Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Wed Jun 17th Todays News

Bolt report Instructions follow the publishing news. 
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Ron Clarke died. He set 17 world records as a middle distance runner, but never got an Olympic Gold. In Sport he is best remembered for burning himself lighting the 1956 Olympic flame as a nineteen year old, and an act of great sportsmanship with Landy. Clarke had tripped in a race (1956 Australian Championships) and Landy stopped to help him. But Clarke urged Landy on and Landy won the race. Ron failed to win gold, but he became mayor of the Gold Coast. He died from kidney failure after he had helped secure the 2018 commonwealth games for Queensland.  

 Woolworth CEO resigns, but despite the glaring issue of the awful online interface launched recently, all the discussion surrounds the hardware offshoot Masters. Masters has grown 17% in the last year but is still losing profit, expected to be $200 million. Woolworths overall profit has fallen from $2.45 billion to $2.15 billion. There is no plan for the succession, so the changeover will be delayed. Thing is, Masters is a young, well endowed business and if Woolworths shelves it they will fail to profit from their investment. It would be bad business. A bit like their new abysmal online interface. 

 In 1462, Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia. In his younger days, Vlad and his younger brother were hostages held by the Ottomans. His younger brother was handsome and became friends with the Ottoman chief and converted to Islam. Vlad didn't. Three times Vlad led his people against the Ottomans, but he was betrayed by an ambitious Hungarian king who wanted to be Holy Roman Emperor and sacrificed Wallacia to the Ottomans by blame shifting Vlad. 1497, Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeated troops led by Michael An Gof. Michael led a rebellion against taxation. He failed badly, being drawn and quartered. His last words were he would be remembered for eternity. But tax goes on. 1565, Matsunaga Hisahide assassinated the 13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru. 1579, Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called Nova Albion (modern California) for England. 1596, the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovered the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen. 1631, Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, would spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal. 1673, French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and became the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course. 1773, Cúcuta, Colombia, was discovered by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar. 1775, American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflicted heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill. 1789, in France, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly. 1795, the burghers of Swellendam expelled the Dutch East India Company magistrate and declared a republic.

 In 1839, in the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issued the edict of toleration which gave Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace were established as a result. 1843, the Wairau Affray, the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers in the New Zealand Wars, took place. 1861, American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia. 1863, American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign. 1876, American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. 1877, American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory. 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. 1898, the United States Navy Hospital Corps was established.

 In 1900, Boxer Rebellion: Allied Western and Japanese forces captured the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China. 1901, the College Board introduced its first standardised test, the forerunner to the SAT. 1910, Aurel Vlaicu piloted an A. Vlaicu nr. 1 on its first flight. 1922, Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral completed the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic. 1929, the town of Murchison, New Zealand was rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster.

 In 1930, U.S. President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law. 1932, Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amassed at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considered a bill that would give them certain benefits. 1933, Union Station Massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash. 1939, last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison. 1940, World War II: RMS Lancastria was attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 were killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster. Also 1940, World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assaulted and took Fort Capuzzo in Libya, Africa from Italian forces. Also 1940, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fell under the occupation of the Soviet Union. 1944, Iceland declared independence from Denmark and became a republic.

 In 1953, East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union ordered a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion. 1958, the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapsed into the Burrard Inlet killing many of the ironworkers and injuring others. 1960, the Nez Perce tribe was awarded $4 million for 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty. 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools. Also 1963, a day after South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem announced the Joint Communique to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people broke out. One person was killed. 1967, the People's Republic of China announced a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.

 In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared the U.S. War on Drugs. 1972, Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives were arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition. 1985, STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery launched carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a Payload Specialist. 1987, with the death of the last individual of the species, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow became extinct. 1991, Apartheid: The South African Parliament repealed the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth. 1992, a "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction was signed by U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II). 1994, following a televised low-speed highway chase, O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
2014
Today NSW launched a responsible, prudent and somewhat brilliant budget. It is not extravagant, but builds substantial infrastructure which is important for the future. It is predicated on the sale of wires and poles related to electrical power supply. The resultant improvement in efficiency in power supply is another benefit. But I cannot applaud the government because they are responsible for me losing my home. The ALP took my career and have smeared me. I have done nothing wrong. I have turned to the NSW Government for help and they have sold me down the river. I don't mean Zaya Toma or Andrew Rohan, who have done as much as they can, but have been, apparently (they have not told me that) nobbled by senior executive. I don't know why, and in guessing, I might do many a terrible disservice. But they took my home. 

 When the ALP were struggling after 16 years of incompetent government, there was no certainty they would not be reelected. The press, including the Daily Telegraph were still willing to run appalling puff pieces supporting the ALP. The public service were clearly partisan in supporting the ALP. It wasn't enough for Barry O'Farrell to be different to the ALP and aim for responsible government, he had to assure vested interests that there would be continuity of administration. Tellingly, the inept CEO of the NSW Dept of Ed was co-opted to head the public service under O'Farrell. This does not mean Coutts-Trotter is corrupt or O'Farrell. But, it does mean that those reliant on the stability of the corrupt hand of the previous administration to remain partly on the till, got their wish. The current police chief had acted in the role of the former Police Minister by actively proselytising ALP policy.

Following the 2011 election win for the conservatives in NSW O'Farrell had a cabinet in the west meeting I attended with many others. I did not get to publicly express my question to the Education Minister, but I privately raised it. I have done nothing wrong, and so there is nothing to investigate. And so my career remains lost. And after many years of neglect, I have lost my home. 

It wasn't much of home, but it embodied what was important to me. I want a safe, healthy space to raise a family. If my friends wish to help me, they can help me with that agenda. No friend opposes it. It would not have taken much to have gotten me work. I did not want patronage. Merely fairness. They took my home. 

Today is the wonderful anniversary of the 1903 birth of the first person to bake, the inventor of, the chocolate chip cookie. Also M. C. Escher (1898). Rodney King in '12 succumbed in wealth to what he withstood in justice. In 1971 Nixon began the war on drugs on this day. In 1972, the Watergate scandal took place .. coincidence? 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 1462, Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia. 1497, Battle of Deptford Bridge: Forces under King Henry VII defeated troops led by Michael An Gof. 1565, Matsunaga Hisahide assassinated the 13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru. 1579, Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called Nova Albion (modern California) for England. 1596, the Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovered the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen. 1631, Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, would spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal. 1673, French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and became the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course. 1773, Cúcuta, Colombia, was discovered by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar. 1775, American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflicted heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill. 1789, in France, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly. 1795, the burghers of Swellendam expelled the Dutch East India Company magistrate and declared a republic.

In 1839, in the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issued the edict of toleration which gave Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace were established as a result. 1843, the Wairau Affray, the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers in the New Zealand Wars, took place. 1861, American Civil War: Battle of Vienna, Virginia. 1863, American Civil War: Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign. 1876, American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. 1877, American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory. 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. 1898, the United States Navy Hospital Corps was established.

In 1900, Boxer Rebellion: Allied Western and Japanese forces captured the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China. 1901, the College Board introduced its first standardised test, the forerunner to the SAT. 1910, Aurel Vlaicu piloted an A. Vlaicu nr. 1 on its first flight. 1922, Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral completed the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic. 1929, the town of Murchison, New Zealand was rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killing 17. At the time it was New Zealand's worst natural disaster.

In 1930, U.S. President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law. 1932, Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amassed at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considered a bill that would give them certain benefits. 1933, Union Station Massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash. 1939, last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison. 1940, World War II: RMS Lancastria was attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 were killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster. Also 1940, World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assaulted and took Fort Capuzzo in Libya, Africa from Italian forces. Also 1940, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fell under the occupation of the Soviet Union. 1944, Iceland declared independence from Denmark and became a republic.

In 1953, East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union ordered a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion. 1958, the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapsed into the Burrard Inlet killing many of the ironworkers and injuring others. 1960, the Nez Perce tribe was awarded $4 million for 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty. 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools. Also 1963, a day after South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem announced the Joint Communique to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people broke out. One person was killed. 1967, the People's Republic of China announced a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared the U.S. War on Drugs. 1972, Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives were arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition. 1985, STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery launched carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a Payload Specialist. 1987, with the death of the last individual of the species, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow became extinct. 1991, Apartheid: The South African Parliament repealed the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth. 1992, a "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction was signed by U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II). 1994, following a televised low-speed highway chase, O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
=== Publishing News ===
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, September https://www.createspace.com/5106914, 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.
=== Bolt Report Items ===
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.  
===
Dear Members (YOU MUST READ THIS THREAD)
As of today, the rules of this forum are going to be enforced more rigorously. This includes the instant removal of members who personally abuse other members of this forum.
Whilst the use of bad language is often invoked as colourful descriptors of politicians, we ask that people refrain from the C word as there are many people on this forum who do not want to see that as part of every day language here.
Blatant racism, homophobia and religious slurs will be removed from the forum, along with the person who posted them.
Crass, vile & vitriolic hate posts will also be removed along with the person who posts those comments or threads.
Generally we will give people a 24 hour time out to cool off after they have been removed and those people will be welcome back to the forum once they have applied via an admin..... we will however, permanently remove repeat offenders with a rule of "3 strikes and you're out".
We are trying to encourage legitimate debate, conversation and discussion on this forum where people are able to have free thought and their own opinions without "mob" rule attacking them for thinking differently, however, in saying this, members who are here to deliberately cause trouble or "troll" will be removed without warning.
The standard of this forum needs to be better and people are responsible for their own behaviour.... bullying of others or bullying of admins will also result in that person being removed.
Legitimate criticism is appreciated, along with logical and rational commentary.
Admins decisions are final.... so make of this forum what you want of it and do not complain if you are removed for behaviour that is contrary to the posting protocols.
If you feel intimated or threatened by another person, contact an admin immediately so the situation can be monitored and mediated.
Regards
Admins
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Happy birthday and many happy returns AiPing. Su. On your day in 1579, Explorer Francis Drake landed in a region of present-day California, naming it New Albion and claiming it for England. In 1843, New Zealand Wars: An armed posse of Europeans set out from Nelson to arrest Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha and clashed with Māori, resulting in 26 deaths. In 1900, Boxer Rebellion: Allied naval forces captured the Taku Forts after a brief but bloody battle. In 1972, Five men were arrested for attempted burglary on the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., igniting the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon more than two years later. I don't know what that means for you .. you are adventurous and no doubt careful with rebellious boxes. I think it means prosperity, growth and good tidings. And that is a fine adventure.
Deaths
Sultan bin Salman Al Saud
I'm sorry Vlad failed. Bunker down. Box up. Get on board. Reject Apartheid. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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Beware the hypocrisy of the compassionistas

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (9:13am)

WHO cares whether impoverished Indonesian crew were paid a few bucks to turn around asylum boats and take their human cargo back to Indonesia. That was a boatload of unhappy customers they were disgorging to badmouth the people smuggler’s business.
One way or the other, the boats are stopped. That’s what the Abbott government promised before the last election. That’s what they delivered.
And that’s what most Australians wanted. They wanted to stop the drownings. They wanted to stop the uncontrolled flood of unverified asylum seekers on illegal boats. They wanted to stop the people smugglers who took our country for an $11 billion ride during six years of Labor incompetence.
But there is a small cadre of smug, self-serving hypocrites, who I like to call “compassionistas”, the type you see in Q & A audiences and all too often on its panels, who are dismayed that the boats have stopped.
It’s ruined their narrative, you see.
For so long they pretended it was impossible to stop the boats. They claimed the boats were being “pushed” here by events outside our control, not “pulled” by slack government policy pandering to the extreme left.
Yes, the boats are stopped. But the very people who got us into the mess are hell-bent on destroying the Abbott government’s greatest triumph because it shows them in such a bad light.
So they are busy rewriting history, to try to turn success into failure and perhaps to goad Indonesia into ending its cooperation with Australia.
Exhibit one: Greens Senator Sarah “accidents happen” Hanson-Young. Back in 2012, she was full of compassion for asylum boat crews locked up under mandatory sentencing laws enacted by a desperate Gillard government.
She called them “poor Indonesian fishermen” who were “simply tricked on board an asylum seeker boat, to cook noodles or to help with the steering.”
But last week she was talking on the other side of her face. Now Hanson-Young holds angry doorstops denouncing the Abbott government for allegedly paying $30,000 to those very same “poor Indonesian fisherman” to take their boats back to Indonesia.
This is such a massive crime that the Greens and Labor have referred the government to the AFP, and the ABC and Fairfax are in a lather of indignation.
Of course, now that Labor has questions of its own to answer over apparent payments to people-smugglers when it was in office, the wind has gone out of this despicable gotcha game.
But it has been wondrous to behold the chutzpah of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, his Immigration spokesman Richard Marles and the former minister Tony Burke, lambasting the government for allegedly “paying people smugglers” to stop the boats. There they were, staking out the moral high ground, when they must have known the nuances of Labor’s failure ever to get a lid on the problem.
From the minute Kevin Rudd wimped it with the Oceanic Viking, and sent the signal to people smugglers that the mugs were back in charge, boats became the enduring symbol of his government’s ineptitude.
Instead of taking responsibility for the consequences of its false compassion, and learning the unyielding electoral lesson, all Shorten’s Labor Party has left is a vain bid to save face.
In this, they are ably assisted by the Greens, the refugee industry, and those in the media who urged Labor to dismantle the Howard-era border protection.
Any opportunity the compassionistas have to discredit the Abbott-Morrison success they jump at like hyenas ripping at a carcass, whether it’s the death of an asylum seeker during a violent riot at Manus Island, the spurious claim that our Navy tortured asylum seekers, or talk of shady payments to boat crews.
That’s why Gillian Triggs, the president of the Human Rights Commission, is their darling. She ignored the suffering of children in detention through the years when the Labor Party which appointed her were in charge. She saw no evil when there were 1992 children piled into overcrowded detention centres. Only when the Abbott government had released most of the children did Triggs start bellyaching.
And on Monday night, on the ABC’s Q & A program, she actually had the hide smugly to insinuate that it was only because she raised the alarm that children were released from detention.
Lawyers are our new high priests and priestesses, and Q & A on Monday night was their altar. But with Triggs it was as if a deity had descended.
Tiger host Tony Jones turned into a pussy cat in her presence. It was left to plucky Brownyn Bishop to point out the home truth to Triggs that withholding her criticism until after Labor left office “has made you a very political figure and therefore you are subject to criticism.”
No criticism from the Canberra audience, which erupted into rapturous applause at Triggs’ every immortal utterance.
With Bishop, it was more a behind-the-sheds experience than a heavenly visitation, as the whole panel ganged against her.
Some were more subtle than others but, as in any schoolyard, it is the ones who try too hard to join the in-crowd who give the game away.
Such silly, twisted games. It makes you despair.
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Adam Goodes isn’t booed for the colour of his skin

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (9:06am)

image
I’m sorry, but people are not booing Adam Goodes because he’s Aboriginal.
They’re booing him because he acts like a pillock from time to time.
And if Sydney Swans CEO Andrew Ireland is genuinely interested in race relations then he shouldn’t cry “racist” with no evidence.
It’s obvious to any footy-lover that the fans boo Goodes because:
1. It’s become a thing;
2. He deliberately taunts opposition fans;
3. He is accused of staging for free kicks, in contravention of the rules of fair play
4. No one has forgotten how he singled out a 13 year old girl in the Collingwood crowd and sicced security onto her after she called him an “ape”;
5. He was rewarded for outing this powerless little girl with the honour of Australian of the Year which he then turned into a grievance pulpit to bag Australia as a racist nation.
Unlike most sports gurus in this town, I loved Goodes’ indigenous war dance last month as the Swans beat Carlton. For one thing, it’s about time we beat the Kiwis and their haka at their own game.
For another, he just did it so well. Bravo, I say. He stole the show.
But he also served it up to the opposition fans, deliberately riling them up. That’s what he does.
So when he gets booed, it’s just the crowd’s natural response to his invitation. It’s a tough game that Goodes started and only he can finish.
But for sports administrators and sanctimonious journalists to denounce the crowds as somehow anti-Aboriginal is the real racism. It’s that sort of patronising victim-pandering that holds Aboriginals down.
If Adam Goodes wants to be a pillock, good for him. He will be booed like any other pillock, no matter what the colour of their skin. 
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CROWN OUR CRAZY QUEEN IN 2015

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (5:18am)

They shrieked, they raged, they cheered, they despaired, they exulted, they screamed, they laughed, they cried in 2014, and twelve months later they continue to delight.
Exactly one year after this site’s historic inaugural unhinged hysteric poll, it is time again to elect Australia’s prime frightbat. But first we must acknowledge the original champion: Vanessa Badham, whose 5,440 votes defeated Clementine Ford by the tiny margin of just ten clicks. Congratulations, Vanessa!
In accordance with the frightbat voting rulebook, however, the lowest two finishers in the previous poll are dropped from this year’s list. So it’s goodbye to hopeless losers Elizabeth Farrelly (1,367 votes) and Clem Bastow (1,111 votes). Blame patriarchal heteronormativity. Taking their places are promising newbies Ruby Hamad and Gillian Triggs. Now let the 2015 voting commence!
Thank you for voting! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Total Votes: 6,281
Return To PollCreate Your Own Poll

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AIMING HIGH

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (3:58am)

Fingers crossed following yesterday’s job interview with Fairfax’s Daily Life:

image

There may have been some initial concern over my shirt, but everybody calmed down after I pointed out that – unlike certain other male Daily Life contributors – I’d never attempted to murder a woman.
Anyway, if that gig falls through there’s always Mamamia.
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POOR WIN, LABOR LOSES

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (3:17am)

A sweet deal isolates Bill Shorten: 
Labor has been left the lone champion of millionaire welfare recipients after a landmark deal was stuck last night between government and the Greens to redirect pensions to the poor.
More than 170,000 of Australia’s poorest pensioners will have their pension increased by $30 a fortnight in the wake of the decision.
The deal has rendered Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s bizarre move to block the changes irrelevant.
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison struck the deal with new Greens leader Richard Di Natale last night. 
Shorten thus becomes the second Labor leader – after Julia Gillard – to be totally gamed by the Greens.
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POINTS OF DIFFERENCE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (2:40am)

“Curiosity and uncertainty,” writes the ABC’s Jonathan Green. “This is what separates us from the bloggers.”
Er, yes. Plus he lives off other people’s taxes and enjoys watching dogs kill other animals. Incidentally, Jonathan seemed pretty certain about Alene Composta and was remarkably incurious about her background.
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AFRO DRESSER NOT A PROFESSOR

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (2:08am)

Race faker Rachel Dolezal isn’t black and wasn’t a professor: 
Breitbart News spoke with David Meany, the person in charge of media relations at Eastern Washington University, where Rachel Dolezal was listed as a professor of Africana Studies …
“Dolezal was listed as a professor but she was never a professor,” Meany explained. “Either she or one of her staffers listed her inaccurately as a professor.” 
Dolezal is no longer an employee of Eastern Washington University. The former NAACP leader – who once sued a university for discriminating against her as a white person – has also lost her newspaper column and is accused of artistic plagiarism.
Naturally, she’s now appeared on NBC’s Today show, where white gal Dolezal again insisted she was black:



There’s one simple way to settle this matter once and for all. Ask her to dance.
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DIET DIVERSITY INCREASED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 17, 2015 (1:22am)

Poley bears are eating dolphins, and global warming is to blame: 
For the first time, scientists have observed polar bears devouring white-beaked dolphins in the Arctic and are crediting global warming for introducing these two species to each other.
“This is the first record of this species as polar bear prey,” wrote the authors of a study that was published in the Polar Research Journal.
The scientists, who are part of the Norwegian Polar Institute, wrote that this is another instance of how “the warming of the Arctic is significantly changing the ecosystem and relations between species.” 
Just wait until poleys start eating sparrows and pigeons. Which, given how often they’re airborne, is just a matter of time.
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When “race” is a weapon, no wonder some change sides

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (11:45am)

Janet Albrechtsen on Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who thrived as an academic and activist by pretending to be black:
The next question is equally obvious: has modern western culture created the perfect conditions for this sort of victimhood swindle? As academic Fredrik deBoer wrote in the Los Angeles Times last week: “Human behaviours are the product of incentives. We repeat behaviours that are rewarded.” And in Dolezal’s chosen realm — political activism and academia — “a set of social norms have created ­direct incentives for Dolezal’s behaviour — and forbidden anyone from checking on her story”.
That forbidding is particularly severe in Australia, thanks to our laws against free speech. 
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Should the navy have just let the leaky boat sail to New Zealand?

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (10:27am)

Seeming vs doing.
The Left rages, but it turns out that paying people smugglers to turn around actually saved lives.

The asylum-seeker boat at the centre of the ASIS bribery allegations was leaking and judged to be in danger of sinking, forcing Australian sailors to transfer those on board to another vessel…
It is understood the crew of the Armidale-class patrol boat HMAS Wollongong then assessed the seaworthiness of the asylum-­seeker boat carrying 65 asylum-seekers from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. The boat, which was en route from Indon­esia to New Zealand, was found to be leaking too much to be repaired on the high seas and its engine was also malfunctioning.
The asylum-seekers were ­transferred to two smaller boats and directed back to Indonesia…
An Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer aboard the Wollongong, dressed in civilian clothes, is believed to have facilitated the payment… It is possible that payments were made to entice the crew to ­return the asylum-seekers to Indonesia, although this has not ­occurred in previous boat turn-backs…
It is also possible that money was paid to crew members in return for information about the person or syndicate that organised the people-smuggling venture.
UPDATE
Turns out we were just delivering aid to Indonesia’s poor:
The Navy warship HMAS Wollongong and an Australian Customs ship intercepted the asylum seeker boat, the Andika, on about May 19.
Mr Yohanis [the boat’s captain] told the Australian official, Agus, they had no right to stop the boat, which had just passed Timor Leste, because it was still in international waters.
“I said: ‘Sir, our situation, we are trying to earn a living, as crew, we have nothing. If you take us, we don’t have any money,” Mr Yohanis said.
“At the time he (Agus) looked stumped, he said: ‘We will save you from the (bad) weather’. But I said: ‘We can still make it’, because our journey would’ve taken us past Papua New Guinea borders."…
“With that, I begged him: ‘Sir, we are trying to earn a living, what can you help us with?’ I also said: ‘We need money to return to our wife and kids’. Agus said: ‘Ok, we will help’. I was going to be given $US6000, the crew $US5000.”
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Newman is owed an apology. A world-government warmist is now advising even the Pope

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (8:46am)

How they mocked:
The United Nation’s top official on climate change has described comments by Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser Maurice Newman that global warming is a conspiracy against democracy as a joke.
And the opposition has weighed in as well, with Bill Shorten calling on the Prime Minister to disavow the views of his outspoken business expert....
Christiana Figueres who is visiting Australia to discuss progress toward a global deal said Mr Newman’s claim that climate change was an UN “hoax” designed to lead to world domination, was a joke.
Now meet one of the Pope’s advisors on global warming:
… in April, the Vatican invited representatives from the world’s religions… to a symposium discussing climate science and the ways religious leaders might lead on the issue. More than a dozen faith leaders heard from one of the world’s top climate scientists, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber...
Indeed:
[The] much-anticipated encyclical on climate change by Pope Francis ... will be presented to a press conference by Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Metropolitan John Zizioulas of the Orthodox Church, and - most controversially - Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research...
Schellnhuber has a particularly alarmist view of warming and a rather dismal view of humanity, which he believes should be reduced by 6 billion, to judge from a 2009 speech:
Schellnhuber ... said that if the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today — well below the upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global warming — Earth’s population would be devastated....
“In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people,” said Dr. Schellnhuber...
But here is Schellnhuber’s green dream - one world government:
Let me conclude this short contribution with a daydream about those key institutions that could bring about a sophisticated—and therefore more appropriate—version of the conventional “world government” notion. Global democracy might be organized around three core activities, namely (i) an Earth Constitution; (ii) a Global Council; and (iii) a Planetary Court....
- the Earth Constitution would transcend the UN Charter and identify those first principles guiding humanity in its quest for freedom, dignity, security and sustainability;
- the Global Council would be an assembly of individuals elected directly by all people on Earth, where eligibility should be not constrained by geographical, religious, or cultural quotas; and
- the Planetary Court would be a transnational legal body open to appeals from everybody, especially with respect to violations of the Earth Constitution.
Just one extremist?
Take Christiana Figueres herself:
China, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, is also the country that’s “doing it right” when it comes to addressing global warming, the United Nations’ chief climate official said....
China is also able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the U.S., Figueres said.
Key policies, reforms and appointments are decided at plenums, or meeting of the governing Communist Party’s more than 200-strong Central Committee… The political divide in the U.S. Congress has slowed efforts to pass climate legislation and is “very detrimental” to the fight against global warming, she said.
In fact, there’s a bit of crowd of warming activists railing against democracy and even embracing a one-world government:
Remember then Greens leader Bob Brown’s great plan?
The Greens’ hero was met with a standing ovation when he delivered the 2012 Green Oration, which called for a single global and democratic parliament.
“Let us create a global democracy and parliament under the grand idea of one planet, one person, one vote, one value,” he said.
Senator Brown said he would call on the world’s 100 Greens parties to back his “earth parliament” at the third global Greens conference in Senegal next week.
Amos Aikman then warned:
Curiously, he went on to propose a bicameral (two houses) parliament with “equal representation elected from every nation”. Thus China—a nation of some 1.3 billion—would presumably have the same number of seats as, say, the Cook Islands, with less than 20,000 inhabitants.
Brown is gone, but Professor Clive Hamilton is still on our Climate Change Authority:
Very few people, even among environmentalists, have truly faced up to what the science is telling us. This is because the implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.
Other climate catastrophists agree:
For example, in an interview about her new book The Collapse of Western Civilization, Naomi Oreskes argued: “If anyone will weather this storm it seems likely that it will be the Chinese.”
In the book, Oreskes and co-author Erik Conway imagine a future world in which the predictions of the International Panel on Climate Change have come to pass. With respect to China, the authors predict: 
China’s ability to weather disastrous climate change vindicated the necessity of centralised government ... inspiring similar structures in other, reformulated nations.
(Thanks to reader Mark M.) 
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Does saving the planet means you’re excused from telling the truth?

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (8:36am)

image
Does being green mean you’re excused the normal moral obligation to be honest?
The photo of a kangaroo with serious head injuries was posted on Facebook with claims it had been shot and died trying to escape the annual kangaroo cull at Gungaderra Grasslands in Crace.
ACT Parks and Conservation director Daniel Iglesias told 666 ABC Canberra an autopsy had found the animal was hit by a vehicle, and someone had cut its face possibly with a knife to make it look like it had been shot in the head…
Animal Liberation ACT’s Carolyn Drew rejected the claims the kangaroo body found at Crace was put there by animal activists.
“I don’t know why the Government is automatically assuming that it is one of the Animal Liberation activists or anyone related to the group that has done this,” she said..
Ms Drew said she had been sent the photo by someone who had gone for an early morning walk at the back of Palmerston.
“I don’t know the person who sent me the photo,” she said. 
UPDATE
Mining representatives Brendan Pearson and Michael Roche respond to the ABC’s latest documentary claiming the world is shunning “dirty” coal:

‘‘The end of coal’’ was the tag­line for a Four Corners’ “analysis” of the coal sector [on Monday]. It was Episode 14 of Series 3 of the Four Corners’ critique of the mining industry....
Facts were in short supply, wishful thinking was not. A trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, which funds activist groups and co-funded the development of an Australian anti-coal strategy in 2011, was wheeled out as an objective observer…
First, it is claimed that coal is a dying energy source and its use is being phased out. Not so. According to the BP Review, over the decade to the end of 2014, coal use grew by 968 million tonnes of oil equivalent. That is 4 times faster than renewables, 2.8 times faster than oil and 50 per cent faster than gas. That’s hardly justification for a requiem.
Second, investors are not walking away from coal… One of the anti-coal movement’s own groups, Bankwatch, has complained that global financing for coal mining rose to $US66 billion in 2014, up from $US55bn in 2013 and a 360 per cent increase from 2005.
The third claim is that renewable energy is capable of replacing fossil fuels, including coal. Not likely. In 2014, if the world had relied on renewable energy like wind, solar and biomass for primary energy, then the world would have had just 9 days of heat, light and artificial horsepower....
The campaigners also claim that major consuming nations are turning away from coal. But the International Energy Agency predicts that China will add 450 gigawatts of coal fired power over the next 25 years. That’s 40 per cent larger than the entire US coal fleet....
Energy starved India is also expanding its coal use and is expected to become the world’s largest coal importer in the next decade…
In forecasting the end of coal, the campaign narrative also skips lightly around the fact that coal is used in the production of 70 per cent of the production of the world’s steel. Given that there is 225 tonnes of coal in every offshore wind turbine, it is hard to see how coal is doomed in a world with strong growth in renewable energy.
(Thanks to readers Gab and fulchrum.) 
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Melham’s dodgy slush fund donated to Shorten’s campaign

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (8:22am)

The scandal broadens:
Bill Shorten’s factional ally Cesar Melhem made a $2000 donation through his Industry 2020 slush fund to the ALP leader’s campaign to keep the seat of Maribyrnong on June 30, 2009...
Mr Shorten was, after receiving that $2000 donation in 2009, the star attraction at two fundraisers for the Industry 2020 fund in 2011 and again in 2012 while serving as a senior minister in the Gillard government.
The donations, outlined in the trade union royal commission’s interim report, highlight the formerly close links between Mr Melhem, who was recently forced to stand down as government whip in the Victorian upper house and Mr Shorten, who announced last Friday that he will appear before the commission in August or September.
Details of the donations will increase political pressure on the Opposition Leader and come after Fairfax Media revealed last week that Mr Shorten oversaw a controversial deal, while head of the Australian Workers Union, under which a Melbourne builder paid the union hundreds of thousands of dollars over a decade for its employees’ union dues.
UPDATE
Reader centrepete:
Bill Shorten and Labor are correct. The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption is a WHICH hunt. Just a few examples prove it.
WHICH union officials straight out stole members’ money?
WHICH union officials incorporated a sham association for their personal financial benefit?
WHICH corporate executives were complicit?
WHICH lawyers assisted in the setting up?
WHICH superannuation fund employees provided fund members’ personal details to WHICH union officials for the purpose of intimidation?
WHICH national and state union secretaries signed off on much lower than available conditions for their members in order to advance themselves politically?
WHICH companies participated in, and benefited from, this scheme?

(Thanks to readers John and WaG311.) 
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So how come Labor never managed it?

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (8:00am)

So easy that you wonder why the Labor-Greens government of Julia Gillard never managed it:

Richard Di Natale makes a curious concession. Doorstop, yesterday:

Stopping the boats is easy.
Very different from the old Labor line. Kim Carr, Hansard, March 22, 2011:

Suggestions that we can just stop the boats as the Liberal Party would assert are completely nonsensical.
Bob Carr, Hansard, June 28, 2012:

The opposition policy is to tow the boats back. It is primitive. It is unworkable. It is no alternative.
Wayne Swan, Hansard, September 12, 2012:
The leader of the opposition ... continues to be at war with the facts… He comes in here and claims that tow-backs and temporary protection visas can somehow work.
Di Natale says stopping the boats is “easy”. Two years ago then Greens leader Christine Milne said it was impossible:
“You have to accept that deterrence does not work,” Senator Milne said …
There was no “solution” to stop the boats, she added.
“This is not something that’s going to end in the short term; it’s going to be with us for the whole century”.

This lazy assumption that what was once impossible is actually easy is, I think, what is driving some of the media hysteria over paying one boat crew to turn back to Indonesia. The media seems to think nothing extraordinary needs to be done to stop the boats.  
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Gillard was warned: don’t trust Shorten. Oops: she did

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (7:46am)

Julia Gillard ignored an excellent warning that Bill Shorten could not be trusted:
Late on the night of Ms Gillard’s June 2010 leadership challenge, Mark Arbib — a minister and key factional kingmaker — met Ms Gillard’s adviser, Gerry Kitchener, to begin planning for a new ministry to be sworn in. “He pulled out a ministerial list and started going through his thoughts about Julia’s next ministry,” Mr Kitchener recalled [on the ABC’s Killing Season]..
“He said that you couldn’t trust Bill Shorten, that he would do Julia in, that the one thing she couldn’t do was ever give him ­industrial relations cause he’d use it to solidify the union base to knock her off.”
But:

Contrary to the advice, Ms Gillard appointed Mr Shorten to the workplace relations portfolio in December 2011. Mr Shorten supported Mr Rudd’s successful leadership challenge to Ms Gillard in June 2013.
This ABC series is devastating for Gillard’s credibility. One of many examples:
Former minister Martin Ferguson says Ms Gillard spoke to him during a plane trip from Melbourne to Canberra “about a change of leader” three days ­before Mr Rudd was unseated. Ms Gillard describes this claim as ­"ludicrous".

Trust Ferguson’s word or Gillard’s?  To ask the question is to answer it. 
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Triggs hijacks Human Rights Commission to wage war on conservatives

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (7:27am)

Paul Kelly on the astonishing moral vanity of Gillian Triggs, as well as her defenders:
Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs ..., in speeches over the past week, says our democracy is being undermined from within, that dozens of laws breach basic freedoms, that a collusion exists between Labor and Coalition and that the “supremacy of law over the executive is under threat” in Australia.
She continued this campaign in her appearance on the ABC’s Q&A program celebrating the Magna Carta anniversary when, at the conclusion, she made the astonishing claim the Human Rights Commission operated in a “very neutral way”, that she was not being political and that it was unfortunate the commission’s work was interpreted as political.
This was pure sophistry. That Triggs cannot grasp her recent speeches and TV appearance were entirely political cannot be ruled out....
The Q&A program finished with almost unanimous warnings (Bronwyn Bishop apart) about the “tyranny of the majority” in the context that the tyranny of the king is now substituted by the tyranny of the majority as an evil to be contained. It was gobsmacking stuff.
It was also an illustration of the chasm in this country between a legal culture propelling human rights laws, self-righteous in its moral vanity and intellectual faith, and the practical, imperfect nature of a parliamentary/executive system, obliged to change norms to meet changing situations from terrorism to boat arrivals, and inevitably responsive to public opinion. What was most striking about the Q&A panel was its patronising, even contemptible, attitude towards majority or “mob” views, with the implied critique that Triggs has been shouting from the rooftops — that parliament and the executive are betraying the freedoms of the Australian people.
Who would these people, so contemptuous of the majority, rather have rule? Why, themselves, of course. What a coincidence!
Kelly is right that the Human Rights Commission (one honorable exception aside) contains an inherent bias that Triggs is blind to:
The Human Rights Commission puts huge emphasis on human rights that define the progressive agenda, notably asylum-seekers, sex and racial discrimination, but in relation to human rights that define the conservative agenda, notably freedom of religion and free speech, it often appears to be antagonistic.
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Morrison makes Shorten seem more irresponsible than the Greens

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (6:51am)

The Daily Telegraph nicely sums up what Bill Shorten’s latest misfire:

Labor has been left the lone champion of millionaire welfare recipients after a landmark deal was stuck last night between government and the Greens to redirect pensions to the poor.
Dennis Shanahan marvels at the misstep:
Labor has been left isolated and useless in the Senate over real economic reform, handing Tony Abbott a huge victory while giving Greens the “mainstream” recognition they crave. 

Labor couldn’t have worked for a worse result over the Coalition’s proposed $2.4 billion pension savings: Bill Shorten now looks like the defender of millionaires who want to keep their part-pension, the Coalition has delivered budget savings in pension reform and the Greens look more economically responsible.
Shadow cabinet’s decision to make a populist appeal over pensions and to try to repair Labor’s base has backfired and left the ALP squeezed between the Liberals on the Right and the Greens on the Left.
Labor is now in panic over politics and policy.
Notice also, by the way, that Scott Morrison has sealed the deal. First he stopped the boats; now he’s landed a big saving while making Shorten look foolish. Behold Abbott’s natural successor.
UPDATE
Incredible. Shorten has taken Labor to the position over arguing with the Greens - not the Liberals - over pension reform:
The Social Services Minister Scott Morrison and the Greens leader Richard Di Natale have agreed to a tighter assets test for the age pension.
Senator Di Natale says he’s convinced the Government to put superannuation back on the agenda.
But Labor says he’s been dudded because the Government has made it clear it will stand by its pledge to leave super unchanged.
UPDATE
Shorten has had a horror week. There was also his remarkable backtracking on the evil of paying people smugglers, forced on him when it emerged that Labor had done the same.
Watch Paul Murray hammer home the point.
(Thanks to reader Paul.) 
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In praise of power stations

Andrew Bolt June 17 2015 (6:37am)

Terry McCrann takes on a victim of the religious fervour of a Fairfax warmist:
THE combination of wild-eyed religious belief and both complete denial of fact and total disconnect from reality that is so characteristic of climate change true believers was perfectly displayed by The Age’s theology — correction, supposed economics — editor Peter Martin on Sunday.
He started off by claiming “Abbott” — presumably, the Prime Minister — “doesn’t like power stations”.
He offered no support for the extraordinary and I’d suggest utterly false claim; and followed it with the question: “Who does?”
Well Peter, I — and I suggest the PM — for one do. I like flicking a switch and getting light and heat and power all the other things they provide cleanly, efficiently and safely.
You presumably don’t understand how life was “nasty, brutish and short” before them — and still is for the tens of millions of people today who don’t have access to the electricity they can provide. 
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Posted by Grammarly on Tuesday, 3 September 2013

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The facts are clear - and Labor still opposes the policies that have stopped the boats. SHARE if you think Labor would be a disaster for border security.
Posted by Peter Dutton on Tuesday, 16 June 2015

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Google it. So cool!
Posted by Mix 94.5 on Monday, 15 June 2015

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Limited Prints Available
Posted by Chris Van Loan on Monday, 15 June 2015

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Those Queenslanders certainly get a little tetchy around State of Origin time, don't they?We had organised a billboard...
Posted by Mike Baird on Tuesday, 16 June 2015

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Posted by Mamamia Parents on Friday, 14 February 2014

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Você vai se surpreender com essa apresentação!
Posted by Cifras on Thursday, 7 August 2014

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This is why you don't poke your smartphone battery with a knife...
Posted by phonesales.com.au on Monday, 9 March 2015

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want some coffee ? :D
Posted by 3SpeaR on Monday, 16 February 2015

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Future Liberal Party of Australia Leader(?) Scott Morrison MP on TODAY this morning: 'Talk about the killing season, the...
Posted by Latika M Bourke on Tuesday, 16 June 2015

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Never make a fit girl angry!
Posted by Lazar Angelov on Tuesday, 16 June 2015

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Senator John Madigan and I tonight launched the Parliamentary Friends of Shared Parenting in Canberra. We need to end...
Posted by George Christensen on Tuesday, 16 June 2015

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Avoiding these 10 verbs will help you show, not tell through your writing: http://bit.ly/1JHXCFm
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Monday, 15 June 2015

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FYI, the lady in the white jacket is ninety years young, WOW, I'm just saying!
Posted by Clyde M Doughty Jr. on Thursday, 9 April 2015

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=== Posts from last year ===

NSW politics no longer stuck in neutral

Piers Akerman – Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (7:40pm)

ANDREW Constance’s first Budget as NSW Treasurer delivers a down payment on the future of the state and next year’s election.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'NSW politics no longer stuck in neutral'
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We’ll be riding the wave to prosperity

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (7:55pm)

TREASURER Andrew Constance has only been in the job for six weeks, and the bags under his eyes are testament to the sleep deprivation of what he privately describes as the “brutal” process of putting together a budget in record time.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'We’ll be riding the wave to prosperity'
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LOSING MILLIONS NOW A SACKABLE OFFENCE

Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (5:31am)

Businesses lose millions every year due to the antics of Greenpeace and other environmental protest groups. But look what happens when Greenpeace itself falls victim to Greenpeace stupidity: 
Greenpeace has fired an employee who lost the environmental charity $5.47 million in a failed gamble on international currency markets. 
Interesting that Greenpeace is so unforgiving when their own cash is at stake. Everyone’s a right-winger on their home turf.
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CROWN OUR CRAZY QUEEN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (5:16am)

They shriek, they rage, they cheer, they despair, they exult, they scream, they laugh, they cry! There’s never a non-emotional moment in the lives of Australia’s left-wing ladies’ auxiliary, whose psychosocial behavioural disorders are becoming ever more dramatic following Tony Abbott’s election.
Only one of them, however, can reign as our solitary monarch of madness. Only one can stand above all others, wailing and howling, while the rest look on and ask: “Where’s the Ritalin?” In the search for this nation’s most unhinged hysteric, let the BlairPoll decide!
Thank you for voting!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Total Votes: 14,303
UPDATE. With 7080 votes in, Summers, Kingston, Deveny and Badham are separated by just 241. This is even closer than Florida 2000.
UPDATE II. Trailing far behind the leaders, Clementine Ford pleads with the electorate: “I only need 500 votes to beat Catherine Deveny! MAKE IT HAPPEN, PEOPLE.”
UPDATE III. A desperate pitch to voters from last-placed Clem Bastow. She is the 2.24 per cent.
UPDATE IV. Ford storms to the lead!
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OLD RICH WHITE GUY COMPLAINS

Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (5:08am)

Sadly, the ABC’s Jonathan Green didn’t enjoy yesterday’s column:

image

Well, it obviously matters to you, Jonathan. There’s no need for embarrassment. You should be proud of living it up while your wages are paid by people earning far less than you.
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SCHUMACHER WAKES

Tim Blair – Monday, June 16, 2014 (11:59pm)

Ex-F1 world champion Michael Schumacher is awake for the first time in 2014: 
In a surprise announcement, the retired racing star’s spokeswoman Sabine Kehm said he had left hospital in the French Alpine city of Grenoble, where he had been treated since December when he slammed his head on a rock while skiing with his son and friends …
“Michael has left the CHU Grenoble to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. He is not in a coma anymore,” Kehm said in a statement. 
Nothing further has been revealed about Schumacher’s condition. Still, this is great news.
UPDATE. Ex-F1 doctor Gary Hartstein isn’t so sure the news is good.
UPDATE II. In other automotive news, Jalopnik is furious – and reasonably so – because a maniac civilian drove his street car on to a British race track while a race was underway.
A stupidly dangerous stunt, but not unprecedented. Australians were doing that sort of thing in Sydney way back in1971.
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End the RET. End this climate of unreason

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (3:40pm)

Excellent. All this expense to make no difference to the climate makes no sense at all:

Senator Dean Smith, chair of the Coalition’s backbench committee on energy issues, has told The Australian newspaper that the “great majority” of Liberals were in favour of significant change to the Renewable Energy Target scheme.

The newspaper has also cited backbenchers, Craig Laundy and Angus Taylor, as supporting reductions in the level of the target. Taylor told the newspaper that: “Fixing the RET is just another step towards ending the age of entitlement - wind industry entitlement.” 
(Thanks to reader Keith.) 
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Know your enemy. Know he won’t stay in Iraq

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (11:57am)

If you hear anyone sympathising with ISIS, now taking over parts of Iraq, know exactly what they are endorsing.
This propaganda video from ISIS will for almost anyone be too ghastly to watch. DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE DISTRESSED BY EXTREME SAVAGERY. It contains footage of unarmed men being shot, beheaded, blown-up and executed. It shows prisoners being taunted as they dig their own graves:
image
And remember, this is what ISIS wants you to see. This is what ISIS is proud of.
What I can show you are these stills from the video, to show that these foul crimes are committed by men citing Islam as their inspiration, hundreds of times. It also shows them pledging to take their war against the infidel to Spain and to “Rome” - or the West - as well as to Jews:
image
UPDATE
What the hell is it with Islam?
Somali militants who murdered 48 people in a Kenyan village as they watched the World Cup went door to door asking residents if they were Muslim or spoke Somali - and shot them dead if either answer was ‘no’, witnesses revealed today. 
The attack on the coastal village of Mpeketoni, about 30-miles southwest of the tourist centre of Lamu, came at the end of a weekend of bloodshed that has exposed the world to the shocking depravity of terrorists, apparently emboldened by each other’s acts.
UPDATE
An antidote to what you’ve just read - and maybe watched: a story of sacrifice and love, in pictures.
(Thanks to readers John and Doug.) 
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Just because he’s Muslim

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (10:41am)

Appealing for victimhood status, even in court:
THE Hyde Park rioter who wounded a police officer during the violent protests should not be sentenced harshly just because some in the community may “disapprove of his faith”, a court heard yesterday. 

Ahmed Elomar is the only person charged over the September 2012 riots, sparked by anger toward an anti-Islamic You Tube clip titled The Innocence Of Muslims, still before the courts. 
His barrister Greg James QC yesterday told the Sydney District Court his client, a former champion boxer, was suffering an “impaired intellectual state” and became “overcome with the occasion” of the protests.
Senior-Constable Jason Blanchard was struck with a pole and left bleeding from the head, with the court told 30 year-old Elomar “disappeared” into the 300-strong crowd after hitting the officer, his face covered with a balaclava.
During the protest, Elomar carried a sign: “Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell."…
Mr James said ... the offence was toward the “lower end” of seriousness and Elomar couldn’t be punished to satisfy those “whose political views differ from his or those who disapprove of his faith.” “I hope you are not suggesting I would be,” Judge Woodburne said.
If there’s a victim here of faith, I’d suggest it’s the police officer who was injured.  
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More smoke than fire to Media Watch attack

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (10:32am)

Professor Sinclair Davidson watches Media Watch - and finds it guilty of selective quotation to attack another News Corp newspaper. 
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Sue the boat people and their crew instead

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (9:15am)

A great way for activist lawyers to trash whatever sympathy there is for boat people trying to smuggle themselves into the country:
IMMIGRATION Minister Scott Morrison has condemned as “shameful and offensive” the lawsuit brought by survivors and families of the dead from Christmas Island’s SIEV 221 asylum boat disaster…  
Shine Lawyers yesterday served a 34-page statement of claim on the Australian Government Solicitor, alleging the government is liable for unspecified damages over the deaths of 35 adults and 15 children in the December 2010 disaster, Australia’s worst civil maritime tragedy in more than a century.
The NSW Supreme Court action blames the government for its failure to have any or adequate search and rescue capabilities on the island on the morning of December 15, 2010, when SIEV 221 hit the cliffs at Rocky Point and broke up.

Navy and Customs rescuers rushed to the scene from the far side of the island, pulling asylum-seekers from the water.
What the coroner found in 2012 - including evidence that the boat people should sue themselves and their crew:
West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope ... urges authorities to buy better boats and equipment for the island’s federal police and volunteer rescue team and ensure police officers stationed there have high-level rescue training… 
Mr Hope said the people smugglers who organised passage for the 89 passengers on the SIEV 221 vessel must take a large part of the blame for the 50 deaths.
He said they provided a vessel that was not suitable for the journey in the monsoon season and not equipped with enough lifejackets or other safety equipment. The vessel was overloaded and the captain had transferred to another vessel before the SIEV 221 reached Christmas Island.
Mr Hope said the three Indonesian crew also contributed to the deaths and had made a fatal decision to turn the vessel into the weather before it hit Rocky Point…
Mr Hope said naval and customs officers who risked their lives in inflatable boats “showed great bravery in dangerous seas” to pull 41 people to safety from the water…
The coroner rejected claims from Christmas Island detention centre detainees that they had alerted centre staff that the SIEV 221 was about to arrive.
“The accounts were fabricated and inconsistent with the objective evidence.” Mr Hope said he was satisfied the commanders of the navy patrol boat HMAS Pirie and the customs vessel Triton “acted as promptly and efficiently as they could in the circumstances”.
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Now Obama sends some troops back into Iraq

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (8:56am)

Thursday, Barack Obama says maybe:
President Barack Obama said he would consider doing “anything” to respond gains militant extremists have made in Iraq over the past few days. Obama also specifically said military options are on the table. 
“There will be some short-term immediate things that need to be done militarily,” Obama told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon after a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.  
Friday, Barack Obama says no: 
Barack Obama said Friday that his national security team will soon provide him with a list of ‘selective actions by our military’ to help push back a terrorist horde marching through Iraq, but insisted that ‘we will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat’ there.
Today Obama says troops - but just to guard:
President Barack Obama is notifying Congress that about 275 U.S. military personnel could deploy to Iraq. 
Obama says the forces are going to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. He says the forces are equipped for combat and will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that they are no longer needed.
UPDATE
Flashback from 2011, the year Obama pulled out US troops from Iraq:
The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News. 
Senior commanders are said to be livid at the decision, which has already been signed off by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Panetta, touring sites Tuesday in advance of the Sept. 11 10th commemoration, insisted “no decision has been made” on the number of troops to stay in Iraq.
“That obviously will be the subject of negotiations with the Iraqis and as a result of those negotiations....”
Currently, about 45,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq. The generals on the ground had requested a reduced number of troops remaining in Iraq at the end of the year, but there was major pushback about “the cost and the political optics” of keeping that many in Iraq. The military’s troop-level request was then reduced to 10,000.
Commanders said they could possibly make that work “in extremis,” in other words, meaning they would be pushing it to make that number work security-wise and manpower-wise.
Now, sources confirm that the administration has pushed the Pentagon to cut the number even lower… This shift is seen by various people as a cost-saving measure and a political measure....
The only administration official fighting for at least 10,000 forces to stay in Iraq at the end of the year was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sources said. But she has lost the battle… On Tuesday, the head of the three-province Kurdish autonomous region in the north of Iraq, warned that if American troops leave sectarian violence might resurface. 
And when Iraq was told the figure was just 3000, it figured it was too small to drop its demand that US troops be made subject to Iraqi law. 
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We should not appease the unappeasable

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (8:18am)

New immigrants and traders with Islamic countries are demanding we tailor our foreign affairs to the wishes of extremists:
The Australia-Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the Government had put itself at odds with world opinion while risking trade links. 
It comes after recent comments by Attorney-General George Brandis that the Government would no longer use the word “occupied” in reference to East Jerusalem and would instead use the term “disputed"…
[C]hamber of commerce chief executive Suzannah Moss-Wright said both Senator Brandis and Ms Bishop had made inflammatory and regrettable statements over the issue. She said it was difficult to see how Australia could make any meaningful contribution to international efforts to resolve the debate over East Jerusalem and land claims across Palestine.
Moss-Wright should explain what resolution is possible when one side in the dispute actually wants none:
“Hamas will not recognize Israel,” Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau, told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview. 
“This is a red line that cannot be crossed,” said the 63-year-old Hamas leader who played a pivotal role in achieving the reconciliation deal with Fatah on April 23. 
I am not interested in appeasing the likes of Hamas. East Jerusalem is indeed disputed territory, not “occupied”, as if Jews have no right to be there.
If the truth hurts in this debate, it’s just one more proof that one side is not after a peace deal at all. 
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Newspoll: Labor leads 53 to 47

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (8:10am)

Bad, but not yet fatal:
...the government continues to suffer from the poor response to its first budget. Despite a tiny improvement, it significantly trails Labor in two-party terms by 47 per cent to 53 per cent — almost the reverse of the election result nine months ago. 
The Coalition’s primary vote remains lower than it was before the May 13 budget, but nudged up one point to 37 per cent in the past fortnight. Labor dipped one point to 36 per cent and the Greens lost two points to a four-month low of 10 per cent. Voters appear to have parked their support, with independents and other parties recording a record 17 per cent. About 10 per cent support independents with just under 3 per cent national support for the Palmer United Party, although it is higher in Queensland.  
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Chinese search Palmer’s bank for their money

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (7:38am)

Clive Palmer has questions to answer:
CLIVE Palmer’s bank and the Perth landlord of his Palmer United Party are being ordered to disclose financial details and key documents as part of a secret legal action over the allegedly wrongful siphoning of more than $12 million from a global company that is owned and run by the Chinese government. 
The legal action in Queensland orders co-operation from the Nat­ional Australia Bank, which had held the Chinese funds in an ­account controlled by Mr Palmer’s company Mineralogy and one of his PUP candidates, Vimal Sharma.
The action forms part of an escalating dispute between Mineralogy and China’s Citic Pacific, which has accused Mr Palmer’s company of siphoning $12m from an account that was created to fund the operation of the Cape Preston port in Western Aus­tralia’s Pilbara region. The Australian revealed last month how major withdrawals of $10m and $2.167m during Mr Palmer’s costly federal election campaign resulted in the account being almost completely drained without a proper explanation for the expenditure. Mr Palmer ­denies any wrongdoing.
UPDATE
Looks like Palmer will make the pensioners miss out, after all.
Last month:
Billionaire MP Clive Palmer has been chauffeured to Parliament House in an elegant grey Rolls Royce - before declaring he’s here to represent the unrepresented 98 per cent of Australians… 
‘Members of parliament really don’t need comm (Commonwealth) cars that cost the taxpayer a lot of money. That money could be better spent giving it to pensioners,’ he told reporters. If they didn’t own a Rolls, they could catch a taxi, he added.
Yesterday:
CLIVE Palmer has remained consistent in his inconsistency, arriving at Parliament House yesterday in a commonwealth car only three weeks after pledging to “pay my own way a little bit” and using ­vehicles from his own collection… 
“We’ve got to keep people employed in the commonwealth,” he replied.
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Media Watch damns ABC silence on AWU scandal

Andrew Bolt June 17 2014 (7:29am)

Astonishingly, this is Paul Barry of the ABC’s Media Watch:
And now to a story that did not make the front page—at least not in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald and was missing from many ABC TV primetime bulletins… We’re talking of course about the union royal commission, which last week was one the biggest shows in town… 
The story has allegations of Fraud. Corruption. Political slush funds. And lying to a Royal Commission.
And tangled up in the middle of it is former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who in the 1990s was lover and lawyer to this man, Bruce Wilson…
On Friday, Wilson’s evidence to the commission was front page news in The Australian and the Telegraph.
But ... amazingly it was missing entirely from the previous evening’s 7pm bulletins on ABC TV in Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin.
The day before, when evidence was given about wads of cash being handed to Ms Gillard to fund her home renovations ... ABC TV’s 7pm bulletins in three of those capitals also failed to report the news....
And it was under attack again last week. 
“ANDREW BOLT: The ABC has run absolutely dead on the Julia Gillard slush fund scandal, absolutely dead… The rare time say, in Melbourne, the 774 presenter Jon Faine, has ever talked to reporters covering it , it has been to yell at them and heckle them ...”
So how on earth did ABC news directors in four capital cities think this was not a story? 
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Shorten accused

Andrew Bolt June 16 2014 (7:40pm)

Claimed:
BILL Shorten became directly involved in elections of the troubled Health Services Union when he was a senior member of the Rudd government in 2009 by donating $5000 to a candidate’s campaign, it was alleged at the royal commission into union corruption today. 

Marco Bolano, a key ally of HSU corruption whistleblower Kathy Jackson, said he was “stunned” when he was told Mr Shorten was contributing to his campaign because the now federal Labor leader had been a supporter of his opponent. 
When Mr Bolano asked “why on earth” Mr Shorten would pay the money, he said his campaign manager Stephen Donnelly told him: “He’s having a bet both ways”.
The Labor leader today denied the allegation…
Mr Bolano said he wouldn’t know if the alleged $5000 from Mr Shorten came from “some fund” or Mr Shorten personally…
Mr Bolano said Mr Feeney arranged for Mr Donnelly, his chief of staff, to be Mr Bolano’s campaign manager for the 2009 HSU election.
He had learned afterwards that the tobacco company Philip Morris had contributed to his HSU election campaign and he was “perplexed” why a cigarette maker would want to contribute to the campaign of a health union election. 
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Larry Pickering
INSIDERS OFFSIDE AGAIN

The ABC is a rats’ nest of taxpayer-funded, dishonest socialists who fail to hold this disgraceful Prime Minister to account. It starts asking hard questions of this Government only once an outcome is imminent, in fear of Abbott reforming it or justifiably auctioning off its licence.

Watching “The Insiders” today was yet another display of unabashed ABC bias:
Convener and ALP hack, Barrie Cassidy, was joined by two other Gillard supporters, Malcolm Farr and Lenore Taylor along with a token conservative, the politically astute Piers Akerman.

Akerman, in the course of conversation had outed Cassidy as an ex-employee of the ALP

Cassidy did not respond until the subject arose of 6PR’s Howard Sattler’s inappropriate question to the PM: “Is Tim Mathieson gay?”.

Of course the whole thing was roundly condemned by all, including Akerman, who noted that a rumour of Mathieson’s sexuality was “all over” the Press Gallery in Canberra (not to mention the internet).

“Surely you have noticed this rumour?” asked Akerman. “No I haven’t”, was the answer in unison from all three. “Mmmm, ok then”, muttered Akerman. All three were lying of course, unless they live in a concrete cocoon.

Cassidy replied in anger, “You have just done what Howard Sattler did and passed on the rumour and that’s just as pathetic, actually. You’ll have a hard time defending your position!”

Akerman denied the accusation and a blue erupted.

Off camera, during a break, Cassidy demanded Akerman apologise (damned if I know what for) but Akerman did apologise... at the end of the program.

Cassidy is the protector of all things ALP. He even dumped my friend Paul Zanetti from his Insiders program. Why? Well, the odd anti-Gillard cartoon of his was displayed on my web page.

I have never approached the subject of Mathieson's sexuality as I consider it out of bounds. But, courtesy of Cassidy, the rumour lives on.

It lives on because most know that Cassidy is a close friend and companion of Tim Mathieson and he (Cassidy) could have nipped the rumour in the bud simply by saying it was not true, (as Julia Gillard did).

If Cassidy had confirmed the rumour then not only would he have been contradicting Gillard but Cassidy’s own sexuality would have been the new rumour.

He may regret that his idol Julia started this all-in gender war.
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Roma Downey
"Peace begins with a smile."--Mother Teresa
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Pastor Rick Warren
“Our heavenly Father loves us so much us he allows us to be called his children, and we really are!” 1 Jn.3:1 HappyFather's Day
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"Israel has the means to achieve energy independence and pave the way for the free world to neutralize the economic power of the Islamic world. Unlike the situation with Better Place, economic laws of supply and demand work in favor of Israel's energy solution. The only force standing in the way is a coalition of radical environmentalists who oppose all oil consumption because they believe that the greatest threat to the world is global warming. They don't want cheap oil." - Caroline Glick
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While procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding are twined, I get the point. Sometimes, looking at measurement material one mistakes that everything is procedural. Teachers work very hard to get kids to follow the procedure and face questions like "Why?" "Aren't there shortcuts" and "Will this be tested?" Good teachers aim for the concept. But, even my shorthand of 'good teachers' obfuscates .. Good teachers require a system that works, students prepared to learn and experience to know how to present and what to present. Of course conceptual teaching is possible and happens today. However, there are impediments to it too. Some schools are dysfunctional as are some communities. It gets really bad when authorities involve themselves in petty games of power play and limit good teachers.
One observation: Good teachers didn't begin that way. They are trained and inducted and acquire resources.
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What else might Putin steal?

Andrew Bolt June 17 2013 (7:36am)

image
There are actually eyewitnesses to the moment Putin trousered the ring (circled) that I would trust above the president:
Russian President Vladimir Putin ... has denied he stole a Super Bowl ring from New England Patriots gridiron team owner Robert Kraft. 
“I took out the ring and showed it to (Putin), and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft said. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.” He says he tried to get it back, but the White House told him to just “think of it as a gift” and let it go. Mr Putin’s spokesman denied the claim, saying it was ‘weird’ and the ring’s staying in the Kremlin, where it belongs.
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No warming, but now signs of cooling instead

Andrew Bolt June 17 2013 (9:18am)

Global warming - dud predictions, Global warming - general
Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says the question now is not whether global warming has paused, but whether global cooling has started:
Attention in the public debate seems to be moving away from the 15-17 yr ‘pause’ to the cooling since 2002 (note: I am receiving inquiries about this from journalists).  This period since 2002 is scientifically interesting, since it coincides with the ‘climate shift’ circa 2001/2002 posited by Tsonis and others.  This shift and the subsequent slight cooling trend provides a rationale for inferring a slight cooling trend over the next decade or so, rather than a flat trend from the 15 yr ‘pause’.
To those warmists shouting “I accept the science” we can only respond: “I wish you would.”
Christopher Monckton declares the climate models of warmists are now conclusively broken:
Superimposing the temperature curve and its least-squares linear-regression trend on the statistical insignificance region bounded by the means of the trends on these published uncertainties since January 1996 demonstrates that there has been no statistically-significant warming in 17 years 4 months...
image
Monckton, too, sees a cooling trend - albeit over a period too short to mean much at all:
It is better to focus on the ever-widening discrepancy between predicted and observed warming rates. The IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report backcasts the interval of 34 models’ global warming projections to 2005, since when the world should have been warming at a rate equivalent to 2.33 Cº/century. Instead, it has been cooling at a rate equivalent to a statistically-insignificant 0.87 Cº/century: 
UPDATE
Reader egbert makes the point I failed to:
AB has quoted Lord Monckton, who confirms that the cooling, in and of itself, is statistically insignificant. The real issue is the discrepancy between the “science is settled, the debate is over” climate models and the “inconvenient truth” revealed by the data. The graph above asserts that the difference between models and reality is now statistically significant. 
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O. J. Simpson
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“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;”Psalm 103:13NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish."
John 10:28
The Christian should never think or speak lightly of unbelief. For a child of God to mistrust his love, his truth, his faithfulness, must be greatly displeasing to him. How can we ever grieve him by doubting his upholding grace? Christian! it is contrary to every promise of God's precious Word that thou shouldst ever be forgotten or left to perish. If it could be so, how could he be true who has said, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I never forget thee." What were the value of that promise--"The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." Where were the truth of Christ's words--"I give unto my sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Where were the doctrines of grace? They would be all disproved if one child of God should perish. Where were the veracity of God, his honour, his power, his grace, his covenant, his oath, if any of those for whom Christ has died, and who have put their trust in him, should nevertheless be cast away? Banish those unbelieving fears which so dishonour God. Arise, shake thyself from the dust, and put on thy beautiful garments. Remember it is sinful to doubt his Word wherein he has promised thee that thou shalt never perish. Let the eternal life within thee express itself in confident rejoicing.
"The gospel bears my spirit up:
A faithful and unchanging God
Lays the foundation for my hope,
In oaths, and promises, and blood."

Evening

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
Psalm 27:1
"The Lord is my light and my salvation." Here is personal interest, "my light," "my salvation;" the soul is assured of it, and therefore declares it boldly. Into the soul at the new birth divine light is poured as the precursor of salvation; where there is not enough light to reveal our own darkness and to make us long for the Lord Jesus, there is no evidence of salvation. After conversion our God is our joy, comfort, guide, teacher, and in every sense our light: he is light within, light around, light reflected from us, and light to be revealed to us. Note, it is not said merely that the Lord gives light, but that he is light; nor that he gives salvation, but that he is salvation; he, then, who by faith has laid hold upon God, has all covenant blessings in his possession. This being made sure as a fact, the argument drawn from it is put in the form of a question, "Whom shall I fear?" A question which is its own answer. The powers of darkness are not to be feared, for the Lord, our light, destroys them; and the damnation of hell is not to be dreaded by us, for the Lord is our salvation. This is a very different challenge from that of boastful Goliath, for it rests, not upon the conceited vigour of an arm of flesh, but upon the real power of the omnipotent I AM. "The Lord is the strength of my life." Here is a third glowing epithet, to show that the writer's hope was fastened with a threefold cord which could not be broken. We may well accumulate terms of praise where the Lord lavishes deeds of grace. Our life derives all its strength from God; and if he deigns to make us strong, we cannot be weakened by all the machinations of the adversary. "Of whom shall I be afraid?" The bold question looks into the future as well as the present. "If God be for us," who can be against us, either now or in time to come?
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John

[Jŏhn] - jehovah hath been gracious.
John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the fisherman who became the beloved disciple, The Apostle of Love.

The Man Whom Jesus Loved

This younger brother of James has the rare distinction of being known as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." The original of his name means, "whom Jehovah loves" and John's experience corresponded to his name. From the many references to this honored disciple we can gather these facts:
He was a native of Bethsaida in Galilee.
His godly parents were probably cousins of Christ, and John was their youngest son.
His mother followed Christ, ministered unto Him, was at the Cross and among those who went to anoint the body of Christ with sweet spices.
His father was a fisherman owning his own vessel and prosperous enough to hire servants.
John himself was also a successful fisherman.
He was called to discipleship while plying his nets.
He was the youngest of the disciples, the Benjamin among the Twelve.
He was one of the select triumvirate, Christ's inner cabinet of three, Peter and James being the other two.
He was surnamed by Christ as a son of "Boanerges" because of his prophetic zeal and resolution to witness for Christ.
He was treated by Christ with greater familiarity than the others enjoyed.
He sat next to Christ at the Last Supper.
He was intrusted with the care of the mother of Jesus.
He died when he was almost one hundred years of age.
He wrote the gospel and three epistles bearing his name, and also the Book of Revelation. How true are Wesley's words of John the Beloved:
A Caesar's title less my envy moves
Than to be styled the man whom Jesus loves;
What charms, what beauties in his face did shine
Reflected ever from the face divine.
From manifold references in the four gospels, the Acts and Revelation, the preacher can develop these traits in John's character: his natural energy (Mark 3:17); his intolerance (Mark 9:38); his vindictiveness (Luke 9:54); his ambition (Mark 10:35-37); his eagerness to learn (John 13:23; I John 2:9); his sympathy ( John 19:26); his love (1 John 4:7-21).
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Today's reading: Nehemiah 4-7, Acts 2:22-47 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Nehemiah 4-7

Opposition to the Rebuilding
1 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews,2 and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, "What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble-burned as they are?"
3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, "What they are building-even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!"

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 2:22-47

22 "Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25David said about him:
"'I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.'
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