Saturday, July 25, 2015

Sat Jul 25th Todays News

Simple things, sometimes beautiful, enrage lefties. A meme of President George W Bush hugging a soldier seated on an aircraft while the President is standing in the aisle inspires enraged denunciations. They say he lied about WMD. He laughed about WMD. He killed the soldiers he hugged. He started war for oil. He was a drug user and drunk. Sometimes the accuser claims he was a convicted drug user. President Bush is an evangelical Christian and he had been drunk and abusing amphetamines when he decided he needed to be born again. That was before his father became President. The war against Iraq had nothing to do with US oil interests but was a direct result of Saddam Hussein supporting jihadists who had used civilian aircraft to take down the twin towers in NYC and attack the Pentagon and the White House. The WMD existed and were known by the press to exist. When the UN decommissioned them after Syria used them against her own people, it was found that they had come from Iraq and had been developed there with the help of Jimmy Carter's administration. It is sad to see such hatred. One wonders what the haters would say had President Bush ignored cries for help from US soldiers, gave money to terrorist organisations like Hamas and allowed superior weaponry to be captured by jihadis? What if   President Bush authorised a program giving weapons to drug running Mexicans and danced with Beyonce instead of addressing the immediate need of those dying in his service? One either appreciates beauty, or one misses it. 

 Hatred by lefties opposes mining too. A mine using cyanide in extraction at Lake Cowal Goldmine in NSW is being memed to death with a picture of the lake being almost on top of the mine. The suggestion is that all life connected with the lake could be extinguished by a cyanide spill. All the fish stock would be gone. All the fauna would be killed. All the flora would die too. Only, the lake only exists part of the year and some years not at all. There are no fish in it. It is desert country. The processing can clearly be seen to be on a large rise which, relative to surrounding countryside, would require Noah like floods to be compromised. But haters don't care about such. It is a scare campaign. And believers don't need reason. 

 New York celebrates raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. It isn't enough to live on without help, and it means those who rely on disposable income while living at home will do better if they retain their jobs or worse if they lose their jobs, It is a tremendous boost to those who work illegally as there is now greater incentive to employ them. In Australia, artists are struggling now that the Attorney General has stopped giving them hand outs to attack conservative government. Anecdotes suggest they may have to work. One such hand out may have funded the work claiming global warming killed Mammoths. Maybe Shorten hopes to revive Mammoths with his tax on carbon dioxide? 

 Funny how the left promote their 'great' moments. Emily's list are promoting Gillard's famous failed misogyny speech by turning Gilard's face into a tea towel. Maybe Paul Keating's description of Australia as the arse end of the world will now be made as toilet paper? And Bob Hawke will become a silly old bugger while Rudd gets his rat f*cker.
In 285, Diocletian appointed Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler. 306, Constantine I was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops. 315, the Arch of Constantine was completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. 325, the First Council of Nicaea, convened in Nicaea, Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, was closed. 864, the Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald ordered defensive measures against the Vikings. 1137, Eleanor of Aquitaine married Prince Louis, later King Louis VII of France, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux. 1139, Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, were defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques who was proclaimed King of Portugal. 1261, the city of Constantinople was recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire. 1278, the naval Battle of Algeciras took place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile.

In 1467, the Battle of Molinella: The first battle in Italy in which firearms were used extensively. 1536, Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founded the city of Santiago de Cali. 1538, the city of Guayaquil was founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil. 1547, Henry II of France was crowned. 1554, Mary I married Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral. 1567, Don Diego de Losada founded the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. 1593, Henry IV of France publicly converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. 1603, James VI of Scotland was crowned king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707. 1609, the English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, was deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there. 1693, Ignacio de Maya founded the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.

In 1722, Dummer's War began along the Maine-Massachusetts border. 1755, British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians were sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later moved to Louisiana, while others resettled in New Brunswick. 1759, French and Indian War: In Western New York, British forces captured Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandoned Fort Rouillé. 1783, American Revolutionary War: The war's last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, was ended by a preliminary peace agreement. 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K550). 1792, the Brunswick Manifesto was issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French royal family was harmed. 1795, the first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was laid. 1797, Horatio Nelson lost more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain). 1799, at Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeated 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

In 1814, War of 1812: Battle of Lundy's Lane: Reinforcements arrived near Niagara Falls for General Riall's British and Canadian forces and a bloody, all-night battle with Jacob Brown's Americans commenced at 18.00; the Americans retreated to Fort Erie. 1824, Costa Rica annexed Guanacaste from Nicaragua. 1837, the first commercial use of an electrical telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on July 25, 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London. 1853, Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", was killed. 1861, American Civil War: The United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. 1866, the United States Congress passed legislation authorising the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant became the first to be promoted to this rank. 1868, Wyoming became a United States territory. 1869, the Japanese daimyo began returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869). 1893, the Corinth Canal in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece was used for the first time. 1894, the First Sino-Japanese War began when the Japanese fired upon a Chinese warship. 1898, after over two months of sea-based bombardment, the United States invasion of Puerto Rico began with U.S. troops led by General Nelson Miles landing at harbour of Guánica, Puerto Rico.

In 1908, Ajinomoto was founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovered that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock was monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patented a process for manufacturing it. 1909, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from (Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom) in 37 minutes. 1915, RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker became the first British military aviator to earn the Victoria Cross, for defeating three German two-seat observation aircraft in one day, over the Western Front. 1917, Sir Robert Borden introduced the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket was 4% and highest was 25%). 1920, France captured Damascus. 1925, Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) was established. 1934, the Nazis assassinated Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.

In 1940, General Henri Guisan ordered the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and make surrender illegal. 1942, Norwegian Manifesto called for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis. 1943, World War II: Benito Mussolini was forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and was replaced by Pietro Badoglio. 1944, World War II: Operation Spring: One of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war: One thousand five hundred casualties, including 500 killed. 1946, Operation Crossroads: An atomic bomb was detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll. Also 1946, at Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a comedy team. 1952, the U.S. non-incorporated territory of Puerto Rico adopted a constitution. 1956, forty-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sank the next day, killing 51. 1957, the Republic of Tunisia was proclaimed. 1958, the African Regroupment Party (PRA) held its first congress in Cotonou. 1959, SR.N1 hovercraft crossed the English Channel from Calais, France to Dover, England in just over two hours. 1959, Lloyd J. Old introduced BCG, a tuberculosis vaccine, into experimental cancer research as a way to stimulate non-specific resistance to tumor growth. BCG was FDA-approved in 1991 and is now widely used as a first line treatment for superficial bladder cancer.

In 1961, in a speech John F. Kennedy emphasised that any attack on Berlin was an attack on NATO. 1965, Bob Dylan went electric as he plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival, signalling a major change in folk and rock music. 1969, Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declared the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defence. This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war. 1973, Soviet Mars 5 space probe was launched. 1976, Viking program: Viking 1 took the famous Face on Mars photo. 1978, Puerto Rico police assassinated two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders. Also 1978, Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby" was born. 1979, another section of the Sinai Peninsula was peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt. 1983, Black July: Thirty-seven Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo were massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners. 1984, Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a space walk.

In 1993, Israel launched a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call the Seven-Day War. Also 1993, the Saint James Church massacre occurred in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa. 1994, Israel and Jordan signed the Washington Declaration, that formally ended the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948. 1996, in a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposed Sylvestre Ntibantunganya. 2000, Concorde Air France Flight 4590 crashed at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, killing 113 passengers. 2002, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam became the 11th president of India. 2007, Pratibha Patil was sworn in as India's first female president. 2010, WikiLeaks published classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history. 2012, Pranab Mukherjee became the 13th president of India.
2014
Ukraine's PM has resigned and the turmoil in the civil war ravaged nation continues. It was not what Arseniy Yatsenyuk inherited when he overthrew the previous, legitimately elected government of Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych. Russia had declared the government illegitimate when he first overthrew Yanukovych on trumped up charges following social unrest fed by Yatsenyuk. Russia had subsequently reclaimed the Crimea in order to secure her naval dockyards. In some ways, it appears as if Putin had Obama's blessing in securing the dockyard as a quid pro quo favour for not damaging Obama's reelection in '12. Six months of the inept government of Yatsenyuk who favoured closer European, Obama friendly ties while distancing himself from Russia, and Ukraine lost Crimea and the dockyards, a civil war began and a civilian aircraft was shot from the skies of what Yatsenyuk would belatedly call a war zone. Had Yatsenyuk alerted Malaysian airways to the war zone in advance, the airplane would not have been shot down, but then Ukraine would not have been able to press the international community to get the Ukrainian separatists to stand down. Now, relatives of victims in Australia await a finding of the shooting being either a war crime, a crime against humanity or a terrorist strike. A rule of thumb is that each dead passenger is worth $600k insurance, but legal issues could easily eat into that sum so that there could be no compensation after years of litigation. It is unlikely that the incident will be declared terrorism, which would favour families of the victims with an Australian government pay out, because Yatsenyuk declares it belatedly a war zone. For it to be an act of terror, it would need to be shown that Ukraine fired the rockets to implicate Russia. And then it won't matter that Yatsenyuk resigned today. 

In 1934 we saw the difference between Fascism and Nazism. Austria's diminutive Chancellor Dollfuss had stymied Austrian Nazis. Italy, under Mussolini promised to protect Austria from the Nazis. While Mussolini had been hosting Dollfuss' wife, the Nazis assassinated Dollfuss as part of an attempted coup on this day. It failed as Mussolini guaranteed protection of Austria. He denounced Nazis as being little different to Stalinists. 

On this day in 306, Constantine I was made Ceaser by his Roman Legions. They had wanted to make his dad Ceaser, but his dad had died. He would rule and build for thirty one years. His mother had a strong impact on his life, and she had become Christian. She predeceased him by some seven years, but she seemed to have had a strong say in the execution of his son and wife for immoral behaviour. Constantine had himself baptised shortly before his death. He seemed to have done so tactically, as he seemed to be of the impression it would absolve him of his pre baptismal sin. So, he was no theologian. In 315, the Arch of Constantine was built in honour of a battle. In 1261, Constantinople was reestablished as capital of the Byzantine empire after a battle. In 864, Charles the Bald ordered defensive measures against Vikings. In 1456, Italians had learned to use firearms. In 1603, the crowns of Scotland and England unified. In 1788, Mozart completed his Symphony number 40 in G Minor. In 1799, Napoleon beat some Egyptians. In 1837, the first commercial use was made of a telegraph. In 1920, the first use of two way radio across the Atlantic. In 1866, US Grant was promoted to General of the Army, the first to achieve it. In 1908, MSG was isolated for mass production. In 1909, the first flight by airplane across the Channel, in 37 minutes. In 1917, income tax is introduced in Canada as a temporary measure. In 1946, Bikini Atoll experienced its first atomic test. On the same day in '46, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin began their partnership as a comedy team in Atlantic City. In 1959, a hovercraft was used to traverse the channel in just over two hours. In 1976, Viking took a picture of a face on Mars. In 1993, a church massacre was carried out in South Africa. The killers largest time served was five and a half years for the hate crime. 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 285, Diocletian appointed Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler. 306, Constantine I was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops. 315, the Arch of Constantine was completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. 325, the First Council of Nicaea, convened in Nicaea, Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, was closed. 864, the Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald ordered defensive measures against the Vikings. 1137, Eleanor of Aquitaine married Prince Louis, later King Louis VII of France, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux. 1139, Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, were defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques who was proclaimed King of Portugal. 1261, the city of Constantinople was recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire. 1278, the naval Battle of Algeciras took place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile.

 In 1467, the Battle of Molinella: The first battle in Italy in which firearms were used extensively. 1536, Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founded the city of Santiago de Cali. 1538, the city of Guayaquil was founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil. 1547, Henry II of France was crowned. 1554, Mary I married Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral. 1567, Don Diego de Losada founded the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. 1593, Henry IV of France publicly converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. 1603, James VI of Scotland was crowned king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707. 1609, the English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, was deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there. 1693, Ignacio de Maya founded the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.

 In 1722, Dummer's War began along the Maine-Massachusetts border. 1755, British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians were sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later moved to Louisiana, while others resettled in New Brunswick. 1759, French and Indian War: In Western New York, British forces captured Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandoned Fort Rouillé. 1783, American Revolutionary War: The war's last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, was ended by a preliminary peace agreement. 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K550). 1792, the Brunswick Manifesto was issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French royal family was harmed. 1795, the first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was laid. 1797, Horatio Nelson lost more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain). 1799, at Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeated 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

 In 1814, War of 1812: Battle of Lundy's Lane: Reinforcements arrived near Niagara Falls for General Riall's British and Canadian forces and a bloody, all-night battle with Jacob Brown's Americans commenced at 18.00; the Americans retreated to Fort Erie. 1824, Costa Rica annexed Guanacaste from Nicaragua. 1837, the first commercial use of an electrical telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on July 25, 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London. 1853, Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", was killed. 1861, American Civil War: The United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. 1866, the United States Congress passed legislation authorising the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant became the first to be promoted to this rank. 1868, Wyoming became a United States territory. 1869, the Japanese daimyo began returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869). 1893, the Corinth Canal in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece was used for the first time. 1894, the First Sino-Japanese War began when the Japanese fired upon a Chinese warship. 1898, after over two months of sea-based bombardment, the United States invasion of Puerto Rico began with U.S. troops led by General Nelson Miles landing at harbour of Guánica, Puerto Rico.

 In 1908, Ajinomoto was founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovered that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock was monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patented a process for manufacturing it. 1909, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from (Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom) in 37 minutes. 1915, RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker became the first British military aviator to earn the Victoria Cross, for defeating three German two-seat observation aircraft in one day, over the Western Front. 1917, Sir Robert Borden introduced the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket was 4% and highest was 25%). 1920, France captured Damascus. 1925, Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) was established. 1934, the Nazis assassinated Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.

 In 1940, General Henri Guisan ordered the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and make surrender illegal. 1942, Norwegian Manifesto called for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis. 1943, World War II: Benito Mussolini was forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and was replaced by Pietro Badoglio. 1944, World War II: Operation Spring: One of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war: One thousand five hundred casualties, including 500 killed. 1946, Operation Crossroads: An atomic bomb was detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll. Also 1946, at Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a comedy team. 1952, the U.S. non-incorporated territory of Puerto Rico adopted a constitution. 1956, forty-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sank the next day, killing 51. 1957, the Republic of Tunisia was proclaimed. 1958, the African Regroupment Party (PRA) held its first congress in Cotonou. 1959, SR.N1 hovercraft crossed the English Channel from Calais, France to Dover, England in just over two hours. 1959, Lloyd J. Old introduced BCG, a tuberculosis vaccine, into experimental cancer research as a way to stimulate non-specific resistance to tumor growth. BCG was FDA-approved in 1991 and is now widely used as a first line treatment for superficial bladder cancer.

 In 1961, in a speech John F. Kennedy emphasised that any attack on Berlin was an attack on NATO. 1965, Bob Dylan went electric as he plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival, signalling a major change in folk and rock music. 1969, Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declared the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defence. This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war. 1973, Soviet Mars 5 space probe was launched. 1976, Viking program: Viking 1 took the famous Face on Mars photo. 1978, Puerto Rico police assassinated two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders. Also 1978, Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby" was born. 1979, another section of the Sinai Peninsula was peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt. 1983, Black July: Thirty-seven Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo were massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners. 1984, Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a space walk.

 In 1993, Israel launched a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call the Seven-Day War. Also 1993, the Saint James Church massacre occurred in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa. 1994, Israel and Jordan signed the Washington Declaration, that formally ended the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948. 1996, in a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposed Sylvestre Ntibantunganya. 2000, Concorde Air France Flight 4590 crashed at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, killing 113 passengers. 2002, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam became the 11th president of India. 2007, Pratibha Patil was sworn in as India's first female president. 2010, WikiLeaks published classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history. 2012, Pranab Mukherjee became the 13th president of India.
=== 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. 
===
For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns John Morley and Lenny Timons. Born on the same day as Gavrilo Princip (1894), Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (1915), Benny Benjamin (1925), Barbara Harris (1935) and Bruce Woodley (1942). Commonwealth Constitution Day in Puerto Rico (1952)
306 – Constantine the Great was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops after the death of Constantius Chlorus.
1893 – The Corinth Canal was formally opened, connecting the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth in the Aegean Sea.
1943 – The Grand Council of Fascism voted a motion of no confidence against Benito Mussolini, who was arrested the same day by King Victor Emmanuel III and replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
1978 – Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists were killed by police at Cerro Maravilla in Villalba.
1993 – Israeli forces launched a week-long attack against Lebanon to make it difficult for Hezbollah to use southern Lebanon as a base for striking Israel. On your day, something passes and is replaced by someone great. It is good that canal opened. Nobody liked Mussolini anyway. Hold your ground. Everything you have, you deserve.
Deaths
Pratibha Patil
Pratibha Patil
We've been led to your specially cooked chicken. Our sailing inspired the Tempest. Pound the earth for two months and you can go anywhere. We are independent. Mother India smiles. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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NEXT: THE NICOLA ROXON FLOOR MOP

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 25, 2015 (4:35pm)

Now available at the ALP National Conference: 
It was widely regarded as one of Julia Gillard’s finest moments: the misogyny speech that reverberated around the world with its righteous anger ...
And now it can help you get through that mountain of dishes: feminist political network Emily’s List has turned the famous speech into a tea towel.
It’s curious symbolism. Why reduce a speech all about female empowerment into a symbol of prosaic domesticity? Does Emily’s List have a keen sense of irony?
“No," Lisa Carey, the group’s national co-ordinator, told Fairfax Media on Friday. 
And that’s not funny.
(Via Bill.)
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THEY MAY HAVE TO WORK

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 25, 2015 (4:28pm)

Now that George Brandis has abolished their Arts Start grants, government-dependent creative types consider their options – including one artist who actually anticipates an improvement in creative standards: 
Luke Devine: The likelihood is that I’ll find myself in a day job and work on my practice outside of that. I want to do my work in Tasmania because my focus is on the state and growing up within its remnants of genocide, and the correlation between that genocide plus other racist atrocities committed across the globe. But it’s really hard to get a job there. 
That’s because Tasmania prefers federal handouts over actually building an economy. There’s a lesson here for Luke. 
Hannah Brontë: I hope it makes us all the more resourceful and hungry … I feel like this is the first time some of my peers within art world have actually engaged with politics and have felt the impact of policies. My family kind of ticks the boxes for most minority groups: I’m Indigenous, my mum’s queer, and she raised as us as a single parent, so I have often felt impacts of funding cuts. I hope that the lack of money will make the art better .... 
Good for her. 
Jonno Revanche: For people who do crowd-funds, you have to give out rewards, and you have to continually justify to an audience – and essentially beg – to give you funding. This isn’t sustainable. 
It may not be particularly dignified, if you’re the type who feels compromised by asking for cash, but there’s no reason why crowd-funding cannot be sustainable. Incidentally, Jonno Revanche is from Adelaide . 
Theia Connell: Art Start was all about money allowing younger artists to establish themselves, and commit to your practice in a studio setting wherever you are. Because that isn’t an option, now I’m looking at moving out of the country ... Maybe the best option really is to get out of the country. 
Agreed. Bye!
(Via C of the G)
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A BOOK FOR ALL GIRLS AND WOMEN … AND DROIDS

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 25, 2015 (2:44pm)

Thrilling news from future author Clementine Ford: 
‘Fight Like A Girl’ will be an exploration of the ways women are silenced and made to feel weaker. It will be look at how we have been corralled into colluding with our own oppression out of fear of backlash and further disempowerment. Although I’ll be writing through the lens of my own experience, it will be inclusive – this is a book for ALL girls and women, no matter what body parts they have or where they come from. It will be my story, but I hope it will be yours too.

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Fight Like A Girl. AND WIN! 
Of course, if you ever do find yourself in a fight with Clementine, just offer to shake her hand. A hand presented in friendship is to Clementine what a staircase is to a rampaging ED-209:



All Enforcement Droids have their weak points.
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TWO-WHEELED DUST GATHERERS

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 25, 2015 (2:00pm)

That bicycle boom we keep hearing about apparently isn’t happening: 
There has been a small but statistically significant decrease in the level of cycling participation across the country between 2011 and 2015 … 
Yet people do keep buying bicycles. Some are quite decorative.
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JUST ONE MORE REASON FOR AN EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 25, 2015 (1:43pm)

Climate change killed the mammoths.
(Via Sven.)
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On The Bolt Report tomorrow, July 26

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (2:55pm)

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On Channel 10 on Sunday at 10.30am (note changed time this week) and 3pm.
Editorial:  Bill Shorten’s boat con.
My guest: Labor’s agriculture spokesman, Right-wing pragmatist Joel Fitzgibbon, on Labor’s national conference. Has Shorten gone too far Left?
The panel: former Labor national president Warren Mundine and Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger.

NewsWatch: Piers Akerman, Daily Telegraph columnist. We have a list of journalist who should apologise for backing Labor’s deadly boat policy mistake.

So much to talk about: Tony Abbott’s GST plans, Labor’s mad global warming promise, why the Liberals are behind in the polls, the idiot Donald Trump and much more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
WARNING!!!! Thanks to the rugby, we have different times for the morning showing. We are on at 10.30am in all states, or after the rugby finishes.  
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Another reason to believe Labor will never turn back a boat

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (1:57pm)

Labor’s Senate leader is against her leader’s boat policy - and against a policy critical to stopping the boats. Penny Wong will get her proxy to vote against it this afternoon:
Labor’s senate leader and prominent left-winger Penny Wong will not herself vote against Bill Shorten’s position on turnbacks… – but her vote will be expressed by her proxy, Katy Gallagher. 
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Rushdie on the cowardice of our writers

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (9:32am)

Salman Rushdie on learning the wrong lessons from Islamism’s war on free speech:
In an interview with the French magazine L’Express, the novelist said that “it seems we have learned the wrong lessons” from the experience of The Satanic Verses, which saw a fatwa issued against him by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, sending him into hiding.
“Instead of realising that we need to oppose these attacks on freedom of expression, we thought that we need to placate them with compromise and renunciation,” he said.
Speaking about the decision by PEN’s American branch to award Charlie Hebdo with a freedom of expression courage award in May, which led to more than 200 writers putting their names to a letter protesting the decision for valorising “material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the western world”, Rushdie said the conflict had left “deep divisions” in the literary world. He would never have imagined that writers such as Michael Ondaatje, Peter Carey and Junot Díaz “would have taken this attitude”, and he had written to one of the key dissenters, Teju Cole, about the situation, he revealed.
“[Cole] replied with a bizarre letter… But his reply was mostly full of false claims: Teju assured me that he would never have taken this part against The Satanic Verses because, in my case, it was to do with an accusation of blasphemy, but in the case of Charlie Hebdo, it was about the alleged racism of the magazine against the Muslim minority.”
Rushdie told L’Express that he disagreed, saying that the 12 people murdered at Charlie Hebdo’s offices were killed because their words were seen as blasphemous…
The novelist told the French magazine that he believes “we are living in the darkest time I have ever known”, with the rise of Islamic State of “colossal importance for the future of the world”. He argued that the taboo surrounding “supposed ‘Islamophobia’” must be brought to an end.
“Why can’t we debate Islam?” he said. “It is possible to respect individuals, to protect them from intolerance, while being sceptical about their ideas, even criticising them ferociously.”
(Thanks to reader a happy little debunker.) 
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Shorten actually gives in on boats, but still the Left smashes him

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (8:45am)

Boat people policy

Labor members seem totally unappeasable on boats. Too many boats seem barely enough.
Consider.
Knowing he cannot win an election by banning the turnbacks that work, Bill Shorten now says Labor must have them as an “option”.
But to appease his party, he refuses to promise he will actually use that option and turn back a single boat.
Moreover:
LABOR leader Bill Shorten will today pledge to double Australia’s refugee intake to 27,000 in a decade in an olive branch to his divided party. 

Taxpayers will be asked to foot the $450 million bill to boost government spending on asylum-seekers and the cost of reinstating the Refugee Review Tribunal.
The policy would also establish an official advocate for asylum-seeker children in ­detention, which would have the power to launch legal ­action on their behalf...He will also abolish temporary protection visas.
In fact, Shorten promises to dismantle Abbott’s border policies, not continue them, and will have more refugees come both by the front door and the back.
Yet the Left - addicted to seeming, not doing - cannot see through Shorten merely seeming tough while actually giving in, and still savages him:
Rank-and-file Labor members also cheered at a Labor for Refugees function after Mr Shorten was described as leading “the least effective opposition in living memory’’ by lawyer Julian Burnside.
UPDATE
Part of the price of Bill Shorten’s bribe to the Left:

The Australian understands that doubling the nation’s human­itarian intake, which currently stands at 13,750 places a year, would cost an extra $2.7 billion over the forward estimates.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Just hiking taxes is leadership?

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (8:32am)

How to impress Peter Hartcher with your leadership. Just demand higher taxes:
Australia has been craving national leadership. This week we found some. But it didn’t come from the national leader. It was the Premier of NSW, Mike Baird, who stepped up…
He named a big national problem: paying for healthcare in the years ahead. He proposed a difficult solution: raising the rate of the GST.
Too transparent. 
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Clash avoided

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (7:31am)

Protecting the image:

Kim Vuga ... hosts a Facebook page called “Stop The Boat People"… The Project ran big promotions for Vuga’s appearance tantalising viewers with the possibility that she could be “the most racist woman in Australia”.
In one teaser co-host and Fairfax writer Waleed Aly said: “Staunchly anti-refugee and anti-Muslim. I can’t wait.” Yet, Aly didn’t ask Vuga anything letting Meshel Laurie; Natarsha Belling and Lehmo handle the interview.
She was asked whether she believed Australia was “under attack from refugees”, and she said “we are under attack by terrorists ... let in by Labor.” She brought up Martin Place gunman Man Monis, saying that he “definitely didn’t have any mental health problems. He had over 14,000 followers and a lot of them were in Australia.” This led to a confusing exchange about Muslim-Australians and mental health problems with Laurie.
Talking about what she got out of Go Back From Where You Came From — 25 days with five other participants exploring the refugee experience — Vuga said it strengthened her existing convictions.
Vuga said she felt guilty when she left Kurdish fighters in Syria behind. “I believe we need to have more boots on the ground over there.” And that’s when Waleed Aly finally got his say: “Kim, thank you very much for joining us tonight.”  
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Shorten lurches to the Left, where money is no object

Andrew Bolt July 25 2015 (7:18am)

Paul Kelly in Bill Shorten’s recipe for disaster - his speech to the Labor conference:
Rather than reform itself because of the Rudd-Gillard experience, Labor has decided it was essentially right. It will ask the Australian public to think again and this time vote down Tony Abbott.
The ALP will prioritise climate change action via higher prices, operate in lock-step with the trade unions, flirt with quasi-protectionist economics, downplay market-based reforms and champion a litany of progressive causes: female equality, same-sex marriage, indigenous recognition and the republic.
At a time when Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens warns that Australian growth is falling to permanently lower levels — the implication being that stalled economic reform has diminished living standards — Labor offers phony words and hollow policy.
It is locked into the old politics and mistakes, playing to its loyalists and institutional interests…
There was no mention in Shorten’s speech of the core reality — that Australia faces a growth slowdown, that living standards growth is being reduced, that the budget faces a challenge on both the tax and spending side, and that new measures are needed to ­improve productivity.
Dennis Shanahan:
Labor under Shorten appears unable to develop genuine, wide-ranging policy that accommodates the Left’s social concerns and the necessary pragmatism for a successful centrist party. Like so many other left-of-centre parties around the world that have suffered defeat, the ALP seems intent on moving to the left to gain lost ground rather than contest the more difficult but lucrative middle ground…
Shorten endorsed… a radical renewable energy target designed to draw attention away from the emissions trading scheme — “not a carbon tax”, as Shorten said yesterday — without detail or recognition that such a RET threatened a greater impost than the carbon tax or an ETS…
Shorten has backed an extreme union campaign against the China FTA, despite having personally welcomed the deal with President Xi Jinping and talked about the jobs and growth it would create…
On tax reform, Shorten reiterated his opposition to GST changes and insisted Labor’s proposals on superannuation and multinational corporate tax were enough to address revenue shortfalls, even though Labor premiers conceded with the Prime Minister that health funding couldn’t be met without drastic change.
UPDATE
Piers Akerman (on The Bolt Report tomorrow) sees Shorten’s speech and is irresistibly reminded of a song:
UPDATE
Terry McCrann warns that Bill Shorten is a tragic victim of Climate Change Derangement Syndrome.
Have we ever seen anything with remotely like this syndrome’s power to turn the minds of men — and also women, but interestingly, it’s been mostly men, from Al Gore to Tim Flannery, Kevin “greatest moral challenge” Rudd and now Bill Shorten, and dozens, hundreds of dozens, of others around the world — to mush?
Once CC-mushed, the brain becomes utterly impervious to the most basic fact, far less something more challenging like cognitive reality...The world has not heated for now-approaching two decades; at the very least, all the “science is certain” climate models are broken and utterly discredited? Not true; nah-nah-nah....

And on and on the (real) denialism goes. Were Australia to cut its CO2 emissions by 100 per cent, by 150 per cent — ie, close the country down completely and turn it into a carbon sink — it would make not the slightest difference to the world’s temperature…
And so to the current Leader of the Opposition and the man who could be prime minister in barely a year. For someone to actually propose force-feeding a shift to generating 50 per cent of our electricity from renewables in just 15 years is so far removed from reality as to defy any serious discussion.
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Four times he's faced execution and been spared at the last moment. Shafqat's legal appeals are now exhausted. His last...
Posted by Amnesty International Australia on Tuesday, 21 July 2015

This is why Amnesty International should never have supported David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. It has diminished their ability to support prisoners of conscience.===
Domain have revealed the Sydney suburbs whose median price have increased over 30% between the first half of 2015...
Posted by Aussie John Truong on Friday, 24 July 2015

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Perspective
Posted by The Londoner on Thursday, 23 July 2015

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New York State just raised the wages of 180,000 fast-food workers to $15/hour. When fast-food workers hit the streets...
Posted by US Uncut on Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Meh, fewer young employed people is not a victory. No one affords a home on $15 an hour or less. But now fewer will be employed who live at home. It is a victory for the illegally employed as now there is greater incentive to pay cash in hand.
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Mining in NSW is out of control. This is the Lake Cowal Goldmine and Cyanide processing facility built IN (!) Lake...
Posted by Jeremy Buckingham on Friday, 24 July 2015

The lake is ephemeral. It only exists in 70% of years, for part of the year. The picture is taken after a flood event. Even so, as the picture shows, the environment has been protected by the mine's organisation. It would take a Noah flood to reach the danger zone. And still insane lefties want to ban mining.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Cowal
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Posted by Word Porn on Friday, 24 July 2015

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" By this time the left truly hated Tony. There were several reasons for this. It was impossible to intimidate him. He was politically incorrect and took positions, mild enough in mainstream Australia but completely outrageous in the world of student politics, which they hated ".

Greg Sheridan Foreign Editor AUSTRALIAN JULY 25, 2015 

In the space of 12 hours I came to detest Glen Campbell, the US country-and-western singer. The lyrics of his songs sit in my head still, nearly 40 years later, like the intrusive thoughts of a neurotic disorder. Galveston oh Galveston indeed! It was January 1977 and Tony Abbott and I were driving to Melbourne.

Tony had kindly picked me up in his purple eight-­cylinder Leyland P76 and at first I was impressed by what seemed a huge quantity of music cassettes. Plenty to listen to here, I thought, plenty of variety. Only as the hours wore on did I come to realise that they were all Glen Campbell. And so we played them all, over and over again. Tony’s favourite, at least on that trip, was Dreams of the Everyday ­Housewife. It combined perfectly the sentimental and the heroic, appealing to two deep currents in his personality.

The environment we were heading into was the polar opposite of Glen Campbell’s syrupy goodness and sentimentality. We were to attend the Australian Union of Students (AUS) annual conference. Tony was a delegate from the ­University of Sydney and I was an observer. Observers didn’t really observe so much as participate in the accompanying political jamboree.

The atmosphere of the conference was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was an alter­native ­universe, like the famous bar scene in Star Wars. The air was heavy with the pungent aroma of marijuana. Propaganda and posters were everywhere, extolling all the AUS positions. There was support for the PLO. Some of the feminist stuff was bizarre: AUS for a time had a policy that all men were complicit in the crime of rape. And this was after AUS had marginally toned down.

Everything about the conference, and about AUS and student politics in those days, was undemocratic and full of intimidation. Efforts to intimidate moderate and anti-left people were crude and violent. A Queensland delegate who was aligned with us, John Herzog, was denounced from the platform as an agent, ­frogmarched outside the conference and had his papers searched. Nothing more sinister was found than a list of AUS positions up for ­election and the candidates for those positions. There was a group of Maoists surrounding and intimidating Herzog, pushing him around. Naturally we went out to lend him some support. The pushing and shoving soon developed into a full-scale scuffle. We weren’t fighting back but we were attempting to hold our ground.

One night, quite foolishly, Tony and I and two friends attended a Palestinian film night. The film was pro-PLO – it may have been an official PLO film – and completely demonised Israel. Then and now I have no objections to anyone putting a pro-Palestinian view. But Tony and I had a few specific objections to this film. First, it was pro-terrorist. Just as important, we thought AUS had no business using compulsorily collected student fees to proselytise a partisan position on the Israel-Palestinian dispute. Finally, as they were using our money to show these films at our conference, we thought we had a right to be there and put our point of view.

As a result, once the film got going we started heckling it. We didn’t use obscene ­language. We certainly didn’t engage in any ­violence or make any physical attempt to stop the film being screened. But we were heckling. The rage of the student comrades was inexpressible. They stopped the film and demanded we leave. The argument got very heated. There were about 40 of them and precisely four of us. One of the women, who was wearing heavy clogs, approached Tony from behind. She took one shoe and gave him a fierce blow on the back of the head with it. Tony turned around, saw who had hit him and said: “Madam, if you were not a lady, I’d be tempted to strike you back.”

Pandemonium broke loose. At this point one of the left film-lovers ran off to get reinforcements. I said to Tony: “Mate, I really do think we’ve made our point. I think we should leave now.”

One of the most serious incidents concerned one of our Newcastle supporters, a woman named Anne. One night, after a series of unpleasant scuffles, I had gone across the road to bed in the Catholic college where Tony and I were staying. One of the delegates went over to Anne and said quietly to her: “We’ll do you in tonight. You’ll get yours.”

Tony and another Democratic Club member from Sydney escorted Anne, who was quite frightened by the threat, back to her room in one of the halls of residence. Two men approached and told her she was lucky they hadn’t got her that night, but there would be another time. Then four or five more men came up and Tony and Anne and the other Democrat started running. Anne made it back to her room; Tony was attacked in the corridor, with several of the Maoists kicking him and one threatening him with a beer bottle.

In an act of extraordinary bravery, Anne came out of her room and tried to stop the assault. She was spat on and abused in the foulest language. She was pushed about and bruised. As they left, the attackers told Anne what would happen to her later. Anne and Tony went back to the ­conference and lodged a formal complaint. At first they were laughed at, although Anne had broken down and was crying. Finally, AUS set up an examination, decided that nothing much had happened and of course no one on the left was censured, much less expelled. ­Taking a high profile against the left exposed people to danger.

These incidents led directly to Tony and me meeting Bob Santamaria for the first time for an extended conversation. Tony and I were urging Anne not to come back to the conference under the conditions that prevailed. A few ­senior National Civic Council (NCC) people were called together to work out our next move. I think it was a Saturday morning that we met in the NCC’s national office, then in a couple of converted old houses in Hawthorn.

Santamaria had come in for the meeting himself. We had never met him properly before and he was to become a good friend of both Tony’s and mine. A polite, solicitous, friendly man, that morning he was calm and unhurried but businesslike. He heard a full account of what had happened. Tony and I argued that unless we could arrange some special protection for Anne it was just too dangerous for her to be at the conference.

Bob didn’t promise anything. But he would look into it as a matter of urgency. As it happened, the NCC had an ex-military policeman among its supporters. He and a couple of friends suddenly became observers at the AUS conference. Anne came back to the conference and they formed a small security flying squad for her for the duration.

The whole episode, I thought, showed the NCC at something like its best. It was going to protect Anne, but it wasn’t going to take a ­backward step in the face of intimidation from the left. If the left come at you, go back at them. Hold your ground and keep campaigning politically. It was effective, measured, responsible, tough, and it bred effective people.

Systematic political violence from the left was directed not only at us and it was not confined to the AUS conference. All the violence in student politics, all of it, came from the left. In May that year, Michael Danby, who had ­previously been the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) president at the University of Melbourne, and who later became the Labor member for Melbourne Ports, was approached in Flinders Street by two men. Are you Michael Danby from Melbourne University? Yes. Without further warning they started flailing into him with punches, kicks and blows with two flagpoles they were carrying, both of which were wrapped in the Eureka flag, the Maoist symbol at the time. Danby woke up in hospital, where he spent several days.

Then, in October of that year, Peter Costello, chairman of the Monash Students’ Association, the equivalent of SRC president, was badly beaten by an anarchist. Costello suffered a ­broken wrist in the attack. Like Danby, Costello is a man of courage and was not deterred from activism by this attack. Costello was a committed Christian, who participated in Bible beach missions in the summer. It was insane that the left thought it could behave this way.

On the drive back to Sydney after the AUS conference Tony and I were fuming at the way the left had behaved. This hardened into a view that the union was beyond reform and the best ­measure would be to get universities to disaffiliate from it altogether. We wanted to smash AUS to bits. In the short term, we had a boiling desire to expose the truth about the campus left. We both wrote articles about what had happened. Trevor ­Kennedy, the editor of The ­Bulletin, said he’d publish my story in the next week’s edition. I felt like I’d won the lottery but those days of waiting for publication were the longest in my life. Tony went through a similar process at The Australian. His article appeared in the Saturday edition of January 29 under the headline “I Accuse: Phoney student thugs use spit and abuse to create terror”. AUS had launched Tony Abbott into the national media.

Tony was pleased as Punch to see his piece in the paper. But I don’t think he was quite as thrilled as I was with the process of seeing his own words in print. Tony loved writing but he was always a politician first and a writer ­second, whereas it was becoming clear to me that my life would be about writing, one way or another. The next issue of The Bulletin ­carried a ­strap-line on the cover: “Thuggery in student politics”. Whatever merit or otherwise my ­journalistic career may have had over the next 40 years, perhaps I owe it all to AUS.

One big political move we made was to take over the Sydney University Liberal Club. This was Tony’s initiative and I thought it was a bad idea. We disagreed over it but in the end I went along with Tony’s strategy. Taking over the ­Liberal Club was easy and entirely democratic. We just enrolled sufficient new members into the club before the annual general meeting, stood for all the positions and won them.

I became for a while its senior vice-president. Tony would win a number of student elections as a Liberal Club leader but our first outing with the label wasn’t successful. In July the SRC elections were held. Tony ran for president. This also led to a small argument between us. I wanted to run for president too. Ultimately common sense prevailed and I supported Tony’s candidacy. He was a naturally much stronger campaigner than I would have been. I was getting a few articles published in The Bulletin and elsewhere and the pull of writing, rather than running, was exerting itself. I did run for the “Arts men” position on the SRC. I didn’t win and Tony didn’t win the SRC presidency, though he did win a position as economics representative on the SRC.

By this time the left truly hated Tony. There were several reasons for this. It was impossible to intimidate him. He was politically incorrect and took positions, mild enough in mainstream Australia but completely outrageous in the world of student politics, which they hated. They also understood that he had formidable skills as a publicist, stupendous energy and a strong capacity to win. Therefore, every argument and accusation that could be made against Tony was made. He was constantly denigrated in the University of Sydney student newspaper Honi Soit and all the left’s publications. Anyone reading the back issues of Honi Soit today would get a completely false idea of who Tony was.

There have been allegations that Tony punched the wall beside the head of Barbara Ramjan, the left’s successful candidate for the SRC presidency, in order to intimidate her, on the night the election results were announced. Although I wasn’t there that night, from my experience of Tony I am sure he did not do such a thing. It was inconceivable that Tony would have attempted to physically intimidate a woman. He would have chewed off his own arm in preference. There is no witness to it beyond the person making the allegation. And while the left used the pages of Honi Soit to accuse Tony of every sin imaginable, there was no mention of any such incident. I am not accusing Barbara Ramjan of bad faith over this episode, much less of telling lies. Memory is very fallible, especially over 35 years or more. It is easy in good faith to confuse once incident with another, one night with another, one person with another.

There is no doubt that Tony and I at times were boisterous and loudmouthed. We were in an extremely provoking environment, and we had the animal spirits of young men. We were determined never to be intimidated by the left. But being boisterous and loudmouthed is not remotely similar to practising systematic intimidation in the cause of extremism.

When you fight extremists it is easy to look extreme; it is easier still for your enemies to paint you as extreme. Tony has been the subject of a caricature that inverts the reality of his ­personality since he was 19. For the key to Tony is not that he is a hard man, but that he is a romantic, and soft-hearted. If anything, he is a sucker for any hard-luck story.

At that AUS conference I met Michael Danby for the first time. Michael was a dedicated Labor man, inspired, like Michael Easson, by Gough Whitlam. He was a born networker and organiser. Like me, he let student politics and other activities consume a lot of energy at the expense of his formal studies.

Danby and I became such close friends that in subsequent years when I went to Melbourne I would stay with him and his wife. Also, I wanted to make a lot of contacts in mainstream Labor and the people Michael introduced me to were especially important if I was to be a journalist. Labor holds up half the political sky. Although I had my objections to some of Whitlam’s policies I was not hostile to Labor institutionally, so long as it was not dominated by the left.

Which was just as well, because just then my life took a whole new lurch, as unpredictable as anything that came before or since. My father lost his job. I left university. I became an industrial organiser for a trade union. And I joined the ALP.

Edited extract from When We Were Young and Foolish, by Greg Sheridan (Allen & Unwin, $33), out Wednesday

Mates: Tony Abbott with Greg Sheridan in their student days. Source: News Corp Australia

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Posted by The Political Insider on Sunday, 20 July 2014

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The Electric HomesteadShot in southern Oklahoma as a storm was gasping its' last breath.  Best viewed Large.
Posted by Matt Granz on Friday, 24 July 2015

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Too good not to post...M
Posted by O'Shea on Wednesday, 22 July 2015

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=== Posts from last year ===

The handbag hit squad fails to show respect

Piers Akerman – Thursday, July 24, 2014 (7:24pm)

CURRENT and past world leaders and senior diplomats have paid generous compliments to foreign minister Julie Bishop for the tireless work she put in to win unanimous backing for the UN resolution calling for “full and unrestricted access” to the MH17 crash site.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The handbag hit squad fails to show respect'
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HA HA HA HA HA

Tim Blair – Friday, July 25, 2014 (7:32pm)

An adult human being wrote this and the New York Times actually published it: 
It will be remembered as one of the most ignoble moments in our history: On July 17, Australia became the first country to repeal a carbon tax. 
That’s Julia Baird, by the way, clearly aiming to upgrade her Frightbat status from “junior cave baby” to “full-blown lyssavirus.” Readers are invited to submit their own examples of Australia’s most ignoble historical moments.
(Via Chris Kenny)
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LIAR A WINNER

Tim Blair – Friday, July 25, 2014 (3:52pm)

Greens idol and convicted Whitehaven liar Jonathan Moylan dodges prison: 
An environmental campaigner who distributed a fake press release that caused a coal company’s share price to crash has been released on a good behaviour bond.

image

Jonathan Moylan received a 20-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to disseminating false information, but Supreme Court Justice David Davies ordered his immediate release on a $1,000 bond …
He acknowledged Moylan’s contrition, apology letter and early guilty plea, saying he was discounting the sentence by 15 per cent. 
Lame.
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MIKE’S MEMORY

Tim Blair – Friday, July 25, 2014 (10:22am)

Mike Carlton recalls a debate with Andrew Bolt: 
I did do a TV debate with Blot once, for al-Jazeera, I think. Don’t wish to boast, but he was reduced to spluttering incoherence. 
Really? You be the judge.
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AWARENESS OCCURS

Tim Blair – Friday, July 25, 2014 (9:41am)

Ground-level Greenpeace dupes are furious about high-flying Greenpeace executives: 
We find it shocking that our International Programme Director has been commuting by plane … you should have the moral compass to know this crosses the line. 
(Via Brat)
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MODARN SENFELD IMAGENED

Tim Blair – Friday, July 25, 2014 (9:38am)

Not for the first time, a question is asked: 
If Seinfeld was still on the air today … 
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THREE-RING CIRCUS

Tim Blair – Friday, July 25, 2014 (8:50am)

Labor’s dying days in government contained a potential twist: 
An embattled Julia Gillard secretly offered to stand down as Prime Minister in June 2013 and secure the leadership for then Climate Change and Industry minister Greg Combet in order to fend off Kevin Rudd, Mr Combet has revealed. 
Within months, thankfully, all three were removed from federal politics.
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David Dale’s curious idea of “fair and balanced” in sledging Abbott

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (8:44pm)

Remember this ludicrous sledge from David Dale, which the Fairfax newspapers were only too delighted to trumpet?
Prime Minister Tony Abbott may be the most famous of the old alumni who will gather with Rupert Murdoch on Tuesday night to mark the 50th anniversary of The Australian. He will attend in his capacity as Prime Minister but the newspaper has proudly and often claimed him as one of their own. In fact, he only arrived at The Australian after encountering problems as a feature writer with the Packer-owned magazine The Bulletin. 
Mr Abbott’s misadventures with a typewriter came to a head in 1988 when his editor, David Dale, asked him to rewrite an article five times. “Tony couldn’t seem to get the idea that a feature for The Bulletin had to be fair and balanced,” Dale said on Monday. “I told him if he kept going like that he had no future on the magazine.” Mr Abbott went on to work briefly in a concrete factory before joining The Australian as an editorial writer.
Gerard Henderson:
And what was David Dale’s idea of “fair and balanced” when he edited The Bulletin in 1988? You be the judge. 
On 20 December 1988, under your man Dale’s editorship, The Bulletin published a cover featuring a photograph of John Howard ...: 
image
David Dale’s assessment of John Howard in 1988 was neither fair nor balanced – and it proved to be hopelessly wrong. Yet Mr Dale now boasts that he once sacked Tony Abbott for journalistic unfairness? Can you bear it?

Read on as Henderson demonstrates the selection indignation - and selective indifference - of Waleed Aly, writing what Hamas must surely think useful indeed. 
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Mike Carlton’s fancy: omne ignotum pro magnifico.

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (8:31pm)

Tim Blair:
Mike Carlton recalls a debate with Andrew Bolt: 
I did do a TV debate with Blot once, for al-Jazeera, I think. Don’t wish to boast, but he was reduced to spluttering incoherence. 
Really? You be the judge. 
Carlton wouldn’t provide the links to the debate. I am only too delighted to do so. That difference suggests the truth.  
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How Plibersek hates

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (8:57am)

How the Left hates

Piers Akerman says world leaders have noted the obvious:
Netherlands foreign minister Frans Timmermans made it clear Australia’s leadership and Bishop’s direction were crucial to the success of the UN move. 
“I want to start by wholeheartedly thanking Australia for taking the initiative with this resolution, and especially the personal commitment from Julie Bishop that has made this possible,” he said after the vote.
“Without her perseverance we would not be standing here today with this resolution adopted by the Security Council.” .... former US president Bill Clinton told a Melbourne audience he was proud to be in Australia when Bishop secured the UN resolution and Abbott said the council’s unanimous support for Australia’s resolution was a tribute to Bishop, “who called it for Australia” and “for the world”.
But Tanya Plibersek is a hater:
When asked whether she supported Abbott’s response on behalf of Australia to the heartbreaking disaster, she replied: “I think emotions have run very high. We know now at least 37 Australian citizens and permanent residents have lost their lives. It’s a very emotional time for our country. It is important that we establish a proper investigation now so that those who are responsible can face the consequences of their actions.” 
Nothing doing there.
She was as truculent when asked on Tuesday if Abbott and Bishop “deserve an enormous amount of credit for this, not only getting a UN resolution through in only a matter of days but also taking a very strong stand very early on this matter?” “Look,” she said, “I think it shows that organisations like the Security Council can, when they’re operating well, be very effective.
David Crowe: 
There is now more than a suspicion within the government that Labor is ready to switch from bipartisan to belligerent at any time during the long investigation into the missile attack on the flight.
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What ISIS intends for women and Christians

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (7:39am)

Australian jihadists are actually fighting for and supporting these bloody Neanderthals:
The United Nations, expressing deep concern, said on Thursday that militant group Islamic State had ordered all girls and women in and around Iraq’s northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation. 
But doubts emerged on social media about the basis for the report. One document posted on Twitter suggested it may be a year old and have been issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, the group’s previous name…
A UN spokesman in Geneva said that they were seeking clarity and trying to establish the facts. Such a “fatwa” issued by the Sunni Muslim fighters would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Jacqueline Badcock told reporters in Geneva by videolink from Arbil.
And:
Iraqi Christians who were forced to flee the northern city of Mosul under threat of forced conversion or execution by jihadists have spoken of their terror as churches were turned into mosques and their homes and property confiscated. 
The expulsion of one of the world’s oldest Christian communities provoked condemnation and anguish from figures as diverse as the pope and Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who lambasted the Islamic State (Isis) for its “criminality and terrorism"…
“If Isis stays, there is no way the Christians can return,” Father Boutrous Moshi told the Guardian from Qara Qoosh, a Christian area south-east of Mosul. “It is up to God whether we return or not. They have not burned the churches but they did set fire to the pictures and the books and broke the windows.” Monks at the fourth-century Mar Behnam monastery, a major pilgrimage site run by the Syriac Catholic church, were allowed to take only the clothes they were wearing.
Meanwhile:
Islamic State (Isis) militants have blown up a revered Muslim shrine traditionally said to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah in Mosul, residents of the city said.
The kind of enemy you can only destroy. 
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Gillard’s final offer: anyone but Rudd

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (7:25am)

Hatred too often drove Julia Gillard, ungoverned by any political judgement. Former Minister Greg Combet tells of  Gillard’s bizarre offer to make him Prime Minister just a couple of months before the last election:
Julia surprised me at that discussion by suggesting that she would support and she’d stand down in favour of me if I stood.
Combet saw instantly what any fool would know - that trying to hold off Rudd by imposing yet another leader was doomed to fail both with the party and the public:

It would have been extremely difficult, firstly, to gain the support of colleagues, I think, and then the support of the Parliament and then to run an election campaign. So, politically, I thought it was a pretty hard manoeuvre to pull off. And secondly, Kevin Rudd’s momentum for his return was very strong 
How could Gillard have proposed anything so mad?  Only hatred of Rudd could explain it. 
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Why is the ABC pushing al Jazeera, voice of a regime which backs the Muslim Brotherhood?

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (7:09am)

I this week asked: why is the ABC broadcasting an hour of Al Jazeera TV, twice a day, when it is the voice of a regime which backs the Muslim Brotherhood?
The ABC and SBS are also regularly using al Jazeera reporters and analysts in their regular news and current affairs shows to give a very decided perspective:
ABC News Radio yesterday:  
THERE is a strong possibility that Israel is committing war crimes … Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston filed this report.
Guess who funds Al Jazeera and which side they back? Armin Rosen, Business Insider, yesterday: 
HAMAS’S apparent hard-line position ... with Israel is a partial function of Qatari support, as the emirate is the financial underwriter for the militant group’s policies and hosts ... Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said in a Doha press conference — carried in its entirety on Qatari-funded Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel — that Egypt would have to open the Rafah border crossing as a condition before his group would agree to a ceasefire. It’s a request Egypt is unlikely to agree to ...
No mention that Al Jazeera’s backers fund Hamas? ABC News Radio’s Weekend Breakfast, Sunday: 
AL Jazeera commentator Marwan Bashara: The Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire, that was ... an Israeli initiative with Egyptian wrappings. This time around, there’s a genuine, apparently, Hamas initiative ...
Al Jazeera interview with Dr Mads Gilbert.  SBS World Radio News, Monday:
BRIANNA Roberts: A Norwegian doctor in Gaza, Mads Gilberts, told Al Jazeera people are growing increasingly desperate. 
Gilberts: The Israeli forces do not allow ambulances to access those people who are trapped in Shejaiya. There may be more than a hundred or hundreds. We don’t know the exact number of injured in the area but the access of ambulances is a major problem. A father just came running with his daughter screaming that “we need ambulances, we need ambulances, we need ambulances.”
That would be Mads Gilbert, the doctor who supported 9/11. Kristian Sarastuen, Dagbladet, September 30, 2001:
DR Mads Gilbert: The attack on New York (on 9/11) did not come as a surprise after the policy that the West has led during the last decades ... The oppressed also have a moral right to attack the USA with any weapon they can come up with ...
Interviewer: Do you support a terror attack against the USA?
Gilbert: ... yes, within the context which I have mentioned.
No prizes for guessing which network Waleed Aly chooses? ABC Radio National, July 21:
WALEED Aly: Joining me now … Nic­ole Johnston Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza ...
Johnston: ... Shejaiya (was) hit … more than 60 people in that one neighbourhood were killed, many of them were women and children … Israel has said that there is a so-called “terror network” — that’s what they’re calling it — of tunnels under that neighbourhood. The bottom line is that it’s still a residential area. It’s a densely packed area; it’s been full of civilians, ...
Aly: Israel is warning people to flee. Are they fleeing? …
Johnston: Yeah, they are, especially after this incident in Shejaiya …
Why doesn’t the ABC at least show balance by broadcasting Israeli television news as well? I am sure Israel’s i24news would be glad to offer the ABC an hour a day of its feed. And, unlike al Jazeera, it is independent of government.
So, why is the ABC handing over its broadcasting facilities for two hours a day to the state broadcaster of a Muslim Brotherhood sponsor? 
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Follow Italy! Get more boats, more deaths, more criminals

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (6:30am)

Refugee advocate Pamela Curr wants us to learn from Italy:
image
In fact, Curr’s numbers are way out. Following Italy’s lead would mean taking in more than 400 boat people every day:
The Italian navy rescued 824 migrants from North Africa who were trying to make it to the European nation during the night... Since the beginning of the year, Italy has received 80,791 immigrants coming mainly from North African countries.
In fact, following Italy’s lead would mean facilitating horror. Last week:
 A total of 19 people have been found dead on board a crowded boat of African migrants as it was travelling to Italy.
The migrants are thought to have died from poisonous carbon monoxide fumes emitted by the old boat’s engine…

On Friday, Ansa reported that migrants that had been rescued by a merchant ship earlier in the week had spoken of a shipwreck in which between 40 and 60 people are thought to have drowned, but Italian authorities have not confirmed this.
In fact, following Italy’s lead would mean encouraging the brutal in cross your borders. This week:
Italian police have arrested five men on suspicion of murdering and throwing overboard dozens of migrants crossing by fishing boat from Libya… 
About 561 surviving migrants on the boat were rescued and brought to the Sicilian city of Messina on Sunday.
Survivors say a life-or-death fight broke out over the weekend when those who were riding in the vessel’s hold, suffocating from heat and a lack of oxygen, desperately tried to find room on the packed deck.
To keep the migrants below the deck, the five men indiscriminately stabbed and assaulted an estimated 60 of their fellow migrants before throwing them overboard, according to police…
Twenty-nine bodies were later recovered from the hold of what had been a badly overcrowded fishing boat… According to the testimony of “numerous” migrants, the five men - two Moroccans, a Saudi Arabian, a Syrian and a Palestinian - “randomly” assaulted dozens with knives and their fists, throwing overboard their victims as friends and relatives watched, police said. 
Never mind the consequences, admire the compassion!
(Thanks to reader Andrew.) 
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Meet Australia’s latest export: the suicide bomber

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (6:18am)

image
What culture did we import that produced this deadly export? And why?
THIS is the Australian teen authorities believe became a suicide bomber in Iraq last week, killing five people. But the family of Adam Dahman, 18, last night denied he was the bomber, saying he is alive in Syria and had contacted them last week. His father said ASIO agents had interviewed his son but let him go, and he believed he was doing humanitarian work in Syria. 

The teen, from Northcote, Melbourne is suspected of detonating a bomb near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad last week. 
Pictures on Adam’s Facebook page date back to December 21 and appear to show him posing in front of Islamic State flags in Iraq which read “There is no God but God; Mohammed is the messenger of God”. But Sam Dahman, did not believe his son was the suicide bomber: “Where is the proof?”
UPDATE
I don’t believe Australia has been greatly enriched on the whole by immigration from Lebanon, despite many obvious success stories:
POLICE have condemned violent threats made by the family of a Sydney mother who is facing jail in Lebanon over adultery charges. 

Mahassen Issa ... is facing a six-month jail term under Islamic law after she separated from her husband and met a man in Lebanon… 
Her brother Ahmed ...  said it was against Islamic law for a woman to remarry unless she had been divorced for at least a year. He claimed his sister married her new partner while in Lebanon, but she has denied this. ”She’s my sister, I would put a bullet between her eyes, I couldn’t give a shit,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
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The Age accuses Labor of stealing its tape

Andrew Bolt July 25 2014 (6:01am)

The Age accuses Labor of being a party of thieves and frauds:
Senior staff from Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews’ office and Labor Party chiefs were involved in the theft of a journalist’s recording device as part of a dirty tricks campaign to destabilise the Napthine Government. 
The Age can reveal that a dictaphone belonging to Sunday Age political editor Farrah Tomazin was handed in to lost property by security at Labor’s state conference in May, before it was obtained and listened to by one of the top officials in Victorian Labor ranks.
The dictaphone contained a private conversation between Tomazin and former Liberal premier Ted Baillieu in which he was critical of colleagues. More than a month later a link to the conversation, now posted online, was emailed to hundreds of Liberal Party members by a person claiming to be a Liberal Party member - using a false name.
It is understood that copies of the taped conversation were made by a senior Labor official and scrutinised by others in the party’s organisational wing, as well as senior strategists in Mr Andrews’ office.
The group is believed to have debated whether the recording could be released publicly to fuel tensions in the Liberal Party ahead of the November 29 state election,,, The Age is aware of the identities of the people involved but at this stage has chosen not to name them.
Not name them? How kind. So much kinder than The Age was when it tried to deflect blame on the Liberals instead in what is fast becoming a scandal not just for Labor. I am very suspicious about the way The Age has played this story.

June 24, 2014
The recording is sent to many, but not all, Liberal members, suggesting the mailing list used by the peddler is not up to date. That in turn suggests the peddler might not be someone currently working in Liberal politics. Meanwhile, the story from The Age changes as it develops from 10am. There are lots of hints of Liberal involvement, but not much about Labor’s possible role in the theft of the Dictaphone at a Labor conference.  Only after 6:26pm does The Age editor-in-chief say - on the ABC - the theft has been reported to police, six weeks after the event:

ANDREW HOLDEN: We’ll certainly record the fact that the tape recorder has gone missing and record that with police and just let them know that we’re concerned as to how it’s been misused. 
7:51pm
The Age editor-in-chief isn’t keen on any suggestion the recording was stolen at a Labor conference:
He said any suggestion the recording was stolen or misplaced was “speculation”, however. “I don’t think it gets us anywhere as to how it went missing the first place,” he said.
June 25, 2014:
The Age news editor is happy to blame Liberals instead:
Mark Forbes on who stole the tape: “I think you have to look at people who are opposed to Ted and that’s a wide range of people.”
June 26, 2014:
The Age now confuses the issue by  claiming a second recorder is missing – something denied by Age reporter Josh Gordon.
But The Age editor in chief Andrew Holden maintained there were “no dirty tricks”. He assured Neil Mitchell it was not a cover up. 
“What I do know is the tape recorder went missing, I don’t know exactly where, I don’t know exactly when,” he said…
He added another tape was also missing – that tape belonged to Josh Gordon. “I have absolutely no idea whether they’re connected in any way whatsoever,” he said, adding they went missing within the same week… 
The Age state political reporter again implicates the Liberals, this time the office of federal minister Kevin Andrews:
image
June 27, 2014:
Premier Dennis Napthine on 3AW discusses reports that one Dictaphone went “missing” at the state Labor conference. The Age’s Gordon tweets:
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The Victorian Labor Party strongly denies any involvement in the theft and distribution of the tape. 
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Meh, there is no such state in modern times as Palestine. The reference is to a Roman name of a Jewish state under secular administration, like Israel is today. The Balfour agreement or British mandate Palestine was supposed to create Israel, but British bigots forgot. Jordan seized some of Israel's promised land and after a civil war in Jordan, the losers claimed the land as their own. Those Jordanians called themselves Palestinians in 1967. The UN has made the situation worse by declaring these called Palestinians as refugees and claiming those born in Israel are not Israeli. This is different to all refugee conventions everywhere else. Palestinians have no right to that land, but no other Arab state wants them. They have employed terror to achieve their goals. They should not be allowed to win. - ed
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Andreas Herrmann
Auf alle Fälle führt die Hoffnung weiter als die Furcht (Ernst Jünger)
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‘Peace Talks? The Mideast is Going Up in Flames’ - Israel National News

Nobel Prize-winning professor baffled by peace talks. “It’s obvious that a signed agreement would be meaningless.” - Maayana Miskin
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Kevin Rudd's net debt ads are highly deceptive. His net debt does not include the $148 billion we owe to pay for the superannuation of public servants, but it does use the money in the Future Fund that Costello put away for that purpose. Rudd's using Costello's prudence to make him look good!

Graph below corrects for this anomaly. You actually owe more than $20,000 per person in net government liabilities (up from having money in the bank a few years ago). 

(My figures use the IMF World Economic Outlook and are slightly different probably because I use current US$ exchange rates.)
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DEAR UNCLE KEV....

I tried to get a photo with you at the shopping mall for show-and-tell, ‘cos I think you are famous. My dad says you’re a narcissistic megalomaniac. I’m not sure what that means but it sure sounds important.

Anyway Uncle Kev, the teacher says we have to do an essay on what a silly man Mr Abbott is and how you will stop all these people drowning. 

My friend Chloe says you should teach them all to swim but when I asked my dad he said you couldn’t teach a bloody fish to swim (my dad only swears when we talk about you).

I’m really confused ‘tho Uncle Kev because when you send everyone to PNG (I hear it’s a really awful place) you say they will hate being there and stop coming, is that right?

Uncle Kev, I saw on TV all the horrible places where we keep them now, where they do awful things to each other, and then there’s probably 2,000 of them who have already drowned! So if that hasn’t stopped them coming, how could having to go to PNG stop them?

I know I’m missing something here, Uncle Kev, and I know you are a lot cleverer than me but isn’t PNG closer to Australia? On my atlas it’s very close.

Please Uncle Kev, I want to get top marks for my essay so it can’t sound really silly.

Aren’t all these people coming from Indonesia? I mean, why wouldn’t you stop all the boats leaving from there first so they don’t get drowned?

Let me put it this way Uncle Kev, when my naughty brother Shamus turned the hose on full pelt and it was squiggling everywhere making everything wet, my dad went and turned the tap off and it stopped.

I don’t think my Dad is as smart as you ‘cos he’s just a bricklayer so you must have a secret plan that nobody understands and I want to be the first to tell my class.

I try to listen to you explaining this secret plan but my Dad keeps throwing his beer cans at the TV and yelling bad words. He says everything you touch turns to poo.

When he’s not there I turn on the ABC and I get even more confused. So please reply to my letter Uncle Kev or I’ll just have to copy my essay from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Then I know I’ll get top marks but I really want my essay to make sense.

Loved the pic of you cutting yourself. That was so funny. Dad says a lot of people on Narau do that too.

Love,
Phoebe (8)
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Happy Ride
Sexshop365 has created the Happy Ride, a discreet black bicycle seat that vibrates as you ride. The seat’s vibration level can be adjusted to provide stimulation for both men and women using a set of controls attached to the back of the seat. Claire Bowden of Sexshop365 told Daily Mail, “Thanks to the UK’s cycling boom and the building obsession around next year’s Fifty Shades Of Grey movie, both adult toys and cycling are firmly on the public radar. It was only a matter of time before the two were combined to make your daily cycle even more pleasurable.” The Happy Ride vibrating bicycle seat is currently available to purchase from Sexshop365.

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Matt Granz
Your work powerfully illustrates your position - ed
I was just reading through some posts by a person in San Diego who runs workshops. It was an interesting read and had some good basic information. He did however make a lot of noise about doing most everything "in camera" and not post processing. If he wasn't so bent on making statements such as telling his followers that its a crutch and shows a certain lack of imagination on the part of the photographer who uses the digital darkroom, I might have let it go. I think in part that he's right. You have to know your camera and have the tools that make for a good photograph. A lot can be done in camera, and I'm a believer in doing all that you can, to come away with an image file that has all the characteristics and emotional impact that you want to convey. He talks about only shooting in jpeg and not in RAW (uncompressed) because it allows the photographer to cheat. I want to state that if you are an artist who uses a camera, that you should block out the Photoshop naysayers such as this guy. It is another tool, and not simply for the "inept" to correct their in camera mistakes. This feeling of superiority for not using post processing is to my mind a limiting and negative look on a wonderful technology that is part of our short time on this planet. It allows for artistic expression and can even make an image all the more appear like what our eyes saw, which is a limitation of the modern day camera sensors. To make such assertions also seems to take away from the artistic expression that should and does freely come from all the various ways of capturing what is around us through the devices that have been given to us by genius... the same genius that has given us the ability to manipulate the digital files... sometimes to bring that feeling of being there and at other times to take the viewer somwhere that can only exist in the mind of the artist.
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Israel to begin giving intel on Hezbollah to EU enforcement officials - Jpost

BBC tweaks Hizballah statement, promotes its conspiracy theories
Putin to offer advanced antimissiles to soothe Iran’s S-300 grudge – report - BBCWatch

Putin to offer advanced antimissiles to soothe Iran’s S-300 grudge – report - RT
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think I can't see EU doing anything worthwhile, and it is risible to suggest they don't know the truth. - ed
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Pastor Rick Warren
Comfort after a tragic loss doesn’t come in looking for good but in looking to God. Explantions don't help. The love of God does.
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Pastor Rick Warren
This weekend will be my 1st sermon preached since my son died. In 43 years of ministry I've never gone 16 weeks not preaching. Also 3 TV news networks are sending trucks to cover this message so I need your prayers. You will be able to watch it online here: http://bit.ly/HnE6ib Thank you so much friends!
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Pastor Rick Warren
6 Commitments for Growing a Church with Unity
http://pastors.com/6-commitments-for-growing-a-church-with-unity/
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Louis Blériot
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“Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.” Psalm 112:5 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord."
Exodus 14:13
These words contain God's command to the believer when he is reduced to great straits and brought into extraordinary difficulties. He cannot retreat; he cannot go forward; he is shut up on the right hand and on the left; what is he now to do? The Master's word to him is, "Stand still." It will be well for him if at such times he listens only to his Master's word, for other and evil advisers come with their suggestions. Despair whispers, "Lie down and die; give it all up." But God would have us put on a cheerful courage, and even in our worst times, rejoice in his love and faithfulness. Cowardice says, "Retreat; go back to the worldling's way of action; you cannot play the Christian's part, it is too difficult. Relinquish your principles." But, however much Satan may urge this course upon you, you cannot follow it if you are a child of God. His divine fiat has bid thee go from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and neither death nor hell shall turn thee from thy course. What, if for a while thou art called to stand still, yet this is but to renew thy strength for some greater advance in due time. Precipitancy cries, "do something. Stir yourself; to stand still and wait, is sheer idleness." We must be doing something at once--we must do it so we think--instead of looking to the Lord, who will not only do something but will do everything. Presumption boasts, "If the sea be before you, march into it and expect a miracle." But Faith listens neither to Presumption, nor to Despair, nor to Cowardice, nor to Precipitancy, but it hears God say, "Stand still," and immovable as a rock it stands. "Stand still;"--keep the posture of an upright man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice; and it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel, "Go forward."

Evening

"His camp is very great."
Joel 2:11
Consider, my soul, the mightiness of the Lord who is thy glory and defence. He is a man of war, Jehovah is his name. All the forces of heaven are at his beck, legions wait at his door, cherubim and seraphim;, watchers and holy ones, principalities and powers, are all attentive to his will. If our eyes were not blinded by the ophthalmia of the flesh, we should see horses of fire and chariots of fire round about the Lord's beloved. The powers of nature are all subject to the absolute control of the Creator: stormy wind and tempest, lightning and rain, and snow, and hail, and the soft dews and cheering sunshine, come and go at his decree. The bands of Orion he looseth, and bindeth the sweet influences of the Pleiades. Earth, sea, and air, and the places under the earth, are the barracks for Jehovah's great armies; space is his camping ground, light is his banner, and flame is his sword. When he goeth forth to war, famine ravages the land, pestilence smites the nations, hurricane sweeps the sea, tornado shakes the mountains, and earthquake makes the solid world to tremble. As for animate creatures, they all own his dominion, and from the great fish which swallowed the prophet, down to "all manner of flies," which plagued the field of Zoan, all are his servants, and like the palmer-worm, the caterpillar, and the cankerworm, are squadrons of his great army, for his camp is very great. My soul, see to it that thou be at peace with this mighty King, yea, more, be sure to enlist under his banner, for to war against him is madness, and to serve him is glory. Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, is ready to receive recruits for the army of the Lord: if I am not already enlisted let me go to him ere I sleep, and beg to be accepted through his merits; and if I be already, as I hope I am, a soldier of the cross, let me be of good courage; for the enemy is powerless compared with my Lord, whose camp is very great.
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Today's reading: Psalm 35-36, Acts 25 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 35-36

Of David.
1 Contend, LORD, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me.
2 Take up shield and armor;
arise and come to my aid.
3 Brandish spear and javelin
against those who pursue me.
Say to me,
"I am your salvation."
4 May those who seek my life
be disgraced and put to shame;
may those who plot my ruin
be turned back in dismay.
5 May they be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the LORD driving them away;
6 may their path be dark and slippery,
with the angel of the LORD pursuing them....

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 25

Paul's Trial Before Festus
1 Three days after arriving in the province, Festus went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem, 2 where the chief priests and the Jewish leaders appeared before him and presented the charges against Paul. 3 They requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem, for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way. 4 Festus answered, "Paul is being held at Caesarea, and I myself am going there soon. 5Let some of your leaders come with me, and if the man has done anything wrong, they can press charges against him there...."
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