservative be employed with great profit?
I look at the ABC and cannot help thinking what tremendous good a Morrison could achieve that a Malcolm Turnbull won’t.... 
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Climate scientist attacks alarmists who blame England’s floods on warming

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (7:57am)

image
It has taken years, but finally some warmist scientists are publicly contradicting their more alarmist colleagues:
One of the Met Office’s most senior experts yesterday made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming. 
Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south than usual.
Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’…
Prof Collins is also a senior adviser – a ‘co-ordinating lead author’ – for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His statement appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo. Last weekend, she said ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ in the storms.
Actually, Big Government seems more to blame. Via Jo Nova:
Christopher Booker explains in The Spectator that it’s not global warming that caused such ghastly floods in the UK, but incompetence and a Green EU wetland plan. He lives near Somerset, (SW England) so he started investigating the rising water six weeks ago — which has now become widespread inundation there, with damages estimated at over £100 million… 
In the Spectator he writes that before 1996, local groups of farmers and engineers managed the drains, but in 1996 the EA (Environmental Agency) took over. Regular dredging stopped happening, the pumping stations were neglected (or stopped...), and the local drainage boards found it hard to get anything done with the EA red tape.
Then things got worse. In 2002, “the Baroness Young of Old Scone, a Labour peeress, became the agency’s new chief executive”. As Booker goes on to note, she used to run the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Natural England, not that that’s a bad thing per se, just that she had different aims to the people who lived there. The locals saw what was coming, they feared that the river had become choked and silted, they wanted control back. Instead, what they got was some parts of Somerset suddenly “returned to wetland” — but that, it seems, was kinda the goal. Booker and Richard North pored through documents and found remarkable quotes.  According to the Baroness, the cheapest way to get a wetland was to “stop drainage” and let “nature take its course”.
Which it now has.
The worst thing about the green religion is that is has been a Trojan Horse for the return of unreason.
UPDATE
James Delingpole nails 10 lies about the floods. The highlights:
1. This is the wettest winter since records began. 
No it’s not. As Paul Homewood reveals at his website Not A Lot Of People Know That, it was considerably wetter between November 1929 and January 1930. Yes, this January was wet, but it still only ranks as the sixteenth wettest month since records began in 1766…
3. Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson should resign. 
No, he shouldn’t. Paterson is one of the few politicians to have shown any integrity in this crisis. Unlike his Conservative colleagues David Cameron and Philip Hammond he has not sought to curry easy favour with the green lobby by blaming the floods on ‘climate change’. He was the first senior politician to visit the Somerset Levels and grasp the truth about the problem: that the floods were a direct consequence of Environmental Agency and European Union policy…
8. Dredging the rivers wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. 
Yes, of course, that’s what environmental apologists would like you to believe… But of course they’re talking rubbish. The only way floodwater can escape is out to sea: hence the need for keeping the conduits for such a process - our rivers - as free-flowing as possible i.e. with regular dredging. 
For clear visual evidence of what has gone wrong over the years, have a look at the before and after pictures of the River Parrett unearthed by Richard North at his Eureferendum blog. 
The old black and white one shows the river to be wide and free-flowing. The more recent colour one shows how badly the banks have been allowed to silt up…
image
Delingpole deals with the last lie superbly:
10. “Lessons will be learned.” 
No they won’t. Which is the main reason I wanted to write this list: as a handy reminder of all the things that the government, the liberal-left MSM, the greenies and the rest are going to do their damnedest to make us forget as quickly as possible. The fact - and this cannot be restated often enough - is that these floods are a man-made disaster. But the man-made element has nothing whatsoever to do with anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Rather it is the result of deliberate policy, initiated by the UN (Agenda 21), the European Union and its amen corner the Environment Agency, designed to create wildlife habitats at the expense of humans.
(Thanks to many readers, including Dave and Kathleen.)                      
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Sceptic Dick Warburton, out and proud but still misunderstood

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (7:44am)

Dick Warburton, who will lead the Abbott Government’s review of the renewable energy target, is a man of reason and some courage:
I am not a denier of climate change… I am a sceptic that man-made carbon dioxide is creating global warming. 
(Warburton has today clarified that he means he is sceptical that man-made carbon dioxide is the major cause of global warming.)
Excellent, but this distinction is too much for a sub-editor at The Australian:
image
Now let’s see if Warburton will ask the bottom-line question: how much difference does the renewable energy target make to the global temperature.
UPDATE
Burchell Wilson of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry exposes the scam to the ABC’s 7.30, albeit without noting it will do nothing stop a global warming that actually stopped 16 years ago:
Look, the problem with the Renewable Energy Target is it’s imposing a cost of $1.6 billion across the economy. It amounts to about five per cent of household energy costs now and that’s just going to mushroom over time… [T]he cost of the RET to average households is around $102 per annum…  
It’s costing up to $525 per tonne to abate carbon under the renewable energy target. There are low-cost alternatives available and, effectively, we’re undermining our emissions reduction effort by persisting with the Renewable Energy Target… Look, the Renewable Energy Target is - it’s corporate welfare on a massive scale directed towards the renewable sector. 
Wilson also scoffs at the Left’s outrage at the appointment of Warburton and Brian Fisher to review the RET:
SARAH FERGUSON: Dick Warburton is a self-avowed sceptic. His views on the subjects are well known. Is he an appropriate person to be leading this review? 
BURCHELL WILSON: Absolutely. Dick led the charge against Australia having the highest carbon tax in the world. You’ll realise that Australians per capita pay $380 per head under the carbon tax, whereas Europeans under the ETS, they’re paying about $1.50…
SARAH FERGUSON: We’ve also got Brian Fisher, who has a long history of being opposed to pricing mechanisms in this area. It does sound as though the outcome of the review is to some extent preordained? BURCHELL WILSON: Brian Fisher is a first-rate economist, one of the best in the country… [He] will ...  tell you ... the Renewable Energy Target is high-cost, it’s inefficient as a means of abating carbon, and if that’s your primary objective with respect to the RET, then we should scrap it altogether.
Reason is returning.
(Thanks to reader Turtle of WA.) 
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How many billions are we prepared to give Qantas’s creditors?

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (7:29am)

Uh oh: 
The federal government is leaning towards a two-pronged response to Qantas Airways of a debt guarantee to provide short-term relief and pushing Parliament over the longer term to repeal the Qantas Sale Act that keeps the company Australian controlled… 
Providing a debt guarantee is now viewed within government as inevitable, even though there remains a deep reluctance to expose taxpayers to any liability… Prime Minister Tony Abbott sought to increase the pressure on Monday by warning Labor that the future of Qantas was at stake if ultimately the opposition did now allow Parliament to repeal the 1992 Qantas Sale Act.
Judith Sloan warns: 
(T)he provision of a government guarantee ... may seem like a cheap round because the company will pay a fee for the guarantee. But there is always the chance that, if the company’s performance does not lift, it will default on its borrowings and the taxpayer will be left holding the baby… 
Labor should come clean about its refusal to allow the Qantas Sale Act to be rescinded. This is the least costly means of helping the company and the one that should be pursued with great vigour at this point.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill. Thanks to reader Michael for pointing out my confusion of creditors with debtors. Fixed now.) 
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Tim Wilson ready to fight George Brandis

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (7:14am)

Free speech

Good news. Tim Wilson, the new Human Rights Commissioner, signals that he will fight the Attorney-General who appointed him:
More immediately, the federal government has flagged reforms to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to remove unnecessary restrictions on free speech that offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates people on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin. 
There are diverse views on whether section 18C should be left alone, modestly changed or fully repealed. I will be arguing for its full repeal on the grounds it conflicts with other human rights and therefore does not meet the threshold for restricting speech.
Wilson says he opposes the restrictions on speech that “offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates”.  Brandis has hinted that he opposes only the restrictions on speech that offends and insults.
Wilson is right, and Brandis has a fight. 
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Conservatives outnumbered on Q&A, but the Left outgunned

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (6:47am)

Terrific performance by Professor Jim Allan on Q&A last night, attacking the carbon tax, mocking our award system and putting the rude, ill-informed and inarticulate Voice of Youf in her place. (By the way, why does host Tony Jones produce one token Muslim after another, but never a token Buddhist?) Allan’s defence of political debate against the Voice of Youf’s demand for a Kumbayah approach to global warming was superb.
Heather Ridout once again reminds us what a disgrace it was for the Australian Industry Group to have her lead it. Here she was prattling on about “the science” of global warming as if it were monolithic and proved the wisdom of having an emission trading system which does virtually nothing to change the climate, but which sure hurts business. Here she was praising the awards system that strangles small business, and apparently defending the subsidies to big car makers that the Productivity Commission reported were a drag on the economy. Her attempts to chip Allan for raising the US as a counter-example were pathetic.
Tony Burke is a fine street-fighter in a terrible cause, but I was struck by how many points the often-underrated Eric Abetz took off him, particularly over the renewable energy target. Few Ministers would be as in control of their brief as Abetz, and none make fewer mistakes. 
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Abbott Government vs the bureaucrats

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (6:38am)

Nick Cater on the triumph of crusading bureaucrats against the elected government of the people: 
In December, at a forum of health ministers from Australia and New Zealand, assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash made it clear that she was sceptical about a plan to place a health star rating on the front of food packets.
She was concerned that the Regulatory Impact Statement, requested by the Office of Best Practice and Regulation in the middle of last year, had not been produced. Nash ordered the department to calculate both costs and benefits and to report back to the forum in June…
Kathy Dennis, the assistant secretary in charge of the Healthy Living and Food Policy branch, decided to press ahead anyway.
Two weeks ago, the department launched a website, http://www.healthstarrating.com.au, explaining the forthcoming health star rating system that the minister had yet to approve.
A ministerial adviser contacted Dennis expressing the minister’s concern, but the website remained in place. Nash’s chief of staff, Alastair Furnival, called Dennis to reinforce the message. Dennis stuck to her guns.
The minister was obliged to take the matter to the acting head of the department, Mark Booth. On Booth’s instructions, the website was taken down and Dennis was moved to other duties…
The mutiny at [the Department of Health] is not an isolated case… Across the board, from the Climate Change Commission to the ABC, the Human Rights Commission and even Infrastructure Australia, all are openly hostile to the popularly elected government. 
But asserting the authority of the Minister has been pushed. Furnival was slimed in Left-wing newspapers as having a sinister conflict of interest, having in his past worked for food companies, and he has been forced to resign. Hope the journalists are happy. 
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Liberals silence some of their best with kindness

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (6:23am)

I’m worried that some of the Liberals’ most effective cultural warriors are being put out to lush pastures when there are great battles to win:
Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer is set to be named high commissioner to London in a move that would cut short the term of the Labor appointee Mike Rann… 
Victoria’s erstwhile Labor premier Steve Bracks was blocked on the eve of his departure for the United Nations post in New York, shortly after the Coalition came to power last year. He has since been replaced by the former Howard finance minister Nick Minchin in a move criticised as jobs for the boys.  
Note, by the way, the Age writer harrumphing about “jobs for the boys” after having been perfectly happy with the appointment by Labor of the Labor politicians these Liberals replace. 
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This free blog passes on the subsidised ABC’s story on newspapers having trouble selling copies

Andrew Bolt February 18 2014 (6:00am)

Media

Media Watch on the future of newspapers. As in, there’s a future?
Audit Bureau of Circulation figures for the last 3 months of 2013 show another huge fall ... with Fairfax Media’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald down by a shocking 17% from the same period of 2012. 
News Corp’s Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph fared slightly better, but still fell 12%, after even bigger falls in the previous quarter…
In absolute terms the Herald and Age are now selling not much more than 130,000 copies each a day.
Meanwhile, the mighty Herald Sun has sunk below 400,000 and the Daily Telegraph below 300,000…
But ... the news on advertising revenue is even worse… Fairfax Media’s 2013 results show that print advertising revenue for its two big Metro mastheads—the Herald and the Age—fell by 25% last financial year, or by almost exactly $100 million…
Fairfax has shed some 2,000 jobs , announced the closure of its two biggest printing plants, shut down magazines, moved to a tabloid format and got rid of some its best-known writers . On the plus side, the Age and Herald have put up paywalls on their popular websites… Last year Fairfax’s digital ad revenue rose by only $5.5 million, while its print ad revenue fell $100 million, or almost 20 times as much. 
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Abbott cleans up after Labor’s spies. Shorten blames him for the broken glass

Andrew Bolt February 17 2014 (7:40pm)

Labor sure dropped the Abbott Government into the Indonesian soup:
THE Abbott government faces a fresh test of its relationship with Jakarta amid new allegations an Australian intelligence agency spied on Indonesia last year and passed the information it gathered to the US. 

In the latest damaging leak of top-secret information from former US security analyst Edward Snowden, The New York Times says an Australian intelligence agency spied on a US law firm representing Indonesia in a trade dispute with the US. 
The report is expected to add to the ongoing tensions with Jakarta over the Coalition’s strategy for stopping asylum-seeker boats at sea and revelations last year that the Australian Signals Directorate, formerly the Defence Signals Directorate, listened to the phone conversations of Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and associates, including his wife. While the earlier eavesdropping claims concerned events under the Rudd Labor government in 2009, the new document refers to activity under way just a year ago, in February last year, under the term of the Gillard government.
Will Labor take any of the blame?
No, no shame at all from Labor leader Bill Shorten, a minister in both the Rudd and Gillard governments:
I am concerned that in the course of five and a half months, Tony Abbott has taken our relationship with Indonesia from hero to zero.  
What a fraud.
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“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” - Romans 8:35,37
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 17: Morning
"Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi." - Genesis 25:11
Hagar had once found deliverance there and Ishmael had drank from the water so graciously revealed by the God who liveth and seeth the sons of men; but this was a merely casual visit, such as worldlings pay to the Lord in times of need, when it serves their turn. They cry to him in trouble, but forsake him in prosperity. Isaac dwelt there, and made the well of the living and all-seeing God his constant source of supply. The usual tenor of a man's life, the dwelling of his soul, is the true test of his state. Perhaps the providential visitation experienced by Hagar struck Isaac's mind, and led him to revere the place; its mystical name endeared it to him; his frequent musings by its brim at eventide made him familiar with the well; his meeting Rebecca there had made his spirit feel at home near the spot; but best of all, the fact that he there enjoyed fellowship with the living God, had made him select that hallowed ground for his dwelling. Let us learn to live in the presence of the living God; let us pray the Holy Spirit that this day, and every other day, we may feel, "Thou God seest me." May the Lord Jehovah be as a well to us, delightful, comforting, unfailing, springing up unto eternal life. The bottle of the creature cracks and dries up, but the well of the Creator never fails; happy is he who dwells at the well, and so has abundant and constant supplies near at hand. The Lord has been a sure helper to others: his name is Shaddai, God All-sufficient; our hearts have often had most delightful intercourse with him; through him our soul has found her glorious Husband, the Lord Jesus; and in him this day we live, and move, and have our being; let us, then, dwell in closest fellowship with him. Glorious Lord, constrain us that we may never leave thee, but dwell by the well of the living God.
Evening
"Whereas the Lord was there." - Ezekiel 35:10
Edom's princes saw the whole country left desolate, and counted upon its easy conquest; but there was one great difficulty in their way--quite unknown to them--"The Lord was there;" and in his presence lay the special security of the chosen land. Whatever may be the machinations and devices of the enemies of God's people, there is still the same effectual barrier to thwart their design. The saints are God's heritage, and he is in the midst of them, and will protect his own. What comfort this assurance yields us in our troubles and spiritual conflicts! We are constantly opposed, and yet perpetually preserved! How often Satan shoots his arrows against our faith, but our faith defies the power of hell's fiery darts; they are not only turned aside, but they are quenched upon its shield, for "the Lord is there." Our good works are the subjects of Satan's attacks. A saint never yet had a virtue or a grace which was not the target for hellish bullets: whether it was hope bright and sparkling, or love warm and fervent, or patience all-enduring, or zeal flaming like coals of fire, the old enemy of everything that is good has tried to destroy it. The only reason why anything virtuous or lovely survives in us is this, "the Lord is there."

If the Lord be with us through life, we need not fear for our dying confidence; for when we come to die, we shall find that "the Lord is there;" where the billows are most tempestuous, and the water is most chill, we shall feel the bottom, and know that it is good: our feet shall stand upon the Rock of Ages when time is passing away. Beloved, from the first of a Christian's life to the last, the only reason why he does not perish is because "the Lord is there." When the God of everlasting love shall change and leave his elect to perish, then may the Church of God be destroyed; but not till then, because it is written, Jehovah Shammah, "The Lord is there."
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Thaddaeus 
[Thăddae'us] - breast, one that praises or man of heart.
One of the twelve apostles of Christ (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18), also called Labbeus, or Lebbeus, and sometimes identified as Jude, who wrote the epistle bearing his name. This apostle then, was known by three names, two of which were terms of endearment used toward him from early days. In this least known among the apostles, we have a man who discovered that love is the secret of obedience and that obedience is the secret of blessedness.
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Today's reading: Leviticus 21-22, Matthew 28 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Leviticus 21-22

Rules for Priests
1 The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: 'A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die, 2 except for a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother, 3 or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband--for her he may make himself unclean. 4 He must not make himself unclean for people related to him by marriage, and so defile himself....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 28

Jesus Has Risen
1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men....


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